Vessel (12 page)

Gardner was investigating his quarters. 'Take all the time you need.'

She guided herself into the tiny cubicle, pulling the doors shut behind her. She had
been shown how the system worked in her weeks of training, and so she did what she remembered: remove her coveralls, sit at the lavatory, affix the suction unit. It was an odd fit, but she managed it, and she used the time to shut her eyes and let the unimpeded quiet wash over her. Questions popped off in her head like fireworks, the fiery spray of each one obscuring the next until she didn't know what she was really thinking at all. The faint nick of a headache gnawed at the cavity behind her shut eyes as the thoughts quietened, leaving her head empty but for one:
It floats there, watching us.

She
wondered what had caused Romanenko to take Soyuz, leaving his crewmates and duty behind. It was obvious that the psychological effects of being isolated up here with UV One were enough to make any man nervous, but Romanenko's reaction seemed unbefitting someone of such experience and training. It just didn’t make sense. And why hadn't he made it back to Earth? Surely he knew how to pilot Soyuz? Perhaps there was a failure on board. Perhaps he panicked. Perhaps it wasn't as simple as jumping in and setting a course for home.

A tappin
g noise jolted her from her daydream, and she bumped her head against the plastic roof of the cubicle.

'Are you
okay in there?' came Gardner's voice through the door. 'You've been a while.'

Sally
righted her mind again and pulled herself back to reality, remembering she was sitting on a toilet.

'Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be out in a sec,' she called back.

She returned the suction unit to its holster, redressed and exited.

'Everything ok
ay?' Gardner asked, concern lacing both his tone and expression.

'Sure. I was just dozing. I'm pretty tired.'

'Yeah, me too.' He looked around as if checking to see if anyone was listening, before turning back to Sally and speaking in a low voice. 'Look, they seem okay. A little traumatised perhaps, but okay. I reckon we're safe to get some sleep now. We can resume our mission with fresh minds tomorrow.'

That made sense to Sally
. 'You're probably right,' she said, yawning at the thought of a warm bunk.

They clambered
into their respective quarters, and Sally zipped up her door behind her. Wriggling her way into the upright sleeping bag, she clicked the light off and shut her eyes, and within minutes she was asleep. She slept without a single dream and did not stir for almost ten hours.

When she a
woke, it took her senses a good long minute to re-acclimatize to where she was. Her quarters were cramped, the air was close, and the folds of her limbs were clammy with night sweat. She peeled herself from the sleeping bag and emerged into the Harmony module, where she stretched her whinging muscles out. Gardner's quarters were already open and empty. The Harmony module was deserted. Yawning, she paddled her way along the station to the galley and, sure enough, Gardner was there, alone.

'Wh
ere are the others?' Sally asked, hanging from a rail.

Gardner, who was eating, shrugged.
'Sleeping, I think. I haven't seen them. Here, I prepared you some breakfast.'

Sally joined him, and they ate together. I
t was a strange experience: the intimate and vulnerable state of the breakfast meal combined with the knowledge of their location, and indeed their mission. It made for an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She picked at the food with none of the appetite of yesterday, while Gardner ate on.

'Why do you th
ink Romanenko left?' she said, playing with a globule of porridge as it tumbled on the spot in front of her.

'Dunno,' Gardner said through a mouthful.

'I wonder if it has anything to do with what Chris said?'

'What did Chris say?'

'You know — about being watched.'

Gardner dismissed her with a look
. 'I dunno,' he repeated.

'Don't you want to know?' Sally asked, frustration growing at Gardner's disinterest.

He stopped eating. 'Look,' he said, 'I'm here to get you to the station and keep you safe for the duration of the mission. I don't know or want to know what's going on with' — he waved his hands around — 'all this. I'm not in the habit of poking sleeping bears.'

He resumed eating.
Sally scooped the floating porridge into her mouth and swallowed it down.

'Fine,' she said. 'A
t least I know not to ask.'

Gardner sighed.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'it's not like that. It's just … it's just that I don't want to get caught up in a wild goose chase and end up like these guys.'

'Wild goose chase?' Sally repeated
, incredulous. 'You've seen UV One with your own eyes. You know it's real.'

'I know, but what's
happening to our crazy new friends isn't going on out there,' he said, pointing towards the MLM. He then pointed at his own head. 'It's in here.'

A noise from the other end of the module made
Sally turn and look. It was Novitskiy. How much had he heard? Not too much, she hoped.

'Morning,
' she tried to say in a cheery way, but her voice ended up as an unnatural squeal instead.

'And to you,' Novitskiy replied. His grin was absent. 'Did you sleep well?'

'Yes,' Sally and Gardner said at the same time.

'Good.'

He floated up alongside them. His face seemed to have aged decades without the smile tightening the lines of his cheeks and jaw.

'I want to apologise,' he said, 'for not being forthright with you about Romanenko.'
He scratched his beard, eyes unfocussed. 'Let it be said that he was a good man. A great man, in fact. But for some too much is just too much.'

Sally looked at G
ardner, whose face was blank, like he didn't know what to think. Novitskiy's smile re-appeared, but it was heavy with sadness. His bushy black eyebrows upturned, making his eyes sparkle with regret.

'He hadn't been able to cope with it, with being here. I should have done more to help him, but I just didn't think to.'
He stopped talking, his face flushed. He looked to the floor and sniffed a wet sniff. 'He didn't deserve this — none of us did,' he said, still looking at the floor. He sniffed again, and when he looked up, his eyelids bulged with weightless tears. 'Excuse me, I have to go,' he said, and he turned and left, swimming through the module and out of sight.

Chapter 13

'Hi
, David, Sean here. Have you managed to dig up any more information with that card?'

Sean waited, mobile phone pressed against his ear, while David
proceeded to knock over a pile of something loud.

'Sean
— I've hit a dead-end. This thing is seriously well protected. I can't get anything off it, I can't use it with anything — this is proper homeland security level stuff. To be honest, I'm not comfortable playing with it any more.'

Sean swore to himself and took a second to recompose.
'No worries, thanks for trying. I'll come and get it off you now if that's okay?'

'That's fine
. And Sean?'

'What?'

'I'm sorry I couldn't be of any more help. I know how much this means to you.'

David really was a good egg. Sean smiled.
'Don't worry about it.'

'Ok
ay. Bye then.'

'
See you soon.'

Sean hung up the call and tossed the phone
on the bed. He leaned back in his chair, cradling his head in his hands, cursing the cul-de-sac he seemed to have wandered down. He had tackled some difficult stories before, but this — this took the biscuit.

'What am I going to do now?' he said to himself, watching through his hotel window as yet another aircraft thundered overhead.
Easing himself up from the chair, he shuffled to the bathroom, unbuckling his belt on the way. As he sat on the toilet, a familiar digital chiming chirped in through the doorway.

'God damn it …' he
muttered through gritted teeth, wrestling his trousers up again and stumbling back into the bedroom. He picked up the phone: unknown number. Frowning, he put it to his ear.

'Hello
?' he said, answering in a cautious voice.

'Is that Sean Jacob?'
a Russian accent replied.

'Who's asking?'

'My name is Aleksandar Dezhurov. I work — worked, I mean — with Lev Ryumin. He gave me your card. I was hoping that I could talk to you about — well, you know.'

Sean's heart skipped a beat.
'Sure, of course.'

'Where shall we meet?'

'Can you get to the Novotel hotel next to Sheremetyevo airport' — he needed time to get the card back first — 'in, say, four hours?'

'I'll be there.'

*
* *

'This has been given a proper going over,' Sally said, looking in disbelief at the brutalised wiring that made up what was left of the communications system. 'Long range comms are shot, short range comms are shot — even the inter-module comms are shot.'

'There's nothing you can do?' Gardner asked.

'Not a thing. There isn't a component here that hasn't been trashed.' She probed inside with an insulated rod, re-examining the extent of the damage, and shook her head. 'I wonder why Romanenko did this?' she muttered.

'
I'll be damned if I know,' Novitskiy said. 'Chris and I discovered the damage when we tried to radio him after he'd taken Soyuz. Perhaps he didn't want us to contact him. Is there any way we can use the communications module on board Progress? That should still be working, yes?'

'Progress is decompressed,' Gardner replied.
'Seal failure. We'd need to make some repairs before we could use it again. Chris is an engineer, isn't he? He'd probably know how to repair Progress.'

Novitskiy pulled back as though he'd been shocked by the exposed wiring.
'Ahhh, I don't know …' he said, crinkling up his face. 'He's very delicate at the moment. I don't think that would be a good idea.'

'Do we have any other choice?' Sally
asked.

She and Gardner looked at Novitskiy, who opened his mouth
, then shut it again.

'I suppose not,' he said
.

'Gr
eat. I'll go and talk to Chris,' Gardner said. 'You never know, it might be good for him to have something to focus on. Oh, and Sally — do you feel up to starting your research on UV One? That's why we're here, after all.'

'Yeah, I think so. I'll have to make do with
the equipment on Columbus what with this lot being out though,' she said, gesturing to the bird's nest of severed cables.

'As long as you're sure. It's fine if you want to take a day out to recover.'

'I'll be
okay. Like Chris, I probably need the distraction.'

Silent nods all round confirmed agreement. Gardner and Novitskiy floated aw
ay to the MLM to talk to Chris, while Sally headed to the Columbus module to begin her research. On her own, she noticed how quiet the station was. Yes, there was a constant low-level hum from the air extraction vents, but the silence of space seemed to permeate through it, mask it somehow. She was certain it was just her mind playing tricks on her, the very knowledge of being in space making her awareness so acute. That didn't stop it being unnerving, though.

As she perused the equipment on offer
— and there was a lot of it, from floor to ceiling and left to right — she could hear voices getting louder. They were talking to each other, varying intonations passing a verbal ball back and forth, muffled by the many twists and turns between them and her. The voices got almost loud enough for her make out the conversation they shared, but before they did, they faded again into a muted burble. Gardner and Novitskiy must have persuaded Chris to come and help them.

Now
Sally knew the MLM was empty, she felt an urge to go and look out the rear-facing window again. It was a silly thing to want to do, she knew that — after all, what possible benefit would looking at UV One bring over the quantifiable results of scientific equipment? But still, she wanted — almost
needed
— to go.

Oh, what the heck …
she thought, and dusted off into the main shaft of the station. As she slid towards the Russian section, the voices grew louder again, peaking as she flew past the junction with MRM One where Progress was docked. She shot into the FGB module, excitement pounding in her chest, and changed direction with a clumsy roll down into the MLM. It was dark at its end, darker than before, and as she tumbled to a stop she realised the window covering was down. A small crank underneath the window with directional arrows marked in Russian seemed the obvious way to open it again. Sally turned the crank and sure enough the covering retracted. She blinked as the stunning bright glow of Earth's multi-coloured surface shot in through the growing gap, and by the time her eyes had readjusted, the crank had reached its stop.

And there it was, floating in the vacuum of space, its course so resolute that it did not bob or shimmy as it followed them. It was uncanny the way it did that, almost
serene, as though its existence could have been explained as a smear on the window. Colours danced and sparkled on its surface, a kaleidoscopic ripple of an alien sea somehow coming from deep within it, like it was a window to a distant planet. Perhaps it was? She could imagine the warmth of a faraway sun as she looked out over the iridescent sea, the dancing glimmer bright but never harsh, the radiant heat even and soothing.

'Sally, are you ok
ay?'

Gardner's voice slashed through her with diamond-sharp clarity, and she jumped.

'Oh,' she said. 'I didn't see you there.'

She
looked back out the window. UV One trailed along, lifeless and dull, bar the occasional wink of a star disappearing behind its black hull.

'You weren't in the lab, so I
came looking for you. You had me worried.'

Sally snorted
, thinking he was joking, but his expression was that of genuine concern. 'I'm fine,' she said, feeling a little foolish. 'Sorry if I scared you. I just came down here to look, that's all.'

'
Okay,' Gardner said, 'but I'm not sure I like you spending time down here alone.'

'Why?
' Sally said, bemused.

Gardner
narrowed his eyes, as if he misunderstood what she'd said, or didn't believe she'd said it. 'Sally, do you know how long you've been down here for?'

'I don't know, ten minutes maybe?'

'Almost two hours.'

* * *

The door knocked and Sean got up to answer it. 'Aleks?' he said to the drenched Russian on the other side.

'
Yes. Hello.' They shook hands. 'I got here as fast as I could.'

H
is soaking coat pattered water onto the floor.

'Come in, please,' Sean said, moving aside to let him by. He bolted the door shut behind him.

'The traffic was a nightmare,' Aleks said. 'It must be the weather.'

Sure enough
, the rain that had drenched Aleks was still streaming down from slate-grey clouds. Sean had managed to miss it when he'd returned from David's not half an hour ago. It was clear then, and now the rumbling of jets overhead was almost lost among the steady thrum of droplets hitting the window.

'Y
ou can grab a towel from the bathroom and dry off if you like,' Sean said.

Aleks thanked him
and went to mop himself up. While Sean was waiting, he hung up Aleks' coat — which dripped onto an expanding patch of dark carpet — and clicked on the coffee machine. 'Just chuck the towel on the floor when you're done,' he called out. When Aleks emerged, looking fuzzy and damp, Sean handed him a cup and they sat down.

'Funny,' Sean said
, taking a sip, 'it wasn't long ago that Lev was sat right where you're sitting now.'

Aleks
, who was hugging his cup, smiled a forlorn smile. 'I'll miss him,' he said.

'He was quite the character.'
And look where that got him.

Aleks nodded, looking around the room in a non-committal kind of way.
'Yes, he was.'

Although Aleks seemed to be keeping his feelings as close to his chest as the cup of coffee, Sean
could tell he and Lev had been close. Why else would he risk his life coming here?

'When I last saw Lev,
' Sean said, 'he left me this key card.' He passed it to Aleks. 'It's registered to Bales, I know that much, but I can't get anything off it and I can't do anything with it. Do you think you might be able to help?'

'I can certainly try,'
Aleks said, examining the card. 'It looks like it should work with our card system. Do you have the login details for it?'

'I don't.'

'Hmm. Do you know how Lev got it?'

'I don't
know that, either. Can you crack it?'

'I'm not really sure.
Lev was the computer expert, not me.'

'That figures.'

'He was always very keen to keep our work secure. If he could break in, it wasn't good enough. Cold War habits die hard.'

'
I bet. Do you think he might have left any clues?'

Aleks pondered the question.
'It would make sense.'

'Where would we find them?'

'We could check his blog?'

Sean laughed,
but his laugh faded as he realised Aleks wasn't joking. 'That guy — sorry, Lev —
had a blog
?'

'Yes. He enjoyed posting on it.'

'Did you ever read it?'

'No.'

'Do you know how to find it?'

'Yes, of course.
'

Sean booted up his laptop and put it on the table where he
and Aleks could both see it. He pivoted it towards Aleks. 'Type in the address at the top.'

Aleks typed and hit return. The website loaded.

'That's a pretty straightforward Wordpress template,' Sean said, 'nothing you could really hide anything in. Oh look — his last post was from the night of his death.'

They read the post. Sean shifted in his seat,
disappointed. 'It's about his cat.'

'He loved his cat.'

This wasn't going to be easy.

'Maybe if I look in the image metadata …' Sean said, clicking on the image and looking through its properties. Nothing.
He scrolled back through previous posts, which were prolific, but nothing jumped out at them. Sean scoured the code, hunting for any clues or hidden messages, but every avenue was a dead-end. 'Well, I'm stumped. Must be nothing here,' he said, returning to the blog's home page where the shot of Lev's cat stared back at them. 'Any other ideas?'

Aleks
started to chuckle, a small titter at first, then loud bursts of laughter.

'Wh
at?' Sean said. If this was
a joke, he really didn’t get it.

'That old dog …
'

Sean looked at the page again.
Still Lev's cat. 'What is it?' he said, frustrated. The cat seemed to be taunting him.