One Way

by S. J. Morden

  They were all there, back in their tanks, as if this was a morgue. So who the hell chose to sleep in a morgue?

  Frank wiped his tablet screen and climbed back down to the first floor.

  He’d talk to Brack, try and get him to stop. If that didn’t work, he’d have to talk to XO: explain the situation, and get some help. Some advice at least, because help was a hundred million miles away and the distance still didn’t seem real.

  Wherever Brack was, though, he wasn’t coming back in a hurry. Maybe he was just driving around in the crater, trying to avoid spending time in the ship.

  If there was a locator on Brack’s suit, all he had to do was tab up the map and find it. Which he did.

  Nothing. If there was a signal, he was blocked from seeing it. Brack could literally be anywhere. Untrackable, untraceable. Almost … as if this was deliberate.

  He closed up his tablet and with a last, almost embarrassed, look around, he swapped out his life support and climbed back into his suit. Once outside, he decided that the best he could do was drive to the edge of the Heights so he could look down into the crater, and see if he could spot Brack.

  The view hadn’t changed for, Frank was guessing, thousands of years. Then in a few short months, humans had put their marks all over it. Tire tracks, repeatedly driven routes that subtly altered the landscape and made a track, a path, and eventually a road across the pristine wilderness.

  There was such a road down from the Heights to Sunset Boulevard below, a worn, compacted trail down the red ocher slope. And at the bottom, three white cargo cylinders that had no right to be there at all.

  For a moment, he thought that they might be the same ones that he’d hauled to the vicinity of the ship, with Dee, what felt like a lifetime ago. But he’d just seen those. These were new: ones that had been missed from earlier.

  But Frank hadn’t missed any from earlier. He’d collected—with enormous difficulty and considerable risk—every last one that had been marked on his map. If they weren’t on his map, though, if they had damaged transponders, he’d never have found them on the plains. It had been hard enough finding the ones he did have co-ordinates for.

  His letters. His books. They might be down there. Why hadn’t Brack said anything, though? And if these weren’t part of their consignment, whose were they? Having warned them off “space piracy”, had Brack done exactly that? Except the cylinders, pale and pink in the evening light, looked just like XO deliveries.

  There was no sign of the second buggy, no telltale ground-level cloud of dust. Frank had the time to go and check the cylinders for himself. Part of him still feared discovery. He felt he had to be good, to earn his jailer’s trust and confidence, to prove himself worthy of that seat home.

  But the feral part of his mind, the part that was stirred up and buzzing with wild, incoherent thoughts, was still telling him he was going to die here. Maybe not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but one day. He would die on Mars and that would be that. No homecoming. No parole board. No feeling the raw, unfiltered sun on his face and the warmth in his bones. No tentative walk up an unfamiliar driveway to a screen door and a hesitant press of the bell push.

  He pointed the buggy down the slope and drove all the way to the bottom, parking up next to the nearest of the three cylinders. He ran his hand over the casing, checking to see how much dust had accumulated on the white, plasticky paint. Some, but not much. It didn’t appear to have been sitting out in the desert for that long. The XO logo was still clearly visible on the side.

  He undid the hatches manually, the tool for that being back at the base. It was awkward for one person to do it, but he did it in stages, and managed to pop one half of it open. He had to fight through the usual layers of insulation and packaging to get to the drums inside, but he was eventually able to see what the labels said.

  NASA. Each one was stickered and sealed with vinyl labels with the NASA logo, a QR code, several serial numbers and a brief description of the contents. Science Experiment (Biology) 4B Part 2 of 7. Technical Equipment (Geology) 2F Part 1 of 3. Environmental Equipment (Atmosphere) 36G Part 1 of 1.

  This was a regular delivery. At least some of the descents he’d seen, and heard, had been these. So why hadn’t he been dispatched to bring it back? Was it because it was deemed he was too busy working on the base, or because Brack was bored?

  Brack had contributed nothing to the building or the running of the base. Why start now? Why go out, on his own, three—four, because that was surely what he was doing now—times, to collect cargo drops that weren’t logged on the system?

  Because the cons weren’t supposed to know about them? Why would that be? There was nothing in the delivery Frank had opened to indicate any sort of contraband or dangerous chemicals or equipment that they might use to turn on each other. Certainly no more dangerous than the well-stocked pharmacy they already had.

  Frank’s hand went to the pouch of patches, where the surgical instruments he’d taken sat. He patted them.

  If XO were sending NASA packages, it could only mean that the astronauts were coming soon. Highly trained scientists and explorers and pilots would be stepping into an environment where there was almost certainly a murderer, and potentially two. Was that why Brack hadn’t told them, why Brack had kept all this secret? Why he was taking pills and sleeping in the ship? He didn’t know which of them was the killer. He’d seen his crew whittled down from seven to three, and XO were going to be riding his tail, demanding he take charge and find the culprits out.

  They had billions of dollars riding on being able to provide a safe working environment for the NASA people. That had to bring its own, almost unimaginable, pressures.

  Frank pushed the insulation back into place, and hauled down on the hatch to close it. He retightened the restraining bolts, and as an afterthought threw a double-handful of dust high over the cylinder to obscure his hand-marks. He wasn’t quite sure why he did that. He wasn’t really snooping: he was helping.

  He drove back up to the Heights still not knowing what to do. If Declan and Zero had conspired together, or even if they hadn’t and were acting independently of each other, then they both needed to be stopped.

  Stopped. There was only one way to stop them. Brack knew that, and it was about time Frank accepted it too. His buggy passed the ship, and began to close the distance to the base. Brack was still nowhere to be seen, but sunset was due in about two hours. There was going to be a confrontation, whatever time he showed up. Would Declan try and blame Zero, and vice versa, or would they gang up on Frank and pin everything on him?

  Frank was pretty sure of his ground—he knew he wasn’t responsible—and he couldn’t have played any part in the deaths of either Zeus or Dee. Or Marcy or Alice, no matter what Declan said. Those were nothing to do with him. He didn’t want any of them dead. Even if that was what was going to happen in the end.

  He saw the base in the distance, the white habs reflecting a paler pink from the red ground. Someone was outside, suit lights visible as glowing colored bars where the suit itself merged into the background.

  Frank slowed to a stop, and took out the surgical pack from the pouch.

  It was designed to be ripped open by fingers in latex gloves, not spacesuit gloves, but the clear plastic covering over the sterile instruments could be pierced by the pointier of the tools. He used the forceps to break a hole in the package, and widened it by flexing them back and forth until it had torn through half the width.

  He pushed the scalpel, still with its plastic guard, along the backing foil and into his hand.

  It had a tiny blade, no more than an inch long, but it was wickedly sharp. The handle was slim and ridged, but designed for downward pressure, not for stabbing. He took a slap-patch from the pouch and held it up against the knife. It would do. He carefully tore off the backing—something that was purposely made to be handled with spacesuit gloves—and adhered the handle to one end of the patch.

  He rolled it up tightly, making a
fat, flexible grip which wouldn’t slip through his hand, but which left the blade naked. It’d get blunt quickly, but he only needed it, if he did actually need it, to stay keen for a short while. He knew how to work a shank, in and out, fast and repeatedly, like a sewing machine needle.

  The other two would have access to the kitchen knives and the medical supplies as well as the gardening snips and shears. He supposed that by now they were both armed. They’d probably guess he was too.

  He made sure the blade guard was clipped on before he returned his knife to the bag. The rest of the surgical tools went in tucked underneath it, so he could just reach in and grab it.

  He wasn’t a killer. He kept on telling himself that. He was just defending himself. He just wanted to stay alive long enough to go home.

  Frank tabbed his suit controls and reactivated his microphone.

  “Declan? Zero? I’m coming in. I think we need to talk.”

  26

  [Private diary of Bruno Tiller, entry under 3/22/2047, transcribed from paper-only copy]

  Do you know what they’re calling them? Chimps. It’s extraordinary the way people will treat each other when they’re given permission.

  And I have given them permission. It makes it easier. It always makes it easier.

  They met around the kitchen table in the crew quarters. Declan was standing at one end, Zero in the middle on the far side, so that when Frank stepped into the hab, he had a natural place at the other end of the table.

  He took the chair, pulled it slowly out, eyeing up the others. “I’ll sit if you will.”

  “Sure, why not?” Declan nodded. “All we’re going to do is talk, right?”

  Frank reached into his pocket, and saw where the others touched their overalls. They were all tooled up, for certain. Frank’s knife was in his other pocket: he could feel the hard mass of it through the fabric. He pulled out the blue latex glove and tossed it onto the table in front of him. It landed like a stranded jellyfish, limp and shapeless.

  Then he sat, perched on the edge of his seat, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. Declan and Zero did the same.

  “So who’s going first?” asked Frank.

  “Why not you?” said Declan. “You’re the one playing cop. Isn’t that right?”

  Zero’s gaze darted between the two older men. “What’s going on? What d’you mean, cop?”

  “It’s a fair question, Frank. Why don’t you answer him?”

  “Zeus … died. I thought it was my fault, something I had or hadn’t done. Some structural problem with the workshop. I had to check it out. That’s when I realized that the hab was perfectly sound. No leaks, no way that it could leak. Nothing that would have depressurized the whole thing quickly enough to catch Zeus out.”

  “So you went worrying at it like a dog with a bone, right? Trying to prove you weren’t at fault.”

  “And I discovered that there were a couple of ways you could do it, but both of them were deliberate sabotage. You had to really want to do it. Someone really wanted to kill Zeus.”

  Declan placed both hands on the table between them. “You told Brack, of course.”

  “I told him.”

  “And what did you tell him, Frank?”

  Zero bounced nervously in his seat. “Yeah, tell us, Frank. What did you say?”

  Frank scratched at his chin. “I told him we had a murderer on the base.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us too, Frank?” Declan’s voice went very quiet. “Didn’t you think we had a right to know?”

  “Brack told me not to say anything. He didn’t want to tip you off.”

  “Me?” Declan put his hand to his chest. “You thought it was me? Or did you think it was Zero here? Or maybe it was Dee?”

  “It wasn’t me, so it had to be one of you.” Frank glared at the men alternately. “It still does. It’s one of you. Or both of you. I don’t know which.”

  “It wasn’t me,” said Declan. “Zero?”

  “Not me. I’m not like that.” Zero gripped the edge of the table and stared back at Frank. “You are, though. You killed someone, right?”

  “That was—”

  “Different? So let’s look at this rationally.” Declan counted off the corpses on his fingers. “Marcy ran a couple of dozen people over after switching off her truck’s autodrive. Alice euthanized God knows how many. Zeus sucker-punched someone in a bar.”

  “How the hell do you know all that?”

  “I talk to people, Frank! And you shot someone; from our point of view, you’re the only murderer left. To us, that looks like someone’s taking out the opposition, the ones who might take you on.”

  “That’s not what’s happened.”

  Declan carried on regardless. “Then Dee, whose only crime is to hack various company computers and try and divert some cash his way—”

  Zero shrugged. “I don’t know: it was a lot of green, man. Maybe he was boasting, but what he was saying was more money than I ever made.”

  “Point is, Dee wasn’t a killer. He was squeamish, for pity’s sake.” Declan folded down his thumb. “So who’s next on the list, Frank? Me, or Zero? A white-collar pervert, or a gangbanging drug dealer. Who do you think’s more dangerous?”

  Frank clenched his jaw. “I’ve done nothing.”

  “You opened the door on Zeus, Frank.”

  “He was already dead. I wouldn’t have been able to get that door open if the airlock had been pressurized.”

  “You can manually vent the airlock to the outside, just by pulling the lever. Come on, Frank, we did the same training as you did.”

  “But I didn’t do that. And you were outside with me when Dee died. You saw me with your own eyes. I couldn’t have been by the buggy at the same time as holding the Comms door shut. Could I?”

  Declan screwed his face up. “Yeah. Well. Maybe that one was Zero.”

  Zero jerked back. “Fuck you, man. I didn’t kill Dee.”

  “You didn’t get on.”

  “Didn’t mean I wanted to kill him.”

  “So who did?” Declan pointed at the other two. “Because, from where I’m sitting, I’m in the clear.”

  Several seconds of silence followed.

  Frank cleared his throat. He should have brought his water bottle with him. “What if I’m wrong? What if they were both accidents?”

  “But you don’t believe that,” said Declan. “You started all this because you didn’t want to be responsible for killing Zeus. So which is it? Did the workshop depressurize because you installed something wrong, or not? What would you rather it was? A mistake, a catastrophic, fatal mistake that you made, or that one of us killed him?”

  Frank pressed his palms against his legs. The scalpel blade’s guard poked his thigh. “I checked the hab. It was sound.”

  “So it wasn’t an accident. Someone killed Zeus.”

  “Someone killed Zeus,” echoed Frank. “One of you two. And then killed Dee.”

  Zero pushed himself back from the table. “I’ve had enough of this, man. I killed no one. You two want to fight it out, go ahead. Tell me when you’re done.”

  “You can say that,” said Declan. “And we can say, you could have got to Zeus, and you’re the only one who could have done for Dee.”

  “I don’t leave the base!”

  “I was outside with Declan,” said Frank. “You were the only one inside with Dee. And you’ve got an airlock at the far end of the greenhouse. No one would ever see you go out, or come back.”

  Zero stood up, and his chair bounced away behind him, against the soft wall of the hab and clattered to the floor. He pulled out a short curved knife and held it in a shaking hand out in front of him.

  “I’ve done nothing. You’re not going to pin this on me. I’ll tell Brack who really did it.”

  “You got any evidence to back that up?” Declan remained impassive. “No, you don’t. So sit down and shut up.”

  Zero hesitated. Then he picked up his chair, put it back
on its legs and sat down again, well away from the table.

  Frank rubbed at his face. “This is crazy. We all know that. If one of us killed Zeus and Dee, we’re never going to admit it because of what Brack will do to us. That just leaves us sitting here, wondering who’s going to get it next.”

  “None of us want to get spaced,” conceded Declan, “any more than we wanted to go in the Hole. Which is pretty much why we’re all here. We got tricked into this, and we have to make the best of it. But living like this? This isn’t what I’d call living. We’re all at the point where we’re terrified to even close our eyes. Our suits might kill us, the air might kill us, there’s all kinds of shit out there that’ll kill us, and then there’s the radiation giving us cancer and the reduced gravity thinning our bones.”

  “We’ve done a good thing, though,” said Frank. “We built this. We had our problems but we came together and built this. We’ve done something we can be proud of. That’ll make other people be proud of us.”

  “Which is why what’s happening to us now makes no sense.” Declan took a deep breath of the rarefied atmosphere. He reached into his own pocket and tossed a long, thin screwdriver on the table in front of him. “I’m tired of this shit. I’m betting you are, too.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Zero, passing his knife from hand to hand. “It can’t be none of us.”

  Frank pulled out his own blade and carefully laid it on the table. He knew what he had to do, but knew that if he wasn’t very, very careful, he’d never get home. That he might never get home was something that had been preying on his mind ever since waking up on that first morning on Mars.

  “Do you think XO can listen to what we’re saying?” he asked.

  Declan glanced at Zero, and his knife. “When I plugged in the controls, I didn’t put any mics in. Just the fire-control cameras.”

  They all looked up at the ceiling.

  “There’s these, too.” Zero used his free hand to touch his sternum. “I don’t know. I guess I just forget about it most days.”