by Unknown
“If we cannot find a mechanical reason why this happened, then it was obviously done on purpose.” He yelled in a pure frustration.
After taking a cold shower, he ran out of the bathroom still all wet, asking Timor: ”What is the biggest event that happen recently?”
“Well, it has to be this one…” answered T. insecurely not really knowing what is Val referring to.
“No, I mean before this event…”
“Well, there was a 4-years interplanetary congress meetings.”
“Could these events be related?”
“But nobody really pays that much attention to that any more. I mean, ever since the Revolution, the Emperor has gained so much power that what congress really votes for really does not matter. I do not even know why they meet at all.”
“Well, in a way you are right.”
“I mean sports games gets people interested ten times more than the stuff congress does. I really think not many pay that much attention to it anymore.”
“You are right…Val admitted. - But still, even though congress is not as powerful as it used to be, it is still left to decide on number of issues, starting from setting the budget on projects that Emperor throws into their lap to keep them all quiet. Actually, you are more right than you can guess. Sports, budgets,…I mean, it seems everything is made to keep everybody content and quiet.”
“So, why does one senator casts determining vote to deny Zalirus 5 million funding for some kind of local archeological dig and then the ship which carries him gets mysteriously destroyed?”
“If he was so much against Zalirus, what the hell was he doing going there in the first place?”
“Yes, I know, so many questions…”
“But, there is also other side of it too…We can look at it from different point of view…” Timor said after a long silence and spacing from the wall to the wall, “Who had the most to gain from this accident?”
“Emperor certainly didn’t. Why would he do something to destabilize space travel, destabilize his whole empire?”
“Exactly what you said, ‘destabilize his whole empire’. No wonder we got send on this mission. It may be someone really trying to rip our empire apart.”
“But such a threat does not exist…Nobody dares to challenge the emperor, hasn’t done it in the last 30, 50 years. I would know.” Val said.
“But who would win because of this accident? We know transport companies are going to lose a fortune, but who would be on the other side, who would benefit?”
“I agree with you Timor, you make sense. And this is something we can look into...Just follow the money.”
“Maybe we are over thinking this. Maybe it is just a simple answer, so simple and we cannot see it. We need to take a step back from this, settled down our minds. And then look at it again.”
“That fish sandwich the other day was really good…” Timor was hungry again.
“We need to take a step back from this, settled down our minds.”
“That fish sandwich the other day was really good…” Timor was hungry again.
After a few hours break, they were back in their hotel room.
"Can you believe how cheap food is here? You could never be able to get a good fish sandwich for less than a quarter of a credit back in the capital."
"And the good quality fish sandwich as it is...I could not even finish mine."
"the whole lunch here cost us less than a credit."
"And that is because I ordered the wine from Vazz. That was like half a credit only by itself."
"Yes, they will learn fast that such low prices on imported goods will not last for very long. Now, if inter-planetary transport slows down, prices are going to skyrocket right away. I bet the same bottle of wine will cost 2 credits or more in another month."
"We really have to solve this case fast...At least, we have to, as fast as we can, find out what has caused the ship to be destroyed.”
"You are right...someone is going to make a lot of money because of this."
"Timor, you are brilliant..You know what we can do? See if anyone has been stockpiling out of planet food, a specialty product like that wine?"
“You know, that is like looking in a sand for a grain of salt.” Timor could already see him not getting any sleep for the next month or two. “That is all assuming that the ship’s destruction was not an accident.”
“I know, I know, but if it was not a failure, if it was deliberate attack on the ship, we need to look at what organization would have a know-how of pulling off something like this?”
“Certainly not some small-time criminal or a local terrorist organization complaining about their food rationing or the price of the new body.”
“That is the second question. The first one, the one we still cannot answer is, how did they do it?”
“Yes?” Sil0 asked Timor after noticing him staring at him.
“Nothing, nothing, I was just wondering, you are really doing a great job with this investigation…I would never expect that from a person with your rep.”
“Maybe they have not either…maybe they have not either.”
Could really the money be the reason for this? ….Someone making a tone of it on other people’s misery…happens too often.
“So, let’s look at the planet’s finances…The incident makes the planet more secluded, more isolated as people and trade halts…Nobody in their right mind would dare to risk eternal life traveling now.”
“Nobody except us.”
“So who is to gain the most if it becomes more isolated?”
“Well, it is not hard to get the list of the 200, 300 most influential people in this place, people who could afford undertaking of this kind. I can narrow down the list by looking at those that are involved in manufacturing products, maybe those who cannot compete on other planets and have the most to gain by lower imports”.
In an hour, Timor already had a list
-“So, who do you want to talk to first talk?”
“Well, this rich guy you talked about, the one that missed his flight-“
“Cililikiti Vira?”
‘Yes, I looked into his finances. They seem overstretched. Get him on a communicator, and let’s see what he has to say before we get into starting fires here on Zalirus.”
The only problem was that they could not get Cililikiti Vira to talk to.
“I am sorry ser, but he is in the meeting…” Val heard Vira’s secretary brushing Timor off.
He grabbed communicator from Timor’s hand.
“Listen to me, this is Emperor’s Chief Investigator Valricus Dan, if I do not talk to your boss in the next 4 seconds, I will send an order for you and your bosses ass to be transferred directly to Pluk and then maybe I’ll talk to you before they lend you there! Now, 3 seconds have already gone by.”
Vira’s conference room instantly popped up showing a young, blond and tanned man sitting at the head of the long table.
“Cililikiti Vira, this is ECI Val and I have to take a minute of your time.” Val said before he could hear any objections.
“I would like to know why exactly you were not on a cruiser 120X bound to Zalirus?”
“Oh boy, am I glad I missed that flight. I know I have best luck in the whole empire. The reason is quite simple. My proposal to build the new tallest tower in the city was unexpectedly turned down by the city council. It seems they had number of issues, stupid as they are. So, since I had too much invested in this to walk away from it, I stayed behind to supervise first hand in finding ways solve those issues. In a way, I guess, the city council saved my life. I guess I should be grateful to them.
“Now, ECI Val, can you answer my one question, do we know what really happened to the transporter? It is such a horrible news. I hope it clears very soon, otherwise people will panic, and might even stop traveling. I am. I am actually considering selling my private island I have there. Who is crazy enough now to travel space without knowing what is going on?”
<
br /> Chapter 6 Questions
Too many unanswered questions were driving Val crazy. In the end, exhausted, without the mental capacity to answer any of them, he decided to force himself to sleep. A 10-hour pill would do the job.
When he finally got up after coma-like sleep, he had a sudden rush of ideas. -What if this had nothing to do with passengers on the ship? What if it was something to do with the cargo the ship was transporting? What if the cargo was something that caused all of this? Certainly would explain internal explosions.
“But what kind of stuff could cause this? Certainly space port scanners would detect any illegal and explosive-capable material, plus scans of debris were still revealing nothing of any known explosives.”
“No bomb I know off could cause such a specific damage. So put that on a list of things we need to check out as well.”
“That list keeps on growing.”
‘Look into what was the transporter carrying with them. Get all the invoices and check who was sending what. Find any irregularities there. Might be something that scanners didn’t detect. That might explain everything, no?”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Well, that should keep us busy until engineers we contracted can give us some more details. The engineer who works in the MASS Institute…Oarson, I think it was, yes, that is his name, seemed the most capable of them all. He said to give him a day or so before he can come up with a probable cause.
“Yes, now that they have all the pieces that were recovered scanned, they can certainly work around putting it all together and coming with some answers.
“So, in the meantime, I’ll look into Senator’s trip to V and you go over cargo stuff. By the way, good job about finding about the Emperor’s sister. I do not know when, but eventually we will have to report that.”
“What do you want to do next?”
“Well, maybe engineers know something by now…”
A minute later, his communicator lighted up, and a face of a man with gray hair and too many wrinkles filled the air above it
"Engineer Oarson, how is your investigation coming along? Could you reconstruct the ship?"
"I have my entire stuff working on it, just as you requested...but we are running into a lot of problems.
First of all, a lot of parts are still missing, like the whole command post, there is no trace of it, no parts belonging to it. Also, only fifty percent of the engines were recovered, some very much intact."
"You would think with all millions of pieces laying over there in that dome, it would be complete..." Timor said.
"Yeah, well, like you said, probably a lot of it is not even belonging to the ship."
"That is true," the engineer said. "Actually, almost thirty percent of the wreckage, we seem unable to place on the ship, as if it was not belonging to it at all."
"I know what we said before, but could it still be that the ship had collided with another? "
"No, that is out of question...pieces would be tangled in together, bended, melted. On the same part of the debris you would be able to trace two different ships. No, the evidence is Cleary pointing that there were no collisions. It really does seem like they were picking all the garbage through the space and placing it there."
"Do you have any hypothesis of what has causes such a massive destruction?"
"No, nothing definite yet."
"What is your best guess right now?" Val was not ready to let it go at that.
"It almost seems like the ship was being destroyed by number of different factors...Let me put it this way to you, if the ship was attacked by another ship, something we have not seen in over 500 years, and if the war raged inside the ship with people fighting each other and throwing bombs at each other, we still would not see how it could be so completely demolished. Do you understand that now?"
After they ended communication, Val and Timor exchanged look.
"And there is still no traces of survivors?"
"No." Val answered, unsure if this is to be the first mystery that he will not be able to solve. With so many people wanting him to lose his badge, he was starting to feel desperate.
Before even having a breakfast Val decided to make one local call.
“Trade Commissioner LA’Vi, this is Chief Inspector Valricus Dan.”
“Yes, I know who you are Inspector, your fame precedes you. What can I do for you?”
“It is about Senator Sulivaro. He was traveling to Zalirus and was scheduled to meet with you. We are just trying to find out everything we can about all the details concerning this trip of his. So, we would like to ask you a few questions.”
“Certainly. As a loyal emperor’s servant, I’ll help all I can.”
“You were scheduled to meet with the senator on the same day he arrived. So if I may ask you, what in particular was the meeting supposed to be about?”
“You know you can, and you know perfectly well that I have to answer, so says the code…But thank you anyway for being kind and wording it that way.”
“Nice to see that there are people on Zalirus who know the code so well.” Why is he delaying to answer?
“Well, we are all in Emperor’s service, you know. So, to answer the question, the senator was to meet with me in private on my own request.”
“What was the meeting to be about?”
“We wanted the senator to help us in giving us some of his personal opinion about new products we are considering manufacturing here on the planet and sell empire-wide.”
“So, you were basically looking for his marketing opinion?”
“Well, little bit more than that. We wanted his full cooperation in the matter.”
“So, you were looking if he could market them for you?”
“Well, sort of. We wanted him to be involved with new products from the start, wanted his real opinion about it before we go to manufacturing, and later, later, we hoped he would be on board to, yes, help us to market them in the Capital and elsewhere. “
“A group of 30 or so largest business people were to meet with him and discuss their ideas and all the details. The senator had a sympathetic ear to our needs …I think he was inclined to do so to help us achieve economical growth we need so much. He was always interested to help us to increase our production and prosperity… As you know without doubt we lack in that area behind the other planets. We really hope his missing will be solved at the fastest pace, and that he will return to his daily duty at the earliest.”
“So then, you do not know why he vote just a few weeks ago against a major financing for your planet? If he was such a big friend of yours, why would he do that?”
“Yes, we are fully aware of that, but you have to understand that one of the reason he was coming here is to find the way to solve the issues he had with the project. He was mostly objective of the way those funds were to be spend. He wanted to pressure the local interests to come up with better investment plans for those credits. It was never an intention on his part, as I understand it, to withhold those credits forever.”
“I have one more thing you can help me with.” Val said after trying hard to process commissioner’s words. We have a list here of 10 names, mostly very prominent local citizens, maybe many of them were to meet with the senator. Now, we got all their background information and statistics, and know about their financial situations and dealings. But, since you are in the same sphere of influence, we would like if you can go in a bit more details and point out the ones on that list who you perceive to be the most aggressive in acquiring their wealth, who have such a moral character. That might speed things up for us.”
“Why don’t you give me their names, and I will be glad to go over them with you. Like you said, I know almost everyone here who is worth knowing, so gossiping about them is not that difficult thing for me to do as long as you promise to keep this information confidential, or at least, not include me as your source.”
“Besides those names, can you also think about organizations or
individuals on your planet who would like to see the trade with the rest of the empire to be interrupted?”
“Sure…Sure, I have no names to throw at you right now, but I will be glad to think about that, and will be glad to inform you of my thoughts. So, ECI Val, are you perceiving this to be a possible intentional sabotage of some kind then? I thought reports were mentioning something about mechanical failures.”
“We really do not know enough yet to eliminate any possibility. We are looking into everything. And we certainly appreciate your help in this matter, Commissioner LA’Vi.” Val said, but he thought to himself, What a waste of time.
….
Timor was nervously pacing from one wall to another, and finally Val felt like he will not calm down unless is given some kind of attention.
“What’s going on?” He asked Timor.
“What if we are looking at this from a completely wrong point of view? I mean… we are constantly trying to kind of file the transporter crash into things that are familiar and known to us…find how it was destroyed, find who had a motive, who could have done it…”
Val could not even guess where he was going with it, but decided to keep quiet and let him express himself. If nothing else, Val thought, at least that should appease him, stop bouncing off the walls.
“But what if it is some sort of thing that is completely foreign to us…? Like a new type of threat that we are completely unaware off… something unexplainable, something unknown…?”
Val thought about it for a second. “Like something that sneaked in from out-of space?”
“Maybe…space is certainly big enough. How can we know about everything that is out there?”
“Maybe… But you do understand that the click stations and the gates to the outside has been destroyed for over ten thousand years?
“Yeah, but you are still thinking along the lines of what you know…” Timor just would not give up. “What it is something you do not know… What if there are beings that do not need those, different from us, beings that can move through the space?”