impossible if the crew hadn’t been so productive. I was, I admit, rather proud of my achievement.
“So, who is it you sent for?” Dumont asked on a private channel. After explaining her findings and the data she claimed proved it, she’d spent the rest of the shift taking measurements and examining the site. As she was decently skilled with her suit and stayed out of the way, no one had complained. I knew the crew wanted to know what she was doing here, but no one but Mohammed had asked as yet, and his only question had been to find out if she could work heavy equipment. I do like task-oriented people, and Mohammed’s focus had, he’d told me, cost him a marriage. He hadn’t told me he’d murdered her and her lover when he discovered them, leading to his incarceration here. That I had to learn from prison staff.
“Doctor, before I make the introductions, I need you to promise to keep an open mind.”
“That sounds . . . ominous?” I could hear what I took to be a smile in her voice.
“Can you? Keep an open mind, I mean?”
“Monsieur Borges, you have said you think this person might help me. You are the first person with half a brain who didn’t look at me like I was an idiot when I mentioned the possibility of an alien intelligence fiddling with orbits in this system. The least I can do in return is, as you say, keep an open mind.”
“Good. I can’t promise anything, but . . .” I left it at that. Renaud was Broken, and I might have just heard what I wanted to hear from him. And even if she was right, and he was right, there was no guarantee they would be able to communicate. Broken were called such for a reason.
The lighter docked.
Renaud shot from the hatch almost before it had fully opened.
“Monsieur Borges, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” the Broken babbled, his suit describing an alarmingly fast arc toward me. “Can you hear it?”
“Renaud, slow down, please,” I said, hoping he would slow his speech as well as his approach.
“I can hear it! Aren’t you excited? Can’t you hear it? I assume that’s why you got me out!” he said, each phrase hard atop the next. He did, however, slow his approach, though not until the last second. I was ready to evade him when he maneuvered to a smooth halt not three meters in front of me.
“Fuck.” Dr. Azelié Dumont said the word with feeling.
“Is that an offer?” Renaud asked. For once he actually waited for an answer. She didn’t give one. I turned to look at her through the faceplate of her helmet. The physicist’s expression made it evident she thought herself the butt of some vile joke.
“Open mind, Doctor,” I reminded her. “Open mind.”
“But not too open! That’s how you go mad, you know!” Renaud added.
OPENING UP
“I don’t know about this, boss.” Mohammed did not like Renaud. He liked the fact I was doing what the Broken wanted even less.
“Will the charges put anyone at risk?”
“No, but . . .”
“But we lose a day or two of work. I’ll cover it. We’re well ahead of quota anyway, thanks to your hard work.”
“If you say so, boss.”
“I do.”
He jetted off toward the far end of the trench for a final check of the pattern. Renaud followed in his wake, surprisingly quiet. At least I hoped he was being quiet and not broadcasting on another channel something mad to my crew, who were in the bunkhouse, eating well and enjoying some liquor I’d brought to celebrate my return.
“What is he about?” the physicist asked.
I made sure we were on a private channel before answering. “Renaud? He’s Broken.”
“So I gathered. Why do you think he knows something?”
“Renaud said he committed the crime that got him sent here because of the song he was hearing from up here.”