Inseminoid (3 page)

He was about to get down to work when a high pitched tone wailed.

“His heart’s stopped!” Karl shouted. Working feverishly, he pushed a thin needle into the stricken man’s chest and brought up the juice. The electrical current running through him caused Dean’s body to vibrate so violently he nearly jerked off the stretcher and on to the floor. The doctor and his assistant needed all their combined strength to hold him down.

Karl checked his computer reading again and breathed a sigh of relief. The heart beat had returned. He cut the current and Dean once again lay still.

“That was a close one,” he admitted. Then he took a good long look at the extensive injuries. He didn’t know where to begin. “The guy’s arm is nearly blown off and the back of his head looks like a steam roller ran over it.”

“Any hope?” Holly asked.

“Slim to none.”

Holly had come to the point where she would have to make her first life-and-death decision. She could allow Karl to operate and pray for that elusive miracle. Or she could put Dean on ice until they returned to the space station and hope that he survived the thawing-out process. Finally she said, “Freeze him.”

Karl looked at her just to make sure he’d heard correctly.

“Freeze him,” she repeated. “We don’t have the equipment here to do him much good. When we get back to the hospital, well, maybe something can be done.”

Karl shook his head. “That’s a big maybe. But you’re the commander and I can’t give any guarantees.”

“So you agree with me?” she asked.

“I suppose so.”

Sandy watched Karl for the signal to begin the freezing process. He nodded once and she began. The assistant removed a zippered bag from the supply cabinet and laid it next to the body. While she was doing this, Karl readied the chemical solution to be injected into the bloodstream. As soon as the solution had mixed in sufficient degree, the vital organs would chill, followed by a frosting of the blood supply. The chemical agent would last only long enough to get Dean zipped up and placed in the freezer compartment.

Sandy and Karl worked well together. They knew instinctively what the other wanted and it was rare that verbal instructions had to be given. The transfer from the stretcher to the bag was made quickly and Dean was wheeled to the freezer. Karl went in alone, leaving Sandy waiting at the portal. As he lowered the stiffening body into the glass case, he looked at Dean’s eyes for a brief second. The sudden change in temperature had caused the bag to steam up and small icicles formed on Dean’s face.

Karl left the freezer, shutting the heavy door behind him. The fresh warmth felt good on his bare arms and face.

“What now?” Sandy asked.

“Now, we get back to Ricky and make sure he’s okay.”

“I’ll get him down to the infirmary,” she offered.

Sandy moved quickly through the corridors to Ricky’s cabin. She’d surprised herself by how unemotionally she handled the crisis. She was determined to be strong and professional, especially so because she’d always been typecast as the dumb, helpless blonde. She deeply resented that label because it was so far from the truth. Yeah, she was a knock-out. Long silky blonde hair, soft white skin, firm breasts and a shapely ass, but hell, it wasn’t her fault. Was she supposed to get fat so people would take her seriously? Screw ’em!

It wasn’t her fault either that she had a finely tuned mind. But she was going to use that advantage to its fullest potential, even if her appearance was a drawback in her job.

Sandy had finished in the top ten per cent of her class at the Academy. She’d taken high honours in medicine; her field of specialisation was transplants. After graduating she was offered a teaching post but she’d turned it down for a chance to work in the field. “What good is a teacher who’s never been tested in a crisis?” she asked the Board of Regents in rejecting their offer. “How could students respect such a teacher?” Especially one they considered a dumb blonde.

She didn’t even mind being Karl’s second. Sandy knew she’d learn more about the practical side of intergalactic medicine from the likes of him than from any amount of classroom study.

When she reached Rick’s cabin, she rapped lightly on the door.

“Come in.”

“Karl would like you down in the infirmary. He wants to do the tests now.”

“If
you
want to do the tests, we can stay right here. I have a bed and I’d enjoy it a lot more if you took my pulse rather than Karl.”

That was just the kind of bullshit that Sandy couldn’t get away from. “Karl’s waiting for you. Don’t make him wait too long.”

Ricky had stripped to his underwear and was sitting on the examining table. He was the youngest member of the crew and the most inexperienced. But without a doubt, he was in the finest shape. He worked out in the gym every morning and afternoon to keep his strong muscular body in top-notch condition. Even Sandy found herself admiring his bulging forearms and solid thighs. Not to mention a certain other bulging part of his anatomy. As much as she tried to be professional, she was still very much a woman.

Karl was studying something else. A reddish sore had appeared on Ricky’s arm. Karl held the wound up to the light for a better look. “Seems to be a burn. A bad burn.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Ricky said.

Karl was surprised. “No?” The doctor applied pressure to the area around the injury. “How about this? Any pain?”

Ricky shook his head. “Can’t feel a thing.”

“Only numbness?”

“That’s right, Doc. I wouldn’t worry about it though. It’ll be fine.”

Karl wasn’t so sure. He didn’t like the look of it. “Very unusual.” The doctor rested a finger directly on the open sore but even that didn’t produce a response from Ricky, other than a weak smile and a shrug.

“Only thing I can figure,” Karl said, “is that you’ve suffered some nerve damage. I’m giving you a cream to apply to the affected area twice a day until it’s healed. Now, let me look at your head.” Karl felt at the back of Ricky’s skull. “You’ve got a bump the size of a grapefruit.”

“Hey, Doc, I’m all right. I swear to you,” Ricky protested.

Karl was sceptical. “Maybe yes. Maybe no.” He reached for a camera-like device attached to the computerised medical scanner and told Ricky to remain still. He positioned the machine at the back of Ricky’s skull and pushed a button. Immediately, a picture of Ricky’s brain was printed by the computer. Karl lifted it from the tray and held it under the light. “Well, at least that’s all it seems to be.”

“What’s that?” Ricky asked.

“A bump on the head. Take the rest of the day off. Sleep, relax, whatever you want.”

“I’d really like to get back to work, though. I think we were close to something out there when the explosion hit.”

“Holly is seeing to that. Get some rest. That’s an order!”

Ricky finally gave in. “Sure, why not?” He jumped to the floor and put his clothes back on.

Gail and Kate approached the scene of the explosion with caution, keeping command informed about their progress as they went. Holly had made it clear that constant communication was to be the rule, not the exception.

Gail was bright and quietly aggressive. She had to be. She didn’t come from a family of professionals. In fact she was the only member of the exploration team who hadn’t attended the Academy or one of its affiliated institutions. While all her school friends had got married and made babies, Gail was busy spending her time in the library. When she thought she was ready, after years of self-study, she applied to take the Equivelency Exam. Only six out of 14,000 who attempted the test that year passed. She surprised everyone but herself by being one of that select group.

She and Kate had been on a few missions together and had become fast friends. Kate was just Gail’s opposite. She had been born with that silver spoon in her mouth. She’d had anything and everything she’d wanted as a child. The world was hers on a platter but she woke up one morning very sick of it all. She knew she had to do something important on her own, something she couldn’t buy with her family’s money, and so she attended the Academy.

When the two young women reached the entrance of the rocky mound, they radioed their position to Holly. She told them to proceed. They stepped inside the tomb-like structure and moved to where Dean had been dug out. Blocking their way was a large boulder. Gail reached out to move it but to her astonishment it crumbled into dust at her touch.

“Don’t know your own strength,” Kate mused.

“A comedian,” Gail replied.

As they both learned shortly, it didn’t have anything to do with raw power, because every rock they handled crumbled the same way. Under the circumstances, they had no problem clearing the way to the inner chamber.

“This is where Dean and Ricky were at the time of the explosion,” Kate commented.

They exchanged glances and shone their lights into the darkness. They went into a low cave, so low that they were forced to keep their bodies bent to avoid hitting their helmets on the rocks protruding from above. They increased the power on the lanterns and surveyed their surroundings.

“What’s that over there?” Kate asked. She pointed with her gloved hand to the wall directly opposite them.

Gail moved closer and rested her lantern on the ground. Stacked in neat rows from the floor to the ceiling were hundreds of stone slabs, each measuring a foot square.

Gail lifted one of them and brought the light on to it. There were engravings on it—a strange collection of marks, lines and squiggles she could not understand.

“What do you think they are?” Kate asked, joining her colleague.

Before replying, Gail attempted to shine her lantern past the rock slabs. The cave wasn’t small after all. In fact, the pile of tablets extended for as far as her beam would go.

“I think we may have found the key to this civilisation. There’s no doubt that we’ve discovered something very important. I’d better advise Holly about the find.”

Gail tried to raise the commander on her communicator but the signals didn’t seem to get through the tomb. She decided she’d better return to the planet’s surface to radio the message.

“Stay put,” Holly told her. “And don’t touch anything. Mitch and I will be there in fifteen minutes.”

And they were. Mitch didn’t waste a second getting into his suit and attaching a full supply of oxygen. He’d waited months, no, years, for a discovery of this magnitude and there was no holding him back at this point.

Holly found it hard to keep up with him. The tall slender space-suited figure looked humorous leaping through the atmosphere to the excavation site. Holly appeared just as funny taking short quick steps to stay close behind.

Once inside the tomb, they were led to the chamber with the tablets. Mitch resembled a man in an antique shop dusting off long-forgotten items of value. And there was no denying the authenticity of these antiques. Mitch kept his light glued to the slabs, nervously shaking his head back and forth in his excitement. “Never seen anything like it before!”

“Do you think they’ll be hard to crack?” Holly asked the professor.

Instinctively Mitch brought his hand up to stroke his chin as he always did when in deep thought, but this time his helmet got in the way and he dropped his hand to his side. “Hard to crack? Hard to crack! Can’t say really. No, can’t say. Too early. But I want to get down to work as soon as possible. When can we move these tablets to the complex?”

“Right now,” Holly said. “But we’ll have to use the forklift. There’s far too many for us to carry by hand.”

She called the control room and ordered the forklift. They waited in silence the half-hour before it appeared. No one spoke, mostly out of respect for Mitch. He was finding the episode a religious experience. He was certain he had at his fingertips the chronicles of . . . of . . . of what he wasn’t yet sure. But he’d soon learn.

Mark broke the quiet. “I can’t get the forklift any closer. It won’t make it through the opening.”

“Then we’ll have to carry the tablets to it,” Holly said.

That upset Mitch. “Be very careful. We mustn’t break even a single one. And keep them in the order in which they’re stacked. Don’t confuse the order. Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all.”

For the next five hours, they shifted the tablets. Mitch doted on each and every one as if they were a collection of porcelain birds. Just to make sure the order was maintained, he chalked an identifying number on the upper right-hand corner of each.

It was strenuous work for all concerned, but Mitch’s enthusiasm spread through the crew. He was indeed exhilarated. This was something he could get his teeth into, and he needed a find like this to keep his reputation up. It had been a long time since he’d made a significant discovery. It was about time for another.

Mitch kept marking the slabs and protested when Holly called for a ten-minute breather. “We’ve got to keep going. We mustn’t stop now!”

“Relax, Mitch,” Mark said. “They’ve been here for God-knows how long. They can wait another ten minutes.”

“You’re right. I just got carried away. I’m sorry.” Mitch stood up and forgot about the low clearance. He hit his helmet on the jagged rock and stumbled backwards, losing his balance. He fell into the open space created by the removal of the tablets.

The tumble jarred some rocks loose from the wall and they fell on top of him.

“Hey, you okay?” Mark rushed to Mitch’s side.

“Yeah. Just lost my balance.” Mitch reached out to prop himself up and took hold of something for support. Whatever it was it was so cold he could feel the temperature drop through the protective material of his suit. He realised immediately it wasn’t his imagination because the thermo unit on his suit sensed the cold and increased its output.

Mark saw Mitch hesitate. “What’s wrong? You sure you’re all right?”

Mitch got to his hands and knees and began clearing the rock and dust from the object. “Come help me. I think I’ve found something.”

Mark, Holly, Gail and Kate gathered around but Mitch needed no assistance. He was so fired-up doing the job himself. When enough of the debris was cleared away Mitch knew for certain he had found something. He reached for the lantern, bringing its light down on the object. Still, he couldn’t make it out and brushed more gravel and dirt out of the way. What he saw under the glare of the light stunned him. For a moment he couldn’t move or speak.