Mists of the Miskatonic (Mist of the Miskatonic Book 1) (19 page)

“Great,” Frank whispered to himself.

“We have re-run the mission timeline. Our modified schedule after landing has changed due to being down one man. Those outlines are included in the unscrambled DPack we uploaded. Long before you left, we modeled every scenario, including incapacitation of every crew member. We are gonna get through this together. We’re with you every step of the way,” Mike’s recorded voice dripped with sincerity. “Just keep him sedated. Everything will go fine.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re there and we’re here,” Frank said sarcastically.

“I want you to listen to part of the last message Morris sent to his wife. Here it is,” the Colonel’s voice stated.

The ear bud clicked and the next voice was the doctor. “…it’s so cold. I can feel it when I sleep. And the dreams. The dreams. I see Mars, I’m standing…on carved stone. In the dream, I don’t know where I am at, then I see a form. I know it’s watching me. I can’t even begin to describe it: it’s like a buzzing. Human, or trying to be human. But I hear them in my head. Shub. Shub. I can’t even say the rest of the word.”

Mike’s voice returned. “Then the conversation went back to normal. Frank, we’re keeping this under wraps by order of the President. Maybe this is just some psychotic episode that will pass. That’s what my psych people are hoping. Get planet side safely, then we will work on that from there. We modeled the consumption of Lorazepam. Until you rendezvous with the arriving supply module
Oklahoma
, you should be ok keeping him knocked out. We hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Wonderful,” Frank said. He reached around and rubbed his shoulder. His muscles were very tight from the stress.
One man down, and now the work of keeping a drugged invalid clean and medically healthy. Damn,
he thought.

“The Chinese can’t get their module up because the occupation of Taiwan is not going well. So France and the U.K. are scrambling to send something in its place. We’ll keep you posted. Hey, Frank. You’re landing tomorrow. We’re all proud of you down here. Stay safe, and I’ll catch you on the surface. Colonel Mike Ferguson, out.”

Mission Control Houston was raucous with the thunderous applause, shouts and whistles of a successful touch down on the surface of the fourth planet. Dozens of hands pawed at Ferguson. He was normally not a touchy fellow, but he tolerated it in this moment of triumph.

He watched the huge screens that showed the landing craft,
Roosevelt.
It had separated hours ago from the main ship while still in orbit. Now it sat amidst swirling clouds of oxidized sand kicked up from the rockets as it touched down. Sixteen different cameras monitored the landing from various angles, even on the lander itself. Gigabytes of data streamed, seventeen minutes and thirty two seconds in history after the lander had safely touched down.

“
Roosevelt
has safely landed on Mars,” a woman’s voice announced over the speaker. Several engineers popped the top off dark glass bottles of sparkling apple cider. Frank had been adamant about no alcohol in Mission Control. After hours only. This was history as it was made. If something went wrong, the last thing he wanted was some son of a bitch from the Times taking a photo of bottles of champagne sitting on a control panel.

“Ok,” Mike said calmly into his mouthpiece. “We’ve got a job to do, so let’s get to it. The data is backing up. We need to analyze. Congrats, people, but it’s time to focus.”

The last shouts went up, the applause died and everyone returned to banks of computer screens. Mike stood, hands on hips, and monitored the conversations. He was focused on one of the engineers in front of him. They tapped on a monitor with a red light.

“That’s the problem. Just a frozen valve. The redundant system kicked in, but we need to get them to look at it once they start maintenance. Otherwise, everything was five by five,” a flight controller said.

“We have time. Put that on the back burner,” Mike said. “Let them get settled first before we start loading them with that.”

One of the younger engineers tapped the Colonel’s shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt, Frank, but I have something to show you.”

“I’m kinda busy right now, Jim. We just landed on Mars, in case you missed it,” Frank said sarcastically. “You M.I.T. guys are something else.”

The young man brushed back his brown hair, and then stood up straight, looking past Mike at the huge screen showing the
Roosevelt.
“I’ve a picture that I think is worked stone.”

The Colonel looked back seriously, and then smirked. “Did Howard put you up to this?”

“The Major had nothing to do with this. I was running data recognition patterns on a picture of a rock outcropping, and the computer kept popping up this anomaly. Don in Xeno-Archeology and our geologists: they don’t think it’s natural.”

“I don’t have time for this. You’re just pissing me off.”

“Colonel, please. Just one minute. You have to see this picture. This isn’t a joke.” The young engineer shifted from one foot to the other. “Not a joke.”

Mike glared, tense, and pointed his finger. “If Howard has anything to do with this, I will have both your balls on a silver platter. This better be real, and if H.R. hears about that balls thing, I’ll deny I said it.”

“No balls: no bull, sir.” The two walked up a platform past a dozen computer workstations, then into a small room behind glass. Two other white-shirted geeks were huddled around a large screen, looking at a rock outcropping on obviously Martian landscape. Both men were tall and wore bow ties. Mike was disgusted.

“Alright, god dammit. Let’s see this thing,” Mike murmured, and then glared at the men. “If you’re all in this together, heads will roll.”

“It’s the real deal, sir,” one of the men said excitedly as he tapped on the screen. “Look at the formation. Twenty-nine kilometers from the landing site, we have ruins. Something our surveys never showed until we got close.”

Mike looked at the screen. It showed a flat stone that protruded from the side of a hill of detritus. The rock was marked in ninety-degree angles. He looked at the bespectacled man and sighed. “Just who the hell are you again? Have we met?”

He snorted and stood to his full, considerable height and stuck out his hand. “Rick Anderson, Xeno-Archeology.”

The Colonel ignored his hand. “We have a planet with half of the radius of Earth and you’ve found rocks cracked at a ninety-degree angle. Remember when
Viking 1
took a picture that looked like a face with the nearby pyramids? The photo was all over the internet from day one. Nut jobs and conspiracy theorists ran with that for decades ‘til we got a decent picture of the area. It was stupid shadows. Somewhere, coincidence plays a role in this. I don’t see anything that out of the ordinary. Your imaginations are working overtime and I don’t have the time or energy for this.”

Rick looked back towards the screen. “It’s clearly the ruins of a structure.”

“I ain’t seeing it and don’t want to hear any more about it, ok? You think it’s a structure, give me something more. We have enough problems already without sending our astronauts out on an MRV on a wild goose chase,” Mike growled.

On the surface of Mars, Mission Commander McLaughlin stepped from the lander. The boot of his suit kicked up a tiny cloud of oxidized sand. He looked toward the sun, so distant and small on the horizon. The tiny hum of a recirculation pump ruined the silence of the Martian day.

“We, humans from the United States of America, take the first step on Earth’s sister world: for the benefit of humanity, one step towards the stars.”

The sentence gave him goose bumps. Mars was so far from home. It gave him the same reaction when his wife had helped him write it. They were on their last vacation. A week at the Oregon coast. He missed the sunset, and remembered looking west at the Pacific Ocean from Lincoln City on their last night. He missed his wife.

“Nice job, Commander,” Darwin’s voice carried into his headset. “It’ll rank up there with,
“One step for mankind.”

“We will see, I suppose,” Frank murmured. “Well, we have our work cut out for us. Let’s get to it.”

The first day on Mars, the five conscious crew members checked and rechecked the systems of the base modules that had already landed on the surface. NASA had sent the package with the base during the last Hohmann Transfer Orbit. It had successfully deployed along with a small army of robots that set up the base and began to process water. For the last two years, the automatic base had prepared for occupants. It had readied everything from survey packages to the oxygen transfer systems. Machines sucked the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere, pressurized it and filtering it into breathability.

In the lander, Dr. Rob Morris was being placed into a pressurized cargo carrier for transfer into the base
New Plymouth.
Heather and Mission Specialist Connor Collins lifted his limp form onto a stretcher, and then laid him in the case. “Thank God the gravity is less than what we are used to. What a lug. I would be stronger if I’d slept better last night.”

Heather laughed. “I didn’t sleep that great either. Too much adrenaline from the landing, I guess. Y’know, my momma was so proud I was picked for this mission. Wasn’t that long ago my ancestors were in the hold of a slave ship. Now, I’m the first American of African heritage on Mars. Carrying a white man in a box into the base, feed him intravenously and clean him. I’m a computer programmer, dammit. Not what I signed up for.”

Collins strapped the doctor securely in place. “Ok, it’s ready to seal. We suit up, latch this, check the integrity on the container, and carry him out the airlock. There will be enough air if we hustle.”

“Why so many straps?” she asked.

“Jones said he was thrashing and moaning after we landed. I was in the base, so I missed it. If he flips out in this box, or we drop, it Frank doesn’t want him getting bruised. We coulda suited him up, but I don’t want to take the time. It’s easier this way. He’ll be fine.”

The two put on their pressure suits, double checked the seals and ran diagnostics. Systems were nominal and the two pushed their helmets in place. Heather could hear the filter pumps kick in. They hummed quietly in the background. “Readouts are five by five on your suit.”

Heather looked over the screen on the side of Connor’s pack. “Yours too: in the green. Let’s do this.”

A large, black polymer cover was lowered over Morris. Latches clicked and through the helmet she heard servos grind. The box sealed itself. The readouts said integrity was achieved. She ran diagnostics and looked at the monitor. “All looks good. Let’s get him into
New Plymouth,
” Heather said.

The two hefted the container by the handles on either side, and then carried it to the airlock. Heather looked at the panel. “Mainframe says we are green. Depressurize.”

It took a minute for the pumps in the lander to recreate the low pressure of the Martian atmosphere. Collins waited for the readout on the bulkhead to analyze the pressure, and then opened the lock. They moved slowly towards the base and Darwin’s voice sounded in Heather’s helmet.

“Looks good, you two. Careful with the Doc. We are waiting to receive you,” Darwin said.

“Thanks. Even with the lighter gravity, he is heavy enough to…” she started. White vapor vented from the container. “Dammit! We have a ruptured seal! Double time to the airlock. Now!

The two hurried as the air continued to vent from the container, now crimson-tinted with tiny droplets of blood.

“Hold on, Doc. We got you!” Collins shouted as they crossed to the door of the base airlock. Several steps before the valve, the door opened, its hydraulics controlled from the command deck inside.

“We’re ready. Get in here!” Frank shouted over the radio. Heather’s grip slipped, and the case tumbled on the red sands. She felt the impact through her gloves and she scrambled to raise it again. It took a few long seconds for her to heft the case and reposition, and then get through the door. It seemed an eternity later that the hydraulics closed and the sound of air forced into the chamber could be heard over the pumps in her suit.

“We’re standing by. I have a first aid kit, everyone stay calm!” Jones ordered. His voice was clear in her helmet. She felt the case tremble as the doctor struggled inside.

The second the indicator light flickered green. Frank and Jones burst through the inner airlock door and into the chamber. The case dropped to the floor, hard against the bulkhead.

“Open it!” the Mission Commander ordered.

Collins popped latches as the nurse opened the kit: gloves were already on his hands and a syringe prepared. The indicator on the case blinked and Frank threw the top off. In the low gravity, it crashed against the door.

Doctor Rob Morris lay in a puddle of crimson, his exposed flesh on his hands and face covered with blood sucked from his body. The shreds of his burst eyes were white: like bloody flowers shredded in their sockets. Fluids had splattered on his face. The clear drops of aqueous humor were frozen to his face, sucked out from the pressure difference. He sputtered weakly. Bright red drops ejected from his mouth into the processed Martian air of the lock.

Heather jerked her helmet off and dropped it, every bit of military training abandoned in a moment of panic.