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Jane spends hours a day looking at the star—vast, blue, ever-shifting—out the enormous window of the observation bay. There’s something hypnotic about the distant flicker of dark spots and solar flares sliding across the surface. It passes the time of her confinement, at least. She refuses to be broken by isolation any more than she was by the commander’s tirades, her threats, her begging or bargaining.
So it’s with something approaching boredom that she realizes someone is at the doors of the bay. Her isolation has only made her more attuned to the ambient sounds of the space station: the creak of cooling metal, the hiss of gas-release valves, the muted thunk of the door mechanisms being accessed from the other side. She turns slowly as it opens.
“If you’ve brought lunch, Commander Green, you’re early.”
“I don’t have your fucking lunch,” Sophie says. There’s a dangerous look in her eye. “Computer, play the signal coming from outside the airlock.”
For a few seconds all that washes over the intercom system is static. Then, unmistakably, a familiar voice. “—just under an hour of air left, please open aft deck airlock, posthaste—”
Goosebumps rise on Jane’s arms. “Evelyn.”
“Evelyn,” Sophie says, “died six months ago.”
Jane hardly sees her. She feels lightheaded. This isn’t possible. Evelyn’s voice loops on the intercom, wreathed in static. “Does anyone copy? Mayday. Mayday. My suit is experiencing multiple systems failure and I have less than an hour of air left. Open the aft deck airlock.”
Evelyn died. As if Sophie has to tell her that. As if Sophie, of all people, knows better than her. She knows that.
But she also knows her best friend’s voice.
“You have to let him in,” she says.
“Look who suddenly wants to talk,” Sophie says. “Computer, mute signal.”
In the abrupt quiet, she can almost imagine she hears a distant thumping from the outside of the airlock.
“I was starting to think you didn’t have feelings,” Sophie says. The blue light of their nearest star reflects in her eyes, turning them luminous and inscrutable.
“Is this the time for this?” Jane asks incredulously.
“Can’t think of a better time,” Sophie says. “Since not even a gun to your head has succeeded in rattling you like this.”
That’s because the gun was unconvincing. Sophie still carries it—it’s holstered at her hip even now—but Jane has looked up the barrel at her and knows she can’t pull the trigger.
“Why were you sent up here?” Sophie asks.
“He’s going to asphyxiate if you don’t let him in,” Jane says.
“Him? I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s not him,” Sophie says.
“How can you know that?” Jane demands.
“Answer my question,” Sophie fires back.
Jane focuses on keeping her breathing even. She has resisted every previous interrogation attempt. If she can maintain her cool, there has to be a way to think her way out of this. For everyone to get out alive.
“Computer, play that signal again.”
Fear has crept into Evelyn’s voice. “Commander, if you copy—if anyone copies—fucking hell.” His breathing crackles over the radio. Then he starts again, “Mayday, mayday.”
“We can keep listening for an hour,” Sophie offers. “See what trick it tries once we’ve called that bluff.”
“Trick?” Jane says. Her voice is a little too shrill. Evelyn’s fear has infected her too. “Who do you think is trying to trick you here?”
“Seems like the national fucking pasttime these days,” Sophie says. “You want honesty? Probably not, doesn’t seem to mean a lot to you, but—I am at my limit. If I don’t get answers soon, if someone doesn’t start telling me the truth, the actual, grade-A honest truth soon about this station and why we’re here I’m going to lose my mind.” Her eyes are very wide. “So if you think that’s him—actually him, actually running out of air—tell me how. Give me something.”
“I don’t know,” Jane starts. Sophie opens her mouth angrily, and Jane hurries on, “All I’ve heard is a story. There was a disaster on a station years ago—decades, maybe—in stellar orbit, uh, and they thought they lost three of their crew members. But then all three came back. Twice. There were six of them, three pairs, and they couldn’t tell them apart in any way. Perfect duplicates. So there’s—there is precedent, for something like this.”
Sophie stares at her like she’s insane. Even Evelyn, though there’s no way he can hear her, pauses for a moment before continuing his rote calls for help.
“I don’t believe you,” Sophie says at last. “Why should I believe you? That’s—you could have made that up on the spot. That’s nothing.”
“I don’t know anything else,” Jane says. “I have concealed information from you, it’s true, but I have never lied to you, and I’m telling the truth now. I’m a psychemist, they didn’t brief me on this.”
“And why did Command send a psychemist here?” Sophie asks.
Back to the start. For weeks they’ve been at an impasse over this question. Evelyn cries futilely for help. If Jane tells Sophie her true assignment, her chances of actually completing it drop to near zero. And if she doesn’t succeed she has no guarantee that Command will bring them home at all. But—
She can’t listen to him die. She can’t let this happen again. It feels less like deja vu and more a recurring nightmare. God knows she’s dreamed of it enough in the last six months. But this time will turn out differently. It has to.
With a steadying breath, she says, “I’ll tell you.” A flicker of something passes over Sophie’s face. Relief? “But first, answer him. I gave you something—I told you what I know about the other station, so give me this. Tell him we hear him and we’re working on it. He’s scared.”
“And then you’ll tell me what you’ve been doing here?” Sophie says.
“I’ll explain my assignment, and then you let him in, and then I’ll answer any follow up questions. Okay?”
Sophie hesitates. Jane doesn’t understand how she doesn’t want to believe. How she can stand to waste time. But then she says, “Okay. Deal,” and extends her hand.
It’s a very military instinct, ridiculous without gravity, but Jane pushes closer to take her hand, letting herself slide off-course as they exchange momentum. She catches a handhold on the wall as Sophie opens a line of communication.
“Evelyn,” she says. “...Lieutenant Glass, this is Commander Green, do you copy?”
The wordless laugh of relief that crackles over the intercom does something chemical to Jane. Untenses muscles she hadn’t known were tense. “Jesus. Yes, Commander, I copy.”
“We’re, uh,” and, strangely, Sophie looks at Jane. Uncertain. Or scared? It only lasts a second. “We’re working on the airlock. We’re going to go radio silent for a little bit, but we know you’re there, we’re going to get you in.”
“That is— very good to hear,” he says.
“Going silent. Standby,” she says.
“Standing by.”
Sophie looks like she’s seen a ghost. It was his reaction to her, Jane thinks, that shook her. Ten seconds ago she was an embattled standard-bearer, determined not to be duped, and now she’s a commander with a crewmate in danger. Good; Jane’s gamble paid off. She won’t be able to leave him out now, the guilt would be too much.
“Now,” says Sophie, returning her attention to her. “You, talk.” Jane nods. “Tell me the real reason you’re here. What was your top secret mission from Command that was so important you turned on your own crew?”
“I have been working on an experimental drug called Pasithea,” Jane says. She hasn’t talked to anyone about her work in so long, it’s hard to simplify. “It’s a—memory-altering compound. If administered correctly it seems to be able to entirely excise memories, even very emotional or traumatic incidents.”
Sophie frowns. “So Command sent you up here to, what, keep you out of reach of regulatory bodies?”
“No,” Jane says, with calm she does not entirely feel. “They sent me up here so I’d have a controlled research environment… and a test subject.”