Konami looked at Mattoso, but she just shrugged her shoulders. “How long will it take?” asked Mattoso.
“With a percent? I’ll do the calc later, but I’d guess a few days of computational time. Maybe more, or less if we’re lucky.”
Damn. Konami did some quick math on his wearable — that could still be ten watches at least — it could take weeks for DT2 Kunayak to stand ten watches. But they’d run it at the lower rate for the rest of the time, so hopefully a lot sooner.
“Alright Third. When can you set it up?”
The young man fiddled in the air again. “It’ll be ready by tomorrow when Kunayak takes the watch.”
Konami wished him luck and Wren left.
“So we have an ally…” he said to Mattoso.
“Three against a killer,” she responded. “We have the odds.”
He shook his head, pursing his lips. “I don’t think we’re facing just one.”
CHAPTER 20
I don’t think we’re facing just one… Lieutenant Mattoso had asked him to explain, but Konami just said he had a feeling. That didn’t help her anxiety, especially when she realized she had the same feeling. The CO and XO kept urging that everyone continue about their lives. They said there was no reason to believe anyone was in immediate danger.
She wanted to believe it. And I wanted to believe in Santa and his clones delivering presents to obedient children from his workshop on Pluto when I was little.
She was still struggling to accept that there could be killers aboard. That was why they left in the first place! Was this whole journey – the entire purpose of the Society for a New Humanity – for naught?
She refused to accept that. They weren’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a worthy goal. For all they knew, one or two killers managed to get past the Aotea’s character screenings, but everyone else was still as worthy as she’d believed from the beginning.
That had to be it. Anything else was unthinkable.
She had a little time before she was supposed to meet Pat at the Repro Lab, so she checked her network feed. The latest article on Aotea Today featured a text interview with the user of the handle Pol Revear who, apparently, originated the ‘HUMANS GO HOME’ forum posts:
Aotea Today: What drove you to make these alarming posts?
Revear: It’s not just me. There are many of us, and our numbers are growing.
Aotea Today: So what are your goals?
Revear: Simply put, our goal is to survive and protect all Aoteans. We are the first humans to leave Earth’s solar system. We all know why we left — endless conflict, endless violence, the toxic culture inherited from humanity’s birth and social evolution. But maybe we’re not the only ones who noticed. Maybe they — and by ‘they’ I mean whoever is sending these signals — think that we’re just going to bring that conflict with us.
Aotea Today: Do you think they’re right?
Revear: I don’t know. It doesn’t even matter; what matters is what they believe. We’re only just able to travel to other solar systems — anyone out there is going to be far more advanced than we are. If they want us to stay home, all that matters is what they believe.
Aotea Today: Is anonymous advocacy, and what some are calling vandalism, really consistent with the values of the Society for a New Humanity?
Revear: Telling the truth isn’t vandalism, and there’s nothing in the Society texts about anonymous advocacy. In fact, if I remember my history, one of Paula’s biggest advocates before the Society was created was an anonymous writer.
Aotea Today: Why do you believe that these strange signals are related to the two recent deaths onboard?
Revear: Simple — it’s too much of a coincidence. Two murders at the same time as unexplainable signals?
Aotea Today: This sounds far-fetched. Do you really believe Aoteans will accept that we’re being warned to return home by aliens?
Revear: I’m not positive myself. But I’m worried. If my concerns are borne out, then we better turn around before we all end up dead.
Aotea Today: What do you think we should do?
Revear: If I were captain, I’d slow us down. If the signals continue, even as we turn around, then maybe it’s nothing — just a comet reflecting a pulsar or something. But if it stops, or if they change, and especially if the deaths cease, then maybe that means they approve of our course change.
Mattoso scanned the rest of the interview, and it was just more of the same — wild hypotheses and accusations and doomsaying. She shook her head and ceased the projection. We were supposed to be the cream of the crop — the best twenty thousand of all of humanity, or at least the very best out of the billion applicants. Her Earth-born grandmother used to say “when it rains, it pours” — an idiom unfamiliar to most Cereans, since the domes and tunnels on the asteroid had no weather patterns — but she had a feeling that it fit here.
“This is a weird time to be getting a pet, you know,” said Pat, smirking.
Mattoso and her lover stood in front of the Repro facilities while they waited for a Genetic Engineer to be free.
“We live on a spaceship, babe,” replied Mattoso. “Doesn’t get much weirder than that.”
“I’m glad we’re doing it here,” said Pat. “It’ll be a lot more fun to order in person than just through the net.” Mattoso squeezed her companion’s hand in agreement.
An older woman in a lab coat emerged from an office inside the Repro space and greeted them. She looked awfully familiar.
Pat whispered in her ear, wondering if it was one of the Bigwigs
Holy shit! It was. “Miss — Professor Ngayabo,” mumbled Mattoso. “There must be some mistake. We’re here—”
“You’re here to choose a pet, correct?”
“Yes,” said Mattoso.
“Then there is no mistake,” said Mara Ngayabo. Mattoso flinched at her stare. She knew that each the Bigwigs had a professional specialty, and performed duties outside of their unofficial advisory role, but she had never actually interacted with any of them other than in passing. Certainly not in any professional capacity. Mara Ngayabo was a Genetic Engineer, she recalled, while Hamad Maltin was an Agricultural Biotechnologist, and Wilson Paramis was a Demographer. “Let’s begin,” said Ngaybo, finally, leading them down a passageway.
In a small laboratory, a pair of genetic technicians worked from holographic displays, twisting and splicing and mixing DNA strands from dozens of lifeforms, each one marked by a digital image as it looked on Earth. Ngayabo pointed to a pair of heavy doors, set far apart on the opposite bulkhead. “Behind these doors are the most valuable treasures we are bringing with us.” For the first time she could remember, Mattoso sensed a flicker of feeling behind Ngayabo’s stone face. This is what she cares about. The Bigwig pointed to the larger door. “Simply put, we have brought with us the genetic legacy of Earth. Everyone knows about the millions of human genetic samples — the future populations of our colony on Samwise — specifically chosen for their hardiness and diversity, as well as positive neural traits.” Ngayabo pointed to the other door. “But that’s just half of our treasure. Joining them in the secondary bank are samples of thousands of non-human species from Earth — from microscopic creatures to marine behemoths; any creature that might possibly be useful or desirable.”
She led them to a dark room, handing out low-light goggles. “And here is the nursery.” Mattoso knew that Repro had the capability to incubate non-human animals in artificial wombs, but it was quite another thing to actually see these wombs — rows of translucent poly structures, a few actually occupied by alien-looking, wriggling zygotes, ranging from infinitesimal and magnified on displays, to “giants” the size of her big toe. A spindly, long-limbed TenderBot moved from womb to womb, taking fluid samples and administering nutrients, while a young apprentice veterinary tech looked on and took notes.
“Where do they all go?” asked Mattoso.
“If they’re not pets, then the vet lab,” replied
Ngayabo. “For practice. Or other labs, for research. Skills need to be maintained, even if we won’t need them for decades.”
“You said you could recreate whales,” said Pat. “How is that possible? None of these wombs are big enough for a human, much less a whale.”
“We have other nurseries,” answered the genetic engineer. “With artificial wombs large enough for humans, and even for small cetaceans. Theoretically, once we establish a coastal colony on Samwise, we can use larger and larger adult cetaceans to bear the next generation of a slightly larger species, if we wish.”
“Why would we need whales?” asked Mattoso.
“Ask the ecology department,” said the older woman. She reminded Mattoso of a particularly harsh schoolteacher from her childhood on Ceres. “With the samples in the genebank and our nurseries, we will create a new biosphere on Samwise, with whatever Earth life we deem necessary or pleasing.”
“What about Samwise’s native life?” inquired Mattoso. The question burst out before she could hold it back.
“Ask the bioethicists,” responded the genetic engineer, leading them to a bank of monitors. “Now, your pet. Dog, cat, or other?”
Mattoso looked at Pat. “A dog,” she said.
Ngayabo led her through a series of choices — coat color, size, energy level, attachment level, affection, and more, showing signs of impatience any time they took more than a few seconds to choose. When it was complete, Ngayabo departed without so much as a goodbye, leaving them with a third class genetic technician.
“Your pet will be ready in approximately eight weeks,” said the Third. “You may come visit any time after week two to view its development.” The technician lowered her voice. “But I don’t think you’ll want to see it until week four or five. Before that it’s pretty much gooey-tadpole territory. And don’t worry about Engineer Ngayabo — you just had the bad luck to catch her on her once-per-month proficiency watch.”
“Not as much fun as you hoped, huh?” asked Pat as they strolled back to Mattoso’s quarters.
“It’s so strange, seeing one of them at work, on watch,” Mattoso replied.
“You’re not kidding,” chuckled Pat. “You should see our curriculum… I’m not sure who you learned about growing up on Ceres, but on Earth we grew up learning about Nzinga, Yoshimune, and Charlemagne, among others. Now, on Aotea, I teach kids about Edda Ngayabo, one of the founders of the Society for a New Humanity, and her granddaughter, our very own Mara Ngayabo. And before they graduate fifth cycle, every student conducts an interview with one of the Bigwigs.” Pat gave her a wry look. “Guess which Bigwig is everyone’s last choice?”
CHAPTER 21
Konami waited in the passageway outside the Solacer’s office, checking his feed for the text of his constables’ interviews of Senior Chemist Nicolescu’s colleagues. The chemists and chem techs were effusive in their praise for the deceased, offering to help in any way they could, but had no information that jumped off the projection as immediately useful. He’d been so busy lately that he hadn’t felt bitter in days. When it occurred to him that, upon solving these crimes, everything would go back to normal, he felt a momentary panic.
As he waited for Mattoso to arrive, he found himself thumbing through Inspector Loesser’s electronic interview notes — she had the habit of scrawling anything that caught her eye in the margins. Chemistry Director George was “smooth and polished, and overly verbose, but nervous as hell under the surface,” while the “hulking” Second Class Chem Tech Singh was “shaken and barely verbal.”
The search of Nicolescu’s quarters had been a bit more helpful — an anachronistic handwritten dry-erase calendar, with the chemist’s daily appointments scrawled in, led Konami to the passageway outside the office of Solacer Assunta Patil. Just as he checked the time, Mattoso arrived.
As if she could sense their presence, Solacer Patil appeared and beckoned them through an open doorway. The solace therapist had the grace and loveliness of a dancer, and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth did nothing to lessen her beauty. Her sleek, silken dress, and the exotic, colorful décor of her office completed the illusion that this was a very different sort of place, with a different sort of people, then the rest of Aotea. “Please, sit,” she offered, her voice low and melodic. “You’re here about Sulemon.”
“Yes,” said Konami. He recalled his own most recent visit to a solacer, several months prior. Saara Angelini was short and curvy where Solacer Patil was tall and slender, but they had the same voice — confident, mature, and musical. He wondered if this was from solacer training. A look from Mattoso snapped him out of thoughts of his last visit. “His colleagues did not know of any close friends,” he said to the solacer. “Do you know if Nicolescu was close to anyone outside of Chemistry?”
Patil pursed her lips. “I’m in a very difficult position, chief inspector. I want to help your investigation in any way I can, but the Oath of Solace prevents me from sharing any details of my time with Sulemon.”
Konami anticipated this. “Voicenet: Charter doc eighteen.” He projected to show the Solacer. He realized, a bit uncomfortably, that he was getting very skilled at citing regulations to serve his investigations. It was a necessary skill, but it made him feel like a bullying bureaucrat. “Captain Horovitz and Director-Superintendent Akunle have both invoked this section of the Charter — that the needs of this investigation override any internal guidelines and regulations of individual departments.” He traced the applicable parts with his finger, explaining that the Therapy Director agreed that this includes the Oath of Solace.
Eyes scanning nothingness in front of her, the Solacer read for several minutes. She sighed and shook her head as she finished. “Very well. Even putting aside the Oath, there’s not a whole lot I can tell you about Sulemon’s acquaintances. He rarely spoke of others, and no one close.”
Konami asked how long she had been meeting with Nicolescu, and she said more than five cycles, since before the departure.
“So why did he come to see you?” asked Mattoso. “Intimacy?”
“Well, yes, I suppose. But not just intimacy. He had — a weight. That’s what we called it — ‘the Weight’. He wouldn’t say what it was — long ago I learned to stop asking. But it was always there, and it was always on his mind, and figuratively pulling him down.”
Konami leaned forward. “You must have had some idea.”
“I considered many possibilities — pharmaceutical addiction, first and foremost. He was a Chemist, after all. But he didn’t have any other signs. No lying, at least that I could detect. No physical signs.” She spread her hands. “Perhaps it was some family secret, though he had no family onboard that I know of.”
Mattoso interrupted. “Did this ‘weight’ get better over time, or worse?”
“It waxed and waned, mostly. I couldn’t discern a pattern. But thinking about it since his death, I think it may have been getting worse, very slowly. In fact, the last time I saw him, a few weeks ago, it was as bad as I’d ever seen in him.”
“You were with him for so long,” said Konami, scratching his chin. “What do you really think it was?”
The Solacer looked down for a moment before shaking her head. “I think it was guilt. Overwhelming guilt. Over what, I don’t know.”
“Do you think this guilt had something to do with his death?”
She nodded immediately. “Absolutely.”
Konami and Mattoso shared a glance.
“Was he a good man?” asked Konami. Mattoso raised an eyebrow.
Patil looked at him for a long time before responding. “He cared deeply about doing the right thing.”
Konami sensed something unsaid. “But...?”
She looked away. “I’m not sure that he knew what the right thing was.”
CHAPTER 22
“It’s funny,” remarked Mattoso, in the passageway outside the Solacer’s office. “Hundreds of years ago, Solace was considered dishonorable, even unclean.”
> Konami nodded. “And it wasn’t called Solace. At least the intimacy parts.”
Mattoso shuddered, recalling her schooling on Earth’s past barbarity. Just imagining being part of a society that constantly used guilt and fear, even of bodily harm, as a way to control people, gave her a twinge in her stomach.
“It almost made sense, I suppose,” continued Konami. “Back then, you could end up sick, or pregnant, or worse.”
Mattoso snorted, saying that it wasn’t about disease or children, but controlling people.
He chuckled. “We’re not exactly finished with taboos on Aotea, you know.”
She asked for an example.
“Like no romance within a department. Two years ago a couple of my constables were ‘solacing’ each other in the holding cells. Good kids, but I had to split them up, at least at work. I hear they’re still a couple.”
She asked how he picked which one to leave the Constabulary.
“I didn’t. They picked themselves. One of them loved the job and one didn’t. The one that didn’t is now a Dental tech, if I recall correctly.”
They walked in silence for a while — a silence that Mattoso found vexing, so she asked for his thoughts on Solacer Patil.
Konami scratched his chin. “Nothing groundbreaking. Nicolescu was troubled by something, and he was unsure about the right thing to do. That can probably describe most of us at some point.”
“But what about the guilt? Patil said it was overwhelming. That seems like a bit more than the usual troubles.”
“Yes, but that was just supposition.”
“An educated supposition,” answered Mattoso. “From someone in a position to know — as far as we know, the person closest to the deceased onboard.”
“Okay,” conceded Konami. “Let’s assume she’s right. What could he have felt guilty about? What could he have done onboard that was so bad?”
She just looked at him.
“Oh shit, of course! Well, she said that ‘the Weight’ had been around for as long as she’d seen him, and Muahe was only killed a few weeks ago, but obviously it could be related. So we see if there’s a connection between Nicolescu and Muahe. Anything. That ‘s standard procedure anyway, but we’ll kick it up to the top of the queue. We’ll pore through their bios, their histories before joining the crew, anything. Tell Wren. We’ll need his help.”
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