by Barry Kirwan
Kat slipped into the cockpit, furtive as usual, as if she’d just stolen something.
"Anything exciting happening?" she ventured.
Pierre stowed his visor and responded. "I’m afraid so. I’ve been checking and re-checking for the past hour. There’s no mistake. We’re losing oxygen."
Blake collapsed the holo. Kat halted mid-step.
Zack reached base first. "You’re kidding, right? I mean, you have no sense of humor, Pierre, but this time?"
Blake interrupted. "Data."
Pierre handed Blake a holopad. "There’s a consistent one per cent oxygen depletion rate per hour. I don’t know where it’s going. Not outside, otherwise there’d be transient ice micro-crystal formation on the outer hull, inside the warp shell, even at this velocity. The air purifiers are working well, unless the sensors are malfunctioning. But I don’t think so."
Zack joined in. "Why the hell not? This wouldn’t be our first sensor glitch."
Pierre continued to stare at Blake, as if the Captain had asked the question. "I looked at the increased rate of carbon dioxide build-up in the recyclers, and also the growing power usage of all three independent gas exchange systems, and I used Kat’s breathing rate while asleep – before the onset of her nightmare – as a baseline. The covariance is undisputable."
Smart, Zack had to agree. He and Blake hunched over the pad to check the calcs, but Zack had no doubt – Pierre was never wrong when it came to facts and figures. After the second check, he sat back. He’d wanted something to relieve the monotony, but not this. The data stated flatly they were losing oxygen, but there was nowhere for it to go. It didn’t make sense, but unless they worked it out…
Kat piped up. "Well, if it’s only one per cent… I mean there’s a whole planet-full of oxygen on Eden, and we’ll be there in a week." She looked to Blake.
Blake handed back the pad. "We’ll be dead in two days." He turned to Pierre. "You sent this to EMC?"
"No, Sir – I wanted to be sure. I’d assumed it was an anomaly of some sort – calibration drift of the sensors, for example – but I confirmed it in the past hour. Then I ran some simulations to consider ways of conserving oxygen, but none of them will be sufficient."
Zack shook his head – Pierre ought to have informed Blake from the start. He just never did get military protocol, never understood the chain of command.
"Very well," Blake said, "this is how it’s going to be. Kat, you check those purifiers by hand, just in case it’s a local sensor problem. Zack, you work with Pierre to see how we can either increase oxygen output or cut down usage. Zack, I’m looking for some of your usual unorthodox suggestions." He stood. "Answers in two hours, people. I’ll handle Comms and send the transmission – the turnaround time for messages sent back to Earth at this distance is currently two days, so I don’t have to tell you we can’t count on solutions from home. I’m hoping we can find the cause before then. So, let’s – "
Pierre butted in. "Captain, there’s one more…" he paused, the end of his sentence wilting under Blake’s glare.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Well, Sir. Whatever this is, I don’t think it’s a normal abnormality, if you understand me. What I mean is that we have seventh generation redundant and diverse systems here, and the engineers took account of all credible, and to be frank, some highly improbable independent and common mode failures. So it’s just this could be sabotage, something done to the ship before we left."
Zack scowled. It had been the number one Heracles theory, and for good reason. Despite Earth being on the brink of environmental collapse, the terrorist group known as the Alicians, anti-tech and anti-Eden, argued the War had been a sign for mankind to work out its problems on Earth and return to a simpler life-style. Not content with rhetoric, they’d assassinated the original Ulysses crew during a training flight.
Zack’s security background extrapolated Pierre’s proposition to the next level. What if one of the crew was involved? He buried the idea, knowing it was a shallow grave he’d have to return to later.
"That’s why Zack’s going to be working with you," Blake said. "You may be the best science officer there is, Pierre, but Zack can smell a rat at fifty parsecs. So let’s get to it, our air’s burning."
Zack stole another glance at the holopic of his smiling family, taken the day he’d left. He’d looked at it hundreds of times before, but now, for the first time, he sensed the look of worry behind his wife’s sunny smile. He thought about the crew of the Heracles -- is this what happened to them? Sabotage? But this was different. No explosion this time, just a painful, slow asphyxiation.
He shifted over to share Pierre’s console. There, the Frenchman opened up all his holo-data portals so they could inspect them together. Zack spotted a digital countdown of oxygen depletion rate in the corner of the screen: Time till irrevocable loss of consciousness: 42 hours, fifteen minutes, thirty-six seconds. He ran a sweaty finger around his collar.
And then the irony hit him. For the first time he hoped Kat’s nightmares of being hunted by a creature on Eden were true. Not that he believed them for a moment, but at least that way they’d die on their feet and have an enemy to fight, rather than arriving on Eden as canned corpses.
Chapter 3
Lighthouse
Micah paced the Telemetry Analysis Room – the tar-pit as he and Rudi called it, since they tended to get stuck there. There wasn’t much ground to pace over – the white-tiled lab was filled with dark, glass-fronted computer cupboards, almost no visible wall-space. Myriad beads of light twinkled silently as the computers sifted the Ulysses information streams from cosmic noise. Two beige metal desks with angled fluidic touch-screens flanked the lab centre-piece, the Optron: a gleaming chrome artifice marrying together a dentist’s chair and what looked like a laser cannon on an articulated boom, aimed straight toward the head-rest where Rudi’s head lay immobile. High tension cables around the Optron made the floor resemble a snake pit, reinforced by numerous skull-and-crossbones signs plastered on the main struts and solid parts of the device. This was no toy or cheap holo-sex device.
He glanced at his wristcom. Seven minutes left. Rudi was still hooked in, two titanium optrodes at his temples winking green every three seconds. His eyes were closed, but the facial muscles were taut, and the REMs behind his eyelids showed he was very much awake, simply… elsewhere.
Rudi was thirty minutes overdue. If Micah missed this slot, he’d have to wait another two weeks to check the third and final marker. He wanted to find an excuse to break into Rudi’s session, but that would arouse suspicion, especially with Rudi. He’d been aware of a change in Rudi lately – seeming to be laid back, but always observing. Recently, when Micah came out of an Optron session, he’d find Rudi sitting watching him, or double-checking Micah’s data searches, seeing where he’d been. Micah knew his father would have confronted Rudi about it. But he wasn’t his father.
He paced some more and went over the problem again. One of the markers had disappeared two weeks ago. That could easily have been a system fault, especially with something as complex and covert as a lighthouse sleeper code. But then, yesterday, he’d searched for the second hidden marker from the Ulysses’ third module. It should have flashed orange in the data landscape, but it never showed up, even though he’d waited an hour. He’d hardly slept. If the third marker was gone, the key one from the cockpit, well… A double-click announced Rudi disconnecting, accompanied by a slow descending whirr as the machine wound down. Micah pretended to read a print-out.
"Oh, Mikey, hi there. Sorry man, over-shot again."
He ignored the nickname and turned with fake nonchalance to see Rudi rubbing his eyes. All Optron Readers did that, even though the optrodes hooked straight into the visual cortex, bypassing the eyes completely. But after all, the eyes carried on moving even if they weren’t actually seeing anything.
He cleared his throat. "No worries. But I should probably get started." He walked over to the recliner.
<
br /> Rudi paused mid-yawn, and then gave him a sideways look. "In a hurry?" he said, with an easy smile Micah knew relaxed most people onto the treacherous slope of honesty.
"No," he lied, making sure to return the eye contact and not look away, remembering the tricks his Mom had taught him throughout the brief Occupation, during the daily random interrogations. "Just – you know – I promised Mom I’d watch an old vid with her later, and there’s still a lot to finish up here."
Rudi nodded thoughtfully, but didn’t budge. Micah waited, fighting an urge to check the time. He wondered if Rudi somehow knew about the lighthouse markers, but then dismissed it. They only showed up periodically, and Rudi hadn’t been checking Micah’s searches long enough.
Seconds drizzled away. He’d need three minutes to find the file – if he was quick.
"What’s the vid? Your Mom’s into the really old stuff, isn’t she?"
Shit! This could be a ten minute conversation. What the hell was on tonight that he could use, because Rudi might just check? Then he remembered. Perfect! "There’s one on the Asian Campaign. You know, that’s where Dad…" He stared at the floor.
"Oh. Look, sorry, man, didn’t mean to…" Rudi levered himself out of the recliner.
"Its okay," Micah said, and began climbing in.
"Wait, let me wipe it down, you know, we all sweat a little on this baby." He went over to his desk.
Micah saw the tell-tale imprint of Rudi’s back on the fake leather upholstery.
"Don’t want the Med girls getting upset, do we?" Rudi brought back a couple of strips of tissue paper and wiped the chair methodically.
Micah sneaked a glance at his wristcom when he was sure Rudi couldn’t see, even from reflections in the Optron slave screens. Four minutes. He tried to appear blasé, forcing his hands to relax.
Rudi finished rubbing it down. "There, that’s better, all yours. And say "hi" to your Mom for me, eh? And listen – sorry if I’ve been… well, you know, a bit of a jerk lately, work’s kinda getting on top." He half-smiled.
"Yeah, sure, I’ll tell her. And it’s no problem, I’m a bit tense too," he added. He slotted into the seat, slapping his optrodes to his temples, and flicked three switches. Rudi seemed in no hurry to leave, even though he’d already passed his duty hours for the day, but Micah had no time left to wait. He closed his eyes. A silky female voice whispered the automated countdown: 3 – 2 – 1… His mind surged forward out of his body, surfing over a mutant sea of dimly fluorescent data streams: writhing, multi-colored eels of digitized information swirling amongst frothy uncertainty riptides. The entry process was like being tossed into a moonlit stormy ocean – the untrained usually threw up in the first thirty seconds. He flew toward solid "land", soaring over a still, twilight desert, and began searching. In his visual field to the left he saw the transparent aquamarine rectangle upon which key parameters glowed red.
Although the Optron was immersive, he could still sense a little of what was going on outside – if he concentrated, if he peeled his mind back. He sensed Rudi was standing there, watching the slave screen, able to see a much simpler, digital version of what Micah saw, in particular the data streams he was about to access. Too bad, a risk I’m going to have to take.
He ran a few random files first, then selected file kappa-237. The hidden marker which should have been inside was gone. He waited a few more seconds then changed to a new file. It was hard to carry on doing random tests on parameter accuracy and system health, knowing what he had just found: the Ulysses’ telemetry was being corrupted in some way, which meant the astronauts could be in trouble.
It meant he could be in trouble, too: the insertion of his own health markers hadn’t been sanctioned. Ever since Prometheus and Heracles missions had failed, security at the Eden Mission had intensified. He’d have to face some questions, but hopefully any disciplinary action would be waived in the light of his evidence that someone was tampering with Ulysses data.
He hoped the Chorazin didn’t get wind of it, though; they’d like nothing more than to take over Eden Mission’s security, and wouldn’t hesitate to interrogate him to see if he was an Alician spy. The thought of the Chorazin chilled him – a necessary evil, an Interpol with unlimited powers and jurisdiction, supposedly accountable to governments, but he had his doubts. They were the logical counterpoint to the Alician global terrorist threat which had sprung up a year after the War, apparently the dark heart of the Fundie movement, religious zealots who never accepted the armistice and its tolerance pact. It was a miracle Kane had kept the Chorazin at bay this long. The thought resonated: Kane – he’s the one I have to go to.
He continued for another twenty minutes checking a further forty files, hoping it would throw Rudi off the scent. Then he turned to the rectangle on his left and focused sharply on the red square, the Exit symbol.
When he disconnected, Rudi was lounging at his desk, idly juggling a couple of data holo-cubes while staring at his desktop display. He snapped his fingers and the cubes vanished. He gestured for Micah to come over, without looking in his direction. Micah took his time – he was still groggy. A light vertigo lingered, and he had no desire to keel over.
"Hey, buddy, what’s the interest with that kappa-237 file? Third time you’ve accessed it in a month. We’re supposed to do random but comprehensive searches, not go over the same files. There are thousands to check, you know."
Micah rubbed his eyes a little longer than usual, faking drowsiness. He had to think fast. "Kappa file?" He walked over and saw the dense, time-indexed matrix of digitized records, K237 highlighted in red. His eyes grew wide; Rudi had been surreptitiously checking his access of that file over the past two months. He recalled his Aunt, who’d been in the underground during the War. She’d lied successfully for most of the occupation, pretending to be a housewife, till someone finally betrayed her. "A complete lie can be undone by counter-evidence," she’d said. "Then you are caught, like a lobster into the pot. No way out. The best lie is half-true."
"Oh, the kappa file," he said, hands massaging his temples. "I know we’re supposed to do random, but I sometimes do a re-run, in case of hysteresis-based faults, you know, ones that come and go. I just pick a file at random, check it again a few weeks later. I guess three times in a month is a bit excessive, though. Hadn’t realized, to be honest." He tried to look gullible, goofy even. It came easier than he liked.
Rudi studied him. Then he flashed one of those smiles where the lips spread wide but the corners of his eyes didn’t move. "Probably a good idea. Maybe I should try it." He tapped his nose with an index finger. "Don’t worry, I won’t tell," he whispered. He stood up, stretched his back, picked up his jacket and walked to the door. "Hey, wait a minute – Sphericon Five is on the net tonight – you’ll miss it if you watch the vid with your Mom."
Micah pulled a face, but at least this was safer territory.
"Come on, Sphericon really kick alien butt!"
He’d wanted Rudi to leave, but couldn’t let this one go. "I just don’t buy it. You do remember Fermi’s Paradox, don’t you?"
Rudi rolled his eyes and waggled a finger at Micah. "Don’t even go there."
"Okay, putting aside the fact we’ve never seen any aliens or sign of them, why is it, in all our Sci-fi vids, we’re the smartest kids on the block? And it’s always about aliens trying to plunder our resources, right?" Micah gestured to the window.
Rudi affected a yawn. "Yeah, yeah, Earth is pretty much toxic, I got it already. Well maybe their idea of resources is different from ours." He slung his jacket over his shoulder. "Whatever. The babes in S-5 are hot, Micah. Even your Mom would agree." He opened the door. "It’s your life, such as it is. As for me, Debra from Tech-Support is coming over to my place to watch it on my new holoplayer." He winked. "So long, buddy, enjoy the War vid."
Micah let out a long breath and surrendered to the chair. He kicked aside the image of Rudi and Debra locked together in a passionate embrace, and stared at the Ulysses po
ster, wondering what was really happening onboard. He drummed his fingers and glanced at his wristcom. Five pm. He checked the intranet and found Kane’s agenda – he was in a meeting for another twenty minutes.
Gazing through frosted windows to the milky light outside, he wondered if he should take his weekly ten minute sun-dose. Instead, he visited the washroom, splashed cool recycled water on his face, and changed into a new shirt.
***
He’d never been inside the Director’s office suite before: real teak, late 20th century. It fit Kane, the Ulysses Project Manager, perfectly. The one man Micah knew he could trust. But he reckoned Sandy wasn’t pleased to see anyone arrive at 5.29, one minute before the official work-day ended.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other in front of her desk, until she raised her head from her holopad, eyes kestrel-sharp. He read her mind by following her eye movements – she glanced at his temples just under the hairline where two tiny red dots marked him as an Optron Reader. She looked down his body – he’d only just tucked his shirt in, and had hastily put on a tie – from the way her nose pinched, he wished he hadn’t bothered, though it hadn’t been for her benefit. At least she couldn’t see his sneakers from where she sat. She probably thought him some low level nerd, but it didn’t matter. She glanced at his badge.
"Yes, Mr… Sanderson? May I help you?" she said, but to Micah’s ears it sounded like a barbed wire fence had just been erected in front of him – any help she offered would require drawing his blood first.
