by Phil Rossi
Nigel took a deep breath. “I can’t go to Crescent’s mayor and accuse him of…” Nigel laughed. The notion was ridiculous. “There are certain routes to go through when leveling charges at any high ranking official. Besides, Marisa, this is all a little convoluted. This whole allegation about Mayor Kendall trying to blackmail you for letting illegal arms onto Crescent is, how shall I put it? Small potatoes, and not worth my time. Besides, I told you, your captain’s mention of the event was a standard incident report. You were named as present at the time and place but not involved. That is not why I’m here. And this business about your friend Gerald Evans—I still need to question him myself. His records check out and so do this Dr. Donovan Cortez’s, but I need to follow protocol—protocol based on what evidence shows. Tampering with ATC records is illegal. I have evidence that that occurred. Now, I have no evidence that Gerald Evans is running off-record jobs for the mayor. All of his ATC salvage records, in respect to his contract with Kendall, are legit. If Gerald states of his own volition that he is in cahoots with Kendall on something unsavory, then that’s a different story.” And, Nigel thought, a royal pain my ass.
“Don’t you ever get frustrated with the red tape?” Marisa asked.
“If there was no red tape, guys like me wouldn’t have a job.” It was the truth. He was one of the tapers, more often than not.
“So, you said that your reason for being here had nothing to do with a security complaint. Can you tell me what it is that you’re doing here, then?” If there was one thing that Nigel did like about Marisa Griffin, it was that she had the ability to ask the right questions. He applauded that ability and wished he could answer. But, orders were orders and his orders were to keep his lips sealed and get the job done.
“You know what I’m going to say, so spare me the breath and don’t make me say it,” Nigel said.
“You just wasted a lot of breath with that response, what’s a little more?” Marisa countered and smiled. The smile was strained, though. He could tell she was not pleased that he wasn’t going to look into her allegations.
He laughed and shook his head. She was persistent.
He thought on it a little more. Kendall didn’t possess the trappings of an honest man. That much was apparent just by looking at the people he surrounded himself with. Walter Vegan made Nigel’s skin crawl and Kendall’s two roughnecks were perfect examples of the type of men capable of all manner of unsavory activities. But, Kendall’s records were squeaky clean. All the i’s were dotted, all the t’s crossed. Too clean, maybe. But the only signs of tampering had to do with a salvage pilot and a neurosurgeon turned archaeologist. Nothing to do with the mayor or his strange bedfellows. Nigel was there to do a specific job. The whole ATC log tampering business would only slow him down. He didn’t need to further complicate matters by pursuing Lt. Griffin’s paranoia. It would only lengthen his stay on the station. And the less time he spent on Crescent, the better.
“I want to meet with Mr. Evans as soon as you can arrange it. I don’t have time to spare on this nonsense. I’m not going to pursue your Kendall…situation.” At that, Marisa seemed to deflate.
“It’s just that…I’m so sure he’s up to something. Why else would he ask me to keep an eye on you?” Marisa said. “Why? At least give me an answer to that.”
“Lieutenant, do you think you’re the first security officer a station mayor has asked to keep their eye on me?” Nigel chuckled and shook his head. For an instant, Griffin looked like she would cry. He realized he was probably pushing back too hard now.
He felt himself acquiesce, ever-so-slightly. He would keep his eyes open. Her desperation convinced him to do that much, at least. But Griffin didn’t need to know he’d be doing that. It would only encourage her to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. Nigel knew full-well that there was always a carpet that the dust was swept beneath, but he wasn’t there for Kendall’s rug of secrets. Now, if this Evans had anything of particular merit that would contribute to Marisa’s case and anything that would make Nigel’s goals easier to accomplish, that was another story. But Nigel wasn’t going to go fishing.
“I can arrange the meeting, yes,” Marisa said at long last.
“Good. Then I can continue to like you. A great deal.” He gave her a winning smile. Marisa didn’t return it; she left the office with out saying a word. Nigel turned back to the security monitors. There were over three hundred primary security feeds, with many more subfeeds. He began to cycle through them. He’d spend a little time looking in on Crescent’s residents from above, so to speak. There was something centering about being able to change perspective with the wave of a hand. It helped him to think in different dimensions, to look at problems from various angles and attitudes. Despite his best efforts, Nigel’s mind kept straying to Ezra Kendall. He was wading into some dark waters by letting his thoughts travel there—there was a drop-off in those waters, he was sure of it. And that drop-off would send him into an abyss. If the rip current didn’t yank him out to sea first.
He stopped on a feed that caught his attention. The camera lens was dirty; grime partially obscured the view. But from what Nigel could see, it was a loading dock. He checked the address at the bottom of the display. It was one of the Farm’s loading docks. Workers sealed off a large, long crate, and a pair of collector robots carried it off. Nigel shrugged and cycled past the image. Then he went back. It took him several minutes of scrolling to find it again, and when he did, the camera lens was clean and the view was clear. The dock was empty. The crate hadn’t looked like a typical produce-bearing container. It had been too heavy-duty. It also struck Nigel as odd that there would be people working the Farm’s loading docks well after hours—easily six hours into the station’s night cycle.
Dark waters, Nigel thought. Dark waters, indeed.
(•••)
Bean was just ahead. Milky daylight oozed around the hauler and softened the ship’s lines and contours. The cold rain fell more insistently; the wind lashed out with brutal intent, each gust the crack of an icy whip. The small portion of Gerald’s face that was exposed had been rendered raw and numb. He looked back over his shoulder to see Ina shuffling along not far behind him. Her head was down and her gloved hands were stuffed into the parka’s pockets. She hadn’t slowed them down on their return trek. A good thing—their supplemental oxygen supply was nearly exhausted. Gerald felt like his knees were ready to give out. The goddamn gravity was really getting to him. He couldn’t wait to get his tired ass into that control couch. He wanted to forget all about the geological station and its freak show. He couldn’t help but wonder if the universe had gone mad while he was star-hopping his way to Crescent. There were no answers on Anrar III, as Marisa had hoped. Just more shit to pollute his dreams. He wasn’t really sure what he’d tell Marisa about the visit to the planet. Would he tell her about the word—the name? Every time he thought the word Murhaté, it made his fillings ache. It was the name of the geological station—that was apparent. But somehow Gerald knew it was the name of something else. Something bad. But what?
He looked up at the dark, twisting clouds. Beyond them, Crescent circled countless kilometers above the rocky planet. Was this dead place—this former mining operation and the planet it had penetrated—the cause of all the weirdness on Crescent? Gerald had never cared about the station’s earlier days. He had no cause to. But now that he was stuck on Crescent, he wanted to know.
Maybe staying on Crescent too long drove a man insane. Was that Marisa’s issue? Had he missed earlier episodes of her madness due to his short stays? Look at Naheela, for god’s sake, he thought. She was supposedly Crescent’s longest resident and was clearly bat-crazy. On the other hand, Maerl seemed pretty well composed, and he had been on Crescent for years.
How well do you really know people? Gerald thought.
There was Ina—she seemed a little more than off at times, and she hadn’t been on Crescent all that long. And he was having problems of his own. He cut off
the rapid train of thought before it derailed.
Gerald was near enough to see the large drops of rain exploding on Bean’s gray hull. Thank god, he thought. He couldn’t feel his extremities. The rain had managed to work its way into his suit, chilling his entire being. He looked back to check on Ina’s progress and didn’t see her at first. Then he spotted her—she was laying face down in the wet grit. Gerald tried to run to her, but his legs were just too weary to manage more than a jerky amble. He dropped to his knees beside her and cried out from the pain of the impact. He caught his breath, then turned her over. Her eyes were open, but rolled back in her head. She was breathing, but her breath came in short and shallow respirations. Summoning the reserves of his strength, Gerald hefted Ina over his shoulder and began to make his way to Bean. His knees were white hot balls of pain. Every step burst through his bones like a nuclear explosion. The rain was coming down harder and it made the path slick. More than once, Gerald’s booted feet nearly shot out from underneath him. The planet was trying to mock him. No, he thought, this planet is trying to kill me.
“What are you doing?” Ina’s voice came muffled from his back. He instantly let her slide to the ground, where she settled on her hands and knees. She looked up at Gerald, her blue eyes piercing.
“You passed out,” he said.
“I did?” She seemed entirely surprised. Her surprise grew when she saw noticed their proximity to Bean. “How far back did I pass out?”
“Just here,” Gerald said.
“I don’t remember walking this far,” Ina said. Her voice quavered. She was about to freak out. That was one thing that Gerald definitely didn’t want to happen.
“I wish I didn’t remember either,” he said and smiled beneath the tight wrap of his hood. She couldn’t see it, he knew, but he hoped that it came through in his voice. “You’re heavy as shit. Now, come on. Let’s get off this rock.”
She extended a gloved hand. Gerald took it and helped her to her feet.
(•••)
Gerald and Ina—both of them soaked to the bone—could not have stripped out of their excursion suits any faster. It was warm on Bean and the warmth felt good, but they both shivered despite the heat rising from the vents. Gerald looked to Ina. She sat on the control couch in her bra and underwear, with her thin, pale arms wrapped around herself. The clothing that she had been wearing beneath the excursion suit lay in a sopping pile at her bare feet. Gerald covered them both with a heavy wool blanket once they were harnessed in. Lightning lanced outside the front viewport in a long purple arc. Lift-off would be rough in this weather, but they couldn’t wait for it to pass.
“About those other sites,” she began.
“Entirely out of the question. You passed out, for god’s sake.”
“I feel okay,” she persisted.
“Well, you’re not okay. I don’t think Papa Cortez would appreciate me leaving you to your death down there,” Gerald replied.
“You wouldn’t,” Ina said, incredulous.
“Ina, you have no idea how hard you were to carry. And that was for, what, one freakin’ meter? I’m not doing it again. So, your safest bet is to shut your mouth and let me get us out of here.”
She had no response. Gerald was satisfied with her silence.
“Bean. Would you kindly get us out of this storm?” Gerald asked.
“And on to greener pastures,” Bean replied. “It would be my pleasure, Captain. All this flying grit is bad for my hull.”
“We wouldn’t want to ruin that fine complexion of yours,” Gerald said without humor. “Now, quit screwing around. Let’s go.”
Bean rumbled beneath them as the conventional engines fired, and then they rocketed skyward. The g-forces pressed the ship’s occupants into the soft cushions of the control couch. They approached the wall of the storm at high speed. Angry clouds swirled with grey-black vortices, like the barrier between this mortal coil and hell itself. For a single, irrational instant, Gerald feared that the ship would explode when it hit the clouds. The heart of the storm pummeled the ship savagely. Lighting burst around them in blinding violet flashes. The turbulence was so intense, Gerald’s eyes felt like they would rattle right out of his head.
They broke through the cloud deck and into sunlight. The bright orange-red orb of Anrar hung low, just above the fringe of the cloud line.
And then there were stars.
“Do you have any tea on this ship?” Ina said, fumbling at the buckles of the harnesses. “I feel so cold. It’s deep. Really deep. Please, if you have anything. I need it.” There was a queer desperation in her voice that made Gerald reach out and place a hand on shoulder. She was right. She was cold. He could feel it beneath the blanket. Ice cold. “Jesus, Ina. You’re freezing. Do you feel okay otherwise?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think that you’re going hypothermic on me, do you?”
“I… I’m not sure what that would feel like. But I really don’t think so. I just need some dry clothes and some tea. Please,” she said.
“Okay. Bean, crank up the heat.”
Gerald returned from the berthing quarters, dressed and feeling warmer. He carried a folded pile of clothing under one arm and a steaming cup of tea in his hand. Ina was no longer in the control couch. He heard her voice, though, thick and low. She was mumbling. He set the tea down on the deck and peered over the control couch to see Ina lying on her back. Her arms were folded across her chest; her fingers were curled into tight, white-knuckled fists. Ina’s eyes were rolled back into her head. Her lips moved, but they were out of sync with her speaking. Gerald couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying. It sounded like gibberish. But the more he listened to her, the less he believed she was speaking nonsense.
“Bean. Are you catching this… ”
Her eyes went wide and blue. They fixed on him.
“The stone will be carved,” she said before Bean had a chance to reply. “The music will play. The vessel will be filled. The door will be young enough. We will be born complete. The Three will finally be whole. Unity.” The voice was not Ina’s. The sound of it made Gerald’s blood run cold. Ina’s eyes rolled back into her head and she began to mutter in the strange language once more.
It was going to be a long flight.
(•••)
Donovan Cortez crawled along the maintenance shaft. It was longer and far more cramped than he would’ve imagined. According to Ina, Gerald had lost his cool in this very passage. Donovan now understood why the salvage pilot had panicked so. The walls pressed against the elder Cortez’s shoulders, and his fat belly seemed to get hung up on every junction that he crawled past. Donovan, who was not claustrophobic by nature, was finding it difficult not to panic each time he found himself momentarily stuck.
It was cold in the passage. The rest of the lifeboat had seemed to absorb the heat from Crescent’s life support system eagerly, but not this place. It was cold enough that Donovan could see his breath.
He cursed at the hardhat he wore on his head. It was too big for him. It kept falling forward over his eyes, despite his thick coif of mad curls. He stopped for what felt like the nine-hundredth time and resituated the thing. First this way and then that; finally, he tried resting it further back on his head. That seemed better, and he started forward again. But after only a few paces of progress the helmet fell, rolled off his back, and hit the tunnel floor. The lamp shattered and he was in darkness.
He waited there on his hands and knees. His breathing was slow, measured, and deliberate. Don’t panic, Donovan, he thought. He willed his pulse to stay even, though his cardiac muscle seemed to tremble with every beat. He would simply turn around and crawl back the way he had come. Piece of cake. He hadn’t been traveling down the passage for all that long. Five minutes? Maybe less.
But he couldn’t turn around. The space was too tight. And with that realization, his heart rate threatened to shoot through the roof. He took in several gulps of air. It was musty. Dank. Cold.
Donovan squeezed his eyes shut against the darkness. The gulps retarded into more reasonable breaths. His pulse slowed. Donovan knew what he had to do. He had to press on until he reached the chamber where Gerald had ejected the reactor core. There would be enough room for him to turn around there.
His palms were clammy with sweat and he slipped frequently, but he crawled forward in the darkness. He wiped his hands dry on his shirt every few minutes to be sure that he didn’t end up planting his face into channel floor.
Then Donovan stopped moving.
What is that? he thought. Is that light?
It was quite impossible that there was light up ahead. Yet, Donovan saw a vague, purplish glow. The violet luminance could have been his brain inventing light to cope with the complete blackness. Donovan started crawling again and as he moved forward, he knew the theory was wrong. He could see the outline of a circular junction—the hatch to the reactor chamber. But if there was light, where was it coming from?
Donovan went through the opening and the answer presented itself:
Everywhere.
The walls of the ovoid chamber were painted in a low, purplish glow. The light flowed along the curving wall panels like a viscous fluid. Donovan got to his feet, so enthralled by the living light that he didn’t even notice the pile of corpses. When he did, he took several tottering steps backwards and landed on his rump. He was no stranger to cadavers, but the sheer volume of desiccated human remains was overwhelming. You are a scientist, Donovan Cortez, he thought, and a doctor. He took a slow and deep breath and reminded himself that he had seen plenty of bizarre things on the operating table, and he’d seen more than his fair share of death. But the stark and surreal quality of the scene made his chest feel compressed. Donovan continued to practice his measured breathing until calm returned to him. Why had Gerald not said anything about this room? Donovan wondered. The purplish light continued to ooze over the walls and floor. Tendrils of it curled around the soles of his white sneakers like smoke.
