Absolution

by Rick Partlow

“Hey Gracie,” I asked over my shoulder, still watching Larry walk away, back toward the Criminal Investigations Center where he kept an office. “Whatcha got that’s hot and that’ll take me out of the system for a while?”

  “Not a lot hitting the wire lately,” the older woman admitted, her voice wistful, as if she didn’t care for the sudden influx of law and order. “I’ll send it to your ‘link, but the only things I saw this morning were a couple of asteroid miners who broke out of pre-trial confinement and stole an orbital transfer vehicle.” She shrugged. “If they’re in the rocks, with all the wildcat mining setups there, I doubt anyone’ll find them.”

  Damn. Hopping rock to rock, homestead to homestead would take weeks, and I doubted the reward would make it worthwhile. Maybe I really would have to leave the system.

  “Everything else is months, even years old,” Gracie went on, a sympathetic lament for my prospects. “All cold case stuff no one’s been able to find a lead on. It’s too much to send it all, but you can use the public terminal over there.” She was pointing to a data terminal set in the wall beside her station.

  “Thanks, I’ll give it a look.”

  The cases were just as cold as she’d said, all of them lacking information, clues or the promise of much return on my investment of time and resources. Except…

  One caught my eye. A fugitive not from Marshals’ custody but from the Navy’s Military Police, oddly enough. I checked again and confirmed the fugitive was, indeed, a civilian and not military. Military personnel didn’t bring as high a bounty and most hunters didn’t bother with them. Her picture hovered above the details of her file. I’d become pretty good at judging people from their file picture. It caught them at a time when they were brand new to their situation, uncertain, maybe hopeful or maybe depressed but always uncertain. And then someone asked them to smile for a picture and so much about what they were feeling went into that fake smile.

  Hers had been taken at the personnel section of a now-defunct company called Hadur Defense Technologies, founded back on Earth, moved to the Barnard’s Star system and the industrial sections of the Paragon station there and then, finally to Epsilon Indi and the Panicle before they’d gone under. All that had been far in the future when the photo had captured the woman’s hopeful smile. Her whole life and an exciting career had been ahead of her. Maybe a relationship, maybe a raise, maybe a new apartment, all those positives…and yet, her smile held just a hint of reserve, as if she knew life was never predictable, as if even then she knew anything could come along and topple it all.

  She was solid-looking, neither thin nor chunky, just solid. A firm chin, high cheekbones framed broad-set eyes with keen intelligence behind their warm blue. Not what I would call pretty, but…pleasant, I guess.

  I forced my eyes away from her photo and back to the details of the file. Her name was Delia Beckett, age thirty-four, and she was wanted for theft of vital military supplies and treason.

  Treason, by God.

  That would explain the involvement of the Navy and the MPs. It didn’t say what exactly she’d stolen, but then, it wouldn’t. Top secret and all that. She’d been arrested fourteen months ago, escaped two months later during a pre-trial prison transfer. Something nagged at the back of my head and I cross-checked it on my ‘link.

  Yeah, Hadur Defense Technologies had gone out of business only three weeks after she’d been arrested. It had been something involving her work. Not too great a leap since she worked in defense. But treason? Weren’t a lot of things you could steal that would get you charged with treason, and the first one that came to mind was military-grade Bartoli crystals. They were needed for the big blaster cannons, the kind ships of the line used against each other or, and this was where the treason part came in, for planetary bombardment. No one in any level of government wanted weapons floating around that could penetrate planetary defense shields and take out whole cities, or destroy space stations. Treason was one of the very few crimes that still carried the possibility of the death penalty.

  Yeah, I’d have run, too.

  I looked for records of the pursuit, of any investigation, and found none. It was all heavily redacted by the Navy, but I couldn’t see any indication they’d ever sent MPs after her. I frowned. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense. I looked into her pre-work history, found out she’d been born on Earth, but her parents had emigrated to Morrigan, right here in Epsilon Indi, out in a region on the eastern edge of their southern hemisphere called Absolution.

  Both parents dead when their hopper crashed in a sudden storm a year before Beckett had even graduated college, long before she was hired on with Hadur. Surely, the MPs had gone to Absolution, just to check on her? I mean, even the Navy had to be smart enough for that, right? Except I couldn’t find anything in the records to indicate anyone had ever bothered with it. I caught myself scowling and forced a neutral expression back onto my face.

  “Gracie,” I said and she looked up from whatever clerical task she’d been working on behind the desk. “Could you send me the fugitive file on Delia Beckett? I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure thing, sweetie,” she replied automatically, then paused when she actually pulled up the file, looking at me with what might have been concern in her tiny, dark eyes. “A Navy case? Damn, Grant, there’s a reason those have such a high bounty. People like that are dangerous.”

  “I promise to be careful,” I told her, tipping an imaginary hat. “Thanks, Gracie. See you next time.”

  I heard the chime from my ‘link telling me the file had been delivered and I weighed the little device in my hand. It seemed heavier with the data, as if it knew something I didn’t. Well, I knew where I needed to go to find out what, but I didn’t like it.

  The Criminal Investigation Division was my old stomping ground, the place where I’d made my reputation as a Marshal…and then destroyed it. Larry worked in the Research Squad, which was a step down from our old assignment in the Fugitive Task Force, and I was the one responsible for kicking him down that step. If the dirty looks had been present on my journey through the public areas of the station, they intensified to a laser focus when I stepped into the CID section. I moved fast and purposefully, trying to avoid any questions I didn’t want to answer, ducking into the doorway for Research before anyone cornered me to demand to know what I was doing there.

  CID as a whole was bustling with activity, Marshals and clerks constantly on the move, either heading out to or returning from field work, cataloging evidence, recording statements. Research was the home of the unsung heroes, the people who dug up the data leading to those raids and arrests. And unsung also meant unpromoted, for the most part, and definitely unhappy. There were no smiling faces in the Research center, no high fives and no congratulatory plaques hanging on the walls. The denizens of this underworld worked silently at their stations, running one algorithm after another, digging up nuggets of data and trying to connect them together with the help of computer systems out of date before I was born.

  Larry was at his desk, because of course he was, and looked to just be getting settled in for another long round of unheralded net searches, and he didn’t look happy when I showed up with my “I need a favor” grin.

  “No,” he said immediately, shaking his head, not even looking up from the readout at his terminal.

  “Larry,” I said, “it’s just a simple…”

  “No.” Now he did look up, his eyes fixed in an intractable expression. “I’m already in a shithole, Grant. I’m not going to dig any deeper.”

  I did a quick, surreptitious check of our surroundings to make sure none of the other functionaries in the squad room were close enough to overhear. Of all the places I could wander in this station, this was the one where no one would give me a second look. You had to have hope and pride to look down on someone else, apparently.

  “I’m going into a job blind,” I tried to explain, speaking quickly to get the information into his head before he could interrupt. “Fugitive’
s name is Delia Beckett. It’s a Navy MP arrest and I don’t know if they bothered to follow through with an in-person visit to the last known address. Or if we…” I bit down on the word, stopping myself with a sour expression. “Or if the Marshals visited the place after the case was transferred here. I don’t need any insider information, just if they bothered to even visit the woman’s home in Absolution.”

  He glared at me, anger out of place on his too-handsome face, like some vandal had drawn a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Behind those eyes, though, thoughts were grinding like a milling machine.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” he said, “if you make me a promise.”

  “Sure,” I agreed readily. “Anything I can do for you, Larry.”

  “Go somewhere else.” The words were full of such venom, I nearly took a step back.

  “What, you want me to wait out in the lobby or something?”

  “No!” He stopped himself and shrugged. “Well, that, too, yeah. But I mean, you’re so free, so cut loose of all responsibility, everything that might tie you down. So, go someplace else. Go make a life in another system, go bug the Marshals there, and maybe they won’t even know who you are and you won’t get dirty looks every time you bring in a fugitive.”

  The vitriol faded from his voice and it became more a tone of one friend pleading with another. “Or just get out of the business, go work in a bar or use that stupid, overpriced ship of yours to run a courier service, or do anything that gets you out of this. Because it’s going to get you killed, Grant. You’re going to keep doing this shit until some moron gets the drop on you, and you’re going to get killed and that’s exactly what that asshole Caty wanted.”

  I opened my mouth to agree automatically, anything to get the information and shut him up before he lectured my ear off. But I paused instead, considering whether I was becoming exactly the sort of asshole everyone thought I was.

  “All right,” I promised him. “After I bring this one in, I’ll move on, try another sector.”

  He didn’t look convinced, but he waved me away.

  “Go wait in the lobby.”

  I tried to find a shadowed corner, the furthest away from the offices, hunched down in an uncomfortable, puke-green chair next to an artificial plant. Its plastic fronds tickled at the side of my face and I wondered why they didn’t bring in a real plant. It would have helped with carbon dioxide scrubbing and added some character to the place.

  “Masterson, what the hell are you still doing here?” Oh, wonderful.

  It was Claridge again, Francis Claridge, the blond with the buzz cut, alone now without his junior inspector sidekick to show off for. He towered over my chair, intimidating the potted plant.

  “I’m wondering why you guys don’t have real plants in here, truth be told.”

  Claridge blinked, the limited range of his imagination flummoxed by something outside its parameters, and I sat there, chin propped on my fist, waiting for his asshole implementation system to reboot.

  “Seriously, Masterson,” he went on when his train of thought had been levered slowly and laboriously back on the rails, “do you get off on rubbing this shit in our face? Reminding everyone here what you did?”

  I regarded him through hooded eyes, trying not to take him seriously because it wouldn’t do any good, but getting tired of his shtick.

  “And what exactly is it you think I did, Francis?” I made the mistake of asking him. “Besides my job, that is.”

  He sputtered at that, the sound like one of the old-style ground-cars they use out in the boonies taking a corner too hard and nearly skidding out. Unfortunately, he was able to regain control and negotiate the curve. I’d been looking forward to him crashing and rolling.

  “You abused your Goddamned authority, Masterson!” He was yelling now, loud enough to draw attention. “You pursued a case against a senior representative of the Union after you’d been expressly ordered to back off!”

  “And I suppose the fact he’s a Senior Union Rep had nothing to do with the fact I was ordered to back off, huh?” I asked, tilting my head toward him the way you might when speaking to a slow child.

  “And what do you think you accomplished by illegally bugging his offices, douchebag? Do you think you’re above the law? Do you think just because it’s someone you think is a bad guy you get to be a bad guy, too?” Now he was bellowing and everyone was staring, even the perps being walked through in restraints.

  “I didn’t monitor his offices,” I ground out, slowly pushing myself up from the chair. I was still shorter than Claridge, but I had a good seven or eight kilos on him and it wasn’t fat. It wasn’t all fat. “Caty had me framed to get me off his case, and if you had half the brains you do mouth, you’d know it.”

  “And you went and proved that by assaulting him?” he bellowed back at me. “By getting yourself arrested and hauled off in cuffs in front of everyone like a fucking criminal? You made us all look bad! You’re making us look bad just by being here! You’re a fucking disgrace to the Union Marshal Service and just looking at you makes me sick!”

  That about did it. I’m phlegmatic by nature, or at least I like to think I am, but there’s a point where my heels go back against the wall. I knew all the signs; I’d been there before. Everything seemed to slip into slow motion, and my focus narrowed into an auditory and visual tunnel aimed at Francis Claridge. I analyzed his stance, ran through what I remembered of his unarmed combat training sessions and had decided on a plan of attack in the space of about a half a second, and we were about to find out which one of us had paid more attention in that training when a clear, commanding voice cut through the haze of adrenaline.

  “What in the living hell is going on out here?”

  The woman was tiny, at least a head shorter than me and maybe fifty kilos soaking wet, a child playing dress-up in her blue Marshal’s coveralls, but both Claridge and I locked up immediately, coming to attention. For me, it was old instinct and respect, since I wasn’t under her command anymore.

  “Senior Inspector,” Claridge stuttered, “I’m sorry, there was just a disagreement…”

  “Yes, Deputy Marshal Claridge,” she cut him off, her voice the crack of a whip. “I heard the disagreement. Everyone in the damned station heard it. I’d be surprised if there aren’t ships a million klicks away that heard your disagreement!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Claridge said meekly. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “You are a Union Marshal, Claridge. You deal with criminals, murderers, the scum of the galaxy every single day. You are supposed to be professional and calm in the face of all this. It’s your job. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “No excuse, ma’am.”

  “You’re not a freaking Academy cadet, Claridge. Don’t give me that ‘no excuse’ bullshit. Just go cool off and don’t let me hear this sort of shit from you again.” He began to splutter acknowledgement but she waved him away like she was chasing off a mosquito. “Just go!”

  He shot me a dirty look before he hurried away, leaving me alone with Maggie Tanaka. She’d been the scourge of the sector for fifteen years and a personal hero of mine, once. Now, I felt as if I were her greatest disappointment and if I’m being honest, I’d come to hate her.

  “What do you want from this place, Grant?” she asked, exasperation in her tone but no real anger. Probably she was beyond anger and into “don’t-give-a-shit” territory.

  “I came to drop off a bounty and search for the next one, ma’am.” I held up my ‘link. “I sat down for a minute to read the file on the new fugitive and Francis started running his mouth.”

  Tanaka sighed.

  “As a licensed bounty hunter, you are allowed by law to operate out of any Marshal’s station in the Union,” she said as if she were reading the words out of a manual. “And the lobby is accessible by the public, so you are within your rights to sit here as long as you do not make yourself a public nuisance. But I don’t need my people distracted, Masterson, s
o if you are going to be here, you need to swallow your damn pride and keep your mouth shut no matter what a hothead like Claridge does. Otherwise, I’ll have you declared persona non grata and kicked out of here permanently.”

  “Understood, ma’am.”

  She seemed to be waiting for something more, but that was all I was going to give her.

  “Jesus, Grant,” she sighed, fists planted on her hips. “I know you’re a stubborn son of a bitch, but can’t you just move on?”

  This time she didn’t wait for an answer, just stalked back to her office, leaving me alone and embarrassed. I didn’t like being embarrassed. It brought up a side of me I tried not to indulge, the side that liked to hurt people. I’d given into that urge when I visited Tomas Caty the day after I’d found out about his attempt to frame me for bugging his office. It had felt pretty damn satisfying, feeling his nose crunch under my knuckles, seeing the blood spray off of his face.

  But his nose looked just fine now, after a visit to one of the high-end clinics available to Union Reps, and my career was over. I could have just seen through the investigation, let it play out. There was enough reasonable doubt that I probably just would have had a black mark on my record, maybe a hold on promotion for a few years, but I’d still have been a Marshal. Instead, I’d given him exactly what he wanted.

  “Jesus, I can’t leave you alone for two minutes,” Larry said, disgust heavy in his voice. I’d been so busy feeling sorry for myself, I hadn’t even heard him walk up behind me.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m just a mess.”

  “Remember our bargain.” He raised a warning finger. “I tell you this, you have to leave the sector.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, the answer to your question is no.” For a second, I thought he was saying he wasn’t going to help, but he went on. “No one ever visited Absolution looking for this Delia Beckett. Not us, not the MPs.”

  “Don’t you find that strange?” I asked him, more to bounce my thoughts off of someone than out of any interest in his answer. “Lady’s wanted for treason, a death sentence crime, and the MPs never even bothered to visit the planet she last lived on before she left for school.”