Outland (11 page)

Buried near the lower left side of the container was a silver mylar sack. Full of lumps, it seemed out of place alongside the sleek disposable radiation packs.

O'Niel checked the warning patch sewn into the right sleeve of his jacket. It was still bright green and showed no tendency toward turning yellow or worse, orange. Io's radioactive wastes were strictly low-grade. He could safely carry out his little inspection.

The bag was sealed with a plastic zipper. He broke the snap-seal and pulled the tab down. Hair appeared first. It was quickly followed by a forehead, then a nose flanked by a pair of eyes still frozen open.

O'Niel didn't linger on the silent, accusing face. The heavy zipper was dragged down until the red-stained padding that covered the hole in Sagan's chest was exposed. O'Niel fumbled at his breast pocket. For an instant he thought he'd lost it. Then his fingers closed around the shaft of the power syringe.

He paused, wiped a forearm across his eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths. Then he positioned the syringe precisely over the artery at the base of the dead man's neck. The liquid inside the corpse no longer flowed; the internal pump had been stilled. But the power draw in the syringe pulled a thick blue-red fluid up into the tube.

For once he had reason to be grateful for the Company's penurious policies. Since the body was about to be consigned forever to the limitless graveyard of space, there was no need for embalming. What the syringe sucked out of poor Sagan's system was still a part of him . . .

The beeping wouldn't go away.

Ever since she was a little girl she'd been tormented by nightmares and their sounds. You'll outgrow them, she'd been told by fatuous adults and doctors. They're only figments of your imagination, sent by the boogeyman to bedevil your girlish dreams.

Bullshit.

If anything, there was a period of adulthood when her somnolent imaginings had been more terrifying than anything she'd conjured up as a child. That had finally faded away.

Now the occasional, bad dream was simply a familiar and unwelcome visitor, to be tolerated for a little while and then sent on its way. Like an in-law, she mused.

It was a funny thing, though. During her first tour she'd discovered that sleeping off-Earth lessened the frequency of her nightmares, kept them almost at bay. Once again, doctors' explanations proved useless.

She didn't much care. The further out from Earth she traveled, the rarer her nightmares came a-visiting. It was a phenomenon other travelers had remarked on, and it was driving the psychiatrists crazy. Fair enough, she thought.

Io was about as far out as you could get, unless you were part of the deep-probe team still coasting toward far Neptune, or with the present team that was preparing Titan for exploitation. She was way past being probe material, or even preset. No, Io was as far out as she'd ever get. If it weren't for the peacefulness granted by the absence of the nightmares, she'd have returned to the warm Earth long ago.

It's all in your mind, her psych friends had assured her. You've cured yourself. If you go home you'll be safe from bad dreams. You'll see.

All in her mind? She'd heard that one before, as a child. Anyway, there were other reasons for remaining Outland. For one thing, she had no home to go back to. No relatives, no roots. Not anymore. Not for some time.

Now she lived within the narrow diameter of test vial and microscope, which were room enough to house her remaining aspirations. Her only other real concern was simply to continue To Get Through the Night.

She tossed on the bed. It had been months since anything this strong had troubled her. The beeping continued relentlessly, vibrating inside her skull. There was no imagery associated with it. Peculiar . . . a purely aural nightmare. An intriguing thought: perhaps it wasn't a nightmare at all.

She opened her eyes, blinked at the darkness. The beeping continued.

Too tired to curse, she rolled over and acknowledged the com call. The voice at the other end was deep, persistent, vaguely familiar. She tried to make some sense out of it, mumbling groggily, "Hello?"

"Lazarus, this is O'Niel," the voice announced tersely. "I'll see you in the hospital right away."

She struggled to a sitting position. Fumbling fingers found the reading light suspended over the bed. The hospital lit up and she pushed aside the sheets covering the examination table she'd been sleeping on.

A glance at the luminescent wall chronometer did nothing to improve her temper. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes."

"You better be dying." She hung up.

It was better than a real nightmare, but not much. Waking had its own terror. She set the com receiver back in its slot and slid her legs over the side of the table. By the light of the reading lamp she staggered over to the nearest basin, threw cold water on her face and roughly toweled it dry. Makeup she didn't bother with, having given up on that long ago in favor of more subtle maskery.

True to his words, the Marshal arrived moments later. In one hand he held a syringe which Lazarus' practised eye immediately noted was full of something organic. He held it out to her, breathing hard.

"Very pretty," she commented drily, studying the proferred cylinder.

"So are you. I need this analyzed."

"You woke me at this hour for a goddanm analysis?" She was too upset to be really angry.

"It's important." Something in his voice told her that he was probably understating.

Even so, she growled at him. "It'd better be."

She led him over to a console, studied it a moment and then touched several controls. Small video screens came to life, a rack with four tubes held in tiny metal fingers popped out of the wall.

Measuring quickly but precisely she split the contents of the syringe between the four tubes, then touched another control. The rack slid back into the wall. The laboratory area remained dark, the only light coming from the powered-up screens and keyboard and the distant reading light burning above the examination table.

O'Niel searched cold twilight, found a chair, and pulled it close to the console.

"How long will this take?"

"You're kidding me. This is a hospital, not a security depot. When we ask questions, that means we need answers fast." She pointed to the screens, where rows of information were already beginning to materialize.

O'Niel indicated the first column. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing much." She squinted in the dim light, studying the readout. "Blood type, cholesterol count, white cell count, oxygenation . . . this blood is from a dead person. Or else somebody beyond my help."

"Right the first time."

She smiled thinly. "The symptoms are pretty plain. Unfortunately, the condition's not curable." More information appeared, forming glowing lines on the screens.

"No alcohol," she muttered. There was another run of data as the analyzer continued its methodical breakdown of the liquid O'Niel had fed it.

"He ate dinner," she soon announced. "Proteins, carbohydrates . . . more carbohydrates. He didn't eat his vegetables. Low sugar count . . . no dessert tonight. That's unusual."

"Why?" O'Niel wondered.

"Because that's usually the only thing they serve in the worker's mess that's fit to eat." Another pause before she muttered, "No nicotine." A longer one before she said, "Some tranquilizers."

O'Niel leaned forward, trying to make sense of the squiggles filling the screens. "Tranquilizers? Are you sure?"

"Yeah." She chewed her lower lip as she fingered additional keys. "They're Company tranquilizers. Standard issue. Why the query?"

"Because the former owner of this blood was acting anything but tranquil not so very long ago."

"Yeah? He's plenty tranquil now." Her attention returned to the steadily lengthening columns of information. They continued to grow, but more slowly. The basics were known about the blue red liquid. Further analysis required more complex procedures.

"Blood sugar and hemoglobin are normal . . . were normal. Nothing wrong with his brain, nervous system checks out." She frowned. "Hello."

"What?"

She seemed uncertain and her frown deepened. "I'm not sure. Funny."

Fingers fluttered above a different combination of keys, finally settled on a pattern. In the upper corner of the center screen a new pattern appeared. She touched additional keys. The pattern didn't change.

"Shit."

She tried still another combination, then shook her head in frustration.

"What's the matter?" O'Niel asked.

"Such a smart piece of equipment," she gestured at the console, "and a wreck like me trying to run it." She nodded toward a fourth screen. It was alight now, but blank. "That's where I want it to come up."

"Want what to come up?"

"Whatever it is. Take it easy. I'm not through yet." Again her hands played with the keys and buttons. The fourth screen remained blank.

Finally she leaned back in her own chair, crossed her arms, and spoke without taking her eyes from the brightly glowing columns filling the center three screens.

"You know, you don't have your medical all-star here, O'Niel. Company doctors are like the old-time ship doctors. Most are one shuttle flight ahead of a malpractice suit. A decent physician isn't going to come way the hell Outland to someplace like Io where it's cold and lonely. Not when she can stay home and buy twenty acres outside of Suva or Ponape to work out of."

"Something's there, isn't it?" He was pointing at the glowing screens.

"Maybe. Just maybe." She uncrossed her arms and attacked the keys once more.

"I spend my days dispensing tranquilizers to the workers, uppers to management for their amusement . . . yeah, I know that's illegal. So what? You gonna arrest me?" He didn't react to the challenge. She rambled on, still working the console by touch and trial.

"Also certifying that the Company prostitutes don't have syphilis, Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. That's a doctor joke, remember? I'm a doctor joke." She glanced up at him, the lines in her face deepened by the dim light.

"I don't know how to analyze a new molecule, O'Niel. My sights never ranged that high and my abilities don't range that deep."

Unexpectedly, the fourth monitor came alive in rebuttal. A diagram appeared grew slowly as an invisible electronic hand traced the three-dimensional graphic. Lines and colored orbs formed a geometric abstract, though the computer's intention had nothing to do with art.

"Hello again," she said, a bit more cheerfully.

O'Niel was straining to see past her, his brain trying to make some sense of the little colored globes and bonding lines. He suspected what the diagram represented, but he couldn't be sure. His dealings with volatile organic compounds were usually on a less microscopic level.

"Is it a drug?"

She looked over at him approvingly, nodding affirmatively. "You just won a prize."

"What kind?"

She inspected the fourth screen, noting the information spelling out beneath the slowly revolving graphic. Various atomic combinations lit up in sequence within the molecular model, corresponding words and figures below the diagram grew in size and brightness.

"Some kind of narcotic for sure. Nothing I've ever seen before, and I've seen some cuties. You'd be surprised what gets smuggled in to a place like this past the Takeoff security . . . no, come to think of it, I guess you wouldn't be surprised.

Synthetic, this one. Hate those things. You never know what they stand for." A last knot of multihued globes and bonds materialized, completing the molecular chain. The computer beeped, signifying that it was through. Simultaneously, the numbers and words beneath the diagram froze and two new words appeared, pulsing softly.

"Bingo," she said quietly. "Polydychloric Euthimal." She shook her head in wonder at the extremes of mortal man. "Those stupid bastards are taking Polydychloric Euthimal."

"That tells me nothing."

She swiveled around to face him. "It should tell you a helluva lot. Polydyeuth's an amphetamine. Strongest damn thing you ever saw." Her face flashed a falsely broad smile. "It makes you feel wonderful."

"Wonderful enough to override the effects of the Company tranquilizers he'd been taking?"

Sagan's name hadn't been mentioned, and it didn't seem necessary. "Strong enough to override anything," she snorted. "You do fourteen hours work in six hours, that kind of nonsense. Especially manual labor. It makes you want to work like a horse.

"The Army tested it a few years ago. I remember reading about it in a journal. It made everybody work, alright. Then it made them psychotic. It takes a while. Ten, eleven months, maybe more. Then the body starts paying for it.

"It fries your brain. They always told us in chemistry that you never get something for nothing."

"You said it was a synthetic." She nodded. "Can it be made here?"

"No. Impossible." She gestured at the quiescent analyzer. "The hospital staff's the only equipment on this rock sophisticated enough to deal with complex organics. You want physical or geologic analyses, there's half a dozen departments that can help you out.

"But organics? Uh-uh, no way. And we're only equipped for analysis here, not manufacture. We import even the most basic drugs.

"Besides which, even if it were possible, I'd know. This isn't your everyday garden-variety narcotic. It takes real chemical know-how and a big, expensive lab setup equipped to deal with unstable organic compounds. There's no such animal on Io."

O'Niel's brain did not move nearly as fast as the computer's, but just then it was churning ahead at a pretty respectable clip.

"No autopsies, so nobody knows anything," he murmured. "The workers are producing more on the same amount of work time, so the mine is more productive. They get fatter bonus checks and the work seems easier, so they're happy. Nobody mentions anything about awkward little side effects."

"Like scrambled heads," she said quietly.

"Exactly. By the time their brains pop, their tour is up. Usually . . . except for the embarrassing early-bird blowouts like Sagan and the rest, and they're chucked out toward the asteroids in a hurry.