The Nightshade Problem: Sol Space Volume Two

by James Wilks

  There were screens dotted about the restaurant and a single three-dimensional display unit on a small platform. Normally these would have been tuned to sports or racing, but today they all displayed the news. Images of Cronos Station both before and after the destruction showed from all around them, and in the silence that followed Staples’ last comment, the feminine voice of the broadcaster drifted to them.

  “…and as rescue ships from Titan Prime continue to explore the expanding debris field, more and more bodies are being found. Over two hundred and fifty men and women worked on the station, and at this time, it is believed that none of them survived. Investigations are still preliminary at this point, but the prevailing theory seems to be that there was a reactor meltdown that ignited the liquid hydrogen the station extracted from Saturn’s atmosphere.

  “Others, however, have not ruled out the possibility of foul play. Much attention has been given to the newly formed Martian Separatist movement, a group some are calling terrorists and other freedom fighters-”

  “Martian Separatists?” Templeton asked. “What the hell?”

  “You have not heard of them?” Jang asked.

  “Don’t you keep up on politics, Don?” Staples added.

  Templeton made a sour face and shook his head. “Not really. I’m too busy taking care of your ship.” He pointed at his captain. “Why the hell would anyone on Mars want to break away from Earth? They’re not self-sufficient yet.”

  “‘Yet’ is the operative word, Mr. Templeton. Some people would like to accelerate that process. They have argued, and perhaps with some merit, that Earth is deliberately slowing Martian self-sufficiency so as to continue selling goods and services to them.” Jang’s voice was heavy and resonant, and Staples suspected that he held sympathies for the newly formed movement.

  “But Mars has almost complete autonomy. There are only a few blanket laws that govern the whole system. Beyond those, it’s up to individual governments to decide what’s legal and what’s not. What would they have to gain?” Templeton asked.

  “Well, I think the financial dependence issue is the biggest one, but the Separatists have also argued that those laws stifle the Martian economy,” Staples rejoined. She was referring to the body of system wide laws, collectively referred to as the Sol Laws, that governed such things as genetic experimentation, certain types of surgical augmentation, and research into prohibited weapons and technologies. In theory, they applied to all peoples and all places in the solar system. Their application and enforcement transcended jurisdiction.

  Templeton thought for a second. “Do you think Victor could be behind this? I mean the Separatists. If Mars gains true independence, they could vote to legalize AI research.” Fears over the dangers posed by fully sentient AI had kept Turing compliant computers strictly illegal.

  Both Jang and Staples mused on this for a minute, then Staples spoke. “That is… not outside the realm of possibility. Brutus did say that Victor had other irons in the fire, so to speak.”

  “It is a disturbing thought,” Jang concurred.

  Another moment of silence passed as they watched more shots of the drifting debris that Bethany had guided them through just two days before. Then Jang added, “Have you considered contacting the families of Evelyn, Piotr, and Quinn?”

  The question hung heavy in the air for several seconds. From around them the sounds of conversation hummed and cutlery clinked against dishes. The establishment in which they sat was fairly nice. The tables were slabs of polished stone extracted from Titan itself. There were perhaps twenty of these scattered about the restaurant in an orderly fashion, and a little less than half of them were occupied at present. The doors were saloon type, quaint and wooden and no doubt expensive. The place was called Atlas, and in the center of the room stood a statue of that famous titan carved from Titan stone.

  “I think we should let the authorities handle that,” Staples replied carefully. “I don’t want to tie us to the incident any more than we already are.”

  “Captain,” Templeton began, “Clea, we just flew halfway across the solar system to rescue that poor girl, then watched her and everyone else die in front of us. Seems like the least we could do is personally inform her family.” His face was flushed, and Staples didn’t fault his indignation. He pressed on. “I don’t know if Piotr deserved to die, or Quinn for that matter, but I’m happy to let the powers that be sort them out. I just can’t stand the thought of whoever loved that girl getting a letter saying ‘dear sir or madam.’ Evelyn was special.”

  “She was special,” Staples agreed, and Jang took the opportunity to raise his glass. Templeton did the same and Staples was just about to bring her glass to theirs when Jang dropped his to the table. It bounced rather than shattered in the light Titan gravity, but what commanded Staples’ attention was the gun that had suddenly appeared in Jang’s hand. It was a small, smooth pistol that he had produced from inside the ballistic jacket he favored, and he whipped it past her face, pointed it in the general direction of the door, and pulled the trigger.

  The sound was deafening in the stone and metal-walled room. Staples and Templeton, sitting next to each other, turned towards the door. There was a cluster of three people standing there, two men and one woman, and one of the men was clutching his collarbone. The new arrivals looked as much like residents of Titan Prime as everyone else in the restaurant, and Staples was considering whether her security officer had gone mad when she noticed the guns in their hands.

  Things began to happen very quickly then. The one who had been shot, a short, balding man of about forty, fell backward and away from them. His two companions dove for cover, raising their own weapons as they did so. A piece of masonry exploded off the wall behind Staples, shards of it cutting her ear, and she stared at the hole in the wall for a second before she realized that a bullet had missed her head by inches. Jang, meanwhile, dropped his hands under the table and heaved, his massive tattooed arms straining. The entire table tipped over, facing their attackers. Staples turned to look at it with the same shocked expression. Templeton grabbed her and pulled her down behind the newly made shield. Bullets dug chunks out of the wall where she had been sitting a second before.

  Screams echoed through the restaurant, and a few patrons sprinted for the entrance. Most hid as well as they could, and out of the corner of her eye Staples saw a couple run into the restroom. The three of them huddled behind the table. She sneaked a glance around the table and saw that all three of their adversaries were still active and shooting. They had all taken cover behind chairs or tables, though none had been overturned. The woman appeared to be in her mid-thirties with short dark hair and fair skin. The balding man whom Jang had shot had dragged himself behind a chair and was leveling his own pistol at them. The last of the three, a darker skinned, broad-chested, handsome man was crouched by a table. The people who had been eating at the table were still there, pressed against the wall behind them and trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

  “Don’t shoot any of the guests!” Staples shouted to Jang over the sound of gunfire.

  Jang leaned out, quickly fired off a few shots, then retreated as bullets thudded against their makeshift shield. Templeton, breathing hard, squatted painfully between her and Jang.

  “I’ll try, Captain, but we are in a bad way here.” More shots sounded. Bullets struck the wall behind them, showering them with rock chips and dust. The table vibrated under the assault of the fire. Jang leaned out again and fired. Staples thought that she would go deaf from the sound. Jang hit his mark, and the man he had previously wounded slumped to the floor.

  “I’m out,” he said flatly, and Staples thought he meant that he was out of attackers to shoot, but realized with a sinking feeling that he meant that he was out of ammunition. The remaining woman and man clearly had no such problems, as bullets continued to thud into the table and blast chunks out of the wall. They were trapped between the rock of the wall and the table, and two armed p
eople who clearly wanted them dead blocked the door.

  It only took a few seconds for the gunmen to notice that Jang was no longer firing back. There was a pause during which time Templeton, Staples, and Jang could hear a muted exchange between them. Then the man stood and the woman followed suit. They did not speak as they advanced on the table, their guns trained on the edges of the stone, ready to fire at the first glimpse of their quarry. They did not speak or try to taunt the crew members. They simply moved out and around the table in order to get an angle for a clean shot.

  Jang risked a glance, then cursed. The two were smart enough to keep their distance, to make use of the advantage their guns afforded them. If Jang were to charge them, they would have ample opportunity to gun him down before he got close. He tensed for a desperate attempt anyway, trying to judge the best moment.

  Suddenly there was a gunshot, one that sounded different than the others, though Staples wondered whether it was simply a trick of the acoustics of the room. It sounded again, and the woman collapsed slowly to the floor. The other gunman, the only one still standing, wheeled around and faced the door, his gun ready to fire at their would-be rescuer.

  Jang sprung from behind the table and leaped at him. It was easier to cross the distance in the light gravity; he made it in one jump. These were exactly the moments that his low gravity training had prepared him for, and he struck the man in the small of his back with his shoulder. There was little hope of doing real injury that way, as Jang weighed only fourteen kilograms at the moment. It was, however, enough to knock the man down. Jang landed deftly on him, twisted his arm behind his back, and then pushed higher. The assailant’s shoulder dislocated with an audible pop, and he screamed in pain. Jang quickly relieved him of his weapon, then pointed it at the saloon style doors.

  In the silence that followed, Staples risked another glimpse around the table. A black man with a strong chin and chaotic dark hair that poked out in various directions squatted at the door, his gun trained on Jang.

  “Friendly!” the man said clearly, but he did not lower his weapon. “I’m looking for Clea Staples. You with her?”

  Jang did not lower his weapon either, nor did he answer. He had no way to know if this was a competing assassin.

  “I’m Staples,” she said, her head protruding from behind the table. In response, the man put his hands up, palms out. He still held the gun, but it was no longer directed at her security chief. Jang lowered his weapon warily and stood up, which relieved the moaning gunman of his weight for the moment.

  The man at the doorway stood as well, and holstered his weapon after glancing at the motionless forms of the balding man and the woman. Many people still cowered about the room at their tables, and a few took the apparent cessation of hostilities to run for the door. The whispers and movements of cooks and wait staff drifted to them from the kitchen in back as people began to realize that the gunfight was over. The newcomer stepped to the side to let those fleeing to pass, then stepped more fully into the room.

  “I’m Overton. Dinah told me I could find you here.” Jang stepped towards him, closing the distance to about a meter. He had holstered his empty firearm, but held the stolen one easily in his hand.

  Staples stood and shakily walked around the table; her legs trembled slightly from the adrenalin, and Templeton grunted and his knees clicked as he found his feet.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you,” Staples said, shaking her head.

  “I’m… a friend of Dinah’s. Your chief engineer?” he offered.

  “We know who she is, stranger. We just don’t know who you are,” Jang challenged.

  Before he could answer, Templeton asked, “Where is Dinah? Why isn’t she with you? Did you know about this?” He gestured at the bodies and general chaos around them.

  “Whoa, slow down,” Overton replied. “I saw Dinah about an hour ago. She’s fine, but she was in no shape to come with me. I’m from Cronos Station, and no, I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

  Staples thought she had an inkling of who this man might be, but before she could reply, she heard a cry from the doorway. “Look out!”

  The man with the dislocated arm had produced a second gun from somewhere, and it was aimed right at Staples. Templeton stepped in front of her, the gun sounded, and then Jang spun and shot the gunman in the head.

  The bullet hit Templeton, who had placed himself between the gun and his captain, in the chest, and for the second time in as many days Staples was spattered with blood from one of her crew. Templeton slumped to the floor with a sigh. Staples stared at him for a second, then turned to the door to see who had given the warning.

  Standing in the doorway, her red hair loose and her hands covering her mouth in shock as she looked at the body of Don Templeton, was Evelyn Schilling.

  Chapter 6

  They were arrested immediately. Medical personnel arrived on the scene shortly after the local police, and they promptly went to work. Staples pleaded with the deputies to let her stay until they knew the status of their wounded crew member, but she was ignored, cuffed, and dragged away. As far as she could tell, both Templeton and the woman shooter were still alive. The medical crews were focused on the two of them. The bodies of the other two men were examined and quickly dismissed as beyond saving.

  There were no traditional automobiles in Titan Prime, but there were small open-topped runabouts. These resembled the carts found in airports a hundred years prior. Some were private, but the cart that Staples, Overton, Evelyn, and Jang were placed in and cuffed to clearly displayed police colors and seals. A brief search resulted in the removal of Jang’s and Overton’s sidearms and their communication watches. People crowded outside the restaurant, and several deputies held them back while others took stock of the carnage. Staples looked for Sheriff Glover in vain. Less than a minute after they were secured, two deputies hopped in the front of the vehicle and it accelerated away.

  Titan Prime’s layout was similar to that of Tranquility on Mars; there were several large domed structures that comprised the center of town. A maze of tubes snaked away from them and led to private residences. The ice that covered the surface of Titan contained some rocky material which had been repurposed and combined with metals mined in the belt to fashion both the central domes and other buildings. To save on materials and to make them easier to insulate, the connecting tubes often tunneled down under the surface of the moon. Burying portions of the town also helped to protect them from the liquid methane rain and storms that plagued the moon. Atlas was housed in a large dome with several other shops and restaurants, and as it was evening according to Greenwich Mean Time, a fair number of people crowded the broad avenues.

  Staples was overcome with emotions. She was frantic about Templeton’s injury. She kept seeing him step in front of her. He had done it so quickly, without thought, as if he was moving to get out of someone’s way. She looked down at the spatter of his blood on her grey flight jacket and felt her eyes well up. Then she looked over at Evelyn, who sat in the seat in front of her next to Overton, and the tears spilled over. She had believed this woman to be dead for the past forty-eight hours. She swallowed hard and tried to choke the tears down so that she could speak. Jang beat her to it.

  “How is it you are alive, Ms. Schilling?” he said quietly in his deep baritone.

  Evelyn tried to turn around to face them, but her restraints prevented her from doing so.

  “Carl,” she nodded at Overton beside her, “brought me here. I’d rather say more later.” She gestured her head in an overly dramatic fashion at the deputies in the front of the vehicle. “Do you think Don will be okay?”

  Staples had no way of knowing, but she answered anyway. “I think so. He’s just too tough to let something like this stop him.” She knew her words were bravado, and somewhat empty at that. Templeton was rugged and a great first mate, but he wasn’t overly tough. In fact, she had been worried about his health for several months, though she had never broac
hed the subject with him.

  “He was not dying when we left,” Jang leaned forward as he spoke. “No defibrillator, no adrenalin shots that I could see. No one was administering CPR. What the long term complications will be, I cannot say.”

  “God, I hope so,” Evelyn replied, then dipped her head forward so that her hair covered her face. The people who stepped aside for the vehicle stared at them as they passed, and despite all of the ups and downs of the past ten minutes, Staples felt the desire to hide her face as well.

  “I’m told your first mate is expected to live,” Martin Glover said as he sat across from Staples in a small windowless room. The table and chairs were made of an asteroid-ore alloy, and there was a one-way mirror on the wall. All in all, the small room looked like the interrogation room in a hundred police dramas she’d seen, but for the walls carved from rock ice and covered with a thin layer of metal. She couldn’t see the ice, but she could feel the cold radiating through the walls.

  “I’m relieved. Can you tell me anything else?”

  “Not really. The doctor is still working with him, and she’s very good.” Glover’s tone was soothing, deescalating.

  “Mine is better. Would you allow him to be transferred to my ship?” She had no idea what the quality of the local medical care was. She doubted that the doctor to whom Glover had referred to was better than Jabir, but that was only part of the reason she wanted him moved to Gringolet. After the most recent attempt on their lives, the thought of Templeton unconscious and under the knife of some stranger filled her with anxiety and dread.

  “‘Fraid not.” He managed to sound genuinely regretful when he said it. “I don’t know much about doctoring, but I believe it’s a bad idea to switch doctors in the middle of surgery. ‘Sides, there are still some questions to be answered.”