Murder on The Skeld

Chapter 2: Stowaways

The next two days consist of packing and preparing the ship. Every little item and piece of rock we bring on board has to be accounted for. Even the weight of the fuel has to be accounted for to know how much more fuel the ship needs to carry it. And just to make really sure we don't waste our takeoff, we add two hundred kilos to our estimations. Once we're sure nothing is missing, we drive the ship into its position a few kilometers away from the laboratory. This planet has been used a lot for landing and takeoff so the road to the launch pad is as smooth as a highway.

Finally, the day comes. Pretty much everything is done already but we spend the morning doing check-ups on the ship.

I've just triple-checked the calculations of our takeoff program and I'm on my way to look at the engines. Walter is checking the tables and chairs in the cafeteria, making sure they're all stuck to the floor. I continue to the engine room and meet Pich in the corridor.

"Buck," she says, stopping me. "I saw that two of the spacesuits are damaged. Do you know anything about that?"

"No," I say, blinking. "Damaged how?"

"Holes," Pich says, crossing her arms. "You're sure you didn't rip or damage yours?"

"I'm sure."

"And they looked whole when you hung them up?"

"I think so. Have you asked Owen? Or Charlet?"

"Yes." Pich taps her arm with her fingers, taking a moment to think. "So did the holes appear afterward? Need to get to the bottom of this. But we don't have time right now. In the worst-case scenario, the ones without spacesuits can seal themselves in navigation. If everything goes smoothly, we shouldn't need them anyway."

"Another weird thing," I say. "The door out was open a few hours after Owen and I last came inside, even though I'm pretty sure we locked it."

"Pretty sure?" Pich asks.

I pull my hands up in a helpless gesture. I wish I could say I was absolutely certain but that wouldn't be true.

"We shouldn't stop and investigate the matter?" I ask.

"Stop to investigate holes in a spacesuit?" Pich says. "No. We have a schedule to uphold and we can look at the spacesuits after we've launched."

"Always the schedule," I say.

Pich looks at me with the same mix of concern and authority that a parent might when explaining something obvious to a child. "Yes. We have a lot of data about a potentially habitable planet and we want to get it back to earth as quickly as possible. They could really use the opportunity. This mission is quite literally greater than any one of us."

"Yeah, I know," I say.

"And Buck," Pich says as I'm about to leave, "if you're feeling worried, just scan the ship for lifeforms."

Pich is right of course. Since our mission is to look for life, we've made a habit out of being careful. Anything we poke at could bite back with immeasurable speed and strength. But Polus is just a fuel station. The first arrivals looked for life before they began building - even though the toxic atmosphere shouldn't allow for organic life anyway. There shouldn't be any reason to be worried.

So we leave it at that and I continue down the corridor, curving left through the engine room and taking a right into the reactor room. The large computer screen tells me we've got plenty of plutonium and plenty of liquid nitrogen and no radiation leaks. The log is showing no errors but I reboot the system just to make sure it can handle a reboot too. While I wait for it to start up, I hear quiet footsteps behind me. I turn around just as Grady strikes my sides with his fingers. I flinch back and deflect his hands.