56. What the Doctor Ordered
Michael Carroll1
(1)Littleton, CO, USA
Doc Mason was never crazy about close spaces. But what she was after didn’t sit out in the open. She crawled through the dry food storage compartment. It wasn’t fun, but it was necessary.
What if she was reliving a nightmare from her past, that near-disaster that she experienced in that African orphanage so long ago? She had tried to convince herself that Mayda Research Station’s inhabitants were suffering from conversion disorder, like some cases she had seen during her post-doc. Patients presented neurological symptoms like numbness or even mild seizures. The disorder interfered with their senses, affecting touch, visual perception, even hearing, but with no clear external cause. The symptoms seemed to always be associated with stressful situations affecting a patient's mental health, something akin to PTSD. It made sense: the disorder typically arose at a time of trauma or stress. Physical symptoms affected the senses—with occasional blindness or deafness—and movement, with partial paralysis. And another thing fit: the symptoms she saw spread rapidly, throughout an isolated group of people kicked off by a sort of “patient zero,” a common source person in contact with the group.
She ticked off the list for convergence disorder: rapid onset and recovery of symptoms, check. At least “check” for the onset part. Recovery was still an open question.
Manifestation in an isolated group, check. Mayda was about as isolated as you could get.
The presence of extreme anxiety, check. The life support systems were crumbling around their ankles. If that wasn’t cause for some anxiety, she didn’t know what was.
Symptoms spread through sight, sound or verbal communication. Maybe. But maybe not. That part of it fell short. Some people who had no foreknowledge of the tie-in with Kevin’s petroglyphs heard the music. Some saw the beasts out in the surf before anyone told them about them, didn’t they? She had to think. And she kept coming back to that orphanage in Africa.
And ergot poisoning. She could smell the grain as she peered behind the last row of shelves. A dugout section in the wall extended back farther than her flashlight could reach. The place reminded her of a root cellar she had seen in an Earth museum. And she had to go back there, back where the wheat and rye and rice was bagged in rows, kept cool by proximity to Titan’s cold ground. She pulled a stepstool over, leaned in on her belly, and began to shimmy in.
By now, the entire station was dark, save for a few pools of isolated light sources. But this cramped crawlspace had a darkness all its own. It was the perfect place to be thinking about those creepy, fungally induced events in Africa and, before them, in Puritan New England.
She had just looked it all up on the skein, and the parallels were spooky. The small enclave of Danvers, Massachusetts, consisted of a community of Puritans living under stressful conditions, as stressful as any that Mayda was now enduring. The Salem witch trials cranked up just as the town was recovering from the traumas of a British/French war fought in their own backyard. They had just survived a smallpox epidemic, and they were constantly under attack by the local Native Americans. Psychologically, it was the perfect storm. If the populace was sickened by fungal infestations of the main food source, it was no wonder they suffered mass hallucinations.
She beamed her waning light over the foodstuffs. She knew what to watch for: discoloration, breaches in the containers, a sickly sweet smell. But all the grain seemed intact, safe. That was probably a good thing, she reflected. After all, 20 of Salem’s finest had been executed, most by hanging.
This had to be something different, something completely alien. Sure, there were parallels. But something was getting into people’s brains, something that enabled them to…what?…telepathically connect? Influence each other subconsciously? Communicate over long distances? The scientist in her was skeptical, but she knew she would feel a lot more rational once she was out of this storage room. She determined to take samples back to her lab, but she felt certain, just by the conditions and safeguards here, that she would find nothing.
(*)
Commodore Clark gazed along the cliff face. Beyond it, beyond the rise where his precious North Quadrant base lay excavated within the ice, stood dozens of vehicles in ramshackle rows: single-seat flyers, bombers, troop carriers, all-terrain vehicles. It was silly, really. Overkill. All they had to do was go in and take possession of a science station inhabited by a hundred weakened, chilled, starving scientists. Even so, he wasn’t sure of the attack’s outcome. After all, his own people had intercepted that pesky SWAT team in the rings. Who knew what other wicked plans the authorities might have to put a cloud upon his sunny disposition. But so far, no sign of them. Just a lot of empty space out there between Titan and real civilization. He gazed at a handful of his ‘warriors’ loping around the icy plain.
“Disorganized doesn’t begin to describe them,” he told Kinto. Reflexively, he reached up to rub his eyes, but the visor on his environment suit got in the way.
“I’m telling you,” Kinto said, “It’s a lost cause. Give it up. Half of these people have blinding migraines, and the other half are terrified to distraction of those sea monsters out there. And have you seen Montenegro lately? His eyes look like a pepperoni pizza.”
“You don’t look so good yourself,” Clark said. “But Montenegro’s definitely not on his game. I don’t know what happened in the security center, but distraction is definitely the order of his day. He’s been twitching and sweating like a stuck pig and mumbling about some ‘remarkable woman.’ I think he’s lost it.”
“He’d lost it back when he announced his grand plan, Clark. Face it.”
The Commodore didn’t note Kinto’s insubordination. “All we need is a base of operations to get started,” Clark said with a touch of the old eagerness. “A base like Mayda Station.”
Kinto turned to go back in. “Still clinging to the hope? Be my guest.”
(*)
“How are you feeling?” Abby asked Tanya, looming over her cot in the Medlab. Jeremy stood beside her.
“Headache’s all gone. And so is the constant music. You should never be a nurse, my Anya. No bedtime manners.”
“Guess you were right,” Doc Mason called from across the room. She abandoned her microscope and walked over to them, wheeling a portable IV along with her. “Flushing the system seems to do it. But I don’t understand something you said earlier. You told Mr. Belton here that we needed to be thinking in some different direction, and I got the distinct impression that direction involved me.”
“Well, yes,” Jeremy interjected. “You see, Abby has long suspected that these hallucinations were somehow ‘contagious.’ And then you, yourself, said that something akin to that has happened before. I’m beginning to think she’s right, and if that’s the case, why not make use of those hallucinations?”
Doc Mason put her hands on her hips. She didn’t bother to tell them of her failed search for the epidemic’s culprit. Why spoil it for them? “Just how do you propose to do that?”
Abby smiled. “Tanya had her Dmitri Dragon, and now everyone sees pink sea monsters with purple fringe. Kevin’s room was covered in images of Native American flute players, and now everyone sees petroglyphs and hears music. Why not push the equation a little? Make a mental prompting of our own?”
A sly smile spread across the doctor’s face. “Ah, like hypnotic suggestion?”
“On steroids,” Jeremy confirmed.
Abby walked over to the porthole and looked out into the somber glow of Titan’s wilderness. “The Marines get here soon, and they’ll have all the same problems that Piers and I saw: a well-fortified base, whole bunches of well-armed and probably well-trained hoodlums on the defensive. It’s a tough nut to crack. But they’ve been drinking the same water we have. What if they think their impenetrable fortress is not so impenetrable? What if they think that they have no electricity, no power?”
“They’d be fenced in. And none o
f their security would work,” Jeremy said.
“At least that’s what they would think, until they pushed a button or something,” Mason said, frowning.
“But those minutes of uncertainty, that pregnant pause, might be all our boys and girls in blue would need to penetrate the real defenses and get a handle on things. They do wear blue, don’t they?”
“Induced hallucination,” Mason mumbled.
“There is one problem,” Abby said.
“Down to just one?” Doc Mason scoffed.
“For now. I wonder if there’s a range to this. We might have to get within a certain distance to make it work. Whatever those people are going through over there hasn’t seemed to have affected us at Mayda.”
The doctor surveyed the Medlab. “How soon do they get here? The cavalry?”
Jeremy glanced at a nearby screen. “Two hours, give or take.”
“And how long does it take to get to the north shore by boat?”
“Less than half an hour if we take Troy’s supersub,” Abby said.
Doc Mason pulled the IV out of her arm. “Just when my headache was beginning to resolve. Somebody get me a glass of nice, cool, unfiltered Titan water and let’s go for a ride.”
“You’re sure about this?” Abby asked.
“You bet. I’m the best candidate. Tanya’s almost recovered, and I’ve just started. I’ll make the sacrifice for a bit longer. But I could ask you the same thing. Are you sure you want to go back there, anywhere near that place? If I’d just escaped from an ice cave, I don’t think I’d be in any mood to rush right back.”
Abby took in a long, liberating breath. She closed her eyes and smiled. Though the pain would always be there, the oppressive weight of her parents’ loss had evaporated. She and Demian Sable had come full circle, and she was the one who had ultimately gained the upper hand. Abigail Marco had shown mercy. She had stayed her hand, in the hopes that the system’s justice would come to bear. She hoped she had acted wisely. The sense of freedom coursing through her veins told her she had. It was emancipation day. It was the year of jubilee.
“Yep,” Abby said. “Time to see this thing through.”
Jeremy headed out the door toward the Comms Station. “I’ll check in with Iapetus and let them know what’s up. The Sargent Major’s giving us all a ride to a ringside seat, so I gotta get going. Keep in contact out there. I want to know what’s happening, okay?”
“Yes, dad,” Abby whined. He grinned as he left.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_57
57. The Dancer
Michael Carroll1
(1)Littleton, CO, USA
Abby and Mason took the front two seats in the cockpit. Tanya sat directly behind, watching out the windshield between them. Piers drove the rover, backing the boat trailer into the lake. As the submersible floated off the trailer, he waved them off.
“Bon voyage, ladies,” his voice crackled in their headsets. “I’ll be listening in on comms when I’m not dealing with incoming military and various other things.”
“We’ll try not to be too entertaining,” Abby radioed back. She pirouetted the vessel in the shallows and thrust forward. “Okay guys, we’ve got no access to our reactor anymore, so the batteries will last us about two hours under power. That’s all the time we’ve got.”
“What about those extra ones Brian put in?” Doc Mason asked, rubbing her temples.
“That’s counting those. Headache back?”
Doc Mason nodded and winced.
“I’ll get us out there as quickly as I can and then you can go back for a good IV drip and a margarita.”
“Both of those sound great right about now.”
The paltry light outside faded quickly to darkness as Abby submerged the little craft. Gentle currents rocked them back and forth, whispering along the walls.
Mason was staring out the window, mesmerized. Abby knew what she was looking at, although she could see nothing.
“They really are beautiful, even if they aren’t real,” the doctor said, her tone soothed with wonder.
Tanya gazed out the window longingly. “I cannot see them anymore.”
The doctor continued to study whatever she saw out there. “When I was in Africa, I learned an ancient proverb. It said, ‘Those who do not hear the music think the dancer is mad.’”
“The music has gone quiet for me,” Tanya said, forlorn.
They were half way across the lake now, and Abby could see distress on Doc Mason’s face.
“What is it?”
“Do you hear…voices? Sounds?”
Both Abby and Tanya shook their heads. Tanya said, “Maybe you are hearing things already from the other side, from the pirates?”
“Yes, I think that’s it. We must be close.”
“Okay, if you can hear their thoughts, my bet is they can hear yours,” Abby said, her voice jittery. The joystick was slick with her sweat. “Let’s get in just a bit closer.”
“Ah, there’s a big one,” Mason said. She looked down, embarrassed.
“Don’t concentrate on the sea monsters, Doc,” Abby said. “Concentrate on the pirates.”
“Yes, yes. I suppose it’s time.”
Abby keyed her microphone. “Jeremy, we’re in position.”
Doc Mason sat in her seat with her eyes squinted shut, lips clamped, jaw tight, deep in meditation. Tanya and Abby watched the monitor carefully, its feed set to the periscope view. The sky was blank, save for the undulating orange fog. The horizon rocked back and forth gently.
Suddenly, they were there. The Marines had finally arrived. They swept from the sky like giant locusts, black barbed things bristling with weapons, ion engines casting blue beams through the rusty mist.
“I’m glad they’re on our side,” Abby cringed.
The doctor opened her eyes.
“Relax, Doc. I think you’ve done all you can. Thanks.” She reached over and patted her hand. “A lot.”
“Small sacrifice for peace-and-freedom, if it works.”
Abby handed her a bottle of water. “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion. Straight from the artesian springs of Syrtis. I’ve been there. Beautiful little place right on the Martian equator. Drink up.”
“They’re landing,” Tanya said.
Abby remembered the World War Three movies she had seen: armed men falling from the sky, pulse beams blasting away, people scampering from force domes to trenches. But this scene seemed completely one-sided and eerily serene. She counted five behemoths. In the dense air and low gravity, they seemed to float like giant leaves as they descended toward landfall. The first two set down beyond the ridgeline on the coast, but the third landed where they could see it. A ramp dropped. Light spilled onto the icy ground. A quartet of armed giants loped down the ramp, then half a dozen, then two score. They made their way toward the hatch that Abby and Piers had used in their search for the Zodiac. As they approached the entrance, a second group of Marines wheeled around from the other side. It was a dramatic force. Now was the moment of truth. Would Doc Mason’s mental suggestion have any effect? Would the men and women from Iapetus be met by gunfire? Explosions? Surrender?
Then she remembered something else, something that sent a slow, controlled wave of terror down her back and into her gut. Jeremy was out there with them.
The view abruptly flashed to a sickly yellow-green. Something was in the way of the periscope. Abby punched in a command for a wider field of view. Above them, just a hundred meters away, a large chartreuse speedboat was motoring their way.
“It has guns,” Abby said.
“Lots of guns,” Tanya agreed. “And big guys with more guns. And they are not Marines.”
A chill slithered down Abby’s spine.
Doc Mason stood up. “What do we do? Lock the door?”
Suddenly, the screen went dead. The lights fl
ickered and darkened. The whir of the engines died to an alarming silence.
“Well, guys, we just ran out of battery power,” Abby said. They could hear the sound of the approaching boat.
Mason sat back down. “I believe the expression is, ‘Dead in the water.’”
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_58
58. Boarding Parties
Michael Carroll1
(1)Littleton, CO, USA
Jeremy had been part of SWAT actions before, but nothing near to this scale. It inspired awe and fear, and he wasn’t even on the receiving end. The Sergeant Major’s shuttle had met up with “Bird Number Four” at 20,000 feet, well within the haze layer. Jeremy and the three Marines had boarded there and stowed their vehicle. He was astounded by the scale of the ship, a third the size of a luxury liner.
His comment about a ringside seat had been a facetious one, but he and his three colleagues were given seats in the front observation pod. They could see everything. They could see the giant ship below and ahead of them as it touched down, scattering ice and mist in its wake. Dozens of men and women fanned out in its floodlights, perfectly choreographed, setting up stations at the two known access points. Small weapons vehicles rolled into place as their own ship bumped to the ground. The Marine in charge at the gate motioned for Jeremy to come on over.
“Belton, you’re on,” said a voice in his ear.
Belton climbed into the lock with eight others. The air cycled and they stepped out. The base had few external lights, and the ones it did have were off. The vehicles focused their headlights onto the main hatch. Jeremy stood by. The Marine at the door, First Seargent Orin, asked Jeremy, “Ready, sir?”
“Go for it,” he said with more gusto than he felt.
Orin’s men aimed their guns, ready to blast, but Orin held his hand up. He reached over. The hatch was unlocked. It opened easily.
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