Resurrection Planet Read online

  Even in these circumstances, Carly is beautiful and vibrant and my natural reaction to Carly’s exposed proximity shows itself.

  She looks down at a certain part of my anatomy and shakes her head. “I don’t believe you. After what we just went through. I still feel like vomiting.”

  I shrug and grin. “Natural processes. I’m a healthy male. Besides, we’ve been practically married for the past six months. Aboard the Provincial—.”

  “What occurred on that trawler is ancient history. And we’re not married. And, frankly, I don’t appreciate the bruise you gave me out there.” She holds her arm up for inspection and, sure enough, a bruise is forming. There is a flicker of doubt and distrust in her eyes. “You joke around and play the clown, but you’re not, are you? They knew what they were doing when they picked you to come.” She scrubs foam from her arms. “And what’s with that big crate you have aboard the ship. Why can’t you bring it into the station?”

  I try to hold my grin, but it is fading. “That crate is worth a small fortune.” I turn my back on her in order to catch the blowing air on my wet scalp. “Anything that enters the station is subject to that guy Todd’s whims. Captain Oster knows that.”

  But she persists. “You and that weirdo Gershom. You know each other don’t you? You’re opponents of some kind.” Her dark eyes take on a sly look. “I saw the ship’s itinerary. Gershom lists his home as Old Earth. Both of you boarded the ship at Portus Magnus, on New Rome.”

  “Where have you been, Carly? Living in a vacuum?” But maybe she really doesn’t know about the war on Old Earth. The retreat of the Revived Roman Empire—and its primary backer, the EMC. Carly lived on one of Rome’s backwater posts. “Gershom is an enemy of Rome. Not of me, necessarily, but that depends upon him. I’m surprised they allowed him passage.”

  The remainder of the decontamination is performed in silence.

  We are given new clothes—the one-piece uniforms of the station personnel. Carly wears the green uniform of scientists and I the tan of an administration assistant, a subtle means of putting me in my place, I suppose. At least I wasn’t given the brown of custodial staff and I wear my IMF buckle on my belt once again.

  A sandy-haired man with a long foxy nose and angular face meets us in the corridor. “Leonard Self,” he says. “Security Chief.” He uniform is red.

  I offer my hand to shake, but he declines. Perhaps Todd warned him about what happens when people shake my hand. “Where’s Todd?”

  “In the postmortem room, waiting for you. He wants you in there. The lady can wait for you in the cafeteria, if she likes. We’ll assign you both quarters after the autopsy, which can’t wait. And he’ll debrief you both later.”

  Debrief? I regard Carly. “You want to sit in on the autopsy? I assume it’s on the man Todd shot.”

  “The lady was not invited,” Self says, but I ignore him.

  Carly shakes her head. “I’d like to find a toilet facility, if that’s not against the rules. I’ll wait in the cafeteria after that.”

  Self nods to a security guard nearby. “Escort Dr. Sims. I’ll take this one. Follow me, Crisp.” The security chief turns on his heel and starts down the white featureless corridor. On his hip, he wears a compressed air pistol, much like the model carried by Todd.

  I take my time following and he stops, irked. “Try to keep up, Crisp.”

  “You know…Self…I outrank you several times over. I don’t appreciate your attitude.”

  He grins. “Okay, Mister Crisp. But out here, your rank means precious little.”

  I grin back at him until he turns away and proceeds. I keep up this time and after a couple twists and turns of the station corridors, we reach the postmortem facility. A few observers stand by a long window set into the facility wall. Self presses a button and the door swishes open. He steps aside allowing me to pass within.

  Inside are two men and the corpse of Abe. Abe lies on a ceramic table, tilted up at the head, and with a drain at its foot end. Todd and another man, both dressed in surgical garb and visors, turn to face me.

  “Suit up, Mr. Crisp,” Todd says, pointing to another surgical suit hanging on the wall. Visors are over there.”

  The other man nods and smiles kindly. “Zuckerman. Herbert Zuckerman.” The man keeps nodding, as if convincing himself that he is indeed who he says he is. His nodding is quite noticeable because his head is a little large for his body, freckles, easily seen through the visor, spotting his nearly bald scalp. His surgical suit already is smudged with variously colored stains. I prefer not to guess what caused them.

  It is a post-postmortem, technically, since Abe apparently died twice: once as a human and again as a zombie or deadhead—call it what you will.

  The station crew—engineers, geologists, geneticists, miners, cooks, and a janitor—are pressed against the isolation room windows to watch. Maybe they expect an alien life form to jump out of Abe’s chest.

  Todd stands close behind us, all three of us in surgical gowns, visors, and gloves. No need to expose ourselves further…if that is possible after the literal blood bath I took earlier.

  Zuckerman’s words are being recorded as he slices into Abe’s thorax and abdomen. He asks me to help spread Abe’s organs to the side and I oblige with metal retractors. “Abe’s stomach is empty, you will note.”

  There are murmurs, disappointed sounds, from our audience outside.

  “It doesn’t appear that he has lunched on any Station personnel recently,” I say. “Assuming his intestines still had active peristalsis.”

  “Peristalsis?” Todd says.

  Zuckerman nods again—and I realize the Professor has a slight tremor of his head (the repeated nodding) and hands. “The propelling of waste products along the intestinal tract.” He winks at me. “Mr. Crisp has medical training, I see.”

  “Of sorts, Professor. Enough to get by.”

  “To get by? As on a combat field?” Todd inspects me with greater interest than he gives poor Abe. “I noticed your ‘IMF’ belt buckle before you suited up. Imperial Marine Force. Am I right?”

  “Right as rain.”

  Todd turns his gaze back upon Abe’s innards. “I see,” Todd says. “Peristalsis propels the waste products. What goes in must come out.”

  “Yes. Even in what you call a deadhead.” I add, just to goad Todd a bit, “Otherwise he’d explode after he ate one too many administrators.”

  Todd murmurs, “Or one too many New Roman officials.”

  “Speaking of officials, you sent for someone to replace Dr. Kimbrough, an Imperial physician who disappeared over two months ago. At about the same time you reported the first deadhead made an appearance. Did Kimbrough perform any autopsies on subjects like Abe?”

  “Dr. Kimbrough performed one on the first of us to go stale. The autopsy report is missing just as Kimbrough is.”

  “Interesting. You figure a deadhead stole his report? Maybe ate it?”

  “I don’t care for your attitude, Crisp, regardless of your status. You implying I took it?”

  “No, sir. Just fishing for answers.”

  I’m also helping the Professor fish around in Abe’s thorax. So far, I have noted a subtle, but peculiar finding in the pulmonary tissue. “Professor, look here. Humans have two outer layers surrounding the lungs—the visceral and parietal layers. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Abe seems to have a third layer of tissue—very distensible and pliant. If you will permit me.” The Professor’s hands shake with the tremor rather badly as we proceed, no doubt from the old man’s fatigue. I section a wedge of lung tissue and drop it onto the tray beside us.

  “Something?” Todd asks.

  “Not particularly. Just getting samples for microscopy for the Professor to review. Earlier, you used the phrase ‘going stale.’ What did you mean?”

  “Stale. Dry. The deadheads seem to lack moisture. Their body weight diminishes. Fewer body fluids. I was surprised to see the mess Abe made when
I shot him. Surprised to see all the slime you’ve got your hands in, now.”

  “You’ve assisted on a postmortem yourself, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah. But I’m an industrial chemist and reactor engineer, not a pathologist like the Professor. I rely on him to conduct the study. I merely observe. I did make one interesting find, though. Remember, Professor?”

  “Demonstrate,” the Professor says, stepping back from the cadaver.

  “Very tight tendons,” Todd says. He grabs Abe’s arm and flexes the elbow, pushing the arm back toward the cadaver’s shoulder. Todd lets go. Abe’s arm springs back to the table with a loud thunk.

  “I see.”

  “Very tight. The deadheads gain significant strength due, I believe, to an abnormal tightening of their tendons. But at the cost of flexibility. Tough, but dry. Sometimes brittle. I’ve seen one of them snap a biceps right off the arm while straining. Snap! Suddenly the limb is useless. Of course, I’ve also seen one of the deadheads rip a man to pieces with just one good hand.”

  I begin to close the cavity in Abe’s chest, but Todd puts a bloody glove on my sleeve.

  “Don’t bother, Mr. Crisp,” the Professor says. “We cremate the remains when we’re done with them.”

  Todd grunts in agreement. “Burying these guys is a bad idea.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They don’t seem to stay underground for long.”

  The Professor hums a tune as he slices Abe’s skull open with a laser drill. I’m reminded of brain spatter.

  The room sways.

  “You okay?” Todd asks.

  “Yeah. What used to be called jet lag. Six months’ worth.”

  He springs one on me. “Know someone named Colonel Spangler?”

  My stomach drops, but I maintain a dead pan face….I hope. “No. Why?”

  “IMF. Like you. He’s here on Sybaris.”

  “Ex. I’m ex-IMF. I’m just a facilitator of EMC, now. A pencil pusher like you.”

  “The Professor will finish up.”

  After Todd and I shed our surgical gowns and gloves, we drop them into a Hazardous Waste chute and punch out of the path lab. The research audience is dispersing. Todd tells a couple of them to bag Abe when the Professor is finished and take the body to the furnace.

  “He’ll be at it for days,” someone remarks. “You know how he is when he gets a specimen.”

  Go to Beginning

  CHAPTER III

  Sojourn

  I happily part ways with Todd and head toward the cafeteria, but it doesn’t take long to realize I’m lost. A maze of identical, totally bland, corridors fill the interior of the station. I turn to find Gershom, still in his space travel garb, watching me.

  “You following me, Gerhsom?”

  “Yes. I was hoping you could share your findings. The postmortem.”

  “Ah. Not entirely done. The Professor will dissect the tissues and take a look under microscopy. That takes time to prepare and I’m too tired to help him. Frankly, I need a break.”

  “I see.” He points. “They have assigned rooms. Your assigned quarters are that way, Ron. Carly is in the cafeteria. She fears being in a room alone.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t think he’s human, do you?”

  “Who? Abe? Or Todd?”

  Gershom actually manages a smile. “A sense of humor can be a blessing, even humor that is slightly warped. It’s a gift of sorts.” His smile fades. “Todd is human…very much so. A man of great potential…but for good or evil, we will see. But I meant Abe. Did he die twice, as they think?”

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it? You saw him.”

  Gershom looks troubled. “I saw him. It’s just not what I would expect to find, even in such a distant land. Not in this time.”

  “This time? Ah, the new millennium and all that Old Earth gibberish. Well, it’s best not to assume anything. Especially in medicine. Let’s keep our minds open. I’ll let you know.”

  “Yes, our minds open.” He watches me solemnly.

  There is a nice spot in the cafeteria by a large re-enforced picture window. The window looks out over the desert landscape of Sybaris. I say desert, because the rain-induced changes are all gone. Gone are the marvelous blooms, exotic cacti, and the creepy-crawlers. The sand is a pale gold. Plumes of dust dance across the horizon. The surface, once again, looks as dead as Abe.

  Carly and I are eating our lunches—clumps of multi-colored gelatin fashioned from a uniform soy-like paste, the standard food supply furnished to Roman settlements. We have just begun to relax. Carly even looks like she no longer hates me. I am contriving ways to make up with her when we’re startled by a man lurching into view outside the window.

  “Yaaaah!” Carly nearly falls backward over her chair.

  The man dressed in the purple uniform of a maintenance worker is lugging a tool box. He inspects the window borders and, spotting us, waves hello.

  Carly manages a weak smile. “Sorry. I’m still freaked out by what happened this morning. I took a mild soothe-pam.” She pulls out a small pill case. “Want one?”

  “No. Thanks. I’m actually quite all right. Once I get focused on the puzzle, my curiosity pushes the fear into the background. I make a game of it.”

  “Puzzle?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite a few of them. The emergence of these zombies—these so-called deadheads. The disappearance of Dr. Kimbrough. The physiological changes in Abe’s corpse—the man that Todd shot this morning.”

  “Not a puzzle. A bloody nightmare.”

  “A gold mine, Carly. Never let a crisis go to waste—that’s the first thing Rome teaches their leaders.” I lean forward in my enthusiasm. “Not just re-animated corpses—and all the medical applications that that suggests. But a return from the netherworld. The implications are mind-boggling. Hmm, there may even be a military application.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Suppose we try talking to one of these walking dead instead of blowing its head off? Think of what we might learn.”

  She stares at me. “All it takes is a walking corpse to wake you out of your chronic funk.”

  I laugh.

  She shakes her head. “And what about your priest friend? What do you think Gershom makes of all this? This place gives me a major case of the creeps.”

  “Carly! Look outside. You’re the botanist. All those beautiful shrubs and cacti—gone. Where’d they go? And why? Aren’t you intrigued?”

  She looks out the window and I see her eyes scanning the horizon. She’s probably scanning for more Abes, not plants and centipedes.

  The breeze lifts tufts of sand into the air and causes rivulets of snake-like patterns in the nearest sand dune. Sybaris, a planet of resurrection—in plants, bugs, and human beings.

  “I would like to get out there, especially after witnessing the metamorphosis this morning. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Besides, that’s what Elemental is paying me for. They must think there’s a profit they’re missing somewhere.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  She smiles uncertainly. “Come with me? I don’t think Navarro is up to it right now. He’s lying down on his bunk and recuperating.”

  “Sure.” But Navarro would have to fortify himself. Carly has a monumental task assigned her.

  The weight of the Luger pistol on my hip is reassuring. Courtesy of the Security Chief, at Todd’s order. For an air pistol, it packs a powerful punch. Styled after an archaic, but classic, pistol, its newly designed mechanism doesn’t require gunpowder. With the lighter gravity of Sybaris, it’s a formidable weapon. It’s just that the Nazi origin of the weapon’s appearance bothers me. They could have chosen something else to style it after.

  Carly and I stand at the main station exit. Both of us have backpacks, hers filled with research supplies, mine with two canteens of water and extra compressed air canisters for the pistol. Water and weapons. Two elements I don’t plan to be without on Sybaris.

>   “Just don’t shoot one of us by mistake,” Todd warns me. “It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s just a matter of time before someone jumps the gun, so-to-speak.”

  “No worries. I doubt that I’ll be shooting anyone.”

  “I can’t spare anyone to babysit you just now. We’ve got some work that has to be done.” Todd’s eyes hungrily track the movement of Carly as she zips her backpack. “Maybe she should stay here. You can go solo, get a look for yourself, first.”

  “No way,” Carly says. “Ron will watch after me.” She impertinently reaches out and pats Todd’s cheek. “But you’re sweet to worry, Owen.”

  A red-uniformed security guard pushes the airlock.

  We step through the opening portal and across the landing. The next step is onto the surface of Sybaris, the sand giving slightly under the weight of our feet. I shake my head. “Owen? I wouldn’t play games with him, Carly.”

  She shrugs. “I can handle Todd.”

  Carly and I wear light weight boots that leave a distinctive tread mark in the sand. The deadheads, Todd had informed us, tend to leave large scuffs in the sand as evidence of their trails. Carrying some of Carly’s specimen pouches, I watch carefully for telltale scuffs. None so far.

  Kneeling on the sandy floor, Carly produces a large magnifier—a thin broad lens on the end of a wand. She passes it over the terrain. “There are fine clumps of pollen and decomposed plant debris.” She scoops some into a container.

  “Interesting.” Despite my brave assertions of curiosity overcoming fear, I notice that we are out of sight of the Station. I touch the Luger and draw courage from it. No zombies. No zombie trails. “Do you suppose the metamorphosis of the plants this morning has anything to do with the appearance of Abe?”

  No answer; she is engrossed in her study. I breathe the air, taste it, and fill my lungs. I feel so much healthier out here, away from the artificial atmospheres of Station A and the Provincial.

  A light warm breeze springs up and lifts hazy swirls of sand from the desert surface. Pretty gold sand. Lonely out here, but quiet. Not like the pressing unruly hoards of New Rome, the self-indulgent population back ‘home.’ My natural melancholy threatens to resurface, but I welcome it, find it soothing in a way. If it weren’t for the dead guys, I believe I’d feel right at home. I repeat my question to Carly.