‘Tilapia,’ Hunter murmurs. And then, just as I’m trying the word out in my mouth, thinking it flows like their trailing fins: ‘They’re a great source of protein, and it helps that they reproduce. Also, back when the trip out used to be longer, the crew found it really soothing to look at them.’
‘Even though they were going to eat them?’
‘Humans are complicated. It was my aunt who brought the first fish to Mars, you know.’
How excellent for your aunt, Hunter Graves. My aunt worked in one of your family’s factories, making personal transport vehicles she couldn’t afford to drive.
It’s on the far side of the bridge that I see what I was really looking for – a rack of half a dozen EVA pressure suits hanging on pegs. The suits need to be tight enough to stop your body exploding all over the place in the lower pressure outside the habs. (I kid, I kid. You wouldn’t explode. You’d just bleed from your eyes and then die, relax.) The one I tried to cram Hunter into is just too small, though.
I go for the largest one, holding it up against him. Thank you, Finn Crowhurst, for leaving your suit behind.
‘You want me to put it on now?’ Hunter asks, grimacing. ‘It’s like running around in a wetsuit.’
‘You’recomplainingabout a piece of lifesaving equipment?’ There’s more edge than I intended in my voice – though seriously, is he? I make a mental note that next time I think he’shot, all I need to do is get him to open his mouth and speak. ‘You don’t think there’s an outside chance we might need these?’
With a put-upon sigh, he starts peeling out of his too-small suit, and great, now I have Hunter Graves, billionaire and most eligible guy in the galaxy, back in his underwear. Again.
I turn around and study a frame where the locals are growing cherry tomatoes, picking one and popping it into my mouth. I press my teeth against it for a moment, feeling the pressure, and then it breaks open, and I nearly moan. I haven’t tasted a tomato inyears. Forget the boy in his underwear. I’ll take food every time.
‘Uh, you okay there?’ Hunter asks from behind me, and I swallow my mouthful and clear my throat. Maybe I actually did moan.
‘I’m fine. You can just tie your suit around your waist, I think we should be safe here for a minute. Whatever they’re after, it’s probably not in a flower bed.’
‘I didn’t like the way that guy in the hallway was talking about structural damage,’ he says, and I hear my own stress in his voice.
‘Me neither.’ I close my eyes for a moment, desperately wishing I weren’t going to say what I’m about to say. ‘And I don’t want to be a downer, but …’
‘Yeah. I don’t have a long list of reasons why he’d have been talking about blasting anything.’
‘Right? In fact, I have deeply worrying ideas about why that was coming up in conversation.’
He speaks quietly. ‘I think we have to ask whether they’re going to destroy the place on their way out. Or at least damage it very badly. It’s the easiest way to hide that they were ever here, once they’ve got whatever they came for. Blow up all the systems and expose everything to vacuum. Who’d even be looking for evidence, when it seems obvious what went wrong?’
I nod slowly. I know people like this, and it’s what any of them would do.
‘Yeah.’ I swallow hard. ‘And if we’re going to figure out what their plan is – let alone how to survive it – then we can’t just hunker down and hide and wait for them to leave. We need to chase information. And fast.’
9.
HUNTER
6 HOURS, 57 MINUTES REMAINING
WHAT ‘CHASING INFORMATION’ LOOKSlike in reality is hunting through the nearby workstations for one whose login I can figure out.
I should have asked Cleo for hers before she disappeared – she’s gone to scout the recycling center, where they handle water reclamation and things like that, to get the lay of the land around our new greenhouse base. She’s holding it together pretty well, all things considered.
So I sit here and poke at the system, muttering to myself. The commander’s station on the bridge was easy – she left it without logging out. But it’s been a while now and everyone’s connection here has idled, which means I need a password.
Tragically, nobody has usedpassword, which is great news for the local IT techs and a pain in the ass for me.
I decide to try my luck with the bank of monitors near a wall of tomato plants and passionfruit vines – I’ve got a good feeling about the gardening crew. I’m betting on them being less precise than the engineers.
It’s Susanna Hirano who comes through for me. Her whole station is decorated with pictures of daisies, she has a paperweight with a preserved daisy inside it that must have taken up an insane amount of her personal luggage allowance, and her password is –come on, Susanna, we know better than this– ‘Daisy123!’
I sigh out loud when the cuff shows me her password file, but I waste no time assuming Susanna’s identity and getting elbows-deep in the code.
It takes less than a minute to see that I’m not the only one exploring Pax’s operating systems. Our new friends are getting their hands dirty too.
