by John Olson
Nate appeared at Josh’s elbow. “Just what did you think you were doing?”
He put on his blankest expression. “Excuse me?”
Nate glowered at him. “There was no reason to say anything that might upset the crew. We need to be able to have frank and full discussions here without every word getting reported to the crew.”
They spent forty‑five minutes arguing in whispers about the rights of the crew to know what was going on. Then Kennedy’s response came back through.
Josh shrugged at Nate. “See? Did they sound worried? They’re going on an EVA.”
“Kaggo didn’t check off,” Nate growled.
“He’s fine. I know Bob. If something was bothering him, he’d speak up.”
Perez walked into the FCR. “Nate? Ms. Yamaguchi just arrived in your office. You and I need to discuss something with her.”
Nate stalked out.
Josh felt his whole body turn cold. Great, in Nate’s current mood, he was probably going to tell Yamaguchi to throw him in the clink.
“Josh, could I talk to you for a second?” Cathe’s low voice.
Josh turned to face her. Her smile looked calm, but Josh could tell she was upset—something about the way she couldn’t stop fidgeting with her hands. “Sure. What’s up?”
“In private?” she whispered, glancing to one of the FCR doors.
“I really need to hang right here until the shift ends.” Josh checked his watch. 3:30. “Can it wait till five?”
She hesitated and then nodded. “Right after the next crew comes in, okay?”
* * *
Josh’s heart pounded wildly as he followed Cathe outside. As soon as they were clear of the building, he reached a hand to her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
She turned slowly toward him and his heart sank. A stream of tears ran down her cheek.
“Cathe ...” He started to reach for her, but his arms froze in sudden indecision. “What’s wrong?”
“You told them, didn’t you?”
“About the bacteria? Yes. I had to.”
“And?” She bit her lip, looking up at him with more feeling than he had ever dared to imagine.
“I, uh ... It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. They’re leaving me as Flight Director until we get the crew back.”
“But what if they don’t come back?”
“They will. I told Nate and Perez it was my bacteria that was making them sick.”
“But you know it’s not—” Her voice broke.
“It’s okay.” Josh stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms. “It’s okay. They’re going to prosecute me after the mission, but I’m okay with that. I deserve it. Besides. It was either me or Kennedy and, well ... Kennedy may be a schmuck, but he didn’t sabotage the mission.”
“Kennedy would have let you hang.” Cathe’s muffled voice sounded under Josh’s chin. “He’d even volunteer to hold the rope. He’s a raving psychopath.”
“He is not—” Josh pulled back from Cathe and stared. No.
“I’m serious. What kind of a guy would frame his best friend for terrorism?”
No, no, no, no. Josh spun around to orient himself.
“Josh, what? What’s going on?”
Josh whipped out his cell phone and selected Nate’s number.
“Harrington.” Nate’s voice sounded strained.
“Nate, is Ms. Yamaguchi with you?”
“This isn’t a good time, Josh.”
“Nate, I need to talk with her right now. I need her to open that room with all the stuff they took from Kennedy’s apartment.”
“Josh, it’s a really bad—”
“I don’t have time! She can arrest me tonight. I don’t care. But I want her over at that room in ten minutes. I’ve got a hunch and I need to check it out.” Josh hung up. “Come on, Cathe. If I’m right, and I hope I’m wrong—”
“Would you please tell me what’s going on?” She tugged at his arm as he led the way.
“I just had a bad thought. Real bad.” Josh wouldn’t say any more until they arrived at the room. This was crazy. He didn’t even dare think it, much less say it.
When Nate and Yamaguchi arrived, Josh and Cathe were leaning against the door.
It took all of Josh’s self‑control to not yell at them for taking so long.
Yamaguchi wore a look of righteous fury. She wouldn’t even look at Josh as she unlocked the door, but she didn’t pull out any handcuffs, and that was way more than he deserved.
Josh signed in and went to the file cabinets. He yanked open the third drawer and began tossing books onto the desk. “Help me put them in order. Alphabetical by title. Try to group them by subject matter.”
As he finished pulling out all the books, he heard Cathe gasp. He looked at the stack and started to read the titles. “Abnormal and Clinical Psychology. Abnormal Behavior. Abnormal Behavior: Perspectives in Conflict. Abnormal—”
“Starting to see a pattern?” Josh opened one of the books and searched through the table of contents—a laundry list of psychological aberrations.
Cathe picked up another book and started thumbing through its pages. “You’ve read the transcripts. Did he ever try to make the shrinks think you were crazy?”
“Nope. That’s what’s worrying me.” Josh flipped through the pages. Searching for scribbled notes. Highlights. Anything.
“Uh‑oh.” Cathe breathed close to his ear. She pointed to a section on delusional disorders. The part on paranoia was highlighted with razor‑sharp fluorescent yellow.
“Great. And all this time I thought Bob was just being jealous.” Josh threw open his book and ran a finger down the index. Delusional disorders. Page 378. He flipped through the pages and stopped at a bright yellow patch. As far as he could tell it was the only highlighted section in the book.
Agent Yamaguchi stood at the door, her lips pursed in white fury. “Mr. Bennett, would you care to enlighten us on what you think you’ve discovered?”
Nate put his hand on her shoulder. “Crystal, as I told you—”
“Nate, please tell me Bob and Lex haven’t started their EVA yet.”
Nate looked at Josh, frowning. “Too late. They’ve been out almost an hour now.”
Josh jumped to his feet. “Call them back. You’ve got to call them back!”
“What?”
“And get Dr. Abrams and his shrink squad to the FCR as quick as possible.”
Nate crossed his arms. “Josh, could you explain things for us mere mortals? Because if you can’t, I think Crystal wants to take you into custody right now.”
“While you guys are playing cops and robbers,” Cathe said, “maybe you could think about what might happen if you mixed together hypervigilance, Mars Madness, and”—she looked at Josh, and he nodded—“paranoid delusional disorder.”
Nate stared from Cathe to Josh. “You two are nuts.”
“No, we aren’t. But Kennedy is.” Josh pulled the phone out of Nate’s shirt pocket. “Make the call, Nate. Then bake me into a fruitcake or whatever you have to do. I don’t care. But don’t leave Valkerie alone in that Hab with Kennedy.”
Chapter Fifteen
Wednesday, March 25, 1:00 p.m., Mars Local Time
Bob
THE ROVER TIPPED FORWARD AND jounced down a steep incline. Bob blinked his eyes. “Oops!” He gripped the wheel hard and took his foot off the accelerator.
“Easy there, Kaggo!” Lex’s voice sounded white‑knuckle tense.
They reached the bottom of the grade, and the rover slowed to normal speed.
“Sorry,” Bob said. “Kind of lost focus there for a minute.”
“You’ve been spacing out since we left. What is with you today?”
“Just ... daydreaming.”
Lex pointed to a spot about a kilometer away. “That’s the edge of the bluff. Approach it slowly, okay?”
“Gotcha.” Bob slowed the rover to a few kilometers per hour and concentrated on his driving. Focus. Stay
on task. Don’t think about ... anything else.
Which was hard, because there was a lot to worry about. Valkerie was better now. Kennedy too, more or less. They were over the worst of it. But what if they had a relapse? What if Lex got it? Bob shivered. What if he did? Then there was the question of those ... things Valkerie had been hearing and seeing. There hadn’t been another episode, but Bob was scared. If something happened to Valkerie’s mind ...
And Kennedy. What if something didn’t happen to his mind? Bob had been hoping that the enforced vacation would have knocked some sense into him. Pulled him out of the little pit he’d been digging himself into. But if anything, it had made him worse. More morose. More paranoid. More distant. More distant with everyone but Valkerie, that is. It was so obvious. Why couldn’t Valkerie see—
“Bob!”
He jerked back to awareness, then hit the brakes. The edge of the canyon shuddered to a stop five meters in front of the rover.
“You’re not getting a fever, are you?” Lex put a hand on his forehead, then shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
“Well ... focus!”
“Right.” Bob set the parking brake and cut the engine. He fumbled around for his helmet, found it, popped it on his head, then tried to latch it down.
Lex reached over and rotated it thirty degrees, sealed it, then flicked on his UHF comm link. “Lex, comm check.”
“Loud and clear,” Bob said. “Comm check.”
“Loud and clear.” Lex stood up. “Okay, let’s get out there and do some science, big guy. And if you would be so good as to keep your brains on this planet, in this location, on this task, I would be much obliged.”
“Gotcha. Ready to roll.” He stood and followed her to the airlock. They were running the rover at 5 PSI pure oxygen, so there was no need for prebreathing. Two minutes later, they stepped out onto the regolith.
“You’re the boss,” Bob said. “What’s first?”
Lex led the way to the edge of the canyon. “Right down there is where we found the halobacteria. You can see where we dug out, right there.”
“I ... think I see it,” Bob said. “I see what you mean by salt deposits.”
“I’m going to rappel down and dig out the entrance to that cave some more, then check around inside for water,” Lex said. “And a thermal vent. That halobacteria is geologically recent, and it couldn’t have thrived here without an energy source.” She went around to the side of the rover and hefted out the MoleBot.
“What do you want me to do?” Bob said.
She pinched his helmet with her gloved hands. “Sit here and look pretty.”
“No, really.”
“You stay up here and ride shotgun on the winch and be ready to send me down stuff when I need it.”
Lex pulled out the water‑detector system and checked the battery. “All right, I’ve got enough juice to scan for at least a couple hours. And I’ve got oxygen for nominally six and a half hours, which probably means three if I have to do any heavy digging. Grab me another O2 bottle and a battery, will you?”
Bob went into the rover and came back with an extra oxygen tank and a battery pack. He bundled it all together with the MoleBot in a padded bag. Lex had strapped on the power supply for her water detector and tested the system, which looked a lot like one of those weed‑whacker things people with lawns used back on Earth.
“Okay, let’s get moving. We’ve got a good five hours before sundown.” Lex hitched a winch line to the ring at her belt and backed up to the edge of the canyon, pulling her line tight. “See ya in a while, Kaggo. Stay on this planet, okay?” She pressed a button on her winch controller and stepped back over the edge as the line began paying out.
Bob attached a second winch line to the bag of goodies and lugged it to the canyon edge. Lex was already halfway down, bounding off the rocky wall every twenty feet or so.
He hit the winch controller button and watched the padded bag descend the wall.
When it reached the bottom, Lex waved up at him. “Thanks, Kaggo. I’ll keep you posted when I get this cave dug out some.”
“Roger that.” He backed away from the edge and began pacing beside the rover. When Lex got going on something, she usually reported in once an hour. If that. They were going to be out here for five hours? He was gonna go stark‑raving, flipped‑out bonkers worrying about Valkerie.
* * *
Wednesday, March 25, 1:30 p.m., Mars Local Time
Valkerie
Valkerie sat across the table from Kennedy, pretending to read an e-book on her phone under the scrutiny of his unblinking gaze.
Kennedy stood suddenly and began pacing the floor. Every few minutes he stopped and glanced down the stairwell. He looked flushed.
Was he was running another fever? “Why don’t you get some rest?” Valkerie studied him carefully. “They won’t be back for hours.”
He looked long and hard at his watch, then resumed his pacing.
She put down her phone. Where had his sudden burst of energy come from? It was driving her crazy. “Kennedy, are you okay? Do you feel feverish?”
He looked at his watch again and shrugged. Before she could probe, he turned around and disappeared into the corridor. His footsteps stopped somewhere near the door to his room.
Valkerie picked up her phone and went back to the novel she’d been trying to read all week. Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian. Talk about creepy.
A door slammed.
Valkerie jumped out of her seat.
Another door opened and slammed. Another.
What was going on now? She edged to the corridor.
Kennedy stared back at her from the dark hallway, looking her up and down like a wolf sizing up its prey. He put a finger to his lips and stepped toward her.
Valkerie backed slowly away into the commons.
“Shhhh. Not yet!”
She started at his sharp whisper.
Without taking his eyes off her, he sidled across the room and disappeared into the stairwell. The Hab shuddered with a series of crashes on the steps.
Had he fallen? Valkerie crept to the stairwell. “Kennedy?” She peeked her head inside the hatch. “Kennedy?”
Slams and clatters echoed up the stairwell.
Valkerie tiptoed down the stairs and peered cautiously through the hatch.
Kennedy was in the suit room, searching through the lockers. A jumble of EVA suits lay on the floor. The airlock beyond was braced shut with a steel pipe.
“Kennedy, what are you doing?” She hurried to the airlock door and wrestled the pipe free of the hatch wheel.
Kennedy wheeled around and stared at her with a sickly smile. “It’s okay. I’ve checked both decks. They’re gone.”
The pipe slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. “Who’s gone? Bob and Lex? Of course they’re gone.”
“If they really went to the bacteria site, they should be gone for at least another five hours.”
“What do you mean, if they really went? Where else would they go?”
He shrugged, a low laugh rumbling in his chest. “I don’t know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
A shiver of fear danced up Valkerie’s spine. There was something about his voice. Something about the way he looked at her. “Kennedy”—she tried to control her voice—”why don’t we go upstairs and talk about this? Okay?”
Kennedy flashed her his signature cocky smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you. I won’t let them get you.”
“Let who get me?”
“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Kennedy took a step toward her. He leaned forward, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “Which one do you think? No more codes. Nobody’s here but you and me.” His breath smelled like rotting flesh.
Valkerie shrank back from him.
“Bob may be a good mechanic, but he’s dumber than a pithed possum when it comes to codes.” Kennedy advanced another step. “I almost laughed myself silly last time you were doing it.
He didn’t have a clue what you were really saying.”
“And what was I really saying?” Valkerie backed against the airlock door. Her body went rigid. She looked along the floor. Where was the pipe she had dropped just a minute ago?
“What you’re saying right now.” Kennedy put out his arms and braced them on either side, penning her in. “Look at you. You want me so bad, you’re shaking like a leaf. I’m shaking too.” He leaned his face closer to hers.
She could feel the heat radiating from his fevered brow. “Kennedy, you’re sick. You have a fever. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing, all right.” He brought his face closer to hers and then lunged.
Valkerie ducked and tried to dodge under his arms.
He grabbed her shoulders and slammed her into the airlock door. The hatch wheel caught her below the shoulder blades, and her head snapped back into the wall with a sickening crack. Kennedy’s face receded into a dark tunnel.
“Want to play rough?” A sharp slap across her left cheek exploded the room into focus. “Don’t think I was fooled. I knew all along it was you.” Kennedy’s left fist jabbed forward and connected with her right eye, spinning Valkerie into the wall.
She slid down the polished surface and crumpled into a heap on the floor.
“Know how I knew?” His voice sounded remote, like the memory of a long‑forgotten dream. “You gave yourself away, that’s how. Pretending you wanted Bob. But I could tell.”
Valkerie rolled onto her back and looked up. Kennedy’s distorted face filled her vision. Her groping hand closed around something metallic and cylindrical.
“I knew it was me you wanted. Not Bob.” Kennedy leaned in closer.
She jabbed the bar up as hard as she could into his solar plexus.
Kennedy made a retching noise and staggered back, clutching his belly.
She rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled for the door.
Behind her, Kennedy crashed to the floor, screaming obscenities.
Valkerie pushed up onto her feet and slammed into a wall. Grasping the pipe, she staggered toward the suit‑room door.