«Truth and Shadows», Martin Delrio

1

Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals Offshore Drilling Station #47

Oilfields Coast, Northwind

Prefecture III, The Republic of the Sphere

November 3133; dry season

Ian Murchison, resident medic on Balfour-Douglas’s Station #47, leaned on the rail of the oil rig’s observation deck, watching the night sky and taking his ease after a long day. Here on Kearney’s Oilfields Coast, the low latitude made for warm weather despite the season. The continental landmass was a dark bulk away over the water to the east, and the memory of sunset lingered in a purple glow along the seaward horizon.

There was no moon tonight to overpower the rest of the night sky. Murchison had seen a meteor shower the night before, out of the usual time for such—maybe, he’d speculated, bits of the tail of some minor and uncharted comet, making its long elliptical journey around Northwind system’s central star, only brushing atmosphere once out of centuries. Tonight, however, he saw nothing but the regular twinkling stars, their light refracted by the humid ocean air.

Today had been a long day, but a dull one. Murchison hadn’t minded; in his opinion, a little dullness now and then was a good thing. Out on an oil rig, days that weren’t dull tended to involve nasty industrial accidents or sudden illnesses, and Balfour-Douglas #47 was a long way from a good hospital, on a long empty stretch of coastline. Even a VTOL craft summoned to evacuate someone seriously ill or injured had to come from more than three hours away—which meant that in most emergencies, Murchison’s patient was either dead or stable long before transport arrived. Balfour-Douglas #47 hadn’t had one of those emergencies since Barry O’Mara’s appendix went bad on him in the middle of a force 10 storm, and Murchison was in no hurry to experience another one soon.

He pushed away from the rail. He’d dawdled out here enjoying the night air long enough. It was time to go back to his office cubby, write up the log of the day’s cuts and scrapes and bruises, lock up all the drawers and cabinets, and go to bed. If any pain or discomfort decided to manifest itself later, someone would wake him.

A faint sound—the clink of metal against metal—broke the night. Murchison knew all the regular sounds of the oil rig, so that his mind erased them without thinking all day and night and let him read their steady underbeat as silence, but this sound had not been one of the regular noises. He paused, listening, but heard no repetition of the metallic clink.

He shrugged. Maybe somebody on another of the platform’s several decks had dropped something; sounds carried out here on the water, and the clinking noise could have come from anywhere on the rig. Or maybe the sound had been the metallic structure of the platform itself flexing and creaking, which meant that in a day or two something on the rig would break, probably without warning, and Murchison would have to patch up whoever was in the way when it went.

Whatever, he thought. There was nothing he could do about any of it tonight. He continued on his way inside.

Murchison’s office was a small windowless room on the platform’s upper admin level, with a one-cot examining room/sick bay immediately adjacent. Both rooms were empty as usual. The office didn’t hold much—a desk, computer, and datalink setup; what Murchison didn’t know how to treat already, he could look up or discuss with experts at need. He kept a small tri-vid box up on one metal shelf; he turned it to a satellite news channel and settled down to work. He listened with half an ear to the sports news—late rugby scores, mostly—as he pulled up the log page for the day on his computer screen.

0745. Wilkie, Ted, foot fungus. Treated with topical ointment, released to return to work.

The tri-vid news show cycled back to the start of the hour and the big events of the day. The main news story dealt with signs of local economic recovery after the Steel Wolves’ incursion during the early summer; the show had brought in an expert from the University of New Lanark to quote statistics.

1156. Barton, Glynis, second-degree burn on right hand from hot oil in deep-fat fryer in galley. Applied sterile bandage, released to two days light duty.

The tri-vid news moved on to the global weather, with a story about how early snowfalls in the Rockspires presaged a hard winter, then cut to the regional weather feeds for local details. In the case of Balfour-Douglas #47, the forecast called for a high tomorrow in the southern Oilfields Coast region of 36 degrees centigrade, and an overnight low of 22.

1520. Calloway, Tim. Muscle aches and fever of unknown origin. Treated with acetaminophen, sent back to quarters with instructions to rest and drink plenty of water.

In the entertainment news, local Northwind networks were planning new dramas to replace off-world programming lost in the collapse of the HPG communications network: “And now an interview with producer Brett—”