Andrew Morgan - Vessel

‘Damn…’

The elderly couple shuffled past, both muttering something incomprehensible.

‘Sorry,’ Sean said, embarrassed. The old lady shook her head, and they shuffled on.

Wandering back to his room, Sean pulled out his mobile and dialled. It rang for a while. A voice answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi. Jacob here. I need intel on Bales, and I mean deep intel.’

‘Hold on a minute there, Sean. I thought that Lev Ryumin has what you need?’

‘Yes, he does, but he’s just run off.’

‘Run off?’

‘Yeah — he actually ran out of my room while I was talking to him.’

‘Weird.’

‘Tell me about it. He’s got something on Bales, though, something serious. Serious enough to make him sprint like his trousers were on fire.’

‘So he got cold feet, then? Figures. Okay, I’ll see what I can do. We’ve got a few people that owe us some favours at the White House. You think this is worth using up those favours for?’

‘Hell yes,’ Sean said, stopping outside his door and fumbling in his pocket for the key card. He pulled it out, but before he inserted it into the door he noticed it wasn’t his key card at all.

‘Hold that thought,’ he said, examining it. It was a top level RFSA security pass. ‘You sneaky bastard,’ he said, grinning. Then he realised he was locked out of his room.

An uneasy hush lay heavy in Mission Control. The engineers, scientists, physicians, mathematicians and other experts had prematurely outlived their usefulness, a collective limb severed from a body that wandered on alone. Despite the weight of a twelve-hour shift pressing down on his aging muscles, Aleks couldn’t leave. It didn’t feel right. No one would say anything if he took a break, caught up on some sleep — in fact they’d probably encourage it. Yet still he sat at his post, watching as other weary staff members dropped one by one from the fold. The clock ticked onwards. Perhaps Gardner and Fisher were working on repairing whatever damage there was to the station’s communication systems, readying themselves to broadcast? Aleks could feel the tingle of expectant frustration twitch in his knee as he bobbed it up and down, watching the clock tick… tock… tick… tock. Any minute now the call would come through, any minute now. Unless the comms systems were well and truly dead, of course.

Dead. That was a word he didn’t want to think about. Somehow he felt if he exited the room, he would be abandoning Gardner and Fisher to face whatever hellish form of death awaited them. He knew there was nothing he could do for them sat at his desk, but even if he did leave, all he’d do was worry somewhere else.

‘Aleks, go and get some sleep.’

Aleks looked up to see Bale’s stern face staring down at him.

‘I—’

‘That’s an order. You’ve done a fine job today, but I’m going to need you rested if you’re going to do the same again tomorrow.’

Aleks went to protest but thought better of it. He was too tired to argue, particularly with John Bales. Removing his headset and rubbing his eyes, he creaked up out of his chair, shuffled out of Mission Control and headed towards bed. A wall of cold night air hit him as he exited the main building, and stepping up his pace, he cut across the grass to the dormitories. He heard the door clink shut behind him, but almost immediately it opened again. Quick footsteps slapped on the damp grass towards him, and he turned to see who it was.

‘Aleks, can I have a quick word?’

It was Bales, his white hair glowing silvery in the moonlight.

‘Sure,’ Aleks said, rubbing his hands together to stave off the chill.

‘I wanted to thank you again for what you did in there,’ Bales said, his voice thick with sincerity. ‘You stayed calm and performed when it was needed of you the most.’

‘Just doing my job.’

‘I need to ask you something,’ Bales said. ‘May I?’

‘Sure.’

‘You’ve had an admirable career. You’ve served your country — and the world for that matter — with utmost loyalty. Can I count on you to keep that up?’

This took Alex aback. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but it seemed to him like Bales was questioning his loyalty, even if it was draped in a thin veil of complementation.

‘Yes, of course, but what—’

‘Not everyone is like you,’ Bales interrupted, ‘not everyone can see the bigger picture.’ He took a step towards Aleks, his hardened face looming in the night’s mist, his hands reaching out and clamping down on Aleks’ shoulders. ‘I think you know what I mean, Aleks. And I think you know why I’m telling you this. I want to know that we’re on the same team, that we’re fighting for the same side, because when things come to a head I need to be sure that you’ll be there for me, doing as I say.’ His grip tightened, fingers digging into Aleks’ flesh. ‘I need to know what Lev Ryumin has been doing, who he’s been talking to.’

‘I don’t know what—’

‘Don’t answer me now, Aleks. Take some time to think, to relax. It’s been a hard day, and I don’t want you to make any rash decisions with a tired mind.’

Aleks blinked, dumbfounded.

‘If you make the right decision, I can promise that your career with the RFSA — even with NASA — goes better than you could ever have dreamed. If you don’t, well — I can’t promise that you’ll be spending much longer on this base.’ Bales gave Aleks a pat on the shoulder and released him. ‘I hope what I’ve said makes sense to you. Go and get some sleep, and we’ll talk some more in the morning.’

Without another word, Bales turned back the way he had come. The door into the main building had long shut behind him before Aleks even moved.

‘All we have to do is flood the chamber and we can go in,’ Gardner said, prodding at a collection of fat, well-spaced buttons on the wall-mounted control panel.

‘And then what?’ Sally asked, watching him work, then looking at the circular hatch that stood between them and the rest of the station. ‘We just wander in, say hi, kick back and watch some TV?’

Gardner stopped pressing buttons.

‘Look, I know as much about this as you do, but we both know we can’t stay in here forever.’

He paused, as if thinking, before resuming his button pushing. A quiet hiss that built into a gigantic roar in a matter of milliseconds startled Sally, but its presence seemed to reassure Gardner, who looked pleased. As fast as it started, it quietened again.

‘Why didn’t they let us in when we were back on board Progress?’ Sally said.

‘Any number of reasons. They might still be in the radiation protection compartments. They might be asleep. They might not have seen us coming.’

It seemed that Gardner was clutching at straws.

‘But it’s a good thing they didn’t open that hatch,’ he continued, ‘because it could have ripped Progress apart and dumped all the station’s atmosphere outside.’

He ended the sentence in a cheery way that lingered in Sally’s mind. The silence in which it lingered wasn’t an awkward or uncomfortable one: it was one charged with electricity, a capacitor for whatever uncertainty awaited them. The glowing red light next to the hatch was bright and angry, and Sally willed it to stay red forever. It turned green. Neither of them moved — they both just stared at it.

‘I suppose this is it,’ Gardner said.

Sally couldn’t be sure if she’d said, I guess so , or just thought it.

Giving himself a little nudge, Gardner drifted over to the hatch and grasped the lever with both hands. Sally heard the breath he took before guiding it anti-clockwise, taking one of her own and holding it. A gentle nudge was all Gardner needed to push the hatch open.