Seasons of Murder: In the Shadow of This Red Rock

by John Wiltshire

  He flung himself down on his bunk and closed his eyes. His new passion only had one fault as far as he could see: an unhealthy obsession with obscenely early wake-up calls. He reached out to find Mina and reassure her that he wasn’t angry with her—she’d covered well enough from her unrehearsed polemic, with a little help from him, of course. They chatted about inconsequential things for a while before she asked the inevitable, cheeky, “So…?”

  He laughed. “What?”

  “Do you like him? Do you lurve him…?”

  “Don’t be foolish; he’s the head of security and responsible for monitoring my implant.”

  “Ah, monitoring your implant…is that what it’s called now?”

  “Annoying child. I can hear your air quotes, by the way. Stop—”

  Suddenly, he suffered a searing pain of thought in his head and pulled instantly away from his sister to protect her, hearing her gasp, nevertheless, at the abrupt cessation of their conversation. He’d lived his whole life aware of what everyone and anyone on his home planet was thinking, if he’d wished to intrude, but nothing had prepared him for these violent, visceral, raw thoughts.

  He honed in again on the smell of blood.

  This time it wasn’t old and stale. It was sweet and fresh and slickly nauseating.

  Like a drumbeat getting closer and closer, he could hear a heartbeat, fast and strong and excited. He could feel arousal and the sensation of penetration. Zero was carried along with these alien thoughts, going where they went, feeling what this other man felt, and there was blood on his hands and then he was coming and coming in a never-ending stream of glorious pleasure. He was all-powerful. He was a master of the universe. They crashed together as the high ended on the tail end of the shuddering orgasm. Shame and fear and running then, and Z tried to make the man stop, to force him to comply, but he was turned on savagely and snarled at, and then another more insidious voice began to laugh and laugh and laugh, and all was darkness and blood and death.

  §§§

  Zero woke up on the floor of his cabin to a furious pounding. He made it to the bathroom and vomited. He had been caught and trapped again, and it’d hurt like a physical overpowering. Like rape. He vomited again, dry heaving. The thumping continued, and he opened his mind, but it stabbed him—like he’d been torn. He staggered to the door, and Mina fell into his arms. He spoke out loud, for it was still too painful any other way. “I’m okay. I’m sorry.”

  “What the hell?” She lowered him back onto the edge of the bunk.

  “I heard a mind. It was…It was very strong. But I’m okay.”

  “Do you need anything? Was it the implant? Maybe it’s doing something, even if it’s not doing what they think it is!”

  “I don’t know. Look, I’m going to lie down for a while. Just let me be. Let me sleep.” He eased himself fully into the bunk and flung an arm over his eyes. “Turn the light out, yeah?”

  She left him, reluctantly, clearly missing the days when she could read him with a touch. Now, she had to wait for him. Zero knew she believed it was worth the sacrifice, but it must be hard to be so powerless.

  Zero lay in the dark and tried to make sense of what he’d endured and what he had heard. He was sure it was a man. Which man he didn’t know, but someone on this ship was a good bet. He’d never put his abilities to a proper test, as he’d only ever lived in the colony, but he was fairly sure he couldn’t reach through the vast distances of space. So, a man on this ship was having violent, bloody thoughts—in his dreams and when he was awake.

  Perhaps it was nothing more than that—a sadistic imagination or just a hologame being played. Maybe the man liked fantasising. But then there had been that other voice. The laughing one. Zero had never really heard madness before, but he reckoned he had now. He tentatively stretched out to seek someone to see if the rips in his mind had healed, and on instinct he reached for Cal.

  He had to smile then; Cal was reliving the kiss. He should pull away. He shouldn’t do this…but, oh, it was irresistible…He sensed his lieutenant’s wry amusement at the flirting, enjoyed his confused happiness at actually liking someone—someone who clearly liked him.

  Zero slipped away a little healed and much happier. One dark mind could not ruin his good mood.

  On a whim, he tidied up and went in search of the physical parts of his intriguing lieutenant.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Before he could reach the security section, a wave of emotion washing down the corridor from many shouted thoughts battered Zero. He shot up all his walls and stood still, wondering what he should do. Before he could decide to turn back, he heard pounding footsteps, and the lieutenant and his 2IC came running around the corner. Cal stopped but nodded for Hunter to continue. Cal snagged Zero’s sleeve and pulled him to one side. “Go back to your cabin. Make sure the others are accounted for as well.”

  “What’s happening?”

  Cal glanced up and down the now empty corridor. “A body was found in one of the quarters. I’m going there now.”

  “What! Who?” A sickening realisation hit Zero. He caught his lip and began to chew it, anxious and conflicted.

  Cal checked around once more then groaned in a strangled voice, “I’m sorry, I have to go. But, fuck, I want to…”

  And Zero saw very clearly what the human wanted to do but couldn’t. He helped him out. He leant forward and kissed him swiftly but thoroughly, at the same time as pushing him to continue on his way.

  Cal chuckled into the kiss then took to his heels and sprinted in the direction of the passenger cabins.

  §§§

  As it turned out, the body wasn’t in a cabin; the woman who had found it had just reported her horrific discovery via her cabin’s comms. Hysterical, she’d been fairly incoherent. When they located her, she had some fellow colonists’ wives with her and she was steadier. She refused to go with them but told them where she’d seen the body. Cal still had the slim hope that she’d been mistaken. It was possible to make such an error in these conditions. The first time he’d seen a spacesuit as a cadet, he’d seen it move and wave an arm in his direction. Nothing his laughing classmates could say had persuaded him that it was empty and inert. He’d never dismissed the power of his imagination again.

  When they found the body, he wished it were imaginary.

  The man had been tied to a support in one of the cargo bays. They were shipping new components for the nuclear fusion reactors on Titan, and the vast structures towered about them, silent and awesome in their technological splendour. But in front, in obscene contrast, the fragility of man was displayed in all its heartbreaking intimacy. The corpse was naked and had been pierced many times by rods of fine metal. They had all bled profusely, and Cal didn’t need to be a forensic expert to conclude that the man had died a slow and very painful death. They had no expertise for something like this. He was head of security and that usually meant preventing smuggling, or deterring theft, fraud, or petty vandalism, and breaking up the occasional fight. It didn’t mean dealing with a sadistic murderer.

  He looked over at Hunter. His deputy was staring at the blood pooling by the dead man’s feet. “We freeze the body and leave it to the guys back on Earth, Boss?”

  Hunter knew very well what the protocol was: return to Earth.

  In the early days of inter-planetary travel, with tiny security sections and inadequate facilities, there had been numerous accounts of rapists and other violent offenders on board evading detection. Upon arrival at the Titan or Enceladus colonies, there had been no option, therefore, but to allow general disembarkation. It was an untenable situation, and regulations had been changed. Category A crimes mandated immediate return to Earth for full and proper investigation.

  Cal had no doubt this murder was Cat A.

  That wasn’t the problem.

  Hunter clearly noticed his hesitation and prompted, “Shall I cut him down?”

  “We can’t go back.” Cal caught Hunter’s eye. “We can’t take the
Minders to Earth. Not until the implants and reintegration trials are proved successful. That’s a higher priority than this.”

  “Shit.”

  “I need to speak with the captain. It’s his call.” Cal was fairly sure what Laskar would say. After all, even without the Minder complication, who would want to be the first Inter-Sol Corp captain to do a u-ey in space?

  “Do you recognise the guy?”

  Hunter shrugged. “He’s not crew. But the woman didn’t say she knew him either.”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking she wasn’t looking too hard at his face. Okay, call everyone in. I’m gonna take a stab and say we’ll be carrying on to Titan, protocol or no protocol. So we need to find this fucker. I want full manning on this. Approve the overtime. Gather what evidence you can from here then get him cut down and take him to the doc. I’ll swing by the bridge and see you there.”

  Hunter gave him a mock salute of acknowledgement, and Cal turned away. He rubbed his face then straightened, took one last look over his shoulder at his first murder case and went up to break the bad news to his boss.

  §§§

  Zero spent the rest of the day trying to seek out the mind of the killer, for that was now what he knew he had been privy to. He had heard a man being murdered. Wanting to know the details of the death so he could use them in his hunt, he eased into the lieutenant’s mind and found him walking alone in a corridor. He didn’t even need to probe to find out what he wanted. The scene in all its gory details was uppermost in Cal’s mind. Zero could see the deeply embedded rods and smell the blood and waste that had pooled around the stricken body. He longed to soothe Cal’s anger, to ease his anxiety, but he resisted. His friend needed all his righteous fury. It would energise him and make him stronger.

  Using the image of the body as bait, Zero held it out tantalizingly, a small wriggling worm of slick red on the hook of his mind, dangling it over the consciousness of passengers and crew. It was an exhausting exercise keeping it there, just right, just out of reach of all the hungry minds. But the right one would know it. The right mind would sense it and want it and seize it.

  He had no takers at all.

  He remembered the madness he had heard in the other’s consciousness and wondered if, in this insanity, the killer could hide entirely in plain sight. It was a very sobering thought.

  As soon as the rumours of the murder began to spread around the ship, Zero found Mina at his door, demanding to be let in. He opened up reluctantly, and she immediately rounded on him. “You heard him, didn’t you?”

  He nodded glumly.

  “But you can find him, yes?”

  Zero sat down and she perched opposite him. “I don’t know, Mina. He’s hidden from me somehow.”

  “He can’t be! You’re…no one can hide from you! You know this.” He looked at her with annoyance for a moment. No one wanted their little sister pointing out their deficiencies.

  “I’ve never encountered this before. How do we know what I can or can’t do with the Braindead, Mina? This mind is different somehow. He has…abnormalities I’ve never encountered before. I heard…another voice. In there with him, with me—as powerful as mine.”

  “Another? One of us? A Sender?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I think. It couldn’t send. Couldn’t move outside the space of its own captivity. And it was still his voice, but…not. He was listening to himself, but the thought was telling him it was someone—something—else. It was like he had a distorted mirror in his head. A sentient, malevolent reflection.”

  “How could no one have noticed a totally insane guy talking to himself for all this time? In this closed environment?”

  This echoed Zero’s unfortunate thought about the madman being able to hide in plain sight and he said suddenly, “Maybe they have.” He frowned, thinking it through. “He could have worked up to this murder with other more minor incidents. Maybe people have reported weirdness—talking about voices, odd behaviour—and there’d be a pattern they could detect if they knew what to look for. I must tell Cal.”

  She glared at him. “You can’t.”

  He stared back at her. He knew exactly what she meant, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “I heard someone being murdered. It was awful. This man is…wrong. I can help find him. I have to!”

  “No! Zero, you’re a Sender! In their eyes, you’re already worse than this murderer—and will always be, whatever he does! You’ve seen the movies they’ve made about Senders. You’ve read their history books! You know the lies they’ve been fed, the horror they’ve grown up believing about someone like you! But now they’d know you’re a Sender who can’t be inhibited! If they find out you can’t be controlled, that nothing can limit your ability, what will happen to all of us? They’ll never let us leave! Zero, I have to do this! I can’t go back there now! None of us can! We’ve been castrated for the rest of our lives. We signed up to do this for you. To get you off the colony so you could lead us all to Earth! What about mum and dad? They’re back there, waiting for you to bring them home. Oh…” She broke down in tears, her voice too unstable to continue.

  She didn’t really need to go on. Zero had heard enough. He stood up and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry.” He was their leader. Their only hope. Thousands of lives on a dying colony, relying on him, and all he’d been thinking about was how he could ingratiate himself with his new favourite human.

  But of course, the lieutenant wouldn’t be his friend the moment he told him how he knew about the murder…It would all come crashing down around him. Everything would be ruined.

  He made an effort and soothed his sister, going into the troubled parts of her mind and taking away the fear for her. He had a permanent pass to her heart, so he was allowed the privilege of doing so. Her mind was empty of all other voices now, so this was something she craved, like a physical hug for an abandoned child. Within a few moments, she was able to laugh at herself and apologise.

  Suddenly, Zero chuckled.

  She frowned. “What?”

  He gazed down at her. “I think I have just found something to do to keep me busy on this voyage.” He laughed at her expression. “I think I’m going to help the gorgeous lieutenant after all. I’m going to solve this crime the old fashioned way.” He flipped open an imaginary ID wallet.

  “I’m gonna turn detective.”

  §§§

  Zero duly turned up at the medical centre just as Cal was preparing to examine the body. Cal gave him an astonished look and hustled him out of the room. “You can’t be here.”

  “I want to help, Lieutenant. I have some experience.”

  Cal frowned. “With autopsies? How?”

  Zero had read books about murder, and he’d seen a movie with an autopsy in it once, so he projected a vague web of terms and references about blood splatter patterns and bug activity time of death calculations toward the human, whilst at the same time planting the irresistible seed in Cal’s mind that it couldn’t hurt to have another set of trained, professional eyes on the case. If he eased in the additional temptation that it would be fun for them to flir—work together, he kept it a very small and wholly innocent lure. Then he shrugged and agreed out loud, “You’re right. You’ve obviously got all the people you need on this.” Dangle the bait; ease it away. Dangle again…

  “Suit up.”

  Zero grinned secretly and slid into the paper coveralls Cal indicated.

  When they pulled the covering sheet off the body, Zero physically felt his head drain of blood, and he twisted sharply away. He’d never seen a dead body before; he’d barely seen injuries. He realised he’d led an extremely sheltered life in the colony. He went over to one of the big sinks and leant on it, hanging his head, taking deep breaths. He didn’t need to be a mind reader to hear the silent astonishment in the room. He turned back with a fake smile to find Cal studying him with some amusement.

  “This the way autopsies always hit you…in that extensive experience you’ve had?”

&nbs
p; Zero pouted a little. He was beginning to suspect that the human wasn’t quite as taken in by his subtle suggestions as he ought to be. He nodded and rejoined brusquely, “I usually conduct my examinations in more controlled environments, but carry on, please,” and that utterly meaningless comment seemed to satisfy the doctor, who proceeded to remove one of the metal rods impaling the man. Zero watched this procedure with morbid fascination, keeping his thoughts on total lockdown.

  Cal took the thin projectile from the doctor and examined it. “It’s a standard piston for the intake valves. I wonder what the significance of this is for him?”

  Zero peered at the wound, swallowing. “Did he deliberately skewer…err…anywhere significant?”

  The doctor shook his head. “I’d have expected to see a pattern as well. The staging appears ritualistic, so I’d have expected to see targeting of the genitals, perhaps the eyes. That kind of thing. Course, I’m no expert.” He looked up at Cal. “You sure you can’t persuade the captain to turn this ship around?”

  Zero got the impression Cal was trying hard not to glance at him.

  The doctor only shrugged, apparently hearing a reply in Cal’s angry silence. “Well, okay then. This is way outside my remit as a doctor on a supply ship, but to me these wounds seem completely random. I would say the first rods went into the torso—that’s the biggest area on the body, after all. The killing one was this one in the throat. There was significant loss of blood before that, but this one was the final blow, so to speak.”

  §§§

  Cal rested a gloved finger on the rod still embedded in the man’s neck. He was still flustered from the doc’s question about the captain’s decision to stay on course. Did Zero suspect that he and his little group of Minders were considered more dangerous than the madman who had done this despicable act? Cal was fairly certain Zero knew exactly what had been discussed in the conversation in the briefing room. He resisted the urge once more to glance at the Minder, but for different reasons than before. He could not afford the distraction of continually studying those perfect features, always wondering what the other man was thinking…He dragged his focus reluctantly back to the far less attractive body on the table.