Far from the Light of Heaven

by Tade Thompson

  When they’re finished, both Salvo and Fin are covered in blood again. Fin’s muscles hum with fatigue and the two of them sit together on the floor, backs to the wall, admiring their handiwork. The bodies are no longer a jumble of parts. They have order, although it still looks like a wild chainsaw ripped through a lawn party.

  “Well, that’s not right,” says Fin. They checked three times, recounting.

  “Maybe the bots left some parts elsewhere?” says Salvo. Fin talks to the sphere. “Campion.”

  Campion’s voice is tinny. “Campion here. Go ahead.”

  “We don’t have enough bodies.”

  Chapter Eight

  Ragtime: Shell

  Shell has a two-hour sleep deficit. She scheduled it, but cannot relax because of the investigators and her fury at them trying to arrest her. She cannot decide if they are incompetent or hyper efficient. She checks the systems, forcing back the emotional detritus of the day. Orbit stable, atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide acceptable, bioreactor in balance. Microbial counts are somewhat high, but the breakdown shows the cluster is around the bodies, so this does not alarm Shell. Some microbes can cause corrosion, and it’s theoretically possible for food contamination to occur, but it’s low probability and Shell has some higher-order problems. There are displays that are faulty, and since the bots are glitchy Shell has to fix them herself. Boring work, but lifesaving. She completes worksheets for Salvo and Rasheed Fin. She does not know if Salvo needs rest, but she treats them as a human and schedules in breaks. She misses the damn AI captain.

  “Ragtime.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “In seed time learn…”

  “I don’t understand the command, Captain.”

  Still not working.

  Shell emerges from her sleeping pod and heads to the gym, starting her workout with running, planning to move to the weight machine, but Fin calls to tell her there aren’t enough bodies.

  “What does that mean?” says Shell. That sinking feeling of dread.

  “You have thirty-one passengers missing. We don’t have thirty-one bodies.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “We were expecting a hundred and twenty-four limbs,” says Salvo. “Sixty-two arms, sixty-two legs, thirty-one heads, thirty-one torsos.’

  “We estimate that you’re missing two and a half people,” says Fin.

  “‘And a half’?” says Shell.

  “There are ten missing limbs, two missing heads. We are two legs short of a third full body. Two and a half people unaccounted for.”

  What the hell? She looks at the laid-out bodies and wishes she could get in a shuttle and run away, or at least sleep. Her throat goes dry again and she keeps flashing back to the tangled mess when she found them, but she is the captain and she will comport herself as such. She has a distinct sensation of being watched by her father and feels the urge to turn around, but she does not. If there are missing parts, they have to be somewhere. The robots must have taken them and dropped them by mistake. There will be microbe spikes in the locations as the meat rots. Meat. I’m calling human remains meat now.

  They sit together on the floor like errant schoolboys, and the Artificial is matching Fin’s body language. It’s subtle, but Shell never misses that kind of thing, designed to build trust and rapport between them. She wonders if it is software coded or a trait that emerged in the whole soup of machine quasi-autonomy that characterises the constructs.

  “What do you think?” asks Shell.

  “It’s too early and there’s not enough information to think,” says Fin. “But we can make observations. We have a ship where everyone was asleep. The robots and Ragtime were working and animated until three weeks ago. Two weeks ago, you woke to find the passengers already dead. The bodies are piled up in a most dramatic way. If we had not counted the body parts, we would have assumed, by subtraction, that they were all there.”

  “What conclusions do you draw from that?” asks Shell.

  “None, just theories. The body parts were piled for emotional reaction, for horror, by the killer or killers,” says Fin.

  “But the bodies were piled by the robots,” says Shell.

  “Yes. And most likely, the robots did the actual cutting of the bodies. But let’s assume, for the sake of my theory, that the killer knew what the bots would do with the bodies, that they would see bodies as waste and try to stuff them into the disposal unit.”

  “Why?” asks Shell.

  “In my career, I’ve found it useful to ignore why until I know how, Captain,” says Fin. “They didn’t want us to know about the missing parts, is my guess. If they are parts.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Fin looks from Shell to Salvo. “There might be two wakeful people in the Ragtime. We can’t assume they are dead, although they might be.”

  “You think the killers are walking about on my ship?” asks Shell. She wonders about fitting a search-and-destroy into her work schedule. She is not in a forgiving state of mind.

  “Maybe. But maybe the killers are dead,” says Fin.

  “I don’t understand,” says Shell.

  “There may be two people still alive on the ship, or there may be one, last-person-standing-type situation. Or there may be none. We cannot rule out the possibility of murder-suicide,” says Fin. “Right now, everything is possible.”

  “Okay, okay, this is all interesting, but what should we do?”

  Salvo says, “It makes sense to try to establish the location of the missing parts.”

  “People, Salvo. We call them people,” says Fin. “But, yeah.”

  “All right, we search,” says Shell. “Ragtime.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Organic matter search on board, excluding passengers in pods, excluding bioreactor, excluding this room, excluding Node E.”

  “What if what we’re looking for is in Node E?” asks Fin.

  “It’s not in Node E,” says Shell. “Ragtime, commence search.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Have you rested?” asks Shell. She faces both of them but makes eye contact with Fin. He seems lost in thought, contemplative. There must have been a reason Bloodroot chose him for the mission. Maybe he’s not entirely useless.

  Fin seems to come back to himself. “No, but I will.”

  “Do it now. I don’t want you making mistakes with the work detail,” says Shell.

  “Organic matter located,” says Ragtime.

  “Where?” asks Shell.

  “I cannot say, Captain. It is in motion.”

  In motion? Maybe they have found the killer. Good. Oh, that would be so good. And bad.

  “On screen, Ragtime,” says Shell. She fires up her IFC display and the video appears. She broadcasts it to Salvo and Fin.

  “What in the name of all the Heresies…?” says Fin.

  It’s the wolf, the same one that Shell woke up to, loping down the walkway with limbs showing a slight splay in the rotational gravity, snout low, unperturbed. At least the ship and the others can see it too, meaning it is real, not a hallucination, and that it is a real problem.

  “I’ve seen it before,” says Shell.

  “And you didn’t think to mention a pet wolf loose on your ship?” says Fin. He sounds incredulous, and Shell can’t blame him.

  “It does rather change the parameters of our work, Captain,” says Salvo.

  “I thought it was just in my mind. Astronauts… spacepeople, as you call us… we don’t like to admit when our minds play tricks on us. Sometimes it means we don’t get to go into the Brink any more. Sometimes it means extensive testing. I don’t have the time for that here.”

  “Captain, I disagree. This is the precise time we need to know if you’re going crazy,” says Fin.

  “Well, I’m not, so it’s academic,” says Shell.

  Fin shakes his head. “We don’t know that, and it isn’t academic. It means something else might be wrong with you as
we speak, and you’d hide it.”

  “You’re working yourself up to another apology, repatriator.”

  “And you’re working yourself up to more dead passengers. I don’t want to be dead. Don’t endanger us, Captain.”

  “Can I just point out that we have a wolf on board and we have to capture it?” says Salvo.

  “Do you think it savaged the passengers?” asks Shell.

  “Negative. No bite marks, no shredding, no tearing. Just cutting,” says Salvo. “The robots did the cutting. But we need to isolate the wolf so that it does not interfere with the search for the body p— the missing people.”

  “Fine. Let’s go get the wolf,” says Shell.

  “That sounds like a good idea. Where are your weapons?” asks Fin.

  Shell blinks. “Weapons?”

  The cowboys brought weapons, of course – something that would never have occurred to Shell. There is no conflict in spacecrafts; at least, not among crew. There’s a lot of tension, sometimes sexual, and being alone in space, especially when the Earth is no longer visible outside the cupola, brings its own stresses.

  Space wants to kill you always, Shell. Never forget that.

  It is insane to bring weapons into such an environment, where the psychological meaning of a thing is enhanced after ten days. Back in ancient history, Shell knows of a time when cosmonauts were issued with firearms, for killing bears and wolves after the space capsule returned to Earth. At least, that’s what the public was told when the information leaked. Even now, stalking through the Ragtime, looking for a wolf, Shell’s attention is focused on the guns that Fin and Salvo have, pointed forwards as they listen for the pad of lupine motion, inching in an aft direction towards Node 3. The bizarre thing, if you discount the wolf itself as something bizarre, is there are no droppings. Shell tries not to think of the most obvious – but also, at this time, most irrelevant – question: where has it come from? Her training is to always identify the task at hand, which is to find and neutralise the predator in the corridors. They can answer the “where” forensically. Fin’s way of thinking is catching.

  “I think I can smell it,” says Fin.

  So can Shell. She recognises the scent from the last time they met. What she hasn’t said is that the wolf may not be a threat. It didn’t do anything but breathe on her, did it? But she needs it captured. It is, at the very least, a puzzlement, a distraction, and at most it’s an agent of harm. It needs to be isolated where it cannot affect the work or the investigation.

  They arrive at Torus 2, and there it is. It stops when it sees them, or smells them. It does not growl; it just charges. Something hypnotic about a seventy-five-kilo predator charging without any signs of rage. Fin sets his shoulders and raises his handgun, legs slightly apart, one in front of the other. Shell knows how to fire a gun, knows an expert when she sees one. When the shot comes, it still startles Shell, with the vibration in the enclosed space and the muzzle flash with the delayed smell. The wolf is unharmed and keeps coming, closing the distance.

  “Did you miss?” asks Salvo, who is behind Fin.

  “No,” said Fin, not defensive, not disturbed, stating fact. He fires again, and this time Shell can see where it hits the wolf just beneath the neck. The animal slows slightly but keeps coming. Five metres.

  Shell’s hands tighten around the adjustable spanner she chose. Salvo pulls Fin behind him and moves to meet the wolf. Two metres.

  “Ragtime, kill rotation,” says Shell.

  All of them are thrown into microgravity and rise like birthday balloons. The wolf’s momentum keeps it coming, but now uncontrolled and uncertain of itself.

  “Out of the way, Salvo,” says Shell, in her element, feet hooked on rails. She swings with all her might and feels the satisfying connection of tool with head. The wolf does not whimper or cry out, but Shell feels something give, like a skull caving in. The impact changes the animal’s direction and introduces a spin. It also sprays blood droplets in a spiral that follows the head. Salvo avoids the open jaws and gets on its back, sinking the spanner into its windpipe and pulling like an old painting of Samson. Splayed out, they can see the wolf is a he. It struggles still.

  Fin looks comical in the zero grav, but he manages to get the muzzle of his weapon against the skull and pull the trigger.

  The wolf goes still, but they all exist within the snowstorm of its body fluids and fur.

  Fin stabs the inert wolf in the gut and saws up towards the head. Gravity is back. Behind them lies a messy passageway which remains messy because nobody trusts the bots and water is too limited to be used for clean-up without careful consideration. He lays down the blade – a hunting knife with an elaborate worked handle – and sticks both hands into the belly wound. He pulls the edges apart, and both he and Shell gasp. Salvo stays silent.

  The wolf’s innards are synthetic. There is blood surrounding ruptured cabling and some components that still pulse with electric light.

  “This… is not what I expected,” says Fin. “I mean, the wolf was unexpected, but…”

  Salvo opens the mouth and looks at the teeth, then he examines the wound. He sticks his hands deep inside and comes up with faux intestines, which he cuts open with Fin’s knife.

  “What are you looking for?” says Shell.

  “I’m checking what it has had to eat,” says Salvo. “We started out looking for body parts, remember?”

  “Do they eat?” asks Fin.

  “I do,” says Salvo.

  “Ragtime, reactivate cleaning bots and direct them here,” says Shell.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  To Fin and Salvo, she says, “We need to regroup. We haven’t found the missing body parts, and this canine just adds confusion. We’re going to the bridge. I think better there.”

  Ragtime scours for more organic matter but has not turned anything up yet. Shell is in the cupola waiting for sunrise on Bloodroot. It grounds her in something familiar, and it slows her racing heart better than the worry beads.

  “One of the passengers must have brought it on board,” says Fin.

  Shell shakes her head and drops down into the bridge node. “No.”

  “How do you know?” he asks.

  “Because we checked luggage, which is vetted, and each passenger’s allowance is extremely limited. There are absolutely no electronics allowed, only Interface Chips and mechanicals related to prosthetics and disability. Luggage is scanned. It wasn’t there.”

  “There was skin and blood in its gut,” says Salvo. “Human skin and blood. Or at least, human-seeming.”

  “What do you mean?” says Shell.

  “I’d have to get it to a lab to confirm,” says the Artificial, “but I think the skin was the kind of simulated integument that I have.”

  “By the Thousand Heresies, are you saying there might be an Artificial on board that is unaccounted for?” says Fin. “A wounded one?”

  “Or dead,” says Shell.

  Salvo shakes his head. “Not the conclusion I would draw. We don’t know when it ‘ate’. It could be before the Ragtime. Was any of the passengers an Artificial, Captain?”

  “I don’t know. On Earth, in some countries you don’t have to declare. Artificials have full personhood. To ask is… offensive. There were some Artificials when I came on board. I don’t know if they went to Dreamstate or returned to Earth.”

  “So let’s retrace the steps and find out what he ate,” says Fin.

  “Ragtime, video feed of the wolf’s path,” says Shell.

  “Unavailable, Captain.”

  What?

  “Try again.”

  “No files found.”

  “Ragtime, video files of our fight on IFC screens.”

  “No files found.”

  Shell’s disquiet returns. “This is what happened the last time, when the wolf licked my hand or something while I slept. No recording.”

  “That means someone or some entity decided the video should not be kept. The footage of the w
olf is deliberately being kept from the record because it makes someone vulnerable,” says Fin. “Perhaps the wolf belongs to the killer.”

  “Interesting theory,” says Shell.

  “It scans,” says Fin.

  “Not if someone illegally brought the wolf along, a pet, and wanted to hide it. It’s an offence, yes, and one that carries a hefty fine, and maybe even some jail time. A lot of these folks are rich and don’t think rules apply to them.”

  “You’re missing the part where it was combat ready,” says Fin. “It took two shots without slowing down.”

  “It did slow down, actually. And like I said, rich folks. Pets can have self-defence modes to protect—”

  “How did this person modify the Ragtime’s AI?” Fin leans away from Shell – a bad sign. “The person could hide the wolf from being recorded. Such a person could also manipulate the instructions for the bots.”

  “Captain,” says Ragtime.

  “Yes,” says Shell.

  “Warning.”

  Shell had seen flashing in her peripheral vision but she’d been too riled up by Rasheed Fin to focus on it. She expands the alarm.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Proximity alert.

  Chapter Nine

  Ragtime: Shell

  Breathe, calm down. Remember your training, Shell. Breathe.

  You wanted to be captain. This is how you captain a ship.

  Now, then.

  Fin is quiet this time, and even Salvo manages to look expectant.

  “Ragtime, open channel to approaching vessel,” says Shell.

  “Yes, Captain. Channel open.”

  “Unidentified vessel, you are approaching the starship Ragtime. Reverse engines and correct course to avoid collision. Please acknowledge.”

  “Ragtime, this is the shuttle Decisive. Michelle, is that you?” A familiar voice.

  “Uncle Larry?” says Shell.

  “Shelley! Hey, send me the docking protocol. I’ll see you in a second.”

  Fin is signalling for speech.

  “Stand by, Decisive.” Shell turns to Fin. “What?”

  “You can’t let him on board.”