Starfish (31 page)

I have yet to receive an explanation for all this. The v— the other personnel are presently gone from the station. I can find two or three of them on sonar; I suppose the rest are just hidden in the bottom clutter. Once again, this is extremely unsafe behavior.

Such recklessness appears to be typical here. It implies a relative indifference to personal welfare, an attitude entirely consistent with the profile I developed at the onset of the rifter program. (The only alternative is that they simply do not appreciate the dangers involved in this environment, which is unlikely.)

It is also consistent with a generalized post-traumatic addiction to hostile environments. This doesn't constitute evidence
per sé
, of course, but I have noted one or two other things which, taken together, may be cause for concern. Michael Brander, for example, has a history which ranges from caffeine and sympathomimetic abuse to limbic hot-wiring. He's known to have brought a substantial supply of phencyclidine derms with him to Beebe; I've just located it in his cubby and I was surprised to find that it has barely been touched. Phencyclidine is not, physiologically speaking, addictive— exogenous-drug addicts are screened out of the program— but the fact remains that Brander had a habit when he came down here, a habit which he has since abandoned. I have to wonder what he's replaced it with.

* * *

The wet room.

"
There
you are. Where did you go?"

"Had to recover this cartridge. Bad sulfide head."

"You could have told me. I was supposed to come along on your rounds anyway, remember? You just left me out there."

"You got back."

"
That's
— that's not the point, Judy. You don't leave someone alone at the bottom of the ocean without a word. What if something had happened to me?"

"We go out alone all the time. It's part of the job. Watch that, it's slippery."

"Safety procedures are also part of the job. Even for you. And especially for me, Judy, I'm a complete fish out of water here, heh heh. You can't expect me to know my way around."

"...."

"Excuse me?"

"We're short-handed, remember? We can't always afford to buddy up. And you're a big strong man— well, you're a man, anyway. I didn't think you needed baby-sit—"

"
Shit! My hand!
"

"I told you to be careful."

"
Ow.
How much does the fucking thing weigh?"

"About ten kilos, without all the mud. I guess I should've rinsed it off."

"I guess so. I think one of the heads gouged me on the way down. Shit, I'm bleeding."

"Sorry about that."

"Yeah. Well, look, Caraco. I'm sorry if baby-sitting rubs you the wrong way, but a little more baby-sitting and Acton and Fischer might still be alive, you know? A little more baby-sitting and— did you hear that?"

"What?"

"From outside. That— moaning, sort of—"

...

"Come on, C— Judy. You must've heard it!"

"Maybe the hull shifted."

"No. I
heard
something. And this isn't the first time, either."

"I didn't hear anything."

"You d— where are you going? You just came
in
! Judy..."

Clank. Hiss.

"...don't go..."

* * *

TRANS/OFFI/250850:2120

I've asked each of the participants to submit to a routine sweep under the medical scanner— or rather, I've asked most of them directly, and asked them to pass the word on to Ken Lubin, whom I've seen a few times now but haven't actually spoken to yet. (I have twice attempted to engage Mr. Lubin in conversation, without success.) The participants know, of course, that medical scans do not require physical contact on my part, and they're well able to run them at their own convenience without me even being present. Still, although no one has explicitly refused my request, there has been a notable lack of enthusiasm in terms of actual compliance. It's fairly obvious (and entirely consistent with my profile) that they consider it something of an intrusion, and will avoid it if possible. To date I've managed to get rundowns on only Alice Nakata and Judy Caraco. I've appended their binaries to this entry; both show elevated production of dopamine and norepinephrine, but I can't establish whether this began before or after their present tour of duty. GABA and other inhibitor levels were slightly up, too, left over from their previous dive (less than an hour before the scan).

The others, so far, haven't been able to "find the time" for an exam. In the meantime I've resorted to going over stored scanner records of old injuries. Not surprisingly, physical injuries are common down here, although they've become much less frequent as of late. There are no cases of head trauma on record, however— at least, nothing that would warrant an NMR. This effectively limits my brain chemistry data to what the participants are willing to provide on request— not much, so far. If this doesn't change, the bulk of my analysis will have to be based on behavioral observations. As medieval as that sounds.

* * *

Who could it be? Who?

When Yves Scanlon first sank into the abyss he had two questions on his mind. He's chasing the second one now, lying in his cubby, shielded from Beebe by a pair of eyephones and the personal database in his shirt pocket. For now, he's gone mercifully blind to plumbing and condensation.

He's not deaf, though. Unfortunately. Every now and then he hears footsteps, or low voices, or— just maybe— the distant cry of something unimaginable in pain; but then he speaks a little louder into the pickup, drowns unwelcome sounds with barked commands to scroll up, link files, search for keywords. Personnel records dance across the inside of his eyes, and he can almost forget where he is.

His interest in this particular question has not been sanctioned by his employers.
They know about it, though, yes sirree they know. They just don't think
I
do.

Rowan and her cronies are such assholes. They've been lying to him from the start. Scanlon doesn't know why. He'd have been okay with it, if they'd just leveled with him. But they kept it under wraps. As though he wouldn't be able to figure it out for himself.

It's bloody obvious. There's more than one way to make a vampire. Usually you take someone who's fucked in the head, and you train them. But why couldn't you take someone who's already trained, and then fuck them in the head? It might even be cheaper.

You can learn a lot from a witch hunt. All that repressed-memory hysteria back in the nineties, for example: so many people suddenly remembering abuse, or alien abduction, or dear old grandma stirring a cauldron of stewed babies. It didn't take much, no one had to go in and physically rewire the synapses; the brain's gullible enough to rewire
itself
if you coax it. Most of those poor bozos didn't even know they were doing it. These days it only takes a few weeks worth of hypnotherapy. The right suggestions, delivered just the right way, can inspire memories to build themselves out of bits and pieces. Sort of a neurological cascade effect. And once you
think
you've been abused, well, why wouldn't your psyche shift to match?

It's a good idea. Someone else thought so too, at least that's what Scanlon heard from Mezzich a couple of weeks ago. Nothing official, of course, but there may already be a few prototypes in the system. Someone right here in Beebe, maybe, a walking testament to Induced False Memory Syndrome. Maybe Lubin. Maybe Clarke. Could be anyone, really.

They should have told me.

They told him, all right. They told him, when he first started, that he was coming in on the ground floor.
You'll have input on pretty much everything
, was what Rowan had promised.
The design work, the follow-ups
. They even offered him automatic coauthorship on all unclassified publications. Yves Scanlon was supposed to be a fucking
equal
. And then they shut him off in a little room, mumbling to recruits while
they
made all the decisions up on the thirty-fifth fucking floor.

Standard corporate mentality. Knowledge was power. Corpses never told anybody
anything.

I was an idiot to believe them as long as I did. Sending up my recommendations, waiting for them to honor a promise or two. And this is the bone they throw me. Stick me at the bottom of the fucking ocean with these post-traumatic head cases because no one else wants to get shit on their hands.

I mean, fuck. I'm so far out of the loop I have to coax rumors from a has-been hack like Mezzich?

Still. He wonders who it might be. Brander or Nakata, maybe. Her record shows a background in geothermal engineering and high-pressure tech, and he's got a Masters in systems ecology with a minor in genomics. Too much education for your average vampire. Assuming there
is
such a thing.

Wait a second. Why should I trust these files?
After all, if Rowan's keeping this thing under wraps she might not be stupid enough to leave clues lying around in the GA personnel records.

Scanlon ponders the question. Suppose the files have been modified. Maybe he should check out the
least
likely candidates. He orders an ascending sort by educational background.

Lenie Clarke. Premed dropout, basic virtual-tech ed. The GA hired her away from the Hongcouver Aquarium. PR department.

Hmm. Someone with Lenie Clarke's social skills, in public relations? Not likely. I wonder if—

Jesus. There it is again.

Yves Scanlon strips the phones from his eyes and stares at the ceiling. The sound seeps in through the hull, barely audible.

I'm almost getting used to it, actually.

It sighs through the bulkhead, recedes, dies. Scanlon waits. He realizes he's holding his breath.

There. Something very far away. Something very—

Lonely. It sounds so lonely.

He knows how it feels.

* * *

The lounge is empty, but something casts a faint shadow through the Communications hatchway. A soft voice from inside: Clarke, it sounds like. Scanlon evesdrops for a few seconds. She's reciting supply consumption rates, listing the latest bits of equipment to break down. A routine call up to the GA, from the sound of it. She hangs up just before he steps into view.

She's sitting slumped in her chair, a cup of coffee within easy reach.

They eye each other for a moment, without speaking.

"Anyone else around?" Scanlon wonders.

She shakes her head.

"I thought I heard something, a few minutes ago."

She turns back to face the console. A couple of icons flash on the main display.

"What are you doing?"

She makes a vague gesture to the console. "Running tender. Thought you'd like that, for a change."

"Oh, but I said—"

"Not to change the routine," Clarke cuts in. She seems tired. "Do you always expect everyone to do everything you say?"

"Is that what you think I meant?"

She snorts softly, still not looking back.

"Look," Scanlon says, "Are you sure you didn't hear something, like— like—"
like a ghost, Clarke? A sound like poor dead Acton might make, watching his own remains rotting out there on the rift?