Mutationem

by Phoenix Jericho

  *

  The next week was a swarm of activity. Everyone worked like a small colony of ants, and with one common purpose, a massive amount was achieved. Merc had ingeniously come up with a way to take the massive ship apart one section at a time and lower it to the surface below. First, the ship’s hull section magnets were deactivated, and the titanium anchor bolts were removed. Then, a series of hydraulic jacks were mounted to the lower section, and the upper hull was raised up about one inch, just enough to swing the section out to the side. It was then anchored to an internal crane that Merc had designed prior to launch, which used the lower ship’s sections as its base. It looked similar to a crane used on Earth to build a skyscraper. Once it reached the ground, it was placed on a series of rollers and moved to the clearing. The process was repeated until finally, ten days later, six sections had been moved and only the last section remained.

  The last section was Engineering, the largest and heaviest. But fortunately, it didn’t need to be moved. Merc had planned for it to remain where it was; they would build their new beehive-like colony around it. The colony was in the shape of a hexagon, and each section was interconnected with tunnels. If need be, the entire colony could be sealed off from Alpha-64’s atmosphere just like it had been in space. It was once again a complete life support system for the crew, but now in the shape of a terrestrial colony instead of a ship.

  Spice and Connie had located a suitable location in the clearing and had cultivated and planted a garden with the remaining seeds not already planted in the ship’s internal garden. They couldn’t find a source of water, so a carefully rationed amount was removed from the ship’s storage tanks and used to soak the freshly planted seeds.

  It was Connie who soon discovered that the rock-like chunks in the soil not only contained vital minerals for plant growth but also held inside something precious: life-giving water.

  With this discovery, Connie approached Merc and asked her to stop working on the colony’s defenses; she was needed to help design a rock crusher. Through the process of crushing the rocks, moisture was extracted and used to water the garden. It wasn’t the clear type of water found in a stream on Earth; instead, it had a reddish, dirty color. Not something the crew would necessarily want to drink, but plants aren’t fussy.

  The captain was relentless. She seemed to be everywhere all at once. She drove the crew to exhaustion and then pushed a little further. The lack of sleep, poor rations, increased gravity, and overwhelming workload were having a toll. The women looked like they had aged overnight; everyone was worn and haggard and looked about to collapse.

  But, with an iron determination, by the fourteenth day they were done. Captain Kriss was very pleased with her crew’s progress. Outside, observing the new outdoor garden with Spice, she had a look of amazement. There before her was a little field of cultivated green: their garden was growing.

  Turning to Smitty, she said, “Get on the com and tell everyone they have done a damn good job. Double rations and a mandatory full day’s rest.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the first mate.

  A few minutes later, everyone stopped what they were doing and listened to Smitty’s voice as it came over the com. Her announcement was followed by quiet rejoicing among the exhausted colony. Except not for Libby: she was a miserable mess of a girl. She was softly crying when Connie came upon her in the mess hall.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” asked the chief science officer. “Does your body ache all over?”

  “Yes,” sobbed Libby. “But that isn’t what hurts the most.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you hungry?”

  “My heart aches,” replied Libby, and she began to cry again.

  Taking her scanner out of its pouch, Connie began to examine Libby. She started at her head and made her way down towards her heart. With a puzzled look, Connie finally said, “You are completely fine.”

  “I miss Dozer! I don’t want him to die,” sobbed Libby.

  Connie put her hand under the little girl’s chin. “What if I told you your cat was alive and I could prove it to you? Would you like that?”

  Grasping Libby’s hand, Connie led the way. Soon the duo was sitting in front of a computer monitor. Libby watched in eager fascination as Connie typed at a keypad. Soon, a computerized map generated by the drone was pulled up, and a red dot pulsated on the screen.

  Pointing to the dot, Connie asked, “Do you know what that is?”

  “Is it Dozer?” squeaked Libby.

  “Let’s see,” replied Connie as she magnified the location of the red dot. “Can you read this?”

  “RFID chip, location three miles, elevation and longitude and some numbers, and it says all biological systems are normal,” chirped Libby.

  “And what does it say below that last line?”

  “It says Dozer!” screamed Libby.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Spice was puzzled. She had never seen anything like this before. The plants in the outside garden were growing at a much faster rate than the ones inside the ship. It didn’t make any sense; the ship’s garden was perfectly regulated, simulating an ideal Earth-like environment. But the growth of the outside, free-growing garden was almost visible by the human eye in real time.

  Overnight, since the first signs of growth had been witnessed the previous day, the plants had doubled or even tripled in size. At this rate, the garden could be harvested in a couple of weeks. Breaking off a succulent stem of a corn plant, Spice placed it in a specimen bag and headed to Med Bay. Maybe the chief science officer would have an answer.

  Connie was working on Felix. With the logistics of setting up the colony now complete, she once again was focused on the important task of getting viable male DNA to clone. So far the gene sequencer wasn’t divulging any clues about the cadaver’s biological blueprint. Connie was very aware that the radioactive isotope had most likely destroyed his DNA beyond sequencing, but she wasn’t going to give up. A timid voice kept whispering in her mind, so quiet that she couldn’t hear it, while her scientific brain was screaming. It was a tug of war that she wasn’t even aware of. The timid voice would whisper to her softly, to then be drowned out by a lecture in her mind from one of her many classes on Earth about forensics and cloning. The result was that Connie couldn’t focus. She was in the process of getting ready for a mind-clearing breathing treatment when Spice arrived in Med Bay unexpectedly.

  “Commander, Commander! I’ve got wonderful news!”

  “What are you so perky about?” asked Connie.

  Holding up the clear specimen bag, Spice said, “Look at this.”

  “Did you cut down one of my corn plants in the ship’s garden?” asked Connie. “You know we are about to starve. Who authorized you to kill one of the plants?”

  Spice beamed. “It’s from the outside garden, and I want you to examine it immediately.”

  “That’s impossible. We only planted the garden several days ago.”

  “I know, sir. Something amazing is happening. I don’t know if it’s the continual natural sunlight, the higher levels of oxygen, or the crushed mineral rocks we get the water from, but something is acting like concentrated plant food and we need to know what it is. That’s why I brought it to you ASAP,” said Spice.

  Taking the corn sprout out of the specimen bag, Connie sliced a piece of it with a sharp scalpel and put it on a slide under a powerful electron microscope. She didn’t say anything for several minutes, and when she finally did, it was a whisper.

  “Interesting. Very interesting.”

  Taking another slide, she cut a second section of the stem, but this time she cut it lengthwise. She had almost severed it in two when the scalpel slipped and nicked her finger.

  “Ouch!” she stammered. Instinctively, she held her finger up to see if any blood oozed out. With relief, she saw none, and placed the new slide into the microsc
ope.

  At first, everything seemed the same as on the first slide: normal plant cells acting as expected. But then something remarkable happened: the plant cells started swarming like a living animal cell across the slide towards one location.

  Connie held her breath. She had never seen anything like this before. What was happening? The cells were binding with something sticking on the slide, not just binding but rearranging themselves and changing their chemical composition. It was so deliberate and patterned that her mind stopped thinking; she went into a trancelike state and closed her eyes.

  Going down deep inside herself, Connie became lost. Soon her ears couldn’t hear Spice’s voice.

  “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  Connie felt the rhythmic beating of her heart in her chest, felt the air being inhaled and exhaled from her lungs as she listened intently. She heard something very faint and couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

  Then her subconscious spoke one word: mutation.

  Her eyes flickered open and refocused on the slide. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What is it?” asked Spice.

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ll need to watch this a little longer to make a definite analysis. But it appears that I got some of my DNA on this slide when I nicked my finger with the scalpel. The plant cells are combining with them, some sort of a mutation. I don’t understand it. This is our seed from Earth, not one grown here, so there must be something in Alpha-64’s soil causing this phenomenon. I’m going to quarantine these slides immediately for observation. Go find the captain now.”

  Sealing off the slides, Connie placed them in a secure bio cabinet. What she saw troubled her, but compartmentalizing it in her mind, she was able to once again focus on Felix. Every attempt at getting viable DNA had failed. Taking in a slow, deep breath, she again listened. It was easier this time because she now knew what to listen for. Not a single word came to her mind; instead, it was a sense that she had overlooked something obvious. It had something to do with the tattoo on his neck.

  Then it struck her, and a cold sensation rippled down her spine. She could feel the hairs stand up on the backs of her arms and neck.

  He had received a lethal injection at his execution, and they had used potassium chloride and pentobarbital. What if potassium chloride somehow blocked the radioactive isotope from decaying the stored DNA in the venous and arterial systems of the body? The cadaver had never been embalmed for burial, and had never been drained of this lethal solution after death.

  Connie split open the abdominal cavity all the way up to the sternum with a scalpel. Carefully, she dissected the tissues and removed the lower portion of the aorta. She placed a cut section on a slide and put it into the gene sequencer. This seemed like a long shot; she had never heard of anyone on Earth getting a complete DNA map of a human this way. Her schooled scientific brain said this method would fail, but her intuition didn’t agree.

  Once she had initiated the gene sequencer, Connie headed to the outside garden. She wanted to see if Spice’s claims were true for herself.

  The planet’s suns warmed her back as she bent over to examine the plants. The commander hadn’t exaggerated; the garden looked like one that had been growing for a month on Earth.

  Connie peered at the dense vegetation at the clearing’s edge. Did the true alien hidden here happen to be in plant form? Her concentration was broken by the voice of Captain Kriss.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, sir, I have made a couple important discoveries,” said Connie.

  “What have you put in this garden?” exclaimed Kriss. “It’s growing so fast.”

  “I don’t have an answer for that yet, sir. I’m still working on one,” said Connie. “But I feel I have made a breakthrough with Felix, and the gene sequencer is working as we speak.”

  “Excellent news, Commander.”

  Suddenly, without warning, a scream ripped across the clearing. Libby ran toward the duo in the garden. Tripping, she fell and got the planet’s red soil all over her face. As the two women rushed to her aid, Libby struggled up on her own, tears coursing down her cheeks in twisted red waterways. The only discernible word coming from her mouth was Dozer.

  Pulling on both women’s hands, she started running back to the ship. Once the trio reached Med Bay, Libby pointed at the monitor, and all eyes focused on the red pulsating dot. It was moving rapidly and headed straight back towards the colony.

  “Something is wrong with Dozer! Something is chasing him,” squealed Libby.

  Getting on the com, Kriss ordered all perimeter cameras to show live video feed. Then she yelled, “Possible hostiles inbound! I repeat, possible hostiles inbound! Red alert, red alert! Man all battle stations!”

  An ordered confusion of women began running, grabbing bolt guns, and setting up in defensive positions. The four perimeter guns were operated by live crew. Each tower had a struggling figure climbing up to perch there. The colony’s siren was sounding its alert. Everyone felt the weighted sensation of doom in their hearts, and the chill of the unknown.

  In the distance, a cracking noise split the air like a giant bone being broken against a rock. Then a tremendous crashing noise was followed by something heavy hitting the ground. The monitor vibrated, making it hard to focus on the red dot that was Dozer. His implanted chip showed that he was running flat-out at 36 mph with a heart rate of 250 beats per minute. Whatever was chasing him was making him run for his life.

  “Run, Dozer, run!” yelled Libby.

  Suddenly, there was movement on a perimeter camera. It looked like the vegetation was starting to separate like the slow opening of a ziplock bag. The split was in the distance, and it was rapidly approaching the colony’s clearing.

  “Where are you, Dozer?” screamed Libby. His red dot showed he was at the clearing’s edge.

  A deep roar reverberated from the jungle. It was so loud that the noise was felt more than heard; its anger shook everyone and everything.

  Dozer leaped into view, his orange image a blur. All eyes focused on him, then immediately behind him, as the jungle opened its mouth to reveal what was coming to kill them all.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  As the planet’s red dust settled like sediment on the bottom of a stream, the aftermath of the attack was evident. Women littered the colony’s clearing: some dead, some dying, and many bleeding. Strangely, there was no noise; it was eerily silent.

  Captain Kriss pulled herself up and looked around Med Bay. Her vision was blurred; something had struck her head with a horrific blow. She could see someone struggling to get out from under a heavy cabinet that used to be bolted onto one of the room’s walls. It was Connie; she was lying facedown and only her upper torso was visible. Walking unsteadily, the captain shuffled over to her side and tried to lift the cabinet off of her. It wouldn’t budge. With renewed determination, Kriss tried again. This time it moved slightly, and when it settled back down, Connie screamed.

  “We need help!” Kriss yelled frantically.

  The agony heard in Connie’s scream sickened Kriss. In desperation, she screamed for help again; this time, she heard several cries in response. Smitty came crashing through the doors, and without even stopping, grabbed the cabinet and heaved it up off of Connie. Kriss kneeled down and gently ran her hand down Connie’s back.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered. “Can you get up?”

  “I can’t feel my legs. I think my back is broken.”

  “Don’t move. I’ll get help,” said the captain.

  Getting ready to yell Pickle’s name, Kriss stopped as the willowy form of Pickle materialized.

  “Connie is hurt. Take care of her. I have to check the rest of my crew,” said Kriss in a strained voice. “Grab a medic kit and come with me, Smitty.”

  Together, the captain and first mate covered every inc
h of the colony with the help of the able-bodied survivors. Anyone alive needing medical aid was assisted, and the dead, when located, were respectfully placed in Engineering on the floor under tarps.

  It was slow, tedious work. Every section was in complete disarray both inside and out. There were broken branches, limbs, and stems of all types strewn everywhere. It looked like a giant tornado had mowed down the planet’s vegetation and dumped it on the colony. One tunnel of the ship had collapsed from a treelike plant that had fallen across, all the perimeter towers were down, one wall of Engineering was breached where a massive boulder had crashed through, and the planet’s soil covered the rear section of Med Bay.

  Having seen the worst for herself, the captain was having to dig deep to project strength and confidence. It was in these times of helplessness that she always felt closest to her father. She whispered, “I need you, Daddy.”

  Smitty interrupted her thoughts. “Captain, I have the list of all the dead as requested.”

  Clearing her throat, Kriss asked, “And how many are there?”

  “Seventeen, sir,” replied Smitty.

  As her eyes scanned the names of the dead, Kriss visualized each face. It was too long a list for their little colony. The last name on the list was Susanna.

  “What about the injured?” she asked.

  “One broken femur, a broken wrist, several broken ribs, two concussions, one lost eye, several dislocations and sprained ankles, and one injured knee. Libby is unconscious, with a blunt force trauma to her head; Pickle has her in a medically induced coma until her brain swelling goes down.”

  “Good thing. She won’t know about her mother,” said Kriss in a strained voice. “What about Connie?”

  “Pickle is working on her, sir, but as of right now, she can’t feel anything or move from the waist down,” replied Smitty.