Contents | Chapter 3| Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
Fractured dreams melted into gloom. As Shay’s waking eyes adjusted, unusual shapes floated out from the strange new darkness. By the dim glow of a resting holo display, Shay began to resolve the inky black textured walls and the jagged angles of the clothes rack. She turned slowly onto her back, muscles tender under her crumpled jumpsuit. Recessed lighting brightened at her waking movements, tentative, almost in sympathy with her. Every sinew in her body complained about the unwelcome intrusion of 0.9G. She pushed through the viscous gravity field towards the bathroom, limbs heavy, aches multiplying. A holo on her desk sprang to life, revealing it was 0424 hours. Venus’ ninety per cent of Earth’s gravity was still nine times what either Mariner Station or The Aurora had offered. At the bathroom door, she stopped, resting one shoulder against the fuzzy soot black wall. It was soft, warm and cushioned. The material had something to do with electrostatic dust recovery. However, she couldn’t remember if this fact was one of a thousand in yesterday’s briefing, pre-trip training or something her father had mentioned. She turned from the toilet and surveyed her small portion of privacy, a room with all the furniture moulded to the walls, like a cheap hotel.
Or a prison cell.
“They don’t like you rearranging furniture here,” Ben joked in one of his first video messages.
Her room was the same size and layout as his but in a mirror image, with her bathroom on the opposite wall. A framework clothes rack occupied space next to the door and held five jumpsuits, all personalised for Shay. The desk was a dull grey, and she recognised that it had been where Ben had sent all of his messages to her. Light-minute delays meant video messages rather than full duplex comms. Her body felt tender and heavy, pummelled by space travel and stiffened by awkward sleeping. Weariness infested her, and basic tasks withdrew more willpower than she had budgeted. She slumped into her desk chair and swiped through the holos, checking where to get breakfast. Beyond the projected words and map was the thin window that held back boiling and roiling mustard clouds. She watched them for a time, not focussing on the holo. Every so often, the silently swirling weather would offer a glimpse of the pure white sky above, reminiscent of home but not the same. The hues and textures were wrong, as was her proximity to such cloud, such violent wind. Yet she felt nothing of the storm outside. No buffeting, no rattling, no sound. Nothing. It may as well have been a screen, some movie holo projected on the wall with the volume turned off. She swiped some more, checking the weather. The storms would pass in several days, and the holo assured her this wasn’t usual.
“A category six storm is uncommon, occurring when sufficient subductive pressure moves the cloud vapour boundary. This is often perpetuated by a re-alignment of the twin polar vortices in the northern hemisphere,” said the holo. She swiped the weather away in favour of her work schedule. Tomorrow was inductions and more orientation. Today, she was free to explore. She prodded the holo more, browsing menus and directories and harvesting data. The lab she would be working in, Selina’s lab, was ten minutes away by transporter on Dome Two. She found the leisure areas, parks, the atrium, Hydroponics, various places to eat, the library and the cinema. There were various clubs, societies and social nights. There were games nights, card schools and even a running club. She wondered about the card school; how could it function in a place with no money?
Not in an entertaining manner, she decided.
Outside, rain drizzled against the acid-proofed glass. A weak sun was high in the sky, diffuse, dull and ineffectual. She stared at the long slit of the window for some time, just watching the clouds sweep and fall against the steep sides of Venera. They swelled like waves and crashed against the silvered outer walls. Venera was like a giant round hull cutting through a slow, toxic ocean. Dark browns swirled like caramel in a custard haze, making Shay think of crème brûlée. Her stomach growled in response, and she checked the holo again to confirm if breakfast was possible this early. It was. She could walk there, six segments around the dome and two levels up.
She washed, changing jumpsuits, leaving the one she had worn since decontamination and induction on her bed. Outside, Shay followed the circumferential corridor. The walls were smooth, carpeted and black, just like in her room. The lighting was dull and muted, going from dusk to dull daylight at her approach and sinking back down again once she passed. This whole section was asleep. The corridors were empty, the structure around her silent, save for her muffled footsteps and the distant hum of machines. Small illuminated signs pointed the way to transporter pods and stairwells. Discrete holo points were dotted around, too, but she chose not to waken them, content to explore herself. She eventually found herself back at the same transporter pods, having gone up a level and completed one lap of Dome Three. The circumferential journey took a quarter of an hour and yielded little of interest. She relented and roused a holo. The wireframe projection cut the dome into twenty-four segments. Each segment comprised one-twelfth of the dome’s circumference, narrowing to three levels at the edges. In the centre, more levels and what looked like open spaces. Ben had hinted that “it’s not all gloomy hallways and brightly lit labs”.
Shay traced her route on the holo and found she had missed a stairwell one segment away. This was easily done in the artificial gloaming. She retraced her steps and found the stairs. A large rectangular window formed one stairwell wall, and she paused by railings to watch the alien sky. It was familiar but not—a synthesis of known elements indulging in foreign behaviours. Turmeric cloud swirled and unwound to ochre hues, moving like a languid storm, somehow serpentine, hypnotic in its threat. The thick window made her feel distant from the weather, almost as if it were a screen or high def-holo. In the distance, the mellow vapours swirled and curled around the spherical edges of other domes, sending golden curlicues twisting up into the meagre sunlight. The sun was a dull bulb swaddled by a thick lampshade.
Six months of this, girl.
The canteen was empty, except for one other person at the far end of the dozen scattered long tables, hunched over a tablet with a coffee. She said a hopeful “good morning” to stony silence. He was too far for her to see his name tag but close enough to feel his ignorance.
Charming.
One wall was all slots with basic buttons built in. She could choose between different foods prepared earlier or fresh machine-made choices such as porridge or cooked eggs. Ben had been in his element here, never one to enjoy the non-consumptive side of the culinary experience. He had waxed lyrical about the food, usually at any natural lull in their time-fractured conversations. Shay studied the fresh options, settling on poached eggs and toast with coffee, wishing she had a tablet or other device to occupy herself with. Instead, she looked out of the large windows to the clouds as they tumbled and twisted. In the distance, a dark shape pierced the rusty haze, right angles slicing the weather.
Was that part of Venera?
The caustic clouds swirled and curled back over it, sealing the wound and the structure vanished, a ghost ship in a storm.
What was that?
“May I sit with you?”
Shay started, turning into the Irish brogue to see a small, roundish man with a nervous, flickering smile. She recognised the name on his tag: AJ Milne.
“Alan, I’m the facility director. I’m pleased to meet you. You’re the first famous person I’ve ever met,” he said, shaking hands with Shay and blocking out her view of the clouds as he sat.
“I’m not the famous one anymore,” said Shay, to Alan’s puzzlement, before he smirked.
“Ah yes, the AI thing, of course. Well, you are still, I suppose. Well, to me, anyway. My apologies. From what I understand, it’s quite a mess, certainly from what your father told me, anyway. Oh, and, eh, my condolences. Ben was a friend.”
She didn’t recall her father ever being this popular before. She had been on Venera less than a day, and she was beginning to suspect that Ben had flourished here in a way that he simply hadn’t back home. There were hints of this in his video messages, but Ben was alacrious at the worst of times, so Shay could never be certain. Alan attacked his small bowl of porridge as Shay studied him. His skin was that of a man in his twenties, but his eyes and hair were somehow transplanted from an impending middle age. She had to fight a smile, remembering now that her father had called him “Benjamin Button”. She didn’t recall Ben speaking of him fondly, however.
“How goes the investigation into what happened to my father?” asked Shay, sipping her coffee and studying the big boss.
He looked up from his porridge, which he was very nearly slurping.
“Investigation,” he said, the spoon loitering before his mouth. His eyes were wide behind his round glasses. “Investigation…Yes, erm, well, early days, but we are pursuing all leads. Errol is seeing to that. As a precaution, we never let anyone leave who was present on Venera when the incident occurred. There were some mixed feelings about that, but we thought it best. Plus, no one is likely to be upset with overtime pay now, are they?” said Milne with a chuckle.
He continued eating his breakfast, seemingly unconcerned. Shay felt that perhaps Alan wasn’t personally involved. Or perhaps he was just another free-floating oddball that Venera’s top-dollar salary and fast-moving research enticed. There was a latitude here that Earth’s labs, bound by terrestrial law, couldn’t or wouldn’t give. This, too, explained the high number of geniuses under one roof. Perhaps this explained the vibe Shay felt, the off-handed awkwardness of the people, the lack of anything normal. Then again, what was normal?
“Would it be possible to review the investigation? I would be interested to know what happened to my father. The initial news was of suicide, and that doesn’t seem credible to me,” said Shay.
She realised too late that there was an accusation in there, but then, there hadn’t been a note or any of the typical accoutrements to a suicide. Alan looked at her, seemingly oblivious to any accusation.
“Errol, our security chief, is looking after the investigation, but of course, I can’t see an issue with you being involved, so long as you let him, you know, do his job,” said Alan, waving a spoonful of porridge for emphasis.
“Would it be possible to see his quarters? His effects?” said Shay.
Milne shook his head.
“It’s out of my jurisdiction to promise that sort of thing. That would be under Errol’s purview, but I don’t think he would mind, provided that you don’t get in the way of anything our security chief is doing to, erm, investigate.”
He finished his porridge, keen not to meet Shay’s gaze, and moved on to his coffee. Alan’s halting delivery differed from his polished speech on The Aurora, which was part of the training videos Shay had to watch en route to Venus. No erm, or you know, spattered across his speech there. Shay finished her breakfast, her stomach more satisfied than her mind.
“Was there anyone on Venera my father didn’t get on with?” said Shay.
Alan shook his head. “No, not that I am aware of. He was well-liked, nice, hard-working, diligent, and kind. He never gave me any hassle,” said Alan.
He sipped his coffee, finally meeting her gaze.
“I was an intelligence architect for AI a long time ago. It’s incredible what it can do now, granted that significant progress towards true general intelligence still eludes us. It’s still exciting if ultimately used to further certain economic ends,” said Alan.
Economics ends that involves pretending to be me.
Alan continued, steering the conversation back to her and her previous life. Ben had warned her that gossip was the only currency accepted on Venera. So she obliged Alan, wondering how innocuous he was, Angela the safety rep’s words not leaving her: “You must tread carefully. I don’t know exactly what was happening, but something was. I am unsure whether Artemis Corp is involved, but something isn’t right on Venera. Remember, the walls have ears; not everyone here is on the level.”
Shay had to practice long and hard not to keep an atom’s breadth between her cards and her chest, so clamming up came naturally. But had she been too direct? Should she have been more circumspect? She hadn’t counted upon seeing Alan in such a setting and realised that her first words were of suspicion and doubt. She thought again of Angela’s warning and then suddenly remembered the paper note she had passed her last night.
“Excuse me, Alan, I need to pop back to my room,” Shay said, standing quickly.
“Of course,” said Alan.
She smiled, took her plates to the disposal area, and left the canteen, retracing her steps to the stairwell, down, and along to her room. 302. The paper was in the breast pocket of her jumpsuit, the one she slept in. Why hadn’t she read it yesterday? Tiredness, confusion…everything. Venera was coming to life, a trickle of people flowing through the previously empty corridors. It was now after 0530 hours, and a mini rush hour was happening, with queues forming at transporter points. Shay returned to her room, pressed her palm to the access panel, entered, and found the jumpsuit.
Did I leave this on the floor?
She checked the pocket and found nothing. She checked all of the pockets and found nothing. She checked the desk, bathroom, under the bed, the sparse wardrobe, and every pocket of each spare jumpsuit. Nothing.
Am I losing my mind? She did give me something, didn’t she?
Shay checked her own pockets. Empty.
Shit.
She moved to her desk, woke the holo, and searched for Angela. She opted to call her, not bothered if she would be up.
She mentioned Silverbaum in Hydroponics and nothing else, right?
The holo displayed “Calling”.
Shay stood nervous, unsure what to say; the safety rep had been so cloak and dagger.
The holo displayed “Ended”.
No answer.
Shay checked the room again, the jumpsuit she had on, even going through the sparse toiletries she had been supplied with.
Nothing.
She returned to the holo on the desk, manically digging through the nested menus, finding Shields, Angela and searching her options: call, message, info and locate.
She stabbed the last one.
And her heart sank.
“Infirmary,” the holo displayed.