Spreading out from the hidden underground shafts of the mine, a network of passages led out under the ice. In vast workings, invisible from the surface, the ice was mined out in a regular pattern, leaving wide pillars of ice to hold up the roof, in a technique dating back to Roman times. The ice was carried back to the bottom of the return shaft along long lines of belt conveyors, to be hoisted to the surface and tipped into the waiting jaws of the ice crushers.
Matt remembered the heyday of the mine, when he had first visited it as a young mining engineer. Back then, Erebus Mine had been the principal refuelling and resupply base for Mercury, and a daily stream of fuel tankers ferried processed chemicals from the refinery to the space tugs and long-range tankers, waiting in orbit high above. Manned spacecraft stopped off here to transfer passengers, or for maintenance in the huge hangars. It had been an awe-inspiring sight; the biggest planetary mine ever built.
Erebus had reigned supreme, dwarfing all the other mines, and its name had been on every sealed vault door, every tanker of liquefied fuel, and every cylinder of helium-3 that ever left the mine.
Even when the price of helium-3 fell and the other mines closed, Erebus had survived, expanding its operations to mine the rich deposits of precious metals that had been found deep down, two kilometres under the crater floor. The deposits were high in platinum and other rare metals, and for a while, the vacuum smelters had belched flame into the black sky, and the heavy ingots of precious metals joined the helium-3 travelling back to Earth.
Matt remembered the shuttles being loaded, and the continual takeoffs and landings out on the crater floor. Back then, the lights had filled the crater floor; they covered the refinery complex, illuminating the swirling vapours, and in the distance, the red glow from the smelters rose and fell, or flared in strange colours. Spotlights had lit up the shapes of spacecraft waiting on the pads, and out on the ice, lines of lights showed the mining vehicles, moving in their never-ending procession between the surface ice workings and the refinery.
Matt’s eye moved; the vision was lost, and the years flowed back like a dark tide, swallowing the light and movement in the crater, until it faded at last to the forgotten ruin that lay outside the grimy windows.
Clare snapped her flashlight back on, and the window became a mirror. Matt stared back at his reflection in the glass, his eyes sunken in their sockets, his face darkened by stubble, and he realised how exhausted he looked.
‘You okay?’ Clare said quietly. She was looking at him in the reflection from the window.
‘Yeah – yeah, I’m fine,’ Matt said. He hadn’t realised that she had been watching him.
‘Come on,’ Clare said, ‘we need to search this place.’
Matt tore himself away from the window, and his memories, and picked his way across the galley area, following the others.
Many of the tables and chairs had been pushed to the edges of the room, but several were in the centre, with oxygen cylinders and medical equipment lying about nearby.
‘This looks like it was used as an emergency hospital,’ Clare said. ‘Look at all this blood on the tables.’
‘Still no bodies,’ Elliott said, ‘I thought we would have found some by now.’
Someone’s light flickered behind the serving hatches of the kitchen, and there was a splashing sound.
‘Hey, there’s still water in the faucets,’ Wilson shouted, then a moment later added: ‘Smells a bit, though.’
‘Run it through for a few minutes and see if it clears,’ Clare said. ‘Is there any food in there?’ She stopped by one of the serving hatches and looked in. She could see Wilson, now joined by Matt, opening cupboards and rummaging about in them.
‘Some packaged stuff.’ Wilson pulled a box from a cupboard, and tore open the cardboard lid. ‘Huh. We’ve got dried pasta here.’
There were several large stainless steel cooking pots on the ranges in the kitchen. Above some of them, the contents had splashed on the ceiling when they had flash-boiled in vacuum; it looked like paint had exploded over the kitchen.
‘Freezer,’ Matt’s voice called, ‘I’m going to take a look.’
There was a thunk from deeper inside the kitchens, and a sudden sucking noise as a large door opened.
‘Shit!’ Matt’s voice came from across the kitchen, and the door slammed shut again. A strong smell of decay rolled across the kitchens, and the rest of the group stiffened in alarm.
‘What is it?’ Wilson said, grabbing Matt’s arm as he came stumbling past.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ Matt gasped, ‘it’s just the food in the freezer, it’s all gone off.’ He pulled free of Wilson’s hand. ‘I’m okay, let’s keep on looking.’
Outside the kitchen, the other four relaxed, but the smell leaked out and started to fill the room.
They grimaced and continued their search.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Nearly an hour later, they had completed their exploration of the first level without finding anything more unpleasant than the spoiled food in the freezer compartment. There was plenty of evidence of the disaster, however, and more grim reminders of the personnel’s fight for survival when they had retreated here. Blood was spattered on the walls and floor; personal items were strewn about, but there were no bodies.
The water in the kitchen eventually ran clean, and they refilled their bottles, and some larger empty containers they found. They found more food to keep them going; most of the sealed packets of dried ingredients had survived, and the ranges worked, so they would be able to supplement the emergency rations with some hot food.
They gathered together again at the entrance to the level, by the doors that had been torn off, and Clare directed them upstairs, following the fire stairs up to the second level lobby.
The main pressure doors to the second level were wide apart, apparently undamaged.
Matt’s heart sank as he saw them; it seemed as if the careful conclusions of the original investigation board were proving correct at nearly every turn.
‘Looks like it was deliberately opened,’ Bergman said carefully, but quite clearly.
Elliott voice came from behind him.
‘Yes, I agree. The crew almost certainly opened it accidentally, due to their inexperience.’
Something snapped inside Matt. The tiredness, the dark, and the endless repetition of Elliott’s position was too much, and Matt grabbed Elliott by the front of his suit and swung him round until they were face to face.
‘Listen, Elliott, will you do us all a favour and just keep an open mind for once, it’s like listening to some fucking PMI prick who doesn’t know when to
Matt knew he had lost it even as he yelled the last words, but he couldn’t stop himself, and he shoved Elliott away so hard that the smaller man stumbled in the low gravity, and would have gone down had not Abrams caught and held him.
‘Hey!’ Bergman grabbed Matt’s arm and tried to pull him away, but Matt shook him free and advanced on Elliott again.
Clare stepped between the two men.
‘Stop it,’ she said in a firm voice. Something in her demeanour made Elliott and Matt blink, and they halted either side of her, glaring at each other.
‘If anyone endangers this mission,’ she said slowly, looking down at the ground, ‘I will personally handcuff them to the robot, and they can follow us about like that. I don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks about the fucking doors, all I care about is getting off this planet and going home.’ She lifted her gaze to look at them both. ‘All right?’
Matt suddenly felt stupid and ashamed. After a moment, he nodded. He couldn’t even look Clare in the eye.
‘We’re going to explore this level, then the next, until we’re at the control centre level, and then we’ll decide what we’re going to do from there. Is that clear?’
‘Sure,’ Elliott said quietly, white-faced.
‘Right. Abrams, you stay with Dr Elliott. Bergman, keep Mr Crawford out of trouble, will you? Let’s keep
