Her husband’s tone turned anxious. “Are we talking about quarantine protocols?”
“Repeat, I don’t know anything more. Second contact from Karine indicated that Ledward was bleeding. Didn’t say from where, didn’t say how much. No indication as to cause. Just to prepare the medbay.”
His voice steadied but the transmission did not as he sought to calm her.
“Honey, can you repeat? You’re breaking up.”
Faris tried anew. “Tennessee, I’m just… not sure what’s going on, but Karine sounded scared. I’ve heard her sound worried, concerned, but never scared. Something’s going…” She broke off as readouts—as well as the lack of response—indicated yet another break in communications.
She tried adjusting instrumentation. No luck.
Fucking storm, she cursed to herself.
“Do you read me? Covenant? Covenant?”
She gave up trying as a glance through the foreport showed Karine and Ledward staggering toward the lander. Mist made it difficult to resolve details, but she could see that Karine was carrying the private’s pack, and helping to support him, as well. There was something wrong with him, all right. Even at a distance she didn’t have to be a medical specialist to see that he was sick.
But—how sick? And from what?
With her free arm, Karine was beckoning urgently. The gesture was unnecessary. Faris was already on her way, heading for the airlock after first switching on the lander’s beacon lights.
* * *
By that time an exhausted Karine was all but carrying Ledward. His legs scarcely functioned, and he was a dead weight against her. He stumbled along face-downward, moaning, no longer able to speak. They were close to the lander, its forward lights slicing through the mist toward them, when he finally went down.
She could help him, but she couldn’t drag him. Anyway, the fact that the lander’s lights had come on indicated that Faris had seen them coming and was probably on her way. It was going to take their combined efforts, Karine knew, to wrestle the private’s limp form onto the ship.
Maybe she could get him to help stagger the last few meters. Dumping his pack and weapon, she leaned over to try and get him back on his feet. He looked up at her, his eyes shockingly blank—and promptly vomited all over her.
There was some partially digested food in the spew, but most of it consisted of blood and bile. She stumbled backward, almost falling, too shocked even to wipe at her face.
Then Faris was calling to her. Pulling on surgical gloves as she jogged toward her colleagues, the pilot finished by slipping on a face mask. Without having to be told, she grabbed the private’s pack and weapon.
At the same time, and despite her disgust and dismay, Karine made a supreme effort to get Ledward back on his feet. Choking and gasping, he followed her lead and managed to stagger upright. Maybe, she thought hopefully, he had forcefully expelled whatever had been making him so sick.
“Let’s get him to the medbay.” Faris gave both the private’s pack and weapon a quick examination. “Touch nothing on your way through. Follow me.”
Though irritated at the other woman’s sudden and uncharacteristically officious attitude, Karine said nothing. She could bring it up another time. Right now she was too tired to do more than comply. Besides, getting the barely conscious private into medbay and pumping him full of medication took precedence over any violations of protocol, perceived or otherwise.
Perhaps it was the proximity to the lander and the help it promised. Whatever the impetus, Ledward found a reserve of energy. With Karine’s ongoing assistance, they were able to make it up the ramp and into the crew bay. One after the other and heedless of their contents, backpacks were tossed indifferently into a corner.
“Just try to keep him moving, come on!” Faris tore her gaze away from Ledward’s agonized, blank-eyed face. As the scientist stumbled, she and the private bumped into a bay wall. “Karine, don’t touch anything!”
“For fuck’s sake,” the other woman shot back, “I’m trying, all right? The son-of-a-bitch is no lightweight, and he’s gone all limp on me again!”
By the time they reached the lander’s medbay, Karine was reduced to dragging him again. At the limits of her strength, she was relieved when the other woman came over to help steady the private. Activated by Faris moments earlier, the room’s bright white lights rendered Ledward’s appearance even more ghastly than it had been outside.
“Can you stand by yourself?” Faris asked him. When he didn’t reply, she indicated via gestures what she wanted. Karine gladly moved aside. The private remained upright in front of the scientist, but barely.
“Thatta boy. Just stay like that for another couple of minutes, okay? We’ll get you fixed up.” Moving over to the med table, she started releasing straps and tie-downs, then quickly returned. “Let’s get these wet clothes off, darlin’. Wouldn’t want you to catch cold, in addition to whatever you’ve managed to catch already.”
She got his cap and heavily laden vest off first, then knelt to work on his boots. Meanwhile Karine started unsealing his gray expedition suit. In moments they had him down to his underwear. Noticing that the top half of the other woman’s suit was sticky with blood, puke, and a mix of unidentifiable goo, Faris barked at her.
“For god’s sake, Karine, put some gloves on!”
Continuing to undress the private, she all but growled at the pilot. “Little late for that. He heaved up all the fuck over me!”
Perspiring massively but finally stripped, Ledward stood silently, staring into the distance and ignoring his anxious crewmates. Though he remained upright and breathing, he had the look of the dead on him. That’s nonsense, Faris told herself. The dead don’t shiver. And the private was definitely trembling.
Together, the two women alternately led and wrestled him onto the med table. The surrounding and overhead lights instantly brightened. As Faris aligned his legs, Karine scrambled through the med cabinets. In her panic she spilled supplies, tubing, and equipment, without even being sure what she was searching for. She only knew that they had to get something into Ledward, and fast.
“Got to get him stabilized,” she panted. “Where’s the fucking IV kit?”
“Karine!” Turning away from the now prone but still trembling private, Faris yelled in exasperation at her colleague. “Stop touching everything! I’ll do that!” His shivering appeared to be abating of its own accord. Working fast, she peeled off his blood-soaked undershirt, leaving him lying on the table clad only in his undershorts.
“Here, come help me secure him.”
“Why?” Karine objected. “He’s not going anywhere.”
“Just do it!” Faris prepared to fasten the first strap around the sluggish private’s waist. Just because he was calm and quiet now didn’t mean that in—
He twitched once. Then he heaved. And then he bucked, and continued bucking, the series of convulsions incredibly violent and completely uncontrolled as his body, twisting and writhing, slammed again and again into the med table. The loud banging of unprotected flesh and bone against metal echoed through the room. Stunned at the inexplicable physiological fury on display, both scientist and pilot instinctively backed away.
Blood began to leak from his pores. As the two women looked on in horror, a fine mist of blood sprayed in a straight line right down the center of his back, as if shot from a hose. The droplets arced into the air before descending to splatter like red rain on the spotless deck.
“Jesus…” Karine recoiled as far as she was able.
“Stay with him!” Faris headed for the corridor portal. “Try to keep him quiet if the convulsions stop. I’ll contact the captain.”
Exiting the medbay, her expression grim, she waited for the door to shut behind her, then turned and punched the adjacent keypad. The panel flashed silently.
LOCKED
Pulling off the protective face mask, she raced down the corridor and spoke, with as much control as she could muster, toward the ne
arest omni-pickup.
“Captain Oram. We need you all here. How long?”
* * *
As the rest of the team left the forest behind and entered the field of gently waving wheat, a frowning Oram replied.
“Hold on. We’re close. Faris, what the hell is—?”
“I need you back here now. Right now! All of you, everybody! We need to return to the Covenant. Now!” With each word, rising panic became more evident in her voice.
* * *
On the Covenant’s bridge, Tennessee struggled to sieve understanding from his wife’s garbled suit-to-suit communications. It was beyond frustrating to hear a sentence start out clearly, only for it to dissolve into static mush halfway through.
“Faris, we can barely make you out. What’s happening? What’s going on down there?” Even through the ongoing electromagnetic distortion, he could discern the alarm in her voice.
“Going on?” The reply crackled and faded, strengthened and screeched at the edge of comprehensibility. “I don’t have any fucking idea what’s going on—with Ledward. Karine showed up pretty much carrying him. We managed to get him into the medbay. Something happened out there—she hasn’t told me anything yet. He looks like a dead man breathing, he’s really sick, and then he started bleeding all over, right from his skin, no visible wounds, and his back… his back…”
“Baby, calm down.” Feeling anything but calm himself, Tennessee fought to reassure her. “Just calm down. Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”
Just barely under control, Faris yelled back, “Don’t tell me to calm the fuck down! You didn’t see… what I just saw. And I have no goddamn idea what he’s got. His back blew out and sprayed blood and crap all over the place, and I don’t know if Karine’s got the same thing, or if I’ve got it, or if…”
“You’re breaking up, Faris.” Panic began to grip him. “Can you read me?” He leaned toward the console pickup, as if the few additional centimeters might somehow bring him closer to his wife, bring him nearer to the storm-shrouded surface below.
“Please,” his wife said, her call barely intelligible, “help us…”
Signal went to zero, and no amount of cursing or pleading could bring it back.
XI
As soon as surface-to-orbit communications went down, Faris turned her full attention to the medbay monitor. It showed Karine, exhausted as she was, working hard to secure a safety strap around Ledward’s waist. He was trembling violently, the out-of-control convulsions having relapsed into wild shivering.
Without slackening her efforts, the scientist shouted in the direction of the AV pickup.
“Faris! What are you doing? Get down here! We need to IV him and I can’t do it by myself; he’s too strong and he’s still moving around too much. Help me!”
With a last, lingering look at the silent surface-to-orbit comm, Faris bolted from the bridge. Once back outside the medbay, she stopped at the sealed door to peer through the port. Having momentarily resumed functionality, Ledward’s hands were now tightly gripping the edge of the med table. His back facing the door, he began to secrete a watery, bloody liquid from his spine.
Where was Karine?
Faris lurched back as the other woman’s face abruptly appeared at the port. The biologist was in shock. Or something worse. Audio picked up her words from the other side. Her tone was flat, stunned.
“Let me out.”
A hard lump formed in the pilot’s throat. She didn’t quite whisper a response.
“I can’t do that, darlin’.”
Both Karine’s expression and voice went wild. “Let me out of here! Please! Faris, for god’s sake, open the door!”
Tears began to trickle from the pilot’s eyes. She did not reply.
* * *
Outside, a blood-red sun was setting. Between the lowering sun and the ever-present mist, darkness descended like a blanket over the expedition team as they hurried back toward the lake. As soon as they were able to make out the lights of the lander in the distance, they quickened their pace.
By now Hallet was unable to walk on his own. Supported by Lopé on one side and Walter on the other, he gasped in pain with each step. Trying to manage by himself, he broke away from his helpers only to fall to his hands and knees. Bloody fluid dribbled from his mouth and nose and he choked, trying to clear his throat. As Walter looked on, Lopé bent beside his companion.
“Come on, Tom. You can do it.” Looking up, the sergeant gestured ahead. “See? There’s the lander. See the lights? We’ll get you into medbay, fix you up.”
Coughing and wheezing, Hallet shook his head. “Sorry… I can’t. So sorry, Lopé…”
* * *
“Let me out of here! You fuck!”
Within the lander, Karine was banging both hands on the medbay door. The biologist was one scream shy of lapsing into unrestrained hysteria. Faris struggled to keep her voice even.
“You know I can’t do that.”
In the face of her friend and colleague’s panic it was all the pilot could do to hew to procedure. Everything she had seen since Karine and Ledward had returned to the lander cried out for quarantine. If things improved, she would be happy to open the door. Relieved, overjoyed.
As the situation stood now, opening the door to Karine would mean opening it to the unknown. And the unknown, in the person of Private Ledward, needed to be walled off and shut away until it could at the very least be better understood.
Karine knew that better than anyone, Faris told herself, but it was easy to follow procedure when you were standing on the safe side of the medbay door.
* * *
A rattling breath from the med table caused Karine to turn. Ledward was lying on his stomach now, still gripping the sides of the table, trying to suck air while wailing like a wounded animal in its final death throes. Maybe, she told herself, the infection, or whatever it was, would play itself out. Maybe it would behave something like the ancient, long-eradicated malady called malaria, where the victim suffered terribly for a short while, only to recover with no apparent after-effects.
Still scared but forcing herself to keep it together, Karine walked back over to the table. Ledward, she reminded herself, was the one who was ailing. Not her. There was nothing wrong with her. Physically, she felt fine. As an experienced researcher she should know better than to give in to panic. She should be observing, making mental notes to set down later in the expedition’s permanent record.
Without knowing what afflicted him, there was little she could do to help. Given his unpredictable bursts of convulsions, and without Faris’ assistance, she couldn’t even get an IV into him. She told herself that in his current state, an intravenous soporific might even do him more harm than good.
“Shhh.” She did her best to sound reassuring as she approached the table. “You’re gonna be okay. It’s Karine here. I’m with you, honey.”
She had no way of knowing if he could hear her, and if he could, if he was able to understand her words. But in trying to soothe him verbally she felt she was at least doing something. Gritting her teeth, she reached out and placed a hand on his back. For a moment it seemed to steady him.
Encouraged, she applied slight pressure.
Two ivory-white spikes shot upward from his back and rib cage, bursting out between her splayed fingers. Shocked into immobility, she could only stare as his entire back ruptured, the split rib cage spreading in opposite directions as if pulled apart by a pair of giant hands. Fountaining blood gushed over her, causing her to stumble backward, one hand feeling for her own mouth.
A placenta-like sac oozed from the now-dead private’s insides, rising and expanding from his back like a fleshy balloon. She screamed and flecks of blood flew from her lips. Ledward’s blood.
Ripped open from within, the sac tore lengthwise. The creature that emerged was small, about the size of an ordinary house cat. With its white, almost translucent flesh and elongated, vaguely humanoid skull, it was a choice vision from
Hell. Mucus and bits of dead Ledward dripped from its head and flanks.
As it rose, limbs unfolded from joints, revealing slender arms and legs glistening with slick afterbirth. A long, pointed tail uncoiled. There were no eyes or ears, but a small puckered circle indicated the presence of an as yet unformed mouth. The skin was smooth, slick. A nauseatingly sweet smell, like the aroma of a bad narcotic, spread through the medbay. While blood continued to pump from the private’s destroyed body, the flow began to slow.
Not quite dead but much less than alive, what remained of Ledward abruptly jerked forward, then contorted backward across the med bed. Tumbling off but still halfway held to the platform by the single safety strap around his waist, he twisted once again. A single loud report filled the bay as his back snapped.
Drenched in his blood, a terrified Karine stumbled backward and slipped, falling to the floor. Scrambling on her backside, pushing with hands and feet, she retreated from the table until she found herself pressed up against one wall.
In front of her, the monstrous emergent dropped off the table and onto the deck. Though the sausage-like skull was devoid of visible eyes, it was clearly scanning its immediate surroundings, as if taking stock. Shaking with fear, Karine managed to get to her knees, but could hardly bring herself to look at the thing. A dark stain spread down her pants, adding the curdled stink of urine to that of death and the creature.
Abruptly she realized that it had grown. Now the size of a domestic canine, the thing stopped searching the room to focus on her. Already its arms and legs were longer, the mouth more prominent. Its actions seemed to reflect curiosity, more than malice. As she finally brought herself to regard the little monster, it remained where it was, staring back at her eyelessly.
A moment, she told herself. Just give me a moment. Stay there, stay there. Watch all you want. A moment.
Slowly, slowly, she reached toward Ledward’s utility belt. It lay on the floor nearby, along with the rest of his clothes. A standard Security expedition belt, its pouches held food packets, water purification tablets, medical ampoules, a serrated survival knife…