Unknown

by Microsoft Office User

  Sh'hun stood inches before her, its head extended beyond its protective cone. The huge red eyes did not droop, and its anger terrified her. She tried to scream, but there was no sound.

  Tentacles pushed her off her feet. She rose into the air and watched as Sh'hun kept its ground.

  Total darkness.

  She was flying now, head over heels.

  Lara opened her eyes.

  Daniel.

  She stared at the viop image of Daniel Loche on her workstation.

  “What ...”

  “I'll be damned, you're back with us,” another woman proclaimed, and Lara looked to her side. Olivia was examining her. Fran and Peter stood behind the doctor.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You know who we are, Lara?” The doctor asked.

  “Of course. What's wrong?” She looked to Peter. “Did you make it into Miguel's quarters?”

  He didn't answer right away.

  “Lara, are you aware of what has happened?” Olivia asked. “You've been in a stupor for about the past 25 minutes.”

  “What? No, I haven't. I came in here to contact the command deck and I was ...”

  “Do you remember having the viop unit on?”

  “Yes, it was already on from the …”

  Lara struggled to understand this. She felt as if her mind were shrapnel. She tried to piece this together, but 25 minutes? She was looking at the viop unit a moment ago. Had to be.

  Fran moved in. “Look, Lara! You feel all right now? You got over it?” The biologist turned to the doctor. “She probably broke down when she saw Daniel's face again. Delayed grief. She's over it. We got too much else going on to stand around here.”

  Lara stood up. “I don't understand any of this. And ... ohmigod!”

  She looked around the room and saw a handful of Fyal moving in and out of existence.

  “It's happening all over the ship,” Fran said. “And we've got to get on top of this, folks. Let's move!”

  “I'm afraid you're right,” the doctor said.

  “But, Peter, what about the captain?”

  His face was ashen as he looked at the other crew.

  “We’re in orbit now. Captain Navarro is dead.”

  70

  T

  his was cruel, the things they were saying. And impossible. Simply impossible. She knew Miguel, and she understood his flaws as well as all those wonderful attributes for which she once idolized the man. Yes, he became confused toward the end.

  But suicide? No. It was not a conceivable outcome to this man's life. And certainly not now. Not when we most needed his strength.

  Nonetheless, the evidence was damning. She learned that once Peter broke the automated seal on the printlock, he rushed into Miguel's quarters and found the captain slumped in his swivel in front of his personal workstation. There were no outward signs of distress. “The sumbitch was smiling,” Peter swore. Olivia was called, and she could not immediately diagnose the cause of death. She speculated on something as simple as heart failure, until she noticed an almost-empty glass sitting upon atop the viop monitor. She thought it was water, until she studied what remained of it, and she recognized an uncharacteristically milky pattern within.

  She'd have to run tests, but Olivia was certain the results would confirm her deduction: The substance in the water was nanotrax emulsion, a highly toxic bio-engineered compound used as a refrigerant in the ship's hibersleep and stasis systems.

  “If he wanted to go quickly and painlessly, this was the best choice other than throwing himself out an airlock,” the doctor quipped.

  Lara did not understand Olivia's clinical, nay, cavalier, attitude in the face of this loss. Our captain is dead! She wanted to scream. He was our leader. He was our friend. Do you really believe he could have killed himself?

  But she didn't say a word, not yet. There was too much information coming too fast. Her crewmates were practically stepping on top of each other to get in their respective mouthfuls.

  “You're sure you're feeling all right?” They would ask Lara while yapping among themselves in disassociated confusion.

  “Do we leave his body there?”

  “How fast are those damn Fyal dispersing?”

  “We should be hearing from the rendezvous craft very soon now.”

  “When it came down to crunch time, the man lacked a spine.”

  “You sure Sue and Nat can work together now without killing each other?”

  “Not much of a choice, from what I can see.”

  “It still gets to me how that sumbitch was smiling.”

  As Lara tried to make some degree of sense out of all this, she also wanted someone to provide an answer for the 25-minute gap in her life that her crewmates insisted she spent in a stupor. None of this was helped by the fact that as the foursome made their way to the SlipTubes, they passed dozens of phase-shifting Fyal. The aliens – some of them with their cones open and their tentacles flailing – moved in and out of walls, up through ceilings. And others were motionless.

  Lara stepped lively to avoid the creatures, who conveyed no sound, let alone any apparent awareness of a human presence.

  “I'm not taking a Tube with these bastards,” Peter mumbled.

  Olivia leaped to her side. “I'm telling you people, I could feel it that time.” She brushed a hand against her shoulder. “Just like Anatoly claimed in medpod. I've got a strong suspicion we're not looking at echoes, like the capt ... like Miguel called them.”

  As they stopped before twin Tubes, Lara spoke.

  “You're feeling them?” She asked. “As if they were alive?”

  “Yes, we're ...”

  Peter stopped the doctor with a raised hand. “We're considering the possibility. Just as well you were out of it for a while. Between these bastards popping up all over the ship and the captain sucking down poison, you picked a good time to take a nap.”

  “What the ...? Peter, I don't know what ...”

  “Yeah, whatever, Lara. Look, we're going to meet on the command deck. All nine of us.” He wrinkled an eyebrow. “All eight of us.”

  “We're gonna figure this out, Lara. We'll get some answers before it's time to leave,” Fran interjected. “Come on, folks. We got people waiting for us.”

  As the Tubes opened, Lara stepped in slowly, Olivia was at her side.

  “Command deck,” the doctor ordered as the cylindrical doors slid shut, and the Tube quickly generated speed. They were not accompanied by Fyal.

  “I don't understand how I could have blacked out, Liv.”

  The doctor sighed. “Damned if I know what happened to you.”

  “So, what Fran said ...”

  “Delayed grief? I doubt that very seriously. But who knows, Lara? The way everything's fallen apart in the past hour, nothing would shock me. Nothing.”

  This was an Olivia Jorgennson who was far more cynical, even somewhat more defeatist, than Lara ever encountered.

  “But you can't believe the captain actually killed himself.”

  Olivia shook her head, faced Lara. “Do I have proof? No. Not yet. But I will soon enough. I've got a sample of what was in that glass right here.” She patted a pouch matted to her hip. “First chance, I'll run a diagnostic. Shouldn't take 30 seconds to prove what happened. It's going to be nanotrax. I'm certain.”

  “Miguel was stronger than that. I know something happened to him on the command deck, but he knew we'd be going home soon.”

  Olivia tucked her tongue against her cheek. “Home? That's not the term I'd use at this point, but you can feel free. Listen, Lara. The man disconnected his comm-link and printlock. And if that's not enough evidence, well, he left a note.”

  If the G-stamp did not hold Lara firmly to the floor of the Tube, she would have stepped back in horror. “What? You mention that now?”

  “He left it for you, Lara. If you get a moment, access it through his personal archive an
d you’ll know why he swallowed nanotrax.”

  In her dismay, Lara did not realize the Tube stopped and the doors slipped open. His last words were to me?

  She entered the command deck in a daze and stared upon her seven surviving crewmates.

  The silence struck her first. The last time all of them assembled here, there was champagne, a wonderful toast offered by Miguel, and then Susan's attempt to strangle Anatoly.

  She noticed Susan before any others. The Carib woman was sitting before the forward viewport, her legs crossed. She was staring out at Earth, just as she did moments before her first attack. But Lara detected a reassuring calm about her this time.

  Anatoly seated as far away as he could from the woman. His back was turned to his crewmates, and he appeared to be half-heartedly studying schematics of some sort.

  Boris sat casually in a swivel and gently massaged the temples of his bald head. He turned the swivel as soon as his crewmates entered, wheeling around to his workstation, then unlatched a pair of small cases.

  “You got what we need?” Peter bypassed Lara, his attention directed toward Boris.

  “Yes. All here,” the Russian said. “Appears functional.”

  “Great,” Peter said, then turned to his crewmates. “OK, folks, this is the way I see the situation. We've got Fyal phasing in and out all over the goddamn ship, and we don't know what the hell any of it means. Liv says there's a possibility Susan wasn't the only one injected with ku-ccha. And our captain has picked the most inauspicious hour to knock himself off that a man possibly could.”

  There were a couple of muffled coughs, and many heads bowed. Even Peter, in his anger, paused for a few seconds before continuing. “So, it doesn't seem too damn unreasonable to hypothesize that these things might be connected. If they are, it's entirely reasonable to think we'd better start watching our backs.”

  “What do you propose we do, love?” Susan spoke up.

  “Well, what you're going to do, Susan, is keep that rage tucked away this time. You can do that now, right?”

  “Of course. Liv has taken care of my chemical imbalance.” She shot a quick glance in Anatoly's direction. “I'm not a killer, love. Just a woman of convictions.”

  “Whatever,” Peter replied. “We're going to need your number one conviction to be holding your own within the team.” He turned to the rest of the crew. “That's what we're all going to have to be now. A team. We're going to stay in constant contact with each other no matter where we are on this ship. And just in case this situation gets especially nasty, we're going to be ready to go on the offensive. Boris.”

  The Russian opened a metal case. Lara recognized the equipment immediately: Remote Interactive Facesets.

  RIFs.

  “Yep, it's been about 15 years since we've used these things,” Peter said, “but I damn well think it's time.”

  At first glance, the RIFs resembled short, black, plastic cords with tiny bulges on each end. But Lara knew them well. They were used daily on Centauri III. Each crewman wore one right up to and during the escape from the city M’moc-yon. The devices, which plugged gently into one ear without risk of damage to the drum, molded automatically to configure with the shape of the user's face. The vocal node at the end of the RIF jutted out a handful of centimeters over the lips.

  As Boris walked around the command deck, the RIFs were eagerly removed. Susan and Mifuro placed theirs on immediately. Lara was hesitant. The device felt not much heavier than air in her hand.

  “Now, the only difference these things make, of course,” Peter continued, “is they'll allow continuous communication between us, live a hive. If we don't run into problems – and I hope to hell we don't – then these things will just be a nuisance. If you've gotta talk about somebody behind his back, shut off the damn vocal link.”

  In the midst of the fear, sorrow and confusion, that last comment drew a couple of chuckles.

  Apparently, Lara concluded, Peter took it upon himself to assume command, and no one offered an objection. Makes sense, she thought. Who else around here is going to give marching orders? Not herself, certainly. Although technically she was Miguel's successor, Lara knew better. I don't think they're going to listen to anyone who's been in a daze for the past half-hour!

  She plugged the RIF into her right ear.

  “Now, as fast as the RIFs can allow us to talk to each other,” Peter continued, “they won't get us instantly out of trouble, should we face anything of the like. And I don't want us leaving a damn thing to chance. Boris, pass out the lazguns.”

  Lara did not expect this, and judging from other reactions, she was not alone.

  “Pete, I'd really advise against this,” Fran spoke up. “We've had almost no experience with those things, and we're on edge. Don't think it's a bright idea ...”

  “Agreed,” Olivia added.

  “I happen to disagree,” Peter responded. “These are simple weapons to understand and handle, and it’s not as if they’ve never been fired. If the settings are kept to ‘shock’ rather than ‘terminate,’ we shouldn't have a problem. As long as you remember to keep the safety on unless in immediate danger, then we'll all be fine.”

  “And they'll fit very nicely in the hip pouch, love,” Susan said with a wry smile.

  “We should protect ourselves,” Boris added. He offered the first lazgun to his lover, the doctor, who accepted.

  As the others followed suit, Lara watched in bewilderment. Am I the only one who thinks we should be in mourning?

  Quite suddenly, she felt out of sync with her crewmates. They seemed distant, as if their agenda was very different from her own. As if they had some idea what they were doing, where they were headed – and their path was not one to be taken by Lara.

  Lara reached out and grabbed hold of a lazgun only because she saw no other choice. At the very least, this weapon in her possession, along with the RIF, gave her something physically in common with her crewmates.

  Nevertheless, Lara felt strangely at odds with the people who she knew were her friends.

  “We're looking in the wrong place,” she said, stunned by the words and uncertain where they came from.

  “Excuse me, Lara?” Fran responded. “What did you say?”

  The attention was squarely upon her now, and she took a half step back. “No ... I ... I'm not sure what I meant. I'm sorry. I just ... I just am not sure the Fyal are the problem.” Even Mifuro turned from his dutiful position and gave her an inquisitive eye. “Something else is wrong. We need to look somewhere else.”

  Susan offered a wide smirk. “And where might you suggest that be, love?”

  Fran followed: “What is this coming from, Lara?”

  Lara sensed her stomach enter into a gymnastics routine, and she instantly knew this feeling from when she was a child: On stage, alone, facing her parents and a full student assembly. At least then, the words she spoke had been rehearsed.

  “I don't know. Just a thought. I can't say where it came from or what it means.”

  Peter nodded emphatically. “Whatever. You obviously haven't recovered yet, Lara. Now, we're running low on time, so let's put a plan into action, folks.”

  Peter began to spell out the responsibilities as he saw necessary, and Lara listened only to a degree. She embarrassed herself, but she had no idea why. The words came to her lips because they were ...

  The truth.

  She wanted to think she was now rationalizing, but that wasn't going to be a sufficient excuse for what was happening to her. Indeed, more thoughts, ideas, conclusions, were popping into her mind.

  The truth.

  The concepts arrived in rapid succession, and she wasn't immediately able to put them into a definable order. But there was something about them that differed from that which an intelligent mind posits after careful deduction in pursuit of logic. No, these words were coming in the form of echoes.

  Sufficient evidence in the computer's logs. L
ogical deduction. Identity of the traveler will become obvious. This is how they'll come.

  Lara struggled to act as if she was paying close attention to Peter's strategy for the crew. Boris and Susan were being dispatched to the cargo bay to prepare for the inevitable arrival of the Earth rendezvous craft (this drew a mild and understandable protest from Boris, who was almost killed by the woman the last time they were both in the bay). Mifuro and Anatoly would remain on the command deck to monitor communications ship-wide, guide the Earth craft in, and initiate the download procedure for Andorran's archival database. Peter and Fran would inspect the Ion Propulsion Generator, where the lifeforms were beginning to cluster in greater mass.

  “Yep, no doubt about it,” Fran was saying. “There's definitely a cluster of these damn things building around the IPG. Holding steady at the same total number of Fyal as we've had all along, but we're showing about 40 percent in and around the IPG core.”

  This report briefly brought Lara out of her distracting thoughts.

  “I'll tell you something, Fran,” Peter said, studying the heat sensor array. “I wish to hell I would've believed you when you first said there was something strange about the stasis explosion.”

  “I'm not gonna say I told you so, Pete.” Fran smiled.

  Lara heard more echoes race through her mind, many words repeating, and they almost overwhelmed her senses as her role in Peter's “team” concept was revealed as no more than a set-aside.

  “You with us?” He was saying as Lara looked up again. “Good. I want you to go with Liv and get a once-over. She's gonna run that diagnostic to confirm the nanotrax, so you might as well get a quick check. Let's just say I don't want anyone else losing their mind right before it's time to leave the ship.”

  “It's a good idea,” Olivia said. “When we've finished, and if you check out fine, you can help me set up the decon field.”

  “What?” Lara asked.

  “Decon. The decontamination field. We were talking about it a moment ago. Were you with us? The entire ship will have to be swept before we leave or before anyone else enters, of course.”