I stared at the man I was accusing of non-murder. His fists were clenching and unclenching, demonstrating the fury within.
“You’re talking nonsense!”
Honestly, in all my years on the job, I’ve never before encountered animosity at proving someone not to be guilty.
“Nonsense would be prosecuting a man so that he could involve me in a political statement,” I countered. “That is what you had planned, right? That’s why you waited until now to set up the fake crime scene. You waited until you would land in my jurisdiction. So that you could be falsely convicted of a System law violation, at the hands of a man who, it could be argued, has a genuine grudge against Independent People.”
“Boat People,” Everett spat. “That’s what you all call us. What you used to be called, before you betrayed your own.”
“Yeah, I figured that might get a rise out of you. You might have actually pulled it off, if you hadn’t sent that girl in to distract me. Poor little thing, never saw a cyborg before. But you told her that I was one. You told her you saw the glint of metal in my eye. Stupid thing to say, really. One, because my eyes are organic polymer, not metal. Two, because you refused to look me in the eyes when I got here. The only way you could have known about my implants, was if you had studied up on me.”
“Everett! How? Why?” the captain asked, practically pleading with his son to offer some kind of explanation.
He knew it was over. Everett’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
“There is a change coming,” Everett said. “The Free Space Militia is the future for our people. But we all need to see what is really happening to us, at the hands of the System Government, before we can be truly united against their tyranny. My arrest would have been the rallying point, especially when it was proven, later, that it was fouled up by this traitor. When the true evidence was shown, proving me innocent, The Free Space Militia would have had what it needed to bring all of our ships together.”
“You even talked the families into going along with it. Sorry, Captain. I would honestly rather just give you a killer. Instead, you’ve got a ship full of terrorist sympathizers, with your son at their head.”
I breathed heavily, then walked away from the table, picked up my small bag, which I had left by the door, and started to leave.
“What now?” the captain asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Aren’t you going to…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“What? Make an arrest? Sorry, but, no System law has been broken. Your son lied to you, falsified documents and records, colluded with others to perpetrate a conspiracy, and desecrated the bodies of four of your crew. Those are all your problems, I’m afraid. I was called to investigate a crime scene. I did. I’m sorry, Captain, but this is going to have to be your call.”
And with that, I left.
Criminal investigation certainly isn’t what it used to be, that’s for sure. But it seems the crimes haven’t really changed all that much, or the people either. As long as that remains true, there will always be some place for people like me. They will always need “Fedoras.”
Mayhem on Mars
By E. Lynn Hooghiemstra
The lights flickered in the dining hall. The aroma of a vegetarian gumbo filled the small space. Much as Saskia had been looking forward to this meal, she knew her first duty was to the team and ensuring the safe operation of all systems. Stuffing a big spoonful of food into her mouth, she stood up and started walking out of the dining hall toward the far maintenance room. She’d only just left that room after working eighteen hours straight to fix a series of glitches that cascaded into a full-on power and life-support failure. Fortunately, back-up systems kicked in almost immediately.
“Are you going to fix that this time?” Doc Smith passed her in the first tunnel. He pointed to the lights flickering overhead. “Don’t want a repeat of earlier problems. I’ve still got a full sick bay.”
“I’m on my way,” Saskia snapped.
Everyone had been on edge this past week. It had started before the glitches. There was a tension between team members that hadn’t been there before. After five years of training locked in a biosphere on Earth they should be able to read one another’s moods and work together seamlessly, but the past week had seen actual physical fights as well as some serious emotional meltdowns.
Less than a year left on their rotation on Mars, the first team to spend more than a week on the red planet, and they were cracking up. But why? What had changed?
“Aaron?” Saskia spoke sharply into her communicator. “Aaron, where the hell are you?” She was not in the mood for niceties. She was hungry and tired and could just about kill for a decent shower.
She could still feel where the oxygen mask had stuck to her face earlier. The air was safe now, but when the back-up system had kicked in the mixture had not been good. The sick bay had filled up quickly and only Doc’s quick thinking and ordering oxygen masks for everyone had prevented any deaths.
Saskia walked on, obsessively clicking the call button on her communicator on and off as she went. She felt irritable and on edge. These glitches were not supposed to keep happening and there was no one back on Earth she could talk to about it, as their little base station was currently in the shadow rotation, which meant a communications blackout.
Though she knew the systems in and out and could probably repair them blindfolded, she also knew there was no reason for them to malfunction now. Even recent solar flare activity was not at a level that could have done any harm to their systems.
“Is it another malfunction?” Ellen said in a scared voice as she came out of her lab.
“Who knows? I’ll bet it’s just cheap light bulbs or something,” Saskia said tersely. She was in no mood to soothe the young botanist.
“Can you fix it?” Ellen asked timidly. She’d been one of the ones suffering from inexplicable prolonged crying jags in the past few days. Even now her lower lip quivered slightly.
“I’ll do my best,” Saskia said, and gave Ellen a reassuring pat on the shoulder, though she would rather have shaken her and told her to buck up.
Saskia reached the airlock door to the next tunnel to get to the maintenance room. Hunger gnawed at her insides and she could feel her blood sugar and her mood plummeting. What was it Doc had said? Something about not wanting his daughter to come up here on the next crew rotation. Was she even in the training program? Saskia couldn’t remember.
Saskia was having trouble keeping her thoughts organized and that bothered her more than anything else. She prided herself on her logical and orderly mind; it was what made her the top mechanical talent at NASA and had gotten her this assignment.
“So, we meet again.” A man stepped out from behind the storage locker that held evacuation suits and oxygen tanks near the airlock. It was a safety precaution and every airlock had one of these lockers.
“Matt,” Saskia said, recognizing the team second-in-command and the only other black person on Mars aside from herself. “I’m not in the mood for banter. I’m hungry and pissed off that these glitches keep happening. I don’t suppose you have anything to do with them?” She narrowed her eyes at him as suspicion rose in her. She missed her husband, Thomas, who should have had Matt’s job.
“What, me?” Matt made an exaggerated gesture of shock that she could even suggest it. “What do you take me for? Suicidal?”
“No, I suppose not,” she sighed. “If this is sabotage it would mean suicide for the saboteur. Or should I say murderer?”
“Surely not. We were all screened carefully, Saskia. There’s no homicidal maniac on the loose here,” Matt said. “I just came by to give you a hand.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me anymore?” Saskia did not like this. “I’ve got Aaron to help me. This is not your area of expertise, so just leave me to do my job.” She hurriedly punched in the code that would release the seal on the airlock.
Matt looked at her q
uizzically for a moment, unsure what to say. Normally he would banter back and forth with her but this was different. Why would he even say he’d come to help her?
With a whoosh the seal released and the door rolled back along the wall, releasing stale air into the main tunnel. This time it was worse than ever.
“Ugh, what is that stench?” Saskia grabbed hold of Matt’s arm to steady herself. The stench from the airlock made her feel sick and she had to swallow a few times to keep the bile from coming up.
Matt pulled his undershirt up over his nose and shook his head, he had no idea.
Saskia gingerly peered into the airlock. “Oh no!” she cried and pulled back immediately.
When Matt looked he nearly retched. “That’s disgusting,” he said. “I’m calling the doc.”
“Why? It’s just a pile of puke and some blood splatters. Nothing here for the doc to do. Better order a clean-up bot to come take care of it,” Saskia said. Without waiting for further comment, she carefully stepped into the airlock to get to the other door so she could enter Tunnel 3.
With her arm pressed to her nose she punched in the code at the other door. It took a moment for the mechanism to release, but the door only opened a crack.
“Matt, come give me a hand, this door is stuck,” she called over her shoulder, before quickly pulling up her undershirt over her mouth and nose.
“Doc’s on his way,” Matt said, as he joined her. He put his shoulder against the door and pushed, but it wouldn’t move much farther.
Saskia offered to squeeze through. “Haven’t eaten in a while, so I should fit through nicely,” she said, grimly. She briefly wondered how much longer she could go without food. “Lights!” she called to the computer that was supposed to turn on the lights the moment it detected movement. Voice command had been installed, at her insistence, as a back-up. A deep unease settled over Saskia. Too many malfunctions to be a coincidence.
When the lights flickered on there was another unpleasant surprise awaiting her.
“Aaron!” she cried. “Matt, get the doc in here, now!” She dropped to her knees beside the lifeless body of her coworker whom only minutes ago she’d been trying to reach.
He lay in a fetal position and in a pool of blood. His eyes were wide open in a horrified stare.
“Aaron, Honey, no,” Saskia said, stroking the young engineer’s head. She saw he was clutching his long braid, almost as if he was trying to pull it off his head. “Oh, Honey, who did this to you?” Saskia carefully closed the staring eyes and rocked back on her heels, her hands in her lap while she waited for the doctor.
“Get your masks on!” she heard someone shouting outside in Tunnel 1. It had to be Doc but why did he sound so strange? Then everything went black.
The next thing she knew she was waking up in sick bay with another oxygen mask over her face and a saline drip in her arm. When she tried to remove the mask an alarm went off.
“Leave it on, you’ve inhaled a lot of bad air,” Doc Smith said, coming over to turn off the alarm and check her vital signs. “How are you feeling?” he asked in an unusually gruff manner.
“Hungry and pissed off,” Saskia said, straining to make herself heard through the mask.
Doc Smith nodded. “Aren’t we all? A bunch of lab rats in an alien maze.” He turned away again but said he’d send in some food. He did not ask her any further questions.
“Wait!” Saskia called after him. “Who killed Aaron?”
The doc stopped and cocked his head to one side, but did not turn to look at her. “Not who, what,” he said. “The air mix in Tunnel 3 was way off. He died of oxygen poisoning.” And the man continued walking from the room.
“That’s not possible!” Saskia cried, and pulled the mask off her face again, knowing the alarm would bring the doctor back into the room. “I recalibrated everything after swapping out the battery packs early this morning. The air mixture was perfect.”
“Well, now it’s un-perfect. And I’ll thank you to keep the mask on until I say you’re good to go without it.” He pushed the mask roughly back onto her face. What had gotten into the man? He was one of the most settled and affable of them all. As the oldest team member by at least fifteen years he had become quite a father figure for many on the team. A role he seemed to embrace, though not today. “I’ll let Susan know you’re awake. She has some questions.”
Saskia let herself sink back into her pillows and tried to mentally run through the last two days. Normally she was good at ordering data in her mind and drawing logical conclusions, but not now. Her brain felt foggy. Was that a sign of oxygen poisoning?
“So, you’re up. Mind telling me why we’re in this mess?” A tall woman with cropped red hair strode into the room, addressing Saskia in a harsh, almost masculine voice.
“This is my fault?” Saskia defended herself. “I did everything right last night when I finished the battery swap and transferred life-support from the back-up system onto the main system. Aaron and I monitored it carefully. Once I was certain it was running as it should I handed off control to Roman in Central Control. He should have pinged you once life-support was up and running at full capacity…and with the right oxygen mixture!”
Susan nodded slowly. “He did.” She held her arms crossed as she stared at the woman with the best mechanical mind she’d ever encountered in her years in the astronautics field.
“You believe me?” Saskia asked after a while. “Then why the accusatory tone?”
“People are dying on my station and on my watch, and I don’t know why. Someone is screwing with us.” She abruptly turned around and left the room. “Find out who tampered with the oxygen and help out Team Two when you’re ready. Get this sorted,” Susan called out from the main sick bay office.
Tampered? Surely not. That would mean someone wanted to kill them all. A bad oxygen mixture would kill everyone, not just a few targeted individuals.
Saskia almost pulled the mask off her face again but didn’t want to risk further angering the doc. She’d have to disable the alarm soon though so she could get back to work.
The doctor’s back-up and team surgeon, Tracy, came in carrying a tray. Saskia hoped the food was for her as she still hadn’t eaten.
“Oh, hi, Saskia. What are you doing here?” Tracy sounded very confused. It fitted her petite and perky nature, masking the fact that she was a highly intelligent and capable physician and pilot.
“I think that food might be for me, right?” Saskia prompted.
“Right, of course.” Tracy quickly set the tray on Saskia’s lap and stepped back. “Why are you in here again?”
“Bad air in Tunnel Three.”
“Yeah, that’s too bad about Aaron…and Martina too,” Tracy said, blinking rapidly.
“Can you turn off the mask alarm so I can eat?” Saskia asked. She watched Tracy ponder the question before coming over to type in a code disabling the alarm. “Are you all right? Maybe you should wear the mask for a bit.” Saskia held out the mask to Tracy who was starting to have trouble focusing.
Rather than wait for her to strap it on, Saskia did it for her and pushed her down onto the chair beside the bed. Then she ate, keeping a close eye on her teammate.
“You must be feeling better if you’re able to eat,” Matt said, striding into the room. “What’s with her?” He pointed at Tracy who was taking deep draughts of air from the mask’s wall-mounted tank.
“She looked like she was about to collapse, so I put my mask on her,” Saskia explained.
“Great idea, but it doesn’t seem to be helping her,” Matt said, rushing forward.
“What?” Saskia shoved the tray aside and swung her legs off the bed. Tracy seemed to be in distress. Her eyes were wide and her whole body shook as she tried to get air. She appeared to be suffocating.
Matt ripped the mask off and called for the doc. He lifted the struggling woman onto the bed next to Saskia’s and watched helplessly as Tracy fought for air. Both Matt and Saskia tried everyt
hing to keep her from suffocating, but whatever was coming from the mask was not the right oxygen mixture. They even switched to a different mask with a portable air tank, but nothing worked.
Before the doctor made it into the room Tracy died in the horrible agony of asphyxiation.
“What the hell?” Doc Smith said when he saw Tracy. “That looks like carbon-dioxide poisoning. Another one. How the hell does this keep happening?” He cast a suspicious glance at Saskia and then Matt.
“Hey, it wasn’t us.” Matt held up his hands in defense.
“We tried other masks and air tanks but nothing helped,” Saskia explained, speaking slowly as chills ran down her spine. That made three deaths so far and all related to the air quality, not just on the station in general but also the air tanks. And why had her mask been good for her but become toxic for Tracy? Was there a time-release mechanism at play?
“Come on,” Saskia said, urgently lacing up her boots. “I need to figure out who’s doing this before we’re all dead.”
“Where are you off to? Aren’t you supposed to help Team Two?” Matt hurried to catch up.
“Central Control,” Saskia said tersely. “I think we’ll find more answers there and Team Two are good, they can handle whatever they find.”
She quickly walked toward Central Control, pushed open the door and strode in. The room was cluttered, which was unusual. Susan ran a tight ship and demanded order. But today, the low, circular room looked as if a group of toddlers had met for a play date. Empty dishes on desks, articles of clothing strewn here and there and lots of loose papers with half-finished schematics drawn on them littered the floor and chairs.
Through the three small porthole windows Saskia could see they were still in the Mars night cycle. She bent down to see farther past the Martian horizon and tried to spot the twinkle that indicated Earth. All she saw was Phobos blocking her view.
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