Solitudo
Part 2 in the Jupiter Chronicles...
This is the second part of my Jupiter series after Fortunatus (the third part is a novel I finished a bit ago, so a little harder to substack…though in the future, we’ll see!).
Having just watched a man descend into hysterical paranoia, Roger Wright wanted nothing more than to retire to his quarters, lie down and go to sleep. There were scratches all over his forearms that he had gotten helping hold the man down, saliva still caked on his face from the man’s spittle, his muscles and bones were sore from the struggle to keep the man still while he could be injected with something to calm him down, render him no longer a danger to himself and others. It didn’t help that the man was a friend, David Mason, who within a week’s time had gone from one of the world’s finest astrophysicists to a paranoid schizophrenic, ranting and raving about alien abductions and secret tests. It was a shame that kept Roger from sleeping well to see such a good man derailed so. It would have been better too, had it not happened here, or now, on board the Cassini a mere 100,000 miles above the cloud tops of Jupiter. There were no psychiatrists here, no proper medications, and a good year or more of travel in the opposite direction to return to Earth.
Exhausted, Roger found a plastic chair overlooking the Jovian gas giant that swirled below them like a giant hydrogen soup. He wanted, no needed, a few minutes to be alone and reflect. Perhaps he should have prepared for this possibility, that one of his crew of four would go mad on the long journey. He would have been ready for almost anything else, technical difficulty (they had plenty of those), communication failure (which they were currently experiencing), but this was something beyond his experience. All of his people had been carefully screened. True, this mission to Jupiter was one of the longest manned missions through space to date, and it was bound to take a psychological toll. But Roger had believed that his people, David included, had been up to the task.
It was at moments like this that Roger realized just what they were missing on Earth. There was no alcohol to be had to calm his frayed nerves, no proper way to exercise in order to release tension, and frankly no privacy. That was clear almost immediately as his moment of peace was broken by his agitated pilot, Agnes Levine. She appeared from the medical bay, herself covered in bruises and scratches and demanded Roger’s attention, face red, hands on hips.
“What in the name of all that is sacred are we supposed to do now?” she demanded, as if NASA would have prepared them for an outcome like this. Behind her from down the hall David could still be heard groaning, moaning, still mumbling about the aliens that came at night to experiment on him. Agnes was an excellent technical person, a wonderful pilot and career military. People skills and empathy were not her strong points and from the look on her face Roger guessed she hoped he might suggest they jettison David straight into space. “Are we supposed to turn this tub of junk around and bring him home?” That was an unfair assessment of the Cassini. True they had lost all communication with Earth once they had entered Jupiter’s magnetosphere and the communication equipment seemed to resist all attempts to fix it, but the ship had kept wonderfully on course and intact despite having to resist Jupiter’s strong gravitational pull and radiation output. And Agnes knew as well as Roger that there was no turning around. Even if it were professionally possible (it wasn’t) they were counting on rounding Jupiter to allow its gravitational forces to slingshot them back toward Earth.
“We’ll have to keep him as safe as we can,” Roger said lamely, not really able to think of much else more reassuring.
“Really,” she said angrily, not so much at Roger, just blowing off frustration, “strapped to a medical gurney for the next year and a half? We don’t even have a locked room to stick him in. I can’t believe this, of all the stupid things to go wrong.”
Roger looked at her sympathetically. He understood her frustration, just as he felt sympathy for poor David, who would have to endure whatever answer they came up with, and it wasn’t likely to be a comfortable one, “It happens, Agnes. I’ve heard of cases of men on submarines who go through the same thing. They have to jam them in some closet and go on with the mission. I don’t see many alternatives here.”
Her expression remained steamed, but Roger was saved from further vitriol on her part by the fourth and final member of their crew, the ship’s physician Richard Gilmour. He was the oldest of them, near sixty and soft-spoken, a decent enough old fellow, Roger thought. “I’ve got David sedated,” Richard said with an apologetic look, “we don’t have that much sedative though, it won’t last long. He’s got a bit of a fever too, possibly due to the over stimulation of his sympathetic nervous system.”
“Could it be possible that he has an infection that’s doing this to him?” Roger asked. The suggestion had both silver and black linings. An infection offered the possibility of both a cure, and a spread to the rest of the crew.
Richard shook his head though, “No, I don’t think so. His fever is not high enough to bring on delirium, and I see no evidence of an encephalitic infection or encephalopathy. Of course, I don’t really have the proper instruments here…” he let the sentence hang. “I’m sorry, Captain.”
“How could David catch an infection out here after a year?” Agnes demanded, wheeling on the doctor.
“People carry all manner of pathogens, viruses, parasites, some of which lie dormant for months or years,” Richard explained patiently, “I don’t think that’s the case here, but perhaps to be sure we should only approach David with gloves and masks on.”
Roger shook his head, “That won’t exactly help his paranoia about medical experiments, will it? Besides, it’s a bit late for that,” he pointed toward the scratches along his own arm.
Richard patted him on the shoulder, “Why don’t the two of you get some rest, I’ll keep an eye on David.” In lieu of any better ideas there was nothing else to be done for the moment. Roger concurred with Richard’s suggestion. He and Agnes quietly left the ship under Richard’s watch while they attempted to rest and forget what had occurred onboard for at least a few moments.
Rest did not come easy. That was hardly unexpected under the current circumstances, although the truth was that Roger had not been sleeping well for weeks. Perhaps he too had been feeling the strain that had cracked David. Ultimately it would be he to whom people looked if the mission were a success or a failure. The loss of communication with Earth troubled him greatly. He was at a loss to explain it other than that the machinery itself must be fatally flawed and unfixable. He wished he could believe that moving through Jupiter’s radiation belts was responsible although, of course, far more primitive unmanned ships than the Cassini had maintained contact with Earth at even closer distances. Unless he figured out what was wrong with the equipment (an unlikely prospect after it being broken for so long) they would have no further contact with Earth until they returned, some year and a half hence. That had no real practical impact on the mission but left him feeling bleak and abandoned somehow. How he missed Earth with its blue skies and cool fragrant air. Being a part of this historic mission was an exciting time, but Jupiter was, frankly, a swirling ugly mass that looked angry and hostile. Of his crew he had only really connected with David and even that now, well, was gone.
As it had been for the past few weeks, his attempts at sleep resulted in fragmented bits of sleep and wakefulness. His sleep was restless and punctuated by nightmares that he could not recall upon waking. These left him feeling just as tired after his sleep period as when he had gone to sleep. There were no sleeping medications on the Cassini. Aside from the warm milk that Richard prepared for him each night, he was on his own. After wrestling with David, tonight it was only worse. He tried to sleep for several hours without success before abandoning his efforts.
There frankly wasn’t a lot else to do on the ship. Except in emergencies the Cassini ran itself. True it was nice to have humans on hand to repair any breakdowns in equipment, but the truth was that, scientifically speaking, this mission around Jupiter was unlikely to break ground that hadn’t already been tread by unmanned ships. Roger was acutely aware of the twofold purpose of a manned mission around Jupiter: 1.) To be able to say it was possible and 2.) To see what happened to humans after long periods in space. There was an animal lab on board the Cassini, and Roger thought perhaps he should check on some of the experiments in there, but he frankly wasn’t in the mood. There wasn’t much else to do except for books, computer games and television (they had been getting updated feeds from Earth until the communications quit). No essentially this was one long cruise around Jupiter. That wasn’t to say that Roger wasn’t thrilled to be a part of this historic moment in time; humankind pushing the limits of manned space exploration. This was the first manned ship to use an artificial gravity machine (rather than centrifugal force) and NASA was eager to see how it worked and whether they all returned riddled with tumors from its effects. But aside from the historical angle, this was shaping up to be the most boring and lonely two and a half years of his life. That was until today; now it was just lonely.
Roger found himself wandering sleepily to the medical bay. It seemed a good idea to check in on David, see how he was doing. The indefatigable Richard Gilmour was there, still awake and keeping his vigil over his restless ward. The lights in the sick bay were kept low as if that might sooth David, but it didn’t seem to be working. David was clearly more under control than earlier, owing to a combination of improvised restraints and sedatives, but he was still murmuring and agitated.
“No better?” Roger asked, patting Richard comfortingly on the back.
“Afraid not,” Richard replied, “I thought you were going to try to get some rest?”
“Couldn’t sleep…,” Roger replied motioning toward David, “Thought maybe I’d have a talk with him.”
Richard’s shrug made clear how much he thought that would get them, “I wouldn’t mind brewing up some tea if you could keep an eye on him a bit. None for you though…I’ll warm you up some milk if you like, might help you to sleep.”
“Sounds good, thank you.” As Richard left to make his way to the cafeteria, Roger moved closer to David to inspect him. David had not escaped the cuts and bruises of their scuffle and there were longer cuts along his arms where he had been clawing at himself, trying to get something out of himself. Richard had somehow gotten him into a hospital gown and cleaned him up some, but he was still difficult to watch. This man who he had used to spend long evenings with playing chess and talking religion was reduced to a twitching muttering ruin. Roger knew enough about schizophrenia to know people didn’t simply bounce back from it, that medication was little more than a hollow promise. He felt sorry for his friend.
David stirred at Roger’s approach and opened his eyes. The pupils were wide and the sclera bloodshot, the eyeballs twisted back and forth like a panicking horse. “Roger!” he nearly hissed, trying to reach out with his restrained hands.
“Relax, buddy,” Roger said, putting a hand comfortingly on his shoulder, well out of reach of those grasping hands, “You’re okay. You gotta be calm, we’re just trying to figure out what happened to you today.”
“What happened?” David hissed again, “I’ll tell you what happened. They come at night, when we’re sleeping….they take us into their ship…”
“Wait, wait…,” Roger interrupted, “…you mean the aliens you were…talking about earlier?”
“Yes!” David said emphatically, as if Roger was believing him for the first time, “I’ve seen you there, and Agnes. They do the same thing to you that they’ve done to me. They think we’re sleeping, but this time I woke up. They experiment on us, they put things in us…”
“David…I gotta tell you, there’s no aliens out here. Our scanners are still working fine, we’d see them coming if they tried to abduct us, or the Cassini would sound a collision warning. It’s not like we’re in an Oklahoma trailer park out here.”
“Listen to me!” David hissed, then seemed to think better of it, “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to talk to you like that…”
“It’s okay David,” Roger tried to reassure him, “I know you’re not feeling well right now. You’ve got a bit of a fever, maybe some infection is doing this to you, Richard is going to try to find out for you okay? You gotta help us out a bit though, okay, you gotta try to fight against this. There’s no aliens, it’s just something you’re brain’s making up while it’s sick.”
“I know how this looks,” David said, “I know something is wrong with me. I don’t know what, I just can’t think straight. But I know what I saw, and it wasn’t a dream, it was real. Real as you are now. They were…horrible…”
“David,” Roger said softly, “you tried to open an airlock without your spacesuit on, do you remember that? Do you remember fighting with us?” David watched him for a moment, then nodded his head. Roger pressed on, “Why did you do that?”
David seemed to think for a minute. Then with tears in his eyes he positively whimpered, “I don’t know. They put stuff in us. They did this to me.” Richard had reappeared next to Roger, and David shifted his attention to him, “Richard what did they do to me?”
Richard stroked the man’s hair like a sick boy, “I don’t know son, but we’ll find out.” His glance at Roger was less reassuring. The two of them stepped away from David out of earshot. Richard had his cup of tea and offered a tall glass of warm milk to Roger, who eagerly accepted.
“His fever is holding steady,” Richard said with just a hint of concern, “which suggests that he does have an infection of some sort. I don’t see any evidence that it’s anything more than a cold, or that it has anything to do with his condition, but…”
“It is coincidental timing, isn’t it?” Roger said speculatively.
“It’s not high enough to bring on hallucinations, he’s adequately hydrated, and I don’t see any evidence of swelling in the brain or meninges,” Richard regarded him very seriously, “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a serious problem David is going to be. We are simply not provisioned to care for a psychotic man.”
“Unless he gets better, I don’t see what choice we have. What are your thoughts on recovery?”
“Frankly I don’t understand the disease process well enough to offer a prognosis. David has no prior history of mental illness and onset was sudden. It’s possible that with some time and relaxation he may recover. Unfortunately, we don’t even have the proper milieu to facilitate recovery from a psychotic episode brought on by stress. We’ll have to hope that the sedatives are enough to calm him long enough for his brain to heal itself.”
“If not, Agnes is going to want to let him walk out an airlock next time,” he chuckled nervously, although his observation was only half a joke. “David was as healthy as any of us…what are the odds that this could happen to the rest of us?”
Richard shrugged, “Even in the worst of combat, only a percentage of soldiers, albeit a significant minority, suffer effects of stress so significant as to render them psychotic or otherwise mentally disturbed. Granted the conditions aboard the Cassini are not ideal, but I don’t believe they are as bad as war. I wouldn’t expect it…still I would be less concerned if you and Agnes would be getting sufficient sleep.”
Roger took that as healthy advice from the doctor and raised his glass of milk as if in salute, “Believe me, I’m right there with you. Okay, I’ll give it another go, if you feel that you can hold the fort until Agnes can get up. We’re going to have to rotate eight-hour sleep shifts between the three of us.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Richard promised, “I’ll keep an eye on David and the ship. You get some rest.”
“Thank you,” Roger said, and as he began moved away, added, “and be sure to let me know if any little aliens appear, won’t you?”
Rest, when it came, brought with it nightmares. In them, Roger came to share David’s paranoia about space aliens. Roger dreamed that he, like David was taken from the Cassini aboard an alien craft while semi-conscious. It was there, with bright light glaring into his face that his dream began. Nearly shapeless black forms hovered over him, little more than silhouettes in front of that black light. He was strapped down to the table, although that seemed to be unnecessary as he could barely move, his muscles paralyzed. He had the sense that his own return to semi-consciousness was unexpected, as the forms seemed to become agitated as he opened his eyes.
A deep and foreboding fear came to him at that point. He was not properly oriented, rather the experience was dissociated as dreams often are, if frightening nonetheless. It seemed so unreal, and yet here it seemed that he was, strapped to the table. He started screaming, those muscles of his throat and chest apparently still functioning. This reaction was a primal one, not one calculated to ensure his release. It was a reaction of pure animal terror, the reaction of an experimental rat preparing to have its brain ablated with no hope of escape. The figures shuffled and squirmed and made excited groans between them at the sound of his screaming. Roger made no attempt to communicate with them, to reason with them, as he might have done had he been awake and the experience really happening to him. Rather, these amorphous shapes were like ghosts to a child, unexplainable, unreasonable, and bent on causing harm.
He was aware then of a stinging pain in his left arm, acute and burning. The sensation began spreading throughout his arm, as if an acid were carried by his vascular system. He screamed louder than before, particularly when the pain hit his chest and he felt like he might die. It was as if that acidic fluid, ironically enough, had some form of sedating effect, although it was probably that the dream was over. Nonetheless, those shadowy forms receded, along with that blinding light and everything became darkness once again.
Roger was awake some indiscriminant amount of time later, not jolted awake by the nightmare, but rather brought to wakefulness by some natural change in his sleep cycle. Still, he retained some tattered images of his dream and these caused him to have an anxious mood upon awakening. It was clear that David’s psychological downturn had its effect on him, perhaps exacerbated by his own loneliness and isolation on this mission. Roger found himself continuing to feel poorly rested by his sleep.
Roger staggered to the small bathroom on board the Cassini to take care of his full bladder and wash himself. He checked in on David (Richard was now asleep, which made Roger feel relieved as Richard had been carrying more than his own weight over the past few days) and found him to be resting fitfully. Agnes was in the pilot’s room, and he decided to inquire as to how she was doing as well.
“Lousy,” she informed him, without gracing him with further detail. She was busily keying in commands to the ship’s computer, for what purpose he wasn’t sure.
The word hung in the air for some moments before Roger realized she wasn’t going to expand upon it. “What exactly is it that you’re doing there?” he asked her. The Cassini didn’t normally require much input from its human crew. They were just on board to make the mission exciting to the folks on Earth.
“What do you think,” she grumbled, still keying in commands to the computer and mumbling disappointedly at the results, “I’m looking for little green men from Mars, or whatever.”
Another pause in the air while that comment hung, “You know Mars is a lot of miles back in the wrong direction, right?”
She shot him an irritated look, “I’m looking into the scanner records over the last few weeks. I figured if I could bring David some of the data from the scanner, showing that there are no alien spaceships then perhaps he could bring his little reality vacation to a close.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” he said with a hint of sarcasm that she ignored or missed, “so do I dare ask why you seem to be so displeased with the results?”
“The data’s corrupted,” she snarled, “The scanners are working fine in real time, but it’s not recording the results properly to computer files. Meaning we can’t look at any previous scanner data. Unless I can fix the data, which I can’t seem to do…” A few more failed efforts produced some profanity on her part.
“But the scanner works right…” he asked with some trepidation. Without that they would be at serious risk of a hit from space “junk”. They would get no warning of impending collision from a piece of rock, meteor, etc. That would be a much more serious technical failure than the loss of communications.
“Yeah, its working,” she said brusquely, “just not recording data properly. Not going to be of much use to David, which means he’s not going to be of much use to us.”
Roger didn’t share her optimism that showing David concrete data to disprove his delusions would have produced much fruit. Yet there was no point in arguing the matter with her, particularly as the issue was moot, at least for the moment. Nor did he have much energy to worry over the scanner problem. Agnes could be counted on to address that and if she couldn’t fix it then this problem, like the communication one, was apparently unfixable. Things really seemed to fall apart on the Cassini lately (including its crew). Roger was thankful that nothing catastrophic had gone wrong.
Roger spent most of his time looking over David, who generally remained semi-conscious, mumbling fitfully in his sleep. Roger found himself feeling sorry for his friend, who seemed so helpless strapped to a medical gurney. Roger noted that Richard had put a catheter in David, apparently as the psychotic man could not be trusted to be let up yet to use the bathroom. Roger took it upon himself to empty this and otherwise tend to David’s comfort as best he could. Richard himself woke up after some time and joined them in the medical unit.
“Any improvement?” Richard asked, although there was little hope in his voice.
Roger shrugged, “He’s been sleeping mostly. I guess that’s an improvement over yesterday, at least he’s calmer.”
“That’s the sedatives,” Richard said conclusively, “hopefully they’re having some effect beyond simply making him sleepy. If he doesn’t return to an agitated state by tomorrow, perhaps we can let him return to his quarters and rest there; may be more comfortable for him than this.”
David woke up only once while Rogers was with him. He and Richard were speaking quietly in the corner of the medical unit when at once they heard David whisper,
”Why aren’t you there?”
At once the two men went to his side to check on him. He looked up at Richard with big sad eyes, still dropping from the sedatives, “Why aren’t you there, Richard?” he asked.
Richard patted him gently, fatherly like on the shoulder, “What do you mean, David?” he asked patiently.
David’s eyes languidly rolled over toward Roger, “You’re there, and Agnes. I see you there, near me,” they rolled back over to Richard, “but you’re never there.”
“I’m here now,” Richard said kindly, but David’s eyes had closed once again as he returned to sleep. Richard looked over to Roger and shrugged.
Later when Roger slept, he had the dream again. He remembered it more vividly this time, because he was jolted awake by a commotion rather than allowed to awaken naturally. He had no time to reflect on his nightmare or to consider its origin, for now there were screams, David’s and Richard’s. David’s voice was some powerful and primal monster of a scream, barely recognizable as human were it not for the familiar timbre of David’s voice. Richard was clearly terrorized, shouting in fear. Something smashed, a weight hitting a surface so hard that Roger could feel it in the walls and floor of his room.
Roger’s feet hit the floor at once and he was off, still shaking himself to full consciousness, moving in the direction of the terrible sounds. Roger found it difficult, even under this situation to fully orient himself, to fully shake the sleep from his eyes. His steps were uncoordinated, his focus hazy, and it was only the injection of adrenaline that the screams had given him that kept him moving in their direction. He almost wondered at the reality of it all, if this were not some other form of nightmare.
He shook it off as best he could, moving in the direction of the medical unit. There he found Richard sprawled across the floor, battered and bruised and limp as an ill cared for doll. His neck, in particular, was terribly purple and Roger worried at once for his life. David was standing over him in a terrible rage, his eyes looking bloodshot and evil, his mannerisms those of a rabid dog rather than a human.
“David?” Roger said, foolishly, still trying to blink the last vestiges of slumber out of his eyes.
David looked up at him and, for a moment, paused, his eyes full of sorrow, “He wasn’t there,” he said helplessly, like a child, “You were there, asleep next to me. So was Agnes. They put things into us. They couldn’t keep me asleep!” David pointed down at Richard’s body, “He wasn’t there! Why wasn’t he there with the rest of us?” From the tone of his voice, it was clear that David was pleading with him to understand. His paranoia had advanced to the point that Richard was now included in whatever conspiracy that David’s mind had concocted. David knelt down next to Richard’s prone form, reaching out once again for his neck.
For a moment, just a moment, Roger wondered how David had gotten free of the gurney and the restraints. Had Richard trusted him to return to his own room? There was not time enough to fully consider this, as David’s intent for Richard was clear. Roger moved toward them, intent on pulling David away. David was up in a second, his reflexes like those of a snake. His hands met Roger’s chest like two clubs and gripped the front of his shirt menacingly. Roger felt himself being swung through the air like a sack of sand, his feet leaving the ground, soaring wordlessly, until he felt his back and head connect with the metal bulkhead. David had lifted and thrown him with incredible ease, and now he came to rest, surprised and hurt into a disoriented bundle toward the back of the room. Roger rolled onto his side, trying to get up again, but found himself too weak and in pain from the collision with the wall. “David, no!” he shouted, hoarsely.
But David was leaning down once more toward Richard, now ignoring Roger. His intentions for Richard were clear, and there was little that Roger could do now in his present state. It was then that, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Agnes move into the doorway, herself looking as rumpled and newly awakened by this terror as he must. She had something in her hands which she now pointed in David’s direction.
‘Clunk’, the thing in her hands made the sound like a sudden rush of compressed air, then again and again and again. David screamed out at the sound, tearing at his own clothes and waving his hands in the air as if to frighten off a horde of wasps. Still the sound came, clunk, clunk, clunk. There were sprays of blood now, David’s blood, misting in the air, settling in drops on the floor and on Richard who lay beneath David’s flailing form. Roger could see Agnes better now, her face frozen in a mask of both horror and determination. He could see too the nail gun in her hands, normally useless as a weapon, but capable of driving the nails far into human flesh if two people were only a few feet away as David and Agnes now were.
David sunk to his knees, his hands desperately covering his face and head. Still Agnes fired and fired and fired, again and again, ten times, twenty. Roger felt paralyzed, helpless to say anything that might stop this horrid spectacle. After an eternity, a lifetime of torment that would be etched into his memory forever, David was still, and Agnes stopped firing the gun, though she kept it trained on David’s still form. A pool of blood quietly encircled him, spreading out like a curse, soaking his clothes and spreading onto Richard, who still remained quiet and lifeless.
At last Roger was able to collect his own battered body and moved through the blood pool to Richard’s side. He felt for Richard’s pulse at his wrist and felt the air above his nose for breath. He was only slightly relieved to notice that both were present, for the bruising around Richard’s neck told him that his injuries were severe.
“What in the name of Hell have I just done?” Agnes was mumbling, now looking as disoriented as if she were coming off a full night of heavy drinking. The nail gun was held listlessly at her side.
“Agnes, stay with me,” Roger said, although he didn’t feel much better than she looked. He felt nauseated, and still couldn’t seem to shake off that sluggishness that had been with him since he awakened. His back hurt badly where he had collided with the wall and his hands and knees were now slick with a mixture of David and Richard’s blood. “Agnes, check to see if David is dead. Agnes, do you hear me? I need you to check David.”
At least she seemed to hear him and moved to check on the man she had just riddled with four inch nails. She touched his wrist, picking it up in her hands like it were a rotten fish. “Dead,” she pronounced with a quiver in her voice that was indecipherable. Roger knew that she was in danger of going into shock.
“Agnes,” he said, trying to get her to focus, “Richard is alive. I think that his neck is broken, we have to…move him…” As he said it, he knew the uselessness of his own suggestion. Richard's breath was coming in rasps and wheezes, his chest moving with erratic pauses. It seemed evident that all was not well with Richard's breathing, as if it were a great labor for him to accomplish it.
Agnes was not unwilling to point it out further, “And just where are we supposed to move him?” She pointed hysterically at Richard's motionless form with one hand, “Look at him, listen to how he's breathing. What are we supposed to do with him? He's the doctor, how are we going to help him?”
“I know!” Roger shouted at her, stopping her diatribe. She looked at him with wide eyes like a panicking horse, “I know that there's not much we can do, but we have to do something. We can't just stand around here and watch him die.”
And so, some minutes and hours passed in roughly that manner, with mixed indecision and hysterics on their part, while David lay dead and Richard lay motionless and with his labored breathing. Various ideas, each as untenable as the next, came and went. Aside from some futile attempts to make Richard more comfortable, little was accomplished.
At last, however, Richard opened his eyes and whispered to them in a sad voice, “Morphine...I need morphine.”
Roger and Agnes were at his side at once, patting his hand gingerly, though they suspected he could not feel it. Richard looked at them with large, mournful eyes.
“Are you in pain?” Roger asked him, “Agnes, please get some morphine from one of the cabinets.” At once she moved to them, eager for something useful to do.
Richard whispered, “Some pain, but I can't move. My neck is broken, isn't it?”
Roger nodded, “Yes, we think so. Frankly we're not sure what to do to help you. We were afraid to move you out of fear of harming you more.”
“You did the right thing,” Richard responded, “There's nothing to be done. I'm a dead man. I need the morphine to make my death a quick and painless one.”
Agnes stopped her search at his words and she and Roger looked at each other uncertainly. The request was not an entirely unexpected one. They all knew that Richard faced only death from his condition, likely from a blood clot, or from respiratory arrest as his labored breathing finally became unbearable. Either option would undoubtedly be quite painful. At the same time assisting in suicide, even under such clearly unique circumstances was illegal and arguably immoral. Agnes and Roger had no precedent to inform them how to handle Richard's request. The silence of their reaction clearly indicated their discomfort with the situation that presented them. It was equally unpalatable to help Richard kill himself as it was to force him to die slowly and painfully. Roger knew that ultimately the decision would be his, whether to agree to Richard's request.
Richard smiled sadly, nothing their reaction, “You won't feel so badly about it when I tell you the things that I must. If this is to be my deathbed, I must render my confession.”
Roger turned back toward him uneasily, a knife of ice stabbing down his spine. He suddenly felt that he had a bad notion of what Richard was going to say, “What do you mean a confession?”
Richard paused for a moment, sucking air into his lungs with great effort. The damage to his spine had likely caused problems with control over his diaphragm and intercostal muscle, making breathing difficult. At least he summoned with energy and breath to say, “David was right, in part at least.”
Agnes turned around completely to face him, listening to him with rapt attention. In her hand she held the bottle of morphine that he had asked for. Her look was one of ever deepening shock, “What on Earth are you talking about, Richard? Little Green Men from Mars?”
“No,” Richard said, solemnly, “just men,...from Earth. Another ship meets this one each evening at 0200 hours. It was part of my duty to sedate each of you, to make sure that you didn't wake when they took you.”
“Took us?” Agnes said, incredulously. Roger was too confused to offer a meaningful response or question.
“Yes,” Richard continued, “After you were sedated, I was to wait in my quarters while they took you aboard their docked ship. They would return you at 0500 hours, promptly each day,” he looked at Roger sadly, “It was all arranged before we left Earth. I was given my orders before we left.”
“Orders? Who gave you these orders?” Agnes demanded, alarmed, yet clearly unsure whether to believe this story. Richard was clearly not raging psychotic that David had become, but it was clear that she hoped that his injuries might be the source of this unexpected confession.
“Department of Defense,” Richard said, speaking as steadily as he could, given his poor breathing, “They assured me that you would not likely come to any harm, although...they appear to have been wrong. I don't know what they were doing to you, but whatever it was it decreased the effectiveness of the sedatives that I gave you. I think that's why David began to remember what happened to him on board the other ship.”
Finally, Roger found his voice, “Richard, what you're saying is impossible. No manned ship has ever gotten out this far before. We're making history here.”
“Officially, yes,” Richard said with the same labored cadence, “but it’s not true. There's been a ship out here waiting for us, faster and more powerful than the Cassini. The Cassini is old technology. As I said, the experiment that they are conducting was not expected to harm you, but if it did, it would hardly be expected for astronauts to die on such a long and perilous journey.”
The callousness of that thinking froze Roger's blood. “Just what is it that you are saying that they have done to us?”
Richard regarded him quietly for a moment, “I honestly don't know,” there was a silent moment between the three of them as that critical lack of information was left to sink in for all of them, “but there must have been some concern that what they were doing to you could have spread to other humans. I've thought on that many times during our journey. The Cassini is a perfect biolab. There's no risk of contamination of the human species.”
Roger regarded him incredulously, “But, you would have exposed yourself if that was the case!”
“Yes,” Richard agreed, “that was part of the bargain that I struck. I knew that I might die, but I was assured that my family would be taken care of for life in exchange for my sacrifice. And they knew I would follow orders, I did what my country, what my government asked.”
“If that's so, then why tell us now?” Roger asked, still unsure whether to believe what he was hearing.
Richard paused again, “Because I honestly believed them when they said that you wouldn't be hurt. I don't want to die with that on my soul. I'm so sorry for what I have done to you, for my role in what ever injury has been caused to you. And for David's death, which also is my responsibility. I want to go to my maker knowing that I had done something, however small, to right the wrongs that I have done. And in my present state there is nothing left for me to do but to offer you the truth. I don't expect or deserve your forgiveness, but please know that I am sorry.” A tear had formed on Richard's eye, a single glossy orb that collected near the duct, unable to move on Richard's horizontal face. It was this tear that convinced Roger that Richard was speaking the truth. Roger regarded Richard for some moments, starting into the other man's eyes, a man he had considered a colleague if not a friend, a man he had trusted as a fellow professional. He couldn't think yet, not yet, of the wider ramifications. A government that had lied to him, sent him into space to die. And for what? What experiment could be so valuable and dangerous as to send four people so far as Jupiter at great expense only to watch them die? Could it be some form of weapons program, or some variant of human bioengineering? The possibilities were both staggering and revolting. What could they have done to the crew of the Cassini, what were they carrying around in them now?
The dream that Roger had been having must have been real, recollections of his own experiences on that other ship. Was he too becoming like David? Was that the path that this experimentation was leading them to: madness and death? Roger's mind was having great difficulty adjusting itself to the full implications of what he was learning. The descent of his friend David into madness which had seemed such a catastrophe the day before was now revealed as the pittance of an introduction into sheer evil that it was.
Roger had nothing more to say and stood quietly. He turned to Agnes, who was shaking with rage but silent and told her, “Give him his morphine.” He walked away, wanting some moments alone. He was confident that Agnes would comply with his request.
Roger wanted, no needed some time alone. He needed to reason through what Richard had said. Could it truly be possible that Richard's words were reality, that David hadn't been wrong about the abductions, only the nature of the abductors? Could the Department of Defense have truly built a ship more advanced than the Cassini, and sent it here to wait in ambush as the lesser Cassini made its circuit around Jupiter? If this were an experiment, than this clearly was an expensive one. What could possibly be so important and so dangerous as to require sending four astronauts into space to act as guinea pigs? It stood to reason that if this experiment were so dangerous that it could not be conducted on Earth, then the four of them were never intended to survive the voyage or make it back to their families. Whether they were going to die as the result of whatever had been inserted in them, or if they would be murdered in their sleep by other men, it didn't matter. Roger wasn't going to die like that. He didn't know if he could actually save himself, but he would certainly die with respect, he owed himself as much as that.
Agnes found him an hour later, still thinking. She had the nail gun with her. She stared at him for a long time before she finally said, “Do you believe what Richard said?” Her voice sounded hollow, as if her soul had been stolen from her.
Roger nodded slowly.
She watched him nod, her breath coming in steady rasps, her knuckles white on the handle of the nail gun. “So what t are we going to do?” she asked quietly.
He watched her fingers flexing on it tighter and tighter. Such pitiful weapons they had on board; a nail gun, torches, hammers, wrenches...what else? But what choice did they really have, “Next time they come to get us, we kill them,” was his sad reply.
Those last few hours were tense beyond that which any person should have to endure. There remained the slightest hope that Richard's words might have been as false as they had believed David's to be. But that hope was a thin one, as each of them quietly believed that they had indeed been violated. Together, wordlessly, they waited in the pilot's room, watching the scanner, hoping to see empty space between them and Jupiter and beyond. The seconds ticked away desperately slowly toward 0200 hours.
A mere ten minutes before the allotted time a dot appeared on the scanner, miraculously moving out into open space from the cloud tops of Jupiter. This must have been what Richard watched each night, having safely sedated his crew members, preparing to remove himself from the scene as this other ship came to carry out its experiments. Roger was hit with a sense of unreality and dissociation. Part of his mind had still refused to believe what Richard had told them. Yet here was irrefutable proof on their scanner as the unidentified ship moved out of Jupiter’s immediate sphere and quickly traveled for the Cassini. It was amazing to think that the government had somehow hidden this potential: a ship far faster and more powerful than the Cassini, capable apparently of hovering for extended periods of time in Jupiter’s chaotic clouds and moving across massive distances with unheard of speed. But there it was, on screen, and it was coming for them, its malevolent intent still uncertain in their minds, but the malevolence was clear.
There was no question of avoiding the other ship. It was clearly the superior craft. Perhaps they might have made docking for the other craft difficult, but then what? Might the other ship have the means of destroying the Cassini? The only option they had, Roger and Agnes had agreed, was ambush. Assault the other crew as they came on board, kill them quickly, hope that there were not too many, and take control of the other craft. To say that this plan was ambitious was an understatement. Their weapons were rudimentary and short range. A single nail gun, a torch (which could burn through a space suit, but only at a foot distance or less) and wrenches to be used as clubs. Surprise was their only advantage. They would wait near the airlock, just on either side of the door, Agnes with the nail gun (as she had acquired some familiarity with its use) Roger with the torch. Quickly kill the boarding crew and (assuming that went well) storm the docking craft and kill the piloting crew before they had a chance to respond. If the boarding crew had with them superior weaponry (just what they might have Roger could only guess) then they would replace their torch and nail gun with these. Otherwise, they would have to make do.
“We don’t have much time,” Agnes said solemnly, looking at the screen.
Roger nodded, a muscle in his jaw twitching uncontrollably. He had never felt so nervous in his life. Ten minutes from now he could be dead, or back on an experimentation table. “Agnes,” he said, “I’m sorry for all this…”
She silenced him with a hand on his arm, the look she gave him one of the kindest she had ever managed, “There’s no way you could have known about all of this. Now, let’s go.”
They made their way to the airlock with no further words between them. There was space on either side of the airlock where a person could wait in ambush and not be immediately visible. If the boarding crew looked clearly to their left or right then they would be discovered, but Roger hoped that the boarding crew would be wearing protective suiting, thus obscuring their vision. Roger opened up the valve on his torch and lit the flame. The instrument made a constant hissing noise that worried Roger. Again, he hoped that protective clothing would be worn by the boarding crew, if indeed they were so concerned that their experiment might be infectious.
The few tense minutes they waited there seemed to stretch into hours. In truth, they hadn’t long to wait until they could hear the other craft, or feel it more appropriately, as it came into contact with the Cassini, grinding and bumping it as it made contact and secured the docking structure. Roger could hear metal grating just outside the airlock. The ship that Roger thought shouldn’t have existed just days before was now here, ready to board them. Roger’s fingers tensed on his torch as he waited. He looked over at Agnes and could see the anxiety on her face as well.
At last, the door to the airlock hissed open. Their moment had arrived. Roger waited, being patient, hoping that Agnes would be able to do the same. Their success depended upon timing, perfect timing. A single figured came into view, a shimmering image of silver in the general outline of a man. Roger felt a moment of hope, they were indeed wearing protective suits. The figure that moved past him was entirely covered in the silver suit so that it was impossible to tell if it were a man or a woman. Fortunately, the figure did not look either left or right, but continued deliberately ahead into the hall past the airlock. The figure carried some form of satchel over one shoulder and appeared to be dragging a wheeled gurney behind it. Naturally, Roger figured, the gurney was meant for one of them, to take them aboard their ship.
As the figure passed by them, Roger motioned silently with his fingers that that person should be the one Agnes would fire at, since the range of her weapon was better than his. She nodded in understanding, her face pale. Silently the figure padded down the hall, the wheels of the gurney squeaking a bit and rolling against the surface of the floor. There was no speech, no communication, no sounds, just the hissing of the torch and the squeak of the gurney wheels. The first figure silently moved further down the hall and a second figure, silver and silent as the first, came into view, pushing the back of the gurney. Roger didn’t see visible weapons on either of them.
This was their moment; they would not have a better one. With a sharp nod of his head, Roger motioned to Agnes that it was time to strike. Then he launched out of his corner hiding place, triggering up the flame on the torch to its top setting. A six-inch jet of blue flame emerged from this tip. Roger grabbed the rear figure’s silver suit and the neck and jammed the tip of the torch against the side of the figure’s head. Instantly the silver material beaded up and peeled aside and the flame burned through. Roger’s fingers were being singed as bits of the material splattered onto them as it burned and melted. The figure remained silent but let go of the gurney and raised its hands in an attempt to defend itself. The torch burned too quickly however, and within seconds the tip of the blue flame emerged from the other side of the silver material, having burned through both layers of the suit and the head protected within. The figure went down on its knees, no longer moving, then fell hard on its face. There was a smell like a combination of melted plastic and burning garbage in the hall. Roger wheeled back toward the airlock in case any other figures might be behind the first two, but it was dark and empty.
The first figure, its face obscured by a black faceplate, turned to face the threat. Agnes was already triggering her nail gun however, firing the nails at short range into the silver figure. The material proved to be no better defense against the nails than against the torch. The figure raised its hands in a defensive gesture, but as she had done with David, she filled it with a dozen or more of the nails, until the figure came to rest, motionless on the floor.
Their plan, thus far, had worked to a remarkable degree and Roger felt a moment of elation. Perhaps they might manage to take control of the situation after all. Roger looked back at the airlock. The opening extended into the other craft, although there they could only see a plain hall moving left to right. On pegs hung more of the silver suits. Agnes moved at once into the airlock, her nail gun ready, keeping watch should anyone else appear. They had no way of knowing if any alarm had been raised, or the first two figures alerted the crew on board the ship in any way.
Roger looked over the fallen bodies, hoping to see some form of improved weaponry on them. The rear figure, whom he had dispatched with the torch didn’t appear to be carrying anything. The front figure had been carrying that satchel, however. Keeping the torch ready, Roger moved to that figure and bend down, opening the satchel. Inside there was a variety of metal tools of some sort, nothing that looked immediately like a weapon.
“Roger,” Agnes said, testily, “We should keep moving while we have surprise.” She was standing on the other side of the airlock now, in that left-right hall, watching anxiously to either side with her nail gun at the ready.
Roger was about to move to join her when he noticed the fluid seeping out of the wounds that the nail gun had caused the front figure. Out of each of the dozen or so holes in the silvery suit was oozing, not blood, but a thick yellow fluid that looked to have the texture of runny mucus. Roger stared at that fluid for a moment trying to make sense of it. Could it be something from the suit itself, some form of fluid insulation? But that didn’t make sense, the suit seemed rather thin, and he didn’t detect any fluid texture from underneath its lining. The fluid could only be coming, like blood, from the person within the suit itself, the result of the wounds that Agnes had inflicted upon it.
A chill ran down Roger’s spine. He remembered Richard’s words, the conspiracy at the Department of Defense and his incredulity that a ship had been built on Earth secretly that could travel to Jupiter to wait for the Cassini. This he contrasted to David’s words, which he had assumed to be delusional. Could it be possible, however, that Richard had only known part of the truth, that he has assumed the waiting ship to be piloted by humans. Could David have been correct in his perceptions of their abductors?
With trepidation, Roger reached out toward the hood of the silvery suit, with the black faceplate that covered the individual within from view. He had to see what they were dealing with, what it was that bled that mucus-like fluid. His fingers grasped and handful of the silvery material and with a single excited motion, he pulled the material away, exposing the head beneath.
What he saw then would be burned into his memory for however long he lived. The impression he got of what lay beyond the suit’s hood was a tangle of thick, writhing worms, still moving as if trying to escape from the basic underlying form that they had been attached to. Exposed to the air they moved like a hundred tiny fingers, like maggots on a corpse, not a face, not human at all. There were no eyes, no mouth, just that vile, wriggling mass. Roger felt bile rising in his throat and immediately vomited what little contents his stomach contained into a pool beside the figure.
“Roger?” Agnes called, alarmed by his reaction, but unable to see what he had seen.
“Anges,” he responded, still chocking, “Get back inside here…” but as he said it, the airlock doors on both sides slid suddenly shut, trapping her on the alien craft. David rushed to the door, past the two motionless figures on the ground, moving to the airlock, calling her name. The airlock would not open for him, and he could not see beyond it. He was still calling her name as he felt metal grinding against metal once more as the alien craft disengaged from the Cassini and moved off with Agnes in it, back into open space. Hours later he was still calling to her, but now there was only silence aside from the sound of his own sobbing.
Day after day and night after night, Roger watched the scanner onboard the Cassini, but the other ship never returned. He didn’t expect it to, the experiment was over, ruined by their efforts. Whatever they had wanted with them, whatever the aliens had been doing to them, Roger still didn’t know. What he did know was that his efforts had ended in failure. He hadn’t seen the danger early enough to save David, and he hadn’t been able to keep Agnes safe either. He shuddered when he thought of her fate, what they must have done to her. It should have been him; he should have been there to help her defend herself from those things.
The bodies, if they could be really referred to as that, he had stored in the airlock, from which he had ejected the air so that they wouldn’t rot. It had been hard unpleasant work; Roger had refused to look at the one face of worms that he had seen before in fear that they might still be writhing. He had placed David and Richard’s bodies in there with them. It was not a fitting way to store human remains, but he had no other options.
Options were what Roger thought about now. The Cassini continued along its preprogrammed path around Jupiter as if nothing had happened. Communications were still down, but all else was functional. The alien spacecraft was gone, probably not to return. But what awaited him on Earth? If Richard’s story was true, did this mean that the Department of Defense was in collusion with those…things…somehow? And to what purpose? And what fate would await him when he returned, knowing what he knew, having seen what he had seen, and the proof waiting in the Cassini’s airlock?
He had time though, time to consider his options. With a year and a half before the Cassini returned to Earth, he should be able to think of something. That was, if he didn’t go mad first from the loneliness.