The Symbionts of Murkor

by Tarulli, Gary

  Garcia entered the “save” command.

  His body succumbing, he rested his head on folded arms and closed his eyes.

  13. Expedition

  THE MASSIVE DOCKING STATION portal slowly lifted. In the sobering distance, shimmering bands of heat rising from lava sailed into the midday Murkorian atmosphere. Closer in, a meter-high deposit of powdery pumice had piled against Zenith’s wind-facing surfaces like an incongruous drift of black snow. The embankment created was too inconsequential to be a hindrance, but it’s confrontational position directly in front of the formidable CAM-L caused a small part of Lieutenant Brian Davis to wonder if they were about to embark on a fool’s errand. No matter, he thought. If a man’s mettle could be measured by his tolerance for playing the fool then the greater part of him was fully onboard.

  It had been Davis’s personal experience that there was typically more angst in the contemplation of a hazardous mission than in its actual execution. Whatever comfort he normally derived from this reflection seemed strangely absent. Ignoring his unease, he gave a self-assured nod to Ellis and Stewart, who were sharing navigational duties, and activated the vehicle’s powerful engine. Disengaging pilot-assist, he thrust the accelerator throttles into the “forward” position, sending the heavy vehicle lurching through the open portal.

  It was intentionally a good show—a decisive path plowed through the snow ridge, Zenith’s protective dome disappearing behind them in a towering plume of pumice.

  Zenith and Nadir, positioned in the exact center of their abutting fifty-kilometer exclusion zones, were situated precisely one-hundred kilometers apart. When traversed overland, and accounting for the numerous topographical features to be averted, the true distance was estimated as one-hundred forty kilometers. If Davis pressed it, and he had every intention of doing so, they would arrive at Nadir as night began to close in on them. In this, there was little margin for error.

  The expedition began well enough. Several missions had ventured out in this direction, the lava tubes closest to Nadir holding the most promise of water discovery. Each foray into uncharted territory had been recorded by the vehicle’s external cameras, the images transferred to the vehicle’s mindstor where they were digitally stitched together with previous files to produce an updated and reasonably accurate three-dimensional surface map.

  Davis proved himself of equal value in rendering navigational assistance. Having piloted on numerous occasions and endowed with an excellent memory, he had familiarized himself with a great number of surface landmarks. The upshot of this was that Ellis and Stewart were temporarily relieved from constantly cross-referencing the changing topography with the holo map being refreshed above the rendition pedestal situated between them. Steady progress was being made and, although no one expected it to last, a relaxed mood pervaded the confines of the vehicle’s pressurized cabin.

  For a spell no one spoke, the low thrumming pulse of the engine and the satisfying lava-crunching sound of the vehicle’s rotating tracks prevailing. Stewart decided to take advantage of the interlude by opening a line of inquiry that had potential to provide, if not general amusement, at least her own. Davis, in the throes of working through some weighty mental calculation, was the easiest of the two available targets.

  “Brian,” Stewart began, the three officers finding the present situation conducive to addressing each other by whatever appellation felt comfortable. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “This can’t be good,” he replied, something undefinable in Stewart’s tone making him immediately wary.

  “No, it’s very good. All I want to know is if there’s someone waiting for you back on Earth. Perhaps a special lady pining away with a broken heart?”

  Stewart watched out of the corner of her eye as Ellis, her next target, repressed a smile—and perhaps something more than passing interest in the Lieutenant’s response.

  “I don’t hail from Earth,” Davis replied, deliberately denying Stewart the satisfaction she sought.

  “And exactly where do you ‘hail’ from?” she persisted.

  “The Ariadne Enclave.”

  “Are there no women there? It only takes one, you know. Or is that too limiting for a good-looking man like you?”

  “No, one is more than sufficient,” Davis said. Then, under his breath: “Learned that the hard way.”

  “I see,” Stewart remarked after a pause. “Shut tight as a proverbial clam.”

  There was an expectant silence as the question remained hanging in the conditioned air.

  “Well? What about you, Jen?” Stewart finally asked, using the more familiar sounding shortening of the CO’s first name to accentuate the personal nature of the inquiry.

  “Terrain’s changing,” Ellis replied.

  “If you’re trying to distract me, you can do better,” Stewart replied, undaunted.

  “Will nothing stop her?” Davis mumbled, his attempt at apathy betrayed by his exaggerated “straight ahead” focus on piloting duties.

  “And she thinks I’m stubborn,” Ellis added.

  “You are,” Stewart said. “And the word for me is tenacious. There has to be a good man for you out there. They can’t all want to kick the crap out of you.”

  Davis, caught somewhere between surprised and amused, let loose an involuntary cough and nearly sent the CAM-L careening over a ledge.

  At the same moment, Ellis flinched, even while admitting to herself that Stewart’s alluding to Lieutenant Davis and Major Ego Eglend in the same breath was a clever ploy, the glaring disparity between the two men almost inducing in her a strong rebuke, in turn exposing that she was as attracted to one man as much as she was repelled by the other. After considering, she pointed to the most prominent feature of the terrain they were crossing.

  “Michele, see that giant hunk of stone?”

  “The one we’re trying so very hard to evade?” Stewart said with a crooked grin, the sort normally flashed by Davis.

  “The same,” Ellis said. “Study it closely. You stand a better chance of getting a response out of it than out of me.”

  “Think so?” Stewart said, laughing. “What I just heard, or didn’t hear, says differently. If either of you had a lover I’m certain you would have said so. It’s human nature to blab. One day, when both of you are able to put duty behind, you might find—”

  “Stop,” Ellis suddenly interrupted. Her words were wasted: The vehicle was already grinding to a halt.

  “I see it,” Davis remarked, rotating his seat to examine the odd lava formations to both sides, then scrutinizing the images sent from the rear-facing camera to his command console. “Nothing looks familiar.”

  “The mindstor is starting to reference the nav files Comandante Garcia transmitted,” Ellis stated. “We’ve crossed into Nadir’s exclusion zone.”

  “That’ll make Kreechum very happy,” Davis commented.

  “Problem is,” Stewart noted, “the holo lacks the same degree of detail.”

  Davis took it in stride. Before leaving Zenith he had the good sense to peruse the navigation file Garcia transmitted. “Nadir’s crew never ventured out this far,” he explained, “all the water they ever needed being relatively close to base. What you’re looking at was transposed from their orbital planet survey.”

  “We’ll have a tough go of it,” Stewart complained. “Remind me why, with all the glorious tech we have, there’s still no positioning system in place?”

  “Because at the center of Coalition’s governing body there exists a black hole,” Davis said. “Common sense can occasionally be sucked in, but it can never escape.”

  “That neatly summarizes it,” Stewart said, acutely aware of the reason behind Coalition’s failing. A geolocator network of synchronized ground-based transmitters would have allowed any vehicle or person equipped with a receiver to pinpoint their location to within a centimeter. Installation had repeatedly been postponed, the matter stuck in an appropriations committee due to p
olitical squabbling over which company was to be awarded the lucrative contract. Nadir’s excuse, though it could only be guess at it, was no less galling: No one wanted to spend public funds to sustain a base that was in the process of being forgotten.

  Neither faction had seriously contemplated “towing” into place an orbital GPS. Considered overkill for the narrowly defined area of an EZ, there were also legitimate concerns regarding satellite life expectancy and accuracy given the planet’s problematic debris field and erratic wobble.

  Navigation within uncharted territory remained a real headache until successive missions had generated a detailed holo map of an area. Of help, more so when returning “home,” was the automated homing signal each base continually broadcast and which could be roughly followed. A barely audible quaver, heard only when they had stopped, was indicative of the poor quality of Nadir’s signal.

  “The last time I saw Nadir was well over a year ago,” Davis was prompted to say, addressing Ellis. “Looked pretty rundown then. What shape is it in now?”

  “From outward appearance, bad. The bent mast I observed may explain the weak signal.”

  “Will this help any?” Davis said, indicating his intention. “Mindstor, overlay a strength slash location vector of Nadir’s homing beacon onto the holo-mapping image.”

  “It’ll still be a bitch to follow,” Stewart said, examining the result.

  “Nothing we didn’t expect,” Ellis said abruptly, finding a recognizable reference point in the uppermost surfaces of a nearby crag worn a glossy-black from windblown particles. “Let’s get on with it. Bearing 124.3.”

  As the CAM-L lurched forward, Davis decided to return a favor, concluding the best way was to prod Stewart with a hard-to-believe fact.

  “Nadir is outdated construction,” he began. “But did you know that centuries ago houses on Earth were made from boards of wood fastened together by hand, piece by piece, using thousands of short, thin, steel spikes called nails?”

  “Of real wood?” Stewart said doubtfully, disadvantaged by the passing of centuries and by having spent so little time on Earth. “That had to be expensive. How was the outside protected from the elements?”

  “The top of the structure was covered in rectangular pieces of fiberglass impregnated with a petroleum product of some sort; the sides were coated with long, thin sheets of a plastic material called vinyl. Also attached with nails.”

  “Sounds time-consuming,” a disbelieving Stewart said, winking at Ellis, who decided to respond with a neutral shrug.

  “What’s more amazing,” Davis resumed, “is that, start to finish, including completing the interior space, it took a score of workers months to complete.”

  “Now I know you’re fooling me.”

  “Could be,” Davis said. “I suggest you look it up.”

  “I shall,” Stewart responded, resuming the task of helping Ellis plot a course through a series of obstructions.

  They were entering a region that had never been explored. To port stood a ragged row of eerily quiescent fumaroles, sulfur spewed into lava cracks forming a venous pattern in powdery yellow at their feet; to starboard, the scarred reddened face of a ridge pocked with the yawning mouths of lava tubes. Directly overhead, unfettered by the absence of a competing sun, cobalt-colored lightning reached down to tinge the haze a vapid blue.

  Collectively, it was as close to being scenic as Murkor could ever get.

  Forward progress slowed. On more than one occasion Davis reluctantly altered course, sometimes backtracking hundreds of meters to avoid a rift that the vehicle was unable to bridge, or a jagged outcropping too high for it to scale. Beyond the physical demands of piloting, he appeared preoccupied by whatever thought was playing out inside his head. Ellis was going to inquire when he blurted out, “Got it!” a broad smile of relief supplanting the frown of concentration he wore. “I think I figured out what’s wrong with Nadir’s ESS!”

  “It’s about time,” Stewart said, not taking him seriously.

  “No joke,” he said. “It was right in front of me.”

  “How—?” Ellis demanded.

  “By studying their schematics,” Davis replied. “Then the process of elimination.”

  “If it’s that simple, why didn’t their specialist—Alvarez—why didn’t he find the cause?” Stewart asked.

  Davis attempted an answer. “My mentor discipline ingrained one thing in me,” he said. “Simple doesn’t mean obvious. Personality comes in between. A person may want to find a particular solution to a problem. That said, Alvarez is a gifted engineer. He made it much easier for me, ruling out almost every conceivable possibility. He tried a few things I would never have dreamed of.”

  “Is there a quick fix?” Ellis asked.

  “If I’m proven right, the offending detector can be easily repaired.”

  “By whom?” Stewart cautioned. “Alvarez is in no condition.”

  “I can talk Garcia through it,” Davis countered.

  “Contact him,” Ellis ordered. But, after several failed attempts at communication, it became obvious that Nadir had gone deathly silent, or nearly so: The persistent drone of its homing signal, once beckoning, now insinuated peril.

  A warning for them to stay away.

  “Doctor?” Ellis said, ever sparse with words.

  “Are you asking me to revisit our prior discussion?” Stewart responded in frustration, reminded that her medical opinion would be woefully inadequate. “Garcia and his crew should be physically and mentally compromised, but fully conscious. Whatever is going on inside that base, restoring their oxygen supply, assuming it can be done, may have zero benefit. Are we pinning our hopes on a course of action that is doomed to fail? We have no assurance that they are even alive.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Ellis challenged, believing that Stewart was losing some of her resolve.

  “What I’m suggesting is that we get our sorry asses to Nadir ASAP and find the fuck out,” Stewart said angrily, clarifying the matter. “Dammit, Davis, can’t you make this beast go any faster?”

  “Any faster and we run the risk of not getting there at all.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Stewart said. “Sorry.”

  “Forget it,” Davis said, unruffled, though the frown of intense concentration had returned to his face.

  A new heading was agreed upon. Soon afterward the terrain changed for the worse, a plateau strewn with rounded boulders of every size. The largest had to be avoided, and this was deftly managed, all except one, sending them lurching violently to port.

  It was Davis’s turn to apologize. “Sorry,” he said, an unwelcome noise beneath the undercarriage compelling him to bring the vehicle to a stop.

  “It’s not your fault,” Stewart offered. “We sent you this way.”

  “Reach behind and hand me that rebreather. I’ll need to inspect the starboard track.”

  “Why? Can you repair it out here?” Ellis questioned, troubled by the delay.

  “Not likely,” Davis replied, donning the respirator, one of three they had brought onboard. “Depending on the damage, it may be advisable to kick back on speed. That, or be damn sure to avoid another hit to that side.”

  There was a whoosh of air as cabin pressure strove to equalize with the opening and closing of the CAM-L’s sealed door. Three steps down and Davis was at ground level, where he was instantly confronted by the oppressive heat. Walking to the front of the vehicle, he squatted down to inspect the individual treads that composed the starboard track’s loop. Composed of woven bands of graphene and tridex, they were nearly indestructible. One tread had been pushed slightly out of alignment, accounting for the rubbing noise. No big deal. Crawling beneath the vehicle he noticed something far more disturbing. A hairline crack had opened in the housing covering the fuel cell compartment. Directly below the crack was a small, iridescent-green puddle, the first liquid the ground had seen in a million years. “Shit,” Davis said, before realizing he had company.
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  “Different circumstances from the last time I saw you under a CAM-L,” Ellis said, thinking back on the adolescent conversation she had overheard between Davis and Anderson. It was hard to believe it was only nine days ago. Harder to believe that in that short a time she had grown fond of the man.

  “I make a great first impression, don’t I?” Davis admitted, rising to face her, trying to project a smile through the profile of his rebreather mask.

  “People sometimes change,” Ellis said. “You look much more worried now.”

  He was very much worried. “Back inside?” Davis suggested, gesturing at the cab. “Let’s avoid wasting rebreather air. We may need it.”

  “That bad?” Ellis said.

  “Bad enough. Fuel cell.”

  “FIDO?” Ellis stated, interpreting his meaning.

  “No choice. ‘FIDO.’”

  It was a seldom-used military term that had been passed down through the centuries and they both understood what it meant. Fuck It Drive On.

  Back inside the cab, Davis ripped off his mask. Shrugging the rebreather off his shoulders he fell into his pilot’s chair. Only when they were underway, and to the extent that he could, did he spell out the bad news. The fuel cell had ruptured as evidenced by the fluid leak. A significant quantity had already escaped. In all probability, more would do so.

  “To properly survey the extent of damage,” Davis said, “requires removal of the cell’s protective cowling—a time-intensive procedure in ideal circumstances, much more difficult when wearing a cumbersome rebreather in the heat. With darkness fast approaching, it’s time we don’t have. In the process of attempting a repair, two of the rebreathers would be depleted.”

  “Still, it is possible,” Stewart insisted.

  “The effort might be worth it, given the unpleasant alternative we face,” Davis said. “Except alone out here there is little chance of sealing the rupture. There’s something else to consider. While I work, fluid would continue to leak out.”

  “Then I suggest we alter heading to 122.1,” Ellis interrupted, remaining characteristically stoic.