Star Cops

by Chris Boucher

  “You Brits are pretty reserved,” Moriarty agreed, signalling to the bar for drinks to be brought. “But I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for you and me, is it, Pal?” He slid onto the bench and moved very close to her, so that his thigh was pressing against hers.

  Nathan noticed that the girl on mess duty was not amused at what was going on. Was that because Moriarty had treated her as a waitress, or was it something more personal? He stopped listening to the station commander’s ponderous overtures to Kenzy and watched the girl moving very slowly to get the beers.

  “Supposing I wanted to book a room?” Kenzy asked.

  “You can share mine,” Moriarty said. “Anytime.”

  “You should get together with a guy called Colin Devis,” Kenzy said. “You obviously went to the same charm school.” She smiled. “Pity neither of you passed the course.”

  “I think I’m in love,” said Moriarty.

  “If I booked workspace on the Ronald Reagan,” Kenzy asked interestedly, “where it was would depend on what I did, right?”

  Moriarty put on a serious face. “Pretty much.”

  Nathan stopped watching the girl behind the bar. Book a room? What the hell did Kenzy think she was doing? The woman was as subtle as a sock full of sand. “Kenzy,” he warned, “I don’t think this is really the time or the place.”

  Kenzy looked at him. “Sir?” Her expression was exaggeratedly innocent.

  Nathan glanced at Moriarty. He was frowning towards the bar, trying to catch the mess girl’s attention. Perhaps the damn fool really was in thrall to his glands. Hormone rush could make people stupid. Moriarty snapped his fingers a couple of times, but the girl continued to ignore him. “No, it doesn’t matter,” Nathan said. “You carry on.”

  “Suppose I was a microbiologist, Colonel,” Kenzy asked, while Moriarty was still concentrating on getting the drinks, “where would I go?”

  Without any sign of a pause for thought Moriarty said, “Somewhere else.”

  “You’ve got something against microbiologists?” Nathan asked, and saw Moriarty’s uncertainty – as, for the briefest moment, the man avoided meeting his eye.

  “There’s a standing directive,” Moriarty said. “No research involving bacteria, viruses, protozoan. Nothing for the buggies to play with out here. We leave those games to the Reds.”

  “The Chinese play dirty pool?” Kenzy suggested.

  “Can you name me a worse weapon, little lady?” Moriarty said.

  “What about medical research?” Nathan asked quickly to forestall Kenzy’s reaction.

  Moriarty said, “How do you tell what that is?”

  “A blanket ban then. The good with the bad.”

  “It’s the simple answer.”

  “I thought we’d grown out of simple answers,” Nathan said.

  “Not where that stuff is concerned,” Moriarty said as the girl finally arrived with the drinks. “When there’s nowhere else to go, you keep it the hell away. It’s just too goddam dangerous.” Then he looked at the girl.

  “Thank you, Betsanne, put it on my tab.”

  It struck Nathan that if there had been any possible way to dump three sealed glasses of low alcohol beer on a suction surface tray over Moriarty’s head, then Betsanne would have done it. “Yes, sir, Colonel, sir,” she said in a soft Southern lilt. “Is there anything else I can do for the Colonel before I goes back to the fields?”

  To Nathan’s surprise, Moriarty grinned and said in a passably similar accent, “Why thank you, child, I’m sure I’ll think of something,” and tried to pat her behind as she left.

  Nathan sipped the insipid beer. He needed to get to the computer in Moriarty’s office. If Kenzy played her part, now might be the time. “If you don’t mind, Colonel,” he said, standing, “I think I’ll go and catch up on some sleep.”

  “Mind? Hell, no, I don’t mind. Question is, do you mind leaving this pretty lady with me?”

  Kenzy started to stand too. “Well as it happens, sir…”

  Nathan said, “She can take care of herself. Can’t you, Kenzy?” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t get up.”

  Lauter screwed the camera probe into the vision receptor socket slowly and with difficulty. The gauntlets made it impossible to get a good grip, so she had to use both hands and, as she could not find any way to brace her feet, this meant taking most of the strain on her stomach muscles. The module’s umbilical junction was supposed to have been designed for spacesuited working, but that was using standard fittings on a properly set up construction site, not jury-rigged odds and ends in a cramped cargo bay. By the time she had finished, Lauter was aching and greasy with sweat.

  She would have given up long since if it hadn’t been for Marty. She knew damn well that since the probe could not physically get into the module, the small light round the head of the camera would be useless. Just as Marty had said it would be, the smug little bugger. And it was unlikely that the computer’s dark-vision system would be able to interpret as pictures whatever residual energy there was inside the thing.

  “Try it,” she instructed over the suit radio.

  “There’s a loose link somewhere,” Marty said. “All I get is black and noise.”

  Lauter grasped the silver bundle of armoured cables and yanked it back and forth. “Is that any better?” she demanded.

  In the cabin, Marty fiddled with the screen adjustments but white noise and occasional flashes of darkness were all he could get. “Still black and noise,” he said.

  “Concentrate!” Even allowing for radio distort, Lauter’s voice was thin and tired.

  Marty said, “It’s no substitute for light.”

  “Anything now?”

  “No, nothing.” Marty knew she would think he wasn’t trying because he had a point to make. He re-prompted the computer subroutine to further enhance the picture that wasn’t there.

  “Are you really trying, Marty?”

  “Of course I’m trying,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be trying? I don’t want you out there any longer than is absolutely necessary, you silly bitch.”

  “Don’t you call me names, you smug little bugger.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for being right, all right?” Marty said. He turned away from the screen to check her systems readouts. Everything looked to be functioning normally, but the ambient temperature was up and her breathing rate was high. There was no sign of any CO2 build, but it could happen – and suddenly – in cheap reconditioned suits. “I’m not happy with your suit telemetry, Lauter.”

  Unnoticed behind Marty the screen had started to change, apparently in response to the computer’s stepped-up imaging sequence. A vague shape began resolving itself, a ghost in the intermittent noise and darkness.

  “Stop fussing, Marty,” Lauter said.

  It was there! The first indication that her backpack might not be coping. “I don’t like the risks you’re taking,” Marty said as he monitored the waste gas levels edging very slightly closer to the danger thresholds.

  On the unwatched screen, the strange shadow floated forward until it seemed to press itself against the crystal surface, filling the visual field with a huge unblinking eye.

  “One more whack at it,” Lauter said, and Marty heard her grunt as she kicked at it or heaved at it or whatever the hell she did.

  “There’s nothing!” he said urgently.

  “You’re sure?” she asked, almost plaintive. “I can’t tell you how much I hate having sod-all to show for this much work.”

  Marty glanced back at the screen. She’d made it worse, there was nothing at all now – not even the brief intervals of hopeful darkness, just blank white noise. “For fuck’s sake, stop pressing your luck and get yourself back in here. I don’t want to lose you,” he said matching her ton
e.

  Nathan had tried every variation he could think of. But there was nothing anywhere in the data banks which linked ex-Inspector Kirk Hubble to Moriarty. Or either of them to anyone named Goodman. And there was no record of an Outer Module Series Z number 13. “Box, are there any security codes I haven’t got?” he asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

  “The codes you are using will access all data available to the station commander from this terminal,” Box confirmed, reducing the general question to the specifics Nathan had originally requested.

  Nathan stared at the workstation screen. He was out of ideas and rapidly running out of time. Sooner or later, someone was going to come in. Sooner, he realized, as the door control activated. He killed the workscreen and said quickly, “Light off,” plunging Moriarty’s office into darkness. The automatic door slid open and in the light from the corridor he saw Kenzy float in.

  “Commander? Commander?” she called out softly, when the door had closed and it was dark again.

  “Lights,” Nathan said, and pulled himself out from behind the workstation.

  “Sorry, did I startle you?” Kenzy asked.

  Feeling slightly foolish Nathan said, scowling, “You’re supposed to be keeping our host occupied.”

  “I did figure that out.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “When he realized I wasn’t about to let him into my coveralls and I’d faked the orgasm over his pool prowess, he sort of lost interest.”

  “Is he still playing?” Nathan asked, reactivating the screen.

  She shook her head. “He wandered off. You weren’t in your quarters,” she shrugged, “so I thought I should come and warn you.”

  “Watch the door,” Nathan said and thought, that was gracious of me.

  “Don’t bother to thank me,” Kenzy said. “It’s all in a day’s work.”

  “That’s right, it is,” said Nathan. “A day’s work which, in your case, should only involve filing and taking messages.”

  Kenzy moved to the doorway. “And watching doors.”

  “Just do it.”

  He watched her force the automatics on the unnecessarily elaborate entrance mechanism so that the door slid open a crack. She was bright; was that his problem with her? He’d always disliked bright crooks more than stupid ones because if the bright weren’t honest, what was the point of it all?

  “Have you found any of what you were looking for?” Kenzy asked.

  “It would help if I knew what that was,” Nathan said.

  “Nothing on my bug specialist?”

  “Never here.”

  “And the Outer Module Z series ends at twelve?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose it has occurred to you that if he was here and they thought his work might be risky they’d have pushed him out to the furthest available module,” she said.

  “Z 13,” Nathan agreed. “Unlucky for some. It’s not evidence.”

  “Any of the other series get as far as thirteen?”

  The other series. He hadn’t thought to check that. He punched in the questions.

  “All the outer modules are prefixed Z yes?” Kenzy went on. “I mean there’s got to be other series hasn’t there. Two, maybe three, with different prefixes?”

  Irritated with himself Nathan said, reading off the screen, “Inner, Central and Core. Prefixed M, G, and A.”

  “Okay, so you thought of it already,” Kenzy said, misinterpreting his tone. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I hadn’t thought of it,” Nathan said. “A runs to sixteen, G to nineteen, M to twenty and none of them miss out thirteen.”

  Kenzy looked back at Nathan, and said with a small frown, “We’ve only got Goodman’s word that they said it to her.”

  “Why would she lie?”

  “It makes her story more plausible?” Kenzy suggested.

  Nathan switched off the power. “Let’s get out of here,” he said and pushed himself up over the workstation. As he reached for the edge of the unit to slow himself he saw Kenzy duck back from the door and jam the mechanism closed.

  “Someone’s coming,” she whispered urgently.

  “Shit.” Nathan missed his hold, and his momentum carried him on towards her.

  Kenzy propelled herself back gently. “Lights off,” she said.

  In the blinding darkness Nathan put out his hands to protect himself, unsure how close he was to colliding with the wall. “Oh, that was fucking clever,” he muttered, and was surprised at how close Kenzy’s voice sounded when she asked softly, “Are you okay?” and then said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to strand you like that.”

  He felt her hand catch his arm and, more or less instinctively, he grabbed for her. Her other hand gripped his shoulder. He pulled her in clumsily and hugged himself to her. She squirmed, so he released her hastily and found that her legs were wrapped round the back of his. Her arms slid round his neck. He held her again. It was odd to feel the balance of a woman in his arms. He knew he missed Lee but he hadn’t realized how desperately he missed touching, holding someone against him. She brushed her cheek against his and the feeling was vivid, almost painful.

  “You’re a weird bloke,” she murmured. “I mean how come you let me know that you missed it?”

  Close up she smelled of shower gel and her breath was peppermint and beer. “Missed it?” He wanted to kiss her. “How do you mean?” What the hell was he doing here in the darkness? This was stupid. Stupid and wrong. This was Kenzy.

  “The thirteen business. You admitted it right off,” she said.

  “Oh, that,” Nathan said. “I had missed it.” He took his arms from round her and pushed gently to detach her arms from his neck. “I don’t think anyone’s coming, do you?” he said, and thought, welcome to the wonderful world of Freud.

  “You’re too much of a gentleman to make the obvious comment, right?”

  “I’m sorry?” Nathan said, feeling like a hypocrite. “Lights.”

  The lights felt brighter. “I guess I must have been mistaken,” Kenzy muttered as she disentangled her legs from his.

  “Can’t you do any bloody thing right?” Nathan demanded. It was intended to be a joke, it started out as a joke anyway, but somehow the humour got lost between thought and voice.

  “Obviously not,” Kenzy said. “You want to get your hand off my arse?”

  Nathan said, “I haven’t touched your arse.”

  “Not a tactile kind of guy,” she said wryly.

  “We communicate perfectly without it,” he snapped.

  Careful not to touch each other, they each kicked off towards the door. Kenzy said, “It was an honest mistake.”

  Nathan said, “That’s got to be a first for you.”

  “Cheap shot,” she said.

  “Yes it was, I’m sorry,” he said.

  When they reached the door Kenzy said, “Anyone can make a mistake.”

  As they drifted out and slipped the door closed behind them Nathan said, “You make too fucking many.” By the time he realized that he had left Box on Moriarty’s workstation, it was too late to do anything much about it.

  It was the sort of quiet, middle-class neighbourhood Theroux had expected. The house was early post-millennium, but well maintained, with a top of the range communications dish on the front lawn. He identified himself to the door and asked for Odile Goodman. The door informed him politely that there was no-one there of that name. Theroux looked at the reference address from the routine call trace he had gotten before he left Moonbase. He instructed the door to check again. “There is no-one here of that name,” the door repeated, adding automatically, “Please consult the Town Registry on Civic Plaza.”

  “What you have got to understand, Door,” Theroux said,
turning away, “is that you are not dealing with the delivery boy here. You are dealing with the Man.” There was a path running along the side of the house. Still a little shaky and uncoordinated by the return to full gravity, he strode unsteadily towards it. “Civic Plaza, yeah right,” he muttered.

  The private garden was neat but anonymous. It looked to Theroux like corporate landscaping on a small scale, budget contract stuff. He stood and peered at the back of the house, trying to see into the rear windows. He hesitated to go further because the truth was, he didn’t know how to react if he was challenged. Though he had done his best to develop the attitude appropriate to his promotion to senior police officer, so far what he felt like was an impostor and a not very convincing one. And the problem he had right now wasn’t only because he had no Earthside authority. He was sure that wouldn’t have bothered Nathan much, and Colin not one damn bit. He just wasn’t a real cop, and that was all there was about it.

  He walked a little further round the house. There didn’t seem to be anyone moving inside. The place looked to be deserted. Then he noticed that the patio access was standing open. He moved towards it. To his surprise, it stayed open, and the security system did not respond to his approach. He reached the open wall and stretched an arm across the threshold. Still nothing from house security. He stepped inside. “Anyone home?” he called. “Ms. Goodman?”

  There was no answer. In fact, there was no noise at all except what he was making. The garden room was completely empty. There were none of the usual orchids, palms, rattan chairs for that extra tropical touch. “Are you here, Ms. Goodman?” he called, moving into the main part of the house. The sound of his voice was unnaturally loud, and his footsteps seemed to echo slightly.

  As he walked through the other rooms, the reason for the odd acoustics was obvious. The place had been stripped bare. No furniture, no carpets, no pictures, nothing. The upper levels were the same. Someone had done a very thorough job of cleaning the place out.

  The communications console in the kitchen was still connected and working. Theroux queried the account and found that it was user-charged. He gave it his Star Cop authorization and asked for the Moonbase office. The abrupt pain was a jagged flash behind his eyes then everything went blank.