Kim looked over to Ingers, and Thompson’s stomach dropped into his toes. Great job Dave. Open your mouth and become the next one on Kim’s ‘list.’ He shut up and looked away, feeling every bit of Kim’s stare as it moved back to him. God help us all, please. We’re in deep now. We have to do something. I can’t. I’m scared. Is Kim going to use Ingers to kill me too? No way I can beat him. Ingers would tear me apart in just a few seconds. He didn’t look up, trying, like Roels and Salila had been for weeks, to be unnoticed, to be unmolested by something frightening nearby. He felt, rather than saw, Kim glide next to him. “I understand your grief, friend Thompson. This is nothing I had ever wanted to happen. Pull it together and let us help Ingers, and Roels. We have much work to do now that we are short a scientist once more.”
Thompson nodded, willing to do anything to make Kim go away and leave him alone. Kim patted his shoulder in a fatherly manner and moved to Roels and Salila. Thompson glanced over at Ingers, and ducked as a large floating bit of vomit spun lazily in the weightless atmosphere past his cheek. The room stank of fear and feces. Vyhovsky’s body voided itself as a last natural function, lending a further reek to the air. Thompson watched Kim talk quietly to Roels and Salila, who both nodded, then looked away, eyes downcast. Kim floated back towards Ingers, batting small pieces of flying filth from his path. He grabbed a handhold, then lay his other hand on Ingers shuddering shoulders. Ingers froze in place as Kim began to talk urgently, and quietly in his ear. The room suddenly seemed too small, and Thompson launched himself from the room, arrowing through the hatch and rebounding off the wall with practiced ease.
He came to rest minutes later in the ‘Chinese section. He had curled up in a high corner of the room, trying to be as small and hidden as possible. His heart was racing as the scene played over and over in his mind. He kept hearing the rotten crack of Vyhovsky’s neck, and seeing the last spasm of his friend’s life. He tried to focus on his surroundings, but the loss, the terrible loss kept flaring through his mind, and he would find himself in the corner once more, huddling in fear. He thought he heard muffled screams, and huddled tighter in the corner as the vision of Vyhovsky’s head flopping like a rag doll’s in zero-g haunted his memory.
It took time to fight past the grotesque vision, and make himself move away from the corner. The advantage of weightlessness meant that any perturbation to a static object pushed it into motion. So, as Thompson uncoiled, he found himself drifting towards the center of the room. A surge of panic threatened to push him back to the corner, but he gritted his teeth, and let himself drift slowly through the room, grabbing a handhold near Vyhovsky’s net-board bed. The Chinese felt that a solid surface helped produce sounder, and more refreshing sleep. Thus the boards were part of the first mission, and had been retained in spite of inconclusive evidence.
Thompson slowly glided back towards his cube, wary of meeting anyone in the hall. With only five of them now, he mentally calculated the odds of getting home a lot more remote than when Vyhovsky had been alive. He told me about the collars, and how they seemed jammed by software. We were supposed to try and pull the collars apart, but never really put some time to it as we were shorthanded. Now we’re permanently shorthanded. I’m not certain what Kim has in store, but he’s the big dog now, as they say back home. So when he barks, everyone listens. I wonder how Ingers is, the fucker. He killed him. He killed Vy. He looked so lost when he did it, like something else was holding the reins when it happened. Was this what Kim was trying to warn people about. Some kind o psycho? Or… Thompson grabbed the handhold, and floated by his hammock-bed. The thought that Kim might have convinced Ingers to attack Vyhovsky felt absurd at first, but he was certain he saw some kind of communication between Ingers and Kim just before everything happened.
One thing’s certain, nothing is ever going to be the same again. Vyhovsky was the glue, he kept us going and kept the routine that took care of this place. The question now is can we hold it together. Or are we starting to spiral in? It this the death spiral? God help me, part of me wants it to be. God, please help. We really, really, could use some kind of miracle, any kind of miracle really. I’d really like to know right now if you’re listening.
Thompson floated away from the bed, towards the hatchway, where he stopped, and cocked his ear to listen for any movement. He didn’t hear any, and that bothered him more than hearing movement. The station always to this point, had been one of motion. People going off shift for sleep, or on shift to do preventative maintenance, or handle small problems as they cropped up. This absolute silence bothered him a lot. Roels, Salila, I need to find out what’s happened to them. He girded himself mentally, then slowly pushed into the corridor, quietly rebounding off the opposite wall with his feet and slowly using the handholds to move towards Roels’s cube.
He moved slowly and as quietly as he could manage. He kept an eye on his shadow, and on the mirrors in the corner of the right angle turns in the corridor. He wanted to avoid Kim and Ingers totally if possible. Another turn and a slow, controlled glide brought him to the corridor that housed Roels’s cube. Debris floated loosely in the corridor like a small cloud, around the entrance. Small articles like paper clips and sheets of paper, broken plastic, and a few blobs of liquid had to be brushed from his path as he moved to the entrance. Looking into Roels’ cube was more of the same.