by M. D. Cooper
“Great,” said Martin, rising to his feet and resuming tidying the table. “Time for our steaks.”
“Steaks?” said Isa. “Don’t tell me you fished a cow out of the ocean too?”
“Of course not. I’m talking about fish steaks. I released some sharks this morning before you two arrived. They’re engineered to have a natural aversion to humans, but one of them gave me the stink eye. He should taste fantastic.”
Erin chuckled, briefly wondering if Martin was serious, and lifted her glass to take a sip of wine. She nearly spat it out again as someone she least expected to hear from suddenly reached out to her over the Link.
The governor’s tone sounded both serious and urgent. Erin put down her glass, wondering what Tanis could want at such a late hour.
Erin herself didn’t know the answer to that question, either. She doubted Tanis would find one in her file.
A soft yet rueful laugh came from Tanis.
Tanis didn’t reply for a moment.
Erin looked up to see that both Martin and Isa were watching her. She realized her expression was probably doing a good job at conveying the bad news.
Her good mood had all but entirely deflated.
Then Tanis was gone, likely dealing with one of the thousand other things that demanded her attention on a daily basis.
Erin drew in a breath, mentally preparing herself to fill Martin and Isa in on her change of plan, but Isa said, “You aren’t leaving right now, are you? Tell me you’re staying tonight at least.”
Erin said, “I am staying tonight.”
“So let’s concentrate on enjoying this evening,” said Martin, topping up her glass. “Ready to eat a naughty shark?”
Isa’s eyes grew wide. “You were serious about that?”
FALLOUT
STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8937 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Euphemia, Cyprus Asteroid Group
REGION: Macedon, New Canaan System
Erin waited on the bridge of the Euphemia, one of the newly assembled ore haulers, gazing at the forward display’s depiction of the activity surrounding Irridia.
Over a tenth of the asteroid had broken free in the incident. The hundred-kilometer chunk of rock scattering into dozens of smaller asteroids, all of which had to be corralled and brought back to the main site.
The Cyprus Asteroids were a group of rocks that had been moved close to the dwarf planet Macedon by the FGT. They didn’t orbit the larger body, but instead, made their way around Canaan Prime in a close resonant orbit.
As a result, the largest chunk of Irridia had been captured by Macedon and was a few weeks away from becoming the dwarf planet’s third moon.
Erin planned to recommend that they let it maintain its course until they were ready to mine it. At this point, bringing it back to the asteroid group would just be a waste of fuel.
Nearby, Pippa and Anwen were finishing up their final report for Erin after both apologizing profusely for not having it ready, explaining that the work to manage the site had delayed them.
After assuring them that their priorities were in the right place, Erin had settled in to wait—having already gone over the preliminaries on the flight to the Euphemia.
Like most of the service vessels that had been packed into the massive cargo containers and transported from Sol on the Intrepid, the Euphemia was bare-boned and basic. What you saw really was just about all that you got.
Even though it was not an elaborate vessel, Erin doubted it had been a mistake on the part of the ship’s AI, or a fault in its equipment, that had led to the accident.
Almost certainly looking at human error on this one, she thought gravely as she turned her gaze from the external view to the pair of engineers.
Pippa and Anwen Dhami were twin sisters who reminded Erin of Greek goddesses. They were large-framed and robust-looking, yet still feminine. They wore their strawberry blonde hair in the same style: a single pigtail that ended halfway down their backs, which gave them a decidedly youthful look.
Their appearance and affectations were fitting, given their ages. Leading the Cyprus Asteroids mining operation was the first high-level position the two women had been assigned. A quick check of their age suggested that the Earth-born women hadn’t yet undergone a single rejuvenation treatment.
The thought caused Erin to recall Sasha, the engineer who had helped with the construction of the SATC. She’d also been very young, yet she’d turned out to be competent and reliable.
Was the same true of Pippa and Anwen? An accident, its injuries, and the resulting fatality implied seriously poor judgement on someone’s part. Even if neither of the lead engineers were directly responsible, the buck had to stop somewhere.
“You should have all the information you need now,” Pippa said, turning toward Erin from a control screen. “Sorry for the wait.”
“No problem,” said Erin. “How long till the clean-up is complete?”
Anwen also turned to face her. She was pale and her eyes were red. “A few more hours until everything is contained. We lost some equipment that we’ll need to replace, and then we’ll have to decide if we exclusively work that site to clear it out, or let it stabilize on its own for a while.”
Erin nodded. “I suspect that will have as much to do with the quotas you have for Irridia’s materials as not. What of the pilots and other crew?” she asked. “I know there was a fatality, but was anyone else seriously injured?”
“No,” Anwen replied. “A few of the other ships were hit, but they were newer craft with grav shields and didn’t suffer major damage. There was only one direct collision. We reached the victim as quickly as we could, but….”
Erin remembered the medic’s report she’d read. ‘There wasn’t enough of him left to save.’ She was tempted to offer words of comfort to Anwen, but she didn’t want to assuage the woman’s guilt prematurely. If the operation’s leaders were responsible for the handler’s death, they would have to accept that, along with any consequences that followed.
“Carry on,” Erin said, though not unkindly.
A
nwen swallowed and said, “His name was Jacob Cimorelli. He was a good pilot. I only met him once, but he seemed like a nice person. In his will, he said that if he died while on the job, he wanted to be buried in space. We’re holding his funeral soon.”
“I’ll attend,” Erin said quietly. “In the meanwhile, I’d like to speak to each of you separately. Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
Though the raw data had told her a lot, she needed to hear the project leaders’ personal perspectives on what had happened.
In a small side room, she listened as first Anwen and then Pippa told their version of events. While the women talked, Erin briefly wondered if the women had that twins’ quirk, where they pretended to be their sibling in order to fool people. If not for their Link presence, she would have been challenged to tell them apart, and she could tell from how they spoke that they thought in very similar ways, too.
As she absorbed the facts and events related in the two narratives, Erin couldn’t find fault with either of the engineers’ execution of their duties. The accident had occurred at the end of a rotation. An especially rich vein of uraninite had been discovered on Irridia, and the twins had organized their teams to mine it. The explosions that had gone off prematurely had been intended to separate the uraninite ore from the surrounding rock.
Based on the engineers’ accounts, they had carefully bored shafts and set the charges well away from the potentially explosive uranium.
The most logical explanation was that either the survey data was wrong, or the uraninite contained more uranium-235 than expected. Unlike uranium-238—which was far more common in nature—235 was a fissile element and could initiate a chain reaction.
Preliminary scan data was inconclusive, largely because of all the radioactive dust that was on and around the Euphemia. Direct samples would yield more information—and Erin had also sent messages to the teams who managed the sensor webs being set up at the edge of the system to let her know if they’d had anything pointed toward Irridia when the explosions had occurred.
The two women’s accounts corresponded very well with the information Erin had from the ship’s sensors. As she listened to them relate their procedures, precautions, and decision making, Erin doubted that she would have operated any differently.
So what caused the disaster?
She was wrapping up her interview with Pippa when a man burst into the room.
“Are you the investigator they sent from Carthage?” he demanded, glaring at Erin.
He was lanky and dark-haired, and his eyes held a stark intensity that immediately set her on edge.
“Max, what are you doing here?” Pippa said crossly. “Why aren’t you managing the clean-up crew?”
“I want to speak to you,” he demanded of Erin, ignoring Pippa. “They wouldn’t let me. No one even told me you’d arrived.”
Erin checked the staff list and found the name Max Rasner. He was a pilot supervisor. “I do want to hear what you have to say, but I’ll call you in when I’m ready. Please wait outside.”
The man hesitated as if about to give an angry retort, but then he spun on his heel and stomped out.
“We didn’t tell him he couldn’t see you.” Pippa’s eyes grew worried and her tone apologetic as the door closed. “I only told him that securing the site was the first priority. His team’s not done, but I guess he flew back anyway.”
“He seems quite a character,” Erin remarked.
“Max isn’t the easiest person to work with.” Pippa’s lips drew into a thin line, as though she were forcing herself to leave it at that.
“Okay,” Erin said. “Is there anything else you want to tell me? Do you have any ideas about what might have caused the accident?”
“There isn’t a lot more to tell,” said Pippa. “Everything was progressing normally. We’d extracted most of the uraninite in that seam, and only a final few detonations were required to loosen up and pull out the remainder. The next shift’s handlers were moving into position, and the explosions went off as planned, but it was far more energetic than it should have been. Then the fractures started to form and… Stars…we were all caught entirely unawares. The only explanation I can think of is that there must have been concentrations of uranium that were more pure than we anticipated. Either that or more U235, but I think undetected faults are more likely. Maybe we should have rescanned or double-checked the readings….”
“Sometimes we do our very best and accidents still happen,” Erin said. “That’s where I’m leaning as well, but I want a full report from you on every detail leading up to the accident, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Anwen is doing the same. You have different areas of responsibility, and I want everything covered. I’ll speak to the shift supervisor now. Please tell him he can come in.”
Erin caught a glimpse of Max Rasner as Pippa left. He was leaning against the bulkhead, picking his teeth with a fingernail. As Pippa went out, he pushed himself upright. A second later, the door flew open, and he rushed into the room.
“What did they say?” he demanded.
“That’s none of your concern,” Erin said. “Sit down.”
He gave her a surly look and threw himself into a seat.
“You were supervising the team when the accident happened,” Erin said. “What did you see?”
“What did I see? Billions of tons of rock flying through space. A man dying. But that isn’t what I’m here to talk to you about.”
Erin cocked an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair. “Is that so? What are you here to talk to me about? Is it related to the accident?”
“Those two,” Max jabbed a thumb toward the bridge, “are incompetent. They’re not up to the task. They should never have been put in charge.”
“Really.” Erin folded her arms and tilted her head.
“Yeah. If it weren’t for that pair of idiots, the accident would never have happened.”
The supervisor launched into a tirade about how Pippa and Anwen were far too inexperienced to be leading the project, how they didn’t know anything about mining objects as large as Irridia, and how they’d made error after error, clearly only having received the leadership position because they were from Sol, when just about any Sirian-born Noctus knew far more than they did.
Erin let him rant, reading through his file as he carried on. Max Rasner had risen from the lowest entry position to supervisor while working at Victoria, but he hadn’t managed to rise any higher. He’d applied for numerous lead positions, both before and after arriving at New Canaan, and had been turned down for every one. It wasn’t hard for Erin to see why.
When he’d finally run out of criticisms for his managers, Erin said, “And the person who should have been running this operation is…. Let me guess—you?”
“I was ready for it,” Max barked. “I’ve been tearing down asteroids since before those two were decanted from their multi-womb—or whatever they did back in Sol. I could have done the job blind. Why they put those bitches—”
“That’s enough,” Erin exclaimed, leaning forward and hitting the table with a fist. “Another word, and I’ll have a conversation with Abby Redding about you.” She quickly checked the supervisor’s file again. “Which, it turns out, will probably be the final straw.”
The man teetered on the edge of answering back. Finally, he spat, “Huh. You people from Sol are all the same.”
Erin pressed her lips into a thin line for several long seconds before she said, “Tell me what you did in the hours preceding the accident.”
Max gave a brief account. When he’d finished, Erin asked, “Do you have anything to tell me about what might have caused the disaster?”
“What difference would it make if I did? Would you take my word over theirs?”
“What are you talking about?” She resisted the urge to throw her hands into the air. “This isn’t a popularity contest. I’m not taking anyone’s word about anything. I’m trying to find out what the hell happened that resulted
in a man losing his life. Now, do you have something to tell me or not?”
“I guess I don’t. Can I leave now?”
“Yes. I want your full report in three hours,” Erin said as Max marched out.
The man didn’t acknowledge her request. She made a mental note to check that his report arrived before the deadline she’d set. If it didn’t, he would be out of a job. As it was, she marked him down for retraining. The poor attitude and insubordination he’d displayed wasn’t only unacceptable for someone in his position, it was dangerous. The tension and animosity he undoubtedly created could result in his crew making mistakes. Perhaps she didn’t have to look much farther to find the cause of the accident.
Pippa returned, poking her head through the doorway. “Has Max gone? I didn’t want to intrude on your conversation with him.”
“He has. Our discussion was brief and painful.”
Pippa gave a short laugh. “I’m not surprised. I hope he wasn’t too trying.”
“I don’t like to talk about staff behind their backs,” Erin said, “but, wow. You two drew the short straw with that one.”
“You can say that again. I wanted to ask you if you’ll be staying on the ship or returning to Carthage on the next shuttle out?”
“I’ll be staying here until I’ve completed the investigation—and that’s going to take a while. I want to inspect the initial explosion’s site—as much as I can—and take some readings. I—”
Erin had been about to say she didn’t think Pippa’s explanation answered all the questions she had, but she didn’t want to influence what the engineer might put in her report.
“Yes?” Pippa asked.
“I only need a small cabin. There’s no need to put me anywhere special.”