by Ander Nesser
The Vandal's Shadow
a novelette by
Ander Nesser
Text and cover art copyright 2016 Ander Nesser
All Rights Reserved
Scenes
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11:17 PM >
Wyatt Kask stood at his hotel room window smoking a cigar. He waved his hand over a panel, and the sliding door opened to the balcony. A night wind ruffled his gray beard. The Wellington cityscape was like a field of black knives on which the clouds cut themselves slowly. He reached for the glass of scotch on a nearby table, but hesitated, his stance swaying momentarily.
"Service?" he called out.
"Yes, Mr. Kask," a voice from the ceiling said.
"My scotch moved."
"I am sorry, your service provider does not comprehend. Please restate your statement."
"My scotch moved around in its glass. Is the hotel about to tip over?" He looked down to smaller towers, over a hundred stories below.
"No, Mr. Kask. The hotel is engineered to sway under certain conditions. The Wellington area is currently experiencing some mild tremors, but there is no need for concern. All structures in Wellington are built to withstand apocalyptic seismic events."
"Great. I'm in town less than two hours and already on the brink of disaster. Why must people build cities on fault lines?" Kask took a drink.
"The area has a long history of human habitation, first being settled by Maori circa 1280 of the Gregorian Calendar."
"Thank you, that's enough. It was a rhetorical question. What time is it now?"
"Twenty-three eighteen."
Kask poured another glass and stepped out onto the balcony. The clouds were lit from below by the lights of the city. He released some cigar smoke and then took a deep breath of fresh air. Crowds flowed on the suspended walkways below, and trains shot in and out of black facades at all levels.
"Mr. Kask, you have a call from an Officer Chang," the hotel service said.
Kask stepped back into the room. "Finally."
"Would you like me to open the connection?"
"Yes," Kask said.
"Wyatt Kask?" a human voice asked.
"Yes, this is he."
"I'm Officer Chang of GU Wellington Patrol. Thank you for coming to the city on such short notice. I'm in the lobby--may I come up to see you?"
"Sure." Kask put out his cigar and sat in a chair facing the door. A few moments later, the door chimed. "Enter," Kask said.
Officer Chang entered along with another officer, both fully uniformed and carrying their spears. The second policeman closed the door behind him.
"Detective Kask, Patrolman Chang." The first officer bowed. "This is my partner, Patrolman Ngata." The second one bowed as well.
"Please, I'm retired. You can call me 'mister.'"
"Oh, of course. And thanks again for coming all the way to Wellington. You're the closest homicide detective we could find. Is that cursive Chinese?" He referred to the black tattoo running along the center of Kask's bald scalp, from brow to spine.
"No, Mongolian. Got it in one of the frontier settlements. It's a reminder of a great debt I owe to someone."
Chang took a step closer. "Oh, now I can see it's not Chinese. You must have had many wild adventures out in the colonies. It's such an honor to meet a colonial lawman, especially a detective."
"Thanks. Yes, I could tell you some stories you wouldn't believe. But in speaking of which, I gather you called me here for some rather unbelievable reason. There's been a murder?"
"Yes sir. Well, we think. We'd like you to confirm."
Kask said nothing, pouring himself another drink. Chang seemed about to say something, but waited. "There's not been any murder on Earth for decades," Kask said after taking a sip.
"Right, you're absolutely right. That's why we thought we'd better bring in someone like you on this."
"Someone like me?"
"With your experience," Chang said quickly. "I'm sure you've had to handle much rougher situations out there in the colonies than anything little old Wellington can throw at you."
Kask shrugged. "Possibly. Anyway, I'm just retired. I've had enough adventure for several lifetimes."
"And I would take the guess that perhaps the reason you retired to Earth is its safety compared to the colonies," Chang said.
Kask nodded.
"So, do you really want to retire to a world with murder?" Chang asked.
Kask looked out the window, then back at them. "Alright, fine. I'll help you as long as it's understood that the Wellington Police owe me a favor."
"The exchange of favors with public officials is illegal on Earth," Ngata said.
"Okay, then how about we say the sheriff owes me a bottle of scotch, which he can drink with me when he's off the job." Kask stood, finishing his drink. "Well, we're wasting time. I should look at the crime scene as soon as possible. Is forensics there yet?" He put on his trench coat.
"Forensics?"
"Yes, forensics." Kask put on his fedora and they headed out of the hotel room.
"I'm afraid we don't have such a department, at least not for physical crimes." Triangular sconces threw yellow along the hallway, but somehow it remained dim.
"I'm not surprised." They reached the elevator and began the silent descent to the main lobby. The elevator stopped once on floor 693 to let on a ball-bot carrying a tray of empty glasses. Its capping module, modeled vaguely after the head of an owl, politely swiveled to face the doors' interior.
The main lobby was on floor 200. When the three humans stepped off the elevator, the curving window-front showed the interior of a cloud layer illuminated by diffuse spheres of light from other buildings. They headed across the black and gold floor to the arches of the main entrance and emerged onto the public train platform. A train emerged from the fog and stopped shortly after they walked onto the platform, but the patrolmen ignored it and led Kask down some stairs. They emerged onto a small suspended ledge which opened onto another rail line directly below the public train.
"The emergency line," Chang said and nodded toward a lone, small transporter, sleek for speed. "It's much faster than what you're used to." Chang looked at a randomly changing number on his badge and typed it into an access terminal, interleaving it with a memorized pass code. The access gate slid open, and Chang gestured for Kask and Ngata to board first. They entered the silvery interior and strapped into thickly padded black seats, with Chang in the forward station.
"Patrol Car 9374, this is Patrolman X. Chang piloting. Enter destination: Carter Observatory."
"Unable to comply," the patrol car said. "That destination is restricted."
"Override restriction with Case Code 20486."
"Destination entry successful."
Chang's final command was not oral: he swept a finger in a circular motion over a touch dial, and the transporter moved forward, then quickly accelerated.
Kask looked out at the multicolored lights streaking through the haze. "Carter Observatory. The crime scene is there?"
"Yes," Chang answered. "It opened in 1941 and closed in 2173, preserved as a non-functional historic site. But in the early 2200s they stopped preservation, and the flora of the Garden began to take it over. No one much goes there anymore. The crime scene was discovered by a surveillance drone hunting for park squatters."
"You said before that you weren't even certain a murder had actually been committed."
"Yes, well, you'll see when we get there. It's quite a mess. So, let me ask you. What is interstellar hibernation like? I've never met anyone who's done it."
"Not that bad.
Quite convenient, actually. The process is much smoother now than when it was first implemented by the Central Kingdom Space Administration."
"So you're genetically engineered to produce those chemicals?"
"Cryoprotectants, yes. Humans can't survive the freezing process otherwise."
"Your clothes are quite unusual," Ngata said. "Is that what they wore on Earth in your time?"
"No, these were already quite out of date. But I spent some time on a colony where it was popular for people to manufacture clothes of their choice from various historical periods. I chose this, and just stuck with it ever since. Got some odd looks when I went back to Shanghai, though."
Ngata nodded. "Is it true about the level of lawlessness on the frontier?"
"I suppose it's slightly exaggerated. In one year I solved five homicides in a settlement of less than ten thousand people."
Ngata raised his brows. "That's quite amazing. But how many went unsolved?"
Kask looked at him directly in the eyes. "I solve every case."
"Oh .... Why are there so many murders? Crimes of opportunity? Passion?"
"The settler towns have mayoral computers, of course, to regulate material resources. I found that most often the motive involves the power struggles of social dominance. Out there you come to realize that people are just hairless monkeys with very sophisticated ways of killing each other."
Ngata and Chang exchanged looks, but said nothing else to Kask. He went back to staring out the window. They began to feel deceleration, and the clouds
