Moon Shot

by J. Alan Hartman

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Introduction

  A Murder Far from Home

  Virtual Crimes, Real Consequences

  Rocket Garden

  When Egos Collide

  “Fedoras”

  Mayhem on Mars

  At the Corner of Night and Nowhere

  On Gossamer Wings

  Crime of Passion

  The Case of Frankenstein and The Spanish Nun

  Downhill Slide

  Death Day

  Goodbye Moon

  Moon Dust

  About the Crew of the Space Shuttle Moon Shot

  Moon Shot

  Editor, J. Alan Hartman

  Cover Copyright 2013 by JDNetto Designs and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Copyright 2013 by

  Suzanne Berube Rorhus, “A Murder Far from Home”

  Elizabeth Hosang, “Virtual Crimes, Real Consequences”

  Jack Bates, “Rocket Garden”

  Laird Long, “When Egos Collide”

  Jeremy K. Tyler, “Fedoras”

  E. Lynn Hooghiemstra, “Mayhem on Mars”

  Toby Speed, “At the Corner of Night and Nowhere”

  Wenda Morrone, “On Gossamer Wings”

  Suzanne Derham Cifarelli, “Crime of Passion”

  Andrew MacRae, “The Case of Frankenstein and The Spanish Nun”

  Jeff Howe, “Downhill Slide”

  Percy Spurlark Parker, “Death Day”

  Mary McCarroll White, “Goodbye Moon”

  Lance Zarimba, “Moon Dust”

  The authors are hereby established as the sole holders of the copyright of their story within this anthology. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  Introduction

  In March of 2013, author Suzanne Berube Rorhus sent me a work that she wanted me to consider publishing in Fingerprints, our short story line for mysteries. Upon reading it, I was really blown away by the originality of it. A murder mystery set onboard the International Space Station? I knew immediately that was something I hadn’t read before.

  Ten...Nine...Eight...

  At the same time, I thought it was a very clever crossover between science fiction and mystery. I’m a huge fan of the mystery genre, and certainly crossovers aren’t anything new for other genres such as horror. It isn’t, however, common to see science fiction combined with mystery. This led me to think that there had to be authors out there who were likely writing stories in these genres who might welcome the opportunity to write something that would bend across both.

  Seven...Six...Five...Four...

  I put out a call for submissions and was very impressed with the quality and quantity that I received. Clearly my hypothesis was right, and there were people who wanted to write across multiple genres. And, in communicating with readers, there was an obvious desire to see more material like this.

  Moon Shot brings together some well-known names from the Untreed Reads ranks: Suzanne Berube Rorhus, Jack Bates, Laird Long, Jeremy K. Tyler, E. Lynn Hooghiemstra, Wenda Morrone, Andrew MacRae, Jeffrey Howe, Percy Spurlark Parker and Lance Zarimba. Climbing aboard the Untreed Reads rocket for the first time are the amazing Elizabeth Hosang, Toby Speed, Suzanne Derham Cifarelli and Mary McCarroll White. All of these folks bring a wealth of talent to this anthology.

  First stop on this journey through space and murder is the story that started the whole idea, Suzanne Berube Rorhus’ “A Murder Far from Home.” After that, well, you’ll just have to see where this space trip is going to take you.

  Three...Two...One...

  J. Alan Hartman

  October 2013

  A Murder Far from Home

  By Suzanne Berube Rorhus

  Chrissie Isaac’s corpse floated in the center of the laboratory, drifting gently in the micro-gravity of the International Space Station. Drops of her blood, perfect spheres of red, dotted the room. In the corners, bunches of droplets clung, like red grapes on the vine, to the metal walls.

  I braced my feet in the foot loops on the floor to steady myself while I examined the body more closely, careful not to touch. It struck me as important to leave the crime scene intact, though the odds of convincing a homicide detective to visit seemed slim.

  The source of the blood was obvious—a slit in her carotid artery. The wound was no longer bleeding. Chrissie had bled out until her heart stopped, but without gravity her body could not drain as it would on Earth.

  I grasped her by the shoulder and pulled her towards me for a closer look. A bubble of blood, its surface tension bulging and glistening in the harsh fluorescent light, worked its way out of the wound in her neck, popped to the surface, then drifted away. Her long blonde hair swayed in the currents from the air vents, its loose strands punctuated with balls of blood. Her white t-shirt and blue shorts were clean, with the exception of a small stain on the collar of her shirt. Most of the blood had floated away rather than drench her clothing.

  In addition to being a biologist, I was also a medical doctor. This was my third trip to the International Space Station, and Chrissie, Tom Vasilik, and I had been up here for three months. We were due to leave in a couple of days, but before we did, I supposed I had better put my medical skills to work to solve this murder.

  The case would have been open-and-shut if the murder had occurred three days ago, when there were only the three of us here. Let’s see, Chrissie’s dead, I didn’t do it, so the murderer must be Tom! Brilliant!

  Unfortunately, three days ago, the space shuttle Atlantis arrived to bring us home. It carried a crew of four and three replacement astronauts to take over our experiments. Now there were ten of us, no, make that nine of us, living off-planet.

  I sealed the door to the Destiny module containing Chrissie’s body and pulled my way into the central node to inform the others of her death. Somewhere in the maze-like space station, someone already knew.

  * * *

  In another lifetime, in another era, I would have been a monk. Life in a cloister would have suited me better than anything the modern world can offer. It was while working towards my second PhD at Boston College, this one in comparative biology, that I found the niche my life was meant to occupy. Space exploration. The closest thing modern man had to residing in a medieval monastery, combined with the excitement of frontier living.

  The daily detritus of life on Earth: the arrival of the mailman, the rumble of traffic, the shrill of the telephone, even the interruption of loved ones—none of this distracted us from our work. Astronauts labored with studious exactitude, in an environment replete with silence and contemplation.

  Chrissie’s presence, with her unholy ambition and her reeking sexuality, left the space station a tense place. I hated her enough to wish her dead.

  Either my wish was granted to punish her for disrupting my cloister, or I was not
the only person to feel that way.

  Just for the record, I was not convinced that women belonged on the ISS. Yes, yes, I know they are as intelligent and capable as men, I’d concede that point. It was not their intelligence I worried about. The problem was that in the presence of a beautiful woman, so many men lost their own intelligence.

  Chrissie had caused several on the astronaut team to become temporary idiots. Three men had succumbed to her charms, and at least one fistfight had resulted. Bam Bam and Scooter, both married, had quarreled, each accusing the other of improper behavior. The last time we were all at the astronauts’ retreat together, Bam Bam’s wife had accused Chrissie of distracting her husband from his mission and his marriage.

  Chrissie simply laughed, and no one dared bring the issue to the attention of our trainers. The camaraderie of our team suffered, though we still relied on each other for our very lives. I didn’t think any of us could forget that for a moment.

  Chrissie obviously emitted some especially strong pheromone, a subconscious scent that drove the sanest men crazy. That’s the only way I could explain the powerful biological attraction most of our fellow astronauts felt for her.

  Not me, of course. My pheromone receptor was tuned to a different channel. But that had best remain our little secret. NASA, in its medieval wisdom, discriminated against those who followed a different Cupid. They considered people like me a potential distraction in the close quarters of the space station.

  As if Chrissie weren’t distraction enough.

  * * *

  Sex in space required a certain agility and ingenuity, and Chrissie had both in abundance. I knew, because I saw her in action, leaving me with a graphic image seared into my brain.

  My favorite room on the International Space Station was the node, the foyer that connected the various modules. It had peach walls and soft lighting, and was cozier, if such a word could be applied to a metal structure, than the rest of the station. After I finished my work for the day, I liked to relax and listen to music there before strapping into my sleeping bag.

  I’d had a pretty good day. Most days up here were pretty good. I cherished the thrill of being somewhere most people won’t ever see. Sixteen-hour workdays, scheduled into five-minute intervals, were enough to make anyone exhausted. In a stolen moment here and there, however, the view was enough to compensate. This afternoon, for example, I’d seen my hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts, catching the New England area on a rare cloudless day.

  I spent nine hours fertilizing rats, as they had not mastered the technique of mating in space, then passed a few moments watching the newborn rats learn to move around. These creatures, born on the space shuttle, never learned to walk as rats do on Earth. They were true extra-terrestrials, living and dying away from the planet where their species evolved.

  They adapted. In space, they moved as humans do. They pushed off with their hind paws and pulled themselves to their destination with their fore paws. Never having known gravity, they did not seem to miss it.

  So on this particular day, after work and an hour on the stationary bicycle, I washed with my allotted three tablespoons of water. Once I was as clean as I was going to get, I pulled my weightless body into the node from the Zarya module. There, I saw Chrissie and Tom Vasilik engaged in a timeless exercise.

  Tom had his feet wedged into the foot loops on the floor, with Chrissie floating in front of him, her clothing disarrayed. The scientist side of me studied them intently before the human side reacted with embarrassment and shock.

  “Oh! Excuse me,” I stammered.

  Tom had the grace to flush when he saw me over his shoulder, but Chrissie just giggled.

  “Go off to bed, Jonathan, there’s a good boy. We’re just finishing up some research, right, Tom?”

  “I would have expected you to research with Bam Bam,” I said. It was a catty remark, but justified.

  As I propelled myself away from the bizarre dance, I turned the possibilities over in my mind. Could a rat be trained to mate in space? How would they brace their feet? The transference of energy between two forces colliding would make it quite difficult for them, though the humans on board seem to have mastered it. How long had this been going on?

  I pulled myself into the galley and prepared a little snack as I struggled to erase the image of the two of them from my mind. It was no use. My plastic bag of tuna tasted even more bland than usual, despite being mixed with two packets of taco sauce. I gave up and went to bed.

  I heard Tom bump his way into the sleeping area just before I fell asleep. He was humming softly.

  “Jonathan? You asleep?”

  I feigned slumber.

  * * *

  The space shuttle was due to arrive the next day, and we three were frantically busy. In addition to preparing the International Space Station for the shuttle’s arrival, we also worked on our experiments. We were to return to Earth by the end of the week, and we wanted to have everything in order for our replacements.

  Chrissie and I were working on an especially touchy experiment studying the effects of micro-gravity on memory retention. She was a neurosurgeon and a payload specialist. Her job was to perform a variety of experiments on behalf of neurologists around the world. On this day, we tested both the rats and each other to measure the mind’s ability to remember data in space. I felt uncomfortable working with her after seeing her in such an unappetizing situation, but duty called.

  “Scalpels on deck,” I announced before reaching for one. In the absence of gravity, surgery was quite difficult. I was restrained around my waist and by my feet to keep from drifting while autopsying the rats. The rats, though dead, were restrained at each limb. Even the scalpels tended to float away if not secured, so it was critical that I not be jostled while working. I had enough scalpel scars on my hands; I didn’t need any more.

  “So, Jonathan, you want to listen to some music together after we finish here?” Chrissie asked, one eyebrow arched. Her voice purred, a predatory rumble.

  “Is that what you call it? No thanks, I’m not interested.”

  She laughed. “I sensed that about you. You should take advantage of this tremendous research opportunity. We’re going home in a couple of days—there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever return to space.”

  “I’ll guarantee that you don’t,” I said. “There are video cameras in the node. I doubt that Houston will be pleased with your acrobatics last night.”

  “Oh, Jonathon, silly boy. We covered those cameras. Tom insisted. Frankly, I think Houston needs a show like that once in a while to loosen them up.”

  I worked the rest of the day in monastic silence.

  * * *

  After Atlantis docked, there were ten of us jammed into the International Space Station. In four days, seven of us would leave on the shuttle, letting the remaining three settle into their work. Although I had enjoyed my time on the space station, I was glad to be going home. Three months away from my planet, my friends, and gravity was a long time.

  Besides, the atmosphere on board had grown more tense.

  The only time I’ve ever seen Pete Borman, Commander of the Atlantis, lose his temper was during the first spacewalk by the new arrivals. Scooter Tanner and Janet Bing were working outside, setting up and launching a new satellite for the French military. They’d been out there for four hours, and the stress was beginning to show on the crew. The human race had never lost an astronaut during a spacewalk, never had anyone drift away to a lonely death and an eternity among the stars, but we all lived in fear of this.

  Chrissie and Bam Bam worked the payload handling controls from the aft deck of the Atlantis. Despite their history, Bam Bam was all business during the spacewalk. For all the notice he took of her, Chrissie could have been a trained rat. Naturally, this did not set well with her. She teased him, but to no avail.

  “Bam Bam, I need the coordinates for the directional adjustment arm,” Janet said through her microphone. Janet was quite possibly the most
brilliant astronomer on Earth. She and Bam Bam, an astrophysicist, had a full slate of astronomical observations to make during their four-month tenure on the ISS. He read the coordinates slowly.

  I left the aft deck of the shuttle with James Foster, the biologist replacing me. We floated through the docking port connecting the shuttle to the space station to begin an experiment. We were going to send electrical pulses through human blood cells, donated by, or at least extracted from, James. Just as we had the experiment set up, we heard shouting reverberating along the metal structure.

  We hurried back into the space shuttle, where most of the others had gathered.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I had to repeat the question before anyone replied.

  “This… this bitch! She’s nearly killed Scooter.” Bam Bam threw a clipboard across the deck at Chrissie. It struck her in the forehead, then, unimpeded by gravity, sailed back in the opposite direction with its original force. Mike Baird, the pilot, was standing next to Bam Bam. He caught it neatly.

  “Bullshit! If his gases were switched, someone else did it.” Chrissie rubbed her forehead. A bruise was already beginning to form.

  “Jonathan, you need to check out Scooter,” Tom said. He pointed to the airlock door, where Scooter hung in midair, motionless. “At the end, he was breathing pure nitrogen. His secondary oxygen tank contained nitrogen. Janet had to pull him into the airlock.”

  “It’s not my fault! I followed the checklist!” Chrissie said.

  I jerked myself across the room and examined Scooter closely. With the others’ help, we pushed him into the sleep station on the shuttle. I did not dare risk shoving him through the docking port and into the ISS.

  We wrestled him into one of the vertical sleeping sacks and strapped him in. Without an oxygen tank, there was nothing I could do. Scooter was either going to die or get better on his own.

  The next morning, Scooter surprised us all by joining us for breakfast in the Zvezda service module. Since he still looked weak, I rose to reconstitute some scrambled eggs and coffee for him. He added two drops of liquid salt to his eggs, then kneaded the bag listlessly.