Her thoughts turned to Pilot, his ultimate sacrifice causing her to repent her moment of weakness.
And yet—if only she could have pursued this path alone…
“Commander!” Davis shouted. Equipped with searchlight, he had forged ahead. “You need to see this.”
The steady incline they were on had finally crested at a grooved ridge. Below, a smooth basin. On one side, stretching as far as they could see, a line of noisy fumaroles were adding their foul contribution to the atmosphere. The Lieutenant pointed to a far-off smudge of artificial light originating from a shape that did not belong. Nadir.
“An hour, max,” he said. The look in his eyes told the rest of the story. “What’s your tank reading?”
“Fifty-nine,” Ellis responded.
“Damn, you gotta teach me how to do that,” Davis said, encouraged by the number, then reading his own rebreather gauge. “Forty-three.”
“Twelve,” Stewart volunteered, futility and fatigue causing her to sit.
“Get up,” Ellis ordered, standing over her. “We’ll stop when I say. When your rebreather reads low single digits.”
Stewart struggled to her feet.
Moving onward, Ellis once again played it out. Neither Davis, who was encumbered by a bad knee and the haversack he was carrying, nor Stewart, who was laboring, were able to safely carry a second rebreather. Her rebreather. This being so, she would have to postpone the decision until Stewart’s tank was nearly empty. She had also discarded the possibility of reaching Nadir using the injectable oxygen. To do so would diminish everyone’s chance of survival.
Within a half kilometer, Stewart’s rebreather read three percent. Barely enough to accomplish the exchange.
“Off with it,” Ellis said.
“No.”
“Off,” Ellis threatened, stepping toward her.
“El—” Stewart, too, had been thinking it through. A look to Davis, seeing his resolute expression, made it that much clearer this would be an argument she could never win. “El—no—”
“Commander,” Ellis insisted, somehow injecting firmness in her voice, taking a final step forward and clutching Stewart’s rebreather harness.
“I’ll goddamn carry you,” Davis senselessly implored, despair written on his face.
“You know the reality,” Ellis reasoned. “You’re both needed if Nadir is to have any chance. I’m expendable. We’re wasting time.” Moved by the distress on her colleagues’ faces, her voice cracking, she tried once more. “Brian—Michele—Please—”
“Do it!” an angry Davis directed, staring directly at Stewart, furious for feeling so helpless. With his assistance, the exchange was made.
Relenting, safely wearing Ellis’s rebreather, Stewart fought back her tears.
Davis shook his head in disbelief as Ellis, facing Nadir, sat in the lotus position.
“Leave me,” she pleaded, wanting to save them the pain of seeing her suffer.
“I’ll return for you,” Davis exclaimed, kneeling in front of her. “I swear it. I—”
“I know you will,” Ellis breathed, lightly caressing his face. “Go.”
Rising, Davis seized Stewart, determined to stay, by the arm.
“Bravest damn thing I ever saw,” he said, leading her away.
Watching them disappear, Ellis closed her eyes. And waited.
Accompanied only by the sounds of fumaroles exhaling their noxious mix into Murkor’s dreaded darkness.
“Brian,” Stewart whispered. They had been walking for some time. “Keep close. My imagination—I feel something—”
“It’s okay. Almost there,” he answered, directing his searchlight to illuminate the path in front of them. “We’re gonna make it.”
14. Down Payment
CIRCUMVENTING A SEQUENCE OF interlocks allowed speedier transit through a partial-pressure decon room. What appeared to be a blatant disregard for safety protocols made complete sense: Detection/sterilization procedures, a week ago tolerated as a mandatory nuisance, were now a waste of precious time. If Nadir harbored an agent or entity hazardous to human life, impossible as that seemed, it had already gained entry.
Exhausted, critically low on oxygen, Davis and Stewart staggered into the base’s lower level. A visual scan revealed a drab, compartmentalized interior. Ambient lighting had been subdued either through malfunction or by design. Somewhere inside, due to cause or causes unknown, six people were lying dead or nearly so.
“Hola! Hay alguien a saludarnos?” Stewart said, shouting their arrival. She did not expect to be heard.
“Thirteen percent oxy,” Davis said, multi-meter in hand. “No noxious compounds. Air temperature reads high. Feels like A-C after outside.”
“Rebreather masks stay on,” Stewart ordered. “Remove it, you won’t be thinking clearly. In a minute or two, you’ll pass out.”
Davis nodded affirmation. “They abandoned this level,” he said, stopping at the compartment housing the environmental system.
Shrugging his shoulder, he let the heavy haversack he carried fall to the floor. Removing his diagnostic equipment, he pushed the lightened bag to Stewart.
“You’ll also want these,” she said, reaching inside, handing him the self-injectable oxy. “The closer to an artery, the better, and remember to breath out every few minutes to remove carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. Pointless to use them on myself—or whoever remains alive here until you’ve restored the atmosphere to something breathable.”
No logical reason to argue, Davis thought. Stewart did seem calmer now—out of the stifling heat, no longer scrabbling over lava, they both weren’t struggling as much. Most likely they’d suck their rebreathers dry at about the same time. He directed the searchlight at the glow originating from the stairwell. “Give a scream if you need me,” he said, grimacing at his own warped humor.
“When you’re done, mister, you know exactly what you have to do,” Stewart said. Before he could ask for an explanation, she put him in a tight embrace, then resolutely pushed him away.
As Stewart scrambled up the spiral staircase leading to Nadir’s second level, Davis wondered what she meant.
Wondered if it was a last good-bye.
He fought off a sudden wave of panic. Ignoring the display screen of the Nexus, he confronted a relic, the daunting array of wiring, piping, ductwork, gauges, and assorted controllers of the ESS. How in hell did Alvarez keep this mess functioning, keep the essential gases properly balanced? The repair would take longer than anticipated. Visualizing 3-D schematics in your head was one thing, seeing it in person was quite a different matter.
The first task was to locate the main air plenum which distributed conditioned air throughout the base. No problem. Straight ahead. Except to reach it he had to contort his body through a jumble of intervening ductwork hampered by the rebreather on his back, an armful of instruments, and an aching knee.
Precious time wasted, he found himself staring disbelievingly at the metal sides of the plenum. Secured thereto were five sensors, identical in appearance, each monitoring the concentration of a specific gas, then sending the data directly to the Nexus for evaluation. None were labeled. Alvarez must have memorized them by their relative position. To locate the carbon dioxide sensor would require removing each cover one by one to identifying the circuitry inside.
He cursed what had been the schematics lack of detail as he methodically started loosening, of all things in the Universe that might kill them, the first set of simple metal screws.
The first sensor he exposed was nitrogen. Concentrating on the next, he lost track of time. A loss of manual dexterity caused him to fumble the tool he was holding, sending it falling to the floor. A quick reach for it and he suddenly felt lightheaded, the effort to access the plenum having caused him to prematurely drain his oxy cylinder. Discarding the rebreather, he grabbed an injectable tubule and firmly pressed it against an exposed spot on his chest. A burst of pressure sent a flood of oxygen-impregnated lipid micropa
rticles jetting into his bloodstream. The jolt would last approximately ten minutes, depending on his level of physical activity. He resumed work, finding the absence of breathing unnatural and unnerving, his body and mind out of sync. How small a nuisance, Davis reflected, compared to what may come if he should fail.
“Carbon monoxide,” he groaned, exposing the complicated guts of the second sensor. He stared at the three remaining. Frightened that he’d run out of time, he screamed aloud, “Which one?! Which damned one?!”
An instant later, he knew with certainty. It had been right in front of him. Even with his vaunted mentor training he had failed to see the obvious. He shared a brief moment of empathy with Alvarez. The poor bastard must have repeatedly removed the carbon dioxide sensor’s cover—in the process wearing and abrading the tops of the screws—each time failing to see the defect hiding in plain sight.
He managed to remove the cover in good time. As expected, nothing inside appeared amiss. Nothing to indicate the device was transmitting impossibly low carbon dioxide readings to the Nexus. By bridging two circuits, the defective sensor would revert to its emergency default setting, compelling the Nexus to adjust its errant thinking, in turn reactivating the carbon dioxide scrubber and oxygen concentrator.
Handily accomplished with a small soldering gun and a short piece of solder. A crude fix until a replacement part could be installed. He hoped.
Leaning over his work, a drop of sweat fell from his damp brow onto the hot electrical components below. Fascinated, he watched it sputter and hiss, evaporating its tiny content of water into the air. Why was this microcosm so mesmerizing? On the verge of passing out (the lipid microparticles in his blood had ceased releasing oxygen) he was left no choice. He stabbed himself with a second injectable.
Job completed. The seconds slowly ticked by as he waited for a telltale hum followed by a whoosh—sounds that would tell him oxygenated air had begun flooding the base and that he just might live to see another glorious, glorious Murkorian day. Once or twice in his military career he had been this scared, but on those occasions it was only for himself.
When the fateful sounds finally came he was already on the move, shouting, “on my way!” up to Stewart, though he knew in his gut that she could no longer reply. That he was abandoning her. He tried to absolve himself of guilt by calling to mind her last words. In a bright flash of clarity he had grasped their meaning, for which there was no mistaking: He knew exactly what she expected him to do. In retrospect, it dawned on him that Stewart had two reasons for handing him all the injectables. She understood—perhaps better than he—that he hated beyond bearing the thought of Ellis being left out there in the darkness. Alone.
Wincing in pain, he hobbled out into the terrible heat. Powering up Nadir’s CAM-L, he quickly confirmed what Garcia had communicated, that the vehicle had discharged its limited capacity of pressurized air shortly after completing its last mission. The cab was useless as a temporary place of sanctuary. No time to do anything about it now. He estimated how long it would take to retrace a path back to her, weighing the chances of finding her alive. If anyone had that chance it was she.
The powerful hood-mounted floods fought to beat back the enveloping murk of the planet’s deep night. When Nadir became obscured somewhere within a shroud two-thousand meters behind him, he stopped the CAM-L and, no choice, administered the third injectable. He had never felt so utterly exhausted. Plunging the tubule to his chest, his attention was drawn to the haunting sounds of fumaroles reaching him from somewhere in the unseeable distance. Farther away, he heard proof of a roller, its vicious march across the surface reduced to a barely audible hiss. A terrible feeling of defeat almost overtook him when a solitary shape caught his eye.
At the edge of darkness, sooner than conceivable, he saw her, pathetically slumped to one side, no rebreather in sight. There was no way to determine if she was unconscious or dead.
Overcoming disbelief, he jumped to the hard lava. Ignoring the self-inflicted pain, he ran to her. Feeling for a pulse meant nothing other than a useless delay. Turning Ellis onto her back, he pressed the oxy tubule to her chest.
And then he looked into the impenetrable Murkorian sky and mouthed one word.
“Please.”
“Brian—”
“I’m here.”
“You—look worried.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, Davis gently cradled Ellis’s flushed cheeks in his hands and said, “If this life’s worth living—”
And then he kissed her on the lips.
She did not resist. To do so would have been a lie.
“Blame oxygen euphoria,” Davis said, the wry grin she loved returning to his face as he moved to support her. “Quickly now. Hold on to me. We have just enough tubules to get back.”
“How did—Stewart—the others—?” Ellis asked, managing to gain her feet as the injectable began its work.
“Captain Stewart’s there.” If she was alive, he could not say. Stepping up into the vehicle, he extended an arm and pulled Ellis in. “Nadir’s oxygen is being replenished as we speak.”
“No longer expect the worst.”
“Because of what happened to you out here?” Davis asked, confused. By no means did he know what happened. Nothing made sense.
“All of it,” Ellis replied, hesitating before adding, “In some strange sense, I believe we are being protected.”
“You owe me a better explanation. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Reaching across, she firmly squeezed his arm. Her way of letting him know that, at the very least, she was solid.
During the short journey back to Nadir both said no more, preferring to advance the conversation after seeing what additional revelations awaited them.
***
“El!” Stewart exclaimed, laughing in amazement at the living, breathing sight of her, heretofore certain that in forfeiting her rebreather the Commander had knowingly forfeited her life. No, not certain. Certainty could no more be applied to the Commander than the planet she sojourned on. “Are you even possible? Is there no limit to what you’re capable of?”
“Ahem,” Davis coughed, standing by with his big grin—then enjoying his second embrace of the day and assurance from Stewart that she would soon attend to his swollen knee. Their own needs would have to wait. Ellis and Davis looked past Stewart to six lifeless bodies stretched out on the floor. Nadir’s second level had taken on the aspect of a morgue.
“I found five of the crew exactly as you see them,” Stewart began to explain, seeing the distress in her crewmate’s faces. “Apparently they wanted to be together to the very last. Quite touching. The handsome older gentleman, Comandante Garcia, I found collapsed at his desk. He had been writing a eulogy. Imagine that. I wanted to make him comfortable, so I found bedding and moved him. No easy feat.”
“Comfortable?” Ellis asked, confused, seizing on the word to bolster her belief that, despite every indication to the contrary, all could still be well. Crouching down, she studied Garcia’s noble features, her voice melancholy and subdued. “So peaceful in repose—”
“No—he is alive!” Stewart said, regretting the false impression she had given. “They all are! I myself almost mistook the poor souls for dead, their heart and respiration low enough to make them appear so. I retain hope for their recovery. I’ve already seen signs of improvement as oxygen levels increase. See?! Look there! A small hand movement!”
Fascinated, Ellis took Garcia’s hand in her own. “Cold. As if waiting at death’s door.”
“He couldn’t stay on this side indefinitely,” Stewart said. “Eventually, cells require nourishment, even at greatly reduced metabolism.”
“Cause?”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Stewart replied. “Hopefully, blood and tissue samples will reveal more.”
“Can we discuss you for a moment?” an impatient Davis demanded. He had needed multiple injectables to survive during the same interval Stewart had none. Even
now, they were having some difficulty breathing, the air not yet returning to the twenty-one percent oxygen content to which humans were accustomed. “Why aren’t you hypoxic?”
“No secret there,” Stewart contended. “Soon as I began focusing on my medical duties, I began to relax. My respiration rate decreased. When my rebreather finally registered zero, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a few minutes of residual air.”
“A small discrepancy between the gauge and what’s in the cylinder,” Davis said. “It can happen. Keep going—”
“By then you had performed your miracle. I dare say you could have been quicker about it,” she teased, kneeling next a young man she knew to be Carlos.
“So that’s it?” Davis asked. “Nothing more to it?”
“My, you’re exuding skepticism,” Stewart observed, deliberately drawing out her explanation. Using Nadir’s medical equipment, she resumed monitoring Carlos’s vitals, nodding her head in satisfaction. “Truth is, I nearly passed out. I couldn’t respond when I heard your shout.” She pointed to a metal grid located at eye level on the nearest wall. “Not when I was standing on my toes with my nose smashed against that air inflow vent.”
Laughing, Davis looked directly at Ellis and simply said, “Your turn.”
She was contemplating a response when Garcia flicked open his eyes.
“Cómo están—how are—?”
“Your crew is well,” Ellis replied, Stewart coming alongside to watch with interest as Garcia’s mental processes kept pace with his rapid physical recovery.
“Commander Ellis—or my delusion—” Garcia said.
“In the flesh. Gladdened to see you. Now rest a little while longer. At least until Doctor Stewart permits you to freely move about.”
The Symbionts of Murkor Page 25