by F Stephan
Reiner looked at him sheepishly. “I tried to build a side business. Genetic bioware.”
“Illegal animal smuggling, you mean?” Wilfried had always hated trafficking.
“Yeah. Bad idea. Two months ago, the police caught me, and this business hadn’t approved by the boss. He decided to make an example of me.” The boss? My brother, you mean. “He’s let them transfer me to the CPC.”
Wilfried was paranoid, but he found this particularly suspicious. “And then you end up on Acheron?”
“Right! Chief Iakoubi came and suggested I could help Kimi blend into the station’s crew. Who was I to say no?” He smirked and laughed. “Especially when I didn’t really have any choice. You’re in trouble, little Wil, and I’m way more experienced than you are.”
“Like the time you went through the rooftops of the cathedral to avoid the police?” Reiner had been struck by vertigo and Wilfried had had to make two trips to carry out the stolen weapons to the safe house.
Reiner sobered. “I can help. Wil. I really can, now. The shadow harbor has been running for a long time and it needs some internal order to continue working. I’ve been helping the boss now and then. I’ve seen his info about this drug. There’s merchandise I don’t want to see down on Earth any more than you do. Come on, let me off the leash from that damn girl and I’ll help you.”
A thought struck Wilfried. If my brother wanted to clean up his organization, he could have compromised Reiner to get him onto the station to work with me. Could he have dealt with Iakoubi in advance?
A voice interrupted him. “The girl is going to spank you if you say harsh words about her.”
Wilfried jumped, turning in anger. A side metal grate was pushed away from the wall and Kimi struggled out of the tiny hole.
“I wouldn’t have thought it was workable. But, it is, truly.” She dusted down her uniform. “Nice meeting you again, Observer,” she said casually, as if nothing unusual had happened.
Wilfried swallowed. “I see why you were chosen, Officer. But I don’t like people spying on me in my own cabin.”
“Kimi, please. We’re going to be a team now.”
Bound to illegal activities and to protect each other. Wilfried nodded, looking at his friend, who glared into the void for a long minute before acknowledging.
“Does a team spy on each other?”
“I won’t do it again once we secure a way to communicate discreetly and you block any access to the back grate. Someone had been there before me.”
Wilfried swallowed. I’m so dumb. His anger flared. I knew we had a mole.
“Don’t worry. No one as tall as you would have thought of the back accesses. That’s why we operate together. You couldn’t succeed.” She said it casually, as if all the nights spent sniffing around the station had been a pure waste of time. “I’ve got other news for you. We’ve got a lead to one of their plants down on Earth. We’ll shut it down and hopefully have some prisoners to interrogate.”
Wilfried gasped. At last, progress.
“Now, tell us where you’ve been looking up here. It’s our turn to have some fun.”
He called up a map in the center of the room and highlighted all his previous investigations. After an hour of looking through all his attempts, Kimi smiled at him slowly. “You’re going away with Charon for the next run?”
He nodded silently.
“Then we’ll carry out our next scan then. The Chief got a Federation sniffer for me and I trained with Chief Grayt and his Marines to use it.”
Wilfried was baffled by her proposal. “Shouldn’t we work together on this?”
“This is what we are doing. You’re focusing their attention away from us. If they have been tracking you, they may feel more confident once you’re away at the outer ring.”
Leopold
Luna station, November 1st, 2140
“Charon, we are beginning our final descent.” Leopold aligned his shuttle with the landing pattern on his computer. In front of him, a village of biodomes occupied the bottom of the crater. After learning to fly in Adheek, landing on the moon was a trivial exercise – almost too simple. Like any action in space, any mistake would kill them all – but for once, the scenery of the southern pole of the moon was stunning.
“Copied, shuttle.” Tasha was in the bridge of Charon above them, monitoring their trip. She’s too cautious. Only four hours in the shuttle to fly from Acheron to the moon base, and a small gravity well to escape on the way back. Piece of cake with the shuttle. Why did I let Wilfried convince me? Awakening the moon base! He’s dreaming even more than Tasha.
Leopold brought the shuttle to a stop, his thrusters raising a cloud of dust. “Taisir, where do we go now? Those domes?” Wilfried had brought back with him the miner from Kalgoorlie, and Leopold felt secure with the burly man next to him. He had gathered Luna’s old-timers in the station, who were willing to revive the base. He had even recruited Nick, the science officer, from Charon’s crew. Six in the shuttle, ten up at Acheron. Enough to rotate people down here for a while.
“No, sir.” The miner laughed harshly. “After the initial settlement, a century ago, they were only used for tourists. They’re too expensive to maintain for any other purpose. We go to the other side. Come, let’s get our suits.”
Murmur of assent echoed as the crew suited themselves up.
Leopold followed them outside, eager to discover more. Half an hour later, they were walking toward the rim of the crater.
Taisir took control of the ground operations. “Kei, Moundir, can you check the surface?”
“See, Pilot?” Nick pointed to large concrete shafts in the ground around them. “Skylights. Our forebears spent decades digging them and linking to the lava tubes below. We’ve got hundreds of them around us in the crater, with secure crystal portholes. We’ve got cleaning robots stored in bays on the surface. Our crew will check on them and use them to dust everything, including the solar panels.”
Leopold could see small bunkers linked with metal rails running all over the place.
“The rail simplifies the robot’s path,” Nick continued. “No calculation needed. They made things as simple as they could.”
“So, it’s more robust?” Leopold said to himself. Good design. Is our station too complex?
The two small figures scurried away, beginning their inspection, while the remaining team members reached a large metal airlock set in a smaller crater. Taisir opened a hatch on its side and fumbled with a small keyboard.
“Do we have enough energy?” Nick asked.
“Give me five minutes.”
Leopold walked around, testing the lighter moon gravity. After weeks in the wheel with spinning gee, or in Charon with the singularity distorting space around them, it felt more natural, peaceful. Many will welcome the rest here. Getting the crew under one-sixth of a gee would be easier and only dependent on the station, rather than a committee far away.
A tremor shook the ground and the airlock opened at last, as if in slow motion. “The main generator is low. Too much dust on our solar panels. Kei and Moundir, priority on them.”
“Copied. The maintenance bay is mostly intact. We have three working robots and we’ve launched the cleaning cycle.”
They crossed to the old abandoned bunkers, and when the airlock cycled shut behind him, Leopold shivered as if he had walked into a cemetery. The lights were down and dust had settled over the floor and the tables and chairs of the airlock.
“All hands. Keep your spacesuits on until further notice. Mark, can you check the environmental bay? Air is our priority.”
Mark, a small NorAm fellow with a dark complexion showing his Inuit origins, took a side corridor and disappeared into the night.
Taisir motioned to another NorAm worker. “Katharyn, would you accompany him? No one should be alone.” He didn’t know them well, this new team he had built. We need good news. She followed Mark without hesitation.
“They are used to work together. Don’
t worry,” said Taisir, as if guessing his thoughts. Nick had remained with them, and Taisir motioned them onward. “Come, let’s check on the crew quarters and see how damaged they are. The living areas were dug between the ground and the lava tubes. We’ll cross it via the main spiral staircase. Then we can check what’s survived in the farms. Remember to keep your head down.” With the lower gravity, it was easy to jump and hit the ceiling. Leopold had been hurt several times before finding the right gait.
They climbed down through the different floors, using only the light from their suits. Tomb raiders, indeed.
“How many people lived here?” asked Leopold to break the silence.
“They built accommodation for two hundred, back when they wanted to use Luna to get to Mars. In practice, we were never over thirty, even during the negotiation with the Federation. We even converted floor three into a lunar football ground. We’ll introduce you to the game one day or another.”
Leopold smiled, his glum mood broken. Trust people to invent ball games wherever they go.
As they reached the fifth floor below, the light returned partially to the settlement. A dreary white light illuminated the stairs. Many lights were broken or flickered madly, hurting their eyes.
“Good. Mark has emergency power active. It’ll help us as we move.”
“If all power was down, surely we won’t find any remaining life in the farms?” wondered Leopold aloud, worried that all their efforts were worthless.
“It depends,” answered Taisir, not helping Leopold. “They ran on a separate network and had light directly from the external shaft. Don’t expect a jungle, though!”
It took them half a day to visit the habitable parts and reach the main airlock to the lava tube. By then, they were out of radio contact with the others, moving in the dusty corridors. Taisir stopped several times to check the quality of the air on the lower floors and the biological contamination.
Leopold couldn’t stand the long waits required. “Are we ready to go in?” he asked hopefully.
“No, Pilot. We should move back up to the ground floor. We’ll see first how the others are doing. Slow is safe, in space.”
“Walk back up to ground level?” By now, Leopold felt exhausted by the strange gravity, the constant need for attention to his slow walk.
“I’ll try to power up the central elevator. But don’t expect too much.”
Half an hour later, the elevator brought them slowly back up, creaking and shaking, stopping every minute or so. Leopold cursed this trip wishing they had gone for the stairs.
At last, having reached surface level, they took the side corridor Mark had chosen – years ago, it seemed – and reached an airlock on the side.
“Shelter. I hope, at least.”
Key and Moundir joined them and they all went inside together, to find Katharyn and Mark working on dusty consoles, their suits unsealed. Mark turned toward them. “The air is breathable here. Safe, if stale. You can remove your helmets.”
Leopold obeyed cautiously and coughed several times. The air was dusty and dry. Dead. The others were grimacing as well.
Mark continued. “Electronics are in good order. We did a fairly good job when shutting down this installation. We can wake the habitable part.”
“Everything is working?” asked Leopold.
“No. But enough of it is answering to my wake-up calls. We have also spares stored here, and we can manufacture the rest. It will take a good month. Maybe more, just for the habitable part.”
The sudden elation that Leopold had felt vanished at the dry words. Come on, smile. This isn’t bad.
“And the farms?”
Mark brought a screen to life. “Everything’s dead down there. I’d guess it was a microbiotic infection.”
“Any dangers for us here?”
“No. They’re isolated from the living quarters for security reasons. But we must confirm what killed them before we can enter.”
Leopold sighed. He’d hoped for faster entry. The moon had seemed a perfect solution to their problems, but it would not work out as easily as they had hoped. Despair struck him. There’s only death down here.
Andrew
Space station Acheron, November 4, 2140
“Antonio, you’ve got to follow the procedure.” Andrew repeated his reminder again on the radio channel. Antonio had come from the Earth Academy with the latest crew and was proving a troublemaker of the worst kind, ignoring the rules of the station to follow his own ideas. Andrew didn’t enjoy being outside with him, but Tasha had asked him to supervise and he would do his job as ordered.
Patiently, he detailed the actions. “Move to the crane, secure your line there, grab the satellite dish and then push back toward the station. If you’re attached to the station, you risk a loop in your cable and an accident.”
“Yes, sir.” The contempt in the other man’s voice was barely hidden. How could they let such a guy graduate? They’re not sending their best students. It’s worsening with each new crew. At last, his trainee followed the procedure and brought back the dish. It would be part of a third array of communications, allowing the station to communicate with Terra, Kalgoorlie, and an incoming ship at the same time.
“Thank you, Antonio.” Andrew hooked himself to the module to attach the dish to the mechanical arm he had installed earlier. “Could you bring back the second antenna, please?”
“On my way.” Andrew focused on the delicate assembly. They may have been in null-gravity but the objects kept their mass and inertia, making all actions exaggerated if one wasn’t careful.
“Antonio, what are you doing?” shouted Maricar over the network. Andrew turned just in time to see the new worker jumping back from the crane toward the station. “This is not allowed.”
“It will save an hour at least. You’re so slow up here. I’ll show you.” At the same time, his secure line looped around the crane. Andrew knew what would happen instantly.
In a second, the cable tensed, and the energy accumulated with the jump flung Antonio backward toward the crane. The tall Chilean retained his full speed and crashed into the metal structure.
“Andrew, vitals are declining. I’m sending a rescue party right now.” Maricar’s voice was barely controlled.
Andrew attached his hook to the main rail and pushed away from the module. “On my way to the crane.”
“Keep safe.”
It took minutes before he reached Antonio, minutes during which crew members in spacesuits appeared out of the main airlock. At last, he saw his trainee hanging at the end of the cable. The stiff suit angled backward told him the sad truth immediately. Broken back. Either dead or paralyzed. Andrew swore. Space isn’t forgiving. I’m sorry.
Susanna
New Amsterdam, November 5, 2140
The sun rose above multi-colored fields surrounded by the northern Atlantic water. Pearls of fogs glistened in the morning light. With the drones above, the images were stupendous. I missed this. She had never come back to her place of birth since she had been disinherited by her family.
“Today, your faithful servant invites you to the protected farms in the Netherlands. Here, agricultural experts have been preserving thousands, perhaps millions of endangered floral species for the last century, and, ladies and gentlemen, it shows.”
The drones flew in four directions over multiple islands protected by the great northern dike, the incredible achievement of her ancestors.
“While we watch this beauty of thriving life, I’m once again sad to announce a death in space. Antonio Garcia, a young graduate from the Earth Academy, died yesterday, his spine crushed while he was performing dangerous assembly work.” His picture appeared in the sky above her, a somber and ominous shadow above the fertile lands.
“He is the fiftieth bright youngster we have lost to space construction since we began our foolish adventures in space more than a century ago. The fiftieth life lost to this dream while our planet continues to bleed.” Images would now appea
r behind her. The first rocket to explode from the launchpad. The first shuttle to burn during re-entry. The first worker losing his hook and disappearing in space. The crash of a transport against a biodome on the Moon. A worker crushed on Kalgoorlie. Pictures of dead people all looking at her audience from behind her. “One every two years. And, again, this same question! Are we ready to venture outside? Can we protect our own against the danger of space? Should we go there or heal our planet? I won’t say more today, but I will leave you with all of them for a quick moment of remembrance.”
Susanna beamed at her technical team, stopping the video from her side. “This will be a fantastic show. We need to add what we shot yesterday on the nanite drug and the new clinic trying to cure its addiction. And I want also an updated number on bees. So, one hour of work still to do. Now, I’ve arranged transport and a full day off in New Amsterdam for all of you.”
The five technicians cheered. Hers was a small and efficient team, and she took care of them as best as she could.
“I’ve got some business to attend to here. Be ready – we leave tomorrow night for NorAm.”
A new cheer followed, and they packed all their gear. Efficient and quiet. The best on Earth, definitely.
She walked back toward the family manor. It was an old building, three centuries old, and she had grown up here. This was a place of fond memories, before she was exiled. She would tear it apart and build a new, more modern, mansion. Her family had been carted away to a psychiatric institution that very morning. They hadn’t taken her takeover operation well. Their exile seemed fair, from where she stood now. But it was only a first step in her revenge. Now, it’s time to finish cutting you off from biological samples for your space crops. How long until you come for my help, dear Tasha?
Josh
Seattle, November 8, 2140
Josh looked at the quiet Lake Washington. This was the first time he had felt peace for the last few months. The late fall air was cool, and the sun was rising over the horizon. The park was still quiet in the early morning, waking up slowly. From where Josh stood, hidden in a small clump of brushes, he had a perfect angle on his target, a small restaurant on the hills of Bellevue. The chief of operations of the NorAm Conglomerate of Flight ate there once a week, usually with his close advisors, including Elisabeth Evans. Two names on his list. The general manager of the space division of the Conglomerate, and the sister to one of the pilots on Alkath. This would send a signal to the world. Any who work for the Federation are in danger now.
