In the early 1980s, another drug with a methamphetamine base, Ecstasy, enjoyed widespread popularity in both the United States and Western Europe. Technically legal, it became the drug of choice in discos and nightclubs, where it was purchased and used openly. The drug’s mild stimulant and hallucinogenic effects supposedly allowed users to function rationally while under its influence. In 1985, the United States classified Ecstasy as an illegal narcotic.
A similar fate may befall Lethe—if investigators can determine its chemical composition. Much of what is currently known about the drug is anecdotal. Accounts of its use first appeared in an anonymous pamphlet in Basel, Switzerland, in the mid-1990s. Shortly thereafter, it was rumored to have surfaced in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris, London, and Berlin.
An Interpol source recently stated that Lethe definitely was a synthetic or “designer” drug and that it was being manufactured in a single laboratory. The source, however, declined further comment.
Meanwhile, the mythology of Lethe grows daily. A fortunate postscript to the story is that the drug’s effects, though strange, are not particularly lethal.
Dan Tighe announced over the intercom that all Trikon personnel and Martians were free to leave the rumpus room. Everyone quickly obliged. Most of them were still in the connecting tunnel when Dan and Freddy guided a groggy Hugh O’Donnell out of the command module.
Everyone stopped and flattened against the tunnel walls, staring. No one asked a question; no one spoke. Everyone was too unnerved by the sight of O’Donnell, trussed and helmeted, with his eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth trailing tendrils of drool.
“Aft bulkhead,” said Dan as they squeezed through the entry hatch of the rumpus room. Lorraine Renoir and Lance Muncie, who had joined the procession along the way, followed them inside.
Dan secured his bonsai animals while Freddy hooked a strong arm around O’Donnell’s waist. O’Donnell grimaced and groaned but did not break through into full consciousness until after he was tethered to the bulkhead.
“…the hell …” he muttered. His gummy eyelids opened. “Dan… Doc… what the hell?”
“That’s what we want to know,” said Dan.
“Feel like shit.” O’Donnell shook his head as if testing the limits of a headache. Then he realized that he was bound. “Why am I tied?”
“Aaron Weiss is dead,” said Dan.
“Huh?”
“Murdered. A broken neck.”
“What?”
“Outside your lab. Sometime around midnight.”
“So what…” Realization flickered in O’Donnell’s eyes. “Dan, you don’t think—”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. Constellation will be here in a few days with a team of investigators. They’ll do the thinking.”
“My job…”
“You’re finished with it.”
“But—”
“You did it too well, if you ask me.”
“There is another factor,” said Lorraine. “The fentanyl you ingested.”
“Fentanyl? What?”
“No sense lying about it,” said Dan. “We tested your blood. You had enough in you to send half the station into never-never land.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Save your breath,” said Dan. “I’ve already made my decision. You’re staying right here until Constellation arrives. Then the investigators will take over.”
He spun away and motioned for Freddy and Lance to join him at the far end of the rumpus room. O’Donnell looked at Lorraine. Without his glasses, his eyes seemed small, watery, pleading for help. Lorraine bit her lip.
“You knew the rules,” she said.
“Someone must have slipped it to me.”
“You can’t charm your way out of this one,” she said. “Sorry, Hugh.”
Like all the others, Fabio Bianco had been stunned by the announcement of Weiss’s death. But when he saw the station commander towing Hugh O’Donnell, bound and unconscious, down the tunnel toward the rumpus room, Bianco immediately leaped to a conclusion: Weiss had been murdered and O’Donnell was suspected of being the killer.
Making his way slowly back to his own cubicle, Bianco played the evidence of his eyes over and over again in his mind. Weiss was too young and healthy to just suddenly die of natural causes. The reporter was not in the best of physical condition, true, but the flinty look on Commander Tighe’s face clearly said that Weiss had been murdered. And O’Donnell was bound hand and foot, like Samson taken by the Philistines.
Murder. Aboard Trikon Station. Murder in this haven of peace and scientific research. I created an Eden for them and they have fouled it with the most heinous crime imaginable. Murder. Here. On my station.
By the time Bianco reached his compartment he could hardly see for the tears that filled his eyes.
Chakra Ramsanjawi gazed down the length of ELM through the open door of his office. There was little activity in the module. Scientists and technicians occupied the various workstations, but no one was doing anything constructive. Some stared at blank computer monitors or at racks of colored vials. Others whispered to each other. Death is like that, thought Ramsanjawi. It sobers people quickly.
The death had sobered Ramsanjawi himself, though not in so philosophical a manner. He was scheduled to report to Sir Derek, and for the second consecutive time he had no data to send. The pace of research had not merely been choked off to a trickle; it had screeched to a halt. He had hoped Aaron Weiss would discover something significant, perhaps a cache of data that O’Donnell had been hiding. Now he had nothing, not even Weiss. And every possible avenue of espionage had been sealed by Tighe.
Ramsanjawi removed a tiny booklet from its hiding place at the rear of a storage compartment. The booklet contained the code Sir Derek had devised. He placed it under his kurta, then looped a leather belt around his waist. Ramsanjawi swam through ELM without acknowledging any of his underlings. The two public telephones in the command module were unoccupied. Ramsanjawi sealed himself into one of the booths and unhooked the sleek handset from the wall. It was dead. He tried the handset in the other booth. That one was dead as well. He poked his head out the door. The only person in sight was the doctor, Lorraine Renoir, who was just exiting her office.
“These telephones are not operating,” he said.
“All the comm links are blacked out until further notice,” said Lorraine.
“Is that wise?”
“It’s Dan’s order,” she said.
She dove out the hatch before Ramsanjawi could say another word. He ignored her rudeness. Engaging the female doctor in an intelligent conversation about station procedures would have been a futile activity. He sank back into the booth and contemplated the pitfalls that had suddenly opened in his path. The pace of research had fallen off; O’Donnell, undoubtedly the culprit, had been “arrested” and his lab sealed; Aaron Weiss, the contact he had cultivated, was dead; and now the phones were shut down.
He remembered a boyhood Christmas, soon after his arrival in England. Sir Walter had ordered motorized bicycles for both Derek and Chakra, but the merchant had cocked up the order and delivered only one. Sir Walter was properly angry at the merchant and properly embarrassed in front of the two boys. He suggested that they take turns at riding the bike on the path that wound through the gardens behind the manor house. Derek rode first and relinquished the bike after one tour through the garden. However, his subsequent turns lengthened until he completely disobeyed his father’s admonition to share the toy. Chakra turned to Lady Elizabeth. She placed her arm around his shoulder and smiled down at him.