The Trikon Deception

by Ben Bova

  A loud clanging interrupted his turmoil. Aaron Weiss hovered in the entry hatch, his ever-present hat and Minicam bound to him.

  “May I come in?”

  “I guess.”

  Weiss tumbled quickly into the module.

  “Commander’s orders,” he said. “I need permission and the escort of a crew member to enter this module.”

  Lance shook his head as if perplexed by the rules.

  “He must have a reason,” said Weiss. “Nothing on this station exists without good reason.”

  “I suppose so,” said Lance, warily.

  “What the hell is a logistics module, anyway?” asked Weiss.

  Patiently Lance explained about the materials stored in the module and described the computer-controlled system for utilizing them.

  Weiss suddenly asked, “What is your opinion of the scientific research being conducted on this station?”

  “Uh—It’s important, I guess,” said Lance.

  “I get the feeling that the crew is not intimately involved with it.”

  Lance almost said that he personally was more intimately involved with the Mars Project. His thoughts surged between a giddy pride about last night and a gnawing fear that he had done something terribly wrong. But he couldn’t tell Aaron Weiss about that. Weiss wouldn’t understand.

  “No, we’re not,” he replied. “Our main job is to keep the station flying. That’s why we’re here. That’s what inspecting this here log mod every day is all about.”

  “Log…?” Weiss looked puzzled momentarily. “Oh, you mean logistics module.”

  Lance nodded. Moving around Weiss, he made a big show of testing the seals of a waste receptacle.

  “It’s an interesting project,” said Weiss, adjusting himself so that he always faced the constantly moving crewman. “The creation of a superbug that will rid the world of toxic wastes.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Lance said, though he didn’t pay the idea much mind. He furtively passed a finger under his nose. Traces of Carla Sue’s tangy smell were still there, even after he had scrubbed his hands several times. Could the reporter smell it?

  “Looks to me,” said Weiss, “that man for hundreds of years has played the devil in our Garden of Eden down below…”

  “How’s that?” A jolt of almost electrical intensity surged through Lance.

  “We’ve screwed up the environment of Earth,” Weiss explained, looking surprised at Lance’s ferocious stare. “Now we have the chance to play God.”

  “Play God?” Something started churning inside Lance, an echo that reverberated with the guilty pleasures of the previous night.

  “What these scientists are doing is altering the genes of common microbes so that they’ll devour toxic wastes. They’re creating new forms of life in the labs here instead of waiting for them to develop naturally. That’s kind of like playing God, don’t you think?”

  “They’re doing that here?” Lance looked surprised.

  “What do you think all those tubes of colored liquids are? Oil paints?”

  Lance swallowed bile. Trying to keep a calm appearance, he answered, “Well, like I said, all I’m concerned about is keeping the station flying. Anything else is none of my business.”

  “What about industrial espionage?” asked Weiss.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Spying,” said Weiss. “This superbug is a very valuable little animal, you know. Or is it a vegetable? Anyway, someone might want to steal if for himself. What if you, as a crewman, witnessed a theft. What would you do?”

  “I’m supposed to report it to Commander Tighe,” said Lance, still shaking inside. “Those are the only orders we have.”

  “That’s an awfully laid-back attitude, considering the nature of the project and its potential value.”

  “Commander Tighe says we’re not policemen, or judges or juries, either.”

  “Is that why you were installing a security system the other night?”

  Lance was confused. The other night was ages ago.

  “In the Jap module. You and Freddy Aviles were there working on something when I wandered in.”

  “Oh, that night,” said Lance. “That was no security system. See, Freddy’s a computer whiz, so Commander Tighe is having him reconfigure the station’s computer system. I don’t know much about it myself. I just hold the tools and—”

  “Lance!”

  Freddy Aviles sailed through the entry hatch with his usual acrobatic flair.

  “Hi, Freddy,” said Lance.

  Freddy ignored Lance and spoke directly to Weiss.

  “You have a phone call in the command module.”

  “I do? Male or female?”

  “A guy named Ed Yablon.”

  “Oh, him,” said Weiss. “Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “I ain’t goin’ there, and he don’ sound like he got a minute.”

  “Bureau chiefs!” said Weiss with mock exasperation. “I’m going. Thanks for the tour, Lance.”

  Lance nodded silently. Freddy stared at Weiss until well after he had disappeared into the connecting tunnel.

  “What was he doin’ here?” Freddy asked.

  “Nothing. He just wanted to see the logistics module.”

  “What was he askin’ about me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I heard you mention my name.”

  “He thought we were installing a security system that night in Jasmine. I told him you were reconfiguring the station’s computer system because you were a computer whiz.”

  Freddy stroked the thin strands of black hair that waved on his chin.

  “That it?” he said.

  “That’s it,” said Lance, confused by Freddy’s reaction to such an innocent conversation. “He was here only about five minutes. He did most of the talking.”

  “Anything else he want to know?”

  “About spies and the research project. I told him it was none of our business.”

  Freddy stared at the hatchway as if expecting Weiss to return.

  “Freddy,” Lance said. “Last night. I got to tell you what happened.”

  “Save it, Lance,” said Freddy as he launched himself toward the connecting tunnel.

  Lance hung in the middle of the logistics module, alone, surrounded by mute canisters and gleaming pipes, knowing that what he had done with Carla Sue was terribly wrong. Playing the devil in the Garden of Eden. That’s what Weiss called it. And he was right. Lance knew he was right.

  Lance knew one other fact. He wanted Carla Sue. Wrong or not, he wanted her with a desperate physical ache that hurt so much it was pleasure.

  “What the hell are you doing up there?” screamed Ed Yablon. “I haven’t heard a goddamn word from you.”

  “Easy, Ed,” said Weiss into the phone. “It took me a while to feel my way around up here.”

  “Feel your way around? Where the hell are you? Goddamn New York City?”

  “There’s a very complicated social and professional structure on the station. I’ve had to weave my way through it to find the most reliable sources.”

  “Cut the crap, Aaron. When do I get the first report?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “Aaron, if this is another of your goddamn schemes, I’ll make sure you never come back.” Yablon’s voice was never sweet, even face-to-face. Over the phone connection it sounded sandpaper rough.

  “Listen to me, Ed. I came up here looking for one thing and I think I found something else, something much bigger.”

  “Stop talking in generalities.”

  “I can’t. These are unsecured phone channels. All I can say is I’m worming my way to the core.”

  “When the hell are you going to get there?”

  “Soon.”

  “This better be worth the wait, Aaron.”

  “This is big, Ed.”

  Even the poor connection could not mask Ed Yablon’s sigh of exasperation. “Everything is big w
ith you. If you’re not the death of me, I’m going to see that it’s written on your grave.”

  “You’re a bundle of laughs, Ed. Is Zeke there?”

  “I’m in his office. He’s the only one around here who goddamn knew how to reach you.”

  Zeke Tucker took the phone and stalled until Yablon left the office.

  “What did you get?” Weiss asked impatiently.

  “Number One,” said Zeke. “The BBC sent us a taped report in 1985. Subject was implicated in an Oxford University drug scandal. Nothing ever was proven, but the university was very sensitive to its own reputation and dismissed him from the faculty.”

  “What types of drugs?”

  “Designers,” said Tucker. “Bunch of chemical names.”

  “Interesting,” said Weiss. “What about Number Two?”

  “Wait till you hear this one…”

  Even Weiss, the old tabloid reporter, was shocked by the story.

  “Who’s your source?”

  “A P.I. up in Maryland. Claims he was working for one of Number Two’s recently jilted lovers. She stiffed him on his fee and he shopped it around the media to cut his losses. Nobody wants to use it, though, ’cause he can’t provide anything more’n hearsay.”

  “That’s a real humdinger.”

  “It’s hearsay, Aaron,” said Tucker.

  “Yeah. A guy like that would probably go screaming to a lawyer.”

  “Sort of reminds you of the old days, don’t it?”

  Stu Roberts fingered the keypad of his hand-held computer. He had stored the data in a secured file and now was having difficulty gaining entry. Looming above Roberts, Chakra Ramsanjawi sighed impatiently. The Indian’s sleep compartment felt small and fumingly hot.

  “Be cool, man, I’ll get it,” said Roberts, perspiring.

  Ramsanjawi smirked. He was growing tired of Roberts’s jive talk. It made a bad combination with incompetence.

  “Dig it,” said Roberts as data played across the tiny screen. “Okay, O’Donnell works an average of three hours in his lab before breakfast. He eats at oh-eight-hundred hours, returns to Hab Two to brush his teeth, then reports to Dr. Renoir at 0830 hours. He does this every day. The amount of time with Dr. Renoir usually runs from five to ten minutes, but today it was close to a half hour. When he returns to his lab, he works an average of four hours before lunch. The actual time doesn’t deviate by more than a minute or two. After lunch, he stops at his compartment, goes to the Whit, then returns to his lab by fourteen hundred hours. Not much deviation there, either.”

  “What does he do at the Whit?” asked Ramsanjawi.

  “What do we all do at the Whit?” said Roberts. “Oh yeah, he brushes his teeth, too.”

  Ramsanjawi nodded.

  “His afternoon time in the lab is more variable,” said Roberts. “He never spends less than three hours, but there have been days he’s spent four or five. You think he does timed experiments?”

  Ramsanjawi, lost in thought, ignored the question.

  “He always goes to the wardroom for dinner at nineteen hundred hours,” said Roberts. “Always. If Commander Tighe is there, he’ll eat with him. If not, he’ll try to eat alone. If he can’t, he’ll sit with the Martians. Never with anyone from the American/Canadian group. I know. I tried to sit with him once. He left without finishing his food.”

  “Very discriminating,” said Ramsanjawi.

  Roberts grinned awkwardly, not sure whether Ramsanjawi’s comment was an insult.

  “After dinner he goes back to Hab Two, hits the head, I mean the Whit, and spends time in his compartment. Then usually, and I mean four out of every five nights, he meets Tighe in the ex/rec room for a game of darts. This is pretty boring stuff, huh?”

  “Does he brush his teeth?” said Ramsanjawi.

  “Before darts? Yeah, and after, too.”

  Roberts went on to explain how he had poked a pinhole in the accordion door of O’Donnell’s compartment so he could time exactly how long O’Donnell kept his lights on before retiring. But Ramsanjawi wasn’t listening. He had heard enough to realize that O’Donnell led a very rigid life within the patterned rhythm of the station. It would be frightfully easy to knock him out of sync.

  “Can you bring me his toothpaste?” said Ramsanjawi, interrupting Roberts’s discourse.

  “Sure,” said Roberts, fighting the impulse to ask the reason why. He did not want to know, he told himself.

  2 SEPTEMBER 1998

  TRIKON STATION

  Tingo Maria, Peru (AP)—A Peruvian Army helicopter crashed while spraying the herbicide Spike on cocaine fields in the upper Huallaga River Valley. The helicopter pilot, three Peruvian antinarcotics policemen, and an attache from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency were killed.

  An official at the American Embassy in Lima has confirmed that the helicopter crashed after being hit by a surface-to-air missile fired by Shining Path guerrillas. The Shining Path, a fanatical pro-Maoist guerrilla group, has protected coca growers from Peruvian and American military strikes in this coca-rich valley since the mid-1980s. It has been estimated that Peru contributes 75 percent of the world’s coca leaf production and that 75 percent of Peru’s overall production is grown in the upper Huallaga valley.

  This helicopter was the third to be lost while attempting aerial application of Spike. The first crashed after being disabled by machine-gun fire in December, 1996. The second was destroyed by a SAM missile last March. DEA officials have conceded that the aerial herbicide program has been a failure.

  In June, 1996, a combined force of coca growers, drug traffickers, and Shining Path guerrillas overran the highly fortified Santa Lucia base on the edge of the valley. This base, a combined effort of American and Peruvian antidrug forces, had been used as a springboard for eradication efforts since 1989. Two hundred people, including all 150 Peruvian and American base personnel, were killed in that battle.

  —Newsday, 31 August 1998

  It was worse than Lance thought it ever could be.

  It was like there were two people inside his head. Just like the stories he used to see on video in Bible school when he was a kid: a good angel and a bad devil both talking to him, telling him what to do.

  He knew that Carla Sue was bad, a temptress, evil. He knew he should have nothing to do with her. But he could not stay away. It was as if there was some power in his body that moved him no matter what his good angel told him.

  Maybe I’m bewitched, Lance thought. Like Samson.

  Talking with Freddy had been no help at all. Freddy just laughed at his fears and told him, “Forget about all that Sunday School crap, man! Nail her while she’s hot for you.”

  Each time he saw Carla Sue he meant to tell her that he was finished with her; he wasn’t going to touch her or even talk to her again. Each time his resolve disappeared in an explosion of animal lust.

  Becky will never want me now. She’ll know. She’ll sense it as soon as she sees me.

  Still, he headed for Hab 1 the instant his shift was finished, looking for Carla Sue. He knew that her shift should be over, too. This time he would really tell her. Definitely. As soon as he saw her he would end this agony once and for all.

  Kurt Jaeckle was in the corridor. Lance hung back, watching. Jaeckle floated right to Carla Sue’s door and tapped gently on it. No response. He slid the door open a crack. Lance started down the corridor toward him, fuming to himself. He’s not going to bother Carla Sue again. Not ever. Jaeckle looked over his shoulder and saw Lance approaching.

  Both men felt flustered. Lance stopped himself a few feet before Jaeckle, his face set in a hard frown.

  The scientist backed away from her door a bit. “Um, do you know where Carla Sue might be?” he asked.

  “No,” said Lance.

  “I received a message that she wanted to see me,” Jaeckle said.

  Lance did not reply. If Carla Sue wanted to see him she would do it in the Mars module, he thought.

  “Well. Um, if y
ou see her, would you tell her that I got her message and I’ll be in my office in the Mars module. Please.”

  Lance nodded. Jaeckle pushed off the wall with one hand and headed down the corridor. Lance watched his small, red-suited form disappear through the far hatch.

  Then he started after Jaeckle. Sure enough, the scientist headed down the central tunnel and into the Mars module. Lance followed behind him, then hesitated in the open hatchway.

  Jaeckle must have sensed him. He turned, looking curious, concerned.

  “Do you have official business in this module, crewman?” Jaeckle asked.

  “No, sir,” said Muncie. “I’m off duty now.”

  “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stay out of this module. Unless you have time reserved in the observation blister, of course.”

  “No, sir. Not at this hour.”

  “Then…” Jaeckle made a small shooing motion with both hands. The exertion moved him backwards, away from Lance.

  “Yes, sir,” said Lance. He turned and started back up the tunnel. But after only a few meters, Lance grabbed a handhold and turned back again toward the hatch.

  Along the length of the Mars module’s central tunnel he could see Jaeckle swim past the door that led to his office and head straight to the hatch of the observation blister. He knocked sharply against the metal hatch once and it was opened from inside. By a woman. At this distance Lance could not be sure who it was, but he was certain there was a woman in there waiting for Jaeckle. Carla Sue.

  There wasn’t any message and he didn’t go to his office. He’s in the blister with Carla Sue, Lance realized, his insides flaming. She was waiting for him.

  It unsettled Jaeckle to have the burly, sulky crewman hanging around the hatch to the Mars module. I’ll have to speak to Tighe about this, he thought. We have protocols. His people are not supposed to be in my module.

  He thought for a moment that he should have asked the crewman why he was there. But Lorraine was waiting for him in the observation blister and Muncie looked too glowering, too bellicose, to speak to without an argument erupting. Tighe’s probably sent him in here on some pretext or other. I’ll speak to the commander about it. Later.