Arrival (57 page)

She realized she was lying on something firm. Another wave of pain pulsed through her head, causing her to groan. Then she heard a voice.

“Maria?”

It was a man’s voice.

“Maria? Can you hear me?”

Maria tried to answer, but found her throat too dry to speak. She tried to swallow, but it was too painful. Her medical training began to kick in, as she tried to analyze her own condition.
Dry mouth, headache, weakness, photophobia, blurred vision. What’s wrong with me?
One by one, her senses seemed to be checking in. She could tell she was wearing an oxygen mask. She could also tell there was a tube in her nose, which added to the confusion. Next, she noticed there were sensors stuck to her skin in various places, and a discomfort in her right groin, at the top of her inner thigh. Something else down there as well.

“Maria, it’s me, Frank.” the voice repeated.

Memories began flooding back. The mission, the illness, the RMS.

“Frank?” she managed to whisper.

“Yes, it’s me, it’s Frank.”

“Frank? Where am I?”

“You’re in the med-lab.”

“What happened?” Her voice was becoming stronger.

“You’ve just come out of stasis. How do you feel?”

“Terrible.” It was all coming back to her now. “Are they here?” she asked.

“Is who here?”

She’s talking about the Daedalus,
Jack thought to Frank.

“No, Maria. They’re not here yet.”

Maria was confused. “Then why?” She had to stop and swallow. “Why did you revive me?”

“We think we found a cure, Maria. But we need your help,” Frank explained.

“A cure?” she asked, still confused. “We?” As best she could remember, Frank had been the only one left.

Frank chuckled. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Maria.”

“What?”

“Feel like a visitor?”

Maria squinted again, this time more from confusion. She struggled to focus as the blurry image of Frank faded away, only to be replaced by another image. A person, a man.

Jack stepped to Maria’s side.
Can she see me?
he asked Frank when he noticed her squinting.

“Barely,” Maria answered. “Everything’s blurry.”

She can hear me!
he thought with surprise.

“Of course I can hear you,” Maria answered. “Who are you?” His voice was familiar as well, although she couldn’t quite place it.

“It’s Jack, Maria,” Frank told her.

“Jack?” she gasped in disbelief. “Is it really you?”

Yes, Maria. It’s really me.

Maria fought to bring her vision into focus. She could see him, blurry as he was, standing next to her, gazing down at her. “You’re alive?”

Yup, I’m alive.

Maria wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. “I can’t believe it. How did you……”

It’s a long story,
he told her.

“Where’s Will?” she asked.

Jack didn’t know what to say. He knew how close they had been.

“Will didn’t make it, Maria,” Frank interrupted, taking the burden away from Jack.

Maria was silent for a moment. But she had dealt with both their deaths long ago. And she
was
happy to see Jack again. At least, almost see him.

I’m sorry, Maria,
was all that Jack could come up with at the moment.

Maria continued trying to focus on Jack. He seemed so tall, looming over her. His face was covered with hair, his features distorted. Long blue-gray hair hung from his head. She managed to get her left hand to rise up from her side, reaching out to touch his face.

Jack recoiled from her touch. It was pleasant, though. Warm and gentle, moving him somehow. It had been so long since anyone had touched him in such a compassionate way.

“You need a shave, Jack,” she said as she touched his beard. That’s when her eyes began to focus. The image of Jack’s face had been more in her mind’s eye than through her retinas. And suddenly, without warning, that image had transformed into something else. It was still Jack’s eyes she noticed. The same old pale blue that always seemed to surprise you. But his face had changed, become distorted somehow. His jaw seemed longer, his skin leathery and cold to the touch. His brow was also more pronounced, and bushier than she remembered. Although this person resembled Jack, she was quickly realizing that it wasn’t Jack. Not the Jack she remembered.

Jack could see the realization in Maria’s eyes, and it scared him.

Maria could sense the fear in him. “What is it, Jack? What’s wrong? What’s happened to you?” Then her vision came completely into focus, and her hand withdrew from Jack’s face in fear. “Oh my God!”

Jack could sense it, she knew. She saw him.
Maybe I should go,
he thought. Frank motioned for him to stay, noticing that Maria’s vital signs, though slightly elevated, were still within safe ranges.

Maria heard Jack in her head, or at least she thought she did. “Jack?” Her voice wasn’t fearful now. Kindness was creeping into it. “Oh, Jack. Is it really you?”

Yes, Maria. I’m afraid it is, such as I am.

I am hearing him in my head
, she thought. “I must be dreaming,” Maria decided out loud. “I swear I heard your voice, but your lips didn’t move. Like it was in my head.”

You’re not dreaming, Maria.

“That’s the way I hear him too,” Frank reassured her. “There’s been a few changes around here while you were in stasis, Maria.”

She heard him, but her attention was focused on this strange creature that apparently
was
Jack, somehow transformed into something not quite human. She reached out for him again, taking his hand and grasping it tightly. “Oh, Jack.”

* * *

“So, what’s your recommendation?” Hal asked.

The gruff old scientist leaned back in his chair, looking at Captain Ishkin across the desk, knowing that his decision would seal the fate of the team on Tau Ceti Five. “I’m afraid that, given a choice between the fourth and sixth planets, I’d have to choose the fourth one.”

Hal stared at the tired old scientist. He knew the poor guy had been working around the clock for the last two days. He also knew he had dreaded making that decision for the same amount of time. “Yes,” Hal agreed reluctantly, “that’s what I figured.”

“And if you had to choose between all three?” Ray wondered.

The old scientist looked curiously at Ray as he pondered his question. “Well, it would definitely be a toss-up between Four and Five, then. They both have their advantages and disadvantages,” he began.

“If you had to choose between Four or Five, which one would it be?” Ray demanded to know.

“Ray…” Hal warned.

“Assuming, of course, there was no disease on Tau Ceti Five, that is.”

“Ray, come on,” Hal objected.

“It’s a fair question,” Old Man Wilkins argued.

“Thank you, Doctor Williams,” Hal said. “That’ll be all.”

Doctor Williams looked at Hal, confused. Then he looked at Ray. Something was going on, he just didn’t know what. His team had been asked to gather as much information on the new worlds as possible using only long-range scans, and it was woefully inadequate. “Five,” he announced.

“Why?” Ray wondered, intrigued by the scientist’s response.

“Simply because we have a team on the ground already. Both worlds seeming equal from afar, it only seems logical to go where you will eventually have the greatest amount of data about the world on which you are about to colonize.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ray said. “That
will
be all.”

“Very well, Captain.” Doctor Williams stood and straightened his shirt. “Mister Wilkins,” he said politely to Ray as he exited.

Ray waited until the hatch was closed before he spoke. “You see? Even he thinks we should go to Tau Ceti Five.”

“He just said that to please you,” Hal said as he pressed the intercom button. “Mister De Tullio to the captain’s ready room.”

“We can’t let them stick us on Four, Hal. The gravity is too weak.”

“It’s not that weak, Ray.”

“Bullshit! In ten generations, we’ll all be twelve feet tall if we colonize that jungle!”

“It’s not like we have a whole lot of options, Ray.” A knock came from the hatch. “Enter!”

The ship’s navigator, Marco De Tullio, stepped through the hatch. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

“Yes, Marco,” he said as he motioned for him to come in.

Marco sat down in the chair that Doctor Williams had occupied only a moment ago.

“I need you to plot a course for a Four, Six intercept.”

“I can’t do that, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s impossible, sir. At our present speed, we’ll pass Six before we pass Four. I can give you a Six, Four intercept, if you like?”

Hal cast a glance at Ray, sure that they were having the same thought. In their fervor to find a way to rescue the advance team, neither of them had thought much about the position of the planets at their new arrival time. “Where will Five be when we arrive?”

“May I, sir?” Marco asked as he reached for the terminal on the captain’s desk. “As you can see here,” he explained as he called up the navigational display, “the fourth and sixth planets will have already crossed our projected course on their way around the other side of the star. But the fifth planet will still be half a lap behind them. As you remember, we had originally intended to come in behind the fifth planet while she was where the sixth planet is going to be now. I can take us wide of Six, if you like, right down Five’s orbital path in between them.”

Ray furrowed his brow as he studied the monitor. “What if we came in right down the middle, inside of the fourth planet’s orbit, with the star on our port quarter?”

Marco looked at Ray with a puzzled look on his face. “Why would we want to?”

“Answer the man,” Hal instructed his navigator. He had an idea what the old-timer was getting at.

“Well, I suppose we could. It’s not the most efficient course, but it wouldn’t cost us any more fuel. In fact, it might even save us a drop or two, since we wouldn’t have to make much of a course correction. We’ll take a little heat from the star, but nothing more than we can handle. But, I still don’t understand why.”

Ray picked up a stylus and drew a line on the screen to indicate his proposed course. Then he drew a dotted line that angled away from that course to the port, beginning just past the outer edge of the system and continued into the system until it intercepted Tau Ceti Five, as it would be coming around the far side of the star.

Marco’s eyes widened as he caught on, looking over to his captain who was holding one finger up to his lips.

“I’ll need you to calculate both those courses, Mister De Tullio. I prefer to have options available at all times, just in case,” the captain added with a wry smile.

“Yes, sir.”

“And I’ll need you to calculate a decision point as well.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll get on it right away, sir.”

“Thank you, Mister De Tullio. That’ll be all.”

“Yes, sir.” Marco rose and left the room, still puzzled by their conversation.

Again, Ray waited until the hatch was closed before speaking. “The council will fry your ass if they catch on.”

“That they will,” Hal agreed. “No matter, since once we arrive I’m going to be out of a job anyway.”

Ray laughed as he rose to leave. “You’re a lot like your great grand-pappy, my boy.” Ray patted him on the shoulder as he left. “A lot like him.”

Hal watched Ray leave as he thought,
Yup, we’re both willing to go along with your crazy schemes.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Maria had taken longer than Frank to recover. Being in RMS for nearly a month had left her muscles rather weak, and it took all her effort just to get up and go to the bathroom without assistance.

Nevertheless, it was several days before she was able to move slowly about the room. Proving to be capable assistants, Jack and Frank had gathered all manner of specimens during her convalescence. Everything from tissues and body fluids to samples of air, water, and even the foods that Jack and Frank had been eating. Each sample was carefully prepared according to Maria’s exact instructions, and run through the bio and genetic scanners in preparation for her perusal. All so she could focus on figuring out why the Cetian roots had made them better. The second question was almost as important. What had caused Jack to change? Maria was sure the two were connected.

Still frail and almost always tired, Maria had less than two weeks to solve the riddle and send the all-clear signal to the Daedalus. Even though they tried to hide the fact from her, Maria could tell that Jack and Frank were both incredibly anxious. Besides, Jack had yet to master the art of hiding those thoughts he did not wish to convey to others.

What bothered her most of all, and what she had hidden from both Frank
and
Jack, was how uneasy she felt
around
Jack. She had known him her entire life. She had even delivered both of his children. Yet, in his new form, she felt uncomfortable around him. No matter how much she tried to control her apprehension, it was always there, lingering in the back of her mind.

Jack, of course, could easily sense this. As his newfound telepathic abilities became more refined, he discovered that he could pick up on the emotions of those around him. He couldn’t actually read their thoughts, which seemed quite unfair, since they could easily read his, unless he was careful. And fear was the easiest emotion for him to detect.

Jack was also starting to feel the presence of something he mentally referred to as ‘signals’. The phenomenon felt almost like a measure of energy or a pulsing heat in his head. He had explained the strange headaches in degrees of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ to Frank, which had only earned him a confused stare. Jack knew that the signals manifested around living organisms, birds, and animals, but he could still feel them from some distance away, coming into his mind like the sound of a room full of chattering people. All in all, it was unnerving and nearly impossible to ignore.

On the plus side, this overload of signals only seemed to occur when he was outdoors, so staying inside the LRV for long periods of time was becoming easier. Instead of feeling confined, he welcomed the relative quiet within his own mind.

But the chores he could perform inside were becoming fewer and fewer with each passing day. His ability to read was almost gone, even though his ability to understand the spoken word was still there. But even that was starting to fade. Whenever Frank or Maria would speak to him, he found that understanding them required far more concentration than before. Words and phrases were beginning to have little meaning. Instead, he found himself understanding the intent of the sounds they made with their voices, even if he didn’t understand all the words they spoke. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t seem to have any problem understanding him when he spoke to them with his mind.

Frank seemed to be adapting well to Jack’s new form. Frank could even finish Jack’s thoughts on occasion, before Jack even knew what he was going to think.

The day-to-day chores had taken a natural division between the three of them. Jack, being the most adept at hunting and gathering, spent most of his time outside, collecting specimens, hunting game for their meals, and gathering what few edible plants he could find on the mostly snow-covered ground. Frank, meanwhile, took care of maintenance inside and outside of the LRV, which was fully powered up once more.

Of course, Maria lived in the med-lab, with occasional trips out to Laura’s genetics-lab in one of the exterior huts, to use some of the more specialized scanning equipment that enabled her to see right down to the very chemical bonds that held DNA strands together. When she was still bed-ridden, Maria had spent all of her time studying not only her own logs, but the logs of everyone else in the crew, paying particular attention to Laura’s genetics research. Somewhere in those logs, there might be a clue that could point her in the right direction. She had even gotten access to Will’s journal, despite Jack’s objections, since he carried it with him at all times. If she wanted to find an answer to this puzzle, she would need every clue she could get her hands on.

Maria had even spent endless hours interviewing Jack and Frank, repeatedly going over every detail of their adventures away from the camp and crew. It was frustrating, tedious work that often annoyed both Jack and Frank, having to repeat the same stories again and again. The constant fluid and tissue-gathering from their own bodies had become a nuisance as well. But at least it was one they could both understand.

Maria kept at it obsessively, hardly sleeping at night. Her own bio-scans showed her to be recovering every bit as well as Frank, but she was always tired and stressed, due to the great amount of pressure she was under.

There hadn’t been much open discussion about anything between the three of them over the past few days. Jack, sensing Maria’s fear of him, avoided her whenever possible. He occasionally had conversations, such as they were, with Frank. But between Franks ability to finish Jack’s thoughts and his usual overly enthusiastic optimism, Jack found their talks increasingly strained and difficult to tolerate, serving only to remind him of the disconnect that was slowly growing between himself and his friends.

Their original three sit-down meals per day had quickly dwindled down to only one, in the evening, as each of them had work to do that kept them busy during the day. But what had started out as a ritual to look forward to quickly became uncomfortable for Jack, who had little information to share with Frank and Maria. It was as if their points of view, their ways of seeing the universe, that were previously identical to his own, had changed. It was like sitting down with people from another culture, another world, in fact. Frank and Maria’s perceptions seemed so mistaken to Jack. It was as if they just didn’t understand the world around them. Jack found himself wondering how they could be so naive. It all seemed so clear to him.

What was worse was that this change had left Jack feeling like an outsider, a third wheel. He found himself making up excuses to finish quickly and depart, or to miss the evening meal altogether.

Frank felt Jack’s estrangement, and it troubled him greatly. Although he did his best to hide this from Jack, he suspected Jack already knew.

Maria, on the other hand, seemed far more relaxed when Jack was not at the dinner table. She was also aware of Jack’s separation, and she felt guilty for the way she felt when he was around. She tried to remember the old Jack, whom she admired and respected. The dedicated leader and family man who would make any sacrifice for those around him. But with each passing day, she felt that man slipping away forever. And although she would never say as much to Frank, unless she could find a way to reverse Jack’s mutations, she feared that one day Jack would simply vanish from their presence and leave them for the wilderness beyond the ship.

* * *

“Too late to get some dinner?” Jena asked as she stepped up to the serving station in the main mess hall.

“I think I can rustle something up for you,” the young cook answered.

Jena was interning as Captain Ishkin’s administrative assistant. At twenty-two years of age, she was the youngest person on the bridge. But to the cook, she was one of the few eligible women left on board. And besides, she was attractive, pleasant, and intelligent. Thus, the cook’s intern did all he could to put together a hot meal for her, even if most of his serving line was already torn down and stored away. “Just give me a few minutes,” he promised her. “I’ll bring it out to you.”

“Thanks,” she sighed. Jena took a seat at the closest empty table. The mess hall was generally deserted this time of the evening, except for a few late diners still sitting around, drinking tea and chatting about the day’s events. As it had been for several weeks, the topic of whispered conversations was about the council’s decision to forsake the Icarus crew and head for a safer destination. As to be expected, some agreed, while others found the decision reprehensible. These days, Jena was thankful that her schedule usually put her dinner at such a late hour. So many of her peers thought that she, being so close to the ship’s captain, might have something to add to their conversations, and the incessant inquires irritated her.

She personally had no opinion on the fate of the Icarus. At least, that’s what she told herself. Over the last two years, one of the things she had learned was that those in command had to make tough decisions, and they never made them without careful consideration. She was happy just being an administrative assistant. It was not as exciting and glamorous as many of the other necessary professions on board, but there was no stress to it. At least, not until recently.

“How’s this?” the cook asked as he set a tray down in front of her.

Jena looked the food over. It was the usual fare, a small cut of some meat grown in the genetics-lab, a side of vegetable grown on the ag-deck, and a minor serving of pasta. All perfectly balanced, nutritionally speaking, even if it was predictable. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to a small bowl of some sort of colorful salad that he had placed next to her plate.

“It’s a multi-bean salad.”

“Beans? Are they cooked?” she asked as she poked at it with her fork.

“Of course,” he laughed. “It’s a little experiment of mine. They had some extra in the last harvest, and I asked if I could try to come up with something new with them.”

“Is it safe?” she joked as she scooped up a few beans.

“No one’s died yet, if that’s what you mean.”

Jena reluctantly took a bite, pleasantly surprised by the unusual flavor of the dressing. “Mmm, that’s not bad. What’s that dressing? I don’t recognize the flavor.”

“Garlic, and onion.”

“Yes, but there’s something else in there.”

“Cilantro,” the young cook boasted.

“Cilantro? I’ve never heard of that.”

“I found it in some old cookbooks from Earth, in the ship’s database. It was real popular in a lot of the trendy little soup and salad cafés back on Earth in the late twenty-first century.”

“Really? I didn’t know they grew it on board.”

“They don’t. They should, but they don’t. You know how it is, not enough space, only the usual produce and all that.”

Jena could see the frustration in his face. “Makes it kind of tough to be creative, huh?”

“Just a little.”

“Then where did you get it?”

“I grew it myself,” he bragged. “Under the heat lamps.” The cook pointed at the serving counter, to a small flat of plants sitting under the lamps at the far end.

“Where did you get the seeds?”

“I’ve got a buddy who works on the storage deck.”

“Can’t you get in trouble for that?”

“What are they gonna do? Toss me off the ship? The head chef is about to retire. And with us being so close to landing, nobody’s interested in being a cook. They all want to be scientists…to do the important work.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. How do you keep the lights burning all the time? I mean, that’s gotta cost a lot of power credits.”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time in the dark at home,” he laughed. “So I could spend my own credits on the extra power.”

“Just to grow some herbs to make some salad?”

“Hey, it beats turning out the same old slop, day in and day out. Did you know that there have only been six truly-new recipes invented on board since Chef Scheller died?
Six
… In
thirty-five years
! Besides, I’ve gotta get ready. Once we start growing a bigger variety of produce, I’m not going to be able to get away with churning out rabbit-meat patties and pasta for very long!”

The young cook’s laughter and enthusiasm were refreshing to Jena, especially at the end of a long day. “Well, it’s nice to know somebody is having fun at work.”

“What’s the matter?” the young man asked as he sat down across the table from her. He had been hoping to strike up a conversation with her for some time. “Rough day at the office?”

“Rough week. Ever since we changed course, everyone has been skulking around the flight deck like someone died.”

“Yeah, well, a lot of people aren’t happy with the council’s decision.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s something else. I don’t know what. Everybody is being very hush-hush on the bridge. And the usual reports that I would have to summarize for the captain are bypassing me and being hand-delivered. Usually by the ship’s navigator or the XO himself. Now I don’t get them until the end of the day, so I have to stay late to update the log entries. And even then, the captain has rewritten the reports. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Do officers ever make any sense?” the cook joked, trying to offer a sympathetic ear. It had taken him six weeks to grow that cilantro, and it was finally paying off.

A few rows behind her, another late diner listened intently to their conversation. He found the last bit quite interesting. And he was sure that his own preceptor would find it intriguing as well. He listened for a few more minutes, until he was sure their conversation had turned away from matters of work, taking a more personal course just as the young cook had hoped.

The eavesdropping man stepped into the hallway outside of the mess hall and headed down the corridor as he looked at his watch.
The chief council member will still be awake
, he thought as he headed up the stairs toward the housing decks.

* * *

“Frank!” Maria was obviously excited about something, as she entered the wardroom where Frank was finishing his dinner.

“What is it?”

Maria looked around. “Where’s Jack?”