Planets Falling (4 page)

"That's pretty clever Maggie."  He paused.  For some reason, he felt the need to respond to her veiled anger.  "I know you're still angry about me leaving -" He paused thoughtfully.  "Leaving us, what we had.  I have responsibilities and couldn't give you the time you deserved.  You knew that.  We’ve been over this so many times."

She turned to him swiftly and glared.  "You left because you're an ambitious, self-centered ass.  I was nothing more than an impediment to your progress.  God forbid you would spend some time devoted to others and not your own self aggrandizement.  And I won’t even go into the weird relationship you have with your mother."

"That's not fair Maggie," he muttered and shuffled to the power supply to the apartment.

The apartment fell into darkness and Maggie the engineer went to work looking for a power spike in the walls, floors, and ceiling.  It was no time before the gadget she was holding led her to a small panel in the floor of Warren's study - a grubby room with a desk and more piles of books.  The panel appeared to be another floor tile.  She moved the books aside.  "The panel must have a biometric lock.  That's Sarah's specialty.  I'll call her over."

They sat in the dark contemplating the dusty gloom.

"Now that you are the poohbah of mars, what's next for you Adam?"

"Maggie, you know that mom has been grooming me for this since birth.  I can't disappoint her."

She rolled her eyes.  "Adam, you need to stand up to her and do things for yourself."

Within a few hours, Sarah appeared.  With a few modifications of her computer, she identified the locking mechanism, synthesized a tissue match for Holst, and was waving it over the panel.  A small blue light appeared in the floor and the panel flipped open.  Inside was a handle.  "It's all yours," Sarah motioned to Adam.  He kneeled and turned it.  Dust billowed and books tumbled.  A cubicle roughly six feet square rose from the floor, towering in the cramped space.  Maggie stepped toward it and reached out to touch it.  In response, a door clicked open; inside was a brightly lit rack of shelves, empty with exception of a small data disk.  They grabbed the disk and closed the door.  The cube descended back into the floor.

"Are you going to tell Mr. Warren that he has a secret compartment in his office?" Sarah asked.

"He'd just use it to chill his vodka."  Maggie kicked the books back over the space.  Only a vaporous cloud of dust betrayed their discovery.

Chapter 5 – The Affair

The first time Adam and Maggie kissed was underground.  Adam had sworn her to secrecy about the chamber, but everyone knew about the network of underground ecosystems the fabled Dr. Ferris had planted across the planet.

Their exact whereabouts was another story.  Maggie was ecstatic when Adam shuttled her to another domed colony- this one devoted largely to microengineering, the process of developing microbial communities that could condition planets, not just mars, to rapidly warm and produce breathable gases.

It was late and very dark. The stars twinkled in the martian sky.  They docked the vessel, wandered the quiet walkways
of the colony, and approached an unremarkable sheet metal building. He grabbed her hand and led her to a lift inside.  They descended and the temperature rose.  When the lift stopped, her eyes grew wide at the impossible vista of greenery before her.

It was night belowground as well.  However, light from a faux earth moon shimmered over the lichen-blanketed rocks.  Moss draped over the boulders and ferns.  Water was trickling through a simulated stream.  Tiny, pale yellow flowers littered the landscape.  This was the closest to earth she had ever been in her life.  She could only wonder what the chamber would look like in simulated daylight.

"How does she do it?" she wondered aloud to herself.

"Green thumb," Adam remarked quietly.  "She's really quite remarkable.  Understands all the cycles, minerals, micronutrients, light needs, temperatures, humidity.
  The works.  She starts out with the most basic components and then sets up a series of successional stages.  Basically, it is applied ecology from earth.  Of course, the complexity and cycles that took millions of years of evolution on earth don't apply here.  But thinking about the shape that earth is in right now, the evolutionary rules don't matter there anymore.  I think her real goal is not to terraform mars."  He picked a flower and put it in her hair.  "I think she wants to preserve it all here and once humans get done wearing down earth, she can rebuild it.  She may seem positive but deep down, she's very angry."

They walked quietly along a walkway next to the stream.  For a moment, she imagined that no pump recirculated the water - that she was walking in a forest on earth.  He turned to her, gently touched her ear, and his lips met hers.

She whispered, "Tell me what you want to do with it all.  Your mother won't be in charge forever."

He picked another flower and grinned. "Let's run away.  We can set up a shack in one of the colonies near the poles.  We could change our identities.  I could be a maintenance worker and you could do whatever you want to do.  Paint, write, sculpt."

"I'm training to be an engineer, Adam dear.  Precision, detail, you know?  Not much room for the messiness of art.  I set all that aside years ago.  And you wouldn't last a day doing things someone else tells you to do unless it was your mother.  You'd have the entire colony figuring out ways to melt the poles and warm the climate."

"I suppose."  He jumped into a puddle and splashed her.  "But promise
me that we'll always have fun.

Chapter 6 – Into the Light

Maggie, Sarah, and Adam inserted the disk in a viewer in Adam's home.  The time stamp on the video was dated the morning that Holst died.  Holst's face peered from the screen, pale and worn.  His eyes were ghoulish, vacant, as if he was already frozen and dried – a husk in the red dust.  The backdrop was green and lush - Holst was standing in one of the underground ecolabs.  A winged insect fluttered behind him.  He spoke, clearing his throat.

I am William Oliver Holst.  I serve as the Director of Biological Reformation on Mars Colony 1, previously owned by the Corporation for Space Exploration.  If you’re viewing this recording, I have not returned to my home and am likely imprisoned or dead.  My intent is for this missive to serve as a confession of sorts.  This is also a call to action, because if I’m correct, the hands that now hold the biological corrosive known as strain XV may threaten the mars colonies as well as the civilization on earth.

My intent in releasing the bacterial alpha precursor to XV was benign, although clearly naive.  The corrosive was meant to strike fear in the general populace, causing an exodus.  This action was sanctioned by others within the corporation and not meant to harm.  After the event, I was dismayed at what I had done and was prepared to step away from involvement.  My highest priority was to destroy the microbes.  However, I was encouraged by some within the leadership to continue studying the material
and make it more potent, with the hope that we could generate a preventative for future attacks.  The idea was that this was a powerful bioweapon.  The holder of the defense would profit considerably.  Honestly though, it was my curiosity about the bacterium involved and its awesome impact on fabricated materials that gave me pause about destroying the alpha strain for good.

Resources flowed in from an anonymous individual within the board of directors
on earth and I continued the experiments that Tashiako had ended.  Through my efforts, I isolated a mutant strain that I called XV. Unlike the alpha strain, this bacterium was unique in that its nuclear material was sheathed in a coat of four protective membranes.  It was incredibly virulent and resistant to all know biocides.  Only direct exposure to lethal gamma radiation – a nuclear pulse- would destroy it. This, of course, would be an unacceptable control agent in areas populated by humans and other life, scrambling genetic material.

I reported my results to the board via a transmission relay on phobos.  The response was silence.  My contact on earth was either incapacitated or had lost interest.  My resources dwindled and I placed XV in stasis.

XV is truly a remarkable achievement.  It has no effect on life.

Holst turned and glanced longingly at the jungle behind him.  The insect landed lightly on his shoulder and then flitted away.

XV is a harmless decomposer in earth-like conditions, similar to thousands of other strains of bacteria. If it does infect living tissue, the immune system can quickly defeat it. However, when combined with any non-living polymer- a repeating chain of carbon atoms- its enzymatic machinery leaps to life.  Within hours, it can consume the entire electrical system of just about any machine, with no chance for control.  This strain can destroy any mechanized world in a matter of days, while leaving its inhabitants untouched.  A world stripped of its technology and considered a pariah to other advanced cultures.  Back to the stone age.  What a thought.

Holst smiled weakly as he shook his head. 
Was that pride on his face? 
Maggie thought. Holst's face slackened again.

Yesterday, my security system notified me that my apartment had been entered.  By the time I returned home, I discovered that the freezer in which you found this message was opened and the last remaining sample of XV had been removed.  If you have discovered this message I assume that this individual has implicated me in a bioterrorist attack.  I’m not guilty of anything but scientific curiosity.  My hope is that this message will perhaps not exonerate me but place some perspective on my actions.  History will judge my actions as just and tempered.

I am prepared to set this right.  There is one other individual on mars who knows of my actions and the existence of XV.  I plan to contact this person tonight with my dilemma.  Perhaps this colleague told someone about the hiding place and this led to the break in.  If I can find the thief, then I may be able to circumvent disaster.

Adam turned to Maggie and Sarah.  "It has got to be the former security director, Heldren.  She stepped down from
her post when we gained autonomy but stayed on planet.  She lives in Colony 12 near Licus Vallis.  We should question her.  If this woman is responsible, then we can give her a taste of her own medicine."

The next morning they shuttled to colony number twelve.  It was a small cluster of domes dedicated to housing and vegetable production.  Each dome was littered with rows of shiny vegetation, broad leaves sucking in the combination of martian sun and auxiliary lamps.  Sarah, Maggie, and Adam tumbled out of the shuttle.  Tendrils of rich, loamy scent reached into their nostrils.  They hailed a cab and headed to Heldren's small home overlooking an expanse of tomato plants.  Adam thought it funny that a woman with such a steely reputation settled into a tepid life, raising a sea of red orbs.

The scrawny, wisp of a woman was in her garden tending chartreuse gardenias when they approached.  Her hair was thin and her skin was taut – but no wrinkles.

"If it isn't the second coming and his entourage," Heldren purred.  “I suspect you have some new questions about some very old events.  I doubt you’ve come to taste my vegetables.”
  She produced a mock frown.

Adam stepped forward.  "Of course, this isn’t a pleasure visit.  It’s about your old companion, Director Holst.  What do you know about the breaching events that occurred thirty years ago?  We have no time for games.  Tell us what we need to know and we will lea
ve you back to your gardening." Adam fought to maintain his composure.

Heldren placed her sheers into a small cart.  "Very well, Dr. Fuerst.  Follow me to the house.  It is not far from here down the path.  Believe it or not, I am thrilled to have visitors.  It gets lonely here in my
self-imposed exile."

They sat in Heldren's unexpectedly cheerful parlor waiting for her to speak
.  The walls were bright yellow; potted flowers adorned every surface.  The fragrance was intoxicating.  Heldren considered the frills on her table and then lifted her rigid face.  It held the same vague expression, void of consequence that she displayed when addressing the distraught colonists ages ago.  Adam knew it well.  He reviewed the recordings many times looking for clues.

She spoke clearly.
"I surmise you know about the biological substance and Holst's involvement.  He killed himself over it you know.  Weak spirited, that one was.  The guilt of killing those children ate him up inside.  Guilt is like a cancer.  I have never experienced it myself, but they all tell me that is what it is like."  She chuckled at her wit.

She tapped her fingers on the table
and continued.  "Willy Holst never admitted to doing it.  But after we questioned several of the technical staff and let Akia – Tash- off the hook I knew that it was either Will or your mother."  She grinned at Adam.  "They both had much to gain from autonomy you see – to have the whole colony to themselves to partake in their misguided fantasy.  Frankly, though, your mother was too much of his lapdog.  She never had the strength of will to make it happen.  You know that he loved her?  Just like a puppy.  She left him after he was housetrained."

Adam
never thought that there was a suitor before his father.  If there was a man, there was no way she would fall for such a tight-assed bureaucrat.  It was clear that this woman Heldren knew nothing and had burned her ties with Holst years before.  They were at a dead end.  What a waste of time.

It was Maggie that stood.  "I think we learned all we can here."

Heldren closed her eyes, her skull shone through her forehead.  They were talking to an apparition, floating in the past with no future left.

As they stepped out the door, Heldren followed, her arms crossed.  "When I was security director, I installed small hidden cameras in the airlocks of the colony. 
They allowed me to monitor the movement of contraband, items that were not sanctioned by the company.  Wait a minute."  She turned back into her brightly lit surroundings.

Sarah and Maggie glanced at Adam uncertainly.

He shrugged.  "Mom and Holst?  No way."

Heldren reappeared, her skin thin as rice paper.  She faded
further in those few moments.  A small, black puck weighed heavily in her hand.  "This is the interface to the cameras.  The images only record when the locks are being used; the cameras have high compression.  They may still be recording to this day.  Remarkable technology.  Shame to see some nasty bioengineered slime eat it all up."  She handed it to Adam.  “I really do wish you the best of luck.”

Heldren faded in the doorway.  Adam began to believe that Holst and his mother had a complicated history.