Liquid Crystal Nightingale

by EeLeen Lee

  “My door is always open to you, Setona,” said the Doyen, turning around in the doorway. “You don’t need to be here—you were above all of this. You still have time to rise again.”

  Before he left, he swept out his arm to indicate the shop and beyond it, the piazza of Retail Sector 12. The shadow cast by the crowning-shield bisected his face diagonally, highlighting one less-augmented eye and a patch of forehead as if these were all that remained of the person he used to be.

  Setona whistled for the display leopard. It bounded away from the counter and ran over to her. She caressed its head and neck while removing the numerous gems set in its spots.

  The Doyen’s offer rejected, he departed.

  “I need to rest,” she said to Marsh.

  The leopard settled back onto the platform, sphinx-like, with its amber eyes staring out at the empty piazza. Setona sat on the leopard’s back and would remain there until Shineshift was over. For a moment, Marsh was able to put her into context. A new sky had showcased new stars: the usual procession of entrepreneurs, actors, actresses, singers, interactive virtual celebrities and augmented sports personalities. Modranis soon moved from the sidelines of the procession and on to center stage; men and women who modified their bodies to varying extents on the fast track to fame. Diverse and Protean in form and appearance, they sparked controversy when they first appeared in various adverts and films. When it came to modranis the public could not look away. She had taken part in visions of glory and beauty, darting in and out of every social sphere like an overreaching migratory bird. Long before she came to Chatoyance, Setona had fallen to earth and never realised her dreams were in pieces until years after impact.

  As soon as he was sure she was occupied, Marsh slipped back into the storeroom, and a minute later he stepped outside the shop for fresh air. He had slipped two more flakes of Desert Rose under his tongue. Madame had sworn that if she caught him, she would deduct it from his pay; so far, Marsh suspected she’d not made good on her threat because as an ex-modrani she understood his craving. But he did not want to push his luck too far; Desert Rose flakes were abundant, Madame’s goodwill was unlikely so.

  EXCERPTS FROM

  A REPORT ON THE FORTY PEARL MINERS INCIDENT

  Compiled with the express cooperation of the Chatoyance Industrial Investigation Committee, at the request of the Inner Chamber.

  The final report has been published to inform the military Chain of Command and the Corund of the findings of the inquiry, together with recommendations on further courses of action.

  FOR INTERNAL CIRCULATION ONLY

  Important Note

  This report is not to be distributed to any members of the public or any ordinary upper and lower House members of the Corunds of Cabuchon, Signet and Anium.

  (The document and its attachments and pages are shot through with a touch-sensitive retriever watermark which tracks document readership and unauthorised distribution.)

  Reseal and return this document in its original sheaf to the Spinel or Tagmat personnel who couriered it to you.

  We understand that required reading at such short notice is particularly vexing. However, we most respectfully ask you to have patience and resist the impulse to judge until you have fully absorbed the contents herein.

  Unauthorised distribution, dissemination, reproduction and sale of this document and any of its contents is an offence carrying the harshest of penalties.

  INTRODUCTION

  This report selects from accounts of the circumstances of the incident at Bhakun Mine on the asteroid Kerte Yurgi in 3444, in which Artisan military forces kidnapped and tortured to death thirty-nine mine workers and left one survivor seriously compromised. It is based on the involvement of those in the search and rescue attempt and in the full investigation that followed.

  Summary of the Incident

  On the morning of 15 September 3444, Archer’s Ring Standard Calendar (ARSC), shift work was about to be completed as usual at Bhakun Mine, a medium-scale hydrocarbon mine on the asteroid #2599 VP58, informally known as Kerte Yurgi, in the region of gas clouds informally dubbed The Spilled Ink Lacunae.

  At 5.45 am, approximately Chatoyance time, Idilman Tanza, the site manager, declared end of shift and over the next half hour or so, the other forty-five workers clocked off. Around 7.00 am as per procedure, the first ten out of the forty-five miners ascended two kilometres closer to the surface where the accommodation nodes were located.

  At around 11.00am explosive charges of unknown origin were set off. The blast released a large body of wastewater stored within caches which were adapted from old hydrocarbon seams. Water flooded the working stalls, where shale was being extracted, and where the mine manager and the foreman, Idilman Tanza, was at his usual work post. Two other workers, Erxat Tasrin and Halida Baten, were also nearby.

  So great was the volume and speed of the inrushing water that five miners were immediately overwhelmed and died. Idilman Tanza was injured but managed to escape through the old workings and emerged on the surface about an hour later. Section Supervisor Jannah Petani, who was farther away from the work post, just managed to escape to the asteroid surface in order to activate the distress beacons. Since her injuries were too severe, she authorised her husband, Crew Chief Rus Petani, to raise the alarms.

  According to Idilman Tanza’s statement, the three escaped miners were immediately captured and brought back below.

  Search and rescue operations conducted over the next four days proved unsuccessful. Over the following week, an initial investigation was started as part of a major joint investigation led by Offshore Mining Police (OMP). The investigation was supported by other key members from Chatoyance Industrial and Mining Rescue and Recovery (CIMR2) and available personnel from the nearest Tuzher, Little Twigs and Han Yeng asteroid mines.

  Plans for extracting the mining crew were rendered unfeasible as soon as Artisan presence in The Spilled Ink Lacunae was confirmed. Missile bombardment of Kerte Yurgi was ruled out due to high hydrocarbon content, thus creating a high risk of setting off a major explosion.

  Invaluable support was also provided by specialist contractors, equipment suppliers, and other personnel with long experience of working small hydrocarbon and mineral shale mines in C-type asteroids. Their combined efforts and dedication kept Kerte Yurgi partially accessible for the duration of a very difficult investigation carried out in challenging circumstances.

  Chatoyance Industrial Mining has continued to assist OMP beyond the the scope of the site investigation phase, including helping plan and carry out interviews with key figures and other organisations.

  BACKGROUND INFORMATION

  Bhakun Mine

  Bhakun Mine was a medium-scale hydrocarbon mine set high on the southern slope of the crater Nanshe, on the southern hemisphere of Kerte Yurgi, a type C asteroid. With about 100 trillion cubic feet of gas and hydrocarbon-rich shale deposits detected within, it turned out to be highly profitable. In the decade leading up to the merger of Chatoyance Industrial and Corund Mining it accounted for a fifth of the revenue from mining. It was one of very few such mines remaining in the #2599 asteroid fields.

  The mine had been owned and operated since 3436 by Chatoyance Industrial Mining Ltd, who in 3439 had a licence granted by The Interstellar Fracking Authority to mine shale from the No.2 Rhodu Seam. Planning permission granted by Lacunae Regional limited the extraction of hydrocarbons to the area defined on The Kerte Yurgi Territory Authority licence.

  The mine had been working under a parade of owners and subsidiaries under Chatoyance Industrial and Mining for many years. Operation was not continuous, and there were sometimes months of inactivity. In the two years before the incident, shale production was highly intermittent, ownership was changed three times, and there were five different mine managers. The manager at the time of the incident, Idilman Tanza, was appointed in April 3444.

  In the six months before the incident, Bhakun Mine had been producing crude hydrocarbon shal
e on a daily double-shift basis. Between thirty to forty-five miners were employed in this period, including a supervisor and a mine manager. The method used to extract the hydrocarbon was a traditional ‘bit-drill and expand’ technique, where holes are drilled into the rock face via remote tools, explosives are inserted into these holes and are expanded to break down the rock layers over the hydrocarbon seams.

  Contact was lost with the mining outpost on September 27th 3444. Thirty-three days of comms silence followed, and remote sensing was able to detect faint heat signatures within the mine but not movement.

  SURVIVOR INTERROGATION TRANSCRIPT

  What follows are key excerpts from session transcripts conducted by E[name redacted] of Mineral and Pipelines Department in Chatoyance Industrial and Mining Corporation, of the sole survivor Idilman Tanza in the investigation into the incident at Bhakun Mine.

  Background Note

  Idilman Tanza’s background and training were in construction. His colleagues described Idilman Tanza as “loyal, taciturn, and the first to get his hands dirty.” In asteroid miners’ parlance he was the reliable choice, which, as he explained, meant that he combined a degree of formal camaraderie with a healthy respect for anything dangerous. It was not enough to hire personnel who could work on an asteroid, hires had to work and survive despite being stationed on a rock in space.

  Hence it made sense to his employers that Idilman transitioned from managing transshipments of cargo frigates to mining because he hurled himself into any role.

  [Interrogator’s name redacted]

  E: We’re ready to begin when you—

  Idilman T: My father was Curzo Tanza. You know of him?

  E: I can find out, surely the company keeps personnel records.

  Idilman T: He swore by the belief that hard work entails dignity. However, he also insisted the work should not destroy our bodies.

  E: We can discuss any possible compensation after the inquest.

  Idilman T: My version of events stands. Did you see the bodies?

  E: We still need to go over it. Why did your captors release you—and only you?

  Idilman T: [raising voice] What’s your implication? I escaped.

  E: [Pause] All this is going on record.

  Idilman T: You still don’t believe me?

  E: Your account is rather... fantastical.

  Idilman T: I’m here before all of you, am I not?

  E: Take your time.

  [Session begins one hour later]

  E: Let’s begin again—from before the time of the flooding: was the shift going well?

  Idilman T: Yes: no equipment breakdowns, personnel disputes. No problems. We were preparing to sign off duty and return to accommodations.

  E: Is it standard practice for mine personnel to be housed in the subterranean tunnels?

  Idilman T: Kerte Yurgi has a thick layer of regolith and no shelters are built on its surface due to risk of landslides and bombardment from meteors.

  E: Point taken. Continue.

  Idilman T: As Deputy Section Supervisor, Rus Petani took over from his spouse, Jannah, and tried to activate the distress beacons. But that’s when we discovered the Artisans had disabled the communications probes around Kerte Yurgi.

  E: We found all of the probes covered in [pause] diamonds.

  Idilman T: A taste of what they would do to us.

  E: So, upon discovering that eventuality you ordered distress signals to be broadcast on all available frequencies?

  Idilman T: We were desperate. Some started shouting and banging on the tunnel walls before I told them not to waste their energy.

  E: What did you do after that?

  Idilman T: I let them. There wasn’t much energy left in us to waste. The Artisans did not flood the tunnels around the accommodations to kill us.

  E: It was to drive you and your miners to any available surface exits?

  Idilman T: They did it to trap us.

  E: And they performed on all of you, in your own words, the pearl experiment?

  Idilman T: Not at first. For several days they left us alone. They made food drops although most of it was inedible. [A pause.] They broke us down. A miner’s best defence is psychological. The ones who last in the job are those who respect the weight of the rocks around them and the void of space beyond the rocks. I kept telling my miners that if we survive this we will live forever.

  E: Were there any suicide attempts?

  Idilman T: If we weren’t immobilised I would have given the self-destruct order—with or without us inside Kerte Yurgi.

  E: They left all of you to die? That is difficult to believe after all the trouble.

  Idilman T: They do not feel enmity towards us. They were performing the duty of protecting their territory; this absolves them, in their view.

  E: You presume to speak for your captors?

  Idilman T: Have you ever seen an Artisan in real life?

  E: From archival footage. But that is irrelevant right now.

  Idilman T: [whispers] They’re crystalline deities [unintelligible]

  E: [to auto-transcriber] End this session now. Do it!

  Idilman T: [louder] they’re reshaping the universe into their vision.

  [End of recording]

  RECOMMENDED COURSES OF ACTION BY THE COMMISSION

  Relieve Idilman Tanza of duty.

  Idilman Tanza is to be released back to his family as soon as he is deemed fit enough. Security concerns are moderate level for the time being. The stigma of being the sole survivor of a tragedy that affects a close-knit mining community will limit his profile and movement. To detain Idilman Tanza indefinitely, force his disappearance or keep him under a pretext of quarantine for longer than necessary is to invite suspicion from his relatives, community and the general public.

  To buy and ultimately guarantee the silence and cooperation of the children of the other thirty-nine, and thus serve the purposes of the Inner Chamber for the time being.

  Pertaining to (3), we suggest restarting one of Polyteknikal’s Training Initiatives involving experimental implants. Test subjects are now, so to speak, serendipitously available.

  Surveillance satellite production and maintenance to be stepped up in preparation for future hostile incursions and recurrences on scientific and trading outposts under the jurisdiction of the Archer’s Ring.

  Pertaining to (5), redeploy the outer section of the Corona on the edges of the system to reinforce the Demarcation.

  Bring Chatoyance under martial protection of the Demarcation if, and when, necessary.

  END OF REPORT

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CONFORM.

  Tyros were allowed to retain their hair until they chose their vocation and went on the track to professional.

  Pleo held onto her hair. It connected her to an innocent time before her hand and elbow implants, an era which ended on the day of the surgery. Despite the compulsory talks and counselling sessions by the Polyteknical medical functionaries, Pleo had been dreading the assembly line surgery. Her nightmares involved lying on a freezing bed or pallet before it slid through a shutter door and stopped to rest under the polished ceramic face of a surgical android, its unblinking compound eye covered in an oversized surgical loupe.

  Reform.

  On the scheduled morning two human technicians had ushered her into the low-ceilinged theatre. All they required of her was to lie down on a padded operating table, stick her arms and shoulders through the white surgical drapes hanging down on both sides of her, and wait until the procedure was over.

  She heard the robot surgery assistant say, “Put the patient under.”

  A notification chime sounded as the surgeon pulled up Pleo’s chart.

  “Don’t put this patient completely under!” He raised his voice although there was no reason to. A pause followed before he glanced at her hair in disbelief: “She’s still a tyro. Basic implant set required. Administer local.”

  The anaesthetic did not take as well as
the surgeon had thought. Pleo felt her fingernails getting prised off. As she lay shivering on the table she heard them dropped one by one in a metal tray. During the initial tortuous minutes, the surgical instruments descended behind the drapes and intensified their metallic humming as they made a series of fine incisions along her fingers and arms. Her skin was parted all the way up from her fingertips right up to her shoulder blades. She could not help but visualise them laying bare her bones, muscles, and ligaments, until her nerve endings were all exposed to the cold air inside the theatre and impassive gaze of the surgeons. The surgical instruments reappeared, streaked with her blood and she fought back a scream. From Pleo’s position the backlit ceiling panels formed a barrier of muted greys and harsh whites, as if she was trapped beneath an avalanche.

  There followed a pause, yet no respite for Pleo. After the interlude a pair of reciprocating saws buzzed to life and went to work on her arm and shoulder bones. She felt them making incisions at intervals along the length of her radius and humerus, glimpsed bone dust blurring the air above the drapes.

  The humming resumed but louder this time; a different set of instruments, which inserted the forceps and elbow spurs. She felt her hands and arms lifted in turn and then suddenly dropped and left to dangle over the sides of the table. This exercise was repeated three times, maybe as a kind of test. When her blood splashed the edges of the drapes, Pleo focused on the ceiling and gritted her teeth, telling herself that if she died on the table her soul would drift through the ceiling and away to the stars.