“Under my authority,” I say firmly. “Until we find out who destroyed the transport and tried to have me killed, I’m in command of this station.”
“We’ll see about that.” Tamara pushes me aside and moves towards the hatch.
Everyone in her path parts, like a school of fish avoiding a shark.
I point to a Swedish biochemist named Ansel. “Follow her.”
“I don’t need an escort,” snaps Tamara.
“From now on, we all have escorts. Including me. Somewhere on this station someone has hidden a metal container. One just like it was used to conceal an explosive that was used to destroy the transport.”
Tamara stop at the hatch to listen. Rather than dragging her back here, I realized that capturing her curiosity would do the trick better, and help me avoid using force in a way that could turn everyone in this room against me.
“I’m going to pair you off into teams and have you inspect different parts of the station I assign you.”
“What if we don’t want to?” asks, Yale Firman, an astronomer from the United States.
“We’ll lock you inside here or the Tiki module until we’ve finished searching.”
“You can’t do that. I have rights.”
“So did I when someone tried to space me. The purpose for locking you in is your own safety. Look around this room. One of these people is a killer. It could have been any one of you onboard that transport when it blew up. Somebody here, someone whose face you just stared at, is behind that.
“If you want to know who that is and stop them before they do something worse, then play along. We can have this whole station swept in an hour and maybe then we can have some answers.”
“And why the hell are we listening to you?” asks Firman.
“Because. Any other questions?”
Eduard raises his hand. “What do we do if we find this canister?”
“Call me. Don’t touch it, whatever you do.”
“I’m not sure of the legality of this,” he replies.
“Sue me later. In the meantime, I’m going to start pairing everyone up. We’re searching modules, crew quarters. Everywhere.”
“Hold up,” says Attwell. “We’ve got a secure section you need authorization to search.”
“I’ll inspect it with Cara.”
“Cara? Why her?”
“Because, out of the three of you, she’s the only one that wasn’t here when the transport was sabotaged.”
“I’m not authorized to let anyone else into my lab,” says, Alton, one of the Swedish biochemists.
“Tamara has authorization. As do I. We’ll search it.”
“I’m not trying to cause problems, but I’m not okay with that.”
“Then I’ll have you confined to quarters until a transport can take you home while we get the proper legal paperwork.”
“This is very unorthodox.”
“It certainly is. You can either cooperate or be an obstacle and make it easier for this person to hide their tracks and possibly do something drastic to this station.”
This gets Tamara’s attention. “Drastic? How?”
“The person who stole this canister is also likely the one that destroyed the transfer craft. If they used an explosive device once, there could be another hidden on this station.”
Alton’s mouth goes slack at this realization. “I withdraw my objection.”
“Good lord,” says Tamara. “A bomb on this station?”
Fifty-Seven
Search Party
I divide the crew into eight teams of two, based on randomness and who I assume is least likely to collude with our suspect. I take Tamara, Attwell and Warren with me to the command module so we can watch the search on the monitors that cover the public areas.
At Tamara’s suggestion, we have each of the teams use a video camera to transmit their search so we can follow along as they go into areas not covered by the station cameras.
I have four teams start their search in the lower section of the station and the others go from module to module in the upper section, starting with the least secured areas first.
If possible, I don’t want anybody yelling at me about violating industrial secrets or whatever. Which is kind of silly, due to the fact that most of the research up here takes place on little glass slides and is stored in computers we’re not asking for access to.
On a monitor, Samantha and Corine Monroe, an astronomer from Ohio State, enter a module where we store food supplies.
“You want us to search everything, boss?” asks Samantha.
“Please.”
She stares at the camera and rolls her eyes. “Were you my manager when I worked at McDonalds?”
“Couldn’t have been me. I worked at Burger King.”
“Really?”
“Fact. It’s how I paid for laser eye surgery so I could become a pilot.”
“You ever think that flipping burgers was your true calling?”
“Back to work.”
“Seriously,” says Laney in my comm. “Could she be trying any harder to flirt with you?”
I just make a noncommittal grunt.
One upside to using scientists to search the labs of other scientists is that they’re very respectful of the equipment. Perhaps a little too cautious.
I watch as Eduard and Alton enter Warren’s lab and do a quick inspection, looking behind his exercise equipment and into the cabinets, then leave.
“Hold up,” I call into the intercom then look over at Warren and Tamara hovering to my right. “Do you consider that thorough?”
Tamara shakes her head. “Each of those modules has an air filtration system under the floor. There’s a couple feet of extra space in there. And…” She gives Warren a sideways glance.
Warren reluctantly replies. “My refrigerator, where I keep samples. I’ll give Eduard the code if he promises not to lick all the vials.”
I call into the intercom. “You hear that guys? What part of ‘There might be a bomb on this station’ is unclear to you?”
“Perhaps you should call the bomb squad,” says Alton.
“They’re ten thousand miles away. That’s why I’m counting on you. I’m not asking you to touch or defuse anything. Just find the canister.”
I check the other monitor as a team enters the storage module below. Ling flashes his light into the crevices behind the crates then turns to the camera.
“This looks clear here,” he explains.
I have to resist the urge to be sarcastic. These are really, really smart people, but their street smarts are non-existent. “Dr. Ling, I need you and Randolph to look inside the boxes.”
“Inside?” He pans his light over the forty-foot long module. “There are hundreds here.”
“Yes, I understand. The more inconvenient the place, the more likely.”
“This is going to take forever,” says Warren. “Can I have your permission to go back to my lab once they’ve finished searching?”
“Negative. I need your eyes here helping me. And I’m going to have another team double-check the other’s work.”
He mumbles something about me being a petty tyrant. I just ignore him. I understand the frustration.
“Any suggestions, Collins?”
Tamara has been watching the monitors intensely. She’s either very concerned they won’t find something or afraid that they will.
“We need to check the superstructure, inside the walls. But we need people who won’t mess with anything that shouldn’t be tampered with.”
“Who do you trust?”
“Other than Butler and myself? Nobody.”
“How about Cara and Butler?” I ask.
“Okay. But I want to watch.”
“From here.”
She gives me an angry look at the suggestion that I don’t trust her. Too bad. The last thing I need is her and her helper pulling some kind of shenanigans to keep something concealed.