commence your shutdown sequence now. Number twenty-five has already been withdrawn and the original twelve apostles seem to be praying quietly. Move in the remaining 12 rods now and commence shutdown. Markov can take his meal break.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right down there.”
Garin slipped out the door, and ran down the hall to the reactor room, inserting his key card for entry and waiting until he had a green access light. He pushed open the door, thinking the room seemed a bit dim, and heard it close behind him.
“Markov, your turn,” he said. “The bread is pretty good tonight, but not before we run the shutdown sequence. Then I’ll have to spend another two hours collating the data from the scan.”
He walked into the control room, thinking it seemed oddly strange. Then he realized what was wrong. His coat was missing from the wall rack. There was nothing on the monitor desk, not the book he had been reading, the empty tea cup or his pen. Markov’s magazine was gone as well. In fact the chairs were missing. What was going on here?
“Markov?”
Garin leaned around to look behind the monitor station, but there was no sign of the other man. Where was he? Dobrynin would have a fit if he found out Markov had left his shift early. There was no restroom in the test-bed monitoring station, but perhaps he drank too much tea and had to run out. He could understand him taking the book and magazine, but the chairs? It made no sense. The Chief was going to skin him alive. Human eyes had to be on the monitors at all times during any part of a core maintenance procedure, and he shook his head, looking at the monitors with relief when he saw no warning lights.
Stupid Markov, he thought. He’ll get himself into some real trouble if I tell the Chief he left his station. What’s he doing with the chairs? Then he reached up and toggled the switches to initiate a full system shutdown, concluding the test. Another set of twelve more rods would descend into the reactor vessel, stilling down the fission to a very low level prior to final shutdown.
The wall intercom buzzed, and he walked over to it and thumbed the call button. “Reactor Testing Room, Mishman Garin speaking.”
“Garin? Have Markov come in here with his clipboard before he takes his meal break.” It was Chief Dobrynin.
Garin looked around…the clipboard was also gone. “Sir,” he began. “Markov is no longer here, and the clipboard is missing. He must have taken it with him.” He hated to be a snitch, but it had to be said. “He was not here when I arrived to relieve him, Chief.”
“Not there? I’ll fry him in oil! Where is he, that good for nothing… Never mind, Garin. Just complete the shutdown sequence. I’ll be there in a few minutes. If I find him in the head I’ll flush his own stupid head down the toilet!”
“One more thing, sir…” Garin bit the bullet and made his report. “The chairs are missing. Both of them, sir.” He felt stupid as well, but what else could he say?
“The chairs are missing?”
The chairs were missing, the clipboard was gone. Garin’s jacket was no longer on the wall rack, the book and magazine were gone, and Markov’s tea was missing too. Markov was missing, and it would be the last that any man alive on earth that day would ever see of him.
Part IV
Storm Clouds
“What if tomorrow vanished in the storm? What if time stood still? And yesterday--if once we lost our way, blundered in the storm--would we find yesterday again ahead of us, where we had thought tomorrow's sun would rise?”
― Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie
Chapter 10
Doctor Zolkin was the first senior officer on the scene, arriving behind the two Seamen and a 2nd Class Petty Officer. There were a cluster of three or four other sailors outside the hatch, and he quickly shooed them away. Peering into the cabin, he saw the men ready to lift another man from the cot, and stepped quickly inside, closing the hatch behind him.
“Leave him there, please,” he said, stepping to the side of the cot and seeing the man’s limp body. One look told him he was not merely asleep or unconscious. He opened an eyelid, saw the dark weal and purple bruise marks on the man’s neck, checked for a pulse there and noted the stain on his pants in the groin area.