Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  “Worst case, Kennedy and Valkerie are dead.”

  Nate stared at Cathe. How could she say that with so little emotion?

  She met his stare. “Bob and Lex are trying to cover it up.”

  “Fine, and what’s the best case?”

  “The best case—” Josh leaned his elbows on the table, his face almost green. “The best case is that Valkerie and Kennedy are perfectly healthy, but Kennedy’s cracking up because of a condition he’s had and known about for years.”

  “I find that highly unlikely,” Frazier said.

  Abrams shook his head. “We don’t have enough data.”

  “Can we get a video signal from those cameras in the Hab?” Nate said. “All we’ve got to do is watch that for a few hours and see if Valkerie and Kennedy are up and about. Anyone see a problem with that?”

  “You mean other than the fact that the videocams are password‑protected by the Hab’s computers?” Cathe said.

  “Who’s the best Unix hacker?” Nate ground the question out.

  “EECOM,” said about six engineers simultaneously.

  Nate pointed to EECOM. “Okay, then, get in there and grab us some signal!”

  She nodded, grim‑faced, and sat down at a terminal. Cathe and the Gold Team CATO huddled behind her, whispering suggestions.

  Nate paced back and forth.

  Josh was shooting daggers at him with his eyes. “I’m telling you, Nate. The Hampster’s bonkers.”

  “Sure ... so bonkers that he managed to fool every shrink in this place for years. Come on, Josh. Paranoids don’t become fighter pilots. Be sensible.”

  Josh rewarded him with a look of shocked surprise.

  Now for torpedo number two. “The way I see it, Kennedy was boning up on psychology just in case he needed to get rid of another crew member. Hmmm ... Now, who do we know that’s paranoid enough to be classified as delusional? Funny, but the name Bob Kaganovski comes to mind. Kennedy’s chief competition at engineering.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thursday, March 26, 1:00 p.m., Mars Local Time

  Valkerie

  “ARES 7, THIS IS HOUSTON with an important message for Dr. Jansen and Commander Hampton. Please come in. Repeat. We must speak to Valkerie Jansen and Kennedy Hampton. Please come in—”

  Valkerie switched the radio back to local and eased down into her chair. The smell of Earl Grey filled the galley. She wrapped her hands around her teacup and brought it to her nose to breathe in the steam. Her head still felt like it had been trampled by a herd of water buffalo, but the smell of the tea made it better somehow. Like her father’s kiss when she had scraped a knee. She set her cup on the table and reached for the microphone. Bob and Lex ought to be about finished setting up the cameras in Kennedy’s Hab. “Bob, this is Valkerie. How are you and Lex doing over there?”

  Silence.

  “Bob, I’m serious. No playing around. Are you there?”

  Static rippled through the airwaves like a breeze through autumn leaves.

  Valkerie took a sip of tea and closed her eyes. What would it feel like to be back on Earth? Strolling through the woods with Bob on a fall day. The crush of fallen leaves. The smell of damp earth. She tried to imagine Bob running and laughing, free from the worries of day‑to‑day survival. Why couldn’t she see it? Why couldn’t she picture him having fun? The thought disturbed her. Could Bob imagine her having fun? They’d been under so much pressure for such a long time. When was the last time she’d allowed herself to relax? To be herself?

  Valkerie took another sip of tea. Bob had been spending a lot more time with Lex lately. Working in the shop. Taking care of her and Kennedy. What if he was tired of her? What if he was losing interest? The way she’d been treating him, she wouldn’t blame him. Ever since they’d landed, she’d been a very dull girl—professional, but dull.

  Valkerie picked up the microphone. “Bob, this is Valkerie. Are you there?”

  Nothing.

  They had probably switched off comm when they got to the other Hab. Probably. Either that or they were still busy disabling the Ares 10 CommSat radio transmitter and couldn’t respond. Or didn’t feel like bothering. For all Bob’s eager attentiveness and puppy‑dog devotion, once he focused on a project, he tended to tune everything else out. Especially when he was working on electronics. You practically had to use a crowbar to get his attention. Either that or say something really ... shocking.

  Valkerie’s heart started pounding in her chest.

  What if she told him how she felt about him? It was like Russian roulette, except that she had no idea how many bullets were in the gun. She picked up the mike and rested a finger on the transmitter switch for a long minute. What had she been so worried about all these months anyway? She let her finger slide off the switch. Didn’t she have the same right to pursue happiness as anyone else? What did it matter that she was on Mars? She’d already exceeded NASA’s expectations. What she did off the clock was nobody’s business but her own. Valkerie checked the transmitter to make sure it was still set to a local frequency.

  “Bob, I ... I really care ... for ... you. A lot.” She held her breath and listened over the drumming that pounded in her head.

  Nothing.

  Every crackle of static hit her like a kick to the stomach. He wasn’t answering. Had he heard her or not? What if he could hear but just wasn’t answering? What if his transmitter was broken? What if Lex had taken comm?

  “Lex, are you there? If you’re listening, don’t you dare breathe a word to Bob. Okay?”

  Static. Normal static.

  What was going on? They were supposed to stay in radio contact at all times. Had they turned their radios off? Surely they wouldn’t have turned them off on purpose? A disturbing thought bubbled up from the back of Valkerie’s mind. No, Lex is married. Bob is in love with me, not Lex. It was more likely that Kennedy ... No! That couldn’t be it. They were working, that’s all.

  “Bob, this is Valkerie.” Her voice quivered. “Please answer me!” She adjusted the gain on the receiver and flipped through the channels.

  Houston was still hailing on CommSat 1.

  Back to local ...

  A faint groan sounded through the hiss of static.

  “Bob? Is that you? Bob?” Valkerie was all but shouting into the mike.

  The volume of the static seemed to drop. Like someone was transmitting—but not saying a word.

  Valkerie took a deep breath. “Kennedy?”

  The silence closed around her, mocking her helplessness.

  “Kennedy, I know you’re listening ...”

  A crash sounded below her. From the first floor. Valkerie spun around to the stairwell hatch. She stood, rigid, straining with all her senses. “Bob?” Her whisper sounded pitiful and weak, even in the blanket of silence. “Bob?” Valkerie called out louder, trying to control the tremors that shook her voice.

  A faint groan sounded, then a loud clash of metal on metal. The groan seemed to be getting louder, as though someone was approaching the stairs.

  “Lex, is that you?” Valkerie scanned the room, searching for a crowbar, a hammer—anything. Where had she put that pipe? She ran to her room and unhooked the knee brace from the wall. The eighteen‑inch bar wasn’t very heavy, but it was better than nothing.

  She crept out of her room, holding the bar in front of her like a two‑handed sword.

  A dull thud—right below her. The sound of breaking glass.

  Valkerie crept toward the stairs. It was Kennedy. It had to be. Bob and Lex wouldn’t do this to her. They would have called out to her the minute they emerged from the airlock. She tiptoed down the stairs, pausing at each step. If the rover had docked with the Hab, she would have felt the jolt. And the airlock valves. Why hadn’t she heard the airlock hatch open? It usually made enough noise to wake the dead.

  But if it wasn’t Kennedy or the others, then who... ?

  Shivers ran a footrace up and down her spine as the implication hit her squar
e in the gut. She held her breath and strained her ears. Nothing.

  Don’t be ridiculous! There’s nothing on this planet but the four of us. No, what she was facing wasn’t some kind of alien entity. It was human. And if it was Kennedy, she might as well get it over with. Better for her to surprise him than the other way around. She stepped off the last step and hesitated at the open hatchway. Maybe she should wait for Bob and Lex. Maybe if she hid upstairs? If she locked herself in the bathroom ...

  No. She had to face facts. If Kennedy was here, there was a good chance ... Her throat tightened. Tears blurred her vision.

  Valkerie tightened her grip on the knee brace and stepped out into the hallway.

  Nothing.

  She looked around, then raced into the suit room and grabbed up the steel pipe they had been using as a lock for the airlock hatch. Gripping the bar like a baseball bat, she swung it through the air. If Kennedy tried anything, she’d knock him to home and beyond. Even if it meant finishing out her stay on Mars alone.

  “Kennedy!” Her scream echoed off the aluminum walls. She slammed her metal club into a wall panel. “Come out right now! Don’t make me look for you.” She strode out into the hallway and circled around the lower level, checking each room as she came to it. The supply bins, the EVA‑suit lockers, the shop—she checked every possible place he could be hiding.

  This was crazy. What did she think she was looking for? There were only three logical explanations for the noises. Either she was imagining things, or something had slipped and fallen, or it had been Kennedy. What else could it be? Mars was a barren, lifeless planet. Fossil or no fossil, the four of them were the only living beings on the planet. Valkerie stood up from the cable conduit she had been examining and stretched her back. Then, sweeping the room one more time for something she might have missed, she backed out of the shop and shut the door behind her.

  The lab was next. She poked her head into the darkened room and turned the lights on.

  Broken glass littered the floor in front of the sterile hood. A petri dish.

  She hurried to the hood and stooped down to examine the broken dish.

  A blop of amber agar medium stuck to the floor.

  She examined the tape label on one of the shards of glass. It had held the sulfur‑rich medium. Valkerie stood and checked the other petri dishes.

  A gap in the middle of the line of dishes seemed to indicate where the sulfur‑rich plate had been. All the plates were upside down, as they were supposed to be—well away from the edge of the bench.

  She reached out her hand and flipped a plate over.

  Plaques! The surface of the agar was covered with them. Tiny gray‑white bacterial colonies—unlike anything she had ever seen.

  Life! Honest‑to‑goodness life!

  Valkerie staggered backward, crushing the shards of broken glass under her feet. She’d have to verify it. They’d have to go back to the tunnel and take a fresh clay sample, but she had no doubt of the outcome. She had found living bacteria on Mars. And if Mars supported bacterial life, who could tell what other life‑forms they might find?

  Or might find them.

  * * *

  Thursday, March 26, 2:00 p.m., Mars Local Time

  Bob

  Bob ducked through the rover airlock and navigated the box of food through the narrow tube that connected the rover to the Ares 7. It was good to be back home.

  Lex stood in front of him, balancing a box on her knee while she fumbled with the hatch into the Hab.

  “Hurry up with that hatch. My head is killing me.” Bob braced the box against the side of the tube and massaged his temples with his right hand. Kennedy had jumped them as soon as they’d entered the Hab. Bob had almost been knocked out by an EVA helmet to the side of his face. He probably would have been killed if Lex hadn’t wrestled Kennedy to the ground. Even with the two of them, it was all they could do to subdue him. They’d left him taped to his cot while they disabled his CommSat radio, installed the cameras, and loaded some of the food stash into the rover.

  Lex swung open the hatch, and Bob followed her into the airlock. Valkerie’s face was peering through the window in the inner door. At her intense expression, Bob felt his pulse jump.

  Had something gone wrong?

  Lex pushed through the door. “Mission accomplished. Kennedy gave us a little trouble, but we—Val, are you all right?”

  She was white as a bleached ghost, except for her eyes, which looked red and puffy. Bob stepped around Lex, put his box on a bench, and wrapped an arm around Valkerie’s shoulders.

  She leaned against him. “It’s okay. I’m fine.” She managed a less‑than‑convincing smile, which faded when she caught sight of his bruised face.

  He reassured her with a squeeze. “I look a lot worse than I feel. Really.”

  Valkerie nodded. “I ... I don’t even know where to begin. I was so worried when you didn’t answer.” Her voice fell to a quivering whisper. “And then I heard something. Noises down here on this level. Strange groans and banging around. Whatever it was broke one of the petri dishes.”

  Bob searched her eyes. Whatever she had heard had really scared her, and Valkerie wasn’t one to scare easily. He glanced at Lex. Apparently she was thinking the same thing.

  “And that’s not all.”

  Bob let Valkerie pull him through the corridor and into the lab.

  Shards of broken glass covered the floor, surrounding a blob of goo. “Look at this!” She flipped over one of the petri dishes and held it up to the light. It was polka‑dotted with tiny gray speckles.

  “Oh ... my ...” Lex plopped her box of food out in the hall and collapsed onto a lab stool. “It’s not ...” Her stunned gaze met Valkerie’s. “You’re joking, right?”

  Bob looked from one to the other. What on earth ... ? No, make that what on Mars was going on?

  Valkerie shook her head. “About all I can say is that it seems to be bacterial. I think. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Whatever it is, it’s alive.”

  “This is that ... ?” A creeping numbness buzzed in Bob’s brain. “You got this from the dirt on your EVA suit?”

  Valkerie nodded.

  “And you think this is what’s making you and Kennedy sick?”

  “I can’t say for sure,” Valkerie said. “But the evidence is certainly pointing in that direction.”

  “Great.” Bob turned to get Lex’s reaction. “Just great.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t say anything to Houston.” Lex’s face was tense as she studied Valkerie.

  Valkerie shook her head. “Not yet. I was too worried about searching the Hab. But this is huge. They’re going to want to have a press conference right away. We’ll have to—”

  “No.” Lex stood. “We can’t tell Houston anything until we figure out what’s going on. Josh gave us that warning for a reason. We can’t risk them making a premature decision to keep us here.”

  “But we have to say something. At least we’ve got to tell them what happened with Kennedy. They haven’t stopped hailing us since he—”

  Lex shook her head. “No way. Not while they’re in witch‑hunt mode. If they knew about Kennedy, they’d blame it all on the Martian flu.”

  Valkerie cast a pleading look at Bob. “Don’t you think we should tell them? I’m not going to lie.”

  He shrugged. On the one hand he didn’t want to disappoint Valkerie, but ... “Waiting just a little while won’t hurt. We need a chance to figure it all out ourselves.”

  She looked down at the floor.

  “Besides.” He put a hand on her arm. “Don’t you want to study those things first? Seems like we should have something to report on before we make the report.”

  Lex bent over and examined the wad of goo on the floor. “You’re sure you didn’t accidentally knock this off the bench without realizing it?”

  “Positive. I was upstairs when I heard the glass break.”

  Bob started to bend over, but a sharp pain s
hot down his leg. He massaged the spot, gritting his teeth. “You’re not suggesting that this bacteria got up and ...”

  Valkerie shook her head. “What I heard was big. Big enough to make a lot of noise. I have no idea what it was doing in here.”

  An ominous silence settled over the lab as the three of them stared down at the broken dish. Either Valkerie was imagining things or ... No. There had to be a third alternative. She wasn’t crazy and she wasn’t lying, but that didn’t mean he had to believe in little green men. It wasn’t reasonable.

  Or was it? Ten minutes ago he wouldn’t have considered Martian life of any kind reasonable.

  Valkerie looked from him to Lex.

  Bob could tell something was bothering her—something that had nothing to do with the bacteria.

  She glanced at the airlock hatch. “I know this sounds dumb, but I don’t feel right about leaving Kennedy over there all alone. He is sick. And if something really is out there ...”

  “That’s why we rigged up the cameras.” Lex walked through the door and into the corridor. “You’ll be able to keep an eye on the Hampster without having to worry about being shishkabobbed during the night.”

  They followed Lex into the shop, where she pulled a video receiver out of a bin.

  Bob helped her hook it up to a monitor. He switched on the monitor and started scanning through the remote cameras. “If Kennedy goes ballistic, we’ll know it before he can do too much damage to himself or—”

  Valkerie gasped. The monitor showed the Ares 10 commons. Kennedy’s still figure lay crumpled in a heap on the floor.

  Surrounding him was a pool of what looked like blood.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thursday, March 26, 2:30 p.m., Mars Local Time

  Bob

  “HE’S FAKING IT.” BOB STARED at the monitor, searching for the slightest movement, anything to indicate that Kennedy wasn’t really hurt.