The Omega Project (11 page)

For the first time, the magnitude of my decision to be here weighed seriously on my mind. “GOLEM, locate Andria Saxon.”

“Andria Saxon is in Stateroom One, located on Deck Two.”

I looked around, lost.

Monique pointed to a vertical ladder harbored inside one of the six bulkheads. “When you speak with Andria, be sure to ask her if she minds sharing her suite with you. Twelve suites, thirteen crew.”

I hurriedly descended the steel ladder to Deck Two, only to find myself standing in a circular corridor, the crew’s suites located along the outside, the entrances to far larger compartments on the inside. Heading counterclockwise, I passed Stateroom Eight on my right, the galley on my left. In full sprint I ran past a science lab that spanned Staterooms Seven through Three as if I were running to catch a plane. A home theater, an exercise room, and ahead was Stateroom One, its door open.

Hearing Andria’s voice, I stopped short of entering.

“… how was I supposed to know, Kevin? It’s not like I invited him on board.”

“What if he ends up replacing a crewman on the Europa mission
?
”

“He won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know him, Kevin. This whole thing was probably his uncle’s doing. Trust me, Ike’s not a risk-taker like you and me; he needs to stay inside his comfort zone, and he’s not very good with people. Spending the better part of six years living in a confined habitat with eleven other crewmen would drive him insane.”

“You never told me he was such a recluse.”

“Most brainiacs are. I suspect his father was the same way. Guys like Ike spend most of their time inside their own head, always analyzing life, never living it. Why do you think he invented ABE? That little microchip in his brain allows him to be as self-contained as GOLEM. Of course, the problem with living inside your own head all the time is that you isolate yourself from the real world.”

“Einstein was like this. I think it’s a Jew thing.”

“You mean a
Jewish
thing? Don’t tell me you’re anti-Semitic?”

“Of course not. What I meant … I just never understood the attraction. The guy’s a geek.”

“That
geek
kept us safe and sheltered during the GDO; his ingenuity and foresight allowed us to survive the gangs that would have eaten him and turned me into a sex slave. Ike was the first man I ever trusted.”

“Then why are you with me?”

“The Die-Off passed, only Ike still lives in fear. His phobias about mankind have made him overly possessive. You think he wants me piloting shuttles in space or submersibles on Europa? Hell no. Ike wants me in his bed and in the nursery, raising a kid or two while he explores quantum physics with ABE.”

“That’s not you. You’re a leader, Andria. A warrior bred for action. Just like me. It’ll drive me insane if we can’t sleep together during this mission. You have to tell him about us.”

Hearing them kiss, I dropped to one knee, as if someone had kicked me in the gut. Andie had not only lied to me about accepting a six-year mission, she was cheating on me!

There were a thousand things I wanted to say—retorts and accusations, rants and countless explanations justifying who I was and why I turned out the way I did—only suddenly I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons, and I had to get out now, before
Oceanus
submerged.

My mind paralyzed in a centrifuge of emotions, I staggered down the corridor—nearly knocking over Lara Saints, who was exiting Stateroom Seven, carrying a palm-size video camera.

“Ike? Are you all right? You look pale.”

Searching for the damn ladder, I mumbled, “Maybe I should run a level-one diagnostic.”

She giggled. “Are you pretending to be a computer?”

“What? No. Lara, where’s the ladder? And who the hell’s Kevin?”

“Kevin Read. He’s the ship’s commanding officer. Why?” She followed me down the corridor. “Oh, God, Ike, I’m so sorry. Do you want to come inside my suite? We could talk.”

Talk? No, I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to grab a bayonet and shove the blade up—

“Ike, here’s the ladder.” She ascended the tube before me, slowing me down, the top of my head pushing against her buttocks from below. We arrived together on the upper deck in time to hear a chorus of voices counting down “… three … two … one!”

Too late.

A deep, pulse-pounding rumble throttled sound and space, the structure reverberating in my bones as I saw the 360-degree panoramic view consumed in the chaos of flames and smoke and a thick white mist that blotted out the Antarctic heavens. The sound of rocket engines igniting below the habitat’s anchor legs muted my protests, along with the whooping and hollering coming from the eight members of the
Oceanus
’s crew who were strapped in lounge chairs to witness the historic descent.

For a surreal moment the ship actually rose thirty feet above the pack ice, until the quadruple 2,200°F exhausts boiled the ice sheet into gas, as gravity plummeted the twenty-five-ton sphere through a rapidly forming void, the sudden drop approaching free-fall speed.

The g-force collapsed me like a folding chair, and somehow I found myself on my knees, straddling Lara. Lying on her back beneath me, she seemed to be enjoying the ride.

Thirty seconds passed, and still the sphere plummeted. Unable to hold myself up any longer, I dropped to my elbows, my face inches from Lara’s.

Slipping her hand behind the back of my head, she pulled my face to hers until our lips met again, only this time it was her tongue sliding inside my mouth. Gravity held us together another forty seconds until the rockets throttled back.

The shaft that had been evaporated beneath
Oceanus
filled with water, slowing the sphere’s descent. Released from the g-force, I separated from Lara, as stunned by her kiss as she had been by mine when I mistook her for Andria.

Lara winked. “Now we’re even.”

Turquoise-blue light transformed the chamber into a living aquarium as
Oceanus
abruptly splashed down below the ice shelf into an emerald sea.

I regained my feet, spellbound. I can’t even remember if I helped Lara to her feet, so overwhelmed were my senses by the beauty now surrounding us as we submerged.

Breathtaking is not a word I use often, but this … this was breathtaking. The underside of the Ross Ice Shelf appeared as an endless ceiling of billowing azure clouds. Having melted as a result of their rapid descent, a tidal wave of freshwater was washing below into the subzero salt water, refreezing before our eyes into a permanent cascading waterfall. All the while,
Oceanus
continued to sink, the habitat paced by medusa jellyfish, which rode the sphere’s current into the depths, their four-foot pink-and-peach bodies fluttering like the delicate fringes of a frilly Spanish bolero jacket.

As we sank into deeper water the light diminished, turquoise fading into shades of purple. GOLEM activated the habitat’s underwater lights—twin beacons searching for the seafloor.

Touchdown occurred at 1,286 feet. Coral beds were crushed into submission by the habitat’s four support legs, the steel fuselages still steaming as they sank, anchoring
Oceanus
to the bottom.

“Ike?”

Andria’s voice doused me back into reality.

Mission standards had forced her to lose the blue highlights in her onyx hair, but there were no codes that could alter the way her athletic physique filled out that burnt-orange jumpsuit. Andria kept the front zipper containing her well-endowed cleavage collar high to prevent any false messages from being sent.

Staring at her, I was suddenly aware of the other crewmembers. They were there to witness the show, having anticipated the moment since learning I was coming aboard.

To her credit, Andria was having none of it. “Let’s talk in private,” she said, leading me across the chamber to a ladder situated inside another bulkhead.

We climbed down two flights to the lower level, our descent paced by GOLEM, the annoying sphere drifting into view seconds later like a giant Peeping Tom.

I followed Andria in silence past a watertight door labeled
SUB-4
, the two of us weaving around pallets of equipment wrapped in plastic. I noticed a yellow hatch on the floor marked by a radiation symbol.

She stopped at another watertight door labeled
EGRESS
.

Andria opened the hatch, leading me inside a small tiled chamber resembling a firemen’s prep station. A dozen hooded Navy Steinke egress-exposure suits hung from hooks, with a plastic sign that offered step-by-step instructions. Above the frame was a red light and a green light, neither lit. A small watertight door on the opposite end of the room led to the escape hatch.

Andria straddled one of the two wooden benches bolted to the floor. She motioned for me to sit across from her.

Avoiding eye contact, she stared at her sneakers. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it.”

“Don’t. I already heard it once, I don’t think I could stomach it again.”

“You heard what from whom?”

“From you. Outside Stateroom One, about ten minutes ago. If you were so unhappy with me, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I wasn’t unhappy.”

“Let’s see … I’m an anchor, a recluse. Stuck in my own head. Afraid to live. Those words sound familiar? Christ, you make me sound like a mental patient!”

She looked at me, teary-eyed, but said nothing. There was nothing to say, I held all the cards in a losing hand. Still, I intended to get my pound of flesh.

“I asked you to marry me back in January. ‘Yes, Ike, I’ll marry you, only we have to wait until I’m shuttle qualified … until I get my wings.’ What the hell, Andria?”

“I was selected for Europa a week after we got engaged. I needed time to think. For three years I’ve committed every day to the Omega mission—how could I just walk away? Only twelve people on Earth were selected for Europa … we were sworn to secrecy.”

“So you cheated on me?”

“It wasn’t planned, it happened over time. I wasn’t looking, but under the circumstances … facing the prospect of being gone for six years, I guess I began to detach from you emotionally. Face it, Ike, there’s no way you would have let me go to Europa. With Kevin, it seemed our personalities meshed. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think the computer purposely matched everyone onboard.”

I beat the back of my skull against the tile wall, more for effect than pain. “That’s some computer. It takes the damn thing two years to figure out the moon’s helium-3 is no good, but boy can it run an astronaut dating service.”

“I understand you’re angry.”

“I’m not angry. Okay, I’m angry, but I’m also hurt. I love you, Andie. I can change.”

“Stop. I’m really sorry, Ike. I handled this all wrong. But let’s be clear, I’m going to be gone for six years and that’s not going to change. Now I want to know the truth: Why are you here? And don’t tell me you’re prepared to spend the next six years on Europa.”

I hesitated. This was not the scenario I had rehearsed with my uncle.

I opted for an edited version of the truth. “There was a series of psychological exams administered by the Space Agency … all candidates submitted to the protocol before being admitted to the academy. SEA discovered that one of the male
Omega
crew may have sociopathic tendencies.”

“Who?”

“All I know is that it’s one of the men. Don’t ask me which one, they wouldn’t tell me.”

Andria shook her head in disbelief. “How could the Space Agency wait so long to figure that out?”

“It’s borderline.”

“There’s no such thing as borderline, not when it comes to living in isolation. Biosphere 2 had eight subjects sequestered in a huge habitat for less than two years when they started losing it. We’ll be on Europa forty-two months. You deal with an egg that’s already cracked and the entire crew’s in danger.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I’m going, so don’t even start. The question is, why were you selected as a backup?”

“Hell if I know. GOLEM selected me. The Space Agency asked me to accept the assignment; they felt my background in psychology qualified me to observe the crew in action. To make sure my evaluation remained unbiased, they refused to tell me who the suspected sociopath is.”

Her eyes become dark lasers. “You’re already biased! You know I’ve been with Kevin. You’d portray him as the next Hannibal Lecter if it meant keeping us apart.”

The voice of the man atop my shit list crackled across the intercom. “All crew: Report to the galley at once.”

Andria looked at me, unsure. “Ike, what are you going to do?”

“My job. See you in the galley.” I stood to leave. “Oh yeah … don’t even think about leaving orbit with my Rolling Stones CDs.”

9

Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

—R
OBERT
L
OUIS
S
TEVENSON

Eating in space requires designing and packaging meals with long shelf lives, in single servings that can survive microbe-killing heat treatment or complete dehydration. Despite these new restrictions, the
Oceanus
menu was expansive, featuring over three hundred items developed by NASA, the Russian and European space agencies, and Japan.