“Excuse me,” he said to Marissa, and stood, making a beeline for the settlement’s leader. On the way, he passed by Althaus serving himself dinner from the banquet table.
“Make sure you try the meat,” Jason told him. “Best thing you’ll ever eat.”
He smirked and continued toward Tobias who finished up his conversation with the others.
“Mister Cassidy, welcome back. How are you finding the festivities?”
“You’ve been most hospitable.”
“You’re too kind.” Tobias smiled. “Have you and your crew talked more about our offer?”
“We’re not ready to give up on the old girl yet. You have to understand the Argo isn’t just a ship, it’s our home, too.”
My God, I sound like Aly…
“I sympathize. When the Scorpius crashed, I, too, was reluctant to cannibalize her and surrender hope returning to the stars.” Tobias put a hand on his shoulder. “But when it came to our survival, a choice had to be made. Please don’t take too long to decide, because you won’t last out there alone forever.”
“We’ll pull the pin before it’s too late,” Jason assured him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Has any of your technology switched itself back on lately?”
The question seemed to bemuse Tobias. “Mister Cassidy, what technology we had has long since been disassembled. Why do you ask?”
“I’m not sure yet. My engineer witnessed something she can’t explain. I was just wondering if you’d come across it, too.”
“I’m sorry to say I haven’t. But if you need help with anything—”
“I’ll be sure to ask. Thank you.”
Tobias gestured back toward the table. “Please eat up. It’s not often we have guests.”
*
Cargo Ship Argo
The bridge was lit up like a macabre theatre play Aly had seen as a child on some faraway space station by a troupe of traveling performers.
With the sun now down, the candles the colonists had lent them bathed her surroundings with flickering shadows dancing against the bulkheads.
After chomping down on a chocolate cookie ration pack that tasted nothing like chocolate, she went to work fixing any faults she could find in the linkages between the bridge and the engine room.
While she was glad to be working, there was part of her that wished she’d gone to the colony. Just to see how a crew had survived on the newly discovered world and how far they’d come along since the crash would’ve been fascinating. Though she knew she’d never be able to enjoy herself with the Argo wounded like she was.
Aly pulled herself up from the deck and replaced the maintenance hatch beneath her feet. She put the spanner back in the toolbox nestling on the captain’s chair and strolled toward the hatchway.
An immediate brightness engulfed her. She covered her eyes at the bridge lights activating and dropped the toolbox. Its contents clattered over the deck, and she rushed to the operations station.
The console booted up, and she ran her fingers across it to initiate the scanners. But like before, as quickly as everything started up, it switched off.
“Damn it!”
The twinkle of candlelight sent her mind into overdrive. What if there’s a pattern?
Aly took a candle by its holder and hurried to the corridor and down the emergency ladder chute to B Deck.
She pushed open the door to her quarters and plunged her hand into the top drawer of her bedside table. Rummaging through it, she found what she was looking for.
She yanked at the chain, and a beautiful gold mechanical fob watch came out. Aly fondly remembered when Benjamin Cassidy had given it to her. He’d told her there’d be times in the engine room she’d be fighting against the clock, and to get everything done, she’d need time to work for her, not the other way around.
Isn’t that the truth?
She wound it up, and it started turning. No electromagnetic field would defeat the advanced technology of the Victorian era.
Aly buckled it to her overalls and placed the watch in her side pocket. If there was a pattern to what was happening, she was determined to find it.
*
Scorpius Colony
Jason had the leading men and women of the colony hanging on his every word recounting the Argo crew’s visit to Psi-Aion.
“So you never knew what the Seekers looked like?” Tobias asked from the head of the table.
“No,” Jason said. “Even after a medical examination of the bodies, Doctor Tai found nothing out of the ordinary.”
Tobias’s wife, who’d had a little too much to drink of Scorpius Colony’s homegrown Shiraz, turned to Tai. “What did it look like inside an alien’s body?”
Tobias put a hand on her arm. “Darling, I don’t think this is the setting.” He changed the subject. “Tell us about this trans-space drive. If it’s a prototype, how did a ragtag cargo crew get given permission to use it?”
It was an integral part of the story Jason didn’t want to reveal too much about. He wasn’t sure how Tobias would react to dealing with a pack of fugitives. “Let’s just say I have connections.”
Tobias smirked. The colony’s leader wasn’t stupid. “It’s nice to have someone here who’s so well regarded.”
Marissa coughed beside him. Jason wanted to thank her for getting him out of the delicate conversation. But when she didn’t stop, he realized it was more serious.
“Marissa?”
Tai hurried over to her as quickly as she was able, but an older man from an adjacent table beat her. He waited until she’d stopped coughing and felt around her neck and then examined her throat.
Tobias approached them. “Doctor Erkens?”
The man frowned. “She’s got it.”
“Got what?” Jason grabbed Tobias by the arm a little too violently. “Got what, damn it!”
A pair of other colonists helped Marissa up and escorted her from the hall. She stared back at Jason with fear, while Tobias led him and Tai into a quiet corner.
“I’m sorry, Mister Cassidy,” he said, “but your friend has an illness. One that has no cure.
Jason’s chest tightened. “What?”
The news seemed to pain Tobias just as badly. “I’m afraid to say she only has a few days to live.”
Chapter 9
Jason gazed at Marissa lying in Doctor Erken’s infirmary, while Kione sat by her side. Everything had gone from bad to worse, and he wanted someone to blame. Her for making me bring her? Me for letting her come?
He entered the adjacent room which acted as an office and makeshift laboratory. Tobias, Erkens, and Tai surrounded a central counter with a vast array of books and medical equipment scattered all over it.
“When we arrived on this world,” Tobias began, “we found more enemies than just the harsh conditions. A few days after arriving, members of the crew became ill.”
“And it’s this illness that Marissa’s contracted?” Jason didn’t mean to sound so adversarial, but seeing what’d happened to her at the dinner table shook him to his core.
Tobias nodded. “Within the first two weeks we lost ten percent of the colony. Two weeks later, five percent more.”
“What is it?” Tai asked.
“Something very complex,” Doctor Erkens said. “It’s similar to the flu in its initial stages, but then worsens, shutting down every organ in the body until the patient can no longer survive.”
“And you say it killed fifteen percent of your crew?”
Tobias frowned. “We lost a lot of good people to this disease.”
“Has anyone else died from it since?”
Erkens shook his head. “No.”
Tai moved toward the door and stared at Marissa before turning. “Eighty-five percent of the population were immune. I assume the children born carried on an immunity from their parents?”
Erkens picked up a large journal. “That’s been my conclusion, yes.”
“And you weren’t able to synthesize a cure?” Tai cast an accusatory glare at him.
“As you can see, Doctor Tai, my facility isn’t up to TIAS’s standards.” Erkens shut the book and pushed it to the end of the counter. “It was easier said than done.”
“Not to mention,” Tobias interrupted, “once we discovered no one else was dying from the disease, there seemed little sense trying to fight it anymore.”
“It would’ve made sense to her,” Jason replied, pointing from the room at Marissa.
Tobias joined Jason by the door. “You must understand, Mister Cassidy, we didn’t expect anyone to follow us here.”
Jason couldn’t fault the colony leader’s logic, but it didn’t make the situation any better. “I have six more members in my crew, including myself. Are we going to contract this illness as well?”
Tobias and Erkens stared at each other, neither wanting to commit to an answer.
It was Tai who ended up breaking the awkward silence. “It’s likely we’ve already contracted the disease.”
Erkens opened another book. “If fifteen percent of the population died from the disease, it’s improbable any more of your people will have to fight it.”
“Statistics don’t work that way.” Tai picked up Erkens’s journal and flicked through the pages. “While unlikely, it could take more victims.”
Jason wasn’t in the mood for hypotheticals. “Regardless, one person has fallen. That’s one too many.” He eyed Erkens and Tobias. “I want a cure for this. I won’t allow her to perish on this planet.”
The Scorpius Colony’s doctor didn’t appear confident.
Tai moved in front of him. “Jason, while it’s not an impossibility to find that cure, if the EM field weren’t operational, achieving that goal would be more likely. Much of my equipment on the Argo needs power to run.”
Jason nodded in understanding, and Tai turned back to Erkens. “Doctor, I’ll need every report, diary, log, or scribbling taken during the epidemic.”
He gestured toward the other end of his medical practice and led her and Tobias away. Jason went over to Marissa and sat next to Kione.
“She’s been in and out of consciousness,” the friendly alien told him.
Jason put his hand on Marissa’s. “Don’t worry, Doctor Tai will sort all of this out.”
While her eyes were closed, she gently nodded.
Jason glanced at Kione. “I’m heading back to the ship to check how Aly’s tracking. Did you want to come?”
He shook his head. “I’ll stay here and help Doctor Tai.”
Jason gave him a nod of thanks and put his hands once again on Marissa’s. “I won’t be long.”
Her mouth curled into a small grin, and Jason disappeared into the night.
*
June 12, 2214
Cargo Ship Argo
Aly wasn’t sure what to say. She hadn’t got to know Marissa yet but dreaded to think what she was going through back at the colony.
Jason’s face was pale. She hoped it wasn’t the horrific disease, instead guessing it was the thought of what was happening at the settlement. She knew so little about the pair, only that they’d had a relationship in the past. Jason never talked about girls around her. She wasn’t entirely certain why.
“So, right now, Doctor Tai is working with Doctor Erkens to see if she can find a cure.” Jason stopped and peered off into the distance at nothing in particular.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Something about that place, I guess.”
“The colony?”
“Yeah.” He shook off whatever he was thinking. “Anyway, tell me what progress you’ve made with this electro-magnetic field issue.”
She led him over to the maintenance console. “While you were gone, I observed another burst.”
“The power came back on?”
She nodded. “There was also a third and a fourth.” She pulled out her fob watch.
Jason placed it in his hands. “My God, I haven’t seen this for years. I had no idea my father gave it to you.”
“Yeah, when he died, well…” She trailed off, remembering far too clearly his final days on his deathbed. “I, uh, if you want—”
“He gave this to you for a reason.” Jason put the watch in her hand and smiled. “Now tell me what you’ve found out.”
“After the second burst, I set a timer to check if there was a pattern. On the third, I discovered there was. Every two hours and eighteen minutes, the power comes on for mere seconds. On the fourth burst, I calibrated the computer to activate the scanners when the power returns a fifth time.”
She opened the watch and showed it to him. “We’re only minutes away. How good’s your memory?”
*
Jason, Kevin, and Althaus stood around Aly at the operations station and counted down the seconds on her pocket watch.
It was such a beautiful timepiece. Jason remembered when he was a kid finding the antique in his father’s closet. His dad had recounted to him how old it was and how many generations it’d been in the family. Benjamin Cassidy loved that thing almost as much as his ship and his sons.
While happy he’d given it to Aly, Jason couldn’t help but feel ashamed that his dad hadn’t considered handing the heirloom down to him. No doubt the argument with his father when Jason had been a teenager that had ended in him threatening to space it out an airlock probably had something to do with his final decision.
“Here we go,” Aly said.
The power activated, lighting up the entire bridge. The monitor on the operations station flickered on, and the scanners initiated.
All four stared at the readings, and then just as quickly as it had flashed on, the electro-magnetic field once again took hold, bathing them in darkness.
Jason eyeballed the others. “Okay what did everyone see?”
“There was definitely a focal point,” Aly said. “The field seems to be emanating from a single position.”
“It was located in the north,” Althaus added. “Right in the middle of a large rock formation.”
Kevin nodded. “I saw it out to the west when we crashed down.”
“How far from here?” Jason asked him.
“At a guess, I’d say at least one hundred kilometers.”
Jason stepped to the viewport and peered out into the blackness of night. Beyond the sand dunes were the answers to their questions. It wouldn’t be easy traveling the plains of the inhospitable world. But he had little choice. Marissa’s life depended on it.
Chapter 10
Scorpius Colony
Kione didn’t sleep a wink, poring over the vast array of papers Doctor Erkens had written on the disease twenty years earlier.
Tai was doing the same in the laboratory next door. The pair divided what was there and agreed to come back to each other once they’d read it all, with the hope they could find a way to produce a cure.
Kione yawned. A small ache took hold around his temples. While he had no idea what species he belonged to, he’d realized over the years he was just as susceptible to fatigue as any human.
He folded the corner of the lengthy journal and glanced at Marissa beside him. She’d been asleep for at least six hours. He put the back of his hand on her warm, clammy forehead.
“She’s still fighting the fever.”
Kione nearly jumped from his chair. Out of the shadows, Doctor Erkens approached him.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said.
“It’s okay.” Kione frowned. “Her condition hasn’t changed.”
“Nor will it. This is just the beginning.” Erkens leaned over Marissa and felt around her neck followed by a reading of her temperature. “From this point onwards, it will only get worse.”
“I can’t fathom what it must’ve been like to watch so many of your colleagues go through this.”
Erkens looked away with a blank expression, before returning his focus to Kione. “You need sleep.”
> Kione smiled wryly, also noticing the fatigue on the doctor’s face. “Some might say the same of you.”
“I haven’t been about to sleep properly since I arrived on this planet. It’s the heat, I think. And when a patient’s in this condition…” Erkens sighed. “I’ve been trying to scrounge up any long-lost material that could give us a leg up in helping her.”
“Did you have any luck?”
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’m a better recordkeeper than I am a doctor. Everything I have is in this infirmary.”
They sat in silence, and Kione looked up, catching him staring. “You know I won’t bite.”
The doctor chuckled ever so slightly. It was the first time Kione had seen any upward movement on the stern physician’s lips.
“It’s not every day you get to meet an alien.” Kione put the journal down on the bedside table. “I’m sure you have many questions.”
Before Erkens could mutter a word, Doctor Tai appeared from the shadows and moved toward them in her mobility chair, which she’d quickly adapted to inside the electro-magnetic field.
“How did you go?” Kione asked her.
“There’s a lot there. Whether it unlocks the key to a cure, I’m not sure yet.” She turned to Erkens. “How’s Marissa?”
“No change.” He wrote his examination on a clipboard and handed it to her.
“Did you find anything?” Tai said to Kione.
“There are a few things that might interest you.” He picked up the smallest of the journals on the bedside table and passed it across to Tai, showing her the marked pages.
“Good work. I should recommend you to the board back home. We can make a doctor of you yet.” She closed the book. “Why don’t you get some sleep. At least an hour or two.”
Kione peered at both her and Erkens, knowing full well neither had any intention of doing the same. “An hour. Then I’ll be back.”
He yawned and walked to the door. Just as he was about to step over the threshold, a searing pain shot up his throat. He grabbed the door handle and coughed uncontrollably.
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