The Dark Colony

by Richard Penn

  ‘All those in favour of holding Captain Fournier... those against?’ This vote was less clear. Less than half of the people had voted to lock him up, and very few had voted against. ‘I have to remind you all that voting in a criminal trial is mandatory, and that you must either support or oppose the order to hold this prisoner in custody. Again, please. Those for holding him... those against?’ This time it was clearer: nearly all the jury voted for, and only the same handful against.

  ‘Take the prisoners away please. We will now take a five minute rest.’

  Lisa had blocked her phone while she was in court, but it spoke up now. ‘Phone police emergency Johansen from Sergeant Sørensen. Lisa, sorry, but I’m not sure how the regime is working under your... Sorry, I mean... Where do we put these prisoners? I don’t want to tie up the jail dock with them, and we need to keep them separate. We can’t keep them in boats forever, what if there is a storm? Any ideas?’

  Gurit Gabai joined the conversation. ‘I have an idea. You know the hostel block we were in when we first arrived at Terps? We used to call those rooms cells, they’d be ideal.’ The hostel block was used by apprentices, who generally quit their parents’ flats at 14. Each room was just over two metres square, but had a toilet and a folding bed. Lisa and the others had found better places now.

  ‘That sounds good. Get one of the engineers to fit physical locks to the outside of the doors, though. I’m not trusting any computer on this. Martin. Private call.

  ‘Martin, pikhoved you could’ve figured that out yourself. Don’t make out I’ve taken over the forbandet police force. I’m just doing the big crime, the station is yours. OK?’

  ‘OK, kuksugare. Come for a beer when this förbannade trial is done though. We need to get back in sync.’

  ‘I look forward to it, Martin.’ Trading Danish swearwords for Swedish ones was a good start, Lisa thought.

  12 Blue Trials

  Now the tough stuff. In the interview when she joined the police, Martin had asked Lisa if she was prepared to lock up her best friend, if it came to that. She’d claimed she would, so she could not back out now.

  She exchanged glances with the judge, then spoke up. ‘I apologise for taking up the meeting’s time with this, which should be purely a police matter. It’s a special case. Acting Corporal Bolton, I am going to name three members of your force of deputies. You are ordered to place these individuals in custody and keep them here for a hearing. Kayden Carter. Emma Doherty. William Morel.’

  Each prisoner gave up their tabard, and moved to the right of the dais. They had run out of cuffs, and had to use cable ties. ‘In addition, you are required to apprehend the following individuals, and place them under arrest. Carmella and Uzziah Levin. Guo Xiaodan. Dai Boqin.’ People were a little confused when Lisa read out the Chinese names, as Dan and Brendan were the names everyone knew, but Lisa felt the proper names were more appropriate to the occasion.

  The accused were all lined up, and the judge began again.

  ‘Kayden Carter, Emma Doherty, William Morel, Carmella Levin, Uzziah Levin, Guo Xiaodan, Dai Boqin. You are jointly accused of the following offences. Conspiracy to corrupt public officials, gambling without a licence, smoking tobacco within public airspace. You are not required to enter a plea at this time, but you may do so. How do you plead?’

  The prisoners had been consulting with Sandra Robinson and with Krystoff Nemecj, the self-appointed advocate of the lockhands.

  Mrs Robinson spoke up first. ‘Your honour I represent the Levin’s and Ms Doherty. They wish to plead guilty to the gambling and tobacco charges, and not guilty to the conspiracy.’

  Nemecj spoke next. ‘I’m talking for the rest. Same thing.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Nemecj, you’ll have to spell it out, I’m afraid,’ said the Judge.

  ‘I represent Carter, Morel, Guo and Dai. They all plead guilty to the gambling and smoking but not guilty to the conspiracy.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Krawczyk. ‘Each of you look directly at me, and if you are willing to admit that you played an illegal gambling game and smoked tobacco in the hold, say, “I do.”‘

  Each of them did so, almost inaudibly in the case of the Chinese lockhands, and he led them through a similar procedure to confirm that they accepted their defenders.

  ‘Thank you. The sentencing hearing on those offences is hereby postponed for a period not to exceed four weeks. We must now proceed to the more serious offence of conspiracy to corrupt a public official. I will ask Lisa again to present the charges, and for the two defenders in turn to respond. Remember this is a custody hearing, we are not trying them for the crime. As the gambling and tobacco offences will likely attract only a fine, you will have to show probable cause of the conspiracy if we’re to lock them up.’

  Lisa was a little panicked by this. She had been hoping to lock them up on the minor offences and skate over the conspiracy for another day.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your honour,’ said Lisa. ‘I will present a number of video clips, collected by the federation police from interviews conducted by my team with the accused. Firstly, we have four of them directly confessing to playing in the poker games in the hold, and showing awareness of the inflatable cat ruse and the modification of the camera in the hold office.’

  She played the clips. ‘Now we have an additional set of videos, of the same defendants talking about others who were at the game, who won and who lost, and so on. You will notice that each of the defendants who chose not to respond to our questions are implicated by at least two of the others.’

  She counted herself lucky that neither of the defenders had interrupted by now. These clips proved the people had been there, but they had already admitted to that. She wanted the audience to see them say it, however. So far, so good.

  ‘Now,’ said Lisa, ‘I want to move on to the more difficult question of conspiracy. A conspiracy charge requires “a discussion” and “an act.” “Discussion” means that the person charged talked seriously with someone else about committing a crime. It is enough to be present when crimes are discussed without protesting or reporting them, you do not have to speak. An “act” means that you do something which furthers the ends of the conspiracy. The act does not need to be illegal in itself. Have I remembered my sergeant’s course correctly, your honour?’

  ‘Close enough,’ the judge replied. ‘Carry on, corporal.’ He was back to calling her corporal, now there was a sergeant in the station.

  ‘In the interviews, we asked each person if they knew that the bus trips back and forth to the game were secret, and how they thought it was not spotted by the controllers. I have several clips showing the responses to this.’

  She played the remaining set of videos.

  ‘You will notice that all the defendants mentioned that “a fix was in,” or “they’d been paid to turn a blind eye”. All clear references to a discussion of how to attend the games secretly, which all the participants must have heard. So that is the “discussion.” The “act” was simply to attend the game. To be there knowing it was covered by a corrupt act was to be part of the conspiracy.

  ‘That is my case.’ she concluded. Having spelled it out, she was already worried about getting all the seven locked up.

  Mrs Robinson spoke first. ‘May I begin with a question? All of these videos show the respondents but not the questioners. Who was conducting the interviews?’

  ‘Myself, Sou Papadakis, Tommy Hansen and Minah Gabai. We worked in pairs, different combinations at different times.’

  ‘So you cannot tell the court which of these statements was made to yourself or to one of the others?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘I suppose I could work it out, but not off the top of my head, ma’am, no.’ replied Lisa.

  ‘Where are you going with this, Mrs Robinson, how is it relevant?’ asked the judge.

  ‘Of the four interviewees, only Ms Johansen is a properly-appointed officer in the Belt Federation Police. The others are a gang you have put together
with no legal standing in this civilian court. As such I move that all of this evidence be excluded on the grounds that it was illegally obtained.’

  Krawczyk’s face had been darkening all through this speech, and he replied sternly. ‘First of all, there is nothing improper about my resumption of command in the present crisis. I was appointed “with all the powers of the captain of a vessel in high space” by the officer in charge of such things at Mars. That includes deputizing people, and if it included dumping annoying people out of the airlock you’d be in serious danger. Secondly, while I am a fan, like you, of reruns of Law and Order, all of that US stuff about the fruit of the poison tree doesn’t apply here. If you think the evidence is false, you need to show it was falsified. It’s not enough to argue it should not have been collected. Jury is instructed to disregard this argument.’

  Nemecj took his turn, taking a bit longer to put the words together. ‘A conspiracy, and an act. The act, you say, is just being at the game. All the people have admitted to that. But the conspiracy? You have some of the people admitting to talking about the fix being in, and you have them talking about other people being at the game. But, you’ve made a leap, to say all of the seven conspired together because they were all at the game. Can you swear every one of the seven has someone on video saying they talked to them about a fix? I haven’t seen it in what you showed.’

  Lisa’s heart sank. She’d been so keen on identifying the seven, she had not systematically put evidence together to show all seven in the conspiracy. She turned to the judge and spread her hands, not knowing where to go.

  The judge looked back at her for a few seconds, then said, ‘I’m sorry Lisa, I can’t let you go back and gather more evidence while the trial is under way. Unless anyone objects, I will call the Jury for a decision with what you have shown.’

  Krawczyk repeated the questions about detention for each of the seven accused, putting the four who had confessed first, and getting majority verdicts for each in favour of locking them up. Then he moved on to Dan Gou, the first of the accused who had answered “no comment” in the interviews. The vote was slow, and it was close. The judge had them repeat it to be sure, but they voted to release him. Next up was Brendan Dai, quickly reaching the same result. The final case was Emma Doherty, who was also released.

  The judge then noted that it was 1700 and time the children had their dinners, and after ordering that service to the hold be resumed, adjourned the meeting.

  Lisa freed three of the prisoners, and led the other four over to the sheriff office, to be put in the jail cell together. There was no need to separate these defendants, they had had plenty of time to talk already. She sat down at the desk, dejected, and was joined by Sørensen. ‘Don’t worry, Lisa,’ said the sheriff, ‘we will be keeping a close eye on your little fishes. Krystoff has told me he won’t let any of the three over to the hold. Even though he was defending them, he says “not guilty is not the same as innocent,” and I concur.’

  ‘But the ones who refused to talk are the most likely to be in on the bigger plot,’ said Lisa.

  ‘Gou and Dai hardly ever talk at the best of times, but I know what you mean. We will have to keep a very close eye on Emma. We and the snoop club will be watching them wherever they go. Take some time off, join the crowd in the bar. Luke’s doing night shift tonight, so we’ll all be able to get together.’

  Lisa took the tube to the B side at a more sedate pace than usual, even using the handles, and returned to her flat. Taking a shower, she put on a suit that was a little more feminine and definitely not yellow. It was dark red, had an actual neckline with cleavage, and even a nominal skirt. Feeling a little more like a girl and less like an emergency vehicle, she headed back to the hall.

  13 Irish Night

  As Lisa returned to the hall, she tried to remember what day of the week it was. It seemed incredible, but less than 24 hours had passed since the whole incident had begun. So it was Tuesday, and that meant Irish night. As she entered the hall by the balcony, she could see the hall had been divided into its normal seating pattern, with the ‘family restaurant’ on the left and the bar in the opposite corner, where the dais had been during the day. She leaned on the balcony to take in the scene, relishing the normality of it all, watching the stars rotate past the big windows.

  At the moment, most of the chairs and tables were clustered on the family side for the kids’ dinners, while the other end had only a few tables, and some dedicated drinkers sitting at the bar. Through the evening, the tables and chairs in the middle would be shuffled across, leaving only a few people on the family side. In her school years, she had spent many an evening studying over there, wishing she could relax on the bar side.

  She had a sudden warm feeling when she saw the little girl they had rescued from the hold, sitting with a couple of other Chinese girls from the station, just chatting away. She was holding very tightly onto a doll, probably knitted by Nell, who was sitting with them, keeping an eye.

  Lisa went down the ladder sedately, not wanting to give the boys at the bar a thrill by blowing her skirt up, and walked over to the bar. Krystoff pulled her a lager as she drew near, and she joined Sou, Tommy and Minah at a low table to one side. They smiled at each other, but were content to sit quietly for a while.

  Since it was Irish night, there was a green banner over the bar, with shiny shamrocks and leprechauns. Mrs Robinson was at the adjacent table, with two of her dogs and three of her gang of ladies. She had a hat for every day of the week, this one was apparently a leprechaun hat. Lisa petted the ears of Snowy, another of Mrs Robinson’s kennel. She always had bitches, keeping a bank of sperm on ice at the kennels, and ruthlessly terminating any embryo which had the temerity to be male. She had three daughters of the human variety, and was reputed to have bred them in the same way. Lisa said hello, but there was little talk at any of the tables.

  Sipping her beer, she looked around the hall. Somehow she expected everything to have changed, given the revelations of the last hours. But the big landscape mural was still half finished. It was apparently of Tuscany. Someplace with hectares no doubt. And the screen was still showing the view from the station on the surface, presumably put up by the settlers to encourage people down to the asteroid. She could see the landside bus picking its way across the rocks from the hangar. It was a thing with wheels, like on a planet.

  As Lisa got halfway down her first beer, the perpetual band started up in the corner. It was just a soft drum set and a plucked double bass for now, laying down a quiet background. People would join and leave throughout the evening, and the beat would alter, but never stop.

  ‘You guys order food?’ Lisa asked, but nobody had yet. ‘What’s the Irish menu, anyway? All I can remember is stew.’

  ‘Yep, stew it is,’ said Tommy. ‘Krys’s chef is off Tuesdays, so he makes something at lunchtime and leaves it on. You want stew, or stew?’

  ‘Yep, stew it is,’ said Lisa. She signalled to Nemecj, doing spooning-up motions, and holding up four fingers. She felt it would break the mood to even call him on the phone. The stew of course contained no meat. Raising animals for slaughter was an impossible luxury on a station, and the brown morsels in the stew owed more to the yeast tank than to the prairie.

  Minah started to speak, but Lisa interrupted, ‘Nothing about work, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Minah, and they lapsed back into silence, listening to the music again. A couple of fiddlers had joined in, playing a quiet lament that was more peaceful than sad. The woman was a teacher and the girl a pupil, so they stopped from time to time, but the beat carried on, and they always entered the flow without disturbing it.

  Stjepan appeared beside the sickbay, a neat tan jumpsuit replacing his lime green work clothes. He paused as he came across, mutely asking Lisa for permission to join the circle. Lisa caught his eye and did mouth-zipping motions, frowning to indicate her seriousness. He smiled and ambled over, carefully positioning his long frame so that there would be no conta
ct with Lisa’s. Lisa was half inclined to close the distance and press against him, but again... now was not the time. She imagined leaning her head against his shoulder, and he glanced at her a little alarmed, as if he could feel a physical heat.

  Nemecj’s 12-year old apprentice, Olive Caldwell. arrived with a tray which seemed bigger than she was. Five bowls of soup and a cola for the medic. ‘Mr Nemecj says he can read your mind, Stjepan,’ she said.

  ‘I hope not,’ Stjepan replied, glancing at Lisa again.

  They tucked into their stew, dunking the crisp bread rolls, and saving a little bread to clean out the bowl. Nobody on a colony ever wasted a single particle of food. Unless you count feeding vast numbers of enormous dogs, Lisa thought, but Mrs Robinson was a law unto herself.

  The fiddlers had drifted away, replaced by an alto flute and a penny whistle, the rhythm ramping up to a walking pace, evoking long journeys over hills and valleys. And hectares, thought Lisa.

  ‘Have you heard from Phobos?’ Lisa asked Tommy, who seemed to be their capcom.

  ‘I did a quick check. They’ve seen the trial and have a bunch of things to suggest. But they also told us to relax and take the evening off. So we’re OK.’

  ‘Yep, we’re OK,’ said Lisa, happy not to be rushing off somewhere.

  Martin Sørensen and Gurit Gabai joined them, dragging another table over so their circle became oval. Everyone sat up a little, the lazy mood damaged, if not broken.

  Gurit gave her sister a hug. ‘So now I’m a criminal and you’re a detective? I wonder what we’ll be next week?, said Gurit.

  ‘A Rabbi and a Mohel, perhaps,’ said Minah, ‘something like that.’

  ‘Perhaps when they make Snowy Pope,’ said Gurit, tugging the old dog’s ears.