by Alex Thomson
“A bit much, yes, Lily?” I say aloud.
My plan is to try it out with Juan and Jolly. If I’m right, and one of them was Lily’s lover, then I might be able to provoke one of two results: an admission of guilt, or at the least an admission of being her lover.
Jolly is first—he’s the only Jay on base at the moment, according to the Rota. I find him in the Leisure cabin, idly walking round the perimeter of the cabin by himself. Outside it’s dark, and I’m distracted by the glare of the lights in the cabin. I walk towards him casually, meandering past tables and equipment.
“Leila.” He nods at me warily, continuing to walk round.
“Jolly,” I say, trying to load my voice with meaning.
“Not more questions?” he says. “I really can’t tell you anything else, little sister.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Just stretching my legs.”
I follow ten steps behind him, keeping his pace as he circles the cabin. Inside, I’m disappointed. Not even a flicker from him. If he was Lily’s lover, and had spent cycle after cycle in her company, he’d surely recognise the boiler suit, the hair. A Jay who wept at her funeral would be just as sure to break his stride when her ghost wandered in. He seems distracted, staring out the windows as he walks. After a couple of circuits, I give up and return to my cabin.
I HAVE TO wait five hours for Juan’s return, so I strip off and take a nap on Lily’s cot, getting into character. When I wake up, there’s still a couple of hours to go, and I just lie there, my mind blank, staring up at the ceiling.
Eventually, I hear the bustle and clatter of a group returning from a shift. When it’s died down, I make my way to the Jays’ cabin, and find Juan on his cot, pulling off his boots, weariness in his eyes. I stand in the doorway, just staring at him. Maybe a ghost would do this. I don’t know—but it feels a safer bet than hamming it up and drifting round the cabin, saying “Juan! Juan!” in a ghostly voice.
It doesn’t matter. Juan’s eyes meet mine, and he holds my gaze a fraction too long—and at that moment I know he was Lily’s lover. No falling to his knees, no turning white with shock, but it was enough. For a second I had seen how he looked at Lily.
“You loved her, didn’t you?” I say. “Lily?”
He looks at me dumbly. Stands up, reaches out a finger and thumb, and plucks at the fabric of the boiler suit. “Leila?” he says. “Are you wearing Lily’s boiler suit? Seriously?”
“Come on Juan. I need to know. We need to talk.”
“How do you Ells get so stubborn?” he asks, smiling. “You just won’t let anything go, will you? Lily was the same. Tenacious little buggers.”
“We prefer to think of it as being thorough. Finish what you start.”
“Hey, it’s an endearing trait in a way. Just a pain when you get on the wrong side.”
“Anyway, stop stalling. You were sleeping with her, weren’t you?”
He sighs. “Mmm. The only reason we kept it quiet was that there were only two Ells. Lots of times for us to meet while you were on shift. Occasionally our shifts clashed, but I was always able to swap with one of my brothers if I needed to.”
“How did it start?” I ask.
“It never felt like we were starting—just carrying on where we left off. Jays and Ells—we’re meant to be together, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah—spare me. When did this ‘carrying on where you left off’ commence, then?”
“More of a cynic than Lil, ain’t you?”
“Your sheer wonderfulness clearly blunted her cynical edge.”
“Hmm. Well, like I say, I always felt like there was something there between us—a tension in the air. Then one cycle—maybe sixty cycles ago—we were lifting some swag out the tunnels; we found ourselves pressed against each other as we dragged the stuff out. We had our hoods between us—I could only see her eyes… but, yeah, that’s how it started. The trip back to base with a few Bees was the longest of my life. But as soon as we got back, we came straight here, to your cabin.”
“Sixty cycles,” I say. “How could I not have seen it?”
“You can’t be cross with her for not telling you. She was only thinking of you.”
“How so?”
“It was just the two of you… she didn’t want you to feel like you were losing her. Wasn’t the same for my Family. But she had to think of you.”
“So they all knew, did they? All your brothers? Plus, Mr Ortiz guessed—and Earth knows who else.”
Juan shrugs. “You can’t blame me for telling my brothers.”
“Good grief,” I say. “And that’s why Jeremy has been sniffing around. He saw the success you had with Lily, so he reckoned he had a chance with me.”
“Don’t be a drama queen, Leila,” Juan says. “It’s in our nature. Your nature too. It’s like nickel, turning red with the acid. You can’t fight it.”
“You old romantic,” I say. “I can see why she fell for your honeyed words. How did she like being compared to a lump of nickel?”
“I’m not going to bandy words with you. You asked me if I loved your sister. I gave you an answer.”
“Earth! Touchy, aren’t you? Just a bit of banter between an Ell and a Jay, it’s in our nature, I thought?”
At the moment, the door opens and Jupiter enters. He stops in his tracks and stares at us.
“What’s going on here, then?”
“It’s Leila, brother,” Juan says, giving him a warning look.
“I can see that, I’m not stupid. But something familiar about this scene, don’t you think?”
NEITHER BROTHER MOVES. I look from one to the other. Juan is affecting a look of nonchalance, but I can see the tension in his bunched fingers.
“I’m just having a private conversation with Leila here. So why don’t you be a good boy and fuck off?”
The word explodes like a firecracker. To publicly insult your Family, to take sides with another, is a gross breach of etiquette.
Jupiter nods, gives a horribly phony smile. “We’re not finished yet, brother.” He walks out and slams the door behind him.
“So,” Juan says after a short silence. “What are we going to do now?”
“What was that about?” I say.
“What are we going to do now?” he repeats pointedly.
He sits down on his cot, looking drained.
“Okay,” I say. “Well, I presume you want to find Lily’s killer?”
“Of course I do.”
“So let’s pool what we know,” I say. It’s gratifying to be in control with a Jay. Normally they are one step ahead, teasing me, but this one is muted. That’s what love does to you, I guess.
“Okay,” I say, “Mr Reynolds. I take it you’ve seen the photos?”
“Of course. Lily talked me round into helping her break into his cabin. She told me about the photos afterwards, and I went in to have a look myself.”
“What do you think?”
“Some of my brothers think there’s a giant conspiracy, run by the Overseers—and it’s all tied in to the photos. The theory is, Lily lets slip she’s seen the photos, so they kill her to keep her mouth shut. You want my opinion? I don’t trust the Overseers either, and something funny is going on, I agree with that. But I don’t think it has anything to do with Lily’s murder.”
“Why not?”
“They’re not fools—not Ortiz and Lee, anyway. If they needed to kill someone, they’re savvy enough to make it look like an accident. And they’d have known Lily’s death would just make the quotas more difficult. This would only be a desperate, last resort, and I don’t see how Lily could have pushed them that far.”
“So?”
“So this was an idiotic, hot-blooded murder. Guess who fits that description? We need to look at the Ays.”
“And Lil had her eye on one Ay in particular, am I right?”
He glances at me sharply. “Yes, how did you know?”
“Ashton,” I say. “I know Lily stole his glasses
.”
“You’re right, she was suspicious of him for some reason. Wouldn’t tell me why, but once she asked me to look at him—and see if I could tell the difference between him and his brothers.”
“The difference?”
“Yeah. Which is ridiculous, isn’t it? They’re identical, so how can there be any difference?”
“Whatever it was—you’re saying Ashton killed her because she figured this out?”
“It’s my guess. I’ve got as close as I can to Ashton the last few cycles—shared shifts, struck up conversations, trying to figure him out.”
“And you get anywhere?”
Juan kicks out at a spanner and it skitters across the floor to rest under a cot. “Nope. Ashton’s a big, dumb oaf, just like the rest of them. No hidden depths.”
“Seems to me,” I say, “the answer is to focus on Ashton, study him together with his brothers, so we can figure out the difference between him and the other Ays.”
“And then what? You might end up like Lily did. I say we bide our time and—”
“Ah, bugger biding our time. You Jays, you’re big on talk, but sometimes you’ve just got to get on with it.”
He glares at me, but I’m suddenly tired of the Jays and their smirking and games, and the sense that, for all their fabled sense of humour, they take themselves a mite too seriously.
“Tell you what,” I say, “I’m going to deal with Ashton—you sit in your cot and bide your time.”
It seems like a good exit line, so I pick myself up and make an exit.
I GO TO the Community cabin, but a check on the Rota tells me that Ashton is out on shift. Bess is there, and Mr Reynolds, who potters around for a bit, then leaves. I take a bottle of vitamin water, and sit down opposite Bess. She’s chewing her fingernails and looking balefully at the floor. I feel a sudden pang of regret, that I’m not closer to the Bees, that we could have been friends all this time on Hell. I know Ells are introverts, and I’ve always had Lily and Mr Lee for company, but now my whole Family’s gone, I realise how much I miss having a friend to talk to. The Jays are fine for flirting and joking, but I could never share any intimacies with them. And let’s not even think about the Ays. But the Bees… I should be sat with Bess now, the two of us consoling each other.
On an impulse, I go over, and sit down next to her. “You’re still upset about the extra cycles on Hell, aren’t you?” I say.
“Sort of. The extra time is annoying, but what really makes us cross is that the Overseers never told us. We can put up with the nonsense here—we tolerate it—but this was a betrayal.”
“They’re cowards,” I say, though I don’t really think Mr Lee is. “That’s all it is. Too scared of doing or saying anything that might upset their precious corporation on Earth.”
“Maybe they are,” Bess says, and pats me absently on the knee. “Maybe. But what scares us, and we only realised this after the meeting, is this: how do we know that we’re really under quota? None of us have a clue what the quota is, none of us saw how they did the inventory.”
The idea is so novel and horrible that I can almost taste the bile rising in my stomach. I shift on the sofa uncomfortably. “But what benefit could there be for them to lie? Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t trust them any more.”
My guilty secret is that I’m not that bothered by the thousand cycles that have been summarily dumped onto the end of our sentence. It takes off the pressure of finding Lily’s murderer in time, and gives me a bit more breathing room. And not just that—I’m also sceptical that Earth really is the paradise that we’ve been promised. Respect, and a kind of filial love for the scientists that brought us to life, sure—but not the planet they live on. Based on the novels I’ve read, they’ve got the same problems and frustrations on Earth, just with more people. The Ays and Bees seem genuinely upset by the delay; as for the Jays, I think they’re unsure like me. They’ll argue about it with the Overseers, but only because they like arguing with the Overseers and causing a fuss. But I think Earth worries them. On Hell, they’re cocks of the walk, strutting around—what will they be over there?
Anyway, I’m not going to admit my lack of concerns over the delay to Bess. “So,” I say to her, “how do we find out? About the quotas and whether they’re telling the truth?”
“We’ve been thinking—it’s not easy. The only solution isn’t very pleasant. We’d have to take an Overseer and force the truth out of them.”
“What—torture?”
“Mmm.” She nods. “But I’m not sure we’re ready to go down that road, are you?”
“Once we do that, there’s no turning back. It’d be out-and-out civil war. I mean, I know the Jays are getting pretty mutinous, but …”
“Exactly. I don’t think we could risk it. Not for the sake of a thousand cycles.”
We are silent for a while, and stare out the windows.
“Listen, Bess,” I say suddenly. “Imagine we’re an orbit in the future—we’ve all left here, and travelled to Earth. Imagine if you bumped into one of the Overseers, like you’re walking down one of the roads, and there’s Mr Ortiz, walking in the other direction. Would that be strange? What would you say?”
“I don’t think I’d have anything to say to them,” Bess says bluntly. “The minute we get off this rock, we’re finished. I won’t have to do what they say any more.”
“I suppose. How about if you bump into me? We’ll still talk, won’t we?”
She gives me a flash of the Bee smile—mischievous, slightly crooked. “Of course we will, Leila. But remember, you’ll be with all the other Ells when you get to Earth. You’ll forget about us Bees pretty quickly.”
I smile back, but I’m not so sure. Even if we don’t share every secret together, the Bees are a fundamental part of my life—one of the cornerstones, along with the Ays, the Jays and the Overseers. Forgetting about them sounds crazy, as does walking past Mr Ortiz and ignoring him.
I remember something Mr Lee once told me—Hell would fit into Earth about 6,000,000 times. And that in a typical city the size of Hell, you would find 10,000,000 people. When numbers get that big, they become stupid. I mean, even the Community cabin feels pretty crowded when we have an Asteroid General Meeting there.
There’s something about the idea of it that just sounds obscene—endless land and people, and land and people, and land and people. The more I think about it, the more I fancy a few more orbits on Hell, with my new sister Ells. Would it sound ungrateful to say I’d rather catch a later flight?
ON THE HANDFUL of occasions when someone attempts to murder Miss Marple because of her meddling, she is ready for them—often with a pleasant young policeman waiting to intervene. But I have nobody, and I am completely unprepared.
I am making my way to the depots in Tomato, just a solo trip to pick up some supplies for the base. My mind is on Juan and Jupiter, and my sister—who I had thought such an open book, and was keeping so many secrets from me. So I am paying little attention to the journey. The same landmarks flit past, the same constant bumps and tremors. In the distance, a shallow canyon comes into view, and I correct my course slightly. The plain slopes down towards the canyon, and that’s when I notice the problem. I’m picking up speed, bouncing off the uneven surface—so I apply the brakes. But Tomato does not respond, the pedal just springs back. Again, I push the pedal to the floor but there is no pressure.
I start to panic.
The jeep continues to accelerate downhill, and I swear and bash the brake uselessly. I’m losing control, and bouncing around in my seat as Tomato lurches and staggers across Hell. The canyon is approaching fast, too narrow and too jagged for me to negotiate at this speed, and I turn sharply, pulling the jeep across the slope. I can hardly make out the rocks now, and there’s a sudden jolt, as the jeep briefly leaves the ground. Time seems to slow down for a second, and I can feel every crack in my lips, every bead of sweat on my forehead. And at last I’m losing mom
entum, and for an instant I think I might just have pulled it off, but then from nowhere a ragged escarpment comes yawning up to meet me and there is nowhere left to turn.
I just about have time to manage to shout “Eaaaaaarth!”
And then I crash into the rocks, and the impact takes my breath away. The jeep rolls once, twice—I open my eyes and see the sky and jet-black landscape wheeling in front of me. Before I lose consciousness, the aimless thought pops into my head: This is just like Peril at End House, I can’t remember if she—
WHEN I COME to, I am still strapped to my seat, and see that Tomato managed to land upright. Dusk has not yet come; I can’t have been passed out long. It feels as though I’ve woken up from a snooze. Except for the crick in my neck, the bruises all over my upper torso, and the searing pain in my head, far worse than the usual headaches. I can sense crusty blood on my right temple, and it is infuriating not being able to itch it. I release myself from the strapping. I pad myself down, a vague need to check I am all there. All power has gone, the jeep is dead.
I open the door, gingerly drift down onto solid land. My legs are shaking, and I have to kneel. I want to pull my hood off and vomit, but somehow I hold it together. I count to ten, stand up, grab hold of the bonnet and pull myself over. I open the panel, find the brake fluid reservoir and check the levels—empty. There is a crack running along the bottom of the reservoir, and underneath is a murky stain on the bulkhead.
I give an angry hiss. If I had any doubts before that Lily was murdered, they’ve disappeared. Whatever she discovered got her killed, and I’m following her down the same path—hardly a surprise they tried to kill me too. Not the surest method, brake tampering, but far easier to carry out than my sister’s murder: a quick check of the Rota, and two minutes’ work with a chisel or screwdriver.
At least I know now I’m asking the right questions.
I find the flare in the back of the jeep, point it to the sky, and pull the trigger. I get back in the jeep, take a seat, and wait.
