The Homestead

by G R Higginbotham

  Rebecca introduced Moses in her official Welcome Wagon voice with the script he had heard her repeat probably a hundred times, and then looked at him. That was his signal to take over the conversation and get some answers.

  “Dr. Idleman,” Moses began, but was immediately told to call her Stephanie. “Sorry. Stephanie, I was just wondering if you were familiar with the work Dr. Epps was doing with cyanobacterial modifications to formulate medicine for use in the habitat. I am curious about the process and also the results in the treatment of cyanotoxins. It may benefit us in the future, and I definitely don’t want to reinvent the wheel.”

  She considered her answer for a few awkward seconds before speaking. “Dr. Epps used the main research room down the hall to work on a treatment for one person. I kept all the notes. Technically all of the hybrid work belongs to the mycophycology unit here, so I made him keep all of his records and research in the lab. I am not familiar with the details of the work, but I definitely know he was here. It displaced several of my staff and put us behind with our output for that quarter. And from what I understand, it didn’t even cure the sickness. The woman died before she made it to Earth for treatment. I can get you all of that information. Do you need it now?” She replaced the head back on the suit, sending the signal that she had no intentions of changing her plans for their curiosity. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.” Even through a biohazard mask she was telegraphing her impatience with the questions.

  Moses gave his best grin to charm her and Rebecca snorted. He looked at her with an eyebrow raised to show his displeasure, but she just laughed harder. He turned his gaze back to the doctor. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to take a look. I can just take it back to my quarters and go over it there so I don’t disturb anyone.”

  “I appreciate your willingness to stay out of our way, but there is really no way I can let you take it out of the lab. I’ve got to get going,” she said as she turned to go.

  Rebecca finally spoke up. “Dr. Idleman, have all of your staff had their mandatory physicals this year? I know having Dr. Lamar as a substitute made it difficult to get everyone worked in. I could go pull all of your departmental records to find out who has missed their appointments, if you would like me to do that.” It was Rebecca’s turn to smile this time.

  It took a second for Moses to figure out what was going on. Rebecca was holding the mycophycology department’s productivity hostage. She could logjam all of their work for weeks simply by enforcing the mandatory physical rule - one of the few rules beyond the Homestead Agreement. It was really quite brilliant. He was disappointed he hadn’t thought of it.

  Stephanie sighed, and then started walking to the door as she removed the biohazard helmet again. “Well, come on then. I’ll take you down there to see the records. But everything stays here. There’s no way I’m letting it get out of the lab.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Dr. Idleman led them back into the dark room that greeted them when they arrived. There were banks of ventilated research bays that gleamed in the dull red track lighting along the walls. In the center of the room was a grid of partitions that separated different computer workstations, no doubt to analyze what was going on in each respective hooded bay. Moses was very concerned for his shins as he felt his way around the room. The department’s head knew her way around without hesitation, leaving both of the outsiders behind. She obviously wasn’t happy with taking the time to help them, but since she had no real choice it appeared she would do it without wasting any additional time of her own.

  As Moses and Rebecca did their best to keep up, Stephanie began to give them their instructions:

  “You can stay and look at these records for as long as you need. But our network is closed off from the main Homestead network, so you cannot send electronic copies outside. I have to go into the algae fields, so I will be occupied the rest of the day. Please do not turn the lights on. The override is intentionally blocking the motion sensors. Dr. Gwaltney is doing some photo-sensitive research in bay four. He would have a stroke if you ruined his work. Then you’d have another death for Chief Jacobs to spin. I’m truly sorry I can’t stay behind and answer any more questions, but you know how it is. Every minute of delay is productivity lost.”

  She looked like she genuinely regretted leaving for just a moment. Moses wasn’t sure if it was because she wanted to help them, or because she just wanted to keep an eye on them as they snooped through her system. She handed them each a tablet out of a rack of tablets on the wall that Moses hadn’t even seen in the dark. Dr. Idleman pulled up Dr. Epps’ cyanotoxin research directories on both devices and then left them alone.

  Once she was gone, they each sat down at a workstation and started going through the records.

  “What am I looking for?” asked Rebecca, the light from the tablet giving her face a sick, blue-tinged pallor.

  “I’m not sure, really. I do want to look over the details in case it will help in the future. But I also want details of Adrie Petersen’s illness and treatment. Something just isn’t sitting right about the whole situation.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Rebecca said. “She died over eighteen months ago. What does that have to do with William?”

  He could feel her eyes focus against his face, watching him for answers.

  Moses answered without looking up from the tablet he was holding. “I think that finding out what happened to her will lead us to something we aren’t seeing. We don’t have all of the puzzle pieces here. Just trust me.”

  Without a word, she turned her attention to the records in front of her. It was good to get out from under her scrutiny. Moses didn’t know why answering the first question would help to answer the second. But he knew he needed more information. Everything else was laid bare. He had the medical report of Epps’ death, he had some personal information, he even had a close friend to the victim available. But nothing hinted at an expertise in plant-based genetics for medicinal purposes, and there was no reason that Adrie Petersen’s respiratory sensitivities weren’t spotted before arriving on Mars. It was just as unlikely as not finding an underlying cardiac issue that would result in the doctor’s death. That means there were two unexplained deaths in the same facility. A facility that was full of people who went through rigorous health screening prior to traveling months away from home through space. Too many questions to make sense of anything.

  Rebecca interrupted his thoughts. “I don’t even know what most of these words mean.” She sounded frustrated and hopeless due to her lack of understanding.

  “I’ll look for content. You just look for something else that doesn’t make sense. I can’t watch for both at the same time. I have to focus on what he was doing or trying to do. Can you look for a pattern that doesn’t add up? Something that might indicate what brought him to seek answers here instead of through traditional medical means. Don’t worry about figures and statistics, the answer won’t be apparent there. But his narrative notes should have something.”

  “Sure thing,” she said, not sounding convinced. Twenty minutes later she stood up and turned back to him. “Do you mean something like the fact that he kept coming down here for months after Adrie Petersen was already sent away on the transport shuttle to Earth? These dates are a long time after she left.”

  “What?” Moses was surprised. Why would he keep working on this without a current reason? “That’s exactly what I mean. If the patient was already gone, there would be no reason for him to keep coming back, unless he suspected something else might go wrong. And there was no reason for him to be allowed back down in the labs.” The likelihood of two people being triggered by cyanotoxins that they already been cleared for was almost none. “Does it say what he was doing?”

  Rebecca scrolled through looking for any hint. “Nothing I can see. But like I said, I don’t know what most of these words even mean.”

  “Do you mind if I look?” Moses asked.

  “Be my guest.” She handed h
im the tablet.

  As he looked through the notes, there were no clear answers. He knew enough about the basics of Epps’ work to follow about half of it. But even with that knowledge it was plain that something was missing. Like this was only half of what he needed. There was more to the puzzle that he still wasn’t seeing.

  “Do you know if there were any other people having similar problems to Mrs. Petersen?” Moses was hoping the answer was yes. Then that would give him another place to look.

  “No. I’m sure there wasn’t. Her issues were a major concern for ICE. It was a hotly discussed issue all over the planet. Dr. Idleman’s work has been so successful that the air-scrubbing bacteria have been implemented all over Mars. If someone else had a problem like hers it would have been tragic for ICE.” Rebecca’s assurance was not what he wanted to hear.

  “I can imagine,” he said. “It must have been like living in the time of tuberculosis. You guys all breathe the same recycled air. If something deadly and highly contagious went through here, it would be devastating. But still. Why would he keep looking for answers if the problem was removed? And why let him?”

  “Dr. Idleman may know why he kept coming, but I’m not tracking that woman through the algae fields. I jumped a lot of hurdles to get us this far. I don’t even want to think about what it would take to follow her out there.” Rebecca’s resolve to help wasn’t enough to get past ICE red tape. She had taken him as far as she could get him.

  “That’s OK. I think I can get through to her. Do you know where she likes to spend her free time?”

  Rebecca considered. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her outside of the lab here. I wonder if she has quarters down here?”

  “Can you find out for me?” Moses was still perusing the research on the tablet while listening for her answer.

  “Yeah, that won’t be a problem. Room assignments are easy.” She saw what he was doing and grew panicked. “What are you doing? You can’t do that! We’ll get in serious trouble.”

  Moses paused, looked at her for a moment, then resumed taking pictures of the tablet screens with his handheld as he scrolled through them. “There’s no way we can stay here long enough to read all of this. I’ve got to look up some of these words, too. Help me finish getting pictures of all of this, then we can go. You start in the back, and we’ll meet in the middle. I’ll look up all this junk tonight while you get me that room assignment.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Shortly after the last patient left the office the next afternoon, Rebecca showed up. She didn’t look like she had slept at all. Her gray uniform was wrinkled. Had she slept in it?

  “Were you waiting outside until the coast was clear?” Moses asked. “I didn’t upload those pictures, you know. We are still safe.” She was too preoccupied to care. He became concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  Rebecca did not reply immediately. She sat down in the waiting area while Moses came and sat across from her. “I have Idleman’s room assignment for you. I think Jacobs may be catching on to whatever it is we’re doing. They noticed that we were down to the sub-aquatic levels for a long time. They track the access card usage. They started asking questions today. I don’t really know what to tell them.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “We’re not doing anything wrong. You are completing my orientation as assigned, and I am just trying to figure out how to prevent future disasters like the one that happened with Adrie Petersen. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “No, I guess not. Not when you put it that way. It just sounds so much more confident coming from you.” She just looked at him.

  “We can stop looking into this if you want to.” He said it, but he didn’t believe it for a minute. Even if she wanted to stop, he would keep going. He needed to know what happened and why. He wasn’t one to leave something alone once he started it. “But really, there is absolutely no reason either of us should get in trouble for doing what we’re doing.”

  Rebecca closed her eyes. “But I can’t get fired.” Her eyebrows came together, pinching the skin at the top of her nose. “I have no skills to offer. And I don’t want to leave my home. The simplest civilian positions are all filled by people with Ph D’s and I just can’t compete with that.”

  Moses considered for a few long moments. This is exactly why he had trouble keeping friends. This kind of thing didn’t matter much to him. But figuring out what happened to Epps and Petersen were right up his alley. He stood up and began talking. If he could turn her mind back to their project then maybe they could move on.

  “How about this?” he asked, putting on his most reassuring tone. “All you have to do is feed me information. If I need to go somewhere new, you can take me as part of my orientation - as long as it doesn’t require ICE clearance. If I need to get somewhere you can’t easily justify, then I will just figure that out on my own.” It sure sounded simple when he put it that way. “But I need your knowledge of this habitat. I need someone who can answer my questions about the ins and outs of life here. Without that expertise, I will never be able to figure out what happened to the man who helped you stay on Mars. Your home.” He inhaled, realizing for the first time that he said all of that in one breath. “Does that sound workable for you? Safe?”

  He waited for what seemed like a long time for her to look up. When she did he could see she had calmed herself. “That sounds fine,” she said, pulling at the sides of her face with her palms on her cheeks. “I think I can do that. I really want to know what happened to Bill, and I think you’re right: something else is going on. This all seems too complicated if he just died in his sleep. Let’s do it.”

  Moses was grateful she was on board. It would be just about impossible to do this on his own, and he didn’t want to have to manipulate Rebecca into helping him. And he really didn’t know anyone else on Mars well enough to just start asking questions.

  “What do we do next?” she asked him.

  “I think that I am going to let Dr. Idleman forget about us for a little while. And you need a day off. Tomorrow I can handle things on my own. I need to talk to Mr. Petersen. Do you think he would talk to me?”

  Rebecca let out a small laugh. “He would love to. He talks about Adrie’s case every chance he gets. Jacobs and Chen may get upset with you, though. It has taken them forever to get him to stop bugging them about her. And he always meets the provisions of the Homestead Agreement, so there is nothing they can do about it. You can’t send someone back to Earth just for being annoying. Besides, who would file a complaint against someone for being upset that their wife died?”

  “What do you think would be the best way for me to get a meeting with him?”

  “That shouldn’t be hard. You’re the doctor. Harold is one of the oldest residents in the facility, and does some of the most demanding physical work. Just tell him you want to do a checkup. I don’t think Bill made him come for any mandatory visits after Adrie passed. He couldn’t face him. Harold doesn’t really know how to hold back what he is thinking at any time. Ever. I don’t know how Mrs. Petersen lived with him. It had to have been uncomfortable for Bill, too. Knowing that he blamed him for Adrie’s death.”

  “OK, then.” Moses put his hands on his hips, ready for action, in spite of not being able to get anything else done that day. It would be another day before he could get to Harold Petersen. Today there was paperwork to finish from that day’s patients, and research on the cutting edge of phycocyanobacterial medicines, and hopefully some sleep. He wasn’t the only one who needed sleep, either.

  “Rebecca, why don’t you cut out early tonight and get some sleep. It isn’t good for your immune system to miss regular sleep time.

  She looked sideways at him. “Thanks,” she said with sarcasm filling every part of the word. “I can’t help it if you have me nervous about being sent to another planet where there are crowds of sick and shiftless people everywhere. You can’t imagine the stories we hear about Earth. B
esides,” she said in an attempt to seal her argument, “that isn’t something people enjoy hearing. That you can tell they haven’t slept.”

  Moses felt bad, because he wasn’t sure how he should be handling her at this point. “Sorry,” he said. “I just meant to help. And don’t believe those things you hear about Earth. But you’re right, it isn’t nice to say things like that.”

  “It isn’t you,” she replied. “I’ve heard that all day long, and then waited outside while all your clients told me the same thing on their way out. Thank you for your concern. But I’ve got a reputation for being tough to uphold. I shouldn’t need sleep” After that, she gave him one of those great smiles of hers, eyes still shining as if it were just another bright day in Homestead IV.

  “You look tired? I hadn’t noticed. I’ll have to pay more attention.” He shot her a curious look, playing the part she wanted him to play.

  With that she left, leaving Moses alone with a lot of work to do before morning, and conversations to play out in his head before his meeting with the widower tomorrow.

  He heard Rebecca mumbling about going to bed as she walked down the hall to the elevator. Chuckling to himself, he got to work.

  Chapter 4

  Moses was up with the artificially augmented sunlight, squinting as the lights outside of his quarters increased in intensity. They shifted from the nighttime cool blue glow into a warmer and more intense yellow glare. He was still impressed with how well the designers managed to match the change from artificial night to artificial day. Homestead IV had the assistance of natural sunlight through the pyramidal glass ceiling that jutted out from the surface of the planet, and a system of amplification mirrors within the walls of the facility bringing the surface sunlight to the areas that required it. The largest consumers of sunlight were the algae fields, but a smaller portion was also diverted to any planted crops that the officials deemed profitable or vital. Upon arrival, Moses had argued that the people needed sunlight as well, but Chen and Jacobs both felt that the UV lamps built into the ersatz solar lights everywhere in the facility were sufficient.