Spider Play

by Lee Killough

  “Did they need Geyer for that?” Janna asked.

  Doubrava smiled. “She was a Marine. There’s nothing they don’t know about honor guards. She’s making certain that wrap is a perfect cocoon.”

  Or — because everyone had to be suspect until eliminated and she was lean enough to fit their ghost’s disguise — she was making certain nothing had disturbed the data stick. As the individual in charge of security, Janna reflected, Geyer also had the expertise to circumvent it, and of course access to all areas of the station. Except she had not come alone and unless the staffers abetted her, had no opportunity to check the stick.

  The group left ten minutes later.

  The lights went out, only to come up again at oh seven hundred. Geyer escorted three males — one of them Titus — and a female in through the portal across from the morgue.

  Doubrava said, “The fem is Iowana Saleem, the crewmate working with Chenoweth who recorded his suit blowing.”

  She wore a dazzling white body suit that emphasized her dark tea complexion and multi-colored braids gathered on top of her head, where they undulated in the air like rainbow snakes.

  They shortly emerged from the morgue — the four gripping handles attached to the head and foot ends of the cocoon — and marched away through the portal across the hall.

  “There he goes,” Doubrava said. “I watched his send-off from here. Most of the construction crews were there in Receiving. Fontana, too, as a demonstration of respect. So.” He took a breath. “If Chenoweth didn’t have the data stick planted before he died, only four individuals had the opportunity to do so in the morgue: Titus, yours truly, Fontana conspiring with Titus, and our stealth visitor. But . . . I want more evidence before inviting even Titus in for an interview. How about viewing the inquest?”

  Janna nodded. “We don’t need Dr. Waller’s testimony or the autopsy recording, but you said there’s a recording of the suit blowing. We ought to see that.” Unpleasant as she suspected it might be.

  “Then the suit,” Mama said.

  “Right.” Doubrava turned to his desk. “There are actually two recordings. Saleem’s shows it best. Watch her testimony first, though.”

  The screen opened on the fem’s tense face. Other screens appeared, too. Janna recognized the central shaft on several. An elevator carrying passengers and luggage passed up through one view. Another showed a cafeteria . . . laughing individuals clustering around chair-less tables with trays on top.

  Seeing those brought Janna a sudden hunger pang. When had she eaten last? Before she slept on the shuttle.

  Doubrava gave the new screens a quick glance, then pushed them aside to pull the corners of the screen with Saleem out to a two-foot square and turn to his desk keyboard.

  Fingers playing across it, he said, “I don’t need to see this again so I’m leaving you with it while I go after lunch. In case you haven’t noticed the time. I’m setting control of the recording on the bottom edge of the screen. Touching the center freezes or unfreezes. Run your finger right to fast-forward. Backscan to the left. You know how to enlarge further if you want.”

  “We could take a break and all go,” Mama said.

  “There?” Doubrava waved at the cafeteria screen. “I wouldn’t recommend it with so many newcomers. Adapting to eating in weightlessness makes them entertaining, but often noisy, and messy. Let’s eat in for now and I’ll treat you to civilized dining at dinner. Any food allergies? If you’re vegetarian we have no problem accommodating that. No? What would you like to drink? Coffee, tea, water?”

  The options made Janna realize she had also drunk nothing since leaving the shuttle. “Coffee and water.”

  “Me, too,” Mama said.

  “Ace. ”.” Doubrava skated to his office portal, then saluting, disappeared through it.

  Mama touched the bottom of the screen.

  Saleem’s voice, husky and clipped, began in the middle of a sentence. “. . . were printing out wall panels to sandwich in the number two or three curve forms—”

  “Manually shaping a panel?” A pompous male voice asked a tone of disbelief. “Can’t they be printed with any curve you want?”

  Saleem frowned. “Yes, but—”

  “Then why—”

  Fontana’s voice interrupted him. “Dr. Larmore . . . jury members may pose questions relevant to this inquiry. These remarks are not. However, for the record, shaping in the forms is faster than reprogramming the printer for each different curve, and the set time is no longer than for cooling on the out tray. Please continue, Ms. Saleem.”

  “I had just clamped a panel in the form. When I turned around—” Her voice caught. She set her jaw and continued in a tight voice. “The front of Chen’s suit was . . . rippling. I hit Record on my helmet and—”

  Fontana said, “Tell the jury why that was your first reaction.”

  “When equipment suddenly starts acting different it’s usually bad. We need a record of it. At the same time I yelled a warning and pushed off the form toward him. Before I could reach him—” She broke off . . . took a breath. “The front of Chen’s suit just . . . peeled open. There was this puff of steam and it was like a jet, pushing him away from me down the porto.”

  “Porto?” the botanist interrupted.

  “Portable module,” Fontana said. “They’re used on the construction site for storage, locker rooms, construction office, the printer, etcetera. Compact enough to slip into a standard module shell or otherwise place where most convenient for the project.”

  “And they’re tall enough to print a wall panel?”

  “The panels print horizontally. Go on, Ms. Saleem.”

  Saleem took another breath. “I went after him though I knew I couldn’t catch him. I hoped Mims at the end taking panels off the line would, then if they got an e-cap there fast enough, he had a chance.”

  “That’s one of the emergency capsules around the station?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Fontana said. “Construction sites keep a number handy.”

  On the screen, Saleem’s mouth twisted. “It didn’t help this time. Mims caught him and closed the suit, and they had him in the e-cap in no time, but the readouts all stayed red and when the doc came he said Chen was likely dead before Mims caught him.”

  “Had there been any earlier indication of a malfunction?” Fontana asked.

  “No, sir. None.” She let out a breath that seemed to deflate her. Only her braids remained animated, undulating above her.

  “Thank you, Ms. Saleem,” Fontana said, then: “This is her recording.”

  Janna braced herself as Saleem disappeared from the screen.

  The view replacing her on the screen resembled a pipe . . . long and narrow, open on the far end. Partially visible on the right, a curved surface leaned out from the wall. One of the forms? An overhead line with fat clamps on it stretched toward the open end. In the center of Saleem’s recording stood a figure in a lime green suit no bulkier than well-padded motorcycle suits. As she testified, the front indeed rippled . . . down a black line running midline from neck to crotch.

  Saleem’s voice yelled, “Chen! Your suit!” The view jerked as she launched toward him. “We need an e-cap!”

  Inside his helmet’s transparent face plate, Chenoweth’s expression froze. That lasted only a moment before he looked down, but his paralysis broke a second too late to maybe hold the suit together.

  Time code reading 05:19, the front of the suit blew open . . . flaps peeling sideways, releasing a cloud of vapor. As Saleem described, it acted like a jet, lifting him off the deck and down the porto.

  Two sounds overlapped each other, a gasp and Saleem screaming, “Don’t hold your breath!”

  Had the gasp been Chenoweth mistakenly, fatally, sucking in the last air in his suit?

  The thought brought back memory of his ruptured lungs flayed open on Kolb’s autopsy table, giving Janna a terrible moment of imagining how that must have felt happening to him. She suppressed a shudder.

>   “Mims! Catch him!”

  The recording took them down the porto after Chenoweth, who disappeared out of it well ahead of Saleem. By the time she reached the end, a crewmate standing on a broad step below the lip of the module had Chenoweth in a hug from behind that closed the front of the suit.

  “Chen? Chen!” Saleem called.

  Without a response.

  The view whipped right and left while she desperately whispered, “E-cap, e-cap.” Then sighed in relief.

  Four more crewmates powered by jet belts flew into view, two of them carrying a tube like the one in the hallway of their guest quarters. A panel of readouts ran along the side, while a compartment at one end presumably contained emergency aid supplies. Gloved portholes in the sides allowed treatment of the patient inside.

  Mama froze the screen. “That’s all we need to see, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes. Shall we go look at the suit?”

  “In a bit. Look at this background first. What do you see?”

  She studied it. “A large space with a bulkhead on the far side.”

  “A massive space, and that bulkhead’s a deck, I think.” He backscanned to the point Saleem reached the end of the module, then ran forward slowly. “When she turns her head looking for the e-tube, you can see the surface has a long curve. It has to be the rim of one of those ring modules we saw at the bottom of the station on approach.”

  “Okay.” She looked around from the screen. “Is that significant in Chenoweth’s death?”

  He shrugged. “You never know. In any case, it’s interesting seeing the construction site. Like the shuttle crew, I wonder what new facilities are going in down there.”

  “I’m more interested in seeing the suit.”

  “Let’s eat first,” Doubrava said from the office portal. He held up a stack of three trays, drink bulbs suction-cupped to the top one.

  Janna’s stomach rumbled. “I won’t argue with that. But eat where?”

  The room had no furniture but the desk.

  “Chez Doubrava.” He crossed to the wall opposite the screen wall and pushed on a panel. It rebounded, folding down into a table. “Voilá.”

  Handing them the trays — thick enough for built-in bowls — he demonstrated how to unfold the hook-shaped legs on the bottom and slide them on the table.

  “Two things to remember with space cuisine: spice and glue. Spice, because our sense of taste tends to dull here. I’m told that on the early space stations, the greatest crisis was a shortage of hot sauce. Glue to hold everything together — sticky rice, thick sauce, peanut butter, stuff the entree in pocket bread or wrap it in tortillas. Which is why, because finger food is the easiest introduction to eating here, flipping up the lid of the central bowl will reveal three flour tortillas with the ends tucked in so you can pick them up to eat. Same reason they’re of modest size . . . ease of handling. The filling is thick but keep a napkin handy. Side dishes in the other bowls are cherry tomatoes so you can eat them in one bite, orange sections, and a brownie. If you’re still hungry after that, I keep a cache of chocolate bars. Here’s your coffee and water.” He suction-cupped the bulbs between tray sections.

  Janna picked up a tortilla, testing its temperature. Not too hot to hold. A tentative bite found the contents hotter . . . though more from spice than temperature.

  Doubrava grinned as she reached for her water bulb. “Too hot?”

  “Just a dry throat.” To prove it, after a long drink she took another bite. Then an even bigger one, tasting beans, some kind of meat, cheese, onions, and salsa. Her taste buds and stomach cheered. She wolfed down that tortilla and reached for the next.

  Doubrava bit into his own lunch, something stuffed in pocket bread. “Our nutritionists feed us well and it all comes from our greenhouses.”

  What about the meat and cheese, Janna wondered, since she doubted they kept beef and dairy cattle. But culinary experiences with Mama and traveling abroad with her father had taught her to not question too closely where the food came from.

  Around a mouthful of his tortilla, Mama said, “On Saleem’s recording, the construction site looks like it’s in one of the rings lower down the station.”

  Doubrava nodded. “Level Twenty. It is important?”

  “Probably not. I’m just always curious.”

  Janna said, “According to the time code on her recording, Chenoweth’s suit blew close to oh five thirty. Where is that in relation to the shift schedule?”

  “Toward the end, which is oh six hundred. The question came up in the inquest, too, whether fatigue might have been a factor, making Chenoweth careless. For most personnel, shifts — like here in Security — are officially twelve hours. Construction crews work six. Six on, six off. Every six shifts on they get twelve off, and after eighteen shifts, twenty-four hours off. Chenoweth was on just his second shift after twenty-four off.” Doubrava finished his sandwich and tossed a tomato in his mouth, followed by coffee. “When Saleem explained their routine at the printer, that asshole botanist suggested boredom affected Chenoweth, so he snagged his suit on the printer. Except there’s nothing on the printer to snag, and it’s clear on the recording the problem originated inside the suit.”

  “Which it’s time to examine,” Mama said.

  “Watch the testimony of the suit maintenance techs first.”

  Using one hand for his sandwich, he played the other across his desk. The image on the wall turned into a dizzying blur. When it stopped, a VE suit filled the screen. A rumbling male voice said, “. . . dressed a dummy Chenoweth’s size in his suit, set it in VE conditions, and removed the flow control from the airpack to see what would happen if that malfunctioned.”

  “That’s Julius Humner talking,” Doubrava said. “One of the techs who examined the suit.”

  “But you’ve stated examination of his airpack found no malfunction,” a clipped female voice said.

  “We needed to test whether a malfunction could blow the seal.”

  On the screen, the suit showed little evidence of air pouring into it. The arms and legs barely puffed. Nor did the torso.

  “Nothing’s happening,” an unknown voice said.

  “On the contrary,” Humner said. “At this point the entire contents of the airpack, over two-thirds more than Chenoweth would have had left at that point in his shift, has emptied into the suit.”

  “I see no evidence of it,” the botanist Larmore huffed.

  “That’s because the mesh layered in the fabric is doing its job maintaining the integrity of the suit. Too good a job, in fact. We put stress gauges in the dummy and when we removed it, the readings revealed that such a malfunction occurring with Chenoweth in the suit would result in compression injuries. Next we removed the dummy and pumped in air with colored smoke to see how much pressure it would take for the seal to fail. One of the same safety tests run by VE suit manufacturers.”

  The screen blinked and switched to a slightly different image of the suit . . . this time flaccid. It began filling out, the arms, legs, and torso going from flat to stiffly round. Then it stopped expanding. The mesh layer Humner mentioned preventing more?

  “What did that prove?” came Larmore’s voice.

  “It’s not finished. Watch the numbers. We’re now at two atmospheres in the suit.”

  Janna saw them on the lower edge of the screen . . . reading 29.4.

  Mama said, “One atmosphere — normal air pressure at sea level — is fourteen point seven psi.”

  The trivia he knew never failed to amaze her.

  The numbers rose to 44.1.

  “Three atmospheres,” Humner said.

  Janna found herself holding her breath, braced for an explosion.

  It never came. At 55.2, a wisp of orange appeared at the collar ring attaching the helmet to the suit, then at the bottom of the seal. The wisps thickened as the numbers reached 58.8. Then stopped.

  “That’s four atmospheres,” Humner said. “At which point we quit inflating because—”
>
  Doubrava tapped his desk and closed the screen. “They demonstrated the strength of the seal. The suit develops leaks, but doesn’t blow open.” He shook his head. “Now let’s see if Forensics can find a reason why it did.”

  They finished eating and, leaving the trays to deal with later, followed Doubrava down the hall to a portal on the right. The room inside must occupy a third of the module’s length . . . lined with every machine Janna had seen in SI’s labs at home, plus unfamiliar ones. A metal work table occupied the center, the near third of it with a keyboard in the surface and a scene board rising from the center.

  The far end held a lime green VE suit, sleeves and pant legs pinned down by disc magnets. The torso section empty between front halves of the suit folded out in a vee gave it the eerie appearance of an autopsy on an alien body.

  Janna saw only one tech in the lab — female with a curly cap of flaming hair — standing on the far side of the table passing a multiscanner along the inside edge of the flap closest to her.

  Doubrava led the way down the table. “Perfect timing. Finding anything, Zee?”

  Not standing, Janna realized, as they reached her. She sat belted in an armless chair. Short arms told Janna why. The tech lacked the height to reach the table top without it. A “person of below average height”, as Kingsley Borthwick, chief of the SCPD’s Evidence Examination Unit chief, characterized his own stature. Like him, she probably stood between three and four feet tall.

  Looking up, her eyes narrowed. “Not perfect timing. I’ve only begun my examination.”

  Mama murmured from the corner of his mouth, “I think we’ve met the King’s sister.”

  That tone and wording did echo Borthwick.

  Doubrava grinned. “Then it’s the perfect time to have a look at the suit before we seriously interrupt you. Brill and Maxwell, meet our Forensics mage, Zea Cathmore.”

  Cathmore eyed them. “The detectives from Earth who think the suit was sabotaged? The suit techs found nothing, and they’re the aces.”

  “Which is why we’ve turned to you,” Doubrava said. “If there’s anything to find, you will.”

  “Don’t try honeying me!” But Cathmore’s eyes smiled, saying it.