Year of the Child

by R L Dean

  Ousting Martha from the board was off the table, but something had to be done.

  Another notice flashed on her desk, it was her secretary. She leaned forward and tapped it. "Yes, Denise?"

  "Mister Stockerman is here."

  Alexandria breathed a sigh of relief. A friendly face. Someone not shouting from the other end of a boardroom table and comparing her to her late father, or worried about the media, or stealing from her.

  "Thank you, send him in."

  Waiting for Greg she debated on having a drink. It was technically too early for one, but any further notices blinking on her desk might tip the scales.

  There was a perfunctory knock on her office door and then Greg entered, closing the it quietly behind himself.

  "Where have you been all day?" She asked. "I could have used you at the board meeting."

  "I'm not sure I would be of use there," he answered, walking to her desk.

  "You could have stood behind me and looked menacing."

  He snorted, then something caught his eye. His brows furrowed.

  "Oh, you like it?" Alexandria ask, getting out of her chair and holding her hand out toward the perfectly preserved five meter great white shark hanging from the office's domed ceiling.

  "His name is Blue," she went on. "He was the last of his kind." The shark was a fitting center piece to her museum-like office. He quietly watched from overhead, his mouth open and jagged teeth on display ... dark eyes searching.

  Greg's mouth moved for a moment, then as if reading her mind he said, "Very fitting."

  Her Chief of Security, or as her father had called him the family hound, was not a talkative man, and their relationship didn't allow for discussions of his personal feelings— but he had been present in the household for most of her life— and so she knew when something was bothering him. It was the set of his face.

  Things rarely weighed on Greg, and in this case Alexandria could guess what it was. He was still at odds with her methods for securing the sell of raw ore to Mars— blowing up the company's own mining plant and refinery on the Moon, and the unanticipated fallout of Harmony dome's own destruction. Greg wasn't squeamish, but the sheer death toll was staggering— in the thousands.

  But, it had worked.

  Loopholes in the Business Safety Laws forced Secretary-General Modi and his band of bullies to issue a charter granting Apex the right to build on Deimos— which Martian Governor Shultz promptly denied by Right of Dominion— Deimos belonged to the Martian colony. Then, after a month spent in what Alexandria assumed was an interplanetary yelling match between UN Deputy Secretary-General Saddler and Governor Shultz, the UN Council lifted the raw ore embargo against Mars. And Apex was right on their doorstep.

  Modi must be burning up inside. Shultz was the first governor of Mars that the UN Council did not appoint. He was a man of the people, as it were, elected to office. Modi's plan was to keep the colony dependent on Earth businesses for manufactured products, because it meant big money for his constituents. But, in the end those same businesses needed the mining plants to produce refined resources to create those products, not simply for Mars but for a voracious Earth. They needed Apex, and Shultz used that need against Modi.

  It was a strategy made possible by the success of Alexandria's plan. A necessary plan, if her long range goals were to be accomplished.

  If Greg wanted to talk about counting the cost after the fact— after his hands were already bloody— then there would be little in the way of solace she could offer him. He had joined those hands with hers on the plow.

  "Well, on to business," she said, taking her seat again. There was a purpose to his visit.

  Greg pulled his handcomm from inside his jacket and settled into the single circa 1900's Louis XV chair in front of her desk. The chair was a reluctant concession to her office furniture. Too many chairs gave the impression that she wanted visitors.

  "Ganymede," Greg began, glancing at his handcomm's screen. "I've restricted Orion security personnel from the administrative spaces, but my own team is not large enough to cover all the areas. We have some gaps that I'm not comfortable with."

  Greg's own Vanguard personnel formed Ganymede Base's core security team. As far as he was concerned the only good thing about Orion's people was that they were plentiful. He had stressed this months ago. Orion was the premier security company in the world, and the only one large enough to effectively provide support for the mining base that Alexandria pushed the UN Council, and her own board of directors, so hard for. With UNSEC strapped for manpower, while it dealt with the issues of piracy in out-system, private security was necessary to protect the base and the miners that were there working Apex contracts.

  "I have some fresh recruits that I feel good about," he went on. "Once they're up to speed I would like to send them to bolster our numbers. Most of them are from the Moon, raised in low gravity."

  It was a good idea. They would be needed.

  "We can use a corporate transport, when you're ready," she told him. "Let's move on, what's the situation on Deimos?"

  "I have enough people to secure the central construction site, but I'm stretched pretty thin on the outlying areas. We'll need to use Orion personnel to fill those gaps. We also need another ship in orbit, for traffic control."

  The Deimos plant was in the initial phases of construction. There was a lot of moonscape to level and move around, and a lot of material to transport from Earth. His concerns over the site security had already been discussed two months ago, he was just re-emphasizing them.

  This was going to involve a discussion with Edgar and Martha, because it was going to require some shuffling of money. Alexandria felt her temper stirring at the thought of Martha's name. Something was going to have to be done with that woman.

  Did Mars have a decent private security company, she wondered. It would be more economical to hire locally— maybe make a deal through Shultz— than to hire more Orion personnel.

  If Martha Catskill wasn't robbing her company she wouldn't think twice about the money.

  "Do what you can," she told Greg. "It's going to take some more work on my part to get what we need there." She leaned back. "Now, is there any news on Chaserman?"

  "No body," he told her, frowning. "And I verified the transfer that the UN's security team claimed to have found from the Shanghai disposable account. He's alive, somehow."

  For months they had been teasing Ludwick Chaserman— wanna be worker party union leader— with the kind of money that a plant worker would never have access to and using his ideals to set him up as a patsy for the destruction of the plant. Prompting him to greater extremes of outrage and escalating violence until he was the most logical suspect.

  He should be rotting in a UNSEC jail cell for acts of terrorism right now. But the unforeseen damage to Harmony dome and its subsequent destruction had caused an element of chaos in their plans. She had hoped he died when the dome blew, but his name stubbornly refused to show up on the lists of casualties that UNSEC was publishing. And now, as Greg said, the money transfer proved he was alive.

  "We need to help UNSEC find him," she told Greg. "And close the Shanghai account. No sense in giving him more money to run with."

  "I think we should leave the account open," he said. "As bait."

  She frowned at him, but he went on.

  "If the media hadn't announced the discovery of the money transfer UNSEC would have left Chaserman's own account open, so he could access it ..."

  Alexandria nodded. "And they could trace where and when he used it, I understand that, Greg. But we don't have that kind of access to the UN Network, how are we going to track him while he's spending my money?"

  "With his own account closed he won't be able to transfer money from the Shanghai account. If he wants to use the money he'll have to make purchases directly from it."

  Of course, Alexandria realized. Simple consumer transactions would appear on the account statement. If Chaserman so much as bought a c
orn-dog from a kiosk on an ore drop-off station in the Belt, they could find him.

  "I see ... good idea," she said. "But we can't sit and wait for him to use the account. I want you actively searching for him."

  "Understood."

  Chaserman being at large was ... concerning ... but Alexandria had never lived in fear. Greg would take care of the matter. Blowing the plant was a major step in her plans, and the anticipation was making her anxious. More than anything, now, she needed patience.

  "You haven't told me what you did with the FMN programmer that you used to get the job done." she said, milder. Chaserman made a perfect fall guy for her plans, but he lacked the necessary skills to sabotage the plant. Governor Shultz's ties to the FMN movement provided that. Alexandria didn't know too many details about the arrangement, not even the person's name. Greg kept that to himself as a way of shielding her if it came back to them.

  "Nothing yet," he replied. "UNSEC is crawling through every dome on the Moon, on a witch-hunt. If I try to arrange an accident ..." He shrugged and left it at that.

  Alexandria understood. This was not a loose end they could cut off right now. "Okay," she said. "We've got one more item to discuss. Martha Catskill is becoming a problem."

  5 - Tetsuya

  Itsumi dwelled within the seasons. The colors and patterns of her kimono changed from Spring, to Summer, to Autumn, and so forth, to match the skies and gardens of Kyoto-neo. She had friends, she went to the market, she sewed blankets. And then Kaori disappeared, and Itsumi stopped in Winter. A reclusio perpetua of stark and bleak. The small amount of makeup she wore was still perfect, every hair of her head in place, her kimono washed and pressed, her back straight, the skin of her hands and neck like that of a dove ... and her eyes fearful, her pale, pink lips a thin line in stoic worry. Frozen expressions that no man wanted to see on the face of his wife.

  As always Tetsuya was struck by his wife's beauty. They were a contrast; he something that should sit on the ledge of Notre-Dame, and she something that should sit among the clouds. The hatch closed behind him and she came with small steps from the kitchen into the main room and helped him out of his jacket— the now familiar bulge of a handcomm underneath the folds of her gray, silk obi.

  The handcomm never left her.

  Six months ago Tetsuya was a senior detective in Kyoto-neo's Criminal Investigations Division 1, Earth. And then he was summarily promoted to Superintendent of a Transit Authority team on Butte.

  Itsumi accepted the transfer with a nod and bore the separation of family and friends without complaint. It would never be said that she failed to support her husband. Kaori, their eighteen year old daughter, hadn't reacted with the same grace.

  She was always a stubborn girl— from willful toddler to recalcitrant teen. All through her high school years she chafed under Itsumi's rules, and refused to communicate with Tetsuya. He thought that once she matured, or found a direction in life— perhaps college, or marriage— their relationship would also mature. It was natural these days for kids to resent their parents, it was a phase. And while Tetsuya could do nothing to improve the bond between mother and daughter, he held out hope that one day she would find common ground with him and they could sit and talk.

  Looking back Tetsuya realized that perhaps he had contributed to the distance between them. Being a cop consumed most of his time, and being a good cop consumed all of his time. He simply hadn't been there for her to communicate with.

  They settled into the UN provided apartment. Itsumi, having spent the duration of the trip aboard the transport reading everything she could find about Butte, promptly discovered the shops and stores that carried the things she needed to make a home for her family in this new, alien environment. And as Tetsuya, amidst the side-glances and rumors surrounding his promotion and transfer, settled into work, he thought that his wife and daughter would grow closer— learn to lean on one another, both being strangers in a strange land. But two weeks from the day they stepped off the transport Itsumi called him at work, frantic. Kaori had disappeared.

  He remembered feeling confused, as though he didn't quite understand what his wife was trying to tell him. What did she mean by gone? He wasn't aware that Kaori went anywhere. She wasn't interested in meeting the neighbors and had immediately decided that Butte was her personal version of Hell. Her first two nights were spent crying and arguing with Itsumi. And now she was gone? Realizing that he was missing some pieces of the puzzle he fell back on what he knew best, asking questions.

  He stepped out of the office and watched Itsumi's face on the handcomm as she explained that Kaori had gone out a few times ... Itsumi forcing her out of the apartment to run errands. That day, she hadn't returned in over an hour and so Itsumi called her, she didn't respond. Thinking that it was more of their daughter's peevishness she waited, and then the message arrived.

  In a single, terse sentence Kaori revealed that she had joined a hauler crew, and that she would never return. And that was it.

  It hadn't taken Tetsuya much detective work to verify Kaori's statement. Using his TA access he checked her last retinal scan and discovered that she had in fact joined the crew of a contract hauler that departed a few minutes after she sent the message to Itsumi. It had the feel of something planned, and he could imagine Kaori meeting the crew while out on one of her mother's errands, and that meeting leading to the next, and so forth until she was beguiled enough to join them.

  Kaori had no skills beyond retail work, and Tetsuya felt something tighten in his chest when he dwelled on the obvious question; how does an eighteen year old girl pull her weight aboard a hauler? He immediately pulled the crew manifest ... one woman, and a man. He ran backgrounds checks on both of them. No warrants. The man had been detained briefly at station G12 about a year prior for questioning over a bar fight that resulted in damaged property. On the surface they appeared better than the average itinerant crews that passed through Butte, day to day on their mining and hauling business. He had felt some small amount of relief because there was another woman aboard the ship.

  The worst of it was explaining to his wife that he could do nothing about it. By UN law Kaori was an adult, and had made an adult decision.

  For the next week they continued to send messages to their daughter, with no response, and Itsumi fell deeper into worry and depression— the color draining from her life. She was sure that the tug crew was stopping the messages from reaching Kaori, blocking them in their comm systems. Tetsuya didn't agree, he believed that she was getting them and stubbornly refused to respond. And so, he stopped. His daughter, immature or not, had made a decision— one that he couldn't change. But Itsumi continued to send messages with the hope that Kaori would respond ... Please Kaori, just tell us you're okay. Some days his wife sat on the couch gripping her handcomm so tight her knuckles turned white.

  As Itsumi wordlessly hung his jacket on the stand beside the hatch he took off his shoes and sat down heavily on the couch. She glanced at him but said nothing.

  "I'm going back to Criminal Investigations," he told her.

  His wife turned from the coat stand and looked at him, her hands folded at her waist. Her face, once full of life, was blank. Her stance mimicking expectation, waiting patiently for him to explain further. Then the corner of one fine eyebrow rose and she asked, "We are going back to Kyoto-neo?"

  If that were the case, Itsumi would send another message to Kaori, telling her the good news and hope that she would somehow find a way back to them. Tetsuya had been slow, he had only thought of his wife's reaction on the walk back to the apartment. It would be her natural assumption when he announced he was going back to CI that they would be returning to Earth.

  He shook his head. "No, here. It's just temporary, they call it detached duty."

  She blinked, then nodded. "Okay. Do you want to eat now?"

  "Whenever is fine."

  And that was that.

  She hurried to the kitchen, and as Tetsuya rubbed his forehead sh
e came back briefly, sitting a glass of cold tea down on the end table. He took a drink then laid his head back on the couch, his thoughts alternating between Bratton and his runaway daughter.

  He couldn't shake the feeling that Bratton was using him. It was politics, the same thing that led to his 'promotion'. But, it was a moot point. The Chief Superintendent could have revealed what he was really up to— lain it out in detail— and Tetsuya might have regretted it later, but he still would have accepted the assignment to CI.

  Tetsuya pulled up the dossiers of the CI team on his handcomm and started to go through them, but Itsumi came back in the room.

  "Come and eat."

  He nodded and pushed himself up.

  As they sat at the kitchen's small table Tetsuya realized his wife had taken the time to shop at the UN Commissary that week, it was the only place she could find the approximate ingredients for miso soup, and two bowls of it sat on the table. She would never settle for soy imitations. Even in the midst of her worry for Kaori and her disappointment in him— his inability to bring Kaori back— she wouldn't let her responsibilities slip.

  Twenty years ago a beautiful, young records clerk in Division 1's Evidence Archive smiled at him, and the world around him paled.

  He was a young officer, ordered by his superior to retrieve physical evidence from the archive. He couldn't recall the case his team had been working on, but he remembered standing in line with several other junior officers, waiting at the counter to retrieve their boxes of case paraphernalia. They complained of the boredom of running mundane errands and told of their desires to do more. Young men, blustery, and ready to make their mark in a career that would turn them cynical, jaded, and old before their time. It just happened to be his turn when Itsumi became available. When he stepped to the counter her face lit up.