6.
It had taken ten minutes to override the controls of the ocean ATV and bring it back from its position, on the seabed a mile offshore. As it rolled out of the surf, Calloway stayed in his own vehicle at the edge of the beach. Only when the ocean ATV finally stopped did Calloway climb out of his own vehicle and approach from the driver’s side.
The canopy had been shattered and the vehicle was empty. Calloway peered inside and saw a spear gun between the seats, floating in the dark water that had yet to drain out. It had been fired, but he saw no evidence of what Martine might have been shooting at. Then, he spied an object on the passenger seat, reached down and picked up something large, white and triangular.
It was sharp, too, slicing through the top layer of his protective gloves, which he wore as his hands still had not completely healed from the burns. He carefully laid the object flat in his palm and examined it closely. The edges were serrated, the tip pointed like a spear.
He shuddered when he realized what it was. Though he’d only seen the likes of it in history books and video clips, he was sure it was a shark’s tooth. And its owner had to be massive, maybe half the size of a humpback whale, possibly like the extinct Earth Megalodon, a predecessor of the Great White.
He placed the tooth in the storage compartment of a server robot floating just behind his right shoulder and continued his examination of the ATV’s interior. He reached for the spear gun. It seemed to be jammed, so he tugged a little harder and it came free.
It was then that he noticed two things around the base of the gun, each attached to something longer that hung down before stopping abruptly. Calloway gasped, dropped the spear gun and spun around, sickened. They were Martine’s hands and forearms!
It wasn’t too difficult to imagine what had happened. Not only had Martine gone into the ocean alone, she had probably left the safety of the ATV to explore the natural environment. It was a gross violation of the diver’s code to go out alone; that had also applied to Harrigan with his mountain climbing. They both had ignored the rules.
More than likely, Martine had encountered the shark and fired her spear at it, to no effect because of its immense size. She had fled back to the ATV, hoping to find safety from the pursuing creature. She’d made it inside, but the enormity of the thing had made the ATV a useless kind of protection. Calloway prayed her end was swift.
Suddenly, one of the server robots sounded its shrill alarm. Calloway looked up, barely stifled a scream and scrambled back to his own ATV. Coming out of the surf was a maw filled with humongous teeth.
He wouldn’t have believed had he seen it on one of his vid-flicks back on the ship. The shark was much bigger than he imagined. Not only that, it was surviving out of the water and walking on its fins!
The shark came ashore and sniffed at Martine’s demolished ATV. Then, it glared at Calloway, clearly sniffing the air. Had it become accustomed to human flesh because of Martine and now wanted the engineer as well?
The shark clamped its jaws onto the wrecked ATV and slowly dragged it back into the surf. It seemed to detect Martine’s scent and wanted to finish the job it started. So intent was it to get the vehicle back into the water that it barely noticed Calloway’s bullets stinging its head like angry hornets.
Unfortunately, since the ISEA counted on its advanced technology to identify and avoid threats, it hadn’t seen fit to include heavy weapons for its deep-space missions. Clearly, it could not know that its scanners would be fooled by this planet’s ocean. That didn’t mean that Calloway was ill-prepared, however and, right now, Calloway was angry. Angry at Martine’s stupid death. Angry at his ineffectual pistol. Angry at planet 505-D.
Using his own ATV’s command system, he overrode the ocean ATV’s backup system. He forced the door to the power compartment to open. Then, reloading his pistol, he emptied an entire magazine into the power coupling, making it spark and flash. Just as the vehicle slipped under the waves, he purposely sent one of his server robots directly into the live power reactor.
The explosion sent a geyser of water fifty feet into the air. Calloway barely had time to get back inside his vehicle and pull down the canopy before a curtain of water cascaded down it. He couldn’t help but notice the chunks of meat and gore now clinging to his windshield.
He left his ATV again and while his remaining robot cleaned his vehicle, he approached the water’s edge, reloaded pistol in hand. Blood-soaked sea foam washed up on the sand. Farther out, the water had turned crimson. Calloway smiled and then went back to his ATV before any other predators of this deadly ocean called to scavenge the remains of Martine’s killer.
Drops of moisture hit Calloway’s shoulders and head. He looked up. The sky was much darker now and looked very angry. To him, it was about right.
The cargo bay ramp was down when Calloway finally returned to the Humboldt. At least one other member of the crew had seen fit to return. When he stopped inside the bay, however, he spotted two hover cycles in a far corner. No one ever returned any of the vehicles to their proper spots, but he was much too remorseful to be angry.
After putting the ATV back into its proper slot, he programmed the server robot to service it. He then climbed out and made his way slowly to the cafeteria. He wasn’t surprised at all that no one had met him in the cargo bay upon his return. In fact, nothing at all surprised him anymore regarding their actions.
Along the way, he stopped by the ship’s armory. He typed in his command code so he could retrieve more ammunition for his weapon. Sadly, he felt he might need protection for himself from the planet in case Muryah’s talk of “symbiosis” was really true.
Strangely, the door wouldn’t open. He keyed his code in again, but the door still wouldn’t budge. Even his verbal request to the AI for alternate access was denied. He had been locked out. Fuming, he could figure on one reason - Penski.
He strode purposefully towards the cafeteria. Sure enough, the rest of the crew was there, sitting quietly at the table. Muryah was also there. She didn’t even bother to look up at him when he entered. He just stood in the doorway, glaring at the people he thought were his crewmates.
When someone finally spoke, it wasn’t Penski, but Muryah.
“Let me say how sorry I am at the loss of your crewmates,” she said. “But, you had no right.”
Calloway said nothing, too stunned to respond. He could see her knowing about Harrigan, but not about Martine. He had only found out about her on a wild guess. There was no way Muryah could have known if Veronica was dead, unless…the symbiosis claim was valid.
“This planet speaks to me,” Muryah continued, as if she sensed his questioning. “I…I felt their deaths. I am mourning for them.”
A light bulb seemed to go on in Calloway’s head and, finally, he understood.
Now, it was clear. It explained the strange storm clouds that had mysteriously appeared over both of the death sites. Muryah was in tune with the planet, incredible as it sounded. But, hadn’t she made the place sound like a paradise? Hadn’t she said the planet provided for its life forms?
“What did you mean I had no right?” Calloway demanded.
“You had no right to kill the shark,” Muryah spat, her visage turning angry. “It was acting according to its instinct.”
“It killed Martine,” Calloway shot back, incensed. “My crewmate. You do remember what a crewmate is, don’t you?”
“Calloway, that was uncalled for,” Penski interrupted.
“The creature did not attack you, yet you attacked it,” Muryah stated. “You killed it. You are totally opposed to everything this world stands for.”
Calloway ran a hand over his face and turned away for a moment to avoid doing something he might regret. When somewhat calmed, he turned back to face his accuser.
“You call this a paradise, Muryah?” he said. “Martine and Harrigan are dead. How convenient that you left out the part about how death is a part of even paradise. Why? I mean, I really have to know. If this
is paradise, are you Eve or the serpent?”
“That’s enough!” Penski roared, stepping forward and getting right in her engineer’s face. “These were accidents, pure and simple. The only intentional act was yours.”
That sounded about right. He was the bad guy. Again.
“Self defense is what I call it,” Calloway countered. “But, if it will make everyone feel better, I apologize. Everyone satisfied? Seriously, though, Captain, we need to report this. The AI tells me the probe launch is still down, which leaves us just one option. As I suggested before, I say we take off immediately and put into low orbit, at least. That’ll be enough to get a signal out, unhindered.”
“I’ve already brought it up with the crew,” Penski replied, moving away from him and back toward her chair. “We’ve decided to complete the mission.”
“Complete the mission?” he exploded. “Two of our people our dead, Captain. This isn’t about putting another feather in a cap or notch on a belt or whatever it is that completing these missions gets us. It’s our responsibility…”
“I know what my responsibilities are, Mister Calloway,” Penski shot back, as she rose up quickly out of her chair. “My whole life has been about nothing but responsibilities. So, don’t lecture me, Commander.”
“I agree with the captain.”
Calloway suddenly realized Lee was in the room. The man had been almost invisible the past week, less talkative than Boronova, who had lately become the chatterbox. Calloway turned to look at the meteorologist.
“I think we should stay a little longer,” Lee said. “Maybe even after the colonists arrive. What Muryah has told us has prurient scientific value that must be explored. I want to explore them.
“And, please, no more of your lectures on regulations and responsibilities. I am carrying the hopes and dreams of more than two billion people on my shoulders. I know far more about responsibilities than you ever could, Commander. Mine can’t be found in some handbook from the engineering academy. I vote that we stay.”
For the first time, Calloway noticed how tired Lee had looked. But, now that the meteorologist had gotten the words out of his system, he seemed happier, almost relieved. As if some great burden had lifted off his shoulder. Calloway realized now how little he really knew about his crewmates.
Right on cue, Boronova let Calloway have it.
“I guess that’s it, Commander,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Democracy in action. Funny, I think this is the first time I’ve actually had a say in anything in my life. My parents died when I was young, so I had to take on the responsibility of raising my siblings. Everything I did was for them. Even when I had time to myself, I used it for them.
“Now, I have that opportunity. I can still do what I love and have some free time all to myself. You don’t realize how great it is to just be able to sit down all by yourself and do what you want, without someone asking for something or demanding something like it’s his or her birthright. I also vote that we stay.”
Calloway looked daggers at Muryah. He had no doubt that she had been talking with all them. She had had long conversations with Martine and Harrigan and now they were dead because of something foolish.
“Captain, may I have word with you outside?” Calloway asked, simply.
He and Penski moved to the passageway and waited for the door to the cafeteria to slide shut. Penski eyed him coolly. No doubt she suspected his true motive: to attempt use of his military authority to override the others.
“Captain, the mission is over,” Calloway started. “Two of our people are dead. Everybody’s acting crazy, shirking responsibilities and look where it’s gotten us. Martine went diving alone, which is a cardinal sin for someone that experienced. Same for Harrigan, climbing without even server robots.”
“Like I said before, those were accidents,” Penski replied, with some consternation. “It’s tragic, but there have been tragedies on previous space missions.”
“Like the Tomahawk?”
Penski eyed her engineer coolly. If he wasn’t treading on thin ice before, he was about to break through it now.
“Don’t push your luck, Commander,” she practically snarled. “As I was saying. There have been tragedies before. We can deal with them and still do our jobs. We are professionals, remember?”
Calloway couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It sounded as if nothing that had happened so far had fazed the captain. She was in her own world and she wasn’t going to let anything intrude upon it.
“Have you lost your mind, Captain?” he snapped, not regretting his words this time. “We have to leave and leave now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Penski yelled, catching Calloway off-guard. “I’m not your little girl anymore!”
She whirled and walked away, leaving a flabbergasted and perplexed Calloway in her wake.
An hour later, a sullen Calloway sat in his engineering station and punched at a myriad of buttons on his console. Occasionally, he tried to issue voice commands to the AI. All in vain. Penski had shut him out of virtually every command function that might allow him to take control of the ship. He couldn’t even launch in an emergency.
A soft hiss filled the space as the door slid open and then closed. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge the visitor. Right away, he knew it could only be Muryah Abernathy.
“Yes, may I help you?”
“What’s wrong?” Muryah asked in her same pleasant, unaffected voice. “Why is it so hard for you to accept the beauty of this planet and all it has to offer?”
“Because your planet killed two of my crewmates,” he replied, curtly but sharply.
“Was the captain right?” Muryah continued, unfazed. “She mentioned someone hurt you? What’s your story?”
Calloway said nothing at first. He was shocked. Penski had mentioned private items from his psych file to Muryah. He had been hurt several times before in romance. He had joked about past relationships many times, but that gave Penski no right to reveal his file to strangers.
“Look, my personal life is none of your business,” Calloway said, coldly. “You can leave now.”
But, Muryah didn’t leave. Instead, she moved around Calloway and took the empty chair next to his. He tried not to look at her, but she pulled at him and forced him to look at her.
“They said you were the glue that holds this ship together,” Muryah stated. “Always quick with a joke; making everyone laugh to lighten up a serious situation. I haven’t heard that laughter. You’ve changed, like the others. But, your friends, they’ve changed for the better.
“You heard them up there in the cafeteria. They had been holding things inside and it was hurting them. Now that they’ve gotten those things out, you can see how much better they are.”
Calloway looked at Muryah quizzically. He couldn’t imagine his crewmates saying anything nice about him. Was Muryah lying to break through his defenses?
“But, not you,” she continued. “You’ve lost your sense of humor. You seem angry all the time. Why not let it out. Tell me what’s hurting you?”
Calloway tried not to listen to her words. But, there she was, looking at him with those beautiful eyes. It had been much too long since he had been able to talk to anyone, he thought. Suddenly, before he knew it, her lips were on his and he didn’t resist.
“It can always be like this, Devin,” she said, using his first name for the first time. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve felt something for you since I first saw you. And I think you feel it, too. Let me show you what this planet truly has to offer you. To offer us. Let me show you what you’ve been missing.”
Calloway didn’t respond and Muryah looked confused. She tried to kiss him again, but he stopped her. He then gently pushed her away.
“Why now?”
“Why now what?” a puzzled Muryah asked.
“Before, I couldn’t get the time of day from you,” Calloway explained, pushing his seat back to gain a little more space between
them. “I was never in on your little plans with the rest of the crew. I mean, it wasn’t enough that you turned my crewmates against me or that I got electrocuted? But, then, I kill that shark and prove what a real threat I am to this so-called paradise of yours and, suddenly, I get a personal date with you? Forget about my story. What’s your story? Who are you really, Muryah?”
“What?” she replied. “You know who I am. I’m Muryah Abernathy.”
“I’m not so sure,” Calloway retorted. “The Muryah Abernathy I read about went through most of the same training as Martine and Harrigan. In order to be assigned to a deep-space mission, she would have to pass an in-depth psychological evaluation. So, in order for her to be before me spewing enough saccharine to sweeten that damned ocean, she would have to have suffered some traumatic incident. Something frightening enough or incapacitating enough to make her forget being rational.”
“But, you don’t have to be angry anymore, Devin,” Muryah almost begged. “You wouldn’t have any responsibilities. The planet can take care of that for us.”
“Give it a rest, Muryah,” Calloway snorted. “You sound like a broken record. We’re adults and adults have responsibilities. And just like me, this planet has its responsibilities.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Muryah asked.
“You’re just like a child and you don’t want to remember anything bad,” Calloway explained. “You remember how your crewmates acted and you shut that out. But, this planet doesn’t. You can regress to what you think are better times, but life’s not so easy. It should have occurred to me long before now, you were right.
“This planet does take care of its own. Animals have to eat, Muryah. That’s why Martine is dead now. Death is as much a part of life as we are, and so it has to exist here on 505-D, to keep the circle of life going. I think that’s why Harrigan had to fall off that mountain. The planet couldn’t save him because it would upset the balance. If it saves him, why not other life forms? Don’t you get it?”
If she got it, she didn’t let on. Instead, Muryah, looking as if she wanted to cry, turned and left the workstation. Calloway got up, but didn’t bother following her. Instead, he stopped next to an air vent and leaned against a bulkhead to collect his thoughts. That’s when a sound coming through the vent assaulted his ears.
“What the?” he muttered, pushing himself upright. “What are these idiots doing now?”
He opened the door and strode to the ladder. Now, he clearly heard the angry shouts emanating from the cargo bay. Concerned, he climbed the ladder as quick as he could, walked quickly down a passageway and stepped into the bay. What Calloway saw startled him.
Penski and Boronova were holding pistols on one another. Boronova stood at the top of the ramp while Penski was by the remaining ATV. Lee stood almost between them, like a boxing referee. If one or the other fired, he surely would be hit, possibly killed. Watching it all from the sidelines was Muryah.
“What the hell is going on here?” Calloway demanded, wary that either woman could turn the pistol on him.
“She started it,” Boronova spat. “Lee and I were going to leave the ship but she tried to stop us.”
“No, it was her,” Penski shot back. “She’s the one who wanted to be by herself, but now, she wants Lee all to herself. Can’t you see?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Calloway blurted.
This was, indeed, surreal. Yes, he’d noticed the flirtations between Boronova and Lee, but hadn’t paid them too much mind. Lee had seemed too preoccupied with meteorology to settle into a long-term relationship with anyone.
The kicker was the captain. How had she regressed in her discipline to this sad state of affairs? Had her comment to him before – the one demanding that he not tell her what to do – foreshadowed this moment?
“Jeez and I’m supposed to be the immature one?” he noted. “You’re acting like children, for God’s sake. Put the guns down and let’s talk like professionals.”
That idea went over everyone’s head. Nice idea, Calloway said to himself. They’d been barreling toward this point for the past week at least. How was he supposed to reverse that with a few choice words? Especially since they’d all made it plainly clear that they didn’t respect his opinions or want to follow his previous suggestions.
“Muryah, is this your idea of a paradise?” Calloway asked, sternly. “People pointing guns at each other? Putting friendships in danger, not to mention lives? How is the captain trying to reclaim her lost childhood going to help anyone, much less this planet?”
Muryah couldn’t know that Calloway was groping blindly for explanations because she was too busy shaking her head in disbelief. She, too, seemed stunned by the turn of events. She might have spent a decade on this planet and she might have had some kind of symbiotic relationship with it, but she was still immature and naïve when it came to truly understanding how 505-D really affected human emotions
“Marie, Janice, please put down the guns and let’s talk about this,” Calloway reasoned.
Both women lowered their weapons slightly. They seemed startled, but Calloway felt it to be more of a reaction to him using their first names for the first time since they had left Earth. Then, their demeanors reverted and the guns went back up. Lee, meanwhile, acted like a jerk, telling both women there was enough of him to go around.
“Lee, shut up,” Calloway snapped. “Before they put a hurting on those shoulders.”
Just then, the ship shook violently. Penski and the others stumbled and she accidentally pulled the trigger. The gun barked once as she fell to the deck. It took a moment for everyone to hear the extremely loud claps of thunder and the pounding of rain against the hull.
A few seconds after that, they turned and saw the body lying prone on the deck, wisps of smoke still rising from the bullet hole in the chest.
Boronova rolled over and sat up. Trying to clear her head, she looked down the ramp and saw that it had grown pitch black outside, save for the intense lightning that lit up the skies. By the dim light trickling down from the cargo bay, she could see the fierce winds driving the rain sideways across the ramp.
Lee saw it, too, and it frightened him. He had studied the weather patterns carefully for this world, so he knew something was not right with this storm. Putting the matter aside, he pulled Boronova to her feet and, knowing they couldn’t take the hover cycles, he led her to remaining ATV. Moments later, they had left the ship, chancing that the ATV could survive this unprecedented storm.
Penski just watched them leave. She could have cared less. She had been stupid and it had cost her - her dignity, her pride, her self-respect. Finally, she pulled herself to her feet and saw…
…Calloway laying flat on the deck. She couldn’t miss the smoke rising from his chest. Penski gasped and cried out. She had shot her engineer. He had taken a lethal laser-guided bullet from her pistol. Muryah leaned over him, sobbing hysterically.
“What have I done?” Penski murmured, shaking her head vigorously, as if she could shake the memory away. “What have I done?”
She dropped the gun to the deck, turned and fled into the interior of the ship. Behind her, Muryah continued to sob. Outside, the storm seemed to intensify.