The Hematophages

by Stephen Kozeniewski

  “The hydroponics we saw were clogged with produce,” I say.

  Jaime nods.

  “My legacy to the next generation. Never to go hungry. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. To think, though, that we had this food source available to us all along if only we’d opened up our windows, and perhaps our minds. Many lives could have been saved.”

  “Or lost if additional people had been exposed to the infection,” Helena states flatly.

  “Well, I won’t lie to you, K.P. here is fat with protein and fatty fish oils, but I don’t think you would’ve had much luck fishing for his kind. My initial brain-scans show that they are surprisingly intelligent. I’ll have to do a lot more investigation, but I think they might even be puzzle-solving, which is fairly rare in nature. I have eleven other traps out and so far this is the only parasite I’ve caught. And I think I only caught him because he was curious. You might have gotten a meal or two out of them, but after that they probably would have stayed away.”

  “Who wants to eat space lamprey anyway?” Tina asks.

  “When you’re starving,” Jaime says quietly, “frivolities like disgust and morality slip away very quickly. Desperation is an awful, awful thing. I hope you never experience it.”

  We all fall silent, but the awkwardness is short-lived. Grace is knocking on the airlock hatch.

  Twenty

  I think each of us jump, though I can’t swear about Helena, and I don’t think it’s in her nature. Prosser and Tampa quickly open the airlock, and as Grace steps through they each click something on their beam rifles that makes an intimidating noise. Grace eyes them both up. I’m not very knowledgeable about weapons, but I do know that a beam rifle works just as well whether you make it click or not. The clicker is a vestigial device from ancient times. Just something that every gun is supposed to have, I suppose, for intimidating people.

  “What did…” Jaime starts to say.

  “Excuse me,” Helena says, making it clear by her tone that she means less than zero per cent of the generally agreed upon definition of “excuse me” and steps in between Jaime and Grace. “What’s going on? What did your people say?”

  Grace glances at Jaime, who nods for her to continue. She quickly glances at each of the rest of us in turn and I sense a calculating mind. Perhaps she’s considering whether she can fight her way through us, or how hard it would be to get back to The Manifest Destiny before us, something like that. Whatever Grace’s evaluation of the situation, her demeanor doesn’t change.

  “There was a lot to discuss,” Grace says, “but in the end, no one wants to stay. Or be left behind. They’ll come.”

  “Excellent,” Tina says. “Can we start having them come down to the infirmary? I have a lot of work ahead of me and I’ll need to see each of your people.”

  “Didn’t the director say to put the colonists to work?”

  That was Helena.

  “I’m not putting anyone to work until they’ve got a clean bill of health,” Tina replies, “which so far means only her.”

  Tina jerks a thumb in Jaime’s direction.

  “Bring everyone over,” Helena says to Grace. She turns to her crew. “You two are going to lay down roots in the infirmary, you get me?”

  “We get you,” Tampa and Prosser mutter in the exact opposite of excitement.

  “Now you three are coming with me to get started,” she says, pointing at me, Zanib, and Jaime in turn.

  ●●●

  “What’s this?” Zanib asks the empty room.

  I double check my manifest a third time before firing my paint gun at what I suspect is a primitive subluminal communications array. This is the device (at least partially) responsible for Jaime and her ancestors being marooned on Vilameen for so long. As a squawker it’s useless, but as a historical relic the accountants have deemed it as valuable.

  My duty (and paint pellet) discharged, I turn to look at whatever Zanib is talking about. She is standing before three metal slabs, apparently taken from other parts of the pod and welded together to form a sort of table with two supports. Jaime is blushing and not moving to answer. Her skin is so remarkably pale she’s turning a shade of red I’ve never seen a human being turn before. I glance at Helena, who is standing by the exit, weapon at the ready, apparently completely disinterested in the salvage operation and only concerned with safety.

  I check my jotter. The colonists have definitely made modifications to the original design. Areas are littered with gear that they had fashioned or jury-rigged, and, as such, some of our attempts at finding the manifest items will be hopeless.

  “This area used to house the chicken coops,” I say, looking deliberately at our guide.

  Looking around, I find that hard to believe. There are zero signs of feathers, excrement, blood, or even cages. None of the tell-tale marks of animal husbandry.

  “Chickens?” Jaime says. “Oh, yes, that was a long time ago. My grandmother used to tell me about them. The little… animals. ‘Ee-caw, ee-caw,’ they’d say, and sometimes flap their arms just like this.”

  She flutters her arms, a mimicry of a long-forgotten children’s tale. Even Helena can’t suppress a smile at the profoundly silly act. Everyone knows what a chicken acts like, or is supposed to act like. Except Jaime. She has no idea. No first-hand experience.

  I suddenly feel profoundly sad for her. This is a person who has never seen an animal, or even a free-growing plant. We are the first humans outside of a tiny, incestuous community that she or any of her kind has ever met. Her entire life took place within the claustrophobic confines of a crashed ship. It’s impossible not to bring to mind a prison sentence, brought on due to no sin or crime of her own.

  “What happened?” Zanib asks. “Your ancestors over-ate them?”

  “No,” she replies. “Supposedly they were very good stewards of the livestock. Our people are trained from birth in math and breeding science. Our ancestors took very good care of the chickens, in fact, and according to my grandmother there was a time when this entire hold was packed with them, and eggs were so plentiful they grew sick of eating them. But as with all good things, the infested got to them. Poisoned their food supply, because it was less well guarded than the corn that went directly to the crew members. In the space of a single day, all the chickens were wiped out, and one of the worst famines in our history set in.”

  It suddenly occurs to me what the large metal slab would have been used for after such a tragedy. I stare into Zanib’s face, willing her to drop the matter, but she either cannot read my expression or doesn’t care.

  “What’s this table for, then?”

  I can tell by Jaime’s pained expression that I have guessed correctly.

  “Prayer,” she replies after a prolonged moment, “at first. Our ancestors were not a religious people by nature. They were scientists. Most were irreligious if not outright atheistic. But after the loss of the chickens, some element of superstition rose to the surface, gaining currency among our people. Then the sacrifices began.”

  “Sacrifices?” Zanib asks, before understanding finally dawns on her. “Oh.”

  “There was a power struggle after that. Many of the religious zealots were exiled down into the lower pods. But this thing remains. A monument to our shame.”

  “All right, all right,” Helena announces with an intolerable edge in her voice, “Enough with the chit-chat. You’re on company time now.”

  “Company time,” Jaime repeats, with a wan smile. “Yes, of course.”

  Jaime leads the way into the next major area, Helena trailing just behind. Zanib grabs my hand and holds me fast in the chamber with the sacrificial altar. She plants a kiss on my nose.

  “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “Then why are you lingering here?”

  “Just to get two seconds alone with you.”

  “Two seconds is all we’ve got.”

  Helena’s loud voice underwrites my statement.

  “Ambr
oziak! Patel! Quit lollygagging!”

  We squeeze hands tightly before breaking our miniature embrace and following after.

  “Are you worried about the other pods?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Well,” she says, checking her jotter, “at the rate we’re moving, we should have this whole place scrapped inside of two, three hours. You really think Diane’s going to let us depart with eleven unexplored treasure troves?”

  “Two is filled with ocean plasma, which, last I checked, we have no way of navigating. One and Three are also compromised.”

  “Which leaves eight pods full of priceless artifacts. Diane has her flaws, but she can count.”

  “We made a deal with Jaime’s people,” I say. “We don’t even know what’s down there.”

  “Cannibals. Cultists. Some kind of infestation that turns people against their own kind. Which we may already be exposed to. It all sounds very scary for the salvage team, but not like anything that’s going to deter madam director from pressing further.”

  My eyes shift to Helena, who is meditating darkly on something.

  “I suspect our intrepid security director will insist on not pushing out luck.”

  “Diane gives Helena’s word a lot of weight. But not all the weight. She listens to you, too. Remember that last meeting we had.”

  “What do you want me to say, Zanib?”

  “I want you to say you’re aware of the danger and you’re going to be careful, virgin.”

  “I’m aware of the danger and I’m going to be careful. But you already knew that.”

  “I just want you to come back to me in one piece. And hopefully I won’t have to call you ‘virgin’ anymore after that.”

  She smiles a bit too broadly and I elbow her in the side.

  “Hold up,” Helena snaps, holding up her fist in a gesture I take to mean, “halt.”

  She pulls out her blinking jotter and clicks a few buttons. She glances at Jaime.

  “The infirmary’s done with your people.”

  Jaime manages to look simultaneously agitated and relieved in equal measure.

  “What’s the result?”

  “They’re all clean.”

  Jaime furrows her brow.

  “How is that possible?”

  “Maybe it was all in your heads.”

  Jaime’s expression darkens.

  “You’re saying I made it all up? My grandmother’s death? My mother’s? Countless people I’d come to rely on and call friends and lovers?”

  “She’s saying,” I interrupt, stepping between them, “that it could be space madness. Not a physical disease. A mental one. From being trapped up here. Not that you’re making anything up.”

  I don’t know if I should go on, but Jaime doesn’t seem mollified.

  “No one’s accusing you of lying. But mental illness in a place like this…”

  I shrug.

  “Generations? Generations going crazy, all in the same way? There’s a physical infestation. Your science is just not good enough to discover it.”

  I want to be kind, but maybe ripping off the bandage is the best way to be kind.

  “Jaime, space madness in a place like this… it can metastasize into an urban legend. And an urban legend can work its powers on generations and generations and…”

  The little woman steps toward me and I’m so surprised I nearly drop my paint gun. Her eyes crackle with a fire I’ve never seen before.

  “I know what is real and what is false. Now I can’t speak for your people but I know what I’ve seen. Not folklore. Not urban legend. I’ve seen it. You want to see it, too? Drill through that bulkhead over there.”

  She points at a bulkhead which I don’t even have to check my jotter to know leads to Pod Nine.

  “What’s in the other pods?”

  A thump against the bulkhead seems born of a dark impulse, some imp of the perverse taunting and threatening me.

  “You can deal with me. Negotiate with me. Them? You’ll never be able to handle.”

  Twenty-One

  I wait patiently, eyeing the corridor. The last of Jaime’s people have disappeared for the moment, redirected in a move that fooled no one to the south end of the pod. I look to Helena for permission. She nods.

  I hook the jotter into the comm system of The Manifest Destiny. Primitive though it is, it doesn’t take much jury-rigging to get the holography working. A moment later, Diane is in the room with us, propped up on her crutches.

  “Madam director,” we both say, stepping out of the way of the hologram as though it’s really our boss.

  “All right, bring me up to speed,” the Diane-gram says.

  I look to Helena. She gestures right back at me to continue. Never before have I missed my roommate quite so much, but having declared the pod free from xenoforms she is now busying herself back in the lab with the specimen. Le sigh.

  Only thirteen more hours, give or take, I remind myself. Then we’ll know whether we’re actually interested in each other, or if the attraction is just the result of prolonged close quarters. Either way is fine with me, honestly.

  “Jaime’s people,” I begin with barely a pause.

  “The hostile strangers,” Helena interjects nevertheless.

  “The… colonists, yes,” I agree, “have stripped every nut and bolt of even marginal value from the ship. They’ve… earned their passage, I’d say.”

  “Their existence earns their passage,” Diane intones ominously.

  I understand what she means. They didn’t have to be hauling comms arrays and all that other horseshit to earn their keep. Each of them was worth a fortune on the open market. The least of them could make a living on the lecture circuit. The smartest among them would be self-made billionaires within years. Some would be taken advantage of, but all would be wealthy, essentially carnival curiosities who had made good. Instead of dancing for quarter chits they’d be doing talk shows for quarter million chits.

  If they had any kind of business sense – and some would have that sort of low cunning, even having never been exposed to the greater, darker world of show business and politics – they would be able to leverage their time as prisoners marooned on a distant planet into vast fortunes. Still, for now we were treating them like slave labor, and that was how they were acting.

  “We’ve stripped everything of value from Pod Eight,” I continue. “I recommend we pull up stakes and return to Yloft.”

  As quickly as she can on her crutches, Diane turns around and fixes me with a withering glare.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Tell me, on Yloft are you accustomed to leaving jobs half-done? Or, in this case, one-twelfth-done?”

  I take a deep breath. Zanib’s face is front and center in my mind’s eye.

  “Diane, you have to understand that the risk involved in this operation is off the charts. We’re talking about a plague vector that we know nothing about, that we can’t even detect with modern science. We’re talking about an unknown enemy with unknown resources on the other side of that hatch. If we go in there, we will die. And I don’t mean just me and Helena, though that’s a given. I mean we open that up and that is a Pandora’s Box that will swallow up this mission. It’ll kill you. It’ll kill everyone on the Borgwardt. The company’s going to follow up and there will be more death. It’s going to turn this planet from the tomb of The Manifest Destiny into a graveyard. We’re all at risk. The corporation’s at risk. We need to leave now with what we’ve got and be satisfied. Leave the table while we’re ahead. I don’t see any other alternative.”

  Except… I don’t say any of that. I stand there, silent, zoned out, until finally Diane’s voice snaps me back to myself.

  “Paige? Paige!”

  “Yes?”

  “Bring me up to speed, please.”

  I run my hands through my hair.

  “Sorry, madam director. I’m just getting tired.”

  Th
e Diane-gram eyes me askance.

  “Do you need…”

  “No, ma’am.”

  I slap the crank dispenser on my arm. In an instant I feel a cool rush of fluids hit my veins. My heart begins beating faster until it disappears again into my chest, and I feel even-keeled and level-headed. A perfect dose of juice specially designed for my biochemistry – ambrosia, I sometimes call it.

  I look to Helena. She nods for me to continue, just as in the daydream. I sigh. I don’t want to do this. But I must.

  Act confident. Act so confident, you even fool yourself. Lie. Tell a little lie and convince everyone. That’ll be the start.

  “This room,” I lie, gesturing around me, “is referred to as the shed.”

  In fact, no record has ever described this room as anything other than a prophylactic chamber, similar to the one I stood on exiting the Borgwardt during my brief return to Yloft. If the colonists have a nickname for the room, I’ve never heard them say it. I try not to make it clear that I’m glancing at Helena and the hologram of Diane to gauge whether they’ve believed me.

  Okay. You’ve lied once. Now everything’s based on a foundation of lies. Juice them with a little truth first, then the whopper.

  “That hydraulic,” I say, pointing at the hatch behind Helena, “will close and seal off the shed from the rest of Pod Eight. Then that one,” I point at the hatch behind me, the way Diane is facing, “will open into Pod Nine. It’s been sealed for over a century, since the witch hunts began. If there are people on that side of the hatch they may as well be from a different planet for all the similarity they’ll bear to Jaime and her group.”

  “Are there people there?”

  Downplay it. Give her the answer she wants to hear, by telling the truth through vague platitudes.

  “Well, what we know is that the hydroponics could be working. Pod Eight’s system is independent and sealed off from Nine’s, so it could also be not working. The colonists report noises, but that could be anything, couldn’t it? The ship settling, local wildlife. Zanib’s already proven that such parasites exist under the planet’s skin.”