In the Shadow of Deimos by Jane Killick

Author:Jane Killick [Killick, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, space exploration, space opera
ISBN: 9781839080876
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2021-08-03T09:46:56+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

The whole of ThorGate’s operations on Mars were in turmoil after the shutdown of the Noctis site. The corporation still had a lot of projects running, but the atmosphere in Thor Town was tense. Luka tried to distance himself from the fear, speculation and anxiety and spent much of his evenings going through Gianni’s diary. He repeatedly watched the videos to understand how he had become the frightened and suspicious man who Luka had seen in his last diary entry.

Watching him talk about Anita across the six months of their relationship was like watching a movie in which the slow decline of a man is compressed into a few hours. At the beginning, the love he had for her was real and deep and the joy of the early entries seemed to spill out of the window. What started as a crush and a tentative first date became more intimate and intense. Then, as time moved on, Gianni got more and more frustrated. He kept talking about something bothering her, about Anita refusing to talk to him about it and how it was souring their relationship.

There was one entry which seemed to be key. It was from a week before Gianni died and was recorded late at night. As Luka watched it again, he not only listened to the words, he paid attention to Gianni’s body language. He came across as nervous and distracted, speaking to the camera in an urgent whisper, often averting his eyes from its probing lens, as he recounted the events of that evening and tried to make sense of them.

“I was looking for Anita,” he said. “I wasn’t stalking her or spying on her. I actually wanted to spend the evening with her. I’d just received a small bottle of Barbera del Monferraato Superiore which my parents had sent in the recent shipment from Earth – I can’t imagine how much it cost them – and I could think of no one that I would rather share it with than Anita.

“I wanted to surprise her,” Gianni continued. “But she wasn’t at her apartment. I went to her office, but it was all locked up. That’s when I realized she hadn’t picked up my messages. I called her again, but there was no response and her WristTab was out of range. That meant she wasn’t in Thor Town and that’s when I got worried. If she hadn’t been so secretive over these past few weeks, I might have assumed she had business at Tharsis City and forgot to tell me. So, I checked the computer systems.”

Gianni shot a guilty look at the camera. “I suppose you could call it an abuse of power, but I’m in charge of the systems, so I can cover my tracks. Which is more than Anita had done. Records showed the last known location of her WristTab in Thor Town was at the rover depot. She had taken out a rover and, according to the time noted on the log, it was already getting dark out on the surface when she did so.

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