S Morden - No Way

“It’s your call.” He waited. He waited for a long time.

“We’re not really losing anything, are we? Send it, Frank. Send it, and let’s go eat.”

Frank clicked the button, and watched while the message worked its way through the system, to the dish and out. “Really need to be turning this shit off now.”

“I’ll go and pull the plug. No more traffic until we can get our own secure channel.”

He left her to it, and went to find Isla and Fanuel.

They were standing a little way away from one of the gurneys, where a black body bag lay, unnervingly full.

“Lucy’s calling you into the kitchen,” he said.

They had body bags. More than his team ever had. But someone at NASA had thought ahead, had planned for fatalities, and had used some part of the cargo manifest to send body bags to Mars, on the assumption that those bodies would be coming back to Earth again. Everyone on the crew had known that death was a possibility, and had also known that even then, they’d be taken home and not abandoned.

He could feel his face stiffen, and he blinked rapidly. Of all the things to get upset about, someone showing a measure of respect to a corpse that he’d never got in life had to be one of the stupidest. Yet here he was, working his jaw and trying not to cry.

“Go on,” he said. “She’s waiting for you.”

He felt a hand on his back, fleeting, warm. Human contact that wasn’t the prelude to an assault. Then he was alone with the dead.

He leaned his knuckles on the gurney, looking down at the heavy-duty zipper that ran the length of the bag, the write-on patch for identifying who was inside—FISHER Leland 3/8/49. Twenty forty-nine. How the hell had it got to twenty forty-nine? There were plugs and valves on the bag. A NASA logo. A medical company logo. The words “Body Back” and a serial number.

“Should have done more, Leland. I should have done more.”

What else could he have done, though? Jim would still have disappeared, M2 would still have attacked, and that was pretty much it. The only thing he could have done differently was tell the NASA crew everything from the very start—and it would still have unwound with XO undermining his testimony.

The only way it would have been better would be for M2 to have found all their gear and not to have turned into a bunch of crazies led by a madman. Them on their side of the hill, NASA on the other. That would have worked out. That would have been fine.

Instead, it was a mess. A goddamn mess.

He went back through to the kitchen. They were sitting around the table, bowls in front of them, cutlery laid out, glasses of water poured. Waiting for him.

“OK, you’re going to have to give me a minute,” said Frank.

Rather than disturb the place settings, he got another bowl out from storage and used the big plastic spoon to scoop some of the salad up. He went for a second helping, shook the bowl, then carried it, and a knife, back to the med bay, past Leland’s body bag, and unlocked the examination room. He’d reaffixed the door himself.

Jerry, curled up in the far corner beneath a blanket, didn’t move, though he was clearly watching what Frank was doing. He saw the knife, and perhaps he thought this was it.

“Chow time, Jerry.”

Jerry blinked, and rolled himself upright, leaning against the partition.

“Let’s see your hands.”

“What are they going to do with me?”

“At the moment, ‘they’ are trying to give you dinner. Beyond that, I don’t know. It’s not up to me.”

“They going to send me back?”

“Back to M2? You want that? Because we can take you with us and dump you there, after we’ve rescued Yun and taken out your buggies so you can never hurt us again. You’ll starve to death in the cold and the dark. Quickly, slowly. Maybe you get to do the eating, maybe you get eaten. What do you think, Jerry?”

“I don’t want to get sent back.”

“So let me see your hands.”

Jerry ass-shuffled so his back was to Frank. His wrists were cable-tied together, and Frank sliced through the tie.

“You came here as a prisoner, right?” Jerry rubbed at his wrists. “Maybe that can work out for me. Make myself useful over here.”

“You ate their friend.”

“I didn’t want to. He made me.”

“No one cares about your motives. Just about what you did. They’re decent people, and they’re not as used to the depths of human behavior as I am. Any one of them could decide living with you is just too risky and throw you out the airlock. They might just decide to do that anyway, in the cold light of day. We don’t need you.”

“I can do stuff. Computer stuff. I’m an expert. And electronics and electrics. I can do all of that.”

“Jerry, that’s what you did. Maybe that defined you before, with all your certificates and your college degrees and whatever. I know something about that. I was a builder. A good one. I ran my own company and I employed people and paid them on time and together we built houses. Then I shot someone, and all I was was a murderer. And all you are is a cannibal. Accept it. It’ll make things easier for you.” Frank pushed the bowl over to Jerry. “This is what we’re eating. You can take it or leave it. You don’t get so much as a spork to eat it with, though: I’ve seen what a man can do with one. You leave this room, I’ll toss your ass myself. You and me, we’re never going to be best buddies, but for some reason or other, I’m your best hope of making it through the next sol. Don’t piss me off by doing anything stupid.”

Jerry nodded. “OK. I get it.”

“The door stays locked. You’ve got a bucket. Use it because we’re not checking on you for comfort breaks every five minutes. Try and break out, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Now, I’m going to eat too, and after that you’ll probably get tied up again. So make the most of it. There are no guarantees here. If Lucy wants you gone, I can’t save you.”

Frank closed the door behind him. He clicked the lock, and pushed one of the empty gurneys up against the opening. If Jerry tried to get out, they’d hear him.

Then he went back and took his place at the table. They were watching him carefully.

“I feel sorry for him, for now. That’s all.” He took the spoon and helped himself to the salad. No one else had, and no one else did, for a while.

Eventually, Isla reached across and dragged the serving dish over towards her. She gave herself a tiny portion, barely anything, but from her expression it was going to be all she could gag down. Lucy reluctantly followed, and when she’d finished, she pushed it at Fan.

Who stared at it for the longest time.

“That’s an order,” she said, softly.

He didn’t have the willpower to defy her. The fight had gone out of him, and he theatrically clattered the spoon on the edge of his bowl to knock the last few grains of boiled wheat off.

Frank looked around the table, and found that everyone else was doing exactly the same. It wasn’t just ridiculous, but painfully, obviously so. He picked up his spork, toyed with it for a few seconds, then said: “You know what? Fuck it. If I’m going to die, I’m going down with a full belly. A couple of cold ones would go down nicely, but some damn fool decided this base was dry.”

He took a mouthful and chewed and swallowed, and went back for another.

“My parents,” said Isla. “They never drank. Very strict. When I used to come home from college, I had to hide my beer out in the barn, and the nearest place to buy it was some fifty miles away. Those summers were long.” And she ate. “It’s good, Frank,” she said.

After that, the floodgates opened. Reminiscences of childhoods in cities and on islands, on prairies and on air force bases. Things they’d done. Scars they’d earned. Loves they’d lost and hearts they’d broken.