Arrival (23 page)

* * *

Day 13;

Today marks the completion of the first week of our journey. Each day has been much of the same. Eat, hike, and sleep. The hiking is getting easier as our bodies grow stronger, and the aches and pains at bedtime have also grown less severe.

Surprisingly, this journey has been somewhat boring. Nothing but grass, streams, and rocks. We have spotted countless species, both herbivore and carnivore, but they all keep their distance, and Jack is unwilling to pause for observation unless it is necessary for safety reasons.

Although I am not looking forward to the uphill climb ahead of us, I will welcome the change in scenery. I found few geological samples of interest on this vast plain, and I am looking forward to the more varied sampling that the hills and eventual mountain will undoubtedly provide.

* * *

It had been more than a week since Frank’s near-death experience. His recovery had been better than expected and Maria had been unable to find any side effects from the event. Frank returned to work feeling better than ever.

Despite Lynn’s protests, Frank had continued his work on the radar set every evening after dinner. She did everything short of ordering him to stop wasting time on the hopeless repair effort. But Frank made it clear that his evenings were his own to do with as he pleased. Lynn had reminded him of his obligations to the mission, not to mention the rest of the team, and that he was not to let his work on the radar set interfere with his responsibilities.

* * *

The weather had become hot and dry over the last few days, and they were consuming more water. Will had discovered that his bladder was nowhere near as large as Jack’s, and he required frequent stops for relief, much to Jack’s annoyance.

The increased temperature also brought more insects. They slathered on some insect repellent, the smell of which Will decided was probably the main deterrent against the pesky winged organisms. It worked to some extent, although many insects were unaffected by the stench and continued to bother them. Will wondered what made the original mission planners think that a lotion formulated to repel Earth insects had any chance of working on an alien world.

Suddenly, Will felt a sharp pinch at the back of his neck, instinctively slapping at what he suspected was another of the bothersome bugs. “Ouch!” Will exclaimed as he slapped at his neck.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked without breaking stride or looking back. Jack was a determined man with a schedule to keep.

“My neck,” Will explained as he looked at his palm. There was a long, slender insect squished in his hand. The insect had red and yellow bands around a body nearly three centimeter long, with long grayish wings protruding from its thorax. It was lying dead in Will’s hand, surrounded by a small pool of bright-red blood. Will shook the dead organism out of his hand, wiping the remains off on his pant leg. “One of those bugs!” he complained. Will reached back up to his neck, feeling something moist. Inspecting his hand again, he found some of his own blood was on it. “I think it bit me.”

“You alright?” Jack asked, turning his head briefly to glance at Will.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Will assured him.

“A few more hours and we should reach the base of the hills,” Jack promised. “We can pitch camp there for the night and start heading up the hill in the morning.”

“Sounds good,” Will agreed. He was tired, and would welcome a good night’s sleep. “Let’s push on and get there,” Will insisted. “The sooner the better.”

They continued their pace, a steady cadence of footfalls, marching closer and closer to the distant hills. Will realized that he was sweating more than usual, undoubtedly due to the heat.

Then Will’s vision began to blur, but only for a moment. He stopped for a second and gulped down some water, figuring it was just a little dehydration. Replacing his canteen in its holster, Will trudged on, quickening his step to catch up to Jack.

Then the wheezing began. Mild at first, then growing more audible with each breath. He noticed that his gait had become somewhat staggered, uneven. Then it hit him, like a vise clamping around his chest, pushing all of the air out of his lungs. “Jack!” he gasped, but it was barely a whisper. Will fell forward, his eyes rolling back in his head as he hit the ground face-first in a cloud of dust.

Jack heard a thud along with the rattling of gear from behind him, stopping in his tracks and spinning around to see what had happened. He froze for a second, shocked by the sight of Will, collapsed facedown in the grass, dust swirling around his unmoving body. “Will!” he hollered, but there was no response, no movement, and no sound. Only settling dust. Jack ran back to him, unbuckling his pack and dropping it to the ground next to Will as he knelt down beside him. “Will!” he repeated, but he did not respond. He rolled Will onto his side, releasing the buckle on his fanny strap and sliding the pack off his back before rolling him over. Will was pale and sweaty, gasping for air in little sucking motions, his lips puckering up like a fish. With each breath, a sickening wheezing sound emanated from Will’s pursed mouth.

Jack’s mind was spinning. His first instinct was to holler for help. But there was no one else around. “Shit!” Then his training came to him. He tilted Will’s head back to open his airway. It seemed to help, but only a little. Feeling for Will’s carotid artery on the side of his neck, he checked for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak and rapid. Jack ran through the different causes of difficulty breathing he had learned about in his emergency medical training. The term ‘anaphylaxis’ stuck in his head.

Jack reached for his backpack, tearing it open and pulling out the med-kit. His medical training had been brief, concentrating on the necessary skills to implement treatment, rather than dedicating limited training time building a knowledge base. He pulled out the diagnosis flip-card chart, thumbing through it until he found the section on respiratory emergencies. Scanning the treatment for anaphylaxis, the memory was coming back to him. “A-Airway, did that,” he spoke aloud. “B-Breathing, C-Circulation,” Jack read further, then ripped open the medication pouch, pulling out a vial of epinephrine and loading it into the pneumo-jet device. He pulled the plunger back, drawing the medicine into the administration chamber, then twisted the locking hub and rammed the plunger back down, pressurizing the device. He dialed up the subcutaneous setting and pulled up the right sleeve of Will’s shirt. Pressing the injection head of the pneumo-jet device against Will’s right deltoid, Jack depressed the trigger. The device hissed briefly as the compressed air in the chamber forced the epinephrine out the injection head, piercing Will’s skin. The shot forced the medicine into the subcutaneous tissue where it would be carried through Will’s circulatory system from the capillary beds under the skin. He quickly reloaded the pneumo-jet with the next appropriate medication, resetting the injection depth to intramuscular as indicated, and repeated the process. The next step was to administer oxygen, which they did not have.

Jack watched impatiently as Will’s respirations became less labored. “That’s it, buddy.” Color was also returning to his face. Jack knew the treatment he had administered was working, but it was only emergency treatment, and Will might require more long-term care. He broke out the emergency medical guide on his data pad, calling up the medical section. The database had been designed with full knowledge of the medical supplies contained in their med-kits. The database thoroughly covered anaphylaxis, indicating at least twelve hours of monitored rest, with possible repeat dosing of the meds he had given thus far. Jack checked his med-kit. He had three more vials of the two primary medications for anaphylaxis. Will’s med-kit was identical to Jack’s, so he should have more than enough medication to get Will through the crisis. Unfortunately, the treatment protocols were based on allergic reactions to Earth conditions, insects, and allergens. And this was a bite by an alien insect on an alien world. Jack tried not to think about it, concentrating only on the task at hand. If there was a complication, he would deal with it as best he could.

It had been nearly five minutes since he gave Will the meds. Will’s breathing was almost back to normal, as was his complexion. But he was still unresponsive. His pulse was stronger now as well, and down to a normal rate. There was nothing to do but wait, and keep a close eye on Will’s condition.

Jack decided to pitch camp. They wouldn’t be traveling any further today, and probably not the next day. He was not a religious man at heart. Very few of them were. Organized religion was not allowed in their society, although one could still practice whatever belief system they chose to in private. As a result, religion as a whole had given way to an overall moral and ethical code accepted throughout the colonists. However, that night, over a lonely meal, Jack found himself praying to any God who might exist, for Will to survive.

* * *

Long after the others had gone to bed, Lynn was still sitting at the wardroom table, picking at her dinner, deep in thought.

“A little late for dinner, isn’t it?” Maria commented as she entered the room after finishing up some late-night work in the med-lab.

“Huh?”

“What’s the matter, not hungry?” Maria asked, sitting down across from her and noticing the full plate.

“Oh, I guess I’m just a little preoccupied,” she admitted.

“Want to talk about it?” she offered, going into counselor mode.

“Not really,” Lynn resisted. As easy as Maria was to talk with, she still wasn’t comfortable discussing command problems with anyone but Frank.

“It’s about Frank, isn’t it?” Maria surmised.

Lynn picked at her food another moment, then pushed it away. “I just don’t know what to say to him,” she finally admitted. “He’s obsessed with the belief that Jack and Will are still out there somewhere, waiting for us to rescue them.”

“And you don’t share his belief.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Not really.”

“But you admit that it’s a possibility, however remote?”

Lynn thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I admit that it
is
possible.
Anything
is possible.”

“And that bothers you?”

“Of course it bothers me.”

“Let me ask you a hypothetical question, then. If you
knew
that they were still alive, would you be able to do anything about it?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Like what?”

“Organize a search team, try to locate the escape pod’s transponder signal.”

“And where would you start looking?”

“Along its probable entry trajectory, of course.”

“And where would that likely put them?” Maria asked. “Close to us?”

“Probably not,” Lynn decided. Somehow, Maria had gotten her mind off her problem with Frank, and set it to work on a problem that she could solve.

“Why do you think that?”

“We came out of interface considerably past our target. But we had the ability to turn around. The escape pod didn’t. They would’ve been forced to land wherever their trajectory took them. And that would put them considerably downrange of us.”

“So you would send us out on a cross-country hike that could take weeks, maybe even months to find them, if we
could
find them?”

“Well, not at first, no. We would have to secure our site, insure our own survival, and determine the probability of our own survival on such a journey. I mean, we couldn’t just set out cross-country on a whim! That would be suicide!”

“Exactly. And that’s if you
knew
they were alive. You don’t even
suspect
that they made it out alive before the Icarus came apart.” Maria was silent for a moment, letting the concept sink in. “Do you see what I’m getting at here?”

“Yes,” she admitted, a little embarrassed that it had taken her so long to realize it in the first place.

“Part of you knows that you’re right,” Maria continued, “but the other part wants to join Frank and go storming off in search of them. In your case, logic continues to win the argument.
You
know we still have a mission to complete, despite our being stranded here. In fact, our inability to survey the other two planets makes our thorough survey of
this
planet even
more
imperative.”

“I know,” Lynn assured her.

“Command is not an easy task. And I’ll admit that it’s not really fair that it fell on your shoulders. But it did, Lynn. And it’s not only
our
lives that are depending upon you, it’s quite possibly the lives of everyone else on board the Daedalus as well. And those are the lives of our families.” Maria leaned back in her chair. It was a lot to throw at such a young woman. “It can’t be easy to abandon the lives of a few to save the lives of many. But you’re not the first person in history who has had to make such a decision.”

Lynn took in a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh. “I just wish Frank would see it that way.”

“He does. I’m sure of it. Deep down inside, he knows you’re right. He just feels guilty, like he could’ve done something else. Frank will work though it, sooner or later. He’s a reasonable man. Just give him some time.”

“I
have
given him time. The rest of us are already beginning to pick up his slack. He’s driving a wedge between us.”

“Do you want me to speak with him?”

“No, I should,” she objected.

“Nothing personal, Lynn. But he would probably take it better from me.”

This was no surprise to her. Despite Maria’s repeated assurances that her young age had little bearing on how well the crew accepted her as their leader, she knew it was still a factor. But she had no desire to confront Frank at this particular time. “Of course,” she agreed, trying to conceal how much it bothered her.

“Now, get some sleep,” Maria instructed, picking up her nearly-full plate of uneaten food. “I’ll save this for Mac. I have no doubt he’ll be happy to finish it for you.”

“Thanks,” Lynn smiled as she rose from the table. Sleep sounded awfully good to her right now.

* * *

Just after sundown, Will started to come around. He had been out for nearly five hours, and Jack was awfully worried.

“Hey buddy,” Jack greeted Will as his eyes slowly opened. “How are you feeling?”

Will looked around to get his bearings. His first surprise was that he was lying down. The second was that it was night. And then the third surprise hit him. He was feeling lousy.

“Terrible,” he half whispered. “What happened?”

“You were bitten by some bug,” Jack explained. “You had a pretty nasty anaphylactic reaction…almost stopped breathing on me.”

Will couldn’t remember anything. “You’re kidding?”

“I wish I was. You scared the shit out of me, my friend.”

Even in his hazy, weakened state, ‘
my friend
’ still sounded strange to him, especially coming from Jack. “Sorry,” Will apologized.

“It’s alright,” Jack assured him. “Just don’t let it happen again,” he joked.

“I’ll do my best.”

“You feel like eating something?”

Jack moved over to the fire, scooping up a plateful of stew and handing it to Will, who was now sitting up.