Stocky locked down the hazmat vault within the Isolab once he had finished analyzing the controller board. Whatever that substance was, it would stay in containment this time. He made a quick call to Moussa to see how his crew was doing. And then he went to find Patterson. She knew more than she had been letting on. And their situation was more precarious than he had known.
He found Patterson and Chandna in the makeshift breakroom sipping coffee. It appeared to be a work-break. They had covered the whiteboard with information he didn’t understand and were reviewing information on their tablets while talking about which information to send in the next transmission packet to the spy probe lurking far out in the icy regions of Delta Hydri. Algernon was caged on the table.
They didn’t notice him and so he spoke over them. “This is no disease.” He waited at the doorway for their answer.
They stopped talking and turned toward him. “Infectious diseases are only part of it,” Patterson said.
“And not the most interesting,” Chandna said. Neither he nor Patterson appeared bothered
He immediately wondered ‘what is then?’ but he expected that they wouldn’t say. But he deserved to know Pazuzu’s capabilities since he was charged with the first line of defense. And he still trusted that Patterson would provide him with a general answer if he continually pressed her. He decided he might as well start now. “What is it really?”
Chandna leaned forward in his seat and looked at Patterson, cuing her to make the determination.
She looked at Stocky. “Pour a coffee and sit down for a moment. We’ll go back in the Isolab in a minute and I’ll show you everything.” She then turned to Chandna. “Will you incinerate our spent samples?”
Chandna smiled at them both and walked out, leaving his tablet on the table. Stocky poured a small cup, black, and sat down in silence. He pulled Changna’s tablet over to view. A videofile was prominently displayed for replay, and he started it, watching silently. He saw a series of animals scurrying around in sealed containers within the Isolab. They had once been normal insects, lizards, birds, and rats. Now they were covered in abnormal growths and large patches of hair or feathers had fallen out. Most had only a few noticeable alterations, just enough to appear diseased or malformed. But some looked as if they had almost fully transformed into alien horrors. The video ended with several time lapse segments showing the progression of the alien hybridization. It worked fast. He remembered her earlier saying that she had been studying the alien cell cultures and what they could do, and he looked in her eyes while taking another sip.
“What did you learn about the contaminated controller board?” she asked, sipping her coffee.
He pushed the tablet aside. He was rather taken aback by her calm demeanor. “Pazuzu is a cyber threat. I saw that all the solid-state output relays were wrong even though the installed jumpers were in the correct sequence. I had to clean the jumper terminal thoroughly to restore functionality. Those nanofibers are indeed switches, and if just a little of them are left on our electronics then they want to muck everything.”
She nodded. “I saw that too.”
He leaned back in his seat, beginning to relax a little. “The EEPROM programming was incorrect too. Normally, I would write that up to a bad chip, but after seeing Pazuzu’s work with the jumpers I thought to trace the origin of the fault. That goo was driving the flash bus. It can manipulate a charge, and it’s a cyber threat.”
She simply nodded and he stressed that they had to inform TURING. Every digital system connected to Aux Two was suspect. But she promised that TURING knew.
“That is correct,” TURING said. “All accesses and permissions from systems within Aux Systems Two were suspended after discovering the tampering. Monitoring systems are still operating. However, we cannot be certain about the accuracy of their information.”
Knowing that TURING had already implemented a defense strategy made him feel better. Even still, they were only just beginning to adapt to Pazuzu’s full capabilities. The stressed out human crew was not prepared to exterminate it. “That’s going to make going back in harder,” he said. “I mean, the increasing fatigue and fright has already undermined most of the crew. And the Captain. And now we can’t verify information extracted from Aux Two.”
She finished the rest of her coffee in quick gulps. “I don’t think it wants us in there.” She pointed at his cup. “Finish and let’s go.”
He gulped his own coffee and then followed her over to decontamination. “So do you know what this is?” he asked while sliding into his bubble suit. He thought that she certainly did. She should be terrified if she didn’t.
“Pazuzu is a universal assembler,” she said while zipping up her suit. They both slid on gloves and overshoes and then inspected each other before stepping into the elevator. And they inspected it (as they had done since the creature’s escape) before riding up.
He understood the concept of a universal assembler. Such a thing would be a bit more advanced than the von Neumann replicating probes that humanity used to spy on those who dwelt beyond the Outers. They could only make copies of themselves (with preconfigured modifications). “If it’s an assembler then what’s controlling it?”
“That would be the organism in Aux Two. It has the complexity to possess considerable intelligence. It’s deadly on its own, but its primary purpose is to control its army of small things.”
“Can it threaten us with what it has in Aux Two?”
She shook her head. “Not immediately. We can best Pazuzu. We just have to keep it contained while Chandna and I finish our work.” She sighed. “I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be a lot tougher for us than anything we’ve done on the Nineveh before. And we’re going to be at this for months.”
He would have a lot of time with her. “I’m fine with that. We replicants are proud of doing the work that humanity won’t – or can’t. I’ve managed fine that way since my superearth mining days.”
“Humans never came around?”
“Heck no, there is a lot of force in a fall on a superearth. A human being could easily hurt themselves even when wearing the exoskeleton suits available. And slopes are deceptive because of that same gravitational force. Ones which look stable to someone accustomed to a single earth gravity are actually very unstable, and just waiting for something to start a landslide. And all the falling dirt and rock can hurt a human as much as his own fall will.
We could manage much better than them. We could manage better without them. We had a saying amongst ourselves – sticks and stones break human bones, but such things will never hurt me.”
Her pupils dilated and her voice lowered with concern. “You probably shouldn’t go around saying things like that.”
He answered her with only a silent nod. He hadn’t meant to make her uncomfortable.
They rode the elevators up and reached the third deck. The main hall was littered with cleaning supplies and other equipment, and it was hard to squeeze between it all. There were plastic containers staged by the door which contained various insects. Patterson opened the lid to one and picked up a scorpion in her left hand. “The controller board is locked in its glovebox?” she asked. She sealed the container.
“Yeah, in the other room.”
“Then let me show you the most important truth.” She entered the Isolab and he followed. She passed by the first couple glovestations in the main room and then stopped in front of one containing a large grasscutter who had lost large patches of hair, revealing inflamed lesions. Puss surrounded its deathly black eyes. She inspected her gloves as well as those on the station. “Always check the integrity of your gloves. You want three layers – no less. No exceptions.”
He looked in her eyes and nodded. She pulled the right-hand glove over her hand with careful tugs of its polymer fabric until she had a good fit up to her wrist. She then thrust her hand into the station. The rat went berserk, leaping at her hand mouth agape. She was faster, and she pinned the rat down. It thrashed with its mouth open. Its great teeth stood out among its bleeding gums. Stocky leaned over to get a better look at its crazed violence.
She pulled her hand out just as quickly as she thrust it in. The station’s glove again lay limp on the exterior of the workstation. The composite flaps attached to the glove openings on the interior of the glovebox slapped shut after the gloves were out. The rat stood on its hind legs and bit and scratched but could not budge them. They only opened inward.
“How many layers?” Patterson asked. She stared directly in his eyes.
“Three.” He didn’t bother to ask what happened if an animal bit through their protective clothing. He already knew it would be bad.
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She beckoned him with her finger. “Let me show you what’s going on.” They went to another glovestation containing insects and she opened the top lid and cast her scorpion in. The scorpion already in the glovestation advanced to the new arrival and locked pincers with it. The many cockroaches also in the station surrounded the new arrival, grabbing legs and walking over it.
“See that,” Patterson said. “The first thing they do is make sure their new friend gets a hearty dose of Pazuzu infection.”
Stocky watched the bugs. Both predator and prey worked together to subdue the new arrival, but they did not try to hurt it. And the new scorpion postured its tail in a threatening manner out of fear. Stocky then thought that the previous rat might not have been insane after all. Maybe instead it knew that the only way to infect her was to bite through the gloves. He looked at her and she nodded.
“Everything alive in these labs want to infect you and ultimately kill you,” she warned.
Stocky shut the lid on the top of the glovestation and secured the latch. “If these things coordinate to spread the contagion then how do we guarantee they stay locked up?”
Patterson pointed to several cannisters attached to the ceiling. “The gas cannisters will displace the air in these labs when they discharge. Infected Pazuzu creatures still need to breathe oxygen.”
The gas cannisters were only useful if they detected the breach. “Yeah, but one of these escaped the labs before.” He walked back over to the entrance door. It was a wide open area and there were cameras all throughout the labs which they regularly checked. But he wished there was a barrier.
“Don’t fret it too much,” she said, coming along beside him. “We have a layered defense in keeping an animal contained – the elevators and the lab entrance. But the most important part is to keep the gloves pulled out of the boxes when not in use. None of these animals can bite or claw their way through polycarbonate. The gloves are the only weak point.”
He sighed and then nodded in agreement. He pointed back toward one of the glovestations – which was different from the rest. It was solid steel and so he couldn’t see what was inside. “What’s in that one?”
She glanced in the direction and then looked back at him. “Los Tres Amigos. That one is special. With the others, I’m just using them to study Pazuzu’s behavior alteration, disease spread, and disease progression. And of course, I’m testing the treatment methods Chandna and I have prototyped. And then I destroy the animals once they’re no longer useful. But I’m letting Pazuzu go all the way with the animals in that box – to turn them into whatever it does.”
Stocky looked around and saw that all the animals were all watching him again. They had been reprogrammed to spread the infection at all cost. He was glad the ones in the steel box couldn’t see him. “And you want me to take care of the animals?”
“Yes, feed and water them, and clean up after them. Except leave Los Tres Amigos to Chandna and I. Sanitize the labs regularly. The more maintenance and upkeep you do the more Chandna and I can work on Pazuzu.
We don’t have enough personnel to work around the clock anymore. But we need to come close to that. Crew morale.”
He nodded “Yeah, we have to preserve what’s left of that. You can count on me.”
“One more thing,” she said in a grave tone. “If anyone in the crew tries to pull you on a task when I’m not around, you are to inform me of it first. I will decide if that should be done. Even if it is the Captain who tells you, I will make the determination of whether that will happen.”
He peered into her eyes. She wasn’t afraid but was clearly worried about something. “I will do as you say,” he said to put her mind at ease. “May I ask what’s on your mind?” She was silent for a moment and he thought that she wouldn’t say.
She sighed. “In the Book of Job, Satan inflicts grievous torment upon Job as part of a contest with God. Satan accuses and injures him as a backhanded way of accusing God himself. Another attempt to prove the Most High isn’t who He claims to be.
Job probably handled it as well as any man could. Yet even he despairs and comes to feel that God is acting cruel to him. He behaves irrationally, cursing the day of his birth as if it would have been better for him if he had never received any of the blessings of life. And he thinks that he should have the right to some audience with God, to point out that he had been wronged. Yet he also shows in his testimony that he understands that no man lives perfectly right in the eyes of God, and specifically mentions sins in his youth.
He’s aware that nobody lives perfectly right with God, including himself. And at the same time, he feels that God owes perfect worldly kindness to him. God should always have his eye on him for earthly blessings. He feels he deserves that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Job was written more than three thousand years ago. That was human nature then, and it’s the same today. Humans believe that they are worth more than they are, and that they are entitled to that which they are not. They believe that they should receive more than what they are themselves willing to give. They excuse things they shouldn’t and hold fault where there is no reason. And most are nowhere near as good as Job.”
He stared at her wide eyed. “I thought I was the only one who had opinions like that about humans.”
She shook her head. “Not the only one. People have acted like I owed them something simply because I could easily do it more often than I can remember. I don’t make much of it. My abilities mask the abusive nature of their intent. It doesn’t seem like a great wrong to them. And I also think people tend to fear those like us more often than they like. One way a person may manage fear is to try to assert dominance.”
She changed her voice to a more assuring tone. “I like this crew. But my point is that neither of us have seen them broken and desperate before – as they now are. We shouldn’t presume that we know them right now. Let’s protect them from their own failings.”
He nodded. He didn’t say it but he agreed. And secretly, he was glad he was with another who perceived human beings as he did, and he again wondered how she was so different from the rest of them.
She turned toward another lab and beckoned him to follow. “Come with me. I’ll show you how things will progress.” Inside the lab there were several workstations which had iced over interiors. The frozen crystals made intricate patterns so that it was hard to see what was inside. She ignored those and lifted a small container off the deck, setting it on a table. “Do you know what this is?”
He looked it over, noting its interface for power and signal cables as well as standard latches for exterior hull mounting. And then the big telltale was the pylon inserts for constructing a Whipple shield scaffold for protection. “This is a storage module for external cargo. You want to store samples outside the ship?”
“Nope, we’re going to transfer these to the probe.” She pointed at the cold samples. “Pazuzu can’t actually function at two hundred below zero. It likely possessed some external heat source on the derelict – like a radionuclide. The isotopes we’ve found in Zhu hints that was the case. But it can thrive in temperatures well below zero by absorbing nitrogen from its surroundings and transforming its cellular solvent to a water-ammonia eutectic mix. And then it adapts its metabolism and protein synthesis for those colder temperatures.”
“Can we prevent it from taking in nitrogen?” If they could freeze it then they could stop it.
“I’m working at that, but it will take time.” She walked over to the cold test stations. “Right now, I’m verifying that these frozen live samples stay dormant when exposed to energy that the probe will encounter on its journey back.” She looked back at him. “Magnetic fields, ionizing radiation, and such.”
He sighed. He was beginning to put it all together. If she was contacting an outside lab for assistance then they would be out here for a long, long time. “What’s the plan?”
“We can’t go back home with what the Nineveh is carrying. The Captain will pick a system not too far from human space for us to travel to. And we will wait. The probe will return to our buyer and carry my reports and these samples for study. I’m recommending LookingGlass for the job, but there are other research groups who are capable.
They will be able to do a lot more with their resources. And since Pazuzu’s eutectic cellular fluid doesn’t expand appreciably during freezing, these samples will thaw out without damage. The assigned group will have our experimental results and live samples. They’ll develop a response plan, send a team to us to detach Aux Two for further study, and give us instructions for going home.”
His eyes widened with surprise and he understood why she had not appeared afraid earlier. She had laid a foundation for solving the problem of Pazuzu in a remarkably short amount of time. He felt proud of her.
But he still didn’t have confidence in most humans. “You’re certain this is how it will go?” She knew more than anyone else on the crew. But he was skeptical. People back home might just write them off as liabilities. Chandna had returned and he shifted his gaze between the two of them.
She passed him a reassuring gaze. “I worked at LookingGlass. I know of our contingencies. Besides, I examined the samples we obtained of the aliens on the derelict ship. Pazuzu is alien to them too. They found it and died. Now we found it and must deal with it. Pazuzu is spreading and mankind will encounter it again.”
Chandna gave an agreeing nod. “You will be working with her until then.”
Patterson nodded.
Although Stocky was aware of the gravity of the situation, he couldn’t help but feel excitement. He would be out here with her for years. He reminisced on his earlier date. He could have many more. The Captain had a family and he remembered his talk about family formation earlier. He gazed in Patterson’s eyes and tried to image what that was like. How close could they get? “The two of us together?”
He instantly regretted saying it.
Her eyes widened and then she crossed her arms over her chest. “The three of us will work together.” She turned toward Chandna. “Do you have something.”
“Yes,” he said happily. “I wanted you to know that I disposed of our waste as you directed. I also examined Zhu’s body and took another tissue sample. It shows there has been some metabolic activity in the alien cells since the ENG’s death.”
“We should probably burn that too,” Stocky said, grateful for the change in subject. “This contagion handles the cold too well.”
“We’ll almost certainly eventually have too,” Patterson said, “but we can still learn from it.” She looked at Chandna. “Is the metabolic activity something you think we should be concerned about?”
He shook his head. “It’s something we should check up on every four or five hours. It’s not rapid enough to be a concern. It’s not like what we’ve seen in our live experiments. Pazuzu seems to like senescence. Dead cells are not preferred, but we now have proof it can harvest them.”
He walked past them and picked up a tablet laying on the table next to the storage container, and he began to review files. “Anyways, I secured Zhu in the morgue. He’s locked up tight. We’re at a good point to break for rest and we need to prepare for the long haul. You two should get a few hours of sleep. I’ll tidy things up here.”
“I’m alright,” she said. “You can have the first sleep rotation.”
“It would be better if it was you,” he said. “That way you can be refreshed and clear headed for preparing the next phase of our work.”
Stocky looked at Patterson. Although Chandna had the largest bags under his eyes, there was wisdom in his plan. “It is better if we go down first.”
“It’s settled then,” Chandna said. “Get up to Berthing and take what time you need. I’ll have this place organized and our next reports ready for your review when you’re back.”
Stocky got up and looked at Chandna. He wore a wide, pleasant smile, but his eyes (strangely alert considering he appeared so tired) darted back and forth between them. He ignored it. Maybe Chandna was a good man.