Pod Eighteen
Orbit the Sun – Part 3
By John Stevenson
Copyright 2014 John Stevenson
Matt was unsettled; very unsettled, he knew Andrew already had enough problems on his mind, but someone had to say something. Twice in the intervening days he had begun to make his way to Andrews quarters, and twice he had talked himself out of it before he reached the door. It was totally irrational to be as indecisive as he was.
Briefly he had even entertained the thought that he was intimidated, fronting up to the stations senior officer with no more than a vague accusation, but on both counts that was wrong. Matt equaled him in rank, and had almost a year more service: and as for vague…
“Matthew have you been looking for me?”
Matt spun on his heel. “No,” he lied, seeing Andrew approach.
Andrew looked puzzled. “Cathy said you were?”
“Well… Actually, yes… there’s something I need to discuss.”
Andrew stared at him intently, but didn’t reply.
“Commander,” Matt felt a sign of respect should be shown. “This may seem paranoid, but I'm not happy about the deaths.”
Andrew had a look of curiosity on his face. “I wouldn’t expect you to be; nobody is.”
“No. No I don’t mean that I’m saddened… I mean I am, of course; but that’s not what I mean.”
The commander was turning his head slightly. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes,” Matt said quickly. “I’m fine.”
“It’s a difficult time for us all, so I’d understand if you needed a little time off.”
“No, really I’m fine, it’s just I’m concerned about the rumours?”
“Rumours?” Andrew shook his head. “I beginning to think that there as many rumours as there are people aboard the station… so you’ll have to be more specific?”
“I can’t understand… why have these people died?”
“The deaths? I would have thought that was fairly obvious?”
“I’m not so sure it is?”
“Mathew,” Andrew began in a friendly tone. “We’re all feeling the stress, and not just what is happening to us here aboard the station; we all have loved ones back on Earth that we are unable to help. It’s hard: incredibly hard to cope; and some can’t. It’s distracting: in space distraction is something we can’t let happen, and if we do there are a million and one ways it can end badly.”
“I understand that, but what I mean is why?”
“I’ve just said why.”
“Yes…” Mathew was beginning to wonder why he ever thought he should ask. “But why now?”
Andrew looked at him puzzled. “Your not actually expecting me to give you a definitive answer?”
“No, but why on this flight?”
Andrew just stared at Matthew.
Matt knew Andrew understood what he was referring to, and was avoiding an answer: he felt he had to justify his question. “There’s been a permanent presence off planet for decades, and in all that time there has been what… three fatalities? Now suddenly it seems as if we are trying to break that record in as...”
“Actually there has been just the one fatality on the station or its predecessors.” Andrew interrupted. “The others should be more rightly placed as accidents in space.”
“And that makes it even more astounding with what has happened? I’m sorry, I know you have no control over our situation and I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but its just too odd.”
“Matt we are in a situation that none of us expected or wants to be in.” The words sounded almost condescending “…and nobody is more aware of the fact that my term as station commander is the most devastating in almost any way you wish to examine it, but the facts are that there’s nothing suspicious: or… misjudged.” Andrew dwelled on the word as if to emphasize none of it was his responsibility. “Everybody is on edge; out of our depth, we’re all facing an unknown future. I don’t want to make light of the situation, but its just incredibly bad luck.”
“So you don’t think we have a murderer on board?” The words were out of Matt’s mouth before he realized he was going to say them.
Andrew stared at him. “I’m aware of the gossip, and I’m surprised you of all people would be listening to it?”
“It may be unfounded but it’s the mood on the station.”
“At times like this people do and believe lots of things; I’m sure you know people are deliberately showing their faith far more than before?”
“I know, but the rumour is taking hold.”
Andrew smiled. “Just for a second lets assume there was someone who wanted to kill Drew? How did that someone get him into a pressure suit and convince him to leave the safety of the station when he had absolutely no reason to be outside?”
“He could have been dead before he left?”
“Okay, so why waste time with a space suit, and how did they get him where he was?”
“I… maybe the decompression would have left traces: maybe he was meant to drift off and disappear, but got caught up?”
Andrew sighed. “Reasonable as that sounds it’s more like clutching at straw’s?”
“The fact is he was outside and for no reason, and that in itself is reason to believe that something is wrong?”
“Was … wrong, and the real fact is that we can’t find him... we don’t know for sure he was in the suit?”
Matthew was stunned. “You’re saying he’s hiding somewhere?”
“No, what I’m saying is that he can’t be located, that said we have to accept the possibility that he was in the suit; but we don’t know for a fact.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t have the same problem as Georgi and Wayne?”
Andrew was almost dismissive. “We don’t know that Wayne did have the same problem as Georgi?”
“No we don’t, but it has to be more logical than him drifting off into space voluntarily?”
Andrew sounded slightly annoyed. “Matthew we’ve all been under strain, he as much as anybody. He lost a wife and child on the surface.”
Matthew felt his argument disappear. “I… didn’t know that?”
“Why should you, it’s the kind of things I have to know that the rest of the crew doesn’t. Grief affects people in different ways; if he was back on the surface maybe he would have done what others who were grief stricken had done; driven off into the desert when he couldn’t cope?”
Matthew wasn’t persuaded but he had begun to question what he had thought. “Then why bother even using a suit?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to have somebody wipe his innards off the inside of the air lock.” Andrew reached out and put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Matthew,” he said in a friendly way. “What’s happened and the uncertainty of what is still to happen, is unsettling us all. Don’t take this personally but go down to the infirmary and ask then to give you a prescription”
“I’m not ill commander.”
“I didn’t say I thought you were, and if I did I’d relieve you of your duties. But as a bit of advice you need to back off a bit. Things are going to have to change; we all need to reappraise… well pretty much everything. Take a couple of days stand down, and then we’ll concentrate on passing the time to our meeting with Earth, rather than dwelling in the past.”
Matt was not sure he didn’t sense a threat in what Andrew was saying; then again maybe the advice was right, maybe he was letting it all get to him. “I’m supervising a practice emergency evacuation in a few hours.”
“There’s an update?”
“The satellite’s are forecasting high probability of a solar flare, but I want to try and get the evacuation time as low as possible. Sooner or
later we’re going to need to get everybody out of harms way in as little time as possible?”
Andrew smiled. “And until then hopefully it’ll keep everybody’s mind occupied with other things, rather than rumours?” He made to move past Matthew. “I’ll assign someone to your next duty.”
Andrew walked on past him, leaving Matthew confused whether everything that was happening was coincidence or just imagination.
To keep the peace with his superior Matthew drew a course of sleeping tablets from the medical supplies: though he had no intention of using them, and retired to his quarters.
By the time he arrived there his communications console had the small orange indicator light illuminated that signified the system was in stood down mode. The pale orange glow was enough so he did not bother turning on the lights, or undressing other than loosening the clasps of his uniform.
He lay back on the bunk and picked up a fragile looking mask. It rested almost un-felt over the upper half his face and the tiny projectors came to life in response to his eye movements, as he searched the library for an Agatha Christie book. He wanted something to remind him of less complicated times, but
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