Concept YUS (Cross-World Murder Cases Book 1)

by Set Wagner

  “I was tempted to do so,” she quickly responded, “but eventually decided that it would be more appropriate, at least the first time, to let you endure the euphoria without trying to overcome it. When people experience something so completely unprecedented as that, they are likely either to overestimate or underestimate their own coping abilities, and this inevitably leads to unnecessary compensatory psychic strain, which in turn—”

  “OK, OK! But what actually causes the euphoria?”

  “The forest.”

  “I already figured that out! My question concerns the specific mechanism of the effect. Are the damned trees emitting substances or radiation during the sunrise?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Aren’t you trying to find out, Odesta?”

  “Stein was working on that too. You probably know that he was an exobiologist and biophysicist.”

  “And what? What was his hypothesis?”

  “He was still unable to offer a concrete answer. All he concluded was that the general sense of well-being is often contagious.”

  “Sense of well-being. Whose? Of the forest?”

  “Yes.” Odesta nodded, confused. “He did mean the forest. Meaning that probably the sunrises stimulated it.”

  “Aha, ‘probably,’” I murmured. “But something else surprises me: Why don’t you take more serious measures against the euphoria? By taking Sizoral for instance, or not having breakfast together, if being together makes it harder to overcome the initial effects.”

  “Don’t forget, Terence, that we’re partly here to test the effects of this planet on us.”

  “And what’s the use of that? Your abilities for adaptation are much greater than those of the future colonists. As you know, they won’t be elite human specimens.”

  “Oh, there will be a few who are,” she assured me. “There will be! In general, I believe in the rescue mission of Eyrena! And as far as the lesser specimens are concerned, the euphoria will only help them. They will feel happy from the day they arrive.”

  “What if it’s a means, created by the Yusians, for manipulating the human psyche?”

  “If so, it would be just one of their means,” Odesta murmured, “and either we don’t feel the others or they haven’t yet manifested themselves. It is, however, completely possible that such manipulations are meant generously and for decent purposes.”

  “No manipulation over someone else’s psyche could be decent when it’s conducted without the consent, or even the awareness, of the one being manipulated!”

  “Don’t be so categorical, Terence,” she chided me. “The Yusians are much stronger than we are, incomparably more advanced. Would it be wrong of them if they do want to integrate us—painlessly, harmlessly, using skillfully chosen, advanced methods.”

  I looked at her with disbelief. “Do you really mean that?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Because by now I’m sure that there’s no other way to establish genuine communication with these creatures. Ten years of unsuccessful attempts is just too long already. I don’t think we could endure more!”

  Odesta lowered her head and instinctively buried her fingers in her hair. Her gesture unintentionally uncovered two indistinct, pale-blue spots on her temples.

  “I want to let you know that I have an alibi,” she added, abruptly changing the topic. “If you check the electronic log of the mass spectrometer, you’ll see that I was working with it during the exact period of the murders: on the twenty-sixth of last month from seven to twelve o’clock. I have that part of the log; I’ll give it to you as soon as tonight.”

  “But how did you get it?” I wondered. “And why did you hide it?”

  “The mass spectrometer was sent to us recently, and I just happened to be the first to use it. That’s why I could replace the drive without losing previous data. And I’m hiding it because I seem to be the only one with an alibi—I worried that knowing this might make them avoid me. I can’t do my job well unless they believe I am one of them; otherwise, they wouldn’t trust me.”

  When she started talking about her work, Odesta’s face darkened and seemed to age. The wrinkles around her lips deepened, giving her a tormented, martyr-like look.

  “Do you have problems with anybody here?” I asked her.

  “No. So far, everybody seems to be mentally healthy. Any moment, however, could bring a breakdown of some sort. I need to be prepared for anything and everything here, and that is practically impossible because here, Terence, the cases could really be of any kind.”

  Her statement was so obviously true that I didn’t even need to confirm it. “A while ago you said ‘murders,’” I reminded her instead. “Does that mean that you dismiss the possibility that Fowler is—”

  “Of course I dismiss it!” she interrupted. “He would have killed only for compelling reasons and if he had no other choice. In such circumstances, suicide would have been completely groundless.”

  “Do you suppose that someone killed Fowler and Stein for personal reasons?”

  “On Eyrena, in the situation we’re in, there couldn’t be entirely personal motives for anything,” Odesta said without hesitation.

  “I feel the same way,” I admitted. “I also think that, to get to the truth, I will certainly have to deal with the Yusians.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Terence. They couldn’t have anything to do with the murders.”

  “Are you sure?” I smiled skeptically. “Well, yes, it is hard for me too to imagine one of them using a flexor. Today, however, I was strolling through the pink field nearest your top-secret defractor when, precisely from the crime scene, a nonhumanoid appeared! He moved as if in a trance, passed a step away from me as if I weren’t there, just drifting, drifting along.”

  My colorful description made Odesta laugh, and that made me feel surprisingly good.

  “Well, yes!” I added with exaggerated indignation. “Why are these square apparitions around, anyway?”

  “Oh, don’t,” she rebuked me jokingly, “don’t be unfair. This one is not at all square. On the contrary, his forms are quite refined.”

  “You’ve seen him too?” I was surprised.

  “There’s not a person on the base who hasn’t seen the strange Yusian. He appeared when we started building the defractor. Since then, everyday, when Ridon sets and Shidexa rises, he takes his usual walk, always following the same route.”

  “But what if he is hanging around there to spy?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Odesta casually dismissed my suspicion. “He wasn’t coming from the crime scene but from the Yusian base.”

  “From the Yusian base? I thought that was in the same direction from where I arrived yesterday.”

  “You were wrong. The starship landing area is where the Yusians leave us the shipments from Earth.”

  “And then it takes off only to land again a short distance away?”

  “No. It stays there until the next day, when it returns to Earth again.”

  “So, they’re conserving as well,” I observed. “They’re not as almighty as we imagine.”

  “You sound like Stein.” Odesta sighed. “He said that all the time.”

  “Tell me something about him. What kind of person was he?”

  “He was—he was.” She obviously had difficulty characterizing him. “He was hard working!” she finally blurted out. “Yes, he could work under any circumstances. Even aboard the starship, he continually revised some theory of his that he hoped to prove here on Eyrena.” Odesta shrugged her shoulders bitterly. “We never learned what that theory was. Stein stored all the data from his scientific activities in a restricted data bank, but on the morning of the twenty-sixth, he completely erased it. Why? What forced him to destroy his own work? Did he think it was useless, or wrong? Or that its possible consequences were too dangerous?”

  She became deeply thoughtful, as if she really hoped that sheer concentration would provide answers for these questions.

  I also
gathered my thoughts, but about considerably less profound matters. “Even after his death, Fowler was still gripping that effigy of Stein. But how did it end up with him?”

  “I suppose that Stein gave it to him—for some reason.”

  “And do you have any idea when and how Stein got it?”

  “He told me that it formed in front of his eyes right after the starship took off,” Odesta answered distractedly. “We each had separate suites, and he, while sitting in his living room, had noticed how a grain appeared on the table opposite him—how it grew and took that shape. I found a similar object in my living room, as probably the others did also, although they deny this with a persistence inexplicable to me. As far as I know, though, only Stein brought his effigy with him—as a keepsake, he said.”

  “A joke, probably?”

  “No. It wasn’t a joke. And in general, I believe that he…he didn’t hate the Yusians.”

  “And you? You, Odesta, do you hate them?”

  Was it my unexpected question that caused her to touch her temples impulsively? But what possible connection could there be between it and the pale-blue spots hiding under her hair?

  “I’m afraid of them,” she whispered. “And, deep inside, we hate what we fear. Yet I’m convinced they mean us no harm, Terence. If they wanted to, they could have destroyed us! Who are we, compared to them?”

  Her last words struck me with the nightmarish insight of hallucination. This tiny woman sitting across from me, maybe forty years old with worn features and a listless gaze, embodied the whole human race in her painful feelings of inferiority.

  She watched me, vaguely smiling. “The murders of Fowler and Stein are twisting the minds of the people here,” she whispered, “embittering them, only against the Yusians! ‘Look where we are because of them!’ is everyone’s slogan—as if they don’t want to find out who the real murderer is. Even more, they’re inclined to show compassion toward any human killer!”

  Odesta worriedly rubbed her forehead, “The way it’s going, soon the term ‘criminal’ will disappear from our code of ethics. People who commit crimes will simply be considered ‘victims of the Yusians,’ even those who have only seen pictures of Yusians. Yes, I’m afraid that catastrophic times are coming, Terence. The Yusians will become humankind’s scapegoats, and very soon we will revert to barbarism.”

  Unfortunately she was right to a great extent; maybe that’s why my next remark sounded so caustic. “I hope you can offer some cure for that prognosis.”

  “Such a cure has already been offered. By the Yusians!”

  “Are you talking about the colonization?”

  “Yes, exactly! The colonization gives us the opportunity to begin our own cure.”

  “How, and in which direction?”

  “Enlightenment is needed, Terence!” She was becoming inspired. “Where better to gain that than right here, in close proximity to the Yusians? We need to become accustomed to them. To calm down. To reconcile ourselves to them, but not in a negative sense! To adopt reasonable, dignified humility in the face of our new reality.” Odesta lifted her head defiantly. “I’m not going back to Earth. I’ll stay here forever with the colonists. I’ll help them any way I can. Together with them I will work for enlightened spiritual harmony! Within thirty years, new human generations will appear on Eyrena—”

  “I see! I see!” I couldn’t resist interrupting. “Then these new generations, having gained enlightened humility in the face of Yusian superiority, will return to Earth. Like earlier missionaries, they’ll spread their miraculous gospel of spiritual harmony among fellow humans, and humankind will slowly achieve a Great Age of Complete Contentment!”

  Odesta, so possessed with her “enlightenment” obsession, obviously missed my ironic tone. “Exactly! Complete Contentment! Only then can our real progress begin. And our present.” Her face darkened again. “Our present irrefutably proves that not only is the colonization necessary but it also mustn’t be postponed. These disgusting murders, however, may delay it. Not even the Yusians are showing enough persistence.”

  After a few moments of silence, she pointed at the small disk set into the wall next to the sofa. “Sometimes I feel like picking it up and trying to communicate with them! Sincerely!”

  I stared with surprise at the disk, although I had already seen many like it. Bulbous and brightly colored, they were all over the base—in the halls, in my apartment, in the dining hall, in Larsen’s office, and even in the changing room of the swimming pool. I assumed they were intercoms. I was obviously mistaken.

  “What! You don’t know yet?” Odesta guessed by my reaction. “These disks are—well, let’s call them Yusian telephones.”

  “Do you use them often?”

  “Just the opposite. They are used extremely rarely and then only by Larsen.”

  “What do you mean by ‘extremely rarely’?”

  “Only twice. The first time was upon Vernie’s insistence. He thought it was only right to let our ‘neighbors’ know that we were building the defractor, since it’s only four kilometers from their base. The second was to notify them of Fowler and Stein’s deaths, which Larsen simply had to report.”

  Before I asked the next question, I took a deep breath. “Is there any way to know whether or not somebody used the ‘phone’ secretly?”

  “But who would do such a thing!” Odesta exclaimed, and for the first time this evening, I detected a false note in her voice. “And why secretly?”

  “Still, is there?” I insisted.

  “No. There’s no way to find out—unless the Yusians themselves were to inform us.”

  “Tell me, Odesta,” I asked, looking her straight in the eye, “is it possible that, on the twenty-sixth, Fowler and Stein were not heading for the defractor site but for the Yusian base?”

  Her expression didn’t change. “Hardly,” she answered. “The instruction, which we all very willingly follow, is not to have any direct contact with the Yusians.”

  “Yes, and that’s the next paradox! Aren’t you supposed to be here with exactly the opposite mission.”

  “For that mission, Terence, other people will be sent, specially trained people. The opinion on Earth is that, before the colonization becomes a fact, we can’t afford the risk of allowing the Yusians to get to know us too well.”

  Her explanation raised more questions than it answered, but something in her eyes told me that continuing our conversation would be neither informative nor useful. So I ended it.

  We left the parlor and climbed the stairs. At the door to her apartment, she asked me to wait and then went in and soon returned with the promised electronic log—her alibi. When she handed it to me, her mouth curved upward in a vague, somewhat guilty smile. Or was I just imagining that Odesta Gomez had something to feel guilty about?

  Chapter 16

  After a tense predawn breakfast, I listened to the tiny voice in my mind and quickly left my silent companions to lock myself upstairs in my apartment. My head was rumbling like a cement mixer. Was that my pulse? The clamor kept me from thinking straight. I just couldn’t concentrate. I wanted only to wallow in feelings of friendliness, love, and joy. Laughter welled up in my chest, almost suffocating me, but I had to keep my mouth clamped shut. I knew that if I opened it, I would immediately start screaming.

  I sat by the window and gripped the armrests of the chair. The reddish hue of the tightly drawn curtains was beginning to fade, which meant that, somewhere in the west, Shidexa was sinking. Meanwhile, Ridon was triumphantly rising in the east—an amazing, endless chase between suns! Probably by now the white crystal rain was falling, the forest slowly turning silver, and the field transforming into an emerald infinity.

  I was startled to see my hand reaching to open the curtains. But no, they will stay drawn! And I’ll get busy with—what? It must be something routine that would still require my full attention. Yes! I jumped up and turned on the lights. Took the flexor out of its holster and put it on the table. Then
I began to disassemble it, talking to myself quietly—that, too, would help keep me from being distracted.

  “All right now, let’s see you! There, you’re fully charged. And excellently maintained. I haven’t seen beauties like you before, but I know you. I know you, or do I?”

  I took out the charging mechanism and carefully set it on the far end of the table.

  “These days we must each take care of ourselves—be our own best friend. The truest, most sincere, most dependable friend!”

  My heart started throbbing with incredible affection for myself, which I unwillingly suppressed.

  “Stop, stop, and pay attention to your hands, my friend! Get to know the crime weapon. Master your only weapon. Ah, I see—a marvel of simplicity! And most effective.”

  I continued to analyze it for about ten minutes. By then, after I had reassembled the flexor, I thoroughly understood both its structure and how to use it. An hour or two of practice—not now, of course, but in the afternoon—and I would feel absolutely confident in its company.

  “But should I leave it for the afternoon?” I asked myself. “There, my crisis is already fading. Or is it completely over?”

  I thought sympathetically about the Yusians. They’re so naive! Poor things just want to make us happy with this euphoria. Yes, but their efforts were in vain. I felt sorry for them.

  Then I thought about Jerry. I didn’t doubt he was in good hands with Elia, but I really wanted him to be here, next to me! My happy, playful little pet! Elia would also be welcome. I’ll meet her with a kiss.

  “Come in!” I shouted, as I suddenly realized that she was knocking on my door. “Come in, come in!”

  But Reder entered instead.

  “Too bad it’s you,” I greeted him frankly.

  “Simon?” His owl eyes grew completely round. “I’m sorry to see you too!”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, yes, yes! To be honest, I was hoping you were out.”

  “If I knew you were looking for me, I would have been!” I was delighted that I was in such perfect control of myself despite the euphoria.