Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  “One off, two off, three off, four off ...” She went down the row of tiny microswitches on the circuit board and held her breath. She flipped the eighth switch, and the ship plunged into darkness.

  * * *

  Easter Sunday, April 20, Year Three, 6:00 A.M.

  Valkerie

  Valkerie lay on her back, searching the darkness for a trace of sunlight. The slow “barbecue roll” that maintained the even heating of the surface of the ship had swept the sun across the porthole twenty-nine times since she’d woken up. One more dawn and she’d allow herself to check her watch.

  A faint glow lit the corner of her doorway. Close enough. She lit her watch. 6:02. She groaned out loud. She still had twenty-eight hours before her next check-in.

  “I can’t do this!” Her shout echoed through the empty ship. “Do you hear me? I can’t take it!” Her voice seemed dead, muted. Swallowed up by the emptiness of space.

  Valkerie yanked herself back down on her bunk and cinched the draw straps of her SRU tight around her. It seemed like she had been in the dark forever.

  In reality it had been less than two weeks, during which she’d had nothing to do but think. She couldn’t remember ever doing that in her life. She’d been so busy for so long. Now busyness would kill her. She had to lie still, use as little oxygen as possible. Think.

  She’d been thinking a lot. About her friends. Her family. The meaning of life. The existence of God. All the heavy stuff that well-rounded people were supposed to have a handle on. Good grief, when was the last time she’d spent much time thinking about any of those?

  Looking back on her last conversation with Bob, she realized that he and Kennedy and the others had somehow got the idea she was some kind of hyper-religious fundamentalist. She almost wished she was, almost wished she could have that kind of certainty. The reality was that she had a ton of doubts about all that. Faith had never come naturally to her.

  If there really was a God, if He really was the God of love, why was He letting this happen to her? Why the explosion? Why wasn’t Lex wearing her pressure suit? The whole universe seemed so cruel and heartless. Pain, death, destruction. This was supposed to be the fingerprint of a kind, loving God?

  It was easy to believe that it was all an accident. A tiny blip in a vast fabric of chaos. Maybe she was just a fleeting intermediate in an eternal series of chemical reactions. No reason, no design, no purpose. Complete and absolute futility. What did it matter that she was hurtling through space, alone in a leaky tin can? Who cared? Certainly not the physico-chemical universe. Did God care? If He did, then why was He leaving her rescue up to the laws of the universe? If they did manage to dock with the ERV, would it be fair for God to get the credit even though the laws of physics did all the work?

  And that was another thing. Physics and chemistry, they were at least predictable. Even biology was predictable—on a good day. If God was such a constant, why couldn’t you rely on Him to come through? Honestly, did she even know of a single time in her life where He had come through? Would a God who wanted people to know about Him really work so hard to cover His tracks with coincidence? Coincidence—another name for blind, random chance.

  But where did art and beauty fit in? Was it just a by-product of survival—organisms moving toward positive stimuli and away from the negative? What about love? Hormones to precipitate mating? Good and evil? Instincts evolved to increase the survival of the species? God, was it all just an illusion? Was it all wishful thinking? A fantasy we made up because we couldn’t deal with the futility of reality?

  “Okay, God, if you’re ever going to say something, now would be a really good time.” Valkerie flung out the words. “You’re the one who’s supposed to want the relationship. If it was worth a son, why isn’t it worth a few stinking words?”

  She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it … much.”

  “Arggh!” Valkerie balled her hands into fists. It didn’t make any sense. She had no rational reason to believe in God, but the irrational part wouldn’t let go. She took so much pride in being a rational, intelligent scientist, but she couldn’t shake the most irrational part of her life. Was it a psychosis? Her upbringing? It shouldn’t be. She hadn’t grown up Christian. Not really. The religion thing hadn’t kicked in for her family until her mom started going to the other church. But Mom had stopped drinking ...

  “God, I’m sorry. I just want to understand. It’s easy to believe in you when things are going well. I’m not even sure I want to believe anymore. God, if you’re there, convince me. Help me to understand. Help me to—”

  A dull thud echoed through the ship. Valkerie tore off her Velcro restraints and hurtled for the door. “Bob? Lex? Is that you?”

  She spun around the doorway and glided into Lex’s room. Lex hadn’t stirred. Valkerie started to check her vitals but was interrupted by another thud.

  “Bob? Kennedy?” She moved cautiously toward the door. “Bob?” She reached for the light switch, but of course it was dead. The corridor was lit by a few low-wattage LEDs. Barely enough light to find the doorways. Valkerie paused at Bob’s door and searched the gloom within.

  A shadow lay stretched out on the bunk—like a cadaver.

  “Bob?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “God, I need some help. Please, please, please …”

  Bob wasn’t moving.

  Valkerie turned back to her room and grabbed her flashlight. It was supposed to be for emergencies, but this would have to do. She shined the light up and down the circular corridor and pushed toward Kennedy’s room. Pausing at the door, she searched the entire room with the light. Kennedy was still there.

  “Kennedy?” She gripped the flashlight like a club and steadied herself in the doorway. No movement. She crept toward him, holding her flashlight out in front of her like a talisman. Still no movement. She reached out a cautious hand and checked his pulse. Nothing. She tried the carotid. It was faint but steady.

  Valkerie took a deep breath. Must have been thermal expansion—or something. Whatever it was, it certainly got her worked up. She played the light across the IV bag and checked the battery-driven pump and tube connections. While she was checking the needle, she noticed some red blotches on the fingers of Kennedy’s left hand. “That’s odd. Why didn’t I notice that before?” His index and middle fingers seemed to be broken out in some kind of a rash.

  An image leapt to her mind. Kennedy reaching his finger into the small micrometeorite crater in the foam hull of the ship. Ridiculous. He was wearing gloves. Decontamination was just a precaution. Nothing could survive the cold vacuum of space. It was a rash, that’s all. She’d keep an eye on it and report it at her next check-in.

  Valkerie checked her watch eagerly. 6:10. Great… She’d made it a whole eight minutes. Only twenty-seven hours and fifty minutes to go.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Wednesday, April 30, Year Three, 11:00 A.M.

  Valkerie

  “OKAY, BOB, LET’S SAY YOU’RE right. Say love is irrational. Does that mean you could love somebody you hate? Could you love somebody you were trying to hurt? If that’s true, what does love really mean? Is it a hormonal addiction brought on by familiarity? What about love at first sight?” Valkerie sat in the dark, holding Bob’s hand to her cheek.

  “Okay, maybe that’s hormones. But what about the love you feel for a stranger? Somebody of the same sex? Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever met somebody and known right off that you were going to be friends?”

  An ache stabbed through Valkerie’s heart. Gina-Marie Davis. She had only known her for two months, but that was more than enough time to cement a friendship that would last a lifetime. What was Gina-Marie doing right now? Worrying? What had NASA told the newspapers? Did the people know the Ares 10 astronauts were going to die?

  “Why couldn’t I have had a sister? Even a brother? Why did he have to die?” Danny Jansen. He was only four years old when he died. Fo
ur years old and cute as a kitten.

  “No offense, God, but your universe really sucks!” Valkerie felt immediately uneasy. What if Houston were listening in? What if they had active microphones on board to monitor her condition?

  “Hear that, Harrington?” Valkerie shouted at the ceiling. “I’m cracking up. If you’re wasting our power listening to this, the least you could do is let me receive messages as well. Gina-Marie Davis. She’s a postdoc at MIT. Couldn’t I talk to her? What about my father? Just ten minutes. Is that too much to ask?”

  Valkerie released Bob’s hand and pushed off for the command station. She had a transmitter. What was Harrington going to do, fire her? She felt for the transmitter switches. This was an emergency, wasn’t it? If she couldn’t talk to anyone, she was going to pound a hole in the hull with her forehead. That definitely qualified as an emergency.

  Valkerie fingered the switches nervously. What if there wasn’t enough power? What if they ran out of oxygen before the ERV could dock? Sorry about that, Bob. You’ll just have to hold your breath. I blew all our power on a long-distance call.

  Valkerie pushed away from the switches and headed for the dining area. She wasn’t hungry, but maybe a snack would help anyway. She grabbed her flashlight and dug through the packets in the food bin, ignoring the names on the labels. Here it was. Blueberries and cream. Ohta 4-17. Lex wouldn’t mind. She had already missed that meal anyway.

  Valkerie carried the packet to the hydration station and stabbed through the valve with the needle. Two and a half ounces of water—a half ounce less than called for. She shook the packet impatiently and retrieved her plastic spoon.

  Good enough. She peeled back the foil top and took a bite.

  It tasted like rotten mushrooms.

  “Gross!” Valkerie spat the food into her hand. She pulled out her light and checked her spoon. She had been a little lax about washing lately, but it looked fine. Maybe it was a bad packet.

  Valkerie dug through the bin and found Kennedy’s packet of blueberries and cream. She added water and tasted it, not waiting for the blueberries to hydrate.

  Rotten mushrooms again—if anything, the taste was even more intense.

  “Don’t tell me the food is going bad.” Or even worse ... She dispensed some water into a clear plastic bag and shined her light on it. It was definitely cloudy. She dipped a finger in and tasted it. Rotten mushrooms.

  “No ...” Valkerie plunged down the stairwell and pushed her way to the lab. The bioreactor filled the corner of the room. A huge incubator filled with layer upon layer of filters and bacterial cultures. She turned on her microscope and dotted a slide with a sample from the effluent.

  Sure enough. The sample was crawling with bacteria.

  She flipped to a higher magnification.

  “Huh?” The bacteria were too small. Too conical. She’d never seen anything like them. Valkerie flipped to an even higher power. They certainly weren’t from the bioreactor ecosystem. Where had they come from?

  A scraping noise made her jump. It seemed to come from the next bay. Valkerie sucked in her breath. Nothing to worry about. It was just the ship. Uneven expansion of the floor or a wall panel. She aimed her flashlight at the door and waited for the sound to repeat itself. Of course it wouldn’t. She was being ridiculous.

  Valkerie crept toward the door and beamed her light through the corridor. Nothing. The sound had come from the right, but she took the left loop. Might as well rule the other rooms out first. She moved slowly around the circular corridor, checking each room with her light. Nothing.

  By the time she arrived at the decontamination room, Valkerie was feeling better. She played the light about the room. Nothing but the lockers and decontamination equipment. There was nothing to worry about. It was a ping—uneven expansion.

  Valkerie inspected the blowers and then each locker in turn. When she came to Kennedy’s locker, she hesitated. She opened up the top compartment and poked her flashlight at his gloves. They tumbled in the air, revealing a slight discoloration on the fingertips—the fingertips of the left glove.

  They’d never decontaminated the gloves. They’d been too busy with the explosion. There hadn’t been time.

  “Impossible!” Valkerie scolded herself. The micrometeorite didn’t even penetrate. It couldn’t have been bigger than a couple of grains of sand. And what about the vacuum? The radiation?

  Valkerie pushed the gloves back into the locker with her flashlight, careful not to touch them with her hands. Not that they could really be contaminated. That was absurd. But hadn’t somebody found a Bacillus bacterium inside a salt crystal two thousand feet underground? The spores had remained viable after 250 million years.

  Kennedy’s rash. His erratic behavior. The water. Valkerie slammed the locker shut. Her light was beginning to fade. She pushed off for the door and started up the stairwell. No. The microscope. She had forgotten to turn it off. Reluctantly, she turned herself around and pulled herself back down the stairs. Her flashlight was a dull orange spark. She switched it off and pushed her way into the lab, guided by the light of the microscope.

  Valkerie switched off the microscope, and the room went black. “Okay God… Help me not—”

  A faint groan sounded right behind her. She fumbled for her flashlight and turned it on, but the orange spark faded immediately to black.

  * * *

  Thursday, May 1, Year Three, 7:00 P.M.

  Nate

  Nate’s phone rang just as he was about to leave for the day. Carol was already gone. Nate grabbed the phone. “Harrington.”

  “Mr. Nate Harrington? The Mars Mission Director?”

  “Yes, this is Nate Harrington. What can I do for you?”

  “Um, I’m sorry ... you don’t know me, but ... I mean, I saw you on the news last night and I’ve been trying to work up my nerve all day to call you.”

  Nate drummed his fingers on the desk.

  “Anyway, my name is Sarah McLean, and ... well, you were asking for me to call you.”

  Nate sat up straight, his mind instantly racing. “Yes, thank you for calling, Miss McLean.”

  “Actually, I’m a Mrs.”

  “Beg pardon, Mrs. McLean.”

  “It’s Mrs. Laval now.”

  Nate blinked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “My maiden name was Sarah McLean. You were asking on TV for anyone by that name who knows Bobby to call you.”

  “And I take it you know him.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “You guess?” Nate leaned back in his chair. This had the feel of a crackpot call, but he might as well play it out. In three weeks of digging, nobody in NASA had been able to figure out anything about the mysterious Sarah McLean. “Mrs. ... Laval, may I ask how well you know Dr. Kaganovski?”

  “We were engaged to be married.”

  Nate’s brain started buzzing. Kaggo? Engaged? Why didn’t he ever say anything about that? “Oh.”

  “So, um ... why did you want me to call?”

  Nate gave a short laugh. “Well, actually, I’m hoping you can help me figure that out. As you know, Bob Kaganovski is on his way to Mars—”

  “Mr. Harrington, is he going to make it?” Sarah’s voice quivered.

  “We think so,” Nate said. “It’s going to be very tight, but as long as nothing goes wrong, our lifeboat plan has a good chance.”

  “I’ll be praying that nothing will go wrong. God loves Bobby. He’ll take care of him. You’ll see.”

  Nate was beginning to see some other things. “Sarah, I have a sort of private message from … Bobby to you. He asked specifically that we should tell you this.”

  “Yes?” Sarah sounded breathless.

  Hold on a minute, Harrington. How do we know this isn’t the National Enquirer calling?

  “Um, Mrs. Laval, I hope you won’t mind, but I kind of need to make sure you are who you say you are.”

  “But ... who else would I be?”

  �
��Well, that’s just the point. You could be anybody, and ... this is a very personal message from Bob. Is there any way we can verify your identity?”

  “He’s still mad at me, isn’t he?”

  “What?” Nate studied the slip of paper. Tell Sarah that I forgive her.

  Silence. Then the sound of quiet crying.

  “Mrs. Laval?”

  “I’ll call you back.” The woman hung up.

  Nate stared at the phone in his hand.

  She’d been blocking Caller ID.

  I didn’t get her number. Her hometown. Nothing. What a hash I’ve made of this.

  * * *

  Friday, May 2, Year Three, 10:00 A.M.

  Valkerie

  Valkerie dumped an armload of food packets into the supply bin in Bob’s room and unhooked the oxyacetylene torch from her belt, transferring it to her left hand. With her right hand she adjusted the three flashlights at her belt. No way was she going to be caught in the dark again—especially not downstairs. That noise had scared her to death. Thermal ping or not, her head was still ringing from her collision with the hatch door.

  Valkerie tied a cargo net across Bob’s open door and tested it to make sure nothing bigger than a kitten could get through. Not that she was worried, but why deny herself a little peace of mind? There was precious little peace of mind to go around these days. Besides, there was always the possibility that Kennedy’s IV would come loose while she slept. In her state of mind, if she woke up to an unexpected encounter with him, she’d light him up like a torch.

  “Okay, Bob. I’m going to get a little snack. Mind if I eat your apple pie?” Valkerie rummaged through the packets, searching for a package that was prehydrated. She hefted a small packet. It felt like apple pie—or was it a little heavier? It was so hard to tell without gravity. She opened the packet and the smell of cold beef stew filled the room. Great. Not exactly what she wanted, but she’d have to eat it anyway. Most of the packets were dehydrated, and she needed the water bad.