The Clouds of Venus: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q. Morris

  It was unbelievable. Valentina was apparently mainly concerned about the RB Group, not the people here. But he had to admit she was right. These pathogens could cause a disaster of biblical proportions on Earth.

  “Katarina is currently out of service. I have assigned three-quarters of the nanofabricators to the task of repairing her. They should be done in two days. I am sending the NASA robots to the wall we unearthed so that they can document it. I will report back to you as soon as there is news.”

  Valentina answered again barely six minutes later.

  “Thank you!”

  Marchenko checked the repairs on the household robot. He had to compile the report himself from the nanofabricators’ status reports. The system was more damaged than he had feared. The two days he had mentioned to Valentina was very optimistic.

  Would Maria, who screamed incessantly, be able to make it until then? It seemed unrealistic to him. If only she would at least drink! But she seemed to have forgotten how to operate a faucet, and she wouldn’t listen to his voice. Shouldn’t the parasites try to help her to save their own lives? Although the base had many faucets, Maria would die of thirst. A person could survive without water for about three days. Tomorrow was the third day. Marchenko felt very sorry, but nobody could help her.

  He looked again at the sensor data on Peter’s spacesuit. The suit seemed to be about to cook him. The heating system was presumably on high to compensate for the dead body’s heat loss.

  “I can’t understand it,” he murmured to himself, a habit from old times. “There’s still enough oxygen left.”

  The container’s display was clear. Peter could not have suffocated. Even the emergency reserve was untouched.

  June 19, 2079, Venusian Atmosphere

  A punch in the back, then one he felt in his kidneys. Erik fell, then an iron fist held him in its grip. He watched Ethan, the pilot, who didn’t bat an eyelid, and kept the spaceship on course. They had reached the zone of the downdrafts. Ethan wanted to bring them as close to their destination as possible, but the ride was increasingly turning into a game of chance. At some point they would encounter a downdraft that would retain its strength all the way to the ground. They would not be able to react quickly enough, the balloon would burst, and the cabin would crash.

  They would not reach the Venusian surface, because the air pressure would have crushed the cabin beforehand.

  “Ethan, I think that’s enough. We can cover the rest of the distance with the AVs.”

  Nuria had probably been thinking along the same line as he’d been, Erik figured.

  Ethan looked at her. “Perhaps you’re right. I hate losing fellow astronauts. Even if they work for another agency.”

  Ethan closed his eyes.

  Had Ethan ever had to leave a teammate behind? Erik wondered. Their pilot had never mentioned anything like that.

  “We should let the AVs jump off, and we should then retreat to a quieter area,” Nuria said.

  “Okay.”

  Erik straightened up. He reached for the headset he needed to control his AV. The cabin swung back and forth with such force that he missed. He succeeded on the third attempt. He donned the helmet and made himself comfortable.

  He found himself standing on the roof of the cabin and looking into a thick fog. He wouldn’t have noticed the storm if the cabin below him wasn’t swinging back and forth. But his body easily counterbalanced to accommodate for that. It reminded him of the time on the ship in the Pacific Ocean when there had been swells after a storm.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  Visibility was terrible, but the radar penetrated the clouds.

  “I’ll display your destination,” Ethan said.

  A flashing red dot appeared in his field of vision, about 60 kilometers to the north.

  “How much time do we have?” Erik asked.

  “An astronaut is already dead,” Nuria said, “so we don’t have any.”

  “Time to complete the mission, I mean.”

  “The spaceship will disappear beyond the horizon of the Russian base in two days.”

  “Thanks, Ethan.”

  Without the radio link to his mind, Erik’s AV was just a stupid empty shell. They thus had two days to save the world. No problem. Erik turned. Nuria’s AV was standing next to him, carrying a huge backpack. A human would collapse underneath its weight. That must be the analyzer.

  “Well then, let’s go,” he said.

  Nuria started to run. Then she jumped and he followed her. They were in free fall. The dense atmosphere slowed their fall. Nevertheless, from time to time Erik had to slow down his AV with the help of the jetpack. Otherwise the outer skin would have become too hot. The distance to their destination shrank, one kilometer at a time. But they would reach the Venusian surface before reaching the NASA base.

  “Do you see that?” Nuria asked.

  An orange circle appeared in his field of vision. A volcanic caldera lay between them and their destination.

  “We should swerve westward. Otherwise we’ll have to walk through that on foot,” he said.

  “I would propose that, too, but it would take us two more hours.”

  Would? Had Nuria just purposely used the subjunctive mood? “That’s still better than a hike across the crater. So are we going to change course?” he asked.

  “Two hours, Erik. Two hours! That can mean the difference between life and death. I do not want to be two hours late.”

  She was right. It was enough if one of them reached their destination. His real body was safe aboard the spaceship. This was just a machine. But hadn’t he been the daredevil in the past, and Nuria the level-headed, more cautious one? He must stop being such a coward.

  Nuria landed first. The weight of her backpack drove her forward so that she stumbled several times. Erik hurried. He touched down beside her, grasped her shoulder to steady her, and took off her backpack.

  Another 20 kilometers. They should be able to manage that in less than an hour, if not for the volcano in front of them. However, it did not look particularly impressive at close quarters, probably because it was not a mighty mountain like some volcanoes on Earth, but only a shapeless hill. A lava flow was oozing from the slope facing them.

  “Let’s run,” Ethan said.

  Nuria tightened the backpack on Erik’s AV, then began to run. He remained beside her. After ten minutes, they reached the lava flow. It was only about 100 meters wide.

  “The jetpacks can get us across this,” he said.

  “But we must use them sparingly. We still have to make it back to the spaceship with their help,” Nuria said.

  Nuria started her jetpack and landed safely on the other side a few seconds later. He needed a little longer, as the backpack made it difficult for him to steer.

  They ran toward the destination. In front of them lay the volcano, a chunk of solidified lava.

  “Should we fly?” Erik asked.

  “Then we’ll be left with too little fuel. You use a lot more with the backpack.”

  “Let’s run, then. Wait, I’ll attach a rope to you.”

  The surface of the volcano was relatively cool at 800 to 900 degrees, but they thought there could be unstable areas. If the material were to break under their weight, their legs could become mired in hot lava, and they would have to pull each other out of the molten rock.

  Nuria nodded. They began to run with big steps. They needed to climb up a hill that was about 300 meters high. Erik oriented himself. Where did it look the most stable? They must not stand still. He chose a route and pulled Nuria along after him.

  They succeeded—the solidified lava did not give way beneath them. Now there was only the plateau between them and the Russian base.

  “There it is.” Erik pointed at the base. They had already known that someone was there. There were excavations, and as they moved ahead they encountered a lone robot, which was apparently removing waste material.

  “Do you see what I’m seeing?” Nuri
a asked.

  Yes, he could see it. A figure slightly larger than a human was standing in front of the airlock leading to the base. Erik and Nuria approached it. It was a bulky spacesuit, made especially to withstand the Venusian pressure, and bore some resemblance to the AVs. But it was radically different. There was no machine inside, but a human being.

  A dead man. That must be Peter.

  “You on the right, me on the left,” Nuria said.

  They lifted the spacesuit. It was no problem for the two of them. The limbs did not move—something must have locked them. Erik tried to look through the helmet, but the glass was dark. He was a bit relieved, because he had feared having to look into a dead man’s open-eyed stare.

  The airlock was huge, apparently designed especially for robots. Nuria, Erik with the backpack, and Peter in his pressure suit easily fit into it.

  “Marchenko, open the door, please,” Nuria said.

  “Wait, I’m filling the airlock. Thank you for coming. But I fear you’re too late. Let me warn you, you will find Maria right next to the airlock door. I’m no longer receiving signs of life from her.”

  “Understood,” Nuria said.

  The airlock opened. Nuria rushed to Maria, who was right next to the airlock door, on the floor as Marchenko had described. She did not move, not even when Nuria checked her reactions.

  “You take care of Peter, and I’ll take care of Maria,” she cried.

  Erik scanned the pressure suit. You should be able to open the thing somehow from the outside, shouldn’t you? “Marchenko, can you open Peter’s suit?” he pleaded.

  “No, it’s deactivated from the inside, so I have no way of doing that.”

  Erik felt the suit, but found no mechanical openings. It must be fully motorized. Given the weight of the suit and the requirements it had to meet, that made sense, but now it was impractical. He would have to manually cut open this tin can to get Peter out of it. He hoped they had replacement suits, because this suit would no longer be useable.

  “I’ll take Maria to the emergency unit,” Nuria said.

  Erik took a laser knife out of the tool bag. He measured the thickness of the suit’s shell and modified the blade length. Then he started at the feet. He freed Peter from the suit little by little. The body was still surprisingly warm, as if it had been heated. But the blood circulation had stopped, and there was no measurable heartbeat. Peter must have been in this condition for a long time, so Erik decided to forego a resuscitation attempt. He reached the head, cutting the helmet at the side. The visor might otherwise splinter into pieces.

  Then Peter lay in front of him. The corpse looked fresh. Shouldn’t decay have set in a while ago, since it had been two days? He had measured oxygen and water vapor in the suit and found the ideal conditions for bacteria. He carried the dead man to the laboratory, where Nuria was looking after Maria. She had given her an infusion.

  “She’s very dehydrated, but she’s alive,” Nuria said.

  He placed Peter’s corpse in the only available space, beside Maria’s body. The laboratory was not set up for such a situation.

  “Then why was Marchenko unable to see any signs of life?” he asked.

  “Her blood circulation had slowed down a lot, like in the case of a hibernating bear. Her heart still beat once every two minutes.”

  “And the brain?”

  “That worries me the most. Humans were not made for hibernation. Without oxygen, our brain cells die.”

  “You mean, Maria is—”

  “Yes, we have to be prepared for that.”

  Erik looked at Peter. It was hard to believe that he was supposedly dead. He seemed almost more alive than Maria, who was still unconscious and might stay that way forever.

  He switched the scanner on again. The body showed no signs of decay. The blood vessels had their usual diameter, and the blood was circulating. Peter’s blood was circulating! Could that be due to shifting him from a vertical to a horizontal position? No, that was not possible, the effect would have subsided long ago.

  “An infusion! Quick!” he shouted.

  Nuria did not hesitate. She freed Peter’s right arm, placed the needle in it, and hooked him up to the machine. Only then did she ask why.

  “His blood seems to be circulating again,” Erik said. “I made a terrible mistake. I should have revived him immediately.”

  “No, Erik, he had not displayed any vital signs for a long time,” Marchenko said over the speaker system. “That would not have worked.”

  “Marchenko’s right,” Nuria said. “I think it’s the parasites.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They placed their hosts into survival mode as the hosts’ condition deteriorated.”

  “That sounds plausible,” Erik said. “But do you know what that means for Maria and Peter, if we provide them with all the necessities of life again?”

  “Yes. The parasites will take them over again. But I will prevent that. If you take care of the two bodies, I’ll use the analyzer to make effective antibodies.”

  “I hope you succeed,” Erik said.

  “Unfortunately, we did not have an analyzer in the base. Simply tell me what I need to do,” Marchenko said. “I will help in any way I can.”

  If the parasites did not keep their brains fully alive as well, we might need your consciousness, Erik thought.

  June 19, 2079, Venus Base

  “I need blood,” said the female-looking robot that its fellow robot called Nuria.

  Marchenko followed their every step by camera. He was so glad that they had made it here. He had never seen the two people who controlled the autonomous units, and that was unlikely to ever change.

  “So I’m supposed to play vampire,” replied the other AV. “Maria’s or Peter’s?”

  “It doesn’t matter, just hurry. In less than twenty-four hours, the spaceship will be out of reach. By then we must have solved the problem.”

  “Maybe you should start with Maria. She seems to be a bit better off,” Marchenko recommended.

  The robot named Erik turned to Maria and drew her blood. Nuria divided the sample.

  “What happens next?” Erik asked.

  “I will first perform a serum protein electrophoresis,” Nuria explained, while swiftly and calmly working on the machine they had brought with them. “The blood plasma proteins will be separated according to their differing physical properties. The gamma globulin fraction is of special interest to us, because that’s where the antibodies are.”

  “And how will you identify the antibodies the two have formed against the parasites here?”

  “We’re unlikely to find specific antibodies to the parasites. That’s why I’m just looking for the IgM antibodies, the antibodies that are part of the body’s primary immune response to a novel infection,” Nuria said.

  “What about the genome of these parasites?”

  “That’s difficult,” Nuria said. “Normally, I would try to amplify the DNA using a polymerase chain reaction. But that won’t work here, because I have no idea what ingredients the solution needs to have.”

  “Because the beings are so alien?”

  “To replicate the DNA strands, the solution must include the constituents from which the strands are formed. On Earth the constituents are the compounds adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. But this is a completely different sulfur-based life form. Our DNA bases contain hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. No trace of sulfur!”

  “Could you perhaps continue with this training unit later? The analyzer is ready,” Marchenko said. This Nuria seemed to be a scientist with all her heart and soul, and he found that very likable, but now he would rather see her concentrate on the mission.

  “Is there anything in RB’s databases that could help us? Any shortcut can be valuable,” Nuria said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “I’ve already tried that,” Marchenko answered. “But the research is prolonged because of the signal propagation time. Sel
ect database, wait six minutes for the startup screen to arrive. Enter login data, wait six minutes until the directory tree appears. And so on. And the data transfer rate is extremely low.”

  “I see,” Nuria said. “We’re just at the beginning and could make use of any flashes of inspiration. The parasite’s data alone doesn’t tell me enough.”

  “I have an idea,” Marchenko said. “Once you have gathered the antibody and cell structure data, we can send the information to RB. They have large biological and biochemical departments, and almost limitless computing power.”

  He had not yet asked Valentina for this favor, but he was certain she would ensure that all RB’s resources were made available to help them. Was that a problem for the NASA people?

  “Of course, only if you’re okay with that,” the AI added.

  “Yes,” Nuria said. That’s an excellent idea. The only remaining problem is how to make the required amount of serum.”

  “I can program our base’s nanofabricators to accomplish that. They will then produce the serum.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Nuria said. “If the fabricators make a liquid serum, it will mix with the liquid they float in, and we will have to separate the two liquids. That may impair the effectiveness of the serum, if we manage to create it at all.”

  “RB’s nanofabricators move freely. They are not bound to a liquid. That makes our job much easier here.”

  Marchenko knew that Nuria and Erik would find his answer unsettling. All international treaties stated that nanomachines must only be allowed to work in a special liquid, which was meant to prevent their uncontrolled spreading.