by Ben Bova
Lance started to disassemble his protective nest. As he pushed the canisters aside, one of the lids popped open. For a moment, the face that floated out seemed perfectly normal. The eyes were open and the lips were drawn back in a smile. It was only when he saw the purplish indentation on the side of Aaron Weiss’s neck that reality set in.
Lance tilted his head back to scream. All that came out was a torrent of bile.
Freddy Aviles guarded the entry hatch. The Aussie crewman Stanley carefully, almost gently, pulled the contorted body of Aaron Weiss from the aluminum canister into which it had been crammed. Lorraine Renoir hovered close by, dictating medical observations into a minicassette recorder.
“Let’s have that again,” Dan said to Lance. His face looked as grim as death itself.
“I was doing a routine inspection of the supply cylinders,” said Lance. “I had to move some canisters around. I accidentally bumped the latch and it opened.”
“You were working at this hour?”
“I know, sir, it’s early. I skipped breakfast. I haven’t been very hungry lately.”
“I see.” Dan assumed that Carla Sue Gamble was the reason for Lance’s loss of appetite. He made no comment. The affairs of his crewmen’s hearts paled in comparison to the discovery of Weiss’s body.
“All right, get this mess cleaned up.”
Lance used a vacuum cleaner to suck up globules of bile that drifted around the module like tarnished Christmas ornaments. Meanwhile, Dan instructed Stanley to hold Weiss steady. As Lorraine continued her dictation, Dan eyeballed every inch of the body. Weiss was frozen in fetal position. One arm seemed to clutch the backs of his raised thighs, the other was drawn across the front of his shoulders like a movie Dracula tossing his cape. His neck was loose and his head bobbed with each inadvertent movement made by Stanley. The tweed hat remained attached to Weiss’s ear by a single rubber band. The Minicam floated on its tether, still looped around the reporter’s broken neck. Weiss had been wearing his denim shirt with the pearl buttons. There was a small tear in the chest, and near the tear a button was missing. A few threads were still in place. Lorraine concluded her monologue.
“Broken neck,” she said in answer to Dan’s unspoken request to translate her medical jargon. She shoved the recorder into her pocket.
“When did it happen?” said Dan.
“Very hard to tell. Blood doesn’t pool in micro-gee, so I have to base an estimate on the rigidity of the body. I’d say no less than eight hours ago, but that’s a gross estimate.”
They both stared at the body. Dan thought of the fight between O’Donnell and Weiss. He remembered O’Donnell’s anxiety over his work the previous night. O’Donnell had skipped darts to spend time in his lab. Weiss was given to roaming the station at all hours. Dan tried to crowd the implications out of his mind.
“What now, Dan?” asked Lorraine. For the first time in what seemed to be several weeks she spoke to him without a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
“You and Lance get him into a body bag and stow it in the auxiliary airlock. Stanley, you take over for Freddy at the hatch. No one enters, no one asks questions, you don’t know anything.”
Dan exited the logistics module and signaled for Freddy to follow. As he flew toward the command module, he wondered if his orders had sounded as uncertain as he felt.
Once in his office, Dan inserted an encryption chip designated for operational emergencies into his comm console and called ground control in Houston. The accordion door to Dan’s office was closed. Freddy Aviles hovered against it, his normally jolly face somber, his eyes flicking back and forth between his commander and the image of Tom Henderson on the monitor.
“We have a real problem up here, Tom,” said Dan. “A fatality.”
Henderson smiled crookedly, as if hoping Dan suddenly had developed a warped sense of humor and would follow up with a punch line.
“Aaron Weiss, the CNN reporter,” continued Dan. “Looks like a broken neck.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Henderson. “How did it happen?”
“It wasn’t any damned accident. One of my men found him stuffed in an empty canister in the logistics module. Been dead about eight hours.”
Henderson let out a long whistle. “What are you going to do? The shuttle—”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do! We don’t have a goddamn protocol for murder on an orbiting facility!”
“Easy, Dan,” said Henderson. “Let me get some people over here.”
Henderson disappeared from his console. Dan took a deep breath and looked at Freddy.
“They on the ground, man,” said Freddy. “They don’ know nothing.”
Dan nodded in agreement. That was the problem. People on the ground thought like people on the ground. No matter how much they claimed to understand, they didn’t realize that simply being in orbit—confined, weightless, entirely dependent upon a fragile web of technology to keep you alive—automatically transformed every facet of existence into an abnormal environment. Now the station was faced with the worst possible scenario: an abnormal situation in an abnormal environment.
Tom Henderson returned to his console. Several other people stood behind him, some in shirtsleeves, others in suits. All wore headsets with tiny microphones in front of their mouths.
“I have some people here,” began Henderson.
“Listen, Tom,” said Dan. “I know you can’t get a shuttle here anytime soon.”
“Or an aerospace plane, either,” said Henderson. “They—”
“Doesn’t matter. But you still can help me. I’m going to cut off all comm links between us and the ground.” Dan shot a glance at Freddy as if to say that he was the person who would actually effect the blackout. “Make up some bullshit as a cover. Tell ’em we’ve had another goddamn power-down. That’ll give you time to contrive some sort of story about Weiss’s death. Don’t say it was a murder. Not yet, anyway.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Henderson, running a nervous hand over his bald pate.
“Try to find out who did it.”
Henderson’s response was interrupted by one of the men standing behind him. He spoke with the man briefly, then returned his attention to Dan.
“What have you done with the body?” he asked.
“It’s in a body bag,” said Dan. “I’m going to stick it in the auxiliary airlock.”
The man behind Henderson leaned down into the screen. He looked like a lawyer-type in a baggy gray suit.
“I don’t think that is a proper method of preservation,” said the man as he adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses. “The authorities will want to inspect all evidence, including the body.”
“Quigley is right, Dan,” said Henderson. “You should try to preserve the body somehow. Maybe refrigerate it.”
“Tom, you know how we’re equipped up here. Do you think we have a walk-in freezer?”
Freddy chuckled.
“You could put the body in an EMU,” said Henderson. “The air conditioner will help it keep better.”
“I don’t believe this,” muttered Dan. Then he said to Henderson: “I may need all my suits.”
“Are you expecting trouble?” said Henderson.
“I have a murderer on board! Does that sound like trouble to you?”
Quigley started to protest, but Henderson pushed him out of the screen.
“Okay, Dan, it’s your ball game,” said Henderson.
“The auxiliary airlock’s in shadow almost all the time,” Dan said. “We can keep the outer hatch open, so it stays in vacuum. That ought to be as good as a refrigerator. Maybe better.”
Quigley looked skeptical. Henderson said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Dan.”
“I’m the only one who can do anything, Tom. We’re going to blackout in five minutes. I’ll talk to you as soon as I know something. Out.”
Dan broke the link before Henderson could acknowledge.
“That was helpful,” he
said to himself, then turned to Freddy. “Five minutes enough time?”
“You got it, boss,” said Freddy.
After Freddy reported that all the comm links between the station and Earth were shut down, Dan announced over the loudspeaker that an extremely dire emergency had arisen. All personnel, regardless of their current activities, were to assemble in the rumpus room immediately. He expected that everyone would comply; the heavy tone of his voice was obvious.
Five minutes later, Dan pulled himself into a rumpus room that seemed to have shrunk around the press of floating bodies. The Japanese contingent was neatly dressed and wide awake, hovering by the big centrifuge in order of their rank. The Americans, Canadians, and Europeans seemed to have been taken by surprise. Some obviously had been rousted out of their sleep. Bianco hovered up at the front in a pair of handsome red-and-gold silk pajamas.
Kurt Jaeckle and Thora Skillen accosted Dan and demanded to be told the nature of the emergency. Dan was preoccupied with taking a head count and suggested absently that they wait along with everyone else. When the two scientists pressed him, he nodded toward Freddy. The crewman sliced between Jaeckle and Skillen and placed his powerful hands on their shoulders.
“You listen to the man, eh?” he said.
Jaeckle and Skillen backed away, then sought out Bianco. The Italian listened to them and nodded, but made no move toward Dan. Yet their insistence had affected Dan. Most of the people on the station had been through the emergency power-down. Some had grumbled and some had complained, but most simply rode out the three hours of semidarkness. Today he had called them without explanation into the rumpus room. This mysterious emergency was not a power-down that would disappear after tinkering with the mainframe computer. He could not bring Aaron Weiss back to life.
Dan stopped counting heads. The people who were here deserved an immediate explanation. Then he would seek out any absentees.
“We have had a very serious and tragic incident,” he said. “Aaron Weiss, the CNN reporter who has been visiting the station, is dead.”
A current of shock coursed through the ranks. Dan could read it on their faces; stunned surprise that made eyes go wide and cheeks pale. He could hear it in the collective gasp of indrawn breath followed by the eerie silence that fell over the rumpus room. The silence deepened for a long moment. Everyone was shaken. Then a murmur rose as people whispered among themselves.
“The crew and I will be conducting an investigation until the authorities arrive,” Dan said, silencing the whispers. “We intend to keep our interference with your science projects to a minimum, but we expect your full cooperation if and when it is requested.”
Stanley, Muncie, and Lorraine entered the rumpus room. Lorraine’s nod indicated that the body had been stowed in the auxiliary airlock.
Bianco drew himself to his full height and said in a voice powerful enough for everyone to hear, “I assure you, Commandante, that the entire Trikon scientific staff will cooperate with you in every way.”
Dan nodded at the old man. “Thank you, sir.” Then he stared pointedly at Jaeckle. The chief of the Martians made no such guarantee on behalf of his people. He seemed pale, shaken.
“All right, then,” Dan said. “I am asking all of you to remain here for a few minutes longer while I report to ground control.” Dan ignored the rumble of protest, ordered Stanley and Muncie to prevent anyone from leaving the rumpus room, and waved for Freddy to follow him. He had completed his mental head count during his announcement. Seven people were missing. Six were the segregated Martians no one ever saw. The seventh was Hugh O’Donnell.
Freddy knew exactly whom they were looking for.
“We split up. Compartment and lab. Is faster, eh?”
Dan agreed. Freddy volunteered for the compartment while Dan went for the lab. Dan hoped that O’Donnell was so engrossed in his work that he hadn’t heard the announcement.
The Bakery was still in its nighttime lighting mode. A few lamps cast weak cones of light in the shadowy recesses of the module. Dan listened carefully for any sound in the darkness. None came. He pulled himself through the hatch and pressed the manual switch that operated the main column of overhead lights. The module was completely empty; the door to O’Donnell’s lab was padlocked. Dan’s stomach felt hollow with apprehension. Still, he let himself drift halfway down the aisle, then reversed direction. Before leaving for Hab 2, he took a close look at the lab door. There were two long scratch marks in the fiberglass surface adjacent to the lower hinge. The screws for that hinge seemed slightly raised as if they recently had been unseated. The screws for the upper hinge were flush.
Dan heard a metallic ping from somewhere near the floor. Instinctively, he focused on a ventilator intake and saw a shiny object adhered to the grid. Forcing himself down like a swimmer going for the bottom of the pool, he picked it off with his thumb and forefinger: a pearl button.
Dan’s apprehension swelled. He tucked the button into a pocket and shot himself through the hatch. He found Freddy in O’Donnell’s compartment. O’Donnell was in his sleep restraint. His eyes were closed and Freddy was trying to awaken him.
“What’s the problem?”
“Don’ know. He won’ wake up.”
O’Donnell moaned softly. His eyelids fluttered. His teeth were clenched down on his tongue, exposing a portion that resembled dry leather.
“Get Lorraine on the double,” said Dan. “Then head over to the rumpus room. Those scientists will be ready to riot before long.”
As Freddy flew off, Dan hurried to the personal hygiene facility and returned with a handful of towelettes. Me pressed O’Donnell’s tongue back into his mouth. O’Donnell gagged and sucked air. Dan slapped his cheeks with the towelettes. O’Donnell groaned.
“C’mon, buddy, wake up,” said Dan. Then he muttered to himself, “What the hell is going on?”
O’Donnell was still only semiconscious when Lorraine arrived. To facilitate the examination they removed him from the sleep restraint and splayed his ankles and wrists to the walls with Velcro bracelets.
“Well?” said Dan, hovering just outside the door.
Lorraine turned off the penlight she had used to examine O’Donnell’s eyes.
“Mr. O’Donnell is suffering from intoxication, most likely due to a narcotic drug.” Her voice was flat, professional. Yet Dan thought he detected a note of disappointment, almost anger.
Dan’s breath had been threatening to leave his body ever since he first realized that O’Donnell had not reported to the rumpus room. Now it escaped in a rush.
“Are you sure?”
“Look, Dan, I know O’Donnell is your friend. I’ve actually grown quite fond of him myself recently. But by all outward signs, the causative factor is a drug. His breathing and heart rates are low. His reactions are dulled. His speech, when he does speak, is slurred. There are no visible wounds on his body. And we’re both aware of his history. The fact that he was found in his sleep restraint means that he probably ingested the drug just prior to retiring.”
“Any idea when that may have been?”
Lorraine shook her head.
“But if it is a narcotic,” said Dan, “wouldn’t there be some sign?”
“Like needle tracks?” said Lorraine. “They aren’t that obvious. Besides, there are other ways to ingest drugs.”
She attached a needle to a syringe.
“What are you going to do?” said Dan.
“Give you the benefit of a doubt. I’ll test his blood.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’ll have the results before he’s fully awake.”
Lorraine was better than her word. Within fifteen minutes she sailed through the hatch with tightened lips. Dan did not have to ask; he knew the results were positive.
“Three-methyl-fentanyl,” she said.
“What the hell is that?”
“An analog of fentanyl, which is synthetic heroin. Far more potent and much longer lasting than the real
stuff.”
Dan gripped a handhold, as if he could draw strength from the frame of the station. The evidence that was quickly mounting against O’Donnell seemed overwhelming: the previous fight with Weiss, absence from the nightly game of darts, the missing button stuck to the ventilator grid outside the lab, O’Donnell’s drugged condition. A logical conclusion was that O’Donnell had encountered Weiss at his lab—perhaps in the act of trying to gain entry—killed him during a struggle, hid the body, then concocted an alibi by filling himself with this 3-methyl-fentanyl crap. Or maybe he was already on the stuff when he ran into Weiss at his lab.
What did he really know about O’Donnell? Who knew what he was doing in his lab? He could have cooked up the drugs himself. Maybe he was some sort of special agent sent to test the effects of illicit drugs in space. After all, hadn’t Russell Cramer’s problems mushroomed once O’Donnell arrived?
Dan felt ensnarled in a web of uncertainties. Police detectives used this line of thinking. So did prosecutors, judges, and juries. Suddenly, he was all of them rolled up in one. And he hated it.
“Orders are he is to be sent Earthside,” said Lorraine. “Even for a minor slip.”
“I know, I know,” snapped Dan. The problem was what to do in the meantime. “Get Freddy in here. And have him bring duct tape.”
O’Donnell mumbled and moaned but did not break through into consciousness as Dan and Freddy bound his wrists and ankles with the duct tape. When they finished, Lorraine carefully fit a padded helmet onto O’Donnell’s head. Dan and Freddy then maneuvered O’Donnell into the command module and tethered him to a handgrip outside Dan’s office door. Lorraine closed herself into the infirmary to prepare a report.