3 SEPTEMBER 1998
TRIKON STATION
NEW DRUG APPEARS IN EUROPE
BUT NO ONE REMEMBERS USING IT
London (Reuters)—Health officials and clinics in several large European cities have reported that a powerful new hallucinogen is gaining popularity among the avant-garde elements of the European drug culture. The new drug is called Lethe, after the mythological river whose waters induced amnesia. Not surprisingly, one of the side effects of the drug is loss of memory.
Little is known about the drug because few people seeking treatment have any recollection of ingesting it. Blood analyses of people exhibiting the symptoms of giddiness, depressed inhibitions, and memory loss suggest that it may have a methamphetamine base.
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.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 November 1997
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.”