Leaving Stewart attending to Garcia, Ellis and Davis descended to Nadir’s communication hub, where they reestablished contact with an ecstatic Sergeant Cooper. It could not be helped that their abbreviated summary of what had transpired, together with their bedraggled physical appearance, left him anxious and amazed. Unanswered was how and when they would attempt the journey back to Zenith.
Returning to L2 they discovered the Comandante standing solidly on his feet and four of his crew attempting to sit up. To economize their flagging energy Ellis suggested, and Garcia willingly agreed, to postpone discussing topics unrelated to the most immediate concerns until Nadir’s entire crew was lucid enough to participate.
It was Carlos, first to be held in the clutches of the unnatural sleep that befell his crewmates, who had the distinction of being the last to be liberated from the throes of the mysterious affliction. He did so abruptly, discovering three strange and gritty faces hovering over him. Any of the three would have suited his purpose. The closest happened to be Ellis. Startling everyone, he lashed out with one of his heavily muscled arms, coming within a centimeter of grabbing her by the throat.
“Easy there, big guy,” Davis said, tightly wrapping his hand around the meat of Carlos’s forearm, forgetting that his words in English might be misinterpreted. “Commander Ellis may look unimposing, but she can kick serious butt—mine included.”
“Ellis?” Carlos spit out, hatred returning with his five senses. “Aquí para robar nuestra agua.”
“Sólo con permiso, y sólo un vaso pequeño,” Ellis replied.
“Para ti? Nada.”
“Carlos, enough,” Garcia ordered, taking Stewart’s place when she astutely backed away to give the Comandante, whose recovery had accelerated, a chance to intervene. He chose his next words carefully, for they were intended as much for Carlos’s benefit as for Ellis’s. “Your Spanish is excellent, Commander. You extend us great courtesy speaking it here. We will be as comfortable speaking your language. As for water, you shall have all you want, unlimited showers as well. There is little else we can boast of at Nadir.”
“Accepted with gratitude,” Ellis replied, appreciative of how Garcia handled a difficult situation and the calming effect he had on the youngest member of his crew.
“I am glad to see you, Comandante,” Carlos interrupted.
“And I, you, my friend.”
“Restored?”
“Yes, Carlos, oxygen restored,” Garcia replied, patting the engineer’s shoulder, “though as of yet I don’t know how.” Rising, he turned to his Zenith counterpart. “Nor do I have an explanation for the bruised condition of these courageous people. Apparently, you have suffered much, the details we are exceedingly anxious to hear. Perhaps together we can also make sense out of the puzzle which confounds us. But first: You have, to your own detriment, attended to our needs. I must insist you allow us to reciprocate. While my crew collects themselves and celebrates their good fortune I shall escort you to facilities adequate to accommodate your requirements for personal hygiene, nutrition, and basic medical care—in whatever order you see fit.”
***
They had made it.
An old, badly worn idiom came to mind: The end justifies the means. She had risked two lives. Two to save six, uncertainty skulking on both ends of the equation. Where does a responsible person set the boundary where what is gained exceeds what is lost? And, to confound, what if the ethics of arriving at, and executing, a course of action are obscure—or in opposition to one’s own values? If she (as commander), through moral paralysis, was unable to make these types of difficult decisions they would be delegated to others.
There are armies of less discerning people waiting.
And yet…
The decision she made on Diverna cost people their lives. Today’s action did not exonerate her from this self-imposed debt.
It represented a small down payment.
Beneath a restorative shower of glistening water, she began scrubbing off the layer of abrasive pumice clinging to the residue of her own sweat.
Tilting her face up, she gazed at a million splintering sparkles of liquid light.
Splashing on her naked body, they elicited a feeling of déjà vu.
Reality striving to emulate a recent, almost forgotten, dream.
Wandering alone on the Murkor’s surface also had a dreamlike quality.
What happened to her out there? The eye sees a small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum; likewise, the mind avows a fragment of reality.
Dream or reality, she would be asked to decipher what happened. Who would believe her if the explanation fell between the two?
Sticking out her tongue, she caught warm droplets in her open mouth.
Was it the mystical, life-giving quality of water that inspired these reflections?
More the reality of luxuriating in Nadir’s shower.
Clutching a soft washcloth, she smoothed soap over her breasts, down her flat stomach and between her legs.
Slippery and wet.
There is also a sensual property to water.
In a heartbeat, her imagination fixated on Brian Davis.
A few minutes later, as she toweled dry, she pondered another decision.
She seriously doubted she’d have the willpower to reassign him.
15. The Symbionts of Murkor
NINE PEOPLE WERE CROWDED around a table designed to seat six. No one was complaining, especially Amanda, who made a point of sitting in close proximity to Davis. On at least one occasion her leg brushed up against his.
Without drawing attention, he carefully moved out of harm’s way.
There was a second round of introductions. The first, which haphazardly took place when Nadir’s crew was basking in the overwhelming joy of each other’s unexpected recovery, hadn’t quite stuck.
“So, you’ve now seen Nadir,” Gustavo said, striking up a conversation with Davis. “What do you think?”
“Have you been to Stigel V?” he replied.
“Can’t say I have.”
“Good. Then there’s no harm telling you Nadir’s worse.”
“Well, I’ve been there,” Roya volunteered, exaggerating a scowl. “Stigel’s a freakin’ armpit.”
“Oh, shit,” Davis said. “There goes détente.” It was an easy laugh, made more enjoyable in the context of antagonists meeting for the first time.
Other bilateral exchanges were in progress. Ellis noted Mariana Perez, Nadir’s physician, animatedly engaged with Stewart, comparing medical terminology in each other’s language. She heard the word estasis used repeatedly and with questioning inflection. Amanda Cruz had been friendly, more so to Stewart and certainly to Davis who, for his part, seemed intent on swapping stories with Gustavo. Good. Jealousy being the ugly word for what she might have felt otherwise. She never suspected a woman could be overly lovely.
In turn, she found herself speaking at length with Garcia. El Comandante. From the start, he had been especially loquacious and charming. She wondered if the relaxed atmosphere that pervaded Nadir was due to his easy manner or some specific instruction on decorum privately relayed to his crew—in either case, the positive effect was the same.
Only Carlos, absorbed in thought, remained distant. Accordingly, she prepared for a confrontation, verbal or otherwise. The moment came early on.
In consideration of their guests’ continued thirst, someone had set the communal table with a large pitcher of ice water and several tall drinking glasses. Reaching across, intent on pouring herself some of the tempting treat, Ellis discovered her hand roughly pushed aside. Carlos, of course. Noticed by all, the affront had to be addressed in some unequivocal fashion. An unpleasantness best left to Garcia, Ellis decided, withdrawing her hand. A quick read of Garcia’s icy-cold stare told her that prospect was a certainty.
He was prevented by what transpired next.
“Let me,” Carlos offered, seizing the pitcher of water by its handle. And then, with all eyes
zeroing in on him, he carefully, slowly, filled Ellis’s glass.
Ellis habitually rationed words. Now they had gone completely AWOL. By the time she thought of “thank you,” Mariana choose to prod Carlos with a few of her own.
“What’s got into you?” she said, half-jokingly. “I’d love to check your oxytocin and serotonin levels.”
“Yeah, full of surprises,” Roya added. “You never pour me water.”
“Have any of you looked out the east viewport?” Carlos replied, enjoying the attention.
“Why bother? Can’t make out much in the dark,” Mariana replied. “What did you see?”
“It’s what I didn’t see, even using the infrared scope. No vehicle. There’s an unimpeded view out to the bluff. That’s four kilometers. You know what that means? It means they walked at least that far. At night. If nothing else, that deserves some respect.”
“Commander Ellis?” Garcia asked, unable to decide which was the greater marvel, Carlos’s change of attitude or the distance Ellis and her fellow officers had covered on foot. “Is this true? Is it even possible?”
“Oh, it gets better,” Davis interjected.
“True, with a few clarifications,” Ellis said. Then, with Nadir’s crew listening in fascination, she proceeded to recount the ordeal: How, when, and approximately where the CAM-L broke down; how they walked several kilometers in the insufferable heat; the inadequacy of their rebreathers; how Stewart persevered until Nadir’s ambient atmosphere was breathable. Fittingly, she let Davis explain his clever repair of the environmental system. To his credit, he spoke with considerable tact and modesty. Having succeeded where Carlos failed, it would have been bad form to embellish his own ego at the expense of another’s.
Davis, however, didn’t need to tread quite so carefully. Carlos knew exactly how the repair was effected and was in the process of using the knowledge gained to come to terms with himself.
Cleared for duty, prompted by curiosity and suspicion, he immediately began investigating how the ESS was, in his estimation, “tampered with.” The process might have consumed hours but he concentrated his efforts on the most logical subsystems. Spotting the tools that Davis had left behind, his eye caught the carbon dioxide sensor protective cover there had been no time to replace. Being a damn good engineer, he easily deduced the rest.
Stunned, he spent several minutes staring at the faulty device. When it failed to vanish he was forced to conclude, and at considerable cost to his ego, that he had overlooked the root cause of the ESS’s malfunction. That revelation was easy compared to admitting to himself why he had been so blind, a leap that entailed re-evaluating the three chancros currently in their midst. Subsequently learning what they had to endure en route to Nadir helped push him in the right direction.
Garcia needed less proof of Ellis’s intent. “Commander… Captain… Lieutenant,” he said, deliberately addressing Zenith’s officers individually. “You jeopardized your lives coming to our assistance, bringing to mind the transport pilot who lost his. Obligations such as these are too dear to be repaid. Permit me the satisfaction of trying. Ask anything—”
“Then I ask for the one commodity Zenith presently lacks,” Ellis said, waiting a beat before adding, “Your friendship.”
Garcia laughed. “Ahhh, you choose well. Something that enriches us both. Be assured, you already have it—but, no, I am too selfish to let you off that easy. Give me time. I will think on it further.”
“Commander,” Mariana began, seeking Ellis’s attention. “I’m interested in the time you spent alone on the surface. Details are missing. Am I correct in sensing in you a reluctance to relive the experience? If so, I shall desist. I have no desire to press you, and would instead suggest we focus our energies toward solving the medical mystery confronting us.”
“I intentionally omitted details,” Ellis responded, “because I believe they should be part of the same inquiry.”
“I don’t follow,” Mariana responded.
Ellis looked at the tired faces ringing the table. “I felt a presence,” she said, earning a gasp from Amanda, who turned ghostly pale as she recalled her encounter in Tube System N119.
“Wow,” Roya said in a whisper. She, too, had felt the presence. Four days afterward, prodded by a growing urgency, she had proposed an outlandish connection: That a mystery agent “X” disturbed in the lava tube had somehow infiltrated Nadir and thereafter appeared intent on slowly killing them. Thinking on it, she glanced at Gustavo. She shouldn’t have.
“El aliento del Diablo,” he said, repeating the exact words he blurted out what seemed like a lifetime ago. “¿Dónde estás?” he added, waving his hand as if to sample the air they were breathing.
Of the laughs elicited, a few were genuine. More were nervous.
“Now I will press you,” Garcia said, facing Ellis, the welfare of his crew foremost in his mind. “What exactly happened to you out there?”
“It may be useful if I relate the unusual nature of a prior, somewhat similar, experience,” Ellis said, then proceeded to describe how she circumnavigated Zenith. Minus a rebreather.
She didn’t have to wait long for the expected rebuttal.
“May I?” Stewart asked.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“My medical opinion is that Commander Ellis was aided by the strict physical and metaphysical regimens she practices. That and a healthy dose of adrenaline. As for this so-called presence she felt? Most physicians would diagnose it as a hypoxia-induced hallucination.”
Garcia looked to Mariana, her ambivalent shrug doing nothing to help him form his own conclusion. “May I inquire, Commander,” he asked, “why you took such a risk in the first place?”
“Primarily to distract a sizable complement of disgruntled mining techs.”
“Disgruntled?”
“Cessation of the anecrecium mining operation. Water rationing.”
“That bad?” Garcia asked.
“Evacuation plans are in place,” Ellis said succinctly, electing to reveal the whole truth, if for no other reason than to assess the Comandante’s reaction. “A small contingent will remain to keep Zenith viable.”
“An unfortunate development,” Garcia replied, his expression convincing Ellis that the sentiment was genuine. “A topic I’d very much like to pursue before you leave here. Please continue your story.”
“However you choose to explain my ability to persevere outside Zenith,” Ellis resumed, “it served to motivate me. I picked myself up and headed toward Nadir, keeping sight of its light and that which Lieutenant Davis carried. By then, he and Captain Stewart were far ahead, my own progress being hindered by a late start and the difficulty of walking in near total darkness. Calling out to them, drawing attention to myself, would have served no purpose.”
“Your rebreather registered three percent oxy,” Stewart pointed out. It was a point she would have to make often. “My own experience tells me it likely held more.”
“Which does nothing to clarify what followed,” Ellis replied. “When the rebreather cut off an odd feeling came over me. Have you ever felt that a person is standing behind you—even without warning, for nothing has overtly disturbed your senses?”
“That feeling is easily explainable,” Mariana said. “The human body has subtle ways of revealing itself. We emanate heat, raising the air temperature a hundredth of a degree. Pheromones are exuded. The space we occupy alters air currents. Weak electromagnetic fields are generated. The moisture from exhalation causes a miniscule increase in humidity—”
“There’s molecular outgassing from the clothing we wear,” Amanda added, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry.
“Fair points,” Ellis said, undeterred. “Now expand the concept to those forces science is reticent to recognize. The ch’i of Chinese culture. Prana in Hinduism. Auras or life force in Western culture. The universe holds a multitude of phenomenon yet to be imagined. When detected subliminally, the intellect recoils from
lack of understanding. Now relate this confusion, this blindness, to what I, and others, have felt on Murkor. Only it’s more than the feeling of someone or something lurking behind. It permeates space—though, admittedly, the instinctive reaction is to turn around.” Ellis looked directly at Amanda, who remained uneasy. “I can see where the sensation might be frightening. It doesn’t have to be.” She stared at Garcia. “And I believe what I am describing can go undetected when a person is in a secure environment, distracted, or sleeping.”
“Or, conversely, the feeling intensifies when alone,” Roya volunteered.
“Doubly so when in a lava tube,” Amanda had to admit.
“Yes, I would imagine so,” Ellis acknowledged.
“The feeling is pronounced when you’re alone,” Stewart objected, “simply because people tend to be more frightened when they’re alone. Nothing more to it. Sorry. Continue.”
“Somewhere along the way I ditched the depleted rebreather. My breathing was extremely labored at first, but settled as I forged ahead—”
“Sure, a few hundred meters before collapsing where Lieutenant Davis found you,” Stewart said, interrupting again.
Ellis shook her head. “No. The light he held had vanished. I retained the hope that you both made it inside Nadir. By my estimation, I had walked more than a kilometer.”
“No one can last on Murkor’s surface that long,” Gustavo chimed in. The protest was halfhearted. “Can they?”
“Coincides with where I found her,” Davis said.
“Come on, Lieutenant,” Stewart protested. “I seriously doubt you were in any condition to accurately judge distance.”
Davis made a motion to disagree when Carlos, eyes fixed on Ellis, spoke up. “I know exactly where your rebreather lies. I spotted it when looking for your vehicle. Can’t say how, but you almost made it here.”
“Thanks for that, Sargento,” Ellis responded. “I knew I was close, but I was too exhausted to go on. I sat down, gradually losing awareness.” She turned to Davis. “Lieutenant, how much time between when I ordered you and Captain Stewart to continue on without me to when you found me?”
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