by Simon Petrie
All of them seemed like honest, respectable types in their various fashions: Hostij the lovestruck hardened cop, O’Meara the sentimental but straightforward sumo wrestler, Taybill the overworked and earnest spaceline employee. None of them, when you looked at it, had a clear reason for wanting Formey dead. Of course, there could be some kind of conspiracy between them—O’Meara with either of the other guests, or Hostij with Taybill—but that didn’t go any way towards clarifying the motive, nor explaining how the deed was executed.
And, to top it off, no weapon, no fingerprints, and still no cause of death (the autopsy scanner seemed stumped, and still pronounced merely ‘dead’. Maybe it was indicating it needed its batteries changed.) Perhaps, against all of Gordon’s better judgement, it really was a natural-causes case after all.
Sometimes, he knew, the best way to set your mind on a problem was to give it a different problem. At least, it worked that way with puzzles and crosswords. He wasn’t sufficiently experienced to know if detection followed the same rules, but it sounded plausible. He pulled out his handheld and selected the ‘Riddle/Trivia’ function. He’d played this so often before that many of the items from its hundred-thousand-entry memory bank were familiar, but straight up he got a new one:
Can a dead horse travel as fast as a live horse?
Well, the answer seemed obvious—no—but he suspected there was a trick behind it. He couldn’t see, however, what the trick was. He paused the trivia program and selected a couple of crosswords, one easy and one a fairly challenging cryptic, to unwind a little further. Then, still none the wiser, he clicked for the answer to the riddle.
No. Under British law, a motorised horse transporter can travel at 30 miles an hour through urban areas, but if the horse dies the vehicle becomes a carrier of horseflesh and must immediately slow to 20 m.p.h.
Surprisingly, this sparked something. He thought, now, he could see a good and compelling motive …
* * *
He placed a call to the Chastity business counter at the Skytop Plaza. His call was answered by the receptionist / sales assistant / chaplain.
“Chastity, Helena Handbaskett speaking. Can I help you?”
Gordon gave his details. “I’m working on a murder investigation down here. I need to know the flight data and ticketing arrangments for four of your passengers.”
“I’m sorry, we’re not supposed to release that information, it’s confidential.” She paused and leaned conspiratorially into the mouthpiece to whisper to him. “Look, according to your record you have thirteen thousand frequent flier points with us. If you’re prepared to cash those in, I can give you the information you need. Just don’t tell my supervisor.”
“Who is your supervisor?”
“For the moment, me.”
“Uh, I’ll try not to. Also, while you’re at it, if you could send a full description of your passenger and freight handling policies and procedures, that would be very useful.”
“I’m sure we have that somewhere.” She adjusted her glasses. “Do you want all of that as a facsimile, an email, a direct download …”
He’d need a hard copy, for his records. He put on his best TV detective voice. “Just the fax, ma’am. Just give me the fax.”
He’d always wanted to say that.
* * *
The documentation, when it arrived, told him everything he wanted to know. Hostij was ticketed on the flight, four days’ time, to Barnard’s Star. O’Meara wasn’t booked on any outward flights. And Taybill was on the crew list for the departure, three days from now, for Proxima Centauri.
Most intriguingly, Formey had been booked on both the Barnard’s Star and Proxima Centauri flights. Now that was curious. Was Formey attempting some vainglorious application of quantum duality to the ticketing process? He couldn’t be on both flights … Gordon checked the time of purchase. They’d been booked only seconds apart, about a week ago. He’d purchased them, then, at the same time. This, to Gordon, suggested that he was seriously entertaining the idea of starting over with Hostij, but wanted an escape route if he changed his mind in the interim. And neither ticket had been cancelled …
He read further through the documentation. Yes, this was what he’d suspected. This was what tied it all together.
* * *
Gordon used the eyeball and thumb once more, to enter the guest’s room. He knew roughly what he was looking for, but wasn’t sure where to find it. Wardrobe … suitcase … bedside drawer … kitchenette cupboard … bathroom cabinet … all negative. It had to be here somewhere!
Wait a minute. He looked again at the bedside digital clock. That didn’t look like Skyward’s usual model! He picked up the clock, turned it over, examined it. Yes, this confirmed his suspicions. Now, where was the activator on this thing?
He pressed three buttons before he found the one that gave the desired effect. Even though he’d been partially expecting it, the sudden apparent materialisation of Neil B. Formey, tyrannical multi-sesquillionaire, was startling. Not least because the animated tycoon was at least three metres tall. He twiddled the control surfaces on the ‘clock’ until he found the magnification controls, then reduced Formey’s image to a less gigantic size. Now … that looked more realistic.
The holographic projection was indeed remarkably lifelike. Presumably, some of the controls on the ‘clock’ would dictate motion, and perhaps the setup was also designed to convey sounds, simple phrases and such. However, he didn’t need to check that out right now. This should be enough to—
“Boy, you sure lucked out,” the voice at the doorway commented, with a nasty edge. “Ordinarily, I bet you couldn’t solve a two-piece jigsaw puzzle without looking at the picture on the box.”
Gordon turned to face the figure in the doorway. His attention was commanded by the weapon that was directed at him. This was only natural since, aside from the evident lethality of the piece, it was also the weapon that had spoken at him. He recognised it as one of the most feared items of portable weaponry in known space. A needle gun.
“Shoulda stuck at washing the dishes, lift-boy,” the gun jeered. “Your snooping has just got you into a whole plateful of trouble.”
Although the needle gun’s jeers and verbal jabs could induce apoplexy in the exceptionally weak-hearted, they weren’t usually fatal. Rather, they were a novelty feature designed to improve the weapon’s sales. It was the gun’s ‘sticks and stones’, rather than the names it called him, which would hurt Gordon. ‘Sticks and stones’ being in this case, he strongly suspected, the gun’s standard-issue ammunition: flechettes of cryocooled water ice which encapsulated a lethal neurotoxin. The hardened ice needles were of subcellular thickness (‘sharper than a thankless child,’ according to the sales tag), and capable of piercing skin and muscle without leaving any discernible mark. The neurotoxin was necrodegradable, so that the whole projectile had a lifetime, when fired, which was only slightly greater than that of its victim. A ruthless weapon, with a nasty sense of humour.
“For someone called Gordon, you ain’t exactly flash,” the gun commented sardonically.
Gordon managed to wrest his gaze from the gun and lifted his face towards his assailant’s.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” he pleaded.
“Regret?” the gun scoffed. “What could anyone possibly regret about snuffing out your miserable existence? And what in hell’s name do you think you can do to protect yourself against a Deadly-Sirius 357 Needle Gun?”
“I have the law on my side,” Gordon responded. He had to admit, it sounded weak even to him. He’d have to do better than that. I will not go gentle into that good riddance, he told himself. “Go on,” he said. “Tell me why you did it.”
Taybill shrugged. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just shoot.” He stepped fully into the room and allowed the outer door to close, sealing off Gordon’s only feasible escape route.
Taybill did not look at ease with the weapon he deployed. His face was pale a
nd tense, his hands were unsteady, and his aim was poor. Not that that would matter. The gun’s ammunition pretty much obviated the need for a keen eye: if a round hit you, you were more or less assured of death.
Gordon’s mind pulsed with the unfamiliar problem of a life-and-death puzzle. He was keenly aware that every action, every word choice, on his part was critical. A skilled negotiator (such as Hostij) might well be able to talk Taybill down, but Gordon wasn’t Hostij. He was under no delusion that he had anything like the required verbal skills to defuse Taybill. And, since the needle gun was semi-autonomous (and perfectly capable of firing itself if it felt the situation warranted it), any attempt by Gordon to dissuade Taybill would probably be disastrous. His one remaining option was to keep the dialogue going, to merely delay the inevitable. Time was all he had to play for now.
“Tell me why you did it,” he asked again.
“Why should I bother?” Taybill asked. He was nervous enough, he might just fire the gun accidentally.
“Humour me,” Gordon said, desperately. “Look, I already know why you did it. I just want to check if I’m right.”
“Don’t believe you,” the gun sneered. “You couldn’t figure—”
“No, I’ll prove it,” Gordon interrupted, frantically playing for time. “It was the transport charges, wasn’t it? That, and the gambling debts—”
“I’ve had it!” Taybill snapped. “Every month, I make another payment off my gambling debts, and they go hike up the interest rates! I’ve been going backwards for the past year! You don’t know what it’s like … I work twenty-five hours a day, seems like, and it’s never enough. And Formey, one-fifteen kilos of excess baggage, dead weight, at fifty credits a gram, just for shipping him back to Proxima Centauri. It was the answer to all my problems! I mean, most passengers, there’d never be enough in the estate to cover that kind of expense, they’d just ask for burial-at-space, but Formey’s families, they’re loaded, they could cover that without even blinking. I’ve got the transmission all set to go, official Chastity letterhead and everything, just as soon as I finish with you here.” His fingers twitched on the gun’s trigger housing.
Gordon swallowed. “And the projector? That was so it appeared Formey took the flight as a live passenger, from Chastity’s perspective, am I right? You could then just pocket the baggage payment from Formey’s family, and nobody at Chastity would be any the wiser. You know, I wasn’t at all suspicious of you until I remembered that you’d named yourself as an alibi.”
“What d’you mean?” Taybill asked. The needle gun was starting to hum in a way that couldn’t be good. Powering up.
“You are the booking clerk, right? So, that email confirming you were at your desktop when the murder was committed. You sent yourself that email, confirming your whereabouts, and you changed the timestamp on it. No problems, no inconsistencies, because the whole thing never left your computer.”
“See if you’re so smart dead,” the gun jeered, and Taybill’s finger closed on the trigger—
The room thumped as though hit by a small earthquake. Taybill was knocked prone by the flattened door. A larger-than-life figure stepped through the broken doorframe and cast his eyes around the room, eventually coming to rest on Taybill’s broken form beneath the heavily-dented door.
Gordon hadn’t known sumo wrestlers could move so fast.
O’Meara helped Gordon pull the door off Taybill. The latter was plainly dead, though whether from the impact or from the needle gun couldn’t be determined. Might never be known.
“I hope I wasn’t out of line there,” O’Meara said, earnestly staring into Gordon’s eyes. “I was just walking to my room, and I overheard—your corridor walls must be pretty thin, I could hear every word.”
Thank God for mass minimisation, Gordon thought. In the right places, at least. “No,” Gordon replied. “No, you did good. It was him or me. And frankly, I’m glad it was him.”
“So what was all that about?”
“Look, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can tell you anything more than you overheard. And I have to ask you not to tell anyone else about this for now. I’ve got to make a report on this, and then we’ll both need to talk to the police once we get to the Plaza. Paperwork—you know …”
Gordon eyed O’Meara up and down, left to right. Taybill had been hoping for Formey’s weight in gold, but O’Meara … O’Meara was worth two Formeys, at least. Two Formeys, plus change. “Listen, word of advice. Just … be careful next time you book a flight on Chastity Cosmic.”
“Not to worry,” O’Meara responded, with a toothy, open smile. “I always travel Andromeda Spaceways.”*
* DISCLAIMER: The preceding narrative, though entirely factual, has had the names of all parties changed for legal reasons. The journalist responsible for this report has not received any payment from, nor has been in communication with, the marketing and promotional division of Andromeda Spaceways. Andromeda Spaceways has always denied, and continues to repudiate, the suggested existence of a ‘dirty tricks’ division which, it is claimed, has been set up to counter the competitive inroads being made into Andromeda Spaceways’ business by Chastity Cosmic. Further, even if such a division were to exist—which it does not—the aforementioned piece of reporting has not, nor would ever have been, financed through the operations of such a purely hypothetical division. Finally, any perceived slur against the character of employees of Chastity Cosmic, who are, for the most part, moderately law-abiding if underpaid and overworked individuals, is unintended and should not be taken to represent the views of Andromeda Spaceways.
Single Handed
(first published in Kaleidotrope issue 6)
Gordon Mamon was halfway across the lobby, mental processes almost totally consumed in anticipation of a meal at Fairdig’s, when his handheld bleeped. He ignored the electronic plea for attention—there were some things more important than hotel business (and dammit, Martin A. Fairdig, famed chef of the Skytop Plaza’s only eight-star restaurant, was a culinary genius)—but paused when the unit bleeped again. Then again. It was astounding, how much plaintive urgency could be conveyed by a simple sonic tone … it bleeped once more. Cursing—Gordon was off duty, and the caller almost certainly knew it—he pressed ‘answer’.
“Gordon,” he intoned, with as much weary resignation as those two syllables could hold (which was, in truth, quite a lot). The crossword-puzzle screensaver faded out, replaced by the caller’s face. Not, felt Gordon, a visual enhancement. This had better be urgent. And not too complicated. He hoped the handheld’s microphone didn’t pick up his rumbling belly.
“Hey-yah, Gords. Catch you at a bad time?” Con Sierje, the hotel’s duty manager, radiated the offensive glee of someone who’d found the perfect sucker on whom to unload his in-tray’s current assortment of steaming crapwork. Gordon didn’t even bother to answer, beyond making a strained effort not to glower. Sierje continued cheerily, “Bit of a situation, looks like you’re the o—the best person to take care of it.”
“Con, I’m off duty.”
“Yeah, sure, sorry and all that. There’s been a murder.”
“Murder? Con, topside I’m just customer service. Complaints, info desk requests, miscellaneous errands and, if you smile sweetly enough, lost luggage. I don’t do detection.”
“Yeah, you do if we say so. Ever read the nano-print in your contract? Plus, you did that Formey case a coupla months back,” Sierje argued.
“Yeah, but that time, there really was no-one else within ten-thousand klicks. Can’t one of the hotel police crews tackle this?”
“It’s their annual social, booked out the bar at Heisenberg’s or someplace. Doubt you’d find any of them with the sobriety of a tequila worm by now.”
“Yes, but Con … what about the regular security staff? House detectives? Anyone? There’s gotta be someone else.”
“Nope. That new Venusian flu that’s going round, ground leave, and the rest of them in the slammer. Don’t ask. You’re it r
ight now, Gords.”
“If, hypothetically, I agreed … would I get any kind of, uh, physical authority? Weaponry?”
“I can lend you a pair of plastic cuffs and a tube of fluoro-dye to identify the perp.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a taser or a sonic whip.”
“Sorry, Gord, security regs …”
Whose security, Gordon wondered? He took another tack. “Uhh—what about backup?”
“Gord, if you don’t know by now how to save stuff on your handheld …”
Gordon’s sigh was sufficiently deep and heartfelt that an elderly passerby looked nervously around for an airleak. “There really is no-one else? Okay, then I suppose it’s me. Show me dealing.”
“You moonlighting as a croupier now, then?” Sierje asked.
Wise guy. “Look, just where is this murder? What do I need to do?”
“It’s off-station. Dart of Harkness, moored over in the Beta Quadrant.” So, not even in the hotel proper, but on a bloody ship. Gordon could sense the phantom of his notional Fairdig’s dinner receding ever further into the depths of improbability.
“Okay, what’s the link-tube number?”
“There isn’t a link-tube. Told you, it’s off-station. Really off-station. You’ll need a shuttle. Go to shuttle bay 2B, should be one there.”
“2B. Great. Anything else I need to know? Who’s the stiff?”
“Ship’s full of them. But the dead one’s the captain. Have fun.”
* * *
How could there be this much turbulence in orbital space? Was the pilot flight-simming a combat mission? Or lost?
