Excelsior (28 page)

Doctor Crespin was expecting them and he greeted them all on the other side of the airlock. “Welcome back,” he said, his voice transmitted by external speakers in his helmet. “How are you feeling, Max?”

“Never better.”

“Tired?”

“Actually no. I had a good sleep.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. Please follow me—all of you, and do keep your helmets on for now—although if our findings continue to hold true, we may be able to take them off soon.”

“How’s that, Doctor?” Alexander asked.

“It would be better if I showed you.”

The quarantine module was the same size as all the others—about a thousand square feet, but this module seemed smaller for all the equipment that had been crammed into it—not the least of which were four stretcher beds. Alexander spied Seth Ryder lying on one of them, sitting up and watching them as they approached. Lieutenant McAdams stood beside him. Both of them still had their pressure suits and helmets on.

“While you were gone, I’ve been studying the atmosphere with McAdams as you requested, Captain. The composition of elements in the air is definitely breathable, but I suppose you already know that from Max.”

Alexander nodded.

“The air is also safe to breathe as far as we can tell. We’ve only collected samples around the habs, but we didn’t identify any airborne pathogens, and I’ve taken the liberty of using Ryder here to test for allergens. Again, at least as far as he’s concerned, we didn’t find anything worrying, but we won’t know for sure until we test a sizable group of people. He is apparently a good test subject, though. How did you put it, Mr. Ryder?”

“Just lookin’ at a flower back on Earth makes me sneeze. My nose is a snot farm in the spring.”

“Lovely,” Korbin said.

Crespin smiled behind his helmet. “Yes. Here comes the really interesting part.” He turned to a table beside him and picked a vial of dirt from a case of matching vials. He held it up to the light so that everyone could see. “We had some extra time, so we got to studying soil samples. We were particularly interested in finding strains of bacteria that might be harmful to humans, since that would be a significant obstacle to the planet’s habitability. “So far, we’ve identified fifty two different strains of bacteria, and twelve viruses found living inside of them. The viruses are completely inert to us because what passes for DNA and RNA on Wonderland is literally worlds apart from our own genetic code. For them to mess with our cells using their genetic instructions would be like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.”

Alexander nodded. “That’s a relief.”

“As for the bacteria, there’s a much more interesting story there…”

“How so?”

Alexander noticed that McAdams was fidgeting, looking like a pot of boiling water ready to explode. “Why don’t we turn down the lights?”

Crespin nodded. “Yes, let’s do that,” he said, and made a gesture to the hab module’s optical sensor.

The lights faded to black, leaving them in darkness, but for a weak radiance bleeding through the hab canvas overhead.

“Wait for it…” Crespin said.

“Wait for what?” Alexander asked.

A split second later the vial with the soil sample began glowing blue. Alexander remembered the glowing plants in the jungle. Maybe that effect had been caused by bacteria.

“Incredible…” Cardinal breathed.

“Bio-luminescent bacteria,” Alexander guessed.

“Yes, and their photosynthetic counterparts.”

“Photosynthetic?” Alexander felt his eyebrows floating up. “Like plants?”

“Exactly,” Crespin said. “One type of bacteria produces light, while another type feeds on the light that they produce.”

“Wouldn’t that make them parasites?” Cardinal asked.

“It would, but the photosynthetic bacteria also produce things that the bio-luminescent ones need. They’re symbiotes. Without one, the other can’t exist—lights,” Crespin said, issuing a verbal command this time. The hab’s illumination returned to normal and the vial stopped glowing.

“So what does that mean for us?” Alexander asked.

“It wouldn’t mean much, except that there’s no sunlight inside our bodies, so the photosynthetic bacteria can’t survive there without their bio-luminescent counterparts, and after extensive testing, I’ve confirmed that the bio-luminescent bacteria can’t live inside of us. The environment in our bodies is completely toxic to them.”

“So you’re saying we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Well, no. We have only studied a very small number of bacteria so far. I’m saying that we don’t have to worry about these bacteria. We’d need to spend years testing samples here with a team of hundreds or maybe even thousands to be sure that none of Wonderland’s microorganisms are infectious to us.”

Alexander felt himself growing impatient. “So you really haven’t established anything yet.”

Doctor Crespin drew himself up, seeming to take umbrage at that. “We’ve found bio-luminescent bacteria living in symbiosis with photosynthetic ones. I thought you might find that interesting.”

Alexander sighed. Scientists. “It is interesting, but it’s not the green light for colonization that we’re looking for.”

Crespin nodded to Max. “If you want a green light, all we need to do is study him. One day’s exposure to the elements without a helmet is going to give us more insight than a year’s worth of tests. It’s a lucky thing that happened. We never could have authorized intentionally exposing someone to Wonderland, but now we don’t have to.”

“I’m not sure if I should feel honored or insulted,” Max said.

“Definitely honored,” Crespin replied. “If you die, you will have saved the lives of thousands of colonists by preventing them from coming here—or at least by preventing them from exposing themselves to Wonderland the way you have. And if you live, you’ll be responsible for making colonization a possibility much sooner than what would have otherwise been the case. Either way you’ll be a hero.”

“A dead hero.”

“Better than a live failure.”

“I’m the president’s direct representative! Hardly a failure.”

“Yes, of course,” Crespin said, his tone indulgent.

“Keep us informed, Doctor,” Alexander said. “Do you need to perform any tests on the rest of us?”

Crespin shook his head. “No. Not unless anyone else was exposed to some part of Wonderland?”

They all shook their heads.

“Then you’re free to go.”

Alexander nodded. “Let me know if there are any more interesting developments.”

“Of course.”

Turning to address the rest of the crew, Alexander said, “Let’s go get some food and rest. We’ve earned it.”

“Actually,” Cardinal began, “I’d like to stay here and begin studying my samples. Given McAdams and Doctor Crespin’s findings I have some interesting leads to follow.”

“Suit yourself. Stone?”

He shook his head. “I can study rocks later. They’ll still be waiting for me after a meal and a hot shower.”

Alexander nodded and started for the nearest exit into the rest of the hab complex. While he was in the airlock waiting for yet another decontamination cycle, Stone turned to him, his brow furrowed with concern behind his helmet. “We need to talk, Captain.”

“I’m listening.”

“There’s something strange going on here.”

“More than one something,” Korbin put in.

Stone glanced her way. “No, I mean…”

The light above the airlock turned green and the inner doors slid open, admitting them to the adjacent mess and recreation module. Alexander twisted his helmet to break the seals and breathed his first breath of fresh air in more than twelve hours of search and rescue operations. The rest of the crew walked by him, already twisting off their own helmets. Only Stone stuck around. Alexander ran his fingers through his sweat-matted hair, enthusiastically scratching at itches that had been taunting him for hours. Stone removed his own helmet and scratched for moment, too, but his head was shaved so close there wasn’t much to make him itch. His hair looked like a shadow on his scalp.

Alexander nodded to the nearest couch. “Let’s sit. My feet are killing me after that hike through the jungle.”

Stone nodded.

Once seated, Alexander asked, “What’s on your mind?”

“Wonderland. Have you noticed how many coincidences are piling up?”

“I’ve noticed a few—why?”

“A few? We all predicted breathable air. Vasquez predicted tsunamis and then one of them hit us. I joked that we might run into a hairy T-rex when I was trying to convince you to take the Cheetahs, and Max confirmed that’s what was chasing him… do I need to go on?”

Alexander shook his head. “What are you trying to say, Stone? That Wonderland is haunted?”

“No… maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that every time we predict something here, it has a way of happening.”

“Let’s not get superstitious. Statistically, coincidences have to occur eventually, even a chain of them, and in retrospect those coincidences tend to look more ordered than they are. Our brains are good at recognizing patterns, but that doesn’t mean there’s any meaning to them. There’s no possible mechanism here for a relationship of cause and effect between our predictions and what we actually find on Wonderland.”

“Logically, I have to agree, but the evidence is mounting. Come on. Try it. Predict something. If it happens, we’ll know that something strange is going on here.”

“Or we’ll know that we made a reasonable prediction based on the available evidence.”

“So make an unreasonable prediction.”

“All right, fine. I predict that the trees are going to start talking to us.”

“That’s good, but I think Cardinal already believes that—especially now that he’s found plants that move. Try something more specific.”

“Okay, they’re going to tell us to go home before we destroy their planet the way we did ours.”

Stone smiled. “Good. That’ll do.”

Alexander suddenly looked up to the ceiling, then all around him, slowly panning his gaze back and forth, as if tracking a fly.

“What is it?”

Alexander cocked his head and put a hand to his ear. “Do you hear that?”

Stone’s brow dropped and his eyes narrowed. “No.”

“It sounds like… leaves rustling in the wind… I think they’re saying something! It’s not very clear…”

“Very funny.”

“Hold on, I have it—Humans go home. That’s it. They want us to leave. We’d better start packing our bags. Sound the alert, Lieutenant.”

“All right, I’m out of here,” Stone said, rising from the couches.

Alexander feigned surprise. “You didn’t hear them?”

Stone leveled a finger at him. “Joke all you want, but if that actually happens, don’t come crying to me.”

“If that actually happens, I’ll never eat another salad again.”

“You hate salad.”

Alexander grinned. “So it won’t be hard to live up to.”

“Yeah…” Stone turned to leave. “Goodnight, sir.”

Alexander watched him go, his smile fading to a frown. As ridiculous as it sounded, Stone had put his finger on something that had been quietly bothering Alexander for days. So far Wonderland had met all of their expectations, and at this point, talking trees wouldn’t surprise him one bit.

That night, as Alexander lay in his hab module, drifting off to sleep with his mind caught in a hallucinogenic state somewhere between awake and dreaming, he thought he heard leaves rustling. The rustling became indistinct whispering, and he dreamed of giant, kilometer-high trees waving their branches in a deliberate dance, as if trying to communicate with him through sign language.

Alexander’s mind flashed back to a memory from the jungle—black branches writhing like snakes, larger ones undulating like waves. Under the influence of dream-logic, the patterns all made perfect sense, and he understood what the trees were trying to say. They weren’t saying humans go home.

They were saying welcome home.

Alexander awoke the next morning with a deep frown and a furrowed brow. He tried to focus on his dreams, to remember them clearly, but they slipped away like sand running through his fingers. All he could remember clearly was that the trees had been talking to him.

Alexander smiled as reason intruded on that fantasy. It was just a dream, and he’d had that dream as a direct consequence of his conversation with Lieutenant Stone.

Just another coincidence, he insisted to himself.