Orbital Burn

by K. A. Bedford

  “Did you hear anybody talking specifically about trying to find a dog?”

  Dog looked up at her. “No. Well, not that I recall. You can go through the rest of my memory-feed from that night if you like.”

  Lou took Dog up on the offer. The images were nothing remarkable — Dog was hiding as best he could. The sound was more revealing. She tweaked it, raised the volume, eliminated noise. Cop radio-traffic began to come through in faint snatches. Listening hard, she heard nothing to suggest the cops were looking for anything at all. No one commented on the burning van, as far as she could tell from their encoded talk.

  She frowned, chin resting on her palm. “Seems odd, don’t you think, Dog?”

  Dog gave her that haunted, anxious look again. “Police are strange, Ms. Meagher.”

  For a moment she felt herself poised to ask Dog why he was so nervous of the cops, but then she thought about what she knew of them, and suspected Dog was merely being sensible. One thing did weigh on her mind: she wondered if it was possible for Dog, with all his enhancements, to tell a lie. What if this entire thing was a huge hoax, or perhaps some kind of setup? What if Dog had been programmed with all this information? She’d read about that kind of thing happening. Intelligence types had a fondness for such operations.

  Yeah. Right. Spies. Uh-huh.

  It was hard to completely dislodge the thought.

  Lou shook her head, trying to scatter these ridiculous ideas. She laughed unconvincingly and got back to work. She listened some more, tweaking the sound as much as she could, wishing for a decent sound system. After about twenty minutes the cops climbed back in their hovs and took off. She knew little about copspeak, much of which was in their internal guild code. Nonetheless, she saved the sound file and ran it through her cheap-and-cheerful translation package and into a text file. Somebody might be able to help her with this stuff sooner or later.

  But she was curious. “I think I might go see the cops and ask a few questions about that night, what do you think?”

  “If I had given you a retainer, Ms. Meagher, I would want it back. You are clearly crazy.”

  “Not crazy,” she said, folding the Paper and stuffing it in her trouser pocket, “or at least not yet.”

  “Didn’t you say you don’t even have an investigator’s license? Why should they tell you anything?”

  Lou shrugged slightly, trying not to hurt herself too much. “Maybe what they don’t tell me will—”

  A loud knocking on the suite’s door interrupted her. A male voice called, “Ms. Louise Meagher?”

  Dog ran to the double-door, barking. Lou, watching, couldn’t help smiling, even as she got up, wincing, from the couch, and limped to the door. She wondered if she should pull out her new gun.

  Telling Dog to shut up, she said through the door, “Who wants to know?” And at that moment, she figured there was a remote but finite chance it was the cops come to bag the pooch — and the thought ate at her. What if the guys in black had been after Dog? She couldn’t rule it out. Kid might have been a consolation prize. The gun in her trouser utility pocket felt heavy; she unpopped the stud.

  “Just a messenger, ma’am. Need to hand it to you personally.”

  Dog looked up at her, shaking his head. He whispered, “Even I can see this is trouble.” Lou nodded.

  “Who’s it from?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I’m just the courier the hotel sent.”

  “Hotel? What hotel?”

  “The Winged Glory, up in—”

  Lou stopped the guy, shocked. “The geosynch spaceport?”

  “That’s right. A gentleman staying with us wants to contact you.”

  She glanced at Dog; he seemed to shrug. The geosynch spaceport, forty thousand k’s up the Stalk, was part of the big station up there.

  “Okay, one moment.” She unbolted, unlatched and disarmed five of the six security devices she had attached to the door since moving in. Opening the door a crack, she peered out, her right hand ready to grab her new gun.

  She saw a young man, about twenty, in a bright red and black hotel courier uniform. He was a disposable; she could see it in his expressionless gaze. There was nothing alive in there, only an organic program processing its permutations and fuzzy limited-freedom options. In his white-gloved hand he held a pale yellow paper envelope, embossed with the Winged Glory Hotel logo.

  “Thank you,” she said, opening the door and forcing a smile she didn’t feel at him. He gave her the envelope and kept his hand out, awaiting a tip. She glared at him. “Look, I’m broke. Get lost!” The courier left, looking neither sad nor happy. Lou shut the door and shuddered.

  Dog said, “So, who’s it from?”

  Lou worked her fingers, trying to unseal the envelope. She opened the neatly folded letter and read the simple message.

  She gasped, wide-eyed, and swore — and then felt obscurely embarrassed at the thought of swearing in front of the dog. Still, the message itself was a bomb blast of horror that obliterated such piffling considerations.

  “Ms. Meagher?”

  “It’s my ex-husband. He wants to see me.”

  Chapter 4

  Lou found a public dataport near the Southside Marketplace in Stalk Park.

  It was lunchtime, she noted, glancing about. Back before the Bastard’s discovery, at lunchtime this park would have been jammed with workers from nearby businesses and students from the college co-op. These days despairing refugees filled the area, restive with protest against the lack of assistance offered them by the city government.

  Lou loved it here all the same: dozens of tall, peeling, white Martian flakybark trees surrounded a small artificial lake. In the long Wet Season, native waterbirds, all crimson and gold plumage, strode on their long tripod legs through the shallows, sieving microscopic bottom-feeding crustaceans through their flat bills. Exo-ornithologists had some long-winded Latin name for them; the locals called them stalk-storks. In any case, they were long gone, migrated north. Now, the lake was dry and reeked of organic rot.

  The refugees here stank of fear and weeks on the road without shelter or bathrooms. They were all skin and bone, and exhausted.

  Lou pushed through this crowd to the dataport, ignoring the jeers her own aromatic presence drew, and stared down the hungry ones who liked the look of her pooch. Dog shivered in fear; Lou picked him up and carried him.

  She reached the dataport. Two adult male disposables sat in a kiosk booth, wearing Kcom uniforms. The comms mast towered overhead. Both disposables were hairless and, as usual, had empty infinite-focus stares. There were phone company logos tattooed on their foreheads. Lou went up to the first of the two, and said, “Either of you two guys working?” It wasn’t always easy to tell just by looking. Dog watched the refugees, his ears alert, shivering.

  The one on the left said, “I’m online; he’s been vandalized and is awaiting repair. Whom would you like to call?”

  Lou was about to answer when the disposable on the right peered at her. “I have not been vandalized. My link is just fine.”

  The first one told Lou, “Trust me. In two minutes he’ll fall asleep. He’s been on the blink for days now. You’ll never get your credits back.”

  The one on the right looked set to refute this claim — and then slumped in his chair, asleep, his head emitting a distinct buzzing tone. Lou could see some badly patched skin behind his ear and a tattooed seal from the City Maintenance Cooperative certifying the work.

  She cleared her throat and said to the first disposable, “I need to contact a man in the Winged Glory Hotel, up—”

  He said, “The geosynch spaceport, yes, I know. One moment, I’m putting you through.” His face went blank.

  Lou tapped her foot, waiting. Soon, the disposable’s face came to life again, flashing a glad-to-see-yo
u phone company grin. “Good morning! Winged Glory Hotel, five-star elegance on a three-star budget! How can I help you?”

  Lou said, “Put me through to Mr. Tom Meagher, room four-one-one.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Just put me through.”

  “One moment!” The disposable emitted canned music for several seconds, face slack, then sprang to life again. His voice and manner were different, copying the speaker. “Hello? Who’s this?” Lou thought that Tom sounded kinda suspicious.

  She stood there, mouth open, shocked. Never thought I’d talk to Bloody Tom again. “Hey, Dataport,” she said to the disposable, “this is weird. Show me the bastard’s face.”

  The disposable pulled a folded sheet of Paper from his uniform shirt pocket, opened it and held it up in front of his chest. The page’s surface fritzed and hissed. Color-display in the worn areas was useless, and the resolution wasn’t great, but shortly Tom Meagher’s skinny face appeared. He was unshaven. His black hair was dirty and badly cut.

  The face in the display recognized Lou. “Louise. Long time. How goes the big fight with death?” He had an uneasy, insincere smile.

  Lou crossed her arms, frowned, her mouth twisted. “What do you want, Tom?”

  There was a momentary delay for the eighty-thousand-kilometer trip up to geosynch and back. “I was in the area, passing through, you know. I thought I’d stop by and say hello. Thought we’d have a meal, maybe.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, gently. “You picked a bad time, Tom. I’m kinda busy.”

  Tom seemed unsure of what to say. “What are you doing these days, Louise?”

  “I’m a private investigator. You?” Not like she cared. It was just talking. On the other hand, she realized, he’d stuck her with paying for the call. Damn him!

  Tom’s face broke into a big loud grin. “I’m a published author. Pretty successful, too. You should be proud of me.”

  “You’re published? You mean you finally found someone who was interested in those bloody books of yours?” She shook her head, beginning to seethe. It was the sound of his voice, his smug tone.

  “Last fiscal, I shipped two million units. My publisher is so shocked. They thought I’d be this boutique niche thing.”

  “What! So you decided to swing by Kestrel and gloat at your doubting ex-wife, show her how wrong she was before she gets blown to bits?”

  Tom looked shocked. “No, no, nothing like that, Louise. Nothing like that. I hoped you’d be happy for my success. I’d understand if you weren’t, of course, considering our … history. Mainly I’m here to gather material for a new title…”

  Lou felt her anger building, familiar, like a well known old friend. “Of all the reasons to come crawling back into my life…” She stopped herself, took a breath. Remember, he likes it when you lose it, Lou. Deep breath. “So, what’s the real reason you’re here?”

  Tom, rattled and pale after her attack, scratched his stubbled chin. He looked unsure of what to say next. “I really am researching a new book, Louise.”

  Lou watched the protesting refugees, picking up on their listless anger. “When I give a rat’s ass about that, Tom, I’ll send up a flare.” She turned and stared at the dead lakebed, trying to think of better days. Something soothing like the flat lowing of the stalk-storks roosting in the lakeside rushes at sunset.

  Tom leaned in close to his phone; his face filled the Paper’s display window. “Louise. I know what’s happening down there. I know about the Bastard.”

  Lou looked back at the page window, and clapped her hands a few times, mocking applause for Tom. Anyone with media access in all of human space would know all about the Bastard. It was a news circus, like few other things in recent years.

  Dog studied the muttering crowd, the fur along his spine bristling, his tail curled around his backside.

  There were cop-hovs nearby, a couple of blocks away: short bursts of gunfire, yelling, and amplified cop-voices urging people to remain where they were standing and drop their stolen goods. The breeze carried a stinging whiff of sulphurous riot-gas and his nose wrinkled. Dog sneezed a few times, whimpering.

  Bastard cops.

  It sometimes seemed that the cops were trying to cull the population, reducing the load on the refugee rescue effort, justifying their actions with any excuse. Maybe, she thought, the cops have gone nuts.

  The refugees had started chanting loudly, hoping someone with media gear would show up and document their suffering, even somebody with a half-decent sheet of Paper would do. Lou, keenly aware of the sheet of quite adequate Paper in her pocket, knew that all they were doing was making a target of themselves. It was like yelling, “Hey Cops, over here! We’re a nuisance to public safety and order! Come and get us!”

  And worse: she was going to have to talk to those cops later about the missing kid. Damn!

  Tom called her back, saying, “I have a ship, Louise, docked up here at the hotel. I can get you away from Kestrel, if you want. Today.”

  This time Lou did laugh. The effort was painful and she wound up coughing hard. “A ship? You’ve got a bloody ship?”

  Tom cleared his throat, trying not to look self-conscious. A personal ship was an appalling extravagance. “Yeah. Six-seater skiff. Saido Mistral III with a Rolls-Royce powerplant, rated for hypertube-transit. Does point-six-five c, cruising.”

  Lou glanced at Dog, who was still watching the crowd, bristling. Better wrap this up soon. Lots of those folks over by the lake were looking hard at Dog, like they were making plans for dinner.

  “Louise, did you hear what I said?”

  She nodded, “Yeah, I heard. Gee, you’ve got a serious piece of boat there, Tom. Don’t think I’d want my horrible skin soiling the fancy upholstery. Might affect the resale value.”

  Tom said, “Well, it is actually leased through my private company. But Louise, I care about more than just material stuff.” He looked a bit wounded that she should even think such things about him. Classic Tom, same as ever. He prattled on, “The skiff is for convenience. I need to travel when it’s convenient for me, not for the big passenger lines.”

  Sounds like an ad, she thought, and he doesn’t even know it. “Oh, and I got a dog, too. Say hi to the nice man, Dog.”

  The disposable tilted the page to pick up Dog in the capture-field. Dog turned his head and supplied a laconic bark.

  Lou suppressed a smile. “Hey, Dataport Guy, I need a chair! My joints are killing me.” The disposable put its sheet of display paper down for a moment and handed Lou a composite-fiber folding stool. She unrolled it and sat, wincing.

  Tom asked, “You have a dog? What the heck are you doing with a dog?”

  She glanced at Dog. He looked as though he was daring any of those refugees to even think about trying to catch him. She saw two of his very sharp teeth protruding from his black upper lip. The teeth needed a good cleaning.

  “He looks after me, and I look after him. And if you’re going to take me off this rock, the pooch comes with me.”

  Dog didn’t shift from his aggressive stance, but his synth-voice whispered to her, “What about Kid?”

  Lou looked down at Dog discreetly. “And Tom, one other thing. It’s conceivable there could be a sick little kid, too.”

  Tom’s eyes widened, surprised. “A kid? Louise, what—?”

  She grinned. “Shut up, Tom.”

  “Things sure seem to have changed for you, Louise,” he said.

  “Being dead changes everything. So tell me, how do you get to own a spiffy little ship like that? Can’t be cheap, even with a good leasing deal.”

  Tom shrugged and almost managed to conceal his smugness. “It’s been twelve years. Been working hard, now I’m doing pretty well, especially with subsidiary rights, royalties and subscription fees. And I
don’t just write books anymore. I’ve kinda … diversified a bit. Finally found a sure thing.”

  In Lou’s sometimes sluggish mind, she found herself seizing on his use of the word diversified. It stank of the kind of crap she used to get from Tom all the time.

  “One moment, Tom, I’m putting you on hold.” To the disposable she said, “Dataport Guy, run a registry check on all the vessels docked with the Winged Glory Hotel. Look for ownership details with links to Thomas Meagher in relation to a vessel matching the description you heard a few moments ago. Can you do that? Give me anything you find. Public-access only.” The disposable nodded, and Lou said, “Resume.”

  Tom smiled, starting to look comfortable. “Checking up on me, Louise?”

  Lou shrugged. “Call me suspicious. It’s got me this far.”

  “So,” Tom said, “what about that meal?”

  The display window shrank into the left side of the page and another window opened on the right, listing all the details the dataport sniffer had found about Tom’s ship. She put Tom on hold again, and pressed her thumb against the page. “Transfer all this into my own Paper.” She resumed.

  “You do know,” she said to Tom, “I don’t eat much these days.”

  “The tissue necrosis thing, yes. I’ve read there’s a lot of that going around these days. Some kind of biological hackers, I’ve heard. Sounds like an idea for a book, don’t you think?” He seemed quite taken with the notion. Lou shuddered. No way was she going to be research material for the likes of this guy. He went on. “You’d think there’d be a counter-agent for it by now.”

  No bloody kidding, Lou thought. She’d been fighting this accelerated entropy more than half her life and suspected, like many other nanovirus victims, that there was a cure, but someone in authority was sitting on it, hoarding it. Hard to prove, and hard to investigate without the financial and support resources of a major world-state or multistellar consortium.

  She shrugged and affected a look of desiccated nonchalance.

  “Will you consider my offer of evacuation?”