Outpost

‘Ml4 thermite grenades. A couple of dozen. Seemed too good to leave behind.’

‘These guys were seriously tooled up.’

‘Reflection seismology. Make a big bang, then listen to the ground-echo on geophones.’

‘I want this shit off the rig, all right? Ghost. Soon as we get back, I want you to take this stuff to the bunker and hide it deep.’

‘Okay.’

‘Our little secret, yeah? Nobody else need know.’

Sian prepared dinner. She boiled two kilos of pasta in a saucepan. Nikki grated cheese.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ said Sian. ‘Alan and Simon. Your friends from the island. How well did you know them?’ ‘We were postgrads from Brighton.’ ‘So are you doing okay? Everyone making you welcome?’ ‘I’ve been keeping to myself.’

Nikki didn’t want to talk. She didn’t care to know anyone on the rig. She didn’t want to hear their life story. She didn’t want to hear their hopes and dreams.

‘We need more sauce. Pass me the storeroom keys.’

Ghost steered the zodiac. The boat rode low in the water, weighed down by equipment. Rawlins sat in the prow.

They dragged the boat ashore, drove stakes into the ground and lashed it down. They shouldered their gear and set off. A rose twilight turned the snow pink as blossom.

It took them twenty minutes to reach the crater. They stood at the lip of the impact site and looked down at the capsule.

‘What do you think it is?’ asked Rawlins.

‘I read somewhere that low-orbit installations are equipped with escape pods. If anything goes wrong the astronauts can eject. Maybe that’s what happened. This thing was meant to land in the Russian Steppes and send out a distress signal but the chutes fucked up.’

They descended to the bottom of the crater. Rawlins erected a dome tent. Ghost ringed the capsule with tripod lamps.

The sun set. They worked in the brilliant white illumination of halogen lights. A tight circle of white brilliance surrounded by endless night.

Ghost tried the radio.

‘Shore team to Rampart.’

Every waveband swamped by alien pops and whistles.

‘We need to shut this thing down. It’s killing every channel.’

Ghost hacked at silica heat tiles with the spike end of a fire axe. The tiles were hexagonal. He chipped away tiles and examined the steel skin beneath.

‘Take a look at this.’

Rawlins joined him by the capsule. Ghost had exposed a red, T-shaped handle. An inscription in Cyrillic:

ОПАСНОСТЬ.

ВЗРЫВАЮЩИЕСЯ БОЛТЫ

A translation beneath:

Danger

Explosive Bolts

‘How do you want to do this?’ asked Rawlins.

‘You take cover. I’ll crank the lever.’

Rawlins sheltered behind the capsule.

Ghost stood to the side of the hatch. He shielded his face, twisted the lever and snatched his hand away quick as he could. The rectangular hatch blew like a champagne cork. It flew twenty feet and landed in the snow.

Ghost shone his flashlight into the capsule. Three seats, one occupant. The body of an astronaut strapped in front of winking instrumentation.

‘You think that’s the transponder?’ asked Rawlins, pointing to a bank of switches.

Ghost held out the radio. A shrill feedback shriek.

‘I’m not going to fuck around,’ said Ghost. ‘We’ll toss a thermite grenade. Fry the whole thing.’

Rawlins hauled himself into the cramped cabin. He held a metal seat frame for support.

The cosmonaut wore a bulky pressure suit. Grey canvas webbing. The gloves, boots and helmet were attached to the suit by heavy lock rings. Russian insignia on his chest and sleeve. The suit was connected to a wall-mounted oxygen supply by a hose.

‘Wait. I want to check him out.’

‘Why?’

‘Aren’t you curious? CCCP. Old Soviet mission badge. Red fist. I’m guessing military. How long has this guy been floating around up there? Decades? You weren’t even born when this guy got launched into space. I want to know who he was. I want to know how he died.’

Rawlins fumbled at the five-point harness. He took off his gloves but couldn’t release the buckle.

‘Pass me your knife.’

He sawed through the straps.

‘Leave him,’ said Ghost. ‘I don’t like it. Doesn’t feel right. The whole thing.’ He took a red, cylindrical grenade from his coat pocket. ‘Call it a cremation.’

‘Hold on. Someone, somewhere, will want to know what happened to this guy.’

Rawlins tried to twist the helmet free. He couldn’t release the lock ring. He gave up. He pushed the lift-tabs at the corner of the visor. The gold face-plate slid back.

A young man’s face. Mirror skin, like he was sculpted from chrome.

Eyelids flicked open. Jet-black eyeballs. A silent snarl. Metal lips, metal teeth.

Rawlins screamed.

Contamination

Punch stood in the kitchen storeroom with a clipboard. Stock check. Jane surveyed the shelves.

‘Kidney beans: six cans. Rhubarb: three cans. Chopped tomatoes: two cases of twelve.’

They contemplated the dwindling supply of cans and cartons.

‘Good job we keep this place locked,’ said Punch. ‘If the guys glimpsed how little food we have left they would panic for sure.’

‘Maybe we should reduce portion size,’ said Jane. ‘Use rice and pasta for bulk.’