Depth Charge - red earth

Chapter 3

"I don't understand. I haven't done anything wrong. Where are you taking me?" Ryan protested.

"No," replied Carl. "You haven't done anything wrong, but I need your help."

"Well you could have just asked without dragging me away from my friends at dinner."

"When you get to my age lad, you can't often be bothered with formalities. Besides, I think this will be right up your alley. This way." Carl directed him down the corridor inside the police station to the makeshift mortuary. After opening the door and letting Ryan in, he continued. "I found this missing person a few hours ago ..."

Ryan looked in front of him at the metal table with the partially decomposed body upon it. The grotesque sight and foul aroma made him struggle to hold his dinner down.

"You okay, kid? Anyway, as I was saying, I found this missing person in one of the underground caves of Hothams cavern. I suppose that in itself is not unusual." Carl glanced at Ryan to see if he had composed himself. "It was when we turned him over that we got the real surprise. Care to have a look?" Carl gestured Ryan over to the dead body. His entreaty was like an invitation to some sort of cave of wonders.

"No," answered Ryan with a tone of disgust. "Why haven't you sent this body to the city morgue?"

"The problem is kid that I can't afford to lose another body in this state to the military."

"In this state? Military?"

Amy had put her gloves on by this stage, and rolled over the dead body in clear view for Ryan. Ryan was both disgusted and intrigued by what he saw. When Carl saw that he had his attention, he continued. "Yes, in this state."

"How long was he dead?"

"Two to three days tops," answered Carl as he tried to push Ryan closer to inspect the body.

Ryan put his arms up, "Whoa, no way. What did you mean when you said the military is involved?"

"Time is of the essence, Ryan. The military took the other bodies before I could get someone like you to look at them first."

"How many others?"

"Three actually." Carl smiled to himself as he observed Ryan walking closer to the deceased; his scientific curiosity getting the better of him.

Ryan ignored the smell as he looked at the form of the large hole in the back of the victim.

"I think something scuttled into the ground as we lifted him up. The earth seemed to be ... sifted," remarked Amy as she watched him investigate.

"This is impossible. Anyone who dies on the surface of Mars is never in this condition. It is only when they are processed that they ever have signs of decomposition in the soil ..."

"That's why I brought you here, Ryan. Do you think another human did this?"

Ryan shook his head. "No, this can't be possible. There are dirt traces in the wound, and the shape is not from any man made weapon. The patterns are similar to the microscopic decomposition that I find in the soil from the roundworms, but ... larger. Even so, if there are any of the soil organisms in those caves they couldn't have done all this that quickly."

"Could it be a new species? Some sort of outbreak that no one knows about?"

Ryan stepped away from the body to face Carl. "Look, I don't know what you expect me to do here. How can I analyse this properly without my lab set up?"

"Like I said before kid, when you get to my age, you can't afford to wait for formalities. Can't you just do it here?"

"What, now?!"