Finality Page 4

  "Can I give you some advice?" I ask eventually. "As one deep space technician to another?"

  She stares at me.

  "You should just mash it all up," I continue, grabbing my fork and starting to mix my three portions together to make a kind of gray paste. "Sure, it doesn't look very appetizing, but the flavors complement one another and at least it tastes vaguely like food. Hell, it's almost like a proper meal, and it has the added advantage of making you look less like you've got OCD." I mix the food a little more. "Is that so bad?"

  She stares at my plate as if I've just done something shocking.

  "I think there's a regulation about it," she says after a moment. "They only introduced it last year, so maybe you didn't hear about it. In order to maximize nutritional value, it's now forbidden to -"

  "I don't care," I reply, putting a forkful of paste in my mouth and swallowing. "This far out from the nearest home-base, I'm sure as hell not gonna let a bunch of bureaucrats tell me how to eat. It's bad enough that we have to put up with this garbage, but at least when it's all mixed together it tastes better." I eat another forkful, but it's clear that Crizz is surprised that I'm not following the regulations. "What's wrong?" I ask.

  "You shouldn't be doing that," she replies.

  "And you follow every rule, do you?" I ask.

  "Rules are rules," she points out.

  "Yeah, but -"

  "Rules are rules," she says again.

  "Doesn't mean you have to follow them all," I reply with a sigh. "Come on, live a little. I swear to God, some rules are just put in place so some bean-counter at Supreme Command can meet his daily quota for bullshit."

  She pauses.

  "Here," I say, reaching over to mash her portions together.

  "No!" she replies, pushing my fork away with a hint of panic in her voice. From the way she reacted, it's clear that she has a deep-rooted fear of being caught breaking even the most mundane rules. As she glances around the room, it's clear that she's checking for cameras, as if she genuinely believes that our every move is being live-streamed back to home-base. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

  "What exactly do you think is going to happen?" I ask. "Do you think they're going to send a correctional officer out here to tell you off for breaking minor orders?"

  "I'd just rather do things properly," she replies, eating a forkful of her starch powder.

  I stare at her for a moment, barely able to believe what I'm seeing. She's so painfully timid and so wholly attached to rules and regulations, I'm honestly shocked that the change is so absolute. Then again, I should have been prepared; the process has been refined over the years, and her true identity has been pushed so deep, it'll be a miracle if it ever surfaces again. Assuming it still exists, of course.

  "You're staring at me," she says after a moment.

  "I'm just wondering what you were like before the academy," I reply.

  She shrugs.

  "You don't care," I continue, "or you don't remember?"

  "It's irrelevant," she replies, with a hint of hesitation in her voice. "The whole point of the academy is to change us. When we go there, we're weak and incapable of being useful to the cause. The last thing anyone wants is for cadets to come out at the other end with some kind of nostalgic yearning for the way they used to be -"

  "But you still remember your earlier life, don't you?" I ask, interrupting her. "You remember your childhood?"

  She nods, before eating another forkful of food, but it's clear that she's bluffing.

  "It'll come," I mutter, realizing that I shouldn't push her too far.

  "I remember my parents," she says firmly.

  "Good for you," I reply. "I wish I could forget mine." I pause for a moment as I try to work out how far to push her. "I think I saw your parents' names on your file," I continue cautiously. "Thomas and Elizabeth, right?"

  She shakes her head. "Michael and Fiona."

  "Huh," I say with a faint smile. The crazy thing is, she's wrong, although I guess the suppression program was used to create false memories going as far back as childhood. "My mistake."

  "The purpose of the academy is to prepare us for a useful life," she continues, pretty much reciting the text from the academy's welcoming ceremony. "There's only so much that our parents can teach us. Without the academy, we'd be aimless and useless. We'd go through life with no idea of where we fit in, and we wouldn't know our own strengths and weaknesses, and we'd never be able to learn the skills that enable us to push ourselves."

  "And you wouldn't know how to organize your food," I point out with a faint smile.

  "You find it funny," she replies, "but there's science behind it."

  "So are you going to send a message back to home-base?" I ask. "Are you going to warn them that Nick Sutter, commanding officer of the Io-5 station, dares to break a rule he didn't even know about, and has the temerity to eat his food in the way that makes it tastes best? 'Cause that's really something they should know about. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if they mobilize an entire fleet of military vessels to come and surround this station and take me away for trial and execution."

  She pauses.

  "Well?" I continue. "Doesn't that sound like an appropriate response to my transgression?"

  "You're being obtuse," she replies.

  "And proudly so," I reply. "I'm just trying to make a point."

  "If you break the rules in one area," she continues, "you're more like to break them in another. It's a sign of weak discipline."

  "Says who?"

  "Says everyone at the academy!"

  Smiling, I scoop more of the paste into my mouth, and this time I make a point of chewing it for an extra long time before swallowing, just to prove my point.

  "It's none of my business how you eat your food," she says firmly, "just as it's none of yours how I eat mine. We're here together and we should learn to get along. There's no point picking arguments about things that don't matter."

  "Did you learn that kind of approach in some kind of conflict resolution class?" I ask.

  "It's for the good of the atmosphere."

  "I'm sure you're right," I reply, finishing my food and then licking the plate. I can tell that this, too, is technically against regulations, but I quite enjoy giving Crizz gentle nudges. It's so strange to hear her voice talking about the importance of rules and regulations, when she used to be such a rebel. I hope that she starts to remember her old identity soon, but in the meantime, it's quite amusing to listen to her.

  "So we'll start working first thing in the morning," she says as she eats the last forkful of her meal. "I don't want any special treatment, okay? At the academy, they said new arrivals are often given minor jobs on their first day, but I want to be thrown in at the deep end."

  "Absolutely," I reply, stifling a faint smile. "I don't think that'll be a problem at all."

  Chapter Eight

  Crizz

  "I'm going to get some sleep," I say, leaning through the door that leads into the control room. "I've set the alarm for zero hour, so I'll be up and ready to start working."

  "That's great," Sutter replies, but he seems focused on one of the diagnostic panels. "Sweet dreams."

  "You too," I say, before pausing for a moment. He seems preoccupied, as if something on the monitor is worrying him. "Is something wrong?" I ask eventually.

  No reply.

  "Sutter?"

  He turns to me, and it's clear that he didn't hear my earlier question.

  "Is something wrong?" I ask again. "You just seem kind of... troubled."

  "No," he says, but he still doesn't look up. "I'm fine. Don't worry." He swipes to another screen on the panel, and it's clear that some kind of error message is flashing up. I know enough about the system scanners on these old class-C stations to recognize a failure warning.

  "What is it?" I ask, heading over to him.

  "I'm sure it's nothing," he replies, pointing at a flashing orange dot on the screen, "but there's a minor
surge being reported in the surface feed pipe at mining position 21b. I've been noticing a few odd readings there for a while now, and I was going to check it out on the next pass. About an hour ago, the surge became much more pronounced, so I guess there can't be any more doubt."

  "How dangerous is it?" I ask.

  He brings up a scan of the entire 21b mining outpost. It's a fairly standard schematic, showing the point at which the surface feed pipe enters a subterranean passageway that leads, I assume, down to a deposit. The planet is littered with these types of outposts, and together they make up a vast global grid that gathers methane-hydrozone and transports it to a central storage facility. It's a complex mining operation, but it's one that should work well after the initial installation. Failures outside of servicing windows are extremely rare.

  "I don't see any problems," I tell him.

  "Neither do I," he replies, "and that's what bothers me. If we could see an obvious fault, at least we'd know what's wrong. Right now, everything looks like it should be fine, but there's still a surge." He turns the image around and zooms in on the trunk unit. "At first," he says after a moment, "I managed to persuade myself that it was just a phantom reading. A flare in the system, you know? But it has to be something more substantial. Surface conditions haven't been too bad lately, but it's always possible that some dust has managed to get into the unit, or maybe one of the parts had a fault."

  "So what do we do?" I ask.

  "What do you think we should do?" he replies, turning to me. "Come on, let's see how well you know standard operating procedures. In a situation like this, what's the normal response?"

  I pause for a moment as I try to remember the correct answer.

  "If it helps," he continues with a condescending smile, "try to close your eyes and pretend you're in an exam hall."

  "Someone should go down there," I reply, fairly confident that I've got the right answer.

  "Aye," he says. "Someone should go down there. Let me guess. You graduated top of your class, didn't you?"

  "Second," I reply.

  "Ouch. Burns, does it?"

  "I don't see that this is relevant."

  "One of us needs to take the lander," he continues with a self-satisfied smile, "and head down to the surface for a visual inspection. It shouldn't be a big job, just a long-winded one that'll bore the pants of whichever one of us draws the short straw. I've been down there hundreds of times over the years, but..." He smiles, and for a moment he seems to be watching me closely, as if he's looking for a specific reaction. "You said you wanted to get thrown in at the deep end," he adds finally. "Now's your chance."

  "Absolutely," I reply. "I'm fully equipped to man the station while you -"

  "That's not what I mean," he continues, interrupting me. "I know full well that I could head down and leave you in control up here, but that wouldn't really by the deep end, would it?"

  "Then what -" I pause as I realize what he's suggesting.

  "You up for it?" he asks.

  "Me?" I reply. "You want me to go down there?"

  "You're fully trained," he continues. "Ever since you got here, you've been going on about how you want to get to work, haven't you? Well, I'm offering you a great opportunity to get your beak wet. You've done simulations, so I figure you're as ready as you'll ever be."

  "Yes, but -"

  "And you know how to pilot a lander. Hell, the damn thing runs on autopilot anyway, so all you have to do is sit there while it descends. We'll program it to land right next to the site, and then out you go to take a look."

  I stare at him, and although I want to turn down the opportunity, I can't help feeling that this is some kind of a test.

  "Have you ever practiced a manual landing?" he asks after a moment.

  "Not really," I reply. "At the academy, they always told us that the equipment could never fail. They told us it was important to have absolute faith in every tool at our disposal, so we were taught that practicing what to do in the event of a failure was a waste of resources."

  "They must be pretty confident," he replies. "I have to say, I'm a little more cautious by nature, but at the same time, I've never experienced a failure myself. You'll be fine. All you have to do is strap yourself in and enjoy the ride."

  I take a deep breath, trying to think of a valid reason why I should stay on the station instead. It's not that I'm scared of going down; I just wanted to build up to that kind of step, and the thought of jumping straight into a suit is somewhat daunting.

  "Of course," he continues, "if you're scared -"

  "I'm not scared," I say defensively. "I just... Wouldn't it be better if you went down? You're more experienced with these things, so you'd have a better chance of locating the fault."

  "I'm very experienced," he replies, "but I need you to get some experience too. I'm not interested in being your boss, Crizz. I need a colleague, not a subordinate. I'll be right on the other end of the comm-line, guiding you through everything. You'll have cameras streaming the situation back to me the whole time, and half the processes are automated, so it's not like you'll have to roll your sleeves up and get dirty."

  I take a deep breath. Although I can't deny that there's a sense of panic in my gut, I'm also well aware that I can't really say no to the opportunity. I always knew I'd have to go down to the surface of the planet eventually, but I'd hoped to build up to such a huge job. Unfortunately, since I arrived, I've consistently told Sutter that I want to get stuck into the work at hand, and now my words are coming back to cause problems.

  "Don't worry," he says eventually, patting my shoulder. "I'll do it. You can go next time -"

  "No," I reply, realizing that I can't afford to show any weakness. "I'll go."

  "Are you sure?" he asks. "If you're scared -"

  "I'll go and suit up," I tell him, hoping that there's no fear visible in my eyes. The truth is, I'm definitely worried about the prospect of going down to the surface, but at the same time I know that I can't delay the inevitable. Maintenance trips down to the mining equipment are an integral part of life out here, and I need to show Sutter that I'm up to the job. "There's no time like the present," I add, trying to sound enthusiastic. "I'll grab a suit."

  "Get some sleep first," he replies. "It's not an urgent problem, and I need you to be fully alert. Get up at zero hour and I'll have the lander all ready and programed."

  "Are you sure I shouldn't go now?" I ask.

  "You haven't slept since you got here," he points out.

  "I was in suspended animation for four months until earlier today," I reply.

  "That's not the same as sleep. Get some proper sleep, with dreams, and then you can go down to the surface tomorrow and check out the surface feed pipe in person. It's not a dangerous job, but it's still not something you want to be doing when you're barely able to keep your eyes open. I want you rested and prepared."

  Realizing that he's right, I decide that the best option would just be to head to my bunk. I'm not sure I'll get much sleep, but I should at least try.

  "Thank you for this opportunity," I say after a moment, hoping to salvage the situation and make him think that I'm keen to go down in the lander. "I won't let you down."

  "I know you won't," he replies. "Don't worry, Crizz. I have absolute faith in you."

  Chapter Nine

  Sutter

  I should be sleeping, but I'm far too buzzed to even close my eyes. I've been waiting so long for this moment, and now I have to be absolutely certain that nothing goes wrong.

  Or, rather, that the right things go wrong.

  The lander we use for traveling down to the surface of Io-5 is one of the old-fashioned ones that were supposed to have been phased out over the past decade. Still, despite its shortcomings, it's a dependable machine and its reliability record is second-to-none. As I make my way into the cramped survival cell and switch on the flight computer, I can't help but smile at the thought of Crizz making her first planet-side journey tomorrow. She clearly does
n't want to go, and I don't blame her, but at the same time I need to start pushing her.

  We don't exactly have all the time in the world.

  It only takes a few minutes to program the computer. Mining position 21b will come into optimum landing range in the early hours, which makes things much easier; it's also the reason why I chose position 21b as the site of the supposed failure. I double-check both the entry and exit routes, and finally I set the computer to sleep mode and climb back out of the lander. Theoretically, everything's set for Crizz to head down to the surface tomorrow and my job should now be done, but there's one last thing I need to do.

  Heading around to the side of the craft, I open the engine panel and then take out a small black device from my pocket. It only takes a moment to fit the device to the input regulator, and once the panel is closed again, everything looks normal. Still, that device happens to be an unregulated communication scrambler that I'm going to use to create a fork in the comm-link tomorrow. It wasn't easy to acquire such a device, and there are severe penalties in place for anyone caught tampering with the workings of a lander. If the higher-ups had any idea what I'm doing, they'd haul me back to the home-base for a court-martial, and then I'd either disappear or face summary execution.

  Fortunately, there's no way they'll ever find out. Reaching into my pocket, I take out a small plastic container and open the lid, before tipping the thin metal thread into the palm of my hand. I can't help but smile as I think back to the moment when this was inserted into her body. I remember her insisting that it was a waste, that there was no way it'd work. She was wrong, though. We've been planning this moment for years, and now - unbelievably - everything's starting to come together.

  Chapter Ten

  Crizz

  "The back-up system is activated by -"