The Homestead

by G R Higginbotham

  He logged in to the room’s system to check for messages before turning in. There was one. Rebecca wanted him to chat immediately. He pressed the indicator to return the call.

  “You look terrible,” she said without hesitation. “Did your driver let you rest?”

  “I didn’t want to rest. I wanted to see everything.” Moses tried to look hurt by her words, but couldn’t keep the excitement off of his face.

  “See what? There’s nothing out there but rocks and dirt.” Rebecca returned his smile, mocking his excitement at touring Mars’ surface for the first time.

  “Not everybody grew up here, you know. Let me take you around Earth sometime and we’ll see how you act.”

  “Ugh. No thanks,” she took on a sour expression to show her disgust. “All that pollution and body odor. Gross.”

  “So what did you need me to call for? I’m ready for bed.” Moses yawned on cue, as if to show her how tired he was.

  “Oh. I found some things from the pictures we took in Idleman’s lab. We hadn’t gone through them all yet, and I thought I would take your little trip as an opportunity to study them some.”

  “Can you send me the files?” Moses asked. He had learned to let the constant ribbing bounce off. If he returned fire she was liable to keep it going all night.

  “I’d better just wait for you to come back. I just wanted to let you know that everything isn’t what we thought. You need to watch what you say to Dr. Lamar. Don’t let him know that we are looking into things.” She made it sound so simple.

  “How can I ask about Epps’ things without telling him we’re looking into it? That doesn’t make any sense.” Moses was exasperated. He wasn’t a con artist who could work his way to that conversation without giving away his intentions. Subtlety wasn’t his strong suit.

  “You’ll figure it out.” The beaming smile was back on. “You’re smart. You can do this. I believe in you.” And she disconnected.

  Great. Now he had to get information out of Dr. Lamar without letting him know he was getting it. This entire ordeal was beginning to be overwhelming. He had wanted to ask Rebecca about all of his patients and how the rhinovirus was progressing, but never got the chance. It was a good thing he was so tired, or he would never be able to sleep through all of the things running around in his head.

  He got ready for bed, turned out the lights, and laid down. Then he struggled to resolve all of the stray thoughts running around in his head for what seemed like hours. He eventually fell asleep.

  After what must have been fifteen minutes, maybe less, the hallway door to the clinic in the next room opened and the light from the clinic clicked on, shining underneath his door. Moses moved to investigate, and found the door to his room locked from the outside. Hadn’t Lamar told him that these doors didn’t lock? Loud banging came from the direction of the clinic.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  He was unable to force the door open. He attempted to see through the cracks around the door. There was no way for him to see what was happening outside.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “I’m locked in here. Can you open the door for me?” Moses decided that if he couldn’t secretly find out what was happening in the office next door, maybe he could scare them away. Or convince them to show who they were.

  After some more yelling, his door opened. Dr. Lamar was standing in the doorway.

  “Dr. Truman, feeling rested? You couldn’t have gotten enough sleep so early in the night.” Lamar smiled.

  “What the hell, man?” Moses barked. “You locked me in here. Why would you do that?”

  Lamar just continued to smile. “I’m sorry. This room isn’t normally occupied. It is set to automatically lock when closed if there are non-ICE staff inside. This facility is all classified, you know. I should have told you about the policy. I apologize. No need to be angry.”

  Moses was angry, and he didn’t care what this smiling company man said. “That’s some oversight. You said they wouldn’t lock.”

  “Sorry for the misunderstanding. I’m sure I said that you couldn’t lock them, not that they couldn’t lock.”

  He refused to be distracted by the locked door and wanted to find out what he needed to know. “What is going on over there? There was a lot of noise coming from the clinic. What was going on?”

  Lamar laughed as he invited himself into the room, taking a seat. “That’s ridiculous. I’m sure it was just the custodial robots doing their nightly cleaning.”

  “If it was them, then where are they? You’re the only one I see here.” Moses wasn’t going to accept blatant falsehoods as gospel. Lamar would have to work harder to spin a tale he would be willing to believe.

  Lamar laughed again. That was getting very irritating. “The custodial crew is made of bots. They come in and clean every room once a certain amount of time has gone by without movement. It keeps the place looking nice while not disturbing anyone’s schedule. The motion sensors send a signal to the bots on that floor and they come immediately and clean. They are usually quiet, but sometimes if they need a tune-up the motors can make some noise.” Lamar looked straight into Moses’ eyes, unblinking. “I am quite certain they have them in Homestead IV. I’m surprised you haven’t walked in on them, although they don’t take very long to do their work. They are quite efficient.”

  Moses did not respond. He looked back into Dr. Lamar’s eyes, refusing to be the first one to look away. Something didn’t feel right. Somehow, this man was up to something. Finally, as if through mutual consent, they looked away at the same time.

  Moses started in with his questions. He didn’t want to give the doctor time to breathe, and certainly wasn’t going to wait until morning. “Do you know what happened to the personal effects and objects from Dr. Epps’ quarters? I was wanting to look through them.” So much for subtlety.

  Finally Moses had managed to get something other than a smile out of the doctor from Station III. So much for subterfuge, too. He appeared to be in serious consideration before answering the question with another question. “Why on earth do you need to see that?”

  It was Moses’ turn to smile. “You mean, on mars, right?”

  Lamar didn’t get the joke. Maybe he was too far off balance for nuance. “Excuse me?” he said, puzzled.

  “Never mind. He left some friends behind at Homestead IV who were wondering if certain things made it back home to his family. They knew I was coming to visit you here on Station III, and asked that I check.”

  “If you give me the list, I will be happy to have one my staff search through his effects for you. No need to trouble yourself.”

  Moses wasn’t going to budge on this one. “No, sir. That won’t work. The items were quite personal in nature, and it may cause some controversy if word got out. I have promised to keep it a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality. You know, for mental health. To share that with you would be out of the question.” Moses knew he had a winner there. Another doctor wouldn’t dare ask him to breach that confidence. Even if it was a total fabrication. Stirring up rumors of an affair between Dr. Epps and a resident at Homestead IV may not be honoring to the deceased man, but it may be necessary to figure out what happened to him. Moses felt confident that Epps would have been willing to accept that compromise if it brought justice to his killer.

  They sat in silence for some time. Neither looked at the other, and Moses was determined to wait out the silence until he received a satisfactory answer. Perhaps recognizing that fact, Dr. Lamar conceded.

  “Very well. You go back to bed, finish your rest for the night, and in the morning I will have the effects brought here before we begin your tour of Station III.”

  Moses quickly caught the scheme, and insisted on seeing them right away. Now that he had let the doctor know what he wanted, he didn’t want to give him the chance to destroy anything. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was certain something foul was stirring.

  Once again, Lamar had no choice but to give in to
Moses. “Come with me then. I will take you there.”

  They left the room together.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The short walk next door was filled with tension. Neither man spoke, and Moses felt the weight of the situation pressing in on his chest. His ability to determine the cause of death for two people who lived at Homestead IV was at stake. He needed this information, but he also needed to preserve some sort of working relationship with Dr. Lamar. He wasn’t sure how hard he could push and still maintain that relationship.

  He was not surprised to find the door ajar and the light on in the office. So the noise was coming from this office after all. Lamar went straight for the middle desk drawer and removed a parcel, the harsh overhead light glaring off of his bald head as he bent forward. He lifted the plastic container by the sealed lid. It had ICE logos and notices written all over the outside on every surface. There was no question that they thought they owned everything within their facilities. Moses could tell from the way the man handled the package that it was very light.

  “Here’s everything.” Lamar allowed half of a smirk to slip out. “I hope it satisfies your curiosity. I can give you clearance to unseal the box, but you can’t remove anything from this room. Everything has to be returned to the box and resealed before one of us leaves. Chain of custody, and all that.” Lamar sat behind his desk and indicated that Moses should take the opposite seat. He located the tab to release the seal, and listened as the container filled with air. These boxes were vacuum-sealed to preserve the contents. The seam that was bisecting two signatures split apart, destroying them. One of the signatures belonged to the person sitting across the desk from him - he had seen it enough times on his patients’ documents to recognize it without trouble. He did not recognize the second signature.

  “Is there always so much security on someone’s discarded effects when they pass away?” Moses started in with questions as he perused the contents. Lab coat. University of London Medical School T-shirt. He looked up briefly when the answer came.

  “We’ve only had two deaths in the last eighty years of operation,” he considered his words for a second. “Outside of facility construction. Low grav, zero-oxygen construction sites are fraught with dangers. Nothing unexpected there. There really aren’t any established procedures. We just did what we thought was necessary.”

  Moses resumed his inspection. Stethoscope - these had been obsolete for over 150 years, but every doctor still carried them because their patients expect to see them. Otoscope. Reflex hammer. “And you keep this box in your desk? That seems unusual. Is there much need for immediate access to a sealed box that requires two people to open?” A really nice ball-point pen. White socks.

  “I put it in there to get it out of the way before I moved over to cover Homestead IV until you showed up. I haven’t even thought about it since then. Mrs. Petersen’s belongings stayed with her husband, of course. Nobody claimed these so we don’t really have a place to put them. Epps’ family on Earth got everything they wanted from his personal items. That just left us what was on and around the body to store here.”

  Moses grunted his understanding. Sensible sneakers. Small notepad - apparently Epps was old-fashioned and liked to jot down his to-do lists on physical paper instead of electronic record-keeping. An empty glass. “What’s this?” asked Moses, holding up the glass.

  Dr. Lamar took the opportunity to be sarcastic. “It’s a glass. For drinking, usually.”

  “No shit.” He gave the balding doctor a steady gaze that said he wasn’t going to be bated. His adoptive parents hadn’t raised him to use profanity, but sometimes situations called for clear and concise communication.

  The doctor received the message and acquiesced. “It was found near the body. Presumably he was drinking it when he . . . succumbed.” He was quiet for a moment. “There was about two tablespoons of liquid on the floor next to the body as well. There should be a sample of it in there.”

  The stack of items on the desk was starting to look like a collection of miscellany. The glass was added to the group, and the next item Moses encountered was indeed the small plastic vial containing a clear liquid. He left the tiny robotic insect at the bottom of the box next to a few other things that appeared inconsequential. He watched Lamar’s face when he stopped removing the possessions of the late Dr. Epps. There was no sign that he anticipated more objects to line the front of his desk. Moses held back his own half-smirk when he launched into phase two of his plan.

  “So tell me, Dr. Lamar. I know you weren’t around for the deaths of the two citizens of my habitat, but why are you going to such lengths to cover up the murders?” It felt good to get the word out there in the world. It was only a strong feeling at this point, but Moses felt confidant that both Adrie Petersen and Dr. Epps were killed. The change in the other man was minimal but noticeable. Sweat beaded up high on the hairless forehead. He started shifting in his seat.

  Dr. Lamar laughed: a harsh blast of sound that had no humor in it. “That’s absurd. There’s no reason to suspect that either of them were killed.” He didn’t even ask why Moses suggested the idea, he was beyond that line of thought.

  “Not really. A relatively healthy, elderly woman dies from a complicated but rapid respiratory failure. And a fit, middle-aged male - without even a hint of cardiac history - dies from sudden heart death. Both of them in the same facility and both without warning. Granted, there was considerable time between the two events, but you have to admit the similarity is striking.”

  “I’ll admit no such thing, sir.” Lamar was getting agitated now. “First off, Mrs. Petersen died on the shuttle two weeks out from Mars. It wasn’t sudden. And even though Epps had no history, middle-aged men die from cardiac events without warning all of the time. It isn’t unheard of.”

  “Adrie was on the shuttle for respiratory issues, not frailty. I couldn’t get reports on her, so there’s no way I can look into her death after she left the planet.” Sweat was really building up on Lamar’s forehead now. He had to wipe it constantly to keep the sweat out of his eyes. “And no man who went through the screenings that Epps endured should have had unexpected heart complications. There was no undiscovered birth defect, hidden cholesterol, or genetic deficiency that could sneak by the ICE pre-testing procedures. At this point, there is no reason to think they weren’t murdered.”

  “Quit saying that word!” Lamar was losing it. “Nobody was mu- . . . killed. There were no other people around. Both of them were alone at the time of their death and -”

  “People are murdered alone all the time.”

  “. . . and . . . and their blood came back clean. There were no unusual toxins, no abnormalities in either persons’ bodies.”

  “So you did check for it.” Moses replied quietly this time in an attempt to calm Lamar down. It worked.

  “Of course I checked for it. You think I wouldn’t check for cause of death for people who were so thoroughly tested on a regular basis?” He was completely passive now, no emotion in his voice. Almost like he had none left to give to the problem. Maybe Moses had misread him. “I was doing my job like I was supposed to. Petersen died on the shuttle, like I said. Her post-mortem was done on Earth with her preserved remains. But I re-ran her labs twenty times with samples I still had left over here. Until there was nothing left to test. And Epps - well, after a few days with no conclusive results Jacobs told me to leave it alone. The hab was beginning to have a drop in productivity, and the Homestead Agreement took priority over an unfortunate loss of life. He said that for the good of the people left behind, we all needed to move on. And he was my superior officer while I was on Homestead IV. It’s not like anybody was murdered. The man just died. Does it matter how?”

  “So it’s Jacob’s signature on this box?”

  Lamar nodded.

  “I thought it was the direction of Station III who performed the investigation. Why was Jacobs even here for that? Shouldn’t he have been home at his own habitat
?”

  Lamar flushed. “Chief Jacobs was here for the duration also, and was very involved in the work. He did not care for the implications that these issues would cause his residents to lose productivity because of mysterious situations. He wanted everyone to keep working at full productivity. We were already short a doctor, and he didn’t want anyone else sent home for poor productivity. So he helped rush the investigation.”

  Moses had not considered the Homestead Agreement as a factor in the lack of proper investigation. But it made sense when you considered it from ICE’s perspective. They never promised security to the people that gave up everything to come here and terraform this planet. And if people started to question that arrangement things could get difficult. For everyone.

  It would be imperative to proceed more cautiously with his investigation. He had let his suspicions known tonight, but he wasn’t worried about Lamar. As long as nobody higher up had a clue about his theories they wouldn’t lean on the doctor, and he sure didn’t have enough backbone to bring it up on his own.

  “My concern,” Moses lied, “is that there is a contaminant issue or disease inside Homestead IV. We know that both deaths had a similar coarse, now we just need to figure out the cause. It will cost ICE more in the long term to keep replacing personnel than it will to understand and eliminate the problem.

  Lamar looked away, embarrassment on his face. That was the opportunity Moses was looking for. He began packing the personal belongings of his dead predecessor back in the box. He palmed the insect and the sample of fluid and slipped them into a pocket while Dr. Lamar was studying the shelves of books on the other side of the room.

  He needed one more day to find out the rest of the information it would take to get a clear picture of the truth. Then he could go back home. And he wasn’t worried about Lamar sharing his suspicions higher up the chain of command. He obviously had no backbone, and wouldn’t want to be the one who had to give his superiors bad news.