Second Chair Lei hated being in microgravity. She knew this was a phantom sensation, she knew it was wholly constructed in her mind, her tissue damage had nothing to do with this, but it didn’t matter. She could feel it in her flesh. More than anywhere else, she could feel the fibroids growing in her. But she didn’t have a choice. She had to be here.
“So what the hell is going on here?” she said.
“The battery is shedding electricity at an alarming rate. It seems to be related to the alien shuttle that impacted the vessel, it damaged the electronics in some way, and it lost a lot of oxygen. It’s struggling to regulate the temperature here,” said Auma.
The bottom of the shaft chamber was filled with too many engineers. The previous shift hadn’t been relieved, and even more had come on to figure out what the hell was going on with the ship. First, Second and Third shift away teams were all here.
“Between that and everything else,” said Al Rahman, “there’s too much contamination. We will never be able to remove every bit of evidence we were here.”
“And,” said Hoang, “We don’t know if the hostile aliens will come back. We don’t know why they came to this vessel in the first place. Really, who knows? Maybe these guys did a genocide to the lizard guys, we can’t say.”
Lei said “I seriously doubt that. These guys don’t even have faster-than-light travel. The hostile aliens have more advanced Higgs drive than we do. But your point is well taken. How long do they have before they’ll run out of battery?”
“A few days, a week, no more than that, and they have two years left before they get to their planet, I remind you,” Hoang said.
“Well, especially now, we can’t just leave them here,” said Lei, “We tampered with their ship. Maybe we attracted the hostile aliens. I can’t help but feel responsibility. To start with, engineering team, begin work on a portable power source to allow us to transport the stasis tubes to Gagarin. I’m going to send word back and the department heads will make the final call, but this is time sensitive, so get started on it now.”
Orlando stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. He couldn’t stop replaying the fight in his head. Lucy just kept fighting that lizard thing. He did as she told him. He had heard all sorts of stories about what Lucy got up to in university, but those were all rumor and exaggerated. They had to be?
He wished he had somebody to talk to about all of this. Could he go down to the Language Lab? He always felt a tension there that only really relaxed when he got absorbed in work.
He hadn’t had a roommate for almost two months. To start with, he bunked with Al Rahman, from engineering, but he spent one too many nights up late studying Sindarin. Since the launch Orlando immersed himself in constructed languages, on the hope that this might prime his brain to understand alien languages a little better.
It was important to keep himself thinking about language structure and grammar, but it was also important to be up and ready for your shift before it. Al Rahman found another roommate and seemed to like him better.
“Um, Orlando, you seem in distress,” said Albert.
“I should have grabbed a stunner and helped Lucy fight the alien,” he said, “But I just froze. I was stunned.”
“Orlando, you have committed to intense training in linguistics. Drummond is trained heavily in melee and distance combat. It would have been an unnecessary risk.”
“I just see the alien holding itself over her, and I hate myself,” said Orlando.
“That is illogical,” said Albert. “But I suppose humans are not logical. You should not drag yourself through psychological distress.”
“Even after Doctor Lawrence got there, she furiously checked Lucy over, then crawled over to Adorno. She saw me there, just, terrified, paralyzed. She looked at me like an insect, while she got a gurney to strap Lucy to,” said Orlando.
“I believe you are editorializing that situation,” said Albert, “It is unlikely Doctor Lawrence looked at you negatively for this. You should go to the clinic, there is psychological counseling available for this exact situation. At the very least they could provide you with a sedative so you can get some sleep.”
“I don’t deserve that,” said Orlando.
“On the contrary,” said Albert, “You are one of Earth’s most promising linguists. You were brought onto Gagarin for a purpose–the hope that you could speed our understanding of alien languages. You were not brought on Gagarin to fight aliens. I must insist that you visit the clinic, right now.”
Orlando said, “Or else what? What are you going to do?”
Albert said, “Keep bothering you.”
Orlando groaned and sat up. He slipped on a t-shirt and started to make his way to the ship’s clinic.
It was a slow night in the ship’s lounge. There were a few comrades, but nobody really felt much like celebrating. The engineering team repairing structural damage to the inner walls outnumbered the comrades enjoying the bar. Malex walked up to the bar and sat down.
Conroy noticed her almost immediately. He slow walked over to her to give her a chance to formulate a drink order.
“What’ll it be?” he said.
Malex said, “I am roommates with Lucy Drummond. I generally find her conduct rather annoying, but she has been gone now for two days. I have conflicted feelings. I am concerned for her wellbeing.”
Conroy said, “Whoa whoa, calm down there, Carl Jung, I’m supposed to give you an alcoholic beverage, you’re supposed to relax and let down your defenses, and I’m supposed to figure out your real problem and trick you into dealing with it. You’re doing like, three quarters of my job.”
“I find your jocularity quite frustrating,” said Malex, “And I do not enjoy the flavor of alcohol.”
“Then why did you come here?”
“I do not wish to be alone in my bedroom,” said Malex. “If you must give me another, what was it called? Metheglyn? I care not for the authentic experience, just a sickly sweet beverage that disguises the taste of the alcohol completely.”
“I’ve got just the thing,” said Conroy, and he poured Malex a glass of something golden and bubbly.
She sucked it down in one go.
“That was so over-spiced I barely noticed how terrible it tasted. Give me another.”
He poured her another glass.
“Emily, you really don’t normally drink,” said Conroy. “I’m starting to get really worried about you. Do you need more mental health professional than a bartender can provide?”
“Please don’t call me Emily,” said Malex. “I prefer to go by my last name. You know this. You are attempting to facilitate a friendly rapport. I had a satisfying routine here for a while. You may have noticed, I have a tendency to keep to myself. Lucy dragged me out into the open, even if it was against my will. I enjoyed it. I feel her absence. I miss her.”
She sucked down the second drink.
“I am frustrated that the medical staff have only given me vague updates about her condition. I hear only rumor and hearsay from my fellow engineers. They speak as if Lucy was a hero of old, single handedly fought off a hostile, blood thirsty alien monster. I believe they are exaggerating her abilities. She is only an Earth human.”
“You’re worried about your friend,” said Conroy.
“That’s what I said,” said Malex.
Serpen, Al Rahman and Deimos stood in the training room in loose fitting beige jumpsuits. The chamber was one of the largest on the ship, but strangely shaped. At the center of the chamber it was almost seven meters tall, but the top sloped down from all angles into a dome that ended at floor level. It was a consequence of the shape of the disc of the ship, and just above hydroponics. It didn’t really have any official function, it wasn’t even really a deck, you had to climb through an engineering gate to get into it, but the Martians came here for one reason.
The gravity dropped off the higher in the ship you went. At the bottom of the ship, by the bioreactors, the gravity was about one and a half times what you experienced on Earth. This wasn’t the absolute apex of the ship, there were maintenance tunnels in the accelerator rings, but this was the largest chamber where you could actually experience the gravity distortion. It was about sixty percent Earth gravity. Martians, like Serpen or Deimos, loved to come here. It felt comforting, like home. And Earth people, like Al Rahman, enjoyed the novelty.
They brought gym mats to cover the floor. It was popular to try and touch the ceiling, and even in this low gravity it was hard to get hurt.
“This pose is lympous mons,” said Serpen.
Serpen curled her body into a pose like a cobra ready to pounce, standing two meters in front of a hobby horse.
Al Rahman and Deimos tried to match it, but neither really could. Serpen rolled her eyes. She walked over to Deimos and grabbed his wrists. She twisted him into a shape more similar to what she had been in.
“Lympous mons is one of the foundational poses to Marat Brak, the art of glancing blows. If you can’t get it right you could very easily hurt yourself. Worse here than back home, even,” said Serpen. “Al Rahman gets it.”
Deimos tried to hold himself in position. He couldn’t quite manage it, it felt too awkward. His muscles and connective tissue didn’t like it.
“Look,” said Serpen, “It’s easy. You are tense, use the tension.”
She got into her coiled cobra position again, and this time fell toward the hobby horse. She took two bouncing steps along the way and her shoulder hit the hobby horse. Her momentum slid her under, but one arm anchored her around, and she picked up speed in the rotation. Once her body was pointed upward she released and her body shot up and her foot touched the ceiling. She pushed herself slightly away from the hobby horse and began to spin her body. Her foot touched the ground and she rolled, then stiffened up and slapped her legs onto the mat.
She jumped back up to her feet immediately after.
“Easy. You, Al Rahman, you do it now.”
He nodded. He got into position, did his best coiled snake position, and then he began his fall. He bounced on two steps just like Serpen, and hit his shoulder on the hobby horse, and slid underneath. It was obvious his form was nothing compared to Julu, but he did his best. He lurched upward almost halfway up the chamber. He only got about half a spin in on his descent before he flopped down on the ground. But he didn’t hit with that much momentum.
“Tense and release,” said Serpen. “Work on your form and you’ll get it. Deimos, what are you doing?”
Deimos got into position, like Serpen and Al Rahman before him.
“You have no excuse,” said Serpen, “You’re a son of Mars. You can do this.”
Deimos tensed up. He got himself into his best impersonation of a coiled snake, and then he rolled forward. His steps were not bouncy enough. He slammed hard into the hobby horse and knocked the wind out of himself.
“What in Vulcan’s Hearth is that?” said Serpen.
“I wasn’t put on this ship because I’m a tough guy, I wasn’t put on this ship because I’m a dancer. I was put on this ship because I know about communications technology. I know about signals, data formats. I was hoping you could teach me a thing or two. Unfortunately while you’re a master at Marat Brak you’re no teacher,” Deimos said.
Julu sighed.
“All right, man. I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just being on this ship with all these Earth humans, it’s tough. They’re so different.”
“Hey!” said Al Rahman. He wasn’t sure how offended to be.
“There’s Dalrax and Geru,” said Deimos.
“I guess,” said Julu Serpen. “At least they’re not Malex. She makes my skin crawl.”
“God,” said Al Rahman, “She’ll talk your ear off about like, the enzyme recompilers, going into way too much detail. I barely know what those things do. Like, take organic material from the bioreactors and reconfigure it for use elsewhere on the ship?”
“The last time I tried to strike up a conversation with her she wouldn’t shut her mouth about that fungus booze? She was telling me how they break down the starches from fungal fruiting bodies into simple sugars that can ferment. Lady, I know how to shoot a stunner. I know how to wrestle an opponent twice my size. I don’t know anything about fermentation.”
Deimos said, “Oh, just because someone is on the spectrum they’re a freak worthy of being ridiculed. What is your problem? Are we really the best people Mars and Earth could produce? I’m not so sure.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” said Serpen.
“I didn’t mean to sound cruel about Malex. She’s a character,” said Al Rahman. “But what did you mean about it being tough to be around Earth humans?”
Serpen said, “Your culture is so different.”
Al Rahman said, “I think it’s that the material conditions of Mars are really specific. You all live underground and you’re only starting to really benefit from all the industrial work your parents and grandparents did. I feel like most of you always have a chip on your shoulder.”
Serpen shrugged.
Al Rahman said, “You don’t need that here. On Gagarin we’re all equal.”
Serpen said, “On paper. How many of us are department heads?”
“Yeah, okay. Science Chair Grekkel is the only Martian department head, but there’s only six Martians on Gagarin. All of you represent the best Mars has to offer. But all of us from Earth represent the best Earth has to offer.”
“I don’t think you’re bad. I wasn’t attacking you” said Serpen. “If anything, I was attacking Deimos.”
“To Tartarus with you, buddy,” said Deimos.
Lucy Drummond didn’t have any sensation, no sense of touch. She was on a bed, and everything seemed fuzzy. Medical Chair Lewis stood over her. He was a thin and wirey man of about fifty years, with somewhat grayed hair and mottled skin. She was in the medical bay, strapped to a therabed. The lights were bright as hell and her eyes wouldn’t adjust.
“I can’t move,” she, well, she didn’t exactly say it but she tried to. “What’s happening?”
“Welcome back to the land of the living, comrade Drummond. You gave us quite a scare,” said the doctor. “I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re alive. The bad news is that your spinal column is badly damaged, three vertebrae were completely crushed. If you weren’t in zero-G you would be completely paralyzed from below the lungs.”
“But I am paralyzed,” she said.
“Yes, but we did that to you, so you won’t hurt yourself. You’re full of a cocktail of painkillers and paralytics. If you moved even a little you could make your injuries even worse. You’re gonna take at least nine days in a regenerator.”
“Nine days?” Lucy said. “When I broke my arm in high school I was in and out in two days.”
Doctor Lewis said, “A simple fracture can be healed fairly quickly, but that’s not what you have. You even have some organ damage. Your liver looks like it was used as a punching bag.”
“Do I hear her voice?” said the chairman from behind a partition.
“I’m fine,” she croaked.
He stepped around the partition. Doctor Lewis stood to block him off.
“Let him in,” Lucy said, weakly.
“You don’t sound fine,” said Kafando, “You sound like you got in a fight with a hippopotamus and only barely survived.”
“It was more of a lizard man.”
Kafando didn’t seem to notice her. He said, “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have let you on the ship in the first place. It would have taken some doing but I could have talked the safety federation into pushing you to some other duty. I never should have let you see the other side of an away team. I’m so sorry I failed you, Lucy, and now your spine is just…fucked.”
“That’s like, the opposite of nepotism. No, you didn’t fail me. Wait, what the hell happened to the engineers?”
“They’re fine,” said Kafando, “They found you, in fact, and got you back here. They’re trying to keep the stasis ship operating as we speak.”
“The alien didn’t hurt them?”
“No.”
“Then I did my job. You have nothing to complain about. And I’ll be fine in a couple weeks,” said Lucy. “I have a question for you.”
Kafando shook his head.
Lucy said, “How did you feel after the battle for the citadel? How did you feel after 7/21?”
Chairman Kafando turned away from Lucy.
“After the adrenaline wears off I just felt a dull ache.”
Lucy said, “Are you telling me the truth?”
Kafando gave Doctor Lewis a sharp look that said, get the hell out of here. The doctor clasped his hands behind his back and stepped into another area of the medical bay.
“The first thing, when I came to my senses and I realized what I had done is I felt like King Badass. I had entered terrible danger, I had crawled into the fires of Hell, and I came up, well, not exactly clean, but I won. But I could never savor it. My second feeling was shame. What I had been through was a horror. I had killed. And I felt disgusted with myself that I let myself feel even a moment of heroism,” Chairman Kafando said. “Derrick Rodell, Algerius Musk, Thalfax Arana, Golden Elmin, Theodore Arren. Those are the names of my victims. I will never let myself forget them.”
Lucy said, “I still haven’t killed, yet. It’s different, I expect. But I saved them. I guess I hurt myself very badly, but I didn’t kill anyone.”
“It is different,” said Kafando. “I had adventures when I was young. But the weight of the Battle of the Citadel was different, and the weight of the Aphrodite Coup? Nothing before or since has rattled me like those. I don’t want that for you.”
Lucy said, “Tom, I appreciate that. I’m glad you took me under your wing. If you hadn’t been the one to find Ermund Musk I can’t even imagine what would have happened to me. You weren’t happy when I applied for the security federation.”
Kafando shrugged.
“I’m glad I don’t have to add you to my list, is what I’m saying. If that happens I’ll never forgive myself,” said Chairman Kafando.
“You don’t forgive yourself for anything. If I’m being honest, that’s part of what I admire about you,” said Lucy.
Kafando darted his eyes to the side to make sure none of the doctors were watching, then he bent over and kissed Lucy on the forehead.
Doctor Gomez looked at the engineering read out. There was something wrong. The stasis tubes weren’t pulling as much electricity from the grid as they should. The temperature in the cryonic chamber was half a degree too warm.
Wasn’t that Martian girl with Drummond now, he thought. She’s an engineer. Maybe she’ll know what’s going on. He stepped a few rooms over.
“After the enzymes break down the base starch you are left with a sweet liquid that is an ideal environment for the growth of yeasts–”
“That’s great,” said Drummond, “I really don’t care too much about how space moonshine is made. All I care is that–oh, hi Doctor Gomez! Good to see you there.”
“Ms. Malex, you’re an engineer, correct?”
“Indeed. What is this about?”
“The alien stasis tubes. They’ve been fine for the first two days, but I’ve just noticed a variance in their power input and the internal temperature,” said Gomez.
“I have studied the circuit diagrams taken from the alien vessel. I should be able to aid in understanding what is happening.”
“Have fun!” said Drummond.
Gomez led Malex to the chamber with the aliens in stasis. A wall panel was removed and a rat’s nest of wires snaked out of the wiring of the ship and into the stasis tubes. A plate was removed from that, as well, and everything was soldered into a power supply in the machine.
Malex pulled a microtool out of her pocket and examined the wires.
“This was wired up by Hovarth. She is going to drive me to commit murder.”
“What’s wrong?” said Gomez.
“Many things,” said Malex. “Primarily, Hovarth has an interesting ability when wiring a piece of electronics up. Her designs are typically very efficient and hang together well, but her method of actually building circuits is too idiosyncratic for anyone else in engineering to follow.”
Malex touched her microtool to different areas that had been soldered together.
She said, “I believe Hovarth made a miscalculation. She was correct in her understanding that the alien device uses a variable voltage system, but she did not correctly identify what the correct voltage range was, and how it changes through time. Tell me, do we have access to other stasis devices?”
“There’s still dozens of them on the alien vessel, they might be damaged by the slow leak over there, though,” said Gomez.
“No, I meant right now. The wiring on these devices is badly damaged. We need to begin replacing damaged circuits immediately if they are to continue in operation.”
“I have to go get Doctor Lewis,” said Gomez.
He bolted off. Malex opened another panel in the device and continued exploring with her microtool.
Seconds later Gomez and Doctor Lewis bolted back into the room.
“What the hell’s going on?” said Lewis.
“The wiring of these devices is malfunctioning. Electronic failures in the devices have triggered some sort of back up system. There is an alternate circuit triggering. I believe it has something to do with the reanimation sequence.”
“God damn it, we didn’t have ten minutes to try and decipher their damned language,” said Lewis. “We don’t even know what they eat. This is going to be a mess.”