The Trikon Deception

6 SEPTEMBER 1998 TRIKON STATION

“No, I will not leave the station,” said Fabio Bianco.

Dan Tighe grimaced. The old man hovered in the doorway of Dan’s office. Beyond his slim form Dan could see the relief crew from the newly docked Constellation at their stations in the command module. There was a lot of work to do, and Bianco was not making it any easier.

“Sir,” he said, keeping his voice even, “Trikon Station will need at least two months for repair and refurbishment. All the scientific work is stopped. Most of your scientists are demanding to go back to Earth.”

“I will remain here,” Bianco said.

“The shuttle Constellation will remain docked with us for eleven hours more,” Dan continued firmly. “You must be on it when it leaves.”

“It will do you no good to frown at me,” Bianco said, actually smiling as if amused with Dan. “It has taken me all my life to get here. I will not leave. Not now. Not ever.”

“As commander of…”

Bianco’s smile widened. “Oh yes, of course. As commandante of this station you can have me carried off and put into the Constellation. I assure you, that is what you will have to do to get rid of me.” The smile flicked off like an electric light. Bianco’s face hardened into an old man’s stubborn scowl. “And I assure you, Commander Tighe, that the instant I set foot on Earth once again, where I am no longer under your orders, I will fire you from Trikon. And then return here.”

Dan glowered, fuming. The old bastard means what he says, he realized.

Bianco turned on the smile again. “Commandante, I am a reasonable man. You be reasonable too.”

“But the work we have to do now…”

“I will not interfere with the repair work. Perhaps even the repair crews will work a little faster with me on board to peer over their shoulders, no?”

“You could be injured. We all were damned near killed.”

“Yes, and you saved us, Commander. It would be a pity to fire you after such heroism.” The smile made the old man’s eyes twinkle.

Dan had no response to that.

“Commander,” Bianco said kindly. “Dan—may I call you that?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Bene. Dan, look at me. You never knew me back on Earth, but observe me now.” Bianco gripped the sides of the doorway and drew himself up to his full height, almost.

“A week ago I was a tired, sick old man. I was dying on Earth. Now I feel strong, I feel almost healthy! I have not taken any medication since my first day here. Weightlessness agrees with me.”

Dan grudgingly admitted. “It certainly seems to.”

“It does. Ask your Dr. Renoir; she is astounded at how my blood pressure has gone down.”

“I know,” Dan said. “So has mine.”

“Do not send me back to Earth, Dan,” the old man said, his voice suddenly low, almost pleading. “Do not send me back to die. Let me live up here.”

Dan huffed out an exasperated sigh. “Now I know how you got to be Trikon’s CEO.”

Bianco beamed at him. “Mille grazie, commandante.”

The old man bobbed up and down in the doorway, happy and perky as a pup. Maybe he’s right, Dan said to himself. Maybe living in micro-gee will keep him healthy. Both of us. One thing’s for sure, he’d fire my ass in a hot second if I sent him back. No question about that.

Bianco had turned to leave the command module, but as Dan started to slide out of his office, the old man spun in midair.

“About Dr. Renoir,” he said to Dan.

“What about her?”

“Do you love her?”

Dan felt a jolt of electricity in his gut. He froze his emotions, clamped his jaw tight.

“Ah, you do, I can see it. Good. She is in love with you, very much. I think you two should get married.”

He sailed for the hatch to the connecting tunnel, leaving Dan hanging in midair. The crewmen at the command console grinned to one another, but carefully kept their commander from seeing it.

“I have failed you.”

Bianco looked into the dark, unfathomable eyes of Hisashi Oyamo. The Japanese biologist had asked for a private meeting before he left the station. The two men stood close enough almost to touch noses inside Bianco’s cramped sleep compartment. Bianco’s slippered feet were firmly tethered in floor loops. Oyamo hovered before him. Both men hung in the slightly crouched question-mark posture of microgravity.

“Failed me?” Bianco asked softly. “In what way?”

Oyamo took in a deep hissing breath, as if a knife wound was paining him. “I have not put the interests of Trikon International foremost in my work. I have thought as a Japanese rather than as a member of the human race at large, as you have wished us to do.”

“It is not merely my wish,” Bianco said, his voice low but firm as bedrock. “It is necessary. For the salvation of Japan. For the salvation of all.”

Oyamo bowed his head, eyes closed. “I have shamed myself.”

“No, no,” said Bianco. He was tempted to reach out and grasp the man’s shoulder, but refrained, not knowing how a Japanese would react to an Italian gesture of friendliness.

“The whale deaths showed me the truth of it. And then what has happened here on the station proved it. By seeking individual gain we have nearly destroyed everything.”

“It is not too late to change,” Bianco said. “Not too late to begin anew.”

Oyamo made no reply. His eyes remained shut.

“Will you be willing to return to this station once it is ready for operation again?”

His eyes snapped open. “You would want me to return?”

“If you can work for the good of all.”

Oyamo bowed deeply. “Yes! That is my deepest desire.”

“Your employers in Tokyo…”

“They could not refuse a direct request from your illustrious self?”

Bianco nodded gently. “Perhaps we truly can bring together a team of men and women who understand the realities of the world. Perhaps we can make a new beginning.”

“I would be honored to have your trust,” said Oyamo.

Bianco gazed deeply into his eyes once again and saw that they were no longer guarded, no longer unfathomable. Oyamo was begging for forgiveness, and a new chance to prove himself.

“You have my trust,” he said. And he clasped both Oyamo’s shoulders. The Japanese biologist radiated gratitude.

“It was among the pile of messages waiting for me when the comm blackout was lifted,” said Lorraine Renoir.

Thora Skillen fought down the wave of bewilderment, almost giddiness, that surged through her. When the doctor had called her to the infirmary she had thought it was to tell her the results of her tests the previous week. But Lorraine’s news was totally unexpected, shattering.

Keeping her voice as flat and unemotional as she could, she asked, “Human trials, you say.”

“Yes,” Lorraine replied, smiling happily. “Human trials.”

“With what success rate?”

“Better than eighty percent.” Dr. Renoir glanced at her desktop computer screen. “Eighty-two, to be precise.”

Skillen took a deep breath. So much had happened in the past few days. And now this. Her world was threatening to tumble topsy-turvy. Everything would be changed if…

“It’s real, Thora. The Tufts University School of Medicine is one of the most respected in the world.”

“It repairs the CFTR defect.”

“In eighty-two percent of the patients tried so far.” Another glance at the computer screen. “A total of forty-seven men, women, and children.”

Skillen heard someone giggle, and realized it was herself. Lorraine was smiling broadly at her.

“They can correct the cellular defect that causes cystic fibrosis,” the doctor repeated. “You can be cured, Thora.”

It was impossibly ironic. “Through genetic engineering.”

“Yes, healthy CFTR genes can be inserted into you to replace the defective ones that cause the disease.”

Skillen laughed out loud. It was so funny! Dr. Renoir’s expression went from happiness to amusement to troubled, doubting worry.

“Don’t be afraid,” Skillen said, struggling to control herself. “I’m not going to be hysterical. It’s just that…” She stopped. What could she say? How could she tell someone who was not a sister?

“I know,” Lorraine said kindly. “It’s rather overwhelming. It means an entire new life for you, doesn’t it?”

“More than you know,” Skillen said. “Much more than you know.”

She thanked Dr. Renoir and pushed out of the infirmary as quickly as she decently could. The irony of it! The wild, crazy, delicious mixed-up convoluted incongruity of it! A molecular geneticist dying of a genetic disease whose only thought for the past two years has been to punish the rest of the world finds out that other molecular geneticists have learned how to cure her.

Skillen laughed openly as she swam back toward The Bakery. Repair-crew personnel and technicians stared at her as she floated down the tunnel past them. She could not care less.

Here I’ve been telling myself that science and technology have been at fault, that it’s their fault I came down with cystic fibrosis, and all the while it’s my own scientific discipline that’s been working to save me. Wait till my sisters hear this!

Bianco was smiling happily as he pushed along the tunnel past ELM and The Bakery, heading for Hab 2. If Oyamo could see past his nationality and work for the ultimate good, then he had no doubt that a new team of scientists and technicians could be assembled that would grasp the necessity of cooperation rather than competition. We can learn from our mistakes, he told himself. We can do better next time.

Thora Skillen swam by him, heading in the opposite direction, beaming happily. A thread of memory tickled Bianco’s consciousness. But all he could remember was the sight of a waitress from a Venice cafe from fifty years ago. It must be the drug that was in the air, he thought. It is still playing tricks with my mind.

The lab modules he passed were chaotic messes of smashed equipment and spattered chemicals. The repair crews were working hard, but it would take time before Trikon Station was ready to function again. Bianco’s face hardened. His hands clenched into fists.

A Trikon security guard hovered in the corridor of Hab 2, looking slightly green around the gills. His first time in weightlessness, Bianco understood. I wonder if he would be worth anything if it came to a fight.

The guard made a curt nod of recognition as Bianco sailed past him. No matter, the old man thought. There is no fight left in Ramsanjawi, and Muncie is safely wrapped up in the Constellation.

He knocked once at Ramsanjawi’s door and slid it open. A little gasp of surprise puffed from his lips.

Ramsanjawi hovered up near the compartment’s ceiling, hands folded placidly over his middle, his laptop computer floating in front of him, tethered by a single bungee cord.

The Indian was in a royal-blue flight suit. His dark hair, neatly tucked into a mesh net, sparkled as if freshly washed. Gone were the kurta and the cloying perfume.

“So you were in disguise all along,” Bianco said. Pushing into the compartment, he added, “Or is this your disguise?”

Ramsanjawi pushed gently down to the floor. “I have said all that I intend to say, sir, until I have benefit of counsel.”

“Yes, I know. We will respect your rights as a British subject,” said Bianco.

“Of course. Not even Trikon Station is above the law.” A hint of a smirk twitched at the corners of Ramsanjawi’s fleshy face.

Bianco stared into his deep-brown eyes. He saw fear there: the inescapable fear of a man who knew that his fate was forever sealed.

“Before you recovered from the effects of the drug you put into the station’s air system…”

“Lethe,” said Ramsanjawi softly. “I created it myself, you know.”

“Yes.” Bianco nodded. “I have learned much about you in the past day and a half.”

The Indian looked almost pleased with himself.

“While you were still under the drug’s influence,” Bianco went on, “you loudly proclaimed that you were under the protection of Sir Derek Brock-Smythe.”

“Did I? How foolish.”

“You deny the truth of your own statement?”

“Certainly.”

Bianco rubbed his chin for a moment. “If anyone is above the law, it would be a personage as lofty as Sir Derek, would it not?”

“Perhaps.” Ramsanjawi tried to keep his face expressionless, and failed. Bianco saw contempt, anger, and the barest hint of hope there.

“However, I fail to see,” the Italian went on, “why a man of Sir Derek’s stature would want to involve himself in protecting you. He did not protect you when you were fired from Oxford, did he?”

Ramsanjawi’s nostrils flared angrily. “He could not make any money out of that fiasco.”

“But out of this fiasco… ?”

“He is a major owner of several companies that would profit enormously from a toxic-waste bioremediation microbe.”

“Ah. I see,” said Bianco.

“I have told you nothing that you could not find out from the newspapers,” Ramsanjawi said.

“I am not a legal expert,” said Bianco. “Nor am I a detective. But I will use the best lawyers and detectives on Earth to determine what role Sir Derek Brock-Smythe has played in the attempted destruction of Trikon Station. I promise you that.”

Ramsanjawi gave the old man a pitying smile. “What good would that do, except to satisfy your curiosity? Sir Derek will never leave enough evidence to bring him to court, let alone convict him.”

“I do not need a court of law,” Bianco said, his voice as thin and sharp as a stiletto.

Ramsanjawi blinked once, twice. Then he understood. And he had no reply.