Ghost station, p.3
Ghost Station, page 3
The emptiness of the space outside, visible through that tiny aperture across the room, seems to press inward on her, as if it might crush the vessel and her inside of it.
Lost. Alone. On a ship she has no idea how to control or operate.
Panic is a blade in her chest, scraping at her lungs. She hurls herself toward one of the upright tanks, trembling hands fumbling across the control panel. There’s a reboot option, in case of power failure. It’ll run a shock through the tank system, acting as a restart for both the tank and the human within.
If, if she can remember how to do it. Her head is a swirling mass of anxiety and terror, thoughts sliding through her grasp before she can catch hold of any of them.
Then her gaze latches on to a small sticker above the control panel. Three numbered steps, written in red and excruciatingly tiny print, with an equally microscopic graphic of the control panel. The bold header on the sticker: EMERGENCY RESTART SEQUENCE.
“Please, please, please,” she whispers, scrubbing the bio-gel from her eyes with the edge of the towel until she can see the words clearly.
1. Use only in the event of system failure. Death may result if restart function is applied inappropriately.
(Nova Cold Sleep Solutions and Podrata Systems, manufacturer of Somnalia VII, are not responsible for misuse.)
2. Ensure tank is sealed.
3. Enter the following sequence:
The graphic of the control panel contains a series of confusing numbered arrows, indicating which buttons and touch pads to use in what order.
Ophelia follows carefully, pressing each one in the designated order. She holds her breath with the last one, watching, listening for any hint of the mechanism kicking in.
But the control panel remains dark, and there’s no whine of activity. No sudden jolt of electricity, like a heart restarting itself.
Because she messed it up? Moved too slowly?
She draws in a deep breath and tries again, moving as fast as she can while still being accurate.
Still nothing.
Ophelia slaps the front of the tank, which does nothing but make her palm sting. “Fuck!”
On the off chance that it’s simply a faulty tank, she switches to the other one. But her hope is draining away, like matter being sucked into a black hole. Inevitable. Quick. Violent.
She enters the restart sequence on this tank once, and then twice, with the same results as before.
The adrenaline spike that’s kept her on her feet so far vanishes abruptly, and her knees give way, landing her in a messy heap on the floor again.
“Shit. Shit!” Blood roars through her ears, drowning out everything except her own panicked breathing. What is she supposed to do now? Does this ship even work without a living, breathing pilot to enter coordinates? She has no idea.
Ophelia senses a change in the air, a quick slip of breeze, before hands lock around her slippery arms and pull her upright.
Her throat locks on a scream—she can’t scream, can never scream—and she twists to pull free, half falling, knee scraping against the bench as she turns to face her attacker.
A man in the orange and gray jumpsuit of R&E division glowers down at her. His dark hair is rumpled and too long, curling at the ends, and his beard is growing in, thick and stubbly. But she still recognizes him from his file.
The mission commander. Ethan Severin.
She shakes her head in disbelief. This doesn’t make any sense.
“What is going on here?” he demands, staring at her. “Are you hurt?”
“I…” She jerks her chin toward the tanks. “Dead,” she says hoarsely, staggering to her feet. How does he not know that already? “Something … someone … their tanks…”
He glances at the other tanks, and his expression shifts immediately. Not to grief or concern or even confusion. Just flat-out pissed. Mouth in a flat line, two hard dimples on either side, a mimicry of what he would look like when smiling.
She’s not sure what she expects Severin to do in that moment. However, it’s not to stride forward, around her, and rip open the door to the first tank.
“Wait!” she shouts. The only reason the bodies aren’t rotting yet is because of the tank’s seal, and the moment that changes …
Severin reaches inside and hauls out an arm, followed by a whole body in an orange and gray jumpsuit. Suresh Patel. Who immediately doubles over in laughter. Very not-dead.
Ophelia rears back. They were alive in there?
“Holy shit, you should have seen your face!” Suresh crows, his high cheekbones flushed with color. The central portion of his hair has been bleached and treated to a glittering white so it resembles frosted grass—or one of those wigs with sparkling powder on it. The latest trend.
Severin shoves Suresh back against the tank framework with a loud clank. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Severin demands.
Suresh jerks his chin up defiantly. “It was just a joke.”
“But the lights … your vitals,” Ophelia begins, still trying to process what’s happening.
The tank next to Suresh’s opens, and Liana—her guess was correct—steps out with a sheepish expression. She gives a little wave hello. “It’s a hack. A bit of paper in the latch to keep the tank from sealing. Just a dumb hazing thing.” She grimaces.
Liana is right, Ophelia realizes belatedly; neither of their lids had given off the hiss of pressure releasing, as hers had.
A scrap of paper? That’s all? Dizziness washes over Ophelia, sending her stumbling back toward the bench. She sits heavily, the heat of panic prickling her skin. But then anger boils up immediately in its wake. She could have killed them with the restart. The warning is right there on the tank lid.
Her fists clench in her towel, muscles straining to lash out at someone, anyone.
“This isn’t bio-gel in her bunk, or spiders in her suit,” Severin says, getting into Suresh’s face. “You could have shorted out the whole system, killed yourselves, or her. Did it even occur to you what would happen if we had to try to make it home without cold sleep?”
Not all of them would survive. There are not enough emergency rations for the team to be awake the whole way home. Plus, the strain on the engine to keep environmental systems up and running the whole time …
Suresh pushes off against the framework, stepping into Severin’s space, despite the fact that he has to crane his neck upward to meet the commander’s gaze.
“This was your idea,” Suresh says, flicking his hand at Ophelia. “You were the one who wanted her here. You were the one who said behave normally, treat her as a regular team member. So I did.”
They look inches away from coming to blows, and that’s exactly the kind of thing she’s here to prevent.
Ophelia stuffs down her anger, pulls her ragged edges together by force, and draws in a breath. Transforming herself into the professional she needs to be. “Okay. I’m fine,” she says, standing up from the bench. “Everyone’s fine. Why don’t we take a step back, and deescalate the—”
“Get back to work, both of you,” Severin says, without looking at her. “Now.”
“Yes, sir.” Face flushed and eyes downcast, Liana hastily steps down from the tank platform and darts off to the corridor behind Ophelia.
Suresh holds his position for another moment or two, nose tilted sharply up, as if daring his commander to take a swing at him. Then he steps away, rolling his eyes. “Just a joke,” he says again, not quite quietly enough, as he strolls toward the corridor, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Pod duty. First week,” Severin says.
Suresh spins around, his mouth open in shock. “Are you serious?”
Ophelia grimaces. Pods, the packets of human waste routinely ejected from the toilet to a storage catchall outside the hab structure, were theoretically sealed, but they weren’t always as leakproof as one would hope. And the pods that would be produced when the team ate solid food for the first time in months would not be pleasant. Generally the crew alternated days so no one was stuck with pod duty—or everyone was stuck with it equally, depending on how you looked at it.
“That’s not necessary,” she says quickly to Severin, her voice still rusty from disuse. Severin’s punishment would only make it harder for her to gain the team’s trust. “Ultimately, no harm done.” Other than wanting to slap the bejesus out of Suresh Patel, perhaps.
That draws Severin’s attention back to her, his dark eyes boring into her. A straight-up intimidation tactic, if ever she saw one. But luckily for her, she’s been the recipient of stony looks and even stonier silence for so long now that both bounce off her with barely a dent.
She meets his gaze without a word.
“My team, my decision,” he says to her, biting off each syllable. Then he turns back to Suresh, unrelenting. “First week.”
Ophelia sees the argument building in Suresh’s expression—the ugly twist to his mouth, the narrowing of his eyes. But then he catches her watching, and he shrugs with a forced grin. “Whatever.”
Suresh wanders out of the room, following Liana’s path, in a deliberately slower, faux casual manner. But his shoulders are stiff with tension.
“Get dressed, Dr. Bray,” Severin says, once they’re alone. “Meet me on the bridge.” Then he, too, walks away.
3
Not exactly an inspiring start, Dr. Bray.
“Fuck,” she mutters, scrubbing the towel over her skin, her assigned locker open in front of her. The blurry rectangle of shatterproof mirror inside the door catches her eye. Her dark red hair is darker still and hanging in clumps around her face, thanks to the bio-gel. The harsh overhead lights paint her skin an even paler shade of white, as if somehow all of her blood is not yet defrosted and circulating.
Patients try her temper and her composure all the time in the office. Sometimes because they want to inflict the hurt they’re feeling on someone else. Sometimes because they just resent the hell of being sent to her in the first place.
Pretending to be dead, however, is a bit extreme.
She chucks the towel into the recycling bin built into the locker wall, banking it in.
And Severin? My team, my decisions.
Ophelia grits her teeth at the memory. He’s not wrong, of course. But why agree to an on-site psych resource if he’s not going to at least pretend to listen?
She reaches into the locker, where several plasti-sealed packages wait for her. After wrestling a T-shirt and compression shorts into place across her damp skin, she opens and shakes out the orange and gray jumpsuit until the arms and legs unfurl, sharp lines where they were folded.
Technically, the mission commander isn’t her boss any more than she is his. She has the authority to pull anyone from duty, including him. But he is in charge of the success of the mission and everyone’s safety. He can make her job difficult simply by not supporting her authority.
Or by supporting her a little too much, depending on how you look at it.
Punishing Suresh, while certainly within Severin’s purview and thoroughly appropriate for that stunt, only makes things harder for her. She looks weak, ineffectual. Even worse, it firmly places her in the role of the outsider, the bad guy, a role that team members are already inclined to cast her in without any help.
Julius was right. It’s a whisper at the back of her mind, her doubts and fears personified.
No. She shakes her head in emphasis as she steps into her jumpsuit. Julius might have been right about the team not wanting her here. That’s hardly unexpected, even back on Earth. An employer-assigned therapist is rarely someone’s first choice.
But this was still the best choice for her. And she’s here now—that’s the most important thing. She needs to focus on making a difference for them, on proving that she can.
If they’ll trust her.
The zipper on her jumpsuit sticks halfway up, and she yanks at it in frustration.
Ophelia. Breathe. The thought that this is exactly what Julius would have said to her, were he here, were they still speaking, flits through her mind before she pushes it away.
She pauses for a moment, closes her eyes, centers herself. Focusing on the pattern of her breathing until it slows, regulates. The tension in her shoulders eases. I can do this. They need me, even if they won’t acknowledge it. Yet.
If nothing else, that whole thing with the sleep tanks screams “cry for help.” It can’t be just a coincidence that Suresh and Liana would pretend to be dead on their first mission after Ava’s actual death.
Ophelia is sure they would deny any connection between the two events, but that doesn’t mean the connection doesn’t exist, even on a simple subconscious level. Ava’s absence is weighing on them. Which is only going to make things more difficult for them, on this assignment and every assignment going forward, unless they get the help they need.
Skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, domestic violence, workplace violence, and intoxicant abuse had been noted for decades among the space-based workforce, before Eckhart-Reiser syndrome and its triggering event forced the larger medical community to acknowledge that they weren’t dealing with one-offs but a larger issue.
Humans aren’t built for working and living in space. Circadian rhythms fall apart when people are in an artificial environment for too long. It’s even worse for R&E teams stuck on a series of planets with day/night cycles that don’t match Earth’s. Then, add in the isolation, stress—in this case, grief and loss on top of work-based factors—poor diet, and lack of privacy, and you end up with a nice thick stew of contributing factors.
Talk therapy, medication, and regular exercise are all standard practice. But improved sleep—quality sleep, as determined by the three Ds: depth, duration, and disturbances—can also make an enormous difference.
The new iVR helmets Ophelia is charged with testing on this mission—a portable version of the same Montrose technology used back on Earth—will help reduce some of the physiological strain that comes from being off-world. Hopefully. But trial and error, particularly at the beginning, is inevitable.
Better to get started right away.
Ophelia opens her eyes, feeling calmer, more grounded. She knows her purpose, that she has the experience and the abilities to help. She will make a difference here. She is not a failure.
Pulling the baggy jumpsuit fabric tighter against her body, she returns to the zipper, and it rolls up smoothly this time. There, see?
She steps back from her locker, starts to shut the door, and then stops, her hand on the cool metal. A standard-issue wrist-comm rests on its side on the locker shelf above her head, a chunky screen on a thick black band. It’s a poor substitute for her QuickQ implant, allowing only limited voice and text transmissions. But comms technology in the field is always a couple hundred generations behind. She—and everyone else in the crew—will have to rely on the ship to receive transmissions from home and then pass them on to these clunky old things.
The screen on hers is already flashing yellow, indicating waiting messages.
Her uncle. Julius, maybe, if he’s come to his senses about how far over the fucking line he was. She should forgive him. Of all people, Ophelia knows how “persuasive” her family can be—persuasive like a knife to the throat of the person you love most. Besides, it’s not as if she’s going to trust him again, so there’s no danger in it.
With a sigh, she reaches up and pulls the wrist-comm down, fastening the thick band around her wrist. She flicks through the notifications on the screen, deleting three messages from her uncle, most of which were received in the immediate aftermath of her turning off her QuickQ. One from an unknown number turns out to be a confused private practitioner trying to refer a former Montrose employee to her and somehow not understanding her on-assignment designation.
Ophelia forwards that one to Emery, her replacement, and then clicks on the next one.
A familiar number: Dulcie, her younger sister. The message is brief. “Ugh. Fine. I guess.” A moment of quiet, then she sighs. “I miss you.” Then the connection ends.
Ophelia’s eyes sting. Dulcie is not just her favorite person in her family, but possibly her favorite person in the world. But she’s doing this for Dulcie as much as herself. All this bad press about your older sister can’t be easy for a seventeen-year-old.
Ophelia clears her throat and blinks rapidly to clear her vision. Then she saves the message before moving on to the next. It’s another unknown number with no text transcription.
That private doc not understanding, again, most likely.
A tinny voice emerges from the microspeaker. “Dr. Bray, this is Jazcinda Carruthers from the To Tell the Truth channel. I was hoping to speak with you.”
Ophelia’s heart stutters in her chest. Jazcinda has never reached out to her directly before. Ophelia’s contact information isn’t a secret; it can’t be, in her profession. But the journo-streamers have mostly steered clear of her, thanks to the phalanx of Montrose lawyers shouting about privacy.
What has changed? Or, what does Jazcinda know that she’s willing to risk it?
“But it seems I’m too late. Or a year and half too early.” Jazcinda gives a self-deprecating laugh, one that’s tinged with artificiality, in that it’s designed to make people trust her. Oops, I’m only human. Ophelia has used a similar technique herself.
“If you’d like to reach out, this is my contact card.” Information flashes on the screen. A momentary hesitation, then Jazcinda adds, “Hope to hear from you soon.”
Ophelia immediately moves to swipe Delete, but something stays her hand at the last moment. Better to know the danger than to turn your back on it. That’s been her philosophy for most of her life, and it’s served her well so far.
At least she’s several million kilometers away from having to deal with it right now.
While she’s still contemplating Jazcinda’s message and its meaning, the next message plays through. Another familiar number. But not Julius.
“Ophelia, it’s your mother?” Her small, faint voice sounds even fainter this far away. Or perhaps that’s just Ophelia’s imagination.
