Chapter 31

On the morning of the slaughter, Tertius and the other two members of the launch crew, Mark and Leon, were called to a meeting in Kimberley. It was certainly strange that they were required to leave Vastrap for a meeting, but it was an order from the people in charge. They took Tertius’s car and drove along the banks of the river and then through the desert to an office block near the Big Hole.

The meeting was a complete waste of time. The woman they were supposed to meet, a Swiss ballistics expert, didn’t even show up. And so after an hour sitting around a meeting table with no aircon, they all got back in the car and drove all the way back to Upington. There was still a lot of work to be done on the ship. Now that all the other departments had completed their work, there was heaps of safety testing to be done in a matter of days. A useless meeting was maddening; and even if the woman had shown up, they were sceptical about the usefulness of talking to her so late in the process.

Factoring in the drive home, a stop for lunch and a flat tyre, they didn’t return to Vastrap at all for the rest of the day. It was a total write-off. Tertius dropped Mark and Leon at their homes in Upington and made plans to pick them up in the morning, seeing as their cars were still at the base. They all switched on their TVs, had a beer and went to bed after the late movie. They slept soundly.

When they arrived at Vastrap the next morning, the place was quiet. There were no cars on the dirt road ahead of them. It was almost guaranteed that on a normal day you’d be breathing someone else’s dust on the way in to work. They crested the koppie and descended the hill towards the hangars and parked next to Mark and Leon’s cars. They were the only ones in what was usually a mess of cars.

“Is it a holiday?” asked Mark.

When they went inside they had no clue about what had happened the evening before. The bloodstains on the railings and on the floor and on the steps had all been cleaned and sanitised. And the bullet holes in the hangar walls had been patched and sanded flat. And, of course, the bodies were all gone – dragged out of the hangar doors into the waiting 4×4s, and driven northward to be buried in a pre-excavated grave on the far side of a gravel dune.

Tertius didn’t give the matter much thought. He deduced that the whole thing really made sense. The other employees had essentially completed their jobs, and knowing how the men in charge felt about secrecy, a sudden departure was probably best for the project. Tertius pictured them all being told to leave midway through whatever they were doing – which, given the lack of work left to do, would probably have been drinking coffee and playing cards. He could tell by how many personal items were still left on people’s desks that they were told to take nothing with them. There was a snow globe on Kim’s desk, a photostatted photo of Derrick’s late parents pinned to a divider, a delicate paper fan with Japanese drawings on it propped against Julian’s monitor. Nothing really dear to their owners, but the sorts of things you’d take with you if you were given the option.

Though Tertius hadn’t really developed many friendships here, he found their absence unsettling. For one, his footsteps echoed when he walked now, and it made the place eerie. He often turned around to see who was following him, only to find he was alone. It sent goosebumps up his spine. There were also countless mugs of half-finished tea and coffee everywhere. For some reason the cleaning lady had been told to go too. Upon seeing them, Tertius vowed not to take them through to the kitchen. It was his protest against the short-sightedness of his superiors, who, when they next visited, would surely be met with the pungent smell of turned milk.

It was late morning of that first day, with just the three launch engineers working in the spacious warehouse, when Tertius received an explanatory email from his supervisor – an elusive man whom Tertius had met only once before (and that was at the interview for this job). The email confirmed what Tertius had suspected, but added that the whole staff had been sent on a celebratory overseas holiday courtesy of the company. Tertius was immediately disappointed that he wasn’t part of that crowd. He’d always wanted to travel, but had lacked companions.

Tertius had many quirks, but there was one he never told anyone about: when holiday time was approaching, he’d begin filling in his details in online flight-booking websites, and then he’d sit at his computer and watch as the timer of the payment window expired. In fact, he even once had the guts to book a flight to Spain. He’d been excited about the prospect of finally going somewhere, but as the departure date drew nearer, his excitement was slowly overshadowed by a sense of panic. He’d get murdered if he went alone. Or the plane would crash and he’d spend his last moments looking at families huddled together while he clutched his smartphone and a book. And if the plane didn’t crash, and he arrived in Spain – then what? What if he couldn’t figure out how to call a taxi or catch a bus? What if he couldn’t find a hotel and was suddenly thrust into a life on the streets in a foreign city? A day before he was due to leave, he made up his mind not to go, and forfeited his ticket. Instead of having an overseas holiday, he rented a movie and drank twelve beers. It was the best night he could remember. But he regretted his cowardice the next day. In an effort to dispel his regret he checked on the airline website to see whether his plane had crashed into Central Africa. It hadn’t, unfortunately. Less than a week later he was filling in online flight-ticket information again – and then watching the timer tick down to zero. It was as close to travel as he felt comfortable getting.

But there, near the bottom of the email was news that made Tertius giddy with excitement: “The launch crew of course will be going on a holiday too, just as soon as the project is complete. Your tickets are booked for a five-week stay in Bali. It’s the least we could do to say thank you.”

Tertius checked with Mark and Leon and found that they’d received the same email. They were all going to Bali – and despite not really hitting it off with either of his colleagues, Tertius was thrilled. He had travel buddies at last.

After lunch, he set the main computer to recheck the launch calibrations, a task that would take a few hours, and instead of sitting around watching a bar on his screen slowly filling with blue pixels, he went to town. He needed holiday gear – shorts, slops, a comfortable shirt and a few provisions for travelling. He left Leon and Mark, saying he’d be back after five, and that if they wanted anything from the shops, they could just message him. And then Tertius walked out of the hangar, completely unaware that he’d never see Mark or Leon again.