BENEATH - A Novel (19 page)

Peterson placed his hand against the glass and the tendril moved toward it. It stopped in front of his hand, hovering like an angry serpent. Peterson moved his hand to the right. It followed. To the left. It followed again.

"Huh." Peterson chuckled. "It seems intelligent…at least enough for motion tracking. Maybe it's an automatic reflex? Like Venus Flytraps?"

"Venus fly traps react to touch."

"So?"

"If the Europhid is tracking your movements…it can
see
you."

Peterson's eyes went wide and he looked to Connelly, meeting her gaze. "See me?"

"Or at least sense your movement. Sensing light and dark…smell, sound, or something entirely new. My point is that it knows you're there."

In a gentle gesture, Peterson reached out and took Connelly's hand. He squeezed tighter as their eyes locked. "Amazing, isn't it?" Connelly felt herself moving closer to Peterson and a wave of nervous energy swept from her toes to the hair follicles on the top of her head. Her eyes began to close as she prepared for—

Crash!
A spray of glass exploded onto Connelly and Peterson. In an automatic reaction, both flung themselves away from the plant incubator, sprawling onto the floor. Connelly pulled herself away and scrambled to her feet, shaking the glass from her jumpsuit.

Peterson was still on the floor, holding his right hand in his left, cringing in pain. Connelly moved to him. "Are you all right?"

"Piece of glass got me," he said. "I'll be okay."

Connelly looked toward the plant incubator. Half of the glass tube had been shattered. The single red tendril slowly pulled its way back inside and buried itself in the red soil.

"Oh God…" Peterson's voice was shaky, almost unrecognizable.

Connelly immediately saw that Peterson was terrified. He stared at his hand, which had a red welt, surrounded by a large, white swollen area. At the center was a small puncture wound, the size of a dime.

"It stung me," he said. "I think it stung me. There's a containment lever in the backside of the incubator. Switch it, quick."

Keeping her eye on the Europhid, Kathy rounded the incubator, found the lever and pulled it. A metal casing rose up and around the broken glass. It wriggled violently as the steel sheath rose. Then it was out of sight, sealed inside.

Connelly couldn't believe what she had seen. The Europhid was not only asexual, partly mobile and had motion tracking abilities, but it could also strike out. This seemingly innocent organism had attacked Peterson and whatever foreign elements it contained were now causing Peterson's body to react.

"You'll be okay," Connelly insisted. "We need to get to the infirmary and contact Choi." But Peterson didn't move. He just sat there, staring at his wounded hand, which was swelling larger by the second.

"Michael, you need to get up. If we don't get you to the infirmary, the swelling could get worse, maybe reach your heart…. Are you listening to me?" Connelly was shouting, but Peterson remained frozen.

He looked up suddenly, his eyes full of fear. "Kathy, I don't want to end up like Benson."

Connelly caught her breath. "Who's Benson?"

*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*

The hard, metallic floor of the Med-Lab clunked beneath Connelly's feet as she paced, occasionally glancing at Peterson. The man she had come to know as a confident, strong willed and sometimes macho personality now had his forearm strapped to a short operating table, and he was whimpering like a school boy with a skinned knee.

"Ahh! Hurts like hell," Peterson complained, as Choi pinched the festering puncture wound on the back of his hand. A red tinged foam oozed from the gash. Choi added pressure and Peterson began sucking air in between his clenched teeth. Connelly felt sure he would soon let out a scream. But Choi eased up as soon as the liquid draining from his hand began running clear.

Connelly noticed that Choi had all but ignored Peterson's complaint of pain. She also noticed how Harris, who stood behind Choi, his arms crossed tight across his chest, had remained expressionless throughout the ordeal. He was impossible to read, but one thing was for sure, his normally friendly demeanor was gone. Connelly was sure the captain's confidence in her was shattered; that she and Peterson might very well be excluded from the remainder of the mission and banned from the Europhid samples. If she were in change, that's the decision she would make.

Why did I listen to him
? she thought.

A typhoon of rage swirled though Connelly's mind. All affection for Peterson dissipated, replaced by anger. But not just at Peterson, at herself as well. While
he
had smuggled the Europhid from the lab,
she
had followed him. He had activated the plant incubator, but she had watched—seduced by curiosity. And now she might lose her position and life's work. All her dreams, all her passion, might have been destroyed by the stupidity of one attractive man and her own foolishness.

"Watch it!" Peterson said in a loud voice that bordered on yelling.

Choi stood above Peterson's hand, clasping a sharp pair of tweezers between her gloved fingers. "Keep your hand still, Dr. Peterson. I wouldn't want to make the wound worse." Choi's voice was controlled and even, but there was no doubting that she would follow up on her veiled threat. Peterson bit his lip and made his body rigid, holding as still as possible.

Peterson's face twisted with pain as Choi slid the needle-tipped tweezers inside his hand. She tried three times, unsuccessfully, to grasp something buried between his metacarpals. Peterson's flesh turned white and his body went slack. On the forth attempt, Choi grasped something with the tweezers and quickly yanked it out.

Reacting to the immense pain, Peterson yanked his hand back and pulled the small table up into the air. He was about to protest when he saw the centimeter-long sliver, that looked more like a piranha's tooth, held firmly in the tweezers grasp. "God…what is it?"

"The result of your ignorance," Choi said as she looked over the thorny object. Peterson didn't offer a defense. Choi continued, "My best guess is it's a stinger."

Harris was behind Choi now, his expression stern. "Like a bee?"

Choi nodded.

Peterson looked down at his hand, which was covered in ruddy foam, blood and clear liquid. "Then I've been poisoned?"

"We don't know what, if anything, you've been injected with," Choi said. "But it is certain that your body had a reaction to some kind of foreign substance. I would say you're lucky."

"How's that?" Peterson said.

"You are the first human being with which these Europhids have experienced physical contact. I highly doubt that whatever is in your system will accomplish what ever it was designed to do."

"So I'll live?"

Choi placed the stinger in a metal bowl and began removing her rubber gloves. "Fifty-fifty."

"That's not funny," Peterson said as he began to free his injured hand from the straps that held him to the table.

Choi stopped removing her second glove and stared Peterson down. "It wasn't meant to be. We have no idea what kind of toxin is in your system and how it will react. The only information that might relate is the incident involving your deceased crew member."

Connelly's memory kicked in. After Peterson had been stung in the Bio-lab he mentioned not wanting to end up like someone.
What was his name?
But before Peterson could tell her who the man was, Peterson gasped in pain, surged forward and passed out. Twenty minutes later he awoke in the Med-lab and had been strapped down.
What was his name? Benjamin? Bernard?
She knew it began with a "B." "Benson." Connelly hadn't meant to say the name aloud, but everyone heard her.

Harris squinted at Connelly and then shifted an angry stare to Peterson. "That was classified information, mister."

Connelly sensed the water was rising up over her neck and would soon drown her and Peterson. "All he said was the name."

Harris and Choi stared at her, obviously weighing their options, the result of which, Connelly could only imagine. Not wanting to wait to find out, Connelly decided to put the pieces together herself. Benson must have been the crew member Choi mentioned. He had died from similar circumstances to Peterson's situation. Meaning what? Benson had come in contact with Europhids previous to the onset of this mission…on Earth.

Connelly's eyes grew wide. "Why didn't you tell us?" Her question was directed at Harris.

The sudden reversal of questioning unbalanced Harris's demeanor. "I, ah, I think you better—"

"I think you better tell me the truth. Withholding information that could have got me or my crew injured or killed is not something I will tolerate."

Harris stood silently. Choi watched him, apparently waiting to follow his lead.

"Okay. You tell me if I'm wrong." Connelly turned her attention to Peterson. "Your discovery in the
Arctic
, the meteorite, contained a biological sample. Your crew member, Benson, came into contact with the sample and died. But his death didn't stop anyone from moving on, from considering the postponement of this mission."

Peterson looked at Harris, then back to Connelly. "You got one thing wrong."

Connelly crossed her arms.

"Benson's death
inspired
the mission. There were no plans for a manned Europa expedition until after Benson died."

Connelly's face fell flat. Anger vibrated through her body. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. The urge to punch Peterson was all consuming. But she knew two truths that kept her in check. First: today's incident was as much her fault as theirs. She shouldn't have encouraged Peterson by staying. What she should have done was report his actions to the captain and been done with it.
 
Second, had she known about Benson's death, she would still have come to Europa. That didn't change the fact that the concealment of this information could have killed her friends.

"Here's what's going to happen," Connelly said. "You do whatever you need to with him." She motioned at Peterson with her head. "But my mission will continue as scheduled. The blame for this incident lies on all four of us and whoever higher up in the food chain decided to keep Benson's death a secret. I am going to tell Ethan and Robert about this, and I expect," Connelly looked into Choi's eyes, "that you will answer any questions Ethan might have regarding our safety."

After thirty seconds of silence, Harris uncrossed his arms and relaxed his tensed up shoulders. "Departure is scheduled for twenty minutes from now. Give us a half hour?"

Connelly nodded.

"What about me?" Peterson asked, as he stood up.

Choi placed her hand firmly on Peterson's shoulder and pushed him back into the chair. "Twenty-four hour quarantine. Standard procedure. Harris will monitor you via the video feed."

Peterson began to complain, but Choi's next words came quick and loud. "While blame ultimately rests on all our shoulders, your actions today could have cost you your life, not to mention the lives of everyone else on board. You should be grateful a day in the Med-lab is all you're getting."

Connelly turned to Choi and said, "See you in a half hour." Then she strode for the door, not wanting to show any concern for Peterson. She knew the lingering feelings for the man were still there, but she wouldn't soon forget what he'd done. How could she trust a man who so easily kept dangerous secrets?

"Kathy," Peterson said.

Connelly paused at the door.

"Be careful down there."

The door whooshed shut behind Connelly as she left without another word.

After meeting with Connelly and being told about the incident in the Bio-lab, Robert had helped himself to a copy of the security feed. He was now watching the replay for the fifth time on his digital tablet. The crystal clear, high def video and impeccable sound allowed him to focus in on visual and audio details that might otherwise be missed.

He played the footage again.

Robert watched as Peterson crouched in front of the plant incubator, waiving his hand back and forth, allowing the Europhid tendril to follow his every move.

How could he be so foolish?

How could Kathy?

Peterson's voice came from the tablet. "It seems intelligent…at least enough for motion tracking. Maybe it's an automatic reflex? Like Venus Flytraps?"

"Venus fly traps react to touch."

"So?"

Robert sighed.
No wonder the man works with rocks.

"If the Europhid is tracking your movements…it can see you," Kathy said on the screen.

Body tensing for the inevitable, Robert leaned forward. He knew that this was where the first of the two tragedies took place. Robert paused the feed, framed out Peterson and zoomed on Kathy's face. Her eyes were closed, so she didn't see what happened next. But what stood out the most were her pursed lips, which curved up in a slight smile.