Anything else was heresy.
Cal might literally be the only person on the entire planet who gave a damn about the truth of what happened out there. No, that wasn’t entirely true: Catherine no doubt cared passionately about the truth of what happened. He just hoped it wasn’t because she wanted to make sure no one else found out.
As he walked to his office, he couldn’t forget the anger on Catherine’s face when he’d confronted her. He was used to people getting pissed at him for his work, but this felt different. She’d looked and acted defensive, yes, but there was something else. Something about it reminded him of the Catherine he saw at her daughter’s party. She’d looked real. As though he were seeing her without her mask, seeing the Catherine he might have been friends with, anger and all.
What if she was telling the truth, and the things she was holding back were only her private fears while she was alone out there? Maybe those secrets were hers to keep, but he had to be sure. She might think his investigation was personal. It wasn’t, not really.
John Duffy caught up with him in the hallway. “Hey, Cal. Listen, we’re only a week out now, and the kids are getting nervous. There’s still no confirmation of what happened to Catherine’s crew?” Duffy asked.
Cal dreaded the question every time it was asked. Every time, he wanted to have a better answer, and every time, he didn’t. “The data analysis isn’t complete yet. It may not be finished before launch day. So far, we’ve found some anomalies with the oxygenator, and it looks as if one of the rovers was wrecked, but that’s all we know for now.”
“Okay; that’s not the most reassuring answer, you know that, right?” Duffy, as always, spoke for his team. “That still makes it sound like there are some mechanical issues that could happen again.” Cal had always tried to resist an “us vs. them” attitude between administration and the astronauts, but conversations like this served as a reminder that—no matter how close he felt to them—he was administration and they were not.
Cal stopped walking and looked Duffy in the eye. “Right now, the engineers are saying that the likelihood of the oxygenator, or any other system in the Habitat, having the same problems at the same time again is practically nonexistent. I believe them, but I also know they’re working to make sure that none of the problems that the Sagittarius I Habitat might have experienced happen on your watch. We’re not going to send you up there with bad equipment, I swear, John.”
Duffy sighed. “I know. I know you won’t. Sorry, Cal. Like I said, the kids are getting nervous. We all hoped we’d find out so much more when Catherine came back.”
“We did, too, but it looks like we’re stuck with what we’ve got. If she’d come back a year sooner, maybe we’d have had time for more analysis, but…”
“Yeah. All right, I’ll let them know.”
Cal thumped him on the bicep. “If I find out anything else, I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”
As Duffy walked away, Cal felt the weight of half-truths and partial information hanging over him. He wished he could tell the crew that he was doing everything in his power to try to find out what was wrong, that he was sure something was wrong, but if they were nervous now, that would only make matters worse.
They had nine years of data to go through from Sagittarius, and the analysis was slow going. It would be years before they had a full picture, so Catherine’s landing a year earlier might not have made a difference. Then again, who knew what they’d know about this mission a year from now? Cal knew better than to ask Aaron about a postponement again. If Aaron thought missing the launch window could be NASA’s death knell, nothing other than absolute proof of an imminent threat would make him take the chance. No, the public—and, more important, the Appropriations Committee—needed to see NASA produce an on-time, glowing success with Sagittarius II.
He tried to shake off the gloom, and by the time he unlocked his office door, he’d almost succeeded. As he’d hoped, some new information was waiting for him in his email. Cal had specifically requested the data from the day of the Event, Mission Day 1137, and two weeks in either direction. Most of the initial analysis had focused, rightfully, on the Habitat, trying to figure out how and why and even if it failed. He settled in behind his desk, propping his feet up as he scrolled through the data on his tablet. He started on Day 1136. Sagittarius was in standby mode—unsurprising, since no one expected to use it. He moved ahead slowly, and also as expected, Sagittarius reactivated on Day 1137. Where else would Catherine have taken shelter?
All the data looked normaclass="underline" energy usage, life-support readings, temperature readings. While it still didn’t tell Cal what had happened to the Habitat, it did suggest that Catherine was the sole survivor and that she retreated to the ship. It was… vaguely disappointing. Cal hadn’t really expected to find a smoking gun, but he’d thought there would be—
Wait a minute.
There. On Day 1139, two days after the Event. Cal traced the data with his finger and did some quick math in his head. The first two days after the Event, Days 1138 and 1139, oxygen usage held steady at about 575 liters per day, pretty much what he’d expect for one human occupant. Then suddenly, three days after the Event, Day 1140, usage spiked to over 1,200 liters. Carbon dioxide output had a comparative spike. Temperature readings shifted unexpectedly.
Then five days after the Event, on Day 1142, life-support readings all dropped back to their initial levels. What had happened for those two days?
“Two people,” Cal said out loud.
It was right there in front of him. For two days after the Event, there had been two people on board Sagittarius.
Cal was in Aaron’s office before he had time to give it a second thought.
“Hey.” Aaron was all smiles. Unlike everyone else, Aaron always seemed exhilarated as a launch got closer. While Cal was juggling a dozen deadlines to keep on top of everything, Aaron always appeared to have the whole thing tied up with a ribbon.
“Aaron, I need to talk to you.”
“Oh hell. You’re gonna fuck up my good day, aren’t you?”
Cal put his tablet on Aaron’s desk.
“Aaron, someone besides Catherine survived the Event.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look. Right here.” He leaned in, pointing at a graph. “For two days after the Event, the life-support readings are all wrong for just one person to have been on board Sagittarius. Oxygen consumption, CO2 output… it’s all wrong.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean there was a second person.”
“Come on, the numbers line up too well. What else could it have been?”
Aaron shook his head. “There could have been a leak, it could have been a glitch…”
“Aaron, if it was a glitch, systems would’ve found it already.”
Aaron looked at the information for a few long, quiet minutes that felt like hours. Cal’s heart pounded in his chest with the hope that maybe, maybe he was getting through to Aaron.
“Cal, sit down.”
That didn’t sound good. Cal pulled over a chair and sat down. Aaron looked at the report once more then closed the folder. “What are you saying? That someone survived and Catherine—what, killed them?”