On the paperwork, Area 71 was still officially called Station Job-22. Named after George Job, now a disgraced retired senator, Sly was amused that the name also referred to the chapter of the bible where Eliphaz accused Job of great wickedness, declaring his suffering to be the result of sin.
No one used the base’s proper name unless they were signing off cost.
Outside Area 71 was a place of great suffering, but inside wasn’t terrible. The complex had both light and heat, and more space than Sly imagined possible from a cave. Once volcanic, Mt Conrad’s depths were still very warm. Natural shafts honeycombed the mountain, and a double shaft, named the ‘Endless Stair’ by an anonymous Tolkien fan, ran vertically from the pit to the peak, a chimney within a chimney all the way up.
Or all the way down, depending on how you looked at it.
Sly shuddered as he passed the signs to the pit entrance. As a child, he had never been afraid of what lay under the bed but, after Serenity, Sly had developed a deep unease concerning lightless labyrinths and confined spaces – he just couldn’t remember why. He’d returned from Turkey without broken bones but with a terrible dread of the dark, combined with partial dissociative amnesia. He couldn’t recall everything that had happened on the mission. Guaranteed electricity was reassuring, though. He never again wanted to grope about in the dark.
The design and installation of sustainable energy at the complex was the topic of Area 71’s most cited research papers. CU’s academic engineers installed efficient turbines in the Stair’s central shaft to produce electricity from rising air currents. Together with a winch-and-stone gravity battery, the site produced electricity all year round.
The electric heaters and boilers catered to the dormitories, and to three executive rooms. Each dorm slept eight, for a total of twenty-seven souls.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Officially the station had never once been that full. The seasonal researchers must have had their pick of beds.
When Sly took a quick tour of the facility, the exec rooms were all occupied, containing the crumpled clothing and scattered belongings of Thorpe’s companions. They all provided near obscene levels of luxurious comfort, considering Area 71’s outrageous location.
“It’s like discovering Armstrong had a bidet on the moon,” John Ramirez said, accompanying him as they shared a look around Peck’s plush room.
“Rank Hath Its Privileges is a military axiom,” Sly supplied thoughtfully. “RHIP’s not biblical, though it sure sounds like it ought to be. And RHIP’s not usual in the academic world, and though that can depend on the school, I didn’t think CU was like that. Peck was military, I think, and not so long ago.”
Ramirez frowned dubiously. “That isn’t in the file.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Sly, pensively. “Have we found where the fourth guy was sleeping? The researcher who died?”
“You mean Ronald Thorpe?”
“Yeah. We need to find his gear.”
Ramirez shook his head. “No idea where he bunked but there’s plenty of choice. You got Peck was ex-military because he has a room? They all had rooms. And personal bathrooms, by God.”
“Sure,” Sly said without humour, meeting the captain’s eyes. “Look at it this way. If you worked for CU as a non-academic safety manager, and were sent to the South Pole with three academic colleagues, one of them evidently both a researcher and a woman… who do you think would get the biggest bathroom?”
Ramirez looked through to the ensuite. Sly knew what he saw. The bathroom equipment was plastic – that weight issue again – but there was a proper toilet, with plumbing, and the shower was spacious. The other bathrooms were more the size of built-in wardrobes. Sly was sure Peck’s was the largest single room.
“I take the point,” Ramirez said, “although Peck might just have been a dick.”
“I don’t think he was,” Sly said. “I heard him on a recording and thought he sounded ex-military. He oversaw the caretakers, and the others did what he said in a dangerous situation, but he wouldn’t have outranked the senior academic. The other two apparently let him take the biggest room, while Thorpe, another genuine vulcanologist, isn’t even here. This whole thing feels off.”
