Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  Kennedy gave her a knowing look and then turned to Bob. “Nothing, I was just about to ask Valkerie to help me in the outdoor greenhouse tomorrow when she’s through with the last of the sequencing. What do you think, Valkerie? Mind giving me a hand?” He gave her an almost imperceptible nod and a wink.

  What in the world is this about? “Sure, I guess.” She looked up at Bob.

  His eyes went wide, then he fixed Kennedy with a glare. No doubt about it. What she saw on Bob’s face was anger. Raw and undisguised. Veins bulged at his neck. His whole frame seemed to shake. Just when Valkerie thought he was about to strike out at Kennedy, Bob turned and hurried from the room.

  She sighed and began scooping equipment back into the plastic pan. This whole med exam thing was a charade, and she didn’t see the point of playing it any longer. So Kennedy’s glue was a little soft. Big deal. She’d been telling Flight Med that for months. The one who really worried her wasn’t Kennedy—it was Bob.

  Chapter Eight

  Thursday, March 19, 11:45 a.m., Mars Local Time

  Bob

  “OKAY, BOB, THIS IS GOING to be kind of short, but I can fix it.” Lex stood behind Bob, but he could hear the frown in her voice. “Sort of fix it. Next time, don’t let Kennedy near your hair.”

  “I thought—” Bob stopped. Lex wouldn’t understand.

  “Thought what?” Lex sprayed water on Bob’s hair and worked it in with her fingers.

  “Oh, nothing. Just wanted to talk guy‑talk with him. You know.”

  “Meaning you wanted to talk about women.”

  Of course not. Kennedy had wanted to talk about women. About Valkerie. Bob had wanted to talk sports. The weather. Whatever. Guy‑talk. And, oh yeah, are you the jerk who’s jamming the Deep Space Network?

  Lex grabbed the scissors. “Now be good. This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.” She began snipping hair.

  Bob closed his eyes so he couldn’t see his reflection in the small mirror set at a crazy angle on the workbench. A sound brought his eyes open, and he saw Lex close the door to the workshop. What... ?

  Lex lowered her voice. “Kaggo, can I ask you something personal?”

  He didn’t say anything. She was going to ask no matter what he said.

  “What’s going on with you and Valkerie?”

  Bob took a deep breath and held it. He didn’t want to talk about that.

  “Let it out, Bob. Something’s bugging you bad, and it’ll help to unload it. My lips are sealed, I promise.”

  “Have you noticed how much time Kennedy spends with Valkerie?” The words were out before he could stop himself. Oh well, in for a penny ... “He’s always hauling her to one of the greenhouses, or wanting to help her when she’s on kitchen duty. I mean, it’s not like Kennedy to be so eager to work, right? And then that stunt with the flower yesterday. First flower on Mars. Big deal, right? But he made it a big deal. He makes me sick, just watching him.” Bob closed his eyes. There. He’d said it.

  “Hey, Kaggo, I’ll ask the question again, and this time maybe you’ll answer it. What’s going on with you and Valkerie?”

  Huh? Bob turned his head to look at her. “Didn’t I just—”

  “Bob! I can’t cut your hair when you squirm like that! I almost cut off your ear!”

  “Great, that’s just what Kennedy said. What is this, a conspiracy?”

  Lex stopped snipping and hit him with a chunk of silence.

  “Hey, Lex, that was a joke. Right?”

  “You say so.” Lex spent several minutes just trimming.

  Finally Bob couldn’t stand it any longer. “Valkerie doesn’t even like Kennedy, right?”

  Lex slammed down the scissors and walked around in front of Bob. “Mars to Kaggo, come in! I’m talking about you and her. Why are you talking about him and her?” She mussed up Bob’s hair with both hands, grinning. “Now spill. You and Valkerie were out in the commons last night doing something. And then she shrieks like she’s trying to raise the dead. I come running, and what do I find? You with your arms around her, and she’s freaking out. And if you think that cock‑and‑baloney story she made up about something scary outside ... Well, come on! There weren’t any tracks out there this morning. What did you do to her?”

  Bob just stared at Lex. “I ... care for her. I really admire who she is and what she is. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

  “She didn’t sound like she was being admired. She sounded upset. Really upset.” Lex folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Listen up, Kaggo. Valkerie’s my friend—maybe the first honest‑to-God woman friend I’ve ever had. So don’t give me this nonsense about how you care for her, like she’s a car or something. Women don’t just want to be cared for. They don’t want to be admired from afar. And that old song about how girls just wanna have fun—you heard that one? That’s a lie. A girl wants to be loved, Kaggo. So you just listen to mean old Lex. You either start acting like you love her or you back off, ‘cause you’re making her crazy. You keep messing with her head, and I’m gonna kick you right into orbit. You got that?”

  Bob swallowed hard. “Sure, Lex. I got it.” Except I promised last night to back off. All the way off, until we get back to Earth. And I’m going to keep that promise.

  Lex smiled and pinched his cheek. “She likes you, big guy, but I think she wants to be chased some first. So you just pursue and pursue and pursue, all right?”

  “Um ... right.” Bob stood up and grabbed the mirror. “Are we done here?”

  “You’re done for the next six months.” Lex whacked him with a comb. “Now get out there and give chase.”

  Bob just sat there. Right. Give chase. Fat chance.

  “Kaggo, here’s a thought.” Lex backed up to the door to cut off his escape until the lecture was over. “We’re starting to get low on food in the pantry, and I just saw on the sat‑pix that there’s a dust storm picking up down at the South Pole. Somebody needs to go get a bunch more food from our stash in the other Hab. How about you and Valkerie do that tomorrow morning? Take the rover, go over there, and ... don’t rush. Just talk. Be natural. Okay?”

  “Sure, Lex.” Bob grinned at her. “Thanks.”

  She stepped aside. “Good luck, big guy.”

  Bob opened the door and went out. The sound of water running upstairs in the galley meant Valkerie was on kitchen duty for lunch. Maybe he could go help her. Yeah, that would be the ticket. Just kind of talk while they worked together. That’d be natural. He could just be friendly. That wouldn’t break his promise. It would be a nice, fresh start.

  Bob started up the stairs, then jerked to a halt at a different sound drifting from the kitchen. Kennedy’s voice. Laughter. Kennedy and Valkerie laughing together.

  A surge of anger pumped through Bob’s veins. Clenching his fists, he ran up the stairs two at a time. What did Kennedy think he was doing? Bob stopped at the top of the stairs. No. Valkerie was talking now. He couldn’t just barge in on them. What would she think? It wasn’t a crime to talk. Was it?

  Bob slipped through the hatch and circled back through the corridor to his room. He shut the door and collapsed onto his cot. What was wrong with him? Hypervigilance. That has to be it. But was that all? Or was he losing his mind the old‑fashioned way? One brick at a time. He lay on his back and tried to breathe deeply. In through his nose, out through his mouth. Big breaths. From the diaphragm.

  A hoarse sigh shivered down his spine. Bob sucked in his breath and held it. A rasping hiss sounded in his ears. The sound of breathing. Kennedy’s breathing. Bob jumped up and looked in his closet, but nobody was there. Of course not. Kennedy was in the galley.

  He slumped back down on his cot, listening. The breathing intensified to a pant. Louder and louder until it echoed off the walls and merged with the sound of Bob’s own panicked breath.

  We’ve all been running on too many volts for way too long. We’re all going bonkers at once. Every one of us.

  * * *

 
Thursday, March 19, 1:00 p.m., CST

  Josh

  Josh punched the elevator button. He was going to get to the bottom of this, no matter what.

  Cathe Willison puckered up her nose. “I can’t believe all those files were so ...” She threw her hands in the air.

  “Immaculate?” Josh looked at her as they reached the fifth floor and the chrome doors chinged open.

  “Obsessive.”

  “He’s a Navy pilot. They stay alive by being obsessive.” Josh turned right and led the way to the double doors separating the world at large from the astronauts’ offices. “Ever been in the inner sanctum?” He punched in the combination on the metal buttons and pushed open the door. He stole a glance to see if she was one of those astro‑groupies who thought this was Mecca.

  She seemed oblivious to it all. “I had a weird aunt who was obsessive like that,” Cathe said. “You know, every pencil lined up just so. Every shoe, every blouse, every towel. I bet even the cockroaches marched in formation.”

  Josh walked down the aisle and turned right to the offices of the Ares 10 Prime Crew. Nothing had changed in over a year. The first door had a little name tag beside it in Bakelite letters: Kennedy Hampton. Josh pushed the door open.

  Cathe gasped.

  The place was a mess. A ramshackle mound of papers a foot deep perched on the desk. A paperback novel lay on the chair, half its pages coming loose from the cracked binding. Stacks of manuals littered the floor. Josh opened a filing cabinet. Twinkie wrappers covered the front half of the drawer. Loose papers were jammed into the back part.

  Cathe reached in and pulled a sheet out. It was an article about flight‑crew selection. The abstract was clumsily underlined in red ink. Comments scrawled their way down the margin.

  Josh stared at the chaos around them. What was going on here? “This is really weird.”

  Cathe dropped the article on Kennedy’s chair. “Show me the other offices.”

  He opened Valkerie’s office next. A neat, feminine room. Pictures of an older man—Valkerie’s dad. Josh had met him once. Nice guy. There was one picture of a young couple in wedding clothes. The styles and hair told Josh the photo had to be about forty years old. The young man smiling out was a younger version of Valkerie’s father. The woman was stunning—a twentyish version of Valkerie, but not quite Valkerie. That would be her mother. If Josh remembered correctly, she died when Valkerie was off at school.

  “Let’s try the other offices.” Cathe set down the Ares 10 flight team photo she’d been examining. “There’s nothing much here.”

  Lex’s office was next. It looked very Air Force fighter jock. Posters of planes. Pictures of Lex in a red uniform playing volleyball. A photo of an older Japanese woman. A couple of triathlon trophies.

  When they got to Bob’s office, Josh hesitated. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  Cathe shrugged. “It’s a fishing expedition. We’re looking for fish.”

  Josh pushed open the door. As he expected, it was neat. Not compulsive, just neat. Bob liked things orderly. He had posters of old cars on the walls. A photo of a candy‑apple red Mustang on the desk. A family portrait of a man and woman with Bob and a guy that had to be his brother. The brother looked—different. Like he was there but not really there. Bob wore his trademark goofy grin.

  “See any sharks?” Josh glanced at Cathe.

  She shook her head. “No surprises. Okay, I’m calibrated now. I know what normal is. Let’s look at Kennedy’s office again. I’m ready to try out his computer.”

  “Hang on. We can’t log on without administrator privileges.” Josh pulled out his cell phone and led the way back to the Hampster’s office. He punched in a number. It answered on the second ring.

  “Bruce Dickey here.”

  “Hey, buddy. Josh Bennett. I need a password for a machine over here in the astronaut offices. Kennedy Hampton’s old clunker.”

  Two minutes later, Josh typed in the administrator password, then held the chair out for Cathe. “Care to drive?”

  She plunked into the chair and adjusted its height. “First thing to do is to sort all files on his hard drive by date, going backward. That’ll tell us what he was up to just before launch.”

  She pulled up a search window and started typing.

  Josh cleared some papers off a chair and sat down to watch her work. Even if she didn’t find anything, it was a pretty good show. Lightning fast, efficient—and very easy on the eyes.

  Finally Cathe leaned back in her chair and licked her lips. “Okay, I see a ton of files—incredibly well organized. Are you sure this is the same guy who did the Twinkie‑wrapper decor for this office?”

  Josh nodded. “What about his applications? Do you want to check his e‑mail?”

  Cathe opened the e‑mail program and scanned it. “Wow. A separate folder for each person, organized hierarchically. He kept it all clean, but it’ll take a while to go through them all. But my hunch is that those passwords are for web sites. People either use the same on on everything or they use a different one for every site and have to write them down. I’m guessing he was using one-offs.”

  Josh nodded.

  She opened up Kennedy’s Web browser and opened the history folder. “Interesting!”

  Josh leaned forward, scanning. He gave Cathe a sideways glance. Interesting wasn’t the word. Suspicious was more like it. “He must have scrubbed it clean just before he left.”

  Cathe pulled down the Favorites menu. “Let’s see where he hangs out.”

  The Favorites menu looked innocuous enough. All the submenus were the defaults, except one. Cathe clicked on it. The submenu showed four entries, each just a number: 1. 2. 3. 4.

  Cathe selected 1. A window opened up to the EZMail Web site.

  Josh drummed his fingers on the desk. “What’s he up to? EZMail is pretty harmless. Why call it 1? Why not just label it EZMail?”

  “1, 2, 3, 4. Cute.” Cathe yanked out her phone and flicked it open. She typed in one of the numbers she had photographed from Kennedy’s notebook into the Username field. She tried the second number in the Password field.

  The screen changed. Your EZMail account is currently inactive, because you have not accessed it in 15 months. Would you like to reactivate it?

  Cathe clicked the Yes button.

  The screen changed again. There was nothing in the In Box or the Out Box. Cathe clicked on the Addresses button. Half a dozen entries popped up.

  Josh read the names out loud. “Kenji Hirota. Mitsuru Yamamoto.”

  “All Japanese,” Cathe said. “That’s odd. Does Kennedy have friends in the Japanese Space Agency?”

  “Not that I know of,” Josh said. “I’ve got friends there, but I don’t recognize any of these names.”

  Cathe expanded one of the nicknames. “This guy goes to Unpronounceable Technical University.”

  “Or he did a couple years ago.” Josh thought a moment. “Do a search for this guy. Let’s see where he is now.”

  Cathe typed in the first name, then pasted in the name of the university.

  The browser window filled with the first twenty entries. The first was titled “Résumé of Kenji Hirota.” Cathe clicked on it.

  Josh pulled his chair closer. Together, he and Cathe scanned down the résumé. The guy had recently graduated from his university and taken a job at Motorola in Tokyo. He was an electrical engineer, honors student. Interested in signal processing, wavelets, noise reduction—

  Josh stopped. Read again. Then he leaned back in his chair. Satellites.

  Cathe put her finger on the word and gave Josh a startled look. “Josh ...”

  “Bookmark this page, and let’s see what else this guy has on his Web site.” Josh grabbed a pad of paper and began taking notes.

  Cathe clicked on the guy’s Main Page. Josh began scribbling furiously on his paper. When he looked up, Cathe was leaning in close to the screen, her mouth hanging open. “Josh, what was the internal code name for the CommSats?”<
br />
  “Hermes,” Josh said.

  “No, that’s what AresCorp called it. What did we call it in‑house before we took delivery on it?”

  “Gabriel.”

  “Well, I think we’ve just found Lucifer.” Cathe pointed at an indistinct blob in the upper‑left corner of the onscreen schematic. “Because unless I’ve gone completely blind, the fine print there says GABRIEL.”

  Chapter Nine

  Friday, March 20, 6:30 a.m., Mars Local Time

  Valkerie

  VALKERIE LAY PERFECTLY STILL. THE tapping sounds had stopped, but whatever was making the noise was still there. Just outside the Hab wall. Waiting. Listening to her while she listened to it.

  Cold sweat ran down her face and soaked into her damp pillow. An involuntary shudder ran through her body.

  The tinkling sounds started again as if in response. As if the whole Hab was covered with tiny metallic spiders. Listening for her. Boring through the hull.

  “Bob!” Valkerie threw off the covers and stumbled from her cot.

  The night air hit her sweat‑drenched body like an arctic blast.

  “Bob!” Her voice was lost in the violence of the shivering fit that seized her. They had gotten through. They were inside the Hab. Valkerie flung open her door and staggered into the corridor. The tiny feet of a million spiders prickled across her skin. She could feel them boring into her stomach, injecting her with a fiery venom.

  She fell writhing to the floor, rolling over and over, screaming out the terror that welled up inside her.

  Hands grabbed her from every direction. Voices. Panicked screams.

  Valkerie fought to her hands and knees before a spasm of nausea convulsed her frame. She vomited again and again until, finally, weak and trembling, she let herself collapse into the hands that held her suspended above the floor.

  The voices receded to a distant whisper—a whisper that buoyed her up into the music of her name. She was Valkerie, and she would be just fine.