Night Shift

by Robin Triggs

  The Scotsman rubbed his cheek. A stubbly beard had spread across his face since I’d seen him last; I guessed that shaving had not been high on his list of priorities. “The way I see it,” he said, “we can either carry on as if nothing has happened, or we can pull everyone back to the barracks and hunker down here for the next six months.”

  “What do you think, Doctor?”

  “What does it matter if we’re all going to freeze anyway?”

  “That’s not—”

  “All right, all right, practical considerations only. Okay. If you want my professional opinion, I’d say it’d be far better for all of us to keep working. Much less chance of us all going down with winter-over syndrome – avoid the mental and physical effects of extended periods without natural light. Regular work and exercise is better than just sitting and waiting to die.”

  “And your personal opinion?”

  “I’m scared too.”

  “But the miners would be the only extra people inside the base,” I said. “And there’s no problem of space, what with—”

  “With all the dead bodies lyin’ around?” Fergie said.

  I shifted, the coarse sheet rucking between my legs. “Surely we could work out a routine, a way—”

  “Don’t underestimate the effects of any big change in a small space. It’s not just extra people, it’s extra idle people.” Fischer smiled without humor. “You think things are tense now? Just wait. Just wait and you’ll see punches thrown. In this atmosphere, with all that’s happened? It’ll happen in a matter of days.”

  Fergie shifted in his seat. “Okay, so it’d be best to get the mines open again – but that depends on finding out who did this. I’m not happy with sending the crew back out to the mine whilst there’s a saboteur around. I’m no’ too happy going out there myself. There are far too many ways for ‘accidents’ to happen.”

  “And we’ve just got to sit it out,” Fischer said. “Nearly six months. God, I wish there was a way off this damn – damn…”

  “If wishes were trees, then Bangladesh wouldn’t be underwater,” Fergie snapped. “We’re stuck here and that’s the end of it.”

  “It still seems incredible that one of us could be a killer,” I said, half to myself. “We all took Psych tests, didn’t we? We’ve all taken dozens over the years. How could any one of us slip through? How is it possible for there to be a murderer on the base?” I turned to Fergie. “Surely de Villiers was right when he told me that no stranger could be hiding here, that no one could be coming from a rival camp?”

  “There’s absolutely zero evidence for anything like that, no evidence that there’s anyone other than the thirteen of us here.”

  “Eleven of us now,” Fischer said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

  “Psych tests are all well and good,” I said, “but can we be sure everyone’s who they say they are? I mean – I mean, could someone have taken another’s identity at some point?”

  “I can’t see how,” the doctor said. “We had bioscans taken at every stage – every time we got on a transport, every time we logged in to a compscreen…. I just don’t see how that could happen. Not without some major conspiracy.”

  “So we have a choice of impossibilities.” I sighed. My head was beginning to ache.

  “I suppose…” Fischer began, then hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t have the equipment to do it properly, and I’d have to do some research and prepare, but I could run basic Psych tests myself.”

  “So you could find us the killer?” Fergie leaped on the idea.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Fischer closed her eyes momentarily. “I might be able to eliminate some people, but with the facilities I have here, I’m not too confident. But I should be able to prove that everyone’s who they say they are, that no one’s gone mad, or…you know. That sort of thing.”

  “What actually goes into a Psych? Technically speaking, I mean,” I asked. I’d only ever been on the receiving end of the process.

  “There are four aspects. First, a drug to suppress conscious thought. Second is the set of images and questions designed to provoke emotional responses – or not, of course. Third, there’s the measurements – the cameras to measure pupil dilation, thermometers, blood pressure monitors and so on – the things that measure pulse rate, arousal, hormones and the rest of the autonomic body functions. And finally the analysis. The last bit’s what’ll take the time, and will take me most of the work.”

  “You think you can do that?” I said. “With the equipment you have here?”

  “It wouldn’t be perfect. Wouldn’t stand up in court. But…”

  “But it’d be a damn good start,” Fergie said. “Begin with Anders – and me, o’ course.”

  I nodded my agreement. I knew my innocence. If there was any chance to prove it to Fergie, then I would take it.

  “How long will it take for you to prepare?” I asked the doctor.

  She shrugged. “A few days. A week, maybe. I’ll have to do it around my other duties – Mikhail comes first.”

  “There’s just one thing,” Fergie said. “What if you do your Psych and it comes up wi’ nothing, with nobody? Where are we then?”

  No one had an answer to that.

  * * *

  Fischer discharged me that afternoon, with the proviso that I spend much of my time in bed. I’d lost weight. I tired easily. I hobbled slowly through the corridors, feeling as if I needed a cane.

  In my room I stripped down and stood in front of the mirror. A stranger stared back. There were lines on my face that hadn’t been there before. My eyes were sunken and dark, and there was a scar on my brow that would be with me forever, unless I had it surgically removed. It was a curious thing, like a fragment of a circuit board – the impression of the burning metals in my mask.

  I looked old, and weak. And afraid. My God, but had I only been at Australis for less than ten days? It felt like forever.

  I updated my log on the compscreen, doing my best to ignore the message the hacker had left for me. I gave as accurate an account as I could of the fire. I added a note to the official records as well, but I kept that short. Explosion on oil rig: crew member Theodore Buckland killed. Circumstances unclear. Mikhail Petrovic seriously injured and removed from active duty.

  That was all I could bring myself to put. It was only as I confirmed the entry that I realized I was crying.

  I tried again to access the personnel files but de Villiers’s block remained in place. I spent hours fruitlessly trying to guess at his password: his wife’s name, his children’s names, Fischer, Julia – but I’d barely known the man. I had no chance.

  I looked longingly at my bed before sighing and turning away. I struggled to draw on some clean clothes before I made the slow, painful journey to Fischer’s quarters.

  I found her sitting at her compscreen, looking through a paper on Psych testing, making notes with an old-fashioned pen and paper. She looked up at me as I entered. Careworn and tired, she still managed a smile.

  “Anders.”

  “Julia. I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “That’s okay. Take a seat.” She turned her chair to face me.

  “I’m sorry to have to do this, but…”

  “But you need to talk to me about…about Anton.”

  “I found the message on his datapad.”

  “Do you have any idea who sent it?” she asked.

  “You don’t think it was me?”

  “I…I’ve had a long time to think about it. Yes, at first I thought it was you. I don’t know why – I mean, Anton said you’d be trouble, and when I – when I found… Yes, I thought you’d lured him out to kill him. But you’re not so stupid, are you?”

  I felt my mouth flicker a cynical smile.

  “If you’d ha
ve done it you’d have hidden your tracks better.”

  “So tell me – please – what happened that night?”

  She looked down at her knees and drew a deep breath. “I didn’t love him. I know that, I always knew that. He was…convenient. But still, it was such a…such a shock when he died.”

  I said nothing, let her draw her thoughts together.

  “That night… That morning. We – we’d had an arrangement. We used each other. It was how we worked. He was – we’d arranged for him to come here – my room – at five. He didn’t show.” Her voice cracked, just the tiniest waver. “It wouldn’t have been the first time. I was – I was angry…”

  “Because you thought he’d stood you up?”

  “Because I thought he was with someone else,” she said with a hint of her old acerbity. “Wouldn’t have been the first time.”

  “So you…?”

  “I went to his room. I was going to – to shout at him. To tell him that this was the last time. And to – well, I guess I kind of wanted to have a go at Weng, if it was her, or Max.”

  “You thought he might have been with— sorry, that doesn’t matter. Go on.”

  “You know the rest. I marched in, full of piss and vinegar – I mean everyone knew his access code, right? He hated security, hated that McCarthy kept himself locked away all the time – but he wasn’t there. Of course.”

  “Where did you think he was?”

  “In one of the girls’ rooms.” She shrugged and turned away, but not before I’d seen the tear breaking from her eye. “But – but I saw his datapad on the desk…. I figured there might have been a message from whoever he was with, might save me bursting into the wrong room. Piss and vinegar, remember? So I saw the message, realized where he’d gone.”

  “You went straight out to look for him?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a nosy bitch. You’ve read the message, right? If you – and at that point I had no reason to think it wasn’t from you – if you were calling Anton outside, it could only have been to tell him something serious or to—”

  “It read to me like blackmail. Like someone was trying to make it look like I was going to blackmail him.”

  She nodded. “Or that. Anyway, it told me where to look for him. I went outside – I – I…”

  “You found his body.”

  She nodded again, auburn hair falling across her face as she wiped at her eyes.

  “Julia, I’m sorry to have to ask—”

  “Go on.”

  “Did you see anyone else? Inside or outside?”

  She shook her head. “No one.”

  “No movement? No sounds? Nothing in the corner or your eye?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you see any footprints in the snow? Anything—”

  “I saw nothing, Anders. I saw nothing. Just – just snow beginning to cover his body – just—” She broke off and swallowed. “Just a dead man by the side of a building, just the end—”

  I gave her a moment to compose herself. “What did you do then?”

  “God, I barely remember. I called Weng. I must have, right? Because she called you. I don’t remember what I said to her, don’t remember – I must have got to one of the intercom panels in the outside buildings, mustn’t I? I barely remember…. And then there you were, there you both were. God, when I realized it was you—”

  “You must have thought I’d killed him.”

  “I don’t know what I thought. I mean – I must have, right? The message… But I don’t remember anything coherent from finding the – the body and then waking up in the infirmary with a wound-pack round my head and Weng looking down at me.” She tried another smile but gave up halfway through.

  I sighed. I could have guessed all this. My brow hurt. “How did you and Anton get together?”

  She cleared her throat. “Well, we met about six months ago – before the training in Tierra. It was hate at first sight.” She did smile this time. “I thought him an arrogant asshole with an ego twice the size of his brain. He called me a stuck-up bitch. We were both right.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “He’d been appointed as commander. I was on the shortlist for this position. All of the candidates for doctor met with him and McCarthy—”

  “McCarthy was there too?”

  She nodded. “The senior staff were hired first. I didn’t think too much about it – I mean, not afterwards. At the time I was nervous as hell; I really wanted the job. I’d reached a dead end in Germany – well, that doesn’t really matter, does it? But I thought I’d blown it. Didn’t get on with either of them, whilst some pretty little tart was charming his pants off. Possibly literally. So I went back to the job-site forums until a few weeks later, when they let me know I’d got the position.”

  “What then?”

  “I started training. Did the Antarctic survival course, then turned up to meet the crew at Tierra. I still didn’t like the commander. He was going giddy over Weng, poor girl. I got to watch him at work, with his jokes and grand gestures, and I hated him even more.” She sniffed, hauling back a tear.

  “So what changed?”

  She sighed. “I don’t really know. We got here and got to work. He was good at his job, even I had to admit that – he was organized, worked closely with the engineers. Dmitri adored him, poor lamb. Whenever there was a problem, he’d solve it calmly and would somehow get everyone on the same side. He gave everyone enough latitude – you know about the weed and the alcohol. As long as everyone kept working, he’d turn a blind eye.

  “The only one he couldn’t work with was Weng. As soon as we got here, he lost interest in her.”

  “She said that de Villiers chose you over her.”

  Fischer shook her head. “No, that’s not what happened. I remember – the first time we – we… Anton had been ignoring Weng. He’d just lost interest in her. I don’t think they talked at all. Then one day, in the rec room in front of others – I don’t remember who – Anton humiliated her.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “I don’t know how it began. I wasn’t paying attention at first. Anton was watching a film with the others, and Weng came up and asked him for a word. Anton told her he was busy and he’d see her later. He said it suggestively – you know, ‘I’ll see you later.’ Weng was really upset – you know what a private person she is – and tried again to get him to talk to her right then. She was crying.” Fischer bowed her head. “Anton got angry and called her a stupid bitch – in front of everyone. Told her she was just a silly little girl, the patronizing asshole.

  “Well, Weng ran out in tears and never spoke to him again. I was furious. I stood up and practically dragged him out of the room and into his office. I shouted at him, told him he had treated her abominably. I told him that he was a disgrace, that…well, lots of things along those lines.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He kissed me,” Fischer said with a shrug. “I don’t really remember quite how it came about, but he kissed me, grinned that stupid grin of his – what an asshole! But…” She sighed. “But I couldn’t help myself. And the next thing I knew, we were in bed.”

  There was silence for a moment; Fischer took the opportunity to open a drawer and pull out a pouch of tobacco and some cigarette papers. A little bag of buds the color of a summer’s lawn slid out of the pouch. She saw my expression. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll smoke outside.”

  “So that was how your relationship started?” I asked, watching her hands as she rolled her cigarette; she added a healthy layer of marijuana before sealing it into its paper tube.

  “Yes. It really was love-hate. Almost the definition of it.” She tapped the roll-up on her desk absently. “At times I really loathed the man �
�� I mean, I didn’t mind that he had other relationships. I just detested the way that he didn’t seem to care about the people he screwed with. At first I felt like I’d betrayed Weng – but we all have our needs, don’t we? At other times I found myself totally charmed. He was handsome, he was witty, and when he wanted to, he could be pretty damn smart. A little like Greigor, really, but with flair. Our relationship was sexual; that was all.”

  “The day I arrived…”

  “Yes?”

  “You – there was something going on—”

  “Oh. Yes, that. Yes, he stood me up. Nothing more. We’d had a – an appointment. An arrangement. He’d been…he was going to come and…and see me, that morning. He never showed. No call, no apology. Guess he’d been with one of the others. It was stupid of me to react like that. Must have been awkward for you. I’m sorry, Anders. But this place – when you’re with the same people all the time, these little things, they can get so big…”

  “Who was de Villiers with?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know. And even if I did, I wouldn’t say. I shouldn’t really have told you about Weng, but you already knew about that. As for the others – that’s not my business, and I don’t see that it’s yours.”

  I looked at her. She was holding herself tight, keeping herself in control – that was obvious. And although she was smiling grimly at me, there was a great sorrow in her eyes. She was brittle, ready to snap, and I didn’t want to push her over the edge. But I still had questions.

  “This was the situation up to my arrival?” I asked.

  “Until his death.”

  “You took it hard.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “But you didn’t love him?”

  She shook her head. “Anton was a force of nature. He gave the impression of being indestructible. He told me— no, he boasted about all the rules he’d broken in his previous jobs, and how he always managed to come out clean. He never, ever doubted himself. We were all sucked up in his wake; even the people who hated him couldn’t help being lifted by him. He could have been a cult leader. He had charisma.” She paused, shaking her head. “Maybe whoever killed him did us all a favor,” she said sadly. Then she looked up at me, tears on her cheeks.