by R L Dean
He put his handcomm back in his pocket and keyed the control pad beside the hatch. Inside, Itsumi was up. When he closed the hatch she came from the kitchen and looked at him. She was holding a pair of pruning shears in one hand. After a moment she turned and went down the hall. He sat down on the couch. It dawned on him then that he felt old. He couldn't recall ever feeling this way.
When Itsumi returned she was carrying gauze and an antibiotic spray. He didn't realize why until she knelt down beside the couch and took his hand. His knuckles were bloody. And as his wife cleaned and bandaged his hand Tetsuya was reminded of the same scene playing out over the years. Being a cop wasn't for the meek. She never asked questions, she just took care of the scrapes and bruises, whether they were gained from chasing criminals or drunk co-workers. And once, she sat quietly beside his bed in an emergency room when he was stabbed in the shoulder. If it was something he needed to talk about, she would listen.
"Are you sorry you married me?" He asked.
Finishing her work she glanced at him, then stood. "Don't be foolish. Come back to bed."
* * *
"In answer to your most recent inquiry, detective. Outside of a spy thriller altering a ship's crew manifest cannot be done. Inserting information into the black box data core is not the same as cutting time from a communications log— which, as I explained in my previous message, is also a virtual impossibility. It requires a specific software interface linked to ..."
The Forensics tech went on at length explaining exactly why inserting information into the data core was impossible. Her previous matter-of-fact tone had turned to exasperation. She didn't want to hear from him again, Tetsuya detected.
He tapped the handcomm, stopping the message. Itsumi didn't like him to take work calls at the kitchen table, and he had heard all that he needed to hear. Someone altered the Sadie's crew manifest, that much was fact. Someone smart, and with inside knowledge. Someone is covering Misaki's movements.
And with that revelation the communications log came into focus. The editing. A deleted question, and a deleted reply. A question to Misaki, and her reply.
Itsumi set a small bowl of rice in front of him. It jerked him from his thoughts.
"It will get cold," she said, and set a bowl of miso soup beside the rice.
When he finished breakfast she helped him with his jacket, and stood with her hands at her waist, watching him leave.
"Don't go out today," he told her. "If you need anything from the store send me a list, and I'll pick it up on the way home."
The center of her eyebrows rose slightly. A grand expression considering the last six months ... the shadow of a once lively face. He was tired of seeing shadows. Itsumi was tired of living in them, he was sure. "Hai," she replied.
Tetsuya left.
On the concourse, level two's foot traffic was ordered-chaos. Everyone flowing into lines for the lifts and heading to work. Except the mining and hauling crews— they would be doing nothing but recovering from last night's drinking. Frustrated, angry people with nothing to do. Many of them would have returned to their ships for the night, Butte didn't have the accommodations to house the elevated population, but there were plenty of them on the concourse, lounging at tables and standing around vending machines and food kiosks.
He picked up a coffee at his favorite vending machine and stood for a moment, watching. Pollard's announcement would broadcast in a couple of hours and those discontented faces he saw now would turn to rage about midway through it.
Waiting his turn in line he took the lift, and when it stopped on level three he stepped off and turned toward the department's tunnel— then stopped. He caught sight of Bingbing's black ponytail and smart uniform in the crowd. She was heading down the concourse, well past the department tunnel.
He followed her.
The young officer was on a mission. She walked with purpose, winding her way through the clumps of human traffic but continuing in a relative straight line— toward the mining coordinators' offices at the other end of the level. What business does she have there? He wondered.
Bingbing stopped at the Shenhau Coordinator's office. It was a little early for the office to be open, but several men in coveralls were already loitering around the hatch. Tetsuya recognized it as an ambush. There was only one way into the office, and the coordinator would have to go through the miners to get it.
The miners glanced at her, but nothing more, and Bingbing simply stood, apparently intent on waiting with them.
"Officer Wei," Tetsuya said, stopping a few meters behind her.
Bingbing glanced to the side, then turned around to look at him.
"Lieutenant?" She asked. The corners of her mouth went up slightly, but she was surprised.
"Can we talk for a moment?"
There was a service tunnel before the coordinator's office and he led her to it, stopping just inside.
"What are you doing here?" He asked.
Bingbing frowned, looked down, then cleared her throat and looked back up at him. "I'm going to see the Shenhau Coordinator, to talk about how the new pass system will affect the haulers."
"Go back to the office," he told her. "I'll talk to Velásquez."
"Sir ..." she began. "Officer Velásquez and O'Hara are in with Lieutenant Long. Salma is at the docks .... I'm the only one available."
Tetsuya shook his head. "I don't care. When Pollard's announcement broadcasts this place will explode. And those miners at Shenhau, they're waiting for the coordinator ... it could get ugly and I don't ... want you in it. Please go back to the office."
Bingbing swallowed. "Sir, you can't always protect me. This is my job. Being a police officer is all I ever wanted and ... you're stopping me."
Tetsuya felt something inside him deflate. She was so young, barely older than Kaori. Barely older than Kaori. He had hoped that she would grow tired of police work, find something else to do and quit the Force. Perhaps marry, but he never heard her talk about dating.
"Please, sir. Let me do my job."
She wasn't going to back down, and it really would be unreasonable of him to force her to go back to the office. Finally, he nodded and she smiled in return. God, if something happens to her out here I'll never forgive myself. She turned and headed back to the coordinator's office.
Tetsuya watched her for a moment before turning back down the concourse.
When he walked in the office everyone was there. Baldwin, studying files on her desk, Schindler already on the phone, George digging in a desk drawer with one hand while he used a hand-gripper in the other. And Falk. His face was pale and swollen, and he was wearing the same shirt— and pants, Tetsuya assumed, but couldn't confirm because he was seated behind his desk— that he had on earlier that morning, when he and Baldwin pulled him out of the bar. The man looked up as he entered, his lips were tight.
With the larger issue of Pollard's announcement looming he was reluctant to address the issue with Falk, but he had to respond. If he had been paying attention, instead of obsessing over a case, things might not have gotten this far. He might have noticed the signs of Falk's binges, and warned him.
"Falk," he said. "Come with me."
Without a private office there was nowhere to go but out in the tunnel, and considering the time he would have to make this short and memorable. As Falk rose from his seat and Tetsuya turned back to the hatch, he saw Baldwin look up from her desk at him and frown before looking back down.
As soon as the hatch closed Falk turned to him, his swollen face now morose, and he asked, "This where you say you're writing me up for a policy violation?"
"No," Tetsuya told him. "This is where I say stop. Baldwin says you've made last night a habit. That ends, now. If you're going to drink like that do it at home. You're an officer of the law, you don't get to make yourself a public nuisance."
Falk's jaw worked for a moment, then he said, "We're human too."
"Yes we are," Tetsuya agreed. "But, we are responsible for b
earing the standard."
Two patrol officers came out of the main entrance and turned toward them, talking as they walked. Tetsuya waited until they passed, then said, "Look, Falk. You're less than a year from retirement. What would have happened last night if the duty sergeant called a patrol officer instead of me, and the waitress started talking about your temper? That officer would have been obligated to file a report."
Falk stared at him for a moment, trying to think of what to say, Tetsuya supposed. He settled on, "Okay, I get it. What next?"
"We go back to work."
"We're done?" Falk asked.
"Well, one other thing," Tetsuya said. "I know you don't like me. No one does, because of the inquest. But I did my duty, and I'm getting tired of being called a snitch for it."
* * *
Tetsuya thought that the office felt subdued when he and Falk returned inside. He suspected it had more to do with Pollard's impending announcement than with him pulling Falk outside for a private talk. He took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair and sat down. When he logged in his desk a notification blinked at him. He tapped it, and a flag that he requested with the Registrar's office for the crew of the Sadie opened up. His eyes widened as he read it. Captain Middleton had filed a report right there on Butte at the UN Rep's Office, detailing a pirate attack against his ship while in orbit of Saturn. The report had made its way through the system, all the way to a queue in the Secretariat's offices, where Tetsuya's flag found it. Middleton managed to severely damage the attacking ship, camera footage was attached. He and the mechanic, Haydon James, then went aboard to search for survivors, of which there were none. The wreck of the pirate ship's last known coordinates were supplied in the report, along with some limited details of the dead crew in a separate report provided by James as an addendum.
The ship in the Sadie's camera footage was the same one in the Pendleton's own recordings.
No survivors found. That part of Middleton's report was a lie. Tetsuya now understood how Misaki Iriyama came to be aboard the Sadie. She had been taken from the Pendleton by pirates. Those same pirates then attacked Middleton's ship, and their luck ran out. Middleton, having successfully disabled the attackers, boarded the wreck with his mechanic and finding Misaki as the sole survivor brought her back to the Sadie. Then they arrive at Butte to drop their ore canisters, and Misaki passes the security checkpoint, now a member of Middleton's crew. All the pieces fit, the evidence was speaking for itself. The question was why did Middleton leave her name out of the report?
There was still something missing ... something that experience had taught him would not be found in files. That was Baldwin's complaint about working the piracy cases. There was only so much you could detect by staring at a words and pictures on a desk screen. He had enough to write his report and hand off to Long. With any luck the powers that be would dispatch a patrol cruiser back to Saturn and find the wreck of the pirate's ship. Then a forensics team could sweep the inside and pull its black box, and whatever they found might unravel a conspiracy leading all the way back to Mars. If the rumors were true. But, that missing piece was bothering him ... that Misaki shaped piece of the puzzle that didn't make sense. Transmissions cut from the Pendleton's communication logs, the Sadie's black box data altered ...
Tetsuya's handcomm beeped, shocking him back to the present. He answered it, and Long stared back at him from the screen.
"Get your team to the breakroom," he said, then disconnected.
Five minutes later the last of both teams were walking through the breakroom hatch and getting seated at the table. Long waited with his arms folded over his chest at the head of the room. Salma Patel was the last detective to enter. As she pulled the hatch closed the word that came to Tetsuya's mind was late. He wondered how Velásquez was handling her.
"Pollard's announcement has been canceled," Long said. There was a moment of stunned silence, then it was like the tension drained out of the room ... a collective weight lifting from their backs.
Long continued. "The Chief Superintendent and the UNSEC Company Commander convinced him to wait until another detachment of UNSEC soldiers can be sent, before announcing the pass system. When the announcement is made we'll be in a better position to deal with the fallout. This will also give the TA team time to develop a full plan for distribution and enforcement. Until then, Control is working out a loose schedule that will keep docking slots free longer. It won't be as effective as our previous plan, but it will take the pressure off of the life-support systems."
A pressure had been building inside Tetsuya's head that he hadn't realized, until just now, as it began to leak away.
17 - Yuri
The last time he saw Ivan he was nineteen. No longer a boy, but not completely a man, though he had been forced into that role because of Yuri's abandonment ... Yuri's own failure as a man.
After almost two years of not seeing his ex-wife and son, Yuri returned to Kasimov. He got a job offer on the Korean peninsula, flying shuttles, and wanted to see Ivan before he left. His ex-wife wasn't interested in talking— didn't even ask him for money— but did tell him where to find Ivan. He had taken a truck driving job with Zhelezny Hauling. It was the kind of crap job that was a dead end, Yuri knew. Long hours, low pay, and high expectations from management.
Under a crisp, blue sky, he arrived at Zhelezny's offices, an old, single story structure made of gray concrete surrounded by dirty snow and puddles of icy mud. He was told Ivan just left for the truck yard, if he ran he could catch him. So he did.
The parked trucks were like a maze, but he found the lot number in time to see his son standing at the cab door putting something in the passenger seat. His blond hair had grown out and covered his neck now, and he looked more solid. Yuri had suddenly been struck by just how long two years was. If not for being familiar with the way Ivan moved, he might not have recognized him from behind.
"Ivan!" He called, still walking across the yard.
Ivan had turned and glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to the truck, closed the door and hopped down and started walking around to the other side.
"Ivan!" Yuri yelled again, raising his hand ... he had even smiled. His son ignored him, continuing his walk around the front of the truck.
Yuri hurried over, risking ice and mud. "Ivan, it is me! What are you doing?"
Ivan rounded on him. "You got two minutes. I can't be late."
He had been surprised by Ivan's reaction.
"Who cares?" He asked. "It is crap job, anyway. You should go to Krichev and learn to be a pilot, fly like your old man."
Yuri spread his arms wide and moved in toward Ivan— he was shoved back forcibly.
"Someone has to stay here and take care of mom."
Three years later Yuri returned to Kasimov again, his ex-wife was gone and the old three room house empty. The neighbors didn't know where she was, but thought that Ivan had signed up with a mining crew.
The look of disgust and anger on Ivan's face that last day he saw him was still with Yuri. Ivan hated him ... hated his own father.
I deserve it, Yuri reminded himself as a hazard notice flashed on his screen, snapping him back to the Sadie's Flight deck.
"Yuri, are you going to fly or daydream?" Hayden asked from the terminal across from the cockpit.
"I am flying, mind your own business."
There weren't exactly commercial traffic lanes here. The depot sat right in the middle of a debris field left over from decades of mining that stretched over a thousand kilometers in any direction. Everyone was on the Flight deck, strapped in and watching their screens as he navigated the dust and hard material remains.
"It is my business," Haydon told him. "I'm on this ship!"
Yuri snorted. "I haven't hit anything yet."
"Both of you shut up," Mat said. "Still no word from Control?"
He shook his head. "Not yet." He had been to a dozen places like this; old, out of the way, and no one clearly in c
harge. A few years before joining Mat's crew he ended up at one owned by a religious cult, but they had split over some water-wine nonsense and half was in control of sanitation and life-support, while the other half ran the docks and security. As far as he could recall none of these places were much concerned with efficiency or procedure. When the Sadie got close enough, someone would call them.
Yuri knew Mat was mirroring his screen and staring at the same blurry image of the depot that he was. Over the next twenty minutes the optics cleared up the light and shadows and the depot resolved into a warped, egg shaped asteroid with spindly docking arms that reminded Yuri of spider legs. He counted seven ships docked. At least four were haulers with their oversized thrust assembly and containers strapped around their decks.
"This looks like a place for thieves," Haydon said, apparently watching through the optics. "You know I don't like thieves, Yuri."
As far as he knew Haydon didn't like anyone, except Mat ... and that woman. He was spending a lot of time with her, which, considering her past oddball relationship with Mat made things ... strange.
Details began to appear; pock marks on the asteroid's surface, remnants of a broken docking arm floating below it, and clusters of silos sticking out at odd angles. To Yuri it looked like a junk yard, not a den of thieves. Though, Haydon was right. Corporate security— if it even existed here— was not the same as having UNSEC soldiers strutting around with stun batons.
Yuri messaged Control again, they were picking up light comm chatter so he knew he was being heard. It was almost time to start final braking maneuvers for docking before he got a response.
"Yeah, ahh ... Say-D. Slot twelve on arm A. Unless you want to pay the premium fee for a closer slot?"
"This place is already creeping me out," Haydon said, real fast.
Yuri looked at Mat and he shook his head.
"No," he told whoever was on the other end of the comm. "Slot twelve is fine."
"Okay," came the reply, then the comm went dead.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mat put his hand to his mouth, staring at the screen, and Yuri felt a growing sense of panic that made his heart speed up. Mat couldn't change his mind, not now. He was so close to finding Ivan.
