by Sam Smith
Tulla, however, saw not one crew member. That puzzled her: most freighter crews like to escape the confines of their ship as soon as they dock. But, Tulla assumed, the custom was different on platforms. Probably, her scientific mind decided on a reason for the difference, because of the uncomfortable humidity.
Having moved her ship she returned to the machine room, looking to the walkways above and below her for the technician. The machine room was locked.
Tulla frowned, studied almost with disbelief the locked door, then she picked up a walkway phone and called the technician. No answer. She went to his quarters. Locked. She tried the nearest freighter. Locked. Nor did that freighter crew, nor any of the others, answer their phone.
Technicians have a reputation for playing practical jokes. This, Tulla deduced, along with his hiding of the code book, was the technician’s petty revenge for his being woken in the middle of the night. Tulla, though, couldn’t afford the time to play his silly games. Deciding that she had already wasted enough time on this platform she resolved to leave immediately for one of the other two platforms, whose technicians she hoped would have less of a sense of humour and where she could begin on a better footing. Her ship was locked.
For a full three minutes Tulla stormed back and forth along the walk-way screaming abuse at the technician and the freighter crews. That had no effect. She took the elevator down to the machine room, found it still locked. She strode along to the technician’s quarters. Locked. Nor did he answer his phone.
The anger left Tulla: she realised that she would have to wait it out. The maximum discomfort inflicted on the victim, she supposed, the funnier the practical joke. Casting about for somewhere to sit, she started to lower herself onto the floor beside the technician’s door when she recalled the urgency of her research and she was on her feet again banging on the technician’s door and red-faced screaming with all the power of her lungs, although she knew that the door was totally soundproofed.
What Tulla didn’t know was that the platform that she had so randomly chosen was implicated in the fraud that Inspector Eldon Boone was investigating. Two of his police officers, masquerading as horticulturists, had already visited the platform during the course of that enquiry. Their lack of horticultural expertise had soon made their real identity apparent to the corrupt technician. The technician believed that he had successfully thwarted them. But, his dishonest nature seeing subterfuge everywhere, he had immediately suspected Tulla of being another police agent; one cleverer than the previous two because she had seemed to know what she was talking about.
His first stratagem had been to be openly uncooperative. The crew of the first freighter to arrive were also involved in the fraud; and, after a frantic consultation, they had decided to lock Tulla out until they could decide on a better plan. Of all six ships to call at the platform that day all of the crews had some part in the fraud, were readily appraised of Tulla’s supposed identity, and all conspired in locking their doors to her.
At the arrival of the fourth and fifth freighters Tulla hastened to their docking bays. To find their doors locked and their phones unanswered. Each time she gave vent to her frustration in a howling stream of curses and, still under the misapprehension that she was the hapless victim of a practical joke, each time she bustled back to the technician’s quarters muttering,
“Funny. Yes. Very funny.”
Surely, Tulla thought after another hour’s inactivity, he’d had sufficient revenge now. Enough was enough. Going up to the camera at the end of a walkway she, though she knew it had no microphone, shouted at him. Pleaded with him. With mime admitted good-natured defeat. Still no doors opened. She knew that he was watching. She made a universal gesture of extreme rudeness and returned balefully to the locked machine room.
She moved to the technician’s quarters; and sitting outside his door she recalled childhood games from which, on the whim of her schoolfriends, she had been excluded. She had done the same to other children. Sitting on that uncomfortable grid she repented her cruelty.
The door of the first freighter to have arrived that morning opened and a woman laughed. That showy laugh was aimed at Tulla.
“Yes!” Tulla screamed at her down the walkways, “Very funny!”‘
The sixth, and last freighter to arrive, docked below Tulla. She raced down to it, arrived panting at its locked door.
“Please,” she slapped its door. Up above her the first freighter’s door opened and again came that woman’s vindictive cackle.
“Look,” Tulla kept her temper in check this time, “my work is extremely urgent.” She hurried to the elevator, “It is imperative that I be allowed to do my research.” For reply the woman loosed her laugh again; and, as Tulla entered the elevator, she heard the freighter’s door close.
For the rest of that day Tulla was left alone with the predominate sound of all platforms — dripping water. And beyond the unrelenting and unpredictable dripping the occasional clump and clatter of machines rolling along walkways, to pad softly off into the fields. She listened to the sound of raking, hoeing, harvesting; was there alone so long that she learnt to distinguish the whirr of the conveyers from that of the vacuum swish of the silos as they emptied into the locked freighters.
Tulla was used to solitude, but not to this hostile unseen presence. She found herself flaring up with frustration, which dwindled to a fatalistic stoicism as she reminded herself that she had no option but to wait, told herself that the joke had to be played out to their perverse satisfaction. Only to rise instantly to indignant fury whenever she recalled that woman’s mocking laughter. To find herself frustrated again, because she had nothing against which she could direct her fury. Instead, faced with an insoluble dilemma, her imagination embarked upon fantastic conjectures, dredging up from the buried dregs of her mind every morbid tale that she had ever heard, that she had ever half-listening overheard.
In the loneliness of the smaller outstations many a grotesque paranoia finds, in unremitting solitude, fertile soil. Living alone, or cheek by jowl day in day out with just a few other fallible human beings, many a mind cracks. Most into harmless eccentricities, but on occasion police patrols come upon corpses inexplicably and brutally butchered, open their ship doors to behold a scene of carnage as bizarre as it is grisly. Which is why the police, like Sergeant Alger Deaver and Constable Drin Ligure, make regular patrols of all outstations within their Department.
All outstation police are trained to identify latent group conflicts, to spot the onset of stress symptoms. The outstation patrol had called at this platform 31 days before; and they had been amicably welcomed. The technician had had nothing to fear from the patrol except curiosity; and Sergeant Alger Deaver and his retiring partner, Drin Ligure’s predecessor, were not trained in the detection of fraud.
Tulla, however, was unaware of any criminal conspiracy. She found herself wondering if the grumpy technician was feeding some lethal gas into the freighters as they docked. Was he in cahoots with that mad-laughing woman? Or was it him laughing? Or had the woman killed him? The entire length of one walkway she kept whirling around expecting to find someone creeping up behind her. Her hair and tunic damp with the humidity she sat with her back to a field screen, tried to stop herself thinking gruesome thoughts, and shivered.
Two of the freighters left. Something odd about their departure bothered her. When the third freighter left she realised that they had not left in the order of their arrival. The first freighter to arrive was still docked. The technician, she deduced, was in that freighter and not, as she had supposed, in his quarters. That first freighter was closer to the machine room than were his quarters. That was where he had disappeared to when she had last seen him. That freighter could not leave with him aboard; and the freighter, she saw with hope, must already be behind schedule. The cameras at the ends of each walkway kept track of the machines.
The freighter could easily have plugged into the platform’s viewing system, have kept track not only of t
he machines but also of her own movements. That explained, Tulla told herself, how that woman had known when it was safe to open the freighter’s door.
Grabbing up a handful of wet dirt from one of the fields Tulla made her way to the ends of the walkway which passed that first freighter’s docking bay. Over the lens of each camera she slapped some dirt, then hurried to the docking bay and climbed, feeling melodramatic and silly, onto some wide trunking above the freighter’s door. Lying there she heard the other two freighters leave. Then, at last, almost an hour after she had climbed onto the trunking, the freighter’s door opened.
Tulla held her breath. Below her she glimpsed a woman’s long loose black hair emerging from the open door. The woman looked in both directions along the walkway. A man’s voice in the ship urged her outwards. Glancing to either side the woman advanced cautiously onto the walkway, from where she could look up and down to the other levels. Tulla dropped off the trunking and half sprang, half sprawled through the freighter’s open door.
Once inside the ship she scrambled furiously to her feet. The round technician, a younger woman and a man stared at her. The man nervously smirked.
“Yes. Very funny,” Tulla said. “You do realise there’s a moon gone missing over there? And that it’s my job to find out about it? Three million people’s lives are in danger and you play jokes! Expensive jokes I might add. You must be hours over schedule. For what?”
The black-haired woman had come in behind Tulla. The four of them were glancing apprehensively to one another.
“Fools! All of you!” Tulla shouted. “I’ve a good mind to report the lot of you to the police when I get back. All day you’ve kept me hanging about here! Fools!”
“Only a joke,” the shipboard man said. “A bit of fun.”
“Yea. A bit of fun,” they all chorused, half-heartedly laughing, realising their mistake. Because, looking now at her habitually untidy yellow hair, they saw that she could not possibly be a policewoman. No policewoman could cultivate that long-term amount of disregard for her appearance. Nor do undercover police agents threaten to call the police. And if her work was as important as she claimed, and if they were not already under suspicion, then any complaint she made would bring them to the police’s attention.
So Tulla was overwhelmed with solicitous apologies, how they hadn’t realised... a bit of a lark... no harm meant... She noticed her ship’s log on one of the freighter screens. On the other screens, as she had guessed, were views of the walkways.
“Can I have those codes now?” Tulla held out her hand to the technician. He pulled a grubby booklet from his tunic pocket.
“Better still,” Tulla took him by the sleeve, pushed roughly past the black-haired woman, “you can come and show me the codes. You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is.”
Mumbling apologies the technician preceded her from the freighter to the machine room, unlocked the door. It took him only a few minutes to find all the codes that she might need. They heard the freighter leave.
“Anything else I can do,” he gallantly offered. “If I’d have known how...”
“I am now,” Tulla cut him short, “going to have to work all night. You can bring me some food. And unlock my ship door. I don’t want to have to disturb your precious beauty sleep when I leave.”
Now that she had won Tulla felt empty of anger, wanted only to be left alone to get on with her work. And she worked through all of that night and all of the following morning before she was satisfied that she had sufficient evidence. The round technician, fawning now over her well-being, brought her some breakfast. Some of that day’s freighter crews looked in on her, but left her alone with her work. Tulla didn’t see the technician again before she left. As soon as she reached light speed she slept.
Chapter Nineteen
While Tulla Yorke was approaching the platform Anton Singh and Petre Fanne were fast closing on this city. Once their deceleration passed below lightspeed, and as soon as they were within hailing distance of the city, Anton made continual use of the phone. His conversations were of no interest to Petre. Conducted mostly in guarded business jargon they were with people she didn’t know about people she didn’t know. She did hear her own name mentioned once and Tulla’s spelt. Nothing though could distract her from the city growing before her.
Her dreams had made the city smaller. So far away, on those small stations, she hadn’t been able to believe that the city could have been so big. Often, lately, she had told her memory that its youth had deceived her. But so grand was it, this home of thirty million people, that with every kilometre they closed upon it she became ever more convinced that a diminutive ex-gymnast, ex-station Director’s ex-consort would not be freely admitted entry there.
The tiny ship finally docked in the dead hours of the night. (When Tulla was still trying to rouse the platform technician.) By then Petre had fatalistically resigned herself to being refused entry to the city. However, as soon as the ship’s door opened, she found herself being rushed through the immigration formalities with as little hindrance as when she had left XE2 three days before.
With Munred the fuss of exit and entry formalities had taken a tiresome age. Now, Petre realised, it had only taken so long with Munred because the immigration and emigration officials had been demonstrating to their superior that they were sticklers for the correct procedure. And if, as had twice happened, those officials had omitted one sub-clause of that correct procedure, Munred had kindly reminded them of it. Bored once by the unending delays and cross-referencing, Petre had asked Munred if he couldn’t hurry things along. Munred, in a reproving whisper, had told her that it would set an unfortunate precedent if he were seen to exploit his position.
Even so the swiftness that night with which she and Anton were passed through the empty immigration hall and the entry formalities were so contrary to her expectations that she was in the cab before she fully realised that she was actually in the city.
“How?” she asked Anton, referring back to the ease of their entry. She was coming to regard him as something akin to a magician. He smiled smugly at her,
“Wealth is a privilege which begets yet more privilege.”
Anton could also have told her that a man like himself, who decides to break all the rules, often knows more of those rules than a man, like Munred, who tries to apply them. Because, needless to say, Anton did not share Munred’s high regard for the proper procedures.
All bureaucracy to Anton was but a bothersome obstacle to be brushed aside, to be circumvented. What might or might not be proper did not enter into his thinking. He was a man, Petre was coming to realise, who wanted to do things and did them. Results alone mattered. So, where Munred had punctiliously done his duty, Anton purposefully avoided it if it stood in his way.
The cab dropped Anton and Petre at an apartment complex subtly bedecked with the trappings of wealth. The size of the elevator alone bespoke unambiguous affluence.
“You live here?” Petre asked Anton.
“No,” Anton replied, preoccupied, “A friend.”
That he wasn’t amused by the idea of his living in such a place impressed Petre. She was, therefore, smiling before she even entered the apartment and Anton introduced her to a stout silver-haired man, whom she immediately recognised as a City Senate Member.
“Petre Fanne, this is Hambro Harrap.”
Anton looked on approvingly as Hambro proceeded to practise his charm on Petre and she on him. Petre chose to regard this first social contact under Anton’s auspices as a test of her abilities; and, like all experienced socialites, Petre knew when to say nothing. So, as soon as the courtesies had been satisfactorily completed, Petre moved away from the two men so that they could, undistracted, talk.
Petre purportedly examined a painting; but, with a small appreciative smile, she was covertly surveying her new surroundings. The very size of the rooms, the decor, the furnishings, the original paintings, the blossoming houseplants, the softness of the carpets... all we
re redolent of riches. Petre’s buoyancy, her vitality, her self-confidence, instantly returned. She felt that she had come home.
While standing before the painting Petre had heard Nautili mentioned, distances, times, Tulla’s qualifications.
“I’ve checked her out,” Hambro said. “Doesn’t seem the type to leap to wild conclusions.” He called Petre to them, “Do you believe her?”
“I believe her when she says that she suspects it.”
“This further evidence... Do you know what it is she hopes to find on the platforms?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Turning to Anton, Hambro asked what part Petre was playing in this little drama. Anton explained that Petre had been the Director’s consort, that the Director was now missing, presumably killed by the Nautili.
“Oh my dear,” Hambro laid a hand on Petre’s arm, “I am so sorry.”
Hambro Harrap was the first person to have unreservedly expressed sympathy for her; and, though Petre knew that sympathy to be patently false, it had her fighting down her tears.
The commonplace professionally uttered Hambro turned from her distress, was silent a moment, thoughtful.
“What do you think?” he asked Anton. Petre again unobtrusively moved away.
“The whole business has Nautili stamped all over it.” Anton sat on the edge of an easy chair, “If only because it doesn’t make sense. I’ve come across them before. Out on the edges. You leave them alone, think you’re peacefully coexisting, then they take it into their heads — if they’ve got heads — to remove a substation. Though I must admit I’ve never come across them blocking transmissions or moving a moon before. It’s something we’re certainly not capable of. And the planet’s got seas; and the two ships that were seen to be shot down — no gun flashes. The police, for all the wrong reasons, made a big thing of that. In my book it’s Nautili.”