Murmansk-13

Tala envied the girls anger. She had raged inside over Falmendikov’s actions, the quiet, distant Chief Officer had given her no personable connection to his ultimate endeavour. He had displaced Tala and displaced her friends. In effect, Peralta’s death also lay at his door. However, knowing the lengths Falmendikov had gone too to save his daughter Tala was envious. “He must have been a very good man, a very good father.”

“He was,” replied Katja quietly. “I only wish I had got to spend more time with him. He hated flying but he did it to provide for me, to give me a good life, a good education. I never wanted for toys, I was always the best dressed. I was the only girl in my ballet class that got new slippers every year. He even got us out of the tenements,” she gazed into emptiness. “He was so upset when I took up the contract here. He didn’t want me to come.”

“I’m pretty sure he spent every last minute up to the end figuring out how to get here, after you guys lost contact.”

Katja smiled. “He was a resourceful old bugger.”

“Must have been. This place isn’t on any star charts.”

Katja’s smile faded as the lights around them flickered. For a moment the generator skipped a beat. “It wouldn’t be.”

Outside, Tala could hear more footfalls approaching. These were softer, but again they ceased beside the door. She was starting to think she was imagining it. “You never finished telling us what happened.”

Katja shuddered, her voice tiny. “I came as part of a team of lab technicians, to assist with salvaging the equipment onboard. As I told you, the Soviet had all but abandoned the station. From what I can tell, they’d even abandoned trying to sell it. I heard a Chinese consortium out of Snake’s Head had offered them scrap value, nobody wanted to touch it. Too old, too outdated.

“Anyway, aside from District Three, only the Weapons and Hydroponics districts were open, but we were strictly forbidden to associate with the R&D guys. Warehouse and Plant were still being serviced, but most of the ops had contracted remotely into Central Command. We were a week away from finishing when traffic control picked something up on their radars, just sixteen kilometres out.”

Katja’s blue eyes burnt through Tala. “They sent a scout party out and found another Iban Arc. Just drifting, local radiation levels and particulate readings suggested it had jumped although nobody knew from where, STC didn’t even pick up a wormhole opening.

“They tried hailing it on VHF, Hi-band, Laser. They even tried Morse, but got nothing.”

“Just like when Kovalyonok and Ivanchenkov found the first one?” Tala blurted out.

Katja nodded. “Total ghost ship. No signs of organic life.”

“I thought there was only one Iban arc?” Few Filipinos had realized the significance of the Soviet discovery yet within a decade as more balanced drives were created and mankind reached further into space, near half a million Pinoy would work the stars.

“For most of the world there is. When the scouts got no response the station commander suggested they board it. I guess by that point the Politburo had their finger in the pie and wanted to secure the find as quick as possible, especially with the proximity of Reticuluum One.

“By all accounts, the ship was like the one in Sol. No bodies, no signs of struggle or disease. Just empty save alien technology that was no longer fully alien and the same theorized bio-organic recording log that scientists had deemed unbreakable without an organic sample of the Iban’s.

“It was all very exciting, except I was still a medical lab technician one rung up from the stations maintenance and janitorial functionaries. I was still just sterilizing and packing test tubes and volumetric flasks with my little team. We were told the ship had been towed to the station and docked at District Twelve, but the stations cleaners had a better chance of scoping a look at it than me.”

Katja laughed, coldly. “I was two days from paying off when we were told our contracts had been extended. Some of the scout party had come down with a flu like ailment and while most of the medical services had been shifted to Central Command during contraction, it was determined District Three would serve as a suitable quarantine.

“Suddenly, District Three was operable again and all our work packing away the medical instrumentation was being undone. Most of my team, at least the experienced members, were extended indefinitely. I was dreading hearing that, although apparently I wasn’t very important, I was extended for a week.”

Katja’s eyes glistened with tears. “I was a technician, dammit, not a fucking nurse,” she clenched her knees and for a moment Tala feared the threads of Katja’s lucidity would tear.