Star Cops

by Chris Boucher

  “We copy, base control.”

  “You will have thirty minutes to the outward maximum on my mark. Please acknowledge individually. Four, three, two, one, mark.”

  There were six acknowledgements then Hendvorrsen began to complain again. “Can we get on with this, please? Thirty minutes is barely time to see what I want to see.”

  Nathan said, “Doesn’t seem to have overwhelmed Hendvorrsen.”

  “He hasn’t had a clear sight of Earth yet. We’ll see how chatty he is when he reaches the construction zone and gets an uninterrupted look at it,” said Butler.

  “My impression,” said Vanhalsen, “is that an uninterrupted look at the construction zone is what that bastard has in mind.”

  “This is base control. You have two minutes to maximum. I repeat, in two minutes, you must begin the return trip to the airlock. This is your two minute warning. Time to pack up the picnic baskets and start for home. Acknowledge please.”

  “Lancine acknowledge.”

  “Dieter acknowledge.”

  “Sanchez copy two minutes.”

  “Brownly, roger that.”

  “Goff, aye.”

  Butler waited a moment, and then said, “Hendvorrsen, do you copy two minute warning, acknowledge please.” Off-mic he muttered, “Come on, you stupid prick, I thought you were supposed to be fully checked out on this.”

  “What’s wrong?” Theroux asked quietly.

  “Nothing. Everything’s normal. Suit readouts are optimal. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Jesus not again,” muttered Theroux.

  “Hendvorrsen, Hendvorrsen, this is base control, do you copy?” Butler kept his voice professionally calm and casual, but Nathan could see the sudden tension in every physical gesture.

  “Maybe it’s the radio,” offered Vanhalsen.

  “Françoise, do you have vision of Hendvorrsen?” Butler asked.

  “Oui… non. ’E was there…”

  “Can you see him or not?”

  “What is wrong?”

  “I can see him.”

  “Who’s that, Brownly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he moving, can you see?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “Shit,” Butler mouthed in silent fury, then glancing across at Theroux said, “Code blue, David.”

  As Theroux hit the alarm switch, Butler instructed the outside party calmly, “I think Hendvorrsen may have a problem with his radio. Brownly and Goff make your way to him, instruct him to return to base and assist as necessary. Sanchez and Dieter will start back to the airlock immediately, with Lancine in attendance.”

  Theroux keyed the internal station communications. “Blue alert, blue alert, resuscitation team to main EVA lock and stand by.”

  “This is base control, please acknowledge and confirm,” said Butler, his professional coolness never faltering for a moment. Listening to the confirmations that his orders were being carried out, he said to Theroux, “I’ll give you long odds he’s dead.”

  “No bet,” said Theroux.

  They stared at the video screens, waiting for the first of the figures to come back into vision. The electronic klaxons continued hooting all around them.

  Crime Scene

  Though it was not the furthest from Moonbase itself, Outpost Nine was one of the most isolated of all the lunar installations. State-of-the-art computer surveillance protected its perimeters. Visitors were seriously discouraged. Routine supplies were left in a loading bay, which remained sealed off from the rest of the complex throughout the delivery.

  The only thing outsiders knew for certain about Outpost Nine was that there were eight scientists working there. What they were working on was classified at the highest level and subject to the standard ‘neither confirm nor deny’ official response to questions. The project director Dr. Michael Chandri, noted only for being the eldest son of a multi-billionaire industrialist, also had a very simple way of dealing with the casually inquisitive. He ignored them. For months at a time he kept himself and his team cut off from all outside contacts, leaving routine communications to be dealt with by computer.

  In these circumstances, anybody arriving unannounced at the Outpost Nine perimeter should have had a wasted journey. But the unremarkable-looking stranger calling himself Dafyd Talor was admitted immediately and taken straight to Michael Chandri. The two men had never met before, nor would they ever meet again, but their conversation would result in murder on a massive and horrifying scale.

  Chapter 8

  For the three ISPF candidates the journey back from Earth orbit was properly sombre. In Nathan’s case this was not particularly a mark of respect for the corpse in the shuttle’s cargo bay. The mortal remains of Lars Hendvorrsen – on their way to forensic tests, a full post-mortem and then, as befitted a rich and influential politician, burial in an authentic cemetery plot – hardly figured in his thoughts at all.

  What concerned Nathan was the disappointing discovery that he was no more comfortable on the return shuttle than he had been on the one which had taken him out to the Charles De Gaulle. The motion was just as debilitating. He felt just as lousy. It seemed that he had made no progress whatsoever towards acclimatization. Of course his failure to get his space-legs was of no real importance. He still didn’t want the damn job. He especially didn’t want the damn job now he had firsthand off-Earth experience. But it was a failure of sorts, and failure made him uncomfortable. He disliked the feeling of being unable to cope. He disliked the feeling of inadequacy. Most of all he disliked the feeling of unrelenting nausea…

  Dieter and Sanchez on the other hand did appear to have been genuinely affected by their close encounter with what some wag in the tabloids had already headlined ‘The Lars Great Adventure’. They were both markedly subdued, and since Dieter was occupying the acceleration seat next to his, Nathan was grateful for that. He would have been disinclined to cheer the German up even if he had been in a fit state to do so, which he wasn’t.

  Apart from the routine courtesies, Dieter had not spoken at all during the early part of the flight, so it was another disappointment for Nathan when he suddenly turned to him and asked, “Do you know the purpose of philosophy, Nathan?”

  Nathan’s impulse was to say I don’t give a flying fuck, just let me die in peace, but it was difficult to be deliberately offensive to someone like Dieter, so instead he said, “To investigate the nature of being? Something along those lines.”

  “The purpose of philosophy is to explain death.”

  “It’s a point of view.”

  “When you are young you think everything is to do with sex. But it is not. It is to do with death.”

  “I’m not sure what that says about your sex life, Hans,” commented Nathan and then, horrified by the thought that in his present mood he might just confide what it did say about his sex life, forced a smile and added quickly, “and I don’t want to know.”

  Dieter looked at him. “Doesn’t it frighten you?”

  “Sex or death?”

  “It is such an easy thing,” Dieter continued.

  “Must be death,” said Nathan.

  “To die,” Dieter went on. “And the more alive you are…” His voice trailed away.

  Nathan said, “The more alive you are, the less you think about death, surely.”

  Dieter shook his head and frowned. “I am used to it,” he said. “Men in our position get used to death, do we not? I am not appalled by it any more. Violent death is our stock-in-trade.”

  “One of them,” said Nathan.

  “And yet…” Dieter needed to explain, it seemed – but whether to himself or to Nathan was not clear. “I was cut off in that spacesuit,” he said. “I was so close when he died, but I was completely cut off in that sui
t.” He shook his head again. “It seemed as though there were people all around me, but I could not tell who they were or what they were feeling. Or even if they were alive…”

  Nathan was puzzled. He sounded like a man working up an alibi, offering a pre-emptive excuse: get your justification in first, before somebody asks an awkward question – but the tone was wrong. “What did you really think of Hendvorrsen?” he asked.

  “I admired him,” said Dieter thoughtfully. “His methods were crude. His manners were coarse. He was a political demagogue whose personal ambition outstripped everything else.”

  “You did say you admired him?”

  Dieter nodded. “He was a positive man. He had drive and enthusiasm. He took risks. He was very…”

  “Very alive?” suggested Nathan.

  “Powerfully alive, yes.”

  From the other side of the central aisle, Sanchez leaned back in his seat and called across to Nathan. “Worldwide News has an update on the story.”

  Nathan switched on the seat screen. Susan Caxton was the news reader again. She seemed to be Worldwide’s Space correspondent, Nathan thought, glancing back through the text of the beginning of the report. Satisfied that he had not missed anything important, he cued the real time broadcast and a press office montage of Lars Hendvorrsen’s best moments and moves filled the screen behind Caxton, who was just hitting her stride.

  “To ongoing controversy over costs, the tragic death of this popular politician is bound to add questions about the safety and administration of the European space program, and maybe space exploitation in general. The trade-and-aid pact with the Russians will probably be an immediate casualty, but as of now the whole future of the ESA in particular could be said to be hanging on a knife-edge.”

  Nathan scowled. “Balancing on a knife-edge,” he muttered. “At least get the fucking clichés right.”

  “Meantime,” Caxton went on, “for the Star Cops, much-criticized lawmen of the new frontier, help is at hand. Career detective Nathan Spring, a forty-one year old Englishman, is to take over the investigation of the Lars Hendvorrsen tragedy.”

  “You are joking?” Nathan demanded of the screen as the Hendvorrsen sequence was replaced with an equally large still of himself.

  “Chief Superintendent Spring has total backing to do whatever it takes to get results, and informed sources have told this reporter they interpret that as meaning he is going to, quote, kick arse, unquote. Could be that’s exactly what’s needed.”

  Nathan stared at his image, only half-seeing it as he tried to make sense of the news story. He shut his eyes. He was surprised and angry enough to want to laugh. He tried to breathe more slowly. Unremarked, the Worldwide news bulletin rolled on to the next item.

  Beside him Dieter said gravely, “Congratulations, Nathan. If there is anything I can do to be of assistance, please call on me.”

  Nathan opened his eyes. “I don’t understand this,” he said.

  “It seems our respective ranks have been a deciding factor after all,” said Sanchez who was now out of his seat and crouching in the aisle beside Nathan. “I mean, you are most uncomfortable in space, is that not so?”

  “Yes, Geraldo, that is definitely so,” said Nathan.

  Dieter said, “Nathan has an outstanding record as a brilliant detective.”

  “Not out here. Out here, he does not have a record.”

  “Out here no-one has a record,” said Dieter.

  “Exactly as I have said.”

  Nathan held up his hand. “Gentlemen,” he said, “would you mind not talking about me behind my back in front of my face. I’m nauseous, not deaf, half-witted or dead. Though someone I know seems to be working on that.”

  The Commander settled himself behind his desk. The office mood-wall showed only a slowly developing abstract pattern. It did not even flicker when he smiled warmly at Nathan and said, “It was a completely unauthorized statement. You didn’t think I’d allow them to talk to the press before I’d had a chance to talk to you?”

  Nathan did not smile back. “You didn’t issue a denial.”

  “It wasn’t a false report, Nathan. Premature, yes. But not false.”

  Nathan badly wanted to shout at the smug bastard, but he was aware they’d had this argument once already and he had lost it.

  “What happened to the wall?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” said the Commander. “It’s on manual override that’s all.”

  “Your brain pattern was too much for it I suppose.”

  The Commander ignored the comment, put on a serious expression and said, “This Hendvorrsen business is a mess.”

  “Or did someone point out that what you’ve got there is a wall-size lie detector?”

  “Can we talk about the Hendvorrsen case?” said the Commander.

  Nathan said, “You’ll have to have it taken out, you realize. As long as you’ve got it switched off people are going to assume you’re hiding something. Like the truth. You bastard.”

  The Commander looked disdainful. “Don’t you think you’re being a touch childish about all this?” he asked.

  Childish? The bastard fucks with my life, Nathan thought, and then he calls me childish for objecting. Angrily, he got up out of his seat, but he was still suffering from shuttle-lag, and the sudden movement made his head swim. He slammed his hands down on the desk and leaned on them hard. The gesture was more aggressive than he had intended.

  “Who nominated me for the poisoned chalice?” he demanded, keeping his voice low to try and compensate for his actions, but succeeding only in making the whole effect more threatening. “It was you was it?”

  “Sit down, Chief Superintendent!” snapped the Commander, leaning forward to glare into Nathan’s face. “I said: sit down!”

  Nathan sat down, furious with himself for giving the other man the advantage of seeing how he felt.

  “You were there,” said the Commander, comfortably in control now, “you were the obvious person to head up the investigation.”

  “And Dieter and Sanchez?”

  “You had seniority.”

  “Presumably I have a choice,” Nathan said.

  “Absolutely,” said the Commander. “I can’t remember: did I mention there was an opening in Computer Management? It’s not exactly fast-track, but there are people who find it interesting.”

  “How long have I got?”

  The Commander leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “We’re under the hammer on this one,” he said.

  We? thought Nathan, and said, “Who’s the pressure coming from?”

  “How long a list do you want?” said the Commander.

  In the Lotus Garden, the panda was still trotting round the same wallzac loop, but Lee did not seem to have noticed. They were eating the same dishes that Nathan always ordered, but she had not bothered to complain this time. She was trying not to be hurt, at least not to look and sound hurt, and she was not succeeding. She had obviously been putting off saying it and the effort had made her quiet, the meal tense. Nathan was waiting for her to say it, and trying to stop the silence from becoming unbreakable in the meantime. The effort had made him prattle.

  “So,” he said, “the ESA want a result. Preferably one which says it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t their fault. The Russians want a result which says it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t their fault. The media want a result but they don’t care what it is so long as it’s gaudy and can be explained in a thirty second news bite. Everyone involved would like it to be murder. The computer says it isn’t.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Lee said without looking up from her food. “It didn’t stop you going after that poor Carmodie woman did it? In fact it was the reason you went after her as far as I remember.�
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  “That poor Carmodie woman?”

  “What would you call her?”

  “How does murderous bitch strike you?”

  “Crudely.”

  “She had her husband killed.”

  “Why? Did you ever wonder that?” Lee asked.

  “No,” snapped Nathan, irritated because he hadn’t been able to put a solid motive to the crime and it bothered him. “That’s for the psych people to worry about. And I didn’t go after her. I went after an answer.”

  Lee said, “Any answer, so long as it was different from the one the regional crime computer came up with.”

  Nathan was hurt. “That’s not fair,” he said.

  Lee put her chopsticks carefully down onto the table, pushed her hair back from her face and said, “It’s an unfair world.” Then she looked him straight in the eyes and asked, “How is it I was the only one who didn’t know?”

  Nathan knew better than to try the glib joke. And anyway, he was glad that she had finally got it said. “I didn’t know myself.”

  “I didn’t even know you’d applied for the job.”

  “There was no point in telling you,” Nathan said and immediately regretted the phrasing.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Look I didn’t want the Star Cop job. I had no intention of taking the Star Cop job. I still haven’t.”

  “Don’t treat me like a fool, Nathan.”

  “I’m not,” he protested.

  “I see,” she said. “You were on that space station by accident, were you? You sent in your box tops and your membership application for the Junior Space Cadets and it got all fucked up by the computer, is that it?”

  “Okay, okay,” said Nathan.

  “Or was it just that there was trouble out there and so, shazzam, suddenly Captain Fantastic is on the space station and on the case.”