Exodus, page 5
She tried to focus, turning her face away from the gurney occupied by the dead man as it passed out of the cabin. “I don’t know. Can’t think. Give me a minute. I found him like that.”
The security guard pressed her hard. “Why didn’t you get your Companion to give CPR?”
From a distance, she heard her own voice blurting out the visions in her head. “I didn’t think. I didn’t think. I…” Her voice faded away.
“Doctor, I need information. It is my job.”
“Enough!” Mari cut him off.
She wrapped an arm around Arista’s shoulder and stepped between her and the guard. “Windsor was recording a show. Check his data files on the console. Do I have to do all your work for you?”
“Wait.” The guard’s eyes took on a faraway look of people who communing via their implants.
Mari helped Arista stand and ease down onto the bed. “Medic, she’s in shock, cold and shivering. Give her something.”
The doctor approached, scowling, and administered something or other via a medpad pressed against Arista’s neck.
The guard called Skivvy into the cabin. “Companion, tell me what you saw.”
There was a brief silence as heads turned to listen.
“As my assigned human is no more, on the orders of SuperCore, this unit is shutting down.” Skivvy fell silent. It stood stock-still. It became a statue.
The doctor’s mouth opened in shock, then her face turned red in anger. “Companion unit. Wake up and answer the damn question!”
Receiving no response, the guard strode closer to Skivvy and prodded its chest. “Anyone in there? Can you hear me?”
Another black-uniformed man entered her field of vision. His voice was gentle. “Stand down, Boris. I’ll take over. Escort Doctor Noaga to another compartment. Leave Doctor Noam here with me.”
“Yes, Captain.” The junior officer obeyed, taking Mari by the arm. She did not resist, but cast a sympathetic look at Arista as she left the room.
“Companion, fetch a drink of water.” The new arrival’s voice was firm and authoritative, yet somehow reassuring in Arista’s vulnerable state.
“Yes, Captain Varrick.” Kibitzer headed for the shower room.
Arista took her first proper look at the officer and was further reassured. Medium height, average looks, light brown hair, a sympathetic look in his kind hazel eyes…
He sat on the bed and turned to face her, leaning forward and taking on a relaxed demeanor. He spoke quietly, gently probing. “My name is Mike. How are you? Feel up to talking through what you saw?”
She nodded. The medication was working. “Feeling a bit better. Ask away.”
“Good. We’ll go slow and steady. I’ve summoned technicians. They’ll play the recording and see if they can wake up this unit. The data managers are contacting SuperCore. Let’s see if we can find out what occurred here. Okay?”
So he’ll see what happened. I’m just filling in the details. He doesn’t suspect me. She sat up and nodded again. “I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Good. Very good. So run through what happened. Take it slow.”
She replayed her experience in her head and told it from the very start: Barry arranging an interview, her discovery, her attempt at CPR, telling Kibitzer to summon help, and the medics arriving.
His thoughtful expression deepened as her tale unfolded. “Thank you. We have no forensics team on the station. Never needed one before. So your report is very important. Do you know about the ornament? Have you seen it before?” He indicated a blood-soaked object laying next to the body.
She looked down at the weapon. It was a bronze shield the size of two hands bearing an embossed viewscreen. Her stomach tensed at the sight of the blood. “Yes, it’s his Online Science Journalist of the Year Trophy.”
“He smuggled that up?” Varrick sounded incredulous.
“No. It was presented to him here. His sponsors funded the payload costs. His acceptance speech was televised, I think.” She ended wearily and turned her face away.
Two technicians arrived, identified by their blue armbands. Varrick updated them in a few words. They began work, one on the recording equipment, the other on Skivvy.
Kibitzer arrived with the water. Varrick told it to wait outside. Arista sipped at the welcome refreshment. They sat in silence until the technician reported he had recovered the latest recording.
“Play it,” Varrick said.
11. POST MORTEM
BARRY’S HEAD and shoulders appeared on the workstation’s monitor, superimposed on a starry background. He turned his head to one side, nodded, then faced the camera again, switching on his charm-oozing persona. “A warm welcome from the heights of space to my faithful followers below. This is a special broadcast. It won’t pass the censor so I’ll store it in the usual place. I want to make this recording now, security date stamped and all, so when it’s released you’ll all know your favorite space expert had all the right contacts and gathered all the crucial data, well before the authorities released the information.
“So here it is. Tonight I’ll reveal to you several shocking revelations regarding the experimental warp drive. Firstly, the failure of the drive was foreseen by the SuperCore and Dr. Kaida. Now how did they know with such certainty? Secondly, I can expose the conspiracy regarding the funding of the drive. I have the names. You will be shocked. And there’s more I want to reveal. Keep watching.
“But first, a word from our sponsor.
“Editing note. Cut away to the crap I have to push to pay for my lifestyle.”
His head jerked to the left while his face twisted in disbelief and fear. “What are you doing? Get back!”
Barry’s image veered off-screen. The recording ended. The screen went black.
Varrick thanked the techie, who joined his colleague working on the Mek.
“Well, that helped. We have a range of suspects. Doctor Kaida and some financial conspirators. From what I’ve guessed for some time, that last category would include station administrators, unknown financial backers, and more specifically a certain Mr. Smith.”
He turned back to Arista. “And, of course, you.”
She recoiled. “I told you I found him like that. He was already dead.”
He nodded.
“Look, don’t you have security camera observation or something?” Arista asked.
“Only in the admin ring and the habitat ring’s common areas like arrivals and commissary. Nothing in the dormitory walkways or cabins for reasons of, you know, privacy. We have no record of who came and went today.”
He leaned closer. “Except you.”
“The commissary? Then you’ll have me on the monitoring systems, just before I came here.” Arista folded her arms.
Varrick nodded. “Yes, I’ve been informed.” He tapped the side of his head.
“So I am no longer a suspect?”
“Let’s say you’re no longer a prime suspect. You still had time to attack him before you sent the emergency call.”
Arista felt a flush of anger. Anger at him and at herself. She stood, only a little unsteadily. “So all this soft talk was just to lull me? Boris, then you. Hard cop, soft cop routine?”
Varrick’s brow furrowed as he shook his head slightly. “What’s that?”
The meds must’ve softened me up. I liked him, dammit. I liked him.
“Well, I’m headed back to my cabin unless you’re going to arrest me. I have work to do. I can’t leave the station, so I’ll be easy to find.”
“Doctor Noam—” he said, reaching out for her arm.
Damn those kind eyes, damn them!
She swerved out of reach and stormed out, almost colliding with technicians pushing another gurney into the cabin.
Varrick’s voice drifted through the closing door. “Get what you can out of this unit, please.”
She liked that he chose to add that last word. Despite the circumstance, Varrick was… She tried to find the word.
A thought intruded.
“Kibitzer, why did Skivvy shut down?”
“The assigned human is no longer functional. We are each assigned to a single, specific, living human. The unit is awaiting a new assignment.”
“And its data store?”
“The assigned human’s personal records are deleted when the assignment ends for privacy reasons. This is as specified in the Operating Instructions Manual, Item—”
“Okay. I get it.” Privacy is valuable, she supposed, even though there’s so little of it these days.
Arista met Musa in the walkway, hurrying in the opposite direction.
He halted and asked, a little out of breath, “Are you okay? I just heard. Definitely dead?”
“Afraid so.”
He grabbed her upper arms. “Did they recover any data? The recordings?”
She shook her head. “Nothing useful. Mek shut down. They’re trying to retrieve—”
“You okay?”
She nodded.
He released her. “I should be there. We’ll meet later. I have things to tell you.” He hurried off toward the murder scene.
She stepped aside for a group of people jogging around the ring’s walkway. Her thoughts were increasingly muzzy. A message from Musa awaited her on her cabin’s vidcomm system, announcing the planned analysis meeting was deferred until fifteen hundred hours. Sighing with relief, she fell onto her bed, voiced the lights off, and slipped into medication-assisted sleep.
But her subconscious never stopped working.
* * *
The team meeting was a subdued affair. Each member glanced at Barry’s empty chair as they entered, then took obvious pains to avoid looking at it.
Mira asked Arista how she was feeling. She closed her eyes and nodded reassurance.
Musa was last to arrive.
“Any news?” Kaida asked. Everyone knew what she meant and looked at him.
“No.” He sat.
That was abrupt, especially for him. His body is so tense, Arista thought. She remembered his position was insecure if the AD test failed. He had more reason than any of them to be tense, although her own status was in the balance.
He spoke quietly. “We must try to put recent events out of our thoughts though I know it’s difficult. Security has made no progress, it seems. But the SCP heads are still pressing me for answers. What can I tell them?”
No one seemed willing to speak. Finally, Pierre asked, “I assume the water balloon theory did not go public?” A look of guilt filled his face. He reddened and tried to find something to look at, on the table, the walls, anywhere but a colleague’s eyes.
“No,” Musa said.
Arista took a deep breath and said, “I’ve thought it through. I think... I think Barry’s simplification holds the explanation.”
She used her workpad to throw a series of equations onto the wall screen, speaking as she progressed. “Pierre was right there is no down in space, just the pull of gravity and there’s no natural gravity inside a warp bubble. But…”
Musa and Mira leaned forward as the whole team listened to Arista slowly outlined her thinking.
“Theory has it that there are eleven dimensions, seven of which we cannot detect. We also have the multiverse theories. Combine them in the unique environment of a Higgs-distorted warp bubble, and the craft might have ‘slid’ along one of those dimensions into a parallel universe, one where distance has a different meaning.”
“Hmm…” said Musa. “So darkspace is another universe, perhaps a pocket universe or something we haven’t yet theorized about?”
There was no reaction to Musa’s use of Barry’s nickname for the alternate universe.
“Right,” Arista nodded her head. “The end result is that we’ve solved the first problem. We can travel instantaneously through our own universe. Now we just have to establish targeting and distance.”
Pierre chuckled. “So the easy part is done? But that is an excellent working theory.”
“And one I can sell to the management group,” said Musa.
Kaida spoke up. “So the bubble and its contents pass into an alternate reality and travel… let’s call it ‘down’, in the direction the Higg’s field is dragging the bubble contents. They travel until the Higgs stops functioning and the bubble ‘floats’ back into normal space like a balloon, or a cork, held underwater, but somewhere else.”
“Yes, you have it,” Aristra confirmed. She illustrated her theory with a mathematical maze of formulae thrown onto the wall display.
Pierre stared hard as she progressed. Finally, he slumped in his seat and said in a quiet voice, “I withdraw my objections.”
Musa looked around at the others. “Anyone else?”
Kaida and Mira shook their heads..
“I like it, too,” he said, grinning broadly and losing much of his initial tension.
He checked the time. “I’ll prepare my report. Take the rest of the day off, everyone.” He turned his attention to his workpad.
Arista tinkered with the layout of her formulation until only Musa remained.
“You said, in the corridor earlier, you said you had something to tell me.”
A sense of urgency filled his voice as his body tensed. “Yes. Listen. This is more important than you know. What I said the other day. In the workplace, you know?” He jerked his head toward her, urging her to remember.
“Yes, about—”
“You must forget I said anything. Forget what I said. It never happened, okay? It’s vital that you do.”
“Okay. But—”
“I have to go and prepare my report.” He stood and picked up his workpad. “Thank you, Arista.”
“For forgetting?”
“Yes, that. And also for saving our skins with your formulation.” With that, he was gone.
Puzzled, she closed her workings and headed back to her cabin.
12. VARRICK
CAPTAIN VARRICK called Arista via her portable, bypassing Kibitzer. His face held a neutral expression with a hint of smile around his hazel eyes.
She set aside the analysis she was composing.
“How are you feeling today, Doctor?”
“Much better, thanks.” She let some snide slip into her voice, having not forgiven him yet for their previous meeting.
“Good to hear. I wondered, could you drop in for a chat sometime this morning?”
“More interrogation, Captain?”
“No, no,” he backpedaled, looking perhaps slightly embarrassed.
“And call me Mike. You’re no longer a suspect. Never really were in my view, but I had to treat you as one until you were cleared, you understand. To be honest, I don’t feel you have the upper body strength to do that damage to Dr. Windsor. No offense intended.”
“None taken. I skipped gym the past few years. So why do you want to see me?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Consultancy. You know everyone involved better than I do.”
“Sure. In an hour?” She found she was looking forward to meeting him but could not work out why.
“Perfect. Thank you.” His smile was warmer than she remembered. In fact, the man’s entire demeanor was more friendly than before. Perhaps it was because she was no longer a suspect.
A man just a little older than me, a man with authority, yet with a gentleness about him. Like Musa, but younger. A cop in a place where no offender can flee and everyone here is committed to the mission, both of which must discourage basic criminality. It must be pretty damn boring. From Musa’s explanation, any financial crime takes place on Earth, beyond Varrick’s jurisdiction. Now he’s got a real crime—a murder, no less—to handle. Must be tough.
A thought clung to her. The only people she really knew were the team members, who knew each other perhaps better than she did, having spent longer aboard the station together. She shrugged it off and wound up the piece she was writing. Arista found she was looking forward to seeing him again, now her mind was clear, just to see…
Maybe…
Arriving at Varrick’s office at the appointed hour, she found it was little different from her own workspace, apart from the bank of monitor screens covering three of the walls. Surveillance camera images flickered and changed viewpoint constantly.
He stood as she entered. “Thank you for coming. Do take a seat. Your Companion should wait outside. Coffee?”
She eased into one of the three seats across the desk from where he had been sitting. “Kibitzer, wait outside. And black, Captain, no sugar.”
“Call me Mike. This is an informal meeting.” He took his time preparing the coffee after the Mek exited. He seemed in no hurry.
“Is this office free from surveillance?” she asked, nodding at the wall monitors.
“Certainly it is,” he said, half-turning to look at her before returning to the coffee. “Why?”
“Just curious. So your implant isn’t connected to the system?”
“It always is. In case of emergencies. I noted that you don’t have an implant,” he said as he handed her a mug before sitting.
“Right. Maybe that’s why I’m curious about them. And thanks for the coffee.”
Arista forced herself not to look at the monitors as their constant scene-changing gave her a headache. She looked into the mug, seeing the liquid surface slope slightly in a manner becoming familiar. She smiled at how quickly she’d adapted, continuing her daily life with just occasional dizziness until something such as this reminded her of exactly where she was.
“So how can I help, Captain?”
Resting his elbows on the desktop, he steepled his fingers, and tapped them against his lips. “Call me Mike. I’m not one for titles. Here’s the thing. I’ve discounted you. No motive, probably unable to strike the blow and your distress at the murder was convincing.”
She was uncertain how to react, so said a neutral, “Thank you.”
“Kaida Sato’s build is even more… slight than yours. At least, neither of you could have achieved it alone. I understand the financiers would have made her team leader if the test drive failed?”
