Bightmares

Chapter Twelve

By the time the Petrovis Skye achieved orbit around the planet late the next day, Emi, Donna, and Sascha still hadn’t isolated the exact cause of the rages, even though they had eliminated individual ingredients like eggs, sugar, and salt. Their suspicion focused on the hard spring wheat, even though they found nothing to distinguish it from wheat grown from Earth seed stock. Flour eaten raw didn’t trigger the rage.

Donna sounded as tired as Emi felt. “What if it’s some sort of Celiac Disease-like reaction? Only it’s affecting the brain?”

“What does that mean?” Aaron asked.

“It means we need a brain scan,” Sascha said. “We need to trigger a rage in someone while they’re in a scanner so we can see what’s happening. That might help us narrow down the trigger.”

Aaron nodded. “Then let’s do it. Use me.”

Emi didn’t want to but knew it had to be done. Twenty minutes later, they had energy shackles on Aaron, and he was securely loaded into the large, full-body scanner. He smiled at Emi as he started eating a slice of Ilse’s cinnamon bread. “Don’t get too used to tying me up, babe.”

She forced a smile but stood waiting with a sedative bolus. Taber stood by, ready to help hold him down. They had to let the rage go as long as possible to get the best results.

Within a few minutes Aaron’s eyes darkened as Emi felt the rage take hold. “Get ready,” she warned Sascha, who manned the scanner controls.

As Aaron let out a deep, enraged roar, Sascha cried out from the control room, “Holy fuck! Emi, you’ve gotta see this!”

She handed the sedative hypo to Taber, then went to join Sascha at the scanner controls. Aaron’s prefrontal cortex had totally lit up, indicating massive overstimulation. Before Aaron ate the bread, the brain scan had showed normal levels of activity.

Shocked, she stared. “What the hell causes that?”

“I don’t know,” Sascha said. “Okay, Shel. Dose him.”

Emi watched the screen in live time as Aaron’s thrashing slowed and stopped as the sedative took effect. Almost immediately, his brain functions returned to normal.

She ran a hand through her hair and closed her eyes to think. Whatever caused the rage interfered with the nervous system somehow. It overstimulated the prefrontal cortex, resulting in the rages.

Her com link whistled. “Dr. Hypatia, this is Captain Eckhart.”

“Just the man I want to talk to. We know what the pathogen is doing.”

There was a pause. “So you have isolated it and created a cure?”

“No, but—”

“Then the evacuation will begin tomorrow morning. Tell the governor to have her uninfected people ready to leave. Good evening, Doctor.” He cut her off before she could reply.

What. The. Fuck?

She hailed Rob. “What the hell is going on with this guy?”

“I’m not sure, but I think we have an even worse problem.”

She kept an eye on Aaron. Taber had already removed the energy shackles from him. “What?”

“Let me patch John through for a conference call and switch us to a secure channel. Is Aaron there?”

“He’s still out. I’ll fill him in later.”

“Okay, hold on.”

A moment later, Captain John Tarrence from the Braynow Gaston spoke. “Emi, we need to stop this guy. You’re the only one who can do it.”

“Okay, what the hell did I just miss?”

“You’re the top ranking fleet medical officer here. You have privileges in both the DSMC and ISNC. You can declare their captain unfit for duty and override his orders.”

Emi felt two breaths away from a scream. “Quit screwing around and tell me what’s going on!”

“We were working on trying to figure out what’s wrong with the trans-light satellite, see if it was off-line or just needed a maintenance reset or what. We pinged it and found out it was recently accessed on-site.”

“And?”

“We tracked the jump path of the Petrovis Skye, Emi. They had a two-jump pattern. They stopped at the satellite. I think they had something do to with why it’s off-line.”

Her heart chilled. “You’re telling me this guy deliberately sabotaged the thing, or turned it off, or whatever?”

“Yeah. They were scheduled for a single long jump to get here. When I tapped into their ship’s nav beacon, it showed a much shorter jump result than they should have had. Before they locked me out.”

“You guys are confusing the shit out of me, and I so don’t need that right now.”

Rob broke in. “We have access to nav beacons on friendly ships. There’s no reason to hide the info, it’s a separate, self-contained computer system. After John got the info, when he went back to confirm it, there was an executive override on their nav beacon, locking access so he couldn’t get back in.”

“Executive?”

“Only the captain can do that,” John said. “He might not have realized I’d already pulled their data. There is no good reason for him to override it in a situation like this.”

Emi stared at Aaron. She trusted her instincts, but being unable to read this Captain Eckhart in person had put her at a distinct disadvantage. “What do I have to do?”

“I’ll come get you tomorrow,” Rob said. “We’ll go to the Petrovis Skye. You can make the declaration there. Put me in charge of their ship, and I’ll override his orders.”

“Isn’t that a little dramatic? Can’t we just have their first officer take over?”

“Not until we find out what the hell Eckhart’s game is. John can jump back to the satellite, but it’s a two-day jump. We need to buy some time. Once he gets the relay satellite up and running, we can have the ISNC rescind the orders.”

Her mind spun. She couldn’t deal with this and solve the medical mystery all at the same time. “Okay. I need to focus on Aaron right now. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

Twenty minutes later, Aaron was awake and sitting up.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She filled him in as much as she could, still not sure she understood the whole story. He called Rob back on a secure channel to confer with him.

Then he hailed the Petrovis Skye.

“Captain Eckhart, this is Captain Aaron Lucio of the Tamora Bight. I’m the lead captain for this mission.”

“Ah, Captain Lucio. Your reputation precedes you. What can I do for you?”

“You will extend the deadline so Dr. Hypatia and Dr. Martinez can complete their testing and synthesize an antidote.”

“Not according to my orders, Captain.”

“What?”

“My orders clearly state I am to evacuate all uninfected personnel and sanitize the planet. That is what I am going to do.”

“I am the commander of this mission.”

“And I was appointed commander of the recovery operation. Those are my orders, Captain.”

“Those orders were issued before we had any idea what the problem was!”

Emi didn’t miss the sneer in the other captain’s voice. “Then I suggest you contact the ISNC and DSMC and have them change my orders.”

“We can’t. The trans-light relay satellite is out of commission.”

“Ah. Isn’t that a shame? Then I suppose unless your wife comes up with a solution, you’re shit out of luck.”

“Captain Eckhart, I demand to talk to your medical officer immediately.”

“I’d love to accommodate you, Captain. Unfortunately, he died shortly after we left on our mission. Tragic accident. Petrovis Skye out.”

Aaron immediately hailed Rob again. “What do we know about this fucker? What’s wrong with him? His med officer died? What the fuck?”

“I was going to call you back.” Emi knew from the sound of Rob’s voice it was bad. “I just had Donna pull his full records from our medical database. The last update we have is from Mars, obviously, but…You’d better sit down.”

“What is it?”

“He’s the son of Captain Anderson Candling.”

Emi knew that name but couldn’t place it. Aaron looked like he’d been kicked in the balls. He sat, stunned. “Holy fuck,” he whispered. “He’s out for blood.”

“Yeah. It looks like it.”

“How many crew on the Petrovis Skye?”

“Twenty-five. Well, twenty-four if their med officer’s dead.”

“What is it?” Emi asked. “Who is he?”

When Aaron looked at her, she didn’t miss the tears in his eyes. “His father was the captain of the Wayfarer Margo.”

Emi returned to the colony’s lab. There, Sascha still worked on the data they’d just gathered. Displayed on the wall, all their results so far, the infected men’s files, and no answers beyond isolating what foods triggered the rages.

No answer why or how.

Obviously, it was reacting to something in certain men after they’d hit puberty. Of the eighteen children, only seven were boys. One, the sixteen-year-old, was infected. None of the younger boys, the oldest of whom just turned eight, showed any symptoms.

Late in the evening, Emi sent Aaron to bed, his presence only distracting her. Donna and Parisi both stayed up with them, going over the data again. Still no closer to an answer, Emi repeatedly browsed through the files and bounced ideas off Sascha and the others. Exhaustion and impending grief threatened to take her under. She wanted to be snuggled in bed with Ford and Caph and Aaron. Ford could comfort her and keep her focused with just one look of his blue eyes. Caph always relaxed her, his teasing smile and playful green eyes never failing to take her mind off her problems.

Aaron, with his…

Brown eyes.

Unwilling to get her hopes up, but unable to slow her racing pulse, she stood and stared at the large wall, paging through photo after photo.

Every man had brown eyes except one.

She looked through the files of the uninfected men. Not a brown eye in the bunch except for two of the little boys, who were both toddlers born on the planet. One was three, the other eighteen months old.

Turning, Emi caught Sascha watching her.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Blue eyes. Not the same shade as Ford’s. “Donna,” she said, her voice shaky, unable to take her gaze off Sascha. “What color are Sam and Gregor’s eyes?”

“What?”

“Please!”

“Sam’s are hazel, and Greg’s are blue. Why?”

“And Rob’s are brown.”

“Yeah.”

Emi walked over to the corner, where Taber sat on the floor, propped against the wall, asleep. She woke him up, just to be sure.

Green eyes.

She looked at Sascha. “Son of a bitch!” she screamed. She stood. Everyone jumped as she slammed her fist against a workbench.

Sascha’s brow furrowed. “What is it?”

Emi couldn’t stop her tears. “I thought I had something. But it can’t be right, because you are the only one who doesn’t fit the profile.”

“What?” Sascha and Donna both asked.

Emi walked over to the wall display again. “All the infected men, except Sascha, have brown eyes. None of the adult men who didn’t get it have brown eyes. Except Rob, but he hasn’t eaten anything from the planet.”

Sascha nervously cleared his throat. “That’s not exactly true.”

Emi turned. “What’s not exactly true?”

“It’s not in my personnel report. We thought it might have disqualified us from being picked for the mission, so we didn’t say anything about it. In fact, we deliberately didn’t disclose it.”

Emi crossed the room and got in his face. “Goddammit, this is your life we’re talking about! My husband’s life! The lives of your fellow colonists!”

Donna spoke up. “Sascha, please.”

He dropped his gaze. “I wasn’t born with blue eyes.”

“What? You’re wearing colored contacts?”

He shook his head. “Biological ophthalmic prosthetics. I was blinded in an accident when I was a kid. I lost both my eyes, and they replaced them with biosynthetic fiber-optic sensors. I’ve had them upgraded twice since the first ones, the last time ten years ago. We had a strong suspicion it would mean we wouldn’t be picked for the colonization team if we revealed it, so we didn’t. My last doctor expunged my medical record for me based on privacy laws. It’s one of the excluded disabilities because of its stable and nondegenerative nature. It’s not a progressive disease or condition that would interfere with my duties. They only did a vision test on me, not a detailed examination of my eyes, when I went for my physical because my ophthalmologist signed off on it.”

Emi couldn’t speak, didn’t dare hope. Fortunately, Donna picked up the ball and ran with it, excitement flowing through her voice. “What color eyes were you born with?”

His focus never shifted from Emi. “I was born with brown eyes.”