Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour Read Online Free PDF

on the data from the seismometers.’
    ‘Probably fallen asleep at the console. I’ll go check on him.’
    ‘Great.’ Monkey got to his feet and started past Aneka. ‘Coffee’s fresh.’
    Aneka poured herself a mug of coffee and took a pull on it, and then headed through into the operations room. Primly was bent over one of the tables, just as Aneka had predicted, but she frowned as soon as she saw him. His infrared signature was too low.
    ‘Al…?’
    ‘Interfacing to his bio-monitor… He’s dead. Termination of vital functions occurred twelve hundred and sixteen seconds ago. There is no possibility of recovery.’
    ‘Shit.’ Stepping forward, Aneka lifted Primly up to check his pulse out of habit. There was foam around his mouth. ‘Al, check the atmospheric processor records for this room for the last hour.’ She turned the chair and checked over the rest of him. That was when she found the burns on his hands. Third degree, deep tissue burns with bone showing through in places.
    ‘There was a rise in hydrogen sulphide levels around the time of his death,’ Al announced. ‘The detected concentration was only fifty-two parts per million over a one-minute interval. Nowhere near a lethal dose. There was also a one-degree rise in room temperature.’
    Frowning, Aneka looked around. The aluminium decking they had put in to keep people’s feet off the more delicate surface below was distorted in a couple of places, as though by extreme heat, and she followed the trail under the table. There was a hole drilled through the base of the cabin and the metal, near the wall.
    ‘Does the shape of that remind you of anything?’
    A schematic image of the hole Aneka had found while placing the seismometers overlaid the view she was looking at. It was different, but very similar. ‘I would not classify it as a one hundred per cent match,’ Al said, ‘but the coincidence is rather more extreme than I would like.’
    ‘Damn. Aneka to David.’
    There was a pause and then, ‘Aneka? I was just about to get into bed.’
    ‘Sorry. Wake Delta and get your clothes back on. We have a problem.’
    ~~~
    ‘I-I’m not a pathologist,’ Rice said, ‘but I’m p-pretty sure. Pulmonary oedema combined with shock from the burns. It…’ She paused to swallow hard. ‘It’s consistent with inhalation of a massive amount of hydrogen sulphide.’
    ‘But there was no massive dose!’ Adams roared. He had been growing increasingly red in the face as the discussion went on. Aneka was starting to lose patience with him. ‘We found evidence of a fire in one of the computers. He saw it, panicked, got burned, and died. An accident. We cannot pull out because of an accident.’
    Strike the ‘losing.’ Reaching out, Aneka grabbed the front of Adams’ jacket with one hand, yanked him toward her, and then lifted him off the ground. ‘A man is dead,’ she said. Grumand grimaced at the level tone of her voice; he had heard that kind of tone used right before someone got their head smashed open. ‘The evidence suggests that he died of hydrogen sulphide poisoning, but you’re right, there does not seem to be evidence of enough of it to kill him. That is an anomaly, a very dangerous one. The fact that his death shows alarming similarity to what killed a lot of the colonists makes it more alarming. I am declaring this area unsafe until I can be assured of everyone’s safety, and if you don’t shut your damn mouth I will put you through a wall. Are we quite clear, Doctor Adams?’ Her hand opened before he could answer and a second later Adams was sprawling on the decking, eyes wide.
    ‘She assaulted me!’ he shrieked. ‘You all saw it. I’m the leader of this expedition and…’
    ‘No,’ Grumand snapped. Adams looked at him, his head snapping around as though he had heard a gunshot. ‘You are the lead scientist here. When it comes to expedition safety, there’s Aneka, and then there’s Vashma, and you don’t even rate a vote.