He Without Sin

by Hyde, Ed

  We ascend and I move closer to a small viewport to watch the receding surface of the planet on which we have spent so much time. I think of Carol and how we have become close during this stay, of David and his struggles as a leader, of course of Dylan and his passion for the people down below.

  The port allows for only a limited glimpse; it is the last close-up view I will have of this world. I try to embed it in my memory knowing all the while it is a futile effort. The images and videos I and the rest of the team have captured will substitute for our limited and imperfect memories.

  ______

  “Where is he?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “Yes, I am asking you. Who do you think I’m asking? I’m looking right at you!”

  I’ve inadvertently triggered the appearance of Mr. Means. “I don’t know where he is. Last I saw he was hauling a couple cases of goods to be transported up. They came up with me and he was still down there.” I want to add that I’m not in the habit of tracking the moment-by-moment whereabouts of Master Brachus, but think better of it.

  David Means eyes me suspiciously and works his lower lip. Out, in, Out, in. “He can’t be reached; his communicator is broken or dead.”

  “David, I checked all genies for proper operation just a couple days ago. Maybe he doesn’t want to be reached.”

  “Doesn’t want… What do you mean?”

  “Maybe there’s a simple explanation. Is everyone else accounted for? Lester? Tracy?”

  “Yes, yes, both here. Tracy’s been working with me and I’ve had Grigor and Lester working together on resource stowage and inventory for a few days now.

  It takes an extra effort on my part to stifle a smile as I picture Grigor and Lester trying to get along.

  “Give me a few minutes. I can check for him from here. Even if he’s not responding, there’s always the safety beacon. Even I don’t know how to disable that.” As I walk away I hear David talking on his communicator with Mark.

  Just as I suspected, Brachus’ beacon is active and strong, although he does not respond to me either. The safety beacons of the others on the surface have a strong signal as well. That’s Mark and Craig. Porter’s is out there too but weak. He must be in transit.

  Carol is not in her shipboard work area, and I decide not to look for her in her quarters in case she is resting. I tentatively fiddle with Carol’s optical equipment, but give up for now. I prefer to wait rather than mess something up. I doubt anyway if the view is sufficiently detailed enough to see anything useful at base camp, but David’s angst earlier has me thinking about Brachus. A look can’t hurt, so as soon as I can I will take a gander.

  ______

  Carol and I maintain separate official quarters, but spend a lot of time together even so. I have just ‘today’—our time cycles are going to get way off again, now that we are back aboard ship—set up my small personal space with the few items that I unpacked from her cargo boxes. And I’m helping her unpack her things now. Grigor appears at the hatchway abruptly and says, “Better check your screen mate. Someone’s trying to get your attention.”

  I make my way back to my screen. He’s right. Holy smoke, I am picking up emergency signals from the surface! David is trying to raise me on my comms unit too and the persistent emergency alarm has just begun buzzing in the ship. Why oh why did I choose just this one time to leave my genie in my quarters?

  “Hey, David, yes I’m here. I’m looking at it right now. They’re all three going off down there. No, wait. Just two. Brachus’ beacon is strong, but he’s not sending an emergency signal. Oh, here you are,” I say as David appears in my quarters.

  “Hang on,” he says. And then to me, “I just dropped Mark. Pick him up now.”

  I get Mark on the speaker.

  “Mark, it’s Jason and David. What’s going on?”

  “It’s not good. I got your message about looking for Wes…”

  “I’ve got his beacon, strong.”

  “Well, you can quit looking for him. I found him. If you can, get my video feed on your screen and get Doc in there with you. It’s bad news.”

  David summons Gleshert as I pull up Mark’s video feed. I can’t quite figure out what we’re looking at as Doc joins us. They are now both looking over my shoulder at the shaky video from Mark down on the surface at base camp. There is an overlay on an adjacent screen showing the guys’ beacons on top of a terrain map. We can see they are not in the camp proper but just outside in the rugged surrounding area.

  “What are we looking at Mark? Can you hold her steady?” The image zooms out, steadies, and then we see. “Mark, is that what I think it is? What happened?” The image now resolves into the far away figure of a man. Or what used to be a man.

  “Guys, I’m here with Craig…”

  “Hold on, we’re getting another emergency signal here!” I interrupt.

  “That’s Porter. We tried to reach him before he left the ship to come back down. He’s probably just getting my frantic messages right now.”

  “Mark, what are we… Is that Wesley we see?”

  “I’m afraid so.” The image zooms out again and Mark does a pan over to Craig, showing that they are in fact not in camp, but in the mountains. On one side is a steep, nearly featureless rock wall, on the other a precipitous drop-off. He slowly lowers the view and we see that it’s a long way down indeed. “He must’ve fallen.”

  “Mark, steady the cam and zoom in as tight as you can. I need to see the damage right now. Is the solo flyer still operational?” asks Doc.

  David shakes his head no while still looking at the screen.

  “No, it’s just been dismantled; some parts recycled already. Would take a while to re-build.”

  “Steady.” Doc looks at the screen. He catches David’s eye, then mine, shakes his head, and says, “Mark, a little above and to the left. See that dark area?”

  “Yes, I do. We saw that earlier. Looks like he had a bad fall and there is no soft spot anywhere on the way down.”

  “What do we need to do?”

  “David, look at it. There’s nothing to do. We can fix a lot of things, but I can’t put that right. Too much damage. Too much time. Getting there; getting him out. Mark, is there any way down there?”

  “Absolutely not. Not without equipment and a way to air lift him up. It’s sheer.”

  “Air lift? Rope, winch, cables, a stretcher basket. Come on, man!”

  “Hold on David. To what purpose? Risk more lives? For what? I’m telling you, even from just the video feed, there is nothing to be done.”

  Doc looks at David and holds his gaze while saying, “Mark, save any images you can get. Also get the surroundings and any other clues to what happened. We’re going to need them.”

  David got depressed again, and I don’t blame him. He commented that all officers were supposed to be on board by then, but Mark and I both replied at the same time that we couldn’t control Brachus; no one could—he did what he wanted to do. And that’s when David walked out.

  As much as I didn’t care for him, it’s a shame to lose Brachus; it’s a shame to lose anyone. He’s the only casualty for the entire mission, aside from what happened to Dylan. Now more than ever we have our fingers crossed for Dylan’s survival and recovery.

  The last load has been uplifted. All persons are accounted for except the one. The decision was made to use an incendiary device for a makeshift cremation. There was no choice. We couldn’t leave him like that; we couldn’t get down to him. It had to be done. Carol didn’t watch.

  Carol hasn’t said much about the loss of Master Brachus. We agree it’s a shame, but it’s safe to say that we both think he brought it on himself. After all, what was he doing out in the mountains instead of up here safe aboard ship? I do have my suspicions, based on the few clues Mark dropped over the years, but have kept them to myself.

  Should I have gone to help him when he asked? Maybe. I’ll have to live with that, I guess. I notice that no one else
was out there helping him with his ‘keepsakes’ either.

  Discovery

  “Do we know what happened?”

  “I was…” Craig says, “I finished the final sweep and was prepping another load for Porter when I see I got a call from Wesley to come help him. I told him hold on, I’ll come, but in a few.”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “I knew which way he went. I’d been that way before but never very high. I went up but then I figured maybe I’d missed him. I tried to raise him, but there was no response. I thought of going back—it’s not really a path up there, it’s a narrow ledge with gravel and…”

  “We see the graphics,” David says as he shuffles through the images Mark recorded and are now being shown on the screen.

  “I kept going and found the bundle that I told you about.”

  “Is there a picture of that?”

  “Maybe, but never mind. Here it is right here,” says Mark as he puts the wrapped package on the meeting room table.

  “Craig?”

  “Well. That’s when I saw him. When I leaned down to picked that up,” indicating the bundle. “I called Mark, told him, and hit the e-button.”

  “And?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Alright you guys, what was he doing up there?” says Mr. Means.

  There is some silence as Mark and Craig look at each other. “Getting that bundle would be my guess,” I venture, to break the silence.

  “Wait, there’s more,” says Mark. “David, click through those images. Here, give me that thing.” David does, and Mark searches quickly and says, “There. See it? Let me zoom. There.”

  We see a dented and beat up case, scuffed, broken and dirty, laying way down on top of rubble at some distance from the body. David sees it.

  “There’s one of our cases,” adds Mark. “I made a bunch of them for general use. He must have been up there getting it too. Or maybe he was going to put that in it,” indicating the item on the table. David draws the bundle close and unwraps it.

  “Yes, I agree. That would make sense. I saw him with something similar not too long ago. He said there were ‘keepsakes’ in it,” I add. David spreads the wrapper, opens the pouch inside and dumps the contents onto the wrapper.

  My hunch all along has been correct. I know right away that we are looking at raw and valuable gems. They are not cut or polished, but that’s what they are all right. I see the same look of recognition around the table.

  “Mark?” David says more as a statement than a question and turns to look at Mark steadily.

  Mark doesn’t answer at once, but I can ‘see’ his mind working. He finally says, “David, Wes would bring in special shipments from the various resource sites, have me process them in between my regular work. He would come by later and pick up the output. I would venture to say that we are now looking at the output.”

  It’s David’s silence now that indicates to me it’s his turn to process what he’s just heard. “I see,” he says and stands. “Grigor, wrap this back up and jettison it with the waste.”

  He leaves the room. We sit for a few minutes, silent. I for one am trying to decide if the meeting’s over or not. My thoughts wander and I imagine the gems as they enter the atmosphere and wonder if they will vaporize before impact or if they will survive the fall.

  ______

  “There’s going to be an inquest. You know there will. We should’ve kept that bundle of gems,” Carol says later.

  “Maybe he thinks the images will be enough,” suggests Mark.

  “It’s wrong mate, it’s plain wrong, one wrong thing after another,” adds Grigor. “Markus, what were you thinking? Your cut?”

  “My cut? Get lost. My cut. Just make sure you don’t take your cut before ejecting them.”

  “All right, all right you guys, cut it out. I don’t blame Mark. Remember Brachus was basically running the show down there for a long while.”

  Both gentlemen hold their tongues until Grigor says, to no one and everyone, “What is wrong, though, is tossing out valuables. Those should have been kept and added to our coffers. Wouldn’t hurt to show some return on this trip.”

  ______

  When we are alone, Carol asks, “Do you think David’s trying to cover it up?”

  “What? No. There is no covering it up. We are coming home one headcount short. One so far anyway,” I check Carol’s face to see if she takes my meaning, “and there’s no getting around that, period.” After a moment, I realize I may have misunderstood. “Oh, you mean by tossing the loot? I don’t know what he’s thinking there. My first guess would be that it was just a knee-jerk reaction, with no plan at all.”

  “You’re probably right about that. He’s that way.”

  “I do think that Mark is worried, though.”

  “But he was acting under orders from Wes. He had no choice.”

  “But not official orders. I will bet you any amount that Brachus left no trail of this business. None. He went to a lot of trouble to hide the stuff too. No doubt he didn’t even trust his own people enough to let them in on it.”

  “I still can’t believe he’s gone. If he’d asked for help…”

  “Carol, he did ask me for help. He asked Mark first but Mark refused; he told me so. He’d had enough I guess. Then Brachus came to me. I know he didn’t want to; he never liked me from day one.”

  “So…”

  “So I didn’t actually tell him to go jump off a cliff…” I say without thinking of the reality of the situation, but it hits me as soon as I hear my own words. “I mean, I didn’t outright refuse. But I held off answering long enough for him to go away. And he asked Craig and Porter too I think, as we all heard at the meeting...”

  Carol just looks at me—no change in expression, no comment.

  “I guess I should’ve helped. He just rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t feel like doing him any favors. I didn’t think it would end like this.”

  “Of course not.”

  The general mood is changing from somber to homesick as we near departure. At least that’s how I judge the crew. My duties now, by comparison to the wide open and exciting environment below, seem dull and routine. The varied and complex links to base camp, and other sites; the connections to remote cams; the surface and atmospheric monitors—almost all gone. The more or less constant accumulation, transfer, and storage of data has now slowed tremendously. The one planetary atmosphere monitor remains active and will for a long, long time, but it’s not sending to us, it’s sending home.

  I keep busy, but for the most part I am in an unusual state of mental transition. All of us have our physical boundaries well defined now, as well as our duties. Our horizon, instead of including vast vistas of mountains, seas, clouds, and open land, instead of being painted with practically every color of the rainbow in the sky, rocks, and leaves, is now limited to the next partition and, aside from vivid instrumentation lights, to a shrunken palette of muted hues.

  I find myself bugging Carol now and then for a hires view of the surface. That view, however, like my memories, is a faded substitute for the real thing, dimmed and obscured by the intervening atmosphere.

  We are all scheduled to see Doc for pre-launch checkups and the beginning of treatment for the flight home. Dylan is already fully under for the return trip. Gleshert says it is for the best and will give the restorative cure time to work and ensure the highest chance of a positive outcome.

  Carol read up on the history of the Hobbe itself and on its namesake, Lillian. She, Lillian that is, created a big stink back home a long time ago on her very first mission as commander. The one document she read says Lillian dealt with a rebellion near the end of a planetary stay. A group of her people, both male and female, defied her orders and prepared to stay behind, essentially forming their own seed population on an otherwise uninhabited world (uninhabited by humans, that is). Unfortunately, during an altercation three members of the rebellion were killed by the commander. The rest of the r
ebels abandoned their dream and reluctantly joined the returning mission.

  The revolt jeopardized the successful completion of the mission since they were now short three critical crew members and the attitudes among the remainder varied from hostile to loyal, from angry to indifferent. Well, they did make it back in one piece. But, as a result of the mission review hearing, an official inquest was scheduled to determine the guilt or innocence of the commander relative to the lost crew members. After the inquest, it seemed certain that further action would be taken against her—action which could easily have ruined her career and reputation. Long story short, Ms. Hobbe defied protocol and went public in her own defense. The overwhelming popular support she received engendered a response from government officials who pulled the appropriate strings to make the whole matter go away. Her popularity due to her image as a strong leader able to make tough decisions remained high for the duration of her career and life.

  Out of curiosity, I checked more mission histories, this time not for details but for frequency of visitation. It looks like our promise to return to this planet may take a lot longer than we guessed down below. It will be a minimum of five thousand of this planet’s years before a return, and probably much longer.

  It’s time to wind down and begin to think of home. What will it be like? What has happened?

  Carol and I have talked of the future. What’s next? Another mission? A different career? It would be a dream to fulfill our fantasy of retiring someday to a property with some space, some natural feature or beauty, maybe a waterfront home. I am afraid we were spoiled by the beautiful areas we were able to visit and enjoy together on the lush, largely uninhabited planet below. It doesn’t seem, no matter how I figure it, that it will ever be possible for that dream to come true.

  Final note before we catch a wave: We have left orbit; the double L system is engaged and working. I’ve already seen the doc and am groggy. It’s time to save my work and check out for the bulk of the journey home.