Macao Station

Chapter Five

Halman began his tour of the station — his station — by checking into the machine rooms where the air scrubbers were situated. He found, surprisingly, nobody there, although the huge cabinet that housed the scrubbers was surrounded by patched-in terminals and pincushioned with probes. The whole contraption was humming softly, and the air felt tense and electrified. Fearing that even his presence there might somehow upset the delicate equilibrium of the machine, he stole from the room and away into the maze-like corridors of Macao. Strange that there was nobody there, he thought, but he supposed somebody was monitoring the data from the probes remotely.

He headed downwards — rimwards — from the machine rooms, walked past rows of living quarters, and took the next stairs, down again. He went through the warehouse, wondering where Charlie Stenning was, to the hangar. Alphe was there with his head under the open cowling of the dead-lifter, surrounded by members of the ground crew. Liu Xiao, head of the ground crew, looked up as Halman crossed the tyre-marked flight deck. He came towards Halman, smiling his usual polite smile.

‘Hey Liu,’ Halman greeted him. ‘What’s up?’

‘Hello Dan,’ Liu replied. He was smartly uniformed, unmarked by oil or other grime despite having recently had his head inside the dead-lifter. The ground crew hadn’t had new uniforms for five years now and Halman wondered exactly how he had maintained the condition of his clothing for so long. Halman himself wore sturdy but scruffy work trousers and a long-sleeved shirt with worn-out elbows, and all he did was sit behind a desk most of the time.

‘You managed to get hold of young Alphe, then.’ Halman indicated the tech, who was now on his tiptoes with the whole upper half of his body inside the machine. Alphe was almost always half-buried in some machine or other when Halman saw him. ‘I understand he’s much in demand right now.’ He laughed, adding, ‘As usual.’

‘Indeed,’ said Liu, still smiling. ‘I managed to lure him down to my lair.’ He looked around himself at the hangar: high ceiling, festooned with drapes of cable and oily hydraulics; ranks of roosting Kays; patchwork textures of rusty metal and stained surfaces — a veritable machine crypt. His smile widened a notch. ‘Technically, I think he’s due for a break.’

Halman thought again of the air scrubbers and the humour went out of him. ‘Aren’t we all, old man. Can he get it going?’

‘Alphe?’ asked Liu, as if Halman could possibly have been talking about anyone else. ‘Yes, I should think so.’

Halman put a hand on Liu’s shoulder, turning him away and leading him off towards the glasspex-fronted control room. Liu came along willingly, his small, trim form dwarfed by Halman’s massive bulk.

‘How’s production, Liu?’ Halman asked when they were out of earshot of the crowd round the dead-lifter. ‘And things generally?’

‘Come into control and I’ll give you exact figures, if you like,’ offered Liu. ‘We’ve managed to set-up the system to auto-collate the logs from the Kays.’

‘No, it’s okay — rough’ll do.’

‘Well, the miners have hit targets consistently across the last twenty-plus shifts. Despite their obvious obstacles. We’re okay, generally. The usual concerns — things breaking, Kays falling apart. General struggle for survival. K6-13 is still out of action, as you know. We’re hoping to get the parts on the shuttle. It’s just the injector control from the standard servicing kit that we need. I ordered it from Way Station One last year but they told us to wait until Platini sent it.’

‘Good. You’re doing well, Liu. I know it isn’t always easy, but I appreciate your efforts down here. I consider this the business end of our whole operation.’

Liu shrugged. ‘No problem.’

‘How’re fuel supplies?’

‘Gas, we’re okay. Some of the Kays need fission material, as always. Most of them, to be honest.’ He shrugged. ‘They keep flying.’

‘No two-three-five from refinery recently?’

Liu’s attention was briefly distracted by a loud bang from the direction of the dead-lifter and Alphe’s voice, cursing tiredly but vehemently. He craned to see, then shook his head, dismissing the incident. ‘Sorry?’ he asked.

‘No two-three-five from refinery?’ Halman repeated.

‘They haven’t sent any down for a while, no,’ admitted Liu. ‘I’ve been meaning to have someone run up and check.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Halman. ‘I’m heading that way myself in a bit.’

Liu nodded amicably. ‘Good, thanks.’

‘Who’s out there at the moment?’

‘Ilse Reno’s shift. She’s going to radio in any minute, though, so we’ll have to clear the decks to let them land.’

‘Well, I’ll let you get on, then,’ said Halman. He turned to regard the little group around the dead-lifter. They were replacing the heavy cowling, three men struggling to fold it back into place. ‘Looks like progress,’ he suggested.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Liu. And with that, he turned away and walked back towards the stricken machine.

Halman left the hangar and ambled back through the warehouse, feeling tiny beneath the high, vaulted ceiling and skyscraping shelves of spare parts and other equipment. Charlie Stenning, in charge of warehouse, was now on the mezzanine, conversing with one of his staff, waving a datasheet in one hand.

Halman called in at the aeroponics department, where white-coated technicians tended plants that hung with their roots suspended in a nutrient-rich vapour. The heat and humidity were stifling, almost suffocating. It was a strange place, where the plants themselves, with all their organic randomness, looked like alien visitors in the bright, sterile environment. Shiny steel shelves stretched away into the distance, pinched by perspective. Tomatoes and peppers, almost artificially red, dotted the greenery like bright baubles. Cabbages hung like beach balls that had frozen in mid-air.

Aeroponics was one of the few departments on the station that typically took care of itself. Or at least, its staff took care of its running without too much cause to bother Halman, which amounted to the same thing from his point of view. Even so, he liked to walk the floors, talk to the people, be seen to show an interest.

Halman was an honest creature at heart, and he found himself wanting to tell everyone about Nik’s concerns for the air system. When he spoke to Ola, the woman in charge of the department, the truth almost spilled out and he had to bite his lip to restrain it. He reminded himself that there was no need to scare people, least of all the slightly-nervous head of aero. She was efficient, but she was a known worrier at the best of times. Anyway, he was confident that Nik would fix it. Satisfied that he had done his duty by the aeroponics team, he continued onwards.

He took the stairs up to Macao’s plaza, one of the more spacious areas of the station. Except for Gregor’s bar, The Miner’s Retreat, the retail units of the plaza were dead-eyed and shutter-mouthed. There weren’t many entrepreneurs willing to set up private businesses on a far-flung mining outpost, it seemed. Gregor, thank goodness, was the exception to the rule. Even at this hour, The Miner’s was open. Tobacco smoke and the smell of stale synthihol wafted from its shadowed doorway.

From there, he wandered through the rec-area, between the massive tubes through which materials were shuttled from the refinery to the dispatch area of the hangar. The tubes were ten metres wide each, grey and heavily-armoured, and they always looked like the exposed bones of the station to Halman. Off-duty workers promenaded between them, looking out of the windows, chatting, drinking coffee, laughing together.

He passed the kitchens, checking in to chat briefly with the head chef — a slightly pretentious title for a man with little more culinary skill than Halman himself. Stocks were getting low, but that was normal this close to resupply. There had been a temporary glitch in the water purification system a week before and the kitchens were still full of jury-rigged sterilisation equipment that nobody had yet dismantled. Halman requested that they take care of it sooner rather than later. The head chef shrugged and went back to his work. Halman didn’t have the heart to pursue it.

He walked past the admin offices, pleased that nobody collared him on the way. His own door stood invitingly open and he could see his half-eaten apple browning on its plate amongst the detritus of his desk. Amy Stone, his second-in-command, bustled past, distracted, offering a token greeting.

He continued into long rows of living quarters, occasionally stopping to exchange small-talk with someone or other, taking his time. If it hadn’t been for his perpetual concern about the air system, he believed he would even have been enjoying himself.

He headed up the stairs, hubwards, to the refinery. He entered the department through thick sound-deadening doors hung with plastic curtains, emerging into a huge, shadowy cavern of deafening noise and massive crane-arms. Staff members crawled between the metal megaliths like ants. Sealed vats large enough to play football in stretched away into the distance. Control panels flashed; robotic arms tipped giant crucibles of searing molten metal into chutes and hoppers; steel walkways criss-crossed the ceiling, connecting mezzanines and observation platforms.

The heat was far worse than inside aeroponics and Halman began to sweat at once. The concavity of Macao’s floor could be clearly seen here, this being the inside, hub-most layer of the ring and the view being unbroken by walls or bulkheads. Above Halman’s head, beyond the high ceiling of the refinery itself, was the spindle of the station — the hub of the great wheel — crammed with kinetic defence systems and communications equipment.

He walked across the steel mesh platform and descended a short flight of steps to the main floor of the refinery, his boots crunching through rock dust and metal particles. His entrance was heralded by shuddering metallic groans and ear-splitting screeches as the robot arms went ponderously about their work. As he approached the nearest of the grinders — a huge, squarish lump of a thing that took raw material straight from the main hopper and crunched it into gravel — the refinery’s second-in-command, a serious woman named Sarissa, rounded the corner of the machine and almost bumped into him.

She looked up, startled. She had an intelligent, if unsmiling face, haggard and pockmarked by tiny burns. She was holding a datasheet in one hand and a lump of glossy stone in the other.

‘Halman!’ she exclaimed in surprise.

‘Hi, Sarissa!’ he shouted back. A head-splitting, repetitive clanging noise began in the distance of the refinery as some heavy piece of equipment began its work.

Sarissa lifted her ear defenders and slid them back on her head, pushing back her strawlike grey hair. ‘What?’ she yelled.

‘Hi, I said. How’re things?’

‘Fine, fine,’ Sarissa shouted, nodding emphatically.

‘I spoke to Liu,’ Halman continued as slowly and clearly as he could. ‘They’re short on two-three-five down there.’

Sarissa frowned heavily, shaking her head. ‘We’ve hardly had any in lately. We still don’t have a batch for them.’

‘Why not?’

A refinery worker in full hazmat gear squeezed past Halman and scampered away between rusty metal towers.

‘No reason,’ Sarissa explained. ‘Just random. Some’ll come in sooner or later. Maybe today. Who knows? Is it urgent?’

‘Not yet, I don’t think. But if you have any at all, just take it down, will you?’

‘Sure, I’ll send it today.’ She hefted the lump of stone — presumably some item intended for analysis — and Halman got the impression that she would like to be away about her business. ‘Anything else?’ she asked, seeming to confirm this.

‘How are we for the rest of it? Oxides, copper, iron, nickel, heavy metals?’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Good. Lots of silver — a surprising amount. Once again, it’s just a random spike. The hoppers, overall, are as full as they ever get at this point in the cycle. We’ll be glad to get it all onto that shuttle.’

‘That’s great, Sarissa. Keeps us spinning, right?’

‘Right,’ she agreed, still not smiling.

‘What about water ice?’

‘Oh, loads. They ran a couple of shifts’ worth of just ice last week.’

Halman nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Everything else okay?’

‘Well. . .’ she said uncertainly, looking away. Her fingers clenched and unclenched nervously on the lump of rock, massaging it.

‘What?’ Halman asked, sensing something wrong, something she didn’t really want to tell him.

‘We’ve, er, we’ve. . .’ she trailed off, still not looking at him. Her face worked with conflicting emotion but no sound came out.

‘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.