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Narrative

New Reasons to Worry

Autumn Belfontaine had just started sounding out some of her contacts in Engineering, trying to find out who had the strongest background in backup and emergency power generation, when she got a text from Betty Margrave. No explanation, just a request to come by Security.

So here she was, cooling her heels in the reception area. At least she could surf local news websites on her phone while she waited, and not look like she was indulging in nerves. As news director for Shepardsport Pirate Radio, she was just doing her job.

And then her name was called, and now she was inside the office of the Chief of Security. Was it her imagination, or did Betty Margrave look like she’d aged several years in the last few weeks?

Certainly the woman looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes. Her hair looked brittle and lifeless, another sign that she was pushing herself to exhaustion.

Does Dr. Thuc realize just how bad off she’s getting? Even as the thought came to Autumn’s mind, she realized Shepardsport’s chief flight surgeon probably had as much work, if not more, down at Medlab.

And there was no time to ponder it, because Betty was talking. “…need to know where this information is coming from. Having rumors running around the place is bad enough when they’re false and we can offer facts to the contrary. But there are just enough facts here that they can be spun into something that can result in panic.”

Autumn’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment as she realized she’d started listening only after Betty had directly referred to whatever rumors she was concerned about. And given the current situation, it could be any of half a dozen things that someone could come across by surfing onto the blog or social media page of someone who knew a little bit about the situation. And there was no way to ask without admitting that her mind had been elsewhere when she should’ve been listening.

Might as well just brazen it out. “Absolutely. That’s why there are a number of subjects that will be covered on-air only after we’ve run it past the appropriate authorities, specifically so we don’t spread rumors or dangerously inaccurate information. Right now a lot of it’s medical, and sometimes the embargo has to last longer than I’d like because Medstaff is so busy right now. But there are some sensitive political items that I always run past command, just in case there are reason Captain Waite needs something kept quiet for some length of time.”

“That’s good.” Betty actually seemed pleased, although her expression remained weary. Maybe she was tired enough that the signs of Autumn’s lapse had slipped right past her. “Especially when we’re looking at the possibility of having to enact much more stringent isolation measures here in Shepardsport, depending on what news we get from Schirrasburg Medlab.”

Autumn’s nerves tingled with alarm. Schirrasburg had had a close call earlier, but that individual had turned out to have an ordinary respiratory illness of the sort that periodically swept through lunar habitats in spite of every space operator’s pre-launch quarantine rules. But if they had a second potential case…

“What kinds of measures would we be talking about?”

“At the moment things are still under discussion, and it doesn’t help that so many of the people at Johnson are indefinitely out of the office.” Read that as sick, likely with the diablovirus, maybe even deceased. “But if there’s any strong reason to believe that any of our people was in contact with the infected individual, we’d be talking about a lot tighter controls on interpersonal contact. We’d definitely have to shut down the dining commons and have all meals sent via deliverybot, although right now that would be difficult for the simple reason that we don’t have enough bots to do it. And we couldn’t have people hanging out together in the lounges of residential modules, or in department offices up in Miskatonic Sector. It’s going to make group study hard, and it’s going to play hobs with our physical fitness program, but this thing is a killer. Not as bad in areas where people have good general health — we’ve known that ever since it started — but still bad enough that it could very easily sweep through a lunar settlement. And unlike dirtside cities, we cannot afford to have a significant number of our critical workers laid up with this thing.”

“Completely agreed. I’ll sound out the reporters and the dj’s, see if one of them is the source of the leak. But to be completely honest, we’ve got a lot of people with ties to Schirrasburg. So it’s completely possible it started with a private e-mail or text message that someone else saw. We may never know for sure where it came from.”

“Well, do what you can. With luck we can avoid having to make an official matter of it.”