Contamination by Patty Jansen

Author:Patty Jansen [Jansen, Patty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Capricornica Publications

Chapter Nine

THAT NIGHT AND all through the next day, Jonathan thought of all the questions he should have asked her, but hadn’t.

Could she let someone know about abuse amongst ship crew anonymously? How often did it happen? Did it happen at the Launch Station, too? All the next day, he eyed the various crews of the ships walking the passages of the station and wondered what they got up to in the times that the station’s public places went quiet. And he looked at people walking alone and tried to gauge whether they had ever been victims.

In the rec room at night, he met up with Kerry and Manuela.

David was there, too, but he sat at one of the wall screens racing a Space Corps guy in a game where the players had little space ships. A couple of the guy’s mates stood at his back. One was tall and muscular. His nametag said “Cooper”. The other had a shaven head with tattoos and his tag said “Horvacz”. Both stared intently at the screen over their colleague’s shoulder. Their faces were blue with the glow of the screen.

“Get him,” Cooper yelled.

“Yeah, get the fucker.”

His face scrunched up in deep concentration, David managed to outmanoeuvre the other guy. He laughed. “Ha, I win. So much for active duty, huh?”

Cooper turned to him. “What were you? Steadfast, right?”

This was a large Space Corps supply ship.

David straightened his back. His eyes were penetrating. “I served on Steadfast, Endurance and Resilience.” All three supply ships, although the latter was a long-distance ship.

Horvacz snorted and clapped his mate on the back. “Come on, show the fucker what we think of the cowards in logistics.”

Jonathan sat down on one of the couches against the back wall, feeling uneasy.

Now that Gaby had brought the bullying to his attention, subtle and slightly less subtle hints of unpleasantness were everywhere. He noticed how the groups were divided along the lines of military and non-military. Or older military and new recruits. Or higher-ranked military and lower-ranked troops. Ship crew versus station crew.

The ones who had the best positions in front of the big screen were veteran members of station military staff. The group included Cresswell, who had made fun of Jonathan on the flight.

The movie was some sort of B-grade horror flick. A zombie shambled through a dark alley after a young woman to whom it had obviously not occurred to take off her high-heeled shoes and run.

The crew, men all, cheered every time the zombie came closer.

Manuela dropped into the spot next to him, rolling her eyes. “Pffft, stupid movies!”

Jonathan nodded.

Then she met his eyes. “I meant to ask you earlier, but are you at all related to Paul Bartell?”

“Why is everyone asking? OK, he’s my father. What has that got to do with anything?”

Jonathan had spoken much louder than he intended. A silence fell in the room as everyone looked at him with strange expressions.

“Well . . .” She shrugged. Her cheeks had gone bright red. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

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