Edge World

by Michael Guinn

  *****

  On her way out of the office with Sgt. Onn, Captain Santos stopped by Sargent Lanos’ desk. “Have you heard back from the two Officers you sent to check the Satellite Control Center regarding the static problem on all of our comm networks?” asked Captain Santos.

  “No, it is too early unless they find and fix the problem quickly. Trying to comm here from the Center was difficult enough before the static started,” replied Sargent Lanos. “To top it off there is a nasty storm brewing in the North Polar Region and the forecasters say it will probably will head a little to the south, possibly as far south as us here in Atlanta City. The Officers are smart enough not to fly back if the storm gets too nasty. I don’t look for them for a couple of days.”

  “Alright, Sgt. Onn and I are flying to see Chief Onn in his village. I don’t expect us to get back until tomorrow. I have already notified Central Dispatch. Hopefully even with this static we will be able to comm here on the law enforce network if the static doesn’t get any better. I want to get to the bottom of this before Erickson takes his complains to the Council.”

  *****

  Investigator Townsead was hard at work completing her activity reports when Central advises her that she has an incoming comm.

  “Ha, I see you are hard at work Townsead.”

  “Yuri, what’s up? Don’t tell me you never have to do reports,” Tracy replied.

  “Reports are important, Tracy, what would we do without them?”

  “I can think of several thing I would like to do with them, but that’s life. I hope you didn’t comm me at work just for chit chat Yuri, what do you have?”

  “You better sit down, Tracy. You won’t believe what I am going to tell you.”

  “Ok, ok, I am sitting. What is the scoop?”

  “I just got the report back on the owners of the building the tracker led us to. Guess who!”

  “I have no idea, just tell me Yuri.”

  “It is owned by the Trader’s Association.”

  “Ye Gods,” Tracy exclaimed. You don’t think they have had that research team hidden in their building, do?”

  “It sure looks like someone did it. I am getting a search warrant want to come along and see what we can find? I will have a complete forensic team with me to help us search.”

  “What do you mean, Yuri, of course I will be there. Just think, we may be able to tie up two murder cases and solve the question regarding what that research team was really up to. And the Trader’s Association. I never did like those insufferable bastards, and here we have a chance to bring them down. Captain Santos is out of headquarters for the next two days but I will leave a message with dispatch in case she is able to comm us. Trader’s Association. I will leap for joy when we bring them down, Yuri.”

  “Don’t leap yet,” replied Yuri. You may just be leaping over a cliff.”

  Chapter 10

  Investigator Onn flew the patrol aircar while Captain Santos studied the rolling grass lands. She had been to Chief Onn’s village many times but the vista seemed to change every time she did. Herds of wild cattle and smaller herds of wild horses were visible from time to time. She loved it. The years she spent growing up in a caravan were very precious to her. The unlimited vista, the comradeship of the caravan members, the wild freedom she had when she rode and hunted the game of the plains.

  As they approached the fringe of the equatorial Jungle, Captain Santos noticed a small group of horsemen in the far distance, probably on a hunt. They may have been part of the Pawassa tribe since that was the nearest village. Captain Santos knew that the river trade route was maintained by hundreds if not thousands of Pawassa and Chief Onn drew men and women from all his various villages to operate the trade route. However, there were large numbers of tribesmen who prefer to hunt and grow various plants near their villages rather than operate the riverboats and portages.

  “Sue, head over towards that group of horsemen. I want to talk with them about the caravan attacks,” Captain Santos said. “Try to land in front of them so we won’t be a surprise to them and their horses. It doesn’t look like they are hunting game so we won’t be interfering with that.”

  Captain Santos was pretty sure they were Pawassa although from another village than the one Investigator Onn’s father was the Chief. The Investigator made a wide circle around the riders and landed on a clear patch about two hundred meters in front of them.

  “You stay with the aircar, Sue, while I walk out a ways to talk with them. Keep it running however, and be prepared to come back me up if I indicate or you see me in trouble. I seriously doubt there will be any, I have spent long periods of time in the villages and in general they are a non-violent people. But there are always exceptions. If there weren’t there would be no use for the OSI.”

  Captain Santos walked about sixty meters from the aircar and Investigator Onn through thigh high sweet-smelling grass, deciding that was as far as she wanted to be away from back-up. The horsemen were out of sight in the rolling hills so she adjusted her sidearm and shot a red flare into the sky. Santos was looking at the flare when she was struck heavily in the back while hearing a tremendous roar before she fell to the ground, head whirling. The black-out was brief but when Amanda tried to push herself up with her hands she realized she was bleeding freely from her noise and she was dizzy as hell. Her back hurt somewhat but her left shoulder hurt like she had been clubbed. Finally she managed to sit up, brushing dirt off her front and using sweet grass to try and stop the blood from her nose. Still dazed, Amanda tried to look around but the tall grass kept her from seeing anything except sky and a rising cloud of black smoke in the sky behind her. She looked at the smoke in wonder for several minutes, the smoke patterns swirling into the bright blue sky. Amanda suddenly realized that the smoke was coming from the vicinity of her air car and she began to scream: SUE…SUE... Oh God Damn It To Hell! With a mighty effort Amanda pushed herself up on her feet. Amanda could see the aircar was gone. Only a pile of aircar pieces thrown out by the explosion had escaped the fierce fire burning at the previous site of her aircar. In tears, Amanda tried to start towards the fire, even knowing that Sue was dead, but she fell again and just laid in the sweet grass, crying.

  *****

  Kristina and Tanya had attended school on Firstday reluctantly. Their mother was gone and not expected back until the next day, so they probably could have skipped attending except for Marilyn, their housekeeper, and there was a good chance they could have persuaded her not to tell their mother. Marilyn loved the girls and had been with the family since just after the twins were born. She always presented a somewhat strict demeanor towards the girls but underneath Marilyn would do anything for them. But the girls really didn’t know what they could do to help Charlie, whatever had happened to him. Their attempt to locate Charlie mentally the previous night had failed. So they both reluctantly went to school.

  But now school was out for the day. The girls were quiet for a change, deep it thought as they both worried about Charlie. He hadn’t been in school that day and though they had checked with school attendance, no one knew where he might be. When they reached home after a short walk, they noticed that the security system had been set strangely.

  “This is weird,” Tanya said. “Marilyn is always home when we get here and she would have set the system normally. Plus, it has been ages since she last had a family emergency that prevented her being home when we got here.”

  “I hope this isn’t anything serious,” put in Kristina. “I don’t like this: everyone gone!”

  The house seemed normal when they entered, but strangely empty. They couldn’t find any kind of note Marilyn might have left indicating the emergency. She had always done that before. Just another mystery on top of another. The girls worked on a snack in the kitchen, another thing that Marilyn had done always before, when the security systems announce a visitor at the door. Tanya moved to release the security system for their visitor, but Kristina stopped her.

 
“Who is this,” Kristin asked, “He is wearing an OSI uniform but I have never seen him before. There is also a young woman, roughly dressed, standing behind the young man.

  “I have certainly never seen either one of them,” Tanya replied. Why are you concerned?

  “Maybe I am being silly, but this doesn’t feel right to me. Where is your stunner?”

  Everyone on the planet twelve years and older could legally carry a stunner, although until you were eighteen it was what was called a junior stunner. They were of a very low power although they could stop a person or animal, at least for a few minutes to allow them to get to safety. Edge World was still a wild planet compared to Terra and some of the other long settled planets. Amanda had insured that her girls were well trained and kept up their practice. She had wrangled a special permit to allow them to have regular stunners when they were fourteen, with dire threats to take the stunners away until they were eighteen if they ever miss-used one.

  “I forgot to take it with me to school this morning; I was so worried about Charlie,” Tanya replied.

  “Go get it Tanya while I get mine. Then we will see to our visitors.”

  As Tanya fled up the stairs the front door chirped open and the man and woman stepped into the house.

  “Who are you,” Kristina asked, all the time sliding towards her back pack in the kitchen.

  “Your mother needs you down at headquarters right away,” The man in uniform said. “She sent us to get you since you don’t drive.”

  Kirsten didn’t know what to do. Their mother could have returned earlier than expected, but she just didn’t know.

  “Why didn’t she call us,” Kristina asked while Tanya continued down the upstairs hallway towards their bedroom?”

  “I don’t know…there was an explosion or something and things have gotten confused. Now come along, we have no time to waste. You up there, come back down.”

  The man and woman’s attention were on Tanya as she disappeared into her room. Kristina suddenly noticed that both of them were wearing moccasins on their feet. She slid her hand into her back pack as the man in uniform started to draw a stunner. Kristina, unable to find her stunner, grabbed the pack strap and threw it, full of heavy books, towards the man, quickly diving after it with her right hand ridged and full length in front of her. Besides the stunner training, Amanda had her girls take unarmed combat from the time they were ten.

  The man in uniform had only a split second to ward off Kristina’s back pack. He did so by flinging his right arm up in the air diverting the back pack so that it missed. Unfortunate for him, that also was the hand holding the recently drawn stunner and the back pack knocked it out of his hand. An instant later the heel of Kristina’s extended right hand connected with his forehead, slamming his head into the wall behind him. Kristina, falling on top of the man, quickly rolled off of him with a gymnastics’ skill. As she regained her balance she felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder. Kristina staggered, then caught her balance, one hand on the wall. A quick glance showed another man, also roughly dressed, walk through the doorway while at her feet a throwing knife with blood on the blade stuck in the wall besides her. The young woman drew a second knife and threw it while Kristina made a desperate dive towards the first man’s stunner, lying on the floor, aware that she was going to be too late. The second young man screamed at the woman not to kill Kristina as he also drew a stunner from beneath his shirt, but Kristina did not believe the woman would listen. All three intruders had forgotten Tanya. She snaked a head and one arm around the upstairs hallway and proceeded to stun the standing man and then the woman as she turned to flee. Tanya came flying down the stairs to her sister. Lying on the floor, Kristina had the wind knocked out of her but quickly recovered. The throwing knife still vibrated, stuck upright in the floor near where her head had been.

  “Are you all right?” Tanya yelled at her sister. “No of course you aren’t, are you with blood leaking through your jumpsuit from your shoulder.” Tanya tried to pull the top of Kristina’s jumpsuit off, while Kristina still sat, somewhat dazed, on the floor, but the cloth had stuck in the wound until she got some warm water from the kitchen and gently soaked the cloth until she could remove it. Upon examination, the knife had cut a thin slice across the top of Kristina’s left shoulder, about a centimeter deep. By now her sister had regained her wits and was able to keep a cloth pad, a towel from the kitchen against her shoulder while Tanya went around and collected various stunners and knives from the fallen bodies. The man her sister had knocked down and out was beginning to stir so Tanya stunned him in passing. She brought a small medical kit from the kitchen to her sister and they managed to close the cut, after disinfecting the wound, with small butterfly tape, and getting her to take a mild pain pill.

  “What happened Tanya, did they all get away,” Kristina asked?

  “Just look around, Kristina, unless there is someone else skulking around outside, they are all piled up here on the floor.”

  “Oh My God,” Kristina exclaimed after looking around. “The last I remember is a pain in my shoulder and diving for the stunner on the floor. I must have landed harder than I thought. Are any of them dead?”

  “They are all stunned right now although the one you knocked to the floor may have some injuries.”

  “Have you called Mom?”

  “Not yet haven’t had time. I will do it right now.” Tanya replied. “You just keep sitting there until your head stop spinning.”

  Tanya walked over to the main comm unit just outside the kitchen. When she connected with her mother’s office she was greeted by a familiar face.

  “Hi, Tanya, what can I do for you,” said Shelly Chamberlin, a young female officer that had been with the OSI force for only a year.

  “Afternoon,” Tanya said. “Is my mother back from where ever she went yesterday?”

  “No, she isn’t and I don’t know when she will be back,” Shelly said. “We haven’t heard a thing from her since she left.”

  “I thought she was supposed to keep in touch by comm!”

  “That’s right, but the static on our networks has been so bad it is hard to understand what is being transmitted.”

  “Has she even tried, Shelly?”

  “Uh…no she hasn’t. Maybe she got tied up and didn’t have a chance to comm or maybe she forgot.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Mom at all. She never forgets to at least comm regularly. She didn’t leave a message for us when we got home. Do you know what is the matter?”

  “Now don’t you worry, Tanya, I am sure she is all right. We have sent some officers out to try and contact her but that is because things are hopping here at Central that she needs to know about.”

  After a long pause, Tanya thanked Shelly and ended the comm.

  “What’s going on,” Kristina asked now up on her feet and steadier. “I know Mom is gone. Are they sending someone over to take care of these idiots?”

  “No, I didn’t mention the attacks to them yet,” Tanya said. “They didn’t say it outright, but Mom’s missing and if we tell OSI about what happened here they will put a guard on us so we can’t do what we want.”

  “What is it we want to do, Tanya?” Kristine said still a little confused.

  “Go find Mom and Charlie.”

  “How are we going to do that? We don’t have an aircar and we are not legal to fly one till next year. Where are we going to look any way,” Kristine said. She was still a little shook up and besides, she was the talker and Tanya was the planner.

  “We know that both Charlie and Mom were headed for Chief Onn’s village. So that is where we start. As for how we get there, public transit. Morris Expeditors leave ever evening from their offices on twenty-Fifth Street for the Washington Staging Post. They take all kinds of stuff and people down there to be put on the river boat for Southport and other towns and villages along the way. Before he left, Charlie told me that was how he was going to get to Chief Onn’s village. If we hurry we can ca
tch that ATA light rail to down town.”

  “What about these three people who tried…what, to kidnap us. One of them called out to not kill us. I remember that much,” Kristina asked?

  “They are going to be out for a while and not in good moods when they do awake up. Remember when Mom had each of us be hit with a medium stun so we would know what it was like? “

  “Yeh, I do. I had a terrible headache for hours and felt like I had been beaten with a club for several days.”

  “Ok, then we will drag them outside when we are ready to go, stun them again and then call the Militia. By the time they get here we will be on our way,” explained Tanya.

  “Won’t stunning them again be very bad for them?

  “It won’t do any permanent harm but I don’t care. We really don’t want to be around them when they wake up.”

  Kristina ran upstairs to start making up two packs for them to carry. Tanya searched the two men and the woman, retaining stunners and knifes, but nothing else. She then composed a message to be sent to the Atlanta Militia. In a very quick time both girls were ready to go and started pulling the intruders out to lie nicely in front of the house. Tanya then send a message to the Militia, reset the house security system and took off almost at a run for the closest ATA stop/pickup location.

  *****

  Investigator Townsead brought Lt. Baker up to speed on the murdered/missing persons case and the fact that she was leaving quickly to meet Sargent Yugoslav and his forensic team at the warehouse that Yugoslav, with a court ordered search warrant, was about to search. Tracy had tried to reach Captain Santos with the information that Militia Investigator Yugoslav dug up. But after several tries she had given up. While the law enforcement comm system had a lot of static, officers in the field were still able to reach headquarters through the static, although at times all they could get through was their name and location. All field officers in the OSI were required to report every day except under special dispensation and there was a special section in communications just for that. The lack of any communication from Captain Santos was beginning to worry some of her top staff. Two officers had been dispatched to Chief Onn’s village hoping to find her and Sgt. Onn. Investigator Townsead hopped into her own air car and took off for the warehouse to meet Yugoslav: it took only a few minutes to arrive, although Tracy may have broken a few traffic regulations as she set down by Yugoslav. She wanted to be in on the kill if that was really what they had here.