by Jon Lymon
There was a pause. “How do you mean?”
“This is a two-man ship, right, with three men aboard. We have a long and dangerous journey ahead. Anything could happen in that time. An accident. Illness. And well…”
Remnant heard someone approaching the cockpit door from within. He withdrew into the shadows of the galley as DT poked his head out into the corridor, clearly checking to see if Remnant was there. Satisfied he wasn’t, DT quietly shut the door and Remnant heard him walk across the cockpit floor.
DT lowered his voice further, leaving Remnant only able to make out certain words. ‘He’s an old man… unhealthy… no one will miss him… trash chute… OK? Deal.’
Remnant quietly shut the microwave oven door and crept into the cabin where he sat on the bottom bunk to mull over what he’d heard. They couldn’t be serious? It was just another of those plans, like the ones he’d drawn up to rob jewellers in Hatton Garden. Something you talk about to pass the time, to impress your friends and give yourself something else to think about other than the monotony of life. Not something you’d actually go through with. Surely?
26
Remnant feigned unconsciousness as DT entered the cabin and stood by the bunks. He heard DT’s heavy breathing and imagined him standing over him, holding a knife clenched in both hands above his head, preparing to plunge it in.
Remnant reduced his breathing. If DT didn’t move in five seconds, he’d have to attack him. Four. Three. On two, DT leapt up, vaulting himself onto his top bunk, and into his semi-horizontal sleeping position. Remnant suppressed a yell and rolled away from DT whose arms sprung him too high, causing him to crack his head on the ceiling, prompting a tirade of expletives and a small showering of dust to rain down.
“You OK?” Remnant asked, faking the huskiness of sleep in his voice.
“Do I sound it?” DT was frantically rubbing the pain zone.
“Did you hit your head?”
“Yes, I did,” he said angrily.
“Sorry, I was only asking.”
“And I was only answering.” DT checked his rubbing finger for blood but found none.
“You been chatting with Bettis?” Remnant asked.
“I wouldn’t call it chatting. I was speaking and he was staring out of the window.”
Remnant snarled a little. DT had already shown his true colours with his eleventh hour attempt to get himself on the mission at Remnant’s expense. Now he was lying while lying above him.
“He does a lot of that,” Remnant answered, faking the calmness in his voice.
“And not much else, my friend. What do you make of him?”
“Who, Bettis? He doesn’t like me, and to be honest I don’t like him much.”
It was DT’s turn to quietly snarl. A divided crew was a captain’s nightmare. “But what do you think of him as a pilot?” he asked, in an obvious change of tack.
“Well, he hasn’t done much so far, has he? It’s all being done for him by the computer.”
“Yes, yes. That’s what’s been worrying me. I’m paying him a lot of money to fly this ship, and yet as well as talking, the other thing he hasn’t done much of is flying.”
Remnant couldn’t work it out. What was DT playing at? He’d just entered into an alliance with Bettis in the cockpit, and here he was in the cabin casting aspersions on his ally. “I suppose you’ve got to pay a pilot to be there in case things go wrong,” Remnant suggested.
“True, true. But are you saying you and I could not work out what switch to flick and when? I have had a look at the dashboard, and yes, there is a lot going on, but it is all self-explanatory.”
“It looks a mess to me, mate.”
It was not the answer DT was looking for.
“You think about your daughter a lot, yes?” DT asked, following a moment of silence.
It was another change of tack that Remnant decided to play along with. “Every day. I just wish I could have been there for, you know…”
“I am sorry but I had no choice. This is a race we are in. Every second matters and I wanted to give us the best possible chance. Just think, if we find it, you could buy her so much when you get back home. Get her the biggest ‘I’m sorry’ present a man ever bought his daughter. You could buy her a slice of London, my friend. A mansion in the country. Whatever.”
“Her husband’s rich. She don’t need my money. She don’t want me in her life. Just like you don’t want me on this ship.”
DT stirred in the bunk above. “There was never any question of that. I was merely testing your mettle, my friend. Seeing if you were truly determined to be a part of this.”
Remnant shook his head on his pillow. “Why would I go to all the effort of finding the parts to help Edgar build the ship?”
“Yes, yes, but Edgar went to all the effort to build the ship but still wanted no place on the ship, my friend.”
Remnant heard DT turn onto his side, but he didn’t want to leave the conversation there. If he was going to get any sleep, he needed some kind of evidence that either or both of his fellow crew members didn’t plan to kill him that night. “Just out of interest, what made you change your mind about financing the trip, then coming on it?”
DT sighed and told Remnant about how he felt he needed to see what was happening with his money. “It is not that I don’t trust you. It is just that, well, we hardly know each other, and I am investing a lot of my wealth in this.”
“I can understand that. You wanna keep an eye on your investment. Nothing wrong with that.”
“But that’s not the only reason. Being a successful businessman was never enough for me.”
“You what?” Remnant was incredulous that the moneyed man lying above him wasn’t happy. “From where I’m lying, you’ve got everything.”
“No, my friend. Not everything.”
DT then told Remnant of the last meeting with his father, Omta, who still lived in the Peckham council flat he’d moved to with his wife straight from Nigeria. DT had lost count of the times he’d offered to get his Dad somewhere more befitting the father of a self-made millionaire. But memories of his wife were still strong on that fifth floor. Her steps were in the carpet that was worn almost threadbare in the lounge and hall. Her touch in the curtains that were a couple of years away from coming back into fashion. Her reflection in mirrors too ornate for this era. Her head in the pillows. Her hands in the washing up bowl. If he left, he’d lose her forever and he couldn’t handle that.
DT had a key but always knocked. His Dad was his Dad but was still a man and could be up to stuff that DT would not want to walk in on. On this occasion, his father shuffled to the door almost straight away. They hugged.
After a seat had been cleared of several issues of The Racing Post and the obligatory cup of tea offered, accepted and poured, his father asked the purpose of the visit.
“I need to borrow some money, Dad”. His father chuckled at the line he’d heard from his son many times before. He’d given up worrying if there’d be a time when his son might actually mean it. DT had done well. He could tell as much from the car that had already attracted a crowd of youngsters outside, much to the chauffeur’s annoyance.
“I’m going to the asteroid, Dad.”
His father stared at him with harshness in the eyes. “Are you stupid, drunk or both?”
“I’ve got to do it. I can’t hack that it’s up there.”
“There’s someone else up there who’ll say you’re as crazy as I think you are.”
“No she wouldn’t. You know she wouldn’t. She’d have been all for it.”
Omta shook his head and smiled, focusing his eyes on the floor as he fondly remembered his wife. He knew well enough his son was right. “You certainly did not inherit your adventurous streak from my side of the family. If it wasn’t for your mother, I’d still be in Nigeria.”
“I don’t have an adventurous streak, Dad. I am like you. I am scared of adventure. Anxious about travelling anywhere. Happy to stay put
, drop anchor and find a comfort zone. But my business will take months, maybe years to rebuild. I’ve got all this money and it is rotting in a bank, getting wasted by bankers.”
“Have you come here for my blessing?”
“I have come to say goodbye.”
His father paused and stared at him.
“I am not stupid. I know the odds are stacked against me,” DT continued. “But this is something I have got to do.”
“You wouldn’t expect me to be happy about it?”
“Understanding, maybe.”
“You must do as you wish with your life, son. But you already have enough money to live comfortably. Why would you go looking for more?”
“It is not the money. It’s the…” What he wanted to say next couldn’t fail to sound crass so he stopped himself.
“You want your name in the papers like you always did. Like you’ve got your name on those hospital wards back home.”
DT’s silence said it all.
“You’ll never change. I think what you’re doing is foolish, son, but I can understand why you’re doing it. I just think bad things will come from this place. This asteroid.”
For a moment DT contemplated how strange it sounded for his Dad to say the word ‘asteroid’.
“I thought it would be bad as soon as I heard about it,” Omta continued. “It will bring out the worst of man. I just hope you get what you want from it.”
That sounded like a summing up speech, so DT nodded and got up to leave, only for his father to beckon him to sit back down.
“Son, I’m no fool. This could be our last… we have never spoken about your mother…about how she…”
DT didn’t want this now. Ever. “Natural causes. That’s what they said.”
His father smiled weakly. “Son, she was attacked as she walked to pick you up from school. She was pushed to the ground and kicked.”
DT shook his head, still in denial after all these years.
“She would have wanted you to have been as brave as she was,” Omta continued. “She was never afraid, son. Despite all the intimidation, they never got to her. She knew there was danger out there, but she faced it head-on.”
“But she was OK after the attack. I remember her being OK.”
“For a few days, yes. Then she passed.”
DT didn’t know where to look and got a flashback of his mother bringing him a plate of egg and chips in the lounge in which he was now sitting. He got up and watched his father struggle to his feet.
“Go and make your mother proud, son, like you have made me proud.”
DT was at breaking point. He hugged his father briefly before leaving, committing to memory the familiar smells of the house, the pictures of long dead family members on the walls, an inaccurate map of Nigeria and a random, worthless portrait of an African elephant. DT told his father to stay in the lounge before he quietly let himself out. Don’t say goodbye. Don’t look back. Never look back. Fight the tears. Think of something happy or disgustingly funny. Don’t think about not coming back here ever again, not seeing him ever again. Keep walking forward, ever onward. Don’t falter.
He made it down to the car, where the chauffeur was waiting. A Maserati stood out on an estate like this, captivating envious eyes, causing groups of muttering kids to gather round and dare others to touch the bodywork. Kids who called you ‘mister’ and gave off an air of having weaponry about them.
DT ignored their comments and got in the back and lay across the seats as the chauffeur quickly slipped it into drive.
“So, you see, Sye. It is important for me to be the first back with the diamond.”
“But there must be thousands of ships ahead of us, and thousands of faster ships catching us up.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But I have confidence. And I believe we will have a better idea whereabouts we are in the race once we get to Mars.”
Remnant seized the opportunity he’d been waiting for. “You hear things about Mars, don’t you?” he said.
“What things?” DT asked, his mind still on his father.
“About the people who live there. The ex-cons.”
“The American policy on Martian colonisation was massively flawed if you ask me. They’ve turned it into some modern day Botany Bay.”
“They say there’s more convicts per square mile on Mars than there is anywhere on Earth. We’ll need to keep our wits about us when we refuel there.”
A creak of the springs above suggested DT was now sitting up. “What do you mean?”
“I know what these people are like, DT. They’ll try every trick in the book to cheat us out of fuel or nick our money. We’ll need to watch them carefully. Especially if they’re armed.”
“Armed?” DT shifted again in his bunk. “Do you think we will be in any danger?” he asked.
“Not if you stick close to me. I know how to handle those sorts of people.”
DT sighed, and turned on his other side.
Remnant afforded himself a smile, but he waited until he heard DT’s bovine snoring before finally drifting off himself.
27
Life aboard Prospector III wasn’t far short of luxurious for Haygue, Stock and M Krugler. Each man had his own en suite cabin, replete with widescreen television. Haygue liked to keep himself to himself, having insisted on the grandest of the three cabins with the largest of the televisions on which he caught up with the seasons of the crime dramas work back on Earth had caused him to miss. He’d made himself at home in his cabin as much as he could, neatly arranging his suits, shirts, ties and underwear in the wardrobe and chest of drawers. The bedside table was given over to reminders of home. Several pictures of his dogs, and one of him and his wife.
M Krugler spent less time in his cabin, and more in the cockpit, making sure the advanced SEC hardware was taking them in the right direction at the fastest speed. And, so far, he couldn’t fault the ship. The nuclear engines were the most powerful he’d experienced. And in addition to the armoured fighters that were accompanying them, the ship was equipped to defend itself, the black bores of the twin lasers pointing forwards eight feet either side of the cockpit window. A huge, highly visible deterrent.
Stock had grown tired of watching the seasons of crime dramas he’d already seen back on Earth in his cabin, which was the smallest of the three. He’d informed the steadily growing army of followers of his blog that he was aboard an official SEC mission to the asteroid belt, and that he’d keep them up to date with all the gossip from the trip. But so far, he’d had nothing juicy to impart. Haygue had barely spoken to him, still annoyed, Stock presumed, by Onamoto’s no-show. But Stock felt a responsibility towards his fans back home, some of whom doubted whether he really was where he said he was. He had to give them something or risk looking a fraud.
After the end of another episode of a formulaic crime drama, he grabbed his iPad and headed to Haygue’s cabin. His tap at the door wasn’t answered at first, or indeed second, but after repeating it five times, an irritable Haygue pressed a button that slid open his door.
Stock was shocked by how red and bloated Haygue’s face had become. It was as if someone had stabbed a footpump nozzle in his leg and pumped him up.
“Stop staring, Stock. I always get like this is space, but usually it clears up sooner.” Haygue’s space affliction was exacerbated by the extra annoyance of seeing Stock looking weeks younger than he had when they’d launched.
“You really don’t look well, Haygue.”
“I hope it’s catching. Now what do you want?”
“I’m getting the familiar feeling that you’ve got me somewhere under false pretences. You promised me scoops, and so far you’ve given me shit.”
“That’s because I’ve been inflating like a fucking balloon, Stock. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m twice the size I was when we left Earth and my face is as red as Jupiter’s spot, so how about you cut me some slack?”
“How about you shoot me a little scoop from your sickbed,
so I can satisfy my demanding fanbase back on Earth?”
“What do you want?”
“The co-ordinates to the location of the diamond asteroid?”
“Don’t know them.”
“Ah, so you’re no longer saying there’s no diamond asteroid.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Come on Haygue, give me something. Don’t force me to make shit up.”
“OK, how about I tell you a little about Prospector II?”
Stock nodded.
“So, we thought the Prospector photos were abnormal. It couldn’t be a camera fault, because…”
“Because the camera was way too good a model to malfunction. I told you that.”
“Give yourself a pat on the back, Stock. Anyways, Prospector II was scrambled with three crew. Handpicked by me.”
“Names?”
“I’m not prepared to divulge that information. There were two males, one female.”
Stock nodded. “Wait a minute, I reckon I can fill in those gaps myself. When did P2 launch?”
“That’s classified information.”
“I covered a story about two astronauts who went missing in quick succession. Guy called Dan Beard. And the other was… Quinn. Michelle S Quinn.”
Haygue betrayed no emotion. “I’m not divulging the names of the crew, Stock. All I’m saying is we sent the P2 to check out the area from where the Prospector sent back those photos. Of course, things change rapidly in the asteroid belt, as you know. The rocks orbit, and occasionally crash into each other, heading off in new directions.”
“So they didn’t find what they were looking for?”
“Oh, they found it all right.”
“What was it?”
Haygue sat up at this point, and leaned toward Stock for dramatic effect. He couldn’t keep what he knew to himself any longer.
“An asteroid made of pure diamond.”
Stock stared at Haygue. “Shit, man, I can’t get this typed quick enough. Shit, Haygue. So why the secrecy, all the denials?”
“Because we lacked the funds to do anything about it. P2 was sent to locate the asteroid and test the quality of the rock. Which it did.”