Transmission: Part 2

'May ... spon ... Please, someone respond.' In the background, just below the static, a popping sound gradually grows in intensity. At first Lee can't identify the sound. But as its source nears the communication station from which the message is being transmitted she recognizes the staccato din as something she has only recently become familiar with; gunfire.

"I repeat, to the vessel entering the P72 system, this is NASA Inc pre-colonial expedition force 19. We request immediate assistance."

They knew we were coming all along, Lee thinks. I wondered why they bothered to send an SOS in the first place since any assistance would have been light years away. Oh, Carl, why didn't you tell us? Could we have saved these people?

Another voice, this one gruff and commanding is heard on the recording. "Give it up Javier. That ship is at least a week out. Get your ass out of that chair and grab a weapon. We're not going to last another ten minutes, nonetheless ten days if we don't push these things back."

The recorder, Javier whimpers, "I'm a scientist, not a soldier, O'Conner. I've never fired a gun in my life."

"Why then you'd better learn," says O'Conner. "I've already lost ten good men protecting you civilians. I'll be damned if I'm going to die for someone who won't fight for his own life."

There is the sound of a door swishing open, then closed. A new voice joins the conversation, this one female. "Their coming through the outer lock," she says unconcerned. It is obvious from her demeanor that this new voice is that of a disciplined soldier.

"Obahg, good to see you still among the living. Sitrep?" O'Conner barks.

"Manly is KIA. Doctor Fleming was gored by one of those serpents while she was trying to stitch him up. Ports and Hills were on the perimeter the last time I saw them. I presume their dead as well since that position was over run. Haven't heard from them since. Have you?" There is a note of wish fullness in this last request that seems incongruous with Obahg's earlier stoicism.

"No," O'Conner says. Then as if to take the news of her friends' probable demise from her mind O'Conner quickly says, "Enemy distribution?"

Obahg laughs, "Legions, commander. All of hell's fallen angels are outside that door." When no laughter is rejoined, she says, "Serpents, trees, those tentacled dog things. At least that's what I saw before the outer lock closed.

Apparently satisfied with this answer O'Conner's voice turns to the distressed recorder. "I said get out of that chair and take this gun."

Javier is weeping audibly now, his voice breaking as he broadcast the futile SOS. "Help, please. Someone respond."

Suddenly, there is an explosion, the roar of which eclipses all other sounds in the recording. The detonation is so volatile its cacophony startles Lee, sending her cringing into her chair. Then an equally terrifying noise dominates the playback. It is the rush of decompression, life supporting air cascading from the ship or compound from which the message is being sent.

Immediately afterwards, the nerve fraying clangor of an emergency klaxon blares. The recorder abandons his plea for rescue. For a tense minute, only the gradually lessening whirl of escaping atmosphere can be heard. When the recorder finally comes back it is obvious he has donned an EVA. His voice has the metallic tone of an EVA's helmet intercom. Occasionally his hyperactive panting can be heard above the wail of the klaxon.

Gunfire and screams of defiance. The unmistakable high speed twirling of ribbon serpents and a sound like metal being ripped asunder issue from the speakers.

A woman screams. Her wails of agony are punctuated please for succor. "Oh God, help me! Mommy, oh mommy!"

"Fight damn you!" O'Conner bellows. "Take the safety off you fool."

Javier gives a rebel yell. The sound of gunfire crescendos. For several minutes the fusillade is all that can be heard. The sound of round after round slamming into flesh or ricocheting off bulk heads gradually diminishes until the only noise remaining is that of the alarm and the heaving breaths of the survivors.

"We're alive! We beat the bastards!" an incredulous Javier says.

A less enthusiastic O'Conner replies, "Obahg wasn't so lucky." Scraping metal, items falling. "Help me move this desk. We have to barricade this door or we won't be so fortunate when the next wave comes."

"But the radio is supported by the desk. We won't be able to hear if there's a reply," Javier all but whimpers.

"Get it through your thick skull. No one is coming to rescue us," O'Conner growls. Then in a softer tone, "At least for another week. If we want to make it that long, we should fall back to the inner chambers and fortify the compound. Hopefully life support isn't compromised further in."

"What if it is?"

"There are enough EVA suits on the Armstrong. We might be able to last a week or so if we ration the air tanks. To get to them, not only would we have to fight our way through that army of beasts, but I believe we'd have to cut through the hull since the ship is listing on its side. With this cursed atmosphere that would require cold cutting. A lengthy process. I don't know about you, but I prefer not to take that route."

"Okay, okay," Javier mutters. "I can do this. Might have to reroute power from the auxiliary generator and isolate flow from compromised compartments to maximize our life support."

"Sounds like a good idea professor. First give me a hand moving this heavy ass desk."

"I'm on it, " Javier says nervously. Scraping, the sound of a heavy item hitting the deck. The recording crackles as though the transmitter has been jarred and its setting slightly askew.

Men grunting. After thirty seconds of exertion there is a rumbling, like that of an enormous stomach turning over. The heaving breaths of the men as they stop to evaluate this new occurrence.

"What the fuck was that?" This from O'Conner. Is that fear in the soldier's voice?

"I don't know. An earthquake?" Javier sounds less than certain about this assertion.

Crunching, the grinding dissonance of metal collapsing. Things sliding across a deck, men screaming. A protracted, nauseous sound, as of something immense belching, vomiting, disgorging vile effluvium as well as gas.

"The ground. It's eating us!" A disbelieving Javier manages to say over O'Conner's hysterical cries.

"Eating..." Static. "Us."

Fate

For a time, Lee was silent. Johnson watched the astrobiologist while she thought about what she had just heard. He knew she'd still have reservations about the fate of Plethora Minor.

He'd be damned if he would let her sway his opinion with her 'all God's creations are sacred' view. As far as Johnson was concerned everything on that planet was evil incarnate. If he had his way, the entire planet would be cleansed by fire.

"This changes nothing, Bradley, "Lee said as expected. "Those were animals defending their territory. Nothing supernatural or exceptional about it. Because the animals on Plethora Minor do so in a concerted fashion is something to be studied and admired, not feared."

"You have lost your mind, Doc. You can't possibly believe you'll be able to convince anyone to make that planet a nature preserve. No one wants to go to a place where the grass is just as likely to kill you as its lion equivalent."

"Maybe your right. But that doesn't mean we have to exterminate that life. As far as we could tell there was nothing of use on PM. When NASA Inc. doesn't get a report from the precols they may decide it too costly to send another expedition."

"You're not thinking professor. There is plenty of reason to return."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oxygen. PM has an overabundance of the stuff. It may be toxic to us now, but in a decade, the partial pressure could be lowered to earth equivalent. You should know, your generation did it on Old Earth without even trying. Its far easier to reduce oxygen levels than it is to produce them. That makes Plethora Minor an excellent prospect for colonization. Once all your precious critters are gone, it won't be too hard to make PM livable. I'm guessing the shit hole could make an excellent military staging post. The barrier alone is incentive enough to go that route. It would be damn near impossible to get an armada through that mess."

"Or to get one out," Lee said with little conviction.

"Maybe not. I'm no strategist. Even if NASA Inc. doesn't see the merit in that plan, Plethora Minor is still prime real estate. Plenty of people would pay a fortune for the seclusion the barrier affords. I know quite a few eccentrics who would. Hell, I might spare a few credits towards that goal myself."

"Don't make this a personal quest, Bradley," Lee said.

"Why not? You have," Johnson retorted. "So you made a mistake a thousand years ago and now you want to make amends. This is not Old Earth. Those things down there are not your responsibility." The truth of the kid's observation stung. That didn't mean Lee wouldn't fight to preserve the planet's deadly life form's right to live.

"Who will make it their responsibility then? There may very well be an intelligence of a kind no one has dreamed of down there. You saw how the animals attacked the ship. It was as if they were guided towards a single purpose."

"Even more reason to nuke them all before said intelligence figures out how to go space born," Johnson said then fell into a fit of coughing. Lee could see his strength had waned during their discourse. She was so enraged at the kid's nonchalant dismissal of her proposition that she felt no sympathy at the sight of his diminishment.

"You're really ready to condemn countless species because of the deaths of a few people. What gives you the right?" Lee spat.

"Survival of the fittest. Isn't that the edict of Pope Darwin?" The kid's leer would have been feral if not for his sickly pallor. Lee's own expression was that of stone. Finally, the astrobiologist saw there was no persuading Bradley Johnson from his course of action. From the beginning, she had pegged him as a narcissistic youth. She'd seen more to him in their time together, but in the end, he was still the empty shell she had supposed him to be.

With Johnson's familial connections he could determine the direction NASA Inc. decided to make concerning the fate of Plethora Minor, and she was powerless to stop him. Despite his implications to the contrary, Janice Lee still considered herself a fugitive. Even if she were to reveal herself to the world as Ada Wong, the Mother of Monsters reborn, and was not immediately incarcerated or worse, it would only result in her being petitioned to continue work on perfecting Shiva. In time, such work might very well gain her enough influence to change the future of newly discovered worlds, but she had no illusion that Plethora Minor would be one of those spared.

"Don't look so glum, Doc" Johnson said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair when he noticed Lee's stoic gaze. "It's not as though anything is written in stone."

Lee might have taken this statement as a spark of hope if not for the fact that Johnson looked right through her as he said it. In her life's long crusade to spare life of any sort from the intrusion of mankind she had seen similar looks hundreds of times. It was one of dismissal.

"Neither of us is going to have the opportunity to present our case to the company if we don't make it back home" Johnson said. "Everything is ready up here. I plotted a course using the precol's satellite system as soon as I located their codes on Hawthorne's console. If they work as advertised it should be smooth sailing back to New Haven. The only thing left to do is climb into the sleepers so we can take our decade long siesta."

When Lee failed to react, Johnson fell back into the chair, a look of chagrin seeping through his earlier bravado. "You're not going to leave me here to fend for myself, are you?" Only now did the kid realize his helplessness without Lee's aide. "Look Janice, I'll consider your position. I've got ten years to sleep on it after all. Besides, whatever happens it will be up to the company."

Lee knew Johnson was lying. She'd been around him long enough to notice his deflections. The kid had made up his mind and there was no way to dissuade him. Even without the telltale quirks of gesture and speech, Janice knew there was something wrong. Bradley Johnson had addressed her by her adopted name for the first time since they'd met.

Johnson grinned and shrugged. "Truth be known, we were never supposed to be here in the first place. And you, mystery lady, aren't supposed to exist. I may just go home and tell pops I went on a twenty years' bender. He'll believe that before he takes my word that I traveled to an uncharted planet to hunt alien snakes. 'Oh, and by the way dad, I met Ada Wong, the Mother of Monsters, herself'."

Lee smiled back. "Your right of course. There will be plenty of time to discuss the topic when we get closer to home. We should get in the sleepers as soon as possible. "

"No time like the present, Doc," Johnson said, holding his arms out like a babe seeking the affection of its mother.

Wondering if her deceitful acceptance of Johnson's proposal was as equally transparent as his soothing placation had been, Lee stepped forward to pull the kid up and lower him on to the stretcher she had leaned against the console. Once Johnson was propped on the stretcher, Lee dutifully strapped the kid to it. Satisfied he was secured on the contraption, Lee asked, "Are you ready?" If he heard the finality of her tone, Johnson gave no indication.

"Mush!" He said.

Lee saw a hint of red sputum at the corner of the kid's lips. Johnson saw her examining his face and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The expression of disbelief that Johnson made when he saw the blood tinted saliva covering his knuckles was almost comical. It was the realization of one's own mortality. Lee faintly remembered seeing that same look on the kid's face in the dream she'd had of Caspian. The very dream in which Johnson had perished inside the gullet of an avalanche containing the vengeful parades of extinguished species. The dream in which she had turned her back on Johnson and humanity itself.

Mistaking the look of dismay on Lee's face as concern for his condition, Johnson said, "Maybe you should hurry, Doc. "

Lee took his cue and dragged the stretcher to the causeway. The descent down the spiraling staircase was quick and rough. This time Johnson did not intimate excitement. He barely withheld the whimpers of pain each jarring bump down the steps sent coursing through his fevered body.

When they reached the ready room at the bottom of the staircase Lee paused to catch her breath. A cursory look at Johnson told her everything she needed to know about his condition. Again, the kid was quick to notice her scrutiny.

"I'm getting worse, aren't I?"

Lee, feigning more exhaustion then she felt, did not answer Johnson's query. After an exaggerated inhalation, she adjusted her grip on the stretcher so that she could pull it without facing Johnson.

Lee started dragging the stretcher towards the crew quarter. They were passing the lockout room in which the tarp covered corpses of Barlow and Hawthorne lay rotting when Johnson asked nervously,

"You really think they will be able to treat me when we get back to New Haven?"

Lee plowed forward pass the galley and it's forgotten meals, pass the crew quarter in which Hawthorne had breathed his last.

"Doc?" a hint of hysteria crept into Johnson's voice, growing in intensity with every second the astrobiologist failed to acknowledge him. "Janice!?"

Now they were in the shower room where once upon a time Bradley Johnson had called Janice Lee milady in a parody of chivalry. Lee had come to believe that everything the man said or did was in jest. Could she entrust the future of an entire world to such a man?

Johnson began rocking in the stretcher, oblivious to the danger it posed to him should Lee drop him. "Talk to me, damn it!"

Lee stopped, but did not turn about to face Johnson. "In your studies of twenty first century films did you ever see the movie The War of Worlds?"

Taken off guard by the seemingly inconsequential question, Johnson stammered, "Of course, Spielberg made a version of it. It was one of the movies that drew me into the field of historical entertainment. What does that old flick have to do with anything?"

"Think about it. What ultimately led to the alien's defeat in that film?"

The kid did not hesitate replying, "The common cold. Germs. What are you saying?"

"At first I thought the infection you and Hawthorne contracted was from your interactions with the Plethorian wildlife. It seemed the most logical vector since Hawthorne was bitten and you were sprayed by the blood grass enzyme. Two very different methods of contagion, but still the most plausible ones. Now I'm convinced that the pathogen is something airborne. It could simply be something sent adrift like pollen in the wind, or it could be something endemic. Something universally present in the Plethorian atmosphere. We'll never know unless someone does a detailed analysis."

"If it's true the disease is airborne then you would have been infected too," Johnson said.

"I was infected."

Truly bewildered now, Johnson said, "But you haven't shown any symptoms. You haven't been sick."

"That's because I'm immune," Lee said.

"What?" a flabbergasted Johnson stammered.

Without further word Lee resumed her steadfast trek to the cryochamber. Nor did she speak again until she had propped Johnson and the stretcher against the plasteel cylinder of a sleeper. By then all the kid's questions and protestations had evaporated into solemn silence.

Lee didn't pretend at exhaustion, although pulling the hundred and seventy-pound man through the ship would have been enough to tax any woman, or man for that matter. The truth was she had never felt better. Shiva had seen to that. She spun around to face Johnson and wasn't surprised to see a tinge of trepidation pasted on his already stricken face.

"It's ironic. If my theory is correct, the only humans likely to make PM a home are the so-called monsters. My children, the Shivans."

"What are you going to do?" Bradley Johnson asked.

Lee couldn't help but laugh. Did she sound maniacal? If so, good. The kid needed scaring. A life of overindulgence had conditioned him into believing anything he wanted was within his grasp. A taste of the truth might force him to reevaluate that view.

"Don't worry. You don't honestly believe I would drag you all the way down here just to do you harm?"

The look on Johnson's face said he believed just that. As if to prove him wrong Lee popped the lid of the sleeper open. As she began unstrapping the kid from the stretcher Lee said, "You know, it's your fault the virus was activated. If I hadn't stopped to help you my own survival suit would never have been compromised. For centuries, I've kept myself clean, never venturing to places which might challenge the virus into changing me into something unrecognizable as human. All those years of caution were thrown away trying to save a kid too frightened to realize he was running headlong into the valley of death. When I first came to the realization Shiva had been activated in me I cursed you. But, now. Now I'm starting to believe that denying my own legacy was a mistake." Lee grinned mischievously and said in her best Bradley Johnson impersonation, "The edict of Pope Darwin and all."

She moved to pull Johnson into the sleeper, but he flinched away from her touch. A part of Janice was heartbroken by his apparent fear, while another seethed. It was just as she'd predicted. Any pretense of friendship they may have had, had vanished in lieu of her revelation.

Lee stood back up, hands on her hips. "I'm not like you, Bradley. I'm not so quick to kill anything that disagrees with me. That includes you."

"Really?" Johnson asked. "Because to be truthful your starting to scare me a bit."

Lee placed a somber expression on her face. "Really. Besides, if you think about it I need you alive. Assuming my theory about the atmosphere being laced with a deadly pathogen is correct, then you're the proof I need to convince the company to leave Plethora Minor alone."

Johnson visibly relaxed. "Okay, I trust you, Doc," he said. Lee leaned forward, grabbing Johnson by his armpits. She lifted him effortlessly, sitting him on the edge of the sleeper. For a moment, they were face to face.

Bradley Johnson looked for all the world like a boy under the weather, pouting and slouched on the hard edge of the cryosleeper, reminding Lee of the kid they had all come to refer him as. She wasn't fooled though. Johnson was a grown man, as responsible for his actions as she was for own. No matter how hard she tried to empathize with him she could not. Shiva hadn't altered her that much yet.

"Ready?" Lee asked. There was a coldness she had not intended in her voice.

"Always," Johnson replied with one of his mischievous grins.

Was he so imperceptive that he could not hear the resoluteness of her tone? Or did he truly trust her? She, Ada Wong, the mother of monsters, who had condemned her own race to a life of genetic anarchy and extinction. She, Janice Lee, the woman who cared more for the creatures of a savage planet than she did for her crew. Was such a woman deserving of trust?

"I knew you would try to get me naked one last time. " Johnson said, lifting his arms so that Lee could remove his shirt.

Caught up in the clutch of introspection, Lee had forgotten the cryosleepers required their occupant be nude to function properly.

"Right," Lee said, thankful for the distraction. She moved quickly to accommodate him, least Johnson see the conflict of conscious she was having or the grim determination etched into the sharp lines of her face. She had half of his shirt off when she heard him mumble through the cloth, "I'm sorry."

"What?" Lee asked pausing in her undressing of the young man.

"I'm sorry I've hurt you Janice. I'm not blind. I can see my opinion is causing you real pain. I'm a selfish fuck, always have been."

Lee barely suppressed a whimper of grief. He'd used her name again, but this time she was certain of his sincerity. Confused and no longer certain of the dread decision she'd resigned herself to, Lee finished removing Johnson's shirt.

"It's alright," she said, casting the garment aside. It was her time to flinch when Johnson reached out a hand to brush at her cheek. His hand came back wet, dampened by tears Lee hadn't known she'd shed.

"Really, it's alright," Janice said knowing that her voice betrayed her even as she spoke. Nothing was alright. She felt deep in her gut that even if Johnson was truly repentant now, it was only because of his empathy for her, and not because he truly believed in her cause. Ten years in cryosleep would weaken whatever bond they had, and Johnson would wake with the deaths of Borlov, Hawthorne, and the precols fresh in his mind. Lee had discovered over the course of thousand years of existence that grief and hatred were far longer lived incentives than love and understanding. Was she not a product of guilt and regret?

Beside the predictable foibles of human nature, Lee knew that men of power were more prone to disillusion than most. She had seen too many destroyers recant their litany of ruination, only to raise their apocalyptic heads once it became profitable. As much as she wanted to believe Johnson was an exception to this rule, she could not.

He looked up at her with those soft blue eyes. She'd told him that he was too young for her, that he was not the type of man she would fall for. Perhaps that was true now, but once upon a time it had not been. Once upon a time she had been a woman just like any other, in need of human of connection, desiring nothing more than the comfort of a man's touch and attention. But Shiva had changed more than her biology. It had elevated her concern for a much broader definition of family. What it had not eliminated was a mother's fierce need to protect her own. And no matter how hard she tried to bury the title and the horror it implied, Janice Lee was Ada Wong, the mother of monsters.

Lee locked eyes on Johnson's one last time. "Everything is as it should be," she said.

"Good," Johnson replied. His wet, soulful eyes regarded her with unyielding trust, like cattle being led to slaughter.

"Let's get this done then," Lee said. She completed disrobing the kid with clinical efficiency. Johnson was too weak to banter. If he suspected anything was amiss he gave into her ministrations with silent resignation. Lee lowered him into the cryosleeper slowly, with care and a strange relevance. Was not Bradley Johnson to be the unwitting Christ of Plethora Minor, being lowered into his crypt for the salvation of the beasts below?

Johnson smiled wanly up at Lee as the cylinder slowly began to fill with the nauseous lime green gelatinous preservative. The kid hadn't lain in the sleeper long enough for its cathartic persuasion to take hold of him, but Johnson was obviously close to unconsciousness when he muttered sleepily, "See you at...Haven."

A single tear escaped Lee's cheek to fall on the kid's chest. "Good night sweet prince," she whispered. After fitting the breathing regulator that would sustain Johnson until the freezing process was complete, Lee closed the cryosleeper's lid. It fell with finality off a coffin, a haunting reminder of the dream she'd had in that very sleeper.

'Nothing is written in stone,' Johnson had said, referring to his decision to condemn Plethora Minor. The same was true for her. With the flip of a switch Lee could send Bradley Johnson into a sleep from which he'd never awaken, or she could allow the cryosleeper to proceed its operation as normal and wake with him in ten years orbiting over New Haven, when and where they would continue their debate with the full authority of NASA Inc. overseeing the conclusion.

Once sealed the sleeper was quick to prepare Johnson for his decade long hibernation. The viscous gel filled the chamber, millions of microscopic tendrils swimming through it to attach themselves to Johnson's body. Alone, each tendril was invisible. But in their multitude, it appeared as if the man was being encased in a cocoon of silver threads. Each tendril was in fact a nanites tubule through which cryogenic fluid would flow, freezing specific tissues just above the temperature of crystallization.

It was the nanocathetors through which Lee could ensure Johnson's silence. A simple adjustment to the programming would allow organs to freeze beyond recovery. It wasn't uncommon for sleepers to malfunction in this manner, mostly because the cryosleepers were meant to be calibrated for their individual occupants. Lee was certain she could cover any evidence of tampering. Bradley Johnson's death would be slow, but in his comatose state he'd never know he was dying one ice crystal at a time.

Lee stood at the control console, hands gripping either side of the panel of buttons and switches which would determine Johnson's fate. She had no delusion. She would be murdering the kid if she went through with her plan. But Lee was equally certain that if she allowed Johnson to live, she would be implicit in the extinction of an entire biosphere. Which crime was the most heinous, she could not say.

Then a phrase came to mind, one she was sure Bradley Johnson would appreciate. "Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," she said aloud. Then Ada Wong, alias Janice Lee, the mother of monsters, pressed the button.