Fatal Boarding

by E. R. Mason

  Chapter 14

 

 

  The oval front office of Security headquarters is lined with rows of computer monitoring stations that display ship data constantly, twenty-four hours a day. The low ceiling provides just the right amount of soft white light to allow easy readout of the data. It is the best possible sentry point for an executive officer. Tolson’s quarters adjoined the front office.

  Ann-Marie Summers, Tolson's executive secretary, hung behind her desk, chewing anti-space-sick gum and trying to organize the items that kept floating away. Her long, flaming red hair was suspended out over her shoulders in thick strands, and her fluffy, white silk blouse kept billowing up around her chin. She'd found a pair of black stick-shoes which were anchoring her to the dull orange carpet. As I entered, she pinched at her button nose and puffed up her cheeks, trying to clear her ears. She looked at me with pitiful dark brown eyes with bags under them.

  I held to the side of her desk, "So, they got you up, too!"

  "They didn't need to get me up, Adrian. I was in the bath puking my guts up when they called."

  "Any better?"

  "Uh-huh. There's nothing left. It's just sort of stomach exercise now. Please, tell me they're near to fixing the damned problem."

  "They should have some temporary gravity shortly to hold us over while the real problem gets fixed."

  As she clutched at her mouth and fought back the impulse, I coasted around the desk and snagged an earth replica paperweight beyond her reach. "I've been told to oversee the effort to locate Commander Tolson. Can you fill me in?"

  It made her forget the nausea for the moment. She shook her head and then winced from the effect it gave. "They just called in. There's been no sign of him. Everything from seven to three has been covered. Even most of the equipment lockers large enough to be entered are being searched. No one has seen him. It's the damnedest thing!"

  "Grey spoke to him last?"

  "That's what I was told. He was getting ready to turn in for the night. He'd been in meetings right up till 01:00. We've paged him on all his priority channels and he hasn't answered. The ship's net has been screwing up, but there haven't been any com problems. We have five looking for him. They’re on special channel sierra-tango. Some may be sick and out of it now, though."

  "So he hasn't been heard from for more than two hours?"

  "Yeah. It's hard to believe he wouldn't call in after we'd lost the gravity. And, he's always supposed to be available to Captain Grey." She choked and quickly pressed two fingers to her lips, looking at me with those pleading, brown eyes.

  I nodded compassionately, pushed myself over to the entrance, and shut the door. "You're really handling this exceptionally well, Ann-Marie. Half the crew is down in sickbay and most of the others are probably incapacitated. I was surprised to find you here at all."

  She forced a tiny smile. "Thanks, Adrian. This part wasn't in the cruise brochure. It's never happened to me before. And they say you get used to this, but I don't think so."

  "It’s true. Most people adapt to no gravity by the third day."

  "Oh, God no!"

  "Don't worry. They'll have it up before then. I know how bad you're feeling. There's something important I need to ask you about, and you'll need to trust me. I know how famous executive secretaries are for their loyalty. Nothing you say will go beyond this room."

  She narrowed her stare.

  "What if Commander Tolson was somewhere he didn't want to be found, someplace that was his own personal business, a place where he'd rather not have it known he was visiting."

  She looked taken back. With cool professionalism, she began organizing her desk once more. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Ann, we're having a lot of serious problems on board right now. We need Jim Tolson if only to know he's okay. I know you know almost everything that goes on around here. This isn't the time to hold back. We've had quite a few accidents on board in the last hour. We need to know where to look. You have my word anything you say will be strictly confidential. No one but you and I will know. Everybody's got a private life on board this ship. Does Jim Tolson have a private association no one knows about? A place he would not want to be found?"

  "Well, even if he did, he'd answer his pages."

  "Yes, he would, unless something was wrong. Tell me the gossip, Ann. Trust me."

  She swallowed twice and gave a pained look. She wiped her mouth with two fingers and spoke like a child telling a naughty secret. "There was something I've heard. I doubt there's any truth to it. Or, maybe it's not what they say. Maybe it's just a special project or something like that. I feel bad just repeating it. It's so unlikely, really."

  "Please, Ann. Who?"

  "Ms. Brandon. I'm told he visits her during off hours, often late. They were associates before this trip. He helped get her the position. She's very upset about the suspension. He may have visited her to console her. But that wouldn't explain why he hasn't called in."

  "Is the search team checking the occupied crew quarters?"

  "They ring or knock. But if there's no answer they don't force entry. They began looking at 02:10. They call in on the hour. So, it's about ...thirty minutes from the next check in, unless they find him."

  "I’ll monitor the channel and report to the Captain, myself."

  She got halfway through a nod and with one hand over her mouth crunched stiffly across the carpet and disappeared into the bath.

  I used the terminal on her desk to call up crew quarter assignments. Maureen Brandon's was on level five, stateroom eighteen-B.

  Brandon and Tolson. It was hard to imagine. A young, cold beauty bedding an ancient, gruff, overweight senior officer. He had helped her get the promotion. Brandon's reputation for stepping on people in her quest for advancement had not included sleeping with them. It was one of those odd occurrences that made you wonder who was actually using whom. If the affair was really happening, it was a stark testimony to one person's absolute resolve toward ambition.

  I made my way to level five and pulled myself along the dimly lit corridors. Where there are only crew quarters and no general support areas, the lighting is kept to a minimum. The low light had a touch of gloom to it, something a little gravity would improve.

  I had never seen Brandon's quarters. There'd been no reason to visit her. No invitations had been forthcoming. Why stop in to say hello to an ice maiden who would appraise your value to her career, and simply dismiss you like a headmistress? Her door was the last one on a dead end corridor next to a service hatchway for the ship's internet. Pell Avenue. I hung to the recess of her door and tapped at the chime. No answer. Wait one minute, try again. No answer.

  To barge in or not? I shrugged, opened the service panel and hit the open switch. Nothing. Locked out.

  It left me in an awkward position. Call Engineering to remotely unlock the door, and attract undesirable attention to Brandon, who'd already had enough? If Tolson was present, it would also be exactly what he didn't want. If no one was home, I would catch it later when she found out. If she was there, her wrath would be immediate. I thought about it for a minute and decided that one must live up to one's reputation. I pinched the com button on my watch. "Tarn to Main Engineering."

  "Rodrigez, go ahead."

  "Ms. Brandon is having a problem with the lock on the door to her stateroom. Level five, eighteen-B. Would you get someone to unlock it for us, please?"

  "Yes, Sir. It'll take a few minutes to call it up."

  As I hung there waiting, a ship-wide announcement came over the loudspeakers. "Attention all personnel; there will be a test of ship's gravity in ten minutes. Please stow all loose gear and expect gravity in all areas."

  When the message finished repeating, I heard the tiny click by Brandon's door. I swung around and tapped the open key. The doors swished open.

  The scene that lay beyond the open door was so intensely perverse it caught me off guard. My firs
t impulse was to beg forgiveness, hit the close key, and make a run for it. Clothes, pillows, and blankets were drifting around the room. Near me, an open prescription bottle had emptied its tiny blue tablets into the air. They looked like a familiar illegal drug. A clipboard with an erotic image of a man and woman locked on its display floated in a slow turn within the pills.

  Brandon's terminal was located directly across the room. The control seat had been turned to face the door. She was sitting in it, completely naked, cold blue eyes wide open and staring. Her soft white legs were spread open and propped up on the chair arms, held in place by loose straps just above each knee. Her feet were floating upward. Her wrists were loosely bound behind her head by a similar strap around the throat. Her mouth was open in a suspended kiss. It was a typical pose you would find in an erotic adult magazine. She made no effort to move or speak, just sat there, completely vulnerable, staring through me.

  I stuttered, "Ms. Brandon.”

  No reply.

  “Maureen?"

  No answer, only the stare of those cold, blue eyes. I moved slowly toward her and began to feel a familiar sick feeling in my stomach. Before I realized what was happening, I crashed hard to the floor as the queer assortment of floating items rained down around me.

  I pushed myself up and guessed the new gravity to be heavy, probably one and a half Gs. It was kind of a dirty trick on the crew, going from weightlessness to too heavy, but better than nothing.

  I stood and collected myself, no worse for the wear. I reached for Brandon's throat and found a steady pulse, then grabbed a blanket from the floor and covered her. I undid the straps and repositioned her arms and legs to a more comfortable position. She continued to stare straight ahead. I shook her on one shoulder. "Maureen?"

  Nothing.

  A few light slaps on the jaw and her eyelids began to flutter. I trudged to the bath and filled a cup with cold water. When I returned she was wincing, but still out of it. I touched the cup to her lips. She drank a few swallows but coughed up the last of it.

  "What! What is it!? Where am I?" She looked down at the blanket covering her. "What's this? Where are my clothes? What are you doing here? Where's Ji...." She jerked her head to look around the room for someone, clutching the blanket tightly to her. She looked up at me, dazed and disorientated. "What the hell is going on? I feel sick."

  "It's probably the heavy gravity. You seem to be okay. Ship's gravity was off for a while. Do you remember that?"

  "There's been nothing wrong with the gravity. What are you trying to pull? I know you; you're Tarn. Security. How'd you get in here? Why are you here?"

  "I came to see if you were okay. I found you just like this. What's the last thing you remember?"

  "I was with... Wait a minute; I don't have to tell you anything. I want my clothes."

  She stood up with a jerk, keeping the blanket close, staring at me like I was a sex offender. She clamped one side of the blanket around behind her, found a robe on the floor near the bath, backed in and shut the door.

  I studied the trashed room. Possessions were scattered everywhere. Her bed was still folded into a sofa, without the seat cushions. A squeeze tube of hygienic lubricant was stuck between the folds in the backing. The contents had oozed out onto the backrest. Beside the sofa, draped over one edge, something caught my eye. A pair of coveralls too large for her. The name tag over the breast pocket was visible: Tolson. She came out of the bath in the blue robe looking half angry, half scared. She stood by the door wondering what to do next.

  "How long was the gravity off?"

  "What's the last thing you remember?"

  "I asked you a question!"

  "Asked you first."

  It impressed me she was recovering so quickly. Had she been her usual self, she would have dismissed me already and sorted things out by herself. She still looked scared.

  "I know you, Mr. Tarn. You're the loose cannon who doesn't follow procedures. It's why you’re not on the Bridge."

  "Which of us doesn't follow procedures?"

  For a fleeting moment she looked injured. "I think it would be best if this conversation continued with someone of a higher rank. I'm sure you have other things you could be doing. I'll talk to Commander Tolson about this matter."

  "Funny you should mention him."

  "What?"

  "We can't seem to locate Commander Tolson. That's really why I'm here."

  She looked away and went to the sofa. She sat on the pillow-less, hard metal surface and hugged herself. "Why would you come here to find Commander Tolson?"

  "Ms. Brandon, loose cannons like me have their uses. Maybe the fact that I’m here is a really good thing for you. They say people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I rarely do. My understanding is you've been working with the Commander during off hours on a special project, something which will enhance ship's security. That's why I came here, okay? Someone's going to investigate what happened to you and why you don't remember ship's gravity being off. If it is me, you will have the strictest of confidentiality. Perhaps it would not be necessary to bring anyone else in on this, except maybe the Doctor, and he's so overloaded right now even that will be difficult. My questions will be easy. You are sitting next to Commander Tolson's coveralls. I know he was here. Ship's gravity was off for almost two hours. What's the last thing you remember?"

  She debated her options for a moment and then tested the water. "Commander Tolson was here. We were discussing combining the life sciences scanning array with the security sensors to enhance the system. I sat down at my terminal to run a simulation for him and that's the last thing I remember."

  "Do you know what time that was?"

  “About one o'clock."

  "That makes you the last person to have seen him. Did he mention he might be going any place in particular after he left here?"

  "Back to his quarters to sleep."

  "You're sure?"

  "Yes, but he wouldn't have done that until after... We were working and all."

  "So, you don't remember how you came to be dressed in only a blanket. You don't remember the no-gravity period or Commander Tolson leaving. Is that correct?"

  It seemed to startle her. She looked up at me and seemed vulnerable for the first time. "What happened?"

  "I'm not sure. There have been some other memory lapses on board recently, maybe related to the system problems we're having. You should call the Doctor and speak to him as soon as possible. He'll understand. How are you feeling right now?"

  "Like there's a weight on my chest."

  "It's the gravity. Hopefully they'll get that worked out."

  "What will you report about all this?"

  "It shouldn't be a problem. Commander Tolson stopped in to see you for a moment. You had the memory lapse and don't remember him leaving. If he shows up, we really won't even need to mention he stopped in here. No big deal."

  "I want to know what happened to me."

  "I can work on that privately, but one thing I need to know, just between you and me. Were you dressed when Commander Tolson was here? It's not a judgmental thing. If you were, it would mean a serious crime has taken place. You'll need to trust me on this. Your answer will be just between us."

  Her reply sounded shallow. It was all she could do to say it. "No, I was not dressed. I had not expected him to stop by so late. I was already in bed, that's why I had only a blanket on. But I wouldn't want anyone to know that."

  "Thank you. I will respect your privacy. Please see the Doctor as soon as possible, and call me if you remember anything or need anything."

  I left her and walked heavily back toward Security headquarters, winding around and through the odd assortment of possessions that had escaped their place and ended up in the corridors.

  In a way, too much gravity is physically synonymous with old age. It takes a lot more effort to move the limbs, and so they are more reluctant to do so. More energy must be expe
nded in doing the simple things we take for granted, things as basic as breathing. I moped along, feeling old.

  Brandon's story was easy to decode. There was no doubt she was involved with Tolson. For her, it had been a successful career enhancement. He, on the other hand, had accepted her offering simply for the pleasure of it. They had been deeply into their erotic rituals when something unexplained had happened. There was no doubt she had been in that chair willingly. In her present desperate political situation, she probably would have done anything he'd asked. Her explanation about having already been in bed when he arrived was quick and sly, but eventually she would realize the blanket would never have remained in place during weightlessness. She would know I knew.

  So, at some point after posing in the chair for Tolson, her memory had suddenly shut down and shortly thereafter Tolson left without taking his coveralls. Another case of memory loss. It made me wonder if Commander Tolson was wandering around the ship somewhere in a sleepwalk.

  Back at headquarters, I took Ann Marie's place among the unmanned circle of computer stations and sent her home to rest. I sat and tried to make sense of everything happening and waited for the search team to call in. By 06:15 they had completed their first sweep of the ship. There had been no sign of Tolson.