Nine
"Okay, you're going to have to tell that story to me again, because what?" Trevor asked.
Sypha's giggling didn't help. Anna sighed, and continued feeding Peepers into the fabricator so they'd have something to eat.
"I was over at the grav trap in the creepvines," she said patiently. "I saw a stalker caught in the fronds, and cut it free."
"...why? Those bastards take bites out of me every time I end up over there!"
"Because I felt sorry for it," and she shrugged lightly. "Everything has a right to live, Trevor, even if it does think you constitute a meal. Besides, it didn't hurt me."
He snorted a little, shaking his head.
"I've been bit," he complained. "Sypha, got bit. But you? You did not! That's not fair."
"You provoke them," Sypha pointed out with a grin.
"It was probably just a one-time thing anyways, Trevor," Anna replied dryly, bringing over the freshly roasted fish so they could all eat. "I'm sure next time I go out, it'll be much more fraught. Would that make you feel better?"
"No! You're our medic, you're not supposed to get hurt," he huffed.
Now she grinned, only slightly forced.
"So, you're upset because I didn't get bit, but you also don't want me to get bit?"
"Stop applying logic!"
Sypha just laughed at both of them.
"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"
Anna looked up from her desk, repair tool and copper wire in hand, then half-shrugged.
"I wasn't tired. I want this darn thing fixed. Then I can get all the data, and clear it so you can have one too."
Sypha leaned against the counter, idly spinning one of the empty sample jars on its edge before resettling it.
"I really don't need one," she replied after a moment. "Between you and Trevor, I'm covered."
"Maybe, but it'd still be better if you had your own."
"Anna... are you okay?"
She blinked, and glanced up at Sypha again, then away.
"I'm fine."
"You're going off for hours," Sypha said gently. "And your seamoth has lots of little cracks when you come back."
"We can't get all our materials from above a hundred feet," Anna replied, keeping her tone light, wry. "I always make sure to repair Bait before I go out again, and I check in at the scanner room so I know what I'm looking for. I promise, I'm careful."
Sypha just continued to lean on the counter, frowning at her gently.
"Anna, the Sunbeam wasn't anyone's fault..."
"I'm not thinking about the Sunbeam, Sypha, I'm thinking about us, and keeping us alive. Every disease has a cure. And there's something on this planet keeping it alive, despite its horrific level of infection," Anna interrupted, looking up at her friend. "I'm sure of it."
Sypha studied her, then sighed a little.
"Okay... well... don't pass out on your desk again, or Trevor will fuss at you."
"I know. I'll try not to. I don't enjoy having a crick in my neck when I wake up."
That got a small giggle, then Sypha turned and descended the ladder. Once below, Anna could hear the soft murmur of voices; no doubt telling Trevor what was going on.
Under her hands there was a small snap as electrical current connected just long enough for a sync to start.
Download interrupted; insufficient battery. Warning: some files may be corrupted.
She rolled her eyes and started flicking through files. Two audio logs this time... those could wait for Trevor and Sypha. And one supplemental that, as she read it, made her eyes go wide.
Degasi Ship's Log, Supplementary Entry 7
Acting Commander, Chief Medical Officer Liesse Montblanc
Base coordinates attached
The antibiotics are helping to at least manage the symptoms, though they do not seem to be actually treating the infection. We'll take any improvement that lets us be functional. Tepes is definitely showing signs of strain from attempting to handle all the tasks to keep the base running by himself, despite our protests to the contrary. His sensitivity to the sun has worsened to the point that he can no longer work outside during daylight hours, and prolonged exposure is causing severe burns. Additionally, he can only dive in the shallows for short periods. Deeper water seems safer for him.
There is a cave system about 200 meters deep, in a generally northwestern direction, that has proven to be rich in resources. Tepes has also expressed interest in the schools of peepers in the area, and has pointed out that he has yet to see a fully infected peeper fish. It is possible they have some sort of connection to the bacterial inhibitor we have hypothesized. The antibiotic treatment that Scott and I have been taking has at least eased our symptoms enough we can work, and we are constructing a secondary base in the caves. Research facilities are a priority; we need to learn all we can about this infection, and if Tepes is right about the peepers having a connection to the inhibitor, they will give us a lead.
A proper medbay will also not go amiss if things continue as current trends suggest.
"Another base," she whispered. "They went deeper. They went from here to..."
She held up the data pad and slowly turned in a circle until it gave a soft ping.
"That way. Down and northwest."
After a moment of chewing on her lip in thought, she nodded firmly. She would go. Trevor and Sypha were sleeping, or would be soon. They both slept hard and deep these days, thanks to the rigorous amount of physical energy they expended in swimming. So even with the habitat announcing her leaving, they'd likely stay asleep.
But she'd leave a note, and take a portable, just so they wouldn't have to worry.
The base, when she finally found it, was an absolute wreck in the light from her seamoth. She'd had to dodge eel-like creatures that lived in the glowing, mushroom-shaped flora, and the base itself seemed to be covered in what looked like jellyfish, and starfish of a type that glowed an eerie green. She circled it a couple of times in Bait, then ducked into the rusted moon pool.
The pool was flooded, but its connection to the base was open, so she slid out of Bait and moved to explore with care; the lightly reinforced dive suit idea that Sypha had did help, but they were at almost three hundred feet, and she could feel it. Bait's mark 2 module meant that it was actually able to handle the pressure better than she was.
She did a quick, careful tour; many of the jellyfish—dropping stingers she discovered they were called—dangled from the ceiling, which made it so that she had to pull herself along the floor to avoid getting a shock. But despite its rusted appearance and the invasion of sea life, the base looked... arguably better than the one they'd found on the floating island. The damage was mostly the sea life and one shattered window.
The Degasi survivors had made it down here; it was likely that the habitat's computer held even more records of their findings. Maybe even more than hints at a cure.
She could not pass that up.
But she also couldn't do it alone.
So... how to get Trevor down there, without making him upset?
"So you think there's a base down there?"
Anna nodded. Trevor gave her a skeptical look.
"Look for yourself; these are the coordinates. We just need a mark 2 depth module for Sushi or Sashimi, and you could check it out."
"Why did I let you name the seamoth again?"
"Because you weren't able to think of anything. What's wrong with Bait, Sushi, and Sashimi anyways?"
Sypha ducked her head to hide her grin, but it didn't do anything to muffled the giggles. Trevor grumbled a little, then waved a hand dismissively; he'd already been on the losing side of that argument three times.
"Not Bait?"
Anna shrugged.
"I've been getting stuff from father down in Bait; I made one a few days ago," she admitted.
He made a faintly protesting sound, then sighed after a moment.
"Okay, fine. What if we find this base, what then?"
"Well, we could see if we could use it for ourselves. There's materials and things deeper down that aren't easy to get from up here when you're trying to conserve battery life and energy. It might be a bit of a stretch to have all three of us at different places, but... aren't we doing that already?"
He rested his elbows on his knees, steepled his fingers, and rested his face against his hands in thought.
"What about power?" Sypha asked.
"We have the materials from the lifepod. I think there's enough there to make a bioreactor if we need it."
They absolutely would need it, but she wasn't looking to start a fight with Trevor about having gone and found the place herself. Unlike the seamoth module creation, he wouldn't be inclined to let it go.
"All right," Trevor said with a nod, lightly smacking his knees. "Mind if I borrow Bait's module?"
"As long as you give it back... I'm going to need it to get more materials to make two more so that the Seafood Trio can stick together."
He snorted a little, but nodded.
"Let's hope the radios can still connect over that distance and with whatever's in between us and this theoretical base," he said, getting to his feet and stretching absently.
"Well, we're surrounded by rock here, and it hasn't had a problem yet," Sypha pointed out.
"Yet being the key word there."
"You are such a pessimist."
Anna left them to their playful bickering, climbing back up to check on the sample analyzer.
"This place is a mess!" Trevor complained radio crackling intermittently. "There's jellyfish hanging from the ceiling, Anna!"
"But you found it?"
"Yeah, I found it. What's left of it, anyways. Even the moon pool is flooded... I don't know, Anna, I don't think this place is repairable. Even with a bioreactor, we'd need a lot of extra materials."
She chewed uncertainly on her lower lip. She'd seen it, but maybe she hadn't been looking hard enough. She'd been more focused on proving it was there and getting back before they noticed she was gone than actually assessing the damage.
"Huh..."
"What?"
"If I had to guess, most of the damage that was done was interior," he said. "Someone threw a fit about something, broke a window and flooded the place. Time did the rest."
"So by that logic, if we fix the window and set up a power source so that we can pump out all the water, we should be okay?"
He made a non-committal sound.
"I'm going to get out and look around more. Give me... ten minutes."
"Be careful."
Sypha Belnades has returned to the habitat.
"Anna?~"
"Uh here," Anna called, leaning back in her chair slightly.
Sypha was quick to ascend the ladder.
"How's it going?" she asked, dropping a damp bag onto the floor. "Any luck?"
"Trevor found it, but he says it's a mess," Anna replied. "What's all this?"
"I went hunting for things to make bioreactors," was the pleased reply. "I thought it might be useful to have one up here too."
"In addition to the solar panels?"
"You can never have too much power, especially not when we're a constant drain," Sypha replied practically.
Well, that was certainly true.
"Where were you going to put it?" Anna asked curiously.
"I was thinking of putting it down with the moon pool and the scanner room, since that connection isn't always the best," Sypha replied, leaning against the counter.
She winced a little, then shifted her weight, making Anna's attention sharpen.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Sypha said reassuringly. "I wasn't paying attention and got sort of... run over by a fish. A big fish."
"Which fish?"
"That one that looks like it could be a manatee with the gas pods on its tail. I think I got between it and something to eat and it got crabby."
Anna huffed a small laugh and shook her head.
"Since Trevor's not here, and will theoretically be busy for another... eight minutes, let's get your exam over with early," she suggested.
Sypha groaned, but it was theatrical, and obligingly started to strip.
"So, maybe Anna's right and we could use it as a hold point," Trevor said as he rubbed his hair tiredly with a towel. "We're going to have to deal with stalkers though... regular glass just won't cut it at three hundred feet-ow!"
"Well maybe if you'd been wearing your gloves, you wouldn't have been stung so badly, now hold still," Anna scolded gently.
He huffed, wincing again as she carefully smeared the anti-bacterial ointment over the red, raised skin where the drooping stingers had managed to get him.
"The gloves aren't flexible enough," he grumbled.
"There's not much to be done about that," Anna replied, adding a light bandage. "How do you want to do this?"
Trevor thought for a moment while Anna worked on his other hand, then sighed.
"I want you and Sypha to go down and look for yourselves," he said finally. "I'm not entirely convinced, but if you both think it's worth it, we can do it. Then I guess we start getting together things to fix it."
Anna hid a smile; he was convinced, he just didn't want to tell them what to do.
"I mean, you found it, and I'm already convinced that we should use it," she said firmly. "Once the Seafood Trio all have mark 2 modules in them, we'll also have a greater range of movement."
"I agree with Anna," Sypha nodded, nibbling on a marblemelon slice. "If it's down there and we can make it work, we should make it work. I don't need to see it to know that we need it."
Trevor sighed, but he was smiling faintly.
"All right. Then someone's going to have to deal with some stalkers. We'll need the teeth so we can replace the broken window. Did you manage to find things for a bioreactor?"
Sypha nodded, and grinned.
"Ran afoul of a gaspod, but I got more than enough to make two, actually. I was going to add a room next to the moon pool so that we can have a steadier source of power than the solar panels, and then once I see the base, I can figure out what to do there."
"What about more mark two depth modules?"
Anna shook her head lightly.
"I've had to keep an eye on the samples today. One of them was reacting strangely, so I didn't want to leave it alone. If Sypha's okay with watching them, though, I can go and track some stuff down now."
"I can do that," Sypha said with a nod.
"Maybe leave it for morning?" Trevor suggested, looking out a window at the shadows on the cliffs that shielded their home.
"The faster I get them, the sooner it's done. Besides, down at two hundred you don't see much daylight anyways," Anna replied, getting to her feet. "Don't worry so much, Trevor. I'm careful. More careful than you, at least."
He snorted slightly and she smiled, then made her way to the exit of the habitat.
"You weren't kidding, this place is a mess," Sypha observed as they made it down to the base.
"Told you so," Trevor said.
"We'll have to expand the moon pool if we want to dock all three subs," Anna said as she circled the base, trying to act as though she hadn't been there already once before. "Not to mention prying all the aquatic life out of there..."
"I've got a knife," Trevor replied nudging Sushi closer to Bait.
"We've all got knives, Trevor," Sypha said dryly, taking Sashimi up and over the top of the pool. "Where do we start, though?"
"With the windows," Trevor said after a moment. "The big broken one in the back, and then dealing with the cracks the rest of them have. We could probably take that observatory out completely, unless either of you wanted to keep it?"
"Well, it would be useful to see what those eels do regularly," Sypha pointed out. "So we can plan around them and all, instead of getting hit."
"...true. All right, so we're going to need a lot of stalker teeth and quartz to start us off."
"Titanium and lithium too," Anna put in after a moment. "If it's this rusty out here, we may just need to make reinforced bulkheads that we can put over the top instead of trying to repair all of the exterior skin. Did you find anything interesting inside?"
"Other than it looking like someone threw a huge fit? Not really. Why?"
"I was hoping for another data pad," she admitted. "It's easier to get things from those than it will be to repair the base and try pulling files from a cranky back up system."
Both of them laughed, but it was the rueful sort of agreement.
"Yeah, after being stabbed by those jellyfish, I kind of decided to not go in farther," Trevor said dryly. "One those are out of the way, we can take a more thorough look, though, if it'll make you feel better."
There was something odd in his words, an undercurrent she couldn't quite read without seeing his face that made her feel nervous. She brushed it off after a moment, and turned Bait deftly.
"Well, now we have an idea of what we need to do, so let's go do it!"
"So you're telling me this thing brought you what we wanted?" Trevor asked, staring at her.
Anna flushed and shrugged a little helplessly.
"It brought me Peepers and one of its dead kin so I could have the teeth, yes."
Sypha, still giggling madly, just shook her head. Trevor made a faintly disgruntled noise, running a hand through his hair.
"We get bit. You get a pet. What. The hell."
"The point is, now we have plenty of stalker teeth to fix the glass, and enough food for a couple of days. I also put a few Peepers from the grav trap into the containment tank to see if we can't breed them for a steadier, easier to get source instead of having to take one of the Seafood Trio out to your lifepod."
He still looked annoyed, and there was something under it that made her uneasy. She'd seen that look before, in her father's face, her uncle's. But no, this was Trevor, he wouldn't be like them.
Would he?
"Okay, I'm turning the reactor on," Sypha reported. "If we're right, it'll engage the pumps, and- whoop!"
Anna winced at the thud which transmitted over the radio. The partially repaired base seemed to vibrate as it powered up, and she had to fight a bit to hold Bait steady as the water was forcefully expelled from the interior.
"You okay?" she asked when everything had gone still again. "Is it safe to come in?"
"I'm fine. Forgot that gravity would be a thing again once I did that," Sypha sounded rueful more than hurt, which made Anna sigh quietly in relief. "Give it a couple more minutes, the oxygen's still off. It's going through a full system reboot... There it goes. Okay, I think it's safe now."
"It's a mess," Trevor said frankly, looking at the broken pad in Anna's hands. "Are you sure you can get anything off of that?"
"I won't know until I try," Anna replied, though she was dubiously turning the pieces of the pad in her hand. "It takes a lot of force to do this, even with an older model. They're supposed to be practically indestructible, you know?"
"I mean, one of the guys in cargo stepped on his with the prawn suit," Trevor replied dryly, making her giggle. "Cracked the screen all to hell, and it was fixing itself for like a week. Should've heard the chief reaming him out for it."
"We did, through you," Sypha said dryly. "What about the old pad, Anna, did you finish with that one?"
"No, we've been so busy working down here that I haven't touched it in like... a week?" Anna half-shrugged. "The last time I poked it we got the coordinates for here and a couple more partial audio. I suppose I should get back to working on it..."
"We could all use a day to relax," Trevor put in. "The weather's cleared up on the surface again, and I was thinking about getting a tan."
Anna snorted, shaking her head.
"Do you even know how to tan?" Sypha asked.
"You lay out under the sun and flip over periodically like you're a pancake, why?"
Now Sypha snorted as Anna was reduced to giggles.
"This would be a lot easier if we had a proper medbay- ah!"
They all winced at the pained noise, in sympathy and recognition. Trevor reflexively rubbed his arm, which had a new set of stitches, courtesy of a stalker that had decided to take an extreme dislike to him and done more than just bite.
"Ach, I am sorry," Montblanc said. The grimace was clear in the audio. "There is a lot of damage here to disinfect. And even with the stitching, it will scar."
"I don't mind scars."
"It would have done less damage if it had hit you directly..." Montblanc sounded annoyed.
"I know, but if you mention that to Scott he'll pout. And he really was trying."
"He knows my pain," Trevor said with a snicker.
"I still want to know how a fish evolved so that it explodes," Sypha said, shaking her head dubiously. "There's more?"
Anna nodded.
Beginning playback.
"I've gotten another load of creepvines, and had some good luck with the grav traps for fish," Tepes said, sounding weary. "I'll see what I can do with it..."
"You will do no such thing," Montblanc said, her tone firm. "You are exhausted, and need some rest."
"I'm all right."
"Nonsense, you have done all the hard work, we are not so sick we cannot do smaller tasks around the base."
"Yeah, Tepes," Scoot chimed in. "We can still cook and all that. Go sit down, you look like shit."
"How much did you manage to pull?" Trevor asked after a minute as Anna scrolled through the files.
"Oh, it's fixed and working now, so I pulled everything before I reset it. Why?"
"Well, as funny as it is to listen to them, the logs told us more than the audio," he pointed out. "Did you get any more of those?"
"Mn... There were only two we didn't have, but here's what they say..."
Degasi Ship's Log, Supplementary Entry 3
Acting Commander, Chief Medical Officer Liesse Montblanc
We've found more of the wreckage of the Degasi, fragments of the hull that appear to be from the bridge. Scott reports that based on the damage he saw, it looks almost as if some sort of energy weapon cut through the bridge. We can't rule out the possibility of some sort of interspatial quantum phenomena, but the implications of that are almost as disturbing as the implications of the other. If the hull fragment is from where we think it was, there could hardly have been any survivors on the bridge, between the damage and the loss of atmo.
We still have not located any other survivors or been able to reach anyone on radio. It is beginning to look like only the three of us made it, which is not ideal. I had expected some resistance from Tepes given his position as Shareholder, but it is Scott that has been... difficult. But I should hope he understands that we must all work together, especially as it is Scott himself that has suffered the first injury, when a much larger and territorial species of fish attacked him on a dive. The injury itself is fairly minor, and will need minimal treatment, but it is a reminder that we cannot count on the native wildlife to be passive to our presence. We are all in generally good health otherwise, though Tepes is proving to be more sensitive to the sunlight on this planet than we are.
We have managed to reconstruct a seamoth submersible, and Tepes took it on an exploratory mission to see if he could find anything of use or interest. He has reported a larger landmass several kilometers away, with what looked like artificial structures. We are making plans to investigate further. If the larger island proves more hospitable, we will likely relocate our base camp there.
Degasi Ship's Log, Supplementary Entry 8
Acting Commander, Chief Medical Officer Liesse Montblanc
Adrian is unable to stay on the surface any longer, due to how sensitized to the sun he has become. If this planet were more like Earth, I expect things would be easier. But with the two moons of this planet, one of which is enormous, they reflect more light from the sun, and even that reflected light is too much for him. We had waited until nightfall to return to the surface once we were done in the caves for the time being. It had sufficed in the past, however, this time, he started burning as soon as he swam out of the shadow of the Cyclops. We were able to get him back aboard, but only just, and it is clear that he cannot tolerate even the slightest amount of sunlight. His wetsuit protected him somewhat, but his face and hands are badly burned.
I had thought it was merely a combination of his own pale complexion and possibly light of a different wavelength filtered through an atmosphere with a different density, but his sensitivity is so exaggerated that that cannot be the case. I am going to try running some tests on blood samples I have taken from him. I have confirmed that he is also infected, and in fact, seems to have a higher bacteria count than either Scott or I. It is possible that his solar sensitivity is caused by the infection; in one way it would make it simpler, because treating one would necessarily treat the other, but at the same time, the bacteria must be acting on his system in highly complex ways to cause such effects.
We are taking him to the base in the caves. We have enough of it constructed that it is habitable, and it is out of reach of even filtered sunlight. I also will have better medical facilities there. Once his burns heal, we will decide what to do with the island base, but for the time being, we must retreat to the caves.
"They must've been stuck there permanently, considering how busted up the bases up top are," he said after a long minute. "Is it a good thing or a bad thing that we haven't found any bodies yet, though?"
"Trevor, don't be morbid," Sypha scolded, gently smacking his shoulder.
Anna just shrugged, stifling a yawn.
"The only thing we can say for certain is that they left that base too," she said. "Maybe once I start working on the other pad, we'll get more answers."
Survivor's log, Anna Torres
Repairing a base instead of building it from scratch makes some things easier and other things harder; the computer system of the interior is completely shot, and likes to decamp without warning. Trevor and Sypha have been working hard to bring me copper, gold, and what loose silver they can find so that I can convince the fabricator it wants to build me wire and computer chips, but it's been slow going. Trevor would be more use to me in the base instead of out of it, but I'm making do. I managed to get the oxygen system repaired so that it stops trying to turn off every five minutes, at least. The lights are next.
Sypha's made good use of her data pad, even if it's out of date by a decade. Since it only needs to sync with ours and whatever Alterra computer that's stored information on all these creatures, it seems to be functioning like it should. It's linked to the habitat builder and the fabricator fine, though sometimes she has to be a bit forceful in hitting the screen to make it comply. It's less obliging with the sample analyzers, but we're working on that...
Going off the logs of Dr. Montblanc, we've focused or attention on the Peepers. The stalker I saved brings me more than a few when I go out to check the grav traps, and I've handled... well, there have been at least three that have carried some of the inhibitor. I don't think the Peepers produce it, I think they find it somewhere, and bring it up to the rest of the ocean. If they produced it, I don't think this bacteria would be half as threatening... though the Peeper population would certainly be much smaller. I know it works because I gave one of those fish to Trevor, and he was acting more like himself for two days...
I'm worried about him. He's been acting odd. Sometimes he'll say something that sounds like it should be a joke, but then I'll look at him and it's not a joke to him, he's being serious, and that makes the joke threatening. It scares me. It reminds me too much of living back in our old trans-gov with...
It's made my anxiety flare up, and I can't tell the nanites to do anything. I wish one of the other doctors on the ship had survived, someone with the right licenses to unlock the old programming the had that helped mitigate the problem. It wouldn't solve anything, but anxiety makes it so hard to think, and so hard to sleep...
I think Sypha suspects I'm having trouble sleeping, but she hasn't brought it up. She's the only one of us who seems to be mostly normal, despite developing cysts of her own. Hers are still fairly small, at least, and confined... I shouldn't have been surprised that they were mainly clustered around the spots where she got bit a couple weeks ago, but I admit, I was.
Trevor's back has broken out in more of them too, enough that he's been sleeping on his stomach. We made a special pillow for him so that he wouldn't wake up with a crick in his neck, but I wonder how much longer they'll be confined to just his back...
I need to find more Peepers that have this inhibitor. I think if we can find the source, we can fix everything. But I also think it's down in the depths, and we don't yet have the ability to explore beyond the Jellyshroom base.
I don't know what to do.