The Trikon Deception

by Ben Bova

  “Run the tape back until you reach the point where Mr. Weiss began shooting your lab,” said Bianco. “Then erase whatever offends you.”

  O’Donnell ran the tape in reverse. Weiss had lingered on the plants while devoting comparatively little time to the vials and the computer. Was it coincidence? Dumb luck? Or did Weiss know exactly what he was doing? O’Donnell handed back the camera, thinking, I can’t be too careful as long as Weiss stays on board.

  News traveled quickly on Trikon Station; Dan learned about the scuffle in The Bakery within minutes after it happened. He was not surprised to hear the identities of the combatants. Aaron Weiss reminded him of a yelping poodle that deserved an occasional boot in the tail. O’Donnell was restrained enough to avoid a fight unless seriously provoked. Or unless…

  Dan felt terrible thinking that O’Donnell’s behavior might have been drug-induced. O’Donnell had been abused by a woman and screwed by a lawyer, just as he had. O’Donnell cared only about his work, just as he did. O’Donnell was the closest thing he had to a drinking buddy, and the irony was that they hadn’t shared a drop of liquor.

  But this was Trikon Station, and in light of the Russell Cramer incident Dan had no choice but to be suspicious, no matter how distasteful it felt.

  Lorraine Renoir’s office was empty, and Dan left his own door open so that he could see when she entered. Even though he was her commanding officer, he often wondered how Lorraine spent her days. There were reports to be filed and medicine to be dispensed. There were probably whole hosts of everyday complaints that he, in his intentional aloofness, failed to notice. But how else did she spend her time? What did she think about when her mind was not occupied with her work? He never knew. He always had given her a wide berth because he wanted to avoid any sort of entanglement. Now the answer to the question was easy: She was with Kurt Jaeckle. Word around the station was that they were a hot item. They spent long hours rehearsing Jaeckle’s television scripts in the rumpus room. They reserved back-to-back sessions in the observation blister. They had even jetted to the observatory so that Jaeckle could show her spectacular views of the universe.

  Dan was a master at suppression, sublimination, replacing people with animals shaped from bonsai trees. So he fought down the anger and bitterness that burned in his gut by concentrating on Carla Sue Gamble’s reaction. She was one tough lady. She would not go quietly into the limbo of being an ex-lover. She was going to raise hell with Jaeckle, sooner or later. The thought almost put a smile on Tighe’s face.

  A blue flight suit flashed in the entry hatch. Lorraine flew into the command module in signature fashion—sideways in relation to local vertical. She reminded Dan of an Olympic diver the way she suddenly jackknifed and sliced through the doorway into her office. With a flick of his ankles, Dan propelled himself across the module toward her. He could see Lorraine groping with her stockinged feet for a pair of foot loops as she closed the door.

  Dan knocked on the frame, his face hardened with the thought of his plan and the person he was asking to effect it. Lorraine actually smiled at the sight of him. But then, as if she had picked up on his demeanor, her smile vanished. Dan noticed that her normally neat French braid looked like a frayed rope. He didn’t want to think why.

  “I want to ask you something, Dr. Renoir.” He hadn’t called her Doctor in months and she seemed startled. The formality sounded strange to him, too. “I assume you will be seeing Hugh O’Donnell tomorrow.”

  “As I do every day.”

  “When was the last time you tested his blood?”

  “What makes you think I test his blood at all?”

  “I know about his past,” said Dan. “I know the reason he sees you. He’s told me. Now when was the last time you tested his blood?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “I want you to test it again.”

  “Why is that, Commander?”

  “I assume you heard of O’Donnell’s altercation with Aaron Weiss.”

  A look of surprise crossed Lorraine’s face. She hadn’t heard. Dan coupled that with the disheveled braid and didn’t like the connotation. Everyone should have heard about the fight by now.

  “Weiss poked his video camera into O’Donnell’s lab.” Dan spoke quickly so that he would not lose his train of thought. Knowing Lorraine was screwing with Jaeckle was one thing; seeing the actual signs was something else. “O’Donnell attacked him and wrestled the camera away. I want to know whether O’Donnell’s reaction was artificially induced.”

  “Maybe he just was angry,” said Lorraine. “Everyone is so security conscious. It’s sickening.”

  “I know. Maybe someone will develop a pill that will bring them all back to their senses. But until then, I have to deal with this situation the best way I know how.”

  “I haven’t noticed any signs, either subjective or objective, that would lead me to believe that Hugh O’Donnell is using drugs,” said Lorraine.

  “Neither have I,” Dan said. “But I have to be certain.”

  “Are you ordering me to test him?”

  “I’m asking you to indulge me.”

  “I see,” said Lorraine. “By the way, Commander—it’s time for your blood pressure to be checked.”

  Hisashi Oyamo floated in the middle of his sleep compartment, legs tucked under him and hands resting on his knees in the classic meditative position. Actually his hands bobbed weightlessly several inches above his knees, but the calming effect on his mind was the same.

  He had just returned from his evening chess game with Ramsanjawi. Once again he had swallowed his pride and allowed the bloated Hindu to best him. That did not bother him; even the greatest warrior retreats when it is to his ultimate advantage.

  No, what bothered him was Bianco and his news about the whale deaths. The old man was convinced that the plankton in the seas were dying, killed by toxic wastes. Oyamo held no special fondness for whales. Not dolphins nor any other animals. His father had been a whaler, his livelihood destroyed by the smug Americans and Europeans who had forced an end to commercial whaling twenty years earlier.

  But if the plankton die, the human race dies. Japan dies. My family dies.

  Oyamo sighed deeply. Am I being realistic or have I merely fallen under Bianco’s spell? The old man is a magician, surely. A great leader, even if he is not Japanese.

  He sighed again. I will have to call Tokyo. I must inform them of this change in the situation. Perhaps Bianco has been right all along. Perhaps we should all be cooperating, without regard to nation or race. Perhaps the problem we face is so great that we must work together, fully and completely.

  Tokyo, he knew, would not enjoy hearing that.

  Long after disposing of Hisashi Oyamo in yet another chess game, Chakra Ramsanjawi stole into the dimly lit ELM. He unlocked a compartment in his office and dislodged the false wall that concealed a larger storage area behind. Attached to the sides by elastic loops were dozens of small brown bottles. Some contained fluids, others contained powders, still others tiny crystals. Ramsanjawi selected one labeled 3-methylfentanyl, another labeled lactose, and a third that was empty. Then he floated out toward the centrifuge.

  In some respects, preparing a batch of designer drugs was more difficult in orbit than on Earth. In other respects, it was easier. He could not tap out a pile of powder onto a piece of glass and chop it into fine granules using a scalpel or a razor blade. That phase of preparation had to be done by the arduous use of a propeller-shaped blade rotating within a specially modified food processor. But once the drug was finely chopped, the lack of gravity assured a perfectly homogenous mix.

  Ramsanjawi first spun the fentanyl to be certain that the grains had not clumped together since he had chopped them several days earlier. Then he added a precise amount of the drug to a precise amount of lactose and spun the mix in the third bottle for several minutes.

  It was not possible, in microgravity, to simply pour the liquid out of the bottle. The bottle was designed with a pisto
n inside it to force the weightless liquids into a microgravity vial of tempered glass. Otherwise Ramsanjawi would have had to use a syringe to suck its contents out.

  Precise proportions were essential. Designer drugs were so much more potent than their naturally occurring analogs that the slightest mistake in synthesizing or the slightest error in cutting could result in a totally different drug capable of producing unintended, even deadly side effects. Ramsanjawi had seen this firsthand.

  One night, just before Ramsanjawi was to depart for Trikon Station, Sir Derek called a meeting of the entire group he had recruited for his project. The Lancashire lads, as Sir Derek called his Earthside lab workers, were present, as were the various messengers and henchmen Sir Derek thought were necessary. Early in the meeting, Sir Derek asked Ramsanjawi to create an opiate from a batch of chemicals present in the room. Ramsanjawi obliged. Toward the end of the meeting, a burly fellow named Meade dragged in the cringing and dirty figure of an emaciated young man. Sir Derek explained to the group that the man was a “volunteer” from one of the local flophouses “who would not be missed.” He had consented to help demonstrate the power of one of Ramsanjawi’s concoctions.

  Sir Derek boiled the opiate over a burner while Meade stripped the man naked. The group muttered nervously among themselves, puzzled by what they were about to witness. Sir Derek filled a syringe with the liquefied drug. Not all of it, said Ramsanjawi, not all of it. But Sir Derek turned a deaf ear. He jammed the needle into the man’s elbow vein and shot home the entire load.

  Meade stepped back. The man stood completely still for a moment, as if listening for a faint sound. Then he began to shake. He fell to the floor, a fountain of urine arcing out of his penis, a flow of wet feces erupting from his anus. He thrashed in his own excrement, his eyes bulging, his tongue flapping, his face turning blue. Then he collapsed in upon himself and lay motionless.

  “I trust all of you will honor our commitment,” said Sir Derek. Then he ordered Meade to scrape up the body.

  This time, the situation was far more delicate. O’Donnell or O’Neill or whoever he might be was not a starving derelict. He was a man of science, like himself. The method of delivering the drug would be tricky, but Ramsanjawi would find a way. O’Donnell was an ex-addict; he might even enjoy the ride. But Ramsanjawi did not want to kill him. That would never do. O’Donnell might prove useful later.

  The presence of Aaron Weiss was a propitious sign. For all his scientific pretension, the man still had the mentality of a tabloid reporter. He would bite at the worm of sensationalism.

  Ramsanjawi shut down the centrifuge and returned with the bottle to his office. He chuckled at the thought of a neat little irony. Druggies and tabloid reporters had driven him from his rightful station in England. Now the chance encounter between an ex-druggie and an ex-tabloid reporter would lead him back.

  30 AUGUST 1998

  TRIKON STATION

  BASILIO INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE

  P.O. Box 127 Annapolis, Maryland 21401

  MEMO TO FILE

  CLIENT: C.S. Gamble SUBJECT: Kurt Jaeckle

  August 27, 1998, 11:15 a.m.—Spoke to a Mrs. LaVerne Nelson, who worked as housekeeper for subject and his first wife from 1986 through 1988. At first she was reluctant to talk to me, thinking that I was gathering information for a news article or book about the subject. When I explained the real reason for my inquiries, she became very talkative as if she was happy to find someone with a similar opinion on the subject.

  Mrs. Nelson informed me of her belief that the real reason for the breakup of the subject’s first marriage was not “irreconcilable differences.” She claims the subject raped his eldest daughter, probably more than once, when she was twelve years old.

  August 27, 1998, 2:30 P.M.—Went to the Anne Arundel Courthouse in order to review the court file on subject’s divorce from his first wife. Was informed that these files were sealed by court order immediately upon the entry of the divorce judgment. At present, I am unable to verify Mrs. Nelson’s allegations and must regard them as hearsay.

  Dinner had been unusually quiet for Aaron Weiss. The two Martians with whom he shared a table spoke to each other in hushed tones, ignoring him. It’s like they’re really Martians, Weiss grumbled to himself, and they don’t want anything to do with an Earthling.

  When they left, no one took their places. Weiss finished his meal alone and groped his way out of the wardroom, feeling distinctly like a leper.

  His mood changed as soon as he reached his compartment. Wedged into the door was an envelope. There was something primitive about this method of communication in the midst of the station’s high-tech ambience. But Weiss quickly forgot the irony when he read the note inside.

  I have reconsidered my refusal to consent to an interview. I will be at your disposal in the European Lab Module at 2200 hours. Feel free to bring your camera.

  Chakra Ramsanjawi

  Weiss could hear the Indian’s singsong manner of speech in the serpentine style of the handwriting. He was surprised by the invitation. During dinner, he had come to the conclusion that his fight with Hugh O’Donnell had resulted in the station’s scientific community hardening against him. Now the one scientist he had considered least likely to talk was consenting to an interview. These bright boys sure are an unpredictable bunch, thought Weiss.

  He swam into ELM at the appointed time, moving cautiously from handhold to handhold, his innards braced against the slight hint of nausea he had felt that morning. The threat of sickness bothered him more than the real thing; he almost wished his guts would get the damned job done, upchuck and have it over with. Almost.

  Ramsanjawi was alone, floating at a workstation halfway down the length of the module. His billowing saffron kurta was a brilliant contrast to the salmon-and-gray color scheme. Weiss noticed a flash of the eyes in Ramsanjawi’s dark face and thought he heard laughter echoing off the aluminum walls. He pulled himself closer. Ramsanjawi was staring at a centrifuge.

  “Good evening, Mr. Weiss,” Ramsanjawi said without turning around. “I am delighted you accepted my invitation.”

  Barely noticing the man’s overly sweet, perfumed scent, Weiss said, “I was happy to receive it. Surprised, too.”

  “Why were you surprised?”

  “You didn’t exactly lay out the red carpet for me when I came in here with Bianco this morning,” said Weiss, drifting farther away from the Indian. “And after my fight with Hugh O’Donnell, I assumed no one would talk to me. Least of all you.”

  Ramsanjawi nodded at each of Weiss’s reasons, then dismissed them with a laugh that blended perfectly with the whir of the centrifuge.

  “I will explain why I have once again decided to break ranks with my brethren,” he said.

  The centrifuge kicked off and Ramsanjawi reached inside to free a vial from the arm. The vial contained a liquid that shaded from aquamarine to deep blue in four distinct bands. Ramsanjawi motioned Weiss to the adjacent workstation, where a stoppered beaker was secured in a metal rack.

  “Seawater from the North Atlantic,” said Ramsanjawi, nodding toward the beaker. “The white filaments you see are particularly nasty polychlorinated biphenyl molecules, which you know as PCBs. They are visually enhanced for what I am about to demonstrate.”

  He inserted the needle of a syringe through the top of the vial he was holding and pushed carefully until the tip of the needle entered the third of the four bands of blue. Then he drew a portion of the liquid into the barrel of the syringe.

  “These are genetically altered E. coli bacteria,” said Ramsanjawi, withdrawing the needle and holding the syringe so that Weiss had a clear view of the thin band of blue. “We use E. coli because they are easy to cultivate in large quantities. They are visually enhanced as well.”

  Ramsanjawi slowly pressed the needle through the stopper of the beaker. The needle appeared in the seawater, glinting among the filaments. Ramsanjawi pressed the plunger. The microbes dispersed throughout the water in thin
blue whorls. The filaments seemed to dance as the microbes swirled around them. Slowly, the filaments broke apart, separating into a snowstorm of flakes. In a minute, the water was clear.

  “Fantastic,” said Weiss.

  “A parlor trick,” Ramsanjawi said.

  “But the water is clear.”

  “Only of PCBs. There are dozens of other toxic substances I did not choose to visually enhance.” Ramsanjawi sighed. “I am afraid this is a case of too little too late.”

  “Spoken like a true optimist,” said Weiss.

  “If I exude pessimism, it is only because I have been here too long.”

  Weiss studied the Indian’s face for a moment. “Why don’t the three arms of Trikon cooperate, Dr. Ramsanjawi?” he asked.

  “Personality clashes, racial clashes, silly notions of national pride. There is a good deal of competition in science, Mr. Weiss. Ask anyone who has received a Nobel Prize.” He hesitated a beat, then, “But if you want my honest opinion, the root cause is money.”

  “No one’s mentioned that before,” Weiss said.

  “Perhaps because it is not obvious. Or perhaps because it is so obvious that it requires no mention.”

  “Pretend I don’t think it’s so obvious,” said Weiss. “How does money enter into it?”

  “There are forces that want to prevent Trikon from developing these microbes,” said Ramsanjawi. “It is not because these forces wish the Earth to be suffocated in toxic wastes. They simply prefer that they be the ones who own the means of cleaning it up.”

  “Forces? What forces? Who are you talking about?” Weiss demanded.

  “I have no specific names to give you,” said Ramsanjawi. “But you can guess where they reside. The United States of America.”

  “Dr. Ramsanjawi, that’s absurd. American scientists have spearheaded the ecological advances of the last decade.”