Justice (12 page)

She fired.

The red blast
set the shrub on fire and very nearly burnt the President’s body to
a crisp. She darted in and grabbed hold of his arm. She pulled with
full force, her teeth clenched as she heaved. His body came out
from under the shrub as the vines recoiled from the flames and
slunk back into the undergrowth.

“
What the—” Nova said as she stepped over Geron’s ruined
body.

Something
glinted under the nearby shrubs. On a planet populated completely
by plants, something glinting was something worth paying attention
to.

She leaned in
closer and with a cautious hand brushed aside the leaves; her white
gloves shielding her from any poisonous barbs. She held her breath,
afraid that she would find another body tucked beneath the leaves.
What would that mean to the investigation?

When the
foliage parted she did find another body. Rather than a human
corpse, she was faced with the silver sheen of a robot.

“
Cal, do you get any recognition on this one?” she
asked.

“
That is the only robot of that type registered in the dome;
otherwise we would have sent them to find the President. It’s a
manual labourbot patented to Terraform Incorporated.”

“
Why the hell is it out here with the President’s
body?”

“
Unknown,” Cal replied.

Nova rolled
her eyes and grabbed hold of the robot’s head. No lights came to
life on the robot’s body, nor were there any noise from its
processors. For whatever reason, it had powered down. She pulled it
out of the trees so that it lay next to the President. The two of
them looked almost at peace, or at least they would if half of the
President’s body wasn’t missing and his face wasn’t twisted in
agony.

She knelt down
by the robot and pried open the front panel to reveal the circuitry
beneath. The fuel gauge hovered at zero, practically impossible for
a modern robot that could run on almost anything, including
sunlight.

She turned the
robot over and pulled off the back panel to the fuel storage cells.
Where the solar panel should have been, lay a collection of broken
wires. Someone had ripped the solar panel straight off.

Lower down
where the liquid fuel was stored pooled a sticky mess. Something
had punctured the fuel canister and created a hole through which
all the fuel had drained. It was a wonder the robot had made it
this far from the complex on the backup fuel supplies.

“
Someone sabotaged it,” Nova said.

“
It looks like the circuits have been fried too,” Cal
said.

He was right.
Some of the inner circuitry was burnt away.

“
What would it do?” Nova asked. She could have sat there and
analysed the inner workings of the robot herself but the last thing
she wanted to do was spend extra time in the dark jungle surrounded
by killer plants.

“
It’s mostly the command circuitry. My guess is that whoever
did it, made it so they could point the robot in a direction, tell
it to walk, and it would keep going until it ran out of power. Its
higher intelligence has been removed as well as its survival
instincts. It’s basically been returned to the state of last
century’s machines.”

“
So they kill the President, give him to the robot, and send
the robot on its way into the jungle?”

“
Yes, it explains why the footprints were in the storage bay
so quickly. The perpetrator would only have had to go outside for a
few minutes to put the robot on its way. On the outside there are
no return footprints to follow because the robot that made the
prints is still out there.”

“
Of course,” said Nova. “Our list of suspects is just as long
as ever because we can’t assume they were missing for
hours.”

“
Exactly,” said Cal.

“
Great.” Nova snatched the antigravs from her bag. “I think
we’ve taken all we can from here. I’ll cart them both back and
we’ll continue our investigations there. I want to get the hell out
of this damned forest.”

She attached
the antigravs to the robot and hauled Geron’s remains on top of its
body. The metal lumps whirred into life, lifting the robot, and
Geron, a few inches from the ground. She threw the rope around the
robots arms and recreated her simple harness, slipping her arms
through the loops. The soft tug of the bodies sent a new shot of
pain through her injured shoulder, but she gritted her teeth and
kept moving.

“
You’re going to have to skirt around,” Cal said into her ear.
“Thanks to the low oxygen levels, the fire you started is burning
out, but you’ll have to go around it.”

“
No problem,” said Nova.

She adjusted
her course. It would mean she’d take longer to get back to the
dome, but after all the strain of getting to the President, a part
of her didn’t want to go back. It was all very well to trek through
a plant-riddled jungle to find a body, but trying to solve a murder
investigation with the likes of Zorka on board was another thing
entirely. The last thing Nova felt like doing was hanging up her
holster and talking to those closest to the President.

If only there
was a way to solve the investigation using brute force. Of course,
she was fairly certain she could get the truth out of most of the
complex if she was left to her own devices, but no doubt the
Confederacy would have some problems with her methods.

Thoughts of
the Confederacy made her stomach clench. Jack’s words still haunted
her mind, running in circles like a broken record. If what he said
was true, and she didn’t doubt it, then she and Aart had a much
bigger problem than they’d initially thought.

She glanced
over her shoulder at the President. Had he participated in
cannibalistic rituals? If he had, then he probably deserved his
fate in the end. She tried to reconcile the polite and charismatic
man she’d seen talking at the ceremony with a cannibalistic savage.
It was impossible, and yet he wouldn’t be the first one. It was
even harder to try and reconcile that image with the dead corpse
dragging along behind her.

It took her
the rest of the day to get Geron’s body within sight of the
complex. By then the sun was setting and the trees cast long
shadows. The jungle grew dark and if she had taken even half an
hour longer, she was sure she’d have been plunged into total
darkness. The trip back had been relatively uneventful. Either the
plants had decided she wasn’t worth the effort and slunk back into
the darkness of the trees, or they were avoiding the fire.

“
Thank goodness,” said Jimmy when the airlock opened and Nova
stepped in.

“
Not quite,” she said, gesturing to the corpse dragging along
behind her.

“
Oh my –” Jimmy clapped a hand over his mouth, turning away
from the body. He gagged and his body convulsed, colour dropping
away from his face.

“
Why don’t you take five?” Nova asked kindly.

Jimmy nodded,
not daring to speak as he hurried away from the President’s
remains.

“
I guess that solves one question,” Cal said, hovering to
Nova’s side.

“
Yep. We need to get the medbot in here right away. Try to
keep it on the quiet.”

“
Affirmative. Also the fire choked out about an hour ago, it
won’t reach anywhere near the complex,” said Cal.

“
Good. That’s one less thing to worry about.”

Cal hovered
over to the nearest complex-wide communication booth and spoke with
the local medbot. He had only just backed away from the booth when
the barricaded door burst open. The silent shipping bay was
suddenly filled with shouting and stomping feet.

“
Jimmy! Five minutes is up,” Nova hollered, pulling out her
gun. She was still wearing most of her suit, except her helmet,
which was lying on the ground by her side.

Jimmy jumped
into action. With the help of the other Hunters he managed to shut
the door and stop more people pouring in. The crowd outside yelled
and cursed, but they couldn’t get past without the risk of being
shot.

Nova surveyed
the small group that had managed to gain entry. She let out a sigh
of relief when she saw that Zorka wasn’t among them.

The group
surged forward towards Geron’s body, pushing against each other.
Some screamed when they saw him, while others fell to the
ground.

Nova rushed to
the front, holding out her hands and blocking the body. “Stay back!
This is evidence in the investigation. Anyone who tampers with
evidence will be arrested!”

The crowd
shuffled to a halt, looking up at Nova through bloodshot eyes.

“
Cal! How the hell did these people know that I’d brought him
in?”

“
I—”

“
We deserved to know!” wailed Geron’s wife, Meaghan. “At least
the medbot had the decency to tell us.”

Nova’s jaw
tensed. The medbot. So much for medical confidentiality.

Geron’s body
lay on the floor of the landing bay. The suit that had been so
crisp and cleanly pressed when they’d last seen him, was now ripped
and tattered. Half of his body was missing, torn away or eaten, and
scratches covered every exposed inch of his remaining skin, the red
marks glowing in the harsh light.

Nova stood
over Geron’s body and stared down at it. This was the last thing
she’d expected for Drigoon’s opening ceremony. It was supposed to
be a simple mission, but now things were complicated. It was only
with the threat of the jungle behind her that she could really
think about what his death would mean. Not just for the
terraforming industry, but also for her. She’d agreed to solve the
case and now she was obligated to see it through.

The security
guard, Bruce, took in the scene with a single sweep of his gaze.
“What have you done?” He took a giant step towards her.

“
Back off, Bruce. I didn’t kill your President,” Nova said,
her feet firmly planted.

“
It sure as hell looks like it,” Bruce said, waving his hand
at the corpse by her feet.

Nova rolled
her eyes and folded her arms across her chest, staring at the brute
standing before her. In a quiet tone she said, “In case you were
asleep for the last two days, I’ve been out trekking through that
pain-in-the-ass jungle trying to find your President’s body. I did
not suddenly get caught red handed with him.”

Meaghan
stepped forward from her place behind Bruce, her face deathly pale.
Her heeled shoes clicked on the metal flooring as she pushed past
the security guard. The noise stopped as Meaghan froze in place;
her eyes locked with horror on Geron’s corpse. Her hand flew to her
open mouth as she collapsed to her knees beside Geron’s body.

She reached
for his face.

“
Whoa!” Nova said, snatching Meaghan’s wrist and holding it
away from the corpse. “No touching. It’s evidence.”

“
He’s
my husband!” Meaghan
wailed.

Nova didn’t
let go. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I can’t let you touch the
body.”

Meaghan glared
at Nova, her eyes flashing, as she whipped her wrist away and
crawled on her knees a few feet away.

Dustin Feders
stood just behind Meaghan, but unlike her, Geron’s son was much
more restrained with his emotions. He stopped walking and stared at
the body for a few moments. His face showed nothing, not even
surprise.

Meaghan
started weeping, her sobs echoing through the shipping bay. Dustin
sauntered away from the commotion to stand in a far corner. He
stared at the scene, but didn’t say a word and his facial
expression didn’t change.

Perhaps most
surprising of all was the response of Leon; Geron’s personal
assistant. The thin man wore a bright yellow suit and his red beard
was trimmed with precision. As soon as he entered the room a wail
escaped his lips. He ran to Geron’s body and knelt on the opposite
side to Meaghan. His hand hovered above the corpse before he
blinked and stepped away from the body. He pulled a piece of cloth
from his pocket and wept into it as he watched the scene
unfold.

As each person
came forward Nova took careful note of their reactions; the way
they looked at the body and the rest of the room, whether they
tried to touch him. What if someone close to the President had
wanted him dead?

“
Do you have an alibi?” Bruce said over the raucous of
Meaghan’s wails and Leon’s sobbing.

“
Of course not, I was wondering around the dark corridors just
like everyone else when he went missing,” Nova said with her arms
still folded across her chest. “But I would have to be mad to
voluntarily walk out into that jungle, not just once, but
twice.”

“
You just happened to walk out there and find the body?” Bruce
asked with a sneer.

“
No,
actually.
It’s taken me two days and a lot of trouble to track it down.
I realise you must be too thick to get that through your head. But
if you really need an alibi for my trek through the jungle please
feel free to talk to Jack. I believe he’s currently recovering from
critical injuries sustained whilst we were out there.” Nova thrust
her hand towards Jimmy. “Or you can talk to him, seeing as he’s
been bravely guarding the door while I was gone.”

At Nova’s
gesture everyone in the room turned to look at the young Hunter who
stepped away from them until his back pressed against the shipping
bay door. His eyes bounced from person to person as if looking for
an escape route, but of course there wasn’t one.