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Lisa just stood there, her eyes wide with horror, hands pressed to her mouth. I glanced at Werner, but failed to read anything on his stone face. Not a single emotion. Although, maybe there was just a tiny flash of bewilderment. Or maybe I misread the expression. Anyway, his face showed no sympathy, he was absolutely calm. Could he be observing his own doing? I shifted my gaze to his powerful biceps and knobby hands and easily imagined him strangling Ji Cheng.
“That's enough,” John broke the silence. “Werner, take us to Trevor, we want to know what's going on. Boris, please stay here.”
Werner nodded calmly and went out into the corridor. He waited until we left the room, then took us to the base commandant.
Nobody spoke while we walked along the corridor. Anger raged inside me. Who could do this to our astrophysicist and why? At the same time, I had a feeling that everything happening to us was unreal. We didn’t have enough time to get familiar with the situation around us. We did not understand it. The murder was like a bucket of cold water. Cheng. I looked at Werner's broad back. I was growing increasingly convinced that it was this creepy Bosch who killed my crew-mate. Anger was rising along with confidence. But why? Why would he do that?
Soon we reached the compartment door. There was an intercom on the right. Werner pressed the button. Trevor's voice came from the device, he could probably see us via the camera.
“What happened, why are you here?”
“Emergency situation,” Werner replied. “Murder.”
“Come in.”
A pneumatic actuator hissed, the door split in two, disappearing into the wall. We followed Werner into a large office. There was a table and a dozen chairs in the center. Next to the large metal table, there was a small desk made of plastic or wood, supporting two transparent three-dimensional displays. The office was devoid of any decorations. It was obviously used for meetings only. A door opened on the other side of the room and Trevor came in. He was wearing a black sweater and light-colored uniform pants. His face looked worried. Trevor invited us to sit down with a gesture and took a chair at the small table.
“Report,” he looked at Werner.
The latter was about to speak, but John Fi
“Someone killed a member of my crew. We must find out who did it and why. What is going on here?”
Edward Trevor pressed a button and gave an order into the intercom, addressing the security service chief.
“Vincent, you there? Come here now, we have a murder.”
“This is a very unpleasant incident, Mr. Fi
“Yes. Definitely. She was strangled,” he replied calmly.
“Where were you when it happened? I asked you to help our guests.”
“I was literally five minutes late. Just exchanged a few words with someone. I could not have possibly imagined such a thing happening inside their compartments,” Werner blurted defensively.
Maybe it wasn't him after all, I thought when Vincent Taney came in. He walked forward and sat down on Trevor's right, giving us a gloomy look.
“Tell me everything,” he asked Fi
“What is there to tell?” the usually phlegmatic Englishman started to steam up. “After lunch, we gathered to discuss the sudden turn in the fate of our expedition and found that Cheng did not show up. She was our astrophysicist.”
“I remember,” Taney replied.
“Lisa,” Fi
“I don't quite understand…” the head of the security service was confused.
“What is this place and who kills my crew members?”
“Okay, just calm down, please,” Trevor raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Why do you think it's someone from the base?”
"Who else? We were all together.”
“But,” Taney intervened, “when you returned from lunch, you were all alive. And you didn't get together right away, did you? Only after a while? Was anyone around?”
“I was the first to come, and the body had already been found,” Werner said.
“Did you meet anyone in the corridor?” Trevor asked.
“No,” Werner replied.
“So, Captain Fi
“You should include Werner as well,” I ventured. “At least Werner, he might be lying.”
Everyone stopped speaking, engulfed in uneasy thoughts. Silence hung thick over the table. Werner gave me a hostile glance, I responded in kind.
“Why would someone from my crew do it?” Fi
“We will find out,” Trevor replied. “It seems highly unlikely that in a few hours any of us developed such antipathy toward your astrophysicist as to kill her.”
“Cheng could be murdered to keep something hidden from us,” I rejoined the conversation.
“What might it be?”
“How would I know?” I looked away into the corner, gathered my thoughts and continued. “Some of us believe that we are still on Earth. Where is our lander?”
Trevor and Taney exchanged glances.
“That's a bold statement,” the base commander drawled. “What could have caused such distrust?”
Instead of a reply, meaningful silence followed.
“All right then,” Trevor said and turned one of the three-dimensional displays so that we could see the image. “Have a look. Show the surface,” he ordered.
On the display, which consisted of a multitude of transparent layers, an image started to emerge. Regardless of a view angle, it looked like a window to another world. We saw a gray desert flooded with pale orange light pouring from the sky covered with ragged dirty clouds.
I don't know about the others, but a feeling of hopelessness came over me. It was the first time I realized that I would spend the rest of my life in this desolated place, which inspired no optimism at all. I imagined the ultimate goal of our journey very differently. And I could do nothing but ruefully watch a gust of wind lifting a cloud of dust from the ground and driving it toward the distant horizon.
“It can be a render, like a computer game,” Small spoke for the first time.
Trevor made a grimace, glanced at Taney and attentively regarded everyone at the table.
“Why don't you believe us?”
“There are a lot of strange things here. And Cheng is dead. I'm sorry,” John said. “Your base bears little resemblance to our idea of planetary stations. Of course, many years have supposedly passed, but still…”
“Ah, great!” Trevor leaned back on his chair. “I don't believe in anything before I touch it, right?” he looked at us again. “I'll give you a tour of the surface, if that's what you want. But we will also find the killer, and I think it’s one of yours. Now I'd like to get back to my duties. And I would recommend that you take your part in the life of the base as soon as possible. I know you have just emerged from conservation, but we lack hands to maintain all systems, so any specialist is worth their weight in gold. Taney will interview each of you in turn, please be cooperative.”
“All right,” our captain said, getting up.
We got up as well and silently left the office. Taney stayed with Trevor, and Werner took us back to our rooms. Boris waited in the corridor, nervously pacing back and forth. When he saw us, he rushed to Fi
“Captain, Dr. Stein and Sheila took Cheng's body to the morgue. I'd like to assist during the autopsy. Could you arrange it with Trevor? According to Dr. Stein, we don't belong to the base staff yet, so a special permission from the superiors is required.”
“I'll see what I can do. “Now please come to my compartment, we need to discuss our deplorable situation.”