Vessel

by Andrew J. Morgan

  'You want what?' he'd said, feeling his knees weaken as Bales' words sank in.

  'I know it's last minute and I apologise, but the situation has changed and the mission needs to change with it. A specialist has been forced to return, and we need to get someone else up there as soon as we can. I have the people — I need you to build me the rocket. Can you do that for me?'

  'Well,' the Director had said, his mind torn in two, 'we're not far off a scheduled resupply, so I suppose it is possible —'

  'That's exactly what I wanted to hear, thank you. Don't think this effort will go ignored, because it won't. The fate of a lot of people rests on this.'

  And then he was gone.

  The Director watched the gantry preparations as he recalled the conversation over and over in his head. He knew it wasn't his business to question the goings on of his superiors, and he knew that NASA had the best interests of the station and its crew at heart, but he couldn't help but feel that something was off. Nevertheless, the preparations for Soyuz TMA Eleven M pushed on, drawing closer and closer to completion. He squashed the nagging feeling back down again as a cool wind blew in across the expansive launch site, bringing with it the fine sand of the desert. Shielding his eyes, he retreated from the observation balcony and back into the protection of the Cosmodrome. Only one more day of this and it would be done.

  * * *

  Banin pulled up alongside a rough-looking bar just outside of the Moscow city limits, a place only two miles from the crash site. The neon sign — which buzzed in what Banin thought was a painfully stereotypical way — said: The West House. He'd heard of The West House before, and the stories didn't exactly fill him with glee. This was the place to come if you wanted to hide from someone — or just plain hide someone. Someone usually dead. There was a cruiser already parked outside, and leaning on it, waiting for him, was Abram.

  'Thanks for coming, sir,' Abram said, walking with Banin to the bar's entrance. 'I think I found just what you're looking for.'

  They went in, and Abram led Banin to the bar, behind which a stout, ugly man wearing a dirty shirt and overalls was standing.

  'This is Ruslan, Ruslan Vasnetsov. He's the owner.'

  'Hello, Mr. Vasnetsov,' said Banin, offering his hand, which Vasnetsov didn't take. Banin retracted it again. 'Right. So, what do you know?'

  'I know lots of things, officer.'

  This was going to be difficult. Banin gritted his teeth and told himself to stay calm. 'I'm not an officer. I'm a detective. What do you know about the night that my friend here' — he gestured to Abram, — 'has been asking you about?'

  'I know there was a fight.'

  'Good. Tell me more.'

  'There's always fights here, and you boys don't show up most times.'

  'I'm sorry about that, Mr. Vasnetsov, but we're very overworked and understaffed —'

  'I get robbed nearly every month and you boys don't do anything.'

  Banin took a breath and mentally counted to ten. 'Well, we're here now. So what can you tell me about this fight?'

  'Well, it wasn't much of a fight. Just a punch. This old boy shows up for a drink like he does every night, and then about a hour or so after, a whole bunch of Americans came in and rounded on him.'

  Vasnetsov now had Banin's full attention. 'Americans?'

  'That's right. They were in smart suits — about four of them I think — and they were questioning him for a while. They didn't even sit down, let alone buy a drink.'

  'So when did the punch happen?'

  'Be easier if I show you.'

  'You have CCTV?'

  Vasnetsov snorted. 'Of course I do. How else am I going to get you police to do anything when you finally start paying attention to me?'

  He had a point, Banin thought, but he didn't fancy arguing the toss with him right now, so he bit his tongue and followed him around to the back, to a small, dirty room with an old TV and VHS player, and a stack of tapes.

  'I've got all my tapes labelled and I store them in the cupboard there,' Vasnetsov said, pointing to a bulging piece of flat-pack furniture. 'I've got the one you want all lined up and ready.'

  He turned the TV on, and once the static had settled, there was a picture. It was the bar, as seen from above, in soft black and white. In the top right hand corner of the frame there was a man on his own having a drink. Lev Ryumin.

  'Watch,' Vasnetsov said.

  Sure enough, four men entered the bar and walked straight over to Ryumin. They all looked distinctly American, crew cuts and wide jaws, and the one taking the lead seemed familiar to Banin.

  'Abram,' he said, 'you recognise that guy? The one with the white hair?'

  Abram squinted at the fuzzy picture, then nodded. 'Yeah — I saw him on the news. He's the RFSA Flight Director.'

  'Doesn't look Russian to me,' Banin muttered.

  'He's not,' Vasnetsov said, tapping the screen, ‘he's American to the bone. I'd recognise that accent anywhere.'

  Vasnetsov pressed the fast-forward button, and the picture sped up, taking on a strange, leaning distortion. The Americans had stayed with Ryumin for over fifteen minutes by the time Vasnetsov pressed play again. On the screen, Ryumin leaped up from his chair and squared up against the white-haired American, who backed up a step and held up his hands, as if turning down the confrontation. Ryumin staggered, then took a clumsy swing that the white-haired man easily deflected with his hand.

  'There's our DNA,' Banin mumbled to himself.

  Caught off balance, Ryumin tumbled to the ground. Using a bar stool, he hoisted himself up, then after making a rude gesture at the Americans, he left. The Americans talked to each other for a minute, then followed.

  'That's all I've got,' Vasnetsov said, stopping the tape.

  'You don't have any cameras outside?' Banin asked.

  'Outside? There's enough crap happening inside for me to worry about what happens outside.'

  Fair enough, Banin thought. 'Okay, Mr. Vasnetsov, you've been very helpful. Thank you for your time.'

  Banin made a move to leave, but Vasnetsov grabbed his arm.

  'Wait! What about my tapes? What about the other crimes?'

  Banin yanked his arm from Vasnetsov's grip. 'I'll send an officer down to collect the evidence — tell him about it.' Then he walked out the room with Abram following, leaving Vasnetsov grumbling to himself.

  'Look's like we've got ourselves a motive,' Abram said, struggling to keep up with Banin's quick strides.

  'It looks that way,' Banin said, but he wasn't convinced. Why would these people, these Americans, come and visit Ryumin in a grotty bar in the middle of nowhere? And why would they try to kill him? And who was the white-haired man? The TV said he was RFSA, but his DNA said he was US government. And where the hell did Aleks Dezhurov fit into all this? It made no sense, none of it did. Whatever was going on had got under Banin's skin, and he needed to work it back out again. There was no backing out now.

  'Shit,' he muttered to himself.

  * * *

  When Sean came to, it was pitch black. It was also hot, close, and there was a musty smell in the air. He struggled, but he was bound with his hands behind him to a post with what felt like rope. A thin crack of sunlight beamed in ahead of him. Everything was quiet.

  * * *

  'Did Sean say when he was going to be back?'

  Aleks peered through the blinds, watching cars trailing by at the end of the road, hoping one of them had Sean in it.

  'No, he didn't,' Novitskiy said as he read the morning paper.

  Aleks left the blinds and returned to pacing the room. 'He can't have meant to be gone for this long. It doesn't feel right.'

  'It's only been a day,' Grigory said from the kitchen. He was cracking eggs into a frying pan, which filled the room with a loud sizzling. 'He was gone longer than that last time.'

  That much was true, but he had gone to America, not half an hour down the road. Aleks wandered back to the blinds to look through them again. 'I think so
mething's wrong,' he said.

  Novitskiy threw his paper on the table. 'Well what do you suggest we do? He didn't say where he was going, what he was doing, and probably for good reason.'

  'But, he's just a kid …'

  'He's not just a kid,' Novitskiy said. 'He may look like one, but he's not. He can look after himself.' He retrieved his newspaper and shook it back open.

  In a flash decision, Aleks grabbed his jacket and walked to the door. 'I'm going out.'

  'You won't find him,' Novitskiy said from behind his paper.

  'What about your eggs?' Aleks heard Grigory shout as he shut the door behind him.

  Something didn't feel right, not at all. Something felt very wrong, in fact. Novitskiy was correct about one thing: Sean wasn't just a kid, and so far he'd managed to keep himself out of trouble. Whatever it was he was doing, he'd missed something, been caught out. Aleks needed to find him before he landed in real trouble, if he hadn't already.

  He started Grigory's truck and turned it around. He waited, engine running and road open ahead of him, frozen in his seat. Novitskiy was right about another thing: what could he do? He slapped the steering wheel out of frustration, and the horn gave a pathetic honk. He knew exactly what he needed to do, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself. It was simple: he had to go to the police. It was going to be suicide. He was a wanted man, but a lifetime in prison without the blood of the innocent on his hands was far more preferable than freedom and the weight of a guilty conscience. At least, that's how he felt right at that moment; before he had a chance to change his mind, he put the truck into gear and set off for Moscow.

  Chapter 25

  The Director of the Baikonur Cosmodrome gave himself a mental pat on the back. They'd done it again, and he watched the last few wisps of trailing smoke dissipate with a sense of pride and satisfaction. It had been touch and go, but the deadline had been met and TMA Eleven M had left the ground without fault. The whole thing did, however, leave him feeling twenty years his senior.

  'I'm getting too old for this,' he muttered to himself.

  * * *

  Sally dreamed that she was on a boat, lost at sea. There was a storm, and the waves crashed higher and higher around her, rocking the boat, tossing her from side to side. The waves rose over the edge of the hull, falling as foam around her, on her, soaking her to the bone. But the water was warm, and it caressed her, folding around her in soothing blankets that gave her a feeling deep inside that was wonderfully comforting. She felt safe.

  She awoke in Mikhail's arms, and she savoured the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck until she could no longer ignore the complaints of her bladder. She slid free of Mikhail's gentle grasp, unzipped his quarters enough to slip through, zipped it shut again and took herself to the toilet, giggling as she enjoyed the feeling of weightlessness for the first time since she'd arrived — she really was walking on air.

  Finished, she floated on down to the galley to fix herself some breakfast. She was hungry, and her stomach gurgled as she heated up some honeyed porridge. She wasn't normally a porridge fan, but today she fancied it. It wasn't long before the pouch of steaming paste was emptied, consumed with a gusto usually reserved for quiet nights in with ice cream and a good movie. Pouch deposited in the waste disposal, she decided that she would go down into the MLM and have another look at UV One. It had been a while since she had last been down there, and her intrigue piqued at the thought of seeing it again.

  Swooping down the tunnel and into the ball at the end, she span and cushioned her deceleration with her bare feet, bringing herself to a stop with graceful agility. She smiled: her control in a weightless environment was improving day on day, and it was very satisfying to pull off a complicated manoeuvre like that one. When she got back to Earth, walking would be boring by comparison. At the reminder of Earth, which was glowing bright through the window, her thoughts turned to Novitskiy, Gardner and Chris. She hoped they had got home safe, and that Gardner and Chris were recovering well. The pathetic state of those three as they had left saddened her, and she looked beyond Earth to the lifeless craft floating on the black sea.

  'What is it you're looking for?' she whispered to herself.

  She almost expected a response and felt a little disappointed to receive none. UV One, its colourless surface catching the light of the occasional star, shimmered dully, a distant reflection in an interstellar puddle. Perhaps it was a dead relic, floating without aim through the cosmos, searching for life and trying to communicate its pre-recorded message. The beings that created it could be — and probably were — long dead; perhaps even the whole species was gone. This singular vessel could be all that was left of an extinct race, a drifting artefact of a once-great civilisation. She reached out to touch it, pressing her finger on the glass, covering it. When she lifted her finger away, it was still there, still following. She sighed.

  At once, a bloodcurdling scream filled the station, and then it was gone.

  'Mikhail …'

  Sally pushed off the floor and shot up the tunnel, crashing into the wall at the other end. She scrambled forwards, building momentum to get back to the crew quarters as fast as she could, snatching for handholds to pull herself along with. As she entered the Destiny lab, she could see that that Mikhail's quarters were still shut, and as she reached it she hurried to pull the zipper open. As the door flapped down, a small globule of blood floated out, and she clapped her hand over her mouth as the sight filled her with terror and revulsion. Mikhail was contorted into a scarcely believable position, his eyes rolled back into their sockets, his ears and nose leaking globular blood into the cramped quarters; there was little white surface left uncovered with red.

  'Mikhail!' Sally screamed, and began unfastening him from his sleeping bag. He writhed, blood spraying from his nose. Sally pushed him back against the wall to keep him still, wrestling with the sleeping bag as her heart threatened to leap out of her chest. Once he was free, she towed him to the medical bay at the end of the module. He thrashed some more, but in the short time it took her to reach the vertical stretcher and to start strapping him to it, he had gone limp, his eyes shut.

  'Come on, Mikhail, hold on …' she whispered, pulling the last few Velcro tabs tight. She struggled to find his pulse, which she then realised was because he almost didn't have one. The blood flow seemed to have stopped and his skin was turning grey. Sally felt for his pulse again; now it had gone completely. Without wasting a moment, she ripped into the first aid container and retrieved the compact defibrillator. Peeling the backing off the electrode pads, she stuck them down, thinking back to the first aid part of her brief training. She thought she was doing it right. God, she hoped it was right. Taking a deep breath, she thumbed the button, and Mikhail jolted against the stretcher's straps. She felt for his pulse — still nothing. Pressing the button again, Mikhail jolted, but this time with less energy. Again she felt for his pulse, but still there was nothing.

  'Come on!' she yelled, tears filling her eyes.

  She thumped the button, and a tremor shot through Mikhail's body. He thrashed against the stretcher violently enough to start peeling the Velcro apart. He spluttered, thrashed some more, and went limp. Sally watched him, her breath held. She didn't want to watch, but she couldn't turn away.

  'Eaurghhh …' Mikhail moaned, opening his eyes. 'What — what's happening?'

  Sally could feel herself quivering. She spoke, but the words came out distant, like they weren't hers. 'It's fine. You're fine. There's nothing to worry about.'

  Mikhail looked at the blood down his front, and his eyes widened. 'Oh my god,' he whispered, wiping it with a finger and watching it glisten on the tip.

  'I'm so glad you're okay,' Sally said, clasping her hands around his. She tried to smile in a reassuring way to comfort him, to help her believe what she was saying, but she couldn't hold back the hot pressure pushing against her eyes. She never, ever cried, but seeing Mikhail like this brought tears quicker than she had ever t
hought possible. She wiped them away, still trying to smile, but they just kept coming. Mikhail looked frail, weak; almost as though he'd aged a decade overnight. Now her tears were in full flow, and she buried her face in his chest and sobbed.

  * * *

  Everything about Aleks was numb as he pushed open the door to the Moscow Police Department headquarters. He washed through the entrance lobby in a haze of immediacy, his thundering heart sapping his senses of clarity. People were looking at him, stopping their conversations and watching him pass, he was sure of it. He could feel it. Or perhaps he was being paranoid. He stopped at the reception desk, where the receptionist smiled at him.

  'Can I help you?' she said, either unaware of who he was or uncaring.

  'Yes,' Aleks croaked. He coughed, dislodging the uncomfortable sweat that had formed on the back on his throat. 'Yes. I need to speak to an officer about the International Space Station.'

  The receptionist's smile wavered, her eyes narrowing a fraction. 'Okay … one moment please,' she said, reaching for her desk phone.

  'Say it's about Ryumin. Lev Ryumin. I have information about him.'

  This seemed to strike some sort of chord with the receptionist, because her eyes lit up and her hand retracted from the phone. 'Oh, of course. You need to speak to Detective Inspector Banin. He's out at the moment, but he'll be back soon. If you go to the second floor, his desk is the third on the right. You can wait for him there.'

  Aleks nodded his appreciation and quickly made his way upstairs, feeling like he'd somehow broken a serious law by doing so. He was a wanted man, and here he was, making his way to the desk of the person who was trying to apprehend him. He sat down in front of it, feeling awkward, and focused on the things scattered about on top, avoiding the questioning looks he assumed people were directing his way. Aside from the usual stationary and equipment, there was a picture of a young dark-haired boy he presumed was Banin's son. It seemed that even the boy in the photo was glaring at him with accusing eyes. He scanned the room, and the people working continued uninterrupted, unaware of his presence.