Justice (19 page)

“
Is that?” Nova whispered to Cal.

“
Rosemary Hines, according to face matching with the staff
database,” Cal replied.

Nova nodded.
As she stared she was taken aback to see that Rosemary’s eyes
weren’t red so much from crying, but rather that the woman’s eyes
were a startling pink colour. It was a common mod among younger
people; to change their eye colour to something outlandish. The
neon pink Rosemary wore certainly was alien-like.

With that
observation, Nova surmised that the woman had other bodily-mods.
Perhaps that was how she had attracted Geron’s attention?

Nova was so
caught up with studying Rosemary that she didn’t notice when Bruce
came up to her.

“
Come to spy on us some more, hey?” the security guard
asked.

“
Not at all,” Nova replied. “Even I’ve got to eat.”

Bruce grunted.
“Don’t get too comfortable, I’m sure an outer-planet investigation
squad is on their way right now. See how well you do then.”

Nova put down
her fork and turned her eyes up to gaze at the brutish man before
her. “You know, Bruce, you seem so eager to blame me that if I
didn’t know better I’d say you have something to hide.” Nova’s tone
was pleasant but laced with an unspoken threat.

“
What- No! I-” Bruce spluttered, before turning away and
stalking back to Meaghan.

“
I’ll see you in my office in twenty,” Nova called after his
retreating back. He glared at her over his shoulder.

She turned her
attention back to her food and the lone woman in the corner.

Rosemary had
barely had a single bite. She was still pushing food around her
plate when Nova swallowed her last mouthful.

“
Stay here,” Nova said to Cal. “Monitor the
conversation.”

“
Acknowledged,” Cal said.

Nova walked
directly to Rosemary’s table. She had already decided to use a
different tact with this one. The woman was obviously fragile, no
harsh words would be necessary here.

“
Rosemary,” Nova said as she reached the table.

“
Oh, h-hello,” Rosemary responded in a soft voice.

“
May I?” Nova asked, gesturing to the seat beside
Rosemary.

“
Yes, of course,” Rosemary said. Her eyes darted about the
room as if she might flee at any moment.

“
Please don’t fear,” Nova said in the most soothing voice she
could manage. “Do you know who I am?”

“
You’re a bounty hunter, you’re investigating Ge- I mean, the
President’s murder,” Rosemary replied, her voice
shaking.

Nova nodded
and smiled. “I know that you two were… close.”

Rosemary’s
eyes opened wide. “Oh, please don’t tell anyone!” she begged. “If I
lose my job here, I might never find work again. Poor Geron. He
didn’t deserve to die; not like that.”

New tears
welled in Rosemary’s eyes, making the neon pink even shinier.

“
I don’t intend to tell anyone,” said Nova quietly. “I just
need you to answer a few questions.”

“
Of course. Anything to help find the- the monster who did
this.”

Nova nodded,
she would try to make it as painless as possible for the woman. It
was clear she had cared for Geron very much.

“
Where do you come from?” Nova asked, her sharp ears catching
the foreign accent in Rosemary’s voice.

“
Poilon,” Rosemary replied.

“
I’ve not heard of that planet,” Nova said, nodding for
Rosemary to continue.

“
Oh, it’s a beautiful place!” Rosemary gushed. “It’s very
similar to Drigoon actually, covered in plants. The air isn’t
poisonous of course.”

Nova allowed
the corners of her mouth to curve up; an encouraging smile.

“
I left Poilon as a teenager, to explore. I was sick of
working in my parent’s second-hand robotics shop. It turned out to
be a lot harder than I expected.” Rosemary looked down at her hands
and said no more.

“
How did you meet Geron?” Nova asked, risking a tidal wave of
tears from Rosemary, but the woman managed to hold herself
together.

“
The usual way. I needed work and at that point I was willing
to do almost anything. So I got a job cleaning. Of course, he could
have had robots do all of that but Ge- Mister Feders preferred the…
personal touch.”

“
How did you feel about him?” Nova asked.

“
I loved him,” Rosemary said with a shrug. “At least, in my
own way. He gave me everything I could want. He showered me with
attention. He had his faults of course, but who
doesn’t?”

“
Of course.”

“
He was going to leave her, you know,” Rosemary
said.

“
Leave who?”

“
H-his wife, he was going to leave her.”

“
When?” Nova asked. Had Meaghan got wind of Geron’s impending
break-up? Did that make her snap?

“
About four months ago now. I guess he was just waiting for
the right time.”

Rosemary
stared down at her lap.

“
Oh,” Nova said, understanding all too well that Geron
probably never intended to break it off with his wife. Why would he
if he could have the best of both worlds?

“
I’m sorry for your loss,” Nova said, noticing Rosemary’s
trembling lip.

Rosemary
nodded. “Please don’t say anything.” The wide pink eyes pleaded
with Nova as she rose from the table.

Nova nodded
and walked to where Cal was waiting.

“
Let’s go and meet beef-cakes,” Nova said.

***

Bruce stood in
the corridor outside her office waiting, his big arms folded across
his chest. He sneered as she came into view.

“
Nice to see you again,” Nova said, unlocking the door and
strolling in to sit at her desk.

Bruce sat in
the other chair without being asked, arms still across his chest,
his muscles bulging.

“
Wasting more time as far as I can see,” he said.

Nova gritted
her teeth and took a deep breath. She had almost as much as she
could handle of Bruce and his accusations.

“
Tell me what happened when the lights went out.”

Bruce picked
between his teeth with his fingernail as he looked up at the
ceiling. “Not much to say really. The lights went out. I grabbed
the Feders’ and we got out of there; in case it was a terrorist
attack, you know.”

“
You don’t seem worried that your boss is dead. Considering
you’re his head of security, I would think that would be more of a
concern?”

Bruce
shrugged. “Can only protect them for so long.”

“
So you rush them out of the big hall. Then what?”

“
I take them a little way along. The brat gives me the slip as
soon as we’re out the door. Not that I care much what happens to
him. I tried to keep a tighter hold on Geron but he seemed pretty
determined to get away too. In fact I’m pretty certain he tripped
Meaghan so that I’d let go of him.”

Nova’s eyes
narrowed. “He tripped his wife in the dark, on purpose?”

Bruce grunted.
“It’s not like he really cared about her.”

“
But surely your job is to protect him? Meaghan would be a
secondary consideration?”

Bruce’s face
turned red and he leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll put Meaghan
before Geron any day of the week. If that dumb pig wanted to go off
on his own, then that’s his problem.”

“
You seem to care a lot about Meaghan.”

Bruce’s eyes
dropped to the floor and he folded his arms tighter across his
chest.

“
Enough maybe to get rid of her husband?”

Bruce’s eyes
flew to Nova. “I told you he broke away from me! I have no idea
where he went, but he wasn’t with us!”

“
Right now, you and Mrs Feders are the last people to have
seen Geron alive.”

“
Doesn’t mean we killed him. He’s got plenty of enemies and he
ran off on his own.”

Nova pursed
her lips. As much as she disliked Bruce, he didn’t seem like the
kind of man who could pull off an intricate murder and reprogram a
robot. He seemed much more likely to have killed the President in a
brawl than anything else.

“
You’re free to go,” she said.

Bruce grunted
and stomped out of the office without looking back.

***

They couldn’t
leave the planet of course, they were subject to the same lock-down
as everyone else but it felt good to be back in familiar territory.
She had planned to go over Rosemary’s words with Cal, but as soon
as Crusader’s door slid shut behind her, the full force of her
exhaustion washed over her.

She managed to
stumble to her sleeping pod and pull the bed down from the wall.
She collapsed onto the hard mattress. No sooner had her head
reached the pillow, than her eyes slid shut and she was asleep.

Cal had
similarly gone straight for his charging pod, going into a semi-off
sleep phase.

The next
morning Nova woke stiff and tired, but there was an investigation
to finish and a thought had occurred to her in the middle of the
night; the solution felt within reach. By the time she got up, Cal
was already fully charged and moving about Crusader’s small
internal space.

She went
straight to the food generator. “Muesli,” she said, her voice husky
from sleep.

The machine
whirred into action and in just a few seconds the door popped open
to reveal a bowl of muesli, complete with enticing chunks of
fruit.

Nova grabbed
the bowl and sat down in her captain’s chair.

“
We had a message from Tanguin last night,” Cal
said.

“
Oh?”

“
Apparently Geron recently changed his will. Meaghan’s not
getting a cent.”

“
How recently?”

“
Right before the ceremony. It looks like he had the papers
ready to go, he was just waiting for proof I guess.”

“
Wow. If that’s not motive…”

“
Yes.”

“
What did you think of Rosemary?”

Cal floated up
beside her. His red eye moved over Nova’s face as she shovelled a
spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“
I have been running speech diagnostics since I reached full
power.”

“
And?”

“
The woman, Rosemary Hines, was distraught. More upset than
her facial expressions revealed.”

“
Of course she was upset, the man she loved has been murdered
and she could very well be out of a job.”

“
That could be true. However, monitoring systems suggest there
may be more to her emotions.”

Nova nodded
and gestured for Cal to continue.

“
There were no anomalous heart rhythms to suggest she was
lying. All analysers say that everything she said to you was the
truth, or at least she believed it to be true.”

Once more Nova
nodded, she couldn’t say anything with her mouth full of food, so
instead she waved a thank you at Cal. She’d picked up the same
thing from Rosemary; she was telling the truth.

Cal hovered
away.

When Nova
finished her muesli she set the bowl down on the command board and
stood.

“
Time for another day,” she said.

After
showering and putting on clean clothes, Nova jumped down from
Crusader feeling much refreshed. She had had quite enough of
playing detective and was ready to solve this case once and for
all.

She was
halfway across the shipping bay floor when a heavy weight slammed
into her side. She flew off her feet and landed with a crash on her
side. Pain shot through her ribs. She winced as she pushed down
with both hands and rolled out from under the body on top of
her.

She looked at
her attacker’s face and saw Jimmy, his eyes wide and lips
trembling.

“
Jimmy, what the hell—” Nova didn’t get to finish her
sentence, because a blast of purple energy sailed over her
head.

Jimmy pulled
her down behind a pile of crates.

“
I’ve been trying to reach you on your communicator. That
woman, Zorka, has gathered a small army of disgruntled guests. They
just broke a hole in the door. They’re coming in one way or
another,” Jimmy said.

Nova frowned
at him and took a second to look over the crates. Commotion
surrounded the door where gun barrels poked through a blackened
hole of sharp metal, firing shots at random. Black marks from
wayward blasts dotted the landing bay walls. There was a sooty
patch on the floor two metres from her, right where she’d been
standing, before Jimmy slammed into her.

“
You saved me,” Nova said. She felt her face colour as she
looked at the skinny boy next to her. The little runt had saved
her. What was the world coming to?

“
It was nothing. But if we don’t do something now, they’ll be
off of this planet before we know what’s happened.”

“
Okay.”

She pulled out
her communicator; somehow the volume had been turned right down.
That could have cost her her life. She cursed herself for being so
careless that morning. It was the damned investigation. If she
didn’t find the culprit soon, this planet was going to kill
her.