The Moon and the Desert, page 29
Dvorak was directed to hand over command of Percheron to Colonel Glenn Armstrong Shepard. It included two addenda. The first was from Doctor Aaron Haskins, director of MarsX, which further instructed Doctor Gavin Taketani to turn over command of his Marsbase personnel to Shepard. The second addendum was from Boatright and MoMaB directing Glenn to assume the Chief Medical Officer role in addition to the captaincy.
So, this is what Boatright meant when he said leave the details to him. Interesting. “Hi, boss. Thanks for the support,” he said to no one. It would be added to his sight and sound recordings as part of his personal telemetry. His guardian angel would receive Glenn’s thanks later in the day.
The orders established that Glenn was now completely in charge, with authority to do whatever was necessary to get Percheron and her crew home safely. Once again it brought home the inescapable fact that he would be held accountable if things went wrong—that was always the unmentioned assumption of command.
Taking command as captain and leaving Yvette as CMO would have been a two-edged sword. One of the loopholes in ship command was that the chief medical officer had say over whether a captain was medically fit to command. Of course, neither Master Sergeant Bialik—who should be the de facto CMO of Percheron—nor Yvette, CMO of Marsbase One, had relieved Captain LeBlanc of duty in the immediate aftermath of the incident with the cargo hatch. Naming him CMO as well as captain avoided the possibility she’d be able to relieve him capriciously, even as it removed a valid check on his own actions.
Everything he did would be scrutinized. Nothing new there, that was a given from the start.
Doing the exams would be somewhat awkward with him still in his skinsuit and wearing a helmet. He’d cleaned his skinsuit the best he could—there was a ’fresher compartment on the shuttle specifically designed for skinsuits—but he couldn’t do anything with the helmet. He sprayed it with the same chemical used for dry cleaning of uniforms, rinsed it, dried it, then sprayed it with disinfectant, rinsed and dried it again. It got rid of his own body odor, and left him with something a bit more pleasant to smell.
On the other hand, the sense of smell is often a doctor’s best diagnostic instrument. He’d probably have to turn up his oxygen and lift the helmet a few times to take a sniff.
This time, as he passed through the central corridor of the ship, he noticed that some of the previously closed hatches and doors were now open, while some of the previously open ones were now closed. The hatch to the zero-gee aeroponics facility was now closed—a good thing, since the compartment had been designed to force ship’s air through the plants to freshen and clean it. The hatch to Cargo Bay Two was open, and he saw two persons removing food pallets, presumably to transfer them to galley storage.
However, when they saw him, they retreated back into the cargo bay and put the pallets down. Glenn could see that some of the food and water had been removed, so it was getting distributed. Unfortunately, the behavior of the two he saw—Grigorescu and Mishra from Marsbase—meant that he’d have to follow-up to ensure that the items had actually gone to common storage and were not being hoarded somewhere else.
Every crew member he encountered so far was showing evidence of behavior that would’ve been screened out by astronaut selection processes. Even latent tendencies toward paranoia, OCD, or hoarding should have been detected in the years-long training.
This time when he entered the med bay, Yvette looked up and smiled brightly. She’d put on fresh makeup and attempted to do something with her hair. “Hi, boss,” she said in a friendly open manner. “What can I do to help? We need to start running physicals on the crew, right?”
He must have gotten used to tang of the ship’s air—that or his freshly laundered skinsuit was affecting his sense of smell . . .
No, that’s Yvette! A faint lilac scent made it into his helmet. She’s wearing perfume!
As pleasant as her greeting was, it was just as disturbing as the other two personalities. Paranoid delusions, sullen and angry, and now bright and cheerful—none of those were traits he normally associated with her. Driven, meticulous, and circumspect had been her characteristics during residency—unless they were arguing, but that was mainly differences of opinion over treatment. Most of the time, neither of them was wrong, but they’d each had a tendency to stand their ground until forced to yield by higher authority. Of course, that same passion for their work had transformed into other . . . passions, but that was almost twenty years ago.
He supposed that the message from Space Force and MarsX could very well have produced a change in her attitude. Still, it wasn’t normal, so that made him suspicious. After all, no one in this crew was acting normally . . .
. . . as she proved with her next move.
Yvette came over and pulled herself right up next to Glenn. She’d bumped him with her hip, which caused him to drift slightly away, but she reached an arm out, grabbed his waist, and pulled him close. She then leaned in and said, “I’ve missed you, Shep.”
It took all of Glenn’s willpower not to push her away, but to play along just enough to know whether this was yet another personality change, or if there was actual affection underneath her behavior. “Yes, it’s been a long time, many miles and life changes, too.”
“I’ve missed you in so many ways,” she whispered. Her other arm came around to grab his shoulder and turn him so that they were facing each other. She briefly kissed his helmet faceplate and reached for the seals of his skinsuit. “You should close that door so that no one interrupts us.”
Glenn was stunned.
Paranoid, then angry, now lustful. While their time together had been fiery, that fire usually came when arguments turned into passionate lovemaking. She had never been a seductress—this aspect was simply not her style.
Why did she start now? Glenn thought. He gently pushed her back. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t let go either. “Yvette, we need to do the crew physicals first.”
She blushed and her expression changed slightly—less seductive and a bit confused. “Oh yes, sorry, work before pleasure. Shep always was a dull boy that way.” The corner of her mouth quirked up in what he supposed was a smile. It was probably meant to be teasing—under the circumstances, a better outcome than the reaction to rejection that he’d feared.
“Yes, yes, work before play. Hold onto that thought for now, we’ll get back to this later.” Another lie. He’d been so determined not to lie, but here was another. Whatever this disease was, it caused its victims to lie to themselves, and he wasn’t doing any better.
He had to do better. No more lies.
CHAPTER 34:
Detective Work
United States Space Force @USSFActual
We are sad to announce that Percheron captain, Commander Gee LeBlanc, and her chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Angus Scott, have lost their lives in the performance of their duties. Captain LeBlanc suffered from a previously undiagnosed liver failure, while Engineer Scott lost his life to vacuum exposure during an extravehicular activity.
We previously delayed announcements until the families of the affected crew could be contacted.
George J @spacefan
@OSIGenBoatright, is this true? And what about the widespread sickness that was reported?
USSF Office of Scientific Integration
@OSIGenBoatright
@spacefan, yes, George, this is unfortunate but true. We haven’t yet been able to confirm if Captain LeBlanc’s condition is related to the illness previously reported. Rest assured that Colonel Glenn Shepard is aboard Percheron as my personal representative. He will get to the bottom of it.
ChirpChat, October 2043
Glenn and Yvette agreed on an order of examinations for everyone to be seen in med bay. Her manner was completely professional; he hoped it continued long enough for the exams to be productive.
The most severe were Bialik, Takeda and Katou; they would start with those three. Both Bialik and Takeda were lying on treatment beds in the med bay. Glenn wanted to start with Hana Takeda because she’d collapsed about thirty minutes before he’d arrived, and she looked as if she’d need dialysis as soon as possible. The hydroponics technician was pale, with a yellowish tinge to her skin. She was also delirious—a sign of advanced uremia—because her kidneys could not remove all of the uric acid and other toxic metabolites from the bloodstream. Dialysis was almost always the treatment-of-choice under those conditions, and it pained Glenn that Yvette had not diagnosed and prescribed dialysis before this point.
Yvette and Glenn both looked for the dialysis tubing and cannula that should have been stocked in the med bay. They were unable to find the supplies, so Glenn simply directed her to open the large protective case he’d brought with him from Bat’s supplies. In it were most of the items he expected to need that day, including dialysis supplies. Hana was already lying on the biobed, so it was a simple matter of unpacking tubing and catheter, inserting the sterile tube through a vein under the collarbone, connecting it to ports behind a panel in the bed itself, then slowly advancing the catheter down to the superior vena cava while watching the progress on a combination ultrasound/infrared/x-ray imaging monitor. Once the tip was at the entrance to the heart, the double-barreled catheter would both draw venous blood to pass through the dialysis machine, and return the filtered blood to be pumped onward by the heart.
Again, Yvette performed efficiently and competently, with no hint she’d ever been opposed to the treatment. What was strange, though, was that not only had she been telling the truth about not having (or at least being able to find) the dialysis supplies, the access panel for the dialysis ports was still factory sealed. In addition, the software menu for programming the dialysis was in a hidden menu and locked with the factory access codes. Fortunately, Glenn’s preparations had included learning everything he could about the biobeds. It didn’t all add up yet, but in this, Yvette had been telling the truth.
They moved on to Marta Bialik. Her pancreatic failure was causing wild swings in blood sugar due to erratic insulin production. Abnormally high and low blood glucose levels were beginning to cause extreme pain from damage to nerves in her fingers and toes—a symptom usually associated with advanced type 2 diabetes. With two biobeds in the med bay, they could also put Bialik on dialysis. That would at least help control the blood glucose and other toxins to stabilize the medic for now. Yvette prepped her second patient, and started the dialysis, which went considerably easier the second time.
With two crewmembers being treated in the main room of the med bay, they needed facilities for examining the other patients. There was an additional room designed for isolation of a patient with contagious illness. It was a small room with a single chair and an adjustable cot that doubled as patient transport or examination platform. There were fewer treatment options, but sufficient examination instruments to examine the rest of the Percheron crew. It also had an extremely large observation window so that he could keep an eye on Yvette and his two existing patients while he met with the remainder, or he could swap places and keep an eye on her.
The only problem was the door lock. It was meant to be operated from the outside to prevent an infectious patient from getting out. Glenn checked his heads-up display for med bay access, and found that as captain, he could disable the door lock remotely and disallow any other access—in fact, he was the first person on the ship to access any door lock control subroutine. It was an odd fact, especially given Taketani’s comments about being locked in. He would need to look into that, later.
With that worry taken care of, he called Mila Katou to the med bay. Her condition was better than Bialik and Takeda, but just barely. She was weak, had evidence of recent small hemorrhages on chest, back and abdomen; soreness of, and possible bleeding in, her esophagus; and several red, inflamed patches of skin that were hard to the touch. Glenn checked her eyes, and noted yellowing of the sclera—the whites of her eyes.
Much like the reports on Captain LeBlanc, Katou was showing serious signs of liver failure. There was medication she could be given right now. Dialysis would help with the fluid retention and once they identified the agent causing the damage, removing that cause should help with recovery. If not, he would perform a detailed tissue scan of the liver to see the extent of the damage. If the damaged tissue was less than two-thirds of the organ, he could surgically remove the damage and let the remaining good tissue regenerate itself. Worst case, she’d need a liver transplant.
There was a bioprinter on the Marsbase, but he was uncertain if Percheron had been provided with one. Still, he’d need some of Mila’s stem cells to seed the printer if it was available.
Yvette must have been thinking along the same lines. “You know, we have stem cells banked for everyone aboard. They are in the deep-cold storage aft of the water tanks. We could probably work up a treatment for her.”
That was true, with the right differentiating agents, he could resect her liver and regenerate it from a stem cell culture. It was worth thinking about. It also brought to mind the question of what Yvette had done with the captain’s corpse.
“Yvette? I’d like to compare Katou’s symptoms with LeBlanc’s. Where did you store the body?”
“Gee? I mean, the captain? The same deep-cold unit. It’s set at minus eighty degrees Celsius. The Marsbase crew stored seed, ova, sperm, and other long-term reserved biologicals in there on the outbound trip. It had plenty of room for the body. Just the stem cell bank and some emergency biologicals in there now. I debated putting it in the galley freezer, but figured it wasn’t cold enough.”
“What? With the food?”
“No, we stored the food in Cargo Bay One. It was in vacuum already.”
“Weren’t you afraid of desiccating it?”
“The food or the body? Don’t be silly. Although, now that I think about it, Maxim wanted to store the captain’s body in Cargo Bay One, and Gavin said we should just pitch her out an airlock and tie her off to the outside, but as you said it’s cold and in vacuum, so that wouldn’t do.”
Yvette continued. Her voice and mannerisms had been light and somewhat playful, but now she turned serious. “That’s why I had to take command and have them stay in their rooms. They act like silly little children, always doing whatever pops into their heads.”
Now that wasn’t creepy at all.
Glenn swallowed and cleared his throat. “Okay, when we’re done with exams and can move Marta or Hana off of a treatment bed, we need to go get LeBlanc’s body so I can do an exam.”
“No need, I’ll just tell Eric and Jonas to fetch her. They’ll do anything I ask them to. Such puppy dogs.”
Glenn desperately needed to change this conversation, there was a strange look in Yvette’s eyes, and he’d seen something like it when she’d attacked him three days ago.
“No problem, let’s finish the exams first. The rest of the Percheron personnel are next.”
Scott, the engineer, had been lost during the depressurization of Cargo Bay One. There would be only the records of his symptoms and Yvette’s exam. Without a body, there wasn’t much else he could do. The other three males—Dvorak, Philips, and Christenson—were sick with gastrointestinal complications and some neurological symptoms. He’d already seen signs of aberrant behavior in Dvorak and Philips—the first officer had brought one of his ponies to the exam and kept cuddling and stroking it; the engineering technician answered all questions with a Scottish brogue, but declined to say why he’d affected the accent. Jonas Christensen was nervous and anxious. His eyes continually darted around the room. They seldom stopped, except when he looked toward Yvette and she was not looking back. Those times, his eyes opened wide and his pupils dilated.
He’s afraid, Glenn thought. No! He’s in love!
Glenn now had some idea why Dvorak and the others hadn’t objected to Yvette taking over command. Their neuropsychological symptoms ranged from the sick—way too many; the afraid—and he wasn’t entirely sure how many those were; to the adoring. So far, Philips and Christensen fell into the latter category.
The Marsbase personnel showed a similar pattern with female members more severely affected than males. Organ failure had yet to appear in any of them, but they all showed some form of neurological symptoms such as migraines, insomnia, anxiety, and something like attention deficit disorder. Doctor Melissa Green, the Marsbase botanist and dietician, was the worst affected—that is, if Glenn reserved judgement on Yvette—with erratic behavior that bordered on schizophrenic. Her brother, Stephen, the lead construction engineer, was also the most severely affected male. He alternated bouts of insomnia during the ship’s “night” with narcolepsy during the waking hours, resulting in extreme fatigue and inability to concentrate on any complex tasks.
Glenn found the two quite intriguing—they were fraternal twins, with as close to the same genetics as he was going to get onboard. He expected any environmental contaminant to affect them equally. The fact that Melissa was so much more severely affected than Steve meant that the apparent sexual dimorphism with respect to susceptibility was real, and not coincidental to different genetics, exposure sites, times, or durations. He needed to be looking for something that was either made worse by estrogen, or counteracted by testosterone.
Surya Mishra and Victor Grigorescu, the two men he’d seen removing food from Cargo Bay Two, were the least affected, although their tests revealed high blood alcohol content. After those two exams were complete, Yvette confided that Dvorak and Taketani suspected the pair had built a still and were making their own booze. Given all of the other problems, neither leader had felt it worthwhile to hunt down the still and halt production. They felt that if the two wanted to drink away their problems . . . well, it was no worse than anyone else’s coping mechanism. While Glenn understood the sentiment, it was his job to get everyone home safely . . . and sober. He would need to run additional tests to ensure that the two were not getting any metal toxins from the distillation process.
