After another short jaunt on the moveway, Konami climbed down two more levels and followed the sound of anxious MedTechs, stopping at a thinsuit locker on the way. Agitated MedTechs were not a good sign. He voiced another call.
“Emer, Loesser.” There was an edge to Maria’s voice.
“Maria, it’s Cy. Report.”
“The purifier lockout space inner hatch — it’s stuck. It won’t budge.”
CHAPTER 4
Fuck! In thinsuit and breather, Konami squeezed himself into the corner of the purifier lockout space, staying out of the way of the weld tech cutting through the inner hatch. Goddamnit… how long ’til brain death starts again? He decided not to interrupt the doctor, who was awkwardly huddled with the MedTechs, and Konami recalled that more than five minutes was pushing it. The hiss of five breathers, plus the whine of the welding torch, were loud enough that the doc and MTs were nearly shouting back and forth. Konami projected the time from his wearable. Seven minutes, almost eight. Heads are gonna roll when we figure out what caused this damn hatch to stick. Even the hatch-cut had to be delayed; with the inner lockout hatch cut open, there would be no way to clear any potential toxic gases from the purification bank, so they had to rig the length of crawlway outside the space as a sort of extra airlock. Just in case, they stayed in their breathers until they could get a second verification that it was safe.
Konami inhaled sharply through his mask. If he doesn’t make it… Since his predecessor’s suicide, there had not been a single death onboard Aotea. There were occasional crises like choking on food, gestational difficulties, some industrial accidents, and even a short-lived fire, but everyone had been reached by the MedTechs and damage control techs within three or four minutes. Until now. Shit — I might have to tell the family.
He suddenly had a realization — he was enjoying himself. Somehow this was what he had missed. Konami knew he should feel some sort of shame at this, but the elation remained. He knew it wouldn’t last.
“I’m through!” announced the weld tech as he stood up with the big hunk of alloy that used to be the inner hatch. Before he left Earth, Konami would have marveled that the tech lifted it so easily. On Earth, that hatch probably would have been more than fifty kilos; in the reduced “gravity” of Aotea, it was more like fifteen. Konami took the hatch from the weld tech so he could clear out the welding gear, and the MedTechs dove through to pull the prone man into the larger space of the lockout.
Konami informed Emer that they had the patient as he watched the practiced hands of the MedTechs. One stripped off the patient’s breather and replaced it with a forced oxygen system, while the other checked vital signs and cut open the thinsuit. Konami tapped into the medical voice circuits, and while he didn’t understand all the medical jargon, he got the gist that, right now, they were dealing with a dead man. Just how dead are we talking about? Some ancient Earth vid flashed in his memory. “Mostly dead, or all dead?” Konami understood that their primary focus was to get oxygenated blood to the brain. The MTs had attached a bag of super-oxygenated neutral fluid, while the doctor made a small incision in the chest and connected the defibrillator.
Moments stretched to an eternity, and finally the doctor nodded. “Pulse present,” he reported. “Slow but steady.”
If only restarting the brain was that easy… While the MTs set up their collapsible gurney, Konami called Emer. “Maria, are the constables in position?”
“Affirmative, Chief.” Standard procedure would place constables at every junction from Sewage to the infirmary to keep the path clear for the MedTechs and the patient.
Well done, Maria. He hadn’t even needed to tell her to call the reserve constables.
Konami watched as the medical team maneuvered the casualty out the lockout space and down the cramped passageway. He almost chuckled at the absurdity of a clumsy TrashBot trying to contort itself out of the way of the team, but stifled himself and turned his attention to the scene. The crime scene. Maybe. He scowled as he realized part of him wanted this to be a crime, rather than just an accident. But it was more than that, and Konami recognized another feeling in his gut he hadn’t experienced in years. This was not an accident. He couldn’t place why he had that feeling.
He began to survey the deck where the man had lain but a loud whoosh took his attention. Must be the fans; flushing out the space to clean the air. He bent down to inspect the inner hatch, but stood up abruptly. “Oh shit!” Goddamnit, the air itself could be evidence! He looked around wildly and found a sample flask laying in a corner. Konami quickly snatched it up and unscrewed it, shaking it vigorously before re-screwing it shut. He frowned at the absurdity, holding the flask up to the light, as if toxins could be visible.
“Inspector?”
Konami turned around. He must not have heard the lockout hatch open over the fans. A tall, lean figure in thinsuit and breather stood in the hatchway, wearing the khaki cap of one of Aotea’s line officer corps. A smaller figure, also with a khaki cap, stood to the side of the first. Most of the men and women onboard wore the working uniform of the staff and support crew, but the officers in charge of the navigation, power, and propulsion systems of the colony ship maintained their own chain of command and wore khaki uniforms when on duty.
“Uh, good morning, Commander.” Konami had to pick his brain for a moment to translate the rank insignia, a pair of crossed silver pine boughs.
The officer spoke softly into his wearable and promptly removed his thinsuit and breather. “It’s safe now, Inspector.”
“Shouldn’t we get an analysis first?” Konami responded, momentarily distracted by the feminine shape as the other officer slid out of her thinsuit. Is that uniform… he pulled his eyes away when she met his gaze.
The first officer’s name and position were now readily visible on the khaki uniform jumpsuit: CRISWELL on his left breast, XO on his right. Criswell waved his hand dismissively. “The fans. It’s safe now.”
“And Atmo’s sample results are clean,” added the other officer, a Lieutenant Mattoso.
Konami frowned at his sample flask. Probably not much left of whatever it was in here. Konami wanted to tell the XO that they should have waited to flush the space, but he held his tongue. In the formal chain of command, the executive officer only had authority over civil section department heads like Konami in matters concerning operation of Aotea’s systems, but he thought prudence would be wise in this case. At least, at first. Konami had exchanged only a few words with the colony ship’s XO in his five years onboard — he recalled a short meeting in his first few months, and he would see him at the periodic department head meetings, but the chief inspector realized that most of what he knew of the ship’s second-in-command fell in the category of gossip and rumor. Popular opinion held that the XO was a stern, humorless man who commanded more than a little fear in his subordinates.
Konami shrugged and took off the breather and thinsuit. There was the barest chemical tinge to the scent of the air.
“Bag up Muahe’s suit and breather and get them to the lab,” ordered CDR Criswell as he bent to examine the partially melted hatchway. Lieutenant Mattoso acknowledged, and Konami realized they were ignoring him.
“XO?” Konami offered, and after a moment, repeated it louder.
“Yes, Inspector?” responded Criswell from a crouch, almost growling.
Konami ignored the tone of the XO’s voice and tried not to smirk. “I’d like to go over the scene before we move anything else.” This ought to be good.
“Inspector, you’ll have plenty of time in a few minutes. There were at least two system failures here — the breather and the hatch — and I mean to find out what went wrong.”
“Of course. So do I, XO. But please, don’t touch anything until my constables and I have looked everything over.”
The XO stood up straight, crowding Konami without even taking a step. “I don’t think you understand, Inspector…”
“No, XO. You don’t understand,” Ko
nami cut in quietly. CDR Criswell pulled back in surprise. “Section 5.27.3.a.1 of the Charter: the Chief Inspector will have authority over any possible crime scene unless the location or equipment within must be utilized for vital operations as determined by the Commanding Officer.” Konami was far from an expert on the Aotea’s systems, but no one knew the law enforcement procedures of the Charter for a New Humanity Beyond Earth better than him. He studied it for the year-long lead up to his interviews and selection as first alternate, and even in the years afterwards, before he was called up to take the place of the deceased, he recalled most of it. No one but the commanding officer could override Konami at a crime scene.
“‘Possible’ crime scene?” echoed the XO. “What makes you think this was a crime?”
Konami refrained from explaining the feelings a cop might get sometimes. And as out of practice as I am, I’m not sure if I even trust my gut. “Like you said, two unprecedented system failures at the same time?”
The XO remained stone-faced and silent for several seconds. “Very well, Chief Inspector. But I expect to be notified of your progress, and the minute you’re done with the scene.”
Konami tried to quash the little schoolboy surge of delight he felt when the XO instructed Lieutenant Mattoso to stay behind as liaison between ship’s force and the Constabulary before he departed. Luckily, the chief inspector was saved from awkward banter by the arrival of two constables.
“The casualty is through to the Ring, Chief,” one reported.
Konami nodded and called Emer, instructing her to have a constable stationed at the Infirmary to wait for news. Konami doubted a single one of his forty-six constables was not awake and busy right now. Probably for the first time in years.
Konami turned back to the two nervous-looking constables. “Take it easy, guys. Just remember procedure. Like the drills.” He left out his opinion on their performance in the most recent. On Earth, Konami had despised drills. Now he spent weeks making them as perfect as a murder mystery novel, just to have something to do. “First thing’s first. Moby: logs. Peter: images and prints. Especially in the purifier space. What was he doing in there?” The two constables snapped into action, and Konami made a short call to Emer to make sure more were on their way to, among other things, bag up every loose object in the vicinity for analysis. With the first potential crime scene in years, Konami was sure every one of his constables would be eager to assist.
He found himself awkwardly alone with Lieutenant Mattoso once again; he nervously looked at his shoes for a moment after their eyes met.
“So what now, Inspector?” The officer’s question snapped him back into the present.
Gotta think like a cop again. It would be just like exercising a long-dormant muscle. “Now we recreate his steps. Follow me.”
CHAPTER 5
Beatriz Mattoso followed the chief inspector as he made his way stiffly down the crawlway, looking over his hunched shoulders every few moments to ensure that she was still behind him. Steel yourself, Bea. You didn’t minor in investigation for nothing. Maybe he was just as nervous at the prospect of death as she was, despite the cycles (she recalled they counted by years on Earth, rather than the three hundred-day cycles on Aotea) of experience he had. So she had heard, anyway.
But it couldn’t be anything but an accident. This wasn’t Earth. This was Aotea, and everyone onboard was a member of the Society for a New Humanity. It wasn’t just the genetic screening – psych tests, background checks, interviews… surely any hints of a capacity for violence would have been finagled out and sent packing.
She had to tamp down her sense of excitement. This was a tragedy, of course, but she felt exhilarated – which led to a wave of shame. It wasn’t the way of the SNH to find any positive feeling in death, even in the death of one’s enemies. Per the SNH, there were no enemies, at least no human ones. The real enemies were those aspects of culture that glorified violence and conflict – the parts the Society had purged.
This exhilaration she felt must be a remnant of that culture – even on Ceres, and with parents that had subscribed to the Society’s tenets, she couldn’t help but be influenced by the wider culture. It wasn’t her fault, she decided. The important thing was that she recognized that it was wrong, and did the right thing. She knew how to do the right thing; that sometimes she had feelings otherwise was merely an obstacle to be overcome.
The sewage control space was already manned by a junior HabTech, who greeted Mattoso and Chief Inspector Konami with a nervous nod. The department chief arrived moments later. HTM Wells was a lanky, angular woman in a rumpled jumpsuit. XO would send her back to change. Or maybe not — he didn’t seem as stuck on appearance with the bluesuits as he was with her fellow khakis. Inspector Konami started to brief the HTM on the incident, but she interrupted him.
“I already heard the scuttlebutt,” said Wells. “DT1 on watch, non-responsive in the purifier lockout space.”
“Right,” answered Konami. “So what would he be doing there?”
“Purification Bank clean and inspect, which is a periodic task, or clearance of a filter clog.” Wells projected a field of numbers on the bulkhead. “Bacterial was a bit high with the last log, so he must have decided to clear it himself. Wish all my watchstanders were as conscientious…”
“Can’t the rover clean a filter clog?” asked Mattoso. Konami raised his eyebrows minutely.
“Of course,” replied Wells. She reached over the HabTech’s shoulder and swiped one of the screens. “RoverBot is in recharge.” The HTM tapped the Voice unit.
“Atmo, MT2 Taki.”
“Atmo, this is HTM Wells. Did you have the RoverBot busy earlier?”
“Uh, yes it was. Some emergent repair with the TechBot.” Mattoso could still hear the machinery white-noise through the Voice channel. “Did something happen to the Sewage watch?”
Konami spoke before Wells could answer. “Atmo, this is the CI. We’re conducting an investigation right now, so we can’t answer any questions. Thanks for your assistance.” He gestured and the HabTech closed the Voice channel. “So the RoverBot was occupied…”
HTM Wells talked them through some technical background for the purification filters as they walked back toward the scene. The discussion went silent at the sounds of an argument in the crawlways around the corner.
“Just tell me what’s going on…” said a short, balding master technician. “I heard that one of my guys was hurt in there.”
“I’m sorry, Master Tech, but the CI ordered us—”
The chief inspector cut in. “That’s okay, Constable.” He thrust out his hand to the master technician. “Chief Inspector Konami.”
“I know who you are,” grunted the master tech, but he took the proffered hand. “Master Data Tech Lopez. Muahe’s one of mine.”
“DT1 Muahe is in Medical right now,” said Konami. “But you can join us, if you like — we’re trying to recreate his most recent activities.”
Mattoso felt an opening. “Master Tech, can you tell us about Muahe’s duties?”
He turned to her with raised eyebrows, as if he didn’t even realize she had been there. “Data systems maintenance, for the most part. There are dozens of possible—”
“Can you pull up his work log?” she interrupted.
DTM Lopez blinked and scowled. “Yes, of course.” He projected a blank screen onto the bulkhead and navigated through it with casual skill. He stared at the screen for a few moments before showing it to the CI and Mattoso. “Just before his watch he was running a NetBug tracer.” Mattoso noted some technical jargon along with references to the NetBug, slang for a class of particularly creative problem-solving programs. “That’s no big deal — a task to track down any anomalies in the data storage systems. Every thirty days.”
“And before that?” she asked.
Fingers danced and swiped through a few more screens. “He was off duty. Before that, a weekly consolidation, a virus drill, a clean—”
�
��That’s okay, DTM,” said Konami, to Mattoso’s annoyance. But she stayed silent. “Let’s get back to Muahe’s last few minutes before the incident.”
“Incident?” said Lopez. “Don’t you mean accident?”
Konami ignored the question. “So now he would have donned the thinsuit.”
“Right,” said HTM Wells. “Then he would have entered—”
“Shouldn’t we go through the thinsuit procedure?” asked Mattoso. She wasn’t quite sure how it might help, but she recalled the emphasis on thoroughness during her classes on criminal investigation. She hoped her nervousness wasn’t visible; she was wracking her brain for every little detail she could recall from those classes that might give her a veneer of the competence she didn’t feel.
“I don’t think—”
The CI interrupted Wells. “No, that’s a good point. Let’s go through the thinsuit procedure.” He called over a deputy and sent him to the clinic to retrieve Muahe’s thinsuit.
The silence of waiting frazzled Mattoso. “So who was the last one before Muahe to wear the suit?” she asked HTM Wells.
She scanned the logs. “MRT2 Gustafson.”
Mattoso made a note and pretended to lose herself perusing a projection while they waited. It didn’t take long — the CI’s deputy returned after just a few minutes with the thinsuit, bagged as evidence. Konami and his deputy dutifully donned plastic gloves, thumbprinted the evidence log, and opened the bag. HTM Wells reluctantly put on the gloves, and Mattoso stopped herself from grinning as the HTM performed the thinsuit donning procedure, ignoring the gaping holes the MedTechs had cut into the suit to treat the data technician.
Just as Mattoso started to worry that she had insisted on this delay for nothing, HTM Wells paused, frowned, checked a projection, and frowned again.
“What is it?” asked the CI.
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