The Strange

by Masha du Toit

  “Oh, surely you’re not going to go through the whole—” Sparks voice rose in protest.

  “Got to do it properly,” Balthazar said, already scanning the list. He started at one end of the room, going through each shelf in each locker, paging through the hanging suits, checking the dials on the hoses, the labels on the gas canisters, uncoiling every hose, and jotting down his findings on his clipboard.

  Isabeau soon lost interest. She peered down the corridor, hoping to see Meisje come trotting back, but there was still no sign of the white gardag. After about half an hour, the two men came out of the room.

  “Everything in order,” Balthazar was saying. “Nothing missing or broken.”

  “You’re sure?” said Sparks.

  “Oh, yes indeed, I am very sure of that.” Balthazar tucked the clipboard under his arm, inserted his narrow hands into the pockets of his overalls, and stood, a little hunched. “But there’s something—”

  “What do you mean?” said Sparks.

  “It’s nothing I can put a finger on, precisely,” Balthazar mused, “But I’d swear somebody has been looking through those lockers. Especially the suits and gas canisters.”

  “You’re sure?” Sparks glared at him.

  “No.” Balthazar shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “As I said, it’s nothing that I— It’s just a feeling. But yes, I’m reasonably sure.”

  “Hmm.”

  For a moment the two men stood, looking back at the room.

  “When last did you check on Moll?” said Sparks at last.

  “With the last inspection, as a matter of fact,” said Balthazar. “And I checked her signs now— Luckily things are dexter, so I could see the stats on the board. Nothing untoward.”

  “I better go out there and check, don’t you think?” said Sparks.

  Balthazar straightened. “Oh, but—”

  “Better safe than sorry,” said Sparks, heading back into the room.

  “But surely it would be better if I—?”

  There came the sound of a locker door opening. “No,” Sparks called. “I want to check for myself.”

  Balthazar stepped into the room, and after a moment, Isabeau followed.

  Sparks was on a bench, levering his boots off. “Help me with this,” he said, grunting. One of the wetsuits was draped over the floor, and now that she looked at it more closely, Isabeau was no longer sure that it was, in fact, a wetsuit.

  It was made of a dense, stretchy fabric, dusky grey with bright yellow chevrons on the arms and legs. The joints—elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees—had baggy striations, and it looked far too small for Sparks.

  “You’re really sure you wouldn’t rather that I did this?” Balthazar opened the suit down the front, the fastenings rasping as they released. Sparks didn’t reply, just grabbed the suit and thrust one foot down a leg of it.

  It took a lot of pulling and twisting to get it on. The fabric stretched tightly over Sparks’s feet and legs, and then the whole thing stuck halfway up.

  “Maybe I should have taken off this bloody overall.” Sparks paused to catch his breath and looked at the fabric bunching round his hips. But Balthazar grabbed and pulled and with a last heave, the suit was drawn all the way up.

  “That’s better.” Sparks pulled the front of the suit together and smoothed the fasteners into place. His face was flushed but he seemed to move easily enough despite the suit’s constriction.

  “I shouldn’t be more than five minutes,” he said to Balthazar. “Ten at the most. I won’t do a full system’s check, just need to have a look at Moll, see that nobody’s been bothering her.”

  “You’re not going out there, are you?” Isabeau said in consternation. “Out into the void?”

  “Sure am.” Sparks’s voice grew muffled as he drew the suit’s hood over his head, then settled it down below his chin, so that his mouth was clear again. He fitted a breathing mask over his mouth and nose and clipped the hard shell of a helmet over his head.

  “But— There’s nothing out there,” said Isabeau.

  Balthazar had spent the last few moments hauling gas canisters out of a locker and uncoiling and clipping hoses. “Here you are,” he said to Sparks, who turned his back to him and spread his arms. Balthazar settled the gas canisters, now strapped into a neat backpack, on Sparks’s back.

  “Let’s just clip that in—” Balthazar slotted the hose attachment to nozzles that came out of the helmet, then checked the dials. “You breathing okay?”

  Sparks breathed in with a long hiss, and another, and gave the thumbs up signal.

  “Helmet pressure up?” Balthazar answered his own question by peering at a dial on the gas canister. “Yes. Full helmet pressure.” He stepped to the hatch and opened it. “Be careful!”

  The hatch closed behind Sparks with a dull thunk, and Balthazar turned the wheel that engaged the lock. The hatch window was milky with scratches. Through it, Isabeau could see Sparks shrugging the gas canisters into a more comfortable position. His hand moved out of sight of the window, and a low droning started.

  “Thank goodness it’s dexter now,” Balthazar said, keeping an eye on the row of dials next to the hatch. “Otherwise we’d have to pump the airlock by hand…”

  “Oh!” Isabeau said in sudden understanding. “It’s an airlock. For getting out into the void.”

  “That’s right,” said Balthazar. “Look.” He tapped on one of the dials next to the hatch. “This one’s the pressure of the air in there right now.”

  “He’ll be— It’s not dangerous?” Isabeau pressed her face to the window.

  “No, not if he follows procedure,” said Balthazar. “He’s done it hundreds of times. Literally hundreds of times, probably.”

  A bell rattled, and Balthazar glanced up. “Air all pumped out now,” he said. “It’s safe for him to open the outside hatch.”

  Sparks pulled a lever and the outer hatch cracked open. He was out and had closed it behind him before Isabeau saw more than a brief moment of darkness.

  “Well.” Balthazar dusted his hands down his thighs. “That’s that, then.”

  “Who’s Moll?” Isabeau said, still peering into the empty airlock. “There can’t be anybody out there, in the void, surely?”

  “What?” Balthazar smiled. “Oh. No! Moll’s not a person. She’s a wrasse. A vehicle,” he explained, seeing Isabeau’s blank look. “Like a rotor-pod, but much smaller. We use her to inspect the outside of the Eye, do fixes, if necessary, which it hardly ever is.”

  “A what?” Isabeau remembered the model of the Eye Tomas had shown her. “Oh! I know, I’ve seen it. I mean, I haven’t actually seen it, but I saw a model of it. It’s like a little beetle. Is it a kind of space ship?”

  “Well, not precisely a space ship,” said Balthazar. “Strictly speaking, no. But something like a space ship, if you mean a vehicle that can move around in the void, yes, I suppose.”

  “And Sparks has gone to check on this—wrasse?”

  “Seeing as the lock here has been disturbed, yes, that’s only sensible,” said Balthazar.

  “But why would anyone mess with it?”

  Balthazar drew his narrow shoulders up in a shrug. “Who knows? There’s been a lot of craziness with this quarantine.”

  “That’s true.”

  “He said five minutes, but he’s going to be a while,” Balthazar said. “Might as well get comfortable.” He turned towards the bench, then spotted Danger, who had stretched out in front of it.

  “Don’t worry about him,” said Isabeau. “Danger, can you move over there? You’re blocking the bench.”

  Danger heaved himself up with a sigh and lay down at the far side of the little room, armour-plates clanking as he threw himself down.

  “He’s certainly big.” Balthazar studied Danger warily. “He’s one of those gardags, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Fascinating.” Balthazar lowered himself onto the bench, never taking his eyes of Dan
ger. “I’ve always wondered how exactly...”

  “You want a closer look?” Isabeau had seen the shy interest in the pale glim’s eyes. She turned to Danger. “Hey. Big boy. Come over here.”

  Danger rolled an eye towards her, twitched an ear, and got up again, his whole body telegraphing his resigned acceptance of contradictory humans and their ever-changing whims. He loped over to Balthazar, whose face, when sitting, was almost level with his own.

  “This man wants to look at you,” said Isabeau.

  Balthazar and Danger looked at one another.

  “You sure he doesn’t mind?” Balthazar clearly couldn’t take his eyes off the gardag.

  “Ask him yourself,” said Isabeau, sitting down next to Balthazar.

  “You—er—you don’t mind, mijnheer gardag?” Balthazar peered at Danger. “Is it acceptable for me to study you?” Danger’s ears flicked up into the yes position. “That is a signal?” Balthazar glanced eagerly at Isabeau. “He understands. He signals the affirmative?”

  “That’s right.” Isabeau drew her knees up to her chin and settled down to watch. “Go ahead and check him over, if you like. Danger won’t mind.”

  “Indeed.” Balthazar’s voice was soft with admiration. He ran a tentative hand over Danger’s neck armour. “Such craftsmanship. This alloy, I don’t think I’m familiar...”

  Danger turned his head and tilted it so that Balthazar could look more closely at the way his face-mask was fitted.

  “Ingenious. Ingenious.” Balthazar was off the bench now, crouching next to the gardag, all fear clearly forgotten in his fascination. He ran his hands over the plates of the back armour, and down the gardag’s legs. Danger allowed the glim to lift one of his massive paws, and even extended his retractable claws for Balthazar’s inspection.

  “A miracle of bioengineering,” Balthazar said, sitting back on his haunches. He studied the gardag for a few more seconds, then rose to his feet. “Thank you, mijnheer— Danger. That is your name, is it not?”

  Danger signalled yes again, bringing a smile to Balthazar’s thin face.

  Isabeau’s attention had wandered. She gazed at the open locker with its rows of hanging suits.

  “So those are like space suits?” she asked.

  “Pressure suits,” said Balthazar.

  “They’re really neat.” Isabeau went over to the locker and pulled at a sleeve, holding it against her arm. “Hey. This one looks like it could fit me.”

  “Probably that one would be too big.” Balthazar looked critically at the suit. “There is one, however...where is it now...ah. Here.”

  He pulled out a much smaller version of the suit. “Glims, you know, come in all kinds of sizes.”

  Isabeau took the suit from him and held it up in front of her. “It looks way too small.”

  “It’s made to be really tight, really stretchy,” explained Balthazar. “That’s why it’s called a pressure suit. To make up for the fact that there’s no pressure at all in the void. It simulates the pressure of the air in here.”

  “I get it,” said Isabeau. “That’s clever.”

  “You want to try it on?”

  “Really?” Isabeau couldn’t believe her luck. “You can show me how?”

  Balthazar reached for the tab fastenings on the suit. “You open these like this...”

  “Wait. Let me take my shoes off.”

  In a moment Isabeau was pulling the suit over her clothes. It was more difficult than it looked, and Balthazar had to explain exactly how the fastenings worked, and how to test if there were any weak places or leaks.

  “And here’s the air supply.” Balthazar lifted the little backpack from another cupboard. “Look. You see this serial number? And the one here on the suit? That’s how you see which supply goes with which suit. This suit is one of the more modern ones so it’s much easier to fit. Look.”

  Isabeau watched carefully as Balthazar demonstrated how to fit the various hoses to the helmet, and how to strap the entire contraption to her back.

  “Can you breathe?” Balthazar stood back and Isabeau gave him the thumbs up. The air tasted a little funny, but it was flowing into the mask without any effort on her part.

  She pulled the helmet off, and under his instruction, disconnected all the parts, and then connected them again, this time insisting on doing it all by herself.

  “This is so neat!” Isabeau said, face flushed, and her hair disarrayed by the helmet.

  Balthazar smiled down at her. “Better take it off now. I’ll show you how to stow it away properly, and to refill the air supply so that it’s ready for use again.”

  When the suit and air supply were finally back in storage, Isabeau sat on the bench again. She would have liked to go on trying out the suit but she could see that Balthazar wanted to bring things to a close. She kicked her heels on the floor. “Sparks is taking an awfully long time.”

  “Not really.” Balthazar moved around the room, tidying all the already tidy cupboards. “It takes a while to get to Molly’s station. And then he’ll want to do all the proper checks and readouts. It’s really quite disturbing, that somebody broke in here like this.”

  Isabeau realised with surprise that she’d completely forgotten about the intruder. Sitting there, with nothing to distract her, her thoughts went spinning down that track. After all, she was pretty sure she knew who’d broken the lock.

  Missy. It must be Missy, with that disinfectant smell all over everything. But what did Missy want with a—what had Balthazar called it—a wrasse? She pictured it as a small, rounded craft rather like a helicopter, but with jet engines rather than rotors.

  And surely it could be no coincidence that Elke and the others had disappeared just when Missy happened to be hiding in the Eye. Missy had been hell-bent on killing Elke, last time they’d met, and Isabeau could think of no reason why she’d change her mind.

  She began to feel a little sick. What would Sparks find, out there on the outside of the Eye? She didn’t even know how to picture the void. It was just—nothing. She supposed the suit would protect Sparks from the lack of pressure and air, but people had always talked about the void as if it were more than mere vacuum.

  Isabeau tried to see out the little window, but it was of no use. The lights inside the room turned the window glass into a black mirror and all she could see was the distorted reflection of her own face.

  Then she jerked back as something pale brushed against the outside of the glass. To her embarrassment she gave a squeak before she realised what she was seeing—Sparks’s gloved hand, rubbing away the grime that blacked the window.

  He waved at her and moved out of view. The external hatch of the airlock clunked, the pump hummed, and once again the little bell rattled.

  “No, all fine,” Sparks said as he stepped through the inner hatch, pulling the mask from his face. “I’m pretty sure nobody’s even opened that external hatch. All that mulm caked on the outside of it— got it all over me.”

  He brushed at his suit, and Isabeau saw that it was covered in a fine, dark powder, that looked as soft and clinging as pollen.

  “Mulm,” he told Isabeau as she peered for a closer look. “It settles on anything you leave out in the void for long enough.”

  Isabeau made up her mind. “I think—” she said as firmly as she could, “I think I know who broke that lock.”

  ¤¤¤

  “…and Elke said that she thought it was Missy, hiding somewhere in the Eye.” Isabeau looked from Dolly to Sparks, trying to gauge their reaction. “She’s been hiding her scent with disinfectant. And there’s disinfectant all over that airlock place.”

  They were back in Dolly’s office. Sparks stood at the door, and Dolly sat at her desk, blinking tiredly up at Isabeau.

  “I see.” Dolly closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. “We did get a report that the prison services had lost track of Missy Cloete. So, Elke told you this woman is hiding somewhere in the Eye?”

  Isabeau saw the glance that
passed between Dolly and Sparks. “You don’t believe me?”

  Dolly held up a pacifying hand. “It just seems strange that Veraart didn't mention any of this to me. When did she tell you she thought Missy was in the Eye?”

  “Uh.” Isabeau hesitated. “She didn’t, exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I overheard her talking about it.”

  “But you might have misunderstood what you heard? That often happens, when you listen in on a conversation not meant for you.” Dolly’s tone was neutral, but Isabeau’s face flushed with embarrassment. She opened her mouth to protest, but Dolly’s hand came up again. “Very well. I will tell Wozniak to look into this.”

  After an awkward pause, Sparks rose to his feet. “Well, come along then,” he said to Isabeau.

  “That’s not necessary, mijnheer Sparks,” Dolly said. “I’ve found a better solution for young Isabel. She can stay at the crèche at the lazaretto.” She gave Isabeau an inscrutable look. “They can make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble.”

  “Oh.” Sparks looked a little put out, and for a moment Isabeau hoped he would argue and insist that Isabeau could stay with him. But instead, he just gave a little nod. “Well then.” And with another nod at Isabeau, he was out the door.

  “Don’t look so grumpy, girl. You’ll be much better off in the crèche.” Dolly peered at Isabeau over her glasses. “That’s where we’re putting all the children whose parents are sick in the lazaretto. The nurses take turns looking after them. You’ll be properly supervised. I’ll take you over there myself as soon as I finish this report.”

  Isabeau’s heart sank. This crèche sounded dreadful.

  Somebody knocked on the office door. A young woman leaned in, breathless.

  “Hoofdinspecteur, can you— There’s been—” The woman held onto the doorframe, struggling to get her breath.

  “What’s this?” Dolly was already out of her chair. “Take your time. What’s happened?”

  “A fight,” the woman said with a gulp. “Up in Zero level. Those delegates—Torka, and Nexico—you have to come—”

  Dolly grabbed her jacket. She shot a glare at Isabeau. “You stay right there, young lady. Don’t move. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She was off, running down the corridor after the messenger.