An officer met the group at the docking tube, next to the shuttle that was still connected to the other tube, with no sign of activity.
Jonathan noticed Gaby’s frown when she looked at the idle display panel.
He was going to ask a question, but Violet spoke first and asked if they’d go out to rescue the pair.
The woman said, “Don't worry. We have everything under control."
"Did your operator tell you what was going on?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes. As I said, everything is under control."
"They will be saved?"
That was odd, because the shuttle was still on the ground.
He didn’t like the cool expression on the woman’s face. In fact now that he thought about it, he hadn’t liked anything about people’s reactions since he and Gaby had come to the base. He’d ascribed them to being “military” or “secretive” but it was more than that.
But then it dawned on him that a solution could also mean something entirely different. He felt sick.
"Wait a minute. You do have the intention of rescuing these people?"
"We’ve referred the matter to the flight division."
That was also not an answer.
He was trembling now. “Am I hearing correctly that you have no interest in retrieving this bubble? Letting these people die would look extremely messy and would make you look bad with our friends on Earth."
Gaby quietly put a hand on his arm. Oh, she would understand what he was thinking.
The officer went on, “Boone has considered the request for assistance, but we don’t have the resources to pursue this. We don't know where this contraption went, and we don't have the resources to search the entire surface of the moon and he’s unwilling to risk his personnel.”
Jonathan had to stop himself shouting at her, “You’re the military for fuck’s sake! This sort of thing is your job.”
Gaby said, ”We know where the capsule is. At least we know their trajectory. We almost crashed into it when we flew into the base."
She seemed taken aback. “Did you?”
Jonathan managed to calm himself enough to describe what they had seen, and how from the coordinates of the incoming flight and the direction that the bubble had been flying, they could calculate a likely trajectory for the wayward plastic bubble.
She checked the report he told her they had filed with the control room.
With a stiff-faced expression, she said, “I’ll have to talk to Boone.”
Jonathan called after her, “Please hurry up, there are lives involved.”
Boone turned up not much later, red-faced, his nostrils flaring.
“It’s those commercials again. I’ve told them many times that we are not going to keep rescuing them.”
“What are they actually doing here?” Jonathan asked.
Boone snorted. “It all started with this ridiculous woman.”
“Katie Walker?”
“Hmph. She saw faces in the ice. She told everyone that a creature lived under the ice. The ice angel, she called it. We tried counselling and all that rubbish, but she wouldn’t get that nonsense out of her head. She was infecting the whole base with it. They’d have worship services on the ice plain, for crying out loud.”
“And getting rid of her didn’t kill the movement,” Jonathan said.
“It only made it worse. They come from all over.”
Then Gaby asked what Jonathan should have asked a long time ago, but somehow neglected.
“Has anyone ever seen this ice angel thing?”
Boone snorted. “Of course not. It doesn’t exist.”
Then Jonathan said, “That’s all very well, but there are still people in trouble out there. It’d like your permission to go and look for them.”
He met Boone’s eyes and was shocked by the hard and vacant expression in them.
He lowered his voice. “They may be stupid and have done illegal things, but letting these people die will not look good for the base.”
His heart was still thudding. Boone outranked him significantly and something about him scared Jonathan.
Boone snorted.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“Um, sir, does that mean we can take the shuttle—“
“I said get the fuck out of here. Do whatever you please but get out of my sight.”
Well, that was as good as approval, Jonathan guessed.
Probably, there was nothing that Boone could say to defend his position that made him look a halfway decent human being. Coupled with Jonathan’s argument that they knew the trajectory, he had no excuse not to do anything. Even if his language—shouted at the control room to allow the shuttle to leave through the base comm—left no doubt about his lack of desire to do so.
Gaby gave Jonathan a concerned look.
And Jonathan knew what she would have said if they had been alone. Boone’s fastidiousness, his inflexibility and attention to his appearance marked him as a prime candidate for space madness. In fact, it would be a good idea to send a team to the base to give all personnel a health check.
But Young was called up, and the vessel prepared to carry out a search mission.