Earth Blood 001: Earthblood Read online

  Chapter One

  The infinite cold and silence of the final frontier of deep space.

  The exterior of the USSV Aquila had once been mirror smooth and diamond polished. Now it was scarred and pitted, the heat shields pocked by dust and radiation from the unknowable winds that blew between the dark stars.

  The stillness beyond the locked observation shutters was continued inside the vessel.

  A light film of the thinnest oil eased tumblers. On the control panels there was a dazzling array of changing colors. On the master console the micros selected from the thousands of pieces of input data.

  A comp clock revealed the date and the time, the pulsing chron crystal accurate over a thousand years to one thousandth of a second.

  The clock still registered Pacific coast time. It was fifteen minutes past three in the morning on the twenty-fourth day of September in the year of our Lord 2040.

  A liquid-crystal display beneath was running in tandem, showing the total elapsed time of the Aquila’s mission.

  Thirty-two seconds.

  Fifteen minutes.

  Twenty-one hours.

  Nineteen days.

  Two years.

  Apart from the almost inaudible humming and whispering of the computers, the vessel was silent, the crew all sleeping.

  AFTER the blast-off in the bright dawn at the rebuilt Stevenson Air Base in Nevada, the Aquila had been set on course for its exploratory mission. That was seven hundred and fifty days and nights ago, but the ship’s crew of ten men and two women had been locked into sleep for all but twenty-six days of that time.

  A form of cryonic suspended animation enabled them to be maintained at a minimal level of life support during the months of darkness, with the on-board computers, linked to those back at Stevenson, making the occasional minimal correction.

  They’d all been awake on six-hour rotating shifts for the first week of the mission. Then they each entered a capsule of clear armaglass engineered to their own body measurements. A mix of chemicals sent them sliding into something approximating sleep. Respiration and circulation both dipped to almost unbelievably low levels, levels that specialists would have interpreted as showing certain clinical death only a few years earlier.

  Tubes connected to the inside of each crew member’s right arm carried regular doses of balanced nutrients, while the waste products were siphoned hygienically away.

  They’d all been woken when the Aquila was close to the halfway point of its research mission. They remained awake and busy with their various tasks for a few weeks or so and then returned, with some reluctance, to their molded pods.

  Aboard the Aquila there was almost no sense of time passing or of distance traversed. But the vessel was speeding inexorably back toward its home planet. Sling-shotting on its predestined orbit, back to Earth.

  Eleven of the twelve crew were peacefully asleep.

  One was not.

  Suddenly an alarm began to shrill on board the Aquila.

  Chapter Two

  Millions of dollars had been spent on researching the best sort of voice for the computer control on board Aquila.

  It was found that people responded best to a voice that promised them security. The box most often ticked on the query-response documentation was the one that said, “A voice that promises nothing will ever happen to hurt me.”

  It was a female voice, within the age parameters of thirty-eight to forty-seven. Gentle and reassuring, yet with a hint of insistent strength, it was the kind of voice that a rosy-cheeked lady from Kansas City might have.

  All of the astronauts called her “Mom.”

  This calm, motherly voice responded to the high-pitched bell, buzzer and whooping siren.

  “Time to get up, boys and girls. Time to rise and shine now.”

  Nothing happened.

  Hidden lights began to flash at the point where the Aquila’s ceiling and wall made their seamless kiss.

  “This is not an emergency. This is automatic wakening to make preparations for reentry and landing back on Earth. Time to be up and at them, boys and girls. Rise and shineandshineandshine…”

  There was a loud click, and the voice ceased. But the lights, bells, siren and buzzer all continued in a crescendo of noise.

  Within the control units of each of the life-support capsules, there were changes made in the chemicals entering and leaving the cardiovascular systems of the astronauts.

  Very gradually the state of suspended animation that had carried them through infinite miles of space was itself being suspended.

  The microcharges that had prevented muscles from atrophying disconnected themselves.

  Mom’s voice clicked back on again. But it had suffered a subtle change. It had risen very slightly in tone, as though mildly irritated by the slugabed tardiness of her dozen recalcitrant charges.

  “Wakening is proceeding. There are thirty-two hours to reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and approximately thirty-six hours to the projected landing time. Wakening is proceeding.”

  During most of the seven hundred and fifty days and nights of the flight, the lighting aboard the Aquila had been very subdued. Mission control back in the Nevada desert had been monitoring everything that went on inside the vessel and making minute changes every few hours.

  Now the lighting was bright again, flooding the cream-painted interior and bouncing off the array of instrumentation screens.

  A couple of minor illumination fittings had malfunctioned, but it made little difference to the overall level of light.

  “There will be another call in sixty minutes. Meanwhile, all other audiovisual systems will be closed down.”

  The ship was restored to its former silence, the twelve capsules, six to the port and six to the starboard, still slumbering.

  A new clock had become illuminated, headed Time To ELT. It showed thirty-five hours and fifty-eight minutes to landing, with touchdown scheduled at Stevenson for approximately four o’clock in the afternoon of September 25.

  EACH CREW MEMBER had been allowed up to sixty seconds of time to describe himself/ herself for the media on a microtape that was then stored in the ship’s main data base. Some had used most of their minute, while some had used a lot less.

  “Hi, I’m Jim Hilton and I’m captain of the United States Space Vessel Aquila. I’m thirty-two years old, stand six feet two inches tall and weigh in around one-ninety, depending on how much chocolate fudge sundae I’ve been into recently. Been with the space project for ten years since graduating. Been married for twelve years to my high school sweetheart, Lori, who you’ve maybe seen on some of the afternoon family vid shows. She was the psycho killer in Sunstrokers. We’ve got twin girls, Heather and Andrea, aged eleven. I miss them a lot. And I miss our house on Tahoe Drive, a quarter mile or so from the old Hollywood sign. Hobbies are linked to survivalist skills. I’m a fair shot with rifle or handgun. And I love my country.”

  James Carmel Hilton had thinning blond hair, visible through the cover on his capsule. His heart and breathing were already beginning to speed up a little, climbing back toward normal.

  The next capsule along the row held a small incised plastic tag with the name of the occupant: Marcey Cortling.

  “I’m Marcey Cortling and I’m number two on the Aquila. My personal details and my private life are just that. Personal and private.”

  She was twenty-nine years old and lived alone in a neat apartment on the Stevenson base, the only crew member to do so. Her father and both of her older brothers had been Air Force officers. Marcey was five feet tall and weighed one-thirty-five. Her hair was short and dark, curling a little at the nape of the neck.

  One of the trivial and yet serious problems for the scie
ntists in setting up the two-year mission had been finding a surefire way of suppressing follicular activity. Otherwise everyone would have woken up to find their pods brimming over with their own hair and beards.

  The next capsule along belonged to Steve Romero. “Steve Romero. Radio honcho on this tub. Been interested in communications since I was knee-high to a beanbug. I’m thirty-seven and a skinny six feet two. I’m a vegetarian and I practice meditation. Been married but it didn’t work out.”

  There was a hesitation in the voice. “Son called Sly who lives with… with his mother in Aspen. She’s married again. Twice more, in fact. Boy’s eighteen. Wish I saw more of him. That’s all, folks.”

  In the identical capsule to the right of Steve Romero was a shorter, paler figure whose light blue eyes were beginning to flicker as though he was going through a period of REM-induced heavy dreaming.

  “Thomas. Jefferson Lee. Twenty-four. Average height and build.” The records showed him at five-seven and one sixty-five. “I’m the superstar supercargo on this can. Journalist for the West American, who put up a big pile of dollars to get me aboard. I live on Jackson Street in San Francisco, and my hobby’s battles of the Civil War. Got a sick daddy in San Luis Obispo. Hope he’s pulling on through while I’m away. Absence makes his heart grow stronger.”

  After a pause, he continued, “Oh, and I got a steady little girl who can’t wait for me to get home and show her what she likes best.” The tape finished on a cackle of sniggering laughter.

  “MAC. HENDERSON MCGILL. Some of the squids on this jaunt call me Grandad, because I’m forty-five and the oldest crew member. Actually by the time we get home again after the big sleep it could be I really will be a grandfather. Specialty’s astrophysics. Don’t get much chance to use it. Machines have took us over. Got two marriages, one still running. Seven kids here and there. Wife numero uno is Jeanne. Lives on Mount Vernon Street in Boston. We get on all right, I guess. Angel…that’s her real name…lives not far away in Mystic, Connecticut, with the four youngest. We get on all right, I guess.” He laughed. “Hobby’s keeping fit and paying alimony. Jim Hilton fancies himself with a gun. But he can’t bench press half what I can. That’s all I got to say, except that there’s times I prefer being out in space to being stuck back here on our own sick old planet.”

  MOM’S VOICE WAS ERRATIC. Every minute or so it would slow to a bass slurring, like a fat old drunk on a park bench.

  “Thirty hours to reentry and thirty-four hours to projected landing. Wake up, boys and girls. You’ve slept long enough. Rise and shiiine. Recovery proceedings are on line and—“

  There was a loud snapping sound on the tape, like a dry branch cracking under a heel. The voice went on, calm and unhurried. “There appears to be a minor malfunction with off-target reanimating proceedings. Thisthisthis investigated soonest.”

  THE LAST OF THE PODS at the end of the first row held the youngest member of the Aquila’s crew, who also happened to be the only black on board.

  Kyle Lynch was tall and slender. “Navigator. Me and Mac feel the same about our jobs.” His voice was very quiet. “I watch a screen controlled by a preprog computer. Anything needs changing in course or any other nav-factor input, then I still sit and watch. I’m only there for a worst-worst scenario. Triple-red days for Kyle. But if that ever happened to the Aquila, then I guess we’ll all be chilled meat anyway. I double up as the main stills and vid photographer for the mission. Load, point and press. Ansel Adams I’m not. I live in Albuquerque down in New Mexico and I surely hope my fiancee, Leanne, is still waiting for me when I get back.”

  His lips moved in the stillness of the capsule as he whispered the name of his dearest love. “Rosa,” he said.

  TIME HADN’T meant anything to the twelve men and women on the Aquila for almost a year. Now it was forcing its way back into their lives.

  “Twenty-nine hours to reentry and thirty-three hours to home plate. Goal line. Checkered flag. Finishing tape.”

  Now there was movement within the pods.

  Carrie Princip, the second navigator, was a skinny blonde with long hair, aged twenty-five. Unmarried, from New Orleans.

  Breathing was faster, clouding the inside of the armaglass.

  Mike Man. Quarter Chinese and the best chess player in the crew. He was a computer technician, twenty-nine years old, married with two little boys. Originally from Queens, he’d moved with his wife and family to Encino, California.

  Fingers and toes began to flex and extend, and eyes opened blindly.

  Bob Rogers. Single man from Topeka, aged thirty-two. The Aquila’s doctor, dentist and the assistant radioman.

  “The life-support systems will begin to open in five minutes from now. Remember that you will all suffer some degrees of weakness. Make no hurried or sudden movements. If in need of… Push… mergency button for aid.”

  Pete Turner was the second pilot. Thirty-six years old, he was a widower with no children, born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Since his wife’s death at the hands of a group of muggers on New York’s Lower East Side, he’d devoted much of his spare time to becoming highly skilled in unarmed combat.

  Electronics expert Jim Herne was twenty-eight and came from Vermont. He’d played pro football for the Giants as free safety until a bad knee injury finished his career.

  “One hundred seconds to release. Be patient, boys and girls, before you come out to play.”

  Twelfth and last of the mission crew was Ryan O’Keefe. Thirty years old, the quantum-physics expert had been in charge of the most important experiments in deep space. He was also a qualified psychiatrist, specially trained in stress control and interactive interventional analysis.

  Twelve men and women.

  “Ten seconds to release,” said Mom seductively. “Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…”

  Sunrise was beginning its sweep across the continental United States, tens of thousands of miles away from the Aquila.

  It activated sensors all around the razor-wire perimeter of the Stevenson Air Base, switching off the lights. The endless strips of concrete, scarred with the black rubber smears of countless landings, stretched away and away toward the stillness of the gray desert.

  A lone coyote trotted unhurriedly across the base, muzzle red with clotted blood.

  Chapter Three

  There was a faint hiss of hidden hydraulic controls operating. In a ragged approximation of synchronicity, the lids of the capsules slowly began to raise themselves.

  Mom’s voice was positively euphoric. “Welcome back to all of you. Take care how you get up and move slowly. Remember you’re still in… ficial gravity. Get some nourishment before… ming tasks. Twenty-eight hours and thirty minutes to reentry. Thirty-two hours and thirty million, billion, trillion… Correction. Thirty-two hours and thirty minutes to estimated landing.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Mom,” sighed Jeff Thomas, giving the finger to the nearest speaker.

  “I see a year’s sleep hasn’t done much to improve your language,” said Marcey Cortling.

  All around the main sleep compartment of the Aquila, the crew were stirring, stretching and moaning as their bodies started the process of readjustment to light and life.

  Jim Hilton swung his legs over the side of his own pod, leaning his head on his hands. “Done this Sleeping Beauty act four times now, and it doesn’t get any easier.”

  Henderson McGill laughed. “Sounds like that old joke about having sex. Woman says her husband only ever did it twice. First time he was sick, and the second time his hat blew off.”

  Mom came in, solicitous as a trained children’s nanny. “Remember to…ake… are. Don’t make any… den movements.”

  Kyle Lynch was first onto his feet, grinning around him. “Mom sounds like she’s gotten glitched up while we were asleep.”

  Hilton stood, rocking a little in the artificial four-fifths gravity of Aquila. “Funny that mission control didn’t sort the old lady properly while we were out.”

&
nbsp; Jed Herne was the next crew member upright. “I’ll try and fix it, Jim. Give me something to do on the long way home.”

  “Be back on base in a day and a half, Jed. Not worth it. Just switch her off, will you?”

  Steve Romero uncoiled himself from his capsule, knees cracking as he straightened. He looked through to the small radio communications section. “Thought they’d have been pumping questions at us by now. The way they monitor everything they usually want to know when anyone takes a dump.”

  “Everyone knows when you do, Steve,” teased Carrie Princip, trying to brush back her long hair, finding it was floating in a sea of static.

  Pete Turner, the Aquila’s second pilot, was practicing some of his martial-arts kicks and punches, grunting with the effort. “I don’t feel so bad.” He glanced at the shadowed pod immediately behind him. “Typical of Topeka’s finest. Still dead to the world. Come on, Bob!”

  “Rise and shine, Bob,” called Ryan O’Keefe. “Or we’ll set Mom on you.”

  Jim Hilton was moving toward the main part of the control module. “Get Bob up, will you, Pete? He’s supposed to check us all out on reanimation. Then join me in the hot seats.”

  “Sure, Captain Hilton, sir.” Snapping off a crisp salute, Pete bent over the adjacent pod. “Get some lead in your pencil, buddy. Come on and— Oh, no. Holy shit!”

  “What, dead to the world?” said Mike Man, pulling on a pair of soft-soled sneakers.

  “Yeah,” said Pete. “Very.”

  They gathered and stood around in silence, looking at the corpse, glaringly lit by the overhead strip lamps. Jed had turned down Mom’s spasmodic muttering until it was just a background murmur.

  Bob Rogers had been a heavily built man with a narrow black mustache. He’d worn contact lenses in his dark brown eyes.

  “How long?” asked Carrie Princip, breaking the silence.

  “He was the doctor. Shame we can’t ask him for a postmortem.”

  “Not funny, Jeff.” Jim Hilton shook his head. “State of the body, I’d say he’s been dead for weeks. Skin like leather.”

  The brown eyes were gone, melted back into the cavernous sockets. The lips had shrunken and peeled off the excellent teeth. The plumpish cheeks were sunk inward, and the lower jaw gaped, accentuating the skull-like appearance. Bob Rogers’s hands had turned into crooked claws, the nails digging into the hard skin of the palms.