The Syphon
Dating
by Chris Morton
Four days into the voyage you will notice a change in the crew. Each of the other ten will have heard the Syphon’s call by then, and will have made their visits to its chamber.
None will form an official report of their private meetings with the Syphon. They will record no log entries. Already there will be a growing sense of paranoia among the group.
Lilly Clark, the ship’s assistant engineer, will be the first to be affected. She has never experienced love of any kind, so she is the most susceptible. Abandoned at birth, no lasting relationships and still a virgin; to say she is unsuitable for this mission would be an understatement.
We approximate that five or six days in she will make an attempt to lock herself in with the Syphon. The crew, too preoccupied with their own feelings, will fail to notice her mental instability in time to stop this. She will shut herself in its pod; the pod within the room that will be referred to as its chamber. And with her knowledge of the ship’s computer, she will be able to temporarily override any efforts to break her out.
She will die from asphyxiation. After a few hours together with the Syphon, the choice she must make will soon become clear. Even with her advanced expertise of the ships systems and security, the crew will succeed in breaking her out eventually. Faced with the cold realisation that she will never be this close to the Syphon again, Clark will make the choice: to die together rather than live apart. She will drain the air from the pod but the Syphon will survive.
*
Lilly Clark will receive an official space ‘burial.’ There will be a memorial service aboard the ship the day after her death, and her body will be ejected into space.
The morale on board the ship will have dropped somewhat after this first death. That much goes without saying. But there is a reason for memorial services being conducted while still on mission, and there is purpose in the disposal of corpses.
The crew will move on quickly. This mission is for the Syphon to reach its homeworld, and they are officers, professionals who answer to the call of duty.
As the ship’s doctor, you will inform the crew that Lilly Clark suffered from insanity related to spacesickness. We have assessed that quite surprisingly, her death will play its part in diluting their paranoia somewhat. They will mourn, they will talk of her good qualities; what a fine officer she was; what a kind, honest woman.
/
First Officer Jackal will suggest that Jefferies, the Chief Engineer, take over all of Lilly Clark’s responsibilities, but Captain Robinson will intervene, assigning her duties to First Pilot Ledger, who will make a pretence of this task being a huge favour to everyone, despite the fact that he has been looking to expand his portfolio for a number of years now. Robinson knows this. He and Ledger go back a long way and he is fully aware of Ledger’s aspirations to one day make captain.
The crew will be satisfied. Ledger is a popular character, a joker who never fails to entertain his crewmates with friendly banter. He shares morale duties with Second Pilot ABC (a nom de guerre she prefers to go by) even though she is the more qualified of the two: the specialist in psychology who will eventually lead the vessel – you may be surprised to hear that the next person to die will in fact be the captain himself.
There will, however be a number of weeks before the actions of the captain become a cause for concern.
Michael Robinson
Of all the deaths, this is one of only two for which you must have influence.
Captain Robinson is an intelligent human being. Of course the same can be said for all the crew, but in contrast to them he has more life experience – he is fifty-five, the oldest and the highest of rank; married three times, divorced three times. Despite his rather bulky and at times dishevelled appearance, he has a reputation as a man with a gift for the ladies. He has a good family background. He knows love, and his heart is pure. Although he can be bad-tempered at times, his emotions are perfectly balanced. He is the most confident, he knows who he is, never questions himself, and do not misinterpret his bad temper for anything other than an openness of spirit.
The captain will put the crew above the mission – he cares nothing for the Syphon, he is no fool, and he will be the first, the only member strong enough to reject the Syphon’s call, breaking the bond; divorcing himself from its influence.
By then, when he realises the hold it has over the others, he will not attempt to share this discovery. He is intelligent enough to recognise a crew that is beyond convincing; so in his nobility, his duty, the captain will take it upon himself to destroy the Syphon for the good of you all.
He will go to its chamber, you must watch him, follow him when he does so because if you do not stop him, he will kill it. He will break into its pod and burn its body with laser, destroying it completely; he has the strength to ignore its pleading. It will call out to the others, and they will arrive soon enough to witness its death.
You must stop him before any of this happens. You must watch him, follow him, and when he finally decides to go through with his plan, you must kill the captain. Your task is to see this mission completed, to see the safe arrival of the Syphon. We have made the necessary overrides to your programming; we have interfered with your systems to allow you to kill Robinson and one other.
Use his pistol, he will be carrying it. Kill him in the chamber and make it look like suicide.
When the crew find him having gone the same way as Lilly Clark, they will link the deaths together. Two suicides.
There will be a thorough investigation – not only by yourself; Jackal, now in charge will order the food to be tested, the air content and pressure – but nothing will be found to connect the apparent psychological disorders of your two dead colleagues.
The crew will admit nothing of their own neurosis and paranoia; even ABC, the strongest crewmate left will as yet be unsuspicious. She will blame herself for her imbalance of mind. She is susceptible to depression and will be attending her second funeral in as many months. She will self-medicate with vicodin, she will put on a brave face.
Melissa Hagen
Melissa Hagen and Abigail Beatrice Collins were in the same year at the Paris Space Academy, rooming together for the first of their six-year induction. Each admitted to having been in a relationship with the other, and by that I mean of an intimate and sexual nature that was, quote: ‘Ancient history,’ (interviewed separately, each used this exact term.)
We have assessed ABC to still be holding some feelings for her former roommate; feelings which do not lie so strong within Pilot Hagen. Rather, with Pilot Hagen there is blocked emotion masked by an overemphasis on professionalism towards her now senior officer. There is a bitterness too, which will flare up in time. Because of this rather unfortunate complication – it was enough effort just getting you on board, let alone being allowed involvement in choosing the rest of the crew – we can predict Pilot Hagen as being the next unfortunate victim of circumstances.
With Captain Robinson now deceased, First Officer Jackal will now assume command, passing on his own rank to Chief Engineer Jefferies. Jackal and Jefferies will discuss together the possibility of another disaster occurring on mission; checks on the food and air composition; diagnoses on all the ship’s systems; plus security will be upped – yourself and Sergeant Suarez will share around the clock guard duty of the chamber. (As a synthetic, you will not be affected by this added exposure. Sergeant Suarez is simple minded and there will be no need to worry about her for the time being.)
Focus your attention instead on Hagen, for soon she will be showing the effects of psychosis. Her love for the Syphon will at first mimic the love she has for her husband back on Earth; then, as it becomes stronger, she will become confused, irrational. She will accuse ABC of becoming jealous of her love for another. She will say she is dangerous, accusing her in front of the others of plotting to kill the Syphon.
There will be no need to step in. The other crew members will recognise the mental imbalance in Hagen’s words. In spite of their own feelings for the Syphon, they will see these erratic accusations for what they are. If you step in, you will arouse suspicion over your role in this mission. Stay in the background, allow things to develop.
After some discussion, Pilot Hagen will be put in the brig for her own safety. Orders of Acting Captain Jackal.
Hagen will refuse food, scream herself to exhaustion on a daily basis, begging and pleading to be allowed just one more visit to the Syphon’s chamber. Attempts at counselling her back into sanity will soon be given up on. She will be drugged (for which, as the ship’s doctor, you will diagnose the need for), avoided, and almost forgotten. She will, however, be one of the few to survive the mission.
Hal Jefferies
Jackal and Jefferies will be strongly suspicious of the Syphon by then. The two of them will often be found in the conference room, behind closed doors, not including the rest of you in their discussions; thus arousing suspicion over their intentions and a further separation between themselves and the rest of the crew. Acting Captain Jackal will be referred to simply as ‘Jackal’ behind his back, with no respect for his rank. Jackal and Jefferies – it is likely they will be given nicknames too, though what exactly those will be, we cannot predict.
What we do know is that by this time Captain Jackal will be the most intelligent person on board, closely followed by Science Officer Strickland and ABC.
It is only a matter of time before he comes to the same conclusion as Robinson: that the Syphon has to go, for the good of the crew. He will hesitate in revealing this to Jefferies, for by then Jefferies will be showing signs of passive aggressiveness, questioning the acting captain over every decision.
To keep the crew busy, it will be Jackal’s idea to install a strict routine of health food and exercise – mental health will be his official reason; a healthy body, a healthy mind. His real reason, however, will be to keep the crew away from the Syphon. He will order them to use the virtual entertainment available on the ship, including this as part of their daily schedule; making it protocol; keeping them busy.
Jefferies will try to be a go-between, feigning camaraderie with the crew, raising his eyes at each new idea Jackal has come up with to keep them occupied. He will be respected less for this. And soon you will see him losing his temper more often. Jefferies is suitably married to a woman of more dominant character. While with her she offers him balance; while away from her on mission he revels in responsibility, throwing himself into his work. But with these new feelings for the Syphon, he is beginning to lose touch; guilt battling with euphoria – a new lease of life, though similar to an adolescent, he will by then be a soup of emotion.
Communications Officer Berlin will be the only crewmate to show sympathy for Jefferies’ increasingly dangerous condition. He will make an appeal to ABC and Ledger to take responsibility in their morale duties, to refrain from shunning their crewmate and friend. This will, however, be to no avail – the health and well-being of both Jefferies and Jackal will bear no importance to the rest of the crew. For Berlin also, this empathy towards his one time friend will be short-lived.
Even Acting Captain Jackal, in spite of his growing understanding of the hold the Syphon has over the crew, will fail to notice in time that Jefferies, the one closest to him, is in fact losing his mind.
We predict it to be around the fourteenth week when Jefferies will eject himself from the ship. Psychological reports for the man flag up numerous references to this method of suicide in response to hypothetical scenarios: in one report he even stated it as being a dream of his, ‘to go that way.’
You will be the first to spot his body floating away through the window, for you will be watching for this, observing his every move and ready – nevertheless, so as not to elicit suspicion, you must find a way of moving Berlin to the observation lounge in time to witness Jefferies’ unfortunate space flight.
Be careful to provide a natural reason for bringing about this witnessing. With only seven active crew members left and an ever increasing state of paranoia, this may be difficult, but you must do all you can. Remember your mission; by then the Syphon will be over halfway home.
John Strickland
John Strickland, the science officer and expert in linguistics will be the next to die. By then he will have begun his attempt at interpreting the Syphon’s call. You may wish to observe the scribblings in his room – on the bathroom wall, we predict, etched in coloured ink. (He will also have a sizeable pad of paper notes that we would like you to get hold of at some point, though there will be no hurry for this. Just make sure you have secured it for our easy access by the time the mission is completed.)
After the death of Jefferies, the crew will understand that in all likelihood another one of them will be next. However, although suspicion and paranoia will be at the forefront of everyone’s minds, the funeral performed will temporarily bring you together. As a seven, you will for the first time fully accept that fate may be beyond all of your control.
Still no crew member will reveal their connection with the Syphon, although the idea may arise that each is not the only one to be hearing the Syphon’s call – a suspicion unrelated to the three deaths on board; rather, it will be a suspicion that they may have rivals when it comes to the Syphon’s love; and it is this suspicion that will ultimately mask any fear of danger from their colleagues. They will see each other as rivals, not possible murderers. And above all else, their primary care (Jackal aside) will be for the protection of the Syphon.
What will follow will be a short spell of apparent camaraderie, of politeness, which will ironically from the outside appear as a quite peaceful period of the voyage. Inside, however, and especially when alone at night, the crew will be wrestling with a number of personal demons.
Sergeant Suarez will remain in her sharing of duties with guarding the Syphon. Duties shared by yourself. The others will not question this. Jackal has the qualities of a good captain and his strictness over keeping to a set routine will by then be working well.
Jackal himself will catch a glimpse of Strickland’s behaviour when he enters his quarters to offer him the new first officer’s position. Strickland will be the obvious choice; he is the most academic minded and has a similarly logical way of thinking to the acting captain. Jackal will want to make it personal and thus visit him late in the evening when Strickland is off duty. He will no doubt witness some suggestion of Strickland’s developing madness. Even if the scribblings are not on display, Strickland will be extremely uncomfortable at the presence of the acting captain in his quarters. Jackal will pick up that he is hiding something and we predict that the next morning Jackal will call you into his office, requesting that you keep an eye on the science officer.
You understand your job, and as a synthetic you can act well. Remember, you know nothing. When asked by Jackal for your opinion on events so far, tell him you are unable to come up with an explanation. Be careful here, for the captain will push you for an opinion and in doing so he will be testing you. Repeat that you know nothing, though if the captain asks if you think the Syphon is responsible, do not hesitate in telling him that his theory is conceivable. If you deny the possibility of the Syphon being the cause; if you boldly state that the Syphon is innocent; if you deny his theory too quickly, then Jackal will become suspicious.
Jackal will be questioning all of the crew. His plan to kill the Syphon will have been put on hold for now, but he will want to know who is with him and who is against him. He will be extremely careful, however, to reveal this plan to no one. He will be aware of the dangers. (Look what happened to Robinson.) As an acting captain who has already lost his first mate, Jackal will be treading very carefully. The thought will also have entered his head that cutting the crew’s link to the Syphon so severely may do more harm than good. Adding to this, in the back of Jackal’s mind will be the aching call of duty, to place the mission above all else.
/
The orders to keep an eye on Strickland will be reserved for just you. Jackal will know that as a synthetic you cannot hear the Syphon’s call, and ironically he will take this to mean that you are the only one he can trust. Unofficially, he will have made you second in command; his eyes and ears, his number one.
Strickland is primarily a biologist, remember. For this mission he serves as a standard science officer, one who cannot, is not allowed to conduct any experiments on the Syphon – for the most part, his role is to be ready when needed. His expertise in linguistics, in cell division, in animal behaviour, experimental evolution … these qualifications are not even relevant. He has no intel on the Syphon. None of them do. But Strickland will be the most curious of them to study it, and for this reason he will be the next to die.
When the other crew hear its call, they will feel love and love only. This love may make them crazy, jealous, unhinged and paranoid. Like Robinson, Jackal and for the most part ABC, it may be a love that they recognise as dangerous, that they are strong enough to fight; but for Strickland it will have become a problem to be solved, an obsession; it will be something he is fully aware is coming from the Syphon, from its makeup and very being and he will wish to understand it, to conquer it. Hearing its call, he will be desperate to interpret the true nature of that call’s meaning; foaming at the mouth to get into its chamber, to its pod, to take a sample of its tissue. And eventually, inevitably, he will try his best to get past either you or Sanchez to do just that.
Your fellow guard knows how to do her job and will catch him easily enough. Whether it is you or Sanchez who manages to apprehend the, by then quite mad, scientist, it will make no difference.
Jackal will order Strickland to the brig, cell number two, for his own safe keeping. He will lie there next to the screaming Pilot Hagen and only last the one night.
Officer Strickland, unbeknown to anyone else on board, carries a capsule of cyanide with him at all times – this is something that goes far into his family history, back to the colonial wars when many an officer escaped torture that way. It is a strange human ritual, though common among space travellers who fear a slow death. For this reason too, Strickland carries it with him, but also for good luck, for laughing in the face of danger; for reminding himself he is a mortal and privileged to be in this world.
In the cell next to Hagen, however … her screams mixed with the Syphon’s call … with the obsessions his brain is struggling to handle, Strickland will not stand a chance.
The next morning he will be dead in his cell. You will find him and assess the time and cause of death.
You are the ship’s doctor and its only synthetic. Following the death of Strickland, Acting Captain Jackal will formally position you as second in command of the mission.
Beau Berlin
Berlin, the Communications Officer, will inform the acting captain privately of his suggestion to call for help. That all things considered, the mission for them must be put on hold before the next person dies.
He is passionate, Berlin. Young and passionate, but also sassy enough to not let love get the better of him. His relationship with the Syphon will be complex to say the least. There will be times when he will be able to think of nothing else, times when the protection of the Syphon will be placed above his own life. But there will be other times too when Berlin will see more clearly. Berlin’s mother died when he was young, just a kid; but his father brought him up well. He is handsome, athletic, skilful in many areas. He is a talented musician, a technical whiz. He finished top of his year at the academy. Berlin has had a succession of mother figures; fallen in love many times, but through the relationship he has with his father – a man who never remarried for the sole reason of not wanting to replace the woman who bore him a son – and through childhood memories that over the years developed a rather strong tint of rose, Berlin’s mother is the only person he has ever felt truly in love with.
The Syphon’s call will not affect Berlin for any great length of time. It will come and go. And following Strickland’s death, when Jackal informs the crew that the mission must be continued with; that the safe passage of the Syphon to its homeworld must take priority above all else, Berlin will not agree.
Jason Ledger
Jackal will of course be lying. But for now, let’s move over to Pilot Ledger who will be the next source of trouble. Up until then, Ledger will have been quite content at accepting the Syphon’s love. He will be going about his job guiding the ship along with his extra engineering duties. In the face of each death, he will be counselling the crew daily; doing a far better job of this than ABC who will be becoming bitterer by the hour: her cynicism increasing, she will by now have dropped her counselling duties completely for all but Pilot Hagen. You may notice in fact, that this division of counselling duties (ABC for the contained Hagen, Ledger for the acting crew) will be an agreement as much come to by Ledger as by ABC. Pilot Ledger, you see, will not quite have worked out that his love for the Syphon may be shared by the others. Hearing Hagen’s calls will bring about feelings of jealousy. The kindliness he is showing to the others will contrast greatly with the hatred he will show Hagen.
Ledger will not become a danger until Berlin suggests aborting the mission (or at least the possibility of contacting home and requesting it to be passed on to a new crew).
Ledger will catch wind of this. The whole crew will, for Berlin is not exactly subtle in character. When Jackal shuts him down, Berlin will soon be dropping hints of his idea and as to how a vote may need to be taken.
Ledger will be thrown by this; thrown from his state of belonging; from his satisfaction that although the others may be suffering, he himself is untouchable.
Jealousy, jealousy.
This will be a growing emotion in all of them by now.
Ledger will accuse Berlin of having ulterior motives for aborting the mission. He will say that they are trying to take him away from the Syphon, that for the first time in his life he has found himself truly happy, and that there is nothing anyone can do to stop this.
ABC, Jackal and Berlin will consult you either as a group or individually (which is more likely) over their concerns for Ledger. With four crew members dead and one clinically insane, they will fear for Ledger and request your advice.
So as not to get involved, tell them that you must not be hasty in diagnosing his behaviour as posing any danger, and that you are all under a lot of pressure and stress. Try to delay any action taken against Ledger if you can. If you condone throwing every crewmate into the brig at every emotional outburst, you will soon be left guiding the ship alone. With Hagen already in the brig, you will only have two pilots and you will be needing both of them for landing. By then the Syphon’s homeworld will not be far away.
It is very possible that once Ledger is thrown from his emotional stability, he may become erratic, even murderous, and if you assess this to be so, you must sedate him regularly in small enough doses to calm him (with enough subtlety for the others to not be aware of this).
Jennifer Suarez
Unfortunately, you will not be able to help with Sergeant Suarez. By then she will have passed the point of no return in regards to exposing herself to the Syphon; guarding it in such close proximity throughout the weeks, she will not last the outward trip (there is an extremely small possibility that she may succumb to insanity before this, but as we say, she is simple-minded and the likelihood is minimal at most – if indeed this occurs, give her the required drugs to keep her active for long enough). We assess it to be just six or seven days until landing that Suarez will die peacefully. Radiation, unforeseen. You will proclaim that her body was exposed to the Syphon for too long; that there are still many things about the Syphon that no human understands.
When you announce her death, the crew will accept the news without question; possibly welcome it. Living in fear that they are next to die, it is a given that each crew member will feel relief that it was not them.
Brian Jackal
Jackal’s plan to kill the Syphon will never be put into action. He will hesitate too long. Now, so close to its homeworld, so near to the end of the mission, Jackal will keep his plans on hold and that will be his downfall.
Closer to home and growing ever stronger, the Syphon will soon interpret Jackal’s thoughts, assessing him to be a danger.
The acting captain will die in his sleep, killed by the Syphon. It has the power to do this, they all do.
The Syphon
Nearing its homeworld, the calls of love will diminish. The Syphon will no longer need protection. Bonds will form with its own kind.
Ledger will be stable due to the drugs you will have put him on, although this will only last for long enough for he and ABC to take the ship into the (Classified)planet’s orbit.
Flying down to the homeworld, your ship will be guided through the atmosphere and clouds to a landing space chosen. The Syphon will soon be in control of the ship. Only Ledger will panic – he may even try to disable the craft, rising from his station as the calls of a thousand Syphon enter his head. In contrast, ABC and Berlin will be overcome with a calm acceptance. They are pure of heart and will merely, passively watch Ledger as he tries to destroy the vessel (we predict he will go for the engines), knowing that he will not succeed.
As Acting Captain you will have the authority to kill Ledger where he stands. Wait for this manic outburst of his, even though it is not the reason why you must kill him.
ABC and Berlin will not interfere. They will not be shocked. With that many Syphon so close, they will temporarily understand more about the universe than any human before them.
Ledger, on the other hand, will be filled with too much negative emotion, with too much weakness – even further sedation will not help because he does not have the personality to cope. A wild animal, unhinged and dangerous; his influence will be remain, even when the others have recovered. He must be taken out of the equation for the good of the remaining three.
In opposition to Ledger, Hagen, in her cell, will become calm when you reach the planet. Eyes open to the beauty of existence, her frustrations will seep away, replaced, we predict, by an acceptance of her repressed love for ABC. We assess their bond to be strong enough, and it is this connection (while side by side they share the voices of the Syphon) that will save you from having to kill her too.
Doctor 728
The rest is rather unpredictable. Of course you already understand that it is you who must carry the Syphon to the outside. That you must remain there with them and that it is likely you will not survive (though we cannot guess to a high degree the effects that environment will have on your makeup, and equally so, we have no way of knowing if the Syphon will remodel you to cope with life on their planet).
Abigail Beatrice Collins
ABC, Berlin and Hagen will be the only crew members to return to Earth. Before leaving the ship, you will place ABC in charge, assuring her that it is safe to let Hagen out from the brig. Two pilots and one Communications officer, though Berlin has enough expertise in engineering for them to be a sufficient crew. You will leave them with orders for a quick take off and a direct flight to Moon Base Beta.
By then they will know that you were placed on the ship by us as extra protection for the Syphon. That you were not only the ship’s doctor … but they will understand and be sad to see you go. There will be no regrets, no bitterness.
From the planet’s surface, you will observe the ship’s take off, watching it disappear with the assurance that they have a ninety-nine percent probability of making it back home alive. We have also assessed (to the same degree) that they will suffer no lasting psychological effects from the mission. They are trained officers and have dealt with death on missions before; ABC especially, who served as a cadet aboard the Starship Gertrude.
We wish you luck on the mission, which as you know is a mere expression. The unfolding of events is a question of evaluated probability and nothing more.
