Obscura

by Joe Hart

  Birk blushed. “No. I believe you were right, Doctor. I was sleep deprived, stressed, and most likely dehydrated.”

  “I’m glad.” She smiled, feeling like this could almost be a normal day in their lab. Like she wasn’t accused of a man’s murder or over thirty million miles from home.

  Thirty million miles from Carrie.

  She’d tried keeping thoughts of her at arm’s length for the past few hours, moving by them quickly as soon as they came so she could continue working, but they were always there, half a heartbeat away. And now, without the rush and exhilaration of the testing, the absence of her daughter was an ulcerous ache inside her.

  Find the teleportation unit, and shift back to Earth.

  The thought was a sucker punch sending her mentally reeling.

  The units were functional as far as she knew, one of the originals still on the NASA campus in Florida waiting for a signal. She could be home in a matter of minutes.

  But she had no idea what it would do to her.

  It might not be shifting that’s causing this at all. It could be a foreign agent, some virus or chemical unfamiliar to known science, something that wouldn’t register on any of the tests.

  The temptation was intoxicating. She muscled away from it. Until they knew exactly what was happening, she couldn’t take the risk for herself or Carrie if there was a contagion involved.

  God, she needed a hydro.

  “Okay, Doctor?” Birk asked.

  “Fine.” She resumed resetting the program on the display.

  “All right, here’s the deal,” Carson said, walking toward them. “We’ll bring in Mary Cranston, the other severely afflicted crew member first. If all goes well, we’ll test Diver.”

  “Why wouldn’t it go well with her?” Gillian asked.

  “It wasn’t in the report you were issued, but Cranston attacked a coworker as well. Didn’t do any real harm—couple of shallow cuts—but she’s considered dangerous.”

  “Anything else that wasn’t in the reports we should know?”

  Carson shot her a look.

  “Why did she do it?”

  “No idea,” Carson said. “There were no witnesses, but the crew member she attacked said he found her in a hall in the lower part of the station turning in circles like she was lost. When he asked if she was okay, she cut him with some glass from a window she’d smashed out earlier.”

  “Lovely,” Birk said.

  “Don’t let her appearance throw you off. She could be dangerous.” Carson started to say something else but stopped and moved back to Ander, who stood rigid, arms crossed over his narrow chest.

  Less than ten minutes later, Mary Cranston arrived.

  Vasquez and the other man who had escorted Gillian to her quarters upon their arrival at the station walked Mary into the room, their hands on her upper arms. She was waifish, with hair so blonde it looked like a white fog around her head. If Gillian had to guess, she would’ve put the other woman in her midforties, but she could’ve been younger given her smooth complexion. A solid set of manacles enclosed her kindling-like wrists, their brutish thickness a startling contrast to the woman herself.

  The guards settled her into the exam chair and stepped back. Mary took in the room, eyes half-lidded as if she were on the brink of drowsing off. Gillian sat beside her, clicking on the audio recorder.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cranston. I’m Dr. Ryan. Should I call you Mrs. Cranston or Mary?”

  Mary’s mouth tilted in half a smile. “Just don’t call me late for supper.”

  “Okay. We’ll stick with Mrs. Cr—”

  “‘Supper.’ Maybe its origin is from the word ‘sup.’ To drink. Some think it came from the French. ‘Souper’ or ‘soup.’ No one knows for sure.” Cranston looked away from her and focused on Orrin. Her head cocked to one side. “You’re very handsome. If it weren’t for those scars, you’d be gorgeous. ‘Fuckable’ is the word.”

  Orrin shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Cranston winked at him.

  “Mrs. Cranston, we’d like to ask you some questions,” Gillian continued.

  “Answers. Opposite of questions.”

  “Yes. I understand you’re a communications specialist. Is that right?”

  “Maybe. Maybe something else.”

  “Do you not remember?” Cranston sat motionless, and after nearly a minute of silence, Gillian leaned closer to her. “Where are you from? What state?”

  “So many states. Limbo. That’s appropriate. In between.”

  “In between what?”

  “Everything.”

  Gillian sat back. “It says in your file your husband’s name is Jacob. Is that right?”

  Cranston nodded.

  “Can you tell me a little about him?”

  “I’d like to go now.”

  “We have a few more questions for you.”

  “In the tunnel. That’s a good place. The tunnel forever. Forever and ever.”

  “What tunnel, Mary? Which one?”

  “The only one. The one. The one I want. I’d like to go there now.”

  Gillian glanced at Carson, who shrugged slightly. Ander glowered, eyebrows drawn together. “Do you recall going down to the surface? Down to Mars? You helped establish communications in the biospheres, right?”

  Cranston had begun rocking from left to right. In a quiet, tremulous voice, she began singing. “Down, down, down in the dark. Winter came early inside my heart. You went away and left me here. Why don’t you ever call me, dear? Your love went and took me apart. Down, down, down in the dark.”

  The words ended on a raspy note that turned the skin on Gillian’s arms into braille. Cranston quit rocking, and her chin drooped to her chest.

  Gillian tried wetting her lips, but her tongue was covered in sand. “Mary?”

  No response.

  “Can you hear me?” Gillian leaned in. “Mary?”

  Cranston’s head snapped up and to the right. Her teeth came together with an audible clack an inch from Gillian’s face.

  Gillian flinched away and fell from her chair, a scream lodging itself in her throat as the two guards leaped in and pressed the woman back into her seat. Birk stood and pushed one massive hand against Cranston’s forehead.

  “The tunnel!” she yelled, her face a twisted mass of fury.

  Gillian rose, limbs full of electric current, muscles shaking. With two quick steps, she rounded the table and grasped a syringe lying beside the vials of luciferin and luciferase. Without hesitating, she moved to the thrashing woman’s side and plunged the needle into her shoulder, depressing the liquid with her thumb.

  Cranston slid down in the chair, still struggling, teeth bared and snapping at the nearest guard’s arm. Carson appeared at her feet, grasping her thin ankles and pinning them down.

  “Hold her!” Ander yelled from the other side of the room.

  She surged against them all one last time. Then, like a windstorm losing its fury, Cranston’s convulsions slowed, gradually lessening until she slumped to her side, fists unclenching.

  “She’s out,” one of the guards said, hoisting her upright in the seat.

  “Christ! I knew this was a bad idea. Didn’t I tell you?” Ander said, pointing at Carson.

  But Carson wasn’t listening. He was standing beside Gillian, one of his hands on her shoulder. “Everyone okay? Did she get you?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Gillian said. But all at once she felt sick. She swallowed bile and put a hand on the table.

  “You’re not fine.”

  “I will be. Let me breathe.”

  Carson gauged her for another beat before moving toward Ander, who looked as if he was going to erupt again at any second. Orrin stood on the other side of Cranston’s chair and nodded to Gillian. “Okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m good.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Some of the strength was returning to her legs and arms, heart calming to a jog from a sprint. She found her hand straying to her jumpsuit pocket, fingers searching for a pill b
ottle that wasn’t there.

  “Back to her room?” one of the guards said to Carson.

  “Let’s run the test since she’s sedated,” Gillian said, pleased her voice didn’t shake. “I didn’t give her a lot. She should be conscious enough in a few minutes.”

  Carson threw a look at Ander, who tipped his head back, closing his eyes before letting out a long exhale.

  “All right,” Ander said. “But keep your hands clear of her mouth. I don’t want anyone losing a finger.”

  “Normal,” Gillian said, pivoting away from the screens so the others could see. The results had come back from the quantum processor only minutes after the guards left the room, Cranston half walking, half carried between the two men. She’d been groggily repeating what Gillian had said to her in the midst of the test to trigger a memory.

  The tunnel. The tunnel.

  “I don’t understand it,” Gillian said, looking down at her hands.

  “You expected to find something?” Orrin said.

  “With the way she acted? Absolutely. She has classic signs of dementia, memory loss, decoherence with reality.” Gillian thought for a moment. “Maybe it’s like ciguatera.”

  “Think one of my buddies got that when he was deployed in the Pacific,” Orrin said.

  She nodded. “People get it from eating certain fish that feed on eukaryotes, which produce a toxin. The toxin causes all kinds of physical ailments but also neurological issues like short-term memory loss. But Mary’s symptoms go beyond that. She either couldn’t comprehend the questions, or she doesn’t remember the answers.”

  “So you’re saying she might’ve ingested a toxin?” Carson asked.

  “I don’t know. There aren’t any signs of neurological damage, so a neurotoxin doesn’t really make sense. But if there’s something we’re dealing with here that’s beyond our experience, then my guess is it came from the surface.”

  The implication of what she was saying settled over the room.

  “You mean alien life? Something biological?” Ander said. She shrugged, and he huffed a laugh. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but that’s hard to swallow.”

  “No offense, but a few months ago, as far as I was concerned, teleportation was science fiction.”

  Ander studied her before looking away.

  “And I’m not necessarily saying life. It could be a mineral we’re not familiar with. Look at the effects of mercury poisoning.”

  “For the sake of argument, say it is biological,” Carson said. “Only eighteen of the fifty-five crew members have complained of symptoms. Forty-eight out of the fifty-five have shifted and been to the surface. If it’s contagious, it’s not very effective.”

  “Speaking of numbers, Mary Cranston has only shifted four times,” Ander said. “Less than Dennis, and yet she is profoundly worse than he is.”

  “How about Diver?” Gillian asked.

  “Only nine. We have several crew members who have done twice that and are exhibiting no symptoms. I see no real correlation.”

  Gillian tried to work her way around a response, but each argument fell apart under Ander’s reasoning. “What about the tunnel she kept mentioning? Is there anything on the station like that?”

  Orrin and Ander looked at each other before shaking their heads.

  “Not that I know of,” Orrin said.

  “How about on the surface? Any drilling or excavation?”

  “No,” Ander said, “but there is an umbilicus hall from the main biosphere to the second largest. It somewhat resembles a tunnel.”

  Gillian nodded. “Okay. That’s something.”

  Ander glanced at the nearest display. “I’m sorry, but I have something I need to attend to.”

  “I think that’s all we can do for today anyhow,” Carson said. “Easton and Lien can accompany us to the surface tomorrow to help investigate. Afterward we’ll finish testing the rest of the crew who have symptoms.”

  A part of Gillian wanted to protest, tell them they should continue examining the crew now, but a larger part was glad to be leaving the lab, even if the confines of her tiny room were all she was trading it for.

  After squeezing Birk’s hand once in good-bye, her mind returned to what Kenison had said, like a tongue probing the crater of a missing tooth. And beyond that, something else Birk had mentioned about the biologist’s test results, a needling she didn’t understand. There’s been no physical damage to his neurons.

  No physical damage.

  “That was impressive in there today,” Carson said, pulling her back to reality as they came to a juncture in the hall.

  “Thanks.”

  “If we can figure this thing out, I want you to know I’ll do everything I can to help once you get back to Earth.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  “You weren’t yourself. I’ll testify to that.”

  “I didn’t touch those cameras, Carson. I didn’t kill him.”

  They walked the last hundred yards without speaking. The station hummed like some artificial womb. When they stopped at her door and Carson scanned it open, she turned to him.

  “I’m not worried about me. Help my daughter.”

  She stepped inside and waited for his reply, but heard only the sound of the door sliding shut behind her.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them back, going to the sink in the bathroom to douse her face in cold water until it burned. She was about to undress and lie down to hunt sleep she knew wouldn’t be found when she saw that one corner of her thin blanket was turned up. There was a small lump lying beneath it in the center of the bed.

  Gillian grasped the covers and tossed them back, heart missing a beat then double-timing.

  The pill bottle was dark amber, but even through its tint, she recognized the shape of the hydros within.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Gillian stared at the bottle in Carson’s hand.

  She realized too late he had asked her something, and before she could rewind the moment, he said, “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “I told you, they were in my room when I came back.”

  “Someone put them in your bed?”

  She nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Because whoever it is knows I’m an addict. They’re pushing me.”

  “To do what?”

  “Start using again.” She hesitated. “Overdose.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It wouldn’t make any sense if I smuggled them in here then told you about them.”

  “So someone’s trying to get you to kill yourself?”

  “I don’t know what they want.” She stood from where she sat on the bed and pointed at the bottle. “But that proves I wasn’t the only one awake on the ship.”

  “It doesn’t prove anything except you somehow managed to get access to them in the lab.”

  “When did I have a chance to do that?” Her voice tightened with indignation.

  “Before Dr. Ander and I got there. Maybe Birk slipped them to you.”

  She wanted to pull her hair out. “Are you serious?” He stared at her. “With all due respect, you’re being unbelievably fucking obtuse.”

  Carson’s gaze hardened. “No one was awake on that ship. Besides, I trust them with my life.”

  “You really can’t ever know someone, Carson. Not really.”

  “Finally something we agree on.” He gave her a last look. “Get some sleep. We leave in ten hours.”

  Gillian watched the door lock behind him. A cry of frustration perched on her tongue. She bit it back and turned, looking out at Mars, a red swath against the darkness of space.

  Gillian moved away from the bed and into the bathroom, then gripped the sink before kneeling. On the wall beneath the stainless-steel basin, she pinched the head of a small exposed screw and turned it a half dozen times before it came loose.

  The corner of the panel it held in pl
ace popped free of the wall. She pried it open and reached inside, then slid the dozen hydros off the narrow support strut into her hand.

  Gillian scooted away from the sink and sat with her back pressed against the toilet, the pills stark pink in her palm. She’d stashed the opiates without thinking, a familiar autopilot taking over after she’d shaken the drugs free of the bottle, all the while a voice inside screaming, What are you doing?

  Keeping some evidence. Something to prove she wasn’t crazy, hadn’t imagined everything that happened on the ship.

  And what else?

  Trying to deny the addict inside her hadn’t had something to do with stashing them was like pretending the sun didn’t exist. But she wasn’t going to take any. She was past that now, clean and thinking clearly.

  “If you were thinking clearly, you wouldn’t have kept them,” she murmured. Willing herself to move, she slid forward and placed the pills back in the hidden nook. Tightened the screw and returned to the bed, where she sat with her elbows on her knees, chin in her hands.

  Which one of the crew had done it? Leo had access to the drugs, but no matter how hard she tried imagining him locking Tinsel’s stasis unit shut and severing its lifelines, she couldn’t do it. That left Easton and Lien since Carson had been with her all day during testing.

  No. That wasn’t right either. He’d shown up after having Orrin bring her to the lab. He could’ve easily brought the pills to her room. Then there was Ander. The scientist knew the details of what had happened on the ship. What had he said to Kenison before the other man left the lab? The biologist hadn’t liked it; that was apparent. She needed to speak with Kenison, without anyone else listening.

  Her mind felt as if it were being drawn and quartered, none of the pieces able to reckon anything from what she knew.

  Gillian blew out a long breath and lay back on the bed. She stared up at the low ceiling bloodied with the planet’s light.

  “Gotta stay sharp. Concentration and will. Concentration and will.” She repeated the old mantra until it bore her away on wings of restless sleep.

  “The lander probably isn’t what you’re thinking,” Orrin said, walking ahead of their group as they stepped out of the elevator on the station’s lowest level. “It’s way more versatile. A ship rather than a jumper from the station to the surface.”