Murder on the Orion Express

by Nate Streeper

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “You sure? No ladies coming to you with their problems, you tailing their men and discovering they’re up to no good, getting at least a hand job out of it for your efforts? I mean, that’s the racket, right?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Except for the hand job part.” Although I had gotten some amazing homemade stew.

  “For real? Why not?”

  “Because I’d be taking advantage of their emotionally vulnerable state,” I said. “How’s that good for them? Or for me, for that matter? Where’s the mojo in that?”

  “Yeah, well...” Dave gave morality a momentary glance, then swept it back under the rug. “Well, you know, I’d at least try for a hand job.” He grinned and tossed me a wink.

  “Speaking of illicit behavior,” I went on, “what’s with the people on this ship?”

  “How you figure?” He shifted his eyes from me to the task at hand. Looked left and right, up on tip toes, stuck his head around corners. His ORB must have been patrolling the far side of the cargo bay.

  “There’s something going on with this batch of stowaways. You know anything about them?”

  “I know they pay good goola, is all.”

  “Aside from that. I tried looking into some of their backgrounds. Had my ORB check the data feeds. I don’t think some of them are who they’re claiming to be.”

  “What, like that’s news? Come on, Alan. You know the gig. It’s what going freight’s all about.” After a beat he added, almost introspectively, “We all gotta do what we all gotta do.”

  “I know, I know, but... Listen, I’m just saying, something’s off. More than usual. My gut’s screaming at me. That’s the reason I jumped on board at the last minute.”

  “Yeah, it’s a little unfortunate you felt the need,” he said quietly. There was a surprising earnestness submerged in his voice. But he went on in his usual wise-ass tone. “And here I figured it was just to keep me from hitting on Alice.”

  “I’m multitasking,” I said. “Seriously, though. These guys are particularly shifty. Nothing’s off with this crowd?”

  Dave stopped and turned to me. “Nothing’s off, Alan. I swear.” He squinted. “You know, I think maybe this private detective thing’s getting to you. Not everything’s in need of solving. Relax, okay? This is my turf. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to you or your girl.”

  “She’s not my—”

  “Not on my watch. I’ll make sure, okay? You’ll be safe. I’ll make sure you’ll be safe.” He lowered his helmet’s visor, turned, and walked around another corner. His ORB went whizzing by from overhead to catch up with him. “Don’t leave her hanging, Alan!” he called out. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Huh.

  I went the opposite direction, back toward Room #4. Dave had never acted that seriously since I’d known him. The encounter only furthered my resolve that something wasn’t quite right. Not only that, but it convinced me of something else: Whatever it was...

  Dave was in on it.

  ∙ • ∙

  Alice hadn’t said much since boarding. The scenario I’d created for us was admittedly awkward. She sat on the twin bed on her side of the crate we were lodged in, twirling her blue hair and staring at the bare checkered gaming table. I stared past her at the far wall. We were sandwiched in there pretty tight. She unzipped her duffel bag and rummaged around for something. I took the opportunity to place Listic in her complementary charging cradle, then turned on the space heater. I fiddled unnecessarily with its controls and read its manufacturing warranty to kill time. After a rather dilated fifteen minutes, Alice yawned, stretched her arms upward, fingers locked with palms toward the ceiling, and arched her back.

  “Okay, I’m bored,” she said. “What’s there to do on this thing?”

  I cleared my throat. “Checkers?”

  She craned her head under the table and pulled out a box of plastic discs. “Sure. Four days of checkers. I’ll be red.”

  She set up the board. My mind wandered as we shuffled pieces around, jumping, capturing, crowning. To be honest, were it not for the anxiety in my gut, four days of checkers didn’t seem all that bad.

  Going freight, in my humble opinion, was an unappreciated opportunity to get back to the basics. True, it didn’t have all the amenities of the cruiser itself, but minimalism held its own appeal. I always thought of my flights with Interlock as a series of camping trips—like renting a cabin in the woods, albeit it a very tiny cabin, fashioned out of a permanently emptied, derelict cargo crate, floating in the void of space.

  Two passengers could live somewhat comfortably in one of these for a few days, which was typically how long subspace submersions between clusters lasted. If the passengers knew each other in an intimate manner, all the better. For those who didn’t, a curtain could be dragged between the twin beds—cots, really—much like a hospital room.

  There was usually a small table or nightstand in the narrow shared space between beds—in our case, the checker table. One corner of the crate was always a dedicated bathroom nook with a tiny shower—the toilet itself tucked in there, an all-in-one kind of deal—enclosed by a thick waterproof curtain. It didn’t offer much in the way of privacy.

  Finally, but most importantly, there was always the space heater. It was the relative functionality of the space heater that determined how comfortable your flight was. Because the thing about going freight, the thing that kept most people from even considering it, was that the main cargo hold was practically freezing.

  It wouldn’t have cost them much to install proper heating. You’d think if they took the trouble to heat a megacrate from absolute zero to four degrees Celsius, another twenty degrees wouldn’t be too much to ask—especially considering they provided the luxury of artificial gravity. Strictly on account of profit margins and selfish natures, it never happened. It didn’t matter if you shipped someone’s lucky pen at four degrees Celsius, the lucky pen wasn’t going to complain. And if you were flying covertly to stay off the grid, they didn’t expect you to complain either.

  Anyway, I’d seen better space heaters in my day. The low rattle ours made didn’t bode well.

  Our game reached a point where we each had two kings that we skirted mindlessly around the margins of the board. It turned out that neither of us were master checkers players. A master could probably glance at our board and tell us exactly how many moves it would take for one of us to inevitably win, but to us, it seemed like the game would go on forever.

  After ten minutes of chasing each other to no end, Alice gave an exasperated sigh and leaned back in her bed, propped up by her elbows.

  “So, what gives, Alan?”

  “We both suck at checkers, is all.”

  “No, not with the checkers. With you. Why’d you jump on the ship?”

  “I love New Gaia,” I said.

  “You hate New Gaia.”

  I thought about this. “No. New Gaia hates me.”

  She laughed. “Margo doesn’t hate you.” She took off her white sneakers—which I didn’t know she could do, since they bled so seamlessly into the ankles of her white jumpsuit—and adjusted the bunched up ends of pink socks. “She’s just... obsessed with getting ahead.”

  “Then she must have thought I was in the way.”

  “Maybe at the time you were.”

  That stung. But I took a deep breath and gave it some thought.

  “Yeah, well... Maybe I was.”

  She leaned forward on the table. “But that’s not all that should have mattered to her. Her own ambitions, I mean. We all have our ups and downs. When you commit to someone, you commit to the whole package, right? The ongoing stuff. No one’s at the top of their game all the time. If they appear to be, it’s an act. The closer you are to someone, the more you see through each other’s bullshit. You become more vu
lnerable. So I think you owe it to each other to be more supportive.”

  I looked back at her. “You’ve grown.”

  “So I dated a guy.” She shrugged. “Listen, I know I was just a teenager at the time, but it was pretty obvious to me what was going on, the dynamic you two shared. And for the record, no, I don’t believe you ever cheated on her. Margo told me she left you because she thought you’d slept with your GalactiCop partner, but I could tell she was lying to herself. Her eye did that twitchy thing it does when she’s lying, you know? She came up with her own reason to bail when things got tough.”

  “Nothing ever happened between me and Gina,” I said. “I swear.”

  Alice gave an honest nod and a moment for me to process.

  Normally, my blood would boil upon merely recalling the false accusation, especially since it turned out Margo had cheated on me with that asshole Dirk from the campaign legal committee—the first cheating spouse case I’d ever solved was my very own—but Alice’s belief in my character allowed my anger to subside. Besides, I had to admit, there was always a shared attraction between Gina and I, and it waxed as my marriage waned. It proved difficult to limit the relationship to that of a working one when it involved intimate brainstorming sessions and midnight stakeouts in a small hovercar. Margo wasn’t all wrong. But I stayed true to her, all the same.

  I leaned back and sighed. It was time to let go of the grudge. “Honestly? Neither of us were happy. It wasn’t just Margo. We both needed an excuse. She just came up with one first.”

  “It happens. It’s not a matter of right or wrong. People need to go their own ways, follow their own hearts. Take my situation.”

  I looked over at her. “What’s your situation?”

  “Our parents wanted both Margo and me to become lawyers. I hoped, you know, when she passed the bar and followed through with their plans for her, I’d be off the hook. But Margo doubled-down on the idea, so even after our parents went missing, the pressure on me to attend law school became even greater.” She looked down and bit on her lip. “But it’s not what I want, at all.”

  I cocked my head. “You earned your undergrad in Criminology. Margo said you’re just taking a break before going back to law school. It sounded like you’re already on your way.”

  She winced. “Yeah, but... Listen, I miss my parents. Losing them on the Titanic IV... Sometimes, I dream that never happened, that they’re still on their way. I meet them at the spaceport back home, run toward them, hug them... Then I wake up, hugging nothing more than my pillow.” She bit back a tear. “But... Is it wrong of me? To also use the opportunity to do what I want with my life? There’s something else I’d rather be. I never wanted to be a lawyer. I can bounce somewhere else with a degree in Criminology. Alan, I wasn’t kidding before. About being a detective. I want to join GalactiCop.”

  “What?”

  “GalactiCop. Margo’s gonna hate the idea. Like you said, she thinks I’m going to law school after I spend the quarter with her. She’ll probably cut me off from the trust. But I’ll pay my own way. I applied to the academy.” She propped herself up a bit more and said in a confidential tone: “They accepted me.”

  I couldn’t help but respond enthusiastically. “Alice, that’s great!”

  She smiled. “Yeah, well...”

  “But it’s a thankless job,” I quickly added. The idea of her risking her life in the field suddenly washed over me. “Not to mention dangerous.”

  “I can take care of myself, Alan.” She sprung forward and hit me in the shoulder. “When I lived with my parents, they were hardly even there. Sometimes I wouldn’t see them for weeks. I had to watch my own back, most of the time.” She pumped a couple jabs in the air. “That’s why I’m so tough!” I couldn’t help but laugh. Her antics lightened the mood. “Listen, you gonna support me on this, or not?”

  I stopped laughing and cleared my throat. “You’re sure you want this?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I am.”

  I reached over and gripped her shoulder. “Then I support you.”

  She let out a half smile. “Thanks, Alan.” Her stomach growled, and she reached down for it. “But right now, all I want is something to eat. What kind of food do they have on freight?”

  “Noodles,” I replied. “Put your shoes back on. We’ve probably got another few hours before this tub docks with the cruiser. Best to hit the mess hall before we submerge.”

  I never thought I made much of an impression on her during those trying visits she paid Margo and I years ago. I couldn’t help but take a little bit of pride in her decision.

  6

  Politically Derelict

  The mess hall was usually the largest crate in the cargo bay. Big enough to house a hovertruck, kind of like a low-ceilinged garage. This one was lit up with strands of party lights on the outside. Arrows spray-painted on freight boxes pointed the way. They made sure we could find it easily enough, considering how cold it was outside our room. You could feel the freezing metal floor of the hull seep into the soles of your feet as you walked around, even with your shoes on. I found myself pining for my old heatsuit, like the blue and gold number Dave was wearing. The one I wore when I worked for Interlock.

  A few feet from the mess hall door, I turned around to discover Alice was no longer behind me. I retraced my steps to find her back around the corner, staring out a hull portal that allowed a view of the main cruiser as we approached it.

  The Orion Express.

  Even though the ship was utterly immense, from here it was dwarfed by the vastness of space. Cruisers always reminded me of fallen Gothic sky scrapers with expanding blossoms of thrusters at their base. This one was no different. The front half looked something like a sea-going cruise ship, full of lights and windows and soft, guided curves. The back half was the business end, hard-angled and menacing, bristling with external conduits, antenna, and freighters. I imagined the ship being annoyed with the freighters, like ticks on a dog’s back, little parasites hitching rides to places they’d never reach on their own. But it just floated there, waiting for more ticks like us to dig in.

  “I’ve n-never actually seen one before, ya know?” she said, shivering. “I mean, for real. Only seen p-pictures of them.”

  I supposed she wouldn’t have. Cruisers never touched down on planets—not only was such a possibility beyond their design, but their practice was to remain in orbit and refuel between subgate jumps from cluster to cluster. When you shuttled up to one on a passenger liner, there were no exterior portals. Liners provided individual holovid cowls, like giant salon blow dryers that you could stick your head beneath, immersing yourself in a world of your own choosing. I always avoided using them, chose to read a book or watch an old film instead. People got hooked on those things. A lot of the time they’d log into a holovid of their vacation destination in anticipation. Only, the holovid’s representation was far superior to the real thing. In a holovid, you never lost your room key, or cut your foot open on a rock as you waded into the water, and all the make-believe people staying in your make believe resort wanted to visit your make believe room and screw your brains out. Virtual sex was all the rage. By the time you actually arrived in real space, it was kind of a letdown. But I digress.

  “Come on,” I said. “It’s freezing out here. It’ll be warmer in the mess.”

  She pulled away from the portal and followed me.

  A handful of our eclectic space vagabonds were already there. The room was bland and simple, with a set of three long, crappy cafeteria tables spaced evenly apart in the middle area and a row of sinks and cabinets along the left wall. A first aid kit mounted to the far wall provided the room’s only decor. The creepy guy in the black trenchcoat sat alone at the farthest table with his back against the wall, heavily invested in what looked like next year’s model of the egoPad. The one Listic identified as Mannigan, distinguished politicia
n with the mustache, and Loche, the smaller man with the campaign badge, conversed at the middle table, with that odd coffee maker in between them. The wispy-haired lanky guy and the plain frumpy woman conversed at the closest of the tables.

  Aside from the creepy guy, they all looked at us like we’d just offended their taste in literature or wine, having let out a few precious seconds of space heater warmth. Alice quickly closed the door behind us. Aside from the creepy guy, they went back to talking.

  I showed Alice the feeding board. A few rubbery containers were already laid out on the counter, relieved of their content. I opened a cabinet below and pulled out a couple more. They each had a “4” on them.

  “These are ours,” I said, handing her a batch of sauceless noodles. “Bon appetite.”

  She grabbed it hungrily and walked it over to the nearest communal table. “Crackdogs, stew, and noodles,” she said. “This week, we dine as royalty.”

  I sat down across from her. We shared the benches occupied by Wispy and Frumpy. Wispy was flamboyantly recounting past engagements to her.

  “...And he said to him, ‘Darling, I don’t care if you played Hamlet himself, you’re trying out for this part just like everyone else.’” He took a drag on his nitrostick. “Big holovid stars. Egos the size of space cruisers.”

  Something about his mannerism seemed a bit forced, as though Alice and I had walked in on something other than a casual conversation. It sounded more like a reboot than an interruption. All the same, the woman replied with a dull, “You don’t say,” as though she’d heard the story a thousand times.

  I glanced over at them between my first and second mouthfuls of pasta. The guy noticed, and slid over toward our end of the table. “I know, I know. ‘Thespians.’ So dramatic,” he said.

  “On your way to a gig?” I asked.

  “Not anymore,” he answered. He gestured toward the woman. “We were supposed to depart earlier, but the flight got postponed. There’s no way we’ll make it in time, now. We’ll never meet up with the troupe. Looks like we’ll be performing in town parks for birdseed until we catch up with them.”