A Visitor to the Future - 21 - Questioning Continues
We made our way back to the meeting room, Tungsten returning his borrowed shoes and stretching out his folded feet once more. A quick word to Travers and a five minute wait later, and a young woman arrived at the door. She was shorter than the crew we'd interviewed so far but still just as physically fit - certainly stronger than I was. She seemed guarded in much the same way as Okumu - but her features were not outright hostile - apparently she had a better sense of diplomacy. If I were to guess she'd probably be in her late thirties.
"Mind if I have a go?" asked Sarkona. Tungsten gave a brief bow and sat down, Sarkona taking his place. "What is your name and rank, please?"
The reply came back in a distinctive voice - no notable accent, but a little scratchy and worn. "Reserve Specialist Emery Meers, base botanist."
"Thank you. And when did you last see Commander Jackson?"
"In the canteen, last night. He was taking his divorce really poorly and Hollings and I thought we'd cheer him up a bit. One thing led to another and before we knew it we were all a bit tipsy."
"A bit?"
She sighed, "Alright, I admit it, we were really drunk. Jackson was especially bad, Hollings had to practically carry him back to his room. The two of them went off together. Then I went to bed and tried to sleep it off."
"Did you often drink with the Commander?"
She huffed, "No. But you know, he was feeling down since his divorce so I said to Hollings we should try and cheer him up."
"Can you think of any reason why anyone on the base might try to kill him?"
It took her a moment to respond. "Okumu has never liked him," she said, "Some bad blood there. Hollings was sponsored into the program by Jackson, guy was practically his mentor - doesn't seem like the type. The Doctor? Who knows. I've been training with him for three months and he hasn't given me one fact about himself - I've seen potato plants with more personality."
Antonia chimed in at that. "Did you say you're a botanist? What are you hoping to do on the upcoming mission?"
She looked a little disappointed at the statement. "Ah, I'm not actually on the mission. I'm a Reserve Specialist - I'm training for the mission afterwards - if it even goes ahead. But if I do get to go to Mars, I'll be trying to develop plants that can grow in a hostile environment."
"I'd love to see what you've been working on," Antonia said.
"Boring things mostly - genetically modified plants for growing in space. The interesting botany takes place on Mars itself."
Tungsten steepled his fingers and thumbs on the table, cocking his head to one side as he spoke. "Did you hear or see anything suspicious at all yesterday? Anything that might have seemed out of place?"
Meers shook her head. "No. I spent all day in the lab with Hollings - I was working on my projects, and he was fixing one of the ventilation ducts that had been acting up. I wish I had seen something."
Sarkona seemed to hesitate for a moment before dismissing Meers. We took a moment to briefly discuss things afterwards. "That was a lot harder than you made it look, Tungsten. It's hard to know what to ask next! I think I'll let you lead again next time," said Sarkona.
"If she was lying about anything, I couldn't tell," said Antonia, "How about you, Tungsten? Any thoughts?"
"From what I saw on the camera footage, she did seem to be rather intoxicated last night. She would have found it very difficult to climb the exterior wall. I'll admit I'm at a loss here. We should send in the last suspect."
The final person to be interviewed was revealed as the door opened. A tall man with sandy blonde hair probably in his mid twenties, the figure of Hollings was a clear contrast to all the suspects we had seen before - not because of his physical appearance, but his face held a perpetually pained expression, and I could see a slight redness to his eyes - he had been rubbing his eyes, or possibly crying. The emotional distance we'd seen with the other suspects just wasn't present.
Tungsten had stood briefly to resume his pacing about the room but upon seeing Hollings stopped and sat again. When Tungsten spoke his tone was a little softer and measured.
"Please provide your rank and name."
"Specialist William Hollings, crew technician." His voice lacked volume and emotion, seeming drained.
"Thank you. I take it that you knew the deceased well?"
He nodded. "Yes, he sponsored me into the program. I wouldn't be here without him - much less on the next mission."
"Tell me about what happened yesterday."
He shook his head and closed his eyes, pinching the edge of his nose. "It was mostly a normal day. There was a fault in the ventilation shaft in the botany lab that I was looking into - we use the similar design in there as in space, so it's good practice. Meers was in there all day with me working on some plants." He sighed. "Then we went to the canteen with the Commander. Tried to cheer him up a bit."
"He'd recently gone through a troubling divorce, yes?"
"That's right. He liked a drink from time to time but he'd been using it as a bit of a coping mechanism - he'd been under a lot of stress lately. It wasn't just the divorce, he was having to prop up the whole program pretty much - use whatever pull he had with the higher-ups to keep things going."
"What do you mean by that?"
He sighed again. "He told us one of the corporate sponsors pulled out last week. Funding for the future of the program is proving difficult to find. It was really getting to him - I think he was looking forward to getting into space to be free of it all, just focus on Mars again. Wasn't fair really, he did more to keep the program going than almost anyone."
"I appreciate this might be difficult to answer - please tell us when you last saw him."
He made his account slowly, hesitantly. "We left the canteen together. He can't hold his beer, so I gave him a hand back to his quarters - the lift was out of order. He's a talkative drunk - kept saying loads of nonsense, like about how he never loved his wife anyway, and how the walls were the wrong shade of yellow, and he launched into a whole rant about how Mars was going to be better than Earth in the long run. But we got up there without issue and he gave me a pat on the shoulder, and went inside to sleep things off. That's the last I saw of him."
"You didn't go inside with him?"
"No."
"And you didn't see anyone else around his quarters?"
"No, it was pretty late. People tend to turn in early - we have to be up early too."
"Where did you go afterwards?"
"Straight to my quarters on the ground floor. Then to sleep."
Tungsten leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, turning his head to us and angling it to invite us to ask any questions we might have.
"Do you know anyone on the base who might be able to manipulate video footage?" asked Sarkona.
He seemed to think for a moment. "I used to do some CGI work when I was younger, but apart from that, no - not a skill we need as astronauts."
We looked between ourselves, Antonia and Sarkona trying to come up with another question. Tungsten sat silently in contemplation. With nothing else coming to mind, we dismissed Hollings and he shuffled out of the room.