All the other activity at the moonbase seemed to hang upon her work, whether she was going to give them a death sentence. She couldn't blame the crew for wanting her to stay, since this place was their home. She tried to imagine what it would be like if the alien construction had appeared on the polo fields in Aiken, South Carolina.
As the lunar surface dwindled away in the flatscreen before her eyes, the tug of acceleration seemed greater than Erika remembered in the trainer just three weeks before. Is my body already becoming acclimatized to lower gravity? she wondered. They would test her thoroughly on the Collins before letting her board the Rising Sun for home. She hadn't expected to feel the changes inside her body so clearly. How much longer before she suffered severe bodily deterioration?
The medical station on the Collins would catalog her metabolic specifics in great detail as part of their ongoing studies of the human body in low and microgravity. The low-G acclimatization affected different people at different rates; and some of those on the Moon might have a very difficult time ever returning to Earth. Erika did not want to be one of them. She thought of Big Daddy Newellen, how much trouble he would have hauling his massive body around in gravity six times greater than what he had become accustomed to.
Although she occupied her mind with other things, the shuttle's burn seemed to last forever. Bryan Zed kept silent during the launch -- not much had changed from when he had landed her several weeks before.
Inside the lunar lander, silvery insulation covered the walls. A picture of Zed's wife was taped to the bottom of the middle TV console. Aside from the control panel and acceleration couches, the lander offered little else. It seemed even more spartan than the Sim-Mars lab or the moonbase quarters.
Erika's body rose up against the seat restraints when the acceleration stopped. Zimmerman ran through a sequence of checks and crisply reported them to the Collins in a corpselike monotone. He didn't turn to check on his passenger.
He flicked the flatscreen view from the still-receding lunar surface to a magnified image of the L-1 station. Erika worked at her straps and struggled free. She bumped against the bulkhead as she approached the quiet pilot.
"Nice view. How long until we leave orbit?"
Zimmerman grunted. "We don't go into an orbit around the Moon. By staging to L-1 we can take a direct trajectory from anywhere on the surface."
"Oh." She said, surprised that Zimmerman had replied in more than a few syllables.
Erika squinted at the image of the supply station ahead. The Collins hung in the center of the screen, unmoving. It looked like a bundle of cylinders wrapped tightly with metal scaffolding to hold the whole thing together. Two spindly shuttles were docked at one end of the cylinders; at the other end were three Hitachi tugs, back from their low-Earth-orbit trip.
The docking was smoother than what she remembered coming up from Earthside. Other than a slight bump and computer graphics showing their trajectory, she only realized they had arrived when Zimmerman began dictating his final trip report to a portable voicescribe.
Erika pushed away from her seat. Spinning slightly, she kicked for the airlock and waited for it to rotate open. Zimmerman finished his report, slapped at the few remaining lights that blinked on his panel, and joined her at the airlock. He threw her another quick glance, but remained quiet. She had no idea what he was thinking; perhaps Bryan Zed had somehow managed to obliterate irrelevant thoughts during his flights, conversations with passengers included.
Erika absently reached up to push back her hair. She had tied it back in a ponytail, not wanting to deal with loose strands flying in her way. As she withdrew her hand, she noticed her reflection in a mirror set next to the airlock to allow station personnel to look into the lander. Her face looked bloated and puffy; in weightlessness, her body fluids had redistributed themselves throughout her body. She looked as if she had put on twenty pounds.
A quick glance at her chest showed that her breasts had swelled as well. Compared to how she looked on Earth, even on the Moon, she could probably wear a double D-cup now! Maybe that was why Zimmerman kept stealing glances at her.
As the airlock door rotated open, she wondered how long Zed had been flying the lunar shuttle, and if he was as emotionless as he tried to hide.
Perhaps he held all his passion in check only to be released at home. Or maybe he didn't have any in the first place.
Bernard Chu waited for them inside the station. Erika pushed out to meet him; he caught her by the elbow and they both spun slowly around. It felt like dancing.
"Dr. Trace, welcome back. I wish this could have been under better circumstances. I must personally apologize for not having equipped the Sim-Mars lab adequately. When I was commander of the moonbase, we hadn't counted on using the facility for another two years."
"I was thankful for having what equipment I did," said Erika.
Rotating his feet against the bulkhead, Chu pushed out and moved down the corridor. They floated down a polished steel cylinder. Signs posted every few feet pointed to lifevessels and air hoods in the event of sudden decompression. Erika followed Chu's motions as he maintained his grip to steady her.
"We heard that you were not able to discover why the alien machines have stopped disassembling things. Or what they are building at Daedalus."
She felt her defensiveness rise up again. "Well, Mr. Chu, I actually did make a bit of progress. I don't think the point was to find out everything about the alien automata. After all, how much do we know about our own experimental nanotech machines? Not a whole bunch."
Chu pushed off the side wall to direct them both down a crosslink. He smiled. "I didn't mean to doubt your ability, Dr. Trace. And by the way, I have my doctorate, too. Microbiology."
"Sorry, Dr. Chu. I'm not much on titles, and nobody believes I've got a PhD anyway. I look too much like a kid and talk like a hick from the South.
But don't worry, you didn't offend me. It's just that ... well, everyone on Earth expected me to unravel all the mysteries by myself with a few days of research."
Chu nodded and continued to drift. "Ah yes, the public perception of how science can create miracles without having to work at it! Or without receiving any funding!"
He reached out for a handhold to stop their progress. Chu motioned for her to enter the room first. "I suppose you're right, but when dealing with something as strange as this, we must accelerate the discovery process."
"I'm doing the best I can. Look at AIDS research, how much money and effort was poured into that, and how long it took them to come up with an answer. Too many movies have brilliant scientists scratching their heads and scribbling on a blackboard before saving the world over lunch."
Chu lifted an eyebrow. "And do you truly believe risking more people out in the Sim-Mars laboratory may help?"
Erika drew in a breath to keep from getting angry. "With the existing setup at Sim-Mars, one researcher was the optimum solution. As it turns out, we'll need much more equipment and more personnel. I hope I can bring a good team back."
And Jordan Parvu is damn well going to be one of them, she thought.
He got me into this.
"We'll do whatever is necessary to assist you," Chu said. "And that includes being pack mules for getting your equipment in place once it comes up from Earth."
Erika noticed for the first time where Chu had led her. It looked like a small infirmary. Medical garments hung in webbed netting; a case fixed to the far bulkhead held three rows of surgical knives; boxes marked MEDICINAL
SUPPLIES were stuck all over the bulkheads; a holotank filled the right side of the room -- probably for realtime use in assisting surgery -- and a refurbished acceleration couch, complete with straps, served as a surgical table.
Erika's eyes widened. "Looks like a serious medical center you have set up here."
"Celeste McConnell strikes again," said Chu with a smile. "It was a bone they gave me when they transferred me up here from the moonbase." He waved for her to strap onto
the acceleration couch. "As I said, my field is biochemistry. Besides being a waystation and supply depot, the Collins is supposed to serve as a life sciences facility. Remember the tests they ran on you before leaving Star City?"
Erika nodded. It was the last thing they had done before she boarded the Aeroflot plane for Moscow, then back to the States.
"Now that you're about to head back dirtside, we must calibrate your vitals before you return to full gravity. We've got blood, fecal, urine, hair, skin, and just about every other sample you can imagine of everyone who's been on the Moon. Until we get a statistically significant database, we'll never be able to accurately predict how a human is going to react under long-term exposure to low-G and the enhanced radiation environment. You've been down on the Moon for only a short time, but we still need to see what that few days has done to your metabolism."
Erika eyed a needle that Chu pulled out. She rolled up her jumpsuit sleeve and looked the other way. "You've got it easy," Chu casually remarked as he took the blood sample. "If you were a male, we'd be doing a few additional tests."
Two hours before the Rising Sun was scheduled to dock and load her and other cargo bound for Earth, Bernard Chu called Erika into the infirmary, alone. Erika was startled to see how much the man had aged -- and it had only been twelve hours since she had last seen him.
He sealed the door behind her.
"Dr. Chu?"It seemed to take a minute before he turned to her. "Erika --
I wanted you to be the first to see this. I ... I just hope I've misinterpreted something. But I can't see how."
Erika felt a chill run down her spine. Wasn't this the way doctors told patients they were dying of some terminal disease? She shook her head in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Chu looked as if he had resigned himself to failure. His shoulders stooped and his face seemed ashen gray. He waved a feeble arm at the stereo microscope. "There. Go ahead. Take a look. You of all people should need no explanation."
Erika frowned. She floated slowly toward the twin-barreled microscope.
She was so used to working with the microwaldoes, viewing specimens through the aid of a holotank, she hoped she could discern what Chu wanted her to see.
She squinted through the device. She immediately recognized red and white blood cells, bumping up against each other in the display. She started to draw back when something caught her attention just at the limits of her vision. She adjusted the magnification to full and stared hard --
Within the field of view were the unmistakable signs of what she had observed on the Moon, what she had watched for hour after hour until she had been forced to call it quits and head back to Earth for reinforcements --
Mixed in with the sample of blood were thousands upon thousands of nanotech devices -- the same alien machines that were erecting a gigantic construction on the Farside of the Moon.
And they were swimming in human blood.
She pulled back in horror. Chu slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm
... so sorry. I don't know what we're going to do."
Erika's eyes widened. "This ... is my blood?"
Chu lifted his head and whispered, "No. And that's why I've asked you to verify what I've found."
He slumped as if he wanted to sit down heavily, but the microgravity held him floating in the air. She noticed that his hands were trembling. He looked at her as he spoke.
"You see, this is my blood. A new sample, taken just minutes ago." He swallowed hard. "Your blood looks the same.
"And if I'm right, then everyone on the Collins has these alien things coursing through their veins."
--------
CHAPTER 15
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Celeste McConnell woke from nightmares to the insistent beeping of the phone link. She snapped away from sleep and rolled half out of bed. As she fumbled for the set, she saw it was the Stu-5 -- her secure phone.
She martialed her thoughts, pulling her attention back from grogginess.
Bad dreams had already warned her how important this call must be. A lot depended on how sharp-minded she could be.
Her two dogs, Chuck and Yeager -- a black lab and a German shepherd --
got up from the foot of the bed, growling, ready to defend her against any intruder. She shushed them as she turned on the "video receive only" channel of the phone link; there would be no pictures this night.
She felt a dreaded eagerness to find out what it was, what the nightmares had warned her about. Then at least she could stop wondering, though she would not know what to do about it.
Celeste finger-combed dark hair out of her eyes. "Hello?"
"Celeste?" Bernard Chu's face appeared. The link was patched in from the Collins.
"Bernard! What are you calling for?"
She remembered watching him frantically scrambling into the Grissom's Module 4 airlock, knowing their time was running out, knowing the station would be destroyed soon. Celeste still sent Chu's son Shelby a birthday card every year.
"Celeste, we have some big trouble here. We've got only five minutes before this call will arouse suspicion. I'm patching in over a private link --
I commandeered one of my crewmembers' regularly scheduled calls home so that no one would think anything's out of the ordinary. We've got to do something."
She sat up now, naked on the bed, letting the sheets fall away from her. "Okay, Bernard. Talk to me. I'm listening."
He wet his lips. "We've ... we've been contaminated. Alien nanomachines!" Chu's voice twisted as if he were about to burst into panic, but he kept it under control. His expression hardened. She saw a man much older than the one she had rescued on the Grissom.
"Slow down, Bernard. What happened?"
"We brought that nanotech researcher back up from Columbus -- Erika Trace. We did a routine blood test, as always with people passing back and forth. Celeste -- she's got those alien nanothings in her blood. They've infected her ... and they are in my blood, too! By now they've probably spread to all of us."
Celeste felt blocks of ice falling into her stomach. The dreams had been right. "Have you checked anybody else?"
"We just found out ten minutes ago. Erika Trace confirms it. I've ordered blood tests for everybody, including Bryan Zimmerman. I've got to keep fourteen people under control here. The Rising Sun is supposed to dock in half an hour, but I told them we were having difficulties and would have to postpone."
She saw Chu's hands squeeze together and his eyes close for a second, as if collecting his own thoughts, his terror, his anger.
Celeste's thoughts raced forward. How had Erika Trace been infected?
She had doublechecked the young woman's isolation and sterilization precautions herself. Jordan Parvu, Maurice Taylor, and Maia Compton-Reasor had all agreed that they were more than adequate. But somehow the alien nanomachines had broken through.
Celeste thought of the images of Waite, Lasserman, and Snow, as the Daedalus nanomachines destroyed them. But why hadn't they disassembled Erika Trace if they were inside her body?
Scowling, Celeste realized she couldn't trust anything the researchers did now. How could they be so cocky to think they could set up a defense impenetrable to alien technology, a technology sophisticated enough to fabricate nanomachines in the first place? Such a civilization could easily thwart any barrier scientists like Erika Trace might set against it.
Celeste remembered, too, Jordan Parvu's suspicions that alien nanomachines had already reached Earth -- but thankfully she had seen no hard evidence of that, just a few anomalous cosmic-ray tracings. What would happen if the infestation did get here? What if it spread from the Moon -- like a plague?
"What should we do?" Chu insisted, breaking her train of thought. "I wish I could see your face and talk to you directly."
She glanced down at her naked breasts and her thighs, now sparkling with a thin sweat. The illumination seeping through the blinds lit them with a dim gray-blue sheen. Items of clothing lay scatte
red on the floor, glistening monoweave panty hose, a rumpled dress uniform. "Not now, Bernard."
She waited, thinking. On the screen, Chu fidgeted. "Why didn't Dvorak think to check Erika before letting her board the shuttle? If I had been moonbase commander -- "
Silence. Celeste watched him swallow and sit up straighter. She softened her voice. "I don't quite know what to do. Give me an hour to think about it. Don't let anybody leave Collins station. Tell the Rising Sun that the delay is indefinite and find out how long they can orbit L-1 before they have to return to LEO.
"And finish taking blood tests. I must know the extent of this contamination, how far it has spread. I'll call you back as soon as I have more information. Prepare yourself -- we may have to take some drastic measures."
On the screen, Chu nodded reluctantly. Celeste needed some time without him watching, to think and to discuss the possibilities out of earshot.
"Thanks, Bernard. Keep me informed if anything else happens. I will speak to you soon." She switched off. Her hands were trembling. The dogs whimpered, demanding attention.
Beside her, Major General Simon Pritchard sat up silently in bed. The wiry hairs on his chest looked like metal in the pale light. His eyes were wide, blinking in astonishment. "Oh my God!" he said.
Celeste turned to him. "I was afraid something like this would happen."
She couldn't tell him about the dreams. She could not risk having him lose his trust in her now.
Pritchard's face looked boyish. Had it been only a few hours ago that they had been locked together, his arms around her, her legs around him ...
laughing, moving with him, giggling when the two dogs leaped onto the bed, practically causing the box springs to break? Celeste and Simon had drifted off to sleep, contented -- but then the nightmares had come to stalk her.
She had been having a lot of bad dreams lately; what frightened her most was that she did not know how to interpret them. Not this time. She could not determine what the dreams were warning her of, but she knew that something terrible must be coming.
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