air from tanks.
Ro-Lecton keyed the button that would pump the inert gas into holding tanks, and release the same breathing mixture that filled the lab itself. If their air supply was interrupted somehow, they’d be able to unseal and breathe the mixture that pressurized the lab. Of course, the risk of biological contamination in such a case was very high despite the fact that the air was continually cycled through the most effective scrubbers available.
A light above the inner door turned green, and Ro-Lecton released the inner door and hurried into the lab itself.
Kas looked around the lab. The overhead tracks that supported the umbilicals crisscrossed the ceiling, permitting the suited med techs access to all areas of the lab. The lab itself seemed spartan and cluttered. There were no windows or ports, of course. Tables seemed to be everywhere, and packed between and on top of them, seemingly haphazardly, were crates and boxes. Obviously, Toj had the foresight to put the boxes and crates containing the lab’s equipment and supplies inside as he assembled the lab and before sealing it. Ro-Lecton’s crew were going to spend their first several days in the lab unpacking and setting up, but at least they wouldn’t have to change in and out of space suits to carry the lab’s equipment inside.
Ro-Lecton scrambled over crates, examining labels. After a few minutes, he crowed in triumph and dragged a smallish box to a clear place on a table, where he unpacked a new crystal reader. The eyepieces on the reader were oversized and oddly shaped. It took Kas a moment to realize that the reader was designed for use with the isolation suits.
Ro-Lecton snapped a power cell into place on the unit, then, eyes glued to the eyepieces, adjusted the machine’s parameters for initial use. Trembling with excitement, he slipped a crystal from the box he’d been clutching into the socket.
“Hah!” He crowed. “This is it! Oh, they’re all jumbled together, of course, and we’ll have to put them in order. But that’s no problem.” He turned to Kas with a huge grin. “I imagine that nearly all of the ship’s medical staff’s research is here!” The grin faded. “But really, Commodore. We have to come up with a way for me to study this information in my stateroom. Neither of us wants to wait until my whole team is awake and the lab is operational.”
Kas frowned. Though he’d never admit it he agreed with the doctor. They couldn’t afford the time. “We’ll talk with my comm tech,” he said finally. He broke into a grin. “If there’s a way in the universe that it can be done, Edro’s the man to do it.”
It was the best answer he could have made, he realized a few moments later. It was probably the only way Ro-Lecton could have been convinced to leave the box of crystals he’d been clutching and let himself be led back through the airlock, into his space suit and back to the habitable part of Starhopper.
A shrug and a “No problem, sir,” was Edro’s only response when the question was put to him. “A reader is basically an electronic decoder, changing the alignment of the crystal’s matrix into readable text. Toj and I can breadboard a transmitter that’ll just intercept the signal on its way to the screen and transmit it to wherever you want. How about to another reader in your stateroom, Doctor?”
Ro-Lecton nodded excitedly. “That’d be wonderful, Lieutenant,” he enthused.
Kas cleared his throat. “Uh, Doctor, wouldn’t it be more useful to copy the contents of the Rekesh ’s crystals to some of our own? I mean, transmit the signal to some sort of recorder? That way you’d have a permanent copy.” He paused. “In fact, we could just have someone run each crystal through the reader/transmitter without bothering to read it. Then you could sort through the copies later.” He shrugged. “It’d get you working much sooner. Sheol, by the time your entire team is suit-qualified, you could know just about everything the Rekesh ’s medical staff had done. You wouldn’t be covering ground that’s been covered before.”
Ro-Lecton bounced to his feet. “Yes! Do you think we can really do that, Lieutenant?” Kas struggled to suppress a smile. Gone was the superior, supercilious air the little med tech had displayed since his awakening. This Ro-Lecton was pure scientist. His tone had been plaintive, almost pleading.
Edro flushed with embarrassed pleasure and nodded. “Y-Yes sir. That should be no problem at all!”
And it wasn’t. It took Toj and Edro less than three hours to rig a transmitter to be fitted to the reader in the bio lab and turn another reader into a combination receiver/recorder.
Ro-Lecton’s thanks were so heartfelt and effusive that even the stolid Engineer flushed with embarrassment.
Kas shook his head. He realized that he was seeing the real, the original Ro-Lecton — Ro-Lecton as he’d been before he’d been tricked into an administrative and political position. This Ro-Lecton was pure scientist — intrigued by a professional problem and totally focused on its solution. Dignity, pecking orders and lines of authority were no longer important to the little man — he had a real problem to solve, and could hardly wait to get started.
Kas wondered what Ro-Lecton’s team would think of the Mark II version of the little doctor.
Tera volunteered to suit up and run the crystals through the reader/transmitter in the bio lab. Ro-Lecton refused to let anyone else tend the receiving/recording unit.
In the meantime, the rest of the crew was equally busy. Gran was awakening the medical team as quickly as possible and shuttling them to Jane and Lar for suit training. Toj was busy bringing space suits from storage and preparing them for use. Edro was helping Toj whenever he wasn’t busy with communication or comp work. That left Kas and Rom to begin exploring the Vir Rekesh. Kas had realized when speaking to Ro-Lecton that they really didn’t know whether or not the entire ship was open to space. Fan-Jertril’s companions may not have shared his idealistic heroism. So, as soon as possible, he and Rom suited up and each took one of the remaining two personnel locks.
He needn’t have worried. Both locks were open, and contained a suited corpse.
Kas breathed a huge sigh of relief when Rom reported that the last personnel lock was open to space. “All right, Rom. Meet me at the hangar bay. According to Fan-Jertril, that’s where they put the rest of the bodies; and Ro-Lecton’s going to start screaming for bodies to autopsy as soon as his team is ready.”
The huge black maw of the hangar deck opening was large enough to easily swallow Starhopper. The hangar deck occupied almost an entire level at the ship’s widest point. In effect it nearly split her in half and created an open area of nearly 200,000 square meters. “Open” was a relative term, of course. The Rekesh ’s hangar deck was occupied by nearly a hundred Wasp and Strengl fighters. It also contained an assortment of other craft — from the Admiral’s barge and Captain’s gig to atmosphere craft, some designed for combat and others merely as transports of various types.
But Kas wasn’t interested in the Rekesh ’s cargo of lethality. He was looking for a cargo net, probably stretched near a personnel airlock leading from the hangar bay. Sick men and women moving sometimes dismembered and often decomposing corpses were unlikely to be choosy. They’d rig the cargo net as near the lock as possible.
It was there, of course. In the inky blackness the pools of light from their helmet lights revealed a huge net stretched against the hangar bulkhead. The net bulged with its grisly cargo. Arms, legs, and even heads protruded grotesquely through the net’s mesh.
Familiar as he was with death, the ghastly contents of the net made Kas shudder. The bodies were frozen, perfectly preserved as they were when Captain Fan-Jertril decompressed the hangar deck. Some were still contorted in the agony their wounds had inflicted. Others appeared to be merely sleeping peacefully. Quite a number were missing limbs, but plas bags were tied to a number of the bodies. Kas assumed the bags contained body parts.
There was little blood, though there was much bloodstained clothing and skin. When the bodies had been brought here life support had been functioning. They’d been carried or dragged here. What bleeding there had been was only a result of moving the bodies. Kas was sure that the passages leading to that nearby hatch would be black with dried blood stains. But there were none of the large globules of drifting, frozen blood that he’d half expected.
Kas saw Rom turn away with a sick expression visible even through his helmet. He, himself was struggling to suppress a strong urge to throw up. He reminded himself that vomiting in space suits is not recommended.
He turned and shuddered again. “Let’s get out of here, Rom. If Ro-Lecton wants any of these cadavers he can come get them himself.”
Rom obviously agreed, though he made no reply. He merely kicked hard off the bulkhead, sailing across the cavernous hangar deck as though speed could relieve the horror. Kas knew that the action was irrational — but he
