Below Mercury

by Anson, Mark

  Dust motes swam in the rays of the low winter Sun that illuminated the rectangular chamber. The room was filled with over 300 people, sitting at tables facing the elevated stand at the front of the room.

  Here, surrounded by microphones, display screens and recording equipment, Chairman Trent and the rest of the board sat looking out at the audience. Robert Trent was 62, overweight, but with a piercing gaze in his pale blue eyes, and an incisive mind that had led a dozen major investigations before this one. He took a long sip from the glass of water on the desk, before continuing his address.

  ‘Planetary Mining Inc., whom I will refer to from now on as “PMI”, are not in favour of any attempt to revisit the mine, as it is a designated space grave, and because of the distress this may cause to those relatives who are not disputing the findings of the original investigation. In this respect, PMI are supported by the FSAA, and by this investigation board. The Space Graves Commission, however, have indicated that they would allow the mine to be entered for investigative purposes, if there is sufficient weight of evidence that an entry is necessary.’

  Matt cast his gaze around the room. He was seated at one of the tables in the third row, close to the lawyers for the class action. Most of the people in the room were lawyers, in fact; a disaster of this scale produced many grieving families. Matt wondered what each of them was seeking. For some, it would be closure; the need to know what had happened to their loved ones, so that they could try to move on after all these years. For others, it might be revenge, the desire to strike back at whoever had been responsible. For some, it would be the prospect of increased compensation for their loss, but there was no prospect of that unless there was a reversal of the previous finding that PMI were not negligent. And there was no chance of that unless the FSAA sanctioned an investigative mission.

  Matt returned his attention to Trent.

  ‘This issue is what we will be presenting our findings on today. We have been directed by a Federal Court of Appeal to re-examine the available evidence, and new evidence recently brought to light, and reach one of three possible conclusions based on this, as follows. One, that the board do not make any change to the original findings, and the final report stands. Two, that the board consider changes are necessary to the findings, and submit a revised final report. Three, that the board cannot come to a decision without an investigative mission to the mine.

  ‘In order to do this, it is necessary to review the conclusion that the previous board came to, just over six years ago.’

  Trent motioned to one of the assistants on the podium, and the room darkened. An animated diagram appeared on the main projection screens, and on the various smaller screens placed at intervals round the room.

  The animation zoomed in to a large crater on Mercury’s surface, and dropped down to the crater floor, and a three-dimensional cutaway view of the mine.

  ‘The findings of the board were based on the extensive telemetry data obtained from the mine, and from the transmissions from the survivors of the original explosion and decompression. Using this evidence, the board pieced together a sequence of events that showed that an explosion in the fuel refinery caused an explosive pressure wave, which spread throughout the mine workings and burst the main pressure doors, resulting in the loss of all air from the mine.’

  The animation showed a sudden flash of light, followed by a slow-motion explosion from the refinery, out on the crater floor. A red explosive shock wave spread out from the refinery, working its way through the passages and shafts of the mine, back to the accommodation levels. The animation zoomed in to the main portal of the mine, and an enlarged cutaway of the entrance hangar, as the explosive shock wave arrived. It filled the hangar, and the animation showed the main doors buckling under the load, and finally failing, bursting open in slow motion and venting the mine atmosphere into space.

  Matt had seen the animation a dozen times, but it never failed to send a chill through him as he imagined what it must have been like for the mine personnel that day. He shivered, as he recalled the dream of the night before.

  ‘The FSAA investigation board determined that, had the emergency pressure doors in the main access ways been closed immediately, as the emergency procedures required, the explosion would have been contained, and the mine would not have been breached. Simulations conducted for the board showed that only six doors would have had to be closed, to completely contain the explosion.

  ‘For this reason, the board concluded that the probable cause of loss of life was the failure by mine personnel to follow standard emergency procedure and ensure that the emergency pressure doors were closed. In addition, the probable cause of the refinery explosion was the failure to follow standard maintenance procedures, resulting in the catastrophic failure of one of the gas turbocompressors.’

  At this, a low murmur spread across the audience, like distant thunder. That part of the report had effectively halted any possibility of increased compensation for the victim’s families, until the case had reached the Court of Appeal.

  Trent sat back, his eyes scanning the room. He waited for the noise to subside completely before he continued.

  ‘Certain new information has been presented recently, however, that could support alternative scenarios. It has been suggested that the additional data shows an attempt by the mine controllers to operate pressure doors to contain the explosion. Also, that the overpressure at the hangar doors due to the explosion was well within the design limits, and the doors should not have failed.’

  The room was silent now; everyone was listening to Trent’s words.

  ‘This is the key issue that this board has been directed to focus on. At the time of the original enquiry, the evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the conclusion reached at that time. Does the new evidence make a compelling enough case for this board to change the original findings?

  ‘The sub-committees that are represented here today have thoroughly examined the original report against all the evidence now available, and you will be hearing their conclusions in turn shortly.’

  Trent moved his hand to indicate the men and women ranked on either side of him at the elevated table. They were all experts in their field; mine design, ventilation systems, industrial plant design, airlock systems, human factor engineering, and other disciplines. Most of them had contributed to the original report, and Matt wondered how many careers were riding on the outcome of this review.

  ‘The review of the evidence is necessarily complex and involved, and we will be making available full copies of our revised report once this presentation is complete. I have asked each of the sub-committee team leads to make summary presentations in turn, to draw out the new information, and to help you all understand how we have come to our conclusion, which I will present at the end of the individual presentations.

  ‘I am going to hand over now to the first sub-committee, which has been dealing with the detailed investigation into the data record. It’s important that you give all of the presentations your full attention. Thank you. Dr Graice, you have the stand.’

  Matt listened carefully to the first presentation, but as the heads of further sub-committees came and went from the stand, he found his attention wandering. Even though the presentations were summaries, they contained a great deal of procedural and background material, much of which he was familiar with.

  As the presentations moved on to the sequence of events in the fuel refinery explosion and the subsequent breach, however, Matt couldn’t stop himself from reliving the terror of that day in his imagination. His palms started to sweat, and he felt dizzy as he listened to the events being recounted in cold, objective detail. He reached out to pour himself a glass of water, and saw that his hand was shaking.

  Matt had faced the original investigation board, including some of the people on the sub-committees, in the long interview sessions that had followed the accident. They hadn’t been interested in Matt’s theories; they wanted facts, events they could corroborate a
gainst the data record.

  It was one thing to sit in a lawyer’s office, and look at sheets of paper that grieving relatives put in front of him, and tell them that the data showed a systems malfunction, or components failing when they shouldn’t have. It was quite another thing to be in front of the investigation board, to put forward your opinions in the face of these people with their vast experience and calm, dispassionate minds.

  Maybe they were right, Matt thought; perhaps it really had happened the way they had said. Maybe he had made a mistake to get so involved with the families, and had lost his objectivity – and career – in the process.

  Matt had been one of the engineers supervising underground workings at Erebus Mine in the year of the accident; it was his second tour of duty there, and he had been doing well. They had been exceeding the productivity targets set for his section, and there had been talk of him being promoted to assistant manager on one of the smaller Martian glacier mines.

  All that had changed after the accident.

  He remembered reading the final report of the investigation board, and the conclusion that the personnel themselves had been to blame. After the initial shock, came the anger – how could they possibly have come to this conclusion?

  It was inconceivable to Matt and anyone else who had worked there, that the mine personnel had not followed procedures. Safety in mines, and especially planetary mines, was paramount; it was a way of life that was drummed in from the first day. Along with several other PMI employees, Matt had gradually become involved as an expert witness for the various relatives’ action groups, in their long search for the truth, and for some kind of closure to their pain.

  At first, PMI had been tolerant, warning Matt that he was treading a narrow line. The rumoured promotion had not materialised, however, and then when Matt had been caught accessing a confidential internal file on the accident, PMI wanted him out. Worse still, PMI attempted to use the incident to discredit him as an expert witness.

  About nine months ago, however, PMI seemed to have had a slight change in attitude. Maybe the endless letters and reports that Matt and others had written over the past six years had had some effect; at any rate, PMI’s position had shifted from simply ignoring them, to detailed rebuttal. The lawyers for the relatives seemed to think this was significant; perhaps PMI were less certain of their position.

  Matt heard his name mentioned, and he snapped back to the voice of one of the speakers addressing the audience, but his name was just being listed as the author of a report that the sub-committee had examined.

  There was nothing in the chairman’s demeanour or body language that gave any clue as to which way the board was heading. Trent sat back in his chair at the centre of the table, listening to the presentations, occasionally glancing at the papers spread out in front of him. He seemed determined to make everyone there wait and listen to the full presentations of each of the expert groups, before giving any hint of the verdict of the board.

  It was going to be a long session.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the first recess of the day, Matt left the committee room to get some fresher air.

  The doors of the committee room opened straight out onto the mezzanine level of the building, and he went over to stand by the marble balustrade that overlooked the main staircase. In the lobby below, a steady flow of people was coming in from the street to form lines at the security scanners, while others were heading down the stairs and through the revolving doors to the outside world.

  All around him, on the walls of the atrium and on tall marble plinths, were displayed monuments to the history of the air and space ages.

  Propeller blades from ancient B-17s, B-24s and B-29s lined the staircase, like swords in an armoury for giants.

  A J-2 engine, from the second stage of a Saturn V booster, stood opposite a Space Shuttle Main Engine, on either side of the mezzanine floor. A thruster from one of the first Martian landers was displayed on the far wall, alongside the nose gear from a spaceplane.

  As he looked around, Matt thought about the other exhibits, the bent and burned parts of aircraft, rockets and space vehicles that were kept locked away in warehouses scattered across the country. These were the exhibits that the public never saw, except in thousand-page accident reports – the careful reconstructions of broken wreckage, with black circles on them where people had died.

  ‘Improvements in safety have been made’ – Matt had heard this so many times during the last few years, but he could not see what had changed for the better following the accident at Erebus Mine. A few procedures had been altered, inspections had been tightened up, but nothing fundamental had changed.

  Once people are blamed for an accident, responsibility becomes diffuse, he thought. It all dissolved into vague promises to tighten up on selection, training, inspection, procedures, but at the heart of it, in more than fifty mines across the Solar System, life went on as usual.

  He came out of his thoughts, and realised someone was standing next to him.

  ‘Matt.’ A tall man in his forties, dressed in a dark suit and holding a sheaf of papers, extended a hand.

  ‘John! I’m sorry, I was miles away. Good to see you again,’ Matt said, shaking the proffered hand warmly. John Laker was the lead attorney for the second-largest group of relatives in the class action. ‘How do you think it’s going?’

  Laker didn’t respond immediately, but instead steered Matt away from the busier area of the mezzanine, to a corner where a pillar screened them from view. Laker tucked his papers under one arm and took a brief drink from a cup of coffee before answering.

  ‘Sorry, really needed that. These investigation presentations are interminable.’ Laker spoke in short, clipped sentences, keeping a wary eye open for anyone wandering past that might overhear. ‘How is it going? It’s difficult to tell. Trent’s hard to read. On the outside, he’s presenting a very objective attitude, a very measured picture, but—’ Laker raised a finger, ‘we heard something this morning on the grapevine. Might be interesting.’ He took another sip of coffee.

  ‘Word is that PMI have done a deal to cooperate with this investigation, in return for the FSAA relaxing some of the restrictions on their mining permits on Mars. I’ve also heard that they might be getting back some of the space tug slots that they lost in the last antitrust hearings, if they don’t get in the way of any further investigations.’

  Matt smiled ruefully.

  ‘And there I was, thinking that we’d pressured them into it.’

  ‘Right.’ Laker watched the entrance doors to the committee room for any signs that they needed to go back. ‘And let’s face reality. PMI knows that even if a mission goes back to Mercury, it could take years to review the evidence. Before any liability could be proved. My guess is that they’ve done their sums. They’ve figured out that those permits and tug slots are more valuable than the potential liability. That’s why I think—’

  Laker broke off suddenly as he spotted someone at the top of the stairs. An older woman, dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase, was talking to one of the security guards, who appeared to be unwilling to let her through. She produced some document from her briefcase and held it out, but the guard was shaking his head.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Laker darted off to the stairs. There was some hand-waving and more talking, but eventually the guard nodded and indicated that she could go through. Matt watched as Laker led the woman up to meet him.

  ‘Matt, I wanted you to meet Rebecca Short. Rebecca, this is Matt Crawford. Rebecca represents one of the relative support groups.’

  ‘Mr Crawford.’ Short shook hands with Matt. Below the greying hair, her eyes were careful and assessing. ‘It’s good to meet you at last. Your work has been so valuable to us. We’d never had got this far without you.’

  ‘Yeah, and my former employers know that,’ Matt said with an ironic smile. ‘They haven’t exactly made it easy for me.’

  ‘Have you been able to find a new job
?’

  ‘It’s not been easy.’ Matt looked down for a moment. Short seemed to realise that she had touched a raw nerve, and hesitated before continuing.

  ‘There have only been a few people who have helped us. The rest – people who could have made a real difference – they’ve just looked the other way, or threatened us with legal action. You don’t know how much difference you’ve made.’

  ‘I’d feel happier if I had made a difference. So far, we’ve got nowhere.’

  Short shook her head emphatically.

  ‘If you’d seen as many families struggling to come to terms with this, you’d realise just what your help has done. It doesn’t matter that it’s been an unequal struggle; it’s having hope that’s important.’

  The words helped, and Matt looked up and smiled, just as Laker touched his arm.

  ‘They’re opening the doors again. We’d better be getting in. Rebecca – see you in the lunch recess.’ Laker started walking to the committee chamber.

  Matt started to say goodbye to Short, but she stopped him.

  ‘There’s something else. My clients gave me a message for you. They wanted me to say that, whatever happens today, they know you’ve done the very best you could for them. I was given a card—’

  She opened her handbag and handed him a large envelope. Matt opened it and took out a plain white card with a child’s drawing on the front, showing a rocket flying to the stars. He opened it carefully, and inside were page after page of signatures and messages of support, some plainly from children. Matt slowly leafed through them all. There must have been hundreds of signatures in total.