This key card will give you access to Bales’ file. You need to see what’s in there. Lives are in danger. Be careful. User JohnRBales Password USDF1T42
‘That old dog…’ Sean whispered. It was no joke after all.
Chapter 14
While Gardner and Chris worked on Progress, and Novitskiy took care of the station’s day-to-day operations, Sally spent her time analysing UV One. Patience was a virtue she was blessed with in abundance, but after four endless days of futile effort, she was beginning to tire. Coupled with the onset of insomnia — weightless sleeping seemed to be evading her, a common problem she’d been told — and life on the station was taking its toll. How she longed for the exhaustion-fuelled sleep she’d had on the first night.
She hadn’t been into the MLM to see UV One since her conversation with Gardner, conducting all her experiments from the Columbus module on the opposite side of the station. As she ran a thirty-second pulse of microwaves one more time before wrapping up for the morning, she decided she could no longer ignore the fact that the only response she’d had from the vessel was when she’d looked at it, deep into its formless shape. The thought made her shiver; in retrospect, what she had experienced in the MLM was more akin to a reaction than an action — as though it knew she was watching it and it was watching her back. Alone in the quiet of the American end of the station, she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t looking for her still, and the last thing she wanted to do was to expose herself to it again. She knew in her heart that it was the cause of her insomnia as well, that in her sleeping state she would be vulnerable to — to what? She didn’t know. But she could feel it.
The morning shift over, she affixed her notepad and pen to the wall, logged off her computer and guided her way to the galley at the Russian end. She was hungry, but like every mealtime she felt a nauseating sense of unease as she floated over the downward hatch to the MLM. It yawned at her, open and dark, threatening to suck her down into its belly. Looking forward, she gave a firm kick to propel herself over it, catching herself on the far side next to the food store.
She was alone: Gardner and Chris were performing an EVA, examining Progress in a survey that seemed to be taking a very long time — ‘We need to check absolutely everything,’ Chris had said — and Novitskiy was — well, she didn’t know where Novitskiy was. She only came upon him every now and then, most often crossing paths to and from the galley as he shepherded storage bags along like cuboid sheep, still performing the mission he came here to do in the first place.
The food heater pinged. She retrieved the pouch from its hollow and brought it to the table. Steam wafted from its nozzle in that strange micro gravity way as she tore off the cap, and with it came an aroma she still wasn’t used to. She couldn’t place her finger on what it was, but it was present no matter the flavour, and it clung to the back of her nostrils like mucus. Wrinkling her nose, she tucked in anyway. She’d almost finished half when she froze, nozzle still in her mouth. Was that a noise she’d heard, or had she imagined it? She listened hard, the loud whooshing and humming of the Russian module masking the last essence of detail. Nothing. She carried on eating. But there it was again. It sounded like — like crying. She affixed her meal to the table and tried to trace the source of the noise, following it as it got louder. It seemed to be coming from the next module along, the FGB. But wait — as she neared the downward tunnel to the MLM, the sound changed direction. It was coming from its dark mouth. Chest tightening, she peered into the gloomy hole.
‘Hello?’ she called, watching the shadows in its belly flicker.
There was no response, but the weeping had taken on a more three-dimensional quality. It was definitely coming from down there. Taking a deep breath, she fed herself into the hatch, wide eyes searching as her hands nudged her along rail by rail. As she got further in, she could see a person at the bottom, a small, scruffy-looking man who was pressed up against the glass, looking out into space.
‘Novitskiy?’
Novitskiy jumped, spinning around so fast he ended up at a lop-sided angle. He looked around until his eyes met Sally’s, blinking as they readjusted to the gloom. His chest rose and fell, his expression strained with terror.
‘Sally…’ he said, sounding relieved, and he wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. ‘I didn’t hear you come down.’
‘Are you okay?’ Sally asked, keeping her distance.
Novitskiy sniffed. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said, looking a little sheepish. ‘I’m just feeling a little, ahm, how you might say, "sick for home".’
‘Homesick?’
Novitskiy nodded, sniffing again. Over his shoulder, Sally could see the ponderous shape of UV One, following them from a distance.
‘Let’s get out of here and have some lunch,’ she suggested, breaking her eyes from it and back to Novitskiy’s own puffy, sodden ones. ‘It gives me the creeps down here.’
Novitskiy agreed, and they drifted back up to the galley. Sally prepared some food for him, and they sat at the table and ate together in silence. Sally considered the unkempt man; she couldn’t believe this frail thing in front of her was the result of intense selection and training by the RFSA, or any professional organisation for that matter. She considered her words before she offered them to him. ‘Do you feel like it’s watching you?’
Novitskiy stopped chewing mid-mouthful, swallowed, then took a large gulp of drink. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Despite him trying to avoid her gaze, Sally held it until he put his pouch on the table and stared straight back. He licked his lips, twitched, then spoke. ‘It didn’t start like this. It gets worse. It gets worse the longer you stay here. I can feel it in me, in my head, picking at every detail of my brain. It’s searching for something, but it can’t find it, and the longer it searches the deeper it searches and the more it makes me want to—’
He cut himself off, looked back at his food and carried on eating. Sally could see that he was quivering, although he was trying to restrain himself. ‘You should probably get back to work,’ he said.
Sally rose from the table, not breaking her eyes away from him. ‘Will you be okay?’
He nodded. ‘I just need to be alone. It’s easier when I’m alone.’
‘Okay,’ Sally said, and she deposited her waste and left, gliding over the open mouth of the MLM as fast as she could. As she entered the American section of the station, she was certain she could hear sobbing coming from behind her.
‘Hello?’
Sean swapped the phone from one ear to the other. ‘Hi, it’s Sean. Just a quick catch-up call.’
‘What have you got?’
‘Well, I’ve just had a very interesting meeting with a rather disgruntled friend and employee of the late Lev Ryumin.’
‘And?’
‘We’ve cracked the key card.’
‘So what can you tell me?’
Sean paused. He had hoped for a bit more praise, but no matter. ‘We discovered some coded instructions from Ryumin explaining how to use it.’
‘Well, get on with it then.’
Sean held the phone to his chest and rubbed his forehead. Sometimes he wondered if it was all worth the hassle. He brought the phone back to his ear. ‘Aleks — Ryumin’s friend — he has the card. He’s going to log in at an RFSA terminal and relay the information back to me.’
‘Can you trust him?’