Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“And at the other end?”

“Reverse the process. We’ve set up six new stations in the quarantine area. There’s a winch like this one that runs above the stations. Use it to lower the cell to the floor in front of a station, switch the cabling again and reattach the umbilical. When we’ve transferred all six, and verified that the process was successful, we’ll seal the room and the waldo will open the cells.”

“Nothing to it,” Sav muttered.

Liis stared at him, unblinking; if she heard, or cared, she showed no sign. “Any questions?”

“Yeah. Where’s the next one?”

“On sublevel ten. Hebuiza knows.”

“And if we have any problems?”

“Josua and I will be on level zero. We’ll stay in contact with you through the suit radios. Anything else?”

“No. Just….”

“Just what?”

“I’d like to know what’s bothering you.”

“Nothing.” Liis abruptly placed the lantern on the floor and strode away. Sav watched her progress until she passed through the door and disappeared into the corridor. Josua followed her a moment later. To the left, the Facilitator was still outlined by the panel.

The comm light came on in Sav’s status display, indicating a three way connection. “All set?” Josua asked. In the background, Sav could hear the distinctive voice of the elevator counting off floors.

The Facilitator answered in the affirmative, and Sav followed suit.

“Good,” Josua said. “Then it’s time to wake the dead.”

Moving all the cells took less than four hours; the connections had worked as easily as Liis had said they would. Slow curls of evaporating liquid nitrogen had slid from the ends of the detached umbilical and sloughed around Sav’s boots. Manoeuvring the cells onto the carts had been a relatively simple task, for although they were awkward to handle, especially in their EVA suits, the cylinders were made of an aluminium composite and lighter than Sav had thought they would be. Once on the gurney, they wheeled them to the elevator, took them up to the second sublevel and into the quarantine area. There, with the aid of the winch Hebuiza had installed, they lowered the cells onto the floor in front of a thick, horizontal conduit that ran at knee height the length of the wall behind them. Sticking out from the conduit were six sets of cables and umbilicals. On the opposite side of the room beds had been set up, complete with IV drips and vital signs monitors. Just in case, Josua had said. The shelves behind the beds were crammed with a clutter of medical equipment.

Not surprisingly, Hebuiza kept himself as distant from the whole process as possible. He wouldn’t go near the cells until Sav had severed the connections; only then did he approach, and scarcely long enough to help lever the cylinders onto the gurney, his head moving inside his oval helmet in agitation. At the other end, he did the same, helping Sav wrestle each cell onto the floor. As soon as this task was complete, the Facilitator scuttled away, leaving it to Sav to reconnect the cabling and umbilicals to the conduit.

During the transfer, Sav had been so busy he’d paid little attention to the occupants of the cells. Now that he had reconnected the last cell-and the Facilitator had disappeared-he stooped to examine their occupants more closely. Through the thick material of the dome and the swirl of the liquid nitrogen, the faces were blurred. It was impossible to see fine detail. Perhaps it was a trick of the liquid, but all six faces looked gaunt and colourless, like corpses. But he knew they were alive: the status display on each cell confirmed this. And none had the telltale lesions of the plague. Yet, despite this, he felt like he was staring into the caskets of six strangers.

He retreated to the corridor.

The Facilitator had already left the area, perhaps the floor.

So Sav sealed the door as Josua had instructed and, using the laser left there for that purpose, welded it shut. When he finished the job, he retraced his steps to the elevator. Next to the lift was their final precaution: a tank filled with sodium hypocholite. On the floor next to it was the pool left by Hebuiza. Sav picked up the hose attached to the tank and, aiming the nozzle at himself, carefully sprayed the exterior of his suit with the disinfectant. There was nothing more to be done here. Now that the cells had been moved, he and Hebuiza would return to the Ea, while Josua and Liis monitored the interees. Tomorrow would begin the revivals.

Day 33

“I’ve decided to wait another five days before reviving them.” Josua stroked his beard; it had filled in, thick dark curls peppered with grey.

Sav bit his lip; in the preparation of the isolation room he’d deferred to Josua on almost every issue. It was natural-Josua was at the facility twenty-four hours, aware of the problems and able to foresee possible solutions, while Sav had made only brief appearances between his scavenging runs and trips back to the Ea. But now this unilateral decision on the revivals had brought home the point forcefully: Josua was effectively in charge down here. Sav tried not to think about its implications. Instead, he looked at display along the wall. The status lights on the cells showed green across the board. Everything seemed fine. He turned back to Josua. “Why the delay? Is something wrong?”

“No.”

When Sav and Hebuiza had returned to the Facility this morning, Sav had expected Josua to be waiting impatiently to rouse the interees. Instead, they found him alone, sitting behind his cluttered desk in his plush chair, sorting hardcopy into three neat piles. “Then why wait?”

“Another few days won’t hurt them.” Josua leaned back in his seat, lifted a sheet from one of his piles. “And it’ll give us a chance to study them more closely now that we’ve got a direct link.” The sheet was covered with data; at its bottom was a graph.

“I concur,” the Facilitator said. He had been standing in his usual spot, near the doorway, as if he believed his chance of infection increased with each additional step into the office. But now he moved past Sav so that he stood right in front of the desk. It was the furthest inside the office Sav had ever seen him. “With the new connections we will be able to run more thorough diagnostics. It’s a sensible safeguard.”

Sav was annoyed, not only at the delay-for he realised he’d been anticipating the prospect of new faces more than he had let himself believe he had-but also at Hebuiza’s nonchalance. Hadn’t this project been his baby? His head should have been swinging in agitation at this change in plans. Yet he seemed indifferent. It wasn’t right. “I thought you were both anxious to wake them.”

“We are,” Josua answered. “Every bit as much as you. But why take unnecessary risks? I think we should make their chances for survival as good as we can. If a single one has contracted the plague, reviving them would be as good as a death sentence for all six.”

The plague? Sav thought. Hebuiza selected only people interred at least five years prior to the onset of the plague. So why sweat it now?

Josua stood, walked around the desk. Hebuiza stepped to the right as he passed, giving Josua a wide laneway. “Let me have a word alone with Sav,” Josua said to the Facilitator. He placed his hand on the edge of the door to his office, opened it wide.

The tall man hesitated, then shrugged. “Fine.” He pushed past Sav and into the waiting room. Josua closed the door.

“What the hell-” Sav began.

“He’s frightened,” Josua said. “He’s still terrified of the plague. After you moved the last cell yesterday, he came to me and asked to delay the revivals. As a precaution. Says he wants to run more tests. I think he’s having second thoughts, though he won’t admit it.” Stepping nearer, Josua placed a hand on Sav’s shoulder.

Sav flinched, fought an urge to jerk away. He felt his face flushing. The Facilitator’s paranoia had infected him. He looked at Josua, fearing the other man’s censure. But he didn’t seem to have noticed. He was still talking.

“…comforting. Let him run his tests. That’s the only way to reassure him. Give him a few days to get used to the idea. Then he’ll feel better about the whole thing.” Josua lifted his hand, walked over to the monitors. “We need him to pull this off. If he decided he didn’t want to go ahead with the revivals, he could really mess things up for us. You know that. So I want to move cautiously. A short delay isn’t going make that much difference.” He touched the screen with a view of the cells. “And they’re not going anywhere. Are they?” He dropped his hand. “If Hebuiza’s still not willing to proceed in five days, you and I will decide what to do. Okay?”

“What about Liis?”

“Liis?” Josua looked confused.

“You said ‘You and I‘ would decide. What about Liis?”

“Of course, of course” Josua said immediately, his tone conciliatory. “She’ll be in on the decision.”

Sav nodded. They were still skirting the issue of command. Sav was reluctant to broach it and Josua appeared to feel the same way. Even now, Josua was spinning his decision as a suggestion rather than an order. But it was clear that, at least within the confines of the stasis facility, Josua believed himself to be in charge.

Josua moved behind his desk, plopped himself back in his seat. “In the meantime, I suggest we use this respite to our best advantage. There’s a hundred things Liis and I’d could get started on here before the revivals begin. And I imagine you’ve still a got a long way to go to get through that list of sites. A lot of that equipment is stuff they’ll need once they’ve passed quarantine.”

It was true. Sav hadn’t visited a tenth of the sites. His scavenging, as unappealing as it was, now seemed infinitely preferable to working around the facility, in the company of Liis’ glum silences or Hebuiza’s twitchy fear. For now, at least, he wanted nothing more than to be by himself. “Five days,” he said. “Then we talk.”

“Yes,” Josua said solemnly. “That should be more than enough time.” He leaned forward and stabbed a button on his desk; the door swung open-a clear sign he’d been dismissed. “Just give Hebuiza a bit of room and he’ll come around.”

Sav nodded, unconvinced. He walked out. In the waiting room the Facilitator leaned against the far wall, arms akimbo. “Well?” Hebuiza’s voice, Sav thought, was tinged with fear. “Well?”

Sav ignored him. He opaqued his visor and stepped past Hebuiza and into the corridor, heading for the dropship, the Facilitator’s whiny interrogative going unanswered. His own silence was petty and childish, Sav knew. And probably misdirected. For a change he wasn’t really annoyed at the Facilitator; rather, he was angry Josua, who in the rush to prepare for the revivals had somehow managed to usurp what little authority Sav had left.

Day 39

Sav surveyed the ruined landscape from the skirt of the furthest runway: all but two of the eight hangars had burnt to the ground; the remaining ones were blackened and scarred by projectile and laser blasts; in places the tarmac itself had buckled or been blown apart, leaving gaping, water-filled craters. Nothing was left of the control tower or the administration offices but a dark mound on which sprouted a tangle of ground-hugging creepers, unnaturally thick and spotted with fleshy, dark bruises.