Killing Time On Mars

by Alec Taylor

  I packed a bag with emergency supplies and signed out a hovee, but on the way to the hangar I doubled back to Imani and Hu’s room, following a hunch. I felt a twinge of guilt as I disobeyed Pete’s order to avoid ‘diversions’.

  When I got to their room, I briefly looked through Imani’s effects but found nothing of interest. She had some trinkets that had been produced locally—a handful of little metal and plastic sculptures—but very few personal items. Hu’s side, on the other hand, intrigued me. I couldn’t bring myself to go through her drawers, even though I knew I technically didn’t need a search warrant.

  However, I noticed that Hu had two spare outersuits hanging on her frame. I gently pushed back the collar of each to discover that their transmitters had been rewired. A wave of suspicion swept over me, but then I realised that temporarily tampering with locators could be more common than I had previously imagined. After that discovery, I went out to the hangar and, for the second day in a row, my stomach lurched as my hovee leaped into the sky.

  This time I knew exactly where I was going—Hu was over a thousand kilometres to the south, at one of the furthest harvest outposts. It didn’t take long to lose sight of the colony from the air—all I could see was the vast expanse of red all around. The small size and greater curvature of Mars made it seem that I was higher than I really was. It felt like I was soaring through space. I suddenly felt precariously high and vulnerable, as if I could fall out of the sky at any moment. I snatched a look toward the canyon and a shudder went through my body.

  The automatic pilot flew the most efficient route to Hu. There was no bad weather and the trip took only a few minutes, accelerating and then decelerating the entire way. It decelerated at Earth’s gravity, which pushed me down into the chair and was surprisingly heavy after only a couple of weeks on Mars.

  The hovee landed on a flat-rock landing pad at the outpost, in a row of hovees. There were several massive hangars and silos nearby. At the far end of the row, a refinery was spewing residual dust out onto a massive pile. A few large diggers were shifting dust and filling trucks. I checked Hu’s locator on my heads-up display—she was in a vehicle hangar.

  Several harvesters, buggies, and diggers were inside the hangar. Hu was underneath the front of one of the harvesters and working with a maintenance robot. I didn’t know how she knew I was coming, but she pulled herself out, stood up, and watched me approach. She was tall and it was clear from the way she filled out her suit that she was physically strong.

  “Still looking for Imani?” she asked loudly when I was still a few metres away. The transmission of her voice boomed inside my helmet.

  “We found her,” I said, stopping in front of her. “She’s dead, although I guess you know that already.”

  “You’ve wasted your time coming out here. I can’t help you.”

  I paused to collect my thoughts. Her attitude hadn’t changed from our phone call; if anything, she was even more confrontational. I decided to call her on it.

  “You’re being defensive right now,” I said, “and this is a murder investigation.”

  I waited silently for a few seconds. She stood motionless, her hands on her hips. She was still holding a wrench in her right hand, and her feet were wide apart. She looked ready to fight. I waited her out.

  “Fine,” she said eventually. “What do you want to know?”

  “I’d like to know what you were doing last Sunday night, when Imani left your room.”

  She made an exasperated sound and said, “I’m busy, you know. And my next job is out there. A harvester went down a few minutes ago, and I don’t need to tell you how much we’re losing every minute.”

  “I know it’s not as simple as that. Sometimes we reach storage capacity and have to slow production.”

  “So I should stand here talking to you and not go fix it?”

  “You’re being defensive again. I’ll tell you what—I’ll go with you. We can talk while you work.”

  She immediately started walking out and I followed.

  I asked, “Could you please take me through everything you did that night?”

  “There’s nothing to tell you. I ate, washed, went back to the room and fell asleep. When I woke up she wasn’t there, but she often isn’t. In the morning, I left early and came out here.”

  “What time did you get to your room in the evening?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. You must know that already. Why are you asking me these stupid questions?”

  Her hostility was surprisingly intense. I took a long conscious breath.

  “Your suit transmitter was in the bathrooms around nine,” I said, “and back in your room around ten. Did you see anyone in the bathroom, anyone who’d be able to confirm you were there?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember who else was there. Do you think my suit was there but I wasn’t? Stop asking questions you know the answers to.”

  “You have three outside suits,” I volunteered, instinctively trying a new angle. I was curious to see what she would do when she lost her temper, and I hoped she might blurt out something incriminating.

  “Yes,” she replied. “You’re doing it again.”

  “Is it normal to have so many?” I asked, prodding.

  “Yes, of course, for anyone who works out here. You obviously haven’t completed a rotation in the field.”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve only been here two weeks. Is it also normal to tamper with the transmitters on your suits?”

  “What do you mean, tamper?”

  “The two spare suits hanging in your room looked like they’d been rewired.”

  We were at the hovee pad. She turned toward me and stepped closer. Her visor was nearly touching mine.

  “You searched my room,” she growled.

  “Yes,” I said. “Imani was murdered; I looked for evidence in her room.” Here it comes.

  However, she just turned on her heel and jumped into the hovee. I had to sprint around to the other side as she prepared to take off. It appeared that she wasn’t going to lose control, at least not yet.

  I tried another angle as I buckled up. “Whoever murdered Imani disabled her suit transmitter, and their own.”

  We flew in silence for a few seconds. She accelerated hard, at a very low altitude.

  “You didn’t like her,” I said.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I killed her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “She had lots of sexual partners, you know. They were lining up.”

  Hu was flying the hovee manually, using the joystick. She was accelerating far harder than recommended and we were screaming along just a few metres above the ground. Every now and then, she would jerk the joystick and we would jump over a rock or dune. The plain around us was a bland red monotone and it made me lose any sense of direction or altitude. It seemed like we were going to plough into the dust at any moment—I couldn’t believe that anyone could fly like that. I realised that she was glancing down to the side—she was flying by the size of the shadow of the hovee on the dust below.

  She banked hard and pulled back, and a harvester appeared right in front of us. I was sure we would hit it. She applied an enormous burst of thrust, and I was mashed into my seat. Then we miraculously touched down softly and I was left dumbfounded by her incredible skill. If she was trying to distract me from my questioning, it was working.

  I followed her over to the harvester and, when I had regained my composure, I ignored her comment about Imani’s partners and asked, “Did she share her views about the future of the colony with you?”

  “Yes,” she said as she opened a big panel on the side of the harvester and started clearing out dust.

  “What did you think of them?”

  “Nothing. She was insane. And deluded. To think JOSEV would give control of the greatest power source ever discovered to a bunch of workers and robots. Stupid.”

  “She wasn’t arguing for that, for control of the Helium. Most people have a say i
n what happens in their community, so why shouldn’t we?” I said, deliberately playing devil’s advocate.

  “This is not a community; it’s a joint venture. A business.”

  She pulled hard on something deep inside the harvester and then quickly tightened a bolt. My respect for her grew rapidly. Then I realised that it was unlikely she was going to lose control; I suspected that she had been playing with me the whole time. I threw one last needle at her.

  “You seem very loyal to JOSEV,” I said. “Do you think she was a serious threat to the company?”

  At this question Hu stopped, looked at me, and then said, “You are a stupid, insignificant, pathetic man. You can’t arrest me, you can’t accuse me, you can’t even interrupt me.”

  And, with that, she slammed the panel closed, leaped into the hovee, and took off before I had a chance to move. The harvester rumbled, came to life, and drove away. I was left standing there alone, in the middle of a dust plain, a thousand kilometres from the colony.

  11. BIG NEWS

  I remotely accessed the hovee I had left back at the landing pad and programmed it to pick me up. While I waited for it to arrive, I decided that I was not going to live the rest of my life in a society with no laws. Something would have to change.

  When I eventually returned to the colony, I didn’t feel like heading to the office to tell Pete about the animosity from Hu. So I went to visit Chris to see if she had anything from the autopsies.

  As I entered the infirmary, she said, “Oh, you’re here. How’s the investigation going?”

  “Not well,” I muttered. “Please tell me you’ve found something helpful.”

  “Well, this is going to be one of the most interesting and valuable learnings for the colony—for humanity, really.”

  She was unusually animated, waving her arms. I shifted uncomfortably—we were talking about dead people that she had known personally.

  “Imani,” Chris continued, “had lived on Mars for about seven Earth-years and it had significantly changed her body. You know we have a wide range of body sizes here, just like on Earth, but in general we’re lighter. We thought it was because we eat less food because it tastes so bland, but it seems it’s much more complex than that. It appears that all of Imani’s muscles had wasted, some smaller groups by as much as fifty percent. Her bone density had fallen by…I’m estimating forty percent, and her circulatory system had significantly reduced capacity. Based on her weight and waist measurements relative to the rest of the colony, I think we can safely say that the general reduction in weight has more to do with muscle, blood, and bone loss than metabolism or the mix of consumption and aerobic exercise.”

  “That’s…interesting,” I said, fidgeting and frowning with impatience, “and I’d like to read your full assessment at some point, but right now I’m trying to figure out how she died. Can you tell me anything about how she was killed?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry, it’s just a very interesting case. I’m packaging everything up into a file note, which I’ll send back to Earth. It’s going to…Anyway, it was asphyxiation, resulting from manual strangulation.”

  “Manual strangulation? So no weapon? Hands?”

  “Yes, there are deep finger and thumb marks around her neck. Strong hands, from the bruises. It probably didn’t take much, though—her neck muscles had wasted considerably.”

  “Can you tell how the killer was standing when she killed Imani?” I asked, imagining Hu.

  “Do you know it was a she?” asked Chris with sudden interest.

  “What? No, sorry, I’m just trying to picture someone, anyone.”

  Chris paused and looked at me enquiringly.

  “Mike, what did you see out there at the canyon?”

  I stared at her, wondering what to say.

  “Nothing, really,” I said finally. “After Eli drove over the edge, I caught a shadow out of the corner of my eye.”

  “A shadow?”

  “Yes. Listen, we don’t have time to worry about trivia like that. Trust me, it was nothing. What can you tell me about how she died?”

  “The thumbs were pressed onto the front of her neck, compressing the larynx and carotid arteries, causing loss of both blood flow to the brain and air to the lungs. The larynx is damaged.”

  “How long would it have taken? Would she have been able to fight back for long?”

  “It was forceful and effective. I’m guessing she was unconscious in seconds, maybe ten or fifteen.”

  “She didn’t have much time to put up a fight,” I said, thinking out loud. “She would have grabbed her attacker’s hands, trying to remove them, and become unconscious seconds later. No time to struggle.”

  “We need to talk about her blood,” interrupted Chris. “As you know, every colonist receives a small dose of medicine every day, in the form of a pill, because JOSEV decided it would be easier and more flexible than embedded dispensers. Well, here’s the first revelation: when I ran the full blood work, I discovered she had low levels of anti-cancer and -radiation meds, and no birth control in her system at all.”

  “What the hell?” I couldn’t imagine why someone would risk getting cancer.

  “I know. No birth control at all. She must have been palming her pill and ineffectively substituting the cancer meds.”

  “I can’t believe it. Why would she do that? Why would she take no birth control?”

  Chris didn’t reply. She just looked at me with her eyes wide and eyebrows raised, nodding slightly, waiting for me to answer my own question.

  “She wasn’t trying to get pregnant?” I said. “Here?”

  “Not just trying,” she replied.

  “My God.”

  “Yes. As soon as I noticed the absence of birth control, I looked and found she had elevated levels of the hormone chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, which indicates she was pregnant. I confirmed it with an inspection of her uterus. It was early; she was only a few weeks along.”

  “Wow. Did she know?”

  “I think so, though I don’t know if she had any way of testing it formally. She obviously had her lab, where I suspect she was stripping out the birth control from her meds. Her period would have been late, but menstruation can be erratic here. She might have had other symptoms, like nausea.”

  “This news might change things a little.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Could Eli have killed her because he didn’t want to raise a child here?” I said, thinking out loud again.

  Chris didn’t reply.

  “He hated it here, I think,” I continued, turning away and talking to myself. “But he loved her, and I bet he would have loved a child. No, it could have brought them back together and at least would have connected them permanently.”

  “Her other levels are all over the place,” said Chris, ignoring my musings. “But I think everything else is a result of her time here. The main difference in Eli is a high level of psilocybin.”

  “Hm?”

  “It’s a naturally occurring psychoactive compound, commonly found in mushrooms. The cookies, Mike. He was high when he died.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So, Imani was pregnant when she was strangled and Eli was high when he drove off the cliff.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else on Eli?”

  “No. Well, nothing that will interest you, I guess. I could go on about the effect of our atmosphere and gravity. Their bodies have given me two data points, one at seven Earth-years, the other at five. Three data points if you include the foetus. I’m going to fit some curves to the rates of change; it’s going to be the baseline for human health and development on this planet.”

  “You sound almost happy,” I said, a little repulsed.

  “Sorry. It’s a terrible tragedy. But one of the reasons we came here is to discover and this is a huge discovery.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll leave that to you. Who else knows what you just told me?”

  “Nobody. Just you and me. Bu
t we can publish now, right?”

  “No, please don’t tell anyone else yet. This is important information and I think Karl will want to manage it carefully. I suppose we’ll eventually conclude that Eli was responsible, though I’m not yet convinced. Go ahead and keep writing your report. Just don’t send it yet.”

  “Okay.” Her shoulders fell and she frowned.

  “Where’s the rest of your team?”

  “They’re out on calls.”

  “Good. I’m going to ask Karl and Pete to come here. You can brief them personally.”

  Pete and Karl were like statues while Chris shared the news. They barely blinked when she announced that Imani had been pregnant and Pete just nodded when they were told Eli had been high on mushrooms. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps there had been other pregnancies that had been hushed up. And obviously everyone knew about the mushrooms.

  “Well, now, that is that,” said Karl. “Are you satisfied, Mike?”

  I stared at him, bemused.

  “We are, sir,” said Pete. “We can close the case now. It’s clear that Eli was having a very bad drug experience. He was deeply upset by the break up with Imani. She almost certainly told him she was pregnant; he flipped out, killed her, and then ran the next morning. The guilt made him kill himself out at the canyon.”

  “So it all fits together,” said Karl. “No more loose ends. We tie it off and move on. We will have funeral for Imani, nothing for Eli. Jan will organise it. Doctor, how soon can you do the promession?”

  “What?” replied Chris, eyebrows raised in confusion.

  “The promession, with the bag,” said Karl.