Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth H Bonesteel

Author:Elizabeth H Bonesteel [Bonesteel, Elizabeth H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781737390947
Publisher: Elizabeth Bonesteel

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RECIP: National Earth Space Organization, Vostochny

REPORTER: Loineau, Madeleine, Cmdr. NZKO Hypatia

Supplemental

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I wasted a lot of energy working out what I was going to say to Anya. It matters to me a lot that I got her so wrong. I faked politeness talking to Orlova because I had to, but I couldn’t have faked anything in front of Anya.

Which turned out to be moot, because she wasn’t there.

It was Sofia who greeted us, that horrible child who stopped to watch Rolf’s murder on TV like a favorite movie. And Anya wasn’t there when we got inside, so I figured she was avoiding us, and of course I was grateful, Vostochny, what do you think?

We took an interior elevator down to the metals lab, which was a relief; I don’t think I could have managed that quarry path alone. They have a lot of elevators here, in addition to the ramps at the external airlocks. I remember what Anya told me about people who were less mobile, and the focus on autonomy.

So compassionate in some ways, these murderers.

Orlova met us in the lab, smiling that cool smile of hers. “I’m glad you’ve made it safely,” she shouted over the machines, and dismissed Sofia with a nod. “We’ll be able to talk in the monitoring room.” She turned her back to us, assuming we’d follow like she was some fucking queen. “It’s soundproofed.”

We walked through the main chamber, past the automated systems, through the heat and the noise, the thermal radiation from the machinery making the room uncomfortably hot. We passed into a smaller but still spacious room—much cooler, well-lit, filled with tables covered in equipment similar to the archaic hardware in their observatory. The three technicians looked up when Orlova walked in; they nodded to her politely, then returned to work. She’d clearly warned them we were coming, because they ignored us completely.

As soon as she closed the doors I could hear the ventilation systems again, and my own heartbeat. “Now, Captain Loineau,” Orlova began briskly. “What exactly has been going wrong?”

I nodded at Seung—his idea, having me give him explicit permission to speak—and he stepped forward, pulling a shard of flaked insulation out of his pocket. “It’s mostly the filter alloys and the liquid metals,” he explained. “The tensile strength is off. We need a different mix.”

We’d agreed, back on Hypatia, that we’d take the blame for the whole thing, suggesting our specifications were too vague. Since Orlova’s not stupid and she’d know her people fucked up, it’d be down to her to decide how much of the issue to handle in front of a pack of strangers. And for once, Vostochny, we read her right. Orlova took the small chunk of metal and frowned at it, turning it over in her hands, then turned to her technicians.

“Viktor,” she said, “didn’t you program the generator for this part?”

Viktor—half Orlova’s age and twice her height—stood to join us, taking the shard and frowning at it. “I did, Governor. But this isn’t the mix I entered.

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