The Trikon Deception

by Ben Bova

  Two policemen, one black, the other Hispanic, both with mirrored sunglasses and thin mustaches like used-car salesmen, lean on opposite windows of his car.

  “You can go,” says the Hispanic, though his elbows and the elbows of his partner, each the size of a large ham hock, remain planted.

  He needs two hands to turn the ignition key. As soon as the engine kicks over, the two policemen laugh.

  “He isn’t wearing his seat belt,” says the Hispanic.

  “He hasn’t signaled to enter traffic,” says the black.

  The car disappears; the street fades, then re-forms as a police station. His chin clings to a desk while his feet float free. The desk sergeant’s pen scratches, filling in answers to unasked questions. Two plastic bags swollen with white powder land beside his ears with a whump.

  His chin slides off the desk. He spirals down in a long dizzying fall that ends in a chair. Across a table sits a man with a badge clipped to one lapel of his tight-fitting jacket and a name tag clipped to the other. The name tag says R. McQ. Welch. He has a pug nose and a bulldog’s chin.

  “When I was a kid,” says Welch, “they had a saying, ‘You fall in horseshit, you come up with a diamond.’ I never believed it until just now.”

  No trace of a smile eases Welch’s grim expression.

  For the first time since he had arrived at Trikon Station, Hugh O’Donnell did not find The Bakery empty when he arrived shortly after artificial dawn had brightened the modules of the station. Microwave ovens buzzed, centrifuges whirled, techs floated from workstation to workstation like workers in a beehive. The entire American/Canadian contingent was present. Even Stu Roberts was awake, though he looked like he needed another couple hours of sleep.

  O’Donnell grinned to himself as he floated past them all. Must be Bianco, he thought as he unfastened the padlock to his lab. From the first day of kindergarten through the last day before retirement, people constantly tried to fool the teacher, the boss, the authority figure. No one said a word to him, not even Roberts. It was if he did not exist, which suited him fine.

  Once inside his own cubbyhole lab with the door pulled shut, O’Donnell pushed himself to the ceiling to inspect the dozen plants growing in the thin, saucer-shaped cases designed for micro-gee hydroponics.

  “Goddammit.” He sighed bitterly. As he had suspected when he closed up the lab the previous night, all of the plants showed definite signs of regeneration. He was back to square one.

  O’Donnell booted up his computer and scrolled through the genetic structures of the microbes he had applied to each of the twelve plants. The three-dimensional diagrams on the screen were relatively simple, not at all as complicated as human genes, not even as complicated as the genes he had altered when designing microbes for AgriTech, Inc. But his previous work had been dedicated to promoting the growth of plants. This project was bent on rendering them impotent.

  For well over an hour, O’Donnell stared zombie-like at the screen as he used the cursor to rearrange molecules of RNA. There’s got to be some sequence that will completely inhibit the chemical process, he thought as his fingers tapped the keyboard.

  Aaron Weiss told himself that the real advantage to spending the morning with Fabio Bianco was that it kept Kurt Jaeckle off his neck. The leader of the Martians had cornered Weiss at breakfast in the wardroom and droned on about the importance of his team, his work, his dreams, his goals—himself— until Bianco had shown up and rescued the reporter.

  But now Weiss was gasping as he struggled to keep pace with Fabio Bianco. The old scientist was supposed to be a walking catalogue of every geriatric malady known to Western man. Yet he seemed spry as a young chicken and agile as a cat as he led Weiss down the length of the connecting tunnel.

  “Must be the weightlessness,” Weiss muttered between gulps of air that never quite seemed to satisfy the aching in his lungs.

  Bianco was in the middle of a lecture he had begun at breakfast.

  “You ask why we need a space station for this research,” he said as his spindly arms moved surely from handhold to handhold. “The truth is that ninety percent of the research conducted on this station for this particular project can be performed on Earth at far less expense.”

  “But not with as much fun,” said Weiss.

  Bianco brought himself to a sudden stop. Weiss crashed into him, then tumbled backwards. His Minicam tugged at the cord around his neck. He managed to snag a handhold.

  “Fun? We are not here for fun, Mr. Weiss. What we do here is serious, perhaps the most serious work being done anywhere, by anyone. What we are doing up here is creating new life-forms that will be completely subservient to man. There are people on Earth who do not want this work to be done.”

  “Fundamentalists, creationists. I know the scene,” Weiss said as he adjusted his hat.

  “Those, of course. But also people with sophisticated academic backgrounds. They think we are creating monsters that will be set loose upon the land. They agree that our environment is in a sorry state, but they see science and technology as the culprits. To a certain extent they may be correct. However, they do not understand that the world has crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast. The answer to our problems is not to turn away from science. The answer lies in more science, but an intelligent, refined science.”

  Bianco gave himself a gentle shove in the direction of Jasmine. Weiss followed.

  “Eventually, we will begin projects that will benefit from micro-gee,” said Bianco. “But for now, the great advantage of this station is that it is not on Earth. No government controls us. We allay the fears of the ignorant by being in space, out of their sight. And it avoids their court battles.”

  The Japanese were very polite and not nearly as secretive as Weiss had expected from the previous night’s abortive visit. Hisashi Oyamo forbade Weiss to film anything with his Minicam, but ordered a tech to take the reporter on a tour of the module. Weiss was free to ask any question that came to mind. His problem was that he didn’t know enough about genetic engineering to formulate an intelligent question. The main activity seemed to be the spinning, shaking, cooking, and freezing of thousands of vials of colored liquids. In English that was clipped and formal, the tech explained that the liquids contained different types of genetically engineered microbes.

  “Are they color-coded?” asked Weiss.

  “Ah yes,” said the tech with a toothy smile.

  The second stop was ELM. Despite his space-sickness pad, Weiss felt a wave of nausea as soon as he passed through the hatchway. He first suspected the hideous color combination of pastel salmons and blah grays rather than the clean whites and yellows of Jasmine. Then he realized an additional reason for his disorientation: the equipment was placed higher on these walls to accommodate people of taller stature. The desktops of the workstations were higher, as well.

  Weiss was not offered a tour of ELM. As Bianco and Chakra Ramsanjawi slowly drifted along the module’s aisle, Weiss was confined to a corner under the humorless eye of a male tech. Weiss tried to cajole him into a conversation, but received only guttural German in response.

  “Right. And you don’t know English,” said Weiss.

  The tech bared his teeth.

  This lack of hospitality was at odds with the demeanor of Ramsanjawi, who seemed to engage Bianco in warm conversation. Even the distance could not conceal the look of satisfaction on Bianco’s face. He was obviously impressed by the work of the Europeans as he had not been with the Japanese. Maybe it was continental pride, thought Weiss.

  The last stop was The Bakery. Weiss had managed only a quick glance into the dimly lit module the previous night before being shooed away by Freddy Aviles. Under the bright fluorescents, the interior was a blend of pastel yellows and blues. The scheme was far less disorienting than ELM’s sickening decor, and Weiss wondered whether Americans shared a genetic predilection for these colors.

  Thora Skillen rushed forward to meet them as soon as they cleared the hatch. Her hand
shake reminded Weiss of a slab of dead mackerel and her manner was as sharply abrupt as her features. She informed Weiss that he had the run of the module, but he could not film or touch anything. Then she quickly ushered Bianco toward her office, as if bursting to fill his ear with news. Or gossip.

  Weiss parked himself in the center of the module. A centrifuge whirred to a stop, its arms slowly coming into focus and folding down as if exhausted. A tangle of multicolored tendrils appeared on a computer monitor, the three-dimensional image rotating as a woman worked the keys. Weiss decided that, except for the color schemes and the heights of the workstations, seeing one orbital lab module was seeing them all. Whatever Thora Skillen had been so anxious to tell Bianco was probably far more interesting than watching adults play with colored water.

  Weiss moved slowly toward Skillen’s office, which, as with the other two lab modules, was located in an aft corner. Pretending to be intensely interested in the colored vials hanging from the inert centrifuge’s spindly arms, Weiss strained his ears toward Skillen’s closed office. Through the accordion door he could barely make out snatches of conversation. He edged past the centrifuge and peered intently into a humming microwave oven.

  “His presence is very disrupting,” said Skillen. Her voice sounded like fingernails on sandpaper.

  “I do not like his presence any more than you do,” Bianco replied.

  Weiss felt a chill crawl up his spine. Were they talking about him?

  “Can’t you do anything about him?” Skillen asked.

  “There is nothing I can do. It was all arranged without my knowledge.”

  “But you’re the CEO.”

  “I am not omnipotent. The arrangement was made with Trikon NA. It is legitimate. We may not like it, but we must live with it.”

  “You read my memo.”

  “I did,” said Bianco. “That is how O’Donnell came to my attention.”

  “Then you understand how disruptive he has been.”

  “Dr. Skillen,” said Bianco, “I appreciate your ardent commitment to the project, but I do not appreciate your attempts to brand O’Donnell a scapegoat. The fact remains that you have fallen behind the research pace set by the other groups. O’Donnell cannot be the sole reason.”

  Weiss relaxed when he realized that Skillen wasn’t bitching about his presence. As he listened to her defend the honor of The Bakery, he matched the faces he could see with the names he had memorized from the list of Trikon personnel. Only one was absent: Hugh O’Donnell.

  A high-pitched whistle suddenly burst out of the microwave oven. Startled, Weiss kicked himself flat against the aft bulkhead. He was certain that the oven would blow, but no one paid any mind to the shrieking sound. Finally, a lanky young man glided over from a nearby workstation. He had a pale face and a mess of red hair tenuously held to his skull by a net.

  “Shit,” he said as he peered through the glass front of the oven. He opened the door and pulled out a miniature carousel, which he sent spinning in midair a scant three feet from Weiss’s face.

  “Keep your eye on that,” he called over his shoulder to Weiss. Then he looked back into the oven. “Shit.”

  Weiss could see that one of the vials had exploded. The young man used a hand-held vacuum cleaner to suck up globules of colored liquid and shards of tempered glass from the interior of the oven.

  “How did that happen?” he asked.

  “Bum vial. They get a hairline fracture, sometimes even a speck of dirt and they blow.”

  “You must be Stu Roberts.”

  “Crazy, man,” said Roberts. He caught the spinning carousel and carefully slid it back into the oven. “How’d you know?”

  “I do my homework,” said Weiss. “Why didn’t anyone react to that alarm?”

  “Shit happens all the time.”

  “But what about those microbes? You just vacuumed them up.”

  “What’d you expect me to do? Leave that crap floating around the oven?”

  “But isn’t it important?”

  “Mister, we have more of that stuff than anyone knows what to do with.”

  “Aaron Weiss is the name. Couldn’t those microbes be dangerous?”

  “They could, but they probably aren’t. No one’s died yet, anyway.”

  “Comforting thought,” said Weiss. “Say, would you mind answering some questions?”

  “You mean like an interview?” said Roberts. “Sure. I mean, no, I don’t mind.”

  “Why is everyone so security conscious?” Weiss asked.

  “Beats me. Seems pretty stupid to have everyone working up here if nobody trusts anybody else.”

  A woman scientist at the next workstation shot Roberts an angry look.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” said Weiss.

  “People work hard,” Roberts said, one eye on the eavesdropping scientist. He slammed the oven door. “I guess they don’t want anyone taking advantage of their effort.”

  “But aren’t you all working for the common good?”

  “Hey, man, you don’t need to convince me,” said Roberts. “But I’m just a tech.”

  “You’re right, Stu. Sorry. All this backbiting’s thrown me. By the way, who is Hugh O’Donnell? Doesn’t he work in here?”

  “You won’t catch him in the main part of The Bakery,” said Roberts. “Not unless you get up real early in the morning. See that little room back by the rear hatch? That’s his private lab.”

  “More security?”

  “Nobody knows what the hell O’Donnell’s doing. Not even me, and I’m supposed to be his tech.”

  And pissed about it, noted Weiss as Roberts propelled himself toward the front of The Bakery. Weiss allowed himself to follow. The reporter pretended to be casually studying the different workstations while keeping one eye on O’Donnell’s lab. It wasn’t very large, certainly not large enough for any of the equipment that dominated the main section of the module. Why was O’Donnell so unpopular? Why was his presence of such concern to Bianco and Skillen?

  As if his thoughts had been translated into prayers and then immediately answered, Bianco and Skillen flew past him and stopped at the door to O’Donnell’s lab. Skillen rapped sharply, visibly shaking the fiberglass partitions that formed the lab’s walls. The door opened enough to allow Weiss to see O’Donnell eye his visitors from behind his wire-frame glasses. Weiss drifted closer.

  Skillen introduced O’Donnell to Bianco. There was a smug tone in her voice, as if Bianco’s presence fulfilled a threat she had long held over O’Donnell’s head. O’Donnell squeezed out of his lab and pressed the door closed behind him. Weiss noticed that the door did not latch.

  Skillen fired a salvo of complaints about O’Donnell’s use of the module’s hardware. This began a three-way argument, Skillen’s shrill voice countered by O’Donnell’s deeper growls, with Bianco’s clear tenor in the middle. As the shouting intensified, the trio gradually drifted along the aisle. O’Donnell’s lab door slowly opened, giving Weiss a partial view of the lab’s interior.

  With an exaggerated sigh of pained innocence, Weiss surreptitiously turned on the Minicam hanging on his chest and pointed his body at O’Donnell’s lab. Vials of colored liquids lined one wall. A laptop computer displayed three-dimensional figures that Weiss now recognized as strands of genetic material. But the plants O’Donnell was growing under high-intensity lamps were like nothing he had seen anywhere on Trikon Station.

  Nobody was paying any attention to him, so Weiss took the Minicam in his hands and zoomed in on the plants. But before his fingers could adjust the lens something hard crashed into the side of his face. The Minicam squirted out of his fingers. Another blow followed, this one to his midsection.

  “No pictures, goddammit!” O’Donnell screamed. Weiss curled himself into a ball and tumbled beneath the onslaught of O’Donnell’s punches. They caused more annoyance than pain; O’Donnell had not anchored his feet and his swings had no real power behind them. But Weiss sensed that O’Donnell had
the strength and the inclination to kill him if his anger went unchecked.

  Roberts and another tech pried them apart—after enjoying themselves watching for a while, Weiss thought. O’Donnell’s glasses were skewed on his face. His hair poked through his hairnet like a forest of cowlicks. His shirt billowed about his chest, revealing a stomach that was lean and tautly muscled.

  Weiss pulled his hat back onto the top of his head, adjusted the cord of linked rubber bands under his chin, and tucked the flaps of his denim shirt into his chinos. The Minicam was still tethered to his neck; it was not damaged.

  “Give me the camera,” said O’Donnell.

  “The hell I will,” Weiss said.

  “You can see what I mean about Mr. O’Donnell,” Skillen said to Bianco. “He’s a troublemaker.”

  “Go squat on a fire hydrant,” said O’Donnell. “I’m no trouble to you.”

  “Basta! Enough!” said Bianco.

  The two techs released O’Donnell and Weiss. O’Donnell closed the door to his lab and held it shut.

  “Mr. Weiss, did you take footage of Mr. O’Donnell’s lab?” Bianco asked. Anger flared in his eyes. He was not a frail old wreck anymore, he was the man in charge.

  “Sure I did.”

  “Hand me the camera.”

  “It’s not your…”

  Bianco’s eyes were molten lava. “The camera, Mr. Weiss. Now.”

  Weiss felt a shudder go up his spine, as if he were facing an angry Mafia don. Reluctantly, he slipped the cord over his hat and handed the minicam to Bianco. Bianco passed it to O’Donnell.

  “Since Dr. Skillen has not allowed Mr. Weiss to film her lab, I see no reason why he should be allowed to film yours,” said Bianco. He responded to Skillen’s grunt with an ironically friendly nod of his head. “Do you know how to operate this camera?”

  O’Donnell spun the Minicam in his hands. It had two separate eyepieces, one for filming, the other for viewing what was on the tape. He told Bianco it seemed simple enough.