Echoes of an Alien Sky (34 page)

"Could this 'Bay Area' that the engineer was talking about be a reference to part of the lake?" Sherven suggested. "One end of it or something? Nothing to do with the ocean at all."

"You've still got the pilot's notes," Chown reminded him. "They describe shores and a coast."

"And landfall," Casselo said. "That doesn't sound like a lake to me."

"How far can we trust these translations?" Sherven wondered aloud. "I remember once, a couple of years ago, one of the physics catalogers was trying to index Terran trans-uranic elements. There was one called plutonium. Half the references he'd compiled turned out to be to some silly fictional dog."

Kyal drew himself away and glanced at his watch. It was already past the time that he had said he would collect Lorili from her lab for dinner. On the far side of the archway from Sherven's conference area, the office itself appeared to be empty. He reached for phone inside his pocket and began moving toward it. Just then, Yorim caught his attention from where he was sitting at a screen with Acilla Jyt and beckoned him over with a nod. Kyal re-pocketed the phone and changed direction to join them.

"Why are we looking in the Bolivia-Peru area?" Yorim asked.

"Because it's where La Paz and Santa Cruz were," Kyal answered.

"Look at this." Yorim gestured at the screen. It showed part of a western coastline running northwest to southeast, with a narrow, south-pointing peninsula running parallel to the mainland for some distance.

"What is it?" Kyal asked.

"It's an enlargement of part of the northern continent. That seems to be where the Americans had most of their space and military industries that were on the western coasts."

"But I thought they spoke English up there."

"Acilla says maybe so, but there was a lot of Spanish influence on place names. So we thought we'd have a look through what's been found. And she's right. There's quite a lot."

""So what have you got?" Kyal asked, getting interested.

Yorim gestured again. "See this inlet. It's between a long, thin peninsula to the west, and the mainland to the east. The Terran name for the inlet was the
Gulf
of California. And guess what. There was a town that used to stand down near the tip of the peninsula, on the western side of the Gulf. Want to know what it was called?"

"La Paz," Acilla supplied before Kyal could say anything.

Kyal stared at the screen. Something told him this was making more sense already. "Is there any indication of a Santa Cruz up that way as well?" he asked.

"That's the next thing we were going to check," Yorim replied.

Sherven had come over, accompanied by Casselo. "What are you three looking so excited about here?" he asked Kyal.

"Maybe we've been looking in the wrong place," Kyal said. "Look at this. Acilla has found another La Paz in the north. It's not anywhere down around Bolivia and Peru at all. . . ."

Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology was located in the lower levels of the Biological Sciences laboratories, which formed part of the main body of
Explorer 6
, beneath the high superstructure. To the rear of the complex was a conveyor tunnel that connected to the docking port area. On one side of the tunnel ran a maintenance passage giving access to various heating, ventilation, plant, and electrical compartments located behind the laboratories.
Explorer 6
was an orbiting scientific base, not a place frequented by the general public. The people who occupied it were not disposed to trespassing or vandalizing; on the other hand, the nature of their work made them of a kind who would typically find it frustrating to have to deal with locks and codes all the time. Hence, security issues were not a paramount consideration in
Explorer 6
. The subject was not a high priority for Venusians in any case.

Avoiding the front approaches to the laboratory complex, Jenyn made his way to the freight storage bays in the docking section and located the door through to the maintenance passage from a hardcopy he had made of the local plan. He was wearing an engineer's coverall that he had found in a locker on one of the higher levels. No clear intention had formed in his mind. A mixture of slow, simmering anger, gnawing jealousy, and the need to prove himself had taken control.

The passage was illuminated by pilot lights, its lines of converging perspective accentuated by the ducts, pipes, and banks of cabling threading through a succession of diminishing support frames into the distance. A catwalk running above, with metal stairways descending at intervals, served a higher level of machinery compartments and hatches. The whole space acted as a sound resonator and conduit, carrying a melange of subdued throbbing and humming from distant parts of the structure. Jenyn moved woodenly but purposefully past the doors and bulkheads, driven by a force from deep in his psyche that had subordinated the conscious part of his mind to the role almost of a spectator.

The location codes stenciled on the walls told him when he had reached the service doors for laboratory section C. One of them carried identification as giving access to rooms C-15 to C-25. Jenyn tested the lock and bolt, and they disengaged freely. The space inside was in darkness. Jenyn eased the door open and stood to one side to let light through from the passage behind. He could make out a narrow space filled with machinery housings and switch boxes. There was another door on the far side, with a small glass window. He stepped through and closed the door behind him. The light beyond the window in the door ahead was low, but enough for him to see his way across to it. Cautiously, he brought his face close and peered through. Beyond was what appeared to be a storage space, and farther back, glass walls partitioning off clean areas containing white counter tops with items of metal and glass laboratory ware, instrument trays, and computer panels. There didn't seem to be anyone around.

He moved on through, turned to close the door, and recoiled almost screaming out aloud with fright from the gruesome figure grinning at him from just a few feet away. Its head was skull-like, with empty eye sockets and exposed teeth, but still possessing veils of what had once been flesh, shrunken and frayed into a grotesque gray mask. The rest of the body was the same, withered and flaking like a disembalmed mummy, glinting in macabre highlights from some kind of oil or preservative. Only then did Jenyn realize that it was on the far side of one of the glass partitions. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply and shakily until he felt the adrenaline rush subside.

When he opened them again, his vision had adjusted better to the gloom. There was brighter light ahead. He moved toward it, between the cubicles of glass walls, to find himself looking out at a more open laboratory area. Lorili was standing at one of the benches, with a younger girl. Jenyn felt his composure slipping and his anger rising again. A vein in his temple was pulsing. Beside him was a table supporting a glass-topped sterilizer cabinet. By the light coming from the lab area he, he could see the tray of surgical instruments inside. He wasn't sure yet what he meant to do. But he wanted to see her scared. To watch her grovel, and plead, and beg. . . .

"Oh, I suppose it will take me a while to get used to being shut in up here again," Mirine said as she added a fixing solution to the tissue samples she was preparing for microscope slides. "And we were just getting to know some good people down in Rhombus."

"It won't be forever," Lorili promised.

"And then there were the travel tours. I liked them. Earth has so many contrasts. I I haven't seen half the places I wanted to yet."

"They say the ice caps are incredible. I want to see the Antarctic before I go back."

"And the climate is so wonderful! It makes home seem like a hot, foggy swamp."

"Well, most if it is." Lorili finished marking the labels for the tray and pushed it across.

"You know, I think I'm beginning to agree with the people who say we're better adapted for Earth," Mirine said. "Isn't it strange. Why would that be, do you think?

Lorili had wondered the same thing herself. "Maybe because Earth is so much older," she suggested.

"Do you think a lot of people will decide to move here?"

"That's what they say."

"I'm beginning to think that maybe I could go for it. Some of the images of Terran cities make our towns look like factory complexes with dormitories. But I suppose the people who founded ours just had to make do with the best spots they could find." Mirine noticed the clock display on one of the instrument panels. "Oh no!"

"What?"

"I've just realized the time. Have we really been that busy? I'm supposed to be meeting Yorim in the cafeteria. He's probably there already."

"You'd better run along then," Lorili said.

"What about these slides?"

"There isn't much to finish with this set. I'll take care of it. The rest can wait until tomorrow."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely. I was about ready to call it a day myself, anyway."

Mirine peeled off her work gloves and turned away to rinse her hands in the sink to one side. "I thought Kyal was collecting you," she said over her shoulder.

"He
was
. But you know what they're like when they get together. I'll probably have to go up to the Directorate and drag him out."

"Well, don't end up falling out over it."

Lorili smiled to herself. "I don't think that's likely," she said.

"You're really getting serious. I never thought I'd see it."

"Hmm, hum. . . ."

Murine dried her hands, slipped off her lab smock, and exchanged it for her jacket hanging on the wall. "Well, don't you go forgetting as well. And they only arrived here today! How can you?"

"Call it dedication. And don't worry so much. I'll be right behind you."

"Okay. Goodnight, then. See you tomorrow. . . . Or maybe later?"

"Maybe. Say hi to Yorim for me, anyway."

Mirine disappeared around a section of dividing wall in the direction of the front part of the lab. A moment later, the sound came of the door leading to the entrance lobby closing, and then silence fell. Lorili returned her attention to the tray of slides.

Mirine's memory could sometimes be very short, she thought to herself as she worked. Only the day before, Mirine had been saying how good it felt to be back amid the familiar surroundings and security of
E6
after the bleakness of the lunar Farside. She had told Lorili that she was still haunted by visions of Terrans fighting each other and dying out there. Coming back with a cargo of desiccated ancient corpses hadn't helped her composure either. Lorili thought back over some of the things Kyal said about Emur Frazin's theory of Terran collective amnesia, and their addictive violence being an acting out of repressed terrors that they had disguised as myth, and which had formed the origins of their psychopathic religions. Were Venusians inherently more stable and rational? she wondered. Or was it just a case of having been through different experiences? Hopefully that was something the genetic studies would help answer. While her mind played with its speculations, she glanced toward the glass-walled clean rooms at the rear of the lab area, where the first group of treated corpses were thawing.

And she almost died on the spot. The tray she was holding dropped with a clatter on the bench top. One of the dim, shadowy forms behind the glass was moving.

The reaction was reflex. Of course it couldn't be a Terran corpse. But before she could recover, the door through the partition from the rear area slid silently aside, and the figure moved out into the light. It was Jenyn. Lorili hadn't even known he was up in
Explorer 6
.

Already off balance from her fright, Lorili's mind reeled helplessly. She backed away between the benches he advanced. "What are you doing here?" she whispered, shaking her head in protest. But she could already see from his expression and the fixed, chillingly depthless look in his eyes that he was past reasoning with. She knew from past occasions that Jenyn had a ugly, sinister side that could turn him into a different person when it surfaced, but she had never seen it as extreme as this. And then cold, sickening fear overcame her as she saw that he was holding a dissecting scalpel.

"What do you want? Don't be insane, Jenyn."

"You . . . betrayed me." His skin had a glazed, clammy sheen. His voice sounded dull, almost slurring. He moved toward one end of the bench. Lorili retreated around by the wall, keeping the bench between them. She looked around frantically for something she might defend herself with, something to throw. At the end of the room there was a rack with glass bottles. She tried making a dar t toward it; Jenyn moved with sudden, surprising swiftness and cut her off. She backed away again, without the protection of a bench between them now. His face twisted into a crooked grin. Light gleamed off the scalpel's razorlike edge. Lorili stumbled over a pedal bin and fell against the bench. For an instant, all she could do was hang onto the edge to prevent herself from going down. Jenyn sprang forward.

The lab stool flying in from the side entangled his legs. Jenyn pitched forward over it, clutching at Lorili, and they fell together, grappling in a heap. Kyal threw himself across from the corner around the dividing wall and grabbed Jenyn from above to pull him off. As Kyal heaved Jenyn away, Lorili drew herself clear. Kyal moved himself between them and turned to face Jenyn, his body tensed, arms extended defensively. But the onslaught didn't come.

Jenyn straightened up slowly, clutching the middle of his body. There was a strange look on his face, the color already draining from it visibly. He moaned. Then Lorli saw the blood running down from between his fingers. The scalpel had been driven deep into his abdomen. Kyal moved forward warily and reached out to steady him. But Jenyn had no fight left. "We need somewhere to set him down," Kyal said, catching Jenyn as he sagged.

"The chairs out front." Lorili nodded in the direction that Kyal had appeared from.

"I can manage him," Kyal said. "You'd better call for some help."