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CHAPTER 31:
Incubator



Matt L. @MyWife’sCarIsASpaceShip

Something’s wrong on Percheron.

George J @spacefan

@MyWife’sCarIsASpaceShip, you really think they’d actually tell us?

USSF Media Office @JBSpaceNews

@MyWife’sCarIsASpaceShip, @spacefan, Lieutenant General Richard Boatright, director of the USSF Office of Scientific Integration, and the Moon, Mars and Beyond Division, will be making a public announcement regarding the SFSS Ares Percheron this evening at nineteen hundred hours, Eastern Time.

ChirpChat, October 2043


Glenn had been this way before, but instead of proceeding all the way to the bridge, Yvette stopped at a point where two hatches were placed directly opposite each other along the corridor. One hatch was open, in defiance of ship’s standard safety procedures, although the other was closed.

On the other side of the hatch was a perpendicular corridor that arched up (and down) out of sight. It extended completely around the central corridor and served as the fixed hub for the rotating habitat wheel. Most corridors within the ship had at least one wall covered in hatches for access to pipes, wiring, and essential life-support components; however, this space was largely empty except for racks of vac-suits and emergency loss-of-pressure gear. On the other side of the outer wall would be a similar circular ring that rotated around the core of the ship. The transition between fixed and rotating segments was at high risk of depressurization, so there needed to be a pressure suit for every crewmember and passenger on each side of the connection. All of the hatches—fixed side, rotating side, and transition—needed to be kept sealed and secured at all times, too, so the fact that Yvette had nonchalantly drifted right through an open hatch disturbed Glenn even more.

He checked the pressure readings in his heads-up display. The pressurization system, at least, seemed to be functioning normally, so he wasn’t too worried about following Yvette as she moved to one of the hatches to the rotating section—but not before he closed and secured the hatch through which they’d entered.

The outer hatches were about five meters wide, unlike many of the other hatches that were just wide enough to allow one or two people to pass. Yvette undogged the hatch, revealing a shallow room with another wide hatch not quite opposite the first.

This then, was the actual transition from stationary to rotating sections. The hatches had to be wide since they would only be aligned for seconds at a time while the habitat ring was rotating. The transition room was deep enough to allow several people—or pieces of equipment—to enter before transitioning through the opposed hatches into the outer hub and one of the spokes that led down (under spin) into the ring.

Once again, they encountered a hatch that had been carelessly left open, and Glenn marveled that the whole ship had not suffered from depressurization rather than just cargo bay one. After passing through the open hatch, Glenn again secured it behind them. Preventable accidents were not going to happen on his watch!

Rungs led down the sides of the spoke corridor, as well as a track for securing and lowering equipment. If the ring were rotating, they’d need to climb down as centrifugal gravity increased, but without the rotation, they could simply drift along the hundred-meter-long corridor to the ring. A retractable ladder extended from the end of the spoke to the ring “floor.” It was designed to be retracted when the ring was not rotating—not only would it not be needed, it would be an obstacle blocking free passage down the corridor. He was unsurprised to see that like so many of the safety features on the ship, the ladder had not been stowed for zero gee, but extended halfway into the ring corridor—neither fully retracted nor extended. On the other hand, for once, every door and hatch seemed to be closed.

Several items of trash drifted in the ring corridor; more debris had accumulated near the air vents. The smell was worse here. Even though his helmet was still sealed, the damaged neck ring allowed in some of the stench of burnt food, unwashed bodies, and bodily wastes. Glenn was tempted to turn up his oxygen supply, but the problem with that was that he still only had eight hours of air despite bringing extra for this trip. There were additional canisters in the cargo bay, but he needed to turn his attention to the crew now.

Even before looking at the crew records, though, he should determine whether or not he could get by with just biosafety filters. Glenn pulled an instrument off his belt and examined a screen on its upper surface. The sampler included multiple chemical and biological sensors. It utilized a hybrid organic and electronic chip that mimicked many functions of liver tissue. Just as the human liver detoxified the blood and metabolized almost anything a person consumed, the device detected toxins, metabolites, contaminants, and reported on how those items could be filtered, detoxified, or eliminated from air, water, or food.

He was not surprised to see that the instrument reported high levels of organic contaminants. The fecal bacterium, Escherichia coli, was prominent; that indicated failure of hygiene—either the ship’s systems or the crew’s behavior. Of course, the smell earlier had suggested he’d get that result. Carbon dioxide was elevated, but not dangerous. That was expected in the residential areas. Likewise, the presence of complex esters and aldehydes—body odor—as well as caramelized proteins and carbohydrates—cooked food. What was surprising was high levels of putrescene and cadaverine. Spoiled meat was the most likely explanation, but it did make Glenn wonder what had been done with the captain’s body.

Okay, best to stay sealed up.

He followed Yvette down the curving corridor until she turned into the only open doorway. The first room of the medical bay was tiny, with a single chair bolted to the deck in front of computer consoles and a diagnostic display which was showing medical readings from a patient. Through another door was a larger room with two diagnostic beds, one of which was occupied by the Space Force medic, Master Sergeant Bialik.

Reports had mentioned signs of a pancreatic disorder and difficulty maintaining Bialik’s blood sugar within safe levels. Her case might be a good place to start, but Glenn first needed to access the medical records and interface some of his own instruments with those of the med bay. He started into the larger room, but Yvette blocked his way with a belligerent expression on her face.

“You said you wanted to look at the records to bring yourself up to speed. I have treatment of the crew in hand. I don’t need you butting in.” She pointed to chair in front of a computer console. “Use that.”

Glenn moved over to the chair, used the rung underneath it to lower himself, and then secured the “seatbelt” which would hold him in place in zero gee. He could have used the wireless communication capability provided by his bionics, but chose to use the keyboard and touch pad. He tapped in the credentials issued when he’d been assigned to the Mars Three crew many years ago, and was surprised that it still worked. He stole a glance at Yvette; she had a sour look on her face, which probably meant that she took the active login as just another indication that he was here to force her out of her job.

He didn’t have time to deal with it now, so he simply called up crew medical records from a point at least a month back, and started reading. There wasn’t much more in the records than what he already knew. Two major illnesses that he knew about were prominent—Captain LeBlanc’s liver failure, and Master Sergeant Bialik’s apparent pancreatic failure. Two new entries, though, pointed to a disturbing pattern. Hydroponics engineer Takeda was showing signs of kidney failure, while third officer Katou was showing the first signs of liver failure, just like the captain.

Every female crewmember who had accompanied Percheron from Earth to Mars and back was exhibiting some form of organ failure. The men were all sick, too, although none were as severe as the women. The crew picked up from Marsbase were now reporting all of the original symptoms reported by the ship’s crew. Most of that only dated back about a month, suggesting that either the Mars explorers had caught the disease from the ship’s crew, or that the causative agent had been on the ship for some time. The crew had longer exposure, but it was still here to affect the Marsbase personnel . . . and eventually Glenn.

The clock was ticking.


Yvette watched him the entire time he reviewed medical records. He made a few mental notes that he would discuss with MMC later but he was hesitant to enter anything into the computer. Some of the blood work looked remarkably like heavy metal poisoning, and that should respond well to treatment—but would that be enough?

Yvette’s delusion that he was after her job was still hanging between them. The problem was—it wasn’t entirely delusion. He needed to figure out if he was going to continue to try to work with Yvette or just pull rank and relieve her.

She took this job from me. It’s mine by right, not hers, he thought to himself, and was almost immediately ashamed of it. That was actually why he shouldn’t just relieve her. He wanted to talk with General Boatright or Colonel Richardson about it first, but he suspected he knew what they would say—he should have locked her up after the attack, and not let personal feelings cloud his judgement. He had rank, seniority, and authority. He needed to do what was best for his patients, and not worry about his—or her—feelings.

Still, he wanted to work with her, if he could. She’d been here, he hadn’t.

He wasn’t able to insert an interface chip for remote operation. Yvette simply watched him too closely. He wouldn’t be downloading the records for later review—at least, not this time—and would have to settle for visual inspection and downloading the long way—telemetry from Percheron to Earth and then back to Bat. The communication lag was down to fifteen minutes each way, but the number of relays from computer to computer meant he wouldn’t receive all of the records for several hours.


“Have you put Takeda on dialysis? That could also help with Bialik’s blood glucose levels. For that matter, even Katou could benefit.”

“Of course, I considered dialysis,” Yvette snapped. “We don’t have the facilities for it. You’re just like everyone else—demanding that I do procedures requiring resources I simply do not have!”

Her response surprised Glenn. While not having the resources might have been true on Mars, the diagnostic beds on Percheron were the best medical science could design. They were equipped with internal components for dialysis, imaging, ultrasound, anesthesia, bone setting, neuromuscular monitoring, and even surgical support. The only thing Yvette should have had to do to implement dialysis would have been insert a catheter into a central vein and connect it to the biobed. The bed would do the rest—running blood through osmotic filters and sending the filtered blood back to the body. Even if she could do nothing about the cause of organ failure, she could treat the effects.

“I don’t understand . . .” Glenn said. “You should have all the supplies in your stocks. Even if you don’t, I brought replacement filters, solutions, and supplies. You’ve seen the designs of these beds. They were going to be installed at Marsbase on the next cycle!”

“You have undermined me every step. You would not let me make my own decisions, said bad things about me to Command, and told them I was incapable of doing the job. You wanted them to wait for you, instead of letting me do the job I trained for.”

“Well, yes, it’s true I wanted to go to Mars; I trained for it for years, too. But I never did those other things.”

“Yes, you did. Now you’re here to take over and finish the job.”

Glenn said nothing. The problem was that her statement could very well end up to be true. Everything he was seeing indicated that he needed to dismiss her and take over. The records for the past week showed fewer and fewer entries, as if Yvette had stopped reporting on any but her sickest patients. If he said “No,” now, and then had to relieve her of duties, she wouldn’t believe him.

He should simply insert one of his control chips into the med bay computer, and go back to Bat. He felt a throbbing pain begin to grow in his temples. He checked his air mix, and saw that the carbon dioxide levels were high; that explained his growing headache. That prompted him to check Percheron’s air as well. Carbon dioxide levels were even higher than he noted before; still not dangerous, but it could explain Yvette’s belligerence.

“We’re not going to solve anything by arguing. There are other things to do. I need to get back to Bat and start unloading food and water. I assure you; I did not come here just to replace you. I’m here to help, so perhaps the best thing for me to do right now is to go away.”

The statement earned a scowl from Yvette, but she did at least offer to guide him. When Glenn declined, her scowl deepened.

Great, that just confirmed to her that I’m just going to push her aside, Glenn thought. The problem is, the longer this drags out, the more likely I’ll need to do exactly that.


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