Star Cops

by Chris Boucher

  “Crime expands to occupy the number of cops available to deal with it,” said Theroux. “Now what exactly is it that you know about a design fault on the Dædalus?”

  Fox said, “I was talking about the crew roster.” All his furious anger was gone now.

  It was Theroux’s turn to be perplexed. “The crew roster?”

  “Those two should never have been allowed to fly together,” Fox said, his voice and face set to express outrage, but showing a pained resentment as well. “It’s against operating procedures, against the rules and it’s dumb. Handling a freighter is dangerous work. Hell, all work out here is dangerous. You can’t afford distractions.”

  “They’ve been flying together for a while,” Theroux said.

  Fox snorted with contempt. “And everyone’s been doing numbers about how romantic it is.”

  “Everyone except you?”

  “I don’t find taking stupid risks particularly romantic. I find death even less so. Do you know, people actually bloody helped them to juggle the roster?”

  “Why didn’t you stop it?” Theroux asked. “You could have blown the whistle on them – how come you didn’t?”

  “You think I haven’t asked myself that question?”

  “Did you give yourself an answer?”

  Fox shrugged and looked Theroux in the eyes. “Mike was a friend of mine.”

  Is he gay? Theroux wondered. Is that what the violence is? “All the more reason,” he said.

  Fox said, “I suppose I didn’t want people to think I was…” He shook his head, and shrugged again.

  “Jealous?” suggested Theroux, without emphasis.

  “Christ,” Fox said, “Mike was careless at the best of times. With her as a distraction, sooner or later he was bound to foul something up.”

  “And that’s what you were talking about?”

  “I reckoned the people who screwed around with crew planning caused a design fault. Mix the personal and the professional, and what you get are mistakes. People are part of the design. It’s dangerous to forget that.”

  On Nathan’s main screen, the midnight news summary was running a routine bite on the spat between the Treaty powers.

  “…Secretary of State Francis has stated quite categorically that the unmanned station is a civilian project…”

  There were no new pictures of the US station, which had been shuttled into orbit and assembled under the tightest possible security. What was showing now was the same mixture of simulation and computer enhanced, very long lens material that had been used on all the previous bulletins.

  “…but is nonetheless of the utmost secrecy…”

  Nathan could see that by starving the networks of sexy, live visuals the PR blackout was ensuring the story would die of malnutrition before anything too embarrassing happened.

  “…and any attempt to penetrate its security screens would be regarded as an act of war.”

  “Can’t get much more civilian than that,” he muttered, taking a long pull from a generous glass of malt. Alcohol was probably a mistake, he realized. I mean, Christ, how badly could he need a depressant under the circumstances? Then again, there wasn’t much chance of feeling better, so sod it.

  The visuals mixed through to Corporate PR footage of General Dynamics freighters, and the bulletin moved on to Theroux’s case.

  “The European Space Colonization Bureau tonight denied rumours that their Martian colony will run dangerously short of vital stores as a result of the tragic accident to the supply ship Dædalus.”

  In the top left-hand corner of the screen the MESSAGE WAITING cue began to flash. Nathan keyed the PRINT code, and on the black screen appeared the words:

  LEE JONES HAS BEEN DEALT WITH. SHE WAS A SILLY BITCH BUT IT WAS A PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS WITH HER. NOW WE COME TO THE MAIN EVENT. NOW IT’S YOUR TURN, SPRING. YOU ARE NEXT.

  Belatedly, Nathan fumbled Box against the processing unit. “Trace message,” he said.

  Box said, “Tracing.”

  The message began to fade from the screen, but it did not disappear completely. YOU ARE NEXT remained when all the rest had gone.

  “Box?”

  “It was on a delayed relay,” Box said.

  “How long a delay?”

  “The message was registered one hour ago in a public access booth.”

  “Who was it charged to?”

  “You.”

  Nathan slammed his fist down on the workstation. “Bastard!” he shouted. Then the analgesic effects of the alcohol began to wear off and he grunted “Shit!” and rubbed his stinging hand.

  He was trying to decide what to do next when the lights in the apartment went out. Only the workstation was active, and in the darkness YOU ARE NEXT suddenly expanded to fill up the screen. And then the words began to pulse slowly.

  “All right, Box, check the power control circuits,” Nathan said.

  “A remote breaker has been installed.”

  Another one? Nathan could hardly believe it. If the source of the information had been anything other than Box, he wouldn’t have believed it.

  “Only the screen and the elevator remain operational,” Box went on. “The elevator is on its way up.”

  Nathan swivelled in the chair so that he was facing the elevator door. If the message was meant to keep him in the chair then at least he knew where the assassin would make for. Unless whoever it was had a gun. Nathan slipped out of the chair and crouched to one side of it. The booze was making him slow and muddled. He concentrated fiercely. He’d only get one chance at this. If he could just get a hand on the bastard. One chance. One chance was all he wanted. One chance to break his fucking back.

  Across the room, the elevator door sighed open. Its brightly light interior was stark in the darkness. It was empty. No movement. Nothing. The door stayed open. Then the apartment lights came back on again, and the workstation screen went blank.

  Nathan got to his feet, feeling stupid and angry and relieved. He checked in the elevator, not knowing quite what he expected to find and finding nothing. An incoming call chime drew his attention back to the workstation. The cue spot was flashing in the top left-hand corner of the screen. “Accept call,” he said.

  The cue spot darkened, but the screen remained blank. “Commander Spring?” the voice said, in a flat whisper that would have been inaudible if the system had not automatically adjusted the volume to Nathan’s optimum hearing level.

  “Yes,” Nathan said, annoyed with himself for accepting the call before he was back at the workstation where he had left Box.

  “I have information which I think will interest you,” the whisperer went on.

  Nathan slipped back into his seat and said, “I’m not getting vision at this end.”

  “I prefer to remain unseen for the moment.”

  “And unidentified, presumably,” Nathan said wryly, as he used Box’s keypad to initiate a trace. “What’s this anonymous tip you have for me?”

  “I know who killed your lady,” the voice whispered.

  Nathan hesitated fractionally; he couldn’t help himself. As he said, “Is that right?” he tried to keep his tone noncommittal – bored, even.

  “I also know why she was killed. There was a reason. If you’re interested, I will tell you in person. Only in person. Only face to face.”

  “Is that right?” Hell’s teeth, couldn’t he think of something else to say?

  “I will wait for you at the east end of Victoria Park, but not for long.”

  “The east end? At this time of night?”

  “Are you afraid?”

  Nathan said, “Absolutely. My mother didn’t have any stupid children.” On the screen Box was displaying the progress of the trace: it was a public access booth…

&nb
sp; It was somewhere local…

  “Neither did mine,” the whisperer said. “By the lake. Thirty minutes,” and broke the connection. The trace was incomplete. Box had only narrowed it to a choice of three booths. “Bugger it,” Nathan said. “I’m losing my touch. Box, did you get a charge code?”

  Switching to voice in response to the verbal cue, Box said, “There is no personal identification. The call was charged to the account of the Adam Smith Nexus. It is a senior management authorization.”

  “I want the authorized user list. I also want any level one confidential information there is about the company or its staff. Start with the Police Intelligence Databank. Store for retrieval, no hard copy, no outside access.”

  While he gave Box these instructions, he dug out the Beretta 98S handgun he kept locked in the safe-drawer at the back of the drinks cabinet. In the time since he had been issued with the lightweight police automatic he had only ever used it on the practice range, never before feeling the need to carry it.

  Nathan left the apartment using the emergency exit chute rather than the still-unexamined elevator. The gun was uncomfortable in the pocket of his jacket. At the workstation where he had left it Box was already using all the available communications channels for the illegal data search.

  In the background the newscast chattered quietly to itself without disturbing Theroux.

  “…and it was emphasized in the strongest possible terms that any unauthorized attempt to…”

  He was not even stirred from his doze by the arrival of Roland Paton in the office.

  “…approach the unmanned station…”

  He slept the sleep of the bored and exhausted.

  “… would have the gravest possible consequences.”

  His feet were propped up on a packing case, his head was lolled forward at a neck-crippling angle, while the screen at which he had been working had switched automatically to a power-down hold.

  “Suggestions that the security radars were of a state-of-the-art military pattern have meanwhile been dismissed…”

  Paton touched his shoulder and murmured, “Monsieur L’Inspecteur? David?”

  “…as quote unquote ‘absurd fantasy’.”

  Theroux woke with a start. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I apologize to disturb you at this late hour.”

  “This is BBCNN global news…”

  “Screen off,” Theroux said, yawning and trying to straighten his neck.

  “May I talk wiz you?” Paton asked.

  “Of course.” Theroux yawned again. “Excuse me, it’s been a long shift. Won’t you sit down, sir? Can I get you some coffee?” Paton did not seem to hear. He paced around the room with those small looping strides, which struck Theroux abruptly as being absurd affectation.

  “Your scientific background,” Paton said, “is as a flight engineer I think, yes?”

  Theroux went to the coffee dispenser without attempting such controlled hops, resolving not to bother with any more professional bullshit. Fuck it, the man looked like a half-witted rabbit. “I was a flight engineer.” He poured two coffees. “Still am, I guess. My boss doesn’t quite see it like that, though.” He proffered the tall beaker. “Coffee sir?”

  Paton shook his head. “Non, merci.”

  Theroux shrugged, and took both beakers back to his seat. Paton continued fidgeting and hopping about like an agitated cottontail. “I have an idea,” he said, “of which I would like your opinion before… I am a biochemist.”

  “I was told you were a biologist.”

  “This is a general term. My specialist training is biochemistry; my recent research, cryogenics.”

  “Ultra-low temperature stuff.”

  “Oui, ç’est ça. Specifically, I work on the freezing of living organisms and then the restoration to normal temperature and function without cell damage.”

  Theroux drank his coffee, thinking he didn’t want to know this, what he wanted was to call it a day and go get some real sleep. “Suspended animation,” he said.

  “Exactly,” said Paton. “Now what I wanted to ask you about is this. It is not possible to reverse the course of the Dædalus, but if it were possible to divert it a little…”

  “Divert it? Divert it where, for Chrissakes?”

  “Back into our system. To allow the eventual recovery of the ship. After many years per’aps but even so…”

  “But even so,” Theroux said, “the crew would be long dead. What’s the point?”

  “The point is that they could go into frozen hibernation,” said Paton eagerly, “suspended animation, yes, using my equipment.”

  “The stuff you’ve got on that ship is ready to work?” Theroux was wide-awake now, with the itchy feeling that there was a possible hope here, a way back from death.

  Paton stopped hopping about, and shrugged sadly. “It is of no consequence. You need a source of propulsion to change course and they ’ave none.”

  And then Theroux saw it. There was one. There was one.

  “They don’t need air to breathe, right?” Paton nodded. “But what about pressure?” Theroux went on. “Do they need air pressure? I mean, even frozen, they couldn’t survive the vacuum could they.”

  Paton said, “The units are pressurized with inert gas mixtures. They are completely self-contained.”

  Theroux got to his feet excitedly. “Then there is a possible way to change the course of the Dædalus,” he said.

  Nathan left the deserted monorail, and stepped down the spiral stairway into Victoria Park. Once away from the brightly lit elevated platform with its moulded acrylic rain shelter and location hologram, he found the park got dark quickly. The distant lights in the bright corporate towers made no impression on the night at this eastern end of the city’s wildlife sanctuary.

  He knew the lake was maybe ten minutes walk from where he was – and that was all to the good, he thought, give him a chance to finish sobering up. Not that he’d really been drunk, not really drunk, not nearly drunk, not nearly drunk enough really. But it wouldn’t do any harm to clear his head. He took a couple of deep breaths, and set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the lake.

  Before he had gone far the noise of his footsteps began to bother him. God, if this was a trap, he was making it very easy for whoever set it up: they’d be able to hear him coming all over the bloody park. And not only them.

  He made an effort to walk more quietly, but his feet still scrunched and crackled on the gravel path. He tried walking on tiptoe, but it was difficult and slow, and besides he felt like a fool. He considered leaving the path altogether but, since he could see almost nothing, the prospect of getting stealthily lost, or of softly breaking a leg, looked promising. A torch would have been a bright idea. He should have brought a bloody torch, for Christ’s sake. Bright ideas weren’t coming thick and fast to him just at the moment. Without Lee, they probably never would again.

  Without Lee… A shock of intense loneliness took him by surprise and his eyes filled with tears. He blinked, and wiped them clear with the heel of his hand. He looked up. It was a cool, cloudless night. The sky was high and full of stars. Why wasn’t there a moon? Why was there never a bloody moon when you needed one? He dried his cheeks on the sleeve of his jacket, and walked on more slowly.

  He found his eyes were adjusting to the gloom now, and he could distinguish the shapes of trees and bushes, darker shades against the darkness. He was not sure that it helped, because with the shapes came movements, lurking and stealthy, and every-fucking-where. It was only his imagination, of course, only fearful and adrenaline-rich hallucination. He tried to rationalize it away, to concentrate on ignoring what he saw, but without getting careless and missing something.

  Fighting an urgent impulse to take out the gun and fire indiscriminately in all direct
ions, he pushed on, and at last a flat wide space opened out in front of him, glimmering blackly. The air was colder here, and he could smell the green, silt smell of standing water.

  It was a fairly small lake, but when he reached the edge Nathan realized that as a rendezvous point it was still big enough to be a problem, especially in the dark. He stood for a moment wondering where he was supposed to wait for his whispering friend. Assuming he was a friend, which was a largish assumption under the circumstances. And he didn’t much fancy being in the open even if the man was kosher. You could catch your death in Victoria Park once the sun had gone down.

  He decided to keep moving round the lake until the informant showed himself or he found some way to cover his back, and he began slowly and carefully to walk along the bank side path. The light seemed better here. He glanced back. A first quarter moon was rising above the trees behind him and now he could see enough to step off the gravel.

  He was irritated to find that walking on the grass verge still made noise so when he came upon the derelict building, he decided at once that this was the place to wait. The overgrown, roofless shell had been a cottage or a large boathouse perhaps, though more likely it was a purpose-built ruin. The wall looked old in the moonlight, the bricks were rough and powdery to the touch. Set in one section, facing the lake, was a wood-finish, plastic bench. Nathan almost sat down on it, but then sitting suddenly seemed risky. He leaned his back against the wall instead. Straining to concentrate, he peered down the dark path and listened intently for any sign of approach.

  After half an hour, it was clear that no-one was coming. Nathan pushed himself off from the wall, and stretched his stiff shoulders. The call had to be a hoax of some sort, to get him out of the apartment. He began to walk away. But why did they want him out of the apartment, for Christ’s sake? The sudden crashing weight leaned into his back and onto his shoulders heaving him forward. He fell onto his hands and knees. There was no pain, not much sensation of any kind, as his disoriented brain rejected most of the initial inputs. The weight stayed until he hit the ground, then the impact jarred it loose. Abruptly, sense and pain came together. Gravel bit into the palms of his hands and tore at his knees. There was a wrenching ache in his neck. Snarling at him was a heavyset youth with a shaven head and a tattooed face, and the fancy-dress of a comic book redskin warrior. Dimly, he registered the uniform of an urban apache, though his immediate attention focused on the hatchet the murderous little bastard was clutching. Nathan struggled to get to his feet and thought, with bizarre detachment, the hatchet’s why he lost his grip on me when he jumped from the wall.