Arrival (58 page)

“Outside, I guess. Why? What’s up?”

“I think I’ve figured it out.”

“You’ve found a cure?”

Maria sat down. “No. But I think I’ve figured out how the virus affected us.”

“Great! How?”

“It was at the genetic level, right down at the very base of it, at the chemical bonds.”

“The what?”

Maria slowed down, remembering that Frank was an engineer. “The chemical bonds, the ones that bond the proteins together in a DNA chain. It’s so simple.”

“Well, if it’s so simple, how come you didn’t figure it out before?”

Luckily, Maria was too excited to be offended. “You have to understand research protocols. You start at the top, or rather the outside, and work your way in, level by level. Genetics is pretty far down the list.”

“Okay, start from the top.”

“Well, before we all went into RMS, I checked our symptomology against that of known diseases, but that was a bust. Everything it seemed like, it wasn’t. Then I started looking at the individual systems, to see if there was a similar pattern in their failures, but there wasn’t.”

“Okay, okay, jump ahead.” It was all gibberish to Frank.

“Something, some chemical—actually, it’s more like an enzyme—it was causing the chemical bonds in our DNA to break down. Our DNA is our instruction set…”

“I’m not sure I’m following you, Doc,” Frank interrupted. “Engineer, remember?”

Maria stopped, trying to rephrase her findings in a way Frank would understand. “Okay. Pretend you’ve got a busted piece of equipment that you can’t repair. You have all the parts you need to build a new one. But something happened to the assembly instructions. All the words and sentences got scrambled, and you can’t make sense out of them.”

“Then I wouldn’t be able to build a new one.”

“Exactly. Not only that, but the repair manual is scrambled as well, so now you couldn’t even fix the old one, even if you wanted to.”

“Okay.”

“You see, the DNA holds the instructions for every living cell. It tells them what to do, how to act, and how to reproduce themselves. If their instructions are scrambled, they stop functioning, period. They can’t even replace themselves.”

“Well, where did this enzyme come from?”

“I don’t know, the air, the water? It was probably there in such tiny amounts that we probably couldn’t even detect it, let alone filter it out. It probably built up in our bodies over the months until there was enough at the genetic level to do some damage.”

“Can you come up with a cure for it, though?”

“Probably. There has to be some chemical in the sweet root that either blocks or renders the enzyme inert. Hell, it’s probably in the animals as well, or else they would’ve been affected just like us. All I have to do is figure out which chemical does the trick. And that shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, there were only four substances in that sweet root that the scanner couldn’t identify. All I have to do is test all four of them on a live sample.”

“Great! Nice work, Maria! Then we can send the all-clear message to the Daedalus?”

“Hold on, not so fast,” Maria warned. “It’s way too soon to do that. We need to get some results, first. We need to be sure…”

“Need I remind you, Doc, that we’re up against time, here?”

“Need
I
remind
you
that this thing nearly killed us all?”

“Good point,” Frank conceded. “You keep working, I’ll tell Jack.”

“You bet!” she exclaimed as she rose from the table to return to her work.

“Hold on, Doc!” Frank stopped her. “Take this with you,” he instructed, holding up a plate of food. “You need to eat, you know.”

“Thanks,” she agreed, taking it with her to the med-lab.

Hot damn!
Frank thought as he too left the wardroom, on his way to break the good news to Jack.

* * *

“Sir, I feel a little guilty, spying on her like that.”

The chief council member refilled his young intern’s cup of tea as he spoke. “Of course you do, lad. But you didn’t
go
there with the intention of
spying
on her, did you?”

“Of course not, sir. I was just finishing my evening meal. I didn’t even know she would be there.”

“And they were making no effort to
conceal
their conversation from the ears of others?”

“No sir. In fact, it was mere chance that I heard them at all. The other diners had only just left, and the mess hall was pretty quiet.”

“Then you did nothing wrong, my boy.”

“Then why does it
feel
wrong?”

“Growing up in a ship-bound culture such as ours, we are taught to respect what little privacy we have here. That’s why you feel guilty. Not for
hearing
their conversation to begin with, but rather for telling
me
about it.”

“So I shouldn’t have told you?”

“No, you were right in doing so.”

“Even if I am violating their privacy?”

“If someone would’ve overheard the right conversations, and then reported them such as you have this night, we might well have avoided the Luyten incident altogether.”

The young apprentice sipped at his tea as he considered the chief council member’s words. “What will you do?”

“Talk to the right people, ask the right questions. All covertly, at first. This close to our arrival, we have to be careful not to fracture what little unity we still have amongst our people. Our decision to abandon the crew of the Icarus has strained that unity enough already.”

“Then you won’t ask for a formal inquiry?”

“Not just yet, I suspect.” The chief council member sipped at his own tea. “In matters such as these,” he continued, looking directly in his intern’s eyes, “timing is everything.”

* * *

“Well, don’t get all excited or anything,” Frank quipped.

Sorry
, Jack thought at him.
Good, yes. Of course.

Jack’s thoughts seemed broken somehow, disjointed. It required a bit of concentration for Frank to figure out what he was thinking.

“I know it’s not a cure yet, but come on, Jack.” Jack still didn’t respond, and for the first time since he had returned, Frank couldn’t read Jack’s thoughts. “What’s bothering you?”

Difficult to communicate, more and more.

“What do you mean?”

Not understand you well. Not like before. Not easy. Harder. Each day, harder.

“You mean, telepathically?”

Jack nodded.

“Shit.” Frank sat down on the ground next to Jack, looking up to see what it was Jack was always looking at whenever he was out here by himself. “What are you looking at?”

Sky.

“Duh.”

Lifetime. Get here, only thought. Now, want back, up there.
Jack pointed toward the night sky.

“I know what you mean.” Frank leaned back against the snow bank. “It’s weird to think that I’ll probably never be back up there. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life here on this world. Hell, I’ll probably die here. We’ll all probably die here, eventually.”

Truth.

“Listen, Jack. I know you’re worried about what will become of you. I mean, who wouldn’t be worried in your situation? But you can’t give up hope yet. Maria will figure this thing out, sooner or later. And once we get the rest of the crew revived, there will be seven of us working the problem.”

No time. Soon I, no talk, no understand.

“Maybe, but you’ll still be here, with us, alive. We can take care of you, Jack.”

Like pet?

“Well, now who’s being a smart-ass?”

Jack laughed as best he could, which was really more of a snort.

* * *

“Captain? I think you might want to know about this.”

“What is it, Marco?”

“Someone has made an inquiry into the navigational logs.”

A chill went up Hal Ishkin’s neck. “Who was it?”

“The council.” Marco watched the captain’s face for any change of expression, but saw none. “Should I respond, sir?”

“It’s public information, Marco. Not responding will just make it look like we are trying to hide something.”

“Uh, I’m confused, sir. I thought we
were
trying to hide something.”

“How much longer until we reach the go-no-go point?”

“About thirty-six hours, sir.”

“Well, I didn’t really expect to be able to keep it a secret this long anyhow.” Hal leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Send them the information they requested, Mister De Tullio.”

* * *

“Maria? Have you seen Jack?”

Maria didn’t look up from the scanner display. “No, but I’ve been in here all morning.”

“I can’t find him anywhere.”

“I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later.”

“I hope so,” Frank muttered as he left the genetics-hut.

Maria paused to look up as he left, wondering why Frank seemed so concerned.

* * *

“Captain Ishkin, I suppose you are wondering why the council has called you here today?”

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

Ray fought back a smirk. He and Hal both knew damned well why the council had called this emergency meeting, and why they asked Hal to be present.

“It has recently come to the attention of the council that you have set the ship on a course that, let’s say, is not entirely in accordance with our most recent directive. Is this true?”

“What directive would that be, sir?” Hal asked innocently.

“The directive to place this ship on course for whichever destination the planetary sciences department chose. I assume you remember that directive?”

“Of course, sir. And I did just that.”

“What course did the ship’s navigator recommend to satisfy that directive, Captain?”

“Well, he gave me several courses to choose from, sir. And I exercised my prerogative as the captain of this vessel to choose the course that best met our current requirements.”

“I see.” The chief council member looked down at his reports for a moment before continuing. “According to the reports from the navigator’s log, two courses were made available to you. One that would put the ship on an intercept course with the orbit of Tau Ceti Four, correct?”

“Correct, sir.”

“And this course, would allow us to attain orbit around Tau Ceti Four with minimum fuel expenditure, correct?”

“Yes sir, it would.”

“The other course you had available to you would take us in between Tau Ceti Four and the star, would it not?”

“Yes sir, it would.”

“Didn’t you find such proximity to the star to be somewhat risky?”

“No sir. The course was well within the safe operation protocols of this ship, sir.”

“I see. And you weren’t concerned with the extra fuel it would cost us to slow down and let Tau Ceti Four catch up to us once we intercepted her orbit?”

“No sir. The flight dynamics officer assured me that we would have enough fuel to sustain a safe parking orbit around TC Four with either course.”

“Nevertheless, didn’t the flight dynamics officer inform you that the first course would result in considerable fuel savings upon achieving orbit?”

“Yes sir, he did.”

“Yet you chose the second course?”

Ray was getting tired of this line of questioning. The council obviously had access to all of the flight officer’s logs and reports. They were just building a hanging platform for everyone in the room to see.

“Yes sir, I did.”

“Would you care to enlighten us as to the reason for your decision?”

“I felt it was the best course, sir.”

“And why would that be?”

“The second course provided us with the longest period of options, sir.”

“Options for what?”

“To change our course, sir.”

“To what end?”

“In case we changed our destination, sir.”

“Again, I ask you. To what end?”

Hal thought about his answer. If he told them the truth, they would probably remove him from command and hand the ship over to the XO. If he tried to lie, they would see through it and the result would be the same.
Oh well, once I park this thing, I’ll be out of a job anyway.

“I chose the second course,” Hal began confidently, “because it would give us more time in case we received new information from our people on Tau Ceti Five that might give this council reason to change their decision regarding not only the final destination of this vessel, but also in regards to the safe return of the crew of the Icarus, sir.”

Ray watched as the expressions on several of the council members’ faces suddenly turned sour. He knew they all understood what Hal had been trying to do. And secretly, they probably all applauded his efforts. But theirs was the final say, and it had to be respected, at all costs. Hal had left them with little choice in the matter; in the way he had gone about it. Ray suddenly felt guilty. After all, it had been his idea to begin with.

As the murmuring amongst the council members died down, the chief council member spoke. “Captain Ishkin. Please remain here while the council adjourns to chambers to consider this information, and render a decision.”

“A decision on what?” Ray blurted out.

The council members ignored Ray’s remarks as they filed out of the meeting room to confer in private.

Hal stepped back from the podium to sit down and wait.

“Jesus, Hal. I’m real sorry, I got you into this.”

“Don’t worry, Ray. I knew what I was doing. Besides, what are they going to do, toss me overboard,” he remarked with a grin.

* * *

Jack sat alone atop a small hill away from the camp, writing as best he could on a data pad. Each word was a struggle to compose; each sentence like climbing a mountain.

It had been nearly two weeks since Maria sent the message. Only days ago, she had succeeded in synthesizing a vaccine. As he wrote, she was already reviving Lynn, intending to test the vaccine on her first, since she was the least ill of the crew still in RMS.

Jack had spent most of his time away from the camp. He spent his days hunting food for the others, leaving his kill at the foot of the ramp for them. His ability to communicate continued to fade, and was now down to individual words only.

He had been working on this letter for several days now, hoping to finish it before he lost all ability to communicate with his friends, whom he now referred to in his own mind as ‘
humans
’.

* * *

Ray and Captain Ishkin watched as the council filed back into chambers, taking their seats behind the long, metallic, conference table.

“Here it comes,” Hal whispered.

The lead council member adjusted himself in his seat as he spoke. “Captain Ishkin, would you please approach the podium?” His voice was flat, and without emotion. He paused for a moment, waiting for the captain to take his place at the podium before continuing.

Hal despised the formalities, as necessary as he knew they were. He stood proud, ready to face his judgment.