just calm down, please,” Trevor raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Why do you think it's someone from the base?”
"Who else? We were all together.”
“But,” Taney intervened, “when you returned from lunch, you were all alive. And you didn't get together right away, did you? Only after a while? Was anyone around?”
“I was the first to come, and the body had already been found,” Werner said.
“Did you meet anyone in the corridor?” Trevor asked.
“No,” Werner replied.
“So, Captain Finn, it turns out that your crew has to answer some questions,” Taney eyeballed Finn, who fell silent. “Including you.”
“You should include Werner as well,” I ventured. “At least Werner, he might be lying.”
Everyone stopped speaking, engulfed in uneasy thoughts. Silence hung thick over the table. Werner gave me a hostile glance, I responded in kind.
“Why would someone from my crew do it?” Finn wondered.
“We will find out,” Trevor replied. “It seems highly unlikely that in a few hours any of us developed such antipathy toward your astrophysicist as to kill her.”
“Cheng could be murdered to keep something hidden from us,” I rejoined the conversation.
“What might it be?”
“How would I know?” I looked away into the corner, gathered my thoughts and continued. “Some of us believe that we are still on Earth. Where is our lander?”
Trevor and Taney exchanged glances.
“That's a bold statement,” the base commander drawled. “What could have caused such distrust?”
Instead of a reply, meaningful silence followed.
“All right then,” Trevor said and turned one of the three-dimensional displays so that we could see the image. “Have a look. Show the surface,” he ordered.
On the display, which consisted of a multitude of transparent layers, an image started to emerge. Regardless of a view angle, it looked like a window to another world. We saw a gray desert flooded with pale orange light pouring from the sky covered with ragged dirty clouds.
I don't know about the others, but a feeling of hopelessness came over me. It was the first time I realized that I would spend the rest of my life in this desolated place, which inspired no optimism at all. I imagined the ultimate goal of our journey very differently. And I could do nothing but ruefully watch a gust of wind lifting a cloud of dust from the ground and driving it toward the distant horizon.
“It can be a render, like a computer game,” Small spoke for the first time.
Trevor made a grimace, glanced at Taney and attentively regarded everyone at the table.
“Why don't you believe us?”
“There are a lot of strange things here. And Cheng is dead. I'm sorry,” John said. “Your base bears little resemblance to our idea of planetary stations. Of course, many years have supposedly passed, but still…”
“Ah, great!” Trevor leaned back on his chair. “I don't believe in anything before I touch it, right?” he looked at us again. “I'll give you a tour of the surface, if that's what you want. But we will also find the killer, and I think it’s one of yours. Now I'd like to get back to my duties. And I would recommend that you take your part in the life of the base as soon as possible. I know you have just emerged from conservation, but we lack hands to maintain all systems, so any specialist is worth their weight in gold. Taney will interview each of you in turn, please be cooperative.”
“All right,” our captain said, getting up.
We got up as well and silently left the office. Taney stayed with Trevor, and Werner took us back to our rooms. Boris waited in the corridor, nervously pacing back and forth. When he saw us, he rushed to Finn.
“Captain, Dr. Stein and Sheila took Cheng's body to the morgue. I'd like to assist during the autopsy. Could you arrange it with Trevor? According to Dr. Stein, we don't belong to the base staff yet, so a special permission from the superiors is required.”
“I'll see what I can do. “Now please come to my compartment, we need to discuss our deplorable situation.”
We were despondent. Everyone's face expressed grief for Ji Cheng mixed with bewilderment. The captain spoke up.
“I have to ask,” he said after a pause, “if anyone had a personal conflict with Ji.”
“What are you talking about?” Leonov snarled. “We passed the compatibility test.”
“I don't know,” Finn said abruptly. “Everything is possible. A love triangle, for instance,” he looked at Boris and me.
“Then why would you exclude yourself and Lisa?” I retorted angrily.
Finn sighed. Then seated himself on a chair.
“I think it's Werner,” I looked straight into the captain's eyes.
“What about his motive?” he asked.
“Ji saw something she shouldn't have, and she would tell us about it.”
“I agree with Max,” Leonov said.
Finn looked at Lisa. She nodded.
“I'm sure it's not one of us.”
“Fine,” the captain concluded. “Let's accept it as our operational assumption. But she was always with us, what could she see? And it turns out that Lisa and Werner were walking toward her room from both sides of the corridor. Is Werner the prime suspect?”
“Unless someone snuck in earlier,” I said. “There wasn't much time, but just enough to make it through the corridor.”
“What do you think about the base?” Boris asked.
“Trevor showed us the surface on the display and promised a tour. It's not Earth, I'm inclined to believe him.”
“Hopefully, it's true,” the biologist lowered his head, but then raised his gleaming eyes again. “There is something strange here, but I can't nail it down.”
“It's clear enough from Ji Cheng's murder, and we must find out what it is,” Lisa said. “We are going to live here for the rest of our lives, unless a ship from Earth arrives.”
“I think we should have a rest,” Boris said. “Tomorrow I will initiate a thorough physical examination. DC is not a wellness procedure, you know.”
I took a shower and was sitting on my bed mulling over the recent events when somebody knocked on the door.
“It's open,” I replied, thinking that given Cheng's death, it wouldn't hurt to start locking the door.
Unexpectedly, it was Anna.
“Max, that's terrible! Sheila told me about the murder,” she said in a manner much more informal than before.
