"I got it, ma"am," Dahl said, smiling.
"Good," Collins said. "Because the last thing we need is another humorless p.r.i.c.k around here. You met Ca.s.saway and Mbeke, I see."
"Yes, ma"am," Dahl said.
"You"ve figured out that I"m your boss," she said, then motioned to the other crew member. "And this is Ben Trin, who is second in command of the lab." Trin came forward to shake Dahl"s hand. Dahl shook it. "And that"s all of us."
"Except for Jenkins," Mbeke said.
"Well, he won"t see Jenkins," Collins said.
"He might," Mbeke said.
"When was the last time you saw Jenkins?" Trin said to Mbeke.
"I thought I saw him once, but it turned out to be a yeti," Ca.s.saway said.
"Enough about Jenkins," Collins said.
"Who"s Jenkins?" Dahl asked.
"He"s doing an independent project," Collins said. "Very intensive. Forget it, you"ll never see him. Now..." She reached over to one of the tables in the lab, grabbed a tablet and fired it up. "You come to us with some very nice scores from the Academy, Mr. Dahl."
"Thank you, ma"am," Dahl said.
"Is Flaviu Antonescu still heading up the Xen.o.biology Department?" Collins asked.
"Yes, ma"am," Dahl said.
"Please stop appending "ma"am" to every sentence, Dahl, it sounds like you have a vocal tic."
Dahl smiled again. "All right," he said.
Collins nodded and looked back at the tablet. "I"m surprised Flaviu recommended you for the Intrepid."
"He refused at first," Dahl said, remembering the discussion with his Academy department head. "He wanted me to take a post at a research facility on Europa."
"Why didn"t you take it?" Collins asked.
"I wanted to see the universe, not be down a sixty-kilometer ice tunnel, looking at Europan microbes."
"You have something against Europan microbes?" Collins asked.
"I"m sure they"re very nice as microbes go," Dahl said. "They deserve someone who really wants to study them."
"You must have been pretty insistent to get Flaviu to change his mind," Collins said.
"My scores were high enough to get Commander Q"eeng"s attention," Dahl said. "And as luck would have it, a position opened up here."
"It wasn"t luck," Mbeke said.
"It was a Longranian Ice Shark," Ca.s.saway said.
"Which is the opposite of luck," Mbeke said.
"A what?" Dahl asked.
"The crew member you"re replacing was Sid Black," Trin said. "He was part of an away team to Longran Seven, which is an ice planet. While exploring an abandoned ice city, the away team was attacked by ice sharks. They carried Sid off. He wasn"t seen again."
"His leg was," Mbeke said. "The lower half, anyway."
"Quiet, Fiona," Collins said, irritated. She set down the tablet and looked back at Dahl. "You met Commander Q"eeng," she said.
"I did," Dahl said.
"Did he talk to you about away missions?" Collins asked.
"Yes," Dahl said. "He asked me if I was interested in them."
"What did you say?" Collins asked.
"I said I usually did lab work but I a.s.sumed I would partic.i.p.ate on away missions as well," Dahl said. "Why?"
"He"s on Q"eeng"s radar now," Trin said to Collins.
Dahl looked at Trin and back at Collins. "Is there something I"m missing here, ma"am?" he asked.
"No," Collins said, and glanced over at Trin. "I just prefer to have the option to indoctrinate my crew before Q"eeng gets his hands on them. That"s all."
"Is there some philosophical disagreement there?" Dahl asked.
"It"s not important," Collins said. "Don"t worry yourself about it. Now," she said. "First things first." She pointed over to the corner. "You get that workstation. Ben will issue you a work tablet and give you your orientation, and Jake and Fiona will catch you up on anything else you want to know. All you have to do is ask. Also, as the new guy you"re on coffee duty."
"I was already told about that," Dahl said.
"Good," Collins said. "Because I could use a cup right about now. Ben, get him set up."
"So, did you guys get asked about away teams?" Duvall asked, as she brought her mess tray to the table where Dahl and Hanson were already sitting.
"I did," Hanson said.
"So did I," Dahl said.
"Is it just me, or does everyone on this ship seem a little weird about them?" Duvall asked.
"Give me an example," Dahl said.
"I mean that within five minutes of getting to my new post I heard three different stories of crew buying the farm on an away mission. Death by falling rock. Death by toxic atmosphere. Death by pulse gun vaporization."
"Death by shuttle door malfunction," Hanson said.
"Death by ice shark," Dahl said.
"Death by what?" Duvall said, blinking. "What the h.e.l.l is an ice shark?"
"You got me," Dahl said. "I had no idea there was such a thing."
"Is it a shark made of ice?" Hanson asked. "Or a shark that lives in ice?"
"It wasn"t specified at the time," Dahl said, spearing a meat bit on his tray.
"I"m thinking you should have called bulls.h.i.t on the ice shark story," Duvall said.
"Even if the details are sketchy, it fits your larger point," Dahl said. "People here have away missions on the brain."
"It"s because someone always dies on them," Hanson said.
Duvall arched an eyebrow at this. "What makes you say that, Jimmy?"
"Well, we"re all replacing former crew members," Hanson said, and then pointed at Duvall. "What happened to the one you replaced. Transferred out?"
"No," Duvall said. "He was the death by vaporization one."
"And mine got sucked out of the shuttle," Hanson said. "And Andy"s got eaten by a shark. Maybe. You have to admit there"s something going on there. I bet if we tracked down Finn and Hester, they"d tell us the same thing."
"Speaking of which," Dahl said, and motioned with his fork. Hanson and Duvall looked to where he pointed to see Hester standing by the end of the mess line, tray in hand, staring glumly around the mess hall.
"He"s not the world"s most cheerful person, is he," Duvall said.
"Oh, he"s all right," Hanson said, and then called to Hester. Hester jumped slightly at his name, seemed to consider whether he should join the three of them, and then appeared to resign himself to it, walked over and sat down. He began to pick at his food.
"So," Duvall finally said, to Hester. "How"s your day?"
Hester shrugged and picked at his food some more, then finally grimaced and set down his fork. He looked around the table.
"What is it?" Duvall asked.
"Is it just me," Hester said, "or is everyone on this ship monumentally f.u.c.ked up about away missions?"
CHAPTER THREE.
Dahl was at his workstation, cla.s.sifying Theta Orionis XII spores, when Ben Trin"s work tablet pinged. Trin glanced at it, said "I"m going to get some coffee," and headed out the door.
What"s wrong with my coffee? Dahl wondered, as he went back to his work. In the week since his arrival on the Intrepid, Dahl had, as promised, been tasked with the role of coffee boy. This consisted of keeping the coffee pot in the storage room topped off and getting coffee for his lab mates whenever they rattled their mugs. They weren"t obnoxious about it-they got their own coffee more often than not-but they enjoyed exercising their coffee boy privileges from time to time.
This reminded Dahl that he needed to check on the status of the coffee pot. Ca.s.saway had been the last one to get a cup; Dahl looked up to ask him if it was time for him to start another pot.
He was alone in the lab.
"What the h.e.l.l?" Dahl said, to himself.
The outside door to the lab slid open and Q"eeng and Captain Abernathy stepped through.
Dahl stood and saluted. "Captain, Commander," he said.
Q"eeng looked around the laboratory. "Where are your crewmates, Ensign Dahl?" he said.
"Errands," Dahl said, after a second.
"He"ll do," Abernathy said, and strode forward purposefully toward Dahl. He held a small vial. "Do you know what this is?" he said.
A small vial, Dahl thought, but did not say. "A xen.o.biological sample," he said instead.
"Very good," Abernathy said, and handed it to him. "As you know, Ensign, we are currently above the planet Merovia, a planet rich with artistic wonders but whose people are superst.i.tiously opposed to medical practices of any sort." He paused, as if waiting for acknowledgment.
"Of course, sir," Dahl said, giving what he hoped was the expected prompt.
"Unfortunately, they are also in the throes of a global plague, which is decimating their population," Q"eeng said. "The Universal Union is concerned that the damage caused by the plague will collapse their entire civilization, throwing the planet into a new dark age from which it will never recover."
"The government of Merovia has refused all Universal Union medical help," Abernathy said. "So the Intrepid was secretly a.s.signed to collect samples of the plague and engineer a counter-bacterial which we could release into the wild, burning out the plague."
Counter-bacterial? Dahl thought. Don"t they mean a vaccine? But before he could ask for clarification, Q"eeng was speaking again.
"We sent a covert two-man away team to collect samples, but in doing so they became infected themselves," Q"eeng said. "The Merovian Plague has already claimed the life of Ensign Lee."
"d.a.m.n plague liquefied the flesh right off her bones," Abernathy said, grimly.
"The other Intrepid crew member infected is Lieutenant Kerensky," Q"eeng said. At this, both Abernathy and Q"eeng looked at Dahl intensely, as if to stress the sheer, abject horror of this Lieutenant Kerensky being infected.
"Oh, no," Dahl ventured. "Not Kerensky."
Abernathy nodded. "So you understand the importance of that little vial you have in your hands," he said. "Use it to find the counter-bacterial. If you can do it, you"ll save Kerensky."
"And the Merovians," Dahl said.
"Yes, them too," Abernathy said. "You have six hours."
Dahl blinked. "Six hours?"