“Lieutenant, is everything OK?” he said.

Up to this part, Martín had always been able to hear everything. The section that he had not been able to decipher was about to begin. He leant forward in his chair, as if being closer to the screen would help.  Neither person’s lips could be seen, so even if he had been able to lip-read, it would have been useless. Pressing the headphones hard against his ears, he listened intently.

The sound was terrible, but he still managed to get several syllables.  He stopped the video and played the section back, writing down the bits he could hear on a piece of paper in front of him.  Stopping the video again, he looked down at what he had written:

“I…it…is…an…shoe…Sir….wood…ree…with…thing…less.. was…tain.”

It didn’t make any sense, but he circled the word ‘Sir’, as the only whole word he was sure of; the Chinese Lieutenant was by far the most polite of all the crew members, and always used formal forms of communication.

He was about to play the video again when there was a light tap on his shoulder.

“Still nothing?” Jacqueline asked sympathetically.

He removed the headphones and turned to face her. “Not yet, I’m afraid, but I am getting there, I have half a sentence.”

He passed her the piece of paper with the scribbled, fragmented sentence and she took it with interest, reading through it several times before passing it back to him. “My English is not very good, but I’m pretty sure that means nothing at all,” she smiled at him. “You look tired, Martín, take a break and let me show you something.”

It was raining in the darkness outside, the day’s clear skies long forgotten. He checked his watch and saw that he had been sitting at his desk watching various feeds from the Clarke for over eight hours. It was ten o’clock in the evening, and it had already been a long night.

“OK,” he said standing up reluctantly. “What have you found?”

Chapter 17

Montreaux sat in the Command Module and looked at the closed hatch that led to the pod that would take them to the surface of Mars. Stencilled across the hatch in military font were the letters “M.L.P.”: Mars Lander Pod. A plan was forming in his mind, but he knew it wasn’t a very good one.

Wait until we land on Mars, he thought to himself, and the nanostations will be left behind. The little flying stations only functioned in zero gravity, and would therefore not follow the crew down.  On-board the MLP there were fixed monitoring stations, dotted around the pod and its exterior, that would send streams of data back to the Clarke and Earth, but he could already imagine a situation where he would be alone with the Lieutenant and be able to have a conversation in private; it depended on them both leaving the landing site in protective suits, a normal part of the mission plan, and travelling far enough to be out of range of the MLP’s shortwave antenna.  With the little power they were able to use on the surface, a handful of kilometres would be amply sufficient.  One of the first duties on the surface was to set up signal booster stations at regular intervals, so that they could travel further. He would need to make sure that they were not in the range of one of those, too, or that they had their chat before the boosters were assembled.

As he listed all of the problems facing such a scenario, the thought that the plan was not very good grew, until he was ready to scrap the idea completely.

And what if it’s too late? The look on Su Ning’s face the previous night had been with him ever since. What if whatever is worrying her is too big to be left another six weeks?

His mind was reeling. He had never usually been impressed by conspiracy theories, but the pieces were beginning to fit in an increasingly worrying puzzle. A multinational mission to Mars, the first of its kind, almost at its destination. An ultra-patriotic American scientist intent on planting her flag in new territory.  A Russian MIG-34 pilot as second in command. And the youngest member of the crew: a Chinese army Lieutenant.  Then out of the blue after over two months in space, the Chinese Lieutenant raises his suspicions. Something is wrong, either with the mission, the crew, both, or something entirely different. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound personal. What had she said again? I am not sure it is an issue and would not worry you with anything unless I was certain.

And then, as if that cryptic message wasn’t enough, the inexplicable behaviour of Mission Control. Surely if Su Ning has a problem it is as important to them as it is to us?

He needed space. Space to think, and the Command Module simply wasn’t giving it to him; he knew that at that moment, as many as twenty nanostations could be watching his every move, every blink, every bead of sweat. He looked in the air around him and fancied he could make out the movement of a couple of them, like twenty first century mosquitoes, except that they didn’t bite. Or did they? He laughed to himself, now he felt crazy, and probably looked it too.

He shifted in his seat, running his eyes over the panels of instruments in front of him. Time to act normally, he thought to himself.  If Mission Control want to keep him in the dark, then it would be best if they think that...

In the dark! Nightmode! With the majority of the nanostations inactive, he only had one per module to avoid.

He unclipped himself and carefully made for the exit.  The short tunnel from the Command Module to the Lounge was directly behind the seat he had been using, and he reached it with a single short tug. Emerging into the Lounge, huge by comparison, he could see the back of Dr Richardson’s head; she had assembled her laboratory along one wall and was writing some notes on a clipboard.

On the opposite side of the room, Lieutenant Su Ning was sitting on the sofa, playing cards with Captain Marchenko.  She looked over her cards at him as he entered the room, her eyes showing candour that he had never before seen.

“I see your twenty and raise you fifty!” Marchenko told her.

The brief moment of understanding between the Chinese woman and Montreaux dissipated instantly as she returned to her game with the Russian.

“I see you for fifty, Captain Marchenko,” she said flatly, laying three sixes and two aces on the table.

“Full House? No way!” he complained, before showing his hand. “It’s a good thing I had four of these, isn’t it?” He laughed at the look of dismay on Su Ning’s face as he placed the set of kings on the table carefully. “Do I win?” he asked cheekily.

Su Ning pushed her chips across to him, catching one that had left the table’s surface and was now spinning above her hand. “You win, Marchenko, this time.”

Montreaux pushed across to the sofa and clipped himself in between the Russian and Su Ning.

“Mind if I play?”

Chapter 18

Martín gripped the Styrofoam coffee cup in his hand and looked down into the dark swirl of liquid that the machine had given him. It smelt like coffee, but he knew from experience that it carried a bitter metallic aftertaste.

Sitting down in front of him, Jacqueline had been typing and clicking at her computer for five minutes now, in silence. He barely understood half of the functions she was using, and the other half may as well have been in Hebrew for all he knew. Her work was punctuated by short sighs and clicks of the tongue when what she was trying to achieve didn’t work. She would then try another method, still without saying a word.

Eventually, she pushed her chair away from the desk and looked up at Martín, who was standing behind her.

“There. What do you think?” she said triumphantly.

He looked up from the depths of his drink and squinted at the screen. He took a step towards her desk. The display was split into two sections, left and right. Running from top to bottom on the left hand side, in green text on black background, were dozens of lines of programming code. Every second or so, a different section would flash bold for a moment, as if to inform the user which part was being used.  The right hand side displayed two video feeds, in black and white. Both feeds showed the Clarke’s Lounge, but were somehow different. As he watched he saw the top view of the Lounge pan round, until he could see Captain Montreaux, Captain Marchenko and Lieutenant Su Ning sitting at the table playing what looked like poker.  Montreaux was collecting the chips from the table, while Marchenko was already dealing another hand.