The connection dropped. Benson looked down the line of volunteers as the futility of their task set in. He phoned Theresa.
He looked around the empty level and its endless honeycomb.
Benson sighed.
* * *
Benson shivered away the last clinging remnants of cold. He was glad to be out of the sub-basement, with its pervasive chill and subversive radiation. A short, invigorating walk later and he passed through Sickbay’s doors. An orderly directed him to exam room two. Inside, he found Jeanine standing over Edmond Laraby’s body. He’d had some work done since the last time Benson had seen him in the form of a large “Y” incision down his chest. It was still open.
Benson looked up at her, confused. “You’ve done the autopsy already?”
Jeanine nodded grimly.
“But I thought you said he had to thaw for another day at least.”
“That was just an estimate I found in the database. Turns out the cadaver thaw tables were from mid-twenty-first century America. The average person was rather substantially larger and ah… better insulated than our man here.”
“I don’t doubt it. What have you got?”
“Bad news first?”
“He’s dead,” Benson said. “I don’t think the news gets much worse than that.”
“You may change your mind. Mr Laraby was alive when he was pushed out of the airlock, and probably conscious.”
He had to admit that was worse.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be. This is my first murder investigation. I’m learning as I go. But the bruising on his forearms and wrists are definitely consistent with defensive wounds.”
“Could they be from… ah, rough sexual activity?”
She went silent for a moment to consider the question, or perhaps consider how to answer it tactfully. Was that a small streak of red flushing her cheeks?
“I don’t think so, unless this ‘activity’ was happening inside the lock just before the outer door was opened. The bruises are nascent, less than a half hour old at time of death.”
Benson had to look away from the corpse. Thrown into the black, arms pinwheeling through the vacuum, trying to swim back to the lock while the air was ripped from your lungs and your eyes bulged out of your head, spending your last few moments of life gasping for oxygen that wasn’t there.
The thought of it made Benson sick. Killing him was bad enough, but this? By all accounts, he’d been a good kid, well-liked and a hard worker. What could he have done, what could he have known, to justify this death?
“That’s… unsettling. But it doesn’t actually help identify the killer.”
She looked confused. “Don’t we already know that? I mean, the fingernail results–”
“Wasn’t him.” Benson shook his head. “We were wrong.”
“Oh,” she said. Followed by “ooohh,” as the relevance of the sex question hit home. “Well, that explains the claw marks on his back.”
“You got it. But that’s privileged information. We’re not to share it with anyone.”
“I understand.”
“Believe me, I wish it wasn’t true. We’re back to square one.”
“Not exactly.” Jeanine handed him a tablet with several files already open on the desktop. “This might help us.”
Benson tried to skim through them, but they were, to all intents and purposes, indecipherable. “I’m sorry, but what am I looking at?”
“Mr Laraby’s toxicology report.”
“He was drunk?”
“No.” Jeanine shook her head. “He was drugged.”
That got his attention. Every pill and injectable drug synthesized onboard, legally at least, had nanotube tags that acted as serial numbers.
“With what? Did you find the tags? Who prescribed it?”
Jeanine waved her hands in a “slowdown” motion. “It wasn’t a prescription, or anything manufactured, so there’re no tags to find. It’s a biological poison, as it turns out, but I have no idea where anyone could have gotten it from.”
“What kind of poison, then?”
“Well, it was at least partially metabolized, and the freeze/thaw cycle didn’t do the protein strains any favors, still I’m ninety percent sure it’s TTX. It’s a neurotoxin that attacks the nervous system’s sodium channels.”
“Dumb it down for me, doc.”
Jeanine huffed, but continued. “It’s a paralytic. It kills when the patient ingests enough to actually stop the diaphragm. That didn’t happen here.”
“But he was incapacitated?”
“Oh, surely. His muscle control would have been very weak and uncoordinated. He probably had spasms too.”
“So, wait, you mean somebody poisoned him just enough that he couldn’t fight back, but not enough to knock him unconscious so he could be alive when they threw him into the black? That’s horrible.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe they meant for him to die, but he didn’t ingest enough. Maybe they got the dosing wrong. There’s no way to know that.”
Benson nodded. It would make more sense if the suspect had tried to kill him with poison. They’d be able to get rid of the body at their leisure, then. But if it didn’t work and Edmond had felt the symptoms and went looking for help, they would have to improvise quickly. That would explain the ensuing fight, even the airlock. That was one thing about plans; you could always count on them to go wrong.
“OK, it fits. You said this TXX–”
“TTX.”
“TTX, thank you, was biological?”
Jeanine nodded and pulled up another file on the tablet. “It was found in a family of fish on Earth called Tetraodontidae, the most common example being–”
It was Benson’s turn to interrupt her. “Pufferfish.”
Jeanine didn’t bother hiding her surprise. “How did you know that?”
“I watch a lot of nature documentaries.”
“I didn’t take you for the get-back-to-nature sort. Anyway, what I can’t figure out is where they got the poison in the first place. Pufferfish went extinct with the Earth. And even if someone snuck onboard with a vial, the poison would have broken down within a few years, even refrigerated. It shouldn’t exist.”
Benson handed the tablet back to her and turned for the exit. “Send over everything you’ve found, and make extra offline copies just like you did for the fingernail results. OK?”
“Sure, but… where are you going?”
Benson looked back over his shoulder as he walked out the door.
“I’m suddenly in the mood for sushi.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
You had to hand it to Chef Takahashi. Looking around the Koi Pond, you’d have never known the whole habitat had been in lockdown only ten hours earlier. Then again, the prices his food commanded meant he could afford to hire the best help in Avalon.
Theresa squeezed Benson’s wrist from across the table. “Do you think we’ll get chicken again?”
“Actually, I’m hoping for something more exotic.”
“More exotic than chicken?” Her face was incredulous.
“Oh, quite a bit more.”
Theresa eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to tell me what this ‘surprise dinner’ is actually about?”
“Eventually.” Benson poured Theresa a cup of sake. It was a cloudy Nigori this time, chilled. She did the same for him. They clinked the little porcelain cups and let the milky sweetness drain down their throats.
Their waiter reappeared. “Have you had enough time to
look over the menu?”
“Yes,” Theresa said. “I’ll have a perch roll, fried rice, and a side of vegetable tempura.”
“Very good, madam. And for the gentleman?”
Benson looked up at the young man, studying his face carefully for reactions. “Actually, I was hoping to go off the menu tonight.”
“Of course, I forgot to mention our specials. Tonight, we have–”
“Fugu?”
They locked eyes for an uncomfortable moment. Benson saw his demeanor falter for a split second. He recognized the word, and the veiled accusation behind it. Benson knew from years interviewing code violators that the next thing the man said would be a lie.
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that dish, sir.”
“No? It’s quite famous. Some might even call it infamous. I’m sure Chef Takahashi knows about it. Let’s go ask him, together.”
“He’s quite busy preparing orders.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Benson stood up and set his napkin on the table. “It’ll only take a minute.”
“This is quite irregular, sir.”
“I insist.” Benson put enough stress on the last word to make sure the waiter understood it was Detective Benson talking. The waiter surrendered with a nod and turned for the kitchen. Benson followed. Theresa shot up from the table and jogged a few steps to catch them up while confused murmurs rose up from the surrounding tables.
“What’s going on?” she whispered in Benson’s ear.
“Do you have your stun-stick in your purse?”
“Yes, but–”
“Keep it handy.”
“I’m not going to get to eat that perch roll, am I?”
“Probably not,” Benson admitted. “I’ll grab us takeout on the way back.”
She sighed as she pulled her stun-stick out of her purse and hid it in her palm. “Not falafel again, please.”
Benson smirked as they followed the waiter around the bar and through the double doors that led into the kitchen. A cyclone of sounds assaulted them on the other side. Pots clanged, knives chopped, cooks shouted out orders, all while aromas of fry oil, fresh vegetables, soy sauce, and fish swirled and mixed in the air.
At the center of it all, the tallest Asian Benson had ever known guided the chaos of incoming orders, food prep, and plating, while lithely decimating a pile of onions with a ceramic chef’s knife. Chef Takahashi was a full head taller than Benson. If the NBA had survived the death of Earth, he’d have played in it. Instead, he towered over waiters, bartenders, and assistant chefs.
He spotted the intruders in his kitchen and pointed for the door, shouting over the din in a strange collision of Korean and Japanese. He wanted them out, but Benson wasn’t in the mood.
“Aw, c’mon Frank, I know you speak English,” Benson chided. “Your mom was a school teacher from Avalon, for crying out loud.”
Takahashi stopped yelling just long enough to let his goatee twist up around his mouth into a very disapproving scowl.
“Not in the kitchen.”
“Fine, can we talk somewhere private, then?”
“I’m busy.”
“You’ll be busier if I have to come back when I’m on duty.”
The background noise of the kitchen dropped as a circuit of nervous glances passed between the other workers. Takahashi shouted at them. Benson didn’t need translation software running to know he’d said “get back to work!”
Takahashi motioned for them to follow. He pulled open a slab door at the back of the kitchen that he had to bend over double to walk through. Racks of fish fillets and plastic bins filled with off-season veggies filled the small space almost to the point of bursting. They were in the restaurant’s deep freezer. The biting cold hit him immediately, worse than even the sixth-level sub-basement had been. Their breath transformed instantly into large, billowing clouds before vanishing.
“Isn’t there someplace warmer?” Theresa’s teeth were already beginning to chatter.
Takahashi shrugged. “You want to talk in private, and I want this conversation to be short. The freezer ensures both.”
“Fine.” Benson put his hands in his armpits. “I’ll get right to the point. I know you’ve been making fugu. I want to know which crewmember grew the pufferfish for you.”
Takahashi was calm as he answered. “Fugu? I’m not familiar with that dish.”
“Funny, your waiter said the exact same thing. I thought you were the best sushi chef on the ship. Why does a lowly gaijin know more about traditional Japanese cuisine than you?”
Whatever nerve Benson touched caused Takahashi’s eye to twitch and his shoulder muscles to tense. It was only then that Benson’s eyes registered the fact the walking totem pole of a man was still holding a chef’s knife.
“Careful, Benson-san. It is not polite to insult your host.”
“Could you put down the knife, please? It’s making me twitchy.”
Takahashi glanced down at the razor-sharp wedge of ceramic in his hand as if he only just remembered it was still there. Delicately, he set it on the shelf midway between himself and Benson.
“I apologize. When you hold it all day, you can forget it’s not attached.”
Benson waved it off. “It’s fine. But I have to level with you, I came here off duty and had some sake out of respect. Nothing I see or hear right now is admissible. I just need to talk, off the record. I know it wasn’t even your idea. Some bloody idiot probably read about fugu or saw it on some old Samurai movie. You’re the only person with the skills and experience to prepare such a dangerous dish, so they threw a bunch of money at you to make it happen.”
Takahashi crossed his arms. “I can’t bring animals back from extinction.”
“No, but you have friends who can. We ate your chicken, remember?”
“Which was excellent, by the way,” Theresa added helpfully.
Takahashi acknowledged the compliment with a small bow. “But if what you say is true, Benson-san, it would not be illegal, as long as the Codes were respected.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Benson agreed. “But poisoning someone with TTX is.”
That, Takahashi wasn’t ready for. His head almost hit the low ceiling. “Who? Who was poisoned?”
“You heard about the Laraby boy, yeah? The doc’s just found TTX in his bloodstream, same stuff as in pufferfish.”
“I would never serve tainted fish!”
“C’mon Frank, I’m not saying you poisoned him. I’m sure your preparation was perfect. But somebody got their hands on the stuff and gave it to Laraby. I just need to know about the fish. Who supplies them? Who eats them?”
Takahashi looked around the freezer as if he’d lost something. “What you ask is… difficult.”
“I’m sure it is, Frank. I’m not any happier about it than you are. We love this place and would hate to get blacklisted.”
The big man sighed, and pushed past the two of them and opened the freezer door, then motioned for them to follow. They wound back through the kitchen and into a larger pantry filled with the rich smells of spices, fresh vegetables, and the starchy aroma of dried rice. Tucked back in a corner an old tablecloth betrayed the outlines of a rectangular box. A low hum drifted out from underneath it.
Takahashi pulled off the tablecloth with a quick jerk, revealing two perfect little bubbling aquariums, maybe a hundred liters each. In the left tank, two plump, prickly-looking fish bobbed along contentedly like potatoes in a sink. In the other, a dozen smaller fish darted one way, then the other in a school of pea-sized copies of the larger fish.
“There you are, the freshest fish anywhere on the Ark.”
Theresa leaned in to look more closely and smiled as the little school of fry bunched up against the glass to do the same to her.
“You farm them right here in the restaurant? No one supplies them to you?”
“Yes, after a couple of false starts. Keeping the salinity and pH levels right is a pain in the ass. The two adults spawn, and we put
the fry in the other tank to keep them from getting eaten.”
“From getting eaten too soon, you mean.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Benson was impressed. He’d never seen a saltwater fish before, not outside of his nature documentaries.
“And it’s worth all the trouble?” he asked.
Takahashi nodded. “The tanks and pumping equipment cost me almost four months of 3D printing rations, and a couple of favors. But with what I charge for them, I made it all back on the first two plates.”
“Who grew the first fish for you?”
Takahashi shrugged. “It wasn’t for me, not right away. You were almost right, Benson-san. It wasn’t my idea at first. The first batch was grown in the bio-labs for some research project. An… interested party brought me a fish and asked if I could prepare a plate of fugu for a party they were throwing. I was afraid to at first, so I threw an outrageous number at him. When he didn’t back down, I made the plate, on the condition that he get me a male and female too. That’s what you see here.”
Benson didn’t much like what he was hearing. It was just more of the same behavior he was coming to expect out of the floaters. The rules and regulations that kept everyone else in line were just suggestions for them to dance around in the dark.
“How entrepreneurial of you,” Benson said at last.
Takahashi crossed his arms. “You don’t get to build on the roof of the Alexander Building without taking some risks and greasing some wheels.”
“I suppose not. What happens to the remains when you’re done making a dish?”
“The guts? They go in the reclamation bin just like all the other scales and bones.”
“And that doesn’t strike you as dangerous? Putting a deadly neurotoxin into our compost supply?”
“I don’t see how it could be. As chewed up and processed as everything gets down in the emulsion tanks? Besides, it would be so diluted by the time it goes back out, how could it be harmful?”
“It was harmful enough to Edmond Laraby.”
“You don’t know it came from my end,” Takahashi protested. “Why don’t you go talk to the people in the lab?”
“Trust me, I will, but I’m sorry Frank, I can’t have this here in my habitat. You’re breaking half a dozen food safety regs, and at least as many Conservation Codes. I’m choosing not to remember seeing this for now, but if I come back tomorrow, there had better not be anything lying around to jog my memory. Agreed?”
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