Vessel (19 page)

'It's fine,' Aleks said, chuckling. 'Here, take these.'

Sean took the pills and water and swallowed them down. He handed the empty glass back and shut his eyes to stop the room from spinning. 'So, what next?'

'I don't know,' Alek
s replied from the darkness.

Sean didn't know either. There were a few ideas floating around, but when he tried to think about them, it hurt his head. There would plenty of time to think about the
m tomorrow — but first, sleep.

* * *

It was strange being alone. Not that Sally was unused to being by herself, but isolation at this magnitude was a whole new experience. It wasn't creepy, but it was … quiet. Even during her most sedentary times as a researcher, she'd still swapped the occasional
hello
with other staff. Here, she had no one. As the days passed, she noticed herself talking out loud, and although it was a concern at first, she began to embrace the sound of a human voice — even if it was her own. At one point, something she'd said aloud triggered a spore of a memory, and she'd realised she sounded just like her own mother. The thought had made her sad.

She busied herself with her research, a
nd even found the time for more: those little experiments she had always wanted to do. Deep space radio waves, big bang evidence — the kind of things she
really
enjoyed. They were the sort of activities that helped keep her mind off the cold fact that she was over two hundred miles away from anyone, floating alone in lifeless space. She had even been down into the MLM on occasion to look at UV One, which still tracked behind the station as it had done since its arrival. Nothing strange happened, even when she stared at it. She began to believe that her previous experiences had been amplified by contagious hysteria. Space wasn't the domain of the action hero — it was the working environment of the mentally accelerated, and that was bound to have consequences.

Shoulder elastics pulling each long stride into the treadmill,
Sally wiped a towel across her sweaty face as she finished the last ten minutes of her two-hour fitness regime. As she warmed down, she thought about where she was going to take her experiments next. With no idea how long it would be until the next Soyuz came to collect her — and she presumed it would be soon since the ISS had been left manned by an astronaut with only three weeks' training — she needed to make the most of the time she had.

'I'll probably finish the deep space pulses, then move on to a broad range scan of that neutron star, erm … what was it called?'
She snapped her fingers. 'R X J one eight five six point five dash three seven five four. That's it.'

Her memory was s
omething she prided herself on, and she grinned at her achievement. Sometimes, it was the small things that made her happy. She slowed and stopped the treadmill, took a moment to catch her breath, unfastened the straps and dabbed herself with the towel. It had taken her a while, but she was getting used to the fitness routines, and she was even starting to enjoy them. A run and a wash left her feeling fresh and invigorated, ready to study.

* * *

'How is he?'

Evgeny Novitskiy stood over the bed of Chris Williams, who was still sedated and had his en
tire head bandaged. A clutch of tubes poked out where his mouth should have been.

'He's not doing well I'm afraid,' the nurse tending to him said with a sad smile. 'He's
got damage to his trigeminal nerve, so he's in a lot of pain. We can't wake him — the agony would be too unbearable.'

'And Gardner? Any change?'

The nurse shook her head.

'Thank you.'

Novitskiy left Chris and the nurse be, and, walking stick in hand, took a stroll around the corridors. He was at a hospital in Moscow — where exactly he didn't know — along with Chris and Gardner, having been flown in direct from Kazakhstan. He hadn't seen Gardner since their arrival — he was in a closed room with the curtains drawn. The nurses kept him up-to-date with his progress, which was minimal.

It had taken Novitskiy a
few days to gain the strength to walk again after the weightlessness of space, but now he was mobile — if a little unsteady — he had been restricted to his floor. All the other rooms were empty — it was just himself, Chris, Gardner and the staff occupying the whole level. Quarantine, perhaps? They wouldn't tell him. They said it was an order from above, but wouldn't say from who. He'd asked to talk to someone from NASA or the RFSA. The nurses kept telling him
soon
, but soon didn't seem to be coming. He aimed himself for the ward desk and pottered on.

'I hope you're not thinking of escaping?' the nurse at the desk said,
giving him a warm smile.

'No
, sir.' Novitskiy replied, hobbling over to him. 'You don't know when I'm going to be debriefed, do you? It's really important I speak to someone.'

The nurse sifted through
his paperwork, shaking his head. 'I'm sorry — we still haven't heard anything. I'll make sure to let them know you asked.'

'Thanks,' Novi
tskiy said, and hobbled back down the corridor to his room.

'Hey, Novitskiy?
' the nurse called after him.

'Yeah?'

'No running in the halls.'

Novitskiy rolled his
eyes, grinning, and carried on walking while the nurse chuckled to himself. The smile faded as the thought of Sally Fisher panged in his chest.

The next day, he awoke early to the warmth of the sun poking in between the blinds. He felt
tired, even more so than usual. His dreams had jarred him awake again and again, leaving him before he could remember what they were. He sat up, stretched and yawned, and when he'd finished he saw a nurse wheeling a trolley though the door with his breakfast on it.

'Here you go,
Captain,' the nurse said as she lifted the tray onto his lap.

'Thank you, very kind.'

'And this came for you, too.'

The nurse handed him a letter.
It had a US Department of Defence logo on it. He took it, but didn’t open it. 'Thank you.'

'Enjoy your breakfast.'

The nurse smiled, then left. Novitskiy watched her, and when she was gone, he tore open the letter. It was short.

Dear Captain Novitskiy,

You have been summoned to a meeting with
Major General John Bales.

Other than the time and date of the meeting and a note to say a car would come to collect him, that was it. There wasn't even a signature. He looked at the bedside clock — the meeting was tomorrow. He turned the letter over to see if there was anything else written on it: there wasn't.
Major General
John Bales? He'd never even heard of this high-ranking man, let alone met him. This was very strange.

Chapter 20

'Hello — is this the NASA press centre?'

The pers
on on the other end of the line — in her middling forties by the sound of it — confirmed that, yes, it was the NASA press centre. 'And can I ask who you might be?'

'Ah, yes
— my name is Steve Philips. I'm the foreign affairs and technology correspondent for the
New York Times
.'

Steve
Philips was indeed the correspondent for foreign affairs and technology at the
New York Times
, but that wasn't making the pretence of being him any easier. Sean transferred the bulky satellite phone from one ear to the other, and gave a thumbs-up to Aleks and Grigory, who were sitting on the back of Grigory's pickup truck, watching. Although Sean had explained his plan to them as they drove out into the wilderness, the expressions on their faces didn't suggest they were convinced by it.
Whatever,
Sean thought.
I think it's a good idea.
The plan was simple: dig up as much information on Sally Fisher and Robert Gardner as possible to try and prove their present whereabouts, thus forcing NASA to make a new statement. And sometimes — just sometimes — the easiest place to get that withheld information was via the very people trying to withhold it, so that's what Sean — now also known as Steve Philips, foreign affairs and technology correspondent for the
New York Times
— was doing. As Professor Klein had often repeated to his class during journalism school: it was all about confidence.

'Mr
Philips, thank you for calling. And how might we be able to help you today?'

'I'm doing a piece on the relationship between America and Russia
, and the joint program on the International Space Station. You know, astronauts working with cosmonauts, that sort of thing. Quite the teamwork story, don't you think?'

Too much information, Sean, too much information. Keep the lie simple.
He could almost hear Professor Klein's voice in his head.

'Yes, that does sound very good.'

Keep it simple.

'I'd like to interview some of the team on the ground. I understand Sally Fisher, the communications expert, and Robert Gardner, former astronaut, were both recruite
d as consultants on the matter. I’d like to interview them if I can.'

The woman
didn't reply. Sean felt hot, his shirt tight and clammy around his chest and neck. Perhaps he had triggered some kind of keyword? Were they trying to track him down, trace the call? They were miles out into the woods, but were they far enough away from civilization? He listened for the thump of helicopter blades over the trees, anxious, but —

'Would you like to do a telephone interview, or interview them in person,
Mr Philips?'

The response stunned Sean,
and he regrouped his thoughts to speak. 'In person, please.'

'Would you like to interview any of the Russian team, too?'

He hadn't thought of that. 'Er … okay.'

'Who would you like to interview?'

Think, Sean, think.

'The surgeon and CAPCOM, please.'

Shit.
CAPCOM was sat opposite him, looking concerned.

'I'm afraid the CAPCOM isn't available for interview at present
. I'm sure you understand. You can most certainly interview his cover and the mission surgeon, though. When shall I arrange that for, Mr Philips?'

'Is tomorrow too soon?'

'Not at all. Shall we say ten thirty?'

'Yes
please.'

And it was done.
He thumbed the call disconnect button, and took a breath. His heart was pounding. Who'd have thought the most intense phone call he'd ever make would be to a middling forties woman?

'Well?' said Aleks, gesturing for Sean to
reveal all.

'We're in. I don't believe it, but we're in.
'

Aleks
hopped down from the truck to give him a slap on the arm, which in his present state of nervous shock nearly toppled him over. He was thankful that Grigory only gave him a smile.

Back at Grigory's house they
fired up Grigory's computer and set a search running for the terms
Sally Fisher
and
Robert Gardner
. Sean was convinced there was something more to find online, and while they waited for day to become night to become day again, he wanted to use the time to scour the web for more clues. He routed the searches through proxy servers to prevent them being traced, and left the computer to whizz through billions of fragments of data, sorting, disposing, sorting, disposing, hunting until it found a piece that might be of interest. When it did, it flagged it up. So far all the flagged data had been irrelevant, and Sean had dismissed it, leaving the computer to continue its digital treasure hunt.

'This soup is really delicious,' Sean said after a mouthful. 'How do you get it so thick?' He dunked the spoon in again, waiting for Grigory to finish his own
mouthful and reveal the secret.

'
Potato,' Grigory said. 'Mashed.'

'Huh. As simple as that?'

'Yes. Always use good potatoes.'

Sean nodded, his mouth full of creamy soup.
It struck him that the three of them could have been friends on one of those character-building wilderness trips, were it not for the undercover journalism and criminal fugitive.

'I think the computer's found something,' Aleks said, putting his bowl down to go see.

'Anything useful?' Sean asked.

'I'm not sure. C
ome and have a look.'

Sean
finished his last spoonful and went over. It was obvious why Aleks was uncertain: the computer seemed to have pulled a result from a long-since abandoned conspiracy site.

'This page doesn't ex
ist any more,' Aleks said. 'It found this in the cache of an online search engine. It's six years old.'

Underneath a header
consisting of B-movie graphics and some text that read
The Vault of Mystery
in a slimy font, there was an article about extra-terrestrial visits to Earth. It described incidents such as Roswell and the Bermuda triangle, linking them to a theory about unmanned space probes and alien abduction. It all seemed far-fetched and tenuous, but knowing what he knew about UV One, Sean had a hard time laughing it off. There was a time when he would've scorned it as second, even third-rate journalism, but now it was a gold mine of possibilities. He skim-read the rest of the article, which continued to talk about present day sightings and abductions, and featured a few snippets from astronaut Robert Gardner. Seeing that name made Sean's stomach lurch with excited anticipation.

We have been able to t
rack down former NASA astronaut Robert Gardner,
it read,
who was unfairly dismissed from NASA in a massive alien cover-up that would have shocked the world. 'It was like there was something in my mind, calling me,' he told us. 'It made me think and feel like I've never done before.' Such was his trauma that he couldn't answer any more of our questions, and he now denies ever meeting with us at all.

The article
went on and was uncredited. Aleks clicked some of the links on the page, but they were all dead.

'I feel like I'm missing something obvious here,' Sean said,
so Aleks scrolled back to the top of the page and they read it through again. A paragraph caught Sean's eye and he read it aloud, word for word.

'
In 1947, a probe was sent to Earth, where it crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. It is believed that government scientist Dr R. Bales was in charge of the classified research —' he stopped reading, his brain doing a mental loop-the-loop. 'Dr R. Bales — I don't believe it …'

'I'll run a search on Dr Bales,' Aleks said, fingers flying as
he spoke. He hit the return key and a new window of results appeared.

'Dr Rupert Bales,' Sean read, 'was bor
n on the sixteenth of July, 1917, to Daniel and Molly Bales in Longview, East Texas. After graduating with honours from Stanford, Dr Bales joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics as a molecular research scientist. His pioneering work at the closed Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, aided the development of early rocket propellants. He is considered one of the leading scientists of our time, advancing rocket propulsion technology by several decades with his work. Dr Bales died of unknown causes in 1954. His only son, John Rupert Bales, was born the following year.'

Sean took a moment to digest the information, which swilled around inside him like tainted bile.

'It can't be — can it?' he said in a thin voice. 'Did John Bales' father die because of something like — like UV One?'

As a key turns
in a lock, each thought pushed a mental tumbler into place, unlocking the conscious as a whole. Did Bales know his father had died at the hands of an interstellar traveller —
if
his father had died at the hands of an interstellar traveller — and was this his motivation for sending Gardner up with a payload full of explosives? If it was true, he could imagine the message Bales had given Sally to pass on:
See you in hell.

Taking the mouse from Aleks, he scrolled to the bottom of the entry. In the list of references there was a link to a page on Rupert's molecular research team, and he clicked it. A brief summary paragraph and a list of names came up. He clicked the first name.

Albert Levard — 1916-1949

He was only thirty-three when he
'd died. Coincidence? Sean navigated back a page and clicked the next name.

Joseph Collins
— 1923-1955

Sean clicked the next name, a sick feeling rising in his throat at what he knew was coming.

Charles Freeman — 1913-1960

And the next:

Edward Warner — 1905-1955

All nine of the ten names followed the same pattern, all
having died soon after the 1947 Roswell incident. Except the last one: Ruth Shaw. Her entry suggested that she was still alive.

'I
need to see Ruth Shaw,' Sean said.

'She'd be ninety-three,' Aleks
replied. 'Are you sure she's still alive?'

Sean was thinking exactly the same thing
.

'I hope so.'

* * *

'Captain
Novitskiy, there's a car here for you.'

Novi
tskiy gave the nurse a nod, and she disappeared back around the door. Looking in the mirror, he straightened his tie, brushed down his dress jacket with the back of his hand, took his walking stick and doddered to the exit. Muscle atrophy always made him feel older than he was, and he thumped the floor with his stick in frustration as he walked. At the end of the corridor, a black-suited man waited for him.

'Good morning,
Captain,' he said, holding the door open for him as he approached. 'I hope you're feeling better.'

The words seemed more of a statement than a question, but Novitskiy responded anyway.
'I'm much better, thank you.'

The suited man didn't say anything further, and together they walked down and out to the SUV that was waiting for them. Novitskiy climbed into the back
. The suited man closed the door behind him and got in himself. They pulled away.

Out of the hospital, they turn
ed onto the main road. Novitskiy didn't know the area, but he soon saw familiar landmarks and could tell they were heading to the RFSA building. When they arrived, they were ushered straight in, and before he knew it, he found himself outside an office on the second floor.

'The Major General will see you now,' the suited man told him
, just as he was about to sit down.

'Can I catch my breath please?' Novitskiy said, holding his weight up as best he could
with his walking stick. He had a pain in his chest and his legs were shaking.

'I'm afraid the Major General is a busy man, so you will need to see him now.'

Begrudgingly, Novitskiy went in. A man, the Major General he assumed, was sat at a desk leafing through a wad of files. The office must have been temporary, because the desk was bare beyond a few folders and the decor was sparse. The Major General looked up, saw Novitskiy, stood, and offered his hand. They shook and sat.

'I'm sorry to bring you here on such short notice,' Bales said, neatening his files. 'Our situation calls for a quick reaction.'

'I agree,' Novitskiy began. 'Sally Fisher is still —'

'We will get to the matter of Fisher shortly,' Bales
said, 'but not right now. We must start from the beginning.'

'Ok
ay, sir …'

'Captain
, I've seen your record, and it is very impressive.'