Fear and Aggression (19 page)

Besides all of this, he loved her. He felt a
pure tenderness towards her. In fact, he felt that everything else
was just an excuse for his feelings. He felt as though even if
everything else were not true, he would still feel just as much
love for her. He began to hope for her happiness above his own. Her
eyes welled up again, and a solitary tear began to roll down her
cheek. He reached up and gently caught it on his index finger. She
sniffled softly, and then smiled again. He put his arm around her
shoulder, and tucked her into his chest. Gentle tears ran down her
cheeks. He didn’t ask her why. He didn’t try to give her any words
of comfort. He just held her—and let her cry.

***

“
Tammy’s pulling the
report right now,” explained James to Kenny in the dining area.
“What’s your vote, human or alien?”

“
Now that’s a loaded
question. She’s definitely an alien. I mean, she’s not from
earth—so she’s an alien. But as to whether or not she’s human, now
that’s the question,” replied Kenny.

Tammy walked into the dining area and
straight over to counter without so much as acknowledging the two
men. She grabbed a mug, and then dropped it on the counter. It
didn’t break, but she hit her fist on the counter anyway, in a show
of complete frustration.

“
Hey Tammy, what’s the
word on the report?” inquired Kenny.

She waited a second,
before turning towards them. As she shook her head she said,
“
There is no word
. The genetic analyzer messed it up. It came out as
nonsense—complete and utter nonsense. I don’t know if the thing is
broken, or if I did something wrong. It’s been working fine the
whole time; then when I need it, it goes out.”

“
So it ran through the
whole thing, instead of letting you know that something was wrong?”
asked James.

“
Yeah, I had no clue at
all. It showed everything as fine at the end, too. I’m going to be
livid if they have to send in another ship and crew because we
can’t gather our most important data.”

“
Have you already reported
the failure to Central Command?” asked Kenny with some
concern.

“
No, I’d rather test it
again. I’ve been trusted with the most important scientific report
ever. I intend to get it right, as long as the stupid equipment
doesn’t fail me!” And with that, she kicked the counter.

“
Hey, what’s wrong?” asked
Steve, as he and Mike entered the room. He wanted to go up to her,
and put his hands on her shoulders and rub them, but knew that he
could not.

“
The genetic analysis
didn’t run right. I can’t tell if the machine failed, or I did
something wrong. I’ve got to start all over again.”

“
It worked fine, when you
ran my DNA,” said Steve.

Tammy didn’t answer, but looked like she was
deep in thought. In a matter of minutes everyone was at the table
eating.

“
So, the atmosphere on
this world is identical to the atmosphere on the earth. It looks
like the only reason to continue with the air lock is to keep the
two species from sharing germs, and making each other sick,” stated
James to break the silence.

“
This is strange,” said
Kenny between bites.

“
I think that we may need
to break the air lock,” said Tammy without looking up from her
plate.

Mike looked up though. He looked right at
Tammy. “What? We can’t break the air lock, not with her on
board.”

“
I’ve isolated all of her
flora. I’ve got all of her skin flora, her fecal flora, her genital
flora, oral flora, ocular flora—I’ve got it all. It is bacteria. It
looks like bacteria, it acts like bacteria, it’s not identical to
earth’s bacteria, but it’s a lot like it. It can definitely infect
human tissue. I’ve tested her strains on human cells, and they
cause infections. But they are
so
susceptible to our antibiotics. It’s like
shooting fish in a barrel. They must not be using anything like our
antibiotics, because these bugs have no resistance whatsoever. I’ve
tested our specimens’ tissue with our bacteria also. Its tissue is
equally susceptible to infection from our bacteria. It’s a little
harder to kill, because our bacteria have a lot of resistance
against our antibiotics. But it’s doable. Actually, I think that it
has a minor infection already. The lab was ‘sterilized’ before the
air lock, and before we acquired the specimen, but I don’t think
that it was one hundred percent sterilized. I think that it has
caught a bug—one of our germs. It’s respiratory and the specimen
has a bit of a runny nose. I gave it a broad spectrum antibiotic
injection, and I’m culturing its sputum and nasal mucus now. I’ll
know soon if it is from an earth born bacterial infection. If the
antibiotic shot works, then I don’t think we have to worry about
contaminating it. At least we can clear up the infection.” Tammy
explained all of this with ease. She was feeling a little better,
as she explained some of her successes.

“
So you want to break the
air lock to test how we do with each other’s bacteria?” asked
James.

“
No. I’m just saying that
I don’t think that it will present as big of a problem as it could.
If neither species gets any serious sickness from breaking the air
lock, then it won’t be such a big deal.”

“
Then why do you want to
break the air lock?” asked Kenny.

Tammy hesitated a bit. “I want to re-run the
genetic test. I could just get another sample from the specimen and
re-run it. But, I would prefer to get samples from each of you, and
run them along with the specimen’s sample. If the machine is
broken, or out of calibration, I may be able to see where it is
going wrong. I can see how your DNA stacks up against your baseline
tests. I really don’t want to lose this report. In order to get
your samples, I will have to expose each of you, and that pretty
much destroys the value of the air lock.”

“
What about viruses,
prions, et cetera?” asked Mike.

“
I haven’t isolated any
viruses from the specimen. I have exposed its tissue samples to our
viruses, but I won’t have results for a couple of days. Our
specimen appears to be in great health, minus a little infection
that we have given it. I think that if we all received antibiotics
prophylactically, that we would be fine. There is some risk, and I
think everyone should know that, but I really do think the risk is
minimal. I’m willing to take the risk. I want the data. I think
that we can handle any infections.”

“
How soon would you want
all of our DNA samples?” asked Steve, with Mike looking and glaring
at him.

“
Yesterday,” said Tammy,
in all seriousness.

“
I trust you. This mission
has been anything but conventional—both from our deviating from
protocol, to the ultimate successes. I don’t think that it is
possible to break our barriers of success, by sticking to protocol.
I’ll tell Danny and Bob about the risk. Does anyone have any major
objections?” Steve asked with a look that seemed to say, “And there
better
not
be any
major objections!”

“
I hear what you are
saying Captain,” said James. “We have to take risks, if we want the
whole enchilada. They got to be calculated risks though. I think
Tammy has calculated them. I’m in.”

“
Captain, the risks we are
talking about are both to our own health, and to the success of the
mission. We are going for it on 4th and 10 in our own territory.
Tammy’s a good quarterback, though. Tammy, if you say you’ve got
it, I’m with you,” explained Kenny.

“
Captain Jenners, you’re
the Captain. I don’t like it. But, I’m not going to fight you on
it,” Mike said. He was clearly not very happy about this. But that
was Mike. He wasn’t ever happy about anything. Mike, however, had a
lot more bark than bite.

Tammy looked around, with a look in her eyes
that said, “thank you.” Everything did not feel better. She was
still so frustrated inside. But at least she felt like she could
proceed. She and Steve exchanged a look. He was doing her a big
favor. The look told him that she knew it and appreciated it. He
didn’t want to compromise the mission in any way, but he felt that
he needed to keep this mission on this ship. If other ships came
in, it could become a turf war very quickly.

For the first time, Aspiria was completely
alone in the room. She had been stuck in her cell for the past
week, and was feeling very caged-in. She was only allowed to leave
for showering and bathroom privileges. She had been given
alternative clothing to wear, and she wore it, but it was very
strange. Today, they had brought her back her own clothing and it
was clean. She was glad to have her own clothing back on. Over the
past week, her escorts had become more comfortable with her leaving
for her bathroom breaks. They still carried weapons, but did not
point them directly at her.

She had watched them closely and could tell
by body language that there were at least seven different people
that had been in her room. One of them was clearly in charge of her
room. This person was in here most of the time. This person had put
several needles in her—sometimes putting in, and sometimes taking
out. Aspiria felt that although she spent the most time with this
particular person, this person was very distant with her. Others,
like the person who had first fed her, were very kind and
interested in her. One person never looked at her and seemed to be
the leader of the group. Everyone seemed to follow this person’s
command, except the person with whom she spent the most time. That
person seemed to have a certain command over the person in charge.
Those two seemed fond of each other.

They always guarded over her night and day,
as it were. But now she was alone. It was both comforting and
disconcerting. Now she could hear sounds, and she felt a change in
the air. Something was going on, and she sat up straight and
listened intensely. For several minutes it was quiet again; then
she heard a voice for the first time. It was a very strange voice—a
woman’s voice. The language was foreign. It was very nasal and it
grated on her. However, she was thrilled to hear a voice. She had
heard nothing but the hum of machines and her own voice for the
past week. Now another voice could be heard. This was a man’s
voice. They were getting closer. She listened carefully, but could
not make out anything familiar, neither in word, tone, nor
inflection.

Two people entered the room; a woman and a
man. The woman looked over at her briefly, seemingly to just check
and make sure that she was in her cell. The man did not look over.
It took a few minutes watching these unsuited people, without
helmets, to tell if she recognized them. It was the woman who was
always there. Aspiria felt some relief. She suspected that she had
been examined by this person before she had come to. It was a
relief that it was a woman. The man was the man in charge. The
woman proceeded to inject him, and took out rather than put in. The
man did not particularly like it, but they clearly were fond of
each other. The woman generally seemed cold, except when he was
around.

Aspiria was staring at them. Perhaps this
was rude, but she had nothing else to look at. She also needed to
figure out what was going on. She needed to find a way to
communicate with them. She missed her family terribly. She was
feeling a little sick, though that seemed to be getting better with
what she suspected to be medicine that she had been injected with.
She was cooped up, and had never been cooped up in her life.
Aspiria walked miles every day and could not stand to be sitting or
lying all day long. She felt physically, mentally, and emotionally
uncomfortable. As she stared at the two people in the room, the man
looked up at her. She was used to being looked at by these people,
but not by him. She smiled slightly and unconsciously at him. He
was young, blond, blue-eyed, and very handsome. The man did not
look away, but he kept staring at her. It seemed as though he was
talking with the woman and with her; as he gestured she could tell
that he was taking an interest in her—seemingly for the first
time.

The woman seemed to be
preoccupied, but carried on the conversation politely, though
disinterestedly. When the woman finished with him the man got up
and walked over to Aspiria. Aspiria felt a little nervous. For the
first time she could see eyes, up close. Those eyes were looking at
her as though there was something unusual about her. The man spoke
again, but this time he seemed to be speaking to Aspiria, not to
the other woman. The words and the sound were strange. It was not a
pleasant sound, but she was thrilled to hear these people
speak.
Where could they be
from
? she thought. The man gestured to
himself as he spoke, and smiled at her.

Aspiria spoke back to him. She told him that
she was Aspiria, and pointed to herself. The man screwed up his
eyes, but kept smiling. In the background Aspiria could see that
another man had entered the lab and had gone over to the woman. He
too was getting an injection. Aspiria wanted to watch and see which
person it was by the body language, but the man in front of her
didn’t seem to want to lose her attention. They continued to try
and interact with each other but their languages were alien to each
other. She felt frustrated, but at the same time, he was so
pleasant and brought himself to laugh so easily that Aspiria, too,
allowed her frustration to turn to laughter.