Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Doctor Barnes

Alex wasn’t thrilled about having to follow Doctor Barnes back to his office, and he wondered what about his file was so important that he had to come right away. The two men walked along the outer compartment of the O’Neill cylinder, one of two rings that defined the colony ship Racine. It was these rings that spun around the ship, providing the artificial gravity for the colonists on their trip to Vesta.

“Come in please,” said Barnes as he showed Alex inside. He gestured for Alex to take a seat, which he did on a chair that much too small for him. It was something that Barnes immediately picked up on.

“Sorry about the chair,” said the doctor as he grinned. “I’m afraid they didn’t expect a man of your size when they created this ship. Your file tells me you’re 198 cm tall and 100 kg in weight. I don’t often see men of that size anymore.”

“I’ve been this way my whole life,” replied Alex, trying to get comfortable in the too-small chair. “Always been big, which was ironic because my mother was so small. I became taller than her when I was eight, I think.”

“What about your father?”

Alex shook his head. “He was average height. I didn’t know him much. He died when I was four.”

Barnes looked off to the corner of the room and nodded. “No other relatives that were tall like you then? Or built the same way?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Interesting.”

“Why interesting?”

Barnes didn’t answer the question. He was too busy writing a note on his pad before he moved on.

“I see here you were married at one time, correct?”

The question was more painful than Alex expected. “At one time.”

“So you’re divorced then?”

“No.”

“Care to explain that?”

“No.”

It was a part of Alex’s past that he didn’t want to talk about with someone he barely knew, and Barnes didn’t seem to take it personally.

“I was looking at your file in regards to your previous injuries. I pulled this report from the medical center on Orbital Ring Section 34.8, where you were stationed as part of the Bastards Battalion under Baron Marcus Gatton.” Barnes gestured to his screen, where the report was soon illuminated, alongside several scans that Alex hadn’t seen in almost a year.

“You were wounded grievously in the last fight,” noted Barnes, pointing to the fracture in his leg as well as his broken back. “What was it that broke your back?”

“Part of the roof fell on me,” replied Alex. “Knocked me out cold.”

“You’re lucky to be alive. That would have killed most people.”

Alex shrugged. “There’s little about my life that I would consider lucky after that happened. You can say my life fell to shit after that last fight.”

Barnes tapped his pen against the table, a habit that was starting to grate on Alex’s nerves. For the next five minutes, he continued to ask a series of questions that pertained to Alex’s life, never once commenting on anything else beyond the occasional “Interesting.”

Alex wasn’t a fan of this persistent questioning, and it was that irritation that spurred the next question.

“Is this just about asking me about my past or did you have a reason to call me here?”

Barnes nodded his head for several moments before he replied. “There’s something I want you to see, something that showed up on your scan when you entered the Vesta program. How it wasn’t noticed then is beyond me. The doctor who gave you your physical must have been young with an untrained eye. But it certainly got my attention.”

Barnes made a few clicks until the screen in front of them changed. Suddenly, Alex was looking at a scan of a human skull, showing the brain inside. His name in the upper right hand corner left no doubt just whose skull it was.

Barnes moved closer to the screen and used his pen to point out an area near the front. “See this area right here? This is the frontal lobe. Well, it’s your frontal lobe. Do you notice anything unusual about this spot right here?”

Alex squinted his eyes to see but to him, there was nothing remarkable about the spot.

“Nope.”

Barnes winced and started tapping with his pen again. “There’s a spot right here with extra tissue. At first, I thought it might have been a tumor so I investigated to see if there was anything cancerous about it. And what I found shocked me.”

Barnes clicked the next screen, showing a much-enlarged picture of the spot.

“It’s not a tumor, Alex. In fact, it’s not even supposed to be there in the first place. Whatever it is, it’s foreign to your body. Quite frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

At this point, Alex studied the picture more closely. “Is it dangerous? Could it be cancer? Something that just manifested in an unusual way?”

“Nothing that I’ve ever seen,” replied Barnes. “And I’ve been doing this for nearly thirty years. I’m baffled honestly. To make things even more interesting, it’s drawing blood so it’s doing some kind of function, but what that might be, I have no idea. And it gets even better.”

Barnes made a few more clicks until he stopped on a genome report, another standard test that was run as part of the program. It was mostly to ensure that the colonists were healthy and wouldn’t be prone to any unexpected diseases that would be harder to treat on a remote colony like Vesta.

“Now this is even more interesting,” said Barnes as he highlighted one gene in particular and expanded it. Alex watched as the screen was filled with data analysis, all containing words that were too big to even attempt to pronounce.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” said Alex.

“This is a very unique gene,” said Barnes. “In fact, it’s part of several unique genes that you share that no one else seems to possess as well.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “No one?”

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Barnes shook his head. “No one still alive to put it that way. This gene was associated with ancient humans—a genus of homo sapiens that died out thousands of years ago.”

“What are you saying? That I’m some kind of Neanderthal?” asked Alex, chuckling at the absurdity.

Barnes didn’t find it nearly as funny. “Perhaps. Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like it, but then again, I’m no expert in this field. I’m capable enough to recognize that someone needs to take a look at it though. I’m quite certain that the scientific community would be very interested in knowing why you have ancient DNA when no one else does. So you can see the reasoning behind my questions about your family.”

Alex didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know where to start. “Is this a bad thing? Do I have anything to worry about?”

Barnes simply shrugged. “I don’t know, Alex. Although I could see a scenario where you don’t get off the Racine with the other colonists. You might be heading back to Earth once this breaks. It’s too early to tell.”

Barnes switched off his screen and looked at Alex. “I’ll be composing a report to send back to Earth so I can get more instruction. We’ll be lucky if it arrives back before we arrive at Vesta but we’ll do the best that we can. Once I get new information, I’ll come find you. I have to ask though before I let you go—is there anything else you want to tell me? Anything that might explain why this is inside you? About your brain or your DNA?”

Alex opened his hands, not sure about what to say. “It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you. No one has ever brought this to my attention before.”

Barnes’ eyes narrowed, like he didn’t believe what Alex was saying. “It’s hard for me to believe that this never came up on any previous health scans. Your file tells me that you’re thirty-seven. No other doctors ever brought this up to you?”

“No,” replied Alex.

“Very curious,” said Barnes, taking a moment to study Alex quietly. It made Alex feel profoundly uncomfortable especially considering the fact that he felt like a science experiment.

Finally, Barnes relented and moved closer to the door. “I’ll follow up with you when I know more. And if you remember anything that you think might be helpful, you know where to find me.”

*****

The walk back to Alex’s cabin was both quiet and lively at the same time. It was lively for the other colonists of the ship as they moved about, all of them taking time to learn their modules and attend their meetings in preparation for landing on Vesta. They were more animated than usual, mostly since all of them had only woken up from a deep sleep just a few days ago—part of the process for long space travel.

Since it would take a year to reach Vesta from Earth, the colonists were put into a cyro-sleep chamber in order to pass the time, only to be awakened once they neared the colony. And since they were almost here, there was a significant buzz around the ship about finally arriving at the first planet outside of Earth for many of them.

Alex was quiet on the way back to his cabin though, mostly as he tried to digest the findings of Doctor Barnes while still thinking about Serrano’s offer from earlier. He was certain he was going to reject Serrano but it didn’t make any sense to make an enemy of someone so powerful. He just hoped to turn him down in a way that didn’t make him a target.

But what was the best way to do that?

*****

Later on that evening, Alex left his cabin in order to find the mess hall for dinner. He’d spent more time attached to his VR headset, hearing all about the colony of Vesta, which included a history lesson about the founder of the colony, Starfinder Allen Vesta, as well as information about living there.

The only bad thing was that Alex was worn out hearing about Vesta. He was tired of watching the training modules and ready to get on the ground. He was also looking forward to the next orientation, which was slated for after dinner.

When he arrived at the mess hall, he saw he was one of the last to arrive. The room was already full of men, all of them digging into their meal.

There was a reason it was only men in this section of the ship. The women colonists—who were few and far between—were assigned to another section until the companion lottery was due to take place. For that reason, they would be kept in their same-sex sections until that got underway.

Alex found Rick seated at a table by himself where he was idly scrolling through the comm screen on the surface. He’d pulled up a news channel about the happenings on Earth, and Alex wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that nothing seemed to have changed since they left.

“There you are, Alex,” said Rick, gesturing for him to sit down quickly. “We have to talk. Did you hear the news?”

Alex shook his head. “What news? Something going on back on Earth?”

Rick managed to look alarmed. “No, something here on the ship. Someone was just discovered to be dead in their cabin less than an hour ago. Word is going around like wildfire right now. And do you know who it was?”

“Who?”

Rick lowered his voice. “Truman. The big guy. Remember what Serrano said?”

Alex remembered. He also remembered that Serrano said that Truman turned him down his offer as well.

So that was how it was going to be then, was it? If he was going to turn down Serrano, he was going to have to watch his back.

It was like the Orbital Wars all over again.

“What should we do?” asked Rick. “Should we talk to Serrano? Should we go along with whatever he has planned?”

Alex didn’t answer the question directly. He turned his head, searching for Serrano. He found him at a table of other less-than-respectable men. They all seemed quite pleased with themselves, and none more so than Serrano.

At one point, Serrano noticed that Alex was watching him. The man sneered and then pointed his finger at him, as if to imply that he was next.

That was the last straw for Alex.

“Fuck that,” he growled to Rick. “I’d rather watch my back than work with a man like that.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” said Rick. “And we know they are going to try to take over this ship at some point.”

“Then I guess it’s up to us to stop them,” said Alex firmly.

At that moment, there was an announcement on their section’s comm line, causing all the men to quiet down to listen.

“Attention male colonists from section three, please proceed to orientation room 5C. It’s time to begin the female companion lottery!”

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