“No fucking way,” Alik announced.
I watched, mesmerized by the med-remotes that had invaded the sarcophagi through a tiny sterile airlock tube drilled into the glass casing. The insectile machines crawled across the taut restraining membrane, whisker-like feelers probing its structure down to the cellular level; larger clusters swarmed around the junctions between umbilicals and body, exploring the fusion.
Vital signs were displayed across screens rigged up on a temporary carbon-strut framework—a whole genre of symbology beyond my comprehension.
“Are these actual humans, or is this some kind of replica the ship’s brain was building out of alien cells?” Yuri asked.
“They’re human,” Lankin said. “Or at least they used to be. The medical team has taken extensive samples. Their brains are completely intact, along with some of the original organs. However, the rest of their bodies have been replaced by Kcells. Basically, the torso organs have been reduced down to the brain’s life support system, which is sustained by the nutrients supplied by the artificial organs in the hibernation chamber. They’re powered by electricity, so as long as the fusion generators are working, these people stay alive.”
“Are they conscious?” a horrified Loi asked.
“No. Brainwave activity is consistent with a coma in all of them. Blood chemistry analysis has revealed the presence of some sophisticated barbiturates, which we assume are sustaining the coma state.”
Yuri was leaning so far forward, his helmet was practically touching the sarcophagi casing. “Why remove the limbs?”
“We can only assume they’re not required. Certainly maintaining the muscle and bone structure would be a drain on the hibernation support organs. Incidentally, those exterior organs are made completely out of Kcells.”
“It is an Olyix ship, then?”
“That’s the only indicator we have of their involvement. We don’t understand why the cells in the ship’s tanks weren’t used to fabricate the hibernation chamber mechanisms; they are considerably more sophisticated. Presumably because Kcells have been proven to work in combination with human biochemistry. Given this setup has successfully kept them alive for the thirty years since the ship crashed, it would be a valid explanation.”
“They snatched seventeen humans,” Callum said, “then did this to them to keep them alive. Why? I mean, what’s the bloody point?”
“Is it reversible?” Eldlund asked. “Can they be given their bodies back?”
“We can clone every part of a human body, or print it with stem cells, or replicate it with Kcells,” Jessika said. “The technologies are established. But actually doing a Frankenstein and stitching all those parts together is just about impossible. I’d say the only way to do it in this case would be to clone the original body, but somehow prevent the brain from developing. Which—” she sighed “—would take a lot of research. And even if you did succeed, you’d have the problem of transplanting the old brain into its new body.”
“Ha!” Yuri grunted. “That again.”
“I thought Hai-3 told you it was theoretically possible?” Eldlund challenged.
“Theoretically, yeah. But that’s another huge research project. Even if Alpha Defense approved, it would take decades and billions of wattdollars to get them walking around in a decent body again.”
Eldlund’s hand gestured at the sarcophagi. “I imagine they would think it’s worthwhile.”
“But the risk…” Callum said.
“You want to know if it’s acceptable? Ask one,” Kandara said. “Put one of these poor bastards into a decent human-built life-support system, flush the barbiturate shit out of their brains, and they might wake up.”
“And they might not,” a shocked Eldlund replied.
“Then you learn enough about the failure to improve the technique for the next one,” she said. “And keep going until we’ve perfected it. Because we all know we’re going to have to try this at some point. We’re not going to leave them like this.”
“The psychological trauma alone would be massive,” Loi said uneasily.
“Tough. For the record: If you ever find me like this, either wake me up or kill me. Don’t leave me like this.”
“I’m not—”
“There might be a way around this,” Lankin interrupted. “The doctors are hopeful they can recover the Odd One.”
“The Odd One?” Kandara queried. “What the hell is that?”
“Yeah, sorry. My team is a bit on the nerdish side, and they don’t have a lot of imagination. They called him the Odd One because he’s different from the rest.”
“Different how?” I asked sharply.
“See for yourself,” he said. “Next level up.”
I went up the rope ladder after Alik. Three of the hibernation chambers contained the same kind of membrane-wrapped torsos we’d seen before. The fourth…he was intact. There was no restraining membrane. A single umbilical cord was fused to his navel, hanging down to a trio of external organs, larger than those in the other chambers. Shock froze me to the spot.
“That’s not possible,” an equally stunned Yuri said.
“What do you mean?” Callum asked.
“He can’t be here. Not him!”
“Wait! You know him?”
“Yes. It’s Lucius Soćko. He vanished when we rescued Horatio Seymore on Althaea.”
* * *
—
They made the decision after dinner. Everyone who’d come on the Trail Ranger settled in the base’s lounge to talk it over. Not that it was much of a democracy. Callum clearly had reservations, but in the end he conceded that attempting to revive Soćko was necessary. I didn’t give an opinion; it would be out of character as the mission’s humble administration guy. But Jessika approved, as I thought she would. Kandara didn’t contribute much; she’d made her view clear back on the ship. Loi and Eldlund were a lot more cautious—we should investigate longer, bring in more equipment and specialists, make detailed risk assessments. Typical corporate culture kids. They had no concept of taking responsibility, because that meant consequences—and Legal always hated consequences. Not that their views mattered. Ultimately it was down to Yuri, Callum, and Alik, and they were unanimous.
Lankin sat with us in the lounge as everyone talked it over, but didn’t say anything. When he was given the verdict, he responded with a gruff: “Okay then,” and left to organize the operation. It didn’t take long; his people had been working balls-out to prepare for this ever since they put eyes on the Odd One.
It took them six hours. Remotes cut Soćko’s hibernation chamber out of the ship’s cargo compartment and carefully maneuvered it around the circular passages into the research base. The alien environment laboratory had been converted into an intensive care suite in anticipation.
A small observation room ran alongside, with a broad window looking in. We crowded around it to watch the hibernation chamber arrive. The trollez that delivered it was barely visible, the damn thing was surrounded by so many techs and doctors all in their protective blue suits.
“What’s the atmosphere inside that thing?” Yuri asked.
“Earth standard gas mix,” Lankin told him. “All the hibernation chambers are the same. No alien pathogens inside, either—that we’ve detected.” His knuckles rapped on the window. “But we’re not taking any chances. This lab is quadruple-walled, with positive pressure cavities on individual life support circuits. No bugs are going to get out of there and into my base.”
The revival team slowly sliced around the edge of the hibernation chamber’s transparent lid, allowing remote arms to lift it away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eldlund brace hirself, but Soćko’s body remained inert.
The medics closed in. Monitor patches were bonded onto Soćko’s skin, providing a more detailed picture of his vitals. Fleshmeld blisters were applie
d above his femoral and carotid arteries, ready to supply artificial blood or drugs if and when they were needed. He wasn’t breathing. The blood generated in the external Kcell organs and fed through his umbilical was fully oxygenated. Artificial saliva was sprayed into his mouth, and they slid an intubation nozzle down his trachea—ready. With the prep done, they moved him out of the chamber and onto a bed.
A crash team stood by, watching and waiting as the extraction team clamped the umbilical cord—and cut it.
No warning went off. His heart kept on beating uninterrupted. Brainwave function remained flat.
The intubation nozzle started to pump oxygen-rich air into his lungs in a slow rhythm.
I watched his chest inflate, sink back down. Rise again. Soćko gave a slight shudder, then another, stronger shiver ran down his body. The revival team tensed up; crash-revival tools were held up ready. Soćko’s shakes continued for a while longer before he went quiescent again.
“He’s breathing naturally,” the lead doctor announced. There was a note of surprise in her voice.
On the other side of the glass, the medical techs were high-fiving. Two of the doctors were preparing their surgical remotes to remove the stump of the umbilical from Soćko’s navel.
“Now what?” Yuri asked.
“We wait,” Lankin said. “Make sure he remains stable, and give his body a chance to filter out the barbiturates. If he wakes naturally, fair enough. If not, they’ll try stimulants.”
* * *
—
We all trooped back to the lounge, with its comfy chairs standing on the bare composite-panel floor. Loi and Eldlund went over to the freezer cabinets and started searching through the meal packs for breakfast. Alik got himself a Belgian hot chocolate from the dispenser and settled back in his chair.
“It can’t be that easy,” Kandara said when she sat next to me. “What about muscle atrophy? He’s been lying there for thirty-two years, for fuck’s sake!”
“Something took care of that,” Loi said as he came over, carrying a plate of scrambled eggs, sausages, and hash browns straight from the microwave. “Something in the blood they haven’t found yet. It all came from the Kcell organs, don’t forget; we don’t fully know what they’re capable of.”
“You’re talking magic potions,” Callum said dismissively. “Not real biochemistry. No chemical treatment will preserve an inactive body in healthy physical shape like that for thirty years.”
“What then?”
Eldlund sat down beside him, blowing the steam from hir porridge. “Maybe Soćko is the success? The others are all being rebuilt by the alien cells, but he was just further along?”
“No,” Yuri said. “The Kcell organs in his hibernation chamber were different. They supplied blood that’s rich with oxygen and nutrients—a real hibernation as opposed to what’s happened to the others.”
I kept a very careful watch on the faces around me as I said: “He might not have been asleep the whole time.”
Yuri gave me a look that invited me to continue. He was my boss, respecting my opinion. No change there. Callum was expectant, wanting to hear some options, clearly eager for answers. Alik continued to sit there, mug of hot chocolate in his hand, waiting like every good interrogator for the suspect to talk too much. Those lifeless face muscles of his were as still as a millpond.
“Exercise,” Kandara said eagerly. She grinned at me. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
I gave her an appreciative shrug. “The simplest solution always applies. And the only real way to maintain muscle tone is through exercise.”
“So Soćko wakes up once a week,” she said. “Or a month. Whatever. And spends a few days getting in some calisthenics sweat-time. Then goes back into hibernation. He’s on a timer.”
“Not a chance,” Loi said.
Kandara shot him a challenging glance. “Why?”
“Where does he do his calisthenics? The ship has been in a vacuum for over thirty years. There’s no space suit; he couldn’t even step out of the hibernation chamber.”
“So why is he in such good shape?”
“Genetic modification?” Loi said uncertainly.
“The medical team sequenced everyone’s DNA,” Lankin said. “Soćko doesn’t have any modifications; we didn’t even find vectors for telomere treatment in him.”
“We’ll find out soon enough if he wakes up,” Alik said. “We just ask. Meantime, let’s focus on what we do know. We came here to assess if this ship indicates a clear and present threat.”
“It does,” Yuri said. “Aliens with a significantly more advanced technology base have established a secret beachhead either in Sol or one of our settled systems. They snatch humans for unknown, but fucking dire, reasons.”
“That’s not necessarily a threat,” Callum said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Come on, man, face it: We’re scary. We can cross interstellar space, and we’re still aggressive, unreasonable, badly behaved, and own continents full of weapons. Hell, if I encountered us, I’d want to hold back and watch for a while.”
Alik’s hand shot out, pointing at random. “Did you even see what they did to those poor bastards? They dissolved them! They dumped humans into some kind of alien version of acid, or something, and dissolved them! What’s left is being taken back home to be torture-experimented on. That is a fucking threat, you dumbass hippie! You got kids, right? Suppose you found one of them on board—no arms, no legs, their goddamned eyes ripped out. And that’s just the start; fuck knows what else would’ve happened to them if this ship hadn’t fallen out of the wormhole? That could be you and your family in there, asshole!”
For once Alik’s neck and jaw muscles were flexing. Loi and Eldlund were regarding him in concern.
“Their ethics might not match ours,” Callum said. “They are alien, after all. But they haven’t been overtly aggressive. That has to mean something.”
Alik snorted in contempt and turned to Yuri. “I need to talk to my people.”
Yuri and I exchanged a slightly guilty look. “There are no direct comms with solnet,” I said. “That was a major part of Alpha Defense’s quarantine protocols.”
“Oh, come on.” Alik’s voice dropped an octave to a bass purr, worldly-wise and oh-so-reasonable. “There’s got to be some emergency line out, right?”
“No,” I told him. “There really isn’t.”
“Jesus H. Christ. You are shitting me!”
“That’s got to be the AI safeguard,” Callum said. “Am I right?”
“Yeah,” I conceded.
“The what?” Alik asked angrily.
“The ship we’ve found is from an alien race which, if not actively hostile, is certainly unsympathetic to humans,” Yuri said. “Suppose that frozen brain-captain thing had been warm and running active routines, or it had an electronic AI like our Turings? If we had a link back to solnet, it could download itself into our networks; multiply itself a thousand times a second. The potential damage it could inflict is impossible to calculate.”
“Je-zus,” Alik wheezed. “That is one sonofabitch paranoia you’ve got going there.”
“No,” Yuri said levelly, “it’s a very sensible precaution. Especially now I’ve seen what we’re dealing with.”
“But the aliens who built that ship are already in Sol, or one of our star systems,” Alik countered. “They have been for decades, and they’re smart enough to hide a fucking wormhole terminus from us. If they wanted to crash solnet, they’d have done it by now.”
“We know that now,” I said. “But we didn’t when we set up the research base and started investigating. Deciding to allow a direct connection to solnet is one of the decisions you are here to assess. And we do still have the question of who or what opened the ship’s airlock.”
“Yeah, right,”
Alik said grudgingly.
“But I can offer you the Trail Ranger to drive you back to the portal.”
Alik looked from me to Yuri. Clearly not a man used to being told no. “I’ll give it a day,” he said. “See if Soćko comes out of it. But after that, I have to file a report no matter what.”
“I’ll tell Sutton and Bee to have the Trail Ranger ready for you to go,” I assured him.
“Which brings us back to what the bloody hell is going on,” Callum said. “The aliens are watching us; they’re taking us to experiment on. Why?”
“It’s obviously an intelligence gathering mission,” Kandara said. “They’re learning our weaknesses. That can only have one outcome.”
“No way,” I said. “There’s no such thing as interstellar war. There is no conceivable reason for it. Once a species gets off its birth world, it effectively has infinite resources. It wants for nothing. Total war is something that belongs to history for anyone who can reach orbit and beyond.”
“They’re alien,” Jessika said. “Who knows what their motivations are? Like Callum said, we’re probably quite frightening to a progressive, peaceful species.”
“Taking people apart,” Alik butted in loudly, the chocolate sloshing perilously close to the rim of his mug. “That ain’t exactly what I’d call progressive, lady!”
“Hitler wasn’t short of resources,” Loi said. “Not to begin with. World War Two was an ideological war at heart, a crusade to impose Nazi imperialism on the rest of the world. Same goes for the Cold War which followed, with its capitalism versus communism.”
Eldlund gave him a taunting smile. “Well, thank heavens those economic theories both lost.”
Loi replied with a contemptuous finger.
“Do you believe the builders of this ship are the ones?” Callum asked. He was staring directly at Yuri.
“It’s starting to look that way.”