Jonathan and Gaby backed away from the workstation. They joined the others who were still following the mechanical dog around the floor. They pulled open doors to storage cupboards and maintenance passages, even went into some of them.
It might be likely that Shelton had been here and had hidden in those places while people from the ship were searching the station. Maybe. Or maybe not. It was irrelevant. He was no longer at the station.
Kenzie announced that time was up, and Nick confirmed it.
“Come on, guys, we haven’t found our fugitive, but time is up. The captain wants to go.”
Gaby and Jonathan joined the group. Jonathan’s heart was thudding. He hoped that no one had noticed what they had found out.
They said nothing, not even when Damien made a needling comment about not having found anything. Because apparently, if the mechanical dog couldn’t find Shelton, he wasn’t there.
“Yes, I was probably wrong,” Jonathan said.
He didn’t like lying and he didn’t think he could do it convincingly.
He’d be glad when they arrived at the ship.
But when they did, it was to have the members of their Incident Mitigation Team waiting for them. They accompanied Jonathan and Gaby into a meeting room.
They wanted to know the finer details of why Jonathan thought Shelton was still alive and why he thought he was responsible.
Jonathan told his story yet again.
“He’s a well-known figure. His reputation is beyond reproach,” Ron said.
“Yes, it smells like a vendetta to me,” said another.
“How do we know you’re not a spy from Ariana Industries?” This man looked directly at Jonathan.
Whoa, whoa, this was going in entirely the wrong direction.
“We’re in the employment of the Space Corps on loan to Prosperity Mining,” Jonathan said. “I have no financial interests anywhere in the Asteroid Belt. I’m a scientist and I look at the facts as I can measure them. We have one visitor on the station, one resident in hospital. We should have counted the same number of people as the number on the official personnel list. But one is missing. We’ve identified Shelton as the missing person.”
“Yet, you didn’t find him. That’s because he isn’t there. Why don’t you tell me what your game is?”
“Please, calm down. We’re not interested in your company’s operations. I’m a recycling specialist. Gaby is a doctor. What would we do with mining secrets?”
He looked around the room, meeting angry expressions.
“I don’t think this meeting helps anyone,” Gaby said. She got up from the table. “Excuse me, we’re tired and would like to clean up before dinner.” She walked around the back of the table in the direction of the door.
Ron rose, too. “All right, that just leaves me to say that your access to any electronic system will no longer work. You’ve also downloaded material from the station that you will need to hand back to us. We’ll send someone to look after this issue later today.”
“You can’t do that,” Gaby said.
“We can. It’s in the contract. But rest assured, we will follow up on your findings.”
“And I’m meant to believe that?” she said.
For a moment, it looked like he would bar her from reaching the door, but Jonathan got up as well.
He followed Gaby into the hallway, his heart hammering like crazy.
They walked through the passages back to their cabins without speaking.
Jonathan was seething with anger.
They went into Gaby’s room.
Once the door had shut, he broke into a rage. “I can’t believe that anyone would cover up a deed like this, and allow the perpetrator to get away with it—worse, give him free passage on this ship. They know Shelton is alive. They know where the shuttle is. They let him escape before we came to look for him. ‘His reputation is beyond reproach’, what utter rot! And then they deny us access to the data, because it’s company property.”
“I know. You don’t have to tell me anything. But the data from Astoria is company property, and it’s the company’s right to keep it.”
“But I can’t believe it!”
And he couldn’t even take any data he had collected. His login had already stopped working.
He breathed out heavily in the angry silence.
“There is something else I’ve found while looking through the less well-known news channels,” Gaby said after a while. “Apparently after his fall from grace at the moon, Shelton offered Prosperity Mining money if he could work for them. Apparently, he said he’d develop highly specialised advanced drone technology, and only later did they find out that his knowledge didn’t really amount to much. His students and staff used to do most of the work.”
“Then why not sack him?”
“You don’t really understand the corporate world, do you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t think you do, and believe me, that’s a good thing.”
“You never worked for a corporate employer either.” If there was one thing that annoyed him about Gaby, it was that she was very good at playing goody-two-shoes and telling other people off. Taking the moral high ground. Doctors were so good at that. “If you’re suggesting that they would wilfully give refuge to someone who has murdered over three hundred people, then I really don’t believe that.”
“No, no, not in that way. Or at least that’s not their intention, but once balance sheets and losing face come into play, intentions go out the window. They employed him. He promised them things he couldn’t deliver. They fell for it. They felt stupid. Believe me, no one likes to be made to feel stupid, especially not rich people on company boards, whose position will be on the line if this comes out. So, they will say this: A tragic accident happened at Astoria Station. We feel for the families of the victims and will offer them a handsome payment that may hopefully compensate them somewhat for their loss. And the people will be placated and everyone will stop asking questions.”
Jonathan met Gaby’s eyes.
Yes. She was right. That sounded terrifyingly plausible.
“Gaby, you’re so much smarter than I am. I feel naive. I couldn’t even begin to think that people might do something like that.”
“We’re just different. I would never have picked up that one person might still be alive on the station.”
“You wouldn’t? Not at all?” It seemed so glaringly obvious to him.
She shrugged. “Maybe later, we would have noticed the discrepancy in resident identification because we’d have been stuck with one too many women and one missing man, but not until it was far too late to check it.”
He stared at her, wordlessly.
“We both have different strengths, and that’s very useful. I wouldn’t be so happy to work with someone who was good a the exact same things I’m good at.”
“You’re just saying that to flatter me.”
“No. I mean it. I’m good at people things. You’re good at technical things. I like it like that.”
“Yeah.” Yeah, he liked it, too. And now that they were pariahs in the eyes of the company, they might as well ignore their silly unspoken rules about relationships. He was going to move his things into this cabin today.
But he couldn’t just let this happen unchallenged. “So who are we going to confront about this?”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Afraid? Oh. You mean you don’t want me to speak up? Because we need to be afraid? I’m not afraid of company people.”
“Not in that way. I think we need to be quiet now, because if we speak up now and say that it was not a terrible accident, they will try to discredit us, and they will find something to make sure they succeed. The word of a company with lots of money is worth more than that of an honest employee.”
“Then what? You honestly can’t suggest we do nothing?” He couldn’t believe she wanted that.
“I don’t know yet. We have to work out how to hurt them as much as possible.”