Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,69
her burning throat.
“Water-grubber,” she murmured to herself. Talking hurt, so she made a mental note to stop. It was time for a ration bar. Jessamyn found herself holding it unopened in her hand, certain it would hurt to swallow. Shoving it in a pocket, she decided she’d think about eating later. It was the sort of thing she’d seen her brother do dozens of times. She could do worse than grow up to be like him, she reasoned. Well, minus the part where he got captured by Terrans and re-bodied.
Making her way to the bridge, she went through the routine of verifying her heading. Everything checked out nominally, and after a boring hour at the helm, Jess decided to pay an extended visit to the ob-deck. Perhaps she’d do a bit of napping as well. She felt so lethargic, even with what had been a very good night’s rest behind her. A nap in the ob-deck sounded idyllic right now.
She opened the seal-door. The room’s lighting, normally dimmed for better viewing, glowed warmly on its “orchid” setting.
“I suppose you think you need that light,” she rasped to the plant. The pain in her throat reminded her of her intention to avoid speech, and she thought the rest of her words.
Well, I’m sorry, but I’m turning the light off anyway.
Feeling ridiculous for sending thoughts to Crusty’s plant, Jess was just about to settle for her nap when she saw the nasty blackened patch had grown, spreading across one entire leaf. Or petal. Or whatever they were called. Moving closer and squatting before the plant, Jess twisted the watering bowl to examine the far side. Nothing bad over there, at least. But in twisting the bowl, she disturbed the slimy growth between the watering bowl and the pot.
She pulled back. It had moved on from green and ugly. Now it was brown and nasty.
And that was when Jessamyn recalled the thoughts that had passed through her mind as she’d fallen to sleep. Air filtration. Her sore throat. The slime on the plant.
“Oh, no,” she murmured. What was it Crusty had said about the filter? That he’d had to order a new one? Jess couldn’t remember him telling her that he had installed the new one, only that he was waiting for it. When had that been? Dread filled her belly.
“Oh no,” she repeated.
It had been the night she’d slept in his tool locker. The night she’d discovered Cavanaugh’s treachery. The night that had folded into the day she launched alone.
Crusty had not replaced the air filter.
She rose and dashed back to the bridge, seating herself at the mechanic’s station. Her lungs tickled from the effort of running and she coughed. She glanced through the information the ops panel returned on air filtration.
“Oh, Hades,” she whispered.
It looked bad. The air filter showed significant contamination in five places. She asked the computer for a recommendation and received instructions for an antiseptic flush, which she quickly initiated. The monitor before her began counting down from four hours, informing her that the flush would be completed within that time.
She wondered how many of these antiseptic flushings the ship could perform. Enough for seven more days of travel? She coughed again and it occurred to her that she’d been coughing a lot during her stints on the bridge. Could the air quality on the bridge be worse than in other parts of the ship? Crusty would know how to ask the ship where air quality was suffering right now. Jess made a few frustrating attempts to access this information, but she didn’t know the right sort of question and the answers the ship’s computer returned were either baffling or useless. “I’m a pilot,” she growled. “How am I supposed to make sense of any of this?”
Storming off the bridge, Jess began to explore each room on the ship’s habitation level, looking for evidence of microbial overgrowth. Once she started looking, she found things everywhere. Sometimes what she thought she saw turned out to be a shadow or an imperfection in the paint. But she also discovered seven varieties of oozing, sponging, and flaking growths. Some rooms fared better than others. The microbes displayed a preference for darkened corners. The bridge, her last stop, was worst-off of all.
While she waited for the antiseptic wash to complete, Jess scanned through a handful of articles on the subject of microbial overgrowth in deep-space vessels. None of it was encouraging. Some of it was frightening. Not only did the little creepy-crawlies