Oxygen Is a Luxury

How it begins

The dead man had used forty-seven liters of oxygen since breakfast.

Lena checked the date on his death certificate.

Three years earlier.

She checked the meter.

Still running.

Accounting was rarely dramatic. Its satisfactions were smaller: a balanced column, a decimal restored to its proper place, a discrepancy explained by someone else's entirely predictable mistake.

This discrepancy was breathing.

She opened the next account.

Dead.

The next.

Dead.

Outside her office, the station's morning announcement reminded residents that deep breathing was a premium wellness activity. Lena had always disliked the phrase. Today she muted it.

There were twelve thousand accounts in the inactive-person archive.

Every one was purchasing air.

The total would have kept the outer ring supplied for a month.

She called Maintenance.

A man answered over the sound of a loose fan.

"Before you complain, we know about the smell."

"This is Accounting."

"That's a different smell."

Lena read him the first account number.

The fan stopped.

"Where are you?"

"In my office."

"Leave."

She looked at the corridor through the glass wall. Two people stood beside the lift, reading something on a shared screen.

"Why?"

"Because if you've found those accounts, you've found the ship."

Lena kept her voice level.

"What ship?"

"The one we're not supposed to need."

The men by the lift looked up.

Her office contained one door, one ventilation panel and a framed certificate thanking her for twenty years of efficient resource allocation.

She had accepted it without thinking about the people whose resources she allocated.

The maintenance man spoke again.

"There's a service ladder behind your filing cabinet."

"How do you know?"

"I installed it."

Lena unplugged the terminal, removed the small archive drive and put it in her pocket.

Then she turned the certificate face down.

For the first time in her career, she left a column deliberately unfinished.