Killgrace and the Alien Threat

"They're watching me. Oh Stars, my head!" There was a terrible choking scream and then silence. Yemec and Megah ran towards the noise. By the time they got there Doctor Skanes was lying in the corridor, face contorted. Blood had sprayed from his lips across the corridor floor. Yemec stepped closer, risking taking a pulse, and then held his hand in front of the doctor's mouth.

"Nothing. He's dead."

"Like the others." Megah rubbed his arms as if they were cold despite the thick security jacket, glancing out of the airlock window where swirls of liquid hydrogen could be seen twisting in the storm outside the base. "And he's right by the airlock."

"Don't say it." Yemec said abruptly. "You go and tell the others. I'll get a stretcher. We've got to get the body to Sick bay."

"And who's left to examine it? The Captain's dead, now the doctor's gone. I'm telling you they're working their way down the ranks." Megah stopped talking as he saw the look on Yemec's face.

"You have your orders. Now stop talking and go," the second in command said, through gritted teeth. Megah stopped, as if to argue, and then realised Yemec was not in the mood for dissent. Instead Megah nodded and left, walking briskly away from the body.

#

In the storage room, a cabinet appeared, wedged neatly into a corner. Inside it Susan looked doubtfully at her Cull companion, which was scrutinising every move she made.

"Your first trip off-world in a Capsule," she said. "We've arrived."

"WHAT IS YOUR PROTOCAL FOR THIS PROCEDURE?"

"Well, we should investigate."

"WHY?"

"Because we might learn something."

"INSUFFICIENT." Susan sighed. Explaining everything to her reluctant partner was irritating. Showing that irritation would get her killed.

"Because we've never been to a place like this before. It might have useful information."

"THEN WE SHOULD COMMENCE CONQUEST."

"Without gaining intelligence first?" Susan asked, torn between resignation and exasperation. "I thought your people were strategists."

"THEIR TECHNOLOGY LEVEL IS NOT A THREAT." She reflected that appealing to the curiosity of a logic-based, omnicidal species was doomed to failure and paused to consider her response.

"Then let me resort to logic. If we continue to journey off-world regularly, you can access advanced technology, discover completely new species and gain resources. If you attempt to conquer a civilisation we visit, you will have to kill me first. That means no more off-world journeys, and no way for you to return to the base we have set up." Even though nothing of the alien was visible within the shell of its navy blue battle armour she could tell it was glaring. The sensor lights under its shell had moved, all focused in her direction. The creature's secondary gun arm twitched threateningly. Susan stared it down, reminding herself that she had helped kill these things on more than one occasion.

"I WILL PROCEED WITH RECONNAISANCE. HOSTILITIES WILL BE DEFERRED." It was as good as she was likely to get. She opened the door and stumbled slightly as her foot didn't lift as far as she expected.

"Now let's - " She stopped. Her voice had come out in a squeak. She tried again. "We should-" still squeaky. She paused, swallowing and adjusting her vocal chords to deliberately lower her voice. Her ears popped painfully, and everything sounded muffled.

"Is there helium in the air?"

"ATMOSPHERE BREATHABLE BUT NOT EARTH NORMAL. HIGH QUANTITIES OF HELIUM AND NITROGEN DETECTED. OXYGEN LEVELS LOWER."

"Pressurised?" she asked, trying not to squeak.

"AFFIRMATIVE." Susan stood still, taking a few deep breaths as she let her body adapt, suddenly grateful she was not a normal human. The sudden pressure change could have caused problems. She would have to tweak the capsule's programming on locating safe environments. The Cull was still sitting, there looking surprisingly smug for an alien in an expressionless environmental suit.

"So, we're somewhere with high gravity, higher pressure, and artificial air. An underwater base for aliens?"

"NEGATIVE. TWENTY-THREE HUMANOID LIFE SIGNS DETECTED." Now it even sounded smug. "INDUSTRIAL BASE, PLANETARY CLASS GAS GIANT."

"And how do you know that?"

"COMPUTER ACCESS." Susan sighed, looking at the single blue sensor light that gazed expressionlessly back at her. She could protest privacy rights, or the risks of accessing strange computer systems, but she already knew was not going to win this one. She had to pick her battles, and hope its arrogance did not bite it too badly. Instead she closed the Capsule, locking the door behind her.

"Are they hostile?"

"NEGATIVE. DEUTERIUM HARVESTING DETECTED. USEFUL BYPRODUCTS ALSO DETECTED. ACQUIRING." They seemed to be in a storage room, as as she loocked at the crates around them she had to agree with its assessment that this was an industrial operation. The room seemed full of circuitry components, spare panels, nuts and bolts, but nothing that looked particularly useful.

Ignoring the crates the Cull moved to the storage room door. It unfolded a probe from within its armour, sliding it into the keypad. The door slid open and the being began to glide off down the corridor beyond.

"What about the inhabitants?" Susan walked quickly after it, pausing at the door and glancing from side to side. Thankfully the corridor was empty.

"HUMANOID LIFE SIGNS DETECTED INTERIOR TO THE BASE. EXTERIOR LIFEFORMS ARE MICROBIAL IN NATURE," it said without slowing. Susan sighed and shook her head as the alien disappeared round a corner. She had seen more than enough to know that there were things out there that scanners would not detect. With luck her unwanted companion would not find that out the hard way. If something happened to it, it would take her several weeks to remove the fail-safes it had placed in the capsule in order to go home.

Still it could go and look for its 'useful byproducts'. She was going to investigate the aliens.

#

"Tay wouldn't come. It took me five minutes to talk him out of the control room," Megah said, as he returned. Yemec winced as he finished setting up the gurney. It sounded as though the mood on the base was collapsing. Still, he was in command now, and they had more immediate problems to handle.

"Give me a hand," he said. Megah took the corpse's ankles, keeping as far away from the doctor's contorted face as he could. Yemec gripped the shoulders, trying to brace the doctor's limp head against his arm. On the count of three, they lifted it quickly onto the gurney, letting go the moment they could. As Yemec laid a sheet over the body, Megah glanced at the airlock window. He flinched back, pointing.

"Out there! I saw - "

"Don't be ridiculous," Yemec said, but the strain showed in his voice. He started pulling the gurney towards the medical bay. Megah took the other end, pushing reluctantly, but he ducked his head down out of sight of the window. He stayed like that, awkwardly hunched over, until they were in the safely-lit corridor to the Medical Unit with a closed door between them and the airlock.

"I'm telling you, we're under siege here," he said, once the body had been safely rolled into the medical bay, and the wheels locked. Yemec looked at him, silently waiting for the security officer to continue, and Megah shifted slightly under the scrutiny. He lowered his voice, but carried on anyway. "Look, I know they say it's impossible, that nothing living can survive at this pressure, but there are things moving outside. I've seen them. Several of the mine controllers have reported the same thing. Do you think - "

"One thing I think – actually I know – is that we can't leave the bodies here. It's a health hazard," Yemec said calmly, looking round for a solution. "Do you know where the doctor put them?"

"But the aliens - ?"

"We don't know if there are any," Yemec said harshly. "We do know two people have died and the mood in the station's a powder-keg. One wrong word and we'll be killing each other. We don't need plague on top of that." Megah stared at him and swallowed.

"Shut the bodies in an escape pod. They can float to the surface," Megah suggested and Yemec's face fell. "What's wrong?"

"There aren't enough escape pods."

"What?"

"I checked, after the Captain died. There are six doors there, but two of the pods are gone."

"Impossible. Launching one of those things - "

"- makes the console light up like you wouldn't believe. Which means they sent us down here without them," Yemec said.

"Or something took them."

"The alarms would have gone insane." Yemec shook his head, looking round the medical bay walls. "Is that a freezer?"

"I think so. Tay would know, he's second in line for medic," Megah said, and paused.

"Where did you leave Tay?"

"In the lounge. I gave him a job to keep him busy."

"We can handle things here then." Yemec decided. If Tay was cracking under the stress the last thing they needed was to put him under more pressure. He tapped at the wall panel and the door slid open. He took a deep breath, instantly regretting it. "I think I've found the freezer."

#

Life signs were indicated in the corridors, and the Cull changed course to avoid them. An engagement at this time would be a waste of energy, and a scan showed that the priority at this time must be the mining supplies. Their value was significant. Rare earth minerals in fully refined forms: silicates, oxides and phosphates. Minerals not obtainable at the current technology level of their own base. Samples of each would be convenient, and enhance the laboratory's capabilities significantly.

The secure access on the door was easily picked and it glided into the storage chamber, assessing the containers on the shelves. The travel unit had only limited cargo room so care would need to be taken when storing the minerals for transport. It would take time. A quick series of commands locked the door behind him, shut down the security cameras and deleted every trace of himself and his companion. Then, satisfied there would be no interruptions, the alien inspected the storage containers for possible compatibility with its own systems and set to work.

#

"We've put the bodies in the frozen storage in the bay," Yemec said as they entered the crew lounge. He stopped dead. The furniture had been pushed back to buttress the walls. Small piles of clothes and uniforms were folded next to bottles of drinking water and ration packs. The other two surviving members of the command staff were setting up sleeping bags. "What's going on here?"

"We're moving all the command staff in here, like I said." Megah glared at Yemec, daring him to say anything. "If they're picking us off one by one I'm not sleeping alone."

"Were you ever?" Tay said bitterly, and Jayan bridled, glaring at the mining chief.

"Enough," Yemec said, before the technical and mining officers could argue further. "Good idea, Megah. The lounge has no windows, and it's well-protected. Carry on." He pretended not to hear Tay's muttered insult as the security officer began to assemble material to barricade the door.

The mining chief was normally laid-back, but the doctor's death had obviously hit him hard and if the stress was getting to him, Yemec knew the situation was bad. The miners below, working their shifts and having to actually leave the station in the almost claustrophobic harvesting pods, must be even worse. Once the news of the doctor's death got out, so soon after the Captain's, they risked panic among the crew. In an environment this hostile, one panicking person was a risk they could not afford.

Yemec thought for a moment, then caught Megah's eye, inclining his head slightly towards Tay. Fortunately the security officer caught his meaning and went across to help the mining chief with the barricade on the side door. Satisfied the man was being watched, Yemec braced himself, walked across to the intercom on the wall. He cleared his throat and pressed transmit, knowing that what he was about to do could end his career.

"This is Yemec. All crew are to return to the station. Mining operations are suspended due to the worsening storm. All staff are to return to their rooms and prepare for inspection." He cut the transmission. "Tay, go down and oversee them."

The mining chief nodded and walked off with purpose. Behind him, Yemec put down the microphone, and pressed a few buttons on the console. Megah stared at him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Locking them in once they're settled."

"But - "

"The rooms are the most secure part of the base. In an emergency the whole crew section can jettison to the surface. They're as safe as I can make them."

"You didn't tell them about the doctor."

"Tay won't either. The last thing we need right now is a panic among the crew, and they're on edge enough as it is."

"They'll be worse without an officer – Wait, you're locking him in as well?" Jayan demanded. Yemec looked at her and nodded.

"Haven't you noticed? Tay has been acting erratically over the last few days. The stress is getting to him. Stars know, it's getting to all of us."

"So what? I don't - " Megah snapped.

"I am in command." Yemec cut in before he could become irate. "And we will resolve this."

"So what do you suggest?" Megah sounded sullen, but calmer. Yemec thanked his luck that the security chief was at least listening. Now he needed to sound as thought he knew what he was doing.

#

Susan ducked back as she heard footsteps. With the ease of long practice she found a storage cupboard and closed the door to as a group of workers in blue overalls walked passed. She was about to open it again when she realised they had stopped.

"say we don't. I say we got back to the mining pod and lock ourselves in."

"That's smart. Those things only have ten hours air."

"Yeah." The first speaker was getting more irate. "But don't you see anything wrong with this? We were working fine and then suddenly we're called back and told to tidy our rooms for inspection."

"Because of the storm getting worse."

"But it wasn't. I checked the pressure. It was the same as always." He looked round, lowering his voice. "It's the aliens, isn't it?"

"Now look-" One of the other workers pointed threateningly at the first.

"No, you look." He batted the man's hand away. "Things haven't been right round here since the Captain died."

"I agree." The voice was louder, cutting through the discussion. Susan had heard the tone often enough to recognise an officer, or authority of some kind. The workers fell abruptly silent, before the first speaker plucked up courage.

"Sir? What's going on?"

"There's a high pressure front moving in. We aren't taking chances. So get back to your rooms. We'll be doing a full inspection in twenty minutes." The group broke up, not with the precise actions of military obeying commands, but the grumble and moans of unhappy civilians. Through the crack of the door she saw the workers split up, entering doorways along the corridor. She thought she heard a faint click as the nearest closed, and then the sound of someone striking it.

Cautiously, making sure the corridor was empty, she stepped out and let the cupboard door shut behind her. Susan heard the click of the lock as it closed, and the door would not reopen. A quick look at the access panel showed a red locking light. The same display was visible by every door in the corridor. The crew had been locked in. A trapped crew, a dead officer and aliens. She had heard enough to be curious.

#

A quiet beep from the console interrupted the crew's argument and Jayan walked across to check it. She bent down with a look of concern, flipping the switches quickly as she slid into the seat.

"Yemec, we just lost surveillance."

"Where?"

"All over." Her hands danced across the keys, as she shook her head. "It's a major malfunction. I can't get anything to respond."

"Isolate life support." Yemec ordered and she nodded.

"Done. Should I jettison the crew compartment?"

"No. In this storm, they'll never make it to the collection point. Can you locate the cause of the malfunction?"

"Working on it. There's nothing in the manual about this."

"What about the logs?"

"No logs either."

"Did either of you meet the team before us?" Yemec asked, looking round. There were two perplexed gazes.

"You're an officer, didn't they - " Megah was cut off by a sharp shake of Yemec's head.

"No. I thought the Captain did."

"That makes no sense. The first team here should have handed over to someone surely. Something odd happened." The security officer stirred nervously, glancing towards the outside. "Jayan, was the malfunction's cause external?"

"Don't know," she said, tapping a final button and staring at the console biting her lip, "but I think I've isolated it in the security systems."

There was silence for a moment as they both looked at Yemec. He looked at them, considering requesting emergency evacuation, but the storm prevented it. If he triggered the crew jettison there was a good chance they would all die, but if they stayed here...the joys of command he thought dryly and took his second command decision of the last hour.

"Jayan, we need to know what happened. I am authorising you to access the records. Break the passwords if you have to." He pulled an ID out of his pocket. "Here, it's the Captain's."

#

"We're hacking, hacking, hacking" Jayan sang under her breath as she tapped at the keys. "Did the Captain have any pets?"

"No," Yemec said, and she sucked air in through her teeth and started typing.

"Ah. Not his holiday, or hobbies. How about his first command...and I am in." The log entries and records scrolled down the screen. "Nothing found. I'll try the comms. Hold on...this looks promising, but it's partly deleted." Pulling up the file she hit a key and speech started, faintly garbled from the poor quality of the recording.

"-tain, your predecessor filed several disturbing reports about disturbances." Megah scrambled across to join them, and the crew stared at the console in silence as the transmission continued. "We sent a response team down, but when they arrived at the base, the crew was dead. One of the airlocks had been opened, and the pressure equalised instantly. The base survived. The crew did not."

"So they just hauled it up, hosed the walls down and stuck new people in?" Yemec said, appalled.

"Bases are expensive, you know. We aren't," Megah replied.

"Shut up," Jayan said, as the recording continued.

"-the escape pods?" their Captain's voice asked.

"Yes. It arrived intact but when it was opened they were dead, bleeding from nose, ears, and mouth."

"The aliens got them on the way up," Megah said, as the crew stared at each other aghast. "We're trapped."

#

Susan stepped outside into the main area, and turned back quickly as the door lock clicked behind her. Unless she could find another route she was cut off from the Capsule. Contacting the Cull was unwise – it would just cut a hole through the base in the direction it wanted to go, which was hardly a good way to make contact with the residents. She would just have to explore, and find her own way back.

She reflected uneasily that the crew were locked in, both in their rooms and in the section. Something was not right. Still, she was learning nothing standing here. Susan looked at the arrows in the walls, to Central Control, Airlocks and Lounge area. She listened for a moment and turned towards the lounge. She could hear voices.

"Then we have to signal the main base."

"We can't, Jayan, the comms are cut off by the storm."

"But the aliens - "

"We don't know if there are any aliens!" A man's voice, at the end of his patience.

"Then what opened that airlock, Yemec? What killed the people in that escape pod?" Susan listened intently, as she walked closer as quietly as she could.

"We don't know." A man, presumably Yemec, replied.

"Look, we've all seen them, seen things moving outside."

"Megah, of course we have. It's liquid gases out there. The storm will agitate them." Yemec tried to sound reasonable, but his voice was strained. Susan inched forward again, trying to hear, and suddenly realised she had moved into view of the door. She started to step back, too late. One of them caught sight of her and stared. The others looked round, following their colleagues' gaze.

"Who are you?" She didn't have a chance to answer as another of them looked up.

"Must be one of the admin workers from downstairs," he said, reasonably.

"Then why isn't she locked in?" The first chimed in. His name label read 'Jayan'.

"A stowaway," Megah said furiously.

"Don't be daft," Jayan said, standing slowly. "Look at her clothes. We've been down here for eight weeks. No one can get in or out until the storm passes."

"She's been down here infiltrating - "

"Not a chance," Yemec said, putting his head in his hands. He looked ill. "There's nowhere to hide."

"I'm Susan," Susan said, hoping the introduction would defuse the situation. "I just came up from the workers area, but the door's locked behind me."

"See, I told you she's a worker," Jayan said, almost too triumphantly. Susan looked round the three, all wearing the a similar uniform as the workers below, aside from the name patch and what appeared to be a colour strip on the shoulders. Rank or speciality probably.

"Then why haven't I seen her before?"

"In three weeks you think you've seen everyone on the base? Even the ones working opposite shifts?" Yemec asked, and the security officer glared at him, tapping his name badge.

"If she's on the staff, where's her keycard? Or her ID badge?"

"She has to be on staff. Can you think of another way for her to get on board?"

"Well I don't trust her," Megah said, and Jayan nodded agreement.

"I'm staying right here."

"Good," Yemec said. "Reinforce the shell's defences and see if you can get security back online. I'll take Susan and investigate what's going on. Come on."

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#

"Now we are out of there and they won't panic, who are you?" Yemec asked as they walked, and Susan's heart sank. She knew it had been too easy.

"I came up from the worker's quarters"

"I know the work rosta. You're not on it. Who are you?" Susan looked at him as she considered her words, carefully keeping out of range in case he decided to grab her. He was obviously on edge, even if he hid it better than the others in the lounge, and she could use that. As the silence stretched, he filled it awkwardly. "There are enough strange things going on I can't allow a threat – I mean I can't allow something like an unknown person on base to go unexplained."

"I only just arrived," Susan said, projecting confidence. "So what's been going on?"

"And how exactly did you just arrive?"

"Transport shell," she lied. He blinked.

"But the doctor's only just..."

"He wasn't the first, was he?" she said, keeping her voice level and sympathetic. There was every chance Yemec had known the victims. For a moment he looked suspicious, and then visibly relaxed.

"Of course, you're with the response team. We didn't think the messages had got through, with the storm in full swing." He sounded relieved. "Is there a full response team coming? Is base trying to retrieve us?"

"Not that I know of. The storm makes transport difficult and the message we got was very garbled. At the moment it's just me," she said, carefully hedging her bets. He looked a little taken aback, and she rushed on before he could ask more. "So, Yemec, I need a briefing. What's happened?"

"Two crew members have died, the Captain two days ago, and the Doctor about an hour ago. Crew members have been saying they can see things moving outside the airlock. Just now the security went down."

"And what actions have you taken?" He rubbed his forehead, trying to focus. It was easier to go along with what she was saying.

"We have placed the bodies in sick bay, and locked the crew members and one of the command staff in their quarters to prevent panic that could harm the base. We have also reviewed the Captain's message."

"Do you have any records of these things you say were outside?"

"No. The scanners are normal. I haven't seen them, myself." He shook his head. "I think it's looking out and seeing colours instead of black and stars. It's unnerving at the best of times, but with the storm underway it's disturbing."

"You think the crew might be suffering from environmental factors?"

"They are all experienced miners, but this is nothing like working the asteroids. Even the air is different."

"I'd noticed people don't sound right."

"That's the helium. The pressure's at about four atmospheres. It helps support the base shell against the pressure outside."

"A fifty to one factor instead of two hundred to one?"

"Precisely. The whole thing's spherical. We couldn't have any weak points."

"But the airlocks?"

"Reinforced like you wouldn't believe. They're only meant to be opened when we get to the surface."

"Meant to be?" Susan said sharply. Yemec paused in sudden suspicion. "Please, this could be important."

"It's also classified." He leaned against the wall, catching his breath before he continued. "The previous crew was killed when one of the airlocks was opened down here. The safeties must have been overridden."

"Do you know which airlock it was?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to know if it was opened from outside or inside."

"A saboteur? I wondered," Yemec admitted, "but the logs were wiped before we were sent down. You can't tell."

"So that's a dead end," she said. "Then the next step would be examining the victims. Do you still have the bodies?"

"This way." He started walking, but after a few paces Susan had to stop.

"I'm sorry, I thought I was fitter than this." She gasped for breath, leaning against a wall herself. Yemec gestured to a chair at the side of the corridor, near the airlock.

"Don't worry. It's the high gravity. It takes some getting used to. It's why we put the chairs there." Gratefully Susan sat down, trying to ignore the ache in her legs.

"It must be difficult working here," she said, looking out of the airlock window, at the colours and lights swirling outside. Silver streams twisted into blue, catching fire as the pressure prevented the heated gases evaporating. If the crews were expecting help to somehow reach them through that churning morass, they would be in for a long wait. Even a teleport signal would have problems.

"Yes, but interesting," Yemec said. "There are a lot of elements down here we'd never have seen. Even the normal ones are in different forms." He reached up to point at something outside, but as he did there was a groan of metal. Susan jumped, and he shook his head.

"Don't worry. That's just the ballast systems re-stabilising." Susan nodded, trying to control her nerves.

"So it's a suspended base?"

"Precisely. If we get too heavy we sink beyond recovery, too light and we float straight back up to the main dock." It sounded rather precarious to Susan, and the sudden awareness of the huge amount of pressure outside, less than six feet away, ready to crush her, was daunting. She hauled herself to her feet, glancing at the window as she did, and double-took.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She laughed, watching the swirls and patterns in delight. "It's like watching clouds. You can see anything you want to."

"Clouds?"

"Evaporated H2O in planetary atmospheric suspension."

"You lost me," Yemec said, ruefully. "Sounds like you've been to some very odd places."

"You'd never believe me."

"Probably not. I'm just an engineer. Ready to go?"

"Yes." She stood up, ending the conversation before he could start asking awkward questions, and wondered to herself how familiar his people were with planetary environments.

The medical bay, thankfully, was not far. As Susan caught her breath again, Yemec went to the wall, pulling open a white door. Reaching in carefully, as white mist evaporated into the air, he pulled out a shelf with a covered shape on it.

"Watch yourself. It's cold," he advised, as Susan stepped across. Bracing herself for what she might see, she pulled the sheet back. Her first relieved thought was that she had seen worse. The doctor's body was newly dead, the blood trails still fresh. Susan pulled on a pair of gloves and picked up an examination light, thrown by the unexpected weight of the tiny instrument.

"Mucus membranes?" she said thoughtfully, to herself. Checking the doctor's eyes, she did not need the examination light to see the bloody stains in the white and iris. Then she bent down, looking inside his ear with the probe light. She saw what she expected but, just to confirm, she walked to the other side of the body to check the other ear. She stood up, tapping the light on her hand. It seemed so familiar. Susan knew she should know this, but as she searched her memory it escaped her.

"Anything odd?" Yemec asked.

"Ruptured ear drums, and blood vessels in the eyes are broken."

"What killed them?"

"I can't say outright. I'm not qualified to perform a full autopsy," she apologised.

"You're more qualified than I am," Yemec said.

"How did he die?"

"We don't know. We heard a scream and by the time we got there he was down. There was blood on the floor." Susan crouched for a second look at the body. Delicately she lifted the corpse's head a little, fighting the weight, and ran gloved fingers up through the man's hair. When she pulled her hand back, it was stained red.

"That's odd. Was he lying down when you found him?"

"Yes. It could be from his ears."

"No, there's a piece of skull cracked inwards, here on the back of his head."

"Someone hit him?" Yemec straightened up in shock.

"Possibly." The explanation did not satisfy her. "There wasn't anyone around when you found him?"

"No. And we were right round the corner. He screamed and when we got there he was on the floor, dead."

"Did you hear any doors, any sound of someone running?"

"No, he was just right by the airlock, dead."

"Who was with you?"

"Megah." For a moment Yemec looked suspicious, and then slumped. "He was with the entire mining team when the Captain died."

"May I check the Captain?"

"Sure but..." Yemec stood clear, and as the freezer opened she realised why. The Captain had been dead for two days and the autopsy was partially complete. She pushed the door shut, trying not to gag.

"We won't learn much from him directly. Did the doctor leave any notes?"

"Somewhere in here perhaps. I'll try his computer." Yemec sat down behind the desk, and accessed the computer panel. "Here. The last thing he was working on. But he didn't find anything."

"That is interesting." Susan looked over his shoulder, reading the file. "No signs of assault, no damage, possible stroke."

"But if the doctor was attacked, how does that fit?"

"I need to talk to Megah. Just in case he saw something you didn't," Susan said, and Yemec looked up suddenly.

"He did. I remember." He started walking to the lounge. Susan closed the freezer doors, leaning against the wall for a moment. She knew she was forgetting something, but when simply moving was tiring, trying to fish something out of the depths of memory was not easy. Giving up – she knew the answer would come to her eventually – she left the med bay and followed Yemec's route back to the lounge, slowly. She was getting used to the extra weight, but it was still tiring. The lounge door was standing open ahead of her and she could hear raised voices.

#

"Tell her," Yemec said, as she stepped into the lounge. Megah glared at her.

"There was something moving outside the airlock."

"What did it look like?"

"A long snake-like thing. Blue, I think."

"Was it silvery, surrounded by a blue glow?" Susan asked, thinking of the storm clouds, and Megah straightened suspiciously.

"How do you know?"

"Because I saw the same thing earlier." He blinked, not expecting that response, and turned back to Yemec.

"We've reinforced the locks on the workers section, and shut down comms."

"Won't that make them panic more?" Susan asked. Megah ignored her.

"Any traitors in that lot won't be able to stir up the rest, or open the airlocks."

"Why would someone open the airlocks when they know it will kill them?" she said in exasperation.

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me? Alien." Jayan's last word was said more as a sneer than a serious accusation. Susan rolled her eyes as her patience snapped.

"Yes, fine I'm an alien. But my type of alien are at war with the evil nasty aliens that have you trapped here, and we're trying to get you out of the line of fire. That's why I've been sent to help," she said, far too brightly, in exasperation. Megah stopped, looking baffled. Jayan giggled.

"That sounds reasonable," he said. Susan blinked incredulously, wondering if he was joking. "Us getting dropped into a warzone would be about fair and funny and typical."

"OK. We're going to keep looking into things," Yemec said, stepping towards the door. As Jayan laughed, he looked at Megah and lowered his voice.

"Megah, watch Jayan," Yemec ordered. "Don't let her anywhere near the controls. She's drunk."

"Understood." Suddenly Megah's suspicions seemed to switch to his companion. Susan backed out of the room and Yemec shut the door behind them. He locked it quickly, giving her a frantic glance.

"That's not them," he said, urgently. "They don't act like that." Susan swallowed and nodded. On a base like this, the selection process would have chosen the best, not someone who would break under pressure and threaten his commander or someone who would stare at walls giggling.

"Then we need to find out more. Back to the sickbay – you don't have a seperate laboratory, do you?" He shook his head, and they hurried back to the medical bay. Susan glanced out of the airlock window as they passed it, and nodded to herself.

"What's next?" Yemec asked, as they entered.

"I need to take a blood sample."

"What for?"

"To analyse for unusual components. Alien tissue or microbes." She winced at his reaction to the word 'alien'. "Yemec, do you think it is aliens?"

"I don't know," Yemec admitted, sitting down on the lab chair. "I'd like to say no, it doesn't make sense but something's causing this. It's killing my crew and I don't know what I can do to stop it. How can I stop it if I don't know what it is?"

"Well, let's start finding out."

"Wouldn't the doctor - " he stopped. "I'm sorry, I'm under some strain."

"Understood." She drew the blood sample from the doctor's body.

"What are you looking for?"

"Gas levels," Susan said.

"You think they've tampered with life support?" Yemen asked, and Susan raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you were the one that didn't believe in aliens." To her relief he laughed. "Your people are space-faring, correct? You don't often land on planets."

"No. This is a pioneering operation. It still seems strange to look at the window and not see black."

"How well do your people know - ?" She never managed to finish as the door crashed open. A squat, very alien shape filled it, as Yemec jumped up with a cry. It ignored him.

"I HAVE COMPLETED RESOURCE ACQUISITION. WE SHALL DEPART."

"I haven't finished," Susan said, adjusting focus on the microscope.

"IRRELEVANT." The Cull's main manipulator extended and gripped her upper arm, pulling her out of the room. It turned, pushing her inexorably towards the capsule. Susan struggled, protesting, but she could not break its hold.

"You're hurting me."

"IRRELEVANT."

"Hardly, as you will find out," she retorted, pulling the key out of her pocket and unlocking the Capsule. The Cull shoved her inside and she caught herself on the bench. Instantly the lights went out, and the steady hum of the workings died. She sat down and looked at the alien calmly. The Cull's sensors moved and rotated wildly, as she watched the patterns the lights made as they moved under the the metal. It quickly reached a decision and, very deliberately, three blue lights rotated and stopped, focusing on her.

"YOU WILL REPAIR THIS," the thing shrieked.

"I can't. The Capsule detected duress and shut down. Once I no longer perceive myself to be at risk, the Capsule will re-activate."

"YOU ARE NOT AT RISK." She looked pointedly at the gun barrel, and rubbed her arm where she had been grabbed.

"It will take time for me to be sure of that."

"UNACCEPTABLE."

"So is hurting me," she said, with some asperity, "and you were aware the fail-safe existed."

"ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL REACTIVATION?"

"Give it an hour or two and I should be calm enough not to kick it off again." She stood up, opening the door. "Now, if you don't mind, I have an investigation to complete."

"YOU WILL REMAIN HERE."

"Under duress?" she asked archly. The Cull actually juddered in frustration. Susan reminded herself she was taunting a killing machine, equipped with a matter disruptor and thermal lance among other weapons, and she resorted to a more reasonable tone. "Spending an hour sitting here is an inefficient use of time. If I am working on something, it will distract me and I will calm down more quickly."

"THEN COMMENCE WORKING." The Cull did not follow her, but its sensor lights moved and rotated. They were trained on her until the corridor door closed.

Outside the sickbay she took a moment to straighten her blouse, and smooth the rumples out of her jacket, using the time to collect herself. Being dragged down a corridor by a Cull was not a pleasant experience, and showing distress in front of Yemec who was already on edge could only make the situation worse. She needed him to listen, not start wondering what else was going on. Perfectly composed she walked into the room, and back to the microscope.

"What was that thing?" Yemec demanded.

"A mis-programmed research android," Susan lied. If they did not already know about Culls, explaining would take too long. If they did, the crew would run screaming and that would make scientific co-operation difficult. "Did you finish the tests?"

"Yes." He gestured at the bench, "but there's nothing unusual with the blood sample."

"I was afraid of that."

"You know what this is," he said, "and you are going to tell me. Now."

"I think – I'm not sure – that it's a medical condition: nitrogen narcosis or rapture of the deeps. It's a side-effect of the way that gas under pressure is handled by your body. You get it out by lowering pressure, slowly, or you kill the patient. Can we put the blood sample in an isolation chamber? I'm going to lower the pressure on the sample as a final check."

"Feel free, but the pressure gauge is broken." He nodded to the discarded instrument, and Susan picked it up. The needle was jammed against the maximum setting. She shook it, and it didn't move. Feeling a chill up her spine she connected the probe anyway, smiling reassuringly at Yemec.

"Just to be thorough," she said and started the compressor going. The blood sample quickly started to fizz and churn as the pressure dropped rapidly, hundreds of tiny bubbles forming in the liquid. Yemec swore, but Susan's gaze was fixed on the probe's dial. The needle had flickered and after a moment it began to drop. Susan gasped, picking the dial up and showing it to Yemec.

"The pressure in the base is not four atmospheres. It's more like seven!" she exclaimed. He blinked stunned.

"How?"

"The storm. The pressure outside goes up, the sphere contracts slightly, the pressure inside increases. Or decreases."

"But it's a sphere," Yemec protested.

"You have pressures outside that turn hydrogen into a liquid. You think that can't make steel lose an inch or two all round?" Catching up, he nodded. "And if the pressure rises or drops in an uncontrolled fashion, someone vulnerable to it - "

"We have to tell the others," he interrupted.

"No, we have to get to environmental control."

"It's on the way." He gestured to her to follow and set off in the odd clumsy-footed run that this gravity permitted. She followed at a brisk walk, aware that she was getting older. In the heavy gravity, running was out of the question. By the time she reached the lounge, Yemec was talking to the others.

"-a medical condition? I don't believe it," Megah said.

"I've seen it. The blood boils as if it had been spaced," Yemec said, looking to Susan. She nodded and explained.

"Your people are familiar with the damage low pressure does to a body? Well high pressure is just as dangerous. Gas in solution in the blood stream - "

"This is nonsense. The doctor would have spotted it."

"Wasn't he the second victim?" Jayan said quietly. She was staring at the wall.

"Then we need to get the main control to pull us up. But we can't contact them," Megah said.

"First we need to get to environmental controls. Adjust it slowly so the pressure lowers to a safe level," Yemec replied.

"I don't believe this. You're going along with her?"

"You got a better idea?" Yemec snapped. He rubbed at his left arm.

"Yeah. We barricade ourself in here and wait. That way they can't get us."

"Fine. You stay here. I'm going to fix this on my own if I have to." He turned and stalked out. Susan took a look at the accusing glares the others turned on her and followed quickly. Yemec was not hard to follow. He was moving more slowly now, muttering to himself.

"This will fix it, right?" he said, looking a bit distracted.

"Yes. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he snapped. His throat was red and swollen. Susan looked at the red rash that had come up on his left arm, and said nothing. They walked quickly in silence into the work area, back towards the storage room. For a horrible moment Susan thought he would find the Capsule, but Yemec stopped a little way short of the storage area. He reached up to open the door and fumbled with the handle. Angrily, he pushed it open.

Susan looked round. The environmental controls were obvious, the three part mix of nitrogen, oxygen, and helium displayed on gauges. She walked over to the panel, looking for the controls.

"Here," Yemec swiped a keycard through the console and it came to life. "This is the -"

"- atmospheric controls. Thank you." Susan blinked at it, trying to remember safe decompression rates for humans. She seemed to remember something like thirty feet a minute, and thirty feet was one atmosphere. Dropping from seven to four would be three minutes by those rules, but she wasn't sure that was right. She set it to take an hour, adding five minute rest breaks at each complete drop. Then she added a second stage, a slower reduction to one atmosphere, taking four hours with steady stops. Yemec watched her, rubbing his forehead in perplexity.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm reducing the pressure slowly. The safety factors on this base should be able to handle a lower pressure long term."

"Why not just lower it all at once?" Yemec demanded, trying to push her aside. Susan blocked his hand as he reached for the vent lever.

"Because I don't want to kill everyone on board!" she snapped "You aren't thinking straight. If the narcosis is caused by nitrogen and helium dissolved in the bloodstream, what happens when you drop the pressure? You saw the sample!"

"I don't care!" He was stronger than her, but she was between him and the console.

"You will," she said, hoping he was rational enough to hear her. "Decompression sickness. The gas comes out of suspension and forms tiny bubbles in the bloodstream. What happens if those reach the heart or the brain?"

"You're trying to kill - " he said. His eyes were wild and irrational. He had been the most active of the crew. It should not have been a surprise that he was the next one to fall victim. She had to stall him.

"No, you are." She could see the pressure gauge behind him dropping but nitrogen narcosis was such an individual condition she could not guess at what point he would snap out of it. He stepped back, glaring dangerously, and his hand fell on the metal loading pipe.

"I'm not going to let you kill us!" he snarled. Trapped, with the control pipes behind her, she couldn't dodge. She screamed as the pipe hit her arm, too fast for her to grab.

"Listen, Yemec -" He brought the bar back over his head and she flinched, raising an arm in defence. There was a blaze of white light behind her eyelids. Cautiously, expecting another blow, she opened her eyes and blinked her vision clear. Yemec's body was sprawled on the floor, the pipe still in his hand. Behind it a familiar dark shape blurred into focus.

"YOU FUNCTION?"

"Yes, I - oh no." She dropped to her knees, checking for Yemec's pulse. There was none.

"YOU WERE UNDER ATTACK."

"He was deranged. He did not know what he was doing."

"IRRELEVANT. HE WOULD STILL HAVE KILLED YOU." She swallowed, unable to argue with the creature's logic.

"Go back to the Capsule. I will explain this and then meet you there. I think we've finished here." To her surprise the Cull did not immediately leave.

"THEY MAY BE AGGRESSIVE."

"Unlikely." It was already getting easier to breathe, and she could feel her head clearing, the lifting of a faint fuzziness she had not known was there. She looked at Yemec's body, wondering if she could have held him off a little longer, whether he would have snapped out of it. Then she looked away, in the certain knowledge that he would have killed her first.

"They will be recovering. Introducing a new factor to an unstable group of people is more likely to cause problems than solve them." And, she said quietly to herself, she really did not want to be around the Cull right now. Her nerves were worn thin and if she let her emotions slip and screamed at it she would be as dead as Yemec.

"AGREED." And now, mercifully it turned and left, as silently as it had entered. She bent down, closing the corpse's eyes and laid it out neatly, arms crossed. There was no reason to give the crew a more unpleasant job than they already had. Finished, she could not put off the far more difficult task any longer.

She walked to the lounge, gathering her composure to face Yemec's colleagues. The others were waiting, looking more alert already. From their looks on their faces they knew something was wrong.

"What happened? Where's Yemec?" Megah demanded.

"We solved it," she said, sinking into a chair. "But Yemec is dead."

"Explain." Jayan said, putting a comforting hand on Susan's arm. Involuntarily Susan flinched.

She explained, as simply as she could, what had been causing it and what had happened to Yemec, leaving out the role of the Cull entirely. If they weren't familiar with high pressure damage then there was no need to reveal the creature's presence and give them another shock.

"But if it's so simple, why didn't anyone work it out?" Megah asked incredulously and Jayan shook her head.

"By the time, the symptoms showed, no one was thinking clearly enough," she said. Susan sighed. "I think the first crew worked it out, but by the time they did they were so far gone that they couldn't work out the complex details of lowering the pressure. Opening the door must have been all they could think of."

"If the pressure in here is dropping, why isn't the base going up?" Megah asked.

"Because it's going back into the tanks," Jayan said, "the total mass of the sphere doesn't change." Susan coughed, drawing their attention.

"If you can, get them to lift this early. It needs to be strengthened if they are going to put people down here for any length of time. Lower the pressure to one atmosphere permanently and even if a storm rolls in it should be safe."

"We can't radio - "

"The escape pods," Jayan said simply. "We don't put a person in, we just put a written message. If it gets through the storm great."

"And if - "

As their discussion turned technical, Susan took the opportunity to quietly withdraw. The hiss of the door closing behind her was hardly noticed as the team went to work. She knew they would make it, and staying longer would simply be delaying.

She walked back to the storage room alone, slowly, trying to put off confronting the Cull. At least one of the deaths here was direcrtly due to their presence, but if they had not been here, the entire crew would have died. One life for many, a logical trade perhaps, but one she was never comfortable making, and it weighed on her conscience.

All too soon, the store room door opened. A familiar squat black shape rested outside the capsule, turning a piercing blue glare on her. She walked past it, pulling the key from her pocket.

"WHAT WAS THE CAUSE?" The creature demanded. Susan wanted to snap back at it, but as far as she could tell the Cull was honestly curious. She did not want to look at the alien, so she settled for turning the key instead and speaking to the lock in front of her.

"Nitrogen narcosis. It's a pressure-related condition, like the bends," she said, hoping the earth terminology would confuse him and he would shut up.

"THE BENDS. CAISSON DISEASE."

"Well, yes. A related condition. But no one's called it that since the nineteenth century." Susan stared at it, wondering where it had picked up the obscure slang. The Cull did not answer, simply gliding into the Capsule and rotating its head piece and sensors to face her.

"YOU ARE NO LONGER UNDER DURESS."

"No. I feel absolutely fine," Susan said, with some bitterness. She stepped inside and the interior of the Capsule lit up. She closed the door, sitting down on the bench and pulled the lever. "Home."

"I DETECTED NO - " Susan opened the Capsule door and stepped out into their laboratory.

"The trip home is always shorter. Excuse me, I want some time alone." She turned, heading for her rooms above. Mercifully, the Cull did not follow.

#

"Aliens? Isn't it more likely that one of you hallucinated them, and in their more suggestible state the rest of the crew went along with it?" The officer asked. The rest of the crew were huddled in blankets in the sickbay of their main base, grateful and safe.

"That's not realistic, sir," Megah said.

"So instead, you believe that a passing helpful alien showed up two hundred miles under the surface of a gas giant, made first contact, diagnosed and cured a human illness, and then wandered off?" The crew looked at each other. Put that way it did sound unlikely.

"And the cure, sir?"

"Psych suggests your subconscious minds must have been screaming at you, and that manifested in this...person...you claim to have met. It's notable they appeared when the delerium was at its worst and vanished when you began to recover." The officer looked at them.

"But Susan worked the pressure release?" Jayan protested quietly, but there was doubt in her voice. The last few days were a distorted blur, and the medical assessment had told them to expect memory loss. The officer looked at her sympathetically.

"It appears Yemec realised what was going on and lowered the pressure successfully, but the tissue damage he had sustained was not survivable. I will be putting him in for a commendation. He saved the mission. It may not be much consolation, but as the discoverer of gas-giant hyper-pressure injuries he will be remembered."

#

A galaxy and a thousand years away, he was.