Asimov's SF, October-November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The woman thrashed and spasmed in the hospital bed. Her dark hair was matted to her head with sweat, and her uncontrolled motions seemed almost epileptic. Her eyes, however, did not have the wildness of the insane—instead they were focused. Determined. She was not mad; she just couldn't control her muscles. She kept waving her hands in front of her with awkward movements, movements that seemed strangely familiar to Jason.

  And she did it all in silence, never uttering a word.

  Jason switched off the holo-vid, then leaned back in his chair. He had watched the vid a dozen times, but it still confused him. However, he couldn't do anything until he arrived at Evensong. Until then, he would simply have to bide his time.

  * * * *

  Jason had always felt an empathy for the Outer Platforms. There was something about the way they hung alone in space, claimed by neither planet nor star. They weren't lonely—they were ... solitary. Autonomous.

  Jason sat beside the shuttle's port window, looking at Evensong as it approached. The platform resembled others of its kind—a flat sheet of metal fifty miles long, with buildings sprouting from both its top and bottom. It wasn't a ship, or even a space station—it was nothing more than a collection of random buildings surrounded by a bubble of air.

  Of all the Outer Platforms, Evensong was the most remote. It hung between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, the furthest deep-space human outpost. In a way, it was like an old west border town, marking the edge of civilization. Except in this case—no matter what humankind liked to think—civilization lay outside the border, not within it.

  As the shuttle approached, Jason could Sense the city's separate skyrises and towers, many of them linked by walkways. He sat with his eyes turned to the window, though the position was redundant. He had been legally blind since he'd turned sixteen. It had been years since he could even make out shadows or light. Fortunately, he had other methods of seeing.

  He could Sense lights shining from windows and streets. To him, their white light was a quiet buzz in his mind. He could also Sense the line of buildings rising in a way that was almost reminiscent of an old Earth city skyline. Of course, there wasn't really a sky or a horizon. Just the blackness of space.

  Blackness. Voices laughed in the back of his mind, memories from before. He pushed them away.

  The shuttle slid into Evensong's atmospheric envelope—the platform had no sphere or force-field, like some of the older space stations employed. Element-specific gravity generators had eliminated the need for such things, and had opened space for mankind. ESG, along with fusion generators, meant that humankind could toss an inert piece of metal into space, then populate it with millions of individuals.

  Jason sat back as the shuttle made its final approach. He had a private cabin, of course. It was well furnished and comfortable—a necessity for such a long trip. The room smelt faintly of his dinner—steak—and otherwise had a sterile, well-cleaned scent to it. Jason approved—if he had owned a home, he would have kept it in a similar way.

  I suppose it is time for the vacation to end, Jason thought. Silently bidding farewell to his relaxed solitude, Jason reached up to tap the small control disk attached to the skin behind his right ear. A sound clicked in his ear—the acknowledgment that his call was being relayed across the void to Earth so far away. Faster-than-light communication—a gift given to Earth as a reward for mankind's most embarrassing political faux pas of all time.

  “You called?” a perky feminine voice sounded in his ear.

  Jason sighed. “Lanna?” he asked.

  “Yup.”

  “I don't suppose anyone else is there?” Jason asked.

  “Nope, just me.”

  “Aaron?”

  “Assigned to Riely,” Lanna said. “He's investigating CLA labs on Jupiter Platform Seventeen.”

  “Doran?”

  “On maternity leave. You're stuck with me, old man.”

  “I'm not old,” Jason said. “The shuttle has arrived. I'm initiating a constant link.”

  “Affirmative,” Lanna replied.

  Jason felt the shuttle set down in the docks. “Where's my hotel?”

  “It's fairly close to the shuttle docks,” Lanna replied. “It's called the Regency Fourth. You're registered as a Mr. Elton Flippenday.”

  Jason paused. “Elton Flippenday?” he asked flatly, feeling the docking clamps send a shudder through the ship. “What happened to my standard alias?”

  “John Smith?” Lanna asked. “That's far too boring, old man.”

  “It's not boring,” Jason said. “It's unassuming.”

  “Yes, well, I know rocks that are less ‘unassuming’ than that name. It's boring. You operatives are supposed to live lives of excitement and danger—John Smith doesn't fit.”

  This is going to be a long assignment, Jason thought.

  A quiet sound buzzed in the room—an indication that the docking had finished. Jason rose, fetched his single bag of luggage, slid on his sunglasses, and left his quarters. He knew the glasses would look odd, but his sightless eyes tended to put people on edge, especially when they discovered that he was obviously able to see, despite his unfocused pupils.

  “So, how was the trip?” Lanna asked.

  “Fine,” Jason said tersely, walking down the shuttle's hallway and nodding toward the captain. The man ran a good crew—in Jason's opinion, any crew that left him alone was a good one.

  “Come on,” Lanna prodded in his ear. “It had to be more than just ‘fine.’ What kind of food did they serve? Did you have any problems with the...” She droned on, but Jason stopped paying attention. He was focused on something else—a slight warble in Lanna's voice. It sounded for only a brief second, but Jason immediately knew what it meant. The line was being tapped.

  Lanna had undoubtedly heard it as well—she was loquacious, but not incompetent—but she continued as if nothing had happened. She would wait for Jason's signal.

  “How are the kids?” Jason asked.

  “My nephews?” Lanna replied, not breaking the rhythm of her conversation as she received his coded request. “The older one's fine, but the youngest has the flu.”

  The young one was sick. That meant the tap was on Jason's end, not hers. Interesting, he thought. Someone had managed to get close enough to scan his control disk without him noticing.

  Lanna fell silent. She was preparing a tap block, but would only act if Jason ordered it. He didn't.

  Instead, he stepped out of the shuttle and walked down the short ramp to the arrival station. Spread before him sat a line of scanning arches, meant to search for weaponry. Jason strode through them without concern—there wasn't a scanner in human space that could discover his weapons. He nodded with a smile as he passed a guard; the man smelt faintly of tobacco and was wearing a blue uniform that registered as a pulsing rhythm in Jason's mind. The guard frowned as he saw the silver PC pin on Jason's lapel, then turned a suspicious eye on his scanners.

  Jason stepped aside as the other passengers formed a line at the registration counter, ostensibly searching for his ID. He watched them with his Sense, however, his useless eyes turned downward. Most of the people wore the soft rhythm of navy, the roar of white, or the still silence of black. None of them stood out, but he memorized the patterns of their faces. The person who had tapped his line must have been on the shuttle.

  After they had all passed, Jason pretended to find his ID—one of the old plastic ones, rather than a new holo-vid card. A tired security man, his breath smelling of coffee, accepted the ID and began processing Jason's papers. The guard was a young man, and his skin was tinted blue after one of the newer fashion trends. The man worked slowly, and Jason's eyes drifted to a holo-vid playing on the back counter. It displayed a news program.

  “...found murdered in an incineration building,” the anchor said.

  Jason snapped upright.

  “Jason,” Lanna's voice said urgently in his ear. “I just picked something up on the newsfeeds. There's been a—”


  “I know,” Jason said, accepting his ID back and dashing out of the customs station and onto the street.

  * * * *

  Captain Orson Ansed, Evensong PD, hustled through Topside's slums. It still surprised him that Evensong had slums—all of the platform's buildings were built of rich telanium, a super-light, silvery metal that didn't corrode or fall apart. In fact, most of the buildings had been prefabricated with the platform, and were actually an extension of its sheet-like hull. The buildings were spacious, well constructed, and sleek.

  And still there were slums. It didn't matter that Evensong's poor lived in homes that many wealthy Earthsiders couldn't afford. By comparison, they were still poor. Somehow, their dwellings reflected that. There was a sense of despair to the area. Shiny, modern buildings were hung with ragged drapes and drying clothing. Aircars were rare; pedestrians common.

  “Over here, captain,” one of his men said, motioning toward a building. It was long and squat—though, like all buildings on the platform, it had other structures built on top of it. The officer, a new kid named Ken Harris, led Orson inside, and Orson was immediately struck by a pungent smoky scent. The building was a burning station, where organic materials were recycled.

  Officers moved about in the darkened room. Like most buildings on Evensong, this one was poorly lit. Evensong's distance from the sun kept it in a perpetual state of twilight, and the platform's inhabitants had grown accustomed to having less light. Many of them kept the lights dim even indoors. The tendency had bothered Orson at first, but he rarely even noticed it any more.

  Several officers saluted, and Orson waved them down with a petulant gesture. “What've we got here?”

  “Come and look, sir,” Harris said, weaving through some equipment toward the back of the room.

  Orson followed; eventually they stopped beside a massive cylindrical burner. Its metallic face was dark and flat. One of the bottom reservoir doors was open, revealing the dust below. Mixed with the dirt and ash was a large section of carapace, its shell stained black from the heat.

  Orson swore quietly, kneeling beside the carapace. He poked at the shell with a stirring rod. “I assume this is our missing ambassador?”

  “That is what we assume, sir,” Harris said.

  Great, Orson thought with a sigh. The Varvax had been asking about their ambassador since his disappearance two weeks before.

  “What do we know?” Orson asked.

  “Not much,” Harris said. “These burners are only emptied once a month. The carapace has been in there for some time—there's almost nothing left of it. Any longer, and we wouldn't have even found him.”

  That might have been preferable, Orson thought. “What did the sensor net record?”

  “Nothing,” Harris said.

  “Does the media know about this?” Orson asked hopefully.

  “I'm afraid so, sir,” Harris said. “The worker who found the body leaked the information.”

  Orson sighed. “All right, then, let's...”

  Orson trailed off. A figure was silhouetted in the building's open door—a figure not wearing a police uniform. Orson swore quietly, standing. The officers outside were supposed to keep the press out.

  “I'm sorry,” Orson said, walking toward the intruder. “But this area's restricted. You can't...”

  The man ignored him. He was tall and thin, with a triangular face and short-cropped black hair. He wore a simple black suit, a little outdated but otherwise undistinctive, and a pair of dark glasses. He brushed past Orson with an air of indifference.

  Orson reached out to grab the insolent stranger, but froze. There was a gleaming pin on the man's lapel—a small silver bell.

  What! Orson thought with amazement. When did a PC operative get here? How did he know? The questions didn't really matter—regardless of their answers, one thing was certain. Orson's jurisdiction had come to an end.

  The Phone Company had arrived.

  * * * *

  It had finally happened a hundred and forty years before, in the year 2071. Oddly enough, the ones who had made First Contact had been an outdated, nearly bankrupt phone company.

  Northern Bell Incorporated had been on the losing side of technological progress. While its competitors had been researching and incorporating holo-vid technology, Northern Bell had tried something a little more daring: cybernetic-based telepathic linking.

  Cyto, as it was dubbed, had turned out to be a failure. Holo-vid technology was not only cheaper and more stable, it had also worked. Cyto had not worked—at least, not as Northern Bell had hoped. In the last days before its impending bankruptcy, the company had finally managed to get a few squeaks of sound through the system. Those squeaks, while unimpressive to their human monitors, were also inadvertently projected through space to a group of beings known as the Tenasi. The Tenasi reply had been the first inter-species contact Earth had ever known.

  Second contact had been made by the United Governments Military when they accidentally shot down a Tenasi ambassadorial vessel. But that, of course, was an entirely different story.

  “He's been missing for two weeks?” Jason asked, kneeling beside the burned carapace. It was silent in his mind—a foreboding indication of its black color.

  “Yes, sir,” the officer said.

  “Yup,” Lanna said at almost the same time.

  “Why wasn't I informed of this?” Jason asked.

  The police officer looked confused for a moment before realizing that Jason wasn't talking to him. Ear-links were a common, if confusing, part of modern life.

  “I assumed you knew, old man,” Lanna said. “You know, Jason, for an all-knowing spy type, you're remarkably uninformed.”

  Jason grunted, standing. She was right—he should have looked into local news stories during his trip. It was too late now.

  The officer regarded Jason with hard eyes. Jason could read the man's emotions easily. Not through the use of his Cyto Senses—it was a common misconception that psionics were telepathic. No, Jason could read the man's emotions because he was accustomed to dealing with local law enforcement. The officer would be annoyed at Jason for interfering with his investigation. But, at the same time, the officer would be relieved. Local men always felt overwhelmed when it came to dealing with other species. Aliens were to be handled by the Phone Company; the PC had made first contact, the PC had negotiated Earth out of danger following the Tenasi incident. The PC had brought FTL communication to humankind.

  So, the officer watched Jason—jealous, but thankful. Jason could hear other officers muttering at the edges of the room, angry at his interference. Dirty PC. Why is he here? Why does he look at us like that? Can't you see? What's that in front of your face? Is it my fist? Can you see it if I hit you? Maybe that will—

  “Jason?” Lanna's voice sounded in his ear.

  Jason snapped upright, muscles twitching, memories fading. He still knelt beside the burner. The officer still stood staring at him, the room still smelt overpoweringly of smoke, and he could still hear the reporters arguing with officers outside.

  “I'm all right,” Jason whispered.

  He stood, dusting off his suit, listening to the reporters. They, like the policemen, would probably assume that Jason had come to Evensong to investigate the Ambassador's death. It didn't matter that Jason's shuttle had left for Evensong over a month before the murder. An alien had died, and a PC operative had arrived. That would be enough for them.

  “I shouldn't have come to the scene,” he mumbled.

  “What else would you have done?” Lanna asked. “This is our duty, after all.”

  “Not mine,” Jason said. “I'm here to retrieve a missing scientist, not investigate a murder.” Then, speaking louder, he continued. “I'm certain the local law enforcement is competent. Let them investigate—the PC can handle diplomatic negotiations.”

  The officer looked surprised. But, apperantly uncertain what else to do, he saluted Jason. Jason nodded, then turned to leave.


  “Not that the ‘diplomatic negotiations’ will be too hard,” Lanna noted. “The Varvax are so insanely docile that they'll probably apologize for inconveniencing one of our murderers.”

  “They're all like that,” Jason said, stepping out onto the building's front steps. “That's the big problem, isn't it?”

  There was a moment of shocked silence as the reporters realized who he was. They stood in a ring around several beleaguered police, and the commotion was attracting a crowd of curious onlookers. Then the reporters exploded with questions. Jason ignored them, pushing his way through the crowd. He had his head bowed, his hand raised to forestall questions. However, in his mind he was looking.

  He scanned the crowd, pushing through the humming and pulsing colors. He studied each face, comparing them to the ones in his memory. A smile crept to his lips as he found what he was after. The media let him leave—they were used to the PC ignoring their questions. Behind him, Jason could hear their on-the-spot vidcasts. They had all the facts wrong, of course. There was fear in their voices—a fear of what they didn't understand, a fear of the retribution that might come. In their world, retribution was assumed. In their world, you hurt that which was weaker than you.

  Jason continued to walk with his head bowed. Behind him, a man broke free from the group of onlookers and wandered in Jason's direction, obviously trying to look casual.

  “I wish there were more flowers,” Jason said.

  A second later, a click sounded in his ear. Then Lanna sighed. “What took you so long?” she demanded. “I've been waiting for you to do that ever since you got off the shuttle. I feel creepy knowing someone's hacking our line.”

  Jason continued to stroll forward. His shadow followed—the man moved with the skill of one who had been well-trained, but he made the mistakes of one who was inexperienced. There was no change to his step—he probably hadn't noticed the switchover. At that moment, he would be listening to a fabricated conversation between Lanna and Jason. For some reason, Jason suspected he didn't want to know what kind of silly things Lanna's replicated version of his voice was saying.