Stories of the Confederated Star Systems (18 page)

A loud pounding on the wall next to his bed woke Anders up and he shook his head, trying to remember where he was and finally placing his surroundings. For a moment he thought the pounding was coming from the door, but then other sounds intruded as well. Female sounds. Very
happy
female sounds.
Oh, no, not again!’
Just like university. The girl next door was sexually active and her bed was exactly opposite his. He rolled over, wrapped his pillow around his head, and went to sleep.

A chime echoed through the rooms of the facility and Anders snapped awake. He looked at his chrono and blinked. Six in the morning. What kind of sadistic-corporate management. It had to be. Everyone up, fed, and at work by seven.

Anders got up and ran through his morning routine without thinking, then shrugged into one of his jump suits and left his room. By chance his noisy neighbor was leaving at the same time and he found out that it was Eliza Downey. She saw him and smirked.

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked as she grinned.

“Great,” he replied with a cheery smile. “Slept straight through without a twitch.” He turned away, but not before he saw the look of disappointment on her face.

Breakfast was buffet-style and had a surprisingly limited selection, but it provided him with the hearty, high protein foods he preferred and he sat down to eat at the first available table. Don soon joined him and laughed. “You haven’t changed.”

After they had eaten Don led him back to the lab and sat him down at a computer, then opened a file. “Spend the morning reviewing this, then we’ll discuss it after lunch.”

* * *

“Those were great days,” Anders said as he gazed into nothingness.

“I though Zarafal had always been a dead world,” Doctor Cassini said as she stared at him.

“No. It was a world full of life. Nothing intelligent, of course. Not even any vertebrates or arthropods, but abundant plants and proto-animals. We worked on cataloguing everything, spending weeks breaking down simple life forms in order to see what we could make of them. Most of them died if you exposed them to very much oxygen. Some were anaerobic, like the disinfectant-loving bacteria, and survived.

“I’d been there for about a year when I had an idea.”

* * *

Don Strong entered the lab to find Anders already at work. “How long have you been here, Andy?” he asked as he pulled on his lab coat.

Anders looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “All night. Eliza had company last night. That woman is loud.”

“And did you accomplish anything?”

Anders nodded and waved Don over to the microscope. “Take a look.”

Don looked into the microscope and then sat back. “Dead bacteria. And?”

“This is eight one three six seven three bacteria.”

Don leaned forward again and took a closer look. “You found something that kills the Invincible Bacteria? Without burning down the compound?”

“I did indeed,” Anders said proudly. “Now we can get that stink out of our quarters. It’s no wonder everyone here is so skinny. That smell even kills
my
appetite.”

“Have you tried it on a larger sample?”

Anders shook his head no. “I just finished.”

“Good. Let’s get some food into you, and some coffee, and maybe a shower—make that definitely a shower. Then we’ll present your finding to Doctor Keptal formally for review. That is, you will present your finding as the chief researcher on this project. Get your name on the paper first so you get the credit you deserve.” Don grinned and slapped Anders on the shoulder. “Now, how about staying behind me, because you really do stink. Didn’t you shower last night?”

They went to Anders’ room for the shower first, and then scrounged among the breakfast leftovers for a full meal. Finally, sweet smelling and fortified, Doctor Strong led Doctor Potemkin to the office with the pompous sign that read,
Doctor Leonar Keptal, Head of N-Triple-A on Zarafal
, to present his findings.

The presentation was short and sweet. “Sir, I’ve found something that will kill eight one three six seven three bacteria. It is a derivative of…”

“It’ll kill what?” Doctor Keptal asked, interrupting Anders.

“The bacteria that lives in our disinfectant, sir,” Anders replied respectfully.

“Oh, the Super Bug. What is it?”

Anders took a deep breath and continued. “It is a derivative of several organic enzymes bound to-well, sir, it’s bound to two different kinds of fungus that commonly cause athletes foot. I hate to admit it, but I found it by accident.”

“Accidents are intuition acting independent of conscious thought.
I can’t remember what damn fool said that, but he’d just discovered something amazing. So, how far has your research gone?”

“Only as far as one sample in a test tube,” Doctor Strong said now that Anders had started the report. “We thought we should report the discovery before continuing.”

“Very well. Test the bactericide on a small area of the common room,” Doctor Keptal ordered. “So long as we can control it, I can’t see any reason not to.”

* * *

“Of course, we couldn’t control it. Once the fortified fungus had something other than us to feed, on it multiplied rapidly.” Anders took a drink and shook his head. “Once it began multiplying, it got out of the compound by the same routes that the bacteria got in.”

“What happened? A single fungus couldn’t account for that much damage,” Doctor Cassini said as she leaned forward.

“Normally, no. But what we didn’t know-what
I
didn’t know-was that eight one three six seven three was a keystone species. It was everywhere because it was literally
everywher
e. That bacteria was the base of the food chain on Zarafal. When the bacteria started dying, the plants that depended on it started dying. Oh, it took a while. Nearly a month before we noticed anything. By then we’d been spraying our habitat with it and enjoying the lack of stink fully.” Doctor Cassini sat back as her hand came to her mouth.

“When we did notice, it was reported. Seven of the eight directors quietly sold off their holdings in the company, then released the information. The CSS Congress convened hearings, and the one poor fool who had been absent from the Board of Directors meeting the day the news was received was put on trial. So were Doctor Keptal and Doctor Strong. I wasn’t.

“Don took the blame. It was his department. I was his responsibility. The Confederacy didn’t even have a name for the crime, but they were charged with Planetary Genocide. There was no conviction, of course. You can’t charge someone with something that happened before you passed the law against it, but their careers were ruined.”

“That doesn’t explain you,” Doctor Cassini said. “If you weren’t charged, then there is no record of your involvement.”

“Yes there is. In here.” Anders tapped his head. “When the trial was over, Don committed suicide. Doctor Keptal vanished. And the seven men and women who profited most from FMM formed a new mining company and went back to Zarafal. With no biosphere to speak of, they were allowed to begin stripping the planet of its minerals. I even got a discreet and untraceable ‘Thank You’ from one of them with a million credit chip attached.” He let loose a harsh bark of laughter. “I donated it to the Navy Widows Fund under the name Eldon Strong.”

Doctor Cassini looked at him for a moment. “So you’re drinking yourself to death because…”

“Not to death, young lady,” Anders interrupted. “I just want to kill off enough brain cells to let me forget the friend I betrayed and the world I destroyed-because I didn’t like the smell.”

Doctor Cassini looked at him for moment, then leaned forward and inserted her credit chip into the slot and pushed a few buttons. As she withdrew the chip a fifth of
Scottish Syn
appeared in front of Anders. Then she entered “Deceased” on her keypad and stood up.

“I’m not dead yet,” Anders pointed out.

She looked him straight in the eye as she replied. “You will be soon.” Then she walked away as Anders broke the seal on the synthetic Scotch and poured himself a drink.

“Stinking Potemkin” © 2006

This story was just for laughs.

I
T NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME
how quickly things can go wrong, and how even the most innocuous circumstances can become a disaster. Even something as simple as emptying the garbage can get you killed.

* * *

We were outbound from Hobson’s Choice Station on board the Confederated Systems Freight star-freighter
Long Haul
. Star-freighter was probably the ultimate misnomer for the ugly little ship. It was actually an old, retired, CSS-SN hyper-capable tug. Its freight hauling capabilities were limited to towing sealed shipping containers, but with tractor-beams and a hyper-generator that would have let it tow a battleship, it could haul a lot of containers.

As usual, we had set a course almost directly toward the star as soon as we cleared the planet’s gravity-well so we could dump our waste. Hobson’s Choice Station had taken all of our non-biological waste, but after the plague that had erupted at Sherma’s Station from mixing biomass wastes from too many different star systems, disposing of the bio-waste items in the local star was the only recourse.

The ship had accelerated to a reasonable speed when the order came down from the captain. “Mister Crafton, prepare to jettison waste in five minutes.”

That was four minutes and fifty seconds more than I needed. The damn button was right next to my left hand. Still, it was regulations that required the long lead time. I answered her one minute later, as required. “Ma’am, all preparations have been made to jettison waste and I am standing by for your order.”

Four minutes later the order, “Jettison waste,” came down and I pushed the button. My suit almost instantly became rigid and I noticed that the auto-visor had sealed my helmet.

“Crafton, what the hell did you do?” the captain shouted over the intersuit radio.

“Standby, Ma’am,” I answered as my fat-fingered suit gloves tapped at my keyboard. “I’m showing a breach in the Starboard Hydroponics Irrigation Tank. The Waste Module must have fouled and torn it open.”

“Well get it sealed!” the captain snapped and I immediately unbuckled my harness.

“I’m going to assess the damage,” I said as I headed for the airlock. “I’ll let you know what I see.”

“Make it quick. I’ve already started trying to correct our course, but we’re not changing trajectory.” The captain paused for a moment. “All aft maneuvering thruster’s are dead.”

I whined,
“Crap!”
and hurried to the lock. I hit the emergency bypass that allowed me to skip the depressurization cycle and hooked my tether to the ring just outside the door. Fouling the door seal with a line would be a bad thing, and I didn’t need anymore bad things to happen to me today.

I hurried to pull myself hand-over-hand to the waste ejection port and saw what had happened. The waste pod’s thrusters had malfunctioned on one side, and the pod itself had driven into the side of the irrigation tank. The tank had ruptured, and since it was open to atmosphere on the inside, all of the biomass had escaped, followed by our atmosphere. The waste pod was coated in slick brown ice, and I was thankful for the vacuum of space and my nice closed suit. The stench would have been unbearable if there had been an atmosphere.

I followed the flow of brown ice aft, and what I saw made me sick to my stomach. The thrusters were totally encased in frozen brown muck. The servos that should have repositioned the nozzle to push us away from the star weren’t visible. The nozzle wasn’t visible either.

I auto-keyed my mic and said, “Crafton to the Captain.”

“Report, Crafton,” the captain replied.

“Thruster number six is encased in frozen biomass. The Waste Module malfunctioned and punctured the tank. I’m returning to the lock for the laser-welder. I’ve got to melt it free before we can maneuver.”

There was a pause and the captain’s voice came over the radio. “You’ve got twenty minutes. After that, there’ll be no way we can maneuver enough to miss the star, even if we dump the cargo.”

I muttered, “Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,” as I hurried back to the lock. I almost lost my grip on the way back to the thruster, and had to spend a moment catching my breath before I could continue. Once I reached the thruster, I fired up the welder and started melting biomass.

The work was slow. Most of the water had evaporated out of the biomass, so I had to melt and burn my way through a solid mass of biological muck that might as well have been brown plascrete. I was cutting chunks loose and tossing them away to drift toward the star. Then I got to the tricky part.

With the majority of the frozen mass gone, I had to slow down to avoid cutting vital structures on the thruster mount. I had just finished the first thruster when the captain’s voice came over the radio. “We’re down to ten minutes, Crafton.”

“Understood. I’m going to back off and hunker down. Test fire thruster six.”

“Tell me when you are secure,” the captain commanded.

“Secure now,” I replied.

“Test firing thruster six,” the captain said and there was a puff of vapor from the thruster. “Thruster test satisfactory. Thruster seven is still off line.”

“I’m on it,” I replied and immediately began cutting number seven loose. This time I had help. The test-burst from six had started us rotating and now I was getting hot starlight alternating with the freezing darkness of space. I cut. I chiseled. I kicked. I even begged the thruster to come free.

The captain’s voice interrupted a creative litany of curses I was inflicting on the uncooperative ice. “Five minutes.”

I brought the laser up to max power and started playing it along the lines of the thruster. It was a risky move, but I had reached a do-or-die state of desperation that made me ignore the danger. With a final kick I saw the thruster shift and called the captain.

“Captain, I am secure. Test fire thruster seven.”