Instincts
Missing Moment to “Alpha Child”
Helena Russell sat at her desk, the files on Sue Crawford and her son Jackie open on the computer screen before her. She had been reviewing the results of all the tests she’d ordered run on both of them following Rena’s and Jarak’s deaths. She was uneasy, first with the fact the aliens had used the bodies of mother and child to their own purposes, and second with what kind of residual or long term effects that use might have on each of them. Helena was particularly concerned about the baby, Jackie. None of what she had witnessed was normal, none of what had happened to him could be explained in any logical way she understood. The infant’s entire body had been subjected to rapid and massive cell growth, with no source of sustaining nourishment. Yet somehow his body had been able to accommodate the changes that were forced upon it. Helena was the first to admit the human body was an amazing and resilient organism, but basic human metabolism and physiology could not be ignored or forced to change without consequences. She was afraid to even consider what kind of consequences that infant might have to learn to live with due to the alien’s desperate wish to escape his own fate, and his complete disregard for other forms of life. She knew nothing about Jarak’s people, about how they propagated their species, but certainly there must have been some basic instinct to protect their young, and from that some kind of... compassion for the young of other species. She had seen none of that in Jarak, as evidenced by his selfish and ruthless abuse of an innocent and helpless newborn.
Helena shook her head. She was assigning human characteristics to aliens that had only looked human because they had appropriated human bodies. She had no idea what their true appearance might have been, and had no hope of guessing at what their acceptable codes of behavior might have been. She took a deep breath and shook her head once again as she re-focused on the test results waiting for her scrutiny on the computer screen. She would never know, and really didn’t care, so long as the Alphans were left alone to survive as best they could in a universe that sometimes seemed out to get them.
Over an hour later, a soft rapping on her office door drew Helena away from her thoughts and back to the surroundings of her office. She blinked, suddenly aware she had been staring at without seeing the computer screen for a good long while. The text had long since been replaced by the screen saver that morphed the Moonbase Alpha logo into distorted shapes, only to reform in its normal shape in a different location on the screen. She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath, touched the mouse to bring the text back, and looked up toward the door.
“Yes?”
The door slid open and Bob Mathias stuck his head inside. Helena gave him a weak smile and leaned back in her chair. The physician entered her office and stopped by the side of her desk. He glanced at the computer screen, then met Helena’s worried eyes.
“You’ve had a chance to look at the tests results?”
“Yes, and I wish I knew what to make of them. Everything appears to be fine, the numbers are all within acceptable norms, nothing is out of balance, and yet... something is wrong. It is less pronounced in Sue, probably because she is an adult and has more... resilience, was put through less rigorous changes, but in the baby... What do you see here, Bob?”
“The same thing you do Helena. Everything appears to be as it should be and yet... something is off. There is no hard, scientific evidence to support it and yet... all my instincts as a physician tell me not to trust those results. They are accurately reporting what we are able to see and measure, but there is something behind all those numbers and readings that is... off.”
“And how do we find the evidence we need, Bob? How can we test for something we don’t know? How do we find traces of a residual ‘something’ when we don’t know what to look for?”
“Are you thinking we should keep this information to ourselves for now?”
Helena shook her head as she combed her fingers through her hair, then sighed heavily and placed her head in her hands as she leaned her elbows on the top of the desk.
“No, I’m not, and yet, what can we share? As you said, everything looks just fine and all we have is some gut instinct with no facts to back us up.”
“Surely, with both of us feeling it?”
“But are we really feeling it, Bob, or do we think we feel it because logically, we know that what happened to Jackie should have killed him? All our training and instincts as physicians tell us that what happened shouldn’t have been possible. Are we unconsciously looking for problems because what happened is so outside our realm of experience and understanding that we want - need - something to blame so that when we do figure it out, we can cite it as something we could not have ever anticipated, something we have never before experienced and therefore could not be expected to understand?”
Mathias moved around the end of the desk so he could look at the computer screen and the test results displayed on it. He slowly shook his head and looked back at Helena.
“I do not think I am imagining this feeling in my gut, Helena. I do not think we are both imagining an indefinable but nevertheless potentially dangerous ‘something’ that is not right about all of this.”
Helena pushed her chair back and stood, walking away from the desk. She took a deep breath as she tried to put sense to that which was making no sense. She turned back to face Mathias, her fingers rubbing against her thumb in a nervous gesture. She studied the man before her, relying on her knowledge of his achievements, his strengths, and her instincts about him as a physician. Finally she shook her head.
“No, I don’t think we are either. If it were just one of us, alone, perhaps, but for both of us to be feeling something isn’t right...”
Helena glanced at the clock, realizing what time it was. She sighed heavily and rubbed a tense shoulder muscle.
“We’ve both been on duty far too long, Bob. Let’s leave it for now. I’ll order a new series of tests and scans to be done in the morning, and we can look at the results again, separately, after we’ve both had some rest. Then we can begin to compare notes, and try to define what our instincts are telling us.”
Mathias glanced at the computer screen once more, and nodded his agreement.
“Good night, Doctor.”
Helena smiled.
“Good night, Doctor.”
Mathias left her office and Helena returned to her desk long enough to close the files and tidy up her desk, then she too left her office. She stopped long enough to have one last look at mother and child, then retreated to the solitude and quite of her quarters and a good night’s sleep.
Once again Helena sat in front of her computer screen, studying the most recent tests results on Sue and Jackie Crawford. They were not much different from the first set and she was no closer to understanding why she felt something was off than she had been the day before. Sighing deeply, Helena sat back in her chair and just looked at the screen, as if hoping whatever she was searching for might suddenly leap out at her. It didn’t of course, and she gently shook her head, then blinked when her commlock sounded. Leaning forward, Helena activated the devise and found Bob Mathias’ image on the tiny screen.
“Yes, Bob?”
“I had a thought about our concerns, Helena.”
“I’m in my office.”
He nodded once, broke the connection, and a few moments later, her door buzzed and Helena admitted her fellow physician into her office. As he had the day before, Bob crossed to stand behind Helena’s desk chair so he too could look at the test results that were displayed on the screen. He was quiet, apparently studying the information displayed on the monitor, then he raised his gaze from the screen and looked across the width of the office, focusing on the far wall.
“Helena, is it possible the problem is not with the patients, but with the physicians?”
Helena Russell frowned for a moment, then slowly began to understand what Mathias might mean. Both she and Mathias had been exposed to Jarak’s abilities and powers in a way the rest of the base had not. Jarak had singled her out and used his abilities, his mental controls to force her to tell him information she’d not wanted to share, to force her to nearly kill Mathias in order so she would tell. She pulled in a deep breath as Mathias blinked, then shifted his gaze so their eyes met.
“Do you mean we might be... tapping into some residual effect of Jarak’s individual control of us?”
“Something like that. While it is true everyone on the base was subjected to his powers, you, and I to a lesser degree, experienced them on a more... direct, personal level.”
Helena looked away quickly, not wanting to remember the sensations, the terror and anger she’d felt as Jarak forced her hands up to Bob’s neck, her fingers squeezing, slowly choking him until she told what Jarak wanted to know. She felt Mathias’ hand on her shoulder and knew he held no grudges. Slowly Helena looked back at the computer monitor and shook her head.
“That might be an easy explanation, Bob, but I don’t think it can explain the... intensity of what I am feeling. Something is wrong, something we are not seeing because we don’t know what to look for.”
Mathias sighed and slowly nodded his agreement.
“Then what are we to do?”
“Follow our instincts, Bob.”
“To what end?”
“Making certain that child has as normal a life as possible here on Alpha, making certain he is healthy and happy and loved. Jackie may be the only child this base ever sees...”
“And what we are feeling concerning his present condition?”
Helena shook her head. She was a research scientist as well as a physician. The mysterious and unknown were challenges to be explored, discovered and understood, but she would be lying to herself if she did not admit her concerns for the newborn were clouding her normally clear and rational thinking.
“We watch him closely and hope our instincts are dead wrong this time.”
“I don’t think they are, Helena.”
“Neither do I, Bob, but I’m not willing to alarm Sue over something we can’t define or identify. I don’t want the rest of the people on the base to be watching Jackie with a wary eye, just waiting for something ‘odd’ or different about him to manifest itself. We both know sometimes there are no definite, clear cut answers.”
Bob sighed heavily and nodded his agreement as he walked away from Helena’s desk and eased down into a nearby chair.
“That is never an easy situation to accept, Helena, and it is even worse because it is a child we are concerned about.”
“I know...”
“Do you ever think it might have been better if there were indeed no survivors, as Earth believed right after Breakaway?”
Helena looked up and studied Mathias carefully. He met her gaze levelly and openly. Slowly Helena shook her head as she formed her answer.
“Easier, more final, more definitive perhaps, but better? No.”
Mathias watched Helena for a long moment, then nodded his agreement as he stood and headed toward the office door.
“Sue has been asking when she and Jackie can go home.”
Helena smiled and glanced back at the computer screen.
“Tell her if the next set of tests and scans look the same as these, tomorrow afternoon.”
Bob understood what Helena meant and nodded his agreement. He left and Helena turned back to study the information displayed on the monitor. She did not think her instincts, or Bob’s, were wrong about Jackie, and while there was nothing she could do now, she was not about to stop looking, stop trying to define what she knew was there but could not identify. She had to trust her instincts... there was nothing else to be done.
Much to Helena’s sadness, her instincts and those of Bob Mathias were proven correct several months later when it became apparent Jackie Crawford was not the healthy, normal child they’d all hoped for. His symptoms were very similar to those a child who had not received an adequate supply of oxygen to the brain during birth began to display as he grew older and his development did not match the norm. Helena knew the birth itself was not to blame: nothing had gone wrong, there were no complications, Jackie’s safety and health had never been in jeopardy, there had never been a question of his not receiving enough oxygen...
Further tests revealed Helena’s first instinct, her first fears were well grounded. Jackie’s special needs were the result of Jarak forcing the child’s body to endure such rapid growth in such a short time with no sustaining source of adequate nourishment. Helena hoped, with careful attention to Jackie’s nutritional needs, some of the damage might be reversed over time, but not completely. Jackie Crawford would always be a child of special needs. Helena could take no comfort or pride in the fact her instincts had been right.
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Amanda Russell
February 10, 2003