View from Ararat (5 page)

4

Premonitions

(Extracts from the works of Natassia Eiken translated to Archive Disk with the author's permission, 12/14/212 Standard. Used with the author's consent.)

From:
Standing on Ararat – The Crystal Death, Ten Years On (
Prologue
)

. . .
Quarantine.
The word probably derives from the Old Earth Italian,
quarantina
, meaning ‘forty days'. Which is how long they would isolate people in ancient times when they were suspected of suffering from or having contact with the most deadly of the contagious diseases. Diseases like the Black Death, or leprosy or typhoid fever.

In the days before immunisation, antibiotics and electron- microscope screening, and prior to the development of genetically engineered antibody technology, there was little else that could be done. Contamination with a contagious, life-threatening infection placed not only the victim but the whole community at risk, and although enforced isolation may seem cruel and barbaric to modern sensibilities, it was truly a matter of communal survival. A sacrifice of the few for the good of the many.

From the time of the earliest attempts at space-flight, in the latter half of the twentieth century Earth standard, stringent precautions were taken to avoid contamination by exotic alien viruses, or organisms and parasites that might find human hosts irresistible.

Even the astronauts who made the early expeditions to Earth's dead and airless moon were thoroughly screened and quarantined (though not for forty days!) on their return.

Of course, prior to landfall on planets with atmosphere and identifiable life forms, there was really very little risk of encountering the ‘doomsday' bugs of twentieth century science fiction. And as journeys to habitable planets were, by virtue of the distances and times involved, generally one-way journeys, the risk of such infections returning to the Earth was considered minimal . . .

Complex of the Ruling Council

New Geneva (Central)

25/14/202

CHARLIE'S STORY

Devol Eldritch stood up at the head of the table, interrupting Galen's presentation. I watched Galen bristle, but he said nothing, waiting to hear the man out.

‘Thank you for taking us through the data, Dr Sibraa, but to be frank, given the remoteness of the risk you describe, I can't see how the Council can even consider committing the kind of funds you're talking about. Not to mention the Construction and Security resources that would have to be redeployed at such short notice.'

He hadn't really been listening to the briefing. He'd taken in just enough to decide we were spitting in the wind, and he was preparing to blow us off.

I suppose you couldn't really blame him. At that stage all we had was one forty-year-old memo, and some Research data from the same period, smuggled to me by someone who was risking his reputation, his funding and probably his whole career to do it – which, it had already been pointed out more than once, was exactly the kind of eccentric behaviour which made him a pretty unstable witness to rely on in the first place.

One suspect memo and two young, relatively inexperienced medical Researchers from Edison, with a horror scenario to sell – which must have sounded a whole lot more like science fiction than a realistic threat.

If it hadn't been for Galen's rep, we wouldn't even have got as far as this.

After all, there were no recorded outbreaks of this mysterious Crystal Death in any of the official literature from Earth, and it didn't help that the Global Health Organisation itself wasn't even an official World Government authority.

Eldritch finished speaking and fixed Galen with a practised superior stare, expecting . . . what? Capitulation?

Big mistake.

Galen stared right back, and I could recognise the signs. Hell, I'd seen them often enough back in Edison.

He manoeuvred the wheelchair subtly so that he faced Eldritch full-on, and his eyes seemed to glaze over for maybe three seconds. He was counting silently to himself, focusing, getting ready for the counterattack.

If I'd had the nerve, I'd probably have told Galen to pull his head in. Our hand was one card short of a pair as it was. The last thing we wanted to do was antagonise anyone – especially ‘his majesty' Devol Eldritch – at that stage in the proceedings.

But, of course, I didn't have the nerve. I was out of my depth, and I guess it must have shown, because Galen had taken over the presentation from the moment, ten minutes earlier, when Tolbert, the President's personal representative on the committee, had started attacking our proposals.

But Galen wasn't presenting anything now. He was dangerously quiet, and Eldritch must have finally sensed what was about to happen, because the benign superior look began to turn nasty.

He was a seasoned campaigner, on the rise. No Research geek was going to stare him down.

Deputy Security Chief Devol Eldritch was Security Supremo Milton Beresford's protégé, and Milton Beresford was one of President M
ü
ller's oldest political allies. You didn't get into a pissing contest with someone that well connected, even if he was a certified, twenty-four carat, ego-maniacal jerk-off – which Devol Eldritch also just happened to be.

I tore my gaze from Eldritch's angry sneer and looked across the room to where Galen sat in his wheelchair facing the gathered luminaries of the committee. He had his punchboard on the small table attached to the front of his chair, and the read-out was ether-linked to the huge screen that filled the wall behind him.

It showed the computer-generated epidemic projections, based on all the data available to us, assuming that just one of the passengers of the approaching C-Ship
Pandora
was infected with CRIOS and made it out into the general population of New Geneva.

And it was terrifying to anyone with the imagination to see it.

Galen took a deep breath, pointed very deliberately towards the screen, and fixed Eldritch with the glare he saved for particularly stupid opponents who refused to accept the obvious.

By now the silence was almost physical, and he held the pose, forcing everyone present – except Eldritch – to focus on the data displayed there before them.

Galen was never one to suffer fools gladly. He'd always preferred to make
them
suffer – and he was extremely good at it. He had a biting wit, and he could demolish you with a few well-chosen words. But for all his smarts, he'd never quite learned the trick of knowing when to turn it off.

I knew him probably better than any other living soul, and I could name every one of his numerous good qualities, but it didn't blind me to the fact that he was what you might call socially retarded. Brilliant, totally focused when it came to his work, but a complete idiot when it came to dealing with people outside the Research labs – and a lot of people
inside
the labs, if you were being perfectly honest.

If he wasn't so essential to the department, they'd probably have ditched him in the first few months after we got there and saved a lot of fence-mending.

But it wasn't an ego thing, not really. He didn't put people down just to look good himself. He put them down if they got in the way of what Galen Sibraa, boy genius, knew was best – which usually
was
best.

Galen had the gift of seeing the wood for the trees, which in medical research is the difference between success and failure ninety-nine per cent of the time.

Unfortunately, at that moment we weren't discussing points of scientific procedure in a Research panel. We were trying to convince the President's health emergency advisory committee that there was a potential threat which needed the immediate attention of the Ruling Council.

The committee-members weren't scientists for the most part. They were bureaucrats, bean counters and would-be politicians, 2ICs from most of the appropriate sections: Budget, Security, Health – that kind of thing. And, like I said, it was only Galen's reputation that had got us into the same building as them, let alone arguing our case.

But he wasn't going to get anywhere unless he understood where they were coming from. You didn't bully them. You certainly didn't insult them. And Galen was doing his best to do both.

I could see their faces closing over, as he went on. ‘The thing is, Mr Eldritch' – he even managed to make the guy's name sound like an insult – ‘it may well sound like a “remote possibility”, but if that remote possibility turns into a fact, it'll be too late to say “I told you so”, and the only consolation you'll have, sir, is that we'll probably all be dead long before anyone works out who's responsible and hauls our arses over the coals.'

I watched their faces. Maybe he wasn't as out of touch as I'd feared. Accountability. Suddenly he'd hit them where it hurt.

But Tolbert, the President's man, wasn't fazed. Cut to the chase, calculate the bottom line and deal with it. You didn't get to be M
ü
ller's right hand by worrying about the niceties.

‘In that case,' he began, ‘I vote that we turn the ships right around and send them straight back to Earth. Let
them
deal with the problem.'

He said it with a totally straight face. As if he was discussing a shipment of damaged imports. The guy was ice-cold, and I realised just how out of our depth we were.

With hindsight, I can't help thinking that his suggestion would quite likely have stopped the horror that eventually occurred before it ever had a chance to begin. For us, if not for Earth.

But, of course, solutions are rarely that simple. At least, not while things are actually happening.

And even if they are simple, they're not always possible.

I mean, suppose you could actually agree that it was the safest course – or the necessary one – for us to turn all three C-ships around and send them back. How easy would it be to just callously write off almost a hundred thousand innocent people? People who had given up absolutely everything to make a new life on a new world.

Our world. And at our invitation.

For Tolbert, it was a viable option. For Galen, it wasn't.

‘Yeah,
right
!' he replied. ‘Amputate the leg because you're worried there might be something wrong with it. Most people would prefer to run tests first – to see if there's anything to worry about.'

He shifted his attention from Tolbert and Eldritch to the rest of the committee.

‘Some of you are from Earth originally. You know what sending them back means. Another forty or fifty years in stasis, which puts them at the extreme limit of survivable freeze-sleep. Half of them might not make it back in one piece.'

He was playing them. I watched the uncomfortable looks growing on their faces, as he continued. ‘And even if they did make it, even if the authorities on Earth chose to accept the risk that we were too self-righteous to accept' – now he fixed Tolbert with “the look” – ‘what kind of future could they look forward to when they got there? Fifty years out, another fifty back. A century out of date, with no resources to start over with.

‘They're refugees, for God's sake. Not from a war or religious persecution, maybe, but they're refugees just the same. They're fleeing a world which has no place for them. Just as some of you did. Just as most of our ancestors did. If Deucalion stands for anything, surely it's the hope of a second chance.'

He was making ground. I could feel the atmosphere in the room shifting slightly. I watched Tolbert seething quietly and Eldritch staring at this geek in a wheelchair who had just upstaged them both.

And I looked at the rest of the committee. They were ready for a compromise.

I stood up and began speaking. We had our window. Now we had to make the most of the opportunity.

‘What we need, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a plan . . .'

The compromise solution was nothing more or less than an old-fashioned concentration camp. I know it must sound barbaric, but realistically there wasn't anything else we could have got through.

We had so little hard evidence that in the end the best we could get the Council to go for – even with all Galen's lobbying and theatrics – was a detailed questionnaire, blood testing for the high-risk groups, and a forty-day quarantine for all the incoming passengers. It wasn't anywhere near what we'd considered necessary, but it was a whole lot better than the alternatives.

And though history has been particularly hard on the members of that committee, historians always have the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight. You couldn't really blame a bunch of bureaucrats for considering the cost of the exercise.

After all, even the one piece of hard evidence we did have ended by claiming that the outbreak was ‘officially controlled'.

Galen, of course, wasn't convinced. And he certainly wasn't satisfied with the precautions. The road to Hell, he said, was paved with good intentions – and bureaucratic compromises.

He was always one for reading between the lines. He has the kind of imagination that plays through all the possibilities – the most obvious and the most unlikely – and treats each one as highly probable, then begins formulating solutions and counter- measures. It's what makes him such a good chess player, and such a good medical researcher.

And such a lousy politician.

No simplistic solutions . . .

Of course, the Council was made up of politicians.

Anyway, even before the Council received the committee's recommendations and reached its decision, Galen was already constructing scenarios. What defences were possible if something like what was contained in the CRIOS memorandum ever found its way down to the surface of Deucalion?

And he didn't like what he came up with.

5

Precautions

Colony Ship
Pandora

in geo-static orbit above New Geneva, Deucalion

14/15/202 Standard

CINDY'S STORY

I'd travelled to Jupiter's moons and back on the
Ganymede Horizon
, so I knew what to expect, coming out of cryo. The cramps, and the mind-numbing pain tearing at every nerve-ending.

You'd think after three hundred years of putting people in stasis they'd have perfected a painless technique, but I guess you can't overcome the basic design flaws in the human body.

Of course, coming out of freeze-sleep after the best part of half a century, they said you had to expect it to be a lot worse than the short three-month hop between planets in the solar system. And they were right.

It was everything they'd promised. And more.

But I survived. I even managed to smile at the cryo- technician when she went through the medi-check and grilled me with a long questionnaire about my past history, and where I had and hadn't been during my last two months on Earth.

Of course, at the time I didn't have any idea how important the questions were.

I didn't know, for example, that if I'd mentioned being anywhere in the South or Central Americas – downside of the old US border – I would have missed my shuttle down to the surface of Deucalion while they ran a full body scan and blood analysis.

Just in case.

In case of what? Even if I'd known to ask, they wouldn't have answered me. At that stage of the emergency they weren't even sure there
was
an emergency, but they weren't taking any chances. Still, they didn't want to cause a panic among the new-arrivals, either. So any awkward questions from the newcomers were greeted with a stone wall.

What no one knows can't hurt anyone. Or something like that.

Not that it would have crossed my mind to ask, anyway.

A lot had happened in the time since I'd drifted off in the C-ship cryo-chamber – back on Earth, and here on Deucalion. You'd sort of expect that.

Of course, just exactly
what
had happened wasn't something you'd ever be expected to guess.

But at least I wasn't totally alone at the start of my new life.

I suppose it wasn't all that surprising that Mac and Cox ended up on the same C-ship as me. Mind you, it wasn't planned to happen that way.

When we delivered the ore from the
lo Trader
, we each went our own way. We didn't exchange forwarding addresses or communicator codes. At least, I didn't. It wasn't that I didn't like the guys or appreciate the help they'd given me on my first – and only – trip to the moons of Jupiter. I did. It was just . . . Well, I didn't expect to ever see them again, and I've never been one for sentimental attachments.

Even when they canned me from Research, I never once got in touch with the people I used to work with there. And I'd known some of them since I was eleven years old.

What would have been the use? Suddenly we were on different sides of the fence, and no amount of ‘remember-whens' was going to change the fact.

And that's how it was when we got back with the ore from the
lo Trader
and they paid us out.

Personally, I was half expecting us to have overlooked something – either in the log or in the cargo itself – which would alert the company to the scam we'd run. For a week I slept in my clothes, ready for a quick getaway if they came for me. But they didn't.

I guess the quality of the ore blinded them to everything else. The metallurgist on the Lunar station where we delivered it said they hadn't seen that kind of quality from Ganymede in over fifteen years, and tried pumping Mac for the exact location of the mine site. It was just lucky that the rules didn't require us to divulge that kind of information.

So as far as anyone in the company was concerned we'd just hit the mother lode. They were happy. We were happy.

End of story.

Almost.

With the payout for the ore, split between the ten members of the crew, we each had as much credit as any miner could reasonably expect to see in a decade – maybe even a lifetime – and if there was ever a perfect chance to break free once and for all, this was it.

There were rumours circulating among the Research community that on Deucalion a black-listing from the Grants Council wasn't exactly the kiss of death that it was on Earth.

Just the thought of working again with my mind, instead of my aching body, was worth more than all the credits in my account.

There was nothing tying me to the planet of my birth. No family, no loyalty. No future . . .

And I guess that was the way it was for Mac, too. Thirteen years as a ‘rock-biter' was more than most people could survive. What was the point in tempting fate even once more when you had sixty thousand credits against your name, and there was a C-ship leaving within a couple of months?

For Cox I suppose the decision was a bit tougher. He wasn't deciding just for himself. He had four kids – the oldest my age and the youngest just twelve. But in the end that was just about the best possible argument in favour of making the break.

When I met them at the medical the day before boarding, he was a totally different person from the tough ore-jockey I'd spent a good portion of the past year sparring with. He was . . . I don't know . . . gentler somehow.

And his kids really loved him. Even I could see it.

I felt a stab of jealousy.

There was an older woman sitting with them. His mother, I guessed – correctly. But she wasn't making the trip.

‘Too old,' she said, when I asked the obvious question. ‘I have my friends and my house, and . . .' She shrugged, as if I should understand the rest.

I didn't, but I said nothing.

One of the problems with being Funded before you even reach puberty is that you never really get to mix with ordinary people. In Research you're isolated. A kind of hothouse bloom that never has to deal with the uncontrolled natural environment.

It's fun while it lasts, I guess, but there are things that you miss out on. Things you need to know, in case they ever toss you out of the hothouse.

Luckily, I've always been a quick learner . . .

Medical Research Facility

Edison (Southwest)

16/15/202 Standard

GALEN

He studies the screen, watching the test results as they come through from the operatives on the
Pandora
. The central data frame is ether-linked to the punchboards in the examination centre hurriedly set up on board the C-ship, and the results feed directly into the Research computer.

Charlie places the teacup on the console in front of him and slides into a chair on his right-hand side.

‘Anything?' she asks – as if he might have forgotten to mention it if there was.

He looks at her ironically for a few moments, and she shrugs an apology. Then he relents.

‘Not a thing,' he replies. ‘I didn't really expect there would be.'

The figures are in the 'frame if he cares to pull them up, but he knows every aspect of the data without visual confirmation.

Less than two hundred people on the whole ship had actually come from the South and Central Americas in the critical period. Less than two hundred who stood even the remotest chance of accidentally encountering anyone who might have had contact with the CRIOS contaminent.

Realistically, the chances of anyone aboard any of the C-ships having come within a thousand clicks of the mystery bug were millions to one against.

But he still can't shake the feeling of foreboding.

Galen Sibraa. The crippled psychic . . .

He rubs his hands over his face in a small concession to the exhaustion he is feeling, and continues to watch the data scrolling down the screen.

Finally, the computer chimes for attention, and the message flashes:

– TRANSMISSION COMPLETE.

– ALL RECORDS DOWNLOADED TO RESEARCH AND LOGGED.

– CENTRAL DATA FRAME UPDATED.

– FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS . . .?

‘Hard copy now, and download all files to my personal punchboard.' He pronounces each word precisely, leaning slightly forward towards the v-a pick-up.

‘Well . . .' Beside him, Charlie almost whispers the word. There is an unmistakable relief in her voice and in the sigh she allows to escape. ‘So far, so good.'

For the first time in hours he smiles and removes his gaze from the screen. In just about any area of med research, Charlie is about the most innovative and imaginative person he has ever worked with. But she can slip into terrible clichés sometimes.

‘So far,' he replies, and something in his tone of voice alerts her to the joke, because she looks at him with that hurt expression she can put on.

‘I did it again, didn't I?'

He nods, and she returns the smile. Then she leans across and runs the backs of her fingers down his cheek.

Charlie always pretends not to notice, but she's perceptive. She knows.

He happens to be in love with her. Very unprofessional, but purely platonic, of course.

‘Two more ships to come, then we can start to relax,' she says, as the machine chimes again and the last page of hard-copy slides out of the slot into the basket. She scoops them up and drops them into the binder.

‘Yeah, right,' he replies. But he isn't finished worrying about this one yet. ‘It's not enough, you know.'

She waits. There is more and she knows it.

And she knows him too well to waste words prompting.

‘The blood tests.' He thumbs the control, and the servos hum quietly, turning his chair towards the window.

The sky is clear blue. Outside, it is summer. Forty-four degrees Celsius in the shade, and they are in Edison, on the coast. Inland, it must be well over fifty in places.

Without turning back, he continues. ‘If there's any danger, we're not likely to pick it up by checking blood samples.'

‘It's a pretty good indicator, though. No infection means no contact. Which means no worries. At least it does according to everything on disease control that I've ever read.'

She takes the bound report out of the machine and tosses it onto his lap.

He doesn't look at it. He has seen all he needs to on the screen. For now, at least. Time to review it later, before it is sent to Storage.

He turns around as far as he can in his chair and stares up at her. ‘What's it really an indication
o
f
? Of the fact that they're not actually infected? Think about it, Charlie. We pretty well know they're not infected, already. You saw the report. From the onset of symptoms to the time they zip up the body bag, we're talking a day and a half. Two and half days max. It takes four or five times as long as that to process the passengers for departure. They have to be at the departure station at least a week before the ship leaves. Judging by the figures in the report, if any of them were showing symptoms when they arrived, they'd have turned to stone before they even got on board the ship.

‘And if the contagion-rate is correct, we'd have thousands of positive tests up there right now. Even if the stasis put a brake on the progress of the thing – and there's no reason to believe it would.'

‘Then why did you insist—?'

He has been the one pushing for the strictest quarantine possible. And he was the one who refused to back down on the questionnaires and the testing. She knows with absolute certainty that if the Council had voted those down, Galen would have quit and left them to it.

He can be stubborn sometimes, and Charlie is resident expert on the subject.

‘Why did I insist on the tests?' he cuts in. ‘Because we still don't know the incubation period for certain. Personally, I don't think it's anywhere over a couple of days, but that's only educated guesswork. I couldn't take any chances. What if it's a whole lot longer? What if all the victims in Puerto Limon contracted it weeks or months before the symptoms actually manifested. If it's like most company set-ups, it's pretty much a closed community. They could have all been exposed at about the same time. Which means they would have all shown symptoms at about the same time. We had to be sure there were no carriers.'

‘Okay, I'm game. Why do you think the incubation period's only a couple of days?'

He turns to look at her. Somehow she always knows the right question to ask. It is the reason they work so well together.

‘Because it takes less than three days from the onset of symptoms to the victim's death. Whatever it is, it's far too virulent to just sit around in a victim's system for weeks or months. At least, that's my theory. And as well as that, there were no reports of outbreaks anywhere else but Puerto Limon. The longer the incubation period, the more chance of people travelling and carrying the bug with them. But I couldn't be sure, you see. What we're dealing with is totally alien, so we can't be sure of the rules. And it's dangerous not to cover all the possibilities.'

‘Hence the blood tests.'

‘Hence the blood tests.'

He pauses.

Charlie has the knack of digging up whatever's bubbling around in Galen's subconscious and forcing him to think about it.

The niggling feeling that has been troubling him for days suddenly slides squarely into focus.

He turns the chair back to face her. ‘There's something we're missing here.'

Charlie sits forward. ‘Which is?'

‘Look where the outbreak occurred.' He punches the original memo up on the screen. ‘The JMMC ore-processing facility, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. Tell you anything?' It is a question that requires no answer. ‘JMMC
owns
the Global Health Organisation. Their own scientists ordered a code red containment procedure. “Confirmed presence of pathogen of extraterrestrial origin”. Don't you see?'