The Cage of Zeus (19 page)

Why were these people incapable of accepting these newcomers to the human race? Why couldn’t they recognize the Rounds as the living beings they were?

The Vessel of Life had also leaked images of the special district and the experiments being conducted in the lab. Karina had already admitted to transmitting the images to the Vessel of Life on Mars. It was probably after confirming Karina’s progress with their plans that the Vessel of Life had announced their intentions.

The reply that came from the Martian government was twofold. Until the substance dispersed in the special district could be identified, the entire station was in lockdown. No one was to enter or leave the station. Any replacement equipment would be dispatched by unmanned vessels from Jupiter-II, Jupiter-III, and Asteroid City. The station’s staff needed to ascertain what the substance was and keep in constant contact with the Martian government.

In other words, it was up to Jupiter-I to pull through the crisis on their own. Given the distance separating Mars and Jupiter, that was to be expected. Jupiter-I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for help to arrive. They had yet to identify the dispersed substance or even begin to understand its ramifications. If anyone from the outside should come into contact with them, that person was susceptible to contamination or even infection.

The only recourse left to Kline and the station staff was to put in a request for the supplies, keep the lines of communication open, and see how the crisis played out.

5

AFTER WATCHING HARDING
handpick the members of the rescue mission entirely from his own team, Arino voiced an objection.

“I have operational control here,” Harding said contemptuously. “I need a team that’s going to be familiar with and responsive to my commands.”

“Then at least choose two or three from my unit to bring up the rear.”

SSD had instructed Shirosaki and Harding to work together. If Shirosaki’s team wasn’t included in the mission, Harding would be the one who’d have to answer to Captain Hasukawa later.

Arino prayed that Harding still had enough sense to listen to reason.

Despite looking none too pleased, Harding relented.

Arino summoned Shiohara and Ogata and explained that Shirosaki needed information about the weapon dispersed in the special district.

“You’ve been inside the special district, so you should be able to move around faster than the others who’ll be relying on maps. I want you to capture Karina Majella before Harding’s team gets too reckless. I don’t care if you have to injure her, but keep her alive. If you can, try to avoid an altercation with Harding’s team. Karina will try to seize every opportunity if she senses dissension in our ranks.”

“What do you think she’s after? If her goal was to kill everyone on Jupiter-I, she would have blown up the entire station.”

“No way she would have been able to smuggle in that many explosives alone. Tampering with the station’s core power system wouldn’t have been easy either. It would have been difficult to effectively use chemical weapons in a station of this size, especially since the partitions between each section would be automatically lowered at the first sign of trouble. But a biological weapon can easily be smuggled in in small quantities, multiply exponentially inside a host body, and infect others rapidly. That has to be what she’s dispersed in the special district.”

“Then maybe she’s been vaccinated. If so, wouldn’t it be possible to make an antivirus from her blood after we’ve captured her?” Ogata asked.

“I don’t know if that’s possible with the lab and infirmary in the shape they’re in. But if we bring Karina in alive, she’ll be of use to us.”

The members of the rescue team stood in front of the air lock in the residential district and climbed into their hard space suits. They opened the hatch and stepped inside, carrying their hazmat suits and weapons in a sack. They waited several moments for decompression, and after the green light blinked on, opened the hatch on the other side.

The black void spread out before them.

One by one, the rescue members kicked away from the edge of the hatch door.

Shiohara and Ogata followed.

Holding their sacks close to them, they dove into the darkness with only the station’s beacons to light their way. They immediately felt the burden of 0.3 Gs give way to utter weightlessness.

Their sacks felt like air in their grasps.

The silver exterior of the station’s central axis gleamed before them.

Twenty meters in diameter and eight hundred meters long, the axis housed the station’s gravitational control and surveillance systems as well as a small laboratory and the relaxation room.

Using the gas jets on their space suits, the rescue team flew in the direction of the special district.

They made their way along the station’s inner wall in a V formation, like migratory birds.

Upon arriving at the hatch outside the special district, the members of the team surrounded the door. They felt the gravity’s pull return a bit when they pressed the adhesive backs of their shoes and gloves against the wall.

One of the men twisted open the hatch. Half of the rescue team went in first and commenced compression. Although the air blowing into the air lock came from the special district, the antimicrobial filter kept out any viruses that might have contaminated the exhaust.

When the air lock was sufficiently pressurized, the members took off their hard suits and changed into their hazmat suits. After slipping on their masks, they opened the hatch to the special district and stepped inside.

Once inside, they quickly moved about the garden in four-man units and hunkered behind the shadows of the bioengineered plants. They lay low until the air lock was decompressed again and the remaining half of the team entered and changed out of their hard suits.

The hatch opened and the remaining members joined the team taking cover in the brush.

They proceeded toward Fortia’s residence, communicating occasionally over their implant devices.

The reserve units, standing by outside the special district, observed the image being sent back from the rescue team’s data goggles.

Harding monitored the scene, while Arino kept a close eye on Harding.

According to Calendula, two Rounds had been taken hostage, one of whom was injured. Arino prayed they would stay put when the team charged in. As frantic as the Rounds probably were to find themselves in such a frightening situation, they were likely to be spared serious injury if they didn’t get in the way.

The problem was with Karina. Harding had been intent on shooting her from the start. He might even order the team to aim for the head. Shiohara and Ogata would have to enter the residence another way and get to Karina first.

“Fortia’s residence has a skylight on the roof,” Shirosaki informed Arino through his implant. “Have Shiohara and Ogata go in through there. Look for an opportunity when the rescue team throws in the stun grenade.”

The rescue team zigzagged behind one cover to the next and then surrounded Fortia’s residence in groups of four.

Shiohara and Ogata climbed up to the roof and looked for the skylight. They found it exactly where Shirosaki had indicated.

“It’ll be a crying shame if we swoop in and our own team mistakes us for the terrorists,” muttered Ogata.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get workmen’s comp for that.”

After the breacher removed the keypad lock with a drill, the first four-man team slipped inside the house. They crept forward slowly, careful not to slip on the polished cedar floor. The living room was at the end of the hall. The men broke down into pairs and took turns providing cover while the other pair advanced until they reached the door.

They flanked the door with three men crouched down on one side and another man gripping a stun grenade on the other. One man confirmed the door did not have a lock and kicked it down.

From their vantage point on the roof, Shiohara and Ogata watched the stun grenade being tossed into the living room. An earsplitting bang filled the room. But thanks to the implants, capable of filtering out specific audio frequencies, Shiohara and Ogata weren’t affected.

The two smashed through the skylight. They landed in a crouch and scanned around them amid the noise. The heat sensors on their data goggles could not pick up any sign of the terrorists. Someone lay motionless on the floor. Shiohara and Ogata scrambled next to the body and found Album.

At the same time, the four men outside the door burst into the room in staggered formation. They took one look at the women and cursed.

Once the noise died down, Album shouted, “What are you doing? What do you think you’ll accomplish by throwing a stun grenade at me?”

“Where’s Fortia? Where are the terrorists?”

“Dammit! My ears. My eyes.” Album shook eir head violently. “They’re gone. And took Fortia with them. They plan to use em as a shield if they’re found. Go after them. Hurry!”

“Which way did they go? We’ve got security stationed at the door.”

“How the hell should I know?”

“There has to be another route,” said Ogata.

Using her implant, Shiohara reported back to Arino. “The terrorists will need a ship to get off this station. With the docking bay down, they’ll try to get to one of the emergency shuttles. You’ll have to put security on every one of the spacecraft, sir. And get a security system into the maintenance shafts. Karina’s got to be somewhere in the shafts.”

When the door to the special district opened, the air from the corridor was drawn into the negative-pressure environment. Hazmat-suited security entered the special district with the wind at their back. They gathered the fragments of the capsules scattered around the entrance and then went about the work of sterilizing the area. First they treated the area with UV irradiation units and sprayed the area with antiseptics.

Tei and the medical team also entered the special district, wearing their own protective gear. They gathered the Rounds and led them to the assembly hall for mass examinations. Many of the children presented with fevers. The adults, though only slightly feverish, complained of physical fatigue. Dr. Wagi told the others that these symptoms were likely the effects of the dispersed substance.

The youngest children were suffering from especially high fevers. Whereas the normal body temperature for Round infants was 37 degrees Celsius, all of the infants were running a fever of over 38 degrees. Since they were sweating profusely, the doctors prepared intravenous drips to keep them hydrated.

After hearing Dr. Wagi’s report, Shirosaki asked, “Isn’t there some way to find out if this is a virus?”

“Yes, with a simple electrophoresis test—if it’s a virus we’ve already identified,” Wagi replied. “But all of the equipment in the lab and infirmary was destroyed in the explosions. We can’t even run a PCR test. But if it’s a new virus we’re dealing with, I doubt any tests would yield very useful information.”

“Then what are our options?”

“We treat the symptoms. Administer antipyretics to treat fever and antiphlogistics for inflammations. I can’t guarantee any results, but we try every antiviral drug we can think of—neuraminidase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, nucleoside analogues, and non-nucleoside analogues. We attack this thing with as many combinations of drugs we can find in our supply. If the equipment were still working, we could have tried autotransplantation of blood stem cells to boost immunological function.”

“Will that be enough?”

“If it’s not, the Rounds will die. The sooner you capture Karina, the better. She has the answers we’re looking for. She must be planning to use that information as a bargaining chip if she’s captured.”

“Understood,” said Shirosaki.

“In the meantime, I’ll collect some blood samples from infected Rounds and send them to the lab on Europa. Since they’re equipped for marine microbial research, they’ll be able to analyze the samples for us. They’re also the closest lab to Jupiter-I, so we can communicate with them in real time.”

“Yes, that’s good.”

Wagi switched on his wearable and proposed the idea to Kline.

But Kline, in turn, informed the doctor of the Martian government’s order to lock down the station and prohibit any contact with the outside.

“We’re not asking to
move
the patients there,” Wagi shouted. “We merely want to send the samples to the lab on Europa for analysis. If we simply listen to the Martian government, the Rounds will die. I recommend we send the samples to Europa.”

“But if the staff and the facilities on Europa become contaminated, we’ll be responsible for spreading the damage.”

“Then we store the samples in hermetically sealed containers and hand them off to Europa’s staff wearing protective gear,” Dr. Wagi said. “Europa has hazmat suits and the staff is used to handling hazardous materials.”

Kline bit her lip. There was no time to waste. But was involving the lab on Europa an acceptable risk? Even if the staff agreed to it, who would bear the responsibility if they were affected? This was a matter of life and death. If someone were to die, there was no taking responsibility for it.

There was also another concern to consider, and that was the risk of contaminating Europa’s ocean.

“I’ll discuss it with the director,” Kline answered curtly. “Switch your wearable to the common circuit. I’ll patch you in to the call.”

Kline opened a channel to the research station on Europa.

The face of Paul Weil, the director of the research station, appeared onscreen. “Kline, I heard the news. Terrible what’s happened.”

“Then you understand I haven’t much time.” Kline proceeded to briefly explain how the equipment on Jupiter-I was destroyed and how there was no way for them to ascertain whether the weapon was chemical or biological. “Dr. Wagi, our chief of medicine, is requesting the use of the research facilities on Europa. But we’re not about to put your staff at risk when we don’t even know the nature of the agent we’re dealing with.”

“I would think not,” replied Weil. “What do you have in mind?”

“What if your staff were to temporarily evacuate the research station?”