Murder on the Orion Express

by Nate Streeper

A plain, mousy woman in a frumpy heat-coat who seemed put off by everyone else in the airlock.

  A heroic looking, envy-inducing man with a strong jaw and a shock of blond hair, who was wearing a black three-piece business suit and carrying a gun metal briefcase gene-cuffed to his arm.

  A short, distinguished man in a tweed jacket festooned with a campaign badge, holding something reminiscent of an ancient coffee maker as seen at Remy’s Gizmos & Gadgets Galore.

  A villainous, slightly familiar looking bloke sporting a handlebar mustache, a long black dress jacket, and a smug expression.

  An effeminate, even more familiar looking man with long, white wispy hair in gaudy, patterned apparel smoking an oversized nitrostick.

  A voluptuous, extraordinarily familiar looking sexdoll with smooth black hair and ivory skin in a red dress.

  “Whoopty doo, I’m on board,” Alice said sarcastically. “Do you at least serve peanuts?”

  Dave looked at her. “You’re joking, right? Blades, tell me she’s joking.”

  “She’s joking,” I said absently.

  Dave was counting the goola. “Hey Blades, this is too much. I’ll give you a few hundred back...”

  I reached into my pocket and grabbed Listic. “No, you keep it. You’re doing us a favor.”

  He was already putting the goola into his wallet, anyway. “Thanks, Blades. You know, for a shabby, washed up detective, you ain’t half bad at being a pal.”

  “Don’t mention it.” I lobbed my ORB into the air, toward the airlock. “Listic, On.”

  She lit up like a lighthouse as soon as she caught the scene, flipped a bitch, throttled back, and bobbed up and down six inches from my face. I didn’t have to tell her what the deal was.

  “It’s her, Alan, it’s her! Your true love awaits!” She emoted bubble hearts from her holoprojector and popped them into dissipating butterflies.

  What the hell was a sexdoll doing on a freighter? Did a client outright buy her? If so, which one of these misfits brought her on board as a passenger, rather than simply loading her in a box? She’d easily fit in a deadman’s casket.

  The doll looked at me with a kind of longing. I was certain she was about to call out to me. The shock of blond hair in the black three piece put his free arm around her waist. She reneged, and looked away from me. Dare I say, with regret.

  Alice looked up at me suspiciously. “Who is your ORB talking about?”

  Listic had already lost interest in my plight. “Well hey, handsome!” she said, suddenly noticing Dave’s ORB as it wound tight circles above his head. “I like the sculpt of your base unit. Come here, often?”

  “Listic, Off,” I said, letting her drop to my hand. Then to Alice, “No one. Crazy ORB, is all.”

  “Yeah, right. A crazy ORB you threw out there like a boomerang for no apparent reason.” She caught sight of the red dress. “You know her, or something?”

  “Not sure,” I answered.

  Alice scrutinized me a moment, then pivoted toward the airlock. “Okay, so I can tell you’ve gone all spacey on me. Listen, I’ll make sure to get her name and ansible number for you. It’s been real, Alan.”

  I reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “Hold on. Alice, I’m...”

  “Don’t worry, it’s cool.” She looked me in the eyes and hit me with another honest blow. “You’re a good guy, Alan. Margo’s loss.” She kissed me on the cheek and headed to the drop plate.

  ∙ • ∙

  I watched Alice walk into the open airlock before I turned to go. She’d be okay, I told myself, thinking of how she handled Rickshaw. But in my head, as I walked back across the hanger bay toward the exit tunnel, I imagined the men on board relentlessly hitting on her. Especially the guy in the black trenchcoat. The creepy, twisted psychopath in the black trenchcoat. And then I thought of space pirates, and everyone being captured by them.

  Was I overreacting? I was overreacting.

  But my gut was yelling at me. There was the strange, recurring sense of familiarity I kept having with people these past few days. The doll at The Yard—who was now, coincidentally, on the Pigeon. Harper, the pony-tailed associate at Hamill & Ford. And now, the guy with the mustache, and the guy in the gaudy clothes.

  Forget overreacting. I was certifiably paranoid.

  I took Listic out, held her above my shoulder, and turned her on. She hovered there like a parrot while I walked through the crowd.

  “Give me a read on those passengers getting on board the Century Pigeon. Data archives and news feeds, since your last update.”

  “That would be when you charged me, this morning.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m just saying. That was hours, ago. A lot may have happened since then. World moves pretty fast, Alan.”

  “Just do it.”

  She took a beat to process my request. “Done. Okay, pertinent information, pertinent information... Are you interested in their shoe sizes?”

  “Not this time. News. Criminal records. That kind of thing.”

  “Alrighty. Well... This is weird, but only two of them even exist, as far as all that stuff goes.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. The little guy with the button on his jacket, for one. Michael Loche. He’s a campaign manager for Fred Mannigan. And that’s the other one. The guy with the mustache is Fred Mannigan. Running for political office as an Independent, polling at five percent. Gawd! Give it up, man! Hah! You know?”

  A politician. That explained the villainous vibe I got. And why he looked familiar. I must have seen one of his massvertisements.

  “Actually, even they’re kind of weird in the database,” she went on. “Loche’s trail has some kind of reboot glitch, not long before the campaign started a few months ago. And Mannigan’s trail disappeared entirely for a couple years. It’s like he resurfaced a few years ago. But for a while there, he didn’t exist, either.”

  “And you’ve got nothing on the others?”

  “Sorry, boss. There are some close matches on a couple of them, like the guy with the white hair, but facial recognition only gets us so far. I mean, reconstructive surgery is pretty cheap these days. Oh, hey! I just accessed an ad! There’s a plastic shop on the corner of Deckard and Pris that’s offering a ten-goola nose job this weekend. You ever think about getting one? I always thought your nose was a little flat. It wouldn’t take much, just a few layers of flesh grafted to the tip. It’s a coupon. For the ten-goola deal, I’d have to nab the coupon. Want me to—”

  “Listic, hold on.”

  This whole thing was strange. True, people went freight to lose a trail. But to not have a trail to begin with? There was something going on here. I needed to get Alice off that ship. Either that, or I needed to get on it myself.

  I turned around and discovered I could hardly see the Pigeon over the crowd—I’d managed to reach the opposite end of the hanger bay while I was assessing the situation.

  “Listic, give me a holo of the Century Pigeon’s docking pad.”

  She floated up two yards to capture the image beyond the throng, then projected the holograph in front of me. I saw the port crew prepping the Pigeon for take-off—unfastening hoses, folding flaps, closing panels. The drop plate was almost entirely sucked into the base of the ship, but the airlock hatch itself was still wide open—most passengers insisted on leaving it open until it was absolutely necessary to close it, and Interlock Security staff were quick to comply, being otherwise trapped in a giant sardine can for days on end. I didn’t have much time before they’d close the hatch—nowhere near enough time to make it back on foot.

  I reached my hand up and Listic floated down into it. “Good girl.” I turned her off and pocketed her.

  An obnoxious toy horn blared to my left as a lime green blur caught my eye. Without thinking, I jumped into the shotgun seat of the luggage cart driv
ing past—next to a cranky, large woman—and tried to push her out of it.

  “What, the—!” she stammered. She didn’t budge. “What kind of asshole are you?”

  “Sorry,” I said. Then I tried pushing her out, again. Still nothing. She just kept driving, looking even more agitated. Her name badge read “Geraldine.”

  “Sorry?” she asked. “Sorry? What kind of apology is that, ‘sorry.’ You’re still trying to knock me out of my damn chair!”

  I gave up trying to push her out. I went with the begging approach. “Alright, seriously, I’m sorry. Geraldine, right? Can I just drive your cart for a moment? It’s important.” I glanced over at the Pigeon. We were heading vaguely toward it, but not angled directly enough to get there in time. I probably had about thirty seconds left.

  “No.”

  “Seriously, I just need to get to that ship.” I pointed wildly at it. “The Century Pigeon. The door’s closing, and I’m not going to make it otherwise. Please.”

  She glanced over at it, then brought her eyes forward, dexterously evading a hapless pedestrian. She began to soften.

  “Your lady love on that ship?” she asked flatly.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, not knowing exactly who I was referring to.

  “Like in some romantic holovid, where the guy suddenly decides how he feels about her?”

  I nodded empathetically. “Absolutely, like in one of those movies. I mean, holovids.”

  She glanced over at me for a moment. “I always wished some guy would do that for me. Hold on.” She headed for the Pigeon and floored it. A gaggle of rejected passengers ran out of her path to save themselves. “You’re gonna have to jump!” she yelled over the cart’s severely strained microcell engine. “I’ll swing you out, and you just go with it!”

  A snack bar stationed next to the Pigeon’s port anchor was rapidly approaching. Geraldine bore down on its neon “Crackdogs & Frittzle Sticks” sign like Luke bore down on the exhaust port, and I was about to impact the surface.

  “No, wait!” I grabbed a top rail.

  “On the count of three. One!”

  “You’re going too fast!” I looked back at the ship. The drop plate had been completely pulled in, and the airlock door was a good three feet above the dock—or rather, the chasm that had opened up as the Pigeon pulled away was three feet wide.

  “Two!”

  “You’re going to kill someone!” Dave was about to close the airlock door, then spotted us. Instead of grabbing the handle, he covered his face. Everyone else in the airlock stepped deftly to the side.

  Geraldine tucked her shoulders and gripped hard at the wheel.

  Shit.

  “Three!” she yelled. She slammed a hard right and flung me out like a slingshot bullet.

  I just went with it, like she suggested—jumped as high as possible and tucked my body into a cannonball. Save a nicked toe, I cleared the base of the door and went tumbling into Dave. The two of us fell back against a bulkhead as the platform detached from the dock and began distancing itself more rapidly for takeoff. I looked out and saw Geraldine leaning proudly out of her parked vehicle.

  “You go get her, lover boy!” she said, offering me a thumbs up.

  I gave her one back.

  “Alan?” Alice looked dumbfounded.

  “What the fuck, Blades?” Dave said, rubbing his wrist.

  The short, distinguished man wearing the campaign badge helped me up—not an easy task, since he was juggling his bizarre coffee maker in his other arm. “Dear Chap, that was quite a tumble.” He kept hold of my hand after I was on my feet, then gave it a firm shake. “Name’s Loche. Michael Loche. At your service.”

  The airlock sealed behind us, and a ring of interior halogens lit up above.

  “Thanks, Loche.” I read his badge: Vote Mannigan! Parsec 17!

  I reached into my pocket, pulled out another three-thousand goola, and handed it to Dave. So much for paying rent this month, after all.

  He took it and shook his head. “Hey, Alan—”

  “I know. It’s all I’ve got left on me. I can pay you three-thousand now, and another three when we reach Alderaan.”

  He looked at me blankly. “Where?”

  “It’s a joke. You, know, Star Wars?”

  “We’re going to New Gaia.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Jesus, doesn’t anyone watch movies anymore?”

  “Those things before holovids? No point in that crap.” He pocketed the goola chips. “Three-thousand’s fine. Besides, it won’t make much difference, soon enough.”

  I squinted at him. What did that mean?

  “I just mean, you’re good for it.”

  “Sure I am,” I replied. But I could tell he was covering for something, his genetically-prone tendency to speak before thinking having come into play. I’d call him on it, later. In private.

  “There’s room in her crate.” He gestured to Alice. “It’s a double.”

  I really didn’t care for the idea of Alice and I sharing a room again. Wasn’t that the whole point of getting her off Fillion?

  “I’ll sleep in the cafeteria,” I offered. I’d used it as my own room before, back when I was part of Interlock, as a means of allowing an additional passenger to use my personal crate and pocketing some extra goola.

  “I already stuck that guy in the trenchcoat in there,” he said under his breath.

  “Looks like we’re roomies,” Alice said. She swung her fist in front of her with false enthusiasm. “Again.”

  “Okay, everyone. If I could have your attention.” Dave clasped his hands together and centered himself closer to the crowd, mustering his job face. “My name is Dave, and I’ll be your Interlock Security Rep during this flight. Welcome aboard the Century Pigeon, freighter to the stars. If everyone can follow me to the acceleration chamber so we don’t get flattened upon lift-off, we’ll get off this rock and rendezvous with the cruiser near the subgate. We should dock in about eight hours. Next stop, the Orion Express.”

  5

  Settling In

  After I hurled myself onto the ship from Geraldine’s luggage cart, Alice and I followed the others through a dark narrow passageway and into the acceleration chamber, where we strapped into our memory foam launch seats. Lift-off gave us a regular helping of flat faces and nausea until we made orbit.

  We lumbered into the Pigeon’s cargo bay, retrofitted from a megacrate that traditionally harbored slummy looking, loosely-gridded stacks of wooden boxes and giant metal crates the size of hovercars. Some of the largest crates were actually absent of cargo and repurposed as passenger cabins. Dave assigned us our cabins, jotting down everyone’s name in a little red notebook as he doled out the chits.

  Our chit read Room #4. I knew Dave’s would be #1, located closer to the sealed pilot’s compartment in keeping with Interlock protocol. Any Interlock employee worth his salt would patrol the aisles between cargo batches for at least an hour before turning in. I needed to catch him alone, ask him to explain his angle. I also needed to do some extracurricular sleuthing on our fellow passengers.

  There’d be time for the latter later. We were a long way to New Gaia. It would take the Orion Express four days in subspace to get there—give or take an hour—and we hadn’t even docked with her, yet. I decided to let the dust settle first, let people slip into their comfort zones so I’d appear less intrusive. Nothing would give a batch of strangers more cause to throw up defensive blocks than someone jumping on board at the last minute and interrogating them about their pasts. Besides, I didn’t want to make Alice worry for no reason. I had to keep in mind the possibility that I was entirely paranoid.

  But catching up with Dave was another story—simply shooting the breeze with him could easily be considered par for the course. It was freezing, as always, in the cargo bay, and I was looking forward to cranking o
n the space heater in our little room, but I needed to postpone my comfort for just awhile longer. I made sure Alice found Room #4, told her to settle in and that I’d be back in a few.

  I wandered the aisles for a few blocks worth of bright yellow shipping containers and found Dave wearing his helmeted blue and gold heatsuit while he scrutinized the labels on a couple of wooden crates.

  “Boogita boogita!” I yelled from behind him.

  “Aaah!” He went flying forward into the crates, knocking his helmet against them. He snapped around and blocked his face with his hands, more like a delayed flinch than a defensive maneuver.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. The guy used to sneak up and scare the crap out of me on a regular basis. To keep me on my toes, he claimed. About time I returned the favor.

  “Dammit, Alan, that’s not funny.” He put his hands down and stood up straighter, then opened the faceplate of his helmet and massaged his forehead where he’d knocked it.

  “It is from where I’m standing.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Still have the honed reflexes of a panther, I see.”

  “Oh, get off it,” he said, lightening up. “You know we rent-a-cops haven’t been taught all that self-defense crap like you ex-GalactiCops.” He feinted a jab at my stomach, and I instinctively blocked it. “See that? You still got it, Blades.”

  “Heh.” I shrugged. “Don’t know about that. Part of me feels like I lost it years ago.”

  Dave nodded his head forward. “Let’s take a walk.” We rounded a corner to the right. “So you feel like you lost it? Lost what, exactly?”

  I thought about it for a second. His general personality, his lack of a verbal filter, was contagious. I always felt as though I could speak my mind around Dave. “Well, my motivation, I guess,” I answered. “My mojo.”

  “Nah, that’s nonsense. A man never loses his mojo. Misplaces it, maybe. Buries it under some junk. But it’s alway there. You can always find it again.”

  I didn’t reply. We turned another corner.

  “So how’s that private dick thing going for you, anyway? I mean, that’s gotta be a mojo inducer, right? All the ladies?”