interest. The galley was strictly a work space. Meals were prepared here but eaten at workstations, in quarters, or when a communal meal was held, in the mud room.
“Okay, I’m through the portside hatch.” Winters gestured for Natalia to follow. Once inside, hydroponics bay #1 was a sight to see. Desiccated, tangled growth obstructed both vision and movement. Here was additional evidence that time had passed on Howard, time that couldn’t be accounted for. Until the seals had failed and the atmosphere had been lost, the vegetable and fungal growth that had been Howard’s renewable source of food had run riot in this space.
It took half an hour to find the body.
“Sanjat,” Winters said, providing a verbal echo of what his suit’s PSR had gotten from the uniform name tag.
“I cannot tell you if that is Rajib or Iris,” said Natalia. “They were about the same size.”
“We’ll sort it out with scans later.” Winters had a shroudsack out and the two of them pulled it over the body. He let a sigh escape him on the EVA channel. “I didn’t think we’d be making a jungle crossing out here.”
“I suppose I picked the right officer for the task,” came Natalia’s response. Winters threw a surprised look at her. She was grinning. “The hull is just there,” she pointed. “Will your torch cut through that? Maybe we can save some time.”
“That’s a clever idea, ma’am.” He made no move towards the hull. Neither did he move towards the galley.
“Am I to understand that clever is bad?” She seemed genuinely confused.
“Clever isn’t SOP. No one ever got disrated or passed over for promotion for following SOP. Clever? That’s another story.” Winters paused for a moment’s thought. “Lemme check with the boss.” He switched to the command channel. “Kestrel.”
Cathcart responded, “Kestrel, aye.”
“The Doc has a clever idea that I want to run past Parker before I do it. Can you patch me through?”
“EVA One, stand by.” Winters could have switched to the secondary EVA channel on his own, but a big part of why the three ensigns had been sent out on this milk run was to see how well they understood and followed procedure outside of a supervised environment.
After a few moments too long, the message repeated. “EVA One, stand by.” Cathcart, who had retreated into a shell of emotionless protocol after having shamed himself on an earlier EVA, now showed a touch of apprehension. “EVA One, EVA Two does not respond.”
“What was his last status, Cath?” Winters was moving towards the galley without the shrouded body as he spoke. Natalia followed in his wake.
“He’d shrouded three bodies. Sanjat and Colon in forward supply and Werner in project control. He said he was going to try to get a good PSR of the reactor through the hatch windows between the project control and reactor modules. That was about two minutes before your call.”
Winters was through the hatch and into the galley. “I’m going forward right now to find him unless you tell me otherwise. I’ll send the Doc back.”
On the EVA channel, “I want to go, too. Maybe I can help.” She’d been monitoring the command channel.
Winters switched on EVA. The command channel remained open. He wanted this logged. “No, ma’am. You can prefer charges later, but I’m not taking you with me.”
“Why not?” She was on the edge of being angry. “I know this station better than anyone.”
“What happened to the commander, ma’am?” He used the same tone she had a few days earlier when she’d asked the ensigns what had happened to Howard. She had no response. “Exactly. I’m not going to allow you to be put at risk until I can answer that question. Do I have to waste time escorting you back to Kestrel or will you go on your own?”
“Go find Ensign Parker. I will obey.”
Natalia returned to Kestrel. As she made the crossing Winters used his suit thrusters to full effect and shot down the four-hundred-meter length of the station. He was late braking and overshot by fifty meters or so, but he used the reapproach time to survey the scene. “Kestrel.”
“Kestrel, aye.” Cathcart seemed to have been shocked out of his emotionless shell, although he was not panicked.
“Recommend activating combat targeting systems. I’d like to know if Parker exited the station without notifying us. I’m sure my suit’s shielding can handle ninety seconds or so.” Combat targeting scanners used high energy microwave frequency radar and even short-term exposure to them at this range could be dangerous.
“Activating now.” Winters’ suit warned him of the probing radiation. “Scan shows no anomalies. Just you, Howard and the Doc and she’s almost to the lock.” There was a short pause. “Shutting down scan.” Winters’ suit stopped nagging him.
“Approaching docking hatch. It’s still open.” Winters glided through. “Entering Howard.” Parker had placed stickylites on the overhead in the center of the forward supply module. Three shrouded bodies waited inside the module to port of the forward hatch. Winters ignored them. “Entering project control.” There was a stickylite in here as well . . . and a body. Parker. “Cath, you getting this?” The hatch between project control and the reactor module had been forced. Parker’s corpse, mummified, drifted near the reactor on the other side of the hatch.
“Aye.” A single word, yet it carried the weight of so much emotion. Winters stopped before crossing into the reactor module.
“I’m getting a PSR of that . . . that manifestation above the reactor. Is that coming across clear?” There was an unasked question as well.
“Aye.”
“Do you want me to retrieve Parker’s body?” Winters made the offer knowing what the response would be.
“Negative. Return to Kestrel.”
“What about the. . . .”
Cathcart understood and interrupted. “Bring them if you want. Just don’t go any nearer to that . . . thing.”
It took Winters ninety minutes to shepherd five shrouded corpses to Kestrel.
Intervals of time held no value as far as scope was concerned. To the Entity, an interval of five minutes was essentially indistinguishable from one of five millennia. Things changed, then they were the same, then they changed, repeated in a cycle that marked time, however irregularly, through eternity.
Once the steady-state period after the creation of the doubled conduit had begun, the next event, the next change that the Entity was aware of was the intrusion of a new being into its physical reality. The Entity could not see in the Human sense, but it became aware of Ensign Parker as that unfortunate intersected one of the Entity’s effectors, manifested as a two-dimensional spatulatoid appendage. In a brief moment that transcended pain, the Entity withdrew its appendage and with it came Ensign Parker. Caught up in the distorted spacial and temporal axes that surrounded the Entity, he did not survive the ordeal. In three-space time, he wasn’t gone at all, but subjectively he suffered a fate similar to that of the station itself, although not as severe. His ordeal lasted a mere century or two.
The Entity, while not a learning creature, had nevertheless reached a truer understanding of the species that had both caused its exile from reality and intruded on it here. It understood that to survive here, it needed this species. It needed a new home.
Natalia did not go to the command station upon returning to Kestrel. She suspected that Ensign Parker was dead but did not wish to face the reality of that just yet. She knew this to be cowardice but excused herself because she had long ago determined that it was not her place in life to be brave.
Instead, she found a workstation in the wardroom and began analysis of the geometry of decay from Howard’s aft storage module. Painstakingly she entered coordinates and ran those coordinates through different geometric models trying to find a match. She was dimly aware of Ensign Winters’ return from Howard. She acknowledged the invitation to the interment ceremony for her former neighbors and friends with a terse shake of her head. She needed a reprieve from death and she obtained that by shielding herself behind a wal
l of abstract mathematics and impossible geometric shapes.
The two remaining ensigns left her alone through lunch, although they did set a food tray within reach, but when the evening meal was ready, Cathcart approached her directly. “Dinner’s ready, ma’am.” She hadn’t yet learned his speech patterns well enough to recognize what that ma’am meant.
“I am not hungry, Cathy . . . Cathcart.” She’d gotten his name wrong before. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, ma’am, could you come anyway? We can call it a staff meeting with food if you like.” She didn’t understand his insistence, but she was stiff from inactivity and something about his manner said that he wasn’t going to give up and go away.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh. When she turned around, she saw Ensign Winters there as well, holding a white naval officer’s coverall that appeared to have been recently and inexpertly tailored. It had the four stripes and one epaulette of a captain, junior grade. “What is this?” She was annoyed. This was not the time for dress-up games.
“Protocol, ma’am,” said Cathcart. “You’re the senior military authority present. Kestrel is yours.”
“Nonsense.” She coughed the word up as if it were a spoiled piece of meat inadvertently swallowed. “I am not a military officer.”
“There is an order logged in your name, ma’am. We might be able to overlook your reserve commission, but for
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