The crew continued to work in glum quiet as they awaited word on Ian. Tony checked in with Jessica regularly, concerned that she had been exposed to the bacteria and could also get sick. The ship’s dehumidifiers were cranked up, which made the air uncomfortably dry but would also be less hospitable to airborne bacteria. Crew members washed their hands repeatedly, and they scrubbed every surface in the lab with antimicrobial cleaning products.
Theresa sat with Mike in the empty galley, drinking coffee and commiserating over their sick friend.
“I don’t think Ian handled the stuff any more than we did. How is it that he’s sick and we’re not?” asked Theresa.
“I dunno,” said Mike quietly. “I keep wondering about the same thing. The bluefish contained the bacteria after the tube worm had rubbed itself on it. It transfers by contact and is absorbed through the skin. I can’t believe we’re not all sick by now.”
“Poor, Ian. He’s in bad shape . . .”
Mike leaned back and looked at Theresa—looked through her. “You think Ted would do it on purpose? Infect Ian as a little experiment?”
“Jesus Christ, Michael!” exclaimed Theresa.
“Yeah, my mother only called me Michael when she was pissed, too.”
“How could you even think that? I know you and Ian don’t like Ted, but that’s a far cry from intentionally infecting someone with a lethal virus! God!”
Mike shrugged. “Think what you want. I don’t trust him.” He could see Theresa was genuinely pissed and was surprised. “What’s with you? You his defense attorney?”
“You don’t want to know what I think,” she said, sounding cross.
“Sure I do,” he answered coolly.
“I think it’s petty macho bullshit because the guy’s brilliant. You and Ian have been jealous since day one that maybe someone on board might be smarter than you are, and you’ve been busting his balls every minute since you got here.”
“Hey, we went through this already. I made peace with the guy, and I tried to be nice. But by some coincidence, Ian wouldn’t make peace with him, and then wham—he gets infected with the same bacteria that Ted’s working on. Coincidence?”
Theresa stood up and placed her coffee gently on the table. She walked out without saying anything else. Mike shook his head. “We’ll see,” he said quietly, then headed up to sickbay to check on his friend.
***********
When Mike arrived at sickbay, the door was closed and locked. He knocked, but Jessica told him to stay out. She informed him that Ian was asleep and there was no change.
Mike walked up toward the bridge and ran into Tony.
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” asked Tony.
Mike shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I wanted to see Ian, but Jess’s got us locked out.”
“And what about her? She’s in there all day. I hope she’s gonna be okay,” said Tony quietly.
Mike nodded. “You two seem pretty tight,” he said.
Tony made an annoyed face at him.
“No, man, it’s cool. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s nice to have company down here. I kinda thought maybe I had some dial tone with Theresa, but shit, man, she’s so impressed with Ted, she doesn’t even see what’s going on.”
“And what’s going on?”
Mike looked around and made sure they were alone. He reiterated his theory to Tony. Tony took it all in quietly and shrugged. “I dunno, man. Let’s just say I don’t trust that cat a hundred percent, either.” He looked around and leaned closer. “And Skipper thinks maybe he put us on the smoker on purpose—keep that to yourself.”
“How?”
“He knows the computer better than anyone. Skipper says only three people could have done it, and I know it wasn’t me and Skipper knows it wasn’t him, know what I’m sayin’? Neither of us are buying this story about the smoker just popping up out of nowhere on the abyssal plain. Theresa said the worms had to be there for three years to reach that size. I think Ted put us here on purpose. You ever hear him talk about the bacteria?”
“Yeah—like it’s more important than anything else down here.”
“Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but I think he thinks so. And I think he’d do whatever he needed to do to conduct his research. He’s a space jockey, man, not a squid. He don’t give a shit about anything other than getting to Mars.”
“You think he infected Ian?”
Tony shrugged and screwed up his lips. “Yeah, man. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Ian’s really sick, man,” said Mike.
“Yeah, I know. Skipper may pull the plug on the whole mission. And I’m not even sure if that would help. It’ll take a few days to surface, and then what? We’d have to have a chopper come and try and airlift him? Nearest real hospital’s gotta be a couple of days away after that. We either fix him here, or I think he’s fucked, man.”
Mike shook his head. “You know, I had this bottle of scotch I was saving for the one-month anniversary. Fuck it. Let’s get a drink.”