Fatal Boarding (15 page)

There was a long pause before an answer
came. I sensed the Captain wanted to ask if it were really
necessary, though he already knew it was. "I'll be there shortly.
Grey out."

"Does this support your new theory,
R.J.?"

"All my previous theories have just been
blown out of the water. And, I do not like the newest one."

"That this is what happened to the other
ship's crew?"

"Exotic viruses are the most difficult thing
in the universe to isolate and combat. This one looks like a
beauty. I would already be running except that it's too late for
that."

We stood guard outside the airlock door,
waiting for the Captain. He came plodding down the corridor twenty
minutes later. I opened the heavy door, and without speaking he
entered. I closed and locked it.

When he had examined what was left of
Tolson, he looked at us with a vacant stare. "This is how you found
him?"

"Exactly. The airlock doors had already been
unsealed."

"How did the search team miss him?"

"It's a controlled facility. They wouldn't
look here without special reason. The alarms were bypassed before
the door was opened. No one noticed the lead seals broken."

"Get the Doctor in here, right now. Have him
come alone, and bring a surgical kit."

Doctor Pacell was already irritated and
exasperated when he arrived. We stood by the door as he raised the
foil. His exclamation made R.J. jump. "What in god's name!"

Grey stood over him, staring down.

"Oh no! Oh my lord, there's a pulse." He
looked up at Grey and shook his head. It's weak, but he's still
alive!

Grey looked incredulous. "Cut him out of it,
now!"

The Doctor hesitated. "I'm not sure that's
such a good idea."

"Do it!"

Pacell removed a laser scalpel from his
case. He tested it and leaned close over the body. "Son of a
bitch!" He sat up and shook his head sadly. "I can't cut it off
him."

"Why not?"

"It bleeds."

"With a laser scalpel, it bleeds?"

"See for yourself. We've got to get him to
sick bay where I can study what is happening."

Grey sounded off balance. "This must be kept
absolutely quiet, Doctor. How do we do that?"

The Doctor thought for a moment. “There's a
hazardous waste disposal corridor just around the corner. They
always have one near the airlock. It’s shared by the small
emergency OR. We can move him in there and keep him isolated. If
this thing is an air born, we've all been exposed already,
anyway."

Grey looked at me. "Tarn, can we do it?"

"I agree we shouldn't call for any other
help, Captain. But I'd guess Commander Tolson's weight to be about
210. In this one-and-a-half G gravity that would put him at about
315. With our own extra weight, I'm not sure we can move him."

The Doctor broke in. "A collapsible gurney.
If we can get him onto it, we'll only need to lift him over the
door stanchions. We have one for rescue right in the airlock,
behind that compartment. If anyone sees us they become part of
it."

So we hustled around and set everything up,
and somehow got the thing Tolson had become onto the gurney. It
turned out to be a messy job. We used plastic gloves the Doctor had
brought in his surgical kit. The jelly that covered Tolson wanted
to stick to our hands and ooze through our fingers. Every time that
happened, it felt as if a little of Tolson had come off on us.

The four of us hustled around like tragic
comics. A Captain, a security officer, a doctor, and an inspector,
struggling in the heavy gravity to move a monster without being
seen. At one point, three of us stuck our heads out the open
airlock door at the same time to see if the way was clear. It would
have been a perfect clip for a Marx brother’s movie. With desperate
patience, and unexpected good luck, we made it to the emergency
O.R. without being seen.

Grey peeled the gloves off his hands and
nodded to Pacell. "Can you give me anything at all about this,
Doctor?"

"I think it's pretty obvious, don't you? A
metamorphosis is taking place. Commander Tolson's body is clearly
in a preliminary stage to what we saw on the other ship. We've had
people experiencing memory loss, and bad dreams since we've been
here. I had a woman come in this morning who wanted to hide in
sickbay because she said she woke up and found a little old man
beside her bed, molesting her. She said when she screamed, he
disappeared. Tolson is probably the first to reach the more
advanced stage. When the change began, he became schizophrenic and
irrational. He went to the best place he could think of to hide,
the airlock. He even covered himself with the foil before
succumbing. The same thing happened over there on that ship. The
whole crew was affected. They all went to that lower level to hide,
and eventually ended up in what we found there. If Tolson is still
alive, there’s a chance they are, too!"

Grey did not want to believe it. "But why
would they all hide in the same place?"

“They were irrational. They all knew that
was the best place, so they all went there. It makes perfect
sense."

Grey stared at the opaque lump of flesh on
the operating table. Tolson was beginning to look more like a
jellyfish than a human. "Doctor, this is your only job for now on.
Get some answers. Find a way to stop this."

"You don't need to tell me, Captain."

Grey looked at us. You two get cleaned up
and then come directly to my quarters."

Chapter 16

On the way to Grey's stateroom, for no
apparent reason, I began to feel better about things. It took a
moment to realize that the gravity level was returning to normal.
In the corridor on the seventh level, I passed two crewmen
whispering to each other as they worked in an open electronics
compartment. They paused and watched as I passed, then resumed the
discussion in low tones.

I arrived to find R.J. already there.
Captain Grey's room was a tidy place, with little hints of real
life tucked in here and there. A conch shell sat on an end table. A
picture of family stood beside it. Two gold medallions, mounted in
dark stained wood were mounted on the wall by the door.
Certificates of rank hung opposite them. Moderately thick, dark
green carpet covered the floor. On the right, two reclining chairs
faced a wrap around sofa. The room was L-shaped. A chart table sat
in the corner with four chairs. Within the L, there were two
complex computer terminals with an odd sliding door between them. I
guessed it to be a large, classified document closet. On my left,
the door to the bath, and next to it an open closet.

"Please have a seat over here, Mr. Tarn. Mr.
Smith and I have just finished."

R.J. wiggled fingers at me and rolled his
eyes as he passed by on his way out. He left without looking
back.

I sat across from Grey at the clear
Plexiglas chart table. For the moment, the Captain seemed to have
regained his businessfied persona.

"Let's get right down to it. We have a lot
to cover. First, I'm making you executive officer in Tolson's
absence."

"What?"

"The Doctor assures me Commander Tolson will
not be getting back to his old self."

"Captain, there are at least half a dozen
bridge officers who would expect to take Tolson's place in this
kind of situation!"

"Mr. Tarn, do not disappoint me by suddenly
becoming humble. I could give a rat's ass what anyone wants. I know
more about you than I ever wanted to. I am picky about staff. Yes,
there are others more qualified than you. That's not the point! In
case you haven't noticed, we're in deep shit here! I have studied
your illustrious service history quite thoroughly. In your 14 years
of haphazard service you have been involved in 82.5 percent more
mishaps than the average officer. I don't claim to know why that
is. I do know that for some strange reason whenever things really
go to shit, you and those around you somehow emerge essentially
unscathed. Can you tell me why that is, Mr. Tarn?"

I sat dumbfounded. "82.5 percent?"

"The real point is, Mr Tarn, I need your
luck, if you can call it that. So it is Commander Tarn after you
leave this room, understand?"

I opened my mouth with nothing to say, and
he cut me off.

"I will inform bridge personnel of this
change immediately, in case there are problems. You will set up in
Commander Tolson's office, immediately. Don't think I'm doing you
any favors, Tarn. You will have your hands full from the word go. I
had hoped that pulling away from that piece of garbage out there
would calm the crew. We will move away, but it will only be a
temporary consolation. When word about Tolson's condition starts to
leak out, there will be real panic. If any other cases show up, it
will become hysteria. People will do anything to get off this ship.
You'll have to lock out the escape pods and control them from
Security Headquarters. People have been known to go crazy in these
kinds of situations and blow hatch covers trying to get away from
the danger. You're inheriting an impossible job, Mr. Tarn. When we
finally get back to light speed, we'll of course be heading
directly to Earth. They'll quarantine us in orbit, and rightfully
so. We are already transmitting emergency beacons and have been for
some time."

I shook my head in disbelief. "We still have
a team searching the ship for Commander Tolson. What do you want me
to do?"

"The story will be that Tolson had a heart
attack while inspecting a sensor failure in the airlock. God knows,
I’m surprised Brandon didn’t already give him one. Contact the
Doctor and coordinate that with him."

"Nobody has heart attacks!"

"It happens. It's rare, but problems do
sneak by sometimes. That isn't important. No cover story will last
long. The Doctor hasn't had any luck in analyzing Tolson's
condition. It will have to be addressed on the DNA level. He can't
continue the work alone. A research team will be organized to
assist him. He'll recruit some of his own staff and two of the PHDs
from Life Sciences. Word will leak out soon after that. The
objective is to cover this up until after we move the ship away at
13:00. We have normal gravity, but the auto-controllers are still
not functioning. We cannot accelerate any appreciable amount
without splattering everyone and everything against the bulkheads.
We'll move as far as we can, then stop and reevaluate. By that time
Doctor Pacell will have organized his research team. Your worst
problems will begin soon after that. Hopefully by then, our
situation will be improving."

Grey pushed back his chair and went to the
nearest computer terminal. He grabbed a file folder, returned, and
slid it across the table at me and sat back down. "That's the
official Ex/O brief. Below the cover sheet are the access codes we
both need to know. You must memorize them and destroy the sheet
before you leave. There are several other failsafe codes you must
create yourself in security, codes that I am not allowed to know.
It will also tell you what locked out files in the ship's database
are required reading. And, there is one file in particular I must
discuss with you now.”

Grey sat down and leaned back. "We have an
important attribute on this ship that you are not aware of. The
codename is 'Emissary'. The Emissary file is highly privileged
information, Mr. Tarn. You may have trouble accepting it."

"I'm learning to keep an open mind."

"You'll need it. You’re supposed to have
months of training before you receive this info. Only the top two
on-boards get it. It goes like this, all exploratory light speed
vehicles from Earth carry an extra passenger known only to the
Captain and Ex/O. Interface with this Emissary occurs only with the
Captain, unless the Captain becomes incapacitated. These emissaries
are residents from a system near the Dael nebula. They call
themselves Nasebians. They are highly advanced, thousands of years
ahead of us."

"Did you just say we are carrying an alien
on board?"

"That's correct. Nasebian emissaries have
been provided to all interstellar Earth ships since the first light
speed drive system was declared operational. The agreement was
actually made several years before that. Their purpose is to
prevent us from straying into areas of the galaxy we should not.
They keep us from unintentionally imposing ourselves on other
civilizations or their properties. They assist us in situations we
do not understand. Unfortunately, our Emissary apparently has no
previous experience with what is happening to us now. We have not
received any help."

"Where are his quarters?"

“It’s not shown on ship layouts. It’s beyond
that door between the two consoles.”

"What does he do?"

"The Emissary remains in personal quarters,
almost exclusively."

"For the entire six months?"

"Mr. Tarn, Nasebians have a life expectancy
of one to two thousand years. Six months to them is like a weekend
away."

"And he spends that time completely
alone?"

"They consider exposure to a race at our
level of development to be distasteful. For them, communicating
with us is like pretending that something that's wrong is actually
acceptable. They are repulsed by the idea of exchanging breath with
us. They consider solitary time to be a gift."

"Well, they’re not too advanced to be
screwed right alongside us, though.”

"You're getting the wrong idea. They're
benevolent. Don't go applying our ethics and morality to a creature
who's thousands of years beyond that."

"What do they look like?"

"They are slightly tall. No hair of any
kind. Light skinned. The cranium a little large. Big, black slanted
eyes, and very thin, long arms and legs. Four fingers, one short,
three long. They wear robes that hang to the floor."