The red sun hung low like an enormous boil, taunting Capt. Dana Bebini. The first dead scientist she’d found had scrawled in his own blood, “Upon darkness, seven types of hell will descend.” Everyone on the recovery team had agreed they’d heed that warning and bug out before dark. In spite of the star’s bloated size, it was a red dwarf meaning the habitable zone snuggled in close, and the planet had a one hundred and thirty-seven-day year and a one hundred sixty-two-hour day. The malevolent Buddha that squatted on the horizon would take another two hours before it set.
From the edge of the plateau where she stood guard, the land fell away and formed steep arroyos and slot canyons. It had rained recently; a few puddles remained in depressions, but the plateau itself was bone dry and the air tasted only of dust. Further down in the valleys, limited vegetation darkened the low spots. The science team had built a laboratory warren in the fissures at the center of the plateau. A safe place from which they could venture, examine, and catalog the flora and the fauna. Yeah, real safe. They’d butchered each other. She’d foolishly thought being assigned to a medical ship was a lucky break.
According to the display on her goggles, the medical tent ranged at one hundred and fifty meters behind her and the shuttle beyond that. In total, the plateau stretched out for about three football fields. Surrounding the medical tent fluttered tiny red marker flags forked in the dirt. No one without a biohazard suit could venture closer than that. Not that any of her people would. Even the new guy Taziz knew better.
Her headset beeped. It was Chavez, the pathologist. “No change from the initial robotic studies. No signs of infections, no puncture marks, no drugs, and all the dog tags show normal readings until about four hours before the SOS.”
Dana pressed the inside of her left upper arm. She’d just gotten a new dog tag injected because her birth control module needed replacing. Not that she was banging boots. She just wanted to avoid her period during deployment.
Chavez asked, “Did you figure out the bloody messages your team found?”
“Yeah. According to the AI, they’re part of an Akkadian poem dating from 2000 BCE.”
“That’s a tad obscure,” said Chavez. “Send me the text anyway.”
Dana forwarded it.
In the terrible depths, the dark houses they swell; they grow tall.
They are neither female nor male.
They are a silence heavy like the eye of the hurricane.
They bear off no women; their loins empty of children.
They are strangers to pity, compassion unintelligible.
They are deaf to men’s prayers, unhearing to all entreaties.
They are the enemies of our friends.
They feed on gods.
Chavez snorted. “That’s useless.” Dana spun up the magnification on her goggles to watch. Chavez held the tent flap for the medic, and Mitchell, the chaplain. Similarly suited, they carried an eleventh body bag to the staging area also set off by flags.
Dana asked, “The twelfth scientist?”
“Still can’t find her,” said Chavez. “But considering how panicked they were, God knows where she hid herself. I’m calling this a biohazard of unknown origin.” She glanced toward the praying chaplain. “That means no recovery. You got a problem with that, Capt. Bebini?”
“No, ma’am! The sooner you call it the faster I can get us out of here.”
Chavez reported directly to the Pasteur’s commander. Dana received her orders in turn. She announced over comms, “No souvenirs. We vamoose.” She and the rest of her team withdrew from their guard positions and congregated at the shuttle beyond the flag line.
Chavez, Mitchell, and the medic stood on the dirty side of the decontamination station upwind of the tent. They waved their arms at each other. Dana asked, “What’s the hold up?”
Taziz chimed in. “The medic’s afraid the disinfectant will melt his inflatable girlfriend.”
The medic whipped back, “You’re just bitter because she left you for me.” Voice to text from the medic ran along the bottom of Dana’s goggles. “It’s Mitchell. He’s insisting we bury the dead. Lt. Chavez told him no.”
Dana flipped to their voice channel. “But Lieutenant,” Mitchell said, “leaving them laid out like this, exposed to the elements, it’s unconscionable.”
“There are no elements. The average rainfall is less than half an inch per year.”
“There’re puddles!” He pointed over the edge of the plateau.
“And before this storm, the weather station data recorded four years without a single drop.”
“Since there won’t be a recovery,” he glared at Chavez as she passed from the shower to the UV booth, “we have an obligation to bury them. If not for them, then their families. We have time.”
“Not to bury eleven,” said Dana. “That’ll take hours.”
“I saw a backhoe in the equipment shed. A trench would be quick,” said Taziz.
“Great!” Mitchell clasped his hands. “You run the backhoe.”
Dana shot Taziz a derpy grin, and he face-palmed. She said, “The rest of us’ll be in the shuttle.” She pointed to the sun. “And Mitchell, when that dips below the horizon, we lift off. With or without you.”
As they dug the trench, the light dimmed and the wind quieted. Above the scent of dirt rose the odors of stomach breath, sweat, and urine. And it didn’t come from the dead. It came from the canyons surrounding them.
Two hours later, everyone but Mitchell and Taziz waited in the shuttle. Dana stood at the door watching Taziz fill the trench. A shovel in his hand, Mitchell stood ready for the final tamp down. With the door open, the odd stench of BO and urine wafted on the breeze. It made her heart race. She yelled back to Chavez, “Do you think that smell is our lost scientist?”
Chavez unbelted herself and came to the door just as the last rays of the sun faded. She sniffed and crinkled her nose. “Probably something rotting in one of the puddles. In these kinds of environments, plants and animals can go through an entire life cycle in the couple of days the water lasts.” She tossed Dana a respirator. “I’m shutting the door. You’re stinking up the shuttle.”
Dana fitted the respirator and moved away as Chavez locked down. The sound sent her heart racing faster. They wouldn’t leave her. She was freaking out over nothing. “Taziz and Mitchell, get your asses to the decon station.”
The Pasteur had instructed them to abandon both it and the mobile hospital tent. The irony of both being too hard to clean was not lost on her. Taziz jumped off the backhoe and jogged to the shower. Mitchell shoveled madly to finish. Damn OCD types. She yelled, “Mitchell! That’s good enough!” They’d dug the trench too big. They could leave the end open. The dead wouldn’t care.
The few solar cells attached to the station produced a weak blue light. Enough to see what to do but not enough to illuminate the plateau. Movement caught Dana’s eye. She flipped down her IR goggles. Nothing. Dana yelled at Mitchell, “I said now!”
“It’ll take Taziz a few minutes to clear the shower. I have time.”
“Now! That’s an order!”
Taziz entered the UV booth. More movement caught Dana’s eye, but this time it was at the edge of the plateau. In IR, she saw nothing. She tipped the lenses up and again she spied motion. Leveling her weapon, she switched to channel one. “Shuttle, check sensors. I have movement at the edge of the plateau. No IR but verified with visual.” She made out two shapes, ghost-like, white.
Chavez cut in, “We are having an issue with the pilot.” In the background, she heard swearing, and the medic shouting, “I’ll sedate him!”
The co-pilot flipped on the floods. In the brightness, the faint shapes disappeared. Dana described what she saw. Chavez asked, “Could it be mist? Is there enough humidity?”
Dana scanned through the scope on her weapon. Nothing until she got to the edge of the shuttle’s light field. “Confirmed. Bogies at my four. They’re avoiding the light.”
Mitchell stood at the decon shower flap. “I don’t see anything.”
Chavez said, “I don’t think what you’re seeing is real.”
“Is nothing on sensors?” asked Dana.
The co-pilot grunted something unintelligible.
Dana said, “Don’t care if it’s real or not, we evac now!” Her heart pounded so hard it made it hard to hear.
Chavez said, “No! Belay that! We’re infected with whatever got the station personnel.”
“How do you know?” asked Dana.
“The pilot carved a seven in his thigh, and I’m seeing thousands of cockroaches.”
Someone screamed. Still in his biohazard suit, Taziz abandoned the booth and dashed to the shuttle. He banged on the door. “Let me in!”
The co-pilot shouted, “They’ve surrounded us!” The shuttle’s gun ports opened.
Dana yelled, “Get down!” She dropped and rolled away from the shuttle.
Mitchell dashed to the backhoe and ducked behind the bucket. The shuttle opened fire and took out the hospital tent. It lifted off and immediately listed to port almost keeling over. At about ten meters, it lurched to right itself, flinging Taziz. He flipped over a skid and landed hard headfirst. The shuttle strafed the ground. Dirt peppered Dana as she dove into the ditch at the open end. A few seconds later, Mitchell landed on top of her.
A sharp detonation and dirt and debris pelted them. The shuttle’s engines screamed, but the sound arced over the edge of the plateau. Keeping her head down, Dana looked to the sky past Mitchell’s legs. Only the first star, then a blinding flash, and a series of ground shaking explosions.
Dana shoved Mitchell off her and peered over the edge of the trench. She didn’t need the IR. The lights from multiple fires lit the plateau. Some of the gas canisters in the destroyed tent had gone up and the backhoe burned. With the shuttle gone, she switched comms to piggyback off the warren’s warning signal. Did the shuttle explosion get the bogies? She reached to pull herself up out of the trench. Mitchell grabbed her by the jacket and dragged her back. “No! You stay here. But give me your weapons first.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No. I’m the only one who isn’t. I’ve got to check Taziz and get you a biohazard suit.”
Her heart still pounded, but it no longer interfered with her hearing. “Suit?”
“I’m not hallucinating,” said Mitchell. “You are. Even though the respirator seems to be helping.”
Was she hallucinating? “Do you smell the sweat? The urine?”
“Of course not. I’m in the suit.”
She handed him her rifle, her handgun and her two knives when Mitchell said, “Damn, woman! How many weapons do you have?” He’d run out of hands to hold them all. “Just don’t hurt me when I come back.” He apologized to the dead, as he climbed over them to get out of the trench.
Torn, Dana didn’t know whether to look or not. If she saw something, would it be real? Like the creatures? Should she warn Mitchell if she did see something? She had to know, even if the knowledge was false. She popped her head over the edge of the trench.
Mitchell piled her weapons next to Taziz and knelt at his side. The light from the fires faded except for the main one she presumed was the shuttle itself still burning. Should she check for survivors? Catching a hint of the smell of smoke, she tightened both straps of the respirator.
Mitchell dragged Taziz toward the trench. His head lolled in a way she did not like. But was what she saw real? Mitchell pushed Taziz into the trench. As his body slid in the dirt toward her, she watched his spirit waft up from his chest. It stood at the edge of the trench. “If only I’d have let go sooner. I wouldn’t have broken my fool neck. Damn it!” He spun around and shook his fists skyward. “My mama’s going to be so sad.”
Mitchell unzipped Taziz’s suit. She must’ve had a look on her face because he said, “It’s the only suit that hasn’t been shot full of holes.”
Dana looked over at ghost Taziz. His back curved, his fingers morphed into claws and his teeth fangs. The rush returned to her ears. She scooted back on her butt into the corner. With both hands, she pressed the respirator tighter. She clamped her eyes shut. So tightly, she saw after images of red that became blood. Enough blood it filled the trench. She kicked with her feet, but the resistance felt wrong for the trench to be full of blood. She opened her eyes. The Taziz monster clawed at the graves freeing his brethren. The dead rose, helping each other.
If she said nothing, they might not notice her, but they’d noticed Mitchell. She had to warn him. But if she did, they’d go for her, too.
Her drill sergeant from boot camp appeared and screamed in her face, “Do your job, bitch!”
Dana whispered. “Mitchell, behind you.”
“There’s nothing there.” He looked just in case. “There’s nothing.”
A white head appeared above her. It had heard her whisper. Empty sockets locked on her. Venom dripped from its fangs. She had no weapons and no way to escape. She screamed as it jumped in after her. Wiry, strong, fast. If it bit her, the poison would kill her. She kicked. She punched. It picked up a rock and smashed her in the face. Blackness.
Blood! She smelled blood! Her respirator, it was gone! She screamed and flailed, trying to find it. Mitchell flipped her over and shook her. Blurry his face resolved, as she understood she wore the helmet of Taziz’s biohazard suit. “Stop fighting me!” he yelled. “You’re going to have a stroke if you don’t stop breathing this stuff. Your blood pressure is 240/160.” He held up a dog tag scanner. Her heart rate read 140. No wonder it felt like her heart was trying to escape through her chest wall. Her face pounded. Focus on the pain. That was real.
“I think you broke my cheekbone.”
“Sorry but you wouldn’t listen to me. I smacked you with Taziz’s O2 canister to get your attention.” He adjusted her oxygen flow. “What do you smell now?”
“My own blood.” She got no pity. “But not the BO or the urine.”
“I’m tempted to take a sniff, so I can recognize it.”
Dana grabbed his arm. “Don’t!”
He pried her hand off. “Kidding. I was kidding.”
The Pasteur chimed in using the transponder frequency. Dana reported the situation. Mitchell tried to log in, but the comms software in his biohazard suit wouldn’t sync with the warren software. Because of course it wouldn’t. As Dana had assumed, Mitchell’s and hers were the only dog tags still transmitting life signs. Now that she was in the suit, she no longer hallucinated. Or so she hoped. The doctor on the Pasteur was still unhappy with her blood pressure, but her heart rate was improving steadily. No one thought it prudent to risk opening the suit to pass her any medications.
The doc said, “Let’s assume this fungus or whatever only blooms in the dark and after a rain. That would match the poem left by the scientists.”
“And the four-year drought would explain why they never had an issue before,” said Dana.
“And it might explain the failed mission,” said Mitchell.
“What mission?”
“Twelve years ago, a survey crew had a similar incident but with only one team. The rest had no issues, so they declared it a singular case of mental illness.”
“How do you know this?” asked Dana.
“My brother was on that team. His partner lost it and killed him. Or that’s what they assumed when my brother’s dog tag failed. There was no recovery then either.”
She copied his story to the Pasteur. Now his obsession over the burial made sense.
The doc said, “We’ll try to verify that. Ah, I’m sorry, but we’re only receiving your biosign.”
Mitchell shrugged and banged the side of his helmet. Dana said, “Mitchell reports he’s fine. What are we fighting here?”
“Probably a protein,” said the doc. “Maybe something like the scent of a flower calling in a pollinator. Maybe a pheromone for mating. I suspect it’ll fade as the puddles do.”
“Does this mean we’ll get a pick-up?” asked Dana.
Mitchell looked stricken. Obviously, he hadn’t entertained the idea the Pasteur might ditch them.
“Maybe, but not until the sun rises and the puddles evaporate.”
Dana repeated it to Mitchell.
“Whoa! That’ll be over 70 hours of night before this planet’s sun rises. We don’t have enough O2 for that. Can they send down more?”
Dana didn’t bother to repeat his question. She already knew the answer. It was still on fire down in the ravine. The Pasteur had only one other shuttle that could enter the atmosphere, and they wouldn’t risk it. Controlling a drop from orbit would be difficult. They’d be lucky if they could target an area of less than four hundred square kilometers. Dana said, “Pasteur, we need a solution.”
A sliver of an asteroid for a moon shone with the brightness of a lone streetlamp at the end of a lonely road. Yet, the saltpan reflected so much light Dana didn’t need the IR goggles. She could see for miles. Nothing but dirt and sky. And what a sky. The axial tilt of the system put the Magellanic Clouds directly overhead. Such openness might bother others, but for Dana, it represented freedom. Nothing could trap her in a grave here. She could run.
It had taken four hours to hike through all the slot canyons and ravines. Anything that might house a puddle. According to the station manifest, there was supposed to be a dune buggy, but it was gone. That probably explained their missing scientist. However, in their beeline toward the new rendezvous point at the mining shack, they had yet to come across any tracks.
Without the buggy, the mining shack was a standard three-day walk, so they’d improvised by creating a sled out of the shell of the decon station. Made of slick material it dragged easily. On it they’d piled all their supplies: water, food, spare oxygen canisters. Dana held one rope and Mitchell the other. They worked well together, their strides the same length.
Up to this point, they’d plodded in silence, only speaking when necessary, but the four hours of walking meditation had evolved the shared emotions from fear to grief to acceptance. Tired of the silence, Dana asked, “So, why’d you become a chaplain?”
“Because of my brother.”
“I’d think his death would make you lose your religion.”
Mitchell grew quiet. Maybe she’d insulted him.
“I’d prayed to God in my darkest hour, and He sent my brother.”
Not understanding, Dana shook her head and switched the sled rope from one hand to the other. Everybody prayed when facing death, even the scientists back there.
He said, “Coop was in his senior year at college when he found out what dear old dad was doing to me. He transferred schools and moved back in. When dad tried it one last time, Coop punched him so hard he fell and cracked his skull. It killed him. There was a trial. Coop was found innocent. But in all the turmoil, he lost a semester, and his slot for grad school. He joined up more to get away than anything else.”
“Wow. Sorry you had to go through that.”
“I’m sorry he had to go through that. If he hadn’t come back to protect me, he’d have had a very different and much longer life.”
Perhaps Mitchell wasn’t a chaplain because he was a believer, but rather for the service. To pay back what the universe had rendered to him. Maybe Dana shouldn’t blame him for delaying their departure with the burial. She’d caught the first scent of urine and BO before Taziz had fired up the backhoe. By that point, they were already doomed.
Mitchell said, “I have to pee.”
Dana laughed. “So do I.”
Two minutes later, Mitchell clutched all the weapons and stood ten meters away. Dana would be the guinea pig. She would recognize even the slightest hint of the fear miasma. After unzipping and lifting the helmet, Dana sniffed the air. Salt and dust. Nothing else. She squatted and peed. Her bladder was so stretched her knees nearly gave out before the pathetic stream did. The cold desert air frosting her butt, she climbed back into the suit more for the warmth than out of fear. Swapping out the biohazard suit’s helmet for her own, she adjusted her earpiece and the goggles.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked, waving the med scanner in her direction.
“Relieved. Achy. Hungry. Thirsty.” She drained her water flask.
“But not insane?” asked Mitchell, as he hopped from one leg to the other.
Movement caught her eye. She flipped down the goggles. “Not feeling insane but might be. I see the dune buggy.” She pointed.
Without goggles, Mitchell couldn’t see anything. “Heading toward us or away?”
“Towards.”
He dumped the weapons and unzipped. “I can’t deal with a crazy and a full bladder.”
By the time he fastened his pants and zipped up the suit, he too could make out a shape heading straight for them. It slowed and stopped about five hundred meters out. Conveniently at range. Dana asked, “Are you going to give me my weapons?”
“The scanner says your heart rate and blood pressure are normal.” He passed over everything but the sidearm. She checked out the buggy. One passenger. Wearing the same jumpsuit as everyone else. Bingo! They had their scientist. She tried comms. No response. She couldn’t make out a headset. Just a lot of hair and a dirty face. She tried voice-texting the buggy. The scientist looked down at the dash.
“Who are you?” ran across the bottom of Dana’s goggles. “Have you come to save me?”
“Yes. We have a rendezvous at the mining shack in two and a half days.”
The figure got out of the buggy and paced before getting back in. “I don’t recommend the mining shack. It’s fully automated.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s the pick-up location.”
The scientist rocked in the seat.
“We have water and food,” voice-texted Dana.
The figure didn’t move.
“I’d be afraid of us too. Not sure we’re real,” said Mitchell.
“Let’s just keep walking.” She checked her handheld for directions and set out. The buggy paralleled them for fifteen minutes.
Text ran along the bottom of Dana’s goggles. “Okay, I’m coming in.”
As the buggy approached, Dana got a good look at the driver. To Mitchell she said, “We have a problem. Leave the sled here. Head to three o’clock. I’ll head to nine.”
Mitchell nonchalantly let loose of the rope and meandered to his right. He pretended to take a leak. “Did you spot a weapon?”
“No. The face isn’t dirty. It’s a beard.”
Mitchell whipped his head around and stared at the oncoming buggy. “Our scientist’s a woman. A woman named Gupta.”
The buggy slowed and stopped twenty meters out. A male voice shouted, “What’s up?”
Dana flopped on her belly and took aim. “Kill the engine and the lights. Now.”
The driver sat for a moment and then complied.
“Put your hands on your head. Get out of the vehicle and kneel. I will kill you if you don’t.”
“What’s the problem?” asked the man.
“You’re driving a buggy that doesn’t belong to you.”
Mitchell said, “Oh my God.” He ran to the man, fouling her shot.
Dana yelled, “Get back!”
Mitchell crouched down and stared into the man’s face. Dana jumped up to clear the shot.
“Coop?” asked Mitchell.
The man slumped to his butt. “Mitch?”
Mitchell unzipped and peeled off the helmet. He shone the light onto his own face, squinting at the brightness. “Yes! It’s me!”
“You look so different.”
“I grew up, man! Thanks to you!” They embraced each other with tears in their eyes. Over his shoulder to Dana, Mitchell said, “It’s okay. He’s my brother! We’ve found him! He’s alive!”
Dana carefully approached them, her weapon still ready. Close-up the man looked like someone abandoned for twelve years emaciated, missing a tooth, calloused hands with dirty fingernails.
“I’m hallucinating this, aren’t I?” he asked.
“No. I’m real.” Mitchell punched his arm. “See!”
“But how can you be here?” He waved at the sky and then the desert.
Mitchell said to Dana, “You can put that down, Captain. This is Coop, my brother.” He turned to him. “My God! You’ve got to tell us how you survived.”
“Sorry to interrupt your reunion, Chaplain, but we still have a problem.” Dana pointed toward the name patch. “Coop here is wearing Gupta’s clothes, driving her buggy.” The sleeves were too short as were the pant legs. “Did you kill her?”
Mitchell released his brother and rested on one knee. “I’m sure you have an explanation. Right?”
Looking distressed Coop said, “It’s complicated.” He frowned. “Wait.” He grabbed Mitchell’s collar and did a double take over the insignia. “Chaplain?”
Her side weapon in her lap, Dana sat in the back of the dune buggy. Mitchell drove toward the shack. He asked his brother to repeat his story. “It’s night now,” said Coop “but you forget how hot it can get out here on the pan after a couple of days’ worth of sun. Gupta’s lips were cracked, her eyes sunken. I was asleep when she burst in.” He pushed up his sleeve to show the bruise. “I was lucky she was weak, and I could block her swing in time.”
Dana noted no inconsistencies between the first telling of his story and this one. “I wrenched the bar out of her hands and calmed her down. I got her water, but she vomited most of it. She curled up. I thought to sleep.” Coop shook his head as if to shake out bad thoughts like spiders from a blanket. “When she hadn’t stirred after a couple of hours, I went to check. She was dead.”
Dana asked, “So, you took her clothes?”
Insulted, he said, “I’m not disrespectful. I didn’t bury her naked. I used a blanket.” He combed his beard with his fingers. “You’ll see when you dig her up.”
“Due to the biohazard, there’s no recovery,” said Dana. They crossed their second set of perpendicular buggy tracks. Gupta had been making a grid pattern trying to find the shack. It supported Coop’s story.
As if prompted by the track, Mitchell asked, “If you knew she was insane, why were you heading in our direction into the thick of it?”
“I didn’t realize the research station even existed until Gupta showed up. You know how the multi-nationals are, keeping all their projects secret even from their own people.”
He was right about that. If the Pasteur hadn’t received the distress call, no one outside the company would’ve known about the facility. The strip mine, however, could be seen from space. There was no hiding that. It made complete sense for Coop to set up shop there. It was just bad luck that the entire place was automated.
“Besides,” said Coop. “I assumed someone would come looking for her. And you did. I just didn’t expect you to be on foot, dragging part of a decon shower behind you. What’s your story?”
Mitchell told him. Nodding, Coop said, “Your mistake was waiting until dark.”
“But if we hadn’t, we’d have never found you,” said Mitchell with hurt in his voice.
“You didn’t know I was here. It was a mistake.”
Liking Coop’s directness and logic, Dana holstered her weapon and asked, “What was your plan?”
“Camp on the pan until sunrise and then drive in.”
“So, it’s true that the fungus can’t grow in salt and only blooms at night?” asked Dana.
“You’re half right. They can’t tolerate the salt and are nocturnal, but they aren’t a fungus.”
“What are they?”
“Sentient beings that use the chemical as a defense.”
Dana sighed and pulled her weapon from its holster. Back to crazy town. As they continued on, she held it at ready just in case. “Mining shack” was a misnomer. It was an entire complex with a dozen buildings to the side of a massive strip mine. Like a pissed off anthill, hundreds of robots of all types dashed hither and yon. They ignored the humans unless they got in the way and then blasted the standard warning. However, the presence of the humans did trigger the lights. They flashed on and off as the buggy passed by.
Coop directed Mitchell to an admin building where he’d set up a living space and a hydroponics farm. The only building where the robots wouldn’t “correct” any alterations he made. He didn’t have the passwords to change their habits or jack into their communication system. They were programed to mine, and that’s what they did. It was freaky to be surrounded by so much activity; and yet, remain invisible to it all.
They unpacked the buggy and congregated around one of the tables in a conference room. “When’d you arrive here?” asked Dana as she passed Coop the promised protein bar.
He tried to be less avid, but had it half gone before he answered. “Eight years ago.” Dana arched her eyebrows. And he’d been on the planet alone four years before that. More than half her life. Mitchell handed him a second bar. He clutched it as if it were a holy icon. “I just missed the last ore pick-up. God, that was a heartbreak, watching the hauler take off with me only a couple of kilometers out. I nearly killed myself.”
“When’s the next hauler due?” asked Mitchell.
“I don’t know for sure, but the bins are about two thirds full. I guess four years.”
Dana sat quietly for a moment. She’d have probably eaten her gun. “Where did you live before here?”
“On the coast. As you already know, they don’t like salt.”
Damn it. She kept forgetting he was insane. This meant she and Mitchell would have to sleep in shifts.
Dana jerked awake from her six hours, but Mitchell was nowhere to be seen. Fury rose up like bile. The SOB was supposed to have her back. From one of the offices down the hall echoed a deep and resonant song. She followed it. Coop had converted the office into a greenhouse, and he sang while he worked.
Her presence surprised him. “Sorry! I forgot you were sleeping. I’ll stop.”
“I was already awake. Where’s Mitchell?” Her voice gave away her anger.
“Praying over Gupta’s grave.” He pointed down the hall toward the main door.
Dana grabbed her gear and headed out. Sure enough, about fifty meters from the admin building, far away from the paths the robots ran, stood a figure with a flashlight. She stomped all the way out. He read from a prayer on his handheld. The mound of dirt was fresh, corroborating Coop’s story.
Before he ended the prayer she yelled, “You jerk! Don’t you ever leave me like that again!”
He looked up confused. “I didn’t leave you. I’m right here.”
“You’re an idiot.” She pointed to the admin building. “He could’ve done anything to me while I slept. I let my guard down because you were supposed to be on duty!”
His eyebrows chevroned. “We’ve been talking off and on for the past six hours. He’s fine. He won’t hurt you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” He showed her the screen. “Look!” He’d scanned Gupta’s dog tag. She had died of dehydration.
Dana pushed the handheld away. “That’s irrelevant. You get a snootfull of that stuff and you become capable of anything. I know.” She tapped her own chest. “I know.” She hated how whiny her voice sounded.
Mitchell whistled. “I’m so sorry. I really hurt you.”
Confused at first, she realized he meant her cheek, where he’d smacked her. It had swollen up nicely. The bruising must be impressive. She’d been so angry at his stupidity the pain in her face barely registered. “You did what you had to do, but I have to trust you’ll do the same again. No hesitation. Ditching me does not engender that trust!”
She turned on her heel before he could see the tears well up and stalked back to the admin building. She had to wait for a robot on treads to whizz by. The delay gave her a chance to get her emotions in check.
As she entered the building, Coop called to her, his voice cheery. “You want salad for lunch?” He had a bunch of random greens in his hands. He didn’t have any meat vats or beans. That explained his protein shortage. He’d bathed and trimmed both his hair and his nails. She hadn’t noticed before. She nodded and followed him to the kitchen. “He’s never smelled it. He doesn’t understand.” Coop was still trying to protect his little brother. He didn’t want Dana to be mad at him. “He thinks he’ll somehow overcome it because he can recognize it.”
“We know better,” said Dana. “What really happened to your partner?”
“We were mapping a salt water marsh with a couple of drones. He was more inland than I was and ran into fresh water. He startled them, and they sprayed him like a skunk. By the time I got to him, he was writhing in the mud, clawing his face off. He’d gouged out his own eyes.”
Dana wondered whether that was an hallucination or whether the man had destroyed his own eyes. After all, she’d had a conversation with Taziz after he was dead. And this was with a respirator. How real could the hallucinations have become if she were wading through the stuff?
“I ran, but they trailed me. After my head cleared, I realized they were tracing the dog tag, so I cut it out.”
Dana nodded. It wasn’t aliens who’d been following him but the drones. That’s when they declared him dead. Too tired to challenge crazy, she tenderly fingered her cheek.
“He got you but good.”
“I owe him my life.” Such a twisted case of tag. “You save him. He saves me. I guess I’m supposed to save you to close the circle.”
“He told you that?” He took a salt and pepper packet from one of the rations and sprinkled it over the salad.
“How you accidentally killed dearest daddy? Yeah.”
Coop side-eyed her. “It wasn’t an accident. We got our story straight before we called the cops.”
So, Mitchell had his own delusions, too. Dana shrugged. Wasn’t her place to judge. The front door swooshed open. Mitchell had returned. To cover, Dana said to Coop, “You have a beautiful singing voice.”
“Thank you. Singing has kept me sane.”
The eastern horizon had pinked up ever so slightly. Red morning, sailor take warning. Given the slow rotation, the sun wouldn’t rise for another ten hours. Pick-up was still eighteen hours out. Dana needed something to do, so she looked for Coop to bug him to start packing. He’d been avoiding it like he didn’t really want to leave. She couldn’t image the shock of finally being able to go home. The outside lights flickered on, a tight circle of white cloaked by the vestiges of the night. Coop futzed with something in the buggy. Dana kept the office dark and watched through the window. Mitchell joined him carrying a carboy of water. Coop adjusted a tarp and coil of rope to make room. Dammit!
Dana dashed outside. Coop mumbled, “Guess who’s not asleep yet.” He signaled a great need to be someplace else and hotfooted inside. His face resolute, Mitchell crossed his arms.
Dana stared him down. “You will unload that vehicle.”
“Coop needs more time. You really haven’t been all that supportive these past two days.”
Not supportive? Just because she didn’t believe in his sentient beings? That galled her, especially given she’d experienced the fear-madness and survived. A rather exclusive club of two. She said, “Come on, man! I know you’re into believing in things you can’t see, but even you have to admit there’s a difference between a god and a bad mushroom. You can’t really believe in his monsters.”
Mitchell kicked at the dirt. “They aren’t monsters.”
“Okay, über skunks. An entire alien culture that has managed to hide itself from us for twenty years? No. He sees aliens so he can survive.”
“But what if there’s some truth to it. Your skunk analogy–”
“Skunks, mushrooms, whatever. Do you know why conspiracy theories work so well? Because their adherents insist that no proof is the proof. Do you know why you don’t see elephants hiding in trees? Because they’re so good at it.”
At least she got a wry smile out of him.
“Okay, let’s suppose I let you and Coop take off. What do I tell the Pasteur?”
“The truth. My career’s already ruined. They’ll blame me for the shuttle no matter what.” He had a point. Even Dana had blamed him at first. “You know how this works,” he said. “When the army doesn’t like the truth, it makes up a story everyone can agree on.”
Dana remembered what Coop had said about their dad. It wasn’t only the army that subscribed to storytelling.
“You know what they’ll do to him on the Pasteur? They shove him in an isolation cell and tell him he’s insane.”
“And leaving him here to die will be better?”
“Please. The warren was set up to be sustainable for twelve. So what if it takes a dozen trips to strip the place down? Besides, the ore hauler will return someday.”
“Four years!” Dana threw her hands up in frustration. “Enough of this. No!”
“He’ll run away. I won’t let you shoot him to make him stay.”
Infuriated, Dana yelled, “I would never shoot him. How dare you say that!”
“But you’d order me to return to the Pasteur, knowing he needs help?”
“Yes. Because it’s my job to get you home.” Hands on her belt, she stared at the ground. “I failed everyone else.” She blew out her breath and a cloud formed. She ducked her face to avoid catching his eye.
Very Chaplain like, he said, “I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“So, I can get my rack time,” said Dana, “and when I wake up, you’ll still be here?”
“Yes, I promise. I’ll still be here. No promises on Coop.”
“Fair enough.”
Dana awoke in an isolation pod wearing a hospital gown. She remembered. After the rescue team had landed, they’d instructed her to drop her weapons, go to her knees, and put her hands on her head. A soldier in an isolation suit tossed her a hypodermic to inject herself. It would knock her out. Prevent her from becoming violent. It’d been the smart thing to do. In her arm was an IV that led to a unit attached to the wall of the pod. Next to her was a medical robot. For a face it had a screen showing the Pasteur’s doctor. He asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good actually.” Her image appeared much smaller in the upper right corner. She squinted at her face as she touched her cheek. The swelling had gone down, and the shiner had turned green. She raised an eyebrow. “How long have I been out? I should still have a black eye.”
“Three days. We had a lot of tests to run and wanted to take samples. It’s easier with the robot if you’re unconscious.”
That would have given the team enough time to locate Mitchell if not Coop. The bastard had broken his promise. He hadn’t stayed at the mining camp. “Did you find Mitchell or Coop?”
He frowned. “In your urine, we identified metabolites of a class of hallucinogens–”
“Did you send out the drones? You should’ve been able to follow the buggy tracks.” The doc did not like being interrupted. Taking a guess, she added, “Sir.”
That hadn’t been what was bothering him. He said, “There were dozens of tracks crisscrossing everywhere.”
Damn. That would’ve been Gupta. Dana hadn’t thought about that complication. “What about using the drones to search for Mitchell’s life signs?”
“We did.” He sighed. “We found only yours.” The doctor sat at his desk and leaned on his elbows. “Do you think it possible you hallucinated Mitchell’s presence as a way to help you make it to the mining installation?”
Dana rolled her eyes. “No way. The creatures I saw were ghost-like, and the trench full of blood didn’t have any thickness, so I knew they were hallucinations. Coop removed his dog tag, so Mitchell probably did too.”
The doc glanced at a handheld. “I have Chaplain Mitchell’s service record here. Mitchell had no siblings.”
“Coop died when Mitchell was young. Why would he list a dead man on any of his applications? If he had listed him, then he’d have never been allowed on the surface. You know this.” Her voice grew louder. “You and I, we had this very conversation while I was on the plateau. How can you not remember this?”
“I do remember our conversation, but you relayed to me what Mitchell said because his earpiece wouldn’t sync.”
Dana shook her head. “Even with the respirator, I was hallucinating. Mitchell popped me one with an O2 canister and helped me into the biohazard suit. I wouldn’t have made it without him.” She pointed to her cheek. “I didn’t hallucinate this.”
“According to his dog tag, he died on the plateau.”
“I didn’t kill him!” She couldn’t have killed him. She couldn’t have.
The doc pressed his hands together in front of his face as if in prayer. “We agree. From the tag, we believe he was hit by fire from the shuttle.”
Dana’s stomach dropped. All those details. How could her brain have made them all up? She wrapped her arms around herself. Think! “In their search pattern, did the drones find where we abandoned the decon shell we used as a sled?”
“Yes.”
Dana released a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. “So that proves two people.”
“There’s only one set of footprints.”
“That’s not possible!” Mitchell and Coop’s relationship. Her anger at being abandoned… No. “Do you have drone images around the admin building?”
“Are you talking about the grave?”
“Yes! A dog reader will tell you Gupta died of exposure.”
“And it did.”
At least there was that.
The doc said, “Perhaps indeed Chaplain Mitchell helped you don the biohazard suit, but soon after that he passed away from his injuries. You created the sled and took his body with you to the mining installation. On your way, you came upon Gupta, already dead in the buggy. You drove both bodies to the installation and buried them together in a single grave. We know this because the dog reader picked up both tags, and we downloaded the information from them.”
Her jaw tight she said, “Mitchell had the dog reader. Maybe he did something to his own tag and stashed it in the grave.”
“No. We’re professionals. We didn’t just grab you and run. We did our due diligence. We lost a lot of colleagues.”
“I know! I was there.” Her stomach hurt. “Just send a robot to the grave. There’ll only be one body in it.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Why not? Because you don’t believe me?”
“No. Because we broke orbit two days ago. We are satisfied with our understanding of what occurred.”
When the army doesn’t like the truth, it makes up a story everyone can agree on.
In her head, Dana ran the Occam’s razor test. One, the sentient aliens were real and this a cover-up. Two, Mitchell and Coop and the whole thing were hallucinations. Three, Mitchell reprogramed his damn dog tag. The simplest solution was the third one.
Dana pounded on the gurney with both fists. “How do I know this is real?”
“With time.” The doc blew out his breath, but it was Dana who deflated. “And you’ll have plenty of it. I’m sorry but you’ll be in isolation for at least twenty-eight days.”
You know what they’ll do to him on the Pasteur? They shove him in an isolation cell and tell him he’s insane.
Again, the doc pressed his hands together as if in prayer. “However, remember this. The scientists didn’t figure it out. The officers aboard the shuttle didn’t figure it out. You did. It was your quick thinking that saved your life.”
No, it was Mitchell’s quick thinking. Twenty-eight days would be a long time in an isolation pod, but not as long as four years. Four years or the estimated time before the ore hauler’s return. The moment when she would find out whether elephants were any good at hiding in trees.
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