by B. V. Larson
“Something like that—maybe closer to an interrogator right now. We have about three and a half minutes left for you to offer convincing information to me.”
“Well, let me first convey to you that I prefer to be called Dr. Jonah. I’m an emancipated youth, and I’ve achieved an assortment of high level degrees which have been earned in every sense of the definition.”
“That’s interesting, but not very useful.”
“In spite of my—” he continued in an airy tone, but I reached out and clamped a wide palm over his mouth.
“I beg your pardon, professor,” I told him, “but I would like a turn to speak.”
This earned me another dark-eyed glare.
“You need to shut up so you can know what my question is.” I removed my hand.
“I refuse to believe that Colonel Hughes is permitting a mere guard—” he continued, but I interrupted him again.
“What do you know about Dr. Adams that seems like it would be a good idea to tell me?”
Toby shrugged. “Well, I was privy to his work, and I assisted him on every level. He had a brilliant mind. It’s profane that he would be torn apart in the very place where so much was accomplished.”
“You don’t seem too broken up about it.”
“It represents a great loss to science. He was gifted—very capable. I would put him in the same league as myself.”
It was clear to me that Toby was ‘on the spectrum’ as they say. He was all rolled up in the middle of this thing, and had to be handled firmly but also carefully.
“So,” I said, “you’re more likely to know his secrets than anyone. Your statement indicates you know he was murdered, even though the fact was only just discovered. On top of that, you have specific details about the scene of his death. How does that not make you the prime suspect?”
Toby was speechless for about five seconds. This appeared to be a rare state for him.
“But, but… well, yes I found him in his office. I have full access, but why would I do anything to him?”
“You’re the one telling the story.”
“Very well—I overheard Colonel Hughes calling for Dr. Adams. Curious, I did a quick search on his biometrics and found he was in his office—but not responding.”
“You mean you did all this right before we found the body in the office?”
He shrugged. “I guess so, yes.”
“You… overheard…” I said thoughtfully. “Are telling me that you listened in on Hughes comm-link? Or was it Adams?”
Toby shrugged again, noncommittally. “It hardly matters. I discovered him gutted on the floor.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone about it, you just came down here and started assaulting that robot over there.”
“I knew you were coming to the scene. I didn’t think—”
“That’s right—you didn’t think. Toby, don’t you realize how bad this looks? You don’t just find a body and then run off without sounding the alarm.”
“He was already dead. There was nothing that could be done medically. I—you might find this surprising, Chief, but I’m often wrongly blamed for any number of negative events that happen at random in this place.”
“What a surprise.”
“And I’ll add the obvious here,” he continued, “and point out that a person of my stature couldn’t possibly have bested Dr. Adams in a conflict. Not sure what else to do, I decided to get right down here to the construction bay to check on the integrity of his contributions to the field generator.”
“Is that why the back panel of that robot is dented now?”
“Yes. The field generator needs to be adjusted mechanically before a diagnostic can be run on it. Without access to Dr. Adams’ security codes, I was forced to open the robot manually.”
“With a hammer?”
“A crude but effective approach.”
I snorted and shook my head. This punk was either the best liar I’d ever met, or he was lunatic. Maybe it was a little of both.
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You found Adams, but you didn’t tell a soul. That’s weird all by itself. Then, you headed straight down here to sneak around the construction shop? That’s even weirder.”
“You make it sound irrational,” he complained.
“It’s not my story.”
“I’m glad we had this discussion,” he said, standing up. “I’m clearly exonerated. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll be going back to—”
“Not so fast. What’s in your pocket?”
“My…my pocket?”
“Yeah—what’s that bulge in your pocket Toby?”
He turned beet-red and started spitting with rage.
“I have told everyone not to call me that! My name is Dr. Tobias Jonah.”
“Okay, okay… Everyone will call you whatever you want—but I’m calling you Toby.”
“Absurd. Prejudice against youth is the bane of my existence.”
“Whatever. What’s in your pocket?”
He actually made a run for it then. It took me by surprise, although it probably shouldn’t have. I simply hadn’t dealt with anyone quite like him before.
After three steps, I caught a wrist and lifted it up between his shoulder blades.
“Look, Toby, I’m trying to give you an opportunity to come clean, here,” I told him. “I want to see if you can show yourself to be a trustworthy guy that I can work with, or as a piece of irritating garbage that I am forced to scrape off my shoe. So far, it’s not looking so good for you.”
“Damn you,” he said, squirming and hissing in discomfort.
“I’m sure you have noticed that I’ve conveniently left one arm free so you can still comply. Empty that pocket.”
He was reluctant, but he finally reached up to draw out a flat object and slap it into my waiting palm.
I was shocked when I recognized the object—caught off-guard. I was staring at a rune that was carved into a flat block of some kind of mineral. It wasn’t in the top twenty things I was expecting.
“This is what you took from Bill Adams’ shelf?”
The response was sullen silence, but he gave me a nod. I scanned him up and down, and by all appearances, I had to believe him. I released him, and he stood warily, rubbing his arm.
“I never divulged a thing about Dr. Adams’ possessions or his office,” he said. “How could you possibly know?”
“Shut up a minute.”
Something was eating at me. I closed my eyes and ran back through many things and then I got it. I snapped my fingers and squared back off with Tobias Jonah. “You and I need to talk a little more, Toby, and our time is getting very short.”
He made a childish face but didn’t speak.
“Where were you when Bill Adams was torn open?”
“Obviously, I can’t answer with precision since it probably happened last night. I spend much of my time at the university in the city when I’m not here at this compound. I’m working on finishing several degrees there.”
“Then why sneak down here to fiddle with stuff in secret?”
“Dr. Adams had a crucial detail in the navigational programing that he was withholding until just before the launch. That programming is dedicated and resides in the generator itself. This mission wasn’t going anywhere without it. He never told me why.”
“You think this rune has something to do with navigational coordinates?” I asked.
“I guess it’s possible.”
I could tell I finally had Toby’s full attention, but at that moment, Dr. Brandt rapped her knuckles on the doorframe.
“Hey,” she said, “Colonel Hughes wants to continue her meeting. Are you finished chewing on Toby?”
I glanced at my comm-link. There were several texts there from Hughes. I’d ignored the buzzing, and I was only one minute over, so I had her figured as the fussy type.
Dr. Brandt slipped into a chair. She’d removed her coveralls, which left me with a much better impression. Sh
e was striking, now wearing a clingy sweater and a pencil skirt with her legs crossed. I wondered if she’d been wearing this outfit underneath the whole time. I now found her quite compelling.
“I need to urinate now, if you don’t mind,” Dr. Jonah blurted out.
“Be my guest,” I said waving a hand, but also keeping an eye on him.
There was a restroom adjacent to the room we were in, so I let him go. Once the door closed behind him, I sat down across from Dr. Brandt. I couldn’t help but notice she’d cleaned up nicely.
“No more glasses?” I asked. “They suit you if you ask me.”
“I don’t use them to correct poor vision,” she explained. “They’re a work aide that allows me to see in an enhanced visual spectrum. Have you learned anything new about the murder?”
I showed her the rune, and her eyes widened.
“This is what Toby had?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“I heard from the doorway… How’d you know it was in his pocket?”
“I didn’t, but I knew he was hiding something. Sweating hands, darting eyes… He touched his pocket nervously three different times.”
“Hmm,” she mused. “This came from Dr. Adams’ office?”
“Yeah…while investigating the scene, I noted a dusty shelf with a few items missing. When I found out Toby had been in there, well, the connection was easy to make.”
“Still,” she said, eyeing the rune in my hand, “you have impressive observation skills.” She stared at it a little too long before looking back to me.
“You’ve seen this thing before,” I stated.
“Well… yes, I have,” she admitted.
“Tell me more about that.”
She reached for the rune. “May I?”
Reluctantly, I handed it over. She soon began to explain.
“This was Bill’s pride and joy, and I’m not sure where he got it from. He didn’t show it often and was very cryptic when he did, but I’ve pieced some things together.”
“I’m listening…”
“Every bend, intersection and endpoint of the rune coincides with stars of greater magnitude. I have a strong feeling the focal point of this rune is an ‘X’ on a map—a spot outside our own Sphere, of course. Dr. Adams didn’t bother with mere trinkets. If he collected such things they had scientific merit.”
A toilet flushed in the next room. So, the punk really had needed to go to the bathroom.
“That was a long time for a piss,” I commented when Toby finally strolled out.
Once again Toby made a pained face.
“That’s why they came, you know,” he said, gesturing toward the rune. “They wanted the icon.”
Now he had my attention. “Who wants it?”
“The visitors—obviously. They seem to be after these iconic symbols—or our technology. Come to think of it, maybe it’s both.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Have you seen these invaders?”
He was somewhat reluctant. “Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“Earlier, you only asked me about Dr. Adams.”
I stood suddenly and my chair tilted back to land on the floor. “When did you see them?”
Toby had his chin sticking out again. “While I was modifying the engine’s control software. I was near the navigation console—my mission having been accomplished—and I waited to slip out undiscovered. That’s when I saw one materialize. I cried out, and before it was able to molest me I made a hasty departure. It’s the only reason Dr. Brandt even discovered me.”
I immediately turned to Dr. Brandt. “Call Colonel Hughes and warn her of imminent danger. People need to watch their backs. We’re not even close to out of trouble yet.”
She nodded and withdrew from the room. Out in the construction bay, she began making calls.
“Describe the invaders,” I told Toby. “And tell me why you didn’t mention this before.”
“You didn’t ask, as I’ve already said. I’ve been mistreated,” he sniffed. “A victim falsely associated with the perpetrators. Your suspicious nature is groundless and unreasonable. You’re heavy-handed, rude—”
“All right, all right,” I said. “Just tell me what they looked like.”
“Am I still a suspect?”
“Everyone’s a suspect until this is hammered down—but no, you’re not my best guess for Adams’ murderer, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“An inadequate reassurance, but I’ll cooperate regardless. I only saw a single creature, and I didn’t get a chance to make a thorough examination. It had dark, close-set eyes under a heavy brow. The nostrils were small, and the mouth a narrow triangular slit. Its skin was bone-white and it wore a hood. In fact it was covered to the floor by a robe. The general build was humanoid—tall, slender and mantis-like.”
“Well… you’ve got grit that’s for sure—and the audacity to go take a long piss while we’re sitting around out here uninformed.”
With new eyes, I looked at this rat-like teen. He had casually shared his personal encounter with a threat to humanity like he was inappropriately describing bodily functions at the dinner table. For all of his drawbacks, Toby was full of surprises, and I planned to make good use of him.
My words weren’t terribly complimentary, but he seemed prideful that I’d said he had “grit” and he stood a bit taller.
“I’m not some sort of craven middle-brow,” he said. “Information is a powerful tool, and, there’s always a way out of circumstances if one stays unflappable.”
“I see—and that’s you, Dr. Unflappable?”
He released a quiet snort.
“I’ve got to hand it to you Toby, you’re a notch closer to Dr. Jonah in my book. I hope you don’t get us all killed. Let’s get ourselves back upstairs to see if your robed friends have torn anyone else apart.”
Chapter 6
When we finally got back to the meeting, people were starting to lose it.
They all knew the death of Dr. Adams wasn’t an “accident” and by now, they were starting to get worried. They’d had time to digest the idea we were under some kind of attack, and they were personally in danger.
“This is unacceptable,” Fillmore complained. “You’re always talking about not wasting other people’s time, Emily, but here we are spending half the day—”
“I know,” she said, “and I apologize. But we’ve got a real emergency on our hands.”
Fillmore turned his glare upon me next. “I can’t help but notice that this gentleman—this officer from God-knows-where—showed up exactly when the trouble started.”
“What’s your point, Fillmore?” Hughes asked him.
“I’m sure Chief Gray can enlighten us concerning his supernatural timing,” he said, looking me up and down. “Are you gifted with precognition, perhaps?”
Not liking his snotty tone, I let my stare bore into his face for a moment without answering. Then, I lifted my chin and lightened my expression.
“Perhaps you’d like to tell us where you were, Dr. Fillmore,” I said, “at approximately nine pm last night.”
He looked aghast. “Really? You come in here from the oversight committees—magically knowing about Dr. Adams’ murder—and try to pin it on me? Is that really going to be your opening move?”
I had to admit, he was a committed ass. I could tell right off he wasn’t going to make my life easy.
“I’m not trying to pin anything on anyone, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to hear a response. Are you going to continue evading?”
“Certainly not. I was right here, working in my office. We have cameras and biometric sensors everywhere. It’s in the database. Everything is in the database.”
He was right, of course, but I’d wanted to let him know I wasn’t going to let him push me around. Fillmore was a bully, accustomed to browbeating people by surprising them. I guessed that it usually worked wonders on the typical crowd of lab coats.
&
nbsp; “Let’s all calm down,” Colonel Hughes said, trying to reestablish control of her team. They were all murmuring to one another now. Soon, there would be a storm of questions and accusations.
They were scared, that’s all. They weren’t used to being physically threatened. The mysterious nature of the threat wasn’t helping their state of mind, either.
“Chief Gray has been sent here by the Ministry to help us with internal security.”
“We know that—but someone has already been murdered,” a bald fellow with a sallow complexion growled. “What good is he?”
Hughes shot him a look, and he quieted.
“We’ve had two reported intrusions,” she continued. “That’s not—”
“Two?” Fillmore demanded loudly. “What’s the other one?”
We quickly filled him in on Toby’s report from inside the ship. Fillmore laughed it off.
“That… person is a freak. A pet genetics project to keep Adams happy. He’s liable to say anything.”
At this point, I looked up from a computer document I’d been examining. I flattened it, touched it to the table, and played the action.
“I’ve located a vid of the event,” I said. “Notice the playback counter—it’s only hours after the time of Dr. Adams’ death.”
It transferred from the document to the table and began to play automatically under their elbows. They watched, pulling their hands, sleeves and papers away from the tabletop.
There wasn’t much to see at first. It looked like the inside of the basement lab where I’d met Toby and Dr. Brandt. The roof was metal and curved, but it was hard to see that. Equipment hung from every possible angle. Cables dangled and machines glowed with readouts and graphic bars. Most of the indicator bars were full and green.
Suddenly, there was movement. A hatch opened in the deck, and a thin shape rushed up into the frame. People jumped.
“Is that an alien?”
“It moves like an insect!”
With a tap, I froze the image when the figure was turned toward the camera. I zoomed, and Toby’s face filled the screen.
Fillmore laughed. “Good job, Chief. You’ve caught that little weasel in the act. Aliens… that’s a laugh.” He looked at some of the others, who grumbled in embarrassment.