Viking

by Daniel Hardman

  A series of meteoric impacts on his right threw up clouds of dust from which walls of ribs and flashing legs and outstretched necks surged.

  Twenty meters. She could see the grainy texture of lichen on the rock, the jagged dimness of shadow along its base. Out of nowhere a towering, scaly limb slammed down in Rafa’s path. She felt him lunge desperately toward the sheltering granite.

  And then nothing.

  No sight, no sound, no smell.

  No breathing.

  No heartbeat.

  No Rafa.

  18

  Satler sat at the back of the room, his arms folded warily. It was obvious that Edvardsen was bursting with news. Maybe she’d finally wrung some answers out of Bezovnik when she came in today, while he himself was still busy running a shift. Or perhaps she could explain the puzzling technical failures that were hampering their search and rescue operation after the stampede.

  Of course, as far as he could tell, he was the only one who seemed to think it was important to look for lost vikings. Edvardsen had hardly spent a minute on it in their handoff, and now that didn’t seem to be the focus of this impromptu meeting, either.

  “Well,” she began, “I appreciate you staying a few extra minutes for this briefing. I know it’s been a long, hard day for everyone, but I think you’ll feel amply rewarded for your investment.”

  That sort of statement always seemed to get people’s attention.

  “I just returned from a meeting with MEEGO’s upper management. They’ve asked me to discuss an unusual request that affects you all.”

  Nakamura tossed a candy-bar wrapper toward the trash can and put his feet up on the table. “Don’t tell me they want to change our brand of coffee again.”

  That got a chuckle out of most of the group.

  Edvardsen smiled. “Actually it’s a bit more interesting than that. I’m here to propose that we double your salaries for the duration of the mission.”

  They stared blankly for a moment while the idea sank in. Then Harrison laughed. “Gee, that’s a pretty tough sell. Don’t know if we’ll go along with you.”

  More smirks.

  Edvardsen held up her hand and waited until they were all listening again. “Now, you’re all smart enough to know that MEEGO isn’t in the philanthropy business. It’s a hard-headed company that weighs every business decision for return on investment.”

  Deevers pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes wearily. “All right, Sonja, let’s have the catch.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out again slowly. “They want to sequester you.”

  “What do you mean, sequester? Like a jury?”

  “That’s right. They want you in isolation. Where you can’t talk to the press or colleagues inside or outside the company.”

  Satler raised his eyebrows. Nobody had breathed a word to him.

  Now Harrison chimed in. “But why? We’ve signed enough non-disclosure agreements by now to quote them in our sleep. And besides, there’s nothing particularly interesting about this mission. So what’s the point?”

  “That, of course, is the million-dollar question.”

  Now Satler spoke, his voice subdued but resonant. “So what’s the million-dollar answer?”

  The two scientists locked gazes for a moment. Then Edvardsen forced a relaxed smile and swept her glance toward friendlier ground. “Bezovnik’s inviting you all to find out. We’re bringing in some dinner and cots and fresh changes of clothes for everyone. In fact, I saw someone headed to the break room a few minutes ago, so it may already be here. If you stay, be prepared for the most exciting experience of your careers.”

  The room filled with a confused hubbub as the scientists expressed their puzzlement, surprise, and speculations. But it quickly died down again as questions crystallized.

  “You mean we can’t go home tonight?”

  Edvardsen shook her head. “Not if you decide to stay on the mission. Of course, you’re welcome to opt out. MEEGO won’t hold it against you; you’ll just be reassigned during the next rotation.”

  “How sequestered will we be? Can we see our families?”

  “You can call them tonight to explain, but you’ll have to stay in the building. We’ll cater meals and provide showers and sleeping accommodations for the duration.”

  “How about other calls?”

  “We’ll want to screen any communication. Aside from your families tonight, that rules out live face-to-face. You’re welcome to write e-mails, though. Send them to me and I’ll forward them on.”

  “How long would we be incommunicado?”

  “Probably just until the claim finalization in another couple weeks. After that, legalities will force us to go public pretty quickly, and we’ll be back to a more normal mode.”

  Sumner, an epidemiologist, looked dubious. “This doesn’t make any sense. There hasn’t been a gag order up till now, and nothing happened today on the mission that would justify a sudden desperate need for secrecy.”

  “Nothing the vikings did—you’re right there.”

  “Well, MEEGO’s got to give us more to go on than vague assurances.”

  Edvardsen leaned forward and rested her palms on the table. “I understand what you’re saying, and I sympathize. You work long hours and don’t see your family enough as it is. And the prospect of sleeping on a cot in your office for days on end doesn’t sound all that pleasant. By way of an answer, let me give a history quiz. What happened at the Huntsman Institute when they finally found a way to manufacture viruses that would only attack cancer cells?”

  Sumner lifted his hands in a gesture of inadequacy. “It was the breakthrough of the century. Automatic Nobel Prize. Made headlines in every paper in the world.”

  “So it did. Eventually. But the initial discovery was kept under wraps for several months.”

  “They had to verify that the process was repeatable. They had to test it. They needed time to document their research.”

  “Exactly. Sometimes good science means keeping a secret until you’re ready for public scrutiny. And without disclosing details, I will tell you that the same sort of issue has come up on this mission. We’ve made an exciting discovery about Erisa Beta II. It will mean tremendous recognition and professional acclaim for each of you to be on the team that sits in front of the world at our news conference in a few weeks. But until then, we’ve got to have a total information blackout.”

  Satler sighed heavily. “How will this sudden change in the mission affect the vikings?”

  Edvardsen blinked in surprise. “They’ll still be doing their same jobs. We can’t reassign them now. And they’re already sequestered.”

  The rest of the team laughed, but Satler’s mouth didn’t relax. “How about the ones that are missing? I suppose we can’t spare any time or energy to look for them?”

  “We already did look.”

  Nakamura chimed in. “Nothing survived that stampede, Mike. Their signals are gone.”

  “I don’t feel good about just forgetting them. Montaño and Orosco were awfully close to the herd, I’ll grant you, but Abbott and Chen might have survived. It was weird the way the broadcasts cut out. We owe them more than a fifteen-minute search-and-rescue operation, no matter what amazing science we have to put on hold.”

  Edvardsen opened her mouth to speak, but Diane Harrison beat her to the rebuttal. “Be realistic, Mike. We lose vikings all the time. This was a classic accident, and there’s no use losing sleep over it.”

  “Besides,” Nakamura supplemented, “we know they were pulverized. Otherwise we’d be getting a homing signal from their implants, even without a normal broadcast.”

  Satler was unconvinced. “Maybe. Or maybe something’s wrong with our tracking equipment. Assumptions are a dubious proposition at best when you deal with this many unknowns. Even by viking standards, we’re giving up pretty quick. Don’t we need all hands to make the mission a success?”

  “Of course we do. That’s why I’m hoping you�
�ll stay and finish this project with the rest of the team, Mike.” Edvardsen responded smoothly. “I understand your frustration about the people we lost today. I really do. Their disappearance hurts us and makes the remaining vikings that much more important. But we can’t spend any energy crying over spilt milk. The best way to give meaning to their deaths is to make a success of the mission.”

  Satler didn’t like the tone of Edvardsen’s voice, especially the “I hope you’ll stay” bit. Did she think she was his boss, now? “I don’t see how a big discovery and the world’s applause and lots of money for MEEGO translates into a heartfelt tribute. It’s a good line, but who’s going to buy it when we’ve still got a handful of bodies in the module’s freezer because we were too all-fired busy to take the time for a decent burial? The fact is, we’re treating the vikings like slave labor, and we don’t care who gets hurt. It’s not right.”

  It was an old criticism, Satler knew—one they’d heard bandied about on talk shows and news reports for years. Any scientist in their business learned to tune it out. But he’d crossed a line by vocalizing it from within the ranks.

  Edvardsen’s face remained neutral, but there was an odd undertone in her voice. “Perhaps your own conscience is a bit uneasy, Mike.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who ordered Orosco to get blood samples from the hexapods?”

  Satler frowned, a flicker of anger showing briefly in his eyes. “All of us have done riskier things. That’s not the point. The real problem is MEEGO’s priorities. It’s always about how to make a buck, never mind who gets squashed in the process. Look at the way this mission started—no serious training or preparation at all.”

  A long pause descended—so long that some of the team began to squirm uncomfortably. When Edvardsen finally spoke, her voice was a careful blend of diplomacy, sympathy, and sarcasm; Satler couldn’t help thinking she’d do well in politics.

  “Never mind who gets squashed, you said. Interesting choice of words. It seems to me that’s just what you’re doing, Mike: trying not to mind some very natural guilt about what happened today. It’s something we all wrestle with. We sit at home in our nice safe offices and send real human beings to their deaths and we hope we don’t do it carelessly or in vain. And if sometimes we make mistakes, well, we have to live with that. It’s a high and lonely road the scientist walks.”

  Satler walked slowly to the door and looked at the upturned faces of the science team. “Loneliness is not an empty lab or a conference room or the microphones at a press conference. It’s being lost and dying a week’s walk from a thousand light-years from nowhere and having nobody who’ll lift a finger to help.”

  “You’re leaving then?”

  “My hot tub is waiting, and I’m sick of feeling like a creep. Enjoy your bloody discovery.”

  “Last chance, Mike. You’ll kick yourself when you watch the press conference. Your next mission can’t possibly be this big.”

  “What next mission?” Satler called sarcastically as his footsteps echoed down the hallway.

  19

  Oristano bit her lip, a tanned and manicured finger hovering reluctantly over the button that would complete her connection. The conversation would not be pleasant, especially when she was feeling so drowsy. Dinner with Bruce had been light and delectable, as always—his chef was a past master with French cuisine—but she’d definitely overindulged on the wine.

  Could she maintain a decorous façade long enough to make her call? The last thing she needed was a hiccup...

  Yet if she acted now, the chemical residue in her blood stream would also take some of the sting out of the prospect. In fact, she decided, if she took a devil-may-care attitude and simply got it over with, she’d probably be better off.

  She dialed.

  In a moment the leathery visage of Darnel Geire lit up the screen. He frowned impatiently.

  “What’s up?”

  Oristano sighed, the sudden puff from her lungs vibrating bangs that had been elaborately curled and coated with hair spray. “You believe in intuition, Darnel?”

  He looked puzzled.

  Before he could respond, Oristano continued. “Well, maybe it’s just lots of instinct and experience.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were right—we’ve run into some lousy luck on the MEEGO case.”

  Her boss’s face darkened into a scowl. “I’m listening.”

  “Late last night a bunch of the crew went out to run a geological survey and get some more DNA samples. They got up close to a herd of these big dinosaur-like creatures, and there was a stampede.”

  “Our man was there?”

  “As close as anybody. He took off running for the nearest shelter, but he didn’t make it.”

  “You mean he got trampled?”

  “It looks that way. I guess they didn’t find a body, so he’s listed as missing on the public mission roster. But given the size of those animals, it would be asking a lot to come up with anything worth burying.”

  Geire leaned back in his chair and raised his eyes to the ceiling, his fingers tapping a random rhythm on the desktop. He looked disgusted. Peeved.

  “Great. That’s just great, Oristano.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

  “We always knew it was a gamble, bugging a viking’s implants that way.” Oristano’s jaw quivered as she fought back a yawn.

  Geire returned his gaze to the screen. “That’s not the way you sold it to me. You made it sound like a sure thing.”

  “Be honest, Darnel. You bought it because it was a good idea. It still is. You knew it’d be risky, considering how vikings die off, but it was the best way to spy on the mission. It was a sure thing, as long as it lasted.”

  “But what do we have to show for it?”

  “We’ve got an ironclad case against them on half a dozen charges.”

  “Yeah, right. Some dubious contract paperwork and a handful of minor bribes. Worst we can do is throw out their claim to this planet and stick MEEGO with a nasty fine.”

  “How about the flight? That gets us reckless endangerment. And we could maybe even get manslaughter out of it, considering what happened when they landed prematurely.”

  Geire shook his head. “It’s a valid indictment, and it’d make nasty publicity for them, probably cost them a bunch of money in legal fees, but in the end we wouldn’t win. The contracts those vikings sign are so full of legal mumbo jumbo that it’s almost impossible to find against their employer. Even assuming a jury would sympathize.”

  “Well, we can still investigate from this end.”

  “Unless we get a lucky break, that doesn’t tell us what’s going on up there. They get to edit all the clips that are published from their viking feeds; we’ll be in the dark as much as the public. At least for this mission. And something definitely is strange about Erisa Beta II. We get any clues before the line went dead?”

  “Nothing new. They scrambled like crazy to get there, then picked the dullest, most routine work for the whole crew. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the heads of these exo people.” Oristano paused, weighing her words carefully. Geire would expect the speculation, but she didn’t want to trigger any serious pondering on his part. “It’s almost like they were in a holding pattern. Like they were waiting for a go-ahead or something.”

  Geire’s eyes flicked toward her sharply. “You think they got smart and bumped off Orosco?”

  Oristano inclined her head as if considering—a little artificially, she thought—and covered up her nervousness with a laugh. “Considering how dumb they’ve been in other ways, that hardly seems likely. Maybe it was weather or satellite imaging or a drop of additional equipment.”

  Geire frowned. “You look into charters for cargo since the crew got there?”

  “I’ve got someone running that down right now. And we’re watching their headquarters round the clock.”

  “Hah! You won’t get much that way. Security’s tight as a bell aro
und that place.”

  “Actually, we did notice something strange a couple hours ago. Only one scientist from the Erisa Beta II team left at shift end. And there was a flurry of outbound calls.”

  “Where to?”

  “We hadn’t been monitoring outbound traffic very carefully on the channels they used, and they encrypted and shotgunned everything, so we’re still checking. One was to a catering service. A couple we’ve traced to home numbers of scientists who didn’t leave when they were supposed to.”

  Geire swore under his breath. “They’re sequestering.”

  Oristano looked blank for a moment. Then her eyebrows knit together. “So they’re shifting into high gear.”

  “Obviously. Their security leak is gone. Time to get down to business. And they’re not letting any information in or out for the duration.”

  Oristano cleared her throat. “It makes sense. Though I think the timing must be just a rotten coincidence. You can’t really stage a stampede on cue. And they lost at least three or four, not just the one.”

  Geire glowered piercingly. “Either way, we’re out of the picture and it’s our own fault.” His tone made it clear that it was not, in fact, “our” fault, but Oristano’s, and that he was none too pleased about it. “Start scrambling on those outbound calls. Put a tail on the guy that left. I want to know why he’s so special. And do some thinking about what a sequestered team of scientists would need. Maybe next time they call the caterers or run a laundry pick-up, we can get someone in long enough to do something useful. I want to know what they’re up to and I want an answer yesterday. And I don’t want any more mistakes.”

  “I already ordered the tail an hour ago, and the catering service will be easy. Cryptography is working overtime. You’ll get results.”

  “Yes,” Geire agreed with a tight-lipped non-smile. “I will.”

  The screen went blank.

  Oristano stared at it for half a minute while her mind uneasily replayed the conversation. She hoped that Geire didn’t spend too much time and energy wondering how MEEGO had gotten wind of the investigation—from that sort of speculation to an indictment with her name on it was all too plausible a progression if the bureau really started digging.