by Mike Tucker
As vital for the security as it was for interplanetary communications, the COMmunication Relay And Data Examination array sifted through the millions of messages that went back and forth between Earth and the dozens of bases, mines, fixed-orbit stations and transport ships working far from home. More than just machines, but not quite artificial intelligences, the COM-RADE devices had been designed to look for anything unusual in the information that they processed, anything that might pose a threat, either to Earth or to its dependents. Should they deem anything potentially dangerous or illegal, they had a priority link to the Federation Security Mainframe in Manhattan to report their findings.
The security protocols embedded in the AI of COM-RADE 561 were more rigorous still. It was part of a subset of monitoring devices specifically tasked to assist with the security of the five Kollo-Zarnista mines that were working on Saturn.
Usually the communications sent from the rig followed a clearly defined pattern, but today something was different. Under any other circumstances, the message currently being transmitted was unusual enough for COM-RADE 561 to raise the alarm and yet, when it tried to do so, it found that it was blocked by a set of rarely implemented official override codes.
Its positronic brain struggling to resolve the conflict between reporting what it knew to be an unauthorised short-range transmission and obeying a priority command override, COM-RADE 561 could only listen.
‘Ringbearer to Raptor. Acknowledge please.’
‘Raptor here. What’s going on there? You were meant to get in touch hours ago.’
‘I couldn’t. There’s been a situation.’
‘What kind of situation?’
‘An accident on the rig, one of the miners overboard.’
‘Careless of them.’
‘There’s something else … two strangers, Caught in the vault.’
‘In the vault? Who are they? Where did they come from?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Then find out!’
‘I will.’
‘If you’re trying to wriggle out of this …’
‘I’m not, I promise.’
‘Good. Because life will get very difficult for you if you do try anything. Raptor out.’
Slumped in the chair next to the gurney, Bill was dreaming. She hadn’t intended to drop off, but the events of the last few hours (or, to be strictly accurate, the events of the last few days) had finally caught up with her. The quiet warmth of the medical bay, combined with the steady, rhythmic beep of the medical computer had finally proved too much for her exhausted body as well as her overstretched mind.
Not that her dreams were restful ones. Everyday subconscious worries about paying bills and keeping to schedules, of finding something positive about a dead-end job, of facing up to the possibility of failure and rejection had been replaced with nightmares of more monstrous nature.
Quite literally.
Sinuous shapes with gnashing teeth writhed beneath crackling ice, robots with smiley faces reached out for her with grasping hands, alien war machines with harsh, grating voices slid through roaring flames, her friend Heather stared into her eyes, water pouring down her face …
And there, in the shadows, in the background, always watching her, was another alien. The Doctor, the time traveller, his brow creased, his intense gaze never leaving her, his expression never giving the slightest indication of what he might be thinking.
More than anything, it was the Doctor that she wanted to impress, for him to see past the girl who just served chips. Without the Doctor, she was trapped in a world that she now knew was just one amongst millions. Without the Doctor she was trapped in a school canteen, in Moira’s flat, in her tiny bedroom with that car alarm that went off every blessed night …
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Bill’s eyes fluttered open as she slowly roused herself from the nightmare she was having.
That blasted car alarm …
Beep. Beep. Beep.
She suddenly jerked upright. The noise she was hearing wasn’t part of her dream. It was in the room.
She scrambled from her seat, staring in horror at the suit of armour lying on the bed alongside her. All over the metal body warning lights were flashing, and the urgent beeping was getting higher and higher in pitch.
‘Oh, no.’ Bill could have cried with frustration. ‘Please, no.’
Desperate to find any reason for what might be happening she stared up at the monitor screen mounted on the wall above the gurney. Most of the information was way too technical for her to understand, but two words were only too clear.
‘DEPRESSURISATION IMMINENT.’
Bill hit the emergency alarm.
Chapter
9
‘An alien life form,’ Laura Palmer repeated slowly. ‘Living in the clouds of Saturn.’
If it had been anyone other than Johanna Teske sitting in front of her, Laura would have locked them away for wasting police time.
‘Does Delitsky know about this?’
Jo nodded. ‘He was on the comms channel with me when Baines … When the accident happened.’
Laura was trying to work out which of the hundreds of urgent questions she was going to ask next when Dr Teske’s emergency alarm went off. Jo snatched it from her belt, and she and the Doctor stared at each other.
‘Baines …’
Exploding from their chairs, the two of them hared from the room.
Swearing loudly, Laura struggled to extricate herself from behind her desk. She barged her way through the startled officers milling around the security station, bellowing for her sergeant. ‘Harrison. Medical bay, now!’
The two officers emerged into a corridor bustling with miners and support staff getting ready for the next shift. Laura could see the gangly figures of the Doctor and Jo vanishing around the gentle curve of the passageway.
Yelling at the bemused crewmembers to get out of the way, Laura raced after them, Harrison right on her heels. They arrived at the medical bay moments after the two doctors. Teske was busy at her desk readout whilst the Doctor was hunched over Baines in his pressure suit. The high-pitched alarm ringing around the room indicated only bad news to Laura’s ears.
‘What happened?’
Bill shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know … I …’
‘There’s been a failure in pressure integrity.’ Teske didn’t look up from her console. ‘I’m trying to compensate.’
‘It won’t work,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘Someone has disabled the pressure regulator.’
‘Sabotage? You’ve got to be kidding.’ Laura hurried across to the gurney.
‘Well, he didn’t do this himself.’ The Doctor pointed a bony figure at a small panel on the suit. A portion of the brightly painted armoured surface had been cleanly removed, and Laura could see several connections that had clearly been cut on the circuitry inside.
She reached for the communicator on her belt. ‘I’ll get Jenloz up here.’
‘He’ll be too late.’ The Doctor was frowning. ‘We’ll have explosive decompression any moment.’
‘The Doctor’s right,’ yelled Jo. ‘These pressure levels … They’re way too high!’
‘Then we need to get everyone out of here.’ Laura grabbed hold of the Doctor’s arm. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
The Doctor shook his arm free angrily. ‘Of course there’s something I can do.’ He pulled a slim, pen-like device from his jacket pocket. ‘Bill, there’s an emergency oxygen kit on the wall behind you, bring it over here, quickly.’
Bill pulled the cylinder from the wall and hurried over to the Doctor’s side. Snatching it from her, he started to dismantle the main valve with his device, the low warbling noise that it made blending discordantly with the now frantic beeping from the suit.
Realising that trying to dissuade the Doctor from his task was just wasting time, Laura turned to Harrison. ‘Get everyone you can out of this corridor. Get them back behind the vacuum doors. If that s
uit blows, I want to be able to seal off this section.’
‘On it.’ Harrison turned and ran from the room.
‘And tell Delitsky what’s happening!’ Laura yelled after her.
She glanced over to where the Doctor was hunched over the gurney. Despite the ever more urgent noise from the alarm, he seemed unnaturally calm. Sporadically he would call for Bill to go and grab him yet another piece of equipment, dismantling it with incredible speed, and fitting the salvaged components into the suit.
Laura hesitated for a second, wondering if she should just trust in the Doctor’s ability to bring this situation under control. Something about the man did engender the most incredible feeling of trust. But Laura was a pragmatist. She had been trained to deal with likely probabilities. And the most likely probability at the moment was that the Doctor was not going to be able to stop this in time.
Alongside her, Johanna Teske was also watching the Doctor work, the strained look on her face betraying the same conflicting emotions. Catching hold of her sleeve, Laura started to steer her towards the exit.
‘Time to go, Doc.’
‘But …’
‘I’m not arguing about this, Jo.’
As they made their way towards the door of the med-bay, Laura could see Bill watching them. Her expression was impossible to read. Fear? Anger? Disappointment?
What was clear was that she trusted the Doctor with her life. Laura just hoped that her trust was not misplaced. At that very moment, the alarm emanating from Baines’s suit went up in pitch again, and Laura realised that they were out of time.
In the control room, Delitsky watched in satisfaction as his crew started the final procedures to get mining operations back on track. Jenloz and his crew had done a great job getting the secondary bell hooked up in record time and, in the hangar below, miners were starting to prep their pressure armour for what was going to be a long shift.
It had taken a lot of promises to the union foreman to agree the intensive work patterns that Nettleman had insisted on. A lot of bonus payments and a lot of shore leave. That was not going to sit well with the bigwigs at Kollo-Zarnista, and Nettleman had left Delitsky in no doubt as to who was going to carry the can for this.
He had left the two men in the capable hands of his chief executive, Jenny Flowers, ostensibly because he had to get on with running the mine, but mainly because he was probably going to punch Nettleman if he had to spend any more time in his presence, and that would end his career with the company real quick.
Delitsky felt a pang of guilt about leaving Jenny to deal with those two weasels, but the woman had been very clear about wanting more responsibility … He gave a snort. Be careful what you wish for …
An alert button started to flash on his console. Frowning he tapped at his ear bud. ‘Delitsky.’
‘Chief, it’s Sergeant Harrison …’
From the tone of her voice she was not bringing him good news.
‘What’s happened now, Sergeant?’
As Harrison explained the situation in the med-bay to him, Delitsky’s heart sank. Could this day get any worse? He hauled himself from his chair, scanning the room until he caught sight of the man he was after.
‘Arcon!’ He waved the big man over.
‘What’s up, Chief?’ He was someone else always eager for more responsibility. Today was his lucky day too.
‘I need you to take over here.’
The surprise on Arcon’s face was almost comical.
‘I’ll explain later,’ said Delitsky, pushing him down into the chair. ‘For the moment, just keep everything moving here.’
Ignoring the curious glances from the rest of his control team, Delitsky hurried from the room, breaking into a run as soon as he was outside the doors. The corridor was bustling with people getting ready for the next shift but the sight of their Rig Chief running anywhere was unusual enough for miners and support staff alike to get well out of his way.
Ignoring the elevators, Delitsky made for the stairwell, hauling himself up the steep metal steps two or three at a time until he emerged panting in the corridor three floors above the control deck.
Catching his breath, he started to jog towards the medical bay, conscious as he approached of an insistent high-pitched beeping that got louder with every step. That didn’t bode well.
A murmuring crowd blocked the corridor ahead of him, and Delitsky pushed his way through them impatiently, ignoring the indignant voices as he elbowed his way forward. Officer Sillitoe looked round in irritation at the commotion, his expression changing to one of surprise as he realised who was causing it.
‘Chief Delitsky?’
‘What the hell are all these people doing here? Get them back. Right back. I want at least two vacuum doors between them and any possible hull breach.’
Spotting Sergeant Harrison, Delitsky ignored Sillitoe’s mumbled excuses and hurried down the corridor to join her.
‘Where’s Palmer?’
Harrison indicated the med-bay. ‘In there.’
‘Why haven’t they evacuated?’
‘The Doctor thinks he can repair the suit.’
‘Damned idiot,’ cursed Delitsky. ‘He’s going to kill them all.’ He reached out to open the med-bay door, but as he did so it burst open, Captain Palmer heaving Jo Teske bodily out into the corridor.
‘It’s going to blow!’ yelled Palmer.
Delitsky closed his eyes and threw his arms up over his head, anticipating the explosion that must surely now come.
It never came.
‘Hah!’
From inside the med-bay there was a cry of triumph from the Doctor, and the room abruptly went quiet.
Slowly opening his eyes, Delitsky stepped cautiously into the med-bay.
The Doctor was standing next to the gurney with his arms folded, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Alongside him, Bill just looked exhausted. The man had done it. He had actually done it.
Delitsky crossed to the gurney, looking in disbelief at the mishmash of parts that the Doctor had discarded around the floor. Oxygen tanks, medical lasers, communicators. Even a calculator. Delitsky was no engineer, but even he could see that the Doctor had managed to effect a staggering complex repair in an incredibly short space of time using whatever he could find close at hand.
Delitsky nodded in admiration. ‘Nicely done, Doctor. That’s another one we owe you.’
He turned to Teske who had followed him back into the room and was now was peering in consternation at her monitor screens, trying to make sense of the readings.
‘Is Baines still with us after all that?’
‘Chief there’s something wrong here.’ She shook her head. ‘These life signs are way out, and the pressure readings I’m getting just don’t make sense.’
‘Don’t make sense how?’
‘The pressure levels in the suit are precisely the opposite of what they should be,’ stated the Doctor matter-of-factly. ‘Instead of keeping the atmosphere of Saturn out, the settings have been readjusted to maintain that enormous pressure inside the suit.’
‘But … that’s impossible.’
‘Oh, it’s perfectly possible.’ The Doctor leaned close, whispering conspiratorially. ‘The pressure readings and life signs don’t make sense because it’s not Baines inside that armour.’
Chapter
10
Cradling a cup of hot chocolate in her hand, Bill noted with dismay that a corporate canteen looked identical to the one that she worked in, even this far into the future. Stainless-steel serving counters, harsh fluorescent lighting, wipe-clean tables and uncomfortable plastic chairs. She was willing to bet that in the kitchen behind those counters they even had a deep-fat fryer for cooking chips. It was all terribly disappointing. They were in the fifty-first century, for Pete’s sake! Where were the high-tech machines dispensing exotic space food? Where were the robot waiters?
She took a sip of her drink and grimaced. Even the hot chocolate was rubbish.
What had put the Doctor’s supposition beyond doubt was when he adjusted the sensor readings coming from the medical computer, and it swiftly become clear that the life signs being displayed on the screens were anything but human.
That left three very important questions. Where was Baines? What exactly was the alien inside the armour? And who had attempted to kill it?
Faced with so many unknowns, and with no desire to put any more of his crew in danger, Delitsky had had no other choice than to shut things down, standing down all crews and suspending mining operations on the rig until further notice.
As he left to explain his decision to Nettleman and Rince (a task that Bill could tell he was not looking forward to at all), he had ordered Captain Palmer to put a twenty-four-hour guard on the med-bay. No one was to go near the alien until he had explicit instructions from Kollo-Zarnista head office and the Federation First Contact Team.
Jo Teske had tried to argue that the figure lying in the med-bay was still a patient, alien or not, and she had a duty to try and help, but Delitsky had clearly had enough for the day.
‘Nobody goes near it, Jo. Not you, not the Doctor. You hear me? Captain Palmer, I expect you to carry out my orders. Use your g-Tasers if you have to!’
And that had been that. He had swept from the med-bay, leaving Palmer to the task of clearing everybody out and putting guards on the door. Now Bill, Jo and the Doctor were sitting in the canteen staring despondently into their drinks.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ Jo complained. ‘We need to find out what happened to Baines. If we can communicate with … with whatever it is, then perhaps it can tell us.’
The Doctor said nothing. He had his elbows on the table, his chin resting on steepled fingers. He was obviously deep in in thought. Or … Bill frowned. Was he just asleep?
