by Peter Damon
Michael nodded and thanked them all, his face looking bleak.
Heather turned towards Sally as she made to stand and leave. “Can you give me a time line on each instruction to the satellite please, something we can use to corroborate alibis?” she asked.
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Samuel moved his small team into the docking bay and began a thorough inspection of the vehicles, cleaning the inside of each one, checking the tanks, replacing them where needed. As each was completed, he attached a small disk to the steel sculptured windscreen so as to indicate when it had last been checked, and the ID of the team that had done it. Scanning the badge added information to the RFID record.
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Heather smiled sympathetically at the woman sitting up in the bed. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
Hilary Web shook her head and smiled sadly. “I feel so terrible about poor Alexei,” she murmured, her eyes welling up with tears once again.
Hilary was a stout but fit woman, her hair shorn to make it easier to maintain while in space. She wore no makeup, but had a natural beauty that came from the good living of a wealthy American lifestyle, and a tanned skin that suggested southern rather than northern USA.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Heather asked.
Hilary took a breath and considered. “Something happened, I don’t know what. Jerry and Alexei had just completed another experiment. I don’t know which one though. I don’t know if you know or not, but much of our day is spent doing experiments. In some cases it’s an observation, in others it’s taking reading, sometimes from our own bodies, sometimes from other things.
“Anyway, they had finished something that required the two of them, if that helps, and they had moved apart, with Jerry coming back my way, when all of a sudden an alarm sounded and I heard Jerry swear. Alexei was down the other end of the station and told us he’d see to it. In just moments Houston was giving us details, board numbers and such like. Jerry turned off the alarm and things seemed to be in hand, I mean, Alexei, Jerry and Houston were talking to each other and no one was panicking or anything. A few minutes passed and I was beginning to feel a little unnecessary and thought perhaps I could begin another of the samples I’d been doing, before I began the video call with some students I was scheduled to do, when there was this sudden blast. Air began to move by me really quickly, a real strange feeling when it’s normally so still.
“Alarms sounded from all over the place. Jerry was shouting, Houston was calling instructions and Alexei wasn’t answering.
“The rest is a bit of a blur really,” Hilary said, shaking her head. “Until someone, I’m not sure who, told me to move into the US docking module.
“I couldn’t go without Jerry, who I could see just further along the station, just floating there, a hand and foot against the Velcro wall stopping him from floating with the air current away from me.
I don’t recall much of the detail, but I remember sort of just pulling him along behind me and then closing the hatch on the rest of the station, and someone peering in at me from space, and smiling and waving too; that seemed very strange. I wondered if there was something in the air and I was hallucinating. There were thumps then, as if someone was walking across the outside of the module, and a screech of metal on metal that really had me frightened. At one point, I could have sworn I could feel gravity,” she shook her head. “I’m sorry if some of that sounds like the ravings of a mad woman,” Hilary told her, trying to laugh.
Heather smiled. “Do you know where you are?” she asked.
“Someone said Rolle College. Where is that?” Hilary wondered aloud.
“Oh, we’re in space too,” Heather said, and reached for one of the remote controls to turn the nearby monitor on. She flicked expertly across the channels to move from one external camera to the next, until she got a reasonably nice view of the earth. “Most people just call us the ARC,” she explained, and saw Hilary’s eyes widen.
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“So, who’s there currently?” Sir Arthur asked from his desk, a large oval window behind him showing a light rain over London.
“Doctor Lynn Broad, the NASA doctor from Houston. Doctor Villem Maslov for ROSCOSMO. The British team led by Captain John York. He and Mark are spending most of their time in space,” Michael grinned. The two army officers, both keen sailors, had taken to weightlessness like ducks to water and were now venturing out into space with anyone willing to take them out with them.
“And your concern?” Sir Arthur asked.
ROSCOSMO. They are going to take this about as far as they can,” Michael sighed. “Conversations so far have indicated that they hold us responsible for Kanalin’s death, not to mention at least a partial responsibility for the failure of the ISS.”
“We’ve seen some of the footage Oliver Cole has released into the media. I don’t see how ROSCOSMO can hope to persuade anyone that the ARC had a hand in it,” the head of British Intelligence stated.
“I believe their premise is that we’ve doctored everything we’ve been producing, in order to cover our tracks.”
Sir Arthur pulled his mouth down. “They’ll need to substantiate that in open court,” he vowed.
“I was wondering if we could be a little more pro-active than that,” Michael asked. “I was wondering if we could take the battle to their door and openly accuse them of sabotage.”
“Against the space station?” Sir Arthur asked in surprise.
Michael nodded. “Hilary Web tells us that the men had just finished some experiment on board the station. We believe it was that which caused the failure or explosion that ultimately ripped the module in two.”
“The ISS is continually running experiments,” Sir Arthur pointed out. “Can you prove any of that?” he asked.
“I don’t have to,” Michael responded.
Off screen, Michael heard Stan Charway chuckling. “I like it,” he heard the stooped man say.
Sir Arthur sighed. “What do you want?”
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Michael watched the monitors to be sure he was the last person entering the meeting room, and breezed in with his back straight, a cup of tea in his hand.
“Morning,” he greeted the others. There were three people in the meeting room itself; Captain John York, Doctor Villem Maslov from ROSCOSMO, and Doctor Lynn Broad from NASA. On the large screens at the head of the room were Glen Schroder on behalf of the USA and Mr Evzen Hlavka for ROSCOSMO.
“What is the meaning of this? Why is the crew of the ISS still on the ARC? Mr Bennett, I demand that all Russian nationals and the whole crew of the ISS be returned to us immediately!” Evzen Hlavka said.
“Mr Hlavka. Can you clarify your credentials please? Do you speak for the Russian Federation, for ROSCOSMO, or for the International Space Station?” Michael enquired, taking his seat at the head of the table and opening a manila folder with a copy of the following week’s ARC menu on the top.
“What? What is this, a further display of power play from someone who has spent half his life confusing the legitimate governments of weakened states?” The Russian asked.
“It’s a legitimate question, Mr Hlavka. We need to know for whom you speak.” Glen spoke.
“I speak for the ISS, of course,” Evzen Hlavka answered smoothly.
“I don’t believe so,” Glen said. He waved a piece of paper in the air. “I have that role. I have the authority of all the signature countries,” he told them.
“So, if it’s not the ISS that you represent, who is it?” Michael inquired.
“I speak for the Russian Federation, the major shareholder of ROSCOSMO.”
“You are the responsible person to deal with matters concerning the Russian Federation’s involvement with the station,” Michael clarified.
“What is this? Did I not just say so? Now, I demand you release Russian nationals and return them to Russia. Failure to do so will be viewed as abduction and unlawful imprisonment by a foreign agency, a
nd we will take any action we deem necessary to obtain their return,” he warned.
“I cannot do that,” Michael told him. He turned the top page of his file and looked at the shopping list Heather had been putting together; items they would need for their child. “I am requested to hold all the crew pending an investigation by the International Court of Justice into an act of sabotage that led to the death of cosmonaut Alexei Kanalin,” he explained.
“What. How dare you!” Mr Hlavka’s face disappeared from the screen as he stood up.
“The Cambridge University Annex, Rolle College, has formally placed a charge of espionage and sabotage before the court; that ROSCOSMO did knowingly assist in lifting into space and transferring to the International Space Station devices designed to cause failure of life preserving systems, endangering the lives of all on board.”
“I will not listen to this!” Mr Hlavka cried, fumbling with the device that would turn off his monitor.
It went dark, and for a long moment there was complete silence in the room.
“I hope you know something of the tiger whose tail you have taken hold of, Mr Bennett,” said Doctor Maslov as he rose to leave the meeting.
“The benefit of catching an animal by the tail is that you can see all of it as it starts to struggle,” Michael chuckled. Furthermore, he had the benefit of knowing they couldn’t reach him. Not him, and not Heather.
Gary,” he said through his mike. “Would you please ensure Doctor Maslov is escorted to the loading dock and transported directly to Cambridge. Please make sure he doesn’t leave with any of our towels or robes too,” he smiled thinly.
“Well, I’ll give you one thing; you’ve got balls,” Glen chuckled.
“Glen, I urgently need someone with extremely good knowledge of the inside of the space station,” Michael requested.
“Well, what about Jerry Mathers. I’m told he’ll be fit in a day or so, and no-one knows the inside of the ISS better than those who spend months at a time in it,” he suggested.
“Now, why didn’t I think of that,” Michael asked himself.
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Heather smiled at the three individuals who stepped out of the SUV. “Hey guys. I bet you never thought you’d be coming up here again so quickly,” she asked, reaching out to shake their hands.
“Always a pleasure, Heather. Although we’re sorry you need us at all,” Lisa Hart explained.
“I know, but with the International Space Station blowing up,” Heather admitted, shaking the hands of John Barrow and Kevin Law, the other two who, with Lisa, made up the team of forensic specialists.
The three had been on the ARC once before, when Heather had requested assistance in establishing the cause of the satellite blowing up. As ‘Old Hands’, they circumnavigated the induction video and moved directly to the laboratory the Rolle College had put to one side for them to use.
“We’ve also put three suites aside for your use. We anticipated this one taking a bit longer than our container did,” Heather pointed out.
“Just how much is there to look at?” Lisa Hart asked, taking out her tablet to begin inserting some basic parameters.
“We’ve recovered the module that burst open, and later tore in two. We can recover the rest, if you want us to, but we have strong reasons to believe the module we want you to look at is the module that’s been tampered with.
“Have you got anyone from NASA or ROSCOSMO to help us identify anything out of place?” Lisa asked.
Heather nodded. “One of the NASA astronauts,” she told her.
“However, more recently, and we believe unconnected with the ISS incident, one of our SVU vehicles was taken and used without authority. We’d also like you to look at this vehicle too. We want to know who’s been in it, and anything else you can tell us,” Heather explained.
“Well, Oxford told us this is our top priority and we’re not to return until we’ve discovered everything there is to discover,” Lisa told her. “So why don’t you start by telling me when the baby is due while the boys begin taking samples?” she suggested.
September 11th.
Oliver and Michael had agreed to work on converse clocks and meet up twice each day; 8am and 8pm, to share information and update each other on what the earth media was reporting.
Inevitably, they met up at Oliver’s desk in the control-room. Here, he could not only capture everything being said by the world press, but respond too.
“What we got this morning?” Michael asked, bringing Oliver a cup of tea.
Oliver gratefully took the cup and, sipping from it, put his finger to one of the icons on his screen. Michael stood beside his chair to watch a CNN voice-over of a Russian news bulletin that told it’s listeners that Rolle College had been used by unscrupulous forces to bring about the destruction of the International Space Station, and cause the death of their Cosmonaut.
China news was more vociferous in their claims to know that the Rolle College, representing a secret group that wanted all of space travel under their own control, was not only responsible for the destruction of the space station, but had a hand in sabotaging China’s space program too.
Michael laughed and shook his head, but Oliver looked more concerned.
“This, on top of their earlier complaint to the UN regarding our ‘theft’ of water from the moon. If I had to judge where this as was going, I’d suggest Russia will be happy to have an independent United Nations group take command of the ARC. They’ll have much more joy infiltrating a UN administration group that in infiltrating the current ARC administration,” Oliver pointed out.
“Yes, I see that,” Michael agreed.
“There’s nothing in the media regarding illegally taken photographs of the Turkey conflict, nor does anyone really want to talk about it, which makes me think offers have already been made, and governments have been heavy handed in warning them off. If that’s the case, how long will it be before they discover that the photographs came from one of our satellites?” Oliver wondered aloud.
Michael nodded. It would end his administration of the college, and if they managed to get him off the ARC, he would probably never manage to get back onto it again. “What are we doing in response?” he asked.
Oliver pressed another icon. “This is the material Robert has sent to all the major media channels,” Oliver explained. It showed the docking bay of the ARC as the ISS docking module was brought in, then the dozen or so individuals as they worked to open the module and help the two astronauts get out of it. There were short clips of the coming and going of staff and vehicles, sometimes just showing someone collapsed in a corner softly weeping, or curled up beside a half eaten sandwich trying to get a few minutes sleep before they were needed again. The short but hurried section of video finishing with a picture of Hilary Web sitting up in her bed and smiling. “Can’t believe I’m actually in a space station!” she was saying.
“Nothing on the explosion as it happened?” Michael asked.
Oliver shook his head. “That might imply that we were there because we were expecting it,” he cautioned.
“Robert has concentrated on the human aspect behind all of this technology. The point he’s making, and it undercuts all of the other crap, is that we’re all explorers, all frontiers men and women, and we on the ARC are as struck by what has happened as anyone else. The message is; we could not have done this; we understand what the ISS represented far too deeply to have done anything to harm it.”
Michael saw the reasoning and nodded. “OK, leave it for now. Go get some sleep,” he urged.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find some proof that the International Space Station was sabotaged from within,” Michael told him with a shrug.
“Push the RFID angle. If we’re all monitored, when did any of us get the opportunity to compromise the ISS?” Oliver told him.
“Good point. Now go off, now!” Michael pressed. But only good to a point, Michael reflected. If the RFID logs were
so good, why weren’t they confident enough to conclude that Matt had taken the photographs?
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Heather used her tablet to find Jerry Mathers, the American astronaut, and saw he was in the gym. She followed him there and watched him work on the cycles, short and hard sprints followed by stints of relaxed cycling.
“Can we talk?” she asked as he slowed to have a drink from his water bottle.
“Sure,” he agreed, smiling lazily while wiping his face with a towel. “This is some facility you have here,” he told her.
“Must take away much of that sense of being pioneers. At least the ISS gave that sense of being on the very edge,” she reasoned.
He shook his head and sprinkled some water from his water bottle over his cropped hair. “Probably, had we believed any of this,” he agreed, looking about him. “Truth is, the way we heard it down in NASA, half the shots reported to have come from up here were actually taken down on earth. That’s why everything looked so normal,” he chuckled. “Your own gravity!” and he shook his head in wonder.
“I wanted to ask about your recollections of the last few minutes on board the space station,” she told him, and watched his eyes go to the emblem on her chest and arm; that of the Cambridge Constabulary.
“This is formal, is it?” he asked.
“It’s a formal interview by the police on board the ARC. I can’t speak for any other authorities. So you may be doing this a few times,” she explained with a sorrowful smile.
“I understand,” he sighed, and settled down to think on what had occurred.
“Alexei and I had been in that particular module for quite a while. It’s filled with experiments, and experiments are what we spend most of our day doing,” he admitted.
We were working on a new one and it required some awkward adjustments, getting it into the space assigned for it, up against the wall.
“Were there many new experiments to position?” Heather asked.
“Three,” he told her. “Want their names and purposes?” he asked with a boyish grin.