A Second Chance at Eden (5 page)

The cyclorama was tropical parkland, lush emerald grass crinkled with random patches of trees. Silver streams meandered along shallow dales, all of them leading down to the massive circumfluous lake which ringed the base of the southern endcap. Every plant appeared to be in flower. Birds flashed through the air, tiny darts of primary colour.

A town was spread out around the rim of the northern endcap, mostly single-storey houses of metal and plastic moated by elaborately manicured gardens; a few larger civic buildings were dotted among them. I could see plenty of open-top jeeps driving around, and hundreds of bicycles.

The way the landscape rose up like two green tidal waves heading for imminent collision was incredibly disorientating. Unnerving too. Fortunately the axial light-tube blocked the apex, a captured sunbeam threaded between the endcap hubs. Lord knows what seeing people walking around directly above me would have done to my already reeling sense of balance. I was still desperately trying to work out a viable visual reference frame.

Gravity was eighty per cent standard when we reached the foot of the endcap, the funicular car sliding down into a plaza. A welcoming committee was waiting for us on the platform: three people and five servitor chimps.

Michael Zimmels, the man I was replacing, stepped forward and shook my hand. ‘Glad to meet you, Harvey. I’ve scheduled a two-hour briefing to bring you up to date. Sorry to rush you, but I’m leaving on the
Ithilien
as soon as it’s been loaded with He
₃
. The tug crews here, they don’t waste time.’ He turned to Jocelyn and the twins. ‘Mrs Parfitt, hope you don’t mind me stealing your husband away like this, but I’ve arranged for Officer Coogan to show you to your quarters. It’s a nice little house. Sally Ann should have finished packing our stuff by now, so you can move in straight away. She’ll show you where everything is and how it works.’ He beckoned one of the officers standing behind him.

Officer Coogan was in his late twenties, wearing another of those immaculate green uniforms. ‘Mrs Parfitt, if you’d like to give your flight bags to the chimps, they’ll carry them for you.’

Nicolette and Nathaniel were giggling as they handed their flight bags over. The servitor chimps were obviously genetically adapted; they stood nearly one metre fifty, without any of the rubber sack paunchiness of the pure genotype primates cowering in what was left of Earth’s rain forests. And the quiet, attentive way they stood waiting made it seem almost as though they had achieved sentience.

Jocelyn clutched her flight bag closer to her as one of the chimps extended an arm. Coogan gave her a slightly condescending smile. ‘It’s quite all right, Mrs Parfitt, they’re completely under control.’

‘Come on, Mum,’ Nathaniel said. ‘They look dead cute.’ He was stroking the one which had taken his flight bag, even though it never showed the slightest awareness of his touch.

‘I’ll carry my own bag, thank you,’ Jocelyn said.

Coogan gathered himself, obviously ready to launch into a reassurance speech, then decided chiding his new boss’s wife the minute she arrived wasn’t good policy. ‘Of course. Er, the house is this way.’ He started off across the plaza, the twins plying him with questions. After a moment Jocelyn followed.

‘Not used to servitors, your wife?’ Michael Zimmels asked pleasantly.

‘I’m afraid she took the Pope’s decree about affinity to heart,’ I told him.

‘I thought that just referred to humans who had the affinity gene splice?’

I shrugged.

*

The Chief of Police’s office occupied a corner of the two-storey station building. For all that it was a government-issue room with government-issue furniture, it gave me an excellent view down the habitat.

‘You got lucky with this assignment,’ Michael Zimmels told me as soon as the door closed behind us. ‘It’s every policeman’s dream posting. There’s virtually nothing to do.’

Strictly speaking I’m corporate security these days, not a policeman. But the Delph Company is one of the major partners in the Jovian Sky Power Corporation which founded Eden. Basically the habitat is a dormitory town for the He
₃
mining operation and its associated manufacturing support stations. But even JSKP workers are entitled to a degree of civilian government; so Eden is legally a UN protectorate state, with an elected town council and independent judiciary. On paper, anyway. The reality is that it’s a corporate state right down the line; all the appointees for principal civil posts tend to be JSKP personnel on sabbaticals. Like me.

‘There has to be a catch.’

Zimmels grinned. ‘Depends how you look at it. The habitat personality can observe ninety-nine per cent of the interior. The interior polyp surface is suffused with clusters of specialized sensitive cells; they can pick up electromagnetic waves, the full optical spectrum along with infra-red and ultraviolet; they can sense temperature and magnetic fields, there are olfactory cells, even pressure-sensitive cells to pick up anything you say. All of which means nobody does or says anything that the habitat doesn’t know about; not cheating on your partner, stealing supplies, or beating up your boss after you get stinking drunk. It sees all, it knows all. No need for police on the beat, or worrying about gathering sufficient evidence.’

‘Ye gods,’ I glanced about, instinctively guilty. ‘You said ninety-nine per cent? Where is the missing one per cent?’

‘Offices like this, on buildings which have a second floor, where there’s no polyp and no servitors. But even so the habitat can see in through the windows. Effectively, the coverage is total. Besides which, this is a company town, we don’t have unemployment or a criminal underclass. Making sure the end-of-shift drunks get home OK is this department’s prime activity.’

‘Wonderful,’ I grunted. ‘Can I talk to this personality?’

Zimmels gave his desktop terminal a code. ‘It’s fully interfaced with the datanet, but you can communicate via affinity. In fact, given your status, you’ll have to use affinity. That way you don’t just talk, you can hook into its sensorium as well, the greatest virtual-reality trip you’ll ever experience. And of course, all the other senior executives have affinity symbiont implants – hell, ninety per cent of the population is affinity capable. We use it to confer the whole time, it’s a heck of a lot simpler than teleconferencing. And it’s the main reason the habitat administration operates so smoothly. I’m surprised the company didn’t give you a neuron symbiont implant before you left Earth, you just can’t function effectively without one up here.’

‘I told them I’d wait until I got here,’ I said, which was almost the truth.

The terminal chimed melodically, then spoke in a rich male euphonic. ‘Good afternoon, Chief Parfitt, welcome to Jupiter. I am looking forward to working with you, and hope our relationship will be a rewarding one.’

‘You’re the habitat personality?’ I asked.

‘I am Eden, yes.’

‘Chief Zimmels tells me you can perceive the entire interior.’

‘That is correct. Both interior and exterior environments are accessible to me on a permanent basis.’

‘What are my family doing?’

‘Your children are examining a tortoise they have found in the garden of your new house. Your wife is talking to Mrs Zimmels, they are in the kitchen.’

Michael Zimmels raised his eyebrows in amusement. ‘Sally Ann’s cutting her in on the local gossip.’

‘You can see them, too?’

‘Hear and see. Hell, it’s boring; Sally Ann’s a sponge for that kind of thing. She thinks I don’t look after my advancement prospects, so she plays the corporate social ladder game on my behalf.’

‘Do you show anybody anything they ask for?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Eden replied. ‘The population are entitled to their privacy. However, legitimate Police Department observation requests override individual rights.’

‘It sounds infallible,’ I said. ‘I can’t go wrong.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Zimmels retorted knowingly. ‘I’ve just given you the good news so far. You’re not just responsible for Eden, the entire JSKP operation in Jupiter orbit comes under your jurisdiction. That means a lot of external work for your squads: the industrial stations, the refineries, inter-orbit ships; we even have a large survey team on Callisto right now.’

‘I see.’

‘But your biggest headache is going to be Boston.’

‘I don’t remember that name in any of my preliminary briefings.’

‘You wouldn’t.’ He produced a bubble cube, and handed it over to me. ‘This contains my report, and most of it’s unofficial. Supposition, plus what I’ve managed to pick up from various sources. Boston is a group of enthusiasts – radicals, revolutionaries, whatever you want to call them – who want Eden to declare independence, hence the name. They’re quite well organized, too; several of their leading lights are JSKP executives, mostly those on the technical and scientific side.’

‘Independence from the UN?’

‘The UN and the JSKP, they want to take over the whole Jupiter enterprise; they think they can create some kind of technological paradise out here, free of interference from Earth’s grubby politicians and conservative companies. The old High Frontier dream. Your problem is that engaging in free political debate isn’t a crime. Technically, as a UN policeman, you have to uphold their right to do so. But as a JSKP employee, just imagine how the board back on Earth will feel if Eden, Pallas, and Ararat make that declaration of independence, and the new citizens assume control of the He
₃
mining operation while you’re here charged with looking after the Corporation’s interests.’

*

The PNC wafer’s bleeping woke me. I struggled to orientate myself. Strange bedroom. Grey geometric shadows at all angles. A motion which nagged away just below conscious awareness.

Jocelyn shifted around beside me, twisting the duvet. Also unusual, but the Zimmels had used a double bed. Apparently it would take a couple of days to requisition two singles.

My questing hand found the PNC wafer on the bedside dresser. I prayed I’d programmed it for no visual pick-up before I went to bed. ‘Call acknowledged. Chief Parfitt here,’ I said blearily.

The wafer hazed over with a moiré rainbow which shivered until a face came into focus. ‘Rolf Kümmel, sir. Sorry to wake you so early.’

Detective Lieutenant Kümmel was my deputy, we’d been introduced briefly yesterday. Thirty-two and already well up the seniority ladder. A conscientious careerist, was my first impression. ‘What is it, Rolf?’

‘We have a major crime incident inside the habitat, sir.’

‘What incident?’

‘Somebody’s been killed. Penny Maowkavitz, the JSKP Genetics Division director.’

‘Killed by what?’

‘A bullet, sir. She was shot through the head.’

‘Fuck. Where?’

‘The north end of the Lincoln lake.’

‘Doesn’t mean anything. Send a driver to pick me up, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Driver’s on her way, sir.’

‘Good man. Wafer off.’

*

It was Shannon Kershaw who drove the jeep which picked me up, one of the station staff I’d met the previous afternoon on my lightning familiarization tour, a programming expert. A twenty-eight-year-old with flaming red hair pleated in elaborate spirals; grinning challengingly as Zimmels introduced us. Someone who knew her speciality made her invaluable, giving her a degree of immunity from the usual sharpshooting of office politics. This morning she was subdued, uniform tunic undone, hair wound into a simple tight bun.

The axial light-tube was a silver strand glimpsed through frail cloud braids high above, slightly brighter than a full Earth moon. Its light was sufficient for her to steer the jeep down a track through a small forest without using the headlights. ‘Not good,’ she muttered. ‘This is really going to stir people up. We all sort of regarded Eden as . . . I don’t know. Pure.’

I was studying the display my PNC wafer was running, a program correlating previous crime incident files with Penny Maowkavitz, looking for any connection. So far a complete blank. ‘There’s never been a murder up here before, has there?’

‘No. There couldn’t be, really; not with the habitat personality watching us the whole time. You know, it’s pretty shaken up by this.’

‘The personality is upset?’ I enquired sceptically.

She shot me a glance. ‘Of course it is. It’s sentient, and Penny Maowkavitz was about the closest thing to a parent it could ever have.’

‘Feelings,’ I said wonderingly. ‘That must be one very sophisticated Turing AI program.’

‘The habitat isn’t an AI. It’s alive, it’s conscious. A living entity. You’ll understand once you receive your neuron symbiont implant.’

Great, now I was driving round inside a piece of neurotic coral. ‘I’m sure I will.’

The trees gave way to a swath of meadowland surrounding a small lake. A rank of jeeps were drawn up near the shoreline; several had red and blue strobes flashing on top, casting transient stipples across the black water. Shannon parked next to an ambulance, and we walked over to the group of people clustered round the body.

Penny Maowkavitz was sprawled on the grey shingle four metres from the water. She was wearing a long dark-beige suede jacket over a sky-blue blouse, heavy black cotton trousers, and sturdy ankle boots. Her limbs were askew, the skin of her hands very pale. I couldn’t tell how old she was, principally because half of her head was missing. What was left of the skull sprouted a few wisps of fine silver hair. A wig of short-cropped dark-blonde hair lay a couple of metres away, stained almost completely crimson. A wide ribbon of gore and blood was splashed over the shingle between it and the corpse. In the jejune light it looked virtually black.

Shannon grunted, and turned away fast.

I’d seen worse in my time, a lot worse. But Shannon was right about one thing, it didn’t belong here, not amongst the habitat’s tranquillity.

‘When did it happen?’ I asked.

‘Just over half an hour ago,’ Rolf Kümmel said. ‘I got out here with a couple of officers as soon as Eden told us.’

‘The personality saw it happen?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who did it?’