Mists of the Miskatonic (Mist of the Miskatonic Book 1) (20 page)

“I’m so sorry, Rob. This is my fault,” Heather whispered. She leaned close to the tattered flesh of his eyes. “So sorry.”

Rob thrashed against the restraints, his frail human body having been subjected to the deadly low pressure of Mars. Jones injected the Lorazepam, and then pulled a syringe that was labeled Morphine from the kit. Suddenly, the doctor’s struggle stopped, and he turned his bloody face towards Heather. Mangled eye sockets stared.

“It’s ok,” the doctor’s gravelly voice breathed. He gurgled blood and digestive fluids, then coughed a spray of blood droplets that covered her face in a slick mist. The copper taste was unmistakable as it coated her tongue. “He’s not watching me anymore. But he’s still watching you.”

Doctor Rob Morris made history as the first human to die on Mars.

After a chaotic Martian day and a night filled with bad dreams and fitful sleep, Frank sat at the computer screen and entered his security code. When he took this command, he never figured he would have any messages scrambled secure on the military sub channel. Now they came in dozens.

Mike’s now-too-familiar voice was in his earpiece. It had been broken apart by computers, turned into fragmented data, scrambled and transmitted over millions of miles to be pieced back together on Mars. Only seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds at light speed, but it seemed so far now.

“I know this is a tragedy, but everyone on this mission knew the risks. You’re far from home, on your own. The doc knew that death was possible,” Mike’s recorded voice said, emotionlessly.

“Probable, now. Not just possible,” Frank whispered, angry and tired.

“The P.R. guys have focus grouped some different scenarios. The public is most willing to accept that Rob had a brain aneurysm and died instantly. I am told we’re gonna run with that. No one up there is to tell friends or family the truth. We are going to monitor all messages you all send home. I know we said personal messages would be private: we can’t take any chances. Sorry for the Big Brother stuff.”

“I doubt that,” Frank whispered angrily through clenched teeth.

“We put you in charge of this because of your combat experience in Mexico and Belize. Use your skills. Be the leader we need. Your people are gonna be stressed, mission parameters changing. Work your magic. We have faith.”

Mike sat on the gas pipe outside of Mission Control in Houston. He looked at the cigarette: mostly filter with a little genetically-engineered, flavorless tobacco in the butt. Fruitlessly he clicked the lighter several times. Then he held it up to the sunlight. Seeing the fluid was almost gone, he shook it, then clicked it again. Success! He held the small flame to the cigarette and puffed.

The warm, way-too-filtered smoke was pulled into his lungs. Then he blew it out. There was just enough tobacco in these cigarettes for four puffs, so he savored every one. He should quit, but he had spent so much on the permit to allow him to smoke. He wasn’t going to waste it.

“Excuse me, sir,” a large man in a black suit said from behind a bush. “Colonel? Mike Ferguson? ”

He blew out the smoke. “Look. I have a permit to smoke, OK? Don’t bust my balls. I’m on a break.”

“You’d better have a permit to smoke, or it’s a felony. But that’s not why I’m here.” The man held out a phone. “Secure line. Washington D.C.”

The Colonel stared, then held out his hand and put the phone to his ear.

“This is Mike,” he said.

The line clicked, and then a familiar voice sounded far away. “Colonel, its Rachael Johnson, Science Advisor to the President.”

“It must be important for you to call me like this, Rachael. What’s happening?”

“I’ve been looking at this data, these photos. Why didn’t you do anything with this?” she said angrily. “This could change everything.”

“My hands are full here. In case you didn’t hear, we just lost our flight doctor. Assume I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s the truth. I’m busy, Rachael,” Mike retorted.

“Yeah. Busy smoking. Got a permit for that?”

“I’m in compliance with the Bloomberg Act of 2021. Don’t worry. What photos? What are you talking about?” Frank felt his body tense, exasperated at the conversation.

“Those stones. We think they look like ruins. Our M.I.T. team has no doubt they are worked rock, a wall of some kind.” She paused. “It’s become a mission priority, Colonel.”

“Jesus Christ on a crutch. It’s a coincidence. Billions of tons of rock on that planet; something will fracture at a right angle. There hasn’t been life on that sphere ever. Our probes would have found something. I doubt we would’ve landed almost on top of it. Those M.I.T. guys should spend less time playing D& D and get laid. Nerds. Ugh.” He growled then drew deep on the cigarette. He flicked the butt into the bushes and glared at the man in the suit. “Pisses me off they went around my back like that.”

The man in the black suit shrugged.

“It’s coming from me. And the President,” Rachael said angrily. “We have a different take on it than you, obviously. We have already told control to reschedule and send a team out there ASAP. If you can’t get it done, I will find someone who can.”

Mike thought for a few moments, his fingers wrapped white-knuckled on the phone. “I’ll get it done.”

“Good. Good bye, Colonel.”

Around a table sat the members of the mission. Frank sipped a mug of instant coffee. To his left, Darwin and Connor studied data that screened on a wireless pad. Connor yawned. Heather sat quietly with arms crossed and watched steam rise from a cup of tea. Tina Galva-Jones rubbed the programmer on the shoulder.

“It’s no one’s fault, what happened,” the Mission Commander said. “We are here until the Hohmann Transfer Orbit brings us back around for launch. Almost sixteen months. We have to make this work. We all knew what we were getting into: no one is coming to save us. We are it.”

Heather began to tear up. “No one should have to die like that.”

“The Great Ghoul eats probes bound for Mars. When was that term coined? Ninety-six? Ninety-seven? There’s a reason for it. This has risks, and Doc knew them. Many missions have failed. Did you all forget the Russians lost the
Stalin
leaving Earth orbit, then
Putin
halfway here ten years ago? We are first because of that,” Frank said, matter of fact.

“How could we forget?” Connor breathed.

Tina hugged Heather, but the programmer sat still, arms folded. Frank looked at the two, breathed deep and looked into his cup of coffee.

“Look. I know this is tough right now. You ran the diagnostics on that case. I made the call to let you move him in the case, not in a suit. Bad call, maybe. Some contractor in Pig Knuckle, Arkansas, or somewhere flubbed that seal. Not us. But we have jobs to do,” the Commander said firmly. “Let’s be honest. None of us are the best at what we do. I’m not the best pilot in the service. Heather, you’re not the best programmer in the world. Darwin, you’re not the best electronics man in NASA…”

“Then why the hell did they send us up here?” Tina interrupted angrily. “What’s the point, Frank? This pep talk is not doing much to build my confidence.”

“We’re all really good at a lot of things, and we’re the best problem-solvers that could be sent. Two-and-a half-years on our own, no help possible. That’s why we’re here. We solve this problem, then move on. There’s no other choice,” Frank said.

The five sat silently for a long time. Then Darwin spoke softly. “Frank’s right, as usual. We have to pick ourselves up. I know we’re not sleeping well. I’m having bad dreams. We’re on overload. No other way.”

“Control has budgeted a slow work cycle for the next twenty-four hours. Try to rest. We will double check data and eyeball the robots. Spend some time in Hydroponics and smell real air. Then move on. Rob would have wanted that,” Frank said, then drained his cup. “We’re going to solve this.”

“No one should die like that,” Heather mumbled. “We can’t solve him dead.”

Darwin tried to sleep, but when he dozed he could hear something in his head. Distant. Hazy. Something just out of sight that niggled and wiggled in the back of his mind. He pulled the electric blanket close and turned its heat up: but the cold could not be penetrated. He was on the precipice of some great cliff, and could feel himself as he tottered on the edge. No matter what, he could not regain his balance, and was bound to fall.

Something in the darkness of the dream whispered: it clicked, chattered and buzzed. “Shub…” he could make out. “Shub…” the human sounding-voice barely hummed, not unlike an intelligent cricket or grasshopper.

“Don’t hide from me,” he implored.

“We watch,” it whispered.

“Who are you?” Darwin shouted in the dream. “Come to me!”

The inhuman voice clicked and chattered from afar, and a sound clanged. He awoke with a start. He sat up too fast in the light gravity and tumbled out of his bunk. The alarm klaxon rang. A red light flashed. He grappled with the blanket tangled around his legs.

“I need everyone at the west airlock. Now!” Tina cried over the intercom. “Double time! Emergency!”

Darwin grabbed a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher from a wall mount and stumbled through the door of the tiny room that originally had been slated for him and the doctor. The door clinked shut behind him and he ducked down several dimly lit hallways to the airlock.

“Is it a fire? A breach?” he called out as he skidded to a halt on the smooth floor. He saw three of the crew gathered around the lock’s valve. Frank had his palm up against the thick glass window in the door.

“Please, Heather. Don’t do this,” the Commander said, the sound carried by the intercom into the lock. “Please.”

Darwin could see her on the monitor. She sat inside the small chamber on the floor, her back against the outer lock. Her face was wet with tears, and her shaky hands rubbed her eyes.

“No one should have to die like that,” her whisper came through the speakers.

“We can work anything out. Give us a chance,” Tina pleaded.

Heather looked up and laughed. It rapidly turned to sobs. “It’s too late for that. I’m tired. Of the dreams. Of
them
watching.”

“Who? Who is watching?” Tina cried. “Don’t do this.”

“Darwin,” Frank turned away from the window. “Override the panel and pop this damn door.”

“None of us are sleeping very well. We’re tired. Please, come out and let’s talk,” Tina said, her hands pressed against the glass.

Heather sniffed, then wiped her face against the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “I’ve already thought of that, Frank. I wrote a line into the panel, a ten digit override. I didn’t want to make it impossible to get the door back open once I’m done here. I can’t have you opening it.”

“Please. Heather. Don’t do this,” Frank said quietly. “Don’t go down in history like this.”

She became quiet, then stood and looked out the window of the outer lock onto the surface of Mars. “No one is going to watch me anymore.” She hit her hand against the panel of the airlock. The four gasped.

The alarm in the lock flashed and sounded: a klaxon that shattered nerves. Heather turned and smiled as the outer door’s hydraulics hummed.

“No!” Frank shouted as the door opened. The air was sucked out, and her with it. The valve was not fully opened, and her body slammed into the door. Heather’s smile erupted in blood. Scarlet streamed from her mouth and nose to be frozen and carried into the atmosphere as it was suctioned out of the lock. It took a second for her eyes to bulge, and then burst into ragged tatters and fluids that were carried outside.

The servos continued their march and her body broke, pulled through the small door. It snapped her arms out of their sockets and she tumbled across the sands.

Mike’s voice was calm in the ear bud. “I don’t know what you are going through, exactly, but I have faith in you, Frank.”

The Mission Commander took a deep breath and sadly looked out the armored window at the surface. Outside Darwin and Tina were suited up. They retrieved Heather’s burst and frozen remains. With care, they zipped her corpse into a black body bag and carried it reverently back toward the airlock where Connor waited.

“Our psych team is on this. You are all having trouble thinking, sleeping. It feels like
someone
watches you. This kind of groupthink, mass suggestion, and mass hysteria is not unusual. The Russians had two of their crew on anti-depressants by the time
Putin
blew up halfway to Mars. Being a rocket scientist is the easy part of this mission, Frank. Being a leader is much tougher.”

He continued to watch as the two carried the bag. For some unseen reason, Connor stopped and pointed to the sand at their feet. The two held the body bag and gazed. Their heads shook and he pointed. Tina side-stepped, to avoid what he pointed at and they continued to the lock.

“We have a lot riding on this. Each of your crew will be assigned a psych, including yourself, and there will be communication, critical incident stress debriefing and therapy as best as we can until we get back on track. You can do this.”

“Stupid psychiatrists,” Frank whispered. Unexpectedly, Connor and Tina came back out of the airlock and returned without the body bag. The pair stepped gingerly back out onto the sandy surface near the base. “Now what the hell are they doing?”