Pathogen Protocol (Anghazi Book 2)

by Darren Beyer

  “Sorry, that’s all Greek to me.”

  Sophia frowned and let out a quick sigh. “Okay, 35 hertz is really low, like a rumble. An avalanche would fall in that low range, or distant thunder.” Sophia’s eyes lit up. “Think of a cat purring. Listen for something that sounds like that. Let’s try it again.”

  They both replaced their headsets, and Sophia replayed the recording of the sensor signal.

  Mandi closed her eyes and focused on her hearing. At first, all she could hear was a mash of noise—but then, there it was. Below the morass of sound, she heard the rumble—the cat’s purr. The sound varied in intensity and frequency, but it was now clear. She turned to Sophia, who lifted one side of her headset away from her ear. Mandi did the same.

  “I hear it.”

  “Good. That’s a return from a piece of debris. Now, let me layer in the return from a target using mass dampeners.”

  Again, Mandi heard the purr, but this time it was different. An occasional strange warble, almost inaudible, accompanied some of the changes in pitch.

  “I hear it—there’s a weird extra piece,” Mandi said. She removed her headset again. “Why can’t a computer detect the difference?”

  Sophia also removed her headset. “Trust me, I’ve tried. But mass dampeners continually vary their signals. I can write routines that work for a particular dampener being applied to a particular ship. But when I try to apply it to another signal, it misses. I can hear it before the sensors do. Let me show you. I’ll use another recorded signal.”

  Subconsciously, Mandi slumped her shoulders. Sophia picked up on it and stopped herself short of playing the next recording.

  “Mandi, are you okay? You seem distracted.”

  Surprised by the question, Mandi quickly looked to Sophia. “I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. It’s that snake symbol. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  Sophia scrutinized her for a few moments, then completely removed her headset and placed it next to her holo screen.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “No, I’d be wasting your time. Maybe we should just take a break for now.”

  Sophia moved closer to Mandi and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not wasting my time.”

  Mandi paused, then reached into her holo screen and accessed her research. A shock of anxiety ran through her when she pulled up the first picture of the symbol.

  “That’s familiar.” Sophia leaned in for a better look. “I’ve seen something like that before—a number of times.”

  “I’m not surprised. In the research I’ve done, I’ve found that it dates back more than five thousand years. What I find most interesting is that it spanned six continents and shows up in dozens of cultures—cultures that had no interaction with each other, even separated by thousands of years. It’s called the ouroboros.”

  Sophia curled her lips inward.

  “Most of the time, the snake is in a circle, eating its own tail.” Mandi swiped through a few photos, stopping on one of a different form. “Sometimes it’s in this infinity shape. In most cultures it seems to represent the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Immortality.”

  “That doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “It’s also tightly associated with Gnosticism and Hermeticism.”

  “I have no clue what those are.”

  “Neither did I. So I did what any good reporter does—I researched.” Mandi found the file associated with Gnosticism, and expanded it. Timelines, hand-drawn symbols, maps, and page after page of text filled the screen. “Gnosticism originated in the Mediterranean, primarily in Italy and Greece. I couldn’t find the specific date when it started, but the first mention of it is in a writing by Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lugdunum. His book is called the Adversus Haereses—Against Heresy.” She opened the file. “It was written sometime in the late second century AD. In it, Irenaeus argued that people attained immortality through goodness, and ultimately passed into heaven.”

  “Sounds like a pretty common view of Christianity.”

  Mandi nodded. “It is. But Irenaeus saw Gnosticism as heretical—that’s where it gets a little more chilling. He described how Gnostics believed that immortality was gained by use of secret knowledge—knowledge that should be available only to a select few, granted only by a greater power—God. They believed that the subconscious of these few was one with God. They also believed that the world was a product of evil, ‘possessed of evil demons,’ and could not be a creation of God.”

  “That’s a different view on God and creationism.”

  “That might depend on who the Gnostics considered ‘God.’” Mandi pinched the Gnosticism file closed and opened another. “I couldn’t find much on Hermeticism, but it’s based on the Prophecy of Hermes, and predates Gnosticism. Some passages in the Prophecy caught my attention: ‘Darkness will be preferred to light; death will be thought more profitable than life; and the wicked will be esteemed as good. And so the gods will depart from mankind, and only evil angels will remain, who drive the poor wretches into all manner of reckless crime, into wars, and robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of the soul. Then will the earth no longer stand unshaken, and the sea will bear no ships; the fruits of the earth will rot; the soil will turn barren, and the very air will sicken in sullen stagnation. Religion will be no more; all things will be disordered and awry; all good will disappear.’”

  Chapter 14: Eridani

  The final white rays of Eridani’s sun had long ago dropped out of sight. Ascension was still low above the horizon, a single bright orb dominating the dark sky. With no moon orbiting Eridani, the gas giant served as a suitable stand-in.

  Half a day had passed since Grae’s escape from M-base Echo, and at least a couple hours since the passive sensors had last detected any sign of company. Grae’s back and head ached, and whatever he’d picked up on his wrists and calves itched like a bad case of poison oak. Had this been Earth, an uncomfortable rash would have been a minor inconvenience, but on Eridani, animal life had not yet taken hold, so neither had plant-borne poisons. He needed to get out of the skimmer and have Doc administer a medical check.

  “Ice, this is Viking. Ice, this is Viking.” Grae waited a few seconds for a response, then repeated the transmission.

  “Viking, this is Ice. I read you five by five.” The relief was obvious in Ivey’s voice. “We thought you’d gone Elvis on us.”

  “You’re not so lucky. M-base Echo is compromised. I say again, Echo is compromised. I had bogeys inbound—drone carriers. Base self-destruction successful.”

  “Did you get out clean?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Are you RTB at this time?”

  “Negative. I don’t know how they tracked me to Echo. As much as I want to hear you say ‘I told you so,’ I’m not heading home just yet.”

  “How do we get you back?”

  “Ready a skimmer and tech team with scanning gear, and have them bring a long-range comm. I need to get a message to Helios. Expect further instructions at oh one hundred. Viking out.”

  Grae turned off the communications system and banked toward a nearby ridgeline. It would take Ivey’s team hours to load a cargo skimmer, and hours more to get to a rendezvous point. In the meantime, Grae needed a spot to set down and catch a couple hours of shuteye. But first it was time for some good old-fashioned misdirection. If somehow his transmissions were being tracked, he needed to throw off his pursuers.

  He flew through the night for another hour. As he reached to turn on the communications system, he sniffled. Immediately he ripped off his glove and held fingers to his nostrils. He half- expected to see pink fluid, and relief washed over him when his fingers came away clear.

  “Ice, this is Viking. Ice, this is Viking.”

  “Viking, this is Ice. I read you four by five. Go ahead.”

  “Ice. Rendezvous point is Lima seven. I say again, rendezvous point is Lima seven.

  “Copy. Lima seven.”

 
“I want a ring of perimeter sensors out thirty klicks. And”—Grae clenched his teeth and cursed himself for his stupidity—“tell Doc to bring full biohazard gear.”

  “Biohaz—”

  “Viking out.”

  Grae turned the skimmer a full hundred and eighty degrees, and set a direct course for the rendezvous point. If anyone was using his communications to track him, the two points would lead his pursuers in the wrong direction.

  Still sniffling, he checked the rash on his arm. It was just as itchy and red as before.

  “Shit.”

  He set the autopilot and commanded the skimmer to land itself at Lima seven. That allowed Grae to feel at least some solace. One way or another, he would make it to the rendezvous—whether he still breathed or not.

  Grae climbed from the open cockpit of the skimmer, rubbed his forearm through his suit to try and help with the itching, and looked toward the makeshift camp at point Lima Seven. The four enclosed camouflaged tents were set back in a copse of low Eridanian trees. The large, leafy foliage blocked vision just a few meters in and would keep unwanted eyes from prying, unless they were right on top of the camp.

  Two people in hazmat gear and carrying equipment cases exited one of the tents and jogged over, and two more ran to the skimmer. Despite her full face mask, Grae recognized the diminutive Ivey among them. She immediately began scanning up and down his body with a wand, checking for transmission devices. The person beside her, he assumed, was Doc.

  “You’re clear,” Ivey said.

  “What the hell did you get into?” Doc’s voice was muffled behind his face mask. Grae pulled back his sleeve, revealing the angry red welts on his forearm.

  Doc leaned in to look closer. “It’s hard to say without tests, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say those are sand fly bites.”

  “Sand flies?”

  “We used to call them no-see-ums, or midgies.”

  “On Eridani? There aren’t any flies on the planet, much less something that would find me palatable.”

  “That’s why I said, ‘If I didn’t know better.’ Any other symptoms?”

  “I think I’ve got the same around my calves, and I’ve got a runny nose.”

  “Okay, let’s get into the medical tent and take a closer look.”

  Doc led them to one of the tents, where he opened a zipper-like outer seal, then pushed through an inner flap into a stark white examination room. A folding exam table stood in its center, flanked by portable desks and equipment.

  “Take off your flight suit, comms, everything down to your skivvies, and have a seat.” Doc motioned to the table.

  Grae peeled off his suit and undershirt and sat down.

  “While we’re doing this, I need that long-range comm unit.”

  “It’ll have to wait,” Doc said.

  “It can’t. At the m-base, I sent a message to Jans. And seeing as I was tracked, I can’t rule out the possibility that it was intercepted. It’s urgent. If someone was listening in, then lives are in danger.”

  “I got it.” Ivey turned and left the tent.

  Doc examined Grae’s arm. “I’d still swear these are bug bites. Do you think they came from the crash site?”

  “Yeah.” Grae sighed. “I entered the wreck and found four people—our people—dead. They all had this sort of pink fluid running out of their noses. It looked like diluted blood. It was all over the place.”

  “Did you get any on you?” Doc pulled open Grae’s eyelids and shined a penlight into each.

  “Some. On my glove, then on my hand when I checked for a pulse.”

  “Jesus, I thought they taught you army types better medical precautions than that.”

  “Yeah, I know. I screwed up.” Grae shook his head. “At first, I just assumed they had died in the crash. It wasn’t until I saw the others that I knew the whole thing was wrong. And as soon as I did, I got the hell out. Anyway, I never got anything on my legs, yet they’re messed up, too.”

  “Let me take a look—legs up.”

  Grae brought both his legs onto the table, and Doc examined them. “This is definitely an allergic reaction, so that makes a bacterial or viral infection unlikely. I hate to keep saying this, but they look exactly like bites.”

  The tent flap opened again, and Ivey returned carrying a portable comm unit. Grae hopped off the exam table, took the unit, and set it on a chair. The holographic warm-up logo appeared as Grae knelt in front of it. As soon as the unit was ready, Grae opened its holo screen interface, logged in, and initiated the communication sequence to connect to the long-range comm network.

  “I’ve got a connection. Message is—”

  Suddenly Grae’s vision blurred, and his head felt as if someone had hit him with the butt of a rifle. A liquid ran from his nose across his upper lip, and when he raised his fingers to his nostrils, they came away with a familiar pinkish fluid.

  Ivey screamed his name, but before he could turn to her, the pain in his head grew to unbearable intensity—then everything went black.

  Chapter 15: Helios, Eridani System

  Mandi woke feeling tired. Rubbing her head did nothing to assuage the pain and fatigue, or to pull the image of the ouroboros from her mind.

  As if drawn to her holo screen, she rose from her bed and walked to her desk. She sat and powered it on, and her research files appeared, just where she’d left them. Reaching into the screen, she opened the image files and swiped through them. One after another, depictions of the ouroboros cycled past, and with each, she felt herself drawn deeper into the screen. She swiped image after image, faster and faster. Everything around her, everything other than the images of the ouroboros, began to fade away, blurred to a field of blinding white.

  Mandi’s head felt heavy, and she found it difficult to open her eyes. When finally her lids cracked, the incoming light bored into her, and she squeezed them shut again.

  “Mandi?” A man’s voice boomed in her ears. “Mandi, are you awake?”

  “Jans?”

  “Doctor, she’s awake!”

  Mandi clenched her lids shut. “Jans—quiet. Please.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Jans lowered his voice.

  “How do you feel?” Another man’s voice.

  “Like I’ve got the worst hangover in history. What happened?”

  “Your brain activity is almost back to normal,” the man said. “The danger seems to have passed.”

  “Danger?”

  “Mister Mikel, I’ll let you fill her in on the details.”

  Mandi slowly opened her eyes. Jans’s worried face hovered over her.

  “You missed a session with Sophia,” he said. “She called me—worried. I went to your room, and found you staring into your holo. That snake symbol—”

  “The ouroboros.”

  “Yes, the ouroboros. It was on your screen.”

  “I was researching it.” Mandi pressed her eyes closed as pain coursed through her head. “What happened?”

  “Your brain shut down, or at least the conscious part did.”

  Alarmed, Mandi cracked her eyes open once more. “How the hell does that happen?”

  “The Anghazi, this ouroboros symbol… they pushed you past your limits.” Jans placed a gentle hand on Mandi’s shoulder. “You’re lucky. Others this has happened to have not come back. They stayed like—like you were.”

  “The Anghazi is trying to tell me something.”

  “Maybe.” Jans forced a smile. “Or you’re just not solving a problem that’s important to you. Either way, you’ll get better now.”

  “Better? How will I get—” Mandi opened her eyes wider, and took in her surroundings. “This is Dauntless’s medical bay.”

  Jans nodded.

  “You mean—”

  “Yes. We’re headed to the outer system.”

  “How can that be?”

  “You’ve been out for more than a week.” Jans couldn’t hide his concern. “Your mother and I both agreed—and she said you made
a deal with her about leaving if things got too bad. We had to get you away from Helios and the Anghazi, and Dauntless was the only ticket out. Besides, I thought it might be important for us to document our meeting with Nassir. Who better to do that than you?”

  “Nassir?” Mandi’s jaw dropped. “You mean I’m going out to—to—there?”

  “Ouricsen Station—to meet with Nassir.”

  “Jesus, Jans. That’s kind of a big decision to make without me.”

  “Staying on Helios wasn’t an option, and you weren’t exactly in a condition to weigh in.”

  An alarm blared throughout the medical bay.

  “General quarters. General quarters. All personnel to assigned duty stations.”

  Jans looked to the ceiling. “What now?”

  “Captain, new contact. Active mass sensor signal bearing one three five, mark two seven. Strength two.”

  Unsteady on her feet in Dauntless’s artificial gravity, Mandi stepped onto the ship’s bridge. Captain Stanton swung his command chair around and scowled. His once close-cut gray and brown beard had grown long, but failed to hide his disapproval. He glared at Jans, who returned a single nod before stepping over to Mandi and leaning in close.

  “What are you doing here?” Jans’s voice was low, barely a whisper. “You need to be in the med bay.”

  “I’ll admit I’m a bit weak, but honestly, for the first time in weeks, my mind is clear. I feel better—a lot better. And the medic gave me something for my headache.”

  “Range to source?” The captain barked across the bridge in his heavy British accent. “No reading yet,” the sensor officer replied. “Directional only.”

  “Monitor and report.”

  Mandi looked back to Jans. “What’s going on?”