Murmansk-13

She recounted flights with the institutionalized spacemen – Ship Hoppers – who would fly contract to contract, paying off at one station and headed directly to the first manning office they could find to secure a contract out. She knew of at least one AB who’d flown for eighteen years without seeing his native Brazil, flying contracts as a galley boy, radio operator, bosun – even a waiter on one of the first outer Sol cruise ships.

Ship Hoppers just couldn’t engage in life on land, but they could adapt. Bouncing from crew to crew, ship to ship. Here, the eldest looking man, his trimmed moustache greying at its extremities, appeared severe and rigid as his cold eyes locked with Tala. She thought she saw his lip tremble as he and he alone retreated from view. Their tiny lost lives had just changed immeasurably with Tala and Katja’s arrival and for each man it would mean a different thing.

Tala felt herself sink into the rumpled remains of her EVA suit as she deftly stepped over the generator wires. While most of the attention rested upon Katja, Tala felt discomfort even existing within the same dubious limelight. Stepping into the boxing ring in front of scores of braying men was one thing, there was an opponent to focus upon – and the inevitable onset of tunnel vision. In District Four she found a self-consciousness she thought lost after her first few fights.

Fresh meat.

A large modular office lay at the very end of the space. Frosted glass ran the length of the bulkhead, punctuated by an unremarkable door. Tala noticed Ilya’s hand slip to Katja’s waist before Jamal knocked. Heads ducked slightly behind their door frames in a thinly veiled show of decorum.

“Come.” The voice sounded gruff and old, barely audible over the white noise of the generator. Jamal peeled back the door.

Gennady was stood behind a heavily polished conference table, it was marble finished, dark stained pine. Papers were sprawled across the central portion of the table and an architect’s schematic of the District was tacked to the bulkhead like an arras. Little spotlights flickered as if displaying the precariousness of the survivors existence, Gennady didn’t flinch.

“Please sit,” Gennady gestured to a cluster of metal and fabric chairs arranged on the one side of the table. “It seems your tales of a visiting ship were true after all,” Gennady looked to Ilya, “Perhaps this will quiet some of the dissent from your previous abandoned scavenge.”

Ilya grunted and closed the door sealing away the heat of the generator and deadening the rattle. Jamal nodded and Tala took a seat. Jamal eased Katja’s limp form into a chair, propping her unceremoniously against a bulkhead. Gennady, his finely lined face angular and grim beneath a cadet cap, watched. He wore a goatee long at the chin and greying. It appeared once well clipped, perhaps a source of pride, but had recently grown dishevelled.

“Drink, anyone?” Gennady asked once Jamal and Ilya finally took their seats behind Tala. “I trust we have cause to celebrate, although I fear the drinks cabinet is poorly stocked.”

Tala pursed her lips, Jamal shook his head in well versed deference. Gennady turned to an incongruous, low-set rosewood chiffonier and pulled the only bottle Tala could see from the cupboard. It was a glass Coke bottle, but the contents within was almost clear – save for a slight clouding. “Gulag moonshine, cask strength,” Gennady said, briefly turning to Tala with an awkward avuncular wink. “Our boys make it here, helps pass the time.”

Gennady poured the fluid into a vodka glass and slung it back like a pelican swallowing a fish. He gasped and slammed the heavy bottomed glass back down on the sideboard. “It is not Stolichnaya, but it does the job,” he wheezed.

A long and voluminous grey woollen trench coat, hung from Gennady’s shoulders and swung with his every movement. The coat seemed excessive to Tala after hours in the frigid corridors and conduits of the station. Turning to his audience, Gennady seemed reluctant to sit but relented, a concealed wince wrinkled crow’s feet. His concrete features settled on Tala. “You must forgive Jamal and Ilya their barbarism, it has been such a long time since etiquette demanded an introduction. My name is Gennady Poltarenko, apparent leader of this motley band of survivors.” His affable tone opposed the stony face it babbled from. “And you are?”

“Angela Tala Herrera, AB aboard the DSMV Riyadh,” Tala replied.

“And the girl?” Tala noticed his voice harden, his eyes flickered to the girl propped upright by Ilya’s huge hands.

“Katja.”

“Katja?” Gennady probed, eyebrow raised.

“She was the daughter of the Chief Officer aboard my vessel,” Tala said, weighing how much information to cede. “But worked aboard this station.”

“So this was a rescue mission?” Gennady leaned forward, the crow’s feet creased again.

Tala shrugged. “Of a sort.”

“Of a sort?”