April

by Mackey Chandler

  He wanted to call Theo anyway. He punched up her address for a video connection and the screen came up with a dark haired young woman he had never seen, sitting at the com desk. The printouts and legal pad in front of her, said she had been working there. She was pretty, but very plainly dressed with no jewelry and an Earth style button up blouse of plain white and her long hair held back with a white ribbon. Long hair was a hazard and nuisance in zero G, so you didn't see it often and if you did it was secured redundantly like all critical systems. You could suffocate in a mass of hair loose in your helmet.

  "Is Theo available?" he asked, checking the address in the corner of the display to make sure it was right.

  "She's taking her shower, but she must be about done. I'll go check if you'd like. May I tell her who is calling?" she asked politely, almost professionally.

  "I'm Theo's boss, Mr. Davis. You must be Doris? Right?"

  "Yes," she said smiling. Theo came in the room behind her with a towel wrapped around her hair and a robe on, saving Doris a trip to fetch her. She yielded the com seat to Theo without any comment and vanished.

  "Has her family called in yet to report her missing?" Theo wanted to know first.

  "Not a word," Jon admitted.

  "That..." She stopped and looked up, probably remembering Doris might hear, biting her comment off. "I think we have a case of endangerment here. This is a girl who has never stayed away from home for a night, who just disappeared after a heated argument and they are completely unconcerned. From what I hear of the bullheaded father, it does not surprise me, but I can't excuse the mother not calling us up and alerting us to her running away. For all she knows the kid's laying dead in a ditch somewhere."

  "We don't have ditches up here." Jon pointed out reasonably.

  Theo opened her mouth and then shut it again and paused. "You're right and if I said that in court it would make me look like an ass. Make us look like asses," she corrected before he could. "I get too emotional about the issue."

  "So you decided to take her home, instead of leaving her at the Holiday Inn huh? She stay there last night with you?"

  Doris poked her head back around the corner and asked if she could shower now. Theo gave her a shooing wave, to go do it.

  "Yeah, I probably should have told you, right?"

  Jon nodded agreement. "Sounds good to me, but yeah I'd like to know and keep an accurate record of where she is. Even if it isn't official yet, we've acted to make her our ward. I know only we two are involved now and we're not keeping track of a dozen wards, so we can be somewhat informal. Nobody is asking us to make an accounting - yet. But what do you think about social workers Earthside who can't keep track of where their kids are?"

  Theo looked real surprised. She hadn't considered it from that angle.

  "You're right. I should have reported her move. Won't happen again," she promised. "I have an extra room. When I first came up, I couldn't adjust to the idea of an efficiency apartment so I got a suite, thinking I'd use the second bedroom for guests, or for a hobby and reading room. I just never bothered to move once I got adjusted to station life and here I finally have a guest. It's really no hardship to have her here. I feel good about it."

  That meant she was using all of her salary to pay her rent. Jon wondered where her money was coming from, if she could cover all her other expenses with no problem. She obviously was not struggling. She dressed nicely and took vacations.

  "How long are you comfortable to have her there?" Jon asked

  "Until she wants to leave." Theo said bluntly. "I was prepared to help her even if I didn't like her. If she had a bad attitude I could have overlooked it, given what her dad put her through, but Jon, this is a good kid. She deserves much better than how she was treated. Not meaning there aren't some hitches. She surprised me by asking if I had some pads because it was time for her period. Turns out her dad wouldn't allow her to skip them, because it isn't natural. And somebody could think it was birth control instead of convenience. Which according to her would shame him. Then at supper she was waiting for me to pray before she started eating. I'm kind of waiting now to see what else will come along I would have never anticipated. I'm sure she's not done surprising me."

  "OK." Jon yielded. "I'm going over to Baily's Storage and Strongbox Service. I figure her dad must have stuck some of his business equipment there when he closed down and want to see what I can find out. Would you get your lock kit and meet me there?"

  "Sure and how about if I bring Doris along?"

  "It's sort of unusual for a cop to have a kid along on duty. Are you afraid to leave her alone there?"

  "Not at all but she and I are still getting to know each other, so I want to stick with her a lot and she can probably look at the stuff in the locker and verify if it is her dad's stuff."

  "OK, so see you over there in what - twenty minutes?"

  "Jon, I'm a fifty- seven year old woman with no mods who just came out of the shower." She waved her hand down the front of her indicating her appearance. "I can't put on my face in twenty minutes, much less the rest of it. I take it you have never lived with a woman?"

  "Well I had a girl friend Earthside when I was in college, but we didn't much give a damn about how we looked then. We thought it said something about our disdain for the establishment if we didn't dress up. Now it seems silly."

  "Yeah, at twenty years old you can get away with that and not frighten the dogs when you go out on the street. See you in about an hour."

  * * *

  Jon hung around down the corridor for a few minutes. Until Theo and Doris showed up. It made for a less adversarial image to go in with a lady and young girl.

  It was a low G neighborhood. Had to be for the cost of the cubic the business needed and the physical way it was configured. In fact it was under a half G which was below the cut off for residences. There was so little traction you had to shuffle along walking.

  When they joined him he went in where there was a counter and an older lady who was working an accounting program on the screen she shut down.

  "May I help you?" She looked at each of them with some care. Jon felt right off she was sharp and bet she would be a terrific witness if she ever saw a crime.

  He displayed a shield to her and introduced himself and Theo who showed her badge also. She compared one to the other. Probably memorized the numbers, he thought.

  "You have a storage unit leased to Gary Chalmers. It may be leased in his business name." He stated as a fact. He wanted to look certain. Not start off admitting it was just a fishing expedition. "We'd like to see it please."

  "Do you have a court order Mr. Davis? We do not have access to the rented lockers. The customers supply their own locks and we'd have to cut it off to gain access. And we'd have to answer to them. May I ask what the young ladies interest is also?" It was a perceptive question.

  "This is his daughter. But there is a problem. A domestic issue we're pursuing and we'll be seeking to make her a ward of the court under the department's supervision, if she isn't just emancipated. The locker might have evidence we'd like to see before it is removed." He could tell she was softening so he hit her with the clincher. "At the very least I'd like to just check the outside of the locker before we leave with a sniffer, to make sure there aren't any explosive compounds in evidence before we delay to go get a court order."

  All of a sudden she made up her mind. The idea of explosives next to her office was something she wanted settled right now. She set the outer door locked, with a 'right back' sign in the glass wall next to it and escorted them behind the office to the storage matrix. It was columns and rows of lockers built in a rectangle like a child's sliding puzzle, where you pushed the pieces around in and out of the one open square until they made a pattern. Very similar to the automated racks which held the boxes, waiting for container ships on Earth.

  She punched a control panel with the locker numbers hanging on the frame work and a single locker slowly moved down into an empty s
pace and then a group of three locker rows slowly moved over as a group into the hole, to open a new hallway beside the row which held Chalmer's locker. The system eliminated all the wasted space of hallways save the one.

  They rode a lift platform up to the hole and stepped off down the hallway until the rental agent indicated a door like all the rest and in the recess where the lock would hang was a lock box with an alphabetical keypad on it, instead of a numeric pad, or key lock. Jon pulled a small tester out of his pocket, the size of a big felt marker and held it against the crack of the door. It was a simple form of the big sniffing box his department used. But it was limited to explosives and propellants.

  He was betting the locker would have charges for powder actuated bolt drivers in it, or some explosive bolts. No matter that the rental agreement would have excluded explosives and corrosives and flammables, even though they were no real hazard. It would give him a pretext to snoop. He deliberately left the audio activated for the effect. When he depressed the button on the end it emitted a loud chirp and he held it up and read the small single line screen. He showed it to the rental agent. Nitrocellulose/Nitroglycerin, it said. She looked alarmed.

  "I'd say we have probable cause for entry now, wouldn't you agent Wilson?"

  "Yes and let's be mighty cautious about it. Mind if I look around the door?"

  He made an inviting gesture and she lay down flat on the floor and pulled out a small very bright flashlight with a magnifying head and slowly examined the crack of the door around the entire length until she was satisfied there was no sensor or microfiber to betray entry.

  Then she went back around with a clear plastic shim, which would pass a laser beam but detect the slight internal reflection it would produce around the crack. It also had a magnetic sensor, for those sort of switches. She put them away and took the shoulder strap off of the kit she was carrying. "Let me fluoroscope the box and I'll have it open in a few minutes."

  "Let me try something first," he offered and took the box in his hand so the others could not see clearly and punched in PTL. Holding his toe against the door, so it couldn't pop open, he pressed the release button and slid the box off the slide bolt in the recess.

  Theo just looked at him unbelieving.

  "Sometimes you get lucky," he allowed. Still he was cautious.

  "Would you all go down to the end of the hall and around the corner and I'll call you back." While they shuffled away he pulled his tie off and looped the small end under the lock bolt and knotted it, still holding the door shut with his toe jammed against it. He stepped to the same side of the hall, behind the hinge and slowly pulled the door until it was pulled all the way open toward him and removed his tie. Perhaps it was excessive caution, but there were many other booby traps than the few they had eliminated.

  He stepped in front of the door and looked. "Theo," he called, "you guys can come back up here now. He took out a small flashlight and avoided the light switch inside. In the back the locker was filled up to the ceiling with construction tools, boxes for hand tools and safety lines. Even a couple hard suits. The pile had that odd look things did tossed on top of each other in very low G, because they didn't settle. But in the front open area was a bag for sleeping and a box of self heating meals and drink containers. Also a case Jon immediately recognized as a hard case for travel with an assault rifle and fair sized box for ammo for the same.

  Next to the ammo box was a case which made his stomach lurch to see. It was the same desert camo case with Russian lettering, the twin of which Easy had taken on the Happy Lewis. He considered whether Easy could be a double agent and just immediately rejected it. He was sure of his judge of character. So how would he have the same item? He tried to reason it out. Easy works outside and was friends with the working guys who handle freight and materials. If somebody found dope, or money, or anything being smuggled in, would most of them turn it in, or just appropriate it for themselves or sell it? The more he thought of it he relaxed. If one's contraband turned up missing, what could a smuggler do? He couldn't file a complaint with the shipping company or Security.

  Theo joined him at the door and added her flashlight. She took her time looking it over. "Why is all the stuff pushed away from the door?" She asked "It's almost as if they wanted a buffer to not get too close over here. But if there was a sensor, they'd just turn it off when they were inside."

  "Mrs. Baily do you have just a plain unpowered broom for floor sweeping here?"

  "Sure, you want I should fetch it here?"

  He nodded a yes. "Please."

  They stood looking some more until she returned with the broom. It was a nice one with a thin tube of aluminum or titanium - probably moon mined metal - as a handle instead of a plastic tube. The end was a fan of tapered yellowish plastic fibers. Jon flashed back on the memory of his mother, using what she called a corn broom in Chicago with a heavy wooden handle.

  He grabbed the broom around the tube down by the bristles and reached into the room about a foot and swung it down from the ceiling to the floor. Nothing happened. He stepped up closer right on the doorway and did the same again a little further in.

  When the broom was chest high to him, about neck high to Theo, the last thirty millimeters or so fell off the end of the handle. It hit the direction he'd swung it with a metallic tinkle, as it rebounded from the deck back toward them at the door. He hadn't felt anything through the handle. Jon reached in and batted the cut off end out in the hall, with the broom end. "I owe you a broom," Jon told the shocked rental agent.

  "It's OK, it was too long for a shorty like me anyway. I'll just put the cap on the end and be happy," she reached to pick it up.

  "Be careful, the ends are as sharp as a razor. You'll have to dull it before putting the cap on, or it will just cut the end out of the cap."

  "My goodness," she said tilting the piece back and forth in the light to look at it. "The cut is as shiny as a mirror. What could cut it off so smooth?"

  "There's a piece of Bucky Braid strung across the locker here," he told them, sweeping his index finger across, to indicate which way he thought it was hung. "It was booby trapped for anyone who didn't know."

  Theo was rubbing her hand around the front of her neck. And it was obvious what she was thinking.

  "It's five long strands of coaxial Bucky tube braided in a cord. Just a molecular cheese cutter basically. Nasty, nasty, military stuff. It's just bumpy enough to act like a serrated blade and it's about two orders of magnitude stronger than a Kevlar thread and almost impossible to see. There will be a little metal clip on each wall with a diamond pressed in and a radiused hole laser drilled through the diamond. The Braid is looped through the hole and rebraided over the line. You couldn't knot it. Pull a knot down on it and it busts."

  He stepped in slowly, bit by bit and swept the rest of the volume to make sure there wasn't another Braid. With the flashlight on a narrow beam they searched until they saw a tiny flake of dull metal glued to the back side of a stiffening fold in the bulkhead, shielded from the door. It was difficult to see even knowing where to look. They didn't bother finding its twin. Then they turned their attention to the equipment left behind. When he got to the camo case he took a picture with his pad and opened it.

  There were two little missiles, each like a deadly salami, each in its own bore in a molded plastic case. There was a laser designator and a camera lens between the openings and a heavy wire form folded over to make a shoulder stock. When you folded the shoulder piece back it raised a simple sight. Beside a normal trigger there was a three position switch. It showed a line and circular burst of specular reflection for the laser designator, a symbol of flames for heat seeking, or arrow pointing at a bull's-eye target on a square screen, for look and release.

  These had about two kilometers range in air and gravity, but of course much further in zero G. The liquid/solid motor could shut off and coast, to conserve itself for a final sprint, or to restart and run a search pattern. In gravity it really extend
ed its range by giving little boosts and gliding in between. The warhead was only about a eighth kilo of chemical compound, but it was deceptively small number because it was the very latest and most potent stuff. His pen tester didn't even detect this metallic compound. The manufacture date stamped on the end was 2081 - which made it a real fresh copy. It looked like toy, but it could kill a tank through the frontal armor.

  He put the case back and studied it against the picture on his pad and bent the shoulder strap to lie just so. "Mrs. Baily. We're going leave all this as we found it. Nothing is dangerous we see here as far as being unstable. I am going to call a man right now and other than shortening the firing pin on this rifle, he will just put a camera watching this cube and watching out by the controls. Do I need to have him bring a court order to place them?"

  "Heavens, no," she said all indignant. "I want to know who'd put such awful things in here myself. What if he had never come back and we auctioned off the contents to someone - and they walked in to clean it out?"

  "Why don't we just move the clips for the Braid down the wall studs about a meter?" Theo suggested with a show of bared teeth. "If something happens to us along the way, whoever comes back will have a little surprise when they walk in and duck down to go under it."

  Jon thought about it. "Maybe later. Right now if somebody comes, I want to see who they are and what they do and I'd rather have someone to question than a body. I agree, in principle it would serve them right."

  "You know you can't say anything about this to your employees don't you?"