Vessel (20 page)

'Thank you.'

'You have surpassed the expectations of your commanding officers, excelled in your training and in my opinion, bettered your immediate superiors.'

Novitskiy said nothing.
He didn't know where the conversation was going, but he didn't like it. He could sense something was up.

'You’re a man I believe I can trust,' Bales continued, 'and I need to be able to trust you now more than ever. What's at stake is
far beyond what you could ever possibly imagine.' He paused to open the first page of the topmost file. 'We know very little about UV One. The little we do know gives me cause for great concern. What can you tell me about it? About your experiences?'

Novitskiy had spared little thought for
his time in the presence of UV One, and back on Earth those experiences seemed distant and muddled. He would have preferred to keep them that way, and even the mention of the vessel caused an immediate surge of panic in his veins. He gripped the arms of his seat, hard.

'Ahm …' he said, his throat drying, 'it's hard to describe. Sometimes you have your goo
d days, and sometimes your bad. On a bad day it's as though your mind is being stretched to breaking point, being forced to experience thoughts and feelings that far surpass its capabilities. Sometimes that translates as an overwhelming euphoria, other times as horror beyond imagination. As time passes, it gets worse, more intense, harder to fight. I believe it was too much for Major Romanenko. Gardner and Williams, too.'

Bales wasn't writing anything
down. To Novitskiy's surprise, Bales' hardened expression had melted to one that seemed almost concerned. 'Thank you, Captain. That is helpful, if worrying news. And I hear that Gardner has returned with you?'

'Yes, sir.
And Williams.'

Bales
seemed distracted, troubled.

'
Sir, I have to ask,' Novitskiy said, breaking Bales from a distant thought. 'When is Sally Fisher returning?'

'We're looking into assembling a mission as soon as we can.'

'I want to be on board.'

'I'm afraid that's not possible.'

'But I made a promise —'

'That's not my problem, Captain. This is my mission, my concern. Not yours.'

Novitskiy figured out what didn't feel right. It was Bales that didn't feel right.

'I'm sorry,' Bales said. 'I'm sure you understand.'

'Will that be all?'

'Yes, that will be all.'

Novitskiy stood and left the room.

* * *

'I'm not sure this is a good idea,' Aleks said, touching the almost faded bruises on his face as if the memory of their origin had risen anew.

'It'll be fine,' Sean said.

They rumbled through Moscow, Grigory at the wheel, heading for the last place Sean wanted to be right now: the RFSA building.

'They are
n't going to be there, you know,' Aleks said. 'There'll be no interview. It's another set-up.'

'I know, I know.
I'm not stupid.'

And he did know.
He knew that Sally Fisher and Robert Gardner were still on board the ISS. It was simple math. Three guys had come down; two must still be up there. NASA could try and bluff them with whatever fabrications they liked, but he knew in his gut that the conversion of Progress had been intended for one thing and one thing only: the transportation of humans.

'So what are you going to do?'

That, he didn’t know. Maybe he could just wing it, turn up and see what was what. That's pretty much how he plied his trade, and it had got him what he wanted in the past — but in the past the US Department of Defence hadn't been trying to shoot him dead.

'I'll probably go in for a quick recce first, assess the situation.'

'I'll go with you,' Grigory said.

Sean was going to refuse, but then he realised that having an ex-special forces bodyguard wasn't that bad an idea.
'Thanks.'

Th
ey pulled up a few streets away and Sean and Grigory got out. Aleks slid over to the driver's side.

'I'
ll be waiting for you,' he said. 'Don't be long.'

Sean
and Grigory set off towards the RFSA building, its tall structure just about visible between a couple of industrial units. Sean walked fast and stuck to the shadows, checking back over his shoulder every few seconds to catch the eyes he felt sure were watching him. They turned the corner at the end of the street and the entrance loomed open.

'Are we going in?' Grigory asked.

Sean looked around. An emergency escape ladder scaled the building next to them, leading up to the roof. 'Let's climb up there,' he said. 'We'll get a better view past the entry barriers and into the lobby. See if there's anyone waiting for us.'

The
y climbed up to the flat roof and shuffled on their bellies to the edge. They watched a delivery vehicle arrive; it checked in at the gate and went though. People milled in the lobby: one was talking to a receptionist, who pointed down a corridor; another mopped up a pool of something spilled; others stood about, chatting.

'There doesn’t seem to be anything
out of the ordinary,' Sean said.

A
nother man entered the lobby. Although he walked with a limp and was supported by a walking stick, he walked fast. Two suited men followed close behind. They were talking to him, but he was ignoring them. Sean watched as the man left the building, forcing his way past a group that had decided the doorway was a good place to stop and chat, and marched on towards the barriers.

'Hey,
' Sean said. 'I think that's Captain Evgeny Novitskiy. I wonder what he's doing here?'

He squinted, try
ing to make out the man's face as he approached. As he reached the barrier, one of the two men following him tried to grab his shoulder. He responded with a quick thwack of his walking stick, sending his aggressor hopping on one leg. He walked around the barrier, nodded to the gatekeeper and continued up the street. The man who had been whacked was helped out by the other, and together they followed after him.

'That's definitely Novitskiy,' Sean said, scrambling back along the roof and down the ladder. Grigory followed.

The two suited men caught up with Novitskiy. Having learned from their mistakes, they snatched his stick away and he fell. Between them they took his arms and legs to carry him away.

'Hey!' S
ean yelled, breaking into a run. 'Leave him alone!'

T
he two men reached into their jackets, but it was too late. Sean thundered into them, crashing head first into one man's chest as he tripped up the kerb. They all clattered to the ground, including Novitskiy, but one of the men was quick to scramble up again. He kicked Sean in the ribs, winding him. The other man got up and reached into his jacket. Sean flinched just as Grigory's colossal fist piled into the side of the man's head, knocking him out cold. The man still standing turned to Grigory, deflecting a blow and landing one of his own. Wheezing, Sean crawled over to Novitskiy, who was trying to get up. There was a loud crack, and Sean turned to see the second man dropping to the floor with a bloodied nose.

'Are you ok
ay?' Grigory asked, shaking his hand and wincing.

'I'm fine,' Sean said
, breathing fast. 'What about you, Captain?'

Novitskiy had backed himself up against the wall.

'Who the hell are you?' he said, looking terrified.

Chapter 21

There was so much to be learned, and Sally was learning it
fast. She had successfully completed her black hole analysis, gathering data that to her knowledge had never been seen before, and as each day passed, her time on board was proving to be more and more lucrative. She had only hit one dead end: with UV One, she had discovered nothing.

There was
a battery of equipment with which she could analyse the vessel. She had performed tests, repeated them and varied them, all to no effect. She was running out of ideas, and so for the time being, she stopped experimenting on it altogether. Whatever its secrets were, whatever it wanted to do, she felt it would be done in its own good time. A little disappointed at this anti-climactic conclusion, she focussed her attention on the puzzles for which she at least had a few of the pieces, and relished her time doing so. The annoyance at her failure to understand UV One disappeared fast, as the runner-up prize turned out to be even better than she'd hoped. She was in space, doing research she never thought she'd get to do, so she was the happiest she'd ever been.

With the station operating in a low energy mode for the three crew before her
— compared to the station's usual compliment of six to ten — she had little by way of daily chores to do, but still there were some. As it happened, she didn't resent the time away from her studies: it gave her a valuable opportunity to distract her mind and let her subconscious figure out whatever her conscious was stuck on.

Today, she had already cleared the air vent filters in each module
— that had taken an hour and a half — and she had bundled the week's laundry and food waste into containers and put them in the FGB, where they were stored for collection. Now she was checking the water reclamation tanks to make sure they were working as they should. Novitskiy had shown her how to do it, and it was fairly simple: most of the work only required her to check on self-regulating automated systems.

There was a clipboard fastened to the wall next to the water reclamation tanks, and she ran through each step, pushing the corresponding button indicated and checki
ng that the LED flashed green. The system confirmed that all was well. With no one else on board there was less humidity and urine to reclaim, but because she was drinking less it seemed to even out and the storage tank remained within the safe limits.

'Done and done,' she said, affixing the clipboard back to
the wall.

Just one more thing to do today: air mix test. The main tanks and readouts were located in the front portion of the FGB, and she paddled her way from the American half,
through the tight, conical PMA One, and into the FGB. It was a different environment in here compared to the quiet, computerised water reclamation tanks. It was noisy, industrial and complicated. Pipes wound in from every direction, valves and gauges sprouting from them like wild mushrooms, hissing and vibrating to the touch. Another checklist was fastened to the wall, and she followed through it. Most things were fine, but the odd valve needed a tweak here and there to bring the gauges back to their centres. One smaller valve was particularly tight, and as she gripped and twisted with all her strength it snapped open, exhaling a jet of gas that made her jump. She tightened it up again, watching as the gauge needle crept back into the safe zone, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The clipboard had been flung ou
t of her hand by the jet of gas and was still spinning off towards the service module. She pushed off to get it. As easy as weightlessness made some activities, for others it was a pain, the casual ability for small items to wander off being one of them. As the clipboard tumbled, it collided with the walls, and soon it came to a stop against a laptop. She breezed over the storage crates in the FGB and entered the service module, and as she reached out for the clipboard, something caught her eye. With a small flutter of apprehension, she looked downwards into the MLM, but saw nothing. Dismissing it as a trick of the light, she grabbed the clipboard, but then she saw the movement again. She hesitated, then entered the MLM, letting her eyes adjust to the dark.

'Hello?' she called out, her own vo
ice making her skin prickle.

A flash of shadow from the bulbous end of the MLM made her stop, her heart beating fas
t in her throat.

'Hello?' she called again.

There was no response, so she continued downwards, feeling the horrible closeness of fear wind her senses into overdrive. And then she saw it: completely naked and curled up into a ball, was a man.

* * *

It didn't take much persuasion to get Novitskiy into the car. Bales' stooges were coming round, and once that was pointed out to him, he did as they asked. Sean filled him in during the car journey back to Grigory's.

'
That's quite a story,' Novitskiy said. 'If only half right.'

'What do you mean?' Sean said
.

'
You said that me, Romanenko and Williams were back. That's not right. Gardner's back — Romanenko isn't. Neither is Fisher.'

This
revelation made no sense to Sean. He thought about it for a moment, but nothing came of it. There was no reason to leave Romanenko and Sally up there together.

'Why
bring Gardner back? Why not Romanenko?'

Novitskiy pulled a face.
'I guess you haven't heard, then. Mikhail — he disappeared.'

The car swerved as Aleks turned to look at Novitskiy
from the driver's seat. He didn't look happy. 'What? Is he hurt?' he said, snatching at the wheel to correct the wobble.

'
He just upped and left, taking Soyuz, but not before destroying the comms system.'

Sean sho
ok his head. He wasn't disagreeing with Novitskiy, just trying to understand what he was hearing. It made no sense. 'And he didn't come back?'

'Nope. Chris was mortified. He unwittingly helped Romanenko take Soyuz during what he thought was a routine check.' He faltered, and looked out the window. 'I can't say it was easy for me, either. He was a good friend.'

'Yes he was,' Aleks said from up front.

'The strangest thing,' Novitskiy said, turning back to Sean with a though
t lighting his face, 'was when we recovered Soyuz.'

'I thought you said Romanenko didn't come back?' Sean said.

'That's the strange thing. Soyuz was empty. Romanenko was gone. Gardner had fallen into a coma trying to recover it, and Williams, he … he injured himself. Neither could stay.'

It was like there was a brick wall just behind Sean's eyes. What Novitskiy was saying was going in like it should but bouncing off without him being able to
fully comprehend what had happened. He struggled to focus — trying to understand Romanenko's behaviour seemed like an impossibility. But from the mist, one thought came through clear as a bell. 'So Sally's on her own?'

Novitskiy looked
out the window again. 'Yes.'

'Jesus…' Aleks said.

Aleks and Novitskiy continued talking about Sally and Romanenko, but Sean wasn't really listening. He was busy untangling the world's largest ball of mental wool. What he realised was that Bales would need to send someone else up soon. His logic was simple: Gardner had gone to plant the bomb, but had failed. He deduced this from the fact that the station was still in one piece, and as a consequence, so was Sally. That made it a straightforward connection to realise that Bales would need to replace Gardner with someone else, send them up to kick start the mission and destroy UV One.
But what if he hasn't done it because he doesn’t want to kill Sally?
No. That didn't fit the profile. Bales had killed Lev for standing in his way, and Sally was a much more insignificant blot than he was. Sean imagined that Bales was probably mortified at Gardner's return, coma or no coma. Maybe UV One knew what Gardner was trying to do, and stopped him? The thought made a cold shiver run down his spine.

'Did Bales say how he felt about you coming back?' Sean asked.

'Well, he wasn't to fussed about
my
return,' Novitskiy said. 'But he seemed pretty concerned about Gardner. I wanted him to let me go back, you know, to get Sally, but he said no. That was when I left. It made me so angry.'

If Sean was certain of his hypothesis before, he was convinced now. Novitskiy may not have known it, but by coming back to Earth he had bought Sean
— and Sally — a bit more time. 'How long do you think it'll be before he can send someone else up?'

'I don't know … a few weeks at best? There's a resupply mission due
soon, I expect he'll commandeer that.'

Two weeks. It wasn't long, but it was better than nothing.

Back at Grigory's — and after another delicious meal while Novitskiy filled them in with all the details of UV One — Sean discovered through a twenty-year–old scanned news clipping that Ruth Shaw's last-known address was the Indian Hills Home for the Aged, Nevada, but that was the most recent thing he could find on her. There was nothing on her relatives, her current state of wellbeing—nothing at all. Pretty much every trace of her personal life was absent from public record. Sean needed to go and see her, but first he needed to make sure she was still alive at the very least, and that meant a trip to the forest.

'Hi, my name is Donald
Hopfield,' Sean said in his best Texas accent, 'I'm from the
Evening Post.
I'm calling about an article I'm putting together on the well-being of elderly residents in retirement homes, and I'm told your home is one of the best. I'd like to arrange an interview with some of your patrons if I may.'

It was cold out in the Russian wilderness; e
vening seemed to be coming in early. Sean shivered as he waited, satellite phone pressed to his ear. The response came, finally, with a hint of attitude. 'We operate on a strict friends and family only basis, no reporters. We've had issues before with the press—you understand, I'm sure.'

'Can I at least get some basic info, a few facts, a quote maybe?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Okay, thank you.'

'Goodbye.'

Sean hung up and redialled.

'Hello, I'm looking for some information on a Ruth Shaw, currently residing in the Indian Hills Home for the Aged, Nevada. Do you have anything on record?

'One moment
, please, sir.'

Hold music blared from the speaker, crackling and screeching. A minute passed, and then another, and Sean's heart sank more with each one.

'I'm sorry sir, it looks like that record has been made private by the account holder.'

Shit
.

'Thanks for you
r help.'

Sean made a few more phone calls, all with the same result.

'No good?' Aleks asked.

'Nope. No one's telling me anything.'

'So what do we do now?'

'There's only one thing left: I have to bite the bullet and fly out to Nevada.'

Grigory laughed. 'You won't get anywhere near airport security, not with your record.'

'I know. That's why I've got to call in a favour …'

Again the phone rang, but this time Sean knew exactly who he'd be speaking to.

'Hello?'

'Hi, Sean here.'

'Sean, h
ow are you? How's the time off going? We've got the empty ISS story coming along nicely this end — we're looking to run it in the Sunday edition.'

'Great. Look, I've managed to get some intel that verifies everything.'

'Everything? What are you talking about?'

'UV
One.'

The phone
hissed a faint static for several long seconds.

'Sean,
I thought I told you to drop that story.'

'I know, but
—'

'Let me tell you something, Sean. I believe you. I have
from the beginning. But we're poking around some seriously high-level shit that we should
not
be getting involved with. I need you off this story immediately. I mean it, Sean.'

First, confusion filled Sean, then disappointment, but as he thought through what he had just heard, that disappointment turned into a feeling of betrayal, which became a hardened anger.
'Oh, I see how this works,' he said through gritted teeth. 'What did they do? Pay off your mortgage? Get you that holiday home you always wanted? Buy you a new car? Come on —
what?
' Sean was yelling by the time he'd finished his sentence, and his voice echoed around the trees.

'Sean, it'
s not like that. Look — they threatened to close the paper. They said that if I didn't cooperate, they'd … they'd ruin my career, everything I've worked for. I can't let that happen.'

'So you sold out?
'

'No, I didn't sell
—'

'You sold your impartiality and your dignity to protect yourself. That's what you did.'