Crescent by Phil Rossi

mentally preparing herself for a day that was sure to be full of questions. She kept expecting the call from Captain Benedict, but it never came.
    Marisa pulled the uniform jacket over her tee shirt, pushed the wet hair out of her face and tied it back. She slid the slender stun rod into the curved holster that hung on her hip and looked at the wall clock. Eights. Crazy eights.
    She stepped out of her apartment. There was a splash when her boot came down.
    “What the fuck?”
    Black water covered the deck and rippled around her shins. Overhead, fluorescent panels flickered dim, and dapples of light trembled faintly on the walls and neighboring apartment doors.
    “This is ridiculous,” Marisa said through clenched teeth. The water was cold and her calves began to twist into painful knots. The door to her apartment slid shut with a gurgle. She entered her keycode . There was a crackle and nothing happened. “Of course. Makes sense,” she said to no one in particular.
    Most of the lights were out—more than three-quarters of the translucent ceiling panels were dark. Water dripped from around their edges in steady drip-drops. She could see her breath in the meager light that fell from the few lit squares. She was the only one in corridor, as far as she could see. The hall curved into darkness in front of her and behind her. She began to walk in the direction of the lifts. If she knew one thing, it was that she was freezing her ass off and none too happy about it.
    There was splashing up ahead, just around the bend of the corridor. The sound was almost frantic in its intensity. It sounded as if someone were playing, and having a gay old time, to boot. The station was filled with such freaks; she could hardly believe it sometimes. She went around the hallway’s curve and suddenly her foot was no longer in contact with the floor. There was an instant of freefall, and then Marisa was submerged in the cold water. She broke the surface with a coughing gasp. Panic whispered hello somewhere in the back of her mind. She looked around and felt an approaching scream for help tickle her throat. Was there a hole in the deck?
    She looked up and saw the rectangle of fluttering light above her. From the looks of it, Marisa surmised she had fallen at least three meters. Maybe more. Water trickled down the face of the close, dark walls in a slow moving sheet. It looked like living glass. Drops of it rained from overhead.
    Again came the sound of playful
    Violent.
    splashing . It wasn’t far off. She removed the small flashlight from her belt and turned it on. A white shaft of light cut through the narrow chamber. Mist lifted off the rippling surface of the dark water in ghostly filaments. She lifted her face upward, and pointed the flashlight beam overhead, where she could make out rusted chains hanging from the shadow-veiled ceiling. Water rained down on her again. Marisa closed her eyes as it hit her face in big drops. She had seen enough to know where she was—one of the condensation cisterns that were part of Crescent’s life support system. How the hell had she ended up in there? The cisterns were a long way from home. The answer didn’t matter too much at the moment. What mattered was to keep moving and find the exit before hypothermia put her to sleep for good. She was shivering so violently it was difficult to walk straight.
    As she had suspected, Marisa wasn’t alone in the cistern. A man, hairless and shirtless, was waist deep some five meters ahead of her. His back was to Marisa and he was dashing around in the black water. His arms flailed in and out of the dark liquid. The water trailed above his bald scalp in arcs that caught the light of Marisa’s flashlight. The droplets glittered like diamonds before spattering back into the murk.
    “Hey!” she shouted. He didn’t answer her. As she got closer, she could see he had tiny, silver studs poking out of his skin. He was a vatter .
    “Hey!” she shouted again. The man