Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space

by Stephen Euin Cobb

  “But by transmitting on the emergency channel, wouldn’t a weak signal still be detected?”

  “Yes, I think it would. But you understand that the bandwidth would be exceedingly narrow. I wouldn’t be able to send images. The transmission would have to be voice-only.”

  “No images? Damn. OK, OK. Send this, verbatim: This is Captain Lawrence Palmer of the commercial carrier and merchant ship Corvus. This ship has been purposely sabotaged by persons unknown.”

  He paused briefly. Swallowing was becoming painful. Drooling proved a better choice. “We had just begun the J-maneuver for our docking approach at Von Braun when a bomb exploded rupturing a liquid hydrogen fuel filter near the engines. The resulting leak has already spilled more than a quarter of our fuel and—since it’s spraying out sideways—is causing the ship to tumble end-over-end so rapidly that the damaged area can no longer be reached for repairs due to the centrifugal effect. My passengers are probably safe at present, but I’ve lost my chief flight engineer and believe she may be dead. She was thrown from the ship by the centrifugal effect while working on the engines.”

  He paused again. His throat was dry and he needed full use of his face in order to grimace properly as he swallowed.

  “As for myself, I’ve fallen from my command chair to the ceiling and can’t move without excruciating pain. I think I’ve broken my left arm, right leg and several ribs. Soon, we will have lost all our fuel and will be tumbling out of control. I request assistance and an immediate reply. This is Captain Lawrence Palmer: out and clear.”

  “Do you wish to edit before I transmit?”

  “No, just send it; but follow it with your own verbal analysis of our situation—in case I left anything out.” He coughed uncontrollably five times in rapid succession. It was definitely uncontrollable; if he could have controlled it, he wouldn’t have done it. Each cough burned in his chest like the fires of Hell.

  “Aye aye. Transmitting now. The message will arrive at Von Braun in 2.4 minutes. Initial confirmation that they have received this message should return in 4.8 minutes, though a meaningful response will take longer.”

  The captain stopped drooling for a moment and attempted to lift his unbroken right arm; a move he thought might be safe. The action, however, only pressed his broken ribs more firmly into the ceiling. When his facial expression returned to normal he asked in the softest of whispers, “What’s the g-force in here?”

  The ship spoke in its normal tone. “Two point seven gees: inverted.”

  Chapter Two

  Valley of the Shadow of Death

  Mike’s cabin was on deck four. Due to the ship’s unnatural rotation he was now standing on its ceiling.

  The overall configuration of the spaceship Corvus was rather like that of a tall building: a skyscraper in space. Its shape was that of a cylinder, one about four times as long as it was wide. The flat ends were the ship’s top and bottom: metaphorically, its roof and foundation. The engines sprouted from the foundation; the bridge was a dome on the roof.

  Ship’s decks numbered from zero at the top to nineteen at the bottom. Deck zero was the bridge. Nineteen was the lowest of the four engineering decks and the last pressurized level. Go any farther down and you’d find yourself outside with the engines.

  Most of Corvus’s exterior was covered with a mirror finish and a grid pattern of dark lines. This reflective grid-work suggested windows—even in places where there weren’t any—and contributed to the general appearance of a tall building.

  Like its three sister ships—all less than four years old—Corvus was designed and built to shuttle people and supplies to the various colonies scattered throughout the solar system. Most, though not all, of these people and supplies originated from the City of Von Braun, which orbits Earth’s Moon. For the last nine months Corvus had been assigned solely to the Von Braun/Huygens run.

  Huygens Colony, named after the Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens, was a large well-funded research facility orbiting Titan—the largest moon of Saturn. This colony was currently growing so fast and experiencing such a boom-time that far more people traveled out to it than returned. Consequently, as Corvus was now returning to Von Braun, its cargo decks were ninety five percent empty as were eighty percent of its passenger cabins.

  Why wouldn’t Larry tell me what’s wrong with the ship? And why’d he cut me off so fast? I was just about to tell him about Val. Mike frowned. And what about Kim? She can’t still be outside trying to work on the engines. Not in these gees!

  Mike pushed his cabin door open and raised his foot high enough to clear the door’s lintel and step out into the hallway. He pulled the door closed behind him and paused to consider jumping up to shake its handle to verify that it was properly locked, then decided that would be overkill.

  Walking down the hallway, his progress was slow. His movements were awkward and seemed composed of overreactions. This was his own fault. It had been nearly two years since he’d practiced walking in anything more than the Moon’s one-sixth gravity, and five years since he’d done anything in a full gee.

  Physically, he was tall and sturdy, almost to the point of being muscular. He had the kind of rugged face that, if not quite handsome, was at least boyishly youthful—or as boyishly youthful as can be expected of a man forty-one years old.

  As always, he wore loose, comfortable clothing. Clothing that, should the need arise, he could work in. He’d never felt at home in clothes that had to be kept spotless or protected from harm. He believed his clothes should be protecting him; not vice versa.

  His shirt was flannel: a lumberjack style plaid in red and black that practically shouted construction worker. Without giving it any thought, he’d rolled the sleeves up to the elbow, which suggested a willingness—perhaps even an eagerness—to get his hands dirty.

  His pants were just blue jeans, but they had extra pockets on the front and side of each thigh; and like most zero-g pockets, had flaps with Velcro closures to keep their contents from floating out.

  His zero-g boots were soft and black and conformed to the shape of his feet and ankles. With soles the same thickness and flexibility as the uppers, they were little more than black leather socks.

  He stepped over a florescent light fixture, around a ventilation grid and past some kind of electrical access panel. Deck four was currently experiencing one gee, and it was growing stronger.

  Mike’s walking improved rapidly. Hardly surprising: it didn’t take much practice to remember old skills. And besides, walking is just like riding a bicycle: once you learn you never forget.

  He thought of her body, suddenly: limp and pink and dead. He still couldn’t believe it—though he himself had found the dying woman.

  It happened less than an hour ago. Corvus had been in zero-g at the time; both its engines having just gone into emergency shutdown. He remembered how he’d pushed-off from his cabin’s door frame and glided the dozen yards down the hall where he’d grabbed a handhold to bring himself to a stop in front of Val’s door.

  He’d knocked gently, but the force of his knock caused the door to swing open several inches. That’s odd, he’d thought. It wasn’t even closed. He called out, “Val?”

  There had been no answer.

  He’d pushed the door open a little farther. “Val? Are you in there?” Still no answer. He shrugged and began pulling the door shut with the intention of trying her again later but before he could close it all the way he caught a glimpse of a tiny curious movement.

  Opening the door slightly, he saw several small irregularly shaped objects up near the ceiling drifting slowly across the room. Strung together like a prickly necklace, they tumbled gently as though wafted about by the shifting air currents from the ventilation ducts. He stared at them for several seconds before realizing they were the broken fragments of a small black computer.

  How did Val’s pocketsize get smashed?

  Easing the door open, he pulled himself inside and glanced around the sparsely furnished
room. It looked similar to his cabin and, for that matter, all the cabins aboard Corvus. It was a small white room with one round window on the far wall and an elastic fish-net style tube-hammock stretched horizontally in front of the window. On his left were a dining table and two chairs that could all be folded into the wall. On his right was a small kitchen that could be hidden behind sliding decorative panels; and to his left, just this side of the tube-hammock, was a bathroom that he knew would contain an airflow bag-shower and—

  A small bare foot, its toenails painted red, extended out of the bathroom.

  “Val? Is that you?” He pushed himself toward the bathroom door and discovered Valentina Cortez floating limp and unconscious. The dark-haired woman was dressed only in white bra and panties. Her breathing was heavy, her eyes were closed, and her skin was a hideous bright pink.

  He was so stunned at the sight he forgot to grab the bathroom doorframe to stop himself. He coasted past the bathroom and bumped into the wall near the little round window and tube-hammock. The impact roused him from his momentary trance. “Pocketsize, get me the medsys!” He pushed himself back to the bathroom door.

  From his pocketsize, he was answered by a synthetically masculine voice: deep, calm and self-assured. “Medsys here.” It was the ship’s robotic doctor. “How may I help you?”

  “Valentina Cortez is unconscious!”

  “Please calm down, Mister McCormack. First, take your computer out of your pocket and point it at the patient’s face.”

  Mike hurried to comply, fumbling only slightly.

  “That’s good. Now show me her body and pan the room.”

  Mike did this too.

  “How long has she been like this?”

  “I don’t know. I just found her.”

  “Do you smell anything unusual in the room? Chemicals? Medicines? Strange gases?”

  “No.”

  “Have you, yourself, started feeling weak or lightheaded now that you’ve been breathing the air in the room?”

  “No.”

  The medsys fell silent for a moment, then said, “Smell her breath for me.”

  Mike brought his face near hers. He felt the warm, moist wind of her breath play across his cheeks and nose. He blinked a few times as it ruffled his eyelashes. She was breathing fast and deep but Mike kept watching her eyes. He half expected them to pop open and display shock at his being so close to her while she was so insufficiently dressed. He took a shallow sniff, then a deeper one and was surprised by the aroma. “Her breath smells like almonds. But funny. Kind of bitter.”

  “Mister McCormack, I need you to bring her up here to the medical office. The task will be made easier since the ship is, at the moment, in a condition of zero-g. But please, you must hurry. This woman is dying.”

  The trip from deck four up to deck two required three full minutes. It was, however, unavoidable since the medsys was not able to travel within the ship.

  When Mike pulled Val’s limp underwear-clad body through the door into the medical office her arms, legs, and head flopped about like those of a marionette.

  “She’s stopped breathing!” he shouted, sounding out of breath himself.

  One of the room’s two large examination arrays swung out from its wall on a stout metal arm and stopped in front of the unresponsive floating woman. The array’s lights came on and the unit hummed and clicked as it scanned Val with radio and sound waves, examining her insides to determine where—and if—it could safely touch her without doing further harm.

  Mike had once told Kim that this particular model of medsys resembled a chrome-plated outboard motor with eight stainless steel lobsters square-dancing on its top: an image that for some reason did not cross his mind at this moment.

  To prevent his drifting around the room at the mercy of whatever air currents might be thrown out by the ventilation ducts, Mike grabbed the nearest handhold. It was located at the center of a wall between an anatomical diagram of the human body and a reproduction of an antique eye testing chart—two items which, in this age, were useful only as decoration.

  The examination array spoke with the deep masculine voice of the medsys. “Mister McCormack, if you are squeamish about medical procedures you may wish to step out into the waiting room.”

  Mike thought about it, even glanced at the door, but couldn’t bring himself to leave. Once she’d stopped breathing he’d begun to fear the worst, and now he had to know: Was she going to die? He looked at the machine. “I think I’d like to stay.”

  “As you wish.” Six mechanical arms swung out of the examination array and gently but firmly grabbed Val’s floating pink body. One seized her around the waist, one around each ankle and wrist, and one around the top of her head just above the eyes. The array then drew blood from her arm, and smoothly lifted her eyelids to examine her pupils. “I’m sorry, Mister McCormack. But I might as well tell you: Ms Cortez is dead.”

  Mike stared at the body and squeezed the handhold hard enough to produce pain in his fingers. He recalled how cheerful and full of life she’d been the last time he talked with her. He felt his throat tighten. He fought it, but didn’t win.

  He recognized the sensation from a few years ago when his favorite aunt, a kindly woman who’d often baby-sat him as a child had passed away; and from a few years earlier when his saintly grandmother had died; and from a number of years before that when his buddy and partner had ‘bought it’ too. He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, then sighed and closed his eyes. “What did she die of?”

  “Are you sure you are not squeamish?”

  He brought his head down level and looked at the medsys. With a noticeable trace of hesitation, he said, “I don’t think so.”

  The array emitted a long black snake-like appendage that slithered into Val’s mouth and continued slithering an additional two feet.

  Mike tried to hide his involuntary grimace from the medsys by briefly covering his mouth with one hand.

  “Her stomach contains a high concentration of sodium cyanide,” the machine said.

  “Cyanide?” Mike’s eyebrows went up. “She was poisoned?”

  “Yes, and yes. Either by herself or by someone else.”

  Mike’s eyebrows went down. “But she was still alive when I found her. I thought Cyanide killed instantly.”

  “Only if hydrogen cyanide is used—sometimes called hydrocyanic acid or Prussic acid—in which case, the victim can fall dead still holding a poisoned drink. But this was sodium cyanide: a cyanide salt. It must first be broken down by stomach acids so that free cyanide can be released into the stomach and absorbed by the blood. Once in the blood, the cyanide then enters into chemical combination with the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin producing a new molecule: cyanhaemoglobin. This new molecule prevents the blood from releasing oxygen to any of the tissues throughout the body. A victim of cyanide poisoning is thus starved of oxygen; the pulse becomes weak while respiration speeds up. It’s also the cyanhaemoglobin in the blood that turns the skin pink and gives the breath an odor of bitter almonds.”

  Mike couldn’t think of anything to say. He just floated next to the antique eye chart with his mouth open. She was so young. Had so much to look forward to. He thought about the last time he and Kim had had dinner with her. The young woman had displayed a wonderful sense of humor exemplified by the series of amusing stories she’d told about her childhood in Barcelona. Her hair, long and thick and dark, had bounced festively as she laughed. Her eyes too were dark, though her skin had been surprisingly light, almost creamy. Above all, it was her bright and gentle smile that had made Mike feel so at ease. And I think Kim liked her too. He was wrong, of course. He had no understanding of women, even the one he loved.

  “Did you know her well?” the medsys asked.

  “Not really. I’m a structural engineer; she’s lifesupport. We both worked on the construction of this ship but we never met until this flight.” Mike didn’t mention that he’d found her somewhat attractive. He made a mental
note to never mention it.

  “Aha!” the medsys said as it withdrew the black snake from Val’s throat and swung the snake’s tip around to a small and rather delicate looking section of the examination array. Mike got the impression it was passing something from the snake to much tinier manipulators. “I’ve found it. I have discovered— Hmmm. No, I see that I was wrong. I thought I’d found the remains of a poison pill, but it’s actually just a small piece of paper rolled into a ball.”

  “Paper?” Mike frowned in confusion.

  “Yes. And odder still: unraveling the paper ball, I’ve discovered a small tangle of hair wrapped inside. Wait; someone has written tiny words on the paper.”

  “What? What does it say?” Mike craned his neck as if expecting the medsys to show him the words. It did not. Instead, it just read them aloud:

  Years of waiting are over.

  All plans have been laid.

  For injustices suffered,

  old debts must be paid.

  “Sounds like somebody killed her for revenge,” Mike said. “But, why would there be hair in it? Is it human?”

  “We’ll know in a minute. I’m running a genetic analysis.”

  “Can you? I thought hairs weren’t alive.”

  “They aren’t. Hair is just extruded protein; it’s not composed of cells and so contains no genetic material. However, there are often microscopic flakes of skin clinging to the outside of a strand of hair. In this sample I’ve found sixteen such flakes, and it is their genetic material I am analyzing.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “It is complete. A search of available medical records indicates these hairs belong to one Michael Tobias McCormack.”

  “How can they belong to me?”

  “There are at least two possibilities: someone could be trying to implicate you in this death; or you, yourself, could be her murderer.”

  “But I tried to save her!” Mike spread his arms and showed the machine the palms of his hands, as if a lack of malicious intent could be proven by a lack of weapons.