Far from the Light of Heaven

by Tade Thompson

  “Hypothetically,” he says. His voice is hoarse.

  “Of course. I would never ask you to go against your… ethics.”

  “I’d… I’d have to first refuse, then report verbally and in writing.”

  “Even if you could save lives by lying to Bloodroot?”

  “Enough with the hypotheticals. I know what you’re asking. You want me to lie to about ending my investigation.”

  “No.”

  “Then what—?”

  “I want you to tell the truth about your investigation, which I’ll come back to. What I want you to lie about is the contamination. If we get the antenna back online, could you bring yourself to minimise the contamination from the opened science labs so that we can save nearly a thousand people?”

  Fin swallows, more distressed than Shell would have expected.

  “I’d still have to complete the investigation,” says Fin.

  “Your investigation is over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m saying there is no longer a need to investigate. I am confessing.”

  “What?”

  “I, Mission Specialist Michelle Campion, acting Captain of the starship Ragtime, confess to the murders of the passengers.” She looks him right in the eyes. “I did it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Bloodroot: Mission Control

  Once every lunar month, something Bloodroot colonists call a Scintillation occurs. A hundred or more Lambers flick in and out of existence in the city centre. It starts with two, then others join in. They float less than a foot above ground, teardrop-shaped glowing splotches of cytoplasm trailing tentacles.

  Scintillations occur around the Lamber Tower, that focus of repatriation. It’s not really a tower; it’s an antenna of sorts, and, even though the entire colony piggybacks signals on it, the primary purpose is to link with the Lambers’ homespace and send them packing through a portal. Scientists have said from what they can see it is not similar to bridge technology. Though Bloodrooters built it, they did so using specifications provided by the aliens. There are some hints that the entire structure is a resonator, and the antenna alone won’t do the job. Where do they go? What happens to them when they get there? No answers.

  If the settlement was planned, no way would the Tower be at the centre. But a colony can be a chaotic thing in the beginning. Ask Nightshade. The lore is that the structure predates its use as an antenna, and people naturally build houses in spirals around it. Alternating arcs of dwellings and tree boulevards, lessons learned from Earth, trying to work with the environment instead of conquering it.

  The Tower is visible from Mission Control, although not a single person looks at it as they go about their business. The twinkling of the Scintillations doesn’t turn heads in Mission Control, not even for a group as bored as The Ragtime Team.

  They have a pool going while one of them, Demetrius Peole, throws balls of crumpled paper into a waste basket from ten feet. His failures dot the low-friction floor. After each shot, the wager changes. Everyone present knows that Demetrius misses one in ten shots and bets accordingly, which is boring and reduces the probability of any one person winning big.

  The others keep busy by drawing staff portraits on copy paper, drinking coffee, performing dubious acrobatics, racing with wheeled office chairs, making origami, sipping sneaky alcoholic beverages in coffee mugs, pencil balancing, flirting, everything except what they are paid to do.

  Since Peole has a supervisory role, nobody else worries about getting caught. Peole has a streak of fourteen baskets. A miss is imminent, but nobody seems brave enough to risk a wager.

  Bayo Coker stands at the periphery of the basket action, waiting. Peole notices him but throws first, then collects his winnings – chore tokens – before attending to the timid and quiet Coker.

  “Yes? What may I help you with? You seem to have something on your mind. You have something on your mind, don’t you?” asks Peole.

  “I… why aren’t we… doing anything?” asks Coker.

  “We are. I am. Behold what I am doing.” Peole points to the basket.

  Coker is silent.

  “You don’t think this is good use of my time? I have degrees, you know. More than one. I can determine how best to use my time. I have expertise, dammit.”

  “We have a fleet of shuttles. We power them up, we run them through their tests, then we power them down again. Then we play crosswords. Meanwhile, there are passengers up there.”

  “I know this. But we don’t do anything until we get the order.”

  “I’m worried about that.”

  “They have plenty of air, nourishment and fuel, Coker. They aren’t going to die because of an investigation.”

  Coker inclines his head.

  “What? Speak! Seven Curses, you are so reticent.”

  “The Ragtime has gone dark, sir.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All signals ceased. Not even a beacon.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Sure, it’s impossible, but—”

  “Show me,” says Peole. “If you’ve lost my starship…”

  The data, or lack thereof, is correct. The Ragtime isn’t there.

  “Well, Shit and Heresies,” says Peole. “I think I need to talk to someone in authority.”

  Unwin, the lead investigator, and Malaika, the chair of Bloodroot Mission Control, dismiss Peole.

  “Do you still think Rasheed Fin was a good choice for this?” asks Malaika.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s the one on the spot. The Artificial should have been able to keep him in-protocol, so this might not have anything to do with our recovering repatriator,” says Unwin. “No, the Ragtime might have faulty radios or have crashed into the Greater Arboreal Sea or drifted off into space.”

  “I’m worried. He wanted to arrest Campion. We should have let him.”

  “He had no evidence, no reason except his bruised pride. It would not have held up.”

  “Yes, but maybe she’s killed them all.” Malaika opens a communications channel. “Go to Fin’s house. Search the house, interrogate his mother, see if anything has changed since he went to space. On Unwin’s authority.”

  Unwin nods. “Authorised. What do we do now? You’re the space guy.”

  “What’s the precedent on a missing crime scene?”

  “I have no idea. I have my law folks looking into it. It would seem obvious that the safety of the souls on board should be priority. We can arrest Campion when we find her.”

  Malaika rubs his eyes. “I had a dream about this, you know. I dreamt I was ready to send the shuttles up, but I couldn’t find the Ragtime. It never arrived, and it was all my fault.”

  Unwin scoffs. “Standard anxiety dream, old chap. Nothing precognitive about it.”

  “I know. I’m just saying.” Malaika sighs. “I’m a little concerned.”

  “There’s a missing spacecraft with thousands of people on board. Concern is natural. Besides, you’re always concerned. You are paid to be concerned.”

  “I mean, I’m bothered about what our role will seem to have been if this is a disaster. We left people in space.”

  “Quarantined. Not left.”

  “We should have brought them home.”

  “In hindsight. We use the information we have to make the decisions we can. Besides, we don’t know. This Peole fellow might be flaky,” says Unwin.

  “Demetrius is flaky, but not in matters of space travel.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We search. We turn every telescope on Bloodroot to the sky. We commandeer every satellite and scan for anything.”

  “And Lagos? What do we tell them?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Malaika.”

  “My bailiwick, my responsibility. We tell them nothing until we have hard facts. A debris field, a broadcast, something.”

  There are ten thousand registered objects orbiting the Earth and who knows how many un
registered. The space debris is a whole different matter, data about which Bloodroot doesn’t have. On establishing the colonies, it was important to avoid the crowded sky of the homeworld, so the space programme is very specific. Enough satellites to ensure reasonable contact with Lagos, some entertainment, and the arrival and departure of colony starships. There are perhaps twenty satellites in Bloodroot’s orbit. On Malaika’s order, they all begin to look for the starship Ragtime.

  Three officers go to Rasheed Fin’s house, two of whom are Artificials.

  They knock, IFCs spontaneously pinging, sending public data to any available open client. Nothing comes back. Nobody opens the door or answers.

  “Isn’t the mother supposed to be in?” asks one of the team.

  “Yes.”

  “That meets the criteria for entering.”

  “Breaching now.” The second officer remembers once this happened to him and an elderly person had died. He wonders if he will ever live it down. Did his hesitation kill her?

  The door crashes inwards from the battering ram.

  “Mrs Fin?”

  The house is an exquisite mess. A stink hits the team first, but chocolate wrappers crinkle underfoot. Grime everywhere.

  “This guy went into space?”

  “We’re going to find a body, aren’t we?”

  Dust on every surface. Dried food. Toilet unflushed.

  “Rasheed, is that you?” says a voice from upstairs. “Don’t forget to eat, baby.”

  “Mrs Fin?”

  He sends two officers up. Rotten fruit in the kitchen, mould climbing the walls.

  The officers call down. “Sir, you’re going to want to see this.”

  “Software?” says Malaika.

  “Wireframe Mother,” says Unwin. “They’re popular with traumatised people these days. And those who have lost their own family, like Fin.”

  “I looked him up before any of this,” says Malaika. “Nothing has happened to his family.”

  “Sealed record, old son. His entire family died in one of those venting incidents that were common thirty years back. He was younger than three, and assigned to Wireframe. Obviously, he wasn’t monitored.”

  “And we sent him into space without—”

  “Oversight. Too late to cry about it now, hey?”

  “I see,” says Malaika, although his tone says he does not. “Thoughts?”

  “In hindsight, I should have done more thorough mental health screening,” says Unwin.

  “No, I mean thoughts going forward.”

  “I have no fucking clue. I’m going to sit around and wait for your Malaika Magic to work. You bring them home; I’ll take care of Fin.”

  Demetrius Peole swears at the back of Coker’s head.

  “I hope you’re happy now, Coker. I hope you enjoy this work.”

  Coker is silent and watches the data streaming in from the satellites. If there is a hint of a smile on his face, Peole cannot tell, but he’s sure the man is amused.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Ragtime: Fin

  Fin stares at Shell as if willing her to take back what she just said. She doesn’t.

  “You murdered the passengers,” says Fin.

  “I did,” says Shell.

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “What was your motive for killing them?”

  “Mental illness. Asthenisation.”

  “Asthenisation.”

  “Yes.”

  “What is—”

  “Labile mood, altered sleep-wake patterns, territorial behaviour, hypoactivity, fatigue, attention and memory deficits. It’s a space thing. Look it up.”

  “And—”

  “I was territorial over the Ragtime and I didn’t want them here, so I started killing the passengers.”

  “I—”

  “I’ll IFC-sign a confession, all right?”

  Fin thinks of everything that has happened, and all of Shell’s reactions, and he shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

  “What does it matter? You have an out. Let’s go home!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?” Her turn.

  “I’ve lied before, and it very nearly destroyed me. My family tends to be inflexible and it destroyed my relationship with them. This is my second chance. Ragtime is my second chance. I can’t risk it.”

  “I understand family expectations, Rasheed. I feel the weight of filial duty too.”

  “Not like mine.”

  “Trust me; like yours.”

  “If we survive, we must swap stories some time, Captain Campion.”

  “You are obligated to arrest me, Rasheed,” says Shell.

  “No. What I’ll do is get Salvo to record your statement, Captain. When we get out of this, if you still want to be arrested, I’ll do it. My investigation is still open. For now, do your job and get us planetside.”

  Years ago, they were relocators, enforcers of the agreement with the Lambers. At some point they started calling them repatriators, which is the name that stuck, which is what Fin is.

  Waiting outside a building, waiting on confirmation, eating something fried, waiting while the treewall behind the structure sways in the wind bringing a tangy scent. Through the treewall, the next boulevard is not visible, but the lights from the houses seem to blink as the trees part, then close, like a gentle dance of tentative lovers.

  Fin has a mouth ulcer right at the angle where his left cheek meets the gums, and he tongues it as if that would make it go away. He doesn’t like waiting because he gets sugar cravings.

  “I agree,” says Duro, his partner on this escapade. Human. Salvo is overbooked or undergoing maintenance or some shit.

  “With what? I didn’t say anything.”

  “Exactly. You should have been.”

  “I’m not here to entertain you,” says Fin.

  “Talking to me can count as entertaining yourself, brother,” says Duro.

  “I don’t need entertainment. I’m on the job.”

  “No, you are waiting for a signal confirmation. We can do our jobs when we know for sure the Lamber is in there.”

  “The waiting is the job,” says Fin. “And the Lamber is there. I’m waiting for official acknowledgement of knowledge I already have.” To discourage Duro from talking, Fin checks his weapon. Never used, it is only effective against Lambers, and since they are generally peaceful…

  Fin has always wondered what happens to aliens when they’re shot. He rises and squirrels into the back of the van where the techs are trying to pick up a signal that suggests Lambers.

  “You are making me look bad, children,” he says. “Really bad.”

  Cables everywhere, trailing from batteries, competing for end points in the back of receivers and transmitters, cobbled together, bunched in places, snaking free in others, getting underfoot no matter how careful Fin is. There are three techs in the back, listening to arcane outputs. Such is their focus that they don’t acknowledge Fin’s taunt. One of them sweats even though it’s cold from the fans keeping the machines cool. Fuck ’em, wasting his life with their dilly-dallying.

  “Call me when it’s done,” he says. He walks all the way through and opens the back doors of the van, steps into the night.

  Fin has never been able to explain his talent for finding Lambers. It is an itch in his brain, a surge of blood across his scalp. It doesn’t matter. He finds more than anyone else and sends them all back to wherever the fuck they come from. He’s not much good at anything else. He’s a better-than-average marksman, a passable investigator, and an indifferent scholar. He flirts with weapons manufacture because they fascinate him, particularly old Earth technology.

  He walks towards the building. Even in the dark Fin can tell it’s been recently constructed by people wanting what the Lambers have to give. Fin is immune and in quiet moments wonders what it feels like. An intoxication? Maybe that’s why he can find them. In the skyline, to the west, the tower they taught Bloodroot how to build
, the link to their homeworld. Nobody knows how it works, but then, they don’t need to. How many people know how electricity works? Just need to know that it works and how to use it.

  The door is closer now; Duro still in the van, thinking Fin is in the back. Doesn’t matter. “Duro” means “wait” in Yoruba, so this is in line with the man’s destiny.

  His gait slows as he reaches the door; nerves, unknown number of people in there, no way to predict their reactions to interruption from their ecstasies. But Fin is young and invulnerable, unable to contemplate his own failure, death or oblivion. Non-existence is a myth. The wind whips his coat, and Fin takes it off, folds it carefully and lays it on the ground to the left of the door. It opens outwards, so he knocks first. Nothing happens. No sounds in the night, no lights, no animals shuffling. The wind again, but it blows between buildings, whistling and ghosting.

  Fin fits a Locksmith on the door and waits. It cycles through several frequencies until it hits the right one. The door swings open and he enters. Gentle lute music plays, the remnants of cooking on the air, something spicy. No real lighting, everything dim, so dim. From his back pocket, enhancer glasses – good for getting around, but poor for Lambers. He’ll have to remember to take them off. It’s warm in here, from heating, cooking and the bodies of the addicted. He’s on a hallway of some kind and he comes to the bottom of a stairwell. A figure lurches out of shadows under the stairs, and it heads for him and performs some kind of gesture between a bow and a duck. It repeats the action. And again. A robot, busted, no threat. Its lips move, but no sound comes out.

  Fin takes the stairs, sensing the Lamber closer. A shuffle, and someone comes down the stairs, a human this time, saying nothing but staring at Fin. Blank face. Fin draws his other weapon, the rubber projectile one, and shoots the wall adjacent to the person. The ricochet hits the man in the foot, the second in the knee. Fin pulls the man behind him before he can cry out in pain. The sound, the air displacement, must attract attention of others unless they are too far down the Lamber hole.

  His IFC buzzes. “Rasheed, where are you? I just heard a shot!”