Vessel Read online

  We have been able to track down former NASA astronaut Robert Gardner, it read, who was unfairly dismissed from NASA in a massive alien cover-up that would have shocked the world. 'It was like there was something in my mind, calling me,' he told us. 'It made me think and feel like I've never done before.' Such was his trauma that he couldn't answer any more of our questions, and he now denies ever meeting with us at all.

  The article went on and was uncredited. Aleks clicked some of the links on the page, but they were all dead.

  'I feel like I'm missing something obvious here,' Sean said, so Aleks scrolled back to the top of the page and they read it through again. A paragraph caught Sean's eye and he read it aloud, word for word.

  'In 1947, a probe was sent to Earth, where it crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. It is believed that government scientist Dr R. Bales was in charge of the classified research —' he stopped reading, his brain doing a mental loop-the-loop. 'Dr R. Bales — I don't believe it …'

  'I'll run a search on Dr Bales,' Aleks said, fingers flying as he spoke. He hit the return key and a new window of results appeared.

  'Dr Rupert Bales,' Sean read, 'was born on the sixteenth of July, 1917, to Daniel and Molly Bales in Longview, East Texas. After graduating with honours from Stanford, Dr Bales joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics as a molecular research scientist. His pioneering work at the closed Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, aided the development of early rocket propellants. He is considered one of the leading scientists of our time, advancing rocket propulsion technology by several decades with his work. Dr Bales died of unknown causes in 1954. His only son, John Rupert Bales, was born the following year.'

  Sean took a moment to digest the information, which swilled around inside him like tainted bile.

  'It can't be — can it?' he said in a thin voice. 'Did John Bales' father die because of something like — like UV One?'

  As a key turns in a lock, each thought pushed a mental tumbler into place, unlocking the conscious as a whole. Did Bales know his father had died at the hands of an interstellar traveller — if his father had died at the hands of an interstellar traveller — and was this his motivation for sending Gardner up with a payload full of explosives? If it was true, he could imagine the message Bales had given Sally to pass on: See you in hell.

  Taking the mouse from Aleks, he scrolled to the bottom of the entry. In the list of references there was a link to a page on Rupert's molecular research team, and he clicked it. A brief summary paragraph and a list of names came up. He clicked the first name.

  Albert Levard — 1916-1949

  He was only thirty-three when he'd died. Coincidence? Sean navigated back a page and clicked the next name.

  Joseph Collins — 1923-1955

  Sean clicked the next name, a sick feeling rising in his throat at what he knew was coming.

  Charles Freeman — 1913-1960

  And the next:

  Edward Warner — 1905-1955

  All nine of the ten names followed the same pattern, all having died soon after the 1947 Roswell incident. Except the last one: Ruth Shaw. Her entry suggested that she was still alive.

  'I need to see Ruth Shaw,' Sean said.

  'She'd be ninety-three,' Aleks replied. 'Are you sure she's still alive?'

  Sean was thinking exactly the same thing.

  'I hope so.'

  * * *

  'Captain Novitskiy, there's a car here for you.'

  Novitskiy gave the nurse a nod, and she disappeared back around the door. Looking in the mirror, he straightened his tie, brushed down his dress jacket with the back of his hand, took his walking stick and doddered to the exit. Muscle atrophy always made him feel older than he was, and he thumped the floor with his stick in frustration as he walked. At the end of the corridor, a black-suited man waited for him.

  'Good morning, Captain,' he said, holding the door open for him as he approached. 'I hope you're feeling better.'

  The words seemed more of a statement than a question, but Novitskiy responded anyway. 'I'm much better, thank you.'

  The suited man didn't say anything further, and together they walked down and out to the SUV that was waiting for them. Novitskiy climbed into the back. The suited man closed the door behind him and got in himself. They pulled away.

  Out of the hospital, they turned onto the main road. Novitskiy didn't know the area, but he soon saw familiar landmarks and could tell they were heading to the RFSA building. When they arrived, they were ushered straight in, and before he knew it, he found himself outside an office on the second floor.

  'The Major General will see you now,' the suited man told him, just as he was about to sit down.

  'Can I catch my breath please?' Novitskiy said, holding his weight up as best he could with his walking stick. He had a pain in his chest and his legs were shaking.

  'I'm afraid the Major General is a busy man, so you will need to see him now.'

  Begrudgingly, Novitskiy went in. A man, the Major General he assumed, was sat at a desk leafing through a wad of files. The office must have been temporary, because the desk was bare beyond a few folders and the decor was sparse. The Major General looked up, saw Novitskiy, stood, and offered his hand. They shook and sat.

  'I'm sorry to bring you here on such short notice,' Bales said, neatening his files. 'Our situation calls for a quick reaction.'

  'I agree,' Novitskiy began. 'Sally Fisher is still —'

  'We will get to the matter of Fisher shortly,' Bales said, 'but not right now. We must start from the beginning.'

  'Okay, sir …'

  'Captain, I've seen your record, and it is very impressive.'

  'Thank you.'

  'You have surpassed the expectations of your commanding officers, excelled in your training and in my opinion, bettered your immediate superiors.'

  Novitskiy said nothing. He didn't know where the conversation was going, but he didn't like it. He could sense something was up.

  'You’re a man I believe I can trust,' Bales continued, 'and I need to be able to trust you now more than ever. What's at stake is far beyond what you could ever possibly imagine.' He paused to open the first page of the topmost file. 'We know very little about UV One. The little we do know gives me cause for great concern. What can you tell me about it? About your experiences?'

  Novitskiy had spared little thought for his time in the presence of UV One, and back on Earth those experiences seemed distant and muddled. He would have preferred to keep them that way, and even the mention of the vessel caused an immediate surge of panic in his veins. He gripped the arms of his seat, hard.

  'Ahm …' he said, his throat drying, 'it's hard to describe. Sometimes you have your good days, and sometimes your bad. On a bad day it's as though your mind is being stretched to breaking point, being forced to experience thoughts and feelings that far surpass its capabilities. Sometimes that translates as an overwhelming euphoria, other times as horror beyond imagination. As time passes, it gets worse, more intense, harder to fight. I believe it was too much for Major Romanenko. Gardner and Williams, too.'

  Bales wasn't writing anything down. To Novitskiy's surprise, Bales' hardened expression had melted to one that seemed almost concerned. 'Thank you, Captain. That is helpful, if worrying news. And I hear that Gardner has returned with you?'

  'Yes, sir. And Williams.'

  Bales seemed distracted, troubled.

  'Sir, I have to ask,' Novitskiy said, breaking Bales from a distant thought. 'When is Sally Fisher returning?'

  'We're looking into assembling a mission as soon as we can.'

  'I want to be on board.'

  'I'm afraid that's not possible.'

  'But I made a promise —'

  'That's not my problem, Captain. This is my mission, my concern. Not yours.'

  Novitskiy figured out what didn't feel right. It was Bales that didn't feel right.

  'I'm sorry,' Bales said. 'I'm sure you understand.'

  '
Will that be all?'

  'Yes, that will be all.'

  Novitskiy stood and left the room.

  * * *

  'I'm not sure this is a good idea,' Aleks said, touching the almost faded bruises on his face as if the memory of their origin had risen anew.

  'It'll be fine,' Sean said.

  They rumbled through Moscow, Grigory at the wheel, heading for the last place Sean wanted to be right now: the RFSA building.

  'They aren't going to be there, you know,' Aleks said. 'There'll be no interview. It's another set-up.'

  'I know, I know. I'm not stupid.'

  And he did know. He knew that Sally Fisher and Robert Gardner were still on board the ISS. It was simple math. Three guys had come down; two must still be up there. NASA could try and bluff them with whatever fabrications they liked, but he knew in his gut that the conversion of Progress had been intended for one thing and one thing only: the transportation of humans.

  'So what are you going to do?'

  That, he didn’t know. Maybe he could just wing it, turn up and see what was what. That's pretty much how he plied his trade, and it had got him what he wanted in the past — but in the past the US Department of Defence hadn't been trying to shoot him dead.

  'I'll probably go in for a quick recce first, assess the situation.'

  'I'll go with you,' Grigory said.

  Sean was going to refuse, but then he realised that having an ex-special forces bodyguard wasn't that bad an idea. 'Thanks.'

  They pulled up a few streets away and Sean and Grigory got out. Aleks slid over to the driver's side.

  'I'll be waiting for you,' he said. 'Don't be long.'

  Sean and Grigory set off towards the RFSA building, its tall structure just about visible between a couple of industrial units. Sean walked fast and stuck to the shadows, checking back over his shoulder every few seconds to catch the eyes he felt sure were watching him. They turned the corner at the end of the street and the entrance loomed open.

  'Are we going in?' Grigory asked.

  Sean looked around. An emergency escape ladder scaled the building next to them, leading up to the roof. 'Let's climb up there,' he said. 'We'll get a better view past the entry barriers and into the lobby. See if there's anyone waiting for us.'

  They climbed up to the flat roof and shuffled on their bellies to the edge. They watched a delivery vehicle arrive; it checked in at the gate and went though. People milled in the lobby: one was talking to a receptionist, who pointed down a corridor; another mopped up a pool of something spilled; others stood about, chatting.

  'There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary,' Sean said.

  Another man entered the lobby. Although he walked with a limp and was supported by a walking stick, he walked fast. Two suited men followed close behind. They were talking to him, but he was ignoring them. Sean watched as the man left the building, forcing his way past a group that had decided the doorway was a good place to stop and chat, and marched on towards the barriers.

  'Hey,' Sean said. 'I think that's Captain Evgeny Novitskiy. I wonder what he's doing here?'

  He squinted, trying to make out the man's face as he approached. As he reached the barrier, one of the two men following him tried to grab his shoulder. He responded with a quick thwack of his walking stick, sending his aggressor hopping on one leg. He walked around the barrier, nodded to the gatekeeper and continued up the street. The man who had been whacked was helped out by the other, and together they followed after him.

  'That's definitely Novitskiy,' Sean said, scrambling back along the roof and down the ladder. Grigory followed.

  The two suited men caught up with Novitskiy. Having learned from their mistakes, they snatched his stick away and he fell. Between them they took his arms and legs to carry him away.

  'Hey!' Sean yelled, breaking into a run. 'Leave him alone!'

  The two men reached into their jackets, but it was too late. Sean thundered into them, crashing head first into one man's chest as he tripped up the kerb. They all clattered to the ground, including Novitskiy, but one of the men was quick to scramble up again. He kicked Sean in the ribs, winding him. The other man got up and reached into his jacket. Sean flinched just as Grigory's colossal fist piled into the side of the man's head, knocking him out cold. The man still standing turned to Grigory, deflecting a blow and landing one of his own. Wheezing, Sean crawled over to Novitskiy, who was trying to get up. There was a loud crack, and Sean turned to see the second man dropping to the floor with a bloodied nose.

  'Are you okay?' Grigory asked, shaking his hand and wincing.

  'I'm fine,' Sean said, breathing fast. 'What about you, Captain?'

  Novitskiy had backed himself up against the wall.

  'Who the hell are you?' he said, looking terrified.

  Chapter 21

  There was so much to be learned, and Sally was learning it fast. She had successfully completed her black hole analysis, gathering data that to her knowledge had never been seen before, and as each day passed, her time on board was proving to be more and more lucrative. She had only hit one dead end: with UV One, she had discovered nothing.

  There was a battery of equipment with which she could analyse the vessel. She had performed tests, repeated them and varied them, all to no effect. She was running out of ideas, and so for the time being, she stopped experimenting on it altogether. Whatever its secrets were, whatever it wanted to do, she felt it would be done in its own good time. A little disappointed at this anti-climactic conclusion, she focussed her attention on the puzzles for which she at least had a few of the pieces, and relished her time doing so. The annoyance at her failure to understand UV One disappeared fast, as the runner-up prize turned out to be even better than she'd hoped. She was in space, doing research she never thought she'd get to do, so she was the happiest she'd ever been.

  With the station operating in a low energy mode for the three crew before her — compared to the station's usual compliment of six to ten — she had little by way of daily chores to do, but still there were some. As it happened, she didn't resent the time away from her studies: it gave her a valuable opportunity to distract her mind and let her subconscious figure out whatever her conscious was stuck on.

  Today, she had already cleared the air vent filters in each module — that had taken an hour and a half — and she had bundled the week's laundry and food waste into containers and put them in the FGB, where they were stored for collection. Now she was checking the water reclamation tanks to make sure they were working as they should. Novitskiy had shown her how to do it, and it was fairly simple: most of the work only required her to check on self-regulating automated systems.

  There was a clipboard fastened to the wall next to the water reclamation tanks, and she ran through each step, pushing the corresponding button indicated and checking that the LED flashed green. The system confirmed that all was well. With no one else on board there was less humidity and urine to reclaim, but because she was drinking less it seemed to even out and the storage tank remained within the safe limits.

  'Done and done,' she said, affixing the clipboard back to the wall.

  Just one more thing to do today: air mix test. The main tanks and readouts were located in the front portion of the FGB, and she paddled her way from the American half, through the tight, conical PMA One, and into the FGB. It was a different environment in here compared to the quiet, computerised water reclamation tanks. It was noisy, industrial and complicated. Pipes wound in from every direction, valves and gauges sprouting from them like wild mushrooms, hissing and vibrating to the touch. Another checklist was fastened to the wall, and she followed through it. Most things were fine, but the odd valve needed a tweak here and there to bring the gauges back to their centres. One smaller valve was particularly tight, and as she gripped and twisted with all her strength it snapped open, exhaling a jet of gas that made her jump. She tightened it up again, watching as the gauge needle crept back into the safe zone, and br
eathed a sigh of relief.

  The clipboard had been flung out of her hand by the jet of gas and was still spinning off towards the service module. She pushed off to get it. As easy as weightlessness made some activities, for others it was a pain, the casual ability for small items to wander off being one of them. As the clipboard tumbled, it collided with the walls, and soon it came to a stop against a laptop. She breezed over the storage crates in the FGB and entered the service module, and as she reached out for the clipboard, something caught her eye. With a small flutter of apprehension, she looked downwards into the MLM, but saw nothing. Dismissing it as a trick of the light, she grabbed the clipboard, but then she saw the movement again. She hesitated, then entered the MLM, letting her eyes adjust to the dark.

  'Hello?' she called out, her own voice making her skin prickle.

  A flash of shadow from the bulbous end of the MLM made her stop, her heart beating fast in her throat.

  'Hello?' she called again.

  There was no response, so she continued downwards, feeling the horrible closeness of fear wind her senses into overdrive. And then she saw it: completely naked and curled up into a ball, was a man.

  * * *

  It didn't take much persuasion to get Novitskiy into the car. Bales' stooges were coming round, and once that was pointed out to him, he did as they asked. Sean filled him in during the car journey back to Grigory's.

  'That's quite a story,' Novitskiy said. 'If only half right.'

  'What do you mean?' Sean said.

  'You said that me, Romanenko and Williams were back. That's not right. Gardner's back — Romanenko isn't. Neither is Fisher.'

  This revelation made no sense to Sean. He thought about it for a moment, but nothing came of it. There was no reason to leave Romanenko and Sally up there together.

  'Why bring Gardner back? Why not Romanenko?'

  Novitskiy pulled a face. 'I guess you haven't heard, then. Mikhail — he disappeared.'