Murder in Orbit

by Bruce Coville

  “Just what is it he’s got?” I asked.

  Dr. Jefferson shrugged. “Who knows? He only invented it a few days ago.”

  “He was doing recombinant DNA?” I cried. This time I was truly shocked. That kind of research had been completely banned after the disaster in Chicago that killed twenty thousand people a few years earlier.

  Dr. Collins nodded. “The ironic thing is, he wasn’t even doing anything big, like cancer research. He was just looking for a cure for the common cold. Instead he came up with this horror.”

  I hoped Cassie was still in the duct, listening to this. I didn’t know how everything was going to turn out. But I had a feeling that if I lived through this, I was going to need a witness.

  The main thing still puzzling me was who had killed Dr. Twining? And why? I had assumed it was because he was about to spill the beans about the forbidden research. But these three were talking about it very openly. Which must mean it wasn’t one of them.

  But if not them, who?

  Suddenly I thought I had an answer.

  “What were you doing with your results?” I asked.

  Dr. Collins and Dr. Hulan looked at each other nervously.

  “They were selling them to me,” said a familiar voice. “For a tidy profit, I might add.”

  I sighed. I had hoped I was mistaken.

  But really, it was the most logical answer. We had always joked that she was the one who really ran the BS Factory. And of course, as much as I had tried to ignore the fact, no one had been in a better position to sabotage my scooter.

  Gramps always told me that letting personal feelings interfere with your detective work can be a fatal error.

  Turning to face my old buddy, Millicent Carter, I hoped Gramps was wrong—at least about the fatal part.

  Chapter 25

  Millie

  “It’s unfortunate you don’t think as badly as you drive, Rusty,” said Millie. “If you did, you might never have put together enough clues to get yourself into this mess.”

  I shrugged. “If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. You couldn’t have kept this hidden forever. Your trail was getting wider and wider.”

  Dr. Hulan decided to interrupt. “What’s the point of the gun, Millie? You don’t need to be that worried. Except for poor Pieter here, nobody’s done anything that’s going to merit more than a slap on the wrist, and that includes you.”

  “Tell that to Dr. Twining,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” asked Dr. Collins.

  “I mean Millie has already used that laser pistol once tonight, when Dr. Twining was about to spill the deal to me.”

  Dr. Collins caught her breath. “Is he dead?” she whispered.

  “Of course he’s dead,” snapped Millie. “Rusty and that stupid girl would be, too, if I hadn’t been thinking I could get things back under control before they reached this point. Just shows you what I get for being sentimental.”

  Dr. Durkin, who had been quiet for a while, screamed and began scrabbling at the glass of his isolation cage again.

  I wondered what Cassie was doing.

  “Why, Millie?” asked Dr. Jefferson.

  Millie shrugged. “Because some of us were indeed doing things for which we could have gotten more than a slap on the wrist. You fools thought I was passing your research on to a major corporation. Actually I was. But they weren’t the only ones getting it. The really big money was coming from the South American bloc.” She smiled. “They had interesting plans for some of the information you people were generating.”

  Dr. Hulan’s face went red. “You betrayed us!”

  Millie laughed. “You’re as naive as the kid. Worse, actually, since you’ve been around long enough to know better.”

  “Well, you won’t get away with it,” said Dr. Hulan gruffly.

  “Oh, no?” asked Millie. “Who’s going to stop me?”

  “The four of us, to begin with.”

  I thought it was nice of Dr. Hulan to count me in. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

  “You can’t stop me if you’re dead,” said Millie. “Which you will be, the minute you decide to move. I’ve already killed one person tonight. Three or four more aren’t going to make that much difference.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Dr. Jefferson, who appeared just as cool as ever. “You can’t get away with killing all four of us!”

  “Sure I can,” said Millie, “if this station happens to blow up sometime after I head back toward the colony. Which it’s going to do, by the way. And you’re not going to try to stop me, either.”

  “And why is that?” asked Dr. Collins.

  Millie reached into her coveralls and pulled out a small radio device.

  “The minute one of you makes a move toward me, I push this button. When I do, it will set off a small charge that will release three liters of contaminated blood into ICE-3’s water supply. Not enough to even affect the taste. But enough to give every person in the place the same thing Durkin there has.”

  She nodded toward the bloody, gibbering creature in the glass cage; he had stopped screaming and was huddled in a corner, trembling and weeping. I couldn’t look. It made me sick.

  “You’re bluffing,” said Dr. Hulan. “Even if you’re not, it will never work. The disease doesn’t spread that way.”

  “Are you sure? asked Millie. “Sure enough to bet the lives of twenty-five thousand people?”

  “You’re crazy,” said Dr. Collins.

  Millie shrugged. “Could be. I prefer to think that I’m just amoral. That’s what my shrink says, anyway. And don’t count on your girlfriend helping out, either, Rusty,” she said, turning toward where I lay on the floor. “I don’t know where she is, but there’s no way she can either fly out of here or call back to the colony. This place is locked up tight as a drum.” She waved her gun at me. “And for God’s sake, stand up.”

  “I’ll just fall back down.”

  “I said, stand up!”

  I stood up. I fell down.

  “See?” I said.

  You might have noticed that these were the first things I had said in some time. That’s because I had been busy thinking. Dr. Hulan’s comment that no one had done anything serious enough for major punishment indicated to me that none of the scientists knew what had really happened to Dr. Puckett. That confused me, since I had expected to finish off that part of the problem when we got into this room.

  So—if he wasn’t here, he had to be somewhere else.

  But where?

  I thought back over everything that had happened in the last few hours.

  Suddenly the whole thing fell into place. If my hip hadn’t been in such bad shape, I would have kicked myself.

  “Where’s Dr. Puckett?” I asked.

  Millie laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

  Actually, I did know. At least, I thought I did. What I was really looking for was a way to get the information to Cassie. I wasn’t sure it would do any good. But it seemed to be our only hope.

  “What do you mean?” asked Dr. Hulan. “Puckett’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Is he?” I asked.

  Millie laughed again.

  “Or is he just getting the treatment?” I asked, emphasizing the last word slightly. “Uh-oh. Table that. Even if we could find him, Millie doesn’t like this line of conversation.” Again, I emphasized the important words.

  Millie looked at me like I was losing my mind. “Shut up, Rusty,” she said.

  I shut. Either Cassie had the message, or she didn’t. Even if she did, I wasn’t sure how much good it would do. But I was fresh out of ideas.

  The only thing left to do now was stall.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be easy, since Millie wanted to get things moving.

  She waved her gun at Dr. Jefferson. “You—get something to tie the other ones up with.”

  I gained new respect for Millie’s self-control, since Dr. Jefferson
gave her a look that should have split a stone in two. Even so, she went to the back of the room and found some cord. Then, following Millie’s directions, she used it to tie Dr. Hulan and Dr. Collins together.

  I had read enough of my grandfather’s books to know that this was the point where the villain was supposed to take time out to explain how clever he or she is. But Millie had already made it clear she wasn’t going to talk about what had happened with Dr. Puckett.

  I decided to try another angle.

  “I don’t get one thing,” I said. “How did you get all these bright people involved in this mess anyway?”

  “Shut up, Rusty,” explained Millie. “Otherwise I’ll have to blow your head off.”

  So much for Plan A.

  I decided to pitch a fit instead. I waited for a minute while Dr. Jefferson finished tying up Dr. Hulan and Dr. Collins. I waited a bit longer while Millie looked at the two of us, trying to decide how she was going to finish the job.

  Then I cut loose.

  “Oh, my God!” I screamed, thrusting my leg straight out. “Oh, my God, oh, my God!” I clutched at it, screaming as if someone was trying to cut it off.

  “What’s he doing?” demanded Millie.

  “His leg must have gone into spasm,” said Dr. Jefferson. “I’m not surprised, considering the way it’s been abused tonight.”

  That was a relief. If Dr. Jefferson could recognize the symptoms, it must mean I was doing a creditable job of imitating a problem my doctor had warned me I might have at some point.

  “How long is it going to last?” asked Millie.

  Dr. Jefferson shrugged. “A minute or two. He won’t be worth much for a while when it’s done. An episode like that is pretty draining.”

  That was good news. It ought to put Millie off her guard.

  I lay there on the floor, screaming and twitching, my face contorted with pain. Considering the shape I was in, it wasn’t much of an acting job. I just showed what I had been feeling.

  When I thought I had milked it as long as I could, I let my body slump and lay there gasping for breath.

  Millie came and stood over me. “Is he done now?” she asked.

  Dr. Jefferson shrugged again. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “It’s his leg.”

  Just then Dr. Durkin leaped to his feet with a bloodcurdling scream, the worst he had let out yet.

  It was all the distraction I needed. I pushed my body backward, thrusting my right leg between Millie’s outspread feet. Then I closed my legs like a pair of scissors and threw myself sideways as hard as I could.

  That was when all hell broke loose. Dr. Durkin was still screaming. I was, too. Only this time it was for real; the pain from that little maneuver made everything I had suffered so far tonight seem like minor pinpricks by comparison.

  Millie was also screaming, but in her case it was with anger instead of pain. Both her gun and the little radio device had gone flying out of her hands when she hit the floor. Now she was scrambling after them. So was Dr. Jefferson, and it was only seconds before the two women were rolling around on the floor having a spectacular fistfight.

  The radio device was about twenty feet from me. I began pulling myself across the floor with my hands, hoping I could reach it before Millie did.

  It was going to be close. Breaking free from Dr. Jefferson, Millie lunged in my direction. I was terrified to grab the device, because I knew Millie would fight me for it, and I was afraid we might accidentally set it off. So I gave it a sideswipe with my hand and sent it skittering across the floor.

  Blind with rage, Millie aimed a vicious kick at my hip. It connected, and I condensed into a ball of pain. She spun back toward Dr. Jefferson, who had just retrieved the gun. It was clear that Millie had been trained in the martial arts, because she now lashed out with a pair of kicks that moved so fast I could barely see them. The first knocked the gun out of Dr. Jefferson’s hand. The second just plain knocked the scientist senseless.

  It looked like it was all over. Dr. Hulan and Dr. Collins were tied up. Dr. Jefferson was out cold. And I was nearly immobilized with pain.

  I started after Millie anyway. As she turned to pick up the gun, I used my arms to propel myself across the floor, then made an upward thrust and ran smack into her knees.

  She toppled forward in a low gravity fall, but managed to snatch the gun as she landed. She turned and fired. The laser creased my leg, but by now the pain down there was so intense I barely noticed. I stretched far enough to grab Millie’s belt.

  I was afraid she would fire again. Instead, she began crawling toward the radio device, dragging me with her.

  We passed a desk that was bolted to the floor. I hooked my feet around one of its legs.

  Millie snarled and lunged forward again, her fingers clawing for the device. The movement wrenched my legs away from the desk. My screams mingled with Dr. Durkin’s.

  Millie grabbed the radio device.

  At the same moment Dr. Puckett came bounding into the room, waving an old-fashioned monkey wrench over his head as though it were King Arthur’s sword.

  Millie twisted toward him and fired the laser. She was too late. As Dr. Puckett went sailing above her, he reached down to smack her on the head with the wrench. “Foolish woman!” he crowed as she fell unconscious. “You should have known better than to mess with Elmo Puckett and his friends!”

  I remember being impressed that he had bothered to mention the rest of us.

  Then I passed out myself.

  Chapter 26

  The Last Details

  The next time I saw that wrench it was mounted in a kind of frame in Dr. Puckett’s office. Underneath it was a label, which read:

  WENCH WRENCH:

  Once used by the heroic Elmo Puckett

  to knock Millicent Carter

  into the middle of next Tuesday.

  The heroic Dr. Puckett himself was floating behind his desk, beaming from ear to ear. He sighed contentedly. “All in all, that was the most fun I’ve had in years,” he said.

  Helen snorted. “Maybe we should bring in a band of armed guerrillas and stage a political takeover for your birthday.”

  “Would you?” he asked, his voice all sweetness and light. “I think I’d like that.”

  “What I’d like is some answers,” said Cassie, “which is what you promised when you set up this meeting!”

  “Fire away,” said Dr. Puckett. “Though I may defer some questions to Rusty, since he did such an admirable job of figuring this whole mess out to begin with!”

  “Okay, let’s start with the big one,” said Cassie. “What the heck happened to you yesterday?”

  Dr. Puckett nodded in my direction. “You want to take a stab at that, Rusty?”

  “I’ll try,” I said, clearing my throat, “if you’ll help me fill in the hazy spots.”

  “An unnecessary request if I ever heard one,” said Helen. “Your biggest problem will be to keep him from filling in the clear spots.”

  “Helen,” said Dr. Puckett, “I have been unusually magnanimous in offering to let the boy speak. Haven’t you ever heard of positive reinforcement? Why don’t you encourage me while you can?”

  “I stand corrected,” said Dr. Chang. “Fire away, Rusty.”

  “Well, as near as I can figure it, when Millie found out Dr. Puckett was coming to the BS Factory, she panicked.”

  “Naturally,” said Dr. Puckett. “She knew it wouldn’t take me long to figure things out.”

  “If you’re so smart, how come you were almost dead?” asked Helen.

  Dr. Puckett grimaced slightly. Folding his hands over his stomach, he turned to me and said, “Why don’t you continue with your story, Rusty?”

  “Well, using threats of exposure, Millie blackmailed Dr. Twining into getting you out of the way for the time being. You were too valuable for her to kill, of course…”

  “Of course,” said Dr. Puckett.

  “But what Dr. Twining didn’t know was that she was planning
on selling you to the highest bidder.”

  “According to the statement she gave the authorities, she had several countries and a couple of corporations in mind,” said Dr. Puckett contentedly. “I wonder how much she could have gotten for me?”

  “Probably about a dollar ninety-eight,” said Helen. “But she would have really cleaned up once they found out what you were like and wanted her to take you back.”

  “Anyway,” I said, jumping back into the conversation, “the medicine Dr. Twining gave you when you came for your checkup was something he concocted to induce a simulated heart attack. That was the riskiest part of his plan, of course, since there was always the danger that it would have triggered the real thing—not that that wouldn’t have suited Millie just fine. But he never really intended to hurt you. Anyway, after you left for the colony, he spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for what came next—which mostly meant getting the treatment table ready so he could use it to sneak your clone into the colony, and then sneak the real you back out.” I shook my head. “I had no idea when I helped him move that thing out of here that you were inside it!”

  “You should have seen him when I opened the thing up this morning!” said Cassie. “Dr. Twining had him trussed up, tied down, and packed in with so much padding he couldn’t have made a noise if he had tried. Not that he was very gracious about being rescued.”

  “Cassie!” cried Dr. Puckett. “You wound me!”

  “What were the first words out of your mouth after I untied the gag?” demanded Cassie.

  “If I remember correctly, they were, ‘What the hell took you so long?’” Dr. Puckett shrugged. “It seemed like an appropriate question under the circumstances.”

  Helen snorted, but decided not to comment.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t be able to figure out my message about where he was,” I said to Cassie.

  She laughed. “At first I thought you had lost your mind, shouting about ‘treatments’ and ‘tabling’ the idea. Then when you hit the words ‘find him’ like you did, it suddenly seemed so clear I was afraid Millie would figure out what you were up to. But this is where I get confused. How did you figure out the corpse was a fake? And why was Dr. Twining making a clone of Elmo to begin with?”