Adam Baker - Outpost

‘What do you think it is?’ asked Rawlins.

‘I read somewhere that low-orbit installations are equipped with escape pods. If anything goes wrong the astronauts can eject. Maybe that’s what happened. This thing was meant to land in the Russian Steppes and send out a distress signal but the chutes fucked up.’

They descended to the bottom of the crater. Rawlins erected a dome tent. Ghost ringed the capsule with tripod lamps.

The sun set. They worked in the brilliant white illumination of halogen lights. A tight circle of white brilliance surrounded by endless night.

Ghost tried the radio.

‘Shore team to Rampart.’

Every waveband swamped by alien pops and whistles.

‘We need to shut this thing down. It’s killing every channel.’

Ghost hacked at silica heat tiles with the spike end of a fire axe. The tiles were hexagonal. He chipped away tiles and examined the steel skin beneath.

‘Take a look at this.’

Rawlins joined him by the capsule. Ghost had exposed a red, T-shaped handle. An inscription in Cyrillic:

A translation beneath:

‘How do you want to do this?’ asked Rawlins.

‘You take cover. I’ll crank the lever.’

Rawlins sheltered behind the capsule.

Ghost stood to the side of the hatch. He shielded his face, twisted the lever and snatched his hand away quick as he could. The rectangular hatch blew like a champagne cork. It flew twenty feet and landed in the snow.

Ghost shone his flashlight into the capsule. Three seats, one occupant. The body of an astronaut strapped in front of winking instrumentation.

‘You think that’s the transponder?’ asked Rawlins, pointing to a bank of switches.

Ghost held out the radio. A shrill feedback shriek.

‘I’m not going to fuck around,’ said Ghost. ‘We’ll toss a thermite grenade. Fry the whole thing.’

Rawlins hauled himself into the cramped cabin. He held a metal seat frame for support.

The cosmonaut wore a bulky pressure suit. Grey canvas webbing. The gloves, boots and helmet were attached to the suit by heavy lock rings. Russian insignia on his chest and sleeve. The suit was connected to a wall-mounted oxygen supply by a hose.

‘Wait. I want to check him out.’

‘Why?’

‘Aren’t you curious? СССР. Old Soviet mission badge. Red fist. I’m guessing military. How long has this guy been floating around up there? Decades? You weren’t even born when this guy got launched into space. I want to know who he was. I want to know how he died.’

Rawlins fumbled at the five-point harness. He took off his gloves but couldn’t release the buckle.

‘Pass me your knife.’

He sawed through the straps.

‘Leave him,’ said Ghost. ‘I don’t like it. Doesn’t feel right. The whole thing.’ He took a red, cylindrical grenade from his coat pocket. ‘Call it a cremation.’

‘Hold on. Someone, somewhere, will want to know what happened to this guy.’

Rawlins tried to twist the helmet free. He couldn’t release the lock ring. He gave up. He pushed the lift-tabs at the corner of the visor. The gold face-plate slid back.

A young man’s face. Mirror skin, like he was sculpted from chrome.

Eyelids flicked open. Jet-black eyeballs. A silent snarl. Metal lips, metal teeth.

Rawlins screamed.

Punch stood in the kitchen storeroom with a clipboard. Stock check. Jane surveyed the shelves.

‘Kidney beans: six cans. Rhubarb: three cans. Chopped tomatoes: two cases of twelve.’

They contemplated the dwindling supply of cans and cartons.

‘Good job we keep this place locked,’ said Punch. ‘If the guys glimpsed how little food we have left they would panic for sure.’

‘Maybe we should reduce portion size,’ said Jane. ‘Use rice and pasta for bulk.’

‘There must be someone on board who knows how to fish. Remind me at dinner, when everyone is in the canteen. I’ll ask around.’

They heard running feet. The squeak of trainers on tiles. Sian stood panting in the doorway, holding the frame for support.

‘There’s a message from Ghost. Rawlins is hurt. Injured or something. They’re on their way back.’

They descended the leg of the refinery and stood on the ice. Jane scanned the horizon with binoculars. The zodiac was a black dot approaching fast.

‘Jeez,’ said Punch. ‘He’s pushing it hard.’

Ghost swerved the boat to a halt, kicking up spray. He killed the engine. Rawlins lay at the bottom of the zodiac. His right arm was wrapped in a foil insulation blanket. They dragged him from the boat and laid him on ice surrounding the refinery leg.

‘Don’t touch him,’ said Ghost. ‘Don’t touch his skin.’

They hauled Rawlins across the ice to the deck of the platform lift. The lift was bolted to the south leg of the refinery. They laid him on the floor plates.

‘Where’s Dr Rye?’ asked Ghost.

‘Waiting at the top.’

‘Okay. Punch, you had better stay behind and secure the boat.’

Ghost jabbed the Up button. The elevator jolted to life.

Jane leaned over Rawlins. His face was hidden beneath a ski mask and goggles.

‘Is he conscious?’ she asked.

‘He moves now and again. He’s not talking.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Easier if you see.’

Rye met them at an airlock. She helped carry Rawlins inside and lay him on the stretcher buggy.

Convulsions. Rye wriggled on nitrile gloves. She pulled off Rawlins’s mask and goggles. His eyes rolled. His lips were blue.

‘No skin contact,’ warned Ghost. ‘No mouth-to-mouth, whatever you do.’

Rye ripped open Rawlins’s coat. Twenty chest compressions.

‘He’s breathing. All right. Let’s go.’

The buggy’s headbeam lit the way as she steered down dark corridors. Jane, Sian and Ghost jogged behind, keeping pace as best they could.

Medical. Rye restored power. The white room lit up.

They laid Rawlins on the examination table. Rye re-angled the light canopy above him.

‘There’s a convection heater in my office,’ said Rye. ‘Get it going.’

She put on a mouth mask and goggles. She wriggled on a pair of surgical gloves.

‘Okay. You folks better get in the office and stay there.’

They sat in Rye’s office and watched through an observation window.

Rye took scissors and forceps from a drawer. She snipped through the foil blanket that sheathed Rawlins’s arm and peeled it back. Blood dribbled on the floor.

‘Treat every drop of that shit like AIDS,’ advised Ghost, via a wall-mounted intercom. ‘Scrub it. Bleach it.’

Rye scattered swabs on the floor to sop the blood.

‘And be careful with his arm,’ said Ghost. ‘Don’t touch it, whatever you do.’

Rawlins’s hand had turned dark, skin mottled like a bad bruise.

‘Frostbite?’ asked Jane.

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Looks like Simon’s hand when we pulled him off the ice.’

‘Look closer.’

The flesh bristled with needle-fine splinters of metal.

‘My God.’

Rye sliced away Rawlins’s clothes with trauma shears. She plucked dog-tags from his neck.

‘O neg.’

She wriggled on a double layer of gloves and canulated Rawlins’s left hand. She took a bag of O neg from the fridge and set it to feed.

‘His heart rate is high,’ said Rye. ‘His breathing seems unimpaired. So what actually happened?’

‘We opened the capsule. Frank crawled inside. There was a body, an astronaut. Frank tried to take off his helmet. Next minute he was screaming and bleeding.’