Murmansk-13

Pushing through warped doors, the party found an unerringly mundane medical ward reception area. Empty rows of benches led like alabaster pews to a pulpit of dust covered stationary and Rolodex. Dead CRT’s reflected squint strip lights.

Mihailov tracked a few steps forward, then stopped. His empty hand shot to the side, motioning for everyone to remain still, fingers splayed out wide as he feverishly scanned the floor with his Maglite. All breathing seemed to cease with the evident panic in Mihailov. Tor could feel his heart race as his body screamed to exhale.

“What is it, Mihailov?” Asked Tor in an urgent whisper.

For a moment, Mihailov didn’t seem to register the question. His torch hand continued to frantically trace the dust covered linoleum. Then he stopped, the beam wobbled perceptibly in his near-stilled hand. “There are more footsteps.”

The words caused a complete cessation of any movement in the rest of the group, as if they suddenly realized they’d wandered into quicksand. Tor drew alongside Mihailov, the Bulgarians shallow breaths producing fragile tendrils of condensate in the cold air. “What do you mean?”

Mihailov gestured with the flashlight. At their feet the steady record of Falmendikov’s journey disappeared into a crazed morass of footsteps that appeared to mill in all directions with no apparent destination.

Dry throated, Tor took a scratching gulp. Dust particles abraded his throat on their way down. “How old do you think these are?”

“In places they cover Falmendikov’s tracks,” replied Mihailov, hoarsely. “So newer than we should be comfortable with.”

“Maybe this is where the trail ends, Captain,” said Peralta, hopefully. They’d continued deeper into the station on his insistence, now even his resolve appeared to melt.

“I don’t think so.” Tala stalked past, her crumpled suit rustling like plastic bags. Her colleagues winced. “He continued through here, I can still see the palm trees.”

Beyond a further set of swing doors lay darkness. A single emergency light provided weak argent illumination. Motes of dust hung almost static in the frigid corridor. “My God it’s cold in here.”

“Ladies first,” Mihailov said sardonic and nervous through chittering teeth. He offered the flashlight to Tala .

“Pussy,” replied Tala as she snatched the torch from Mihailov’s hand. Freed of his burden, Tor watched the Bulgarian finger the gaffer tape scabbard strapping the rifle across his back.

The corridor curved gently away, drawing shadows along its length. Distance was no longer perceptible in the play of dancing torchlight and eddying blackness. Blots of shadow coalesced in the recesses of keypad doors while frosted glass glittered in sharp contrast. The cold, monochromatic corridor seemed to close in around the little party. Once again, Tor felt the cloying sense of claustrophobia bite like fangs into his exhausted musculature. His body lumbering to the signals of a racing mind.

In the confines of the corridor, the jumble of footsteps slowly distilled back to the singular print of Falmendikov. His gait loped in the dust as months ago past he took what appeared his final steps down this isolated deck, millions of miles from his home in Gorky. Tor felt alone, for himself and for Falmendikov in this desolate, shadow streaked place.

“I guess this is really where it ended for the Chief,” Tala said, detached. She shone the Maglite at an electronic door, kinked partially open. Where the palm printed footsteps finished a vague outline of a human lay foetal, casting a morbid snow angel at the base of the doorway. Dried blood, rust brown and black, spattered the recess like a grim aurora.

“My God, what happened here?” Asked Peralta, quailing at the sight.

“Maybe he was just sick,” replied Tala, uncertainly.

“Where is he now? I mean, who took his body?”

“Morg,” said Mihailov, pointing at the Cyrillic in the liquid crystal display. “I don’t need to translate.”

☣☭☠

Tor was sure that all the recon party now harboured a desire to return to the Riyadh. They were all exhausted, although none more so than Tor. For two hours they’d scrambled around the coldly empty interior of Murmansk-13 chasing a crewmember they little cared for and strongly suspected dead. But as they worked to jimmy the morgue door open they all knew one mystery or another would come to be answered. Why had Falmendikov cost himself career and apparently life to visit a mortuary aboard a vast secret space station in the heart of Reticuluum?

Electric motor gears protested as they were forced into reverse after years in mechanical rigor, Tala pushed between jamb and door, her petit figure appearing vacuum formed within her damaged EVA suit. Buttocks and powerful thighs thrust in opposite direction to planted, sinuous arms, forcing the door into submission. A grinding noise and the tinkle of failing internal parts signalled her success, the door slid pathetically away in its runners.