Филип Керр - The Second Angel

For a moment Lenina thought Prevezer might go for Simou — but for the zero gravity, perhaps he would have.

‘Cut it out, you two,’ she said. ‘Or take it outside.’

‘Yeah,’ laughed Ronica. ‘Now that’s a bit of EVA [94] Extra-vehicular activity. I’d like to see. Couple of space suits trying to slug it out.’ She sprayed some eau de cologne over the heads of the two men. ‘There. That should sweeten the atmosphere between you boys.’

Still smiling prognathously, Simou pushed himself off a stowage hatch cover and floated away from Prevezer.

‘Three days of this,’ said Prevezer, ‘we’re all going to be climbing the walls.’

‘We are climbing the walls, asshole,’ said Simou. ‘In case you didn’t notice, it’s the only way to get around this tin can.’

The waste control system was the ship’s lavatory section. It wasn’t particularly private or very pleasant to use. With no gravity to draw feces into the bowl, a person had to assist the process with the aid of a finger inserted into a condom-shaped pocket that was itself inserted in the plastic seal attaching him to the seat. Cabin air was then used to direct the solid and liquid waste into a fan separator before being filtered and returned to the cabin. Urine, along with liquid from the humidity separator, was dumped in space every day. By space law, however, feces had to be captured in a tank because of the risk to other space travelers: At twenty-five thousand miles an hour, solid human waste can cause enormous amounts of damage to expensive equipment. When not in use the tank was vented to prevent odors and bacterial growth, and it was this function that had proved to be faulty.

The WCS was not easy to use, as Cavor himself had demonstrated, but there was actually nothing much to clean, and most of the mess related to disposable plastic seals and wetwipes improperly stowed. It was only when it was incorrectly used that a less seemly cleanup was required — hence, the tiny pieces of shit that were still floating around the cabin. Under the eyes of Dallas, Cavor bagged one and then posted it into the solid tank.

‘How are you doing?’ asked Dallas.

‘It’s a Zen thing,’ he said. ‘Ultimate truth discovered through self-mastery and perfection in the simple art of turd bagging. Damn it, there’s another.’ Cavor collected another plastic bag and pursued another tiny asteroid of floating shit. ‘I thought all of our food was supposed to be low residue.’

‘It is.’

‘In that case, I’m going on a diet. I don’t think I could stand to do this again.’ Cavor grimaced. ‘Come here, you little shit.’ He caught and bagged his quarry, dropped it through the disposal chute, and leaned back in the air. ‘Right now I’d settle for some enlightenment. Such as what the hell I’m doing here. You’re the only one who seems to know, Dallas, only you’re not telling. Which makes me feel like a sacrificial victim. Like some poor sucker who’s going to get his throat cut at the end of the journey and who’s the only one who doesn’t know it.’

‘After myself, you’re the most important member of this whole team, Cav,’ said Dallas.

‘Me? You’re just saying that.’

‘No.’

‘But why?’

‘I can’t tell you yet. You’ll just have to take my word for it. We can’t hope to pull this off without you.’

‘Nor without you, Dallas. Only you know all the answers.’

‘I know all the questions. That’s hardly the same thing. We’ll find out if I can answer them when we carry out the plan in virtual reality at TB.’

‘Presumably you have a good reason for not taking anyone into your confidence.’

‘It’s for your protection and mine,’ insisted Dallas. ‘Plus, it helps me to keep control over what’s happening. Until the critical moment when I have no alternative but to reveal my hand. And yours. Between now and then, I want you to do something for me. No questions asked. Will you do that?’

‘I haven’t got much of a choice.’

Dallas handed Cavor a packet of blood-colored pills. ‘I want you to start taking two of these, five times a day, from now on.’

‘What are they?’

‘Remember, no questions? If anyone should ask you, they’re something the doctors prescribed back on Earth. But whatever medication you’re already taking, you’ll have to stop. In case there’s some kind of adverse reaction.’

‘Very considerate of you.’ Cavor examined the packet. There was nothing printed on it. Not that he expected there would be. Dallas was too clever to have made such a simple mistake.

‘They might make you feel a little strange at first,’ advised Dallas. ‘If so, I want you to tell me immediately. Every detail. And only me. Don’t talk about this with anyone else. This is our secret, understand?’

‘Of course. I may have only one arm, but there’s nothing wrong with my brain.’

‘That’s what I’m counting on. You see, Cav, it’s your brain I’m really interested in. You know it’s a stroke of pure luck that Gates should have found someone as reasonably intelligent as you.’

‘That’s reasonably kind of you to say so, Dallas,’ smiled Cavor. ‘So the false arm...?’

‘The prosthetic’s not important. But it wouldn’t do any harm to let everyone else continue under the delusion that it’s why you’re here. Otherwise you can forget about your false arm, Cav. As far as I’m concerned it might as well not be there.’

Cavor nodded and glanced at the packet of red capsules once more.

‘When those are finished, I’ll give you some more.’

‘Whatever you say, doc.’ Cavor rubbed his stomach and glanced uncomfortably at the WCS. ‘Hey, I don’t suppose you’ve got anything for an upset stomach, have you?’

The physicists have informed us that entropy is the natural state of the universe. Given enough time, they say, everything will fall apart. Suns will cool. Planets will die. Stars will collapse in upon themselves, and the whole universe will disintegrate. All this is certain, if a long way off. in our everyday world, however, there are two antientropic phenomena that build order out of chaos. These are crystallization and life. Life is not a closed system. It can import energy from outside — for example, the way plants capture energy from sunlight. And life itself exists not just within molecules, but between molecules. All living organisms must die, but there is no reason why life — all animal life — can’t begin anew to actuate the same body many times over before death eventually arrives. No reason at all, not least because it happens. Metabolism may cease, life may be suspended, indeed it may be seemingly destroyed and yet, hidden, life may persist.

Impossible, you say? When metabolism ceases, death ensues. And yet consider the strange phenomenon of cryptobiosis, meaning ‘hidden life,’ which describes a natural form of suspended animation possessed by dozens of multicellular species that can be found, millions of them, in the most hostile environments on Earth — everywhere from the Sahara Desert to the Arctic tundra. These animals include aquatic-dwelling rotifers, insectlike tardigrades, and wormlike nematodes. When environmental coziditions require it, these little creatures — smaller than a millimeter — dry up and shrink into tiny seedlike husks, not eating, not breathing, not moving, and to all apparent evidence, not living. In this strange cryptobiotic state they can survive for years on end until, with the return of moisture — water is the catalyst for a great many chemical reactions, most importantly, life itself — they revive. Moreover, these animals can withstand extremes of temperature — thousands of degrees of heat, freezing cold vacuums, even ionizing radiation — that would easily kill them in their active, hydrated state. These seemingly immortal protozoans may go into and out of the cryptobiotic state numerous times. One tardigrade was revived after two hundred years, while a rotifer at the University of California at Berkeley has been resurrected over fifty times.