The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 (4 page)

Chapter 4

“Ten plus
one days of Earth” later, the long-hopper finally docked at Observation Platform Zulu, just four hours by short-hopper away from Daisy Hub. Unaware of the situation, both Drew and Teri were out of their seats when the ship entered the platform’s gravity field. They landed with a double thump, Drew on his side, Teri on her backside, both uttering the same angry expletive — in Gally — as they hit the deck.

“He did that on purpose!” Teri fumed.

Unfortunately, she was right. A councilor or a courier — somebody who could have lodged a complaint or made things difficult for the ship’s pilot — would probably have received the courtesy of a warning.

Drew heard something knocking against the hull. Docking clamps, most likely. “Come on,” he said, rubbing his hip with one hand as he pulled Teri to her feet with the other. “We have to debark now.”

“Oh, no… Do people have to see me like this?” she moaned, pawing at her hair and her clothing. “I haven’t showered in — gawd, I feel like something found in the wreckage.”

She actually didn’t look too bad, but Drew wasn’t about to tell her that. After traveling together in a tin can for eleven Earth days, swabbing with pre-moistened towels, sleeping with the light constantly on, eating vacuum-sealed field rations, and sharing a single null-G toilet, he and Teri Mintz had reached an understanding, of sorts. She now understood that he could not be moved by any quantity of whining and complaining, and he now understood that nothing he said to her, regardless of its content or his manner while speaking, would get the desired or expected response. In part, that was because of his accent, which was apparently heavy enough to garble the meaning of some words. Still, even Teri had to acknowledge that his fluency and grammar had remarkably improved over the past week and a half.

Four men emerged from the cockpit then and busied themselves around the cabin. One of them paused to toss each of the passengers a silver-colored bundle and a transparent bubble helmet. The rest ignored them.

Teri had obviously done this before — she was suited up in about five minutes. Drew had been briefed about the exosuits but had never actually put one on. Teri watched him fidget and fumble with the unfamiliar fastenings for a while, then commented drily, “You really are a space virgin, aren’t you, Townsend?”

Yes, he was. And he shouldn’t have been, not according to his cover story. Eligibles went into space all the time. They vacationed on the resort hubs. They attended conferences on Mars and Luna. Drew felt his chest tighten and his cheeks grow warm. “I’m just clumsy, that’s all,” he muttered unhappily. “And if you really want to help…”

“Okay, okay,” she sighed, putting her helmet down on one of the seats. “Stand still for a minute.”

Behind her back, a crewman smirked knowingly at them as he worked on something around the entrance hatch. A choice comment sprang into Drew’s mouth at that moment, but he forced himself to swallow it. He and Teri had probably been the in-flight entertainment for these guys, all the way from Earth. Fortunately, except for some profanity that had slipped out during one of their disagreements, Drew had been a perfect gentleman the whole time. And what was more important, he hadn’t said anything that could compromise either one of his missions, or his ability to carry them out.

The crewman straightened up and backed away from the hatch, nodding satisfaction at his handiwork. “Whenever you’re ready, professors,” he tossed at them, then wheeled and headed back to the cockpit.

As it turned out, Drew hadn’t done too badly with the suit. Teri only had to make a couple of adjustments. When she was satisfied that everything was airtight, she helped him lock his helmet in place before reaching for her own. He forced his gloved fingers through the handle of his briefcase and moved ahead of her to the exit.

The hatch had converted into an airlock. Fortunately for Drew, everything was clearly labeled. He cycled the air, then stepped off the ship — and froze.

He was standing on the curved ‘floor’ of an umbilical walkway, a flexible pipe about two meters in diameter. Somewhere ahead of him lay another airlock door. The walkway was opaque. Glow-bars stuck haphazardly to the metal ribs that hugged its walls and ceiling gave off a dim, sporadic light that seemed to drain everything of color. Suddenly, Drew’s breathing was loud in his ears, and he could feel perspiration tattooing his skin like an icy shower. As a field investigator back on Earth, he would have called for support before venturing into an alleyway that looked like this. But this wasn’t Earth, he reminded himself sternly — it was deep space. His only ‘support’ was Teri Mintz. And no matter how he tried to persuade his imagination that he was simply boarding the Inter-Union ferry at O’Hare, his imagination — and his gut — knew better.

“Keep walking,” warned Teri’s voice inside his helmet. “Or stand aside and let me lead. The air supply in this suit is good for about a minute, that’s all.”

Let her lead? He didn’t dare. Drew tightened his grip on his briefcase and willed his legs to begin moving again.

They reached the platform’s airlock in about a dozen steps. The door opened easily. Passing through it, the two travelers found themselves at the top of a long ramp. Drew paused to remove his gloves and helmet and heard Teri’s sigh echo his own. After eleven days of weightlessness, his muscles weren’t at all happy about having to walk in one G. The ramp couldn’t have sloped more than fifteen degrees downward, but he may as well have been looking down the side of a mountain. And he never had been fond of heights.

“Don’t stop now!” Clearly, Teri’s sigh had been one of impatience.

There was nothing to do but grit his teeth and make his way to the bottom. Partway there, Drew glanced up and saw a tall, square-jawed man in a scarlet and dark blue uniform walking purposefully toward them across what appeared to be an empty warehouse floor. The man grinned broadly and waved without breaking stride. When he reached the bottom of the ramp, he spread his arms wide and bellowed heartily, “Welcome to the Zoo! I’m Ranger Captain Steve Bonelli. We don’t get many visitors passing through here, so I have to tell you, we’re really glad to see you folks.”

“I can imagine,” Drew replied wearily. “I’m Drew Townsend,” he added, shifting the briefcase from right to left and extending his hand for shaking. Instantly he wished that he hadn’t. Bonelli had a grip like a bear trap. “And this is—”

“Teri Martin,” she cut in, her voice even throatier than usual. “I’m a singer. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

Bonelli’s eyes lit up at the sight of her. “An entertainer! No, ma’am, I can’t honestly say that I have. But I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.” Bonelli swept his cap off, revealing a military buzz-cut of indeterminate color. Wisely, he chose not to shake her hand. But Teri’s curves were announcing themselves inside that silver suit, and Drew could tell from the way the captain’s eyes moved over her precisely what was going through his mind.

He could also tell from the way Teri fidgeted beside him that she was in no mood to be ogled this hungrily by someone who didn’t even have the grace to pretend to be a fan. Her chin was rising, a dangerous sign, and the brown eyes were filling with storm clouds. Drew couldn’t help noticing that Bonelli’s nose had been broken in the past. If the Ranger didn’t look somewhere else fast, it was probably going to be broken again. Back in New Chicago, an assault on a field officer would have got them both detained until charges could be laid. Out here in the boonies? Drew didn’t really want to find out.

“Captain?” he ventured, bravely mustering his imperfect Gally vocabulary. “The travel has been long. I’m sure Ms. Martin has a desire to freshen her body before we continue on to Daisy Hub…?”

There was a scathing retort on her tongue, he was sure, regarding Drew’s own “body freshness” at this point, but he was pleased to see that Teri was smart enough — or wanted the promised shower badly enough — to swallow her sarcasm and wait for the guide summoned by Bonelli to lead her off the landing deck.

Once the others were safely out of earshot, Drew turned to the captain and said, “We need to talk about the death research. Is your meanwhile report finished yet?”

Startled, Bonelli stared at him for a moment before replying, “Yes, sir, and as soon as Security passes it on to the Space Installation Authority, I’m sure they’ll be transmitting a copy to your office.”

“You don’t understand. I have Security in my past time.”

The Ranger shook his head, his patience, not to mention his decoding ability, clearly being tested. “They didn’t give you much warning about this posting, did they? With all due respect, Mr. Townsend, I know you spent time attached to a District Security precinct, but that doesn’t make you a field investigator. The Relocation Authority seems to enjoy putting round pegs in square holes. It sticks people in all sorts of places before assigning them off-planet. If you really were a cop, you’d have been posted to the Rangers, not given a make-work desk job like managing Daisy Hub. So, my advice to you is to stay clear and let me complete my investigation. I promise to keep you advised of any breakthroughs in the case.”

Drew considered carefully before speaking again. After all, SISCO had falsified his biodata in order to establish his cover. It wouldn’t do for him to blow it before he’d even had a chance to look over the crime scene. But Khaloub’s death was weeks old, practically a cold case by now, and it would feel like such a waste of time starting the investigation completely from scratch if the Rangers had already questioned the mavericks and misfits working the Hub — and there was something disturbingly familiar about Bonelli that kept slipping just out of his mind’s reach.

Suddenly, a comm speaker directly behind Drew blurted metallically, “We have a shuttle coming in, Steve. You’d better clear the deck.”

Bonelli jerked his head in the direction of an access door and began leading the way. “That’ll be the short-hopper from Daisy Hub,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I alerted Mom as soon as we began tracking your approach.”

“Mom?” Drew echoed, certain he must have misheard.

“Ruby McNeil, the assistant station manager.”

“And she’s your mother?”

Bonelli laughed. “She’s everyone’s mother. You’ll understand when you meet her. Come on, desk boy. If you’re still on the deck when those bay doors open, you’ll be a flesh-flavored ice cube.”

“Yes, sucked out into space,” Drew supplied, already weary of the Ranger’s patronizing attitude. “They do educate us before they send us out here, you know.”

“Not about everything, son. Our landing deck and the one on Daisy Hub are equipped with Meniscus Field generators, courtesy of the Nandrians. A little bit of technology they slipped us under the table when the Great Galactic Council wasn’t looking. Air can’t get out, but ships can get in. Unfortunately, the field can only form in a supercooled area, which means the air is too cold and dry to be breathed by Humans. And you’re better off not knowing how we learned that.”

The Nandrians didn’t work with anyone, period, the Chief had said. Interesting.

The two men had reached a heavy metal door that was taking its own sweet time about sliding open. Even though he knew the temperature hadn’t changed, Drew shivered.

“Don’t worry. The bay doors can’t operate until all other accessways are sealed shut,” Bonelli assured him. “Once the short-hopper is inside, it will take about ten standard minutes — fifteen Earth minutes, if you prefer — for the landing deck environment to normalize. Then we’ll go back in and meet the pilot.”

On the other side of the hatchway, Drew peeled off the silver suit, then found his eyes drawn to an overhead monitor beside the door. Bonelli hadn’t exaggerated about the temperature drop. Drew watched in fascination as the room they’d just left frosted over, and a strangely configured vessel floated across the screen and settled onto the deck on three pairs of spidery legs.

“You can exhale now,” the Ranger murmured into his left ear. Drew started, only that second aware that he had, indeed, been holding his breath. He started again at the sound of a buzzer going off directly over his head. “That tells us the doors to space are shut,” Bonelli translated. “When the heat’s been replaced, this hatch will return to manual control.”

“So there’s actually air in there now?”

Bonelli nodded. “You’ll flash-freeze in there, but you won’t suffocate.”

“Incredible! Who else knows about this—” He paused, and a second later the word came to him. “—this technology?”

“Everybody but you, desk boy,” chuckled the Ranger. “Earth Council put it here just over a year ago, and I’ll bet you even credit that there’s a team of physicists busily ‘discovering’ it as we speak. For obvious reasons, part of the deal is that we have to protect the identity of our supplier.”

Drew watched the monitor screen for a long moment. The layer of white was slowly shrinking, like a dusting of light snow blown by a steady wind. Meanwhile, a tiny, twisting suspicion was setting off alarms at the back of his mind. “So this is highest level of secret?” Drew inquired softly.

“More or less.”

“Are you not risking much, then, by telling me about it, since I’ve only just arrived?”

Bonelli’s mouth puckered thoughtfully. “No, actually, I’m not,” he replied at last. “Everyone who’s posted here knows about it, since the short-hopper decks on Zulu and Daisy Hub are testing sites. As the station manager, you were going to find out about it anyway. Besides, let’s face it, we all have a snowball’s chance in hell of being recalled to Earth or reassigned, so why add stress to the situation by worrying about hypothetical threats to security? If a real one actually arose…? I’d say we’re equipped to handle it ourselves.”

For the second time in ten minutes, Drew forgot to breathe. So the Rangers were exiled out here, just like the crew of the Hub? An image flashed before his mind’s eye of a man left stranded on a landing deck as the bay doors opened and the Meniscus Field generator kicked in. Perhaps because someone had discovered that he wasn’t a bad apple like the rest of them, and that he could, in fact, be recalled and reassigned, and therefore posed a security threat?