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The files opened, and she saw a long chronological list. The station had still been manned for months, and so there were dozens of entries, roughly one every day.
She glanced over the first one. It was fairly standard; settling in, getting to know the peculiarities of this particular station.
“Scan the logs for anomalous activity on the station,” Pirra ordered her system.
It hummed for a second, then showed her a selection of dates.
There was a pattern to them. They started intermittently, but slowly grew closer together. Just like what she and Tred had experienced, but stretched over months instead of hours . . .
Near the end, they were all recording as anomalous. A solid month of logs, with multiple entries a day, all of them had pinged her search for anomalies.
She opened the first.
“The strangest thing happened today. I had left my coffee in the break room before I went onto bridge shift. Stenni didn’t mind letting me go to get it. Ten minutes after I got back, though, I couldn’t find it . . . and when I went back to the break room later, it was in there. I know it was mine because it was in my mug that dad gave me. Had I forgotten it? I felt certain I had it with me both times. Guess it’s the new station jitters, huh?”
The next entry opened.
“Today I heard someone shout in the hall. I don’t know why I woke up, but I couldn’t get back to sleep so I took a short walk. But then I heard a voice; it was a yell or scream, and it scared the crap out of me. The system said no one else was even in that section with me, though. I checked in anyway, asked if anyone had heard anything. They heard nothing.”
The next night was also flagged, and she read on.
“I can’t get that scream out of my mind. I checked my system, but it recorded no audio activity at that moment, nor did the system log. Was it just in my head?”
A week later, a short entry;
“I heard the scream again. But it was saying something this time. I can’t be sure what, but I think it said that we don’t belong here. I’ve heard of weird sounds on ships and stations before, but never heard of voices. I told Saltzmann, but he said it was probably just someone watching a film in their room. It could be, but it just doesn’t sit right with me. It sounded so real.”
She didn’t have time to read all of this. She skipped ahead half a dozen entries.
“Today I saw the unknown man again. I went past the service hallway leading to the airlock and I saw four people huddled in the hall. I’m sure it was four – Saltzmann, Porthu, Stenni, and . . . someone. It couldn’t have been Crube or Joon, they were on the bridge. Who is this man? And why were those three talking to him?
“I was too afraid to approach. After the veiled threats Porthu had made the week before, I didn’t want to anger him again. I watched, but several minutes later I blacked out. I woke up with Stenni over me. Dessei are hard to read, but he didn’t even seem concerned. Just watching me. Didn’t offer me a hand up or say anything. Eventually he just walked away.”
She read the next journal entry.
“I saw him. Clearly, this time. Not just a flash out of the corner of my eyes. Not just mixed among the others. He was down the hall from me, staring at me as I walked by. I nearly had a heart attack, and when I looked back, he was still there. We just stood like that for what seemed like minutes, when he said to me that we don’t belong here and ran. I tried to follow him, but I lost him. The system couldn’t find him and said there were still only six of us on the station. I even looked through the past logs at prior crews, but saw no one who looked like him. I tried reporting it to Saltzmann again, but he refused to write up a report on my ‘mad ravings’.”
She skipped ahead more. There had to be something useful here.
One of the later entries was marked as important. She opened it.
“I cannot track time anymore, I don’t know how long we’ve been here. My log says that it’s only been months, but I can’t be sure. I feel like I’ve written and re-written this entry – a thousand entries – that don’t show up. Some of them are even corrupting, as if I’m writing over the exact same data over and over again.
“I can’t trust anyone anymore, except maybe Crube. But she’s locked herself in her room and won’t come out, says she doesn’t even care if she’s brought up on charges of dereliction. I got in to see her, though, but it was no good. She says she knows what’s going on, that she’s figured it out, but she won’t tell me. I think she wanted to, I think she felt bad not telling me, but she said it was for the best.
“Saltzmann doesn’t even seem to notice our absence. Just chatting with his new friend all the time, or with Porthu and Stenni. Or all of them together. They’re together most of the time, talking about something they won’t let me in on. Acting like that stranger is part of the crew. But he only ever says to me that we don’t belong here.
“I feel like I’m replaying the same days over and over again. Some days I forget the man isn’t supposed to be here and just go about my business. It’s impossible, though, I remember disembarking. I have memories of getting on a ship and leaving, flying away from this place, of going home, of being home . . .
“They’re not just imaginings! They’re not made up in my head! These are memories, memories of leaving but I still wake up every day on this station!
“Am I insane? I remember it a dozen different ways.
“Or . . .
“Or is a part of me stuck here? Can I never truly leave? A never-ending cycle of this hell, running over and over?
“Something happened. Something has trapped a part of my mind, my soul, on this station.
“I’m alone, and I’m afraid.”
Pirra closed the log with trembling hands.
How long had she and Tred been here? She tried to remember, but it felt like days, if not longer. Were they supposed to have been here for days?
She wanted to ask her system, but she knew it was unreliable. She had only her own sense of time to tell.
And she didn’t know.
“We have to get out of here,” she said out loud.
Because they didn’t belong here.
The logs had said that Dr. Crube had locked herself in her quarters, and there weren’t that many crew compartments on this station. The one next to this room had been sealed, she wondered . . .
Creeping into the hall, she went to the door. She hated not acting more directly, but she needed the information. She needed to know so she could plan.
The door lock had been put into a looping cycle that would prevent it from responding to commands. It was a basic and quick way to keep a door from responding, but she could simply reset it. Surely the station commander, Saltzmann, could have done the same.
If, as the logs said, the man had stopped caring, though, then this would have stopped anyone with only a casual knowledge of these systems.
She ended the loop and the door opened on her command.
A stench came out to greet her, an organic smell that had been sitting for a long time.
Ignoring it, she went in, staying low. Perhaps this was where one of their mystery people had been-
Something moved. A shape, like a person. Then, a voice spoke.
“You’re not Stenni,” a woman’s voice croaked. “You’re . . . new.”
“Who are you?” Pirra demanded, watching the hunched figure and holding the knife ready. “Identify yourself.”
The woman looked up, a smile splitting a face ravaged by stress. She did not even need to speak for Pirra to recognize her.
“Dr. Crube?” Pirra breathed.
Other Terrestrial 