by Jim Graham
‘What do you mean?’ he managed.
‘I mean, Pierce, what’s up? What do you think you are doing? Why the hostility? Why are you getting involved? That sort of thing.’
Pierce raised his head and looked directly into Petroff’s cold, grey eyes.
‘Nothing illegal, Petroff. Democracy at work ... that’s all.’
Pierce noticed Petroff’s disappointment and saw him nod again at his aide.
Again the chaos. Pierce’s head dropped a second time. This time his legs flew forward and fell apart. There was the sound of flatulence and the smell of faeces.
Petroff allowed the disruption to continue for a moment or two longer, and then cut his hand across his own throat. Rogers dialled the neural disrupter back zero, this time gagging on a mouth full of stink.
‘Let’s start again, young man,’ Petroff said, ‘this time with a single question: Why the hostility?’
Pierce took longer to recover this second time. He was trembling uncontrollably. His mind told him that he had crapped himself, but he could not feel it. His usual razor-sharp wit had dulled down to a crawl. It was like being concussed and electrocuted, both at the same time. His head now hurt. There was an unremitting, sharp pain behind both eyes. His temples bulged.
He felt Petroff lift his chin, squeeze his cheeks and pull his head around. His face was only a few inches away.
‘Just st, st, sticking u … up for us … Assert … assert … asserting our rights,’ he replied. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and it was an effort to breathe. It was a real effort to talk.
‘Maybe so, Gavin, but my question is why?’ Petroff asked. ‘Does it have anything to do with the Old Man? Your old man?’
Pierce could not answer right away. It took some time to understand what Petroff was saying, but through the mist of confusion, there was a slow dawning: Petroff knew! And if he knew, then he could not be bluffed. Nor was there any point in staying aware of his surroundings. It might just be better for him to let go. He could not talk if he was unconscious.
‘No response, young Pierce? Or should I say Spelling? What do you prefer?’ Petroff said with no attempt to hide the contempt in his voice.
Pierce remained silent. He felt Petroff release his chin, but a finger was then pressed against his forehead, pushing his head back. It lolled forward again. Pierce couldn’t hold it upright for more than a second or two: he couldn’t coordinate anything.
‘Nothing, eh? Not even an excuse?’ Petroff asked.
Pierce struggled to raise his head again, though he could not hold it straight. He looked at Petroff, drilling through him, defying him to go the extra kilojoules.
Petroff saw the challenge and raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Two dustings were usually more than enough, even for someone trained in resistance to interrogation. Knowing there was a third on offer usually got everyone back to the business of talk, but not on this occasion; not with Pierce. They had zapped him earlier as well, which was an additional bonus. A further dusting would be futile: for both of them.
Petroff pondered that thought for a moment, savouring the control he had over such a man. He pulled Pierce’s head backwards by the hair and looked directly into his pale blue eyes, smiling in fake admiration. He then turned to glance at Rogers.
‘Give him a reason to regret his silence, Rogers,’ he said in a fit of pique, a feature that had followed him throughout his career. ‘Give him a personal tour of hell! Make it hurt!’
Rogers looked quizzically at him, but Petroff ignored the look. Instead he fixated on Pierce, waiting to see him flop about for a third time.
Not quite sure just how much hell to give him, Rogers dialled it up to three quarters strength, flinching as he did so.
Pierce dropped to one side of his chair, restrained only by his plasticuffs that threaded through the uprights.
Finally, Petroff looked at Rogers and told him to shut the neural disrupter off. He folded his arms and waited for Pierce to make a slow recovery.
It never came.
Rogers stepped forward to check his pulse and then nodded with relief.
‘He’s alive, sir.’
‘Alive as in “barely”, or alive as in “vegetable”, Rogers?’ he asked as though Rogers was being a little slow.
‘How would I know, sir? Shall I get a doctor?’
‘No, Rogers. Check for yourself. What does the scanner say?’
Rogers unhooked the scanner from the neural disrupter unit and placed it against Pierce’s left temple. The other two guards looked back and forth between Petroff and the unresponsive Pierce, unsure they wanted to witness any more.
Rogers flushed.
‘Shit. His brain stem’s still working, sir, but he’s gone.’
‘Well I suppose that’s one kind of hell, Pierce,’ Petroff said looking down at the personality-free body. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, Rogers. It was a slip of the wrist. Could’ve happened to any of us,’ he said as he walked towards the door.
‘Vent him!’
14
The AI detected an external-energy surge just as the slave routine narrowed down the correct dimension-drive initiation equation to one of 267,345 variables. The two coming together as they did was extremely fortuitous.
Within seconds of sensing the external-energy source, the AI decided it was time to awaken the mission controller.
The mission controller’s last original thought had been that the human variable might just reduce the number of Sol years it would take to re-programme the dimension-drive software. Well, he was wrong on that account, but not wrong in the overall—their presence was now a factor. This new energy source was confirmation of that. He was now brimming with confidence.
But they needed to act quickly: they had missed several such opportunities over the years, all of them since drifting closer to a small pseudo-planet at the edge of the system.
The AI ordered the work on the dimension-drive reprogramming to stop so that it could divert the maximum available energy directly to the harvesting mechanism. It then overrode the standard harvesting protocols and directed the slave to attempt a harvest, even at this considerable distance.
It was a good call. It was a successful harvest.
They now had an undocumented source of excess energy to utilise; a power source its owner would not miss. With any luck, and if it could be subdued, it should provide enough power to test the 267,345 variables. And if they could hold it down for long enough, it might even provide the power they needed to worm again.
15
A nervous Corporal Rogers stepped inside the number three airlock to check if it had a suicide prevention device, a Briar cover. It didn’t, so he waved Pierce’s body inside. When the airbed came to a stop in the middle of the room, he used a foot to push the body onto the cold, fines-covered floor. He then took a step back, and stood with his head bowed as though deep in thought. Somehow, it just did not seem right to leave Pierce lying facedown in the fines, so he got his colleagues to sit him up against the wall. Looking at the body for a second time, he knew he was right: it would look more realistic this way. Now it would look as though Pierce had been physically capable of walking into the airlock, and could have vented the lock himself.
Scene set, he waved his colleagues out of the room. He started to sweep the floor with his boot but realised the airbed was still in the room—neither of his colleagues had thought to take it with them. He walked around it, pushed it out, and swept the floor again.
Outside, his fellow guards looked nervously at each other, knowing what was to come next. Rogers sealed the inner- and outer-doors, peered through the glass inspection panel and steeled himself. He opened the airlock maintenance hatch in the corridor wall, selected “Vent” and pushed down.
Inside the airlock, the air pressure began to drop as the extractor unit sucked air back inside the facility, rather than lose it to the void outside. He could see the fines swirl upwards towards the vents, driven by t
he air as it left the small room, and he thought he could see Pierce’s body wriggle then shudder. He definitely saw his eyes swell, and blood ooze through the small pores in his face.
But he knew he could not hang around to see what would happen next. He had already lingered for way too long. It was time to go. But as he straightened his jacket and prepared to walk off, he could not help himself. He took one last look and wished he had not. It looked as though everything that was once a part of Pierce was trying to leave his coveralls, to escape this body and find another: one drop of bodily fluid after another, streaming to the ceiling in ghostly vapours.
16
When he woke up, Scat wandered up to the kitchen where he found Patch drinking coffee, head down, staring at a space on the other side of the table. The place was almost empty, save a small clean-up crew and the kitchen hands.
‘What’s up, Patch?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ he asked.
‘Heard what? I’ve been getting some downtime.’
‘Pierce is dead. They found him in an airlock out at the cargo bay. He vented himself.’
‘What?’ Scat suddenly felt a whole lot heavier. He felt his gut drop. He lowered himself into a seat.
‘Yes, dead. Very messy. Quite ugly.’
‘Are you sure?’
Patch’s voice trembled a little.
‘I was on duty. Angolena took the call, but there was nothing he could do. He must have been venting in there for at least 10 minutes before the cargo watch caught on.’
‘But you said he wasn’t suicidal!’
Patch stared into space, not saying anything. Scat thought back to his meeting with Pierce last night. No way was the man suicidal.
‘Who’s dealing with it?’
A second later, Patch realised Scat was asking a question.
‘Angolena, I guess, though there won’t be any point in an autopsy. With venting, the cause of death stares you in the face.’
‘I was—’ Scat stopped himself. There was no point in mentioning he had been speaking to Pierce during the last watch. Just, what, three hours before?
Patch seemed to be steeling himself for something. He leaned forward:
‘I’ve just found the watch recommendation on his file—from Geoffrey. It’s dated just before he asked you to play monitor. But I can’t see how I missed it!’
He flopped back in his chair, looking down at the table.
‘Henry will kill me, then Clavell, and then it’ll be Angolena’s turn. No one likes dealing with a venting case.’
‘What do you mean, you missed it?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a fark-up. I’ve no idea how it got to the file. Email arrives in the general box, the duty medic marks it up for the medical officer and then he files it.’
‘And?’
Patch looked as though his world had just ended:
‘It says it came in on my watch.’
‘Oh, Jeeze!’ Scat realised Patch could be feeling a whole lot of guilt and be in some serious trouble.
‘But I didn’t see it, I swear.’
Scat placed a hand on Patch’s arm for reassurance.
‘Don’t beat yourself up, Patch. I’m sure it’s an honest mistake. Angolena speaks highly of you. And in any case, even if you had known Pierce was suicidal I’m sure he would have still found a way to “off” himself—he was the resourceful sort.’
Patch was not having any of it. He was getting animated.
‘You don’t get it, Scat. I didn’t file it, and then forget to inform anyone. I didn’t file it – period! Someone else must have.’
‘No chance it was missed by you, but filed during the next watch?’
‘No,’ Patch replied, frowning. ‘We hand over the mailbox “clean”. Swanson would have noticed an unopened mail when he took over. And even if I did screw it, Geoffrey should’ve followed it up; it’s been the protocol for, like, ever. But he didn’t. If he had, we would have caught it.’
‘Have you spoken to Swanson?’ Scat asked, still not yet used to the idea that Pierce was dead.
Across the table, shock was giving way to emotion.
‘Not yet, Scat’, Patch replied a little brusquely. ‘I’ve just come off watch. Largo’s on duty now. I haven’t seen Swanson.’
‘Have you come clean with Angolena yet?’ Scat asked.
‘I will, just as soon as I finish my coffee. But if he’s had a chance to go over Pierce’s file, he’ll already know.’
‘Was anyone from Corporate there when he was brought in?’
‘No. ... Er…, I’m not sure.’
‘Any contact at all?’
Patch shook is head.
‘None that I know of. Most of the activity was down at the cargo bay. Security is still all over it.’
Scat could see Patch was still processing; he now had that far away and quizzical stare. He might need a few minutes to think clearly.
‘Alright, Patch, drink your coffee, quickly, and go speak to Angolena before he finds out for himself. Don’t offer excuses right now. Just tell him the facts and remind him of the protocol. He’ll then realise Geoffrey didn’t follow up. It could soften the blow-back on you when it comes.’
‘OK, but I’m not looking for a scapegoat so as to avoid a rollicking—I’m just frustrated that I didn’t catch it as it came in. I’ll be beating myself up just fine till I work out how that happened.’
‘Well take it easy in that department, Patch,’ Scat advised him. ‘Let’s get together again in an hour. I’ve got a meeting in Corporate that I can’t miss, and I gotta get my own head straight for it.’
17
Scat made his way to the meeting room on the lower floor of the administration centre, checking off room numbers as he went. He had not been this far into Corporate since his arrival. He had passed some impressive looking glass-panelled rooms along the way.
He found the room at the end of the corridor, its windows fully closed off by blinds. He knocked on the door and eased it open a fraction, just in case he was interrupting something. Petroff called him in.
‘Hello, Scat. Good to see you again. You’ve heard about Pierce?’ he asked, sympathetically.
‘Yes, I have. A shock, really.’
It truly had been. He was doing his best to stay level, but he had not lost a colleague in over eight years. It was not something you got used to or could brace yourself for, no matter what your experience or how straight your head. They were by your side one minute, then gone forever. The loss was almost always sudden, unexpected.
‘Well, perhaps not such a shock, Scat. Sad business all the same,’ Petroff said, picking fluff from his lapel. ‘Anyway, let’s take a seat.’
Scat looked around. There was no one else. Rows of monitors lined each wall, all blacked out. A large table filled the centre of the room. He took a seat as offered along one side, close to the furthest end. Petroff took a seat and poured two glasses of water that slopped around slowly in the low gravity. He pushed one across to Scat.
‘As you know, the V3 is returning to Trevon in a few hours and several of your comrades will be going with her—along with some of our more troublesome employees whose contracts we have cut short.’
Petroff paused as he always did after dropping something of significance into a conversation. Scat sensed he was looking for a reaction so he gave him a facial shrug.
Petroff carried on.
‘To be frank with you, Scat, there isn’t any point in keeping them here if they aren’t going to restart work any time soon. And if there isn’t to be any fresh mining for the time being then they won’t be missed. Besides we can’t risk any more vandalism,’ he added, alluding to the comms room incident.
Scat nodded his understanding. Petroff ploughed on.
‘In the greater scheme of things, they will be happier on Trevon. It’s their home, Scat, and if I was a Trevon, that’s where I’d like to be right now, given the situation as it is.’
‘And what is
that situation at present, Mr Petroff?’ Scat asked.
‘Confused, Scat. It’s a bit of a mess. There’s a significant faction on Trevon that wants greater autonomy. Then there is a smaller but noisy number that wants full independence.’
‘And how’s it being played out?’ Scat asked.
‘Slowly. Carefully. Or it was until more recently,’ Petroff added as he thought back to Pierce. ‘Things got a little more exciting a few days ago. The House issued its declaration of intent without letting the Corporate Reps vote. The House session had technically closed. It was meant to incite.’
Scat thought a declaration of ignorance was in order:
‘I wasn’t aware, sir. I’m not familiar with the local politics. I’m only picking up bits and pieces here and there.’
He left it at that: admitting to his little chat with Pierce did not seem the smart thing to do.
‘Of course, head office on Earth won’t be pleased. It’ll change the landscape a little. They’ll no doubt be quite concerned.’ Petroff was talking in the future tense. Given its distance from Trevon, Earth was several days from responding to the most recent developments.
‘I should think they’ll be pretty pissed off,’ Scat said. ‘Trevon is their biggest investment.’
Petroff nodded.
‘No doubt, no doubt, but my more immediate concern is with security in the here and now. The situation is unstable. We need to calm things down. Making sure everyone knows that the full House didn't approve the declaration is one concern. The other is to maintain order until Earth can form an opinion, or send a delegation to discuss the matter.’
Scat took a sip of water. He noted that the conversation was less formal than the first interview. This time Petroff was explaining things, and at length, rather than demanding answers.
‘Ultimately, Scat, it’s critical for Earth’s survival that the Outer-Rim keeps producing. It’s always one disaster away from a meltdown; has been for decades. It has sufficient resources for maybe a year, but that’s just enough to keep the warming within its predicted rate of increase. Without Amesont and the like, the weather systems will kill the harvests. People will starve.’
‘OK. So why am I here? I’m not a politician.’