Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen (29 page)

“Do you know what reaction that might cause?” I said.

“No, but that’s the point. If I had to guess, these nanomachines have been without a power source for centuries. Maybe longer. I want to see what happens if I supply them with energy, then observe their behavior under the microscope. To see if I can determined their function.”

I was tempted to tell her that caution was the better part of valor, but decided to keep my lip zipped. I wasn’t a degreed scientist. I’d been brought along for my spaceflight experience: two landings on Mercury, and one flight to the asteroid belt. As long as Bednar wasn’t doing anything deliberately dangerous to the ship or the crew, she was more than welcome to exhaust her curiosity.

I tapped the airlock communication panel again and asked Captain Bednar if we should leave someone behind to keep an eye on things. She said no, there’d be no point. So I grunted, switched off, and Majack, Kendelsen, and me went out the auxiliary airlock and down to the rover. Majack checked the rover’s fuel cell condition while I started the pre-drive warm-up, then Kendelsen drove with Majack in the right seat and me in the bed.

The portholes and running lights of the descent stage were bright, but they rapidly faded into the distance. Eventually all I could see was the same old dirty-yellow mist.

• • •

When we came to the pyramid, I remembered my bad dream.

All by itself, the pyramid wasn’t frightening. But I’d been thinking about what the captain had said. That the pyramid was a message for humanity—or at least contained a message. Given the dimensions of the monster inside, there didn’t seem to be any way it could get in or out of the pyramid using the door, ramp, and spiraling corridor we’d been using so far. What did it all mean?

That question occupied my idle consciousness as we placed small seismic charges here and there, popped them, and observed the results on our computer aboard the rover. Seismographic analysis yielded an interesting picture. The artifact was a perfect quadrilateral pyramid. Moreover, each of the edges was nearly two
kilometers
in length. The tiny portion of the pyramid accessible to us above the surface was the tip of the proverbial alien iceberg.

I had all three of us comb the interior one more time, yet still we found no hint of any way to explore the rest of the artifact from inside. I guessed that perhaps there were other exterior doors further down the pyramid’s faces? Doors we couldn’t access without a serious excavation project, for which we were ill-equipped. After all, the alien had gotten in and out at some point. Hadn’t it?

With all of us yawning and eager for dinner, I ordered us back into the rover. When we returned to the descent module, all seemed as it should. The portholes glowed cheerfully, welcoming us home. Captain Bednar greeted us at the inner door to the auxiliary airlock. The HAZMAT was off. She was wearing her flight suit, and a serious expression.

“Any answers?” was all the captain said.

“Yes and no,” I replied. “I’ll show you the data once you and I can sit down. How about you? After we eat, we can combine our findings and put together an official presentation for Mission Control.”

“I took care of that already,” Bednar said.

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think it’s a good idea to be a little more comprehensive? I know the alien corpse is the key item of discovery so far, but I thought it would be best if we—”

“Mission control has been fully appraised of the situation, everything discovered to date, and I’ve made my recommendations for alterations in the schedule. We’re jettisoning the geology and atmospheric experiments so that we can focus solely on completing analysis of the pyramid and effecting the safe return of the alien samples to Earth.”

“We’re
leaving?”
I said.

“Do you really want to stay on Titan any longer than is necessary?”

“Well, like, I mean, it’s not Cancun, but there won’t be another flight out here for perhaps as much as a decade. We’ve got food and oxygen for almost three weeks. The fuel cells will last twice as long. Why rush?”

“I’ve made my report, Chief. If you check your updated calendar you’ll see all the details for tomorrow’s itinerary. Please ensure that yourself and Specialists Majack and Kendelsen are up to speed. I want us to get an early start tomorrow. Good night.”

And with that she pivoted on a heel and walked away from us.

Majack and Kendelsen looked at me, eyes wide.

“heat up dinner,” I said to them. “I’ll be right back.”

The
Gossamer’s
descent module was too small for anyone to hide in. But the galley, the sleeping compartment, the latrine, and all the other sections had been walled off from each other—both in case of emergency decompression, and also to give us the illusion of privacy.

I caught up with Captain Bednar in the single-bed closet that more or less served as our medical bay.

I closed the door behind us.

“They’ll never let you set foot on another flight again,” I said sternly.

“Oh?” was all she said.

The arm of her flight suit was rolled up and she was applying tape to a patch of cotton bandage on the inside of her right forearm.

“Yes. Do you really think anyone will be happy about you throwing away the schedule like this? It was bad enough when you added yourself to the descent team. Now you’re scrapping our entire survey plan. Hundreds of scientists just like you spent a lot of time building that plan, building the instruments that came with us on the trip, and now they’re going to be empty-handed. Pyramid or no pyramid, alien or no alien, people back home are going to be royally pissed off at you when we get back.”

“Maybe,” was all she said, finishing up the taping and dropping her sleeve back to her wrist.

“What happened to your arm?” I said, working hard to control my temper. My military side wanted to get up in her face and begin bawling. But given the cagey nature of her responses, I decided to keep a lid on it.

“A small burn,” she said. “I gave that sample of alien blood a little too much current. It boiled over.”

“You’ve been exposed?”

“Hardly. The liquid burned me through the material of the HAZMAT suit without touching the skin. It’s second-degree. I’ll be fine. And if you don’t mind, I think it best if you and I stop having these kinds of face-to-face confrontations. It’s not going to reflect well in my final mission brief when we return. You might not be the only one who can’t get on any more flights.”

Ordinarily, I hated the idea of hitting a woman. But standing there in the medical bay, I was seriously tempted to make an exception.

“You’re a real piece of work, ma’am,” I said. “All through train-up and all the way out here after launch, you seemed like a team player. The kind of person I could work with. Now the scales have fallen and I’m seeing that you’re just an opportunist. So don’t you worry. I’ll make sure we wrap things up and climb back into orbit without a scratch. We’ll be home before you know it. Then I don’t want to ever see you again. Is that clear?”

“You can’t possibly understand how much things have already started to change,” she said. “It’s okay. There will be a use for you when the ramifications of the alien discovery become clear.”

“What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?”

“Please check your calendar. Execute your assignment. That is my order. Understand?”

Her eyes drifted to my fists which had balled furiously at my sides. Then she looked back up at my face, saying nothing. As if daring me to take action both she and I knew I’d regret.

I glared at her, teeth clamped down hard.

There was something about her … something about those eyes. Like a shadow had crossed briefly across the whites, then vanished. She never blinked.

“To hell with this,” I finally said, and walked out of the tiny room.

I found Majack and Kendelsen nibbling nervously on their dinner.

“What’s going on, Chief?”

“A lot of horseshit, that’s what,” I said, keeping my voice low. I leaned over the table, and they leaned over with me

“Look,” I said, “the captain has ordered us home ASAP. So you can forget everything we trained for prior to the flight. I’m sorry. I know you were both chosen for your specific technical specialties as applicable to the Titan ground survey. But Bednar has decided all that matters now is getting home and showing off the pyramid data and the alien samples. She’s hot-dogging. I don’t like it. I think it’s wrong. But now I’m thinking we—us three—have got to stick together. Got it?”

They both nodded in unison.

“Tomorrow, when the captain takes Kendelsen out to the pyramid to wrap up her examination of the alien, I’m going to set up a two-on-one with Jibbley and Gaines, to make sure they know the score too. Basically it’s us getting our asses out of here, and hopefully the captain doesn’t have any more bright ideas.”

“Wow,” Majack said, her eyes turned down.

Kendelsen just poked at his tray with his spork.

“I never saw any of this coming,” he said despondently.

“None of us did,” I said. “I’ve been on flights where there were personality problems. Stuff people have to work out. That’s not too unusual. But I’ve never been on a flight where the goddamned CO turned everything upside down because she felt like it. Mission Control’s going to get an earful from me when we get back. Someone in screening messed up bad. Captain Bednar should never have been posted to this assignment, much less made it through selection.”

“What do we do about her right now?” Majack said, her eyes suddenly darting around the room in an alarmed fashion.

“Be cool,” I said. “Be professional. Do as she says. Don’t make any waves. All that matters now is that we get back to Earth in one piece. Mission Control will take care of it from there.”

Suddenly Kendelsen and Majack sat straight up.

The hair on the back of my neck tingled.

I slowly turned in my chair.

Captain Bednar was watching us from the threshold to the galley hatch.

“Is there a problem, Specialists?” she said.

“No ma’am,” Kendelsen said. “Chief’s just going over the plan for our revised mission directives.”

Bednar looked at all of us. Not smiling, not frowning, not blinking. Then she turned away and left.

The hair on my neck remained on end. I realized maybe none of us was going to sleep very well that night.

• • •

And I was right.

More bad dreams. More visions of pyramids bursting through the icy surface of Titan. And the unblinking albino eyes of that … thing, staring at me. All-seeing. Reading my thoughts. My soul.

I dreamt I was standing naked before the alien. The air was uncomfortably warm.

What do you want?
I said loudly, though it seemed as if I’d yelled the question through force of thought.

The great, unholy eyes just stared.

I repeated myself.

Suddenly the beast stirred. It uncoiled itself and crawled up out of the basin in the pyramid. I felt powerless to flee. The creature came directly up to me, its eyes still not blinking. I’d have screamed if I wasn’t terrified stiff.

One of the creature’s tongues raised up towards my head. I noticed that there was an orifice on the tip of the tongue.

Suddenly, in a voice utterly different from my own, I heard the words,
YOU WILL UNDERSTAND,
boom through my mind.

The tongue thrust for my face.

I came awake gasping, sweat pouring down my brow. The interior of my bunkbag was clammy. I slid out of it and went for the latrine. I passed Majack and Kendelsen on the way.

Their faces were haunted.

“Nightmares?” I asked.

They simply nodded.

I tried to offer each of them my best game face, gently tapping my fist on their shoulders and telling them everything would work out as long as they stuck with Chief. But inside I felt a nugget of dread: at the idea of any of us returning to the pyramid, and also at the idea of spending months aboard the
Gossamer
trying to work around Bednar. She’d gone from annoying to unsettling to unpredictable, and a small part of my mind wondered if she might get worse?

Some time after 0400 hours—when I’d tossed and turned and tossed and turned, staring across the sleeping compartment at where Bednar was zipped tightly into her bunkbag, her eyes closed and her breathing rhythmic—I entertained the idea of murder.

There were any number of ways for me to do it. All flights were dangerous, and landings particularly so. Death was always just an unsealed valve away, even under ideal conditions. Here on Titan it ought to be perfectly easy. Keeping Kendelsen or Majack from discovering the truth wouldn’t be. I’d either have to be very clever about it, or very convincing in my arguments after the fact. The two were young and eager and not at all prepared for the sudden topsy-turvy situation they now found themselves in. Could I win them to my cause through sheer force of will?

I unzipped myself from my bunkbag and quietly padded to the galley, trying to shake such dark thoughts out of my head.

Stupid, man. So completely stupid. Get a grip.

My mug of coffee came out of the boiler: hot and black.

I sat alone, drinking quietly. The coffee was stiff and bitter and I relished its near-scalding temperature as I poured it down my throat, then went for another cup. When the rest of the descent team roused I was already suited up and ready to work. Having a full docket would give me something to do, and take my mind off wondering about Bednar. Hopefully I’d be so exhausted at the end of the day my body would force my mind into a coma for the night.

People moved quietly through the descent module. Barely any talking at all.

I decided to put some music on. Up-beat.

Captain Bednar promptly turned it off.

“What for?” I said.

“It bothers me,” she said.

“You’re going out to the pyramid soon, with Kendelsen. Let those of us who are staying behind have a little something to occupy our ears, please?”

Bednar stared at me. I thought I saw that same shadow I’d seen the day before, cross briefly over her eyes. But she didn’t say no.