Colony One Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 1) Read online

  “Watch acceleration drift.”

  “Compensating.”

  “Sub-system deviance?”

  “Standard, minus oh point three.”

  It was evident to Jann that Gizmo was somehow connected into the Colony One systems. Like a sort of remote control unit that monitored and gave feedback to Nills. They also seemed to have established a strange evolved lexicon that only they could understand.

  “The commander, where’s he going? Where’s Annis, is she still alive? Jann was getting more animated.

  Nills stood up and surveyed her with a quizzical expression. “I understand you have a lot of questions. We’re pretty certain your commander is heading back to your habitation module. We will now lock-down the colony so he can’t get back in, at least not easily. We don’t know where your first officer is. But once we have power restored, we can do a full sensory analysis of the facility, we’ll find her then. Come, we need to look after your injured friend, and myself and Gizmo have many things to tend to in the garden. We can talk later and I will do my best to answer your questions then. In the meantime you’re safe.”

  Jann was taken aback with this uncharacteristic flood of information. “Okay, thank you, I understand.” She walked over to where Paolio was lying. He was regaining consciousness and started moaning and twisting with pain. “We’ll need to bring him back up to the Medlab so I can do a proper job on that leg.”

  “Gizmo, can you do the honours.” Nills waved at the injured doctor.

  “Certainly,” replied the robot as it lifted him up and whizzed off towards the airlock.

  CHAPTER 13: ANNIS & MALBEC

  With power back on in the facility the temperature had risen, it was no longer as cold. Gizmo placed Paolio back on the operating table in the Medlab and started a full body scan. A large doughnut shaped apparatus moved slowly along the length of the table, producing a narrow ribbon of light across his body as it travelled. The resultant image rendered itself on a nearby monitor.

  “Fractured collar bone, two fractured ribs,” Gizmo zoomed in on Paolio’s leg. “You did a good job on resetting that fibula.”

  Nills took his leave. “I need to get to Operations and do a complete check on all colony systems. I’ll leave you in Gizmo’s good hands. He knows where everything is.”

  For over an hour they worked on Paolio; giving him morphine, setting up a plasma transfusion, stitching up his leg. The little robot moved with a fast, fluid confidence — Jann was mesmerised. It had the ability to rotate its body three-sixty degrees around its tracked base. It had two arms, each with a great number of articulations, giving it the ability to do things no human arm could possibly do. On one, it had a hand of sorts, three fingers and a thumb. On the other however, it had the ability to snap on and off different tools which were attached to its body. Its head, if you could call it that, also had the ability to fully rotate and consisted mainly of sensors and antenna. She noticed after a while, it had no real front or back. Whichever way it pointed its head was front. It would zip over to the operating table, perform some function, rotate its head one-eighty degrees and zip back the way it came.

  By the time they had finished, Paolio’s face had regained some of its colour, gone was the deathly pallor of earlier. The attention they had given the stricken doctor was evidently having a beneficial effect on his physiology. They had pumped him full of morphine, so it would be quite a while before he would wake up again. But at least he was past danger. Gizmo surveyed his handiwork. “Your colleague is maintaining a status compatible with life. I would say he has an 86% chance of surviving the next twenty-four hours.”

  Jann looked at the quirky little robot. It had such a strange way with words. Symptomatic of its programmer’s eccentricities, no doubt.

  “Thank you Gizmo — for what you did for him.” Jann wasn’t quite sure why she kept thanking it. What would its silicone brain understand of gratitude? But it seemed like the right thing to do.

  “Don’t mention it; it is my pleasure to assist. I would advocate a lengthy rest period of six to eight weeks for the patient. After which he will require some physiotherapy to regain strength in the damaged member.”

  “Indeed. Tell me Gizmo, how long have you been, eh… aware?”

  “Aware of what?

  “I mean, when where you switched on?”

  “Ahh… yes, you need to ask me a direct question for a direct answer. Otherwise my responses may be as obtuse as the question is vague.”

  “I see.”

  “One thousand, one hundred and fifty-eight sols… approximately.”

  Jann did some quick mental calculations. “Three years. So you were created after the collapse of the colony.”

  “One thousand, one hundred and fifty-eight sols… approximately,” it repeated.

  It was built as a friend to keep the castaway sane, his very own Man Friday. “Why did Commander Decker go crazy and start killing our crew?”

  “I possess insufficient data to answer that.”

  “You need to frame a question carefully to get the best response from Gizmo.” Nills entered the Medlab. He had cleaned himself up and donned a new jumpsuit. Perhaps, before the arrival of the ISA crew, he had no motivation for personal grooming. However, now that he had guests, it jumped several notches up his to do list. He looked younger than his thirty six years and very healthy. A diet of fresh fish and vegetables would probably do that to a person. He turned to face the little robot. “Gizmo, extrapolate probable causes of ISA crew member Commander Decker’s psychotic behaviour?”

  “The most likely cause is he succumbed to the very same malaise as the previous members of Colony One”

  “Well that doesn’t tell us much,” said Jann.

  “No, but it’s the correct answer. He can only work with what he knows already. And I created him after all the mayhem so he has no specific knowledge of it.”

  “He’s an incredible creation nonetheless, with an extraordinary turn of phrase.”

  “Ha, yes. Sometimes I regret using the complete works of Oscar Wilde as the basis for his grammatical syntax.”

  “So that’s where he gets it. Must have taken you quite a while to build him?”

  “Well, I did have a lot of time on my hands. He started just as a service bot, for lifting and moving. After a while I integrated him into the colony systems so he could monitor status and alert me to any malfunction. Eventually I programmed him with self learning, neural-net algorithms.” He turned and placed an affectionate hand on Gizmo’s shoulder. “He’s my friend, he’s my sanity.”

  The little robot looked up at its master, like a faithful dog. If it had a tail it would be wagging it right now. Then it twitched and spun its head around, like it was looking off into the distance. Jann had seen it do this once before when Decker left the colony. “Temperature anomaly in fish farm, third quadrant.”

  “Extrapolate.” replied Nills.

  “It is consistent with a human life form — it’s also moving.”

  “Annis!” shouted Jann, and she rushed off, with Nills and Gizmo trailing in her wake.

  She ran into the bio-dome, past the remains of the door that Decker had broken through. The entrance to the fish-farm was strewn with smashed up electronics. She picked up a broken circuit board and showed it to Nills. “The remote comms unit. Annis was using this to send her report back to mission control.”

  They heard a moan. “Annis?” Jann ventured down the long tunnel and spotted the first officer sitting on the ground with her back to the wall. “Annis… are you okay?”

  The first officer looked up and glared. She had a vacant, gaunt look in her eyes. “Malbec?” She held her head in her hand and Jann could see it was covered in blood.

  “Decker’s gone crazy… attacked me with a steel bar… totally berserk.” She looked up and her eyes widened with fright. She shifted and started to back away. “Malbec, there’s someone out there?” she pointed to towards the entrance.

  “It’s alrig
ht Annis. This is Nills Langthorp, a colonist.”

  Nills waved.

  “Is that… a robot?”

  “Yes, that’s Gizmo.”

  Gizmo raised his hand to wave. “Greetings Earthling.”

  Annis stared at the pair for a moment. “So he’s the ghost we’ve been hunting.”

  “Yes, he was hiding out.”

  “And where’s that crazy bastard Decker?”

  “Gone. Left the Colony a few hours ago. Went back to the HAB.”

  “The others?”

  Jann hesitated. “Paolio is pretty banged up. Kevin and Lu are… dead.”

  “Oh fuck.” Annis slumped down and held her head. ”What a mess.”

  “Come, let’s get you to the medlab.” Jann helped her up.

  As they moved out into the bio-dome Nills came over. “We have work to do in the garden here. I’ll check in on you later.”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  The first officer sat on a seat in the Medlab as Jann tended to the wound on her head. She brought her up to speed on all that had happened. Like Jann, Annis got lucky. Decker attacked her in the bio-dome while she was sending her report. She retaliated by throwing the comms unit at Decker. This seemed to distract him and the unit now became the threat in Decker's deranged mind. He proceeded to smash it into tiny pieces, giving Annis time to hide out under a tank in the fish farm — where she eventually passed out from the blow to her head.

  “We should really do an x-ray to see if there’s a fracture," said Jann.

  Annis, brushed her aside. “I’m fine.” She stood up. “No time for that now. We need to deal with that crazy Decker or he will destroy this mission.”

  Before Jann had time to answer Nills and Gizmo entered the Medlab. “How are you feeling?”

  Annis stared at them for a moment. Looking from one to the other. “I’m fine. You got any ideas what the commander is up to now?”

  “Gizmo, extrapolate possible current scenario for ISA crew member Robert Decker,” said Nills.

  “Based on the historical data-sets available, subjects tend to engage in a repeated pattern of deep-sleep, followed by psychosis, then by a short period of rationality. Your commander has a 72.6% probability of being asleep at this time. But, this is based on the limited data at my disposal.”

  Annis was visibly in awe at the response from the little robot. It took her a moment to adjust to this new reality.

  “Well, if that’s true, then it doesn’t give us much time,” she said.

  “Why? What are you going to do?” said Jann.

  “You mean what are ‘we’ going to do. Well, it’s simple. We’re going to kill him.”

  “What, no, you’re joking, you can’t do that.”

  “That would indeed increase your mission success probability by a factor of 82.6%. Allowing for other unforeseen events,” offered Gizmo.

  “No way, I won’t do it.”

  “Listen, Lu and Kevin are dead, Paolio’s in bad shape and I’m getting seriously pissed off. So you better start growing a set of balls, Malbec. We’re going to do this — we have to do it — and, if that robot thing is right, we’re running out of time.”

  Jann thought about it and Annis had a point. If what Nills told her about the progress of the condition was correct, then the commander would only get worse. What alternatives did they have? The only other option was to somehow contain him — safely, for both the rest of the mission here and on the long journey back. Cooped up on the Odyssey transit craft for two and a half months with a psychotic Decker was not a prospect that anyone would relish. But kill him — that seemed brutally cold to Jann. “There has to be a better way?”

  “Like what? Appeal to his feminine side?” snapped Annis.

  “Your first officer is right,” interjected Nills, who was in the process of opening drawers and lockers looking for something. “His condition will only deteriorate. He’ll drift in an out of psychosis until eventually he will be completely insane.” He was reading the labels on various packages he had liberated from one of the Medlab lockers. He looked over at Jann and Annis. “There is no hope for him now. You must realise he is beyond redemption.”

  “I can’t accept that. There must be something we can do for him,” said Jann.

  “Like what, find a cure?” said Annis.

  “Nills, you must know something about what causes this?”

  “I’ve told you all I know. It only affects some people, male and female equally. They go mad with rage, become crazed psychotic killers. I don’t know how or why.” He scratched his chin as if he had thought of something. “If I was to hazard a guess I’d say it's a bacterial infection.”

  “What makes you think that?” said Jann.

  “I don’t know… it’s just a… feeling.”

  “Enough of this. We’re wasting time. Do you have anything we can use as weapons?” said Annis.

  Nills tossed a small plastic package over to her. “Here. It’s cyclophromazine. There are three doses in there, each in separate syringes. That should be enough to kill him.”

  “Wait a minute. If its bacterial then have you tried just using a dose of antibiotics?”

  Nills thought about this. “Well, no. We were too busy trying to stay alive. It’s hard to play doctors and patients when the patient is trying to bash your head in.”

  “So it might work?” Jann looked at them both in turn.

  “Attention… Commander Decker is on the move,” squeaked Gizmo.

  “Quick. Follow me… this way.” Nills raced out of the Medlab and into the main Colony One operations area. He flicked a display table to life and a 3D rendering of the north-western area of the Jezero crater ballooned out from its surface. They could see the colony on one side. Further out was the HAB and lander. A red marker flashed beside the HAB. Nills pointed at it. “That’s Decker. Gizmo’s right he’s left your HAB module.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  Annis turned to the quirky robot. “I thought you said that he would sleep for hours.”

  “Gizmo did, but it came with a 72.6% probability caveat. So this action is in the other 27.4%.”

  They all watched the blip as it moved away from the HAB and then stopped. “What’s he doing?” said Jann.

  “He probably doesn’t know himself,” said Nills.

  “We’re wasting time. We need to get out there and take him in the open.” Annis was heading over to get her helmet. Jann was now looking at the package containing the cyclophromazine. “There’s no way this is going to penetrate an EVA suit. The needle is too short.”

  “Shit,” said Annis. By now the blip was on the move again. “Looks like he’s heading this way.” Nills pointed to the marker on the map.

  Jann considered what to do. They should at least try and contain the commander. That way they could help him and maybe even shed some light on the source of the affliction. “I think we should attempt comms, try and assess his state of mind.”

  “Are you fucking joking? That might be just a red rag to a bull.”

  “Dr. Malbec has a point,” said Nills. “If he’s semi-rational then you might be able to contain him more easily. If he’s not, then it’s not going to make any difference.”

  Before Annis could answer Jann had strapped on her suit head-set and pressed broad transmit. “Commander Decker, this is Dr. Malbec, what’s your status, over.”

  There was silence. Jann tried again. “Commander Decker, this is…”

  “I hear you, where is everybody, what’s going on?”

  They all exchanged looks, like partners in crime, a conspiracy unfolding. Annis grabbed her headset, put it on and listened in. “We’re in the Colony. How are you feeling?”

  “They’re crawling all over me… I can’t get rid of them… gnawing at my brain… I need to scratch them out… this… this contamination.”

  “Just stay calm, we’ll help you.”

  More silence. “Commander?” Then there was a sickening cry from the comms
. Jann and Annis exchanged looks. Nills wore a concerned face, tinged with an experienced acceptance — he’d seen it all before.

  “Decker, can you hear me?” Silence. Jann whipped the head set off and flung it down. “We’d better get ready.”

  “What’s he sound like?” said Nills. “Bat shit crazy, going on about ‘contamination’. It makes no sense.”

  Jann looked at the blip on the 3D map. It was moving steadily towards them.

  “Can we trap him in the airlock?” Annis directed her question at Nills.

  “And then what? Wait till his air runs out?”

  “Is that possible?”

  “No, wait, let’s think. If we can contain him and get him sedated, then maybe we could find out what the cause is,” said Jann.

  “Jesus, Jann. If we let him in here he’ll kill us or we’ll get seriously injured before we can take him out. No way.”

  “We just need him to take his helmet off before he leaves the airlock. Then we jab him in the neck, he’ll go down in a few seconds.”

  “Gizmo thinks the probability of successfully containing your Commander Decker without sustaining injury is 0.1%,” said the little robot.

  “Thanks for the analysis,” replied Jann.

  “Don’t mention it, my pleasure. I’m here to help,” said Gizmo.

  “We’re going to need some weapons. What have you got, Nills,” said Annis.

  “Knives, heavy tools, steel bars.”

  “Okay, show me.” They moved over to the workshop area and in a few minutes Annis returned holding a long sharp knife in one hand and a heavy tool in the other. “Here’s the deal. If he doesn’t take his helmet off he stays in the airlock. If he does, and you don’t get that syringe into to him, then the first step he takes I’m going to gut him, no hesitation. Got that?”

  Jann nodded. The red blip was almost at the door.

  10cc of Cyclo-phromazine would be more than enough to drop a large man in seconds. 20cc and it would be fifty-fifty if he lived. 30cc and he’s dead — no question. It was 5cc that Dr. Corelli jabbed into her when she lost it in the colony. Things had change since then. Two crew were dead and the tables had turned. She broke the seal on the package and fumbled with the hypodermic. It seemed a very insubstantial weapon in the face of such a raging bull as the demented Decker. “Hold fast old girl — focus,” she said to herself.