Macao Station

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘Halman’s crazy,’ said Fionne, brushing her grease-slicked hair behind her ear. Her hand left another dark smear where it touched her face. She looked round at Patrick, who was an unappealingly dirty and unkempt individual at the best of times, and now looked as if some huge carnivorous machine had chewed him for a bit and then spat him out, possibly finding him too rank-tasting to swallow. Worse still, she could only view his rear aspect from here.

Patrick didn’t move from his position, on his knees with his upper body inserted into an open wall-panel, but he answered with his usual lack of humour: ‘Perhaps he wants to look for the shuttle. Or maybe he wants someone to try for Way Station One. I don’t think you are in any position to criticise his decisions. I’m nearly done here, by the way.’

Fionne sighed and rooted in her tool box, which was balanced on the square metal case of the electronic diagnostics unit. She found the item she was looking for — an insulation applicator — and crawled back into her own grimy workspace. ‘I guess so,’ she said. ‘But it seems like something of a gamble to me. And it’d take years to reach the way station in an in-sys vessel. They only carry enough gas for a short burn.’ She clamped the applicator over the cable she had spliced into the main hangar supply and dialled a setting into it, working mainly by touch in the weak light supplied by her lamp.

‘It’s none of our business, is it,’ said Patrick rhetorically, his voice muffled inside the wall.

Fionne wished she had Alphe to work with instead of this idiot. Or Nik. Well, maybe not Nik. She was still in a state of shock to think that her boss of years — and her friend, too — had been trying to kill them all. It was insane. Unthinkable. But there you were. Life was predictable in its unpredictability, if nothing else. She was just glad to have work to do.

‘It kind of is our business, Patrick,’ she answered, matching his haughty tone, aware that she should just ignore him, but unable to help herself. She needed somebody to talk to — it was just a shame it had to be him. Patrick could be a bully if he was allowed. Of course, Nik had usually kept him in line before. ‘If a half-day of hangar costs us a whole day of air and heat, I’d say that’s our business all right.’

Patrick’s voice was louder behind her now, and she realised he was out of the wall-space. There came a series of metallic clunks and bumps, indicating that he was stowing his tools again. ‘Halman,’ he said, ‘is paid to deal with those sorts of decisions. If you don’t trust him, you should have really done something about it before your life depended on those decisions. Bit late now.’

Fionne paused, a wave of irritation rippling through her. Arrogant, self-righteous bastard! she thought. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was that he had a point. She did trust Halman, and always had. He was a good station controller. Okay, so he wasn’t strictly the brightest spark in the fire, but he was a decent man, and possessed of a certain practical, earthy wisdom. And she had to trust him now, accept her place as just another cog in the machine, a tool that he was using to try to correct their problems in the best way he saw fit. She locked the applicator shut and felt along the cable to examine the integrity of the insulation she had applied. It was impressively smooth and unbroken. ‘I think that’s it,’ she said when she was sure.

‘Good,’ replied Patrick, managing to make the word sound like some sort of curse.

Fionne backed out of the wall-space and stood achingly, her knees popping as they straightened. She had spent almost the entire time since Nik’s untimely death crammed into one uncomfortable space or another. At least the perpetual physical discomfort hadn’t left her with the clarity of mind to really dwell on what had happened. At least, not yet.

‘Let’s test,’ she said, stowing the insulation tool and humping the heavy tool box off the diagnostics machine. She wanted Rocko. Right now, she needed Rocko. She should be spending her time with him, not with this sweaty little rat of a man. Rocko always made everything okay. And now — just when she had finally got it together with him after years of unspoken, mutual attraction — now this shit storm had to blow in. Just when she was finally happy. She wondered where he was and what he was doing.

Fionne dragged the heavy machine over to Patrick, who watched with faint, detached amusement but didn’t offer to actually help. Overall, the amusement annoyed Fionne more than his failure to assist her. It didn’t seem like a time to be amused by a co-worker struggling with a heavy piece of equipment, or any other damn thing, for that matter. Somebody screamed nearby, but neither of them looked in that direction. They were already starting to get used to the sounds of panic and chaos that had come to their fragile, lonely little world so quickly.

They wired the tester into the circuit at as many points as they could, checking earth, current, resistance, insulation and interference until they were both satisfied beyond any doubt. Patrick stood up, a cloud of mingled oil and body smells puffing out of his clothing. Fionne backed away, trying not to wrinkle her nose. Why didn’t he fucking wash?

‘Let’s go live,’ said Patrick, shooting her a sidelong look that she couldn’t decipher the meaning of, and moving to the twin ranks of switches that they had exposed in the floor.

‘Sure,’ said Fionne, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

‘You’re sure you didn’t go into the kitchen main?’ he asked her, a patronising smile forming on his face.

Fionne bit back the words that came instinctively to her lips — Fuck off, Patrick! — and simply nodded, turning away so as not to look at him. She heard him clambering down into the floor, his shadow stumbling drunkenly across the walls as he moved his lamp around, trying to cast some light on his work. He flicked the switch.

Click!

Fionne realised that she had been holding her breath. She let it out now, slowly, and turned around. Patrick was sitting on the lip created by the missing floor panel. He dragged the diagnostics machine over so that he could see its readout.

‘Well?’ prompted Fionne after a pause of only a second or so.

‘Ha!’ he said, his face splitting open in a broad grin. It was the first time she had ever seen a genuine smile from him. It actually transformed him into something approaching human.

‘It worked?’ she asked, moving closer to see for herself.

‘Yeah,’ he said, still grinning, turning the heavy box so she could see better. ‘Look!’

Fionne squinted into the non-backlit screen of the machine, squatting down beside Patrick. ‘Well, look at that!’ she exclaimed — and now she felt herself smiling, too. ‘It did work.’

‘Well,’ said Patrick, climbing up out of the pit. ‘At least we can launch the ships now. Whatever Halman has planned, that must be a good thing.’