Savage Horizons

by CJ Birch

  What most people don’t realize about the Burrs is that they’re trying to survive. Their methods are deplorable. So are the actions that forced them to raid ships to feed their children.

  There was one month where powdered mashed potatoes was all we had to eat. I kept asking for freeze dried mac and cheese, which rarely trickled down our way. One packet of potatoes was enough to fill your stomach, but that’s all. You can fortify them with as much nutrients and vitamins as you want. But it’s still a powder that, when mixed with water, resembles lumpy mashed potatoes. Sometimes, there’d be dried chives mixed in. I’d always pick those out because they were hard and gross.

  When I moved in with Kate on the farm, it was the best I’d ever eaten. She took one look at me—a scrawny, filthy twelve-year-old—and made me a heaping plate of corn, Swiss chard and roast chicken. I don’t think I’d ever eaten real meat in my life. I scarfed it down so fast I threw it all up ten minutes later.

  Instead of hating bland food, I’m always thankful of what we do have. I look down at my own plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns. To me, this is a feast.

  “This is all very interesting, but how does this help find who’s been in the messes?” I ask.

  Finally, Hartley shoves the fork in his mouth. He continues talking despite the egg. “Easy. The bioscanner records the time it takes each reading and since everyone’s bacteria is unique to that individual, almost like you were a tiny planet and your bacteria were the species that lived there, then it’s only a matter of checking the records and testing everyone’s ecosystem.”

  “And there’s no way to cover that?”

  He leans forward and whispers, “This is about Ash isn’t it? I heard she was upside down, and her—”

  “Hartley, we’re not discussing if this is about Ash or not. I need to know if it’s possible to tamper with the bioscanner.”

  He puts his fork down next to his plate and leans back, folding his arms. “She’s okay though?”

  I’ve been asking myself that same question all day. Is Ash okay? I decide to level with him. “According to the doctor, she’ll recover. He’s more worried about her mental state and so am I. Maybe you could go see her?”

  “I tried. She’s not seeing anyone.”

  “Keep trying. She needs your support right now.”

  He nods, but doesn’t resume eating. The mess is filling up. All the tables are occupied and it’s a matter of time before someone asks to sit with us.

  “Getting back to the scanners?”

  “What about them? Did you know they can diagnose—”

  “All I care is if they can be tampered with.”

  “It’d be hard, but I guess. Why not check the cameras? It would be a lot simpler. You wouldn’t have to test everyone’s spit.” He makes a face.

  “We already tried checking the video. Vasa said someone swapped the timestamp and that it would be like looking for life on another planet. Near impossible.”

  “That’s stupid. There are a few ways you can search for a particular video, even if you don’t have the timestamp.” He picks his fork up and leans over his plate. “You could create an algorithm to analyze the stain patterns on the walls for instance.” He gestures toward the back wall where a member of the kitchen staff is refilling a vat of eggs. “The program would look for the closest match and since that’s something that’s completely unique to this time period, you’d get a good result. That’s if you want to get fancy. But it would be easier to check the code and look for duplicate requests.”

  “Wouldn’t that have been masked somehow?”

  “I don’t see how. When you call up a video, it inputs a request, which gets tracked. And then you’d have to call up the video you’re replacing it with. Rarely would you put in both requests at the same time. So the duplicate wouldn’t cause any alarm because the system isn’t set up to notice. But if you’re looking for it, it’s easy to find.”

  “How do we know this double request exists?”

  “Because there’s no other way to hack a timestamp. You need both videos pulled up at the same time.”

  “Huh.” I have nothing more intelligent to add because my mind is working overtime. Why wouldn’t Vasa tell Yakovich that? Did he suspect her of being the culprit? And then a more worrisome thought enters my head. Vasa didn’t say anything because he didn’t want us to know.

  * * *

  I stand outside the bridge and lean my head against the wall. What I’m about to do makes me sick. The metal of the wall is cool on my forehead and for a minute, I worry I’m wrong.

  Further down the corridor, I hear the door to the chute hiss open. I straighten and turn. My security detail is here.

  Yakovich stops in front of me. Her jaw is tight and her forehead is creased. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days.

  “Are we all set?” I ask.

  She nods and hands me a tablet. I scan it and hand it back. There is no doubt now who’s behind the attacks on Ash. I only wish we’d found him sooner.

  After talking with Hartley yesterday, I assigned him and Yakovich to find the footage from the attack. With Hartley looking, it didn’t take long. It showed Vasa carrying Ash over his shoulder into the mess at two twenty that morning. He was in there for fifteen minutes and then he left alone and headed in the direction of the bridge.

  Hartley left as soon as the video started. I wish I had the luxury of declining to watch, but as captain I have a greater responsibility. As much as I personally want to, I can’t look away just because something’s difficult to watch. I promised Ash we’d find who did this and I can’t let her down now.

  I had Yakovich check the logs. Vasa was on hell shift, from midnight until eight. According to Hartley, Vasa left the bridge at a little after two and didn’t return until almost three. He left his station logged in so it wouldn’t leave a trail. But what he didn’t bank on was Hartley. He searched through the code, thousands of lines, to find the exact moment Vasa left. As Hartley said, the ship logs everything, including opening doors. It goes back to the days when so many things could and did go wrong. To fix them, they needed a way to know the sequence of events on board.

  Two days before the incident, Vasa entered the med center and removed a vial of ketamine, a substance that will knock a person out for several hours. The tablet Yakovich hands me is a report of the logs confirming Vasa’s movements that night.

  In less than a minute, Vasa’s midnight shift will be over and we’ll escort him to his quarters for questioning. I don’t want to go onto the bridge and make a scene. Even if he doesn’t deserve it, he’s still a member of this crew.

  Several hours later, I’m still no closer to learning why one of my trusted officers would betray me and the rest of the crew like this.

  Vasa didn’t deny it. He didn’t make excuses. Instead, he’s sat in silence since Yakovich and I entered his room. Hartley is the only other person on this ship who knows the whole story. But this isn’t something we can keep from the crew. It will get out. I’d like to have the full story before that happens.

  Vasa sits at his desk chair, gripping the edge. The desk is empty except for a single tablet placed in the middle. His room is as neat as the desk. The only decoration is two picture frames on the shelf above his desk. One of the photos is him with an older man and woman standing in front of a module house. I recognize the design. A stage two farm unit. Kate had one until I came to live with her, then she upgraded to a stage three. The other is of Vasa at his academy graduation. He’s in his cadet uniform with his aviator insignia held out for the camera.

  The sheets on the bed are crisp and tight. If I didn’t know for sure this was his room, I’d think nobody lived here. The only evidence that someone lives here is the smell. It invades the room, coating every surface. It’s the same sickly smell that follows him around the ship, through corridors, up chutes, on the bridge. It’s a mixture of overpowering body odor and a funk that’s indescribable. It’s not something you want to be near,
let alone breathe in for three hours.

  By that third hour, I’ve done all the diaphragmatic breathing I can handle and I’m still fuming. It’s a slow burn that creeps from stomach to sternum. It’s the kind of anger that has a time limit before it erupts. I only hope we’re done here before that happens.

  As soon as we saw the footage, I had Yakovich search Vasa’s quarters. There wasn’t much there but she did find a tablet with Ash’s service file and full medical history. We know how he carried out his plan, what we don’t know is why.

  I keep my outward appearance calm. I don’t want it to show how furious I am. “You don’t need to tell us how you did it, Vasa. We’ve already learned that for ourselves. You visited the med center the morning of the attack, complaining of a headache. You stole a vial containing fifteen cc of ketamine when Dr. Prashad turned his back. You then administered this dose to Ash at the evening meal. There is footage of you slipping it into her dinner. Later that night, you left your post on the bridge and entered Ash’s cabin. You injected her with,” I consult my tablet. “Protregamsyn, a substance Ash is allergic to. You then carried her to the mess and taped her up.”

  Still silence. He stares ahead. We’ve reviewed the timeline multiple times, in multiple ways. I’m hoping something will jar him enough to speak.

  “If Dr. Prashad hadn’t had the foresight to flush her system, Ash would’ve died in the mess hours before anyone found her. This is only one incident, but I’m sure if we went back and searched, we’d find that you were behind the others too.” I have no idea what I can say to him to make him share his secrets. The brig is currently full. After all, we only have the one cell. Confining someone to quarters doesn’t feel like any sort of punishment, unless of course, you’re Ash. “Why were you trying to kill Ash? She’s done nothing to you. In fact, I saw the two of you laughing together in the mess a few days before we found her.”

  “I wasn’t behind all of them.” He almost jumps out of the chair as he says this, but Yakovich waves him back down. “It wasn’t all me. The first ones, the mattress, that was someone else.”

  “So only the sadistic, harmful ones were you,” Yakovich says.

  “I didn’t want to hurt her.” Vasa bows his head. His chest begins to heave with great sobs. “I had no choice.”

  “Everyone has a choice,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “We’re supposed to be here. And she was becoming an obstacle to our mission.”

  “What do you mean we’re supposed to be here?”

  He spreads his hands. “This. Here. Can’t you feel it, Captain? When we set off on this mission, didn’t it feel bigger than us? Like we were embarking on something epic.”

  Yakovich and I exchange looks. How else would you describe a generational ship? This is getting us nowhere. I’m about to pull the plug on this interview.

  “She was starting to remember. And that’s not good,” Vasa says.

  “Ash was starting to remember? What was she not supposed to remember?” I ask.

  But he shakes his head and won’t tell us any more.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’ve decided we’ll be ready to land on the planet Monday. Hartley recommended we call it Purple Haze because of the morning mist. All the probes we’ve sent down show pictures of a dark purple mist. It floats up from the marshes and valleys in the early mornings. Mani is eager to find out what makes it purple.

  As much as I’m excited about this unprecedented discovery, I’m wary. Every day that passes without descending feels safe. Each step I make toward landing us on this planet screams impending doom at me. I’m not sure if it’s a sign we shouldn’t land or a sign I’m becoming paranoid.

  In the end, I decide to trust my instincts and take a few extra precautions. To deny this opportunity would be like turning back without landing as soon as the first humans reached Mars.

  A tiny part of me keeps asking, what if? What if this is it? The planet we settle on? And we found it. I’m prepared to spend the next fifty years on the Persephone exploring even if we never reach a destination. But what if we don’t have to?

  Now that we have an opportunity to see a planet it makes me want more. I’ve lived my whole life a few feet from the vacuum of space. This is an unprecedented opportunity. If we can find a planet in our lifetime, why shouldn’t we?

  I’ve already posted the list of who I’ll be leading on the expedition. It’s not a huge team, only four. Mani, whose botany expertise will be a huge asset. Foer, for any engineering issues we may encounter with our equipment. Yakovich, because anyone would feel safe with her around. If there is fauna on this planet, I don’t want to announce our presence with a parade. Especially if the fauna is hostile.

  I’ve been reading as much as I can about the early explorers of Earth, trying to glean any useful information. The early pioneers weren’t much different than us. They were entering a very different world than what they knew. I skimmed over the Frontier missions to Mars and the Apollo missions to the moon, but seeing as how they were all to climates devoid of vegetation they weren’t much help. The same for the early North and South Pole expeditions. This is more like the British and French invading North America and Africa. I’m determined to prepare for most if not all possibilities. I’ve even read a few of those Choose Your Own Adventure books Mani mentioned.

  I have one more task before we begin landing procedures tomorrow. I knock on Ash’s door. It’s early evening. The ship is quiet with crew in their cabins or playing mahjong in each other’s quarters. She answers her door faster this time.

  “Captain.”

  I nod and enter at her invitation. She looks in better spirits too.

  Earlier in the day, I had Dr. Prashad give her a physical to see if she’s ready to resume her duties. With me off the ship and Vasa confined to quarters, I’ll need someone to command in my absence. It kills me that if we hadn’t discovered who was behind the attacks I would have left Vasa in charge. Or I would’ve held off landing until we caught the person. I’ll never know for certain.

  The doctor says Ash is physically ready to go back to work. She’s healing well. There’s only the hint of a scar on her face where Yakovich removed the tape. Mentally, Len thinks it’s in Ash’s best interest to work. She needs something positive to focus on.

  Ash’s room is in better condition too. She’s made her bed. There are a few tablets on her nightstand. It looks like I’ve interrupted some light reading.

  “I saw the list. I don’t like the idea of you leading this team. What if something happens to you? What’ll happen to the Persephone?” she asks.

  “You’ll take over as captain, of course.”

  “Me?”

  “I’m reinstating you and putting you in charge while I’m gone.”

  She nods, but I don’t get anything else out of her. I can’t gauge her mood. I thought she’d be happy to be back on active duty. She balls the sleeves of her sweatshirt, hiding her hands. After a moment, she starts pacing.

  “I have other news you should sit down for,” I say.

  “Why do people always tell you to sit down when they’re about to give you bad news? Like it’s going to ease the blow?”

  “Have it your way.” I take a seat in her computer chair and spin to face her and the room. The planet below gives off a light purple glow. It bathes her back in a faint hue. We’ve been orbiting for the last couple of days. It’s hard to keep the crew working. Too many times I’ve come across a few standing at the public portholes edging each other out of the way to get a look at it. The other day, I had to give up running along the track because most of it was blocked by crew.

  Most of it is a purplish blue. Hartley says there’s something in the atmosphere that only makes it appear purple. When we get to the surface, it will more than likely be clear. It’s only a refraction of the atmosphere.

  Earth was similar when it had oceans. From space it looked like a blue sphere coated with green and yellow puzzle pieces. Now it’s yellow. I sp
ent the first decade of my life staring down at that sphere, hoping one day my dad would take me to visit. He never did. But now I have my own. And this one has water. It also has plants and trees and a whole slew of species bizarre and different from what we’re used to.

  It hasn’t rained on Earth in over a hundred years. The only things left are hardy scrub plants. When the atmosphere burned up, most of the water evaporated with it. If you were to dig a few kilometers down, you might find some.

  “What I have to say is as much good news as it is bad. We’ve discovered who was behind the attacks. And it was only one person.”

  “Who?” Ash plops down on the edge of her bed across from me. She pushes up the sleeves of her sweatshirt in preparation.

  “Vasa.”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I don’t believe it.” She rubs at the goose bumps raised along her arm.

  “I didn’t want to either. But we have him on camera. We have logs, opportunity. Plus, he admitted it was him.”

  “Why? He’s never given any sign that he was out to harm me.”

  “We don’t exactly know why yet. He won’t say.” I don’t want to share everything with Ash. I have no idea how she’ll take it. I don’t even know how to take it. He didn’t sound like the Vasa I knew. But I didn’t know him that well. How well can you know a person if they lie about who they are?

  “I mean, he saved me in the filter room. Why would he do that if he was the one who trapped me there in the first place?” she asks.

  I blink a few times, wondering if I heard her correctly. “What do you mean he saved you?”

  “When I woke up, he was there. He had two security guards with him. He said that you’d tasked him to keep an eye on me.”