by Mur Lafferty
Like the cloning bay, if the kitchen itself had held physical evidence of any crime, it had been obliterated by the grav drive mishap. Cups and plates were everywhere. It seemed most of the dirty plates had been dumped to the recycler.
She’d clean up later. Food was the priority. She approached the food printer. A massive machine, it had the capability of synthesizing any food it had the opportunity to grab the molecular structure of. This meant that it, like Hiro’s autopilot, worked almost entirely on its own. Also, IAN could override it. If he ever woke up.
She poked at the console, and the machine whirred to life, lights coming on inside and the input pad lighting up. She tried to access the logs, but those came up empty like all the rest had. The saboteur had even killed the food printer logs. That was cold.
She tried to program a simple cracker, the “hello, world” of printed food. The printer started up and began weaving the molecular threads together to make food. Only it wasn’t a cracker.
The printer was making what looked like an herb sprig, green and lush. She frowned. She waited for it to finish and brought it out.
She didn’t recognize it. It definitely wasn’t basil or oregano. She sniffed it but couldn’t place the scent.
Another try, this time a protein: chicken.
It was quickly apparent that the printer was going to make another herb. Or rather, the same herb.
Maria took it and studied it. The leaves were small, almost fernlike. She opened her mouth and held it just beyond her lips, considering tasting it. She remembered the vomit floating around the cloning bay and thought better of it. She found the intercom button on the wall and signaled the medbay.
“Doctor?” she asked. “Are you there?”
“Go ahead, Maria,” Joanna replied.
“We have a problem with the food printer.”
“I’m not sure what I can do to help,” Joanna said, sounding annoyed.
“It looks like I was poisoned,” Maria said. “The food printer won’t synthesize anything except for an herb. All food data has been overwritten, like all the logs.”
The doctor swore. “Bring it down and I’ll add it to the tox screen. Bring me a sample of water as well.”
“Got it,” Maria said.
She gathered the samples, including some of the food that didn’t make it into the recycler, tidying the kitchen as she went. Her stomach grumbled at her, and she looked longingly at the machine where it sat on the silver countertop, connected to vats of protein Lyfe and water. She knew they had a backup food printer, but it would take hours to set up. She wasn’t sure the crew had patience for that.
She wasn’t sure they had a choice.
Paul had moved to the server room to try to figure out what was wrong with IAN. His shaking had stopped for the most part, and the dry heaves had passed. On Earth he would have been hospitalized if he felt like this, not put to work immediately, he thought bitterly. But they needed IAN, for the ship and for answers.
The main server room held a vast supercooled computer bank. The engineers accessed it via a holographic user interface. They weren’t allowed to actually touch the machine, only to access it via holographic UI; that way IAN could intercept any attempts at sabotage.
Behind a glass wall sat the actual computers, but the user interface expanded around them in the antechamber, a visual representation of the computers within. It was very confusing to most non-engineers, but Paul felt at home there. Except that many of the servers blinked bright red, indicating they needed immediate attention. That was not a good home.
He jumped when the intercom popped to life.
“Status?” Wolfgang said.
“I have the UI up, which means we don’t have to break into the server room. That’s excellent news,” he said.
Wolfgang didn’t reply. Perhaps he didn’t see this as excellent news.
“Now that I can access the computers, I will see if I can fix IAN.”
“Do you know what’s exactly wrong with him yet?” he asked.
“No, not beyond ‘he’s broken.’”
Wolfgang swore loudly.
“I’m doing my best, sir,” Paul said, trying to keep his voice from quavering.
“Since you woke up, you’ve been acting like you just found out cloning has been discovered and can’t handle it. We have some serious problems to deal with here, and you want to get praised for failure. We hired you to do a job, Seurat, now do it!”
Paul got back to work on the UI. Yelling at him wouldn’t accomplish anything. “This is a delicate matter,” he said, not looking at the intercom.
“Paul, would some time in the cell help you acclimate? Is that what you need?” Wolfgang asked.
“If you throw me into the brig, who will fix IAN for you?” he asked, finally feeling anger replace the fear that had lived in his core since he woke up. He redoubled his efforts, reaching toward a red area and spreading his hand to enlarge it, the better to see the problems.
The ship was built with two cells, anticipating no more than two troublemakers out of a crew of six that needed to be dealt with at any time. They were identical, built much like a prison cell with a basic terminal set into each wall that allowed the command staff to send information into the cell, but the prisoners themselves couldn’t use it.
“Do you need Maria to help you?” Wolfgang asked, his voice more reasonable now.
“This is not her area of expertise,” Paul said. “She’s better suited for maintenance and cleanup.”
He wrinkled his nose and added, “And she’s going to have a disgusting job cleaning out the cloning bay.”
Wolfgang helped Joanna lay out the bodies in the medbay. He set up five cots and then carried in each body, lining them up a respectful distance away from the one crew member who was still alive.
Wolfgang was strong even for a Luna-born man, and the reduced gravity made it simple to lift all but the heaviest of things on this level of this ship. He brought in the bodies and she took samples of the blood and other fluids, cut their jumpsuits off, placed the clothes in the incinerator, and then rinsed the bodies in the medbay tub. They had a good system going.
This would be another room that would be tough to clean. They had not slept since they had woken in their vats, and Joanna was grateful that staying in her chair kept her from falling over in exhaustion. She wondered what was driving Wolfgang’s energy. She wheeled around the cots, recording verbal notes on her handheld recorder.
“Maria Arena, maintenance officer, skin is very pale, lips blue. Tests show the sample of vomit from the cloning bay is hers. She has a large stab wound in the back, which severed the spinal cord. Tox screens indicate evidence of a poisonous plant enzyme, ninety percent sure it is hemlock or a variant. Confirmed with a sample provided from the food printer, which seems to be sabotaged to print only hemlock when other food is requested. Water and raw Lyfe tests show no toxicity.
“It’s possible the other crewmates could have been poisoned, but died by way of violence before the poison did its job. Their tox screens are pending.
“Her body appears to be around sixty-five years old.”
Joanna moved to Hiro, on his cot next to Maria. “Akihiro Sato, navigator and pilot, cause of death, hanging by the neck. Body missing a boot. Clone appears twenty years old.”
She rolled up to her own body. She peered at it with interest, noticing that the muscle tone in her upper body was much more developed than in previous lives. “My own body, Joanna Glass, also shows signs of aging and signs of trauma. This body was also killed with a chef’s knife, a stab wound to the neck. It bled out. It has no defensive wounds, hinting that it either trusted the killer, or was taken by surprise.”
“It stabbed you, of course it was surprise,” Wolfgang objected. Joanna gave him an icy look. “I’m serious. We don’t know who the killer is and you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt already!”
Wolfgang’s body was horribly paler than usual. “Security Chief Wolfgang, als
o aged several decades, has been stabbed multiple times, with many defensive cuts to his hands and arms. He bled out in the cloning bay; the body is nearly fully exsanguinated.” Here the living Wolfgang frowned. He left the terminal where he was waiting for more tox screens and approached the body to study his own face. Several expressions warred as he studied the body: disgust, fear, and curiosity.
“Clearly I wasn’t taken by surprise,” he said. “Who in the crew is strong enough to take me down?”
“There are many possibilities,” Joanna said. “Probably some we haven’t thought of yet.”
“Doctor, we need to know who is capable of this. I know that you have the confidential histories of the crew. In the interest of security, I need to see them.”
Joanna froze and turned off her recorder. “The logs were wiped. I don’t have the information anymore.”
“You must have read them. Surely you remember something.”
“No. They were only to be opened in a case like this.”
He glared at her. “You agreed to be on a ship with a crew of confirmed criminals, and you didn’t bother to learn what their pasts were before you launched? I find that very hard to believe.”
“Think what you want,” she said. “I don’t know anything more about the crew than you do. Are we done? I need to continue recording.”
The final body was Paul’s. The face was still swollen, eyes bulging. She turned her recorder on and ignored Wolfgang’s sputtering and eventual exit. “Chief Engineer Paul Seurat: this body is also several decades older than we remember, has no lacerations to speak of, but has large bruises on a very swollen face. Skin is slightly bluish. Initial cause of death, asphyxiation, tox screen pending.”
Joanna ran her fingers through his messy dark hair on his forehead. “Seurat has a scar on his forehead. He was injured years ago. A pretty serious blow to the forehead.”
She turned him over and found the usual freckles and moles, and then found one dark spot on his upper thigh. She ran her fingertip over it thoughtfully.
She made no note about the spot.
The full body scan of Seurat indicated serious scarring in the brain, showing he could have suffered some brain damage after the injury.
She finished reading the scans and began to type up the report for the captain, leaving out very few details.
She finally put the knife in a locked cabinet. “The murder weapon is a chef’s knife, found floating among the bodies in the cloning bay. The knife likely belongs to Maria Arena. We don’t have fingerprint scanning equipment.”
Maria waited for Hiro to come help her with the new food printer, and decided to make tea in the meantime.
Deep inside one of the cupboards she found a red box she remembered stashing on that first day. She was gratified that it was still here after so many years. She pulled out the long, deep wooden box and then retrieved two smaller matching boxes. With the food printer, these boxes weren’t needed, but Maria liked to be prepared.
The first box contained an old-fashioned kettle. It wasn’t beautiful or artistic, or made of copper or ceramic. It was made of steel, with a chipped plastic handle, and it had been her grandmother’s. As old and outdated as it was, the thing still boiled water, and that was what was important. She placed it on the counter heating elements.
The flat box had hundreds of vacuum-packed two-ounce containers of tea. The tea would be very old, but it had been airtight, and besides, no one would be fussy about getting stale tea in the deep dark of space. She selected some intense green gunpowder pearls and got enough for a large pot.
The third box had honey, naturally. That didn’t go bad. It was a bit crystallized, but that wasn’t anything to worry about.
While the water heated, Maria got a shallow skillet to toast tea leaves in order to wake up the flavor a bit. After the room was full of a warm, earthy smell, she rescued the slightly toasted tea leaves and then fetched the teapot that she still used when the printer delivered its green tea. In the wars between science and tradition, even if a machine could make a perfect cup of tea, one still served it in a traditional teapot out of respect. Only this time, the teapot would be used properly.
She enjoyed preparing the tea and pointedly not thinking about their situation, their future, and their inevitable deaths.
“How is the food printer?” Katrina asked from the doorway.
Maria jumped slightly. She had been lost in thought. Katrina and Wolfgang stood there, looking like they were ready to start murdering people all over again.
Tea. Offering tea was nice and homey.
“The food printer is sabotaged, and Hiro is going to help me set up a new one. In the meantime, I’m making tea.”
Katrina reacted to the news about the food printer with grim acknowledgment. She sat at a table, and Wolfgang joined her. “Tea would be good.”
Some time passed in silence as Maria set out teacups.
Katrina studied the cup in front of her. It was red plastic. “Does it bother you? The loss of so much time?”
Maria turned as the kettle began to sing. “I don’t think I have had time to process it,” she said as she filled the teapot. “I’m confused, but too numb for anything else now.” She pushed the full pot at them. “Enjoy.”
They drank their tea until Hiro got there, and Maria stood to get him a cup. Oddly enough, Katrina and Wolfgang also stood awkwardly when he came in.
“Hello, Captain, Pilot Hiro reporting in!” he said, saluting.
Katrina gave him a cool look. “Mr. Sato? Care to tone it down?”
Hiro plopped into a chair and poured himself some tea. “I wanted to report that the navigational and grav engines are just fine. I still haven’t figured out what caused us to go offline, but at least that’s okay now. So we’re saved!”
“This is not a time to make jokes,” the captain said.
“Captain, with all due respect, if I don’t make jokes I will instead fall into the screaming panic that is lurking behind every metaphorical tree and bush in my psyche. Now, if you would prefer screaming panic, you say the word. I will mention that it is likely that my last incarnation gave in to said screaming panic, and look what happened to him.”
The captain stood. “This is only barely preferable.” She glanced at Maria. “Get something up and running as soon as possible. Hiro will help you. Thank you for the tea.”
“Hey, I just saved us, why am I on food duty?” Hiro asked her as the captain and Wolfgang left the kitchen.
“We need a hero like you on this problem,” Maria said. “I don’t know what I would do if I was left all by myself in here.”
“Such a treat, those two,” Hiro said, picking up their dirty cups.
“I think we’re all under some stress,” Maria said mildly. “Not everyone is going to go all Br’er Rabbit on you.”
He frowned. “Now you’re bringing up animals.”
“Sorry. Trickster from the American folklore. Did a lot of reverse psychology, banter and the like, to get out of bad situations. My aunt used to tell me stories about him.”
“I thought you were Cuban?”
Something in Maria’s memory felt fractured. Hiro was right. Her aunt spoke little English, so why did Maria think she had told younger Maria tales from American folklore?
“I guess I heard it from somewhere else,” she said. “You know how memories go when you’re as old as we are.”
“Do I ever,” he said, his face clouding. “Anyway, thanks for the tea. Let’s get to work.”
Joanna’s Story
211 Years Ago
October 8, 2282
Senator Jo Waide paced her Geneva office, pausing each time to look out the window at the horde. If she hadn’t been the target of the protests, it would have been interesting. Clones, humans, everyone had a different reason to protest the Codicil Summit. Some held signs that said CLONES ARE UNNATURAL IN THE EYES OF GOD, while others’ signs said KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY.
Opposed in their views but
united in their cause, none of them wanted the laws she was currently writing. The laws would legitimize clones as legal world citizens, which upset the humans, but would also rein in their freedoms, which upset the clones.
She remembered her mother, decades before, warning her against trying to please too many people at once. Mother had also said not to go into politics.
The most upsetting thing, however, was the news story open on her personal tablet: the clone riots had reached the Luna colony when an anti-cloning priest abruptly, suspiciously changed his tune.
The tab underneath the new story had the email with the inside information about what had really happened on the moon. Some clone extremists had hired a hacker to reprogram the priest in order to get him to speak out in favor of clones’ rights, but it had all gone very wrong. Apparently a clone showing up and suddenly discounting everything it had said in a previous life was a bit of a red flag.
Idiots.
Despair flooded Jo as she collapsed back into her leather desk chair. These extremists had ruined everything. Mindmap and matrix programmers were currently tightly controlled and always used under the supervision and approval of doctors. They’d started with much more freedom to fix all sorts of genetic problems at first. Now extremists were changing who people were—not their genetic makeup, but their base personality.
It shouldn’t have been possible. No one had achieved that level of sophistication with programming. Jo estimated that fewer than five people could handle that level of mindmap programming.
Her other committee members, three clones and five humans, didn’t know her personal association with hackers. If they had, they wouldn’t have invited her onto the committee.
She’d used a hacker to modify her DNA to reverse the genetic anomaly that caused her to be born with withered legs. She found the new legs weren’t for her; they weren’t her. She didn’t feel broken in her original skin. She’d already decided her next clone would have the legs she was born with, regardless of the law. But it didn’t matter where she personally stood on the issue; if the committee found out that she had used the skills of a DNA hacker, then they would kick her out for bias.
