Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

“Why don’t you make some tea?” Tina said to Rex.

She, Finn and Thor sat down at the table in the main cabin. It was time to talk business. “How much do we owe you?” Tina asked.

“I normally charge two hundred—”

Tina stifled a gasp. “I have things I can trade. Just not a lot of money.”

“I’d be happy with a favour.”

“It depends on what it is.”

“I want you to take my son to a safe place when you leave the station.”

“No, Dad, you’re coming, too.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ve told you several times it’s not worth it. She’s dead.”

Thor shook his head. “I won’t leave until I know. This place isn’t safe for you. I want you to go.”

“It’s not safe for you either! I want you to come.”

A heavy silence hung in the cabin. Jens looked in anguish at his father. His father’s expression remained blank.

“The boy’s mother left a long time ago,” Thor said by way of explanation. “Leaving me alone to look after him. Alone and blind.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “I found a new friend. A very good lady friend. When the pirates came to the station, she was at work. She works in the hospital.” He paused. “A real good lady. She didn’t come home that day, or the day after, or the day after that. I asked the hospital but no one was taking my calls. Nobody has seen her since. The hospital is on the other side of the wall, so we can’t go there.”

“Wall?”

“They closed off parts of the station where no one can go. There are sections of public space, like the farms and the schools, where no one has been for a long time. No one who was in that area has come back or has been heard from since the walls went up.”

“How many people are we talking about?”

“This list of people officially missing has eighty thousand names, but it’s likely that some got off the station and no one knows where they are, and other names are not on the list but they should be, because entire families have gone missing and there is no one left to report them.”

“Does anyone know why that area in the station was closed?”

“No one does. No one can go there.”

Tina glanced at Rex. What about that tea?

He went into the hallway, taking Jens with him, to get extra cups from storage. They spoke in low voices.

Thor detailed how he had looked for his lady friend and had then met up with other people who were also missing family members or friends.

At that moment, there was a shout—Jens?

Rex called out, “No, not that door!”

But it was too late.

Two geese ran into the cabin, squawking loudly. Another flew low over their heads, almost hit the table, and landed in a heap on one of the passenger seats. The goose scrambled to its feet and walked away, indignantly waggling its tail.

The other two stood at Finn’s feet, eying him up. Finn had pressed himself as far back in his seat as he could. He was this close to jumping up onto the seat, so the geese couldn’t reach his trouser legs.

“Who opened that door?” Tina said.

“Jens did by accident. We’ll catch them.”

Rex managed to catch two geese with great agility. They could bite his hands as much as they wanted, but that didn’t affect Rex at all.

The third one, though, remained elusive. Every time Rex came close, it took flight. Tina looked on in despair, and half-ducked when it came over, as the goose was a big bird and didn’t have much room to fly. But look at all that fluff coming down in the cabin! They had just spent a long time cleaning all the dust from disuse. They didn’t need any more dust.

Rex chased after it. “Stop, stop. Come here, you stupid bird.”

“Better not let Rasa hear that,” Tina said.

Eventually, the goose settled on top of a support beam that ran through the cabin, in between the outlet of the air vent and the duct that held the electronics. It sat there out of reach, looking down with a beady eye.

“What do we do now?” Rex asked.

“It will come down when it gets hungry,” Tina said.

She wasn’t so sure of that, because Rasa was the one who knew most about how to handle the geese but she would return later.

A sense of calm returned to the cabin.

Thor chuckled. “I was going to say something, but I completely forgot what we were talking about.”

“You were talking about the pirate occupation,” Tina said. “How they closed off half the station. Do you know what goes on there?”

His expression went dark. “Officially, we don’t. They even fail to acknowledge that the section is closed.”

“What’s the station director’s standpoint on this?” Tina asked. She glanced at Finn. “Surely she knows and she must have some communication with the pirates.”

“She’s useless. You can lodge a complaint to her, and she says she’ll look into your question, but she never does.”

“Would she have signed agreements with the occupiers to keep quiet in return for being left alone? Do you think she even knows what goes on in the rest of the station?”

“Of course she does. It’s not terribly hard to make a pretty good guess. Show them, son.”

Jens pulled out his diagnostics screen, and with a few taps of his fingers, brought a graphic to it which displayed the shape of the station. With another touch on the screen, the station became divided into red and green sections. Tina thought she recognised the entry to the docks at the very edge of the green section.

“All that red area is off-limits?”

“You got it.”

“So how does this show what goes on there?”

Thor said, “Humans need heat, right? And humans produce heat. We can measure heat. One of the first things you learn in space rescue and space warfare: if it doesn’t produce heat, it’s dead and not worth your energy.”

Tina nodded. She had heard that crude observation.

“Well, look