Star Cops

by Chris Boucher

  “I see,” said Nathan.

  “Do you?”

  “I still have things to learn.”

  “Yeah.”

  Nathan smiled. “But then, doesn’t everybody?” he said, and thought there must come a time when the open, boyish smile wouldn’t work any more, and he would have to start apologizing for his pompous ill-temper.

  Theroux was certain by now that his new boss used that charming smile of his in a totally calculating way, but it was a killer and it was difficult to stop himself from smiling back. “I guess so,” he said, and smiled anyway.

  “Box?” Nathan unclipped the hand-size black box from his equipment belt. “There must be something I can do about the way I feel.”

  “Transfer to an environment which is blessed with gravity,” Box replied, in a voice which Theroux still found impossible to distinguish from Nathan’s. “After detailed consideration,” it continued, “the conclusion must be: there is no significant probability that you will ever adapt to prolonged weightlessness.”

  “It’s too soon to be sure of that,” commented Theroux, finding himself unsure whether to talk to the man or directly to the machine.

  “Is it a question of time, Box?” asked Nathan.

  “Not according to the projections,” Box answered. “Do you want to see them?”

  Nathan looked at Theroux. “Do you want to see them?”

  Theroux shook his head. “There’s Moonbase. We could probably get an office allocation,” he said. “They don’t have a Star Cop based there, so…”

  “So they owe us one,” said Nathan. “Good. We’ll take a look.”

  “Be more expensive as a base. You’d need a one-sixth rated launch vehicle at your immediate disposal if you wanted a rapid response time,” Theroux said, then looked at Box. “Wait, wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute here.”

  “Problem?” Nathan asked.

  “Box couldn’t have put that together from your question. You telling me it was listening, assuming stuff, using intuition?”

  “Not if you won’t believe that, no.”

  “It’s just a machine.”

  Nathan nodded. “And it takes a human being to do those things effectively. What took you so long?”

  “I had no reason to expect that you’d primed Box to respond the way you wanted.”

  “A little more scepticism, a little faster, and maybe we can make a copper out of you,” Nathan said.

  Theroux looked sour. “You’ll let me know when I’ve got to take the written quiz.”

  The first time he had seen one of the all-purpose orbit shuttles, Nathan had fancied that it was pitching and rolling very slightly. It reminded him of the dinghy he once borrowed on a childhood holiday. He still remembered the weird, bouncing dip as he stepped down into it, and the slithering water pushed his weight back up at him. It was odd that a small shuttle craft should have triggered that memory, since it did not move in the same way, and boarding it produced no reaction to speak of. Nevertheless, the fibreglass boat on the tall, transparent sea now seemed inextricably linked in his mind with the squat, utility space-transports – and riding this one to Moonbase, recollections nudged each other forward.

  “My old man,” he said, the forgotten image of his father suddenly complete and unexpectedly clear to him, “always maintained that the greatest discovery made by the systems manufacturers was that people would accept any damn-fool thing provided there was a computer involved somewhere. You want ’em to believe it, he’d say, stick it on a VDU screen.”

  “I thought he was a computer salesman?” said Theroux.

  Nathan shrugged though the gesture was lost in the bulk of the unhelmeted spacesuit he was wearing. “Do you have to believe in everything you do?”

  “Only if it’s on the screen.”

  “He didn’t believe what he said, anyway. Which was a pity, really.”

  Theroux said, “Don’t feel too badly about it. Kids mostly expect too much of their fathers.”

  “He was right, though, that was the point.”

  “You sure you want to continue with this trip?” Theroux asked. “I’m the designated pilot, but there’s a computer doing all the flying.”

  “I’m serious,” said Nathan. “Gospel according to Spring: anything that can be used to stop people thinking for themselves –

  Message.

  In the darkened room the communications console activated a window in the top left-hand corner of its main screen.

  Message.

  Theroux interrupted, “Does this come before or after ‘where there’s living, there’s policemen’ in the order of service?”

  “Before,” said Nathan. “And it was written: Anything that can be used to stop people thinking for themselves, will be used to stop people thinking for themselves. Sooner or later.”

  Message was the only light, tiny and indistinct in the blackness, like an afterimage on tightly closed eyelids. But there was no-one to receive it. The apartment was unoccupied.

  All messages should have been re-routed to the European Earth Orbit Station Charles De Gaulle, that was the instruction Nathan had programmed into his workstation the day he left, but somehow this one had bypassed the system. After a few moments, the message window began to pulse with a steady urgency. Not until the door of the apartment elevator opened, however, and the lights came on, did it add a soft chime to this flashing and announce in a polite voice, “There is a message.”

  Lee Jones shed her outdoor jacket and said, “All messages for the keyholder are to be re-routed up to…or should that be out to…well whatever –”

  “There is a message,” the pager, ignoring the wrong cue, interrupted in the same polite tones.

  Unlike Nathan, Lee had no ideological objection to depending on machines – so she usually found them far more irritating than he did. “Who… is… the… message… for?” she asked, enunciating each word with exaggerated care.

  “The message is for Lee Jones,” said the machine, at the same time displaying the name LEE JONES and her personal identity code on the main screen. This combination of the visual and oral was designed to make such transactions less impersonal, avoid misunderstandings, and allow for the possibility of SF or ‘screen-phobia’, which was the latest corporate euphemism for illiteracy. Inevitably, the overall effect was that the user was treated like a retarded infant.

  Puzzled, Lee crossed to the screen and checked the PIC. “I left no instruction for re-routing,” she said.

  “For further information, please enter your confidential personal identity code,” instructed the machine blandly, and printed up the instruction: ENTER CPI CODE NOW.

  Lee tapped out the five digit code on the workstation’s auxiliary number pad – standard, so that SF sufferers could memorize finger positions – and waited for the message to be transmitted.

  “Thank you Lee Jones,” said the machine. “The message is coded for your eyes only. It will be necessary –”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” muttered Lee and was already tapping in her secure personal identity code by the time the machine said, “ – for you to enter your secure personal identity code,” and printed: ENTER SPI CODE NOW.

  “Thank you Lee Jones. And as a final safeguard your confidential keyword must be entered before the message can be transmitted.” ENTER KEYWORD NOW.

  She punched in ‘pandashit’, and briefly wondered how the functionally illiterate really coped with all this nonsense. “I hope,” she said, “this is not one of your dumb jokes, Nathan. A professional caretaker would be a lot less obliging than me.”

  But in a way, she hoped it was one of his jokes. She had agreed to keep an eye on the apartment because they both recognized it as an uncomplicated way to stay in touch, and so when the machine assured her: “In a very short while y
our message will be unscrambled and relayed to you,” she smiled. “Or as we say round here…” she murmured and watched the screen display the single word: WAIT. “But not too long, my love,” she added. “The clock is running. Besides, jokes are all about timing are they not?”

  The theme tune of telecommunications corporation jingled at her and the machine said, “This service has been brought to you by Unitel, the Secure Communications Link, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wideworld Supranational. Thank you for patronizing Unitel.”

  Lee left the workstation, saying, “You’re entirely welcome. Imagine my surprise: all this time I thought you were patronizing me,” and crossed to the drinks cabinet where she poured herself three fingers of one of Nathan’s better malts. “Just goes to show how easy it is to misjudge the ordinary warm-hearted multinational corporation.” She sipped the smooth, smoky liquor and then, because she knew it would have annoyed Nathan had he been there, and he should have been there, damn him, she held the glass under the ice-maker and pressed for finely crushed. Nothing happened. Even the ice-maker fell in line with Nathan’s wishes. Even when he’d run away to space taking her life with him like a selfish kid, like the selfish kids there might not be time for, even then he got his own bloody way. She looked at the gauge. The thing was empty. She knew she was being irrational but she was going to have ice in her sodding drink. She would wait for it. However long it took. She snatched up a glass jug from the drinks cabinet and went into the kitchen to get water for the ice-maker.

  On the main communications screen the message began to print up.

  FROM: NATHAN SPRING

  TO: LEE JONES

  YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER. REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MUST YOU LEAVE. LOCK OFF THE ENTRY ELEVATOR.

  MORE FOLLOWS.

  The last two words flashed insistently.

  In the kitchen, Lee was beginning to feel petulant and just a little silly. At major inconvenience to herself, she was going to ruin good Scotch to score a minor point off a lover who wouldn’t know she’d done it anyway. And Nathan she called childish? She reached forward to flick off the water tap and suddenly all the lights in the apartment went out.

  Her first thought was that the control programme had degraded a bit through lack of use. “Lights!” she called loudly to reset it. When the lights did not come back on she muttered, “What’s this, a punishment? All right, I won’t put ice in the Macallan,” and then shouted, “Lights!” She waited a moment and then turned in what she hoped was the direction of the nearest control sensor and instructed in a clear, even voice, “Central control, central control check lighting fault please!”

  In the pressing blackness, she waited for the computer to respond. She waited for the response and tried to be objective about how long it was taking. She was conscious of how quickly the dark stripped her sense of time and space and frightened her. But there was nothing to be frightened of. There was no life-threatening difference between the light and now, there was no reasonable reason to be frightened of the dark. She was in no danger from the dark.

  She decided to go back into the living area and use the workstation to call block maintenance. Putting the jug down on the drainer, she felt her way towards the doorway. The jug crashed to the floor. Fear shocked through her, jagged as a fever spike. Realizing that she must have left the jug teetering on the edge of the sink she said, “Worried I’d change my mind about the ice, is that it?” and groped her way on.

  The living area was a slight improvement. There was a faint light coming from the screen. Of course, she’d forgotten there was a message; thank God for Unitel and bureaucratic pandashit. Gratefully, she started to fumble her way towards the workstation.

  She was still several yards from it when the elevator door opened on the other side of the room. The momentary brightness was dazzling. As she turned to look, an indistinct silhouette on the corner of the white flare side-stepped out beyond the light.

  Lee froze.

  The elevator door closed and the darkness was darker than before, but confused now, with the fading patterns of retinal overload. “Nathan?” she asked, and then more softly, “Nathan, is that you?” But she knew that it wasn’t. Who was he? Where was he? Why did she think it was a man? Maybe she imagined it; could just be the computer playing silly buggers and her imagination playing tricks and something moved by the screen oh God no.

  A voice from near the workstation whispered, a loud stage whisper, strange and threatening, “You didn’t read your message.”

  Lee couldn’t help herself. “Who is that? Who are you, what do you want?”

  “You should have read your message,” the whisper said.

  Then he was moving, coming towards her. “From Nathan Spring to Lee Jones,” he whispered in the same flat, lifeless whisper, “your life is in danger…”

  Lee backed away, and blundered into a seating platform. She tried to hold herself together. She tried not to let go. Oh please oh please oh please don’t.

  “…remain where you are…”

  Lee felt her way along the edge of the cushions. Why was he whispering? Where was he?

  “…under no circumstances must you leave.”

  Lee scrambled across the cushions. Was he still moving? Where, oh Christ, where?

  “Lock off the entry elevator.”

  She couldn’t picture where she was and what was between her and the elevator and there was still no light at all except from the screen. She tripped and fell. Sobbing, she crawled and scrambled towards where she thought the elevator was. She cannoned into something. Somebody grabbed her by the hair, and hauled her to her feet. She tried to scream. Close to her face, the voice whispered, “More follows.”

  “Obviously,” Detective Chief Inspector Colin Devis said nodding at the steadily flashing MORE FOLLOWS on the workstation screen, “that was intended to keep her sitting there, so the killer would know precisely where she was even in the dark.”

  Nathan sat in Crimescene Forensic Studio 437 while the recording was played back for his appraisal. Although what he was looking at was a close-up which Devis had zoomed in on and frozen for a moment to make his point, Nathan couldn’t shake the illogical thought that just out of frame the paramedics were still bagging and tagging Lee’s corpse. “Why is that obvious?” he asked.

  Before Devis could answer, his sergeant said, “It’s what the Scenes of Crime computer suggested.”

  Devis looked at her with obvious distaste. He was a heavyset man with a round, deceptively cheerful face. Only a sour narrowness about his eyes and mouth gave any indication of the deep cynicism with which he viewed the world. “Thank you Sergeant Corman,” he said. “When I want your input, I’ll ask for it.”

  Corman was pretty in an unspectacular, even-featured way and, at maybe thirty years old, she was at least twenty years younger than Devis. She was clearly not to his taste, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Despite an unreal feeling of blank incomprehension, Nathan registered this routine assessment quite automatically and wondered in passing why these two were teamed.

  “Sorry sir,” Corman said, without sounding particularly apologetic.

  “Try to remember you’re new around here,” said Devis, “and I’ll try to do the same.”

  “Did it suggest why the message was left on the screen so it could be found by the investigating team?” Nathan asked and thought, so it could be found by the investigating team.

  “You tell us,” said Devis, cueing the playback to continue.

  The cameras swept every part of the crime scene. Nathan couldn’t see it as his apartment. It was a crime scene. Not familiar or personal. The paramedics were working. Lee.

  He watched Lee disappear, enfolded in the black body bag, as though she was falling backwards into the dark waters of his dreams. “I didn’t send it, Chief Inspector,” he said.


  Devis said, “Unitel have charged it to your account.”

  “I haven’t got an account with Unitel.”

  “They’ll be disappointed about that. Especially as they seem to have all your right numbers.”

  “One of his right numbers, sir,” Corman put in. “The rest they issue themselves when they open the account.”

  “Corman,” Devis said threateningly.

  She ignored the warning and went on, “It’s not difficult to get a CPI code, sir.”

  “As frames go, it’s fairly crude,” said Nathan.

  “As killings go, it wasn’t exactly neat,” said Devis.

  “Yes it was.” This from Corman again.

  “I won’t tell you again, Corman,” Devis said. And then in the same tone of voice asked, “Why would anyone want to frame you, Spring?”

  “Commander Spring, Chief Inspector!” snapped Nathan. “You may not be bright, but you can at least be civil!”

  Devis looked bored as he waited for the rest of the tongue-lashing.

  Nathan said, “I’m sorry that wasn’t bright or civil was it? I’m having trouble adjusting to gravity…and death.”

  Devis paid as little attention to the apology as he had to the outburst. “How long had you known Miss Jones?” he asked.

  Nathan hesitated. How long had he known her? How long would he have to live without knowing her, with her gone into the past, him here alone…?

  “Did you hear what I asked?”

  “Ten years?” Nathan said at last.