Star Cops

by Chris Boucher

  Devis brandished the statuette. “And this is a development?”

  It was Kitson’s turn for amused scorn. “It didn’t warrant sending your own little task force, I’ll allow.” He still did not look up from the scanner screen.

  Theroux had finally had enough. Colin Devis could behave as though this guy was some kind of kindred spirit, but he had no intention of being treated like an asshole any longer.

  “Mr. Kitson, show me exactly where you found it, if you please,” he said brusquely.

  Kitson hesitated. It was clear he didn’t much care for the tone of voice, and they both knew that Theroux had no direct authority. He stopped what he was doing and looked at Theroux. Theroux stared back at him and waited in expressionless silence. After a long pause, Kitson pointed to a stack of cartons marked: EXPLOSIVES/WITH CARE. “Second one down,” he said. “Under the top layer.” But he pointedly made no move to show him exactly where.

  “None of this stuff is actually for Moonbase, is it?” Devis asked as Theroux lifted out the carton.

  “It’s a Mars shipment,” Kitson said.

  Below the top layer of seismic test charges, several had been removed to make room for the statuette.

  “Why all the attention, then?” Devis asked.

  “Random search. You know how these things are.”

  Devis drew Kitson to one side and lowered his voice so that Theroux could not overhear. “You randomly targeted a Martian cargo? Come on Bod, give me a break here. You people have always fucking ignored them.”

  “The policy must have changed. Don’t ask me, I’m just PBI.”

  “Poor bloody infantry? Yeah, right.” Devis juggled with the statuette, flipping it from hand to hand. “So, what, you just stumbled across this?”

  “Live a good life and you can expect a little luck sometimes,” Kitson said.

  “Not in my experience.”

  Kitson glanced towards Theroux, who was still examining the hiding place, and murmured, “Seems we need to justify our existence and soon, Colin. Bollocks are on the block.”

  “You reckon this thing’ll do it?”

  “I haven’t lived that good a life,” said Kitson, setting the detector for a full spectrum drugs scan.

  As they walked back towards the freight elevator, Theroux asked, “Did you get anything out of him?”

  “Nothing we didn’t already know,” Devis said.

  Theroux nodded. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

  Devis said, “Next time, try and be a bit more of a prat, will you? The officer we love to hate, remember?”

  “I find it difficult to be a bastard,” Theroux said. “It’s casting against type.”

  “I’ll believe you,” Devis said. “Thousands wouldn’t.”

  The shuttle was bucking and shaking. Visuals flashed through the screens too fast to be of much help. The instruments would not balance enough to give her an accurate reading of how close she was to the lunar surface. That much was normal, anyhow. She was considering boosting out into orbit for the rest of the run back, but it would cost her time and fuel. She might miss the freighter, and she would certainly lose most of her bonus. Still not a clear call, though.

  “Supply shuttle four, this is outpost seventeen, do you copy?” The voice of that officious little outpost controller, the one she had disliked so much, cut across her thoughts. “Outpost seventeen, this is supply shuttle four, I thought we said our goodbyes already, I am a little busy right now.”

  “That lift-off was rocky. Is everything okay?” He sounded fussy rather than concerned.

  “Lifting off in these things is always rocky. That’s why they pay me the big money. Conserving fuel comes at a price.” She decided not to bother playing safe after all, but to carry on rock-hugging. She was high enough not to run into anything sudden.

  “We put a lot of work into what you’re carrying. It’s fragile, you realize.”

  The obnoxious little prick was really beginning to irritate her. “No shit?” she said. “Well if you want it past main cargo in time for the next Earth freighter, you’ll just have to cross your fingers and toes.”

  “Not at these prices.”

  She was almost pleased that the shuttle was still heaving and juddering. “Wanna bet?” she demanded, as she overrode the flight computer and fought for control.

  “What--you say--are breaking up, repeat please.” The transmission from Outpost Seventeen was difficult to hear now and not before time.

  “Can we stop wasting time?” she shouted. “I’m too old, too cold and too fucking tired for this shit!”

  Suddenly the outpost controller’s voice came through loud and undistorted. “You’re dropping off our radar. Should you be doing that?”

  Dropping off the radar?

  “Do you copy?”

  Christ, no. No, she shouldn’t be doing that. “Oh, Christ,” she said. “No.”

  It was the last sound she made, as she was overwhelmed by the howl of the impact and the decompression scream to silence. Noiselessly, the shuttle shattered against a crater wall and tore itself to pieces among the tumbled rocks.

  “She’s dead?” Philpot looked astounded.

  “She was killed instantly,” Ho said.

  “What was she doing there?”

  “She was… moonlighting.” Satisfied that he had the right word, Ho showed no awareness of the pun. “You must understand.” He got up from behind his desk and tried to pace. “No international funds have been available for Moonbase Technology Section to construct a specifically designed lunar flight vehicle. People skilled in the handling of the modified shuttle are therefore at a premium.” The gravity defeated him, and he sat down again. “It is a very erratic machine. Most difficult to fly.”

  “So it would seem,” Philpot said, making no move to get up from his own chair despite some uncharacteristic signs of real anger. “Well, quite frankly, Dr. Ho, I’m appalled.”

  “Something should be done about the MTS,” Ho agreed, misunderstanding. “It has been in my mind to try and –”

  Philpot ignored him. “This could ruin everything,” he said.

  Ho nodded vigorously, then said with a sudden beaming optimism, “I am leaving for Earth immediately. Perhaps I shall manage to expedite matters.”

  Philpot’s response was not warm. “I hope so. I assume you realize who will be blamed for failure.” This time, the threat was quite clear.

  “So you think she’ll be blamed?” Dana Cogill said from the back of the Moonrover, where she was sorting through debris from the wreck of supply shuttle four.

  Kenzy raised her voice above the whine of the motors. “No worries,” she said, pushing the MoRo towards its maximum speed. She was more than a little relieved to be driving rather than making preliminary forensic lists. Cogill was welcome to that job. The tall Irishwoman was one of the more recent recruits, so Kenzy knew little or nothing about her. Apparently she had been a paramedic in a previous life, which probably explained her lack of squeamishness. True, there was only a very remote chance that pieces of the pilot were left among the stuff they were hauling, but just the thought made Kenzy’s flesh creep.

  “But then again, if you didn’t blame the pilot,” Cogill asked, “who would you blame?”

  “If I was the betting type…” Kenzy began.

  Cogill laughed. It was a musical sound, unexpectedly deep and bell-like for such a slim woman. “Which, of course, you’re not.”

  “Which, of course, I’m not,” Kenzy agreed, laughing. “But if I was, I’d say the boys in shuttle maintenance had been smashing back that home brew of theirs. Missed a few clogged pipes, forgot to service the flight computer. It’s minor oversights like that make the difference between flying and bouncing. Especially in an engineering lash-up like a modified l
ander.”

  The MoRo heaved itself up and over a boulder, lurching ponderously. “On the subject of bouncing,” Cogill said, clutching at a handrail as she made her stumbling way forward.

  “Sorry.” Kenzy eased off on the throttle.

  “She was young to die,” Cogill said, taking the pilot’s ID from its wallet and running the three hundred and sixty degree visual in the image window. She held it out for Kenzy to see.

  “No-one’s ever old enough to die,” Kenzy said, and glanced at the pilot’s face and profile. “Don’t think I ever saw her around, did you?”

  “No. But then, I haven’t been around that long myself.” Cogill pulled a second identical ID from the wallet. “Now, what would be the point of that, do you suppose? If she lost the one, she’d lose the duplicate as well.”

  “Typical shuttle jockey,” Kenzy said. “If they’d got any brains, they wouldn’t be flying those things.”

  Cogill went back to the cargo space and returned to her forensic work.

  After a while, Kenzy said, “Do we know when Nathan’s actually leaving, Dana? I mean, is he booked on the next freighter, or what?”

  “How would I know?” Cogill said. “I’m not his social secretary.”

  “I wondered if you’d heard anything is all.”

  “You’re more likely to be in the know than I am.”

  Kenzy switched in the automatics and turned round in her seat. “Only somebody’s got to take over the second spot to David Theroux’s number one,” she said. “You’ve got the qualifications. I thought you might have got the nod.”

  Cogill’s bell-like laugh rang out again. “Chief assistant to the assistant chief? I don’t think so.”

  “Got a private income, is that it?” Kenzy asked, slightly irritated by her manner.

  Cogill was too absorbed to notice. “Oh, the money would be handy all right,” she said, pulling the packing brace from a broken equipment carton. “But management isn’t really my thing.” From inside the brace, a thin trickle of powder was drifting into her cupped hand. “What do you suppose this is?” she asked.

  Kenzy reached for her suit helmet. “Better go onto self-contained air,” she said. “Inhaling it might not be the brightest way to find out.”

  “Drugs? Are you sure?” Devis adjusted the communications screen, but he still couldn’t see her clearly.

  “No, but it’s a lot of trouble to go to for beef casserole,” Kenzy said – her voice, like her face, partially obscured because she was suited-up.

  “Might be a vacuum effect,” he suggested.

  “It might be fucking fairy dust, but does that seem likely to you?”

  “Better bring it on in then.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Her sarcasm was clear, even if her voice was muffled. “We were planning to stop and dump it over the side.”

  “I meant,” he said, with more patience than he would have shown if there had been anyone with him in the main office, “there’s nothing we can do till you get back here. But then, you’ve always felt that, haven’t you, Pal?” He smiled sourly and killed the connection.

  After a brief pause, Kenzy came back on screen using her override. “I hadn’t finished.”

  He sighed heavily. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You want me to arrange chemical analysis and, put a hold on all travel clearances in the pipeline for any personnel from outpost seventeen. Anything else?”

  “No.” She sounded disappointed.

  Devis said, “I’m not as stupid as I look.”

  “Well, duh,” Kenzy said. “How could you be?” And this time she killed the connection.

  He had keyed the mess table he was sitting at to WNS, and was staring down at Susan Caxton, who was staring up at him and saying, “But questions remain to be answered, and clearly there is a reluctance –”

  “Sound off,” Devis said and the superstar newsreader, anchorperson and universal sex fantasy continued the bulletin in dumb-show.

  “I was listening to that,” Kitson said, without raising his eyes.

  “No, you weren’t,” Devis said, “you were waiting to look down her cleavage.”

  Kitson looked up at him. “Something wrong with nostalgia?”

  Devis shook his head and sat down. “You’ll go deaf, though.”

  “Quarter to four,” Kitson said in a loud voice, looking at his wrist. “What do you do for sex out here?”

  “Quarter to four,” Devis said, in an equally loud voice.

  Kitson looked back down at the black Australian journalist on the screen. “She does make me homesick, I have to say.”

  “You’ve got someone like that at home?” Devis asked.

  “No,” Kitson said, “that’s why I’m sick of it.”

  “Listen,” Devis said, “I didn’t come here to do tired comedy routines.”

  “Where do you usually go?”

  “That tip-off you’re working on…”

  “We don’t burn our sources, Colin. You know the score as well as I do. There is no point in asking me –”

  Devis held up his hands. “You’ve been looking for contraband coming into Moonbase from Earth, right? Do you check stuff going the other way?”

  Kitson looked suspicious. “Back to Earth? No. Why would we do that?”

  Devis favoured him with a shrug and a smug grin. “You’re the experts.”

  Kitson snorted. “Somebody been growing opium poppies in the hydroponics plant?

  “Close,” Devis said.

  “Are you winding me up?”

  Devis glanced down, and noticed the visuals now backing Susan Caxton appeared to be stock shots of Mars. “Sound on,” he instructed.

  “Meantime, rumours persist,” she was saying, “that something astounding has been discovered there, and is now on its way to Moonbase for eventual transhipment to Earth. No-one seems to know what this discovery might be; only that it could be something that will change forever the way Man sees himself. Is this just another of those instant myths which are suddenly on everyone’s lips, and which are just as suddenly forgotten? Or is there really a secret being kept from us by an over-cautious authority? Stay tuned; only time will tell. This is Worldwide News. My name is Susan Caxton.”

  Larwood was late for the rendezvous, but he was no longer trying to hurry because his lack of co-ordination in one-sixth G made him conspicuous. The time and place had been written on a page of the autograph-hunter’s book-pad, and unless he had misread it, he should have been pretty close by now. He looked for the junction number. Down here in the service tunnels, there seemed to be better signs than in the public corridors. He supposed that was deliberate. It would be more important for maintenance and repair people to find their way about than anyone else. Except, perhaps, for journalists who were following up on fairly dubious leads.

  Then he saw him. Level three, junction four just as promised. Slim, late twenties, he was leaning heavily against the sloping side of the tunnel. Ridiculous the lengths to which some people would go to look nonchalant. Larwood glanced around. Satisfied that there was no-one else about, he approached, and keeping it casual just in case, said, “I’m Daniel Larwood. I think you have something for me.” The young man turned his head and stared at him. There was no recognition in his face at all. The look was totally blank. He seemed almost asleep. Watching the eyes blink slowly and grope for focus, Larwood realized that he was on something. Given his age and his profession it was unlikely to be alcohol, but whatever it was, he was long gone and out there. “Can you hear me?” The man’s expression struggled with vagueness, but the effort was brief and unsuccessful. Larwood spoke more slowly and articulated very distinctly. “My name is Daniel Larwood? You have something for me?”

  Acknowledgement flickered in the eyes, and for a moment the man was f
ully conscious. “I… I…” he whispered.

  Conscious or not, the stupid bastard still couldn’t speak apparently. “For Christ’s sake,” Larwood said, “snap out of it, man.”

  “I… I…”

  “What have you taken, you stupid bastard?”

  The man sucked in a breath. It made a slimy, bubbling sound. “I de…” he managed to choke out, and then he gurgled a little.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Larwood said. He was tempted to shake the man, but he had some experience of these things and was not eager to be vomited over by a complete stranger – especially not in reduced gravity.

  There was another desperately determined breath and the man tried again. “I de…” he burbled, “I de…” And then the attention went out of his eyes and the tension went out of his thin frame and his legs buckled and he sagged forward and he flopped down. Instinctively, Larwood had stepped back as this was happening. Now he looked at the abandoned slump of the body, and wondered whether his assumption had been correct after all. He moved closer, and for the first time he saw the man’s back. There was a small dark stain on the coverall just below the left shoulder blade. Larwood reached down and felt his neck. There was no pulse. He looked around again but there was still no-one else about. He squatted down and began to search the dead man’s pockets.

  He looked bored, but Nathan could see the small movements of feet and hands that suggested it was an act. He continued to watch surreptitiously, while slowly preparing coffee for the three of them.

  “Did you know him?” Theroux asked. He was sitting facing Larwood across the workstation in the small office they had set aside for interrogations.

  “No,” Larwood said.

  Nathan finished pouring the coffees and brought them to the workstation. “But you were there to meet him?” he suggested mildly.

  “No.”