Murmansk-13

Tala dabbed her lip, liquid crimson slicked her finger as she looked at it in the weak light. The salty metallic tang of blood filled her mouth, leeching from the numerous ulcers that dotted the inside of her lip. She hadn’t thought about the pain as she’d fell into Katja’s arms.

“Hey,” Tala shook Katja, the girls mouth opened, but she remained asleep. Tala’s head felt heavy, her body lethargic. After the ecstasy of their shared kiss she’d crashed. She’d been running on fumes for days, now her tank was empty. She shook Katja again.

Katja rolled over, her movements sluggish. Languidly she opened lustreless blue eyes and looked at Tala, for one terrifying second she appeared bereft of recognition before a small smile curled her lips. “Hey,” she said softly, then her face creased up in discomfort. “I’m cold and I hurt.”

“I know,” replied Tala as she lay back down, pressing herself against the soft yielding flesh of Katja. Vigorously she rubbed her hands up and down the girls torso, trying to imbue what little heat she had left to offer. Tala felt static crackle as the velour of her jumpsuit charged against Katja’s matching attire. In her arms Katja felt newly weak, weaker than when they’d fled from District Four.

“You never said why you want to survive,” Katja looked windward into the darkness of the conduit that lay ahead.

“I’m a survivor, it’s what I do,” Tala nuzzled the straggly blonde hair of the girl. “People think I’m tough, but I’ve had to be. I want to get back to my crew, back to my ship. They’re the only people left to miss me.”

“I’d miss you,” Katja replied, sleepily.

“You barely know me.”

“You’ve cared for me. Even when I was crazy. I could feel it.”

Tala drew the girl as close as she could to herself. “And that’s the other reason I’ve got left to survive. I have to get you to my ship, we have a hospital and a doctor. I’ve got to get you fixed up and back home.”

Katja had drifted back to sleep in her arms. Distantly, Tala wondered how long she would hold the girls interest back on Earth, home was very different places for them. She imagined Katja had friends and family long lost to her. What did she have? The detached sense of envy rankled Tala, she doubted there was a place for a poor Filipina street urchin in a world where Katja wasn’t being perused by desiccated former co-workers.

Tala tried to push the feelings away, crush them deep within but she felt her fists furl against the girls stomach. She was kidding herself if she wasn’t anything but a guardian for Katja, until they were safely back on Earth. A protector. Maybe that’s what Katja saw in Tala.

Perhaps that would be for the best, Tala had planned on ship hopping for a while, until she had enough money to move away, from her father, from Marcario Garcia. She could start a new life someplace else or become institutionalized, she didn’t know if she cared which one it was.

“You OK?” Jamal crept behind her but retained a safe distance. Tala turned to see him at the cusp of the shadows, the whites of his eyes gleaming against his dark skin and the lightless space beyond.

“I don’t know,” replied Tala, honestly. She let her hand relax.

“What about Katja?”

“She’s asleep,” Tala could feel the girls chest rising and falling gently within her arms, she levered herself up and looked at Katja. She was serene, her face pallid. “She needs a doctor.”

Jamal nodded sadly. “I’ll wake Oleg.” His bulk made manoeuvring in any direction but forward difficult within the narrow conduit and beneath the scuffle of fire retardant foam, the gentle sound of flexing aluminium could be heard. As Jamal turned he paused. “Tala, where are we going to go?”

“There’s only one place left,” replied Tala, never averting her eyes from the girl. “We’ll make for the airlock and await rescue. Either we make it back to the Riyadh or we space ourselves.”

☣☭☠

They slipped past the darkened, recessed entranceway to District Six a rusting sign read Склад – Stores. Tor’s party would retrace their steps later, first he’d insisted on escorting the engineering group to one of the four corridors that fed into central command, the little improvised maps suggested it would be somewhere between Districts Six and Seven, the main arteries of the station effectively quartering the outer ring.

The infected were in District Four, at least most of them. Tor had traced their spastic-gaited and gore covered footfalls into the still open pneumatic doors of the administrative module. The liquid crystal still displayed the Cyrillic for quarantine, although Tor had learnt that the stations shutdown appeared completely optional and capricious.

Now the crew of the Riyadh left new tracks in the fine, undisturbed dust.