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One of the great clichés of mystery and horror stories is that of the Abandoned Spaceship. Would-be Rescuers receive a Distress Message from a Spaceship and arrive at the vessel to discover that the crew have been massacred, save for a Lone, Unconscious Survivor. Further investigation finds that both digital and analogue records are curiously fractured and corrupted, leaving only hints at what horrors befell the ship's crew. References are made to either an Eldritch Alien Artifact or a Biological Specimen that the ship was transporting. Eventually the Survivor awakens and begins to kill the Rescuers, claiming that it's in their own best interests. One of several unpleasant outcomes ensues.
In comparison, reality is reassuringly mundane. Great Britain runs an experimental civil emergency response unit (CERU) program under a United Nations Exploratory Group mandate. The CERU is tasked with managing emergency situations among the ever-growing volume of civilian shipping in near-Earth space and the program is viewed as a way for UNEG to collectively acquire valuable experience for situations that might occur during both the current Europa expedition and the proposed Saturn/Titan mission. Experienced spacers seeking a berth on either mission have flocked to the CERU because of rumors that the unit is being used to short-list crew personnel for Simon Marius. But I digress.
In the normal course of answering a distress call the worst a real rescuer has to face is exposure to triple the hazards of Fire, Vacuum and Lawsuit. Ship's captains will contact their parent companies about volatile fuel leaks and be ordered to just deal with it, because a mayday can be expensive, embarrassing and worst of all it potentially opens the organization up to legal action from shareholders. I've spoken with one ship's masters who calmly assured me that, ''really, there is no issue to address. All that happened was that a new crew member overacted to an errant sensor reading'' moments before the vessel turned into a pretty new nova hanging a few points off of Polaris. Parent companies and national governments will regularly threaten to prosecute CERU for armed violation of sovereign territory. CERU as a rule could care less and complaints are passed on to UNEG's legal council in Oslo for arbitration.
Still though, complications are easier to avoid than to overcome, so hours might be wasted in diplomatically establishing the true emergency and as many more in acquiring permission to board the ship. While twelve hours is unacceptable dirtside, incidents in space work to a different schedule. Ike's Rule states simply that ''if you do not die immediately and horribly, you will have at least twenty hours hours remaining to ponder your slow demise.'' We've found it to be nothing less than true in nearly every situation and we use it to guide our actions. Ordinarily we will scale our response to the issue. We might have to send a new software patch, dispatch one of our two cutters with technicians, doctors or, on three occasions, soldiers.
Even considering within the extraordinary nature of our work we had a routine, a status quo, but it ended abruptly when Xian Hao briefed the CERU concerning a transporter.
Xian hangs from a handhold at the top of our briefing room alongside Peter Bevin, a twenty year veteran of the Royal Air Force and the commanding officer of CERU. Peter waited patiently for us to settle while Hao studied upon us all with an unfathomable look upon his face. There's fifty of us crushed in here, breathing stale air that reeks of sweat because the air conditioner can't cope.
''Before I continue I must stress that for reasons which will be made explicitly clear, no word of this matter has been released to the media, nor have the families of the crew or passengers being informed,'' began Hao without preamble.
''Forty one days ago HLSV Xinglong broke off contact the space traffic controllers in Jiu Quan. Ostensibly, this is because the communications array aboard Xinglong has been disrupted due to inclement solar conditions. This, of course, is a lie. The true reason is that Xinglong's crew died in violent circumstances at the time that communications were lost. In thirty seven days Xinglong is due to enter the space traffic control jurisdiction of New Beijing. If at that time the vessel fails to make contact questions will be asked. Before this may occur, the existing situation must be resolved. Discreetly.'' Hao paused for a moment to look at each of us in turn as we absorbed this. ''And as such, the democratic people of China have decided to place their trust in the expertise and discretion of both Great Britain and the United Nations Exploratory Group in this matter. We do not expect disappointment.''
Xian Hao is an aging Han whose family hails from Jian in mainland China. A lifelong spacer, he has not once set foot in his home country, but nevertheless has remained fiercely loyal to the PDRC, and so two years ago he was nominated as their representative to the station by virtue of already being here when one was needed. Of Hao's character, I'll admit is that he's introverted to the point of rudeness and holds himself to be both above and apart from the other spacers aboard High Plymouth, due to his lineage. In short, Hao is an arrogant bastard, although in his mind he has reason enough to be.
''On March sixth of this year at nineteen hundred hours and twenty nine minutes UTC, the Heavy Lift Space Vehicle Xinglong undocked from the People's Democratic Space Station Zheng He, with a mission to bring both needed machine parts and one thousand cryogenically-sustained colonists to Mars.''
Hao interrupts his oration so he can reach into his overall's pocket and remove a rolled-up screen. Xian unfurls it, tacks it to the bulkhead next to him and activates it. The rectangular screen displays a field neatly divided into twenty four equal parts, each of them a freeze-framed image of...people? Bulkheads?
''The crew of the Xinglong continued their preparations to leave Earth over the following forty-one hours and eighteen minutes, according to their set schedule. Within this period no untoward activity was observed in the behavior or crew members, nor were anomalies measured in the environment or machinery of Xinglong. However... ''
At this point Hao applies his thumbprint to the corner of the screen. A multitude of videos begin to play that show mostly Asian-looking men and women working a zero-g environment, each involved in their tasks. In a corner screen, sudden movement followed by a bright flash of light and then the view is obscured, although it takes a moment to work out what the covering is. Blood. In more and more screens there's shocking spontaneous violence shown indiscriminately by the crew. Here young man braces himself against a console and head butts the bulkhead until his head pops like a grape and there an older woman tears out the throat of a man with her teeth. And then chews, god help me.
Hao continues speaking over this in his metered cant. Word after word comes forth, each with its own place and importance, claiming our attention with hypnotic intensity.
''At twelve hours and forty seven minutes on March eight...hysteria...enveloped the crew of Xinglong. Over the next two hundred and six minutes the thirty one crew members of Xinglong systematically killed each other using any means available. There is a complete record of this hysteria from several perspectives and it is held beyond doubt that there were no waking survivors. The colonists under transport were entirely unaffected by this outburst, being both under suspension and outside of Xinglong's pressurized areas. Remote management of the suspension capsules has ensured that there has been no interruption of service to them in the intervening period.''
As Hao continues the violence escalates. Frothing mouths. Blood. Shards of bone. I choose instead to look at Hao, only to find him staring back at me with dead eyes.
''During this incident Xinglong was traveling on what may be described as a long ballistic arc. At a certain point the vessel would have ignited their main drive and left Earth properly along a transfer orbit to Mars. While a remote ignition was possible, ground controllers decided that it would better to not introduce a dangerous contagion into Martian population. Because Xinglong's course would eventually return it to Earth a cover story was invented and a multitude of preparations were begun for the vehicle's eventual return.''
''Although Xinglong is a privately owned and operated vehicle, obvious health and safety considerations in regard to the frozen Chinese citizens aboard have necessitated physical intervention by the democratic government of China, in concord with Great Britain. Subject to the conditions aboard Xinglong, and the burdensome necessities of practicality, the proposed goals upon interception of the vessel are:
Xian holds up a finger. ''One: Identification and quarantine of the pathogen that afflicted the vessel, and identification of the pathogen's vector of dispersal.
''Two: Physically secure Xinglong. Every attempt to contact the lawful owners has failed and under the laws of salvage the lifter will be seized and sold at auction to recover the costs of this operation.
''Three: Establish the status of the suspended colonists and other cargo aboard Xinglong, and maintain their integrity. No devicane from the projected norm has been observed in their biological readings, but this does not preclude the chance that colonists. The colonists and their effects will be held at Zheng He until such time as another ship is made available to complete their transportation.
All other considerations are secondary.''
Hao pauses his oration to allow the unspoken message to settle in. If I
**** my head I would hear the same thought echoing through every other
head in the room: I'm expendable. Maybe the marines in the
company were used to this line of thought, but the other civilians in
the room shifted uneasily along with me. Xian has raised a a finger for each point he lists, but now he closes them into a fist that he leaves raised up as he finishes. ''That is all for the time being. Colonel Bevin will hold the first planning session twelve hours from now.'' And as simple as that, Xian Hao is gone from the room.
Bevin speaks for the first time. ''Crew rotation will be maintained for this operation. Hau To's crew are to report here at 2300 for a technical briefing held by Nikos. Attendance for Hubert's crew is optional, but recommended. There will be an administrative meeting in two hours to discuss logistical issues, but everyone is otherwise released until the full briefing. Please remember: This matter is currently confidential. Finally, I'm aware that the subject of this operation will be upsetting for some. If you harbor doubts about your ability to complete this operation, please inform Nikos or I by 2100 for consideration to be made exempt. Dismissed.''
I kick off from the ceiling and I'm on my way of the room before I do anything unsightly or embarrassing such as clawing my eyes out or screaming until my lungs burst. That kind of thing. I brush past Hao in the outer hatch and then I'm out into the passageway and High Plymouth proper.
Beyond the Blue Skies and High Hearts have it laughably wrong about space stations. Oh how roomy, how clean and how silent they are in those wonderful shows! I pull myself through a corridor which is so narrow that I can reach out and touch both sides at once. Every flat surface that could be put to use had a locker, potted plant, airlock, terminal, pinned-up screen or even a hammock. And there is people too. I had to move against the flow of workers coming from a shift change aboard the \emph{Marius} and in the space of ten minutes I had every conceivable sweaty, dirty body part shoved into my face as we squeezed past each other in intersections that could barely fit a child, let alone two adults. We each made rote apologies, but I can barely notice them above the perpetual droning of the air conditioner and the gibbering in my head, so I just kept moving.
Alisa throws a greeting at me as I slip into her cabin. ''Hey Greenie.''
She's floating free inside our closet when I arrive, brushing her black hair out and listening to tinny music through headphones. UNEG's Simon Marius hangs silhouetted in space through the porthole behind her, sitting in it's scaffold like a hen on her nest. The merest hint of a smile starts and falters below Alisa's bright green eyes as they take in the the wrack of my face.
''Jason?''
I shake my head and said only, ''it's... work.'' Alisa doesn't need to hear any more. She just takes hold of me and never lets go.
Copyright 2008 Mark Grealish
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