“How do you know for sure?”
“Look, I just do, okay. The outpost ran using solar panels so they would have run out of power during the storm. If there was someone still alive they would contact me here. No… they’re all dead. There’s just me and Gizmo left now.” He took a last drag of the joint and stubbed the butt out on a metal plate. Then he just sort of zoned out. Jann wasn’t sure if he was thinking or had simply stopped talking.
“So what happened during the sandstorm?” she prompted.
“Oh, eh… yes, the sandstorm. Well that was a mind fuck if ever there was one. It wasn’t a big deal at the start, we were used to them. But after the first month we had the bright idea to start conserving power. That’s when people really started to go nuts — like your commander. People were dying as we fought to get the crazies under control. But as soon as one was dealt with another would go nuts, then another and another. It was mayhem. We managed to get some contained in the far dome, that’s when the plutonium power source failed.” He clicked his fingers. “Just like that, bang, gone. Now we were in real trouble. If we didn’t get it back on-line then all we had for power was the solar array field and that was worse than useless during the storm.”
“So what did you do?”
“We assumed it had been damaged or sabotaged by the crazies. Some of us ventured outside to try and trace the cables back out to source — find where the problem was. But they never returned. Some got lost, some were killed… I don’t know. Meanwhile, the power was getting critical and more of us were succumbing to the illness. It was scary as you didn't know who would be next. They destroyed the far dome, one of the tunnels and a whole bunch of other stuff.”
“How did you survive?”
“Back in the beginning of the colony, we used to process soil on the surface but we accidentally discovered caves,” he laughed, “right under us. It was just luck. Anyway, we sealed them up and started using it for soil processing. Much easier than outside on the surface. So, when everything went to rat shit it was a good place to hide.” He stopped and seemed to be thinking again.
“So you holed up down there, for how long?” Paolio had now progressed on to a mug of Colony Cider.
Nills had zoned out again. “Eh… where was I, oh yes, the cave. Three months we spent there. They couldn’t find us, too dumb. We would sneak up when they were asleep, when they had stopped trying to kill each other and wrecking the place. We’d grab stuff and bring it back down. Eventually, they all killed each other up top, there was only one left. So we blew him out the airlock.”
“And then what?” said Paolio.
“By now we were living off fumes. Very little power left and the facility was ripped apart. Life support was barely functioning. The storm still raged outside.”
“So... The windmills in the airlocks…” said Jann.
Nills laughed. “Yeah, that was my bright idea. It helped a bit. But what saved us in the end was a power control system reboot.” He started laughing and shaking his head. “It was just so dumb. I was trying to conserve as much power as possible by hacking the software on the mainframe, switching things off that it regarded as essential. I took the risk of doing a cold reboot — and what do you know?” Nills was on the edge of his seat now waving his hands. “The goddamn plutonium power source came back on-line.” He started laughing hysterically. “We were just a bunch of dumb idiots, we never thought to try it before, kept thinking it was the crazies that were causing it.” He collapsed back in his seat. “And that was that. We survived.”
“We?” said Jann
Nills went quiet for a time, eventually he spoke again. “I don’t want to talk about that… not now, some other time… maybe.”
“Why didn’t you contact Earth and let them know?”
“The storm destroyed the up-link antenna.”
“But you could have written an S.O.S on the sand or something.”
“And then what? What would happen?”
“Well Earth would send people and supplies.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what they would do — and look how that turned out.” He looked across at Jann and Paolio. “Not so good, don’t you think. Two of your crew are dead.” He sat back. “No, there was no way we wanted anymore people up here. Not until we found out what was causing this psychosis.”
“So did you discover anything?”
“Not much. I suspect it’s some type of bacterial infection. It started a while after the research lab was built. New people came, geneticists. The rumour was COM was even going to return them to Earth. That didn’t go down well with the rest of us.” He waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I don’t know, maybe it was just crazy talk.”
“So what were they doing, these geneticists?” Jann kept prompting Nills, now that he was in talkative mood.
“Playing God, fucking with organisms, making money for the Colony One Mars consortium. Although, to be fair, without GM this place wouldn’t function.”
Jann stood up and started to pace. “There must be more to it than a rogue bacterium, how come only the commander was affected?”
“It only affects some people, and there is no pattern that we could see. Nills downed the last of his tea.
“So, I’ve told you my story, what about you? You’re not COM people.”
Jann took up the question. “No, this is an International Space Agency mission. We’re here to investigate what happened, gather up a few rocks while we’re at it and return to Earth. It’s a three month mission.”
“Return to Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Where is COM in all of this? After all this is technically their facility.”
“Not any more. They handed it over to ISA.”
“That sounds uncharacteristically generous of them. Forgive me if I don’t believe it.”
“Well, nobody was going to come back here on a one-way ticket and COM didn’t have the resources to start all over again. So it made sense to do it this way.”
“Let me see if I have this straight. The COM consortium hands over all their assets up here to the ISA, which don’t amount to a hill of beans since they all thought it was derelict. And then, gets national space agencies to spend tax-payer money to get them back up here.”
“This is not a COM mission,” insisted Jann.
Nills laughed. “Want to know what I think? I think you’ve all been taken for a ride.” He stood up. “Look, do what you need to do. I really don’t give a shit anyway.” With that, Gizmo seemed to wake up.
“Earthling approaching airlock.”
A few moments later, First Officer Annis Romanov strode into the common room and straight over to Nills. “Our comms unit is dead in the HAB. We need you to fix it for us.”
Nills looked at her with eyes like laser beams. Yet, it was Gizmo that spoke. “Nills does not go outside on the planet surface.”
Annis was not sure what to make of this response. She looked at the robot and then back at Nills. “Hey, this is a serious issue. We’ve no way to contact our mission control.
“Nills does not go out onto the planet surface,” repeated Gizmo.
Before Annis could react Jann interjected. “What if we brought it here, could you look at it for us?”
Nills nodded. “I could do that, but no guarantees though.”
“Forget it. I’ll fix it myself, said Annis.
“Can you do that?” said Paolio.
“I think so. It will be quicker than taking it apart and bringing it here.”
“Problem solved then,” said Nills. “Now if you all don’t mind I have a garden that needs attending to.” With that, he and Gizmo headed off to the bio-dome.
Annis slumped down in a chair. “You’re all still alive, I see.”
“Sleep well, did we?” said Jann.
Annis scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed Kevin and Lu are dead and Decker is a vegetable. As first officer that puts me in command of this mission now, and we need to keep it on track.”<
br />
“Eat some breakfast and chill out.”
She looked at the food with disgust. “How do you know he’s not trying to poison us?” I don’t trust him — or that goofy robot.”
“Actually, when I get back to Earth, I really want one of those things,” said Paolio.
“That’s assuming we get back,” said Jann.
“Look, we’ve had a major setback, but there’s no reason we can’t salvage what we can from the mission. The colony still functions and a survivor has been found. This is major and we need to get this information back to COM.”
“You mean ISA,” Jann was pouring herself some colony cider.
“Yes, yes, I mean ISA.” Annis paused for a minute, like she was considering something and looked from one to the other. “Just so we’re all upfront,” she finally said, “if either of you start going off the rails… I will have no hesitation in killing you.”
“That’s nice of you Annis. You’re such a sweetie,” replied Jann.
CHAPTER 15: BLOODS
Paolio felt extremely fatigued after the morning’s breakfast with Nills. No doubt, the two mugs of colony cider and the smoke had a lot to do with it. Nevertheless, he was still physically fragile, after what Decker did to him, so he went back to the accommodation module to rest. Jann headed into the Medlab to check on the commander. As for Annis… well Jann wasn’t really sure where she went.
There was no change in Decker. His breathing, heart rate and temperature were all still elevated. His skin was a heightened pink colour and his body was drenched in sweat — like he was running a high fever. Earlier, Paolio had seen to it to clean up the wound around his forehead. Jann leaned over to inspect the Italian doctor’s handy work. The scratches that Decker had accumulated all over his face were healing fast. In fact they were nearly gone. Perhaps the injuries weren’t as bad as she had originally thought. Lifting up the bandage covering Decker’s head wound, Jann was startled to find that it had also begun to heal. Better mention it to Paolio when he arrived. No doubt, he would have an explanation for this seemingly remarkable healing power.
She let him be and turned her attention to the equipment in the Medlab. Before embarking on any tests she first needed to do an audit of what was available to her. As a medical surgery it was well equipped and stocked. But for in-depth analysis, she would need something more sophisticated. Possibly the Research Lab on the other side of the facility had what she needed. However, that was off-line for the moment. Maybe Nills could be persuaded to get it back up and running. In the meantime she had a reasonably good microscope at her disposal here, so she could start doing some preliminary investigations.
By late morning she had taken a blood sample from Decker, as well as a number of other swabs, and was now incubating a series of test cultures. If there were any invasive bacteria roaming around in the commander then these tests would go a long way to finding it. However, they needed hours, possibly days, in the incubator before any conclusive results could be ascertained, so she had time to kill. Rather than waste it she made up several slides with a drop of Decker’s blood using different stains. She placed the first one under the scope and peered through the lens. She delicately moved and shifted the focus point around the sample, not really expecting to find anything out of the ordinary.
It contained the usual mix of healthy blood biology. She would try and get an approximation of cell count, giving her a base to chart any rise or fall over time. Then something caught her eye, a darkened area, she focused in. A cluster of elongated cells came into view. Jann marked the spot and continued with her visual scan. She found another, and another. She wouldn’t need the incubated cultures after all. Decker’s blood was teeming with bacteria.
Her first thought was it might be Tetanus, a fairly typical blood infection, usually picked up from soil. But it didn’t have the right features for her to be certain, and this being Mars, it may not even be in the soil up here. Yet, there was something very familiar about these cells, the elongated rod shape, the waxy surface, she had seen this before. Then it hit her. “Impossible… it can’t be.”
She sat back and contemplated this discovery. Was this the cause of Decker’s psychosis? She stood up and was about to go find Paolio, to give him the news, when another thought entered her head. Maybe she should check her own blood. She wrapped a tourniquet around her upper arm and bit down on the loose end to pull it tight. She clenched her fist, felt her forearm for a suitable vein and identified a candidate. She flicked the cap of a syringe with her thumb and jabbed it in. Jann retracted the plunger and drew up her own blood. Once the plunger could go no further she gently extracted the needle and released the tourniquet. She prepared a slide with a drop from the syringe and placed it under the microscope. After a few moments of searching she sat back in the chair and breathed a sigh of relief… she found nothing. Yet, that didn’t mean she wasn’t infected. It may still be there in much lower levels. Too few for her to detect with such a tiny random sample. She considered making up another slide, but it would be better to incubate a culture. If there were any bacteria it would grow and multiply in the petri-dish. However, it would take a long time for a clear result — assuming this was what she thought it was.
Jann heard the whirr of a motor and turned to see Paolio drive in to the Medlab on his scrap-yard wheelchair. “How’s our patient?” he said.
“No change. But have a look at this.” She directed him to the microscope and hit a button to bring up a snapshot of Decker’s sample on the monitor.
“What am I looking at here?”
“A blood sample from Decker.”
Paolio examined the image. “Looks like a pretty bad bacterial infection, any idea what type?”
“I’ve seen something like this before. But not in blood, only in skin tissue.”
Jann looked at Paolio for a moment like she was considering what she was going to say next. “Paolio, How familiar are you with Mycobacterium Leprae?”
He thought about this, “Leprae?” He tapped his chin with a finger as he thought. Then it dawned on him. “Leprosy! Are you saying this is Leprosy?”
“Do you know anything about the disease?”
Paolio screwed up his face as he delved into the recesses of his memory, trying to resurrect any snippet of information he had stored away. “Let me think. Not something that a medical practitioner comes across these days. I know it’s bacterial, affects the nervous system and that around 95% of humans have immunity to it. Other than that, not a lot.”
“You’re correct, it attacks nerve cells. But it can perform a very remarkable trick. What it does is turn nerve cells into stem cells, cells that can become anything; muscle, bone, organs… anything. Not only that, it also alters the human DNA within the cell, a bit like a retro-virus.”
“No, I did not know that.”
“As you can imagine, this is of great interest to geneticists. Here’s a bacteria that can manufacture stem cells and alter DNA at the same time.”
Are you sure that’s what it is?”
“I did a thesis on it, that’s how I recognised it.”
“So, this is Leprosy?”
“Well… no. It’s something very like it. A lot more virulent for one.”
“A mutation?”
“More likely it’s been engineered. Probably right here.”
“Holy shit.” Paolio looked over at the unconscious commander.
“Why, for what purpose? He was looking at the image on the monitor more intently now.
“If you wanted a way to re-engineer a human — from the inside. ‘Mycobacterium Leprae’ gives you the tools. A bacteria that creates stem cells with your very own DNA payload.”
Paolio sat wide-eyed at Jann. “Jesus.”
“Yes, exactly. Playing God.”
Paolio looked back at the image and pointed to the cluster of cells. “Do you think that is the cause of the commander’s psychosis?”
“Well, it would seem to be a likely candidate. Then again,
it could be something else entirely. If we could get the Research Lab up and running then I would be able to do more in-depth analysis. I might be able to sequence it or at least part of it.
“That could take a while.”
They both looked back at the image on the monitor and said nothing for a time.
“What about trying some antibiotics, see if that kills it. It’s old-school, but it’s just bacteria after all.”
“Worth a shot.”
“Okay, I’ll check what they have here and what we brought with us and see if one of them can kill it. If it does then we might just be able to bring him back.”
“I've also checked my own blood.”
“And…”
“I found nothing. Nevertheless, I’m doing a culture test, just in case. I’ll need to check everyone though.”
Paolio rolled up his sleeve. “I’m sure mine is 80% caffeine.”
“Sorry, I feel guilty about taking a blood sample from you. You lost quite a bit already.” Jann unpacked a new syringe.
“A few cc’s more isn’t going to make any difference now.”
When Jann had finished Paolio grabbed two more syringes and stuffed them into a pocket. “I’ll go and get samples from the others.”
“Okay. Oh… before you go, can you have a look at this.”
She walked over to where Decker was lying and lifted the dressing from his head wound. Paolio leaned in and examined him. He looked up at Jann with a raised eyebrow. “That’s almost healed — quite extraordinary.”
“That’s what I thought, and see here — all the scratches on his face are gone too.” Paolio sat back in his wheelchair and scratched his chin. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like his body is in overdrive.”
“What could cause that?”
“I really don’t know.” Paolio was about to replace the dressing but there was really no point now. He backed up his chair and sighed. “Things are getting weirder around here.” He rolled across the Medlab heading for the door. “No point in concerning ourselves with it now. I’ll go get these samples from the others.”
Colony One Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 1) Page 11
