Crescent (15 page)

“I’ll take you to him. I don’t want you getting yourself lost.” Gerald nodded gratefully and cocked his head toward the opening in the belly of the lifeboat.

“After you.”

Gerald found Donovan muttering to himself on the bridge. Strings of white diodes suspended within small cones had been strung in a makeshift
criss
-crossed pattern along the ceiling panels, casting wide pools of light. Most of the lifeboat’s control consoles were dark.
Most—but not all.
A few consoles showed dull blinking lights that looked like they wanted to go out. Some of the surfaces on the bridge were covered with dark, rusty smudges. Gerald was pretty sure he knew what that was all about.

“I managed to get power restored to the ship with out blowing it up. How do you like that?” Donovan looked up at the cone-lights. “But the lighting system throughout the whole ship is nonfunctional. Go figure.” He chuckled and got off his stool. “Thank you for coming, Gerald.”

“Yep.
Don’t mention it.” Gerald craned his neck to look over Donovan’s shoulder. Navigation charts were spread out over a dark control console. On closer inspection, Gerald saw that the charts were, in actuality, terrestrial maps. “What is all that?” Gerald pointed.

“Those are maps.” Donovan seemed very pleased about this.

“I can see that.
Maps of what?”

“They are maps of
Anrar
III’s
surface. But these maps came directly from the data banks of the lifeboat. Some of the only salvageable data—most of the wafers were all but shot.”

“Looking for buried treasure on
Anrar
III, Doc?”

“Precisely what I am looking for.”

Gerald shook his head. “I don’t think I want to hear any of this.”

“You’re more than welcome to leave.” Ina piped in. She had crossed to the other side of the table and was looking down at the maps. She blinked up at Gerald, her eyes wide and surprisingly beautiful in the dazzle of the cone-lights.
Goddamn it. Stop that,
he thought.

“All right.
Give me a break here. Tell me about your wonderful maps, Doc.”

“Let me ask you a question, Gerald. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that as an archaeologist, I’d choose to come to Crescent rather than spend my time in all the older places closer to Sol?”

“It doesn’t strike me as odd, no. I figured you’re an eccentric, wealthy retired surgeon who fancies himself an archaeologist. Maybe next week you’ll fancy yourself a ballerina.” Ina laughed. Donovan frowned and shook his head.

“Wealthy and eccentric—I might be both of those things.
Graceful?
Not by a stretch. But, we’re rapidly straying from the topic at hand.”

“No more interruptions, Doc. You have the floor.”

“There are a multitude of archaeological sites throughout the seventeen systems of the core—the leavings of several centuries of colonization efforts. These sites have been studied again and again. I have visited many of these places, Gerald. They are fascinating, yes, but the thrill of discovery? Bah. Can you discover something new in a museum?” Donovan laughed softly. “Impossible. So, I began to look for other
possibilities.
Lost colonies, ships gone
missing,
and other unsubstantiated claims. Yes, it has been like grasping at straws.” Donovan waved his hands around, as if the things he was mentioning floated in front of his face. “I found some claims from an early
Anrar
mining and survey team reporting strange geological formations.
Anrar
III led to Crescent Station and its very own rich and mysterious history. That is why I’m here.
To shed light on this station’s past and that of
Anrar
III.”

“Nice story.” Gerald tapped his chin. “But, I think whatever happened here, Doc, we missed it.”

“Of course we did. But there
is
still a quarter mile of station that has never been explored. That part of the station is bound to be a treasure chest.”

“Or contaminated with some horrible biological agent.
Moot, anyway. Core Sec won’t let anyone near it,” Gerald said.

“Yet, Gerald.
Yet.
If I can find out what happened here—maybe it was just a revolt? Maybe it was some biological disaster, the effects of which have likely dissipated to a non-toxic level. But here I am digressing again. There is too much to focus on at times, it would seem. The maps on that table were generated from the few shards of data left in this lifeboat’s computer. There are some interesting annotations on this map. Come, look for yourself.” Gerald stepped alongside the table. Donovan moved to the opposite side and placed his finger on three closely distributed red circles.

“Site one,” Gerald read. Donovan moved his finger to a second circle. “Site two.”
And a third.
“Site three. Okay, fair enough. What are these sites?”

Donovan clapped his hands together, causing Ina to startle. “I would
guess,
the original mining colony. I need to get down to
Anrar
III for a closer look. I asked to requisition one of Kendall’s shuttles—for an exorbitant amount of money, no less—and he wanted nothing to do with it. In truth, I think he was afraid of me getting killed down there. If that happened, he wouldn’t have me padding the Crescent budget.”

“You’re paying Kendall?”

“It was the only way I could conduct my research below the radar. Core Sec would not allow it, were they to know about it. Curiosity is not encouraged in this part of space—for whatever reason. However, even Kendall has been stingy about letting me do my work.”

“You are aware there is a Core Sec security auditor on this station, at this very moment.
Right?”

“Yes. It makes me nervous that he is here. But, hopefully he won’t bother us. If he does come snooping, I’m sure he can be bought as easily as everyone else.”

Like me?
Gerald thought.

“So, you want me to take you down to
Anrar
III’s
surface to investigate these sites.”

“That is exactly what I want. I’ll pay you twice what I paid you for the lifeboat haul.”

It didn’t sound half as dangerous as the lifeboat salvage had been. Gerald couldn’t deny that he was at least a little bit curious and more than a little greedy. Each credit had the potential of taking him that much further from Crescent.

“I don’t know.” He met Ina’s eyes. She remained silent, but the expectant look was hard to ignore.

“Okay, Doc.
Why the hell not?”

Gerald took his time walking home. He looked at the people he passed. Some of them—most of them—looked perfectly normal: fine and happy.
All there.
But there were people who stared off into space; they looked exhausted, and some of them looked downright ill. Was there something wrong with these people?

Or was it his newly hatched paranoia?

(Part XI)

It wanted Marisa to look at it.
To touch it.
The goddamn thing thrummed every time she neared the place where she had concealed it. She laughed. The hiding spot was foolish. After all, only six year olds and cats hid shit underneath furniture. But that was the spot. Marisa didn’t know why. It probably didn’t even fucking matter.

The big recliner looked rattier now than it ever had. The fabric had been slowly unraveling itself and now pooled around the sides of the old piece of furniture. The disc was underneath the chair, wrapped in three thick towels. It had been Marisa’s hope to smother the thing’s call, but it only seemed to accomplish the opposite. The object’s pull was, at times, almost irresistible. The sensation was tangible, like thousands of tiny hands nudging and prodding her. She’d resisted going to the thing for days. How many days, she couldn’t count. Time was becoming a mere footnote on the rapidly shuffling pages of her existence.

I shouldn’t look at it,
Marisa thought.
I should get rid of it. There’s still time.
She emptied a few white pills of
carthine
onto the plastic table at which she sat, and pushed the pills around with her fingertip. She’d been taking the drug more and more. It wasn’t just to help her relax at night. It wasn’t just to help her sleep. It was to quell the urge to look at the glass disc she had brought back from the cistern
—
to stifle the desire to lay with the thing for days on end until she died from thirst and starvation. She started with one pill every other day. Now she was taking three daily. It made the thrumming more bearable, but Marisa still saw the Black everywhere she looked—just out of the corner of her eye.

There was a distant chime. She glanced up at the wall clock—time to go. She looked back down at the pills and then over to the recliner. The chair watched her like a grim, age-faded sentinel, guarding the charge that sat beneath it. She flicked the pills—one, two, three—off the table and onto the floor. She stood slowly and moved toward the door. As she went, she picked up the discarded pills and popped them into her mouth.

One.
Two.
Three.

(•••)

Nigel was at the monitoring-station-turned-office when she arrived. He’d been on time every day, while Marisa only seemed to be showing up later and later. Her punctuality didn’t matter. It wasn’t like
Swaren
was giving her all that much to do. He glanced up at her from a stack of fan fold paper and frowned.

“You feeling okay, Lieutenant Griffin?”
Nigel asked.

“Yeah.
I’m fine.” She wasn’t lying. The
carthine
was kicking in.

“You look exhausted. I don’t think ever seen such dark circles.”

“Thanks, I’ll take that as compliment. What do you have there?” She leaned over the long, slender table that served as Nigel’s makeshift desk.

“This?” He waved one of the pages. “This is my least favorite part of the job. Hard copy logs. Hard copy Crescent ATC logs. I’m making sure that everyone that has come and gone from the station was cleared to do so. Flight plans in
Anrar
and the neighboring systems must be pre-approved by Core Sec, without exception. There’s been a lot of raider activity in
Habeos
and
Tireca
as of late. Keeping track of these things has become particularly important to Core Sec with the New Juno colonization initiative ramping up.”

Marisa stared at the stack. It looked fifteen centimeters high. The last thing she wanted to do was look over
Swaren’s
shoulder as he went through the pages of condensed printout one by one.

“Marisa?”

“Huh?” This was the first time he had called her by that name. The sound of it was strange coming out of his mouth and it caused her to look up.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Nigel asked and placed his hands atop the stack of data.

“Ask me again and I won’t be
okay,
and neither will you.” Despite her best intentions, Marisa felt her eyes narrowing to menacing slits.

“Easy, Lieutenant.”

“And don’t you make any fucking jokes about this being my time of the month.” Marisa frowned and looked away.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Nigel said.

“Good. Are we done here, then?” She looked back to him.

“Actually, no, we’re not done here.” He began thumbing back through the stack of pages, speaking casually as he did so. “Core Sec procedure specifies hard copy data review—the brass says looking at a piece of paper is more reliable than reading data on a terminal or overlay. I’ll tell you, we’re the only people who look at paper this often in this day and age. If it weren’t for Core Sec, I bet paper wouldn’t even be produced anymore.” He stopped the page-flipping at a sheet that was flagged with a red sticker.

“That’s very interesting,” said Marisa.

“Not really. But this is.” He placed his finger on a line marked by an adhesive red arrow.
“Bean.
Transponder number 48967, made an unscheduled trip from Crescent three days ago. It looks like someone tried to delete the entry. The record had been backed up prior to the deletion. Whoever deleted the entry didn’t bother to take care of the backup.
Careless, really.
I looked up this “Bean.” Turns out she is a Class 2A hauler specializing in salvage, captained by one Gerald Evans. His records are all clean, but I think this should be checked out nonetheless.”

Marisa wondered if this had been one of Gerald’s salvage runs for Kendall. Kendall’s people should have no cause to delete a record if the run were legal. Which meant that maybe the runs weren’t? Truly, what else could it be? She wasn’t wondering so much as she was fretting.
Gerry,
she thought,
just what have you gotten yourself into?
Marisa stuffed her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. She offered a weak smile.

“And what would you like from me?” Marisa asked.

Nigel was squinting at the page. “Go find this Gerald Evans. He should be on the station if he’s not making another unscheduled run. Find out what he was up to.” He stopped studying the sheet to look up at her.

“That all?”

“That’s it.”

“Do you want to question him yourself?”

“Only if necessary.
I’ll be tied up the rest of the day mapping crime trends. There seems to be no lack of data there. Use your discretion, Officer. If you think I need to question him myself, I will,” Nigel said.

“Okay.” Marisa knew that if Gerry’s salvage work was illegal, Kendall would sell him out in a heartbeat. If Gerald was doing work for someone else, Kendall would have Gerald beaten into a pulp. She didn’t want to see Gerald get hurt, even if he was being an aloof and unsupportive asshole. The fact that she would be the first to question Gerald was a reprieve for the pilot—even if only a small one.

“Well, get to it,” Nigel said.

“I’m sorry, Nigel.
Sir.
Captain
Swaren
. I’m just getting over the shock of being handed an actual assignment,” Marisa said, and he laughed.

“You have proven reliable when being sent off to do nothing. Now, I’m sending you away with something to do. If that goes well, we’ll talk about beefing up your responsibilities even further.” Nigel returned his eyes to the thick stack of log entries.

She smirked but didn’t say a thing. Instead, she turned to leave.

“Look. I like you, Marisa,” Nigel said and returned his eyes to her. “I’m a work alone kind of guy. Don’t be offended. This is just how I operate,” Nigel said.

“I’m not offended. The way I look at it, Core Sec has been paying me to take strolls in the park and catch up on my grocery shopping these past few days. It’s been far more relaxing than working dock security detail.”
A lie.
Having nothing to do was giving her more time to get stoned and go crazy.

“I do have to ask,” Marisa took a deep breath. “The Heathen’s incident…the…gun club, as you called it.”

“I have yet to look into it. The shoot-out is low on my list of priorities. Now go and find this Evans.”

“Yes sir.” She found this news more than a little relieving.

Marisa raised her hand to her forehead in a salute, which was a ridiculous gesture. There was no Core Sec salute. She needed sleep. Sleep that was not drug or alcohol induced. She blinked and offered a meek smile. Nigel looked at her like she was insane before returning his eyes to the reports. Maybe she was insane. At least now she had something to focus on.
Something to get her mind off the secret treasure in her apartment.

And the shadows with their smiles.

(•••)

Marisa found Gerald in Crescent’s main hangar. From the looks of it, her timing could not have been better. Bean’s exhaust cones were still steaming. Gerald stood with his arms crossed over the chest of his flight suit as he examined what was clearly his most recent salvage—a mining barge with black and jagged scars marring an otherwise featureless and undamaged hull. The barge seemed no worse for wear. Gerald’s brow was furrowed and he appeared to be in no small state of distress. Marisa approached him with her hands in her pockets. Her eyes went from the barge to Bean, and then to Gerald. He didn’t seem to have noticed her. He was too busy trying to burn holes into the salvage with his eyes.

“Gerald,” she said. His eyes flitted over to her and then back to the barge. Recognition dawned on his slack features. He looked back to her and smiled briefly.

“Hi, Marisa.
I didn’t think you had dock duty while that
Swaren
character was around.
Already got the standard shakedown and ball cup by your
compadres
.”

“That’s not why I’m here, Ger,” she said. Her scalp tingled and so did her face.
The
carthine
.
She wondered if he could tell she was on it. She hoped not.

He frowned and ran both hands through his hair.

“Oh,” was all that he said.

“No. It’s not about our conversation in the garden, either. I’m here on…
 
business.”

Gerald cocked a brow and then began to tug on some stray lines that were attached to the mining barge’s hull. He picked up a data pad and tapped in some notes. Marisa continued to watch him and he continued to study the ship as if she wasn’t there.

“I don’t want to tell you how many mining ships I’ve been sent to haul out of
Tireca
.
From the same goddamn dense asteroid field.
This patch of space is so thick with
rocks,
I don’t know how any raider could find these ships in there…
 
”

“Gerry, I’m here on business,” she repeated.

“I don’t know why these guys are mining this patch in the first place. There are fields that are a lot safer to mine. And right here in
Anrar
…
 
” Gerald continued to ramble. She grabbed him by the arm.

“Gerry. There are some things we need to talk about.”

“Okay then,” he said. “I’m here, you’re here, and we’re both on the clock. Start talking and I’ll listen.” She wondered for an instant if he was irritated because he could tell she was on the drugs. She pushed the thought aside. She didn’t feel all that doped up.

Marisa glanced around the deck. Maintenance crews worked on a few nearby ships. Collector bots stacked crates and loaded them onto a freighter, whirring and clicking in their absent way. Walter Vegan hobbled near the hangar office with a cup of coffee clutched in one gnarled hand; some of its contents sloshed out with every step. He waved to her. She waved back.

“We should really talk about this somewhere a little more private.”

Gerald put the data pad beneath his arm and turned around to face her. The frown had resurfaced. Marisa hadn’t expected he’d to be thrilled to see her—not after the little scene she caused in the botanical gardens—but she didn’t think he’d be outright pissed off. It wasn’t like Gerald.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes, Gerald. I’m here on Captain
Swaren’s
order.”

“The auditor?
Shit. Well.” He slid the data pad into a duffle bag that sat on the flight deck. He hoisted the bag and slung the strap over his shoulder. “I guess let’s talk, then.
Your place or mine?”

(•••)

Marisa looked around the small maintenance closet.
Storage 15.
Little 15.
Last time she and Gerald had shared the space, she had been tearing his clothes off. Now, the salvage pilot felt worlds away from her. He sat in a creaking metal chair, and she sat on a stool across from him. He looked both annoyed and worried at the same time. She was sure she looked just as pleased to be there. She retrieved her own data pad and activated it with the wave of a hand. The entries that Nigel
Swaren
had flagged in the hard copy ATC logs pulsed on the screen in ominous green letters. She tapped the first entry. More information dropped down below the initial line. She held up the data pad so that he could see the display.