by Ben Bova
For more than an hour they traded information they had gleaned from their independent conversations with O’Donnell. The twelve-year gap in his biography slowly shrank. But when it reached the three years starting in 1995 it would close no more.
“Maybe Weiss knew something about O’Donnell that O’Donnell didn’t want anyone else to know,” said Lorraine.
Dan’s eyes focused on infinity for a long moment. “Maybe.”
“You looked troubled, Dan. Is it because he’s your friend?”
“Friend, buddy, whatever. You spend time with a guy, you kid around with him. You want to think that he’s leveling with you and that you can read him. When you find out you’ve been wrong, well, maybe he’s been bullshitting you or maybe you just can’t read people. Either way, that can be a dangerous proposition up here.”
“Don’t feel bad about having misread him,” said Lorraine. “I did, too. Addicts are con artists. It’s part of their survival instinct. Even if they clean up, those other habits die hard.”
“I know something about addicts,” said Dan, forcing himself to brighten the somber mood. “My ex-wife was addicted to her career.”
Lorraine laughed. “And you weren’t?”
Dan grinned back at her, ruefully.
“You know,” she said, more seriously, “that’s the first time you’ve mentioned your ex-wife to me.”
“Someday I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”
“I’d like that.”
Before Dan could say anything more Kurt Jaeckle appeared in the infirmary doorway. Jaeckle looked more than grim; he looked scared.
“Has either of you seen Lance Muncie?” he asked.
Dan and Lorraine looked at each other.
Dan said, “He just completed transferring O’Donnell to the observatory along with Freddy Aviles.”
“I think he’s suffering from Orbital Dementia,” said Jaeckle. He described his encounter with Lance in the logistics module. The account was disturbing enough in itself, but Jaeckle’s narrative skills made it sound chilling. Throughout, Lorraine hovered close to Dan. At the mention of the tattered flowers, she nudged softly against his shoulder. Jaeckle concluded: “I’m certain he was referring to me.”
Dan scrutinized Jaeckle suspiciously. He knew that Jaeckle often blabbed to the other scientists that the station commander “had it in for” the Mars Project and had sent Russell Cramer Earthside as part of some convoluted personal vendetta. He also knew that Jaeckle and Lance were inextricably linked by Carla Sue Gamble. Lance had fought with O’Donnell. But he said he had been provoked and O’Donnell hadn’t contradicted him. Was this a poor attempt at payback by Jaeckle? Or was it a legitimate report?
“Lorraine?” he asked.
“No harm in examining him,” she replied.
Dan nodded abruptly, then looked at his wristwatch. “We all have jobs to do,” he said.
“Yes,” said Lorraine. “I’ve got to log in the results of the latest test I performed.”
Dan wanted to kiss her, right there in front of Jaeckle. Instead he settled for a grin. My pressure’s down, he said to himself again as he sailed toward his own office. And Lorraine’s just as happy about is as I am.
Lance responded without any hesitation to Lorraine’s suggestion that he come to the infirmary. That was a positive sign, she thought. Russell Cramer had routinely avoided her.
She studied Lance’s appearance between glances at his personnel file. The gash on his cheek and jaw was starting to scab. His blond hair was neatly tucked beneath a hairnet. His uniform was in good shape. He seemed slightly edgy, occasionally biting his lower lip or running his tongue along the outside of his front teeth. But everyone was a little edgy. Lance had better reasons than most.
“Have your stomach problems persisted?”
“Nope. Eating fine now,” said Lance. “Are you seeing me because you think something else is wrong?”
“I believe it’s a good idea to talk to everyone on the station,” said Lorraine. “I wanted to start with you because you’ve been at the center of these events.”
Lance rubbed his jaw with his knuckles. “I’ll say.”
“Do you feel troubled at all?”
“I’m troubled that a man got killed,” said Lance. “But you don’t mean that.”
“That’s right, Lance. I mean that you more than anyone are carrying images of what happened. You discovered the body and you were the victim of an attack. Will those images interfere with your work?”
“Nope,” said Lance.
“Would you want to return to Earth?”
“I have more’n two more months to go up here.”
“I realize that,” said Lorraine. “But this is very important now, Lance. Does the fact that Constellation will be here shortly put the idea in your head that you might want to return now?”
Lance emphatically shook his head.
“Thanks for stopping by, Lance. You’ll contact me if you want to talk?”
Lance nodded and left the office. Lorraine noted in his chart: Somewhat agitated, but not beyond the normal range indicated by recent events. Diagnosis—no signs of O.D. observed.
Lance hurried to Hab 2 and sealed himself in his compartment. His stomach and chest felt like an overloaded steam pipe. He buried his head in his sleep restraint. Once again, his angry words spewed forth in a hissing hot torrent.
Chakra Ramsanjawi’s plan was simple. Fabio Bianco believed in open cooperation and free exchange of data among the three arms of Trikon. It was a naive belief, but one that Bianco had espoused consistently since the creation of the consortium. Yet Bianco definitely had balked at Oyamo’s suggestion that O’Donnell’s data be shared by everyone. Ergo, Bianco was privy to the data. All Ramsanjawi needed to do was ask.
Of course, executing the plan was not so simple. Despite the great mutual respect that existed between the two men, Bianco was unlikely to answer Ramsanjawi’s questions willingly. Which was why Ramsanjawi had two syringes hidden beneath his kurta when he closed his office door. Drugging Bianco was a huge risk; the old man might collapse and die on him. Or worse yet, he might remember being interrogated. Ramsanjawi shrugged massively inside his kurta. Perhaps the old man will indeed die—after he has answered my questions. After all, he is already a physical wreck. Who would suspect anything more than the stresses he has encountered here in his very own haven of scientific research?
As Ramsanjawi pulled himself through ELM’s hatch, he noticed a disturbance in the shadows of the connecting tunnel. Stu Roberts was being shoved into the logistics module. His attacker was Freddy Aviles.
Ramsanjawi quickly scuttled along the floor. The interior of the logistics module was dimly lit, but he could see Roberts and Aviles silhouetted against a pair of area lights.
“You gave shit to Cramer, no? An’ you gave it to O’Donnell, no?”
“I didn’t,” blubbered Roberts.
“Don’ you fuckin’ lie to me, man.”
“I’m not lying!”
Ramsanjawi’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness. Freddy’s back was to the hatch. One hand grasped the handle of a receptacle while the other clenched a wad of Roberts’s shirt. Roberts faced Ramsanjawi, but his terror-stricken eyes were fastened on Aviles.
“Why you fuck up O’Donnell? Huh? You interested in what he doin’? Huh?”
Roberts tried to answer but his voice was cracked by Freddy’s fist pounding his chest.
Ramsanjawi decided that Bianco could wait; Aviles was the more pressing problem. Squirting a few drops from a syringe onto the material of his kurta, Ramsanjawi then clamped the syringe in his teeth and used both hands to sling himself through the hatch.
Roberts had no time to react; Freddy had no time to move. In one motion, Ramsanjawi pulled the syringe from his teeth and jammed the needle into Freddy’s rump. Freddy managed one solid punch to Ramsanjawi’s midsection. Ramsanjawi drew himself into a ball, bracing himself for another blow. But it never came. When he lifted his
head, he saw Freddy tumbling slowly near the ceiling.
Roberts cautiously peeked out from behind a wall of canisters.
“What was that all about?” asked Ramsanjawi.
“I don’t know! He jumped me as I came out of the Whit.”
“Did you tell him anything?”
“No! Nothing! You got here just in time.”
“Then we are both fortunate,” said Ramsanjawi.
“What are you going to do with him?” Roberts asked. He touched Freddy’s neck as if testing for signs of life.
“That is my affair,” said Ramsanjawi. “Return to your compartment.”
Roberts moved slowly to the hatch, took a final look at Ramsanjawi and Freddy, then shot into the tunnel.
Ramsanjawi grabbed Freddy by the shirt and held his serene face to the light.
“Well, my abbreviated friend, we have much to discuss.”
Ramsanjawi used an empty canister to transport Freddy from the logistics module to ELM. It was near midnight, and he encountered no one during the short journey. He brought the canister into his office, sealed the accordion door, and popped the lid.
Freddy groaned as he spilled out, his arms unfolding like the wings of an injured bird. After a few minutes, his groans sharpened and his movements strengthened. Ramsanjawi readied the second syringe. This one did not contain a tranquilizer. It contained sodium Pentothal—truth serum.
Ramsanjawi rolled up Freddy’s sleeve and injected the serum into his arm. Freddy faded for a moment, then regained consciousness. His eyes were glazed and his speech was slurred and halting, but he accurately answered Ramsanjawi’s preliminary questions. Then Ramsanjawi turned to more important matters.
“What do you know about Cramer?” — “He din’t have Orbital Dementia… Drugs made him crazy.”
“And O’Donnell?”
“Drugs make him crazy, too. Differen’ drugs.”
“And you think that Roberts gave them the drugs.”
“Roberts friend of Cramer. Make sense.”
“But who gave the drugs to Roberts?”
“Don’ know.”
“Why are you interested in Roberts’s interest in O’Donnell?”
“My job… Protect O’Donnell. Protect his work.”
“So you killed Aaron Weiss.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Don’ know.”
“What is O’Donnell working on?”
“Impor’ant stuff.”
“Not part of Trikon’s work?”
“More impor’ant.”
“What?”
“Can’ say.”
“But you can tell me.”
Freddy paused. His features twisted as his better judgment struggled unsuccessfully against the sodium pentothal.
“Bug… to use against… cocaine.”
“The product or the plants themselves?”
“Plants.”
“Bah. That has been tried. It was unsuccessful.”
“Not this one.”
“And I suppose you know how it works.”
“Not me. O’Donnell.”
“O’Donnell is not here, Aviles.”
Freddy hovered weightlessly, silent, slack-jawed, while Ramsanjawi thought furiously.
At last he said, “O’Donnell has his own computer, does he not?”
“Yeah.”
“And all his data is stored in it?”
“It was.”
“Was? What do you mean?”
“Crashed his files.”
“You what?”
“So nobody could copy,” Freddy muttered.
Ramsanjawi wanted to slap him. Then he realized, “You made a copy, didn’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Where is it?”
Freddy’s hand flopped against his chest. “Here.”
Ramsanjawi removed a diskette from an inside pocket of Freddy’s shirt and loaded it into his computer. There had been several attempts to destroy cocaine production at its source—chemicals, herbicides, even insects specifically crossbred to feed only on coca leaves. None of these plans had worked, and to Ramsanjawi’s knowledge the United States government had ceased trying.
O’Donnell’s attempt proved to be different.
Ramsanjawi perused the computer files and immediately grasped the thrust of the project: the development of a genetic sequence that would block the production of a specific enzyme necessary for cells of the coca leaf to manufacture cocaine. O’Donnell had not quite perfected the sequence. But he was close. Very close.
Ramsanjawi stored the data in his computer and returned the diskette to the pocket in Freddy’s shirt. He prepared another dose of tranquilizer to keep Freddy asleep through the rest of the night. Freddy might remember this encounter; he might not. It mattered little to Ramsanjawi. The plan that was coming together in his head would be executed quickly.
Ramsanjawi placed Freddy in his sleep compartment and returned to his office. In less than an hour of reviewing the data, he knew exactly how to apply O’Donnell’s groundwork. With just a few basic alterations to the genetic sequence and to the RNA messenger molecule O’Donnell had developed, he would possess a unique commodity. Sir Derek was welcome to the toxic-waste superbug. The ability to destroy the world’s coca supply would be far more valuable.
Then a new insight flashed into his mind. How much would the drug cartel pay for this information? And the techniques for guarding against it? Ramsanjawi felt himself glowing like the sun. Or better yet, I could use this technique to alter ordinary plants and make them produce cocaine! How much would the cartel pay for the ability to insert the coca-producing enzyme into ordinary plants? Chakra laughed aloud. Cocaine-yielding potatoes! Spinach! Watermelons!
He pictured himself living like a maharajah in a splendid villa on the Riviera. Who needs Oxford, and its airs of shabby gentility? With this kind of money I can buy all the respect I want.
Chuckling happily, Ramsanjawi shut down his computer and prepared himself for a long night of designing. Perhaps Lady Elizabeth had been correct after all. Good things happened to those who waited. And his long wait was finally over.
3 SEPTEMBER 1998
TRIKON STATION
TOPANGA DEATH BAFFLES POLICE
Police in the Los Angeles suburb of Topanga are investigating the mysterious death of a 32-year-old woman. The nude body of Stacey Hollis was discovered last Saturday night in the Topanga Canyon home of her fiancé, attorney Phillip “Pancho” Weinstein, shortly before midnight. The death has been termed suspicious, but no charges have yet been filed.
Weinstein told police that he left his home at about 9:30 Saturday night to pick up some files at his Los Angeles law office. When he returned, he found Ms. Hollis on the bathroom floor. There were no signs of a struggle and no evidence of a forced entry.
The Medical Examiner’s report is expected to be released tomorrow.
—Los Angeles Times, 3 September 1998
Lance slipped into the Mars module at 2330 hours. From previous reconnaissance, he knew that Carla Sue had reserved a two-hour block in the blister commencing at 2300 hours. No one else had reserved a slot until morning. He would have plenty of time.
He knocked on the door. His heart quickened when he heard no immediate reply. Maybe Carla Sue wasn’t inside; maybe Jaeckle was with her. He knocked again.
“Who’s there?” Her voice was muffled only slightly by the flimsy door.
“Lance.”
The door slid open. She was not wearing her usual Danskin, just a white cotton T-shirt and blue nylon shorts. Her hair was unbound and swayed like yellow grass in a river. The lights were low, but the massive cloud-decked curve of Earth glowed brilliantly through the observation windows.
“Oh, Lance, I’m glad you could come.”
Her smile looked genuine enough. Ignoring it, he pushed past her into the blister. She floated demurely at arm’s length from him. “I’ve missed you,” she said softly.
&
nbsp; Lance’s chest constricted into a steel cage that squeezed the breath out of him. He could not speak. His stomach began to knot. He nodded wordlessly at Carla Sue.
“You poor dear. Here I am thinking only of myself when you’ve been through so much.”
“I’m fine,” he managed to gasp out, rubbing his lips and the scab of his gash with the same hand. “After all that’s happened—”
“Nothing happened to me,” Lance said. “God, why does everyone treat me like a child?”
“Why, Lance, you’re not a child to me.”
“I’m not, huh? What were you doing with Kurt Jaeckle yesterday?”
“Yesterday?” Carla Sue cocked her head as if searching the distant cloud cover for the answer.
“In your compartment, dammit!” said Lance. Forgetting himself, he pounded the bulkhead for emphasis. He went into a spin, but quickly stopped himself.
“Right, right, yesterday,” said Carla Sue. “You see, Lance, I didn’t want to tell you, but a long, long time ago, before the Mars Project even began, Kurt asked me to marry him.”
Lance opened his mouth as if to speak. In his mind, she had just proven his point. He had been less than a child; he had been a toy.
“I didn’t say yes,” Carla Sue added quickly. “I was a little leery, what with him being married twice and me never even being engaged. So I told him we should put off making plans until after the Mars Project. Meantime, I hired a private detective.”
“Why’d you do that?” Lance asked, unsure that he was hearing the truth.
“Suspicion, caution. I’ve known my share of sweet talkers, but none as smooth as Kurt Jaeckle. It turned out to be a good idea because the detective discovered things about Kurt that weren’t quite right.”
“Like what?”
“Unsavory things. Exactly what they were don’t matter. The point is I found out in time.”
“Is that why you got interested in me?”