XXXIX.

It took a while before the results of Dale’s DNA test came through. Until then, most of the men in the MQ took to pacing or reading their data pads or examining the medical equipment. Hillman sat down at a table and began to write.

Eventually the gene sequencing device made a sound that indicated it had completed its task and Burnstyle went over to look at the results. He seemed to pore over them for an unusual amount of time.

“Any news, Burnstyle?” the Captain asked.

The Doctor pushed himself away from the computer readout screen showing the test results and turned to face everyone. “There’s nothing, Captain. Results are ordinary. No abnormalities.”

“You’re sure?” Dale asked. “The gene sequencing device didn’t have any trouble reading anything?”

The Doctor squinted suspiciously and reiterated. “No.”

Dale took a deep breath. “Marlowe, can you double-check the Doctor’s findings, please?”

Burnstyle scowled for a moment, but moved aside when Marlowe came over and leaned into the computer readout to take a look.

“Looks normal to me,” Marlowe announced. 

“OK.” Dale did not sound as relieved as perhaps he should have been. “Check Grady now.”

Burnstyle went over to the handcuffed man, who watched him with wide eyes. Burnstyle scowled at him and shook his head. “Just open your mouth,” he commanded.

Burnstyle took a swab from the man’s cheek, took the sample over to another table, and began preparing it for the gene sequencer device. When it was ready, he inserted it into the machine.

A little while later, Rachaels returned with an exasperated look on his face and immediately addressed Hillman. “Boss, our InstaCom system’s down. It’s completely fried. We’ll have to use the Pater Noster’s system to do any long-range communication.”

Dale spoke up. “That’s going to be a problem. Our InstaCom is down too.”

Dale, Hillman, and Rachaels exchanged looks for a few moments, until Hillman broke the silence. “Well, that’s unfortunate. We can’t talk to anyone?”

Rachaels shook his head. “Very unlikely. We could try though.”

“We’ll be in range of a Sol relay within one or two days,” Dale estimated. The relay could pick up an ordinary radio signal and instantaneously forward it to the Sol System.

“Guess we’ll just have to wait,” Rachaels said.

By this point, the gene sequencing device had been running for a few minutes. Without warning the machine made an error sound. Striding up to the readouts for a close look, Burnstyle began to scowl again.

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Uh… got something here…” He hesitated to continue.

“That was quick!” someone commented.

“What is it?” Hillman demanded, turning to the Doctor.

Keeping his eyes on the readout, Burnstyle said, “I think Grady might be infected. The gene sequencer can’t read his DNA.”

The two guards on either side of the handcuffed man took a step away from him and instinctively half-raised their rifles in his direction. Grady looked back and forth between them. “What? What’s going on?”

Dale peered at the crewman. “Grady, are you… yourself?”

Grady looked back at him with wide eyes. “I think so, sir!”

“Were you attacked by an alien octopus recently?” Dale asked.

The crewman shook his head vigorously. “What? No!”

“The same thing happened when you tested that Constantini fellow, correct?” Rachaels asked.

Burnstyle nodded.

Hillman looked the crewman up and down. “If he’s infected, why doesn’t he have any of those growths on him? In the pictures you showed me, the other fellow had… things on him.”

No one answered. 

“We could scan him,” Burnstyle suggested. “See if his insides are normal.”

Everyone agreed, except Grady, who seemed confused.

Throughout all this, Keir’s body had been lying on the main examination table. In order to scan Grady, however, Keir’s body  had to finally be put in storage. In order for Grady to lie properly on the examination table, his handcuffs had to be removed.

Distrustfully, Grady eyed the large mechanical arm that housed the scanning equipment as it swung over him. He was sweating profusely.

Burnstyle and Marlowe leaned into the scanner’s readouts as they came through.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” they announced. “His DNA might be screwy, but his insides look alright,” Marlowe explained.

Grady got up and Hillman’s men handcuffed him again.

Hillman started nodding, slowly at first and then getting quicker and more enthusiastic. “I think this is good news!” he announced. “We’ve got a live specimen… dormant or something… We stick him in cryo-stasis for the moment. When we get back to Earth…” he trailed off. His eyes flickered back and forth as he planned out the rest of what he wanted to happen. Eventually he came back to the moment and looked around. “I think this could be very lucrative for all of us if we play this out right.” Upon looking at the Captain and catching sight of the look in his eyes, however, Hillman suddenly seemed to change his mind. “On second thoughts,” he said, “I’m taking command of this ship, as it represents an unprecedented health risk to the entire human race.”

With great difficulty, Dale managed to suppress the violent emotions that threatened to erupt out of him.

Hillman continued, in the manner of a man who is quite pleased with his own cleverness. “Now, if one man’s infected, it’s possible there are others, so what we’re going to do is split everyone up and confine them to crew quarters for the remainder of the trip, or until we can get some additional support out here. That sound good to everyone?”

In a surprisingly calm tone of voice, Dale asked, “Is it alright if I pass this information along to the crew? I was pretty adamant when I told them to stay in their groups until I told them otherwise.”

Hillman squinted at the Captain distrustfully, but decided that the man did not look rebellious. “I suppose. Go ahead.”

Very deliberately, Dale punched up the ship’s Intercom system on his data pad and began to speak. “Now hear this. This is the Captain.” He hesitated. “We have what we think might be a confirmed case of Burnstyle-Marlowe Disease on board in a human carrier. It appears to be dormant or inactive. The subject, crewman Grady, has no memory of becoming infected, but at the moment, the only mechanism we are aware of for becoming infected is being attacked by the macropathogen. We know there is at least one of these organisms on board.”

Hillman started to become agitated as the Captain went on and was about to interrupt, when Rachaels made a very slight negative gesture towards him, signalling that he thought they should let the Captain continue. Hillman backed down.

“We also know,” Dale continued, “that the macropathogen attacks people when they’re alone or in small groups, and it’s been using the vents to get around the ship—vents which open out into each of your cabins. The Feds have just informed me that they want to split us all up and confine all of us to our cabins. They’re insane. Do not comply. Alberts, make sure the crew have what they need to—”

At the point, Rachaels stepped over to the Captain and smacked the data pad out of his hand. Dale did not react. 

“What was that!” Hillman demanded.

Dale grunted. “I have all the same information you have, Hillman. I made the most rational decision I could to protect my crew from your idiocy.”

Hillman suddenly became very red in the face and nearly stamped with rage. “You… You are finished, Captain! Incitement to riot! You are going all the way down!”

Dale was leaning against a patient bed and pretended to ignore Rachaels, who was glowering over him, invading his personal space.

Hillman took a deep breath. “That was the stupidest thing you could have done, Captain! I’m quarantining everyone in their cabins whether you like it or not.”

Rachaels kept his eyes fixed on Dale’s face, only a few inches below his own, but when he spoke, it was to his superior, “Hillman… we should keep  testing people. Don’t forget about that.”

At this point, Marlowe spoke up, drawing almost everyone’s attention away from the Captain. “This ship only has one functional extra cryo-stasis pod available at the moment.” He pointed at himself. “Mine. So if you find anyone else infected, you won’t have anywhere else to put them.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Hillman said, dismissively. “If we find anyone else, we’ll just wake up the other passengers and stick the infected in their cryo-pods. We’ve nearly returned to Earth anyway.”

Marlowe suddenly looked like he regretted speaking, but he lowered his head and replied threateningly. “No, you won’t. They’re safe where they are.”

“What with all this defiance suddenly?!” Hillman exclaimed. 

“Hillman, you are making an enormous mistake,” Dale said. Rachaels grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet.

“Oh, is that so?” Hillman said, in a condescending tone. He took a small cloth mask out of his pocket, tore open the plastic packaging, and placed it over his mouth and nose. “And how many pandemics have you dealt with in your career, hmm? Get him out of here.”

Rachaels pushed the Captain towards the exit. On the way, the Fed turned and beckoned subtly towards Marala, who had been observing all of this silently from the corner. She came over and the three of them exited the MQ together. A handful of other Feds followed, heading for the crew quarters.

They came to Marala’s cabin first. When the girl did not move to open the door, Rachaels reached for her ID card and used it to unlock the door for her. He pointed inside.

Marala eyed the interior of the cabin and the prominent vent in the middle of the ceiling. “Please, can I stay with the Captain?” she pleaded.

Rachaels grunted in a way that betrayed how uncomfortable he was feeling. He looked down at the sheath strapped to the girl’s thigh. “You still have your sailor’s knife. I’ll leave a guard right outside. That’ll have to do for the moment.” He pointed again.

Timidly, Marala stepped into the cabin and Rachaels closed the door on her. He looked upward in thought. “We’re going to need some padlocks.” He turned to one of his men and told him to go print as many as he could. The man hurried away to complete the task. Then Rachaels turned to another one of his men and ordered him to remain behind and guard the hallway outside Marala’s cabin. There were other cabins off this hallway, but the others were not occupied at the moment.

After this, Rachaels led the Captain to his cabin, which was in another part of the ship, and thrust him inside. 

“Rachaels, you know this is wrong, don’t you?” Dale asked. Rachaels closed the door in his face. 

XL.

In the CIC, Alberts listened to the Captain’s announcement, right up until the moment it was abruptly terminated, then turned to look at the rest of the CIC crew. “Did he just say what I think he said?”

The others peered back at him with varying degrees of comprehension in their eyes.

“I think he just told you to break out the guns,” Franklyn said. 

Oliphant agreed. “That’s what I heard too.”

Alberts stood and  left the CIC. Franklyn and Oliphant followed. Together, they opened the weapons lock-up room and stepped inside.

“What do you think the Captain wants us to break out? Lethal or non-lethal?” Oliphant asked. 

“Non-lethal, obviously,” Alberts said.

“Non-lethals?” Oliphant asked. “Against whatever the Feds have?”

Alberts smiled. “I'm pretty sure the Feds are using non-lethals too,  besides, we have some pretty nasty non-lethals in here.” He pointed at a flame-thrower. 

In this context, the terms ‘lethal’ and ‘non-lethal’ actually had more to do with whether or not the use of a weapon was likely to immediately result in explosive decompression. Consequently, a flame-thrower could be considered ‘non-lethal’, since it was less likely to pierce any bulkheads, break any portholes, or sever any lines full of pressurized gases.

A few minutes later, when a group of Feds appeared at the end of the hallway leading to the CIC, they had to stop and do a double-take. Alberts stood facing them at the hatch to the CIC wearing a flame thrower apparatus, with the pilot-light lit.

“Hey, fellas.” Alberts said, casually. “Hear there’s some sort of infestation on board. Hope nothing crawls up into my personal space, or things are going to get real toasty up in here.”

The Feds gawked at Alberts in disbelief. “Here!” one of them exclaimed. “You don’t need that! Put it away!”

Alberts lightly squeezed the trigger on the flamethrower a few times, just enough to make the nozzle flare up alarmingly for a few moments. The Feds backed up instinctively.

Alberts called to them. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. I take orders from the Captain. You guys, from what I hear, have gone bat-___ crazy.”

The foreman hoped he was doing the right thing. This would probably mean his career was over, as well as everyone else’s in the CIC. Feds did not take kindly to having their authority questioned, but Alberts trusted the Captain’s judgment.

The Feds barked a few more orders at him, but Alberts ignored them and flared the flame thrower a few more times whenever it looked like they were about to move towards him again. They looked rather confused, as if they’d never  encountered anyone who held the upper hand against them.

There was a commotion as the Feds were knocked over by Onobwe and a few other crewmen barrelling past toward the CIC. Alberts stepped forward to cover them, then waved them into the weapons lock-up room. A short while later, they stepped out into the hall again, equipped with flame throwers and various other kinds of weapons, including e-spears. 

Obobwe came up beside Alberts. He too was wearing a flame thrower apparatus now. “You have any idea what’s going on?” he asked.

“Not really,” the foreman told him.

Onobwe eyed the uniformed men at the other end of the hallway. “At some point they’re going to go get tear gas and other nasty toys if they’ve got them. Right now they’re in the deer-in-the-headlights stage.”

Alberts agreed. “Think you can loop around through the CIC and round up as many crew as you can somewhere else?”

“Sure.”

“OK, but just wait a moment.” Alberts stepped into the CIC and took out his data pad. He tapped into the ship’s Intercom system and made an announcement. “Hello! This is foreman Alberts. The Captain appears to be… indisposed at the moment. The Feds have gone insane. There are an unknown number of beasties on the ship, which means the larger the group you’re with, the safer you are. The Feds want to separate you, compartmentalize you. Do not comply. Fight them if you have to. Barricade yourselves. Alberts out.”

The foreman stepped back out into the hall. Onobwe was menacing the Feds with his flamethrower. Alberts took his place and Onobwe gathered up the other crewmen who were with him and led them back through the CIC and out the other exit.

XLI.

Dale was grateful to hear Albert’s announcement over the Intercom. The foreman had understood. It was a meager victory, however, and Dale sat down on his bunk and began rubbing his temples. Shortly afterwards he heard a notification sound and looked over at the computer terminal in his cabin. The screen read “Not Connected”. The Feds must have disconnected something, probably to prevent the crew from communicating with each other.

At some point he heard some metallic clanking on his door and realized someone must have slipped an electronic padlock onto it. He tried forcing it open from the inside, but it refused to budge.

Before too long, he started to hear a lot of angry shouting and the stomping of boots, along with many cries of protest. There were a lot of unsettling thumps and clanks.  Dale realized it must be the sound of Hillman’s men confronting his crew and confining them in their cabins—some of them anyway. It sounded like the Feds were facing a lot of resistance.

Then the sound of fighting started to become a lot more intense, and gunshots of some sort began to ring out. These were followed by cries of pain and even greater alarm. Dale could not tell from the sound of the gunshots, but he hoped the only sort of ammunition that was flying around was the non-lethal sort.

Dale got up and pounded violently on the door to his own cabin, adding his own racket to the cacophony. “Hey! Hey! Hillman!” He swore violently at the man but it did no good. The sound of fighting and angry shouting continued sporadically. Occasionally he heard a more reasoned-sounding entreaty called out, or an imperious command to ‘Stop resisting’!

Dale sat back down and put his head in his hands. There was nothing he could do.

To his surprise, a video call from Dr. Burnstyle suddenly appeared on the computer terminal in his cabin. The Doctor must have used a medical override command to get past whatever sort of block the Feds had erected. Burntyle was leaning into his side of the video call and whispering conspiratorially. He still appeared to be in the MQ, which made sense if Hillman still had him running tests.

“Burnstyle! What’s happening?” Dale demanded, getting up off his bed and coming over to the computer terminal.

“I don’t know! I’ve been stuck in the medical quarter all this time.”

Dale grunted in frustration. “Any more positives?”

“No. They took Grady down to get frozen a while ago.”

“Why are you calling?” Dale asked. “Is everything all right there?”

Burnstyle shook his head. “No, Captain. It’s just… I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been happening here. None of this makes sense. There’s something we’re not seeing. The thing was dead, but now it’s back and somehow it’s learned to imitate those animals from Shropshire? How’d that happen?”

“You have an idea?”

The doctor hesitated, looking uncomfortable.

“Well, what is it?” Dale demanded.

Burnstyle took a breath. “There is obviously more than just an animal intelligence at work here, Captain. Someone has to be orchestrating this, and the only person who makes sense is Dr. Marlowe.”

“Isn’t he your friend now?” Dale asked.

“Yes, but over the past few weeks he’s been putting a lot of calls through to the University. I mean before the InstaCom went down. And some of those calls might have been to Lexbridge. I’ve overhead him a number of times. He appeared to be having some sort of dispute with them over him retaining proprietary rights to his research findings.”

“What are you saying?” Dale asked. The Captain had had his own suspicions of Marlowe all along, but he wanted to know if the Doctor had anything more concrete.

“I’m not sure,” the doctor replied. “I can’t prove anything, I heard Marlowe mention immense amounts of money during those calls. I think it’s possible Marlowe has been running some sort of giant experiment on all of us right from the beginning. He’s certainly intelligent enough to do something like that. It’s also possible he’s found a way to infect people without using the macropathogen. That might be how Grady became infected but didn’t know about it.”

On his end of the video call, Burnstyle suddenly looked up, startled by something, then hastily disconnected the call as if he was afraid of being caught talking to the Captain. Instantly, the “Not Connected” error message popped up again on Dale’s terminal.

Dale swore and began to curse himself for ever trusting Marlowe. He should have insisted that the man go back into cryogenic stasis for the remainder of the trip home. He got up and started pacing.

A short while later, another purge cycle began and the ship was once again filled with the sound of a loud mechanical roaring.

Sensing some other vibrations nearby, Dale looked up at the vent in the ceiling of his cabin, half expecting it to burst open, revealing another hideous macropathogen. After a moment, however, he realized that the thumping he could feel was coming from his door. Eventually there came a final thump then someone opened the door from the outside. It was Lovecraft, holding a large crowbar. Behind him stood Onobwe, wielding a flamethrower.

Dale quickly sized up the situation and stepped out into the hall, where a few other armed crewmen were gathered. Dale’s knife had been taken from him, so Onobwe handed him his own.

“You kill any Feds?” Dale shouted over the din of the purge cycle.

Onobwe shook his head. “Haven’t had to, yet. They’re pretty pathetic when people fight back, Cap.”

“Well, let’s keep it that way if we can,” Dale shouted. “Maybe we can get out of this with nothing more than a charge of rioting.”

“No promises, Cap.”

Catching the hard look in Onobwe’s eyes, Dale looked him in the eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. “These guys aren’t PAC,” Dale shouted. “They’re not professional murderers. They’re just ____heads on a power trip.”

Onobwe made a nonverbal response that did not seem very committal either way, but Dale moved on, asking, “What’s the situation, anyway?”

“Alberts is holding the CIC,” Onobwe said loudly, close to the Captain’s ear. “We’ve got a few other pockets of armed crew around the ship. We made some barricades. The Feds have caught a few people and locked them up in their cabins.

Dale nodded. “We should go get Marala. She’s locked up, all by herself.”

Onobwe agreed, and the group set out toward the girl’s solitary cabin, which they reached without encountering any of Hillman’s men. There was now a padlock on her door. For some reason there was no guard in the hallway any more.

Lovecraft smashed the lock off Marala’s door with his crowbar. Dale poked his head in and found the girl pressed up against the far wall, sailor’s knife in hand. She ran to him when she saw who it was.

“What’s the plan now, anyway?” Lovecraft asked.

“I don’t know,” Dale said. “We’ll be in contact with Sol soon, if Alberts keeps us going in the right direction. Hopefully we can get in contact with someone higher up the chain and more intelligent than Hillman.”

Marala spoke up. “Marlowe can probably get someone pretty powerful outside the government involved.”

Dale did not respond right away. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure we can count on Marlowe for anything.”

“What?” Marala exclaimed. “Surely you don’t still mistrust him?”

Dale grimaced. He really did not know what to think.

“Cap, we really should get out of this hallway,” Onobwe insisted. “Barricade ourselves somewhere out-of-the-way.”

“The galley?” Dale suggested.

Onobwe agreed, and they headed toward it, but when they got close they discovered it was occupied by Hillman’s men and they barely got away without being detected. The Captain suggested they head for the MQ instead.

There were only two Feds in the MQ when they arrived, neither of whom were being very attentive, and they were quickly knocked down with e-spears. Burnstyle saw Dale and the others coming, but did nothing to alert the Feds. Dale collected their rifles, and some other crewmen handcuffed the two men to some large medical equipment.

Burnstyle eyed the flamethrower, the e-spears, and the other weapons the crew were carrying. “So we’re in open rebellion against the Feds now?” he asked.

“Looks like,” Dale said. “Where’s Marlowe?”

Burnstyle shook his head. “He left a while ago to collect DNA samples.”

Dale’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Was he alone?” he demanded.

Burnstyle shook his head. “No. He had an escort.” The Doctor had a row of DNA samples in front of him. “Er… should I continue with these, or…”

Dale nodded. “Yeah, you probably should. Whose DNA is in the machine right now?

Burnstyle pointed over to another part of the room and replied, “Lombard.”

Dale looked in the direction that the Doctor was pointing and saw that Lombard was still here in the MQ. He was partially concealed behind some privacy screens and was sleeping on a patient bed.

Suddenly the sound of an electrical discharge split the air and one of the armed crewmen who was standing guard near the entrance to the MQ stiffened and fell to the floor, quivering. He had been struck with a stun gun.

Instantly Rachaels and a group of Hillman’s men rushed into the room. Rachaels had a large revolver in his hand now, not the rifle he had been carrying before, which had been loaded with crowd control rounds. He aimed the revolver at the Captain.

“These are forty-five caliber expanding bullets,” Rachaels said, sternly. “I will not hesitate to use this if I have to.”

Rachael’s voice had the tone of someone who expects to be obeyed without hesitation. He still had a flamethrower and many other weapons pointed back in his direction, however. Whatever sort of confidence he was attempting to project, he did not have the upper hand by any stretch of the imagination.

Dale eyed the revolver. Expanding bullets were a definite escalation. That sort of ammunition was definitely lethal, especially in space. It was almost insane to threaten to fire that sort of weapon on a spaceship.

“Rachaels,” Dale said, slowly. “ I hope you haven’t killed any of my crew with that.”

Suddenly betraying great agitation in the tone of his voice, Rachaels responded. “No, but I’m demonstrating a great deal of restraint right now, because I’ve found a couple of my men with their heads stove in!”

“Dead?!” Dale exclaimed. He looked over at Onobwe, but the man shook his head.

“Wasn’t me,” he said.