Mike and Gideon sat on the ceiling and leaned back against Tina’s ventilation duct as they debated the relative merits of the various ways by which they might survive the heat of solar passage.
To conserve batteries, the three sat in the fluctuating dark.
It occurred to Mike that the light provided by the sweeping sunbeams gave the cargo deck the same cheerless glow as did the cheap flashing neon signs outside the rundown hotel room windows in all those old black-and-white two-dimensional cliché-ridden detective movies.
Tina whispered, “What’s that noise?”
Gideon asked, “What noise?”
“Shhh.” She cocked her head. “Listen.”
Mike heard the chiming of a lone and distant church bell.
“Yes, I hear it now,” Gideon said. “Where’s it coming from?”
Mike stood and turned on his flashlight. “It’s my pocketsize. It wants to speak to me privately.” He shone his beam down in front of his feet to light a path toward the closer of the two vertical hallways. “Excuse me.”
Crossing the room, he expected to hear objections to his leaving, or at the very least questions about why his pocketsize couldn’t say whatever it was in front them. He could imagine Gideon saying, ‘Are you keeping secrets from us, Mike? I thought we were all in this together?’ But they said nothing, and Mike entered the hallway and began climbing up.
When he stepped into deck eleven—a cargo deck just as empty as the one he’d left—he noticed the centrifugal force felt weaker here. It also felt somewhat bizarre, like a kind of carnival ride. He could feel the gees strongest at his feet and weaker in his hands, but the weirdest was his head. His head was in zero-g.
But he hadn’t come here for amusement.
Closing the door, he scanned the room with his flashlight to verify that he was alone, then he walked around each vertical hallway shaft to make sure no one could be hiding there. Satisfied, he sat down on a ventilation duct’s blue foam insulation, pulled out his computer and opened it.
“Don’t show me—” He paused for a moment then changed his mind. “Show it.”
The photograph of Kim and him French-kissing while holding water-balloons above each other’s head appeared on its display surface. He felt a familiar tightness in his throat. He closed his eyes firmly as though the pressure might seal his tear ducts.
“I’m alone. Tell me what you’ve learned.”
But the pocketsize said nothing. The only sounds were the echoed creakings of the huge slightly-stretched spaceship. Mike opened his eyes. The picture was gone. In its place was text. Mike read it silently.
The text said, “I’ve been working on building a list of candidates for our murderer/saboteur. Then, having built this list, I’ve been trying to eliminate as many names as possible. The list started with ten names—those of all the smugglers and their accomplices. I eliminated four immediately because they are dead: Paulette Dozier was sentenced to fifteen years and died in prison of mysterious causes. William (Bull) Dozier died in prison from a fight with another inmate. Martin Dowd was paroled after serving seven of his ten years; he died last year of natural causes at the age of seventy-two. Monica Porter never made it to prison or even to trial; she was shot to death when she fired on the lunar police who tried to arrest her.”
Mike slid his thumb along the edge of the little computer, instructing it to scroll the text.
“Three more people can be eliminated for miscellaneous reasons. Anthony Hull served his time, was released, then got caught smuggling cocaine in Florida and is now in prison again. Jonathan Yowell has a similar story involving heroin in California. And Peter Massey studied law while serving his time and is now working as an attorney in New York.
“Three people, however, cannot be eliminated. These people remain as the most likely saboteur candidates: Victor Moss, Rebecca Dozier and Tony Fukuyama.
“Victor Moss served twelve of his twenty years, got out for good behavior and is last known living in Chicago. Rebecca Dozier served her complete sentence of fifteen years and was released. She was considered a problem inmate, a vicious person: twice she nearly killed other inmates in fights. Tony Fukuyama—the lunar smuggling ring-leader—was extradited to Japan, sentenced to twenty-five years and is still serving his time.”
Mike whispered to the silent computer. “How can Tony Fukuyama be a candidate if he’s in prison?”
The answer appeared on the screen as text. “I’ve found extensive evidence that he’s managed to resurrect his lunar drug smuggling operation from his prison cell. His reach may stretch all the way to Huygens colony. The man is powerful and unscrupulous. Believe me, if he wants someone to die they generally turn-up dead.”
Mike said, “I don’t know much about that Dozier woman but I remember Victor Moss. A big noisy man with short bushy red hair. I saw him in some of the prospector saloons. He was a mean one: always ready to start a fight over nothing. Everybody knew he was dealing drugs. He used to brag about it.”
New text scrolled onto the screen. “Any of these three could be our saboteur, though Rebecca Dozier may have the strongest motivation. Four Dozier siblings were involved in the Apollo Smuggling and all are dead except her.”
Mike frowned. “There were only three Doziers.”
“No,” the answer scrolled. “Monica Porter’s maiden name was Dozier.”
“Tell me about Rebecca.”
“I don’t have a recent picture but this is what she looked like at the trial and here’s a picture taken back in ‘31.” The two images appeared side-by-side on the computer’s screen. The first showed a thin and rather ordinary-looking woman with long dark hair sitting at a defendant’s table in a courtroom. The second showed essentially the same woman but with even longer slightly graying hair dressed in a prison uniform standing at an artist’s easel painting a picture.
Mike rubbed his chin with his fingertips. “She does look familiar.” He recalled bits and pieces of several minor incidents involving a pesky dark-haired girl who seemed to follow him everywhere for over a month. Was that before the smuggling incident, or after? “Where did you get the second image?”
“It’s from a magazine article published in October of 2031. It was the tenth anniversary of the Apollo Smuggling so they did a whatever-happened-to-them photo spread. She looks peaceful here, almost serene. Six days after this picture was taken she beat her cell-mate into a coma.”
Mike grimaced slightly. “She sounds like a bad one.”
“The woman is remorseless and vicious. That’s why she served her entire sentence: she kept getting denied parole.”
“If you were to rank these three as to which is the most likely saboteur what would you get?”
“Moss would be the least likely. He hasn’t been able to succeed at much of anything in the last few years and the sabotage of this ship seems to have been done with a great deal of care and planning. In my opinion, this is beyond him. Fukuyama would be second. He has the resources and the competence, and might even have the motivation: not so much to ensure his current situation as to fulfill some kind of revenge fantasy. But that brings up the problem with him as saboteur—he has never been the kind of man given to fantasies; he’s too pragmatic. So the best candidate—” The screen went blank, then displayed, “I am detecting a coded radio trans—” But that was all.
Mike’s mouth dropped open and his eyes grew wide as he heard the small soft sound of an explosion muffled by distance and many walls. Vigorously, he shook the little computer in his hand. “No! Not yet! I’ve still got questions! Damn, I’ve got lots of questions!”
_____
Inside a vertical hallway, Kim climbed upward. Her progress was slow, partly because she checked every wrung for the slightest sign of grease and partly because her helmet lights had faded almost to nothing—their batteries were going dead.
For an extra margin of safety, she climbed with both hands which required she carry her helmet by wearing it on her head. Its broken faceplate
was a blessing in that it did not reduce her vision, but was also a source of endless worry. She was petrified a splinter of glass would fall into her eye.
Soon she was in total blackness. She climbed on, checking the safety of each wrung by touch alone. She considered taking the helmet off and dropping it, but it being so bulky she was not certain she could remove it with only one hand while hanging on with the other.
Then she heard, Voices!, and stopped to listen.
Muffled with distance, she couldn’t make out what they said, only that there seemed to be several different speakers, at least one of each sex and that they were somewhere above her. Must be the crew. Finally, somebody that can help me!
She started climbing again. The voices grew louder and clearer. Reaching their deck, she felt around in the dark for a door handle and eased the door open cautiously.
Aside from the now familiar sunbeams sweeping up and down through this cargo deck, Kim first noticed a large partially sorted pile of supplies and then three people: a short fat man, a tall strong man and a blonde woman dressed in a ridiculously impractical outfit of white shorts and blouse. All three sat on the ceiling leaning back against a ventilation duct.
Stepping silently out of the vertical hallway, Kim felt eager to make contact yet suddenly hesitant to announce herself. She didn’t have to.
The woman spotted her and began screaming as though someone were stabbing her with a knife, not once but over and over and over again. The screaming brought the two men scrambling to their feet and startled Kim so badly she nearly fell backward through the vertical hallway’s open door.
The tall man yelled, “Kim!” and rushed toward her.
Kim reached back and swung the door shut. No need to risk a fall, she thought, be it accidental or intentional. Then, just to be sure, she took two steps toward him and away from the door.
The man grabbed her in a bear hug and squeezed her so hard she suddenly remembered the exact location of every bruise on her chest and upper arms, so hard that her feet came up off the ceiling.
“You’re alive!” He kissed her face six times in rapid succession: cheek, forehead, chin, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera: every kiss moistening a new spot.
“Yes. Yes, I am,” she said, puzzled. Suspended in his embrace, she remained passive with shock at his behavior. For some reason she was not afraid of him. Perhaps because he reminded her a little of the mysterious man in her romantic dream. “But how do you know my name?”
“What?”
“I said, ‘How do you know my name?’ Have we met?”
“What are you talking about?” He smiled. “Kim, it’s me.”
She gave him a deeply confused look and tried not to stare at the cowlick above his right eye.
His smile disappeared. “It’s me! It’s me, Mike!”
“Do I know you?”
“Are you kidding?” But he didn’t sound like he thought she was kidding; he sounded scared. He eased his hold on her enough that her feet returned to the ceiling then he reached up and examined the bump on her forehead. “You’re hurt! Come, sit down. Gideon, help her!”
These people had her sit and treated her injuries as best they could and offered her cold food. It became clear that, to varying degrees, all three thought they knew her.
“Are you the ship’s crew?” she asked.
“Well, sort of,” the tall man said. “At this point we’re all the crew the ship has left.”
“Then I must tell you there’s been a crime,” Kim said. “A murder.”
“What?” barked the woman.
“I saw a man lying dead at the end of the other vertical hallway.” She hiked a thumb at the one she had not stepped out of. “I don’t know who he was, but—”
The woman broke into tears.
“Poor boy,” the fat man said and shook his head slowly.
“Must have been Akio,” said the tall one, nodding.
“Who?” asked Kim.
“Akio Yamaguchi: a computer engineer. Did you see him fall?”
“No, but I’m sure it was no accident. I found clear grease smeared across the ladder rungs a few decks down from here. I think it was a trap. Somebody wanted to kill him. Or at least they wanted to kill somebody.”
Again, these people surprised Kim. In this case by not questioning in the least her extraordinary claim that the man’s death was murder. Instead, they just exchanged frightened glances.
Kim broke the growing silence. “What’s wrong with you people? What’s going on around here?”
Chapter Twelve
Nomads of the Corvus Desert
Five days later the little group of four was still together and still alive. No additional group members had been murdered—in their sleep or otherwise—and no one had seen any sign of Nikita: not so much as a strand of red hair.
During those five days, however, the group had, by the simple act of continuous breathing, corrupted the air inside decks ten, eleven, twelve and nine—in that order. And they had now been breathing the air in deck eight for almost twenty-four hours.
Not that the air in their previous decks was unbreathable. The oxygen content had not been reduced to zero, more like to one-third or one-fourth. And while the carbon dioxide content was far higher than normal, its partial pressure had not reached levels sufficient to induce death or even anesthesia. The corrupted air’s principal drawback was that it had become aggravating to breathe. Being low on oxygen, one had to inhale either deeply or rapidly to get the usual amount of benefit, and—even though breathing heavily—one felt constantly on the verge of being winded. By far, however, the biggest drawback was that the air smelled so awful that it tasted nasty too.
Deck eight was more or less identical to decks ten, eleven, twelve and nine. The two most obvious differences were that the centrifugal force here was stronger, well over one gee, and now that Corvus was farther along in its flight-path the sunbeams had become nearly ten times brighter. Instead of alternating between complete darkness and a dim gloom, the illumination now alternated between complete darkness and being bright enough to count the hairs on the back of one’s hand.
Four days ago the group had performed a brief memorial service for Zahid and the captain. Mike had officiated. Little had happened since, and it now felt as though that memorial had occurred a very long time ago. Time seemed to have altered itself, to stretch itself out, to run at glacial speeds. Days felt like weeks. Monotony reined.
“I’ll take two,” Mike said as he dropped two cards face-down. He and Kim sat cross-legged on the ceiling facing each other playing poker. The game had to be poker: all they had was a deck of cards and after five days of play they’d discovered that she couldn’t beat him at cribbage and he couldn’t beat her at gin.
The game helped take their minds off the impending doom, but more importantly formed a needed break in the otherwise endless sessions of running simulations on Mike’s pocketsize.
Gideon sat on the ceiling leaning back against one of the foam-covered ventilation ducts with his legs stretched out in front of him crossed at the ankles. He held Mike’s pocketsize in his lap and stared intently at its surface which displayed the text of a novel.
A large section of soft blue foam insulation was missing from one of the ventilation ducts, exposing its hard white structural plastic underneath. The missing foam had been torn into four roughly equal-sized pieces and could be found under four differently-sized derrieres.
Sleep was now done in strict shifts of six hours per person. One slept while three remained awake. It was currently Tina’s turn to sleep but she seemed restless.
She sat beside Gideon with her pea-green travel case and a small pile of food envelopes forming a barrier between her and him. For the last few minutes she’d had her knees up and her feet flat on the ceiling while hugging her bare legs securely to her chest. This squeezed her breasts, forcing them to bulge round and full at her sides.
She fanned her face with both hands—a useless gesture. “Is
it just me,” she asked, “or is the air in here getting stuffy and hard to breathe?”
“It’s not just you,” Gideon said without looking up from his novel. “But we’re starting to run out of decks with comfortable air that don’t also have a high gee force.”
As sunlight swept through the room, Mike examined the two cards Kim slid across the ceiling toward him. They were worthless. “In a few hours,” he said, “we’ll move our remaining supplies down to the hangar in deck seven.”
“What are the gees down there?” Tina asked.
“Almost two.”
“Wouldn’t the gees be lower in deck thirteen? We haven’t been there yet.”
“Yes,” Mike said, “but there’s one more pod in the hangar and it still has electric power and that means it still has life support.”
“So?” Tina shrugged. “It’s too small. It only seats two.”
“We can rig a tent to keep the good air in and the bad air out. It won’t be a perfect barrier but it should work all right. Besides, there are oxygen tanks in the hanger’s storage lockers; enough oxygen to last days, maybe weeks.” He waited for someone to point out that solar passage was only three days away.
“If that’s the case,” Tina said, pushing herself up to her feet, “then I think we should move now.”
“There’s no rush,” Mike said calmly. “I’ve been timing our stay on this deck. The air in here will last us a few more hours with no problem.”
“But if we can breathe better air down there I don’t see why we should wait.”
“Well, if you really want to,” Mike said, smiling at his cards, “you can start moving stuff.” He held back a small laugh, knowing there was no way Tina was going to move anything by herself. During all the previous moves, she’d barely lifted a finger.
“OK,” she said, and started gathering unopened food envelopes into a large black plastic bag.
Gideon closed the pocketsize. “If you’re going to begin moving us the least I can do is help.”
Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space Page 15