CHAPTER 33:
Ship of Lies
George J @spacefan
@OSIGenBoatright, you’re the only one telling us what’s going on. So, what’s going on?
USSF Office of Scientific Integration @OSIGenBoatright
@spacefan, please understand that we first have an obligation to the families of the Percheron and Marsbase crews. We are investigating an illness onboard Percheron and don’t have anything to report, yet. The current Marsbase Two crew is unaffected. Colonel Shepard will get to the bottom of this.
Please be patient with us and I will personally post updates as soon as we know more.
—RB
ChirpChat, October 2043
It was time for another rest break. He’d seen no sign that Percheron was maintaining any sort of uniform day-night schedule, and the trip out on Bat had certainly messed up his own circadian rhythm. He decided to just work until he was tired, sleep, then resume his investigations. A meal and a zero-gee shower would feel good now that he had actual quarters.
He could also use the heater module in the shuttle’s compact kitchen for food preparation. Freeze-dried spaghetti with meat sauce tasted pretty good when properly rehydrated and heated.
In the “morning,” he checked his messages and found that the medical records had started to arrive. He had the records for the Space Force crew, and another message indicating that the records for the MarsX personnel were cleared to transmit but not yet queued.
This would do, these eight individuals had been first to show symptoms. He’d seen the records provided via MMC many times before, so he wasn’t certain what he was looking for except for timestamps and the editing logs. These records were supposed to be untouched, direct from Percheron’s daily data upload. If there was anything deleted or altered, it would show in the change log. As for information omitted or falsified—well, that was what doing his own medical exams would reveal.
So far, the only discrepancy he could discern was a six-day gap in the telemetry that perfectly coincided with his flight on Bat. It was a pretty big coincidence and may have something to do with the broken comm board he’d discovered on the bridge. While he felt it unlikely that the component was damaged by accident, that explanation was still a possibility. However, this new information moved it into the category of sabotage.
Everything he saw, everything he heard, said the situation was bad and getting worse. He couldn’t entirely dismiss Dvorak’s comments as paranoia—after all, he’d seen Yvette’s behavior. He opened up a message window and started a new message addressed only to General Boatright. Despite encryption, every instinct said he was being watched, and he needed to be discreet.
General: Increasingly likely I will need to exercise rank option. Situation aboard in flux.
Glenn sent the message and continued reading and eating.
Thirty minutes later he received a response.
Understand the options. Additional instructions enroute. Leave the details to me. Good luck.
Another message caught his eye. He’d been copied on yet another complaint from MarsX that, as head of the Mars Three mission, Gavin Taketani should have been considered for command of Percheron when LeBlanc was removed.
Thinking on the matter, Glenn could understand why not—despite the honorific “commander,” Taketani was an administrator, not a military leader. He had a Master’s in Business Administration and a Doctorate in Public Policy from Georgetown University—perfect credentials for a project leader, but that didn’t make him appropriate for a military command. Despite being a strictly civilian agency, NASA still chose mission leaders from a pool of multidisciplinary scientists and engineers with some military command background. Leadership of Percheron’s Space Force crew required someone with military credentials and rank, no matter how brief the experience.
Still, it was odd that Taketani had not been part of the greeting party. Yvette had worked with Gavin for more than three years, and he’d certainly been a capable leader. Even without rank, he could provide counsel and advice. His absence was odd—much like everything else since Glenn’s arrival.
Glenn accessed the internal comm from the shuttle and tracked down his former boss. “Doctor Taketani, this is Glenn Shepard. I would like to speak with you and find out how you’re feeling and how your crew is doing.”
There was an immediate reply from Taketani, but it was timecoded for a communication delay. “Doctor Shepard, so good to hear from you! Are the flowers blooming in Tucson? They certainly are here!”
Ouch. That was a signal often used by space agency insiders to suggest that things were not well. Flowers blooming on Earth—in this case, MarsX Mission Control in Tucson—meant that someone was grounded for illness. While few ships had hydroponics or flowers to bloom, the phrase “flowers are blooming” applied to a ship or space station meant sick astronauts.
Well, at least he’s aware of the illness onboard, Glenn thought.
“Sir, I’m on Percheron. I brought food, water, medicines, and other supplies. I need to speak with you.”
This time the reply took longer to arrive, and came in two parts. The first was a text attachment that consisted solely of a line of question marks. The second was audio. “I was not aware. Come to my quarters.” This was followed by another text listing his compartment number in the habitat ring.
Glenn palmed the annunciator plate outside the indicated cabin, and Taketani answered. He was wearing a silk robe and held a small pair of scissors in his left hand. The quarters were a complete surprise to Glenn—after the filth and lack of hygiene he’d seen so far, the quarters were neat and clean. Every item in the room appeared to be placed with precision, including the leaves that had clearly just been trimmed from a bonsai tree located on a table in the precise center of the room.
Glenn had gotten used to the background of odors that seeped through his suit. Inside the compartment he noted their absence. Instead, there was a slight flowery fragrance. Did this mean Taketani is unaffected by whatever is influencing the rest of the crew? Glenn wondered to himself. If so, that’s important. I need to figure out exactly what’s different.
“Glenn Shepard, you’re looking well. I must say that I’m surprised Space Force sent anyone out here. You must have been in transit a long time; how did you know we needed your assistance?” Taketani’s tone was friendly, and he continued to fuss with his tiny, precise plants while he spoke.
“To answer the second part of your question first, I was part of the review team working with Mission Medical. As for the trip out here, they sent me out on a very fast ship. There are some new experimental drives and I had to endure some very hard acceleration.” Taketani was an administrator, but he’d been CEO of a space habitat construction company before Marsbase. Even without a background in spacecraft engineering or physics, he had a reasonable knowledge of both.
“Ah, new drives and a fast transit, plus a mid-course rendezvous. How exciting! Just exactly how much gee-force did you have to endure, Colonel? I would speculate that you had to experience five or six gees. Did they put you to sleep for it? Or is it something to do with your prosthetics?”
Of course, Taketani would know about that. He always paid attention to personnel details. “Bionics played a major part. Blood can’t pool in my legs or left arm. I also have a pump similar to an artificial heart that keeps fluids moving. I stayed awake for all of the acceleration. Let me tell, you, sir, six gees hurts.” Glenn started to feel at ease. Here, at least, was one person who appeared to be not just functional, but rational.
“Yes, I asked for a report on you. Some mid-level flunky in Space Force told me it was confidential, but a general came to visit me before we had to make the final decision on medical officer. He showed me diagrams of your bioneural interfaces—I believe he called them ‘bionics.’ He and others in Space Force wanted to delay the mission until you could join us, but NASA and MarsX said that the launch window was too critical.”
“Perhaps it is just as well. Here I am now, able to offer my help. You mentioned that the flowers were blooming.”
Taketani looked around furtively, then moved to the door. He thumbed the actuator panel, and it turned from green to red. “Hmm, interesting. She hasn’t let us have control of our own locks.”
“Sir?”
“I haven’t been able to control when my door is locked or unlocked. There was a span of two weeks in which I was completely locked in. Yvette said there was a contagious virus.”
“When was this, sir?”
“Right after the incident with Captain LeBlanc. Everyone was confined to quarters for two weeks. She told us it would slow down the spread of whatever was causing our illness.”
“She . . . Yvette?”
“Yes, she told everyone that she was the highest-ranking officer, so she was in command.”
“And everyone went along with it? Major Dvorak didn’t challenge her?”
“She has medical authority and she outranks him, or has seniority, or something like that. He grumbled to me about it. I told him I would back him if he challenged her . . . and we got locked up very soon after. The locks released about a week ago, but I haven’t particularly wanted to go out. Less chance of a random encounter with her, or any of her supporters.”
“Who’s supporting her?”
“The Space Force noncoms, a few of the Marsbase people, the nighttime housekeeping crew.”
Wait . . . what?
“Sir? Housekeeping crew?”
“Oh sure. They were stowaways. Every ship has them. They used to clean up while we were sleeping, but they stopped doing that during the lockdown. I haven’t seen them lately, but then I never let them in here—before or after—I do my own cleaning.”
Neat as it was, Glenn started to notice a few disturbing details. Items on the work-desk were not just precisely aligned, but appeared to have been epoxied into place. There was no way Taketani could have used the stylus for his tablet, since it was apparent that both were permanently affixed to the desk surface. Other than the bonsai garden, it appeared that every loose item had been glued into place—or stitched, in the case of the bedding.
Taketani was affected by the strange malady, too. The man’s normal neatness and precision had turned into severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Worse, the delusion of stowaway housekeepers made Glenn start to wonder about the other things he’d just heard. Were they really locked down for two weeks? MarsX, NASA and Space Force had all agreed to Yvette’s recommendation for self-isolation to prevent spread of infection, but that certainly hadn’t been effective, nor was it as severe as had just been implied.
Did she do it just to prevent someone challenging her for command? Or was that more delusion?
The commander offered tea, and Glenn expected to be offered a drinking bulb, since they were still under weightless conditions. Instead, Taketani reached for an Oriental tea service. As he lifted one of the delicate porcelain cups, the saucer came with it. Glenn discreetly tested a cup nearest to him—yes, the saucers were glued in place. He couldn’t see as the tea was poured, but when handed the cup, he found it to be half-filled with a translucent brown substance. It might have been tea, once, but not now. He touched the tip of his smallest finger to the surface of the “liquid,” supposedly to check temperature. More epoxy, just tea-colored.
Glenn mimed drinking the tea as Taketani continued to talk.
“It’s good, isn’t it? It’s an oolong variant I grew in the greenhouse on Mars. It’s my own special blend!”
Glenn nodded. “Sir, I think it’s going to be necessary to redo some of the crew medical exams—for everyone. Major Dvorak has given permission for everyone assigned to Percheron, but I’d like yours for the Marsbase One staff. With your permission, I’ll review crew records and call each person in for a checkup. I’m worried that the illness affecting so many could put you all in danger when you return to Earth.”
Glenn was ashamed of yet another lie—this time to his former superior. He knew it was a bad practice and he’d been determined not to lie to them—after all, this malady was causing people to lie to themselves via delusions and hallucinations. It wasn’t a lie, though, not really; there was danger on return to Earth, but even more so here and now. Whatever was affecting the crew was immediate and it seemed to be contagious. He had only a limited time to figure out what was happening, otherwise this crew might never return to Earth.
Glenn simply could not allow that to happen. For one thing, he’d promised Jen. He’d also made a promise to this crew when he’d been one of them many years ago. He owed them; he owed them all.
As it turned out Glenn didn’t have to worry about pulling rank or being the one to announce that he was taking over. His wristcomm announced a high priority incoming message from General Philip Bolger-Cortez, Chief of Space Operations, and Chief of Staff of the United States Space Force. It was a change-of-command order addressed to first officer, Major Maxim Dvorak, Acting Captain, Percheron, with copies to Taketani, Yvette, and himself.
Dvorak was directed to hand over command of Percheron to Colonel Glenn Armstrong Shepard. It included two addenda. The first was from Doctor Aaron Haskins, director of MarsX, which further instructed Doctor Gavin Taketani to turn over command of his Marsbase personnel to Shepard. The second addendum was from Boatright and MoMaB directing Glenn to assume the Chief Medical Officer role in addition to the captaincy.
So, this is what Boatright meant when he said leave the details to him. Interesting. “Hi, boss. Thanks for the support,” he said to no one. It would be added to his sight and sound recordings as part of his personal telemetry. His guardian angel would receive Glenn’s thanks later in the day.
The orders established that Glenn was now completely in charge, with authority to do whatever was necessary to get Percheron and her crew home safely. Once again it brought home the inescapable fact that he would be held accountable if things went wrong—that was always the unmentioned assumption of command.
Taking command as captain and leaving Yvette as CMO would have been a two-edged sword. One of the loopholes in ship command was that the chief medical officer had say over whether a captain was medically fit to command. Of course, neither Master Sergeant Bialik—who should be the de facto CMO of Percheron—nor Yvette, CMO of Marsbase One, had relieved Captain LeBlanc of duty in the immediate aftermath of the incident with the cargo hatch. Naming him CMO as well as captain avoided the possibility she’d be able to relieve him capriciously, even as it removed a valid check on his own actions.
Everything he did would be scrutinized. Nothing new there, that was a given from the start.
Doing the exams would be somewhat awkward with him still in his skinsuit and wearing a helmet. He’d cleaned his skinsuit the best he could—there was a ’fresher compartment on the shuttle specifically designed for skinsuits—but he couldn’t do anything with the helmet. He sprayed it with the same chemical used for dry cleaning of uniforms, rinsed it, dried it, then sprayed it with disinfectant, rinsed and dried it again. It got rid of his own body odor, and left him with something a bit more pleasant to smell.
On the other hand, the sense of smell is often a doctor’s best diagnostic instrument. He’d probably have to turn up his oxygen and lift the helmet a few times to take a sniff.
This time, as he passed through the central corridor of the ship, he noticed that some of the previously closed hatches and doors were now open, while some of the previously open ones were now closed. The hatch to the zero-gee aeroponics facility was now closed—a good thing, since the compartment had been designed to force ship’s air through the plants to freshen and clean it. The hatch to Cargo Bay Two was open, and he saw two persons removing food pallets, presumably to transfer them to galley storage.
However, when they saw him, they retreated back into the cargo bay and put the pallets down. Glenn could see that some of the food and water had been removed, so it was getting distributed. Unfortunately, the behavior of the two he saw—Grigorescu and Mishra from Marsbase—meant that he’d have to follow-up to ensure that the items had actually gone to common storage and were not being hoarded somewhere else.
Every crew member he encountered so far was showing evidence of behavior that would’ve been screened out by astronaut selection processes. Even latent tendencies toward paranoia, OCD, or hoarding should have been detected in the years-long training.
This time when he entered the med bay, Yvette looked up and smiled brightly. She’d put on fresh makeup and attempted to do something with her hair. “Hi, boss,” she said in a friendly open manner. “What can I do to help? We need to start running physicals on the crew, right?”
He must have gotten used to tang of the ship’s air—that or his freshly laundered skinsuit was affecting his sense of smell . . .
No, that’s Yvette! A faint lilac scent made it into his helmet. She’s wearing perfume!
As pleasant as her greeting was, it was just as disturbing as the other two personalities. Paranoid delusions, sullen and angry, and now bright and cheerful—none of those were traits he normally associated with her. Driven, meticulous, and circumspect had been her characteristics during residency—unless they were arguing, but that was mainly differences of opinion over treatment. Most of the time, neither of them was wrong, but they’d each had a tendency to stand their ground until forced to yield by higher authority. Of course, that same passion for their work had transformed into other . . . passions, but that was almost twenty years ago.
He supposed that the message from Space Force and MarsX could very well have produced a change in her attitude. Still, it wasn’t normal, so that made him suspicious. After all, no one in this crew was acting normally . . .
. . . as she proved with her next move.
Yvette came over and pulled herself right up next to Glenn. She’d bumped him with her hip, which caused him to drift slightly away, but she reached an arm out, grabbed his waist, and pulled him close. She then leaned in and said, “I’ve missed you, Shep.”
It took all of Glenn’s willpower not to push her away, but to play along just enough to know whether this was yet another personality change, or if there was actual affection underneath her behavior. “Yes, it’s been a long time, many miles and life changes, too.”
“I’ve missed you in so many ways,” she whispered. Her other arm came around to grab his shoulder and turn him so that they were facing each other. She briefly kissed his helmet faceplate and reached for the seals of his skinsuit. “You should close that door so that no one interrupts us.”
Glenn was stunned.
Paranoid, then angry, now lustful. While their time together had been fiery, that fire usually came when arguments turned into passionate lovemaking. She had never been a seductress—this aspect was simply not her style.
Why did she start now? Glenn thought. He gently pushed her back. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t let go either. “Yvette, we need to do the crew physicals first.”
She blushed and her expression changed slightly—less seductive and a bit confused. “Oh yes, sorry, work before pleasure. Shep always was a dull boy that way.” The corner of her mouth quirked up in what he supposed was a smile. It was probably meant to be teasing—under the circumstances, a better outcome than the reaction to rejection that he’d feared.
“Yes, yes, work before play. Hold onto that thought for now, we’ll get back to this later.” Another lie. He’d been so determined not to lie, but here was another. Whatever this disease was, it caused its victims to lie to themselves, and he wasn’t doing any better.
He had to do better. No more lies.