The Nightshade Problem: Sol Space Volume Two

by James Wilks

  His parents told him to turn his cheek, to be proud of his faith, and to pray for salvation. When Ishaan was shot by another boy over a fight for a wheel of cheese and a handful of cash, Amit felt that he finally understood the nature of God. He had prayed many times for the boy’s death, and when it finally came, he did not feel guilty. He felt vindicated.

  Amit shook himself from his reverie and gazed about him. The market of Titan Prime looked small now, like a child standing in her father’s clothes hoping to seem intimidating and looking all the more pathetic for it. Amit had grown up in one of the toughest places in the solar system and he had survived. His strength and his faith had carried him through, and now they had carried him here, and not without cause. He had a meeting to attend. He pushed through the crowd and down the street.

  There were four of them, two men and two women, and they were not good people. They had been easy to find. Amit, before he had quit his job and become a true servant of God, had been a courier. The neural implants that the job required were still nestled in his brain, and it was through these that he heard the word of God. Like the Bible, it was written, not spoken. He followed the directions that led him to the bars or streets where they could be found, and when his eyes had fallen on each one, the word HIM or HER had appeared in his vision. That is how he found his four sinners.

  As a former courier, it was easy for him to approach them, hand over a small envelope, and walk away without being detained. Years of practice had enabled him to project a disinterested air that told people don’t bother to ask me about this; I don’t know anything. They were sinners all, and those envelopes laid their sins bare for them. It was not lost on Amit that the law called this blackmail, but he knew what it truly was: a chance for those who had done terrible things to redeem themselves.

  Amit waited in the hotel room for them, and they arrived one by one. The first, a woman older than Amit with fair skin and ear-length dark hair, came in angry. She threw the envelope in Amit’s face. She asked who the hell he thought he was. She threatened to go to the police. Amit knew this was all bluster; if she had intended to go to the police, she would certainly not have risked coming to a meeting in a shoddy hotel room at two in the afternoon. She had come prepared to pay. She just needed to satisfy her sense of righteous indignation first. When she had finished her tirade, Amit calmly told her to sit and that they were awaiting others. She fumed for a few more seconds, then sat with an almost comically dramatic huff.

  The next two, a couple, came together. The man was swarthy and broad through the shoulders. His head was shaved, though he kept a beard, and he was attractive. His partner was a woman who seemed to be barely in her early twenties. She had a fragile, avian aspect about her, and her eyes were wide and frightened. The couple entered silently and made no demands. Their guilt hung about them like a robe, and they did little more than look to Amit for directions. He told them to sit, and they did so wordlessly on the bed next to each other. The first woman who had entered looked them up and down, but the couple scarcely glanced at her. Instead, they found places on the carpet to affix their eyes. They did not hold hands.

  The final entrant came a full three minutes later. A broken, pug nose adorned his face under hard eyes and an ape-like brow. He was balding, in his early forties, and carried himself as though it were he, not God, who ruled the universe. Amit took this to be bluster as well, though of a different sort than the woman’s. No man who receives an envelope detailing the people he has killed walks with anything other than a forced ease. As with the other woman, if he were not hoping to keep his crimes silent, he would not have come. Amit bid him sit, but he refused and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed instead. If the man thought that his attitude and lateness gave him an advantage, made it clear that he was master of his destiny, then Amit would let him. His mind would be changed soon enough.

  “You are fortunate,” Amit began. The dark-haired woman, the one who looked like a bored housewife, made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.

  Amit ignored her and continued. “Few sinners have a chance to expiate their sin in their lifetimes. God has given you another chance.”

  “Can the religious crap,” the balding man said flatly. “You ain’t God.”

  Amit smiled indulgently and looked the man levelly in the eye. “Of course I am not God. Don’t be absurd. I merely serve God, as do we all, though some do it unwittingly.”

  “Get to the point,” the single woman said from her seat. “What do you want?”

  Amit shifted his gaze to her. “But this is the point. I do not want anything. God wants you to do something, something illegal and dangerous.”

  “I’m gonna assume,” said the standing man, “that you’ve got something on everyone here, same as me.” He nodded at the dark-haired woman and the couple who sat silently and sullenly. “But don’t think that blackmail means you own me. I’m not about to kill someone for you. I don’t care what information you think you have.”

  “Why not?” Amit countered evenly and without hesitation. “You’ve done it before. You’ve killed three people, men who owed your employer gambling debts. You didn’t kill them because they wronged you,” his voice took on an accusatory tone, “or because they were bad people. You did it for money.”

  “I’m-” the woman with the dark hair stood. Her voice was shaky, but she pressed on. “I’m not staying here for this. I’m not going to kill anyone.” She visibly prepared herself for the lie before she said it. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” She began to march indignantly towards the door.

  “Are you sure, Mrs. Jensen?” Amit said, though he did not move to stop her. “Walking home from here will take you through the same alley where your husband was shot.”

  The woman froze in her tracks and stared at the door like a caged animal longing for the refuge of a nearby forest.

  “I know you testified against the man who now serves the sentence for his murder, but you and I both know that he is innocent.” Amit inclined his head and asked, “Was it his affairs, or just his money that pushed you to murder him?” He let the question hang for a moment, then added, “Sit down.” She sat.

  Amit stepped forward and knelt in front of the couple. He took one of their hands in each of his and looked up at them sympathetically. They returned his gaze, both surprised at the tenderness of the gesture.

  “Your sin is worst of all. All men are sinners. The people these two killed had a chance to do the right thing. But the life of a child?” Amit asked.

  The frail woman flinched, and Amit saw the jaw of the man tense. For a moment he thought that they would attack him, but the broad-chested man sat still. Amit continued gently: “I know that you were young, and exhausted, and that you just wanted to be free from the responsibility, but that is no excuse. There is a special place reserved for those who kill their own children, and it is terrible.”

  The woman began to cry softly. It was a wonder, Amit thought, that these two had remained together after what they had done. He couldn’t imagine the resentment, the anger, the blame that they endured when they looked at one another. Suffering alone, he mused, must be even worse than suffering together.

  Still kneeling before the couple, he pulled his hands back and looked around the room at the others. “You’re all killers, all sinners. I’m not asking you to do anything that you haven’t done before. This time, however, it is for a righteous cause.”

  “Screw your cause,” the balding man said bluntly. “You really think that threatening to expose some murder that mighta happened years ago is gonna make us commit new ones?” The man was attempting to speak for the group, to unite them against their tormentor. “Blackmail don’t work that way.”

  Amit stood and took two steps back so that he could look at all of them. Strange Angels, he thought. “The blackmail information you received isn’t supposed to motivate you. That was just to get you here.”

  “Then what, money?” The housewife attempted a dismiss
ive laugh, but a vein throbbed in her forehead. “I don’t care what you’re offering. I’m not an assassin.”

  “I’m offering your lives,” Amit said, “and more importantly, a chance at redemption.”

  “You’re threatening us?” The balding man asked somewhat incredulously. He glanced around the room, looking for traps, sizing up the situation, and trying to decide if he could get his meaty hands around Amit’s neck without too much trouble. Amit was sure that he could.

  “I’ve no illusions, Mr. Mendez. I know that the four of you do not find me intimidating.” He looked down at his slight frame made all the less imposing in the light Titan gravity. “You are all capable killers. You would not have been chosen to do God’s work in this case if you were not. Mrs. Jensen,” he gestured at the dark-haired woman, “served a year in the navy before her dishonorable discharge. She can handle herself.” He looked down at the man sitting on the bed next to his wife. “Mr. Lewis here worked security for years.” Finally he addressed the balding man again. “And you and I both know what you’re capable of, Mr. Mendez.”

  For the first time, the man sitting on the bed spoke. “My wife’s no killer.” He almost choked on the words, for he realized as he said them that they were technically untrue, but Amit took his meaning nonetheless.

  “No, you are right,” he said softly. He had not been looking forward to this. The woman watched him, her wide eyes moist and pleading. “She is incapable of carrying out the word of God, but she will still serve His purpose. She can prove to you, in no uncertain terms, what will happen if you do not complete His task. He will steal the very breath from you.”

  Suddenly the woman’s small frame shuddered all over. Her right hand flew to her left breast, and she inhaled sharply. The others looked at her in fear and surprise, and Mrs. Jensen rose to her feet. Her husband took her by her trembling shoulders. The woman inhaled again, struggling for breath, and tried to speak. No words came. If possible, her eyes became even larger than before. They flicked from her husband’s panicked face to Amit’s and back. She pounded at her shoulder weakly, as if trying to restart her own heart.

  “Denise?” The man asked, powerlessly watching his wife die in front of him. “Denise?”

  With a huge effort, the dying woman turned to look at Amit once more. Amit watched the fear go out of her eyes, watched it be replaced with peace, acceptance, and even, he thought, gratitude. He felt the impulse to reach out to her, to tell her that he loved her though he abhorred her sin, but it was too late. She collapsed to the dirty and stained carpet of the room and was still.

  Amit studied the mix of fear, shock, and rage on each of the remaining faces and said, “Now listen carefully. There are some people who live on a spaceship, and God has commanded that they must die…”

  Chapter 5

  It really didn’t surprise Staples that when she, Templeton, Dinah, and Kojo Jang stepped into the boarding tube from Gringolet at Titan Prime, a policeman was waiting for them. The man was tall, just over two meters, and his head seemed precariously close to the top of the tube. He had dark skin, graying hair, and a salt and pepper goatee to match. His uniform was an amalgamation of police styles from Earth; he had a sidearm on his left hip and a badge over his right breast. He was slightly stooped, and Staples judged him to be in his mid-fifties.

  “Good morning,” he said in a deep and languid voice. “My name is Martin Glover, and I’m here to welcome you to Titan Prime.” Behind him, at the far end of the boarding tunnel, the captain spied two other men in uniform watching the interaction. She guessed the sheriff had asked them to stay back to avoid giving the impression of an armed escort. Staples felt far more like the aggressive party, especially with Dinah standing at parade rest on her right and Jang’s gaunt and grim visage to her left.

  “Good morning.” Staples shook his hand, and then introduced him to her crew mates. The man shook each of their hands earnestly and with care, repeating their names back to them.

  “Do you greet all new arrivals, Sheriff Glover, or are we special this morning?” Staples asked.

  “No, you’re special,” he replied. “It’s because of the situation, of course. Things are a bit tense right now.”

  The sheriff was of course referring to the destruction of Cronos Station. In the ten hours it had taken for Gringolet to decelerate and dock with Titan Prime, the news had spread to Earth and beyond. Everyone was talking about it; every news channel was focused on it. They were calling it the greatest disaster in space, akin to a terrible earthquake or some great hotel fire from the past.

  “We couldn’t help but notice on the way in, Captain, and I hope you’ll not mind my asking, but we couldn’t help but notice that your ship was in a bad way. Mind telling me about that?”

  “Pirates,” Staples replied.

  “Yeah, they hit us not long after we passed the asteroid belt,” Templeton chimed in with a grim smile. “Bastards nearly got us too. Shot us full of holes, tried to board us. Nasty bit of business.”

  The sheriff stood nodding lightly and considering Templeton long enough for Templeton’s smile to crack a bit. Finally he spoke. “Pirates, huh? Do you mind if we verify that?”

  “Not at all,” Staples replied without hesitation. “I assumed that we’d have some explaining to do, so I’ve arranged for our logs to be transmitted to you. We were limping our way to Cronos for fuel and repairs when it… exploded. We had a tough time dodging the shrapnel, actually. Our ship took some additional damage, and more than one of our crew was injured.”

  Brutus had created a false set of logs for the ship that detailed the fictitious pirate attack, complete with sensor and coms data. It hadn’t been very difficult; he had used the actual records that the Gringolet’s computer had on file from his own engineered pirate attack as a basis. He had also assured the captain that investigations into the Gringolet would reveal that they were hired by Libom Pangalactic to pick up some workers from Cronos and ferry them to Mars. This false story had the benefit of matching their genuine confusion about what to do next. Setting this up had required hacking Libom’s databases remotely, a chore that Brutus had described as easy but potentially risky when carried out from the ship itself. All of the computers backed their story up. All they had to do was maintain the lie.

  “Well I’m sorry to hear that,” Glover drawled. “Can we get them some medical attention? Got a good doctor here.”

  “Thank you, but we have a capable doctor of our own, and everyone is expected to recover,” Staples paused for a moment, and when the man facing her said nothing, she added, “Would you like us to, um… come downtown with you to answer some questions?”

  Glover regarded her for several seconds. He then gestured down the tubeway and began walking. Staples walked next to him; she had to crane her neck at an awkward angle to look up at the man. Despite his stooped profile, he stood nearly a half-meter taller than her. Templeton walked close behind her, and Dinah and Jang brought up the rear.

  “No, I don’t think so. Titan Prime is small, Captain Staples. We’ve got just over five thousand people here, and nearly all of them know each other. If I need to find you, it won’t be hard. I hope you won’t mind if I place a lock on your ship, just until we can verify your story.”

  Staples shook her head. “We’re not going anywhere soon. My chief engineer,” she inclined her head back towards Dinah, “thinks we need at least two weeks for repairs. We need fuel, too, and some R and R.”

  “I would imagine, I would imagine,” the man mused.

  They exited the tube and stood in a large, long room not unlike an airport terminal. Each of the gate-like tubeways offered a berthing place for visiting vessels, and people walked to and fro. It was fairly empty since it was still early morning, and most people were speaking of or watching news broadcasts about Cronos station. She could hear it in the air, the buzz of disbelief, shock, grief, and underneath it, fear. Titan Prime did not mine directly from Saturn’s fuel rich atmosphere, but it had its
own dangers. The interconnected series of domes made use of the methane, ethane, and propane in the moon’s atmosphere for power, and they were forever digging down into the planetoid for minerals and water ice. There was plenty that could go wrong, and while there were strict safety guidelines, the people here had no way to know that the destruction of Cronos station was anything other than an accident.

  Staples had been tempted to tell them everything. As she looked at this man, she thought that perhaps he might believe her too, but that meant taking a huge risk. If they were taken seriously, then they would be detained, probably indefinitely. There would be interrogations, investigations, and Staples suspected that she would never see her ship again. She might never see the sun again. It would also mean exposing Brutus, and while she recognized that doing so might be necessary one day, she was not ready to sign the death warrant of a being who had saved her entire crew, and some of them more than once. No, she thought, if they were going to ever get clear of Victor, they would have to find another way.

  “I’d also like to arrange an inspection of your ship, the… Gringolet?” he asked.

  “Grin-go-lay,” she pronounced carefully for him.

  “Gringolet,” he repeated, trying it out. “Would you like me to get a warrant for that?”

  Again, Staples shook her head. “No, you’d be welcome, Sheriff. You and your men.” She gestured to the deputies who had retreated to a respectful distance. There really was little to hide on the ship. When Brutus was shut down, he looked like any other automaton: a luxury item used for shopping and cleaning.