“I hope you’ll forgive us our superstitious ways. Amongst us it is considered a terrible taboo to speak of our enemy directly. This is why Grace is so…agitated right now. There is a creature or perhaps a vector or perhaps a disease…we’re not entirely certain what it is and much of what we know is passed down by oral tradition and not entirely reliable. Our people are in Pod Eight, which landed pointing up when The Manifest Destiny went down. Our diametric opposite is Pod Two.”
Grace hisses.
“You’ll doom us all with your loose tongue.”
Grace tosses her chair backwards and storms out of the conference room. Helena rises to follow.
“Please. Let her go. She just needs to cool off.”
Helena jams a thumb towards the hatch.
“Tell Shit-For-Brains to keep an eye on her through the monitors. Corral her back in if you have to. But don’t put a tail on her for now.”
Prosser nods and ducks out the hatch. I suppose Shit-For-Brains is Helena’s not-so-playful nickname for Quinn. I suppose she really doesn’t fit in with the rest of the security staff.
“Please continue,” Diane says, now apparently more absorbed with what we are learning than concerned about the time it is taking up.
Jaime nods and sighs.
“It’s bad luck to even talk about Pod Two. I’m trying… I’m trying not to be the superstitious savage you must take me to be. But it’s like fighting generations of inherited knowledge, if you know what I mean.”
“I do.”
Becs jumps to her feet and strides over to a hospitality tray. She pours a tall glass of water and puts it down in front of Jaime.
“Thank you.”
“Any time.”
She claps Jaime heartily on the back. After taking a sip our guest continues.
“Pod Two was breached upon impact when our ancestors crashed here. It began to fill up with that foul muck outside. It’s like blood. The pods were all open to each other at the time, and Pod Two remains open to the ocean. Our ancestors had to evacuate the two adjacent pods, One and Three, and seal them off. The ocean water got in but they’re entirely sealed off now.
“Our people distributed the evacuees from the lower three pods evenly among the remaining nine. About three hundred people were divided among nine pods, so we each took on about thirty-three. There were a few that didn’t survive the crash and the subsequent challenges, so the numbers aren’t exact.
“What we didn’t realize was that an enemy had been brought into our midst. There is something sentient and I can only call it… evil… living in the depths. I hope you don’t think me mad.”
Diane shakes her head slightly but the rest of us are focused raptly on Jaime’s story. She clears her throat and takes another sip of water.
“People began dying. Our ancestors suspected there was a plague, but it was revealed to be foul play. Among the twelve hundred survivors, all hand-picked the best of the best, astronauts specially trained for this mission – there seemed to have developed overnight a rash of murderers. But it wasn’t mere human weakness or even the psychosis that had developed from the desperation of crashing. No, our ancestors lived well at the time, they still had their hydroponic gardens and their chicken farms and quarters weren’t even terribly crowded. They were still planning to make a go of forming a colony here, even if it never amounted to more than a few sunken pods from the wreck of The Destiny. They were convinced that, given time, they would be able to populate the planet as they had been meant to, or else to hold out for a rescue mission they considered inevitable. The Destiny was far too valuable to simply be written off, we thought.
“The rash of murders, though, caused a witch hunt. And it wasn’t very long before we had proven that survivors of Pods One through Three were responsible. The rest were treated as pariahs and in the darkest day in the short history of our colony here, the others conspired to kill them all. Three hundred people we’d been living with and fighting with and building a future with… rooted out like enemies of the state.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it.”
I look up, startled. Grace stands in the jamb, shadowed not far behind by Prosser, who had been sent to watch her. She looks haunted, like she had been there.
“No,” Jaime agrees, “It wasn’t. In fact, it was just the beginning. Imagine slaughtering a quarter of your crew. Friends, lovers, comrades-in-arms. Fear, I think, motivated our ancestors. Fear drove us to near madness. But the infestation… we couldn’t root it out. It had already taken hold, spread beyond the original carriers. Instead of cauterizing a weeping wound we had simply burned innocents at the stake.”
“This infestation,” Zanib says, “Are you able to identify the carriers?”
Ruefully, Jaime shakes her head.
“Not through any medical science we have access to. We can only identify the infested through detective work. When they attempt to sabotage us and we can trace it back to the saboteur… assuming it’s not simply a disgruntled person.”
“The result’s the same in any case,” Grace growls.
Jaime holds up her hands placatingly.
“Please… I don’t know how you look on capital punishment. I know it’s not… civilized. But for us it’s a necessary way of life.”
“Our corporation’s not usually in the habit of judging other cultures,” Diane says. “Ladies, thank you for your honesty. Would you please excuse us? I need to have a brief discussion with my staff.”
Nodding, Jaime rises and joins Grace at the jamb. Both exit and the hydraulics close the hatch behind them.
“They need to die,” Helena says, “Every last one of them.”
Sixteen
“Much as I value your input, Helena, doesn’t it seem a bit premature to jump to genocide?”
Helena snorts.
“Genocide. There’s thirty-two of them.”
“Mass murder, then,” Diane “corrects” herself icily.
Helena rises and slaps both of her palms down on the conference table opposite the director.
“Madam director, we’ve worked together for twelve years. Since long before you were ‘madam director’ and I was a goon who didn’t know which end of a nightstick to hold.”
“Kill ‘em all, Diane, for old time’s sake, is that what you’re trying to sell me?”
Helena shakes her head slowly.
“I’m not selling anything and I’m not being sentimental.”
“That’s evident,” I mutter.
“Watch yourself,” Helena says, waggling a finger at me before turning back to Diane. “I’ve known you a long time and I’ve never known you to choose the easy out. Tough choices, that’s how you became a director. Not the easy wrong, the hard right. Now you tell me, Diane, those people, they have some kind of disease. We could all already be infected. We have no way of knowing. Bringing them onboard, it’s worse than leaving the barn door open, it’s letting the fox in the henhouse. I couldn’t swear right now that they’ll let us through quarantine. With thirty-two potential plague vectors on board? Yloft or any other station would be fully justified in blasting us out of the sky. Hell, don’t listen to me. Ask the station bunny. She’ll tell you.”
My mind’s racing. Unfortunately, she’s not just right, she’s damn right. And there aren’t a whole lot of ways around it. We departed from Yloft with our complement registered and verified. We can’t just show up with thirty-two new bodies and not expect to trigger every warning bell on the station.
Not to mention we would have to falsify countless logs to keep the station goons from figuring out there was a disease amongst the new people. And no matter their loyalty, there will always be crew members who will sell out a ship trying to avoid quarantine in exchange for special consideration. I’ve seen it happen like clockwork. Freighters, even cruise ships where the whole crew from the captain on down insist they’re clean, but there’s always one cook or janitor or somebody who sells them out in exchange for being quarantined in a suite
in the lap of luxury.
Not to mention the corporation would torch all of our paystubs, bonuses and all, and might just dismiss us for falsifying records in a plague protocol.
Long story short, Helena’s right. Yloft or any other halfway legitimate outpost will put us in indefinite quarantine if not destroy us outright.
“I’m familiar with quarantine protocol, thank you,” Diane says, thankfully not forcing me to weigh in with an opinion I don’t like myself for having. She presses a button on the intercom. “Tina, would you come to the conference room, please?”
“On my way, madam director.”
“Thank you.”
Diane sighs and leans back in her chair. She glances over at Zanib and I, then back at Becs.
“Your thoughts, Rebecca?”
Becs holds up her hands.
“You asked me if I could feed ‘em. I can if we ration. That’s the extents of my thoughts on this matter, in total and in perpetuity.”
Diane turns to us.
“What about you two?”
Zanib doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to say anything. I clear my throat.
“Well, aside from the moral implications of any action we take…”
“Our moral duty is to the company,” Helena says. “Our moral duty is to ourselves. Morally, we don’t owe these people a damn thing.”
“That would be ethics, not morals, Helena. And I can assure the both of you that my personal morals have never interfered with the performance of my duties. Continue your thought, Paige.”
Shit. I’ve already lost my train of thought. Do I even have one? Am I just going to flounder? Luckily, at that moment, Tina appears at the hatch, distracting us all for a moment.
“Thanks for coming, Tina. Close the hatch behind you, please.”
I can see Grace and Jaime out in the hall. They have Prosser laughing. I’m reminded that these are human beings we’re talking about, not cockroaches or rats or any other “plague vectors.” People with hopes and dreams and parents and possibly kids. Shit, how many kids are on that damn seed ship right now?
“Paige was about to say something, but then we’ll bring you up to speed.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. A thought occurs to me. One that’s not sentimental at all.
“I know our decisions are supposed to be based on what’s best for the company, and I’m new here so I’m not great at that.”
“You seem to be doing fine so far, in my estimation.”
Is that a compliment? From the director? I only nod.
“Still, I have to look at the bigger picture here. These people, whatever else they are, they’re a find, for lack of a better word. They’re like a society out of time. Their value in the fields of history, anthropology, archaeology…they’re priceless. I don’t know what it profits the company, but I know what it profits humanity.”
Diane nods but doesn’t respond. She turns and briefly brings Tina up to speed.
“Oh my,” the nurse says.
“‘Oh my,’ indeed. First things first. A disease that makes you act as a saboteur against your own best interests. Is there such a thing?”
Tina sucks air through her teeth.
“It’s not unprecedented. There are illnesses that make you act… for lack of a better word… crazy. But this could also be a case of mass hysteria. Or even something as simple as cabin fever posing under the aegis of an urban legend.”
“In other words, it only happens because they believe it happens?”
“Possibly. There are lots of examples of psychosomatic diseases. Witch doctors in ancient cultures seemingly capable of the magic ascribed to them.”
“Hope is not a planning method,” Helena says, “We have to treat this disease as though it were real.”
“True enough,” Diane concedes. “Would you be able to determine if these people are infected or not?”
“I don’t know. Our diagnostic equipment on board isn’t terrible, but if I don’t know what I’m looking for, how will I know if I’ve found it?”
“And just because you’ve identified one disease doesn’t mean we’re not bringing on other, unidentified ones,” Helena says.
“Well, that could be the case anyway,” Tina says. “That could always be the case. That’s one of the dangers of ink surfing, isn’t it? That was the case as soon as you three set foot into this atmosphere.”
“We didn’t have reports of a disease then.”
“Thank you, Helena, I think you’ve made your point.”
“Apologies, madam director, but I don’t think I have. I feel the need to state my case one more time, for the record, as director of security in this office.”
Diane folds her arms and leans back in her chair.
“Oh, by all means. As always, the camera is running.”
Helena looks up at the roving eye above the hatch. Perhaps she had forgotten she was being recorded. I never realized, but it seems in keeping with everything I’ve seen on the Borgwardt so far. There’s probably even a clause in my contract saying I’m open to constant surveillance. I make a mental note to re-read it more carefully and possibly see if I can negotiate that clause when I re-up.
“These people are not our people. That’s a fact. They are hostile strangers. That’s also a fact. I have the soft spot right here to prove it.”
Helena jabs a thumb into her recently-healed shoulder. I’ve never been nursed back to health from a gunshot wound, but I suspect it must be tender. Helena doesn’t act as though she feels it at all.
“And you don’t think your anger at being shot is influencing your decision making process here?”
“No, I don’t, madam director. I’m capable of separating my ego from what’s best for the ship.”
“You’re on thin ice.”
“So be it. I won’t have this go down as dereliction. Maybe it’ll go down as insubordination. But it won’t go down as dereliction. The fact is company regulations state that we have no responsibility towards hostile strangers. When they open hostilities, we are free to respond with any measures deemed necessary by security to protect the company’s assets and, to a lesser extent, the company’s human resources. That is regulation. I say we toss those two silver-tongued bleeding hearts off this office, and we fill that seed ship to capacity with white-hot plasma.”
“You’re talking about committing a war crime in response to being shot in the arm,” I say. “Where’s your sense of proportionality?”
“Don’t forget I took that bullet for you, Ambroziak. Was proportionality on your mind when I was saving your ass?”
“Ladies,” Diane says simply, a full sentence in a single word before continuing. “Has everyone had their say?” She glances around the room. Even Helena seems mollified at last. “I’ve made my decision.”
Seventeen
“Helena is right, of course, to be cautious. That’s her job. Caution. In all matters. It’s security’s watchword. However, though she didn’t mount an especially strong defense, I’m swayed by Paige’s input. Ultimately, our highest concern is the company. They pay us. It’s our job to draw a profit for them. Otherwise what’s the point of all this?
“It’s impossible for me to say right now what value these people with have to Hestle. But it’s also impossible to deny that it will be immense. Science will be better, yes. That’s a fair assessment. But we’re also talking about stories. Multi-million chit stories. Rethinking what we know about The Manifest Destiny. I don’t work for the studio arm, but I have to think the movie rights for that would be astronomical. Book deals, personal tours, the list goes on and on. These people, every one of them, has the potential to become a multi-million chit asset to Hestle. Burning them up? That eliminates the risk but it also eliminates the reward. And make no mistake, ladies, we are here to find the company its reward. It may not even matter what we can haul off of that hulk in terms of junk when we have these people.
“That being said, Tina, I need you to find out what you can. Scre
en them. Figure out what the disease is, if it exists, get us some hard data for when we return to Yloft. We may have to rely on the company’s influence before we can dock, yes. We may even need to wait for a company tug to bring us back to friendly space. But if we have solid medical evidence for them that there is no disease or that we’ve quarantined the diseased colonists, or, heck, let’s just shoot the moon, that we’ve cured the disease before returning, that’ll go a long way towards getting us through quarantine protocols.
“In the meantime, Helena your top priority is making sure I can execute your plan with the push of a button. I will burn them out in a second if it becomes necessary. Don’t think I’ve ignored you, old friend, and don’t think I’ve taken your professional opinion for granted or taken it personally. I know you’re a straight talker. And I know what you’ve suggested may become necessary at the drop of a pin. So, make us ready to burn that place to the ground. But right now, I’m not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. When I’m convinced you’re right, we’ll burn it out together and I’ll owe you a coffee. But until then I have to act as though these human resources are invaluable to the company.
“As for the rest of you: the plan stays in place. If we get nothing else out of this rotten trip, we will get what we came for. Strip that ship. And bear in mind, we’ve lost time. Put those colonists to work. Remind them what we’re offering them as often as necessary. And use the carrot, not the stick, ladies. No need to bring up the possibility of burning them out.”
Or burning ourselves out. She doesn’t say it, but it’s self-evident. If any of us happen to be aboard The Manifest Destiny when whatever imaginary red line is crossed that necessitates firebombing an occupied seed ship, it’s impossible to imagine a scenario where our people would be recalled. Necessary losses, we’d be called. Insurance write-offs. Cost of doing business.
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