Elevation, page 6
Gaby had told him of a saying about mad men and small spaces that doctors would repeat at this point.
Chapter Twelve
An officer met the group at the docking tube, next to the shuttle that was still connected to the other tube, with no sign of activity.
Jonathan noticed Gaby’s frown when she looked at the idle display panel.
He was going to ask a question, but Violet spoke first and asked if they’d go out to rescue the pair.
The woman said, “Don't worry. We have everything under control."
"Did your operator tell you what was going on?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes. As I said, everything is under control."
"They will be saved?"
That was odd, because the shuttle was still on the ground.
He didn’t like the cool expression on the woman’s face. In fact now that he thought about it, he hadn’t liked anything about people’s reactions since he and Gaby had come to the base. He’d ascribed them to being “military” or “secretive” but it was more than that.
But then it dawned on him that a solution could also mean something entirely different. He felt sick.
"Wait a minute. You do have the intention of rescuing these people?"
"We’ve referred the matter to the flight division."
That was also not an answer.
He was trembling now. “Am I hearing correctly that you have no interest in retrieving this bubble? Letting these people die would look extremely messy and would make you look bad with our friends on Earth."
Gaby quietly put a hand on his arm. Oh, she would understand what he was thinking.
The officer went on, “Boone has considered the request for assistance, but we don’t have the resources to pursue this. We don't know where this contraption went, and we don't have the resources to search the entire surface of the moon and he’s unwilling to risk his personnel.”
Jonathan had to stop himself shouting at her, “You’re the military for fuck’s sake! This sort of thing is your job.”
Gaby said, ”We know where the capsule is. At least we know their trajectory. We almost crashed into it when we flew into the base."
She seemed taken aback. “Did you?”
Jonathan managed to calm himself enough to describe what they had seen, and how from the coordinates of the incoming flight and the direction that the bubble had been flying, they could calculate a likely trajectory for the wayward plastic bubble.
She checked the report he told her they had filed with the control room.
With a stiff-faced expression, she said, “I’ll have to talk to Boone.”
Jonathan called after her, “Please hurry up, there are lives involved.”
Boone turned up not much later, red-faced, his nostrils flaring.
“It’s those commercials again. I’ve told them many times that we are not going to keep rescuing them.”
“What are they actually doing here?” Jonathan asked.
Boone snorted. “It all started with this ridiculous woman.”
“Katie Walker?”
“Hmph. She saw faces in the ice. She told everyone that a creature lived under the ice. The ice angel, she called it. We tried counselling and all that rubbish, but she wouldn’t get that nonsense out of her head. She was infecting the whole base with it. They’d have worship services on the ice plain, for crying out loud.”
“And getting rid of her didn’t kill the movement,” Jonathan said.
“It only made it worse. They come from all over.”
Then Gaby asked what Jonathan should have asked a long time ago, but somehow neglected.
“Has anyone ever seen this ice angel thing?”
Boone snorted. “Of course not. It doesn’t exist.”
Then Jonathan said, “That’s all very well, but there are still people in trouble out there. It’d like your permission to go and look for them.”
He met Boone’s eyes and was shocked by the hard and vacant expression in them.
He lowered his voice. “They may be stupid and have done illegal things, but letting these people die will not look good for the base.”
His heart was still thudding. Boone outranked him significantly and something about him scared Jonathan.
Boone snorted.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“Um, sir, does that mean we can take the shuttle—“
“I said get the fuck out of here. Do whatever you please but get out of my sight.”
Well, that was as good as approval, Jonathan guessed.
Probably, there was nothing that Boone could say to defend his position that made him look a halfway decent human being. Coupled with Jonathan’s argument that they knew the trajectory, he had no excuse not to do anything. Even if his language—shouted at the control room to allow the shuttle to leave through the base comm—left no doubt about his lack of desire to do so.
Gaby gave Jonathan a concerned look.
And Jonathan knew what she would have said if they had been alone. Boone’s fastidiousness, his inflexibility and attention to his appearance marked him as a prime candidate for space madness. In fact, it would be a good idea to send a team to the base to give all personnel a health check.
But Young was called up, and the vessel prepared to carry out a search mission.
Chapter Thirteen
So they were out in space sooner than they had expected, without yet having done any of the work that Jonathan had come to do. One day they might be assigned a project that would be quiet and out of the limelight and free of messy politics, but the sad reality was that recycling and habitat maintenance were usually political issues.
While they were waiting for the shuttle to be prepared, Gaby had calculated the likely paths described by the bouncing bubble.
She drew coloured areas on her pad. “We need to search in a funnel shape, because each bounce could have taken the bubble in a different direction.”
With all the gear loaded, they could finally leave.
Young followed her directions and started flying in a search pattern up and down the area Gaby indicated.
They had brought a short range radio and tuned it to the frequency that Violet said they had been using to speak to the bubble while it fell.
They peered at the semidarkness of the projection screen with the display’s light level and contrast dialled up to make it easier to see. Another screen displayed infrared readings.
It was a tedious job, because features on the surface were in perpetual twilight and the long and harsh shadows made them easy to miss.
"We’re not alone out here,” Young said after a while.
He switched to the radar screen which showed presence of three dots. Two behind them, and one in front. The one in front in the air, the other two on the ground. The ones behind them had ID markings. The one in front did not.
"Who are they?" Gaby asked.
"These two behind us are our trucks.”
So much for not having the capability to rescue this bubble.
"What about that ship over there?” Jonathan asked.
"That is a good question.”
Young tried to contact the ship, but it didn’t reply. Then he contacted Base Control and they said they’d try to trace its path back to where it had last identified itself.
“It’s going to be a commercial ship,” the operator said.
Young said, “I’m going to stay away from it until we know what they’re doing here. It’s my guess that the trucks on the ground are here because of that ship and this is why they didn't want to shift position to go back to base and rescue a couple of stupid artists.”
That made sense, in a perverted way.
Young turned the shuttle in a circle.
“Do we know where the bubble is yet?” Gaby asked.
At that moment a crackle came out of the loudspeakers, and a brief sound of a garbled voice.
Young said, “It looks like that's them. At least they're still alive. Yes, there they are. I can see them.”
He changed the radio frequency and said, “Shuttle to unknown vehicle, we’ve spotted you. Someone will be there to rescue you.”
The reply was so full of static that it was impossible to hear what was being said.
He magnified what he saw on a wall screen. The bubble lay at the bottom of a valley just ahead.
Then Young switched frequency again and told the control room that he had spotted the bubble and they could let the trucks know their position.
But the two trucks below had stopped. Jonathan spotted their roof-mounted rocket launchers presumably aimed at the unknown ship.
Young said, “Control tells me it’s a commercial ship, registered with a mining group at Titan.”
“I guess they don’t have permission to be here.”
“You would be correct.”
“What are they doing?” Gaby asked.
“That’s also a good question. Looks like a standoff to me.”
Shit.
“Do you think either the ship or the trucks know that the bubble is in the valley between them?” Jonathan said.
“Probably. They’ll have heard our communication. Whether they’re interested is another question.”
“What can we do?” Jonathan asked.
“We can only go back and let them handle it,” Young said.
But Jonathan said, “We didn’t come out here not to rescue these people.”
“Control is telling me I’m not allowed to land.”
Gaby said, “We are in open space. These people have become refugees. All vessels in space should render refugees assistance, just like on the high seas. We are obliged to rescue them, or make sure that they are rescued by someone else."
Yes, Jonathan agreed. “We don’t need to land. Just drop me to the surface on the winch. Then I’ll go in to rescue the people and we’ll pick up the contraption at another time.”
Young gave him an uncertain look.
“I have Space Rescue Level Five accreditation. I know how to do this.”
“It’s not that I’m worried about. Boone’s going to blow his top when he hears that we interfered with his surface patrol. And what’s that ship out there going to do?”
“Those people down there are at severe risk of dying if we don’t do anything. That’s going to look messy. One of them is Felix Estvan, the owner of a tech company. They’re not going to keep silent about this.”
Young blew out a breath. “All right. Let me check with them first.”
Chapter Fourteen
Young pushed down his microphone. “Shuttle to unknown craft. Felix. Can you hear me?”
They waited, and Young repeated the question.
Then a clear reply came into the cabin.
“Yes.” The voice crackled.
“What is your status?”
“Not so rosy. Getting desperate here.”
“Do you have pressure suits?”
“We’re wearing them. It was too cold.”
“Do you have air?”
“Not much. We’ve almost used all of it to keep the air quality up.”
Jonathan said to Young, “If you can hover over the area, I can go down with a spare tank and bring them up.”
“I’ll help,” Gaby said.
“No, I want you to stay here and prepare a medical treatment bay with what they’re likely to need.”
She nodded, got up from her seat and set about doing that.
The terrain where the bubble lay was uneven, full of jagged shards of ice pressed together sideways. Getting a ground vehicle in there would be hard.
Young turned the shuttle around and approached the bubble from the other side at low altitude.
Young said, “Base Control is still warning me not to land. They’re telling me I should return to base. I have to obey orders.”
“I won’t be long.”
Jonathan got ready to be winched to the surface. Wearing the cumbersome and stiff suit was awkward, especially inside the cabin.
Jonathan stepped into the harness, clipped on the winch cable and checked his radio. It worked.
He strapped on an extra tank and stepped into the air lock.
“I’m coming down soon,” he told Felix while the air was being sucked out and all sound disappeared. “Can you get ready to open the air lock? I have an extra tank.”
The door opened. He stepped into space and then let go of the steps next to the door.
Slowly, he went down, into the dark shadow at the bottom of the valley. He felt nervous. He’d only done this in practice, on the Moon.
His feet hit the stone-like ice. He could feel its sharpness through the soles of his shoes. It was a miracle that the bubble hadn’t burst on these rocks.
“Be quick, Jonathan,” Gaby said in his headset. “These guys up here don’t look like they want to play nicely with each other.”
The pale sunlight lit part of the hillside at Jonathan’s back, and he could see the two trucks with their rocket launchers ready for use. What were these people thinking? Were they really going to fire at the unauthorised ship?
Jonathan reached the bubble.
The thing was roughly twice his height, and perfectly round. The outside was painted matte silver except for a round area that was dark grey which he presumed to be the door.
He pushed the outside with a gloved hand. The material was smooth and flexible. The door was also flexible. There was a tiny window that offered a view into an air lock. Someone wearing a pressure suit and helmet was just entering it from the inside.
A light came on in the cubicle, and a moment later, the door opened, releasing a small puff of air. Two suited people jumped out. The inner airlock door was still open. Jonathan could see inside the bubble. It looked very comfortable, with chairs and a table. In fact, apart from the restraints on the couch, it looked like a living room. He made sure he recorded video material of this.
Jonathan’s helmet comm wasn’t set up to talk to the occupants. He held out the spare tank. The taller of the two people took it and connected it to the other person’s suit.
The shuttle hovered overhead.
Jonathan grabbed the winch cable. First lightest person went up, presumably Joanna, and then Felix.
Meanwhile, the trucks came slowly down the hillside. The commercial craft hovered over the opposite side of the valley.
Young said in Jonathan’s helmet, “I have to shift. I’m being ordered away. I’ll move to the western end of the valley, and stay as close as I can.”
And the winch cable, Jonathan’s line to safety, disappeared.
Shit.
Where was he going?
Jonathan followed the shuttle’s lights, scrambling over the uneven ground, hoping there wasn’t going to be a crevasse.
Behind him, the trucks with the rocket launchers were coming down the hillside.
The commercial ship had started moving from one end of the ridge to the other. The rocket array atop the trucks moved with it.
Jonathan slipped and fell on his side. With the low gravity, he didn’t fall hard, but the suit was heavy and cumbersome, and he felt himself beginning to slide down. He kicked the ice with his feet, and when that didn’t stop him, released a short blast of air onto the slippery substrate. That did the job, but now his suit was stuck to the ice.
Heart hammering, he stabilised himself and carefully prised the suit off the rock. Maybe he’d better wait until the shuttle came back.
The commercial ship had turned around.
One of the trucks flashed warning lights. Would they really open fire if the commercial ship didn’t leave?
And then something shot out from the front of the commercial ship. As it flew across the valley, Jonathan noticed that it was a capture net. It hit the ground next to the bubble, missing the target.
The other truck’s warning light started flashing, too, but the commercial ship already retreated quickly.
Something hit Jonathan’s helmet with a thwack. He looked around, but it was only the winch cable that dangled from the shuttle, now overhead.
Phew.
Jonathan clipped it on and gave the OK. With a jolt, he was jerked upwards.
The shuttle took off while he was still dangling outside.
“What the hell was that about?” he asked as soon as he was inside the cabin and had taken his helmet off.
The two occupants of the bubble sat on the benches towards the rear of the cabin. Felix was tall and had short dark hair and a beard and Joanna had bleached hair that she wore in a long ponytail. Both of them were well-groomed and had the confident air that Jonathan had come to associate with people of power and money.
Neither of them looked either shaken or frightened.
“We need to retrieve our capsule,” Felix said.
“I’m sure the ground crews are capable to look after that,” Jonathan said. “We’re going back to the base. A lot of people are very unimpressed, including members of your team.”
“We told them not to worry. We ordered them to go back to the base and do their art thing.”
“You disappeared and they had no idea where you were. They were allowed to be distressed.”
"They screwed up. Our ship was supposed to pick us up, but then they said they couldn't get close enough because our concerned artists decided to call in you guys.”
“Wait,” Gaby said. “I think I get it now. You paid the artists to take you out there, you jumped off the cliff without telling them that you had arranged a pickup?”
Felix gave her a hard look. “That would have worked perfectly if they hadn’t tattled on us.”
“They didn’t know what you were doing! They were concerned. They got into trouble because you told them to go into a restricted area. Why?”
“We need to test our products in some way.”
“You mean contraptions to throw tourists off a cliff for thrills?”
“I mean material that’s flexible but strong enough not to burst on impact. We’ve dressed it up as tourist thrills. This area is amazing and that jump is worth the trouble.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a while. You almost caused an armed conflict.”
