Europa (Deadverse Book 1) (25 page)

- Gary –

He woke up better today. It was a better day to be alive, he told himself. Late the night before, Gary had tried once again to open a video link with Susan, who was still in the space ship far above him. It was always a tricky endeavor, because there was only about twenty minutes of actual talking time before the ship orbited to the other side, so you tried to get as much in during those twenty minutes, then waited. Gary needed to talk to her. He knew he had turned completely emotional after the murder, and he should have been stronger for Susan. She, in her own way, had lost herself in her plants, literally at times. Now she was up there, working with more of her plants, and she was ignoring most of his video chat requests.

Last night she answered.

And they talked.

Each opened up to their fears, their emotions. Neither blamed each other and both forgave each other. A darkness was lifted from both of their hearts, a cross that was heavy for each one of them was being shared now, equally between them. Gary could still remember falling asleep with such ease, thanks in part to that chat.

Susan would be back down in three days, and Gary was going to see if he could change the time he was meant to go up to the ship to come sooner. He had nothing else left to do on the surface, and he’d rather spend the time with her.

One thing did stick out from their conversation. Susan asked him, out of the blue, if he’d ever consider just staying on the moon, with her. He didn’t think much about it, but as he went about getting ready for his work today, he wondered just how serious she was. Gary had nothing to go back to on Earth. In fact, he had found all he’d ever wanted here on the frozen moon. Of course, Ben would never allow it. He wondered, though. It was a death sentence, but then, so was going back to Earth, possibly.

Gary had spent the better part of the past week running physicals on everyone, in conjunction with Horace’s own kind of testing. And except for a slight weight loss among the crew, due in most part to the stress and the changeover to a more vegetarian diet, everyone was fine. They were neglecting their daily exercising, and he stressed that it was very important to continue it, but there wasn’t much time for it, he agreed. The good thing was that the Odyssey provided for a nearly Earth like gravity that would slowly ramp up over the first month of their trip back. It would get everyone used to it again. He just hoped this month of little resistance training wouldn’t leave anyone crippled that first month back. Of course, from what he understood, there wouldn’t be much to do on the way home, so rest would come easily.

Gary checked his watch. His last patient was late. Gary wasn’t surprised. He hated being there in the first place, but just as he was about to call him over the comm, he showed up.

“Well, you made it,” Gary said, “Just have a seat over there and we will get this over with as quickly as we can.”

The patient walked slowly over to an elevated ice bench and sat down. Gary walked over and put his hand on his wrist to take a quick measurement of his heartbeat. His body was cold, and clammy, but it was always hard to tell. He didn’t know where he had been in the station, as not all areas were heated. Gary then handed him a tablet, with a checklist open.

“Just mark off if you have anything listed on there,” Gary said, turning back to get a syringe out.

“What is that for?” the patient asked.

Gary looked up, a bit surprised. Everyone had done the physical before, and a blood test was always standard. He wanted to check for infections or any other signs he needed to know, and a blood test was the easiest way to cover all grounds.

“Just a blood sample,” Gary said, walking over, “roll up that sleeve and let’s get this done with.”

The patient stood up off the bench.

“I can’t let you,” he said, looking straight at the doctor’s eyes.

Gary understood the unease with physicals, but everyone had endured them in the past, including his current patient. But as he returned the stare, he saw into his eyes clearly, and his first thought was that those weren’t his eyes.

“Are you OK?” Gary started to ask, then stopped short. The man standing in front of him had come with him to Europa. He had been with this patient for nine months on board the ship, then for nearly two years on the base. Gary knew his physical state well. The man that stood in front of him was not that man.

“You!” Gary finally understood.

He lunged forward with the syringe but his right arm was hit so hard the needle went flying off, chipping ice off the wall. Before the doctor could react, he felt a deep cold sensation in his stomach. He staggered back as if he’d been punched in the gut, and slowly turned to look down. Three large ice spikes, jagged and sharp, were protruding from his stomach. The cold pierced into his insides, and he felt the pain slowly start to swell into his throat. Before he could scream, he felt another slash of bitter cold across his neck, and he lost his ability to breath. He knew what had happened and he felt the warm rush of warm going down his throat and down his chest.

How had he failed to see it before?

As Gary’s thoughts began to misfire, he collapsed on the ground, his blood spilling out onto the ice. He grasped at his neck, a finger slipping into the wide gash. He tried to swallow, but his tongue failed and blood rushed out of his mouth instead. He tried to reach out for his tablet, but the patient kicked it away. Gary looked up one last time at his killer, Cary’s killer. Those eyes, completely different now, looked down at him.

“I need your mind, doctor,” it spoke. Even the voice was different. “With it, I can finally be completely free."

Gary collapsed on the ice floor, his mind ebbing between darkness and the few memories he had. As he slipped completely into the darkness that awaited him, he thought, ‘Susan, stay up there.’

Thirty seconds later, his skull lay wide open, cracked in half, his brain surgically cut out.

- Ben –

“Paul. Now!”

That order was barked into the comm link as loud as he could, as if he was trying to scream at the soldier from across the base. His second call went out to Charles.

Ben was sitting at his desk, going through some files when a small check list task came up. Every single one of his crew submitted his or her task list for the day every morning, and Ben could follow along and coordinate if needed. Gary had the final two of his physicals today and the second to last and last physical should have come in to him already. It was a few hours overdue.

He brought up the doctor on the comm, and asked for him, but he got no response. He tried several more times, but got nothing. That was unusual for him. Needing a break, he got up and walked down to the small medical lab, and there he found the doctor, his head cracked open. He reacted instantly.

Rushing back up to the control room, he brought Joyce online.

“What’s going on?” she said, her face in the video link.

“I need you to track everyone right away,” he nearly shouted.

“Why?” she asked, then stopped. “Did it happen again?”

“JUST DO IT!”

“Ok, linking back down into the base,” she said, the image breaking up momentarily, “I’m going to set it up to run because I’m about to go into blackout here.”

“Just hurry,” Ben said, his heart racing.

“Mr. Kelly, I’m here,” Paul chimed in on another channel.

“Hold a moment, Paul,” Ben said, putting him on mute.

“Ok, Ben, it’s up,” Joyce said. “Go over to my console and just bring it out of sleep mode. It will be running already.”

Ben hopped over, nearly slipping on the floor, and sat down on her chair. He tapped the screen and the room was filled with the light. There was an app open showing a list of everyone on base. Gary was still tracked as being in the med lab.

“I didn’t have time to put the live tracker on but…” Joyce began, but the connection died as the ship went beyond the horizon. It, and Joyce, would be back in twenty minutes.

Ben looked back at the screen. He would have preferred the live tracker, where it showed, in real time, where everyone was. Instead, every crew member except for Paul, were listed, with their locations next to their name. He quickly traced the names down, checking off for Susan, Joyce and Crysta, who were up above on the Odyssey. He then went back over the names: Thomas and Connie, in the Green Dome. Jenna under the Central Dome. Charles in a hallway coming towards Central Dome. Horace in his quarters under the Green Dome. Glorin in his quarters, as usual.

There it was. Emir, unknown.

Ben got up and rushed out of the room.

He nearly crashed into Charles, who was coming up from the hallway between the Green and Central domes.

“What the hell is going on?” he shouted.

“Gary is dead. Emir is missing, left the base.”

“What? When? When did Emir leave?” Charles shouted, chasing back after Ben who was running as fast as his magnetic boots would allow him to.

“I don’t know, no way of knowing. Gary was killed in the last couple of hours.”

“What the hell?”

“Paul, meet me at the Green dome now,” Ben barked into his wrist pad.

“Paul?” Charles asked. “What’s he doing?”

“Doing what you couldn’t,” Ben said, turning back momentarily when he got the ladder up the Green dome. 

Charles stood there for a moment, shocked.

As Ben grabbed a rung on the ladder, he hurled himself up to the top of the ladder, crashing into the top hatch. He didn’t seem to mind, grabbing the latch and twisting it open. As soon as he got to the top, he barked another order into his wrist pad.

“Everyone, to the Green dome now. We have a breach. I’m locking all outer doors.”

Thomas and Connie were already there. They had been packing up plants per Susan’s directions. It was a painstaking process, as they had Susan there on video link whenever she was within range, slowly guiding them through the entire process. She was a perfectionist when it came to the plants.

“What’s going on?” Connie asked.

“Gary is dead. Whomever killed Cary also killed him,” he said.

Thomas shouted in anger.

“Who?” he raged.

“Emir is not in the base, and he had no permission to be out of the base.”

“I KNEW IT!” Thomas shouted, pacing around in a circle looking up and screaming.

Connie reached out to him, but Thomas pulled away, thrashing about angrily.

“It can’t be him,” Jenna said, walking towards them from the far side of the dome, where she had emerged.

“We know what you said, but he is the only one missing, and the coincidence is too high,” Ben said.

Thomas barged in front of Ben and got in Jenna’s face.

“I told you,” he said, pointing a finger in her face.

Jenna brushed it aside.

“Ok,” she said, “sure, but he didn’t kill Cary.”

“Why would he have left the base?” Connie asked.

“I think I know.”

Everyone turned to face the haggard Glorin, slowly walking towards the group. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, his clothes ragged and his hair even worse.

“Go on,” Ben said.

“It’s been a few days now, but the ship, it’s doing something. Calling,” he said, phrasing it as matter-of-factly as he could.

“What?”

He walked up to them as sat slowly on one of the ice benches.

“It has been faint. Maybe because I barely interacted with the ship, but I’ve had this urge to go out to the ship.”

“You always wanted to go out there,” Ben pointed out.

“True, but this goes beyond my professional desire. This is something, more. As I said, the ship is calling,” he said, looking up at the group.

Paul came rushing in and stopped next to Ben. The base commander looked around then back down at his wrist pad.

“Horace?”

The response came a few seconds later, “Yeah, I’m coming.” He sounded out of breath.

“So he killed Gary and took his brain to the ship?”

Connie gasped.

“His brain?” Thomas asked, looking back in shock.

“I need to see this, now,” Charles barked.

“You do what you want to, but I’m sending Paul after Emir,” Ben said.

“Thomas, take him on the rover. We have no idea how long Emir has been gone.”

Charles took a step back. “Then I will go with them.” He pulled Ben aside by the arm as the rest of the group began to talk.

“What are you doing? Why Paul?”

“He’s gonna do what you couldn’t,” Ben said, wrenching his arm away from the captain and going back to the rest of the group.

“The Odyssey is going to pass above us in a few minutes. I will let them know what happened then see if they can see anything at the alien ship,” Ben instructed.

“They can’t see the ship on their orbital path,” Connie pointed out.

“Fine,” Ben said. “They still need to know about Gary. Especially Susan.”

“Poor Susan,” Jenna uttered quietly.

“Thomas, Paul. Go.” Ben shouted.

As they began to run past, Jenna grabbed Thomas and pulled him aside.

“It wasn’t him,” she said, pleading, “I’m telling you, it wasn’t him.”

He took one look at his friend, rage filled his eyes. “If I find him, I’m going to kill him.”

Thomas yanked his arm away and ran after Paul.

Charles came and stepped in front of Ben. “Gary is dead then?”

“Yeah. You spent your time obsessed over the wrong person.”

Charles looked down.

“We’re going to need the guns,” he said, starting to walk back towards the Central dome’s hallway.

“They already have weapons,” Ben said.

Charles stopped, and walked past him. Without looking at him, he whispered, “Anything else I don’t know about?”

Ben turned and faced him.

“Just the killer.”

Charles knew he was defeated, and with a spin, turned and walked off. Ben was angry, but he shouldn’t have said that. Everyone was stressed, and Charles just as much, if not more, than anyone else. Ben regretted what he said as he watched Charles walk off towards the new crime scene. He wasn’t even going to attempt to overrule him and go with Paul.

There would be a time for apologies, but now was not that time. There were more important things to do. Ben spun around and gasped when he nearly ran into the grizzled face of their billionaire benefactor.

“I want to go with them,” the wily haired man said. His eyes were red, blood shot. Certainly the man hadn’t slept much lately.

“Why?” Ben asked, trying to step to the side. Glorin blocked him.

“This is my last chance to research inside of the ship. If we are to go back to Earth, we need every last bit of data on the ship. It may be a very long time before we return,” he said.

It was probably going to be longer than that.

“Sure, go. I’ll let Paul and Thomas know.” At this point, the old man was already useless, and probably wouldn’t get in their way.

“Thank you, please tell them I will just be getting my gear and will meet them at the rover,” he said, smiling before turning to run off. The old man had lost a lot of weight. At some point, Ben would have to go over the physical’s Gary had performed to see if there was anything he needed to worry about. In the meantime, he had some bad news to deliver to the ship above them.