Look at me, actually doing work during slow times during the day.
…
The Madness
Today I realized that it’s been three days since we got a message from Salmarina Europa HQ. It’s been busy — we did make four weeks, in the end, but the deadline was almost in minutes instead of hours — but that can explain maybe a day. Two days is scary. Three days had me running through the airlocks to Chumley’s new office.
I was half-expecting her to chew my head off for missing this, but she’s the weirdest nogo I’ve ever met. Chumley was more interested in fixing the problem than blaming somebody else for it. “We began having intermittent communications failures after we started the prelaunch cycle for restarting the base’s life support system,” she told me. “The problem grew worse after the system went fully online. We haven’t been able to communicate with Salmaria for the last two days. Whatever the effect is, it only extends for three kilometers out from the center of the base. I have a team establishing a new transmitter from outside the dead zone. Once they’ve reestablished a connection, we’ll run a cable back to here.”
That sounded reasonable, but: “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her.
Chumley regarded me. “Station Chief Buckley,” she responded, “what would you have been able to do about it?”
“Buckley”? Oh dear …