Star Cops

by Chris Boucher

  Nathan said, “They’re beautiful reproductions.”

  “Oh, they’re not reproductions. Everything in this room is genuine. My husband was very meticulous. Obsessive, even. I was only allowed…” She paused, and then with a slight smile corrected herself, “Even I… was only allowed in here on special occasions. Normally he kept it locked.”

  “Probably a sensible precaution,” Nathan said. “Given the value of everything,”

  She shrugged a small shrug of agreement. “I suppose so.”

  Her resentment towards her husband was clear, but Nathan knew she could have reached that stage of grief by now. He said, “I’m told he swam at the same time every day.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there a reason?”

  “He liked to keep fit.”

  “I meant for the time.”

  “Oh. No, I don’t think so. It was just a routine.”

  “Did he have routines for other things?”

  “Yes.”

  Nathan thought, this is like pulling teeth, and wondered if she was doing it deliberately. He said, “For example?”

  “Chief Superintendent, there wasn’t anything my husband did not have a routine for. Except dying, perhaps… As I said he was a very meticulous man.” She stood up, and crossed to the sideboard. “I think I’ll have a drink. Would you like a drink?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Scotch? Sherry?”

  “I’d prefer coffee, if it’s possible.”

  “Of course.”

  When she had left the room, Nathan got up and took Box from his pocket. “Box,” he said to activate the machine, then, “take an inventory of the contents of this room.”

  He made two three hundred and sixty degree turns so that Box could scan everything.

  “File complete,” Box said in its exact simulation of his voice.

  Nathan looked round the room. Something in the way the woman had played with the desk arrangement bothered him. ‘Even I was only allowed in…’

  “Box. The contents of this room are all authentic mid-Victorian antiques.”

  “The file is amended accordingly,” said Box.

  “Check the insurance database and tell me the value.”

  “Is there a cross-reference?”

  “The owner’s name is Carmodie.”

  “Checking.”

  Nathan went back and sat down. Box said, “Do you wish the figure for the actual or the insured contents of the room?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Items on the database are not on the recently completed inventory.”

  “What’s missing?”

  “A clock, a small oil painting, two china dogs, a paperweight.”

  Behind him, the door began to open. Quickly, Nathan said “Thank you Box,” and closed down the machine.

  The woman backed in, carrying a tray of coffee. “Talking to yourself, Chief Superintendent?” she said.

  “It’s a bad habit, I’m afraid,” Nathan said, and smiled his most disarming smile.

  “Not really,” said the woman, without responding to the smile. “It’s just a sign of loneliness that’s all.”

  She took the hot coffee pot from the tray, and put it on the unprotected highly polished desk top.

  When Nathan got home, Lincoln’s report was waiting on his workstation screen-hold. He skimmed it as he got changed; he was already running late for the ISPF recruitment board.

  The interview with the dead man’s business partner had produced a great deal of information, most of which was of no interest at all. One unremarked detail did strike him, though. He punched up Lincoln’s workscreen, and caught him just as he was logging-off to leave for home. “What put you onto this unregistered loan, Brian?”

  Relaxed as ever, Lincoln showed no sign of irritation at being delayed. “He volunteered it. Along with his life story, business career and inside leg measurement. I think I made him nervous.”

  “That’s why it’s better face to face.”

  “He wasn’t expecting to see me, certainly.”

  “Why cash? Was it just to avoid the bank computers?”

  “You want to review that section?”

  Nathan frowned, “I’m running late, but – yeah, all right.”

  Lincoln checked the timecode on the interview tape. When he keyed the playback window, it automatically showed a freeze-frame of a small, well-fed man in his sixties. With ID and context established, the image mixed to a close-up of the face and the interrogation resumed. The man looked worried. “I always said his obsession with fitness would be the death of him.”

  “Obsessive about it, was he?” the unseen Lincoln prompted.

  “Oh God, yes. He was obsessive about every damn thing. Neatness, punctuality, routine. Christ, there were times when I thought he was more like a machine than a human being. I mean, it made for a good business partner. He did more than his share of the work, but even so…”

  “Can you think of any reason why he might have wanted to kill himself?”

  The man was obviously taken aback. “Kill himself?”

  “It wasn’t suicide, Brian,” Nathan said.

  On the main screen Lincoln nodded, “This is the bit coming up.”

  In the screen window, the little man shook his head and went on: “He wouldn’t have killed himself.”

  “He wasn’t short of money, say?” Lincoln suggested.

  “Why, what makes you think he might have been short of money?” The little man looked momentarily defensive, and slightly shifty.

  Lincoln’s voice hardened. “I’m asking you.”

  “I loaned his wife some money.”

  There was a pause, before Lincoln said politely, “I don’t think there’s any record of that, is there?”

  “It was a private transaction.”

  “No bank transaction is private from a police computer investigation, sir.”

  “This was cash. I got it through some contacts which I shan’t tell you about so there’s no point in asking.”

  “Why would she want cash?”

  The man had recovered his composure and was more confident now. “It isn’t illegal, you know. Not quite. Not yet.”

  “Most of its uses are, though, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes. And I suspect that what she had in mind probably was, too. I think she was going to buy something on the black market. Something for him. Something really special, you know? She mentioned an anniversary surprise. But it didn’t happen. After he drowned, she returned the money to me.”

  Nathan said, “Okay thanks, that’s all I wanted.”

  Lincoln stopped the playback. “It seems the husband collected antiques,” he said.

  “That was good interrogation, Brian. Well done.”

  “He reckoned that’s what she was getting him, but either she couldn’t get it, or it wasn’t what he wanted. So is that it? Can I close the file now?”

  Nathan was in too much of a hurry to waste time on irritation. “No, Inspector. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Lincoln smiled. “Somebody getting married?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your neck scarf’s crooked.”

  “Oh, the wedding suit?” Nathan looked down at himself. “Job interview,” he said and broke the connection.

  It was typical of the whole shoestring operation, Nathan thought, that the electronic conference room was a public facility hired by the hour. And it didn’t help that the control system was programmed so that the real-time holograms of the board members were just a little larger than life-size. The difference was hardly noticeable, but it was enough to be intimidating if you were not aware of the interview technique involved. If you were, and any e
xperienced interrogator ought to be, then the effect was absurd at best. Under the circumstances, the absence of an American and a Russian on the board seemed entirely appropriate. The set-up was too amateur and the threat too professional for either power to wish the ISPF well. All in all, the arrangements served only to confirm Nathan’s original attitude to the Star Cops job.

  “Why do you want the job?” asked the token industrialist, Nashu Yakasone, from his office in Tokyo. Of the five people facing Nathan across the table he looked the most real. There was no shimmer on the pool of light in which he sat, and all background visual had been screened out. He could almost have been in the room.

  Nathan looked him in the eye and said, “As it stands, I don’t want the job. I’m a professional policeman. I should hate to waste my time on an under-funded, over-extended public relations exercise.”

  Lars Hendvorrsen, tipped – at least by his tireless press agent – for high office in the Europarliament, snorted with theatrical amusement. “Typical,” he said. “He hasn’t got the job yet, already he pitches for a bigger budget.”

  Françoise Lancine, General Manager of the ESA’s Charles De Gaulle said, “Is it your intention to bargain with us, Chief Superintendent?”

  “I’m a thief-taker, ma’am, not a bargainer.”

  “A thief-taker?”

  “Detective.”

  “Ah. I understand.”

  “The successful candidate would be off-Earth for three years. How would you regard such a tour of duty?” asked Neela Shah, the elegant Indian space physicist and acting Liaison Co-ordinator.

  “With unbounded enthusiasm,” Nathan said dryly, and then allowed himself to smile at her. She was a pretty woman. She smiled back. Nathan found himself regretting that what faced him was just a hologram; generated in Venice, if the view from the window behind her was real.

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s one of the drawbacks of our development programmes. It’s healthier to have a realistic attitude to the problems.”

  “Unfortunately,” Hendvorrsen butted in, “a realistic attitude is something the development programmes conspicuously lack, as our esteemed Liaison Co-ordinator should be well aware, don’t you agree, Chief Superintendent?”

  Deadpan, Nathan said, “I always try to be agreeable, sir.”

  “Representative Hendvorrsen’s contribution to the debate has always owed more to political ambition than to realism,” said Shah coolly.

  “Unlike you, Ms. Shah, I was elected to my office,” Hendvorrsen said, limbering up for the sort of row his career thrived on.

  “But not to this board,” she snapped back. “You shouted your way onto this.”

  As if to confirm what she said, Hendvorrsen increased the volume another notch. “The voice of the people should not be heard in the places where their money is spent,” he declaimed. “Is that your opinion?”

  Nathan relaxed a little. If these people were more prepared to bitch at one another than they were to interview him, then maybe he was off the hook.

  “It is my opinion,” said the only police professional on the board, “that we should get back to the business we are here for.” Marie Mueller glanced at the papers in front of her, and went on, “Chief Superintendent; you have been a police officer for fifteen years?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You have reached your present rank faster than you would have done in my force. What do you put this down to?”

  “Caution?”

  “You are cautious?”

  “No, ma’am. You are.”

  Mueller frowned. “Your Commander gives you an excellent report. You are it seems an outstanding officer.” She looked at him and waited. Nathan stared back at her. The uncomfortable silence was another routine technique which was wasted on him. “Do you have any comment?” she asked eventually.

  Nathan shrugged. “He’d be unlikely to give me a bad report under the circumstances.”

  “Tell me Chief Superintendent –” Hendvorrsen began.

  “I had not finished with the candidate,” Mueller said, and went on before Hendvorrsen could protest. “Can you suggest why, if you are so valuable to your superior, why does he recommend you so warmly for this job?”

  “Perhaps he wants to get rid of me,” said Nathan.

  “Why would you think that?” asked Mueller with a small, triumphant smile.

  “Obviously,” said Françoise Lancine, “because no sensible executive wants people below them who are trop… uh… too clever. Can we get on, please? There are many calls on my time, and on the power I am using for this link.”

  “I have not finished with the candidate,” said Hendvorrsen, and paused for objections. When there were none, he said, “How do you feel about the waste of resources the whole endeavour represents?”

  “The Star Cops?” Nathan asked, deliberately using the disparaging nickname.

  “Space exploration,” said Hendvorrsen, who had a point to make.

  “I suppose it is expensive,” said Nathan, “if all we’re going to be is tourists. But then again, where do you send the man who’s been everywhere?”

  “A joke? You think of it as a joke?” asked Lancine.

  Nathan shook his head. “Where else is there for us to go?”

  “Good answer,” Hendvorrsen said. “It is The Last Great Adventure. The problem at the moment is that it is administered by fools, charlatans and rogues.”

  “My professional concern is only with the rogues, sir. The fools and charlatans I leave to your profession.”

  “Good answer,” said Lancine, making no attempt to hide her amusement.

  “You regard a police force as necessary out there?” asked Yakasone.

  “I regard it as inevitable, sir. Where there’s living, there’s policemen.”

  Neela Shah moved to close the proceedings. “Do you have any questions for us?” she asked.

  Nathan smiled again and said, “What exactly is a Liaison Co-ordinator?”

  “It’s Eurobabble for chairperson,” she said. “And, in that capacity, I must ask if you have any preference about which station you wish to visit for your acclimatization trials?”

  “Do you have one within commuting distance of say… Venice?” Nathan asked. When she smiled and lowered her eyes momentarily, he felt guilty, as though he’d actually been unfaithful to Lee.

  “The German candidate,” said Mueller, “has indicated the European station would be a logical choice.”

  So there was a German candidate, Nathan thought. That explained her attitude. “I wouldn’t presume to quarrel with German logic, ma’am,” he said.

  “I am arranging a fact-finding mission there myself,” said Hendvorrsen. Nathan noticed Françoise Lancine react to this news, but she said nothing. “I may seek you out,” continued Hendvorrsen, “so you can give me your assessments of the station’s inefficiencies.”

  “Without prejudging the issue, naturellement,” Lancine said dryly.

  Shah said briskly, “I will make the necessary arrangements, Chief Superintendent. In the meantime, I suggest you pay serious attention to the astronaut training. It’s intended to fit you for a hostile environment.”

  “Out here, you get very few chances to learn from your mistakes,” Lancine said.

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Thank you, Chief Superintendent Spring. I’m sure I speak for the other board members when I say it’s been a pleasure to meet you,” said Shah and smiled. “Ladies and gentlemen, the last candidate is waiting in Barcelona, if you would be kind enough to reset.” As her hologram faded, Nathan was almost disappointed that her smile was not the last thing to disappear.

  When they had all gone, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Some days,” he said aloud to the empty room, “try as
you will, nothing goes wrong.”

  Crime Scene

  As the last of the cargo was being lifted by lunar tug to rendezvous with the freighter Dædalus, the loading manifest was still unchecked by the pilot. He had remained in quarters on Moonbase with his co-pilot – who was now naked, and had just taken his erection in one broad palmed, stubby fingered hand and eased it into place. He groaned softly as she began to push herself onto it, wriggling her hips very slightly from side to side. When he felt the slippery warmth begin he dug his fingers into her small round buttocks and lifted them so that he could thrust forwards.

  “Slowly,” she gasped.

  “This is slowly,” he grunted, thrusting in again so that she arched her back slightly, and wrapped her legs behind his as she raised her hips to meet him. Sex in one-sixth G is not easy but, as Mike and Lara had reason to know, the difficulties are as nothing compared to weightless fucking. It was understandable then that they should be making the most of their stay on Moonbase. For anyone who knew them, it was obvious that they would be having altogether too much fun to waste time on screenwork.

  Operationally, all that was actually needed was for a pilot or co-pilot to initial the computer’s freight listing and bill of lading. In practice, though, most cargo-jockeys ran an eye over what they were carrying and where it was stowed in the pods. Flying inter-orbit freighters like the Dædalus, flimsy and light-framed because they never made surface landings or lift-offs, it might just pay you to know how easily and cheaply you could jettison the more volatile items if the ship ran into a solar radiation front or a particle storm. It seldom happened – but survival, like luck, favours the prepared.

  Mike and his co-pilot Lara were fucking when they should have been preparing. They were in love, which made them horny, careless and ideal murder victims. When they finally boosted the Dædalus out of lunar orbit, both pilot and co-pilot were already dead – though it would be several weeks into their flight to Mars before they or anyone else would realize that.