‘Yes?’
‘People have been reporting some slightly weird occurrences these last few days.’
‘Weird?’ parroted Halman, his brow furrowing. ‘Weird like what?’
The noise was increasing in volume now and Sarissa had to raise her voice to a bellow in order to be heard. ‘Things have been going missing. You know — safety equipment, mainly.’
‘That is a bit weird,’ agreed Halman. Why would anyone take safety equipment? ‘Maybe people are misplacing stuff.’
Sarissa shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she yelled. ‘Stewart was burned yesterday because he didn’t have the gloves he should have had — couldn’t find them.’
‘Pull someone off duty and get them to go through the whole place,’ Halman shouted. ‘Actually, two people. We can’t be having accidents because of shit missing. That’s just insane. Farsight’ll scrag me if someone dies.’
‘And. . .’ she started uncertainly. She looked up at Halman, seemed to steel herself and began again. ‘And. . . some people are saying the place is haunted. I know it’s ludicrous, but there you are. One of the guys was almost hit by a falling block yesterday, down at the far end near the crucibles. When we got up there, there was a shackle-pin missing.’ She puffed her cheeks out and shrugged, visibly lost for an explanation. ‘Those things don’t just come out on their own — they can’t. At least in theory. Nobody wants to go down there now. I pretty much have to force them, and even then they’ll only go in pairs.’
‘That is very odd,’ agreed Halman, genuinely puzzled. ‘But I expect it’s nothing. Even so, check the whole place out. Even if you have to stop production entirely for a day.’
‘I don’t know about that. . .’ she replied, looking away into the clanking, living depths of the refinery. ‘I’m sure it is just nothing. I mean, I wasn’t going to even mention it. I filled in an incident report, of course, but. . . The shackle pin is weird — it shouldn’t be possible — but I’m sure there’s a good explanation for it. And I’m also sure that it is just a one-off. Pretty sure,’ she finished unconvincingly.
‘Even so, I want this place checked over. That’s an order. Full safety survey. This talk of haunting is just the sort of bullshit we don’t need. I can’t have people scared to work, and I can’t have somebody killed if we could have prevented it.’ He stooped low, catching her eye. ‘Okay?’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Okay.’ And then she scurried away between billowing shadows and swinging cranes, quickly lost from sight.
Halman stood for a moment, sweating, his ears ringing. ‘Haunted!’ he said aloud. ‘Bullshit!’ And then he turned and wandered back the way that he had come.
Chapter Six
Lina found Marco lying asleep on the sofa in the living room with a piece of half-eaten toast balanced on a plate on his chest. He had been watching the holo, which was still showing the final scenes of a Farsight film about the Corp Wars called The Bitter Frontier. It was a favourite of his, and one that she disapproved of. The holo was the only light source in the room, and shadows lurched across the walls in time to its hectic strobing. The fridge-freezer, which was slowly dying, could be heard even over the crashing sounds of interstellar warfare.
Lina sighed and cautiously approached the prone form of her son. Her suspicions were confirmed — he was sleeping.
She smiled to herself, wanting to reach out and touch him, maybe brush his tangled blond hair away from his eyes. That hair — an unruly shock that resisted all attempts at styling — was the perfect image of her own. She contented herself by simply standing and regarding his expressionless, slumbering face for a moment. He was a good boy, and a wave of simple love — an ache, almost — washed over her. How he could have turned out so well with a mother who was always at work and a father in Platini system, she couldn’t imagine. But there it was — somehow it had happened anyway.
Suddenly, he started, some deep part of his brain alerting him to her presence, and sat up. The plate slid slowly off his chest and clattered onto the floor. The toast, of course, fell butter-side-down. Lina vaguely remembered hearing some scientific explanation as to why that usually happened — something to do with aerodynamics, she thought. Never mind.
‘Mum,’ he said, sleep-slurred, blinking up at her.
‘Hi, kiddo,’ she answered, gently forcing herself onto the sofa beside him. His face was endearingly confused. He craned to see the fallen toast, then relaxed against her.
‘I was watching the holo,’ he said unnecessarily.
‘You know I don’t like you watching that Farsight propaganda film,’ she said, putting an arm round his shoulders.
‘No, Mum, I know.’ He sounded like he was coming more fully to his senses now. ‘I just like it. I know nobody really won the Corp Wars. Farsight was no better than anyone else, right?’
Lina nodded, looking into his face. That face was still a little cute around the edges, but soon it would be a handsome face, she reckoned. The flickering red and green that pulsed from the holo in alternating waves cast him in a surreal light, making him look like some sort of alien visitor from a more perfect universe. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘But now, they’re better than they were, and the Corp Wars were a long time ago. The company provide us a living, right? But I still don’t like you watching that film, on principle.’
‘Okay,’ he agreed. He paused for a moment, then changed the subject: ‘I’m hungry, Mum. I didn’t eat my toast.’
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I reckon the floor ate your toast. Holo — change, random.’ The holo obediently flicked to a scientific documentary about Predecessor ruins. There wasn’t really that much to say on the subject, in Lina’s opinion. Everyone knew they hadn’t actually left anything behind. Except, of course, for the hard core of idiots who insisted that the drug fader had come from DSH-3. ‘I’ll fix you some proper dinner.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ He snuggled against her appreciatively.
‘No worries. I’ll see what we’ve got.’ Reluctantly (in truth, she was tired enough to fall asleep next to him) Lina forced herself to stand up and go into the kitchen.
‘Maybe we could have those burgers?’ Marco called from the other room.
Lina rearranged the jumble of brooms, pipe-offcuts and shoes around herself so that she could actually access the fridge-freezer. She managed to get into such a position that she could open the door and extract the burgers — real meat burgers saved from the last shuttle — and some salad grown in the aeroponics room. ‘Yeah,’ she called back. ‘Burgers it is.’
She managed to wriggle her way free from the clutches of a broken vacuum cleaner that she had never quite managed to fix, snagging a half-loaf of bread as she went. She picked her way to the stove and began to cook dinner.
‘Mum?’ said Marco from the kitchen doorway, making her jump a little.
‘Yes?’ she answered, turning to face him, spatula in one hand, flight suit speckled with cooking-oil spots.
‘I heard at school that the air scrubbers were wearing out, and that if they fail then we’ll all die.’ Although the tone was nonchalant, Lina couldn’t fail to detect the note of worry hidden underneath.
She smiled reassuringly, uncertain of who she was really trying to reassure. ‘You know Sudowski’s guys won’t let that happen, honey. The station’s always been like this, since long before you were here. Before Nik Sudowski, it was his uncle. And the maintenance teams have always kept this place together. Always. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ he replied, nodding. He sounded a little unsure, although he looked happier.