The Symbionts of Murkor Read online

  “Simple. To goad us into retaliating,” Amanda responded.

  Roya suppressed a laugh. “Retaliate? Us? How?”

  “They’ve provoked us in ways that can’t be proven. Why? So when they request access to our water, we refuse. They use that as justification to steal what they want for their mining operation.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Roya said, her suppressed laugh turning into a scowl. “What you’re saying is we should avoid the complication and give them the water now? By the way, that’s fine by me.”

  “That isn’t what I’m saying,” Amanda insisted, reaching for, and accidently spilling, the last traces of her coffee. “Don’t twist my words. Comandante, wasn’t it you who suggested we wait for Ellis to reveal her intentions before we alert Unión? What more do we need?”

  “What we need,” Garcia declared, watching a tiny rivulet of coffee meander its way across the table’s surface, “is to find an acceptable way off this base.”

  “Carlos may yet find a solution,” Amanda said, patting the engineer’s arm. “Besides, if we’re forced to leave, let’s do it on our own terms. We can hold out for the return of our resupply ship.”

  “We’ve been over that,” Garcia countered. “The wait’s too risky.”

  “I have an alternative that’s slightly less distasteful,” Roya volunteered.

  “Let’s hear it,” Garcia said.

  “A C5 shuttle can accommodate—what? Five people?”

  “Yes, five, pilot included,” Garcia answered. “Seven would be exceedingly uncomfortable. Why ask? There are no—oh, I see. You’re recommending we contact the same vessel that conveyed Ellis here?”

  “I am. The vessel may still be within hailing distance.”

  “There’s slim chance of that,” Gustavo observed. “She may have jump-drived. If not, figure approximately three days for the ship to decelerate and return depending on whatever g-force the pilot chooses to withstand. And if our message arrives during the pilot’s sleep cycle—”

  “She’s a vessel operating under Coalition contract,” Amanda interrupted. “The same one that may have dumped a nanocloud on our head. Do you actually believe the pilot would accede to our request for aid? Why would he take on the risk when he knows Zenith is one-hundred kilometers away?”

  “Because the overland trek between bases is at the top-end of our CAM-L’s operating range. The shuttle pilot would realize it’s a very dangerous undertaking,” Roya said. “As for the other arguments? I’ll concede, the odds don’t favor us. Still, it’s better than being houseguests of that bitch—damn it, Carlos, now you’ve got me saying it—I mean, Commander Ellis.”

  Carlos, staring into the thinning air, had not contributed to the discussion. “I’d like the additional time,” he said in a subdued voice. “I can solve it.”

  Garcia had a tough choice to make. The most prudent course of action—contacting Ellis and requesting immediate assistance—was also the most repugnant. Even if she wasn’t the mastermind behind recent events, her superiors on Varian, learning that Nadir was unoccupied, would order her to seize control of their EZ. In short order Unión would be compelled to respond, and in force.

  Garcia, meeting Carlos’s hopeful stare, committed to a decision. “Gustavo, I shall compose a message for you to transmit to the Coalition vessel.”

  ***

  An active imagination can be a blessing or a curse, a weary Garcia thought, looking up at the faded brown stain on his cabin’s ceiling. A plumbing leak Carlos had repaired months ago, but the stain could not be painted over. He pictured Amanda, lying naked on her back. She had seen it first.

  He had decided to welcome her when she came to him later that night. Why should he treat her differently than any other member of the crew, male or female, by excluding her from his console? He would use the opportunity to defuse the tension between them. No harm done if they were together one last time.

  A damnable lie, he confessed to himself. It was a decision made in a moment of weakness, knowing full well that once they were alone he’d be at a distinct disadvantage. It is absolutely easier and far more commonplace to lie to oneself than to others.

  There she was, early, softly knocking. Pushing himself off the bed, he went to the door, hoping he’d have the willpower to send her away. He was surprised to discover it was not Amanda who stood in the opening.

  For a second, neither party spoke until Mariana mysteriously said, “Congratulations. I think you just set a record.”

  “It’s infrequent,” Garcia managed to say, “that I don’t comprehend your meaning—”

  “A record for the sheer number of expressions that could pass over a man’s face in one second’s time. Let’s see. Surprise. Confusion. A touch of curiosity.”

  “Ahhh, then,” Garcia said, recovering and starting to smile. “You omitted one: Happiness—to see you.”

  “I see it now,” Marianna professed, making a point of looking directly into his eyes. “It was there all along, hiding behind a wall of worry. Maybe this will take your mind off things?”

  Mariana held up a small box. Garcia recognized it immediately as Dendrite, an enjoyable, low-tech mind game.

  “We haven’t played in months.”

  “I can’t think of a better time than now,” Mariana, said, reciting the excuse she had rehearsed to justify her late-night presence. “How well we play shall tell me the current state of our cognitive abilities. I shall leave now if you’re tired or—”

  “No, you must stay,” Garcia insisted, vaguely aware of the real reason for Marianna’s visit. Born out of mutual respect and affection, there was no need of an obvious declaration between them.

  Moments later, hunched over a game board placed on a cleared table, two close crewmates found a respite from their cares. Only once did the conversation turn serious.

  “What’s to become of us?” Mariana asked, looking up.

  “Are you frightened, Marianna?” Garcia asked softly.

  “A little. Shall I tell you of a dream?”

  “Do you hold faith in them as portents?”

  “No. This felt so real. I dreamt I was watching myself dreaming. That’s weird enough. Then my awake dreaming self tried to awaken my dreaming, dreaming self, and couldn’t.”

  “Interesting. A dream within a dream. I don’t know what it means but you certainly must be well rested.”

  They were both laughing when a rap was heard at the door.

  “It would be impolite to ignore it,” Mariana said, knowing who was on the other side.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Garcia acknowledged, projecting his voice to say “enter.”

  When the door slid open, there was Amanda, standing transfixed and speechless, trying hard to process the scene in front of her.

  “Would you care to join us?” Garcia entreated.

  “I can still think clearly, you know,” Amanda, finding her voice, said. She had made her mind up as to what the scene meant and, to her credit, was not too far wrong.

  “Of course you can,” Mariana said. “That’s why we’re inviting you to come in and play.”

  “It’s late.”

  “Late? Perhaps so,” Mariana responded. “You know how it is when you play a game.”

  “I’ll get Carlos’s opinion on the latest air chemistry values,” Amanda responded, implying more. “Then call it a night.”

  When Amanda departed, Garcia glanced at Mariana, trying hard to keep from smiling.

  “How many emotions did you see on her face?” he inquired.

  9. Remembering the Past x2

  WHAT AN ADRENALINE RUSH.

  Lieutenant Brian Davis watched the black-headed gulls gently tip their pointed wings as they floated the updrafts along the steep bluff plunging perilously close to his side. An invigorating tang from the ocean hissing far below mingled with the scent of balsam firs clinging to the ridge he was ascending. It was all good.

  And all an illusion promptly dispelled by a biometric pan
el suddenly and obtrusively coming to life.

  BIOBIKE 2340/Program 241A/Davis

  Elapsed time: 55 minutes

  Distance: 33.21 km

  Heart rate: 178 bpm

  Blood Oxygen Saturation: 91.2%

  Preliminary Heart rate 51 bpm

  Body Fat 5.8%

  Cardiovascular Report: No pathology detected

  Five minutes later, thirsty as hell, he was gulping down precisely one-third of his three-liter allotment of drinking water. So calculated by Base Manager Schulman, so ordered by Ellis, and so no choice. To adhere to the restriction, and those for personal hygiene, he would henceforth have to eschew the cardio workout and limit himself to a regimen of stretching exercises.

  Head tilted back, he let the last few drops of liquid splash on his tongue. For sure, he would never again take water for granted. The recent rationing wasn’t nearly the half of it. It was having to live on a planet so parched that not a solitary puddle collected anywhere on the entirety of its surface; where the few remaining life-forms were compelled to live and die in the smelly shadows of the fumaroles. What was the point of a world without water?

  He thought of the rec room’s scuba diving sim, detailed down to the sounds, sights and sensation of water on skin. A man-made divertissement that suffered in comparison to the real thing. What was absent, what could not be quantified or duplicated, was the vibrancy of the sea life that radiated around you. None of Zenith’s huge variety of environmental bio-sims could imitate that indescribable energy. He enjoyed them anyway.

  Past tense. They were off-limits now: A punishment self-inflicted from being stupid-drunk and now self-perpetuated, thanks to Ellis cleverly putting the matter in his own hands. He had decided to deny himself and Anderson rec room privileges until some indeterminate time in the future—perhaps restoring them when the month assigned elapsed or when Anderson demonstrated an attitude adjustment, whichever came first. He expected it to go full term. Anderson was stubborn. He met his match in the new CO, though.

  Although he had yet to fully embrace the course of action she seemed intent on, he was finding it easy to like her personally. He’d even use a word he didn’t parcel out very often: Respect. She certainly was different from Zenith’s prior commanding officer. You rarely had to question Trenchon’s orders. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to question. At least Ellis was making things interesting. Shit, it would be a cold day on Murkor before Trenchon thought of fighting him, as she did, and in front of the entire base. Only Anderson had the guts to do that on equal terms. And her confronting that arrogant a-hole Kreechum was one of the more amusing encounters in recent memory. At the rate she was going maybe he wouldn’t miss rec privileges after all. She’d be dishing out all the excitement they’d ever need.

  Maybe not all the excitement he needed. Damn, if only they had met under slightly different circumstances. Like on an entirely different planet, unencumbered by the “rules of engagement” officers are obliged to follow. It was hard to explain why he found her so damn attractive. Alluring might be a better fit. She was thinner than most. Maybe forty Murkor-kilos soaking wet—he could imagine the wet part—yet the proportions were fine. There was an intangible quality to her beingness that was hard to pin down. It was not overtly physical. The embodiment of intriguing contradictions: She parsed her words but didn’t hold back; she was thin but had a forceful presence; she seemed unassailable but when conversing her eyes didn’t look away.

  No, they locked right on. Searching.

  If she could read his thoughts he’d never see the rec room again.

  Using a waterless compound manufactured by the chem lab, Davis toweled himself dry and reasonably clean. Dressing into his uniform in the sim’s deserted anteroom, he reflected on how, in the last day or so, he hadn’t seen much of Anderson, nor half the IMC techs. Probably trying to avoid him. Anderson was probably jacked at having his rec privileges withheld.

  There was enmity underlying Anderson’s absence. He had found an alternate way of entertaining himself. It entailed tunneling into, and subsequently attempting to decipher, Nadir’s mindstors. Partially successful, he was quite elated by the information retrieved. After a day of mulling it over, however, he had come to the unhappy conclusion that the intelligence gained was not actionable unless shared with the CO. Because she had by no means sanctioned his efforts, the best way to bridge the gap, or so he believed, was through speaking first with Davis.

  That, too, involved a fair degree of uncertainty. The now-strained relationship between the two men had been built less on similarities in personality and temperament and more on the trying circumstances they found themselves in. They had different worldviews. One telling example: Both men joked about women, but only Anderson was a misogynist. It followed that the arrival on base of a strong-willed woman would have an influence on their friendship.

  Hoping to work and eat undisturbed, Davis grabbed lunch from the main cafeteria and took it to his quarters. His present assignment entailed the drafting of contingency plans for base evacuation. The least radical plan left six people behind, the bare minimum needed to assure Coalition’s continued control of Zenith’s EZ. Only military personnel would be ordered to stay. Thanks to the absurd dictates of Earth politics, the base would subsist as a distant, and largely useless, outpost. Being captive to something so unproductive, Davis felt, was the hardest part of it. Fruitful work was an integral part of human existence. Take it away, you’re just going through the motions. Gazing out the room’s hexagonal viewport he saw a static panorama devoid of life and promise, the only movement being the barely visible plume of debris from a roller merging into the distant haze.

  Nothing out there to dispel feelings of futility and loneliness.

  The entry to his quarters softly shimmered. A spoken command, “clear,” allowed him a one-way view of Anderson sporting an evil grin and flashing an obscene gesture on the portal’s opposite side.

  “Enter, ass wipe,” Davis announced, knowing full well Anderson would hear the words as the portal slid open. His friend appeared nervously excited. Davis noted that he was tightly clutching a purple crystal (CTL, each letter pronounced) commonly used to transfer or copy information directly to or from the colloid of any mindstor.

  “To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?” Davis asked in greeting.

  “To this, my part-time friend,” Anderson answered, holding the faceted crystal up to shine in the light. “And you shall rue your insults, for I hold the future of Zenith in my hand.”

  Davis sat back as Anderson pulled up a chair in front of the desk where he was sitting. This can’t be good, he thought to himself. He nodded toward the CTL. “I take it that is the reason for your recent disappearance?”

  “You noticed. I’m touched. It is.”

  “What type of file?” Davis asked.

  “Symbolic. Mostly words, characters, and numbers. A few graphs. It took time to decipher.”

  “Give me,” Davis insisted, holding out his hand. The deciphering comment had confirmed his own unease.

  On Davis’s desk was a small cube with rounded edges: His personal mindstor. Each facet of the cube represented a different manner the information could be conveyed—brainwave and holographic being the most common. Davis inserted the CTL into an open slot, then put on a pair of viewglasses, his personal preference given the type of file. Leaning back, he let the info stream to the pace of his eye movement on the lense’s interior surface. In five minutes he had the gist of it: The location of Nadir’s water resources. More problematical, a quick read of ESS operational data suggested that the base was occupied by less than the mandatory six occupants.

  “How did you get this?” Davis asked, removing the viewglasses while doing his utmost to keep his face impassive.

  “It took considerable patience,” Anderson replied. “The hydrological data is from their CAM-L’s mindstor, taken from right under their noses during one of their vehicle-to-base transmissions. The remainder is
from an instantaneous peek into their primary mindstor’s memory.” Anderson’s evil grin returned. “Stupid Tino bastards.”

  “Very clever,” Davis commented, committing himself to saying little else. “You found a backdoor in.”

  “You don’t seem too excited by what this could mean,” Anderson said, trying to read his friend.

  Before Davis could respond, the portal signaled someone’s presence: Kreechum, the IMC foreman mouthing a quick greeting when allowed to enter. Davis sensed the man was deliberately avoiding eye contact with Anderson. Why? Then it occurred to him.

  “Didn’t know you had company,” Kreechum lied.

  “Gentlemen, let’s cut the bullshit,” Davis said, removing the crystal from the mindstor and holding it up for the IMC foreman to plainly see. “You know.”

  “Never said I didn’t,” Kreechum insisted.

  Of course he knew, Davis said to himself. To marshal support, Anderson had sought out the IMC foreman first. They had conspired to ambush him at the same time.

  “Who else has seen this?” Davis asked, although he already had a pretty good idea. They were attempting to undermine Ellis from the bottom up. He was last on the list. “Wait. Let me provide the answer. Everyone knows. Everyone, that is, except Commander Ellis, Captain Stewart, and perhaps a handful of others.”

  Anderson volunteered nothing.

  Kreechum, scowl on his face, shrugged. “Well, shit, maybe she knows, maybe she doesn’t,” he said. “They say good news travels fast. I tell you what we do know. We know the Tinos have enough fucking water to run our mining operation for ten years.”

  “And we know exactly where to find it,” Anderson added. “So, are you with us on this?”

  Both men looked to Davis.

  “I think the CO needs to be informed of this immediately,” Davis answered.

  “You’ll come with us?” Anderson asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Davis replied. “In fact—”

  Davis, motioning for the men to be silent, spoke into the air. “Connect. Commander Ellis.” A moment later, her voice was heard.