by Sean Parsons
Dream of Eden
By
Sean Parsons
Copyright © Sean Parsons 2015
Sean Parsons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Contents
1. 4
2. 16
3. 28
4. 40
5. 51
6. 64
7. 77
8. 85
9. 93
10. 110
11. 123
12. 136
13. 147
14. 164
15. 182
Are only the cold seas supreme?
Was it the sun that broke my dream?
Christopher Brennan, 1896
1.
Erin Bradly sat at his desk reading through the email he had gotten. Sunlight streamed through his office window and cast a glare on the screen. He looked around his little office, at the glass door, the trash can, and his cluttered desk, then looked back at the message. It told him about a murder on the Eden station. The director’s wife had been killed by someone unknown. He sighed. This seemed like it would be trouble.
His phone rang and he picked it up.
“Bradley speaking,” he said.
Police captain John Kramer’s familiar voice came down the line. “Erin, it’s John.”
“What is this about, John?” Erin said, looking at his screen.
“The director’s wife was found dead last night. Needle in her arm. Possible overdose, but it looks suspicious. We need you to go up there and check it out.”
“Why can’t the Eden forces handle it?”
“They’re too incompetent for this. Untrained, I should say. We need you to do it.”
“When do I leave?”
“Right away. It’s crucial you get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. If word gets out we could be in for a lot of trouble.”
“Ok, John. I’ll do what I can. It’s a hell of a long way to go for an investigation.”
“So send me a postcard and stop whining. I’m sending a shuttle to pick you up.”
Erin hung up the phone with a sense of foreboding.
He dressed and packed an overnight bag. He had no idea how long he would be on Eden, but if he needed a further change of clothes he could always buy one when he was up there. He left the precinct building and found a shuttle waiting in the street. The pilot nodded to him when he got in.
“Ready, detective?”
Erin nodded. The pilot powered up the thrusters and the craft swooped up into the air. They made directly for space.
Leaving the atmosphere was nerve-wracking. Erin didn’t fly often, and the roar of the turbo-jets always made him nervous. But it was over in a matter of minutes. They burst through the last barrier of clouds, the Earth bent away beneath them, and the dark void of space opened up overhead.
The sun was blinding and the pilot dimmed the windows. They flew for maybe two hours before they saw the station.
Eden was a large space station, built in space one hundred years earlier as part of the ‘Life Stations’ over-population project. Excess peoples were moved off the surface of the Earth to large habitats orbiting the planet. Eden was the largest, holding at least a hundred thousand people.
And any one of them could be responsible for this, Erin thought.
Eden hung there in space like a giant pyramid, with long flanging wings. The flight deck was way at the top. The docking bay was right in the middle, a brightly lit square, full of activity.
The pilot guided them in close, and after radioing in they were cleared for landing and entered the massive bay.
The dock was busy. Commercial ships came and went regularly. Despite the famous recycling facilities on the habitat stations there was still a need for new supplies, medicine and the like. Erin thanked the pilot and disembarked.
The landing bay was a huge, open space lit by glaring fluorescent lights. There wasn’t a shadow in the place. Large ships were docked, unloading the various supplies. Men walked to and fro, inspecting shipments, and scanning them with handheld tools. One man in particular caught Erin’s attention, so he approached him. The guy was waving a wand that looked like a metal detector over a wooden crate. It pinged occasionally.
“How are you?” Erin said, coming over to him.
The man looked up and nodded. “Good day, sir.”
“What are you doing with that thing?”
“We scan the boxes for contraband material and life signs. Every one has to be scanned. It’s a hell of a job.”
He indicated the stacks of crates yet to be inspected and Erin nodded.
“I’ll bet it is,” he said. “What are life signs?”
“Bio-signatures given off by living things. Something about electrical fields or magnetic fields in the brains, or something. I don’t really understand it. But we have to check for it, because people are always trying to stow away.”
“Really?” Erin said, surprised.
“Oh yeah,” the guy said. “Never in the incoming shipments, though. Only the outbound ones. I guess they don’t like living here.”
“Huh,” Erin said, thinking this over. “Do you like living here?”
“I don’t,” he said, continuing his work. “Most of the security staff are on a constant rotation. We don’t spend more than a month up here. Me, I can’t wait to leave.”
“How come?”
The guy shrugged. He started to look uncomfortable. “Look, can I help you with anything else?”
“Sure,” Erin said, “Can you tell me where I check in?”
The guy pointed to a door off to the side of the big room. “That’s flight control. You’re going to want to check in there.”
“Thanks,” Erin said.
“Don’t mention it,” the guy said.
Erin went to the flight control centre and they checked him in. They scanned his passport and made a note on a computer, handing him his room key and some clearance information for computer systems and the like. The clerk at the desk was surly and uncommunicative. Maybe he was up for his leave soon, Erin thought.
The clerk directed him to the administration offices on the top floor. A bank of elevators stood outside the check-in. Erin got in one and punched the button that read ‘Admin.’. He waited tensely in the elevator-tube while he was whisked upwards. The red floor indicator went up to 60. The tube was quick, nevertheless, propelled by waste gases. He stepped out onto a cold hallway, silent except for the shuffling of a passing man or woman in a suit. He found the administrator’s office and knocked on the door.
“Enter.”
Erin did so and found the voice belonged to a young man with severe eyes. He sat at a wide desk loaded with papers and a slim, fashionable computer. He wore a white shirt and black tie. His office was neat and tidy, but small. There was apparently no room on the station for luxury.
“How can I help?” the young man said.
Erin flashed his badge. “Erin Bradley, homicide detective from the New York precinct. Captain Kramer should have contacted you?”
“Oh yes.”
The man got up to shake Erin’s hand. He sat back down and indicated a chair across from his desk. Erin sat down.
“I’m Alan Grossman,” the man said. “I’m the new acting director. Recently appointed, you understand. The director has stepped down for the time being, until we get to the bottom of this. Terrible thing that’s happened. I hope you can catch the murderer. I hate to think of someone like that running around on my space station.”
“We haven’t established it was a murder yet,” Erin said. “I heard she had a needle in her arm. I’m going to need to see the toxicology reports and a
ny analyses we have of the content of that needle.”
“Of course,” Grossman said.
“When, where and how was her body found?”
Grossman nodded. “You’re very professional. I like that. She was found in the director’s suites, last night, lying naked on a couch, with the needle inserted.”
He pushed a file across his desk. It contained photographs and a written description of the scene by the security forces who had investigated it.
Erin perused the photos without reaction. She was black, beautiful, cold and dead. “Who found her?”
“Her husband, the director.”
That would have been a shock, Erin thought. “His name?”
“Felix Grior.”
“Where is Mr. Grior now?”
“He’s recovering in the hospital. He tried to kill himself.”
Erin looked up from the file. “What?”
“He was distraught. He took one of the security team’s guns and tried to shoot himself in the head. They tackled him and the gun went off, wounding his torso. But he’ll live.”
Why hadn’t John told him that? He had really thrown Erin in the deep end.
“Yet another reason why it was necessary for someone to step up and take over duties,” Grossman said.
“I see. Is the hospital also handling the toxicology reports?”
“Yes. Doctor Cho is the head doctor there. He can give you all the details of the case.”
“That’s fine,” Erin said, making a note of the name. “I’ll go and see him next. Now I want to ask you something. Was she a user?”
“Of drugs? Not that I know of. But unfortunately it’s very common on the habitat stations. Despite our best efforts smuggling continues unabated. Keeping drugs out and confiscating them when they’re found is the security team’s biggest job. ODs are unfortunately common, murders are not.”
“Common?”
“Yes, we have several hundred a year.”
“Per year? That seems quite high.”
“It is high.”
Erin’s face was blank.
“Detective Bradley,” Grossman said, “You have to understand. The people who live on these habitat stations are the lowest common denominator. Poor people who can’t afford to feed themselves or clothe themselves. The UN took it upon itself to institute this system to preserve lives. The habitats were built, populations were shifted. The ethnicity is largely Chinese, Indian and African. They have little to live for. Life here is bare subsistence, little better than a big city. Many of them turn to drugs for relief. Or personal gain.”
“Then why are you involved? You could’ve gotten another job.”
Grossman spread his hands wide. “I pity these people. I want to help. I have a law degree from Harvard. I fought in the human rights courts for almost a decade, but I didn’t see any sign things were changing. I got disheartened. The administrators heard about me and offered me the job as under-secretary to the director. I cherished the opportunity to help in a more direct way. It’s my intention to deliver the highest quality of life to these people that I can. And it’s an uphill battle.”
“Fine. Returning to the director’s wife. I’ll get to the director myself, but I want to know from you. Does she have a history of depression, risk taking behaviour, that kind of thing?”
“No. Susan was an intelligent, compassionate woman. She was an administrator at the hospital.”
“Then she had access to drugs?”
“You’ll have to ask Doctor Cho. I think yes.”
“One last question. If she was murdered and the needle was inserted to make it look like an overdose, who killed her?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, detective. But I should warn you, there are elements in the population that cannot be entirely trusted. Gangs – specifically drug gangs. The director, Felix, worked hard to stop the pedalling and pushing of drugs from these gangs and limit their influence. He had something of a personal vendetta against them. It may have backfired, tragically.”
“Alright,” Erin said, and stood up. Grossman stood up and shook his hand again. “I’m going to need staff lists, arrest lists, hospital patient lists – the works.”
“You’ll get everything you need. I’ll send the printouts to your room right away.”
Grossman’s face was the picture of helpful compliance.
“Thank you, acting director.”
Erin turned to leave the office, when Grossman spoke up again.
“Detective,” he said, coming around his desk, “I just had a thought. How about I give you a tour of the place? The viewing decks are quite spectacular, you really have to see them.”
Erin shrugged. “Sure.”
Grossman led him out to the hallway, and down to the elevator tubes. They rode up one more level, and got out on a quiet, sterile hall. There were two glass doors opening off the hall. Through one, Erin could see a team of people in white shirts and black ties, working at rows of monitors. A man strode purposefully back and forth behind the rows. A large, reinforced glass window faced them, black with the void of space.
“That’s the flight deck,” Grossman said, noticing Erin’s gaze. “Thirty staff and the captain, Mark Offenheimer. You can see him there, walking around. It’s their job to keep the station in orbit above the Earth. As you probably know, satellites and space stations like Eden are in constant free fall, towards the Earth. Every once and awhile they need a boost from the rockets to keep them high enough to stay in orbit, or they’ll spiral inward and crash. That, plus the life support systems, electricity, fire alarms; you name it. The gravity systems too. I wish I could explain how they work, but I don’t have a clue myself. Something about condensed matter being forced through a vacuum and suspended in a magnetic field. In any case, it gives us Earth-level gravity. And all of that is controlled from in there. I can’t show you it right now, actually. It’s a controlled environment, and we’re not expected. Mark’s very particular about matters like that, for safety reasons.”
Sure, Erin thought, or he just doesn’t like you.
“That’s fine,” he said.
Grossman led him to the other glass door, which opened onto a wide room with long, low seating. The seats were curves, like an ancient Greek theatre, and faced a wide bay of windows. There was Earth, showing massive and blue and cloud covered.
Grossman went and stood before the window, with his hands behind his back like a spaceship captain from a sci-fi.
“There it is,” he said, in a low, dramatic voice. “The reason we’re doing this. It’s to save Earth, detective. The human race is too big, expands too fast. We’ll suck her resources dry if we don’t take action. Eden is the answer. If mankind can live in space, using the latest technology to survive, and thrive, then there’s hope for Earth after all. We don’t have anywhere else to go. The moon is a resource-less dump. Mars is soaked in radiation that we’ll never have the capacity to shield. These habitat stations are our only shot.”
“That’s all well and good, director,” Erin said, coming over to him, “but one of your staff is dead. Possibly murdered. It isn’t exactly safe here, at least not right now.”
Grossman looked at him. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It was Susan’s dream, too, you know. She wanted it as much as the rest of us. Our cause is much the worse for losing her.”
He turned silently to the window and stared for a minute more. Erin stood there watching him, impatient. He had the feeling he was watching an act, and he didn’t like it.
Finally, Grossman turned back to him. “Well, you’re going to want to begin your investigation. I think I want to be alone here for a few minutes. I just want to think about Susan.”
He extended his hand and Erin shook it.
“Good luck, detective,” he said.
Erin thanked him and left.
2.
Eden’s hospital filled an entire level of the station. It was a bustling hive of activity, filled with white-coated nurses and doctors,
catering to the large population of residents and station staff. Erin stood around at the reception desk, waiting to be served. A TV monitor on the wall showed a football game from Earth. He was absorbed in it for a moment before he noticed the man standing at his side.
“Detective? My name is Doctor Henry Cho.”
He turned. Cho was Chinese, middle-aged with grey at his temples. He held his hand out and Erin took it.
“Alan paged me to meet you.”
“Thank you Doctor,” Erin said. “This is some facility you have. Would you mind showing me around?”
“Not at all.”
Cho led him down the sterile, white hallway.
“We have a hundred beds here, all the facilities you could wish for in the equivalent of a small city hospital.”
Cho led him to a busy intersection where white-coated nurses and interns traversed. Some of them looked less busy then others.
“We seldom have more than ten beds full at any time,” Cho said.
He led Erin down the hall to a series of office doors, and through into his own office. He took a seat behind his desk and Erin sat across from him in a portable metal chair.
“Care for a cup of tea?” Cho said, pouring himself a steaming cup of what looked like green tea.
“Sure, thanks,” Erin said. He never passed up free food or drink. “Tell me, Doctor, what position did Susan Grior have here at the hospital?”
“She was in charge of administration,” Cho said, blowing on his tea and fixing his glasses. “Of the staff. Organising shift schedules and that sort of thing. She was well-liked by everyone here.”
“I see. And did you notice any erratic behaviour from her in the hours or days leading up to her death?”
“No. Susan was a very cheerful and dependable woman. She also showed no signs of being a drug user, if you were thinking of asking that.”
Erin had been.
“I have the coroner’s report,” Cho said, “If you’d like to see it. It came in just a few minutes ago.”
He passed it across the desk to Erin. Scanning down the page he read, ‘Subject, Susan Grior: death due to crushed wind-pipe and asphyxia, toxicology report pending.’