A Second Chance at Eden (6 page)

Rolf grimaced, and pointed at a servitor chimp standing passively a little way off. A couple of uniformed officers stood on either side of it. ‘That did, sir.’

‘Christ. Are you sure?’

‘We’ve all accessed the personality’s local visual memory to confirm it, sir,’ he said in a slightly aggrieved tone. ‘But the chimp was still holding the pistol when we arrived. Eden locked its muscles as soon as the shot was fired.’

‘So who ordered it to fire the pistol?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘You mean the chimp doesn’t remember?’

‘No.’

‘So who gave it the pistol?’

‘It was in a flight bag, which was left on a polystone outcrop just along the shore from here.’

‘And what about Eden, does it remember who left the bag there?’

Rolf and some of the others were beginning to look resentful. Lumbered with a dunderhead primitive for a boss, blundering about asking the obvious and not understanding a word spoken. I was beginning to feel isolated, wondering what they were saying to each other via affinity. One or two of them had facial expressions which were changing minutely, visible signs of silent conversation. Did they know they were giving themselves away like that?

My PNC wafer bleeped, and I pulled it out of my jacket pocket. ‘Chief Parfitt, this is Eden. I’m sorry, but I have no recollection of who placed the bag on the stone. It has been there for three days, which exceeds the extent of my short-term memory.’

‘OK, thanks.’ I glanced round the expectant faces. ‘First thing, do we know for sure this is Penny Maowkavitz?’

‘Absolutely,’ a woman said. She was in her late forties, half a head shorter than everyone else, with dark cinnamon skin. I got the impression she was more weary than alarmed by the murder. ‘That’s Penny, all right.’

‘And you are?’

‘Corrine Arburry, I’m Penny’s doctor.’ She nudged the corpse with her toe. ‘But if you want proof, turn her over.’

I looked at Rolf. ‘Have you taken the
in situ
videos?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK, turn her over.’

After a moment of silence, my police officers gallantly shuffled to one side and let the two ambulance paramedics ease the corpse onto its back. I realized the light was changing, the mock-silver moonlight deepening to a flaming tangerine. Dr Arburry knelt down as the artificial dawn blossomed all around. She tugged the blue blouse out of the waistband. Penny Maowkavitz was wearing a broad green nylon strap around her abdomen, it held a couple of white plastic boxes tight against her belly.

‘These are the vector regulators I supplied,’ Corrine Arburry said. ‘I was treating Penny for cancer. It’s her all right.’

‘Video her like this, then take her to the morgue, please,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll need an autopsy for cause of death.’

‘Hardly,’ Corrine Arburry said flatly as she rose up.

‘Fine, but I would like some tests run to establish she was alive up until the moment she was shot. I would also like the bullet itself. Eden, do you know where that is?’

‘No, I’m sorry, it must be buried in the soil. But I can give you a rough estimate based on the trajectory and velocity.’

‘Rolf, seal off the area, we need to do that anyway, but I want it searched thoroughly. Have you taken the pistol from the chimp?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do we have a Ballistics Division?’

‘Not really. But some of the company engineering labs should be able to run the appropriate tests for us.’

‘OK, get it organized.’ I glanced at the chimp. It hadn’t moved, big black eyes staring mournfully. ‘And I want that thing locked up in the station’s jail.’

Rolf turned a snort into a cough. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Presumably we do have an expert on servitor neurology and psychology in Eden?’ I asked patiently.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Then I’d like him to examine the chimp, and maybe try and recover the memory of who gave it the order to shoot Maowkavitz. Until then, the chimp is to be isolated, understood?’

He nodded grimly.

Corrine Arburry was smiling at Rolf’s discomfort. A sly expression which I thought contained a hint of approval, too.

‘You ought to consider how the gun was brought inside the habitat in the first place,’ she said. ‘And where it’s been stored since. If it had ever been taken out of that flight bag the personality should have perceived it and alerted the police straight away. It ought to know who the bag belonged to, as well. But it doesn’t.’

‘Was the pistol a police weapon?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Rolf said. ‘It’s some kind of revolver, very primitive.’

‘OK, run a make, track down the serial number. You know the procedure, whatever you can find on it.’

*

The start of the working day found me in the Governor’s office. Our official introductory meeting, what should have been a cheery getting-to-know-you session, and I had to report the habitat’s first ever murder to him. I tried to tell myself the day couldn’t get worse. But I lacked faith.

The axial light-tube had resumed its usual blaze, turning the habitat cavern into a solid fantasy ideal of tropical wilderness. I did my best to ignore the view as Fasholé Nocord waved me into a seat before his antique wooden desk.

Eden’s governor was in his mid-fifties, with a frame and vigour which suggested considerable genetic adaptation. I’ve grown adept at recognizing the signs over the years, for a start they all tend to be well educated, because even now it’s really only the wealthy who can afford such treatments for their offspring. And health is paramount for them, the treatments always focus on boosting their immunology system, improving organ efficiency, dozens of subtle metabolic enhancements. They possess a presence, almost like a witch’s
glamour
; I suppose knowing they’re not going to fall prey to disease and illness, that they’ll almost certainly see out a century, gives them an impeccable self-confidence. Given their bearing, cosmetic adaptation is almost an irrelevance, certainly it’s not as widespread. But in Fasholé Nocord’s case I suspected an exception. His skin was just too black, the classically noble face too chiselled.

‘Any progress?’ he asked straight away.

‘It’s only been a couple of hours. I’ve got my officers working on various aspects; but they aren’t used to this type of investigation. Come to that, there’s never been a large-scale police investigation in Eden before. With the habitat’s all-over sensory perception there’s been no need until today.’

‘How could it happen?’

‘You tell me. I’m not an expert on this place yet.’

‘Get a symbiont implant. Today. I don’t know what the company was thinking of, sending you out here without one.’

‘Yes, sir.’

His lips twitched into a rueful grin. ‘All right, Harvey, don’t go all formal on me. If ever I needed anyone on my side, then it’s you. The timing of this whole thing stinks.’

‘Sir?’

He leant forward over the desk, hands clasped earnestly. ‘I suppose you realize ninety per cent of the population suspect I have something to do with Penny’s murder?’

‘No,’ I said cautiously. ‘Nobody’s told me that.’

‘Figures,’ he muttered. ‘Did Michael brief you on Boston?’

‘Yes, the salient points; I have a bubble cube full of files which he compiled, but I haven’t got round to accessing any of them yet.’

‘Well, when you do, you’ll find that Penny Maowkavitz was Boston’s principal organizer.’

‘Oh, Christ.’

‘Yeah. And I’m the man responsible for ensuring Eden stays firmly locked in to the JSKP’s domain.’

I remembered his file; Nocord was a vice-president (on sabbatical) from McDonnell Electric, one of the JSKP’s parent companies. Strictly managerial and administration track, not one of the aspiring dreamers, someone the board could trust implicitly.

‘If we can confirm where you were prior to the murder, you should be in the clear,’ I said. ‘I’ll have one of my officers take a statement and correlate it with Eden’s memory of your movements. Shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘It would never be me personally, anyway, not even as part of a planning team. JSKP would use a covert agent.’

‘But clearing your name quickly would help quell any rumours.’ I paused. ‘Are you telling me JSKP takes Boston seriously enough to bring covert operatives into this situation?’

‘I don’t know. I mean that, I’m not holding out on you. As far as I know the board is relying on you and me to prevent things from getting out of control up here. We know you’re dependable,’ he added, almost in apology.

I guess he’d studied my file as closely as I’d gone over his. It didn’t particularly bother me. Anyone who does access my history isn’t going to find any earthshaker revelations. I used to be a policeman, I went into the London force straight from university. With thirty-five million people crammed together in the Greater London area, and four million of them unemployed, policing is a very secure career, we were in permanent demand. I was good at it, I made detective in eight years. Then my third case was working as part of a team investigating corruption charges in the London Regional Federal Commission. We ran down over a dozen senior politicians and civil servants receiving payola for awarding contracts to various companies. Some of the companies were large and well known, and two of the politicians were sitting in the Greater Federal Europe congress. Quite a sensation, we were given hours of prime facetime on the newscable bulletins.

The judge and the Metropolitan Police Commander congratulated us in front of the cameras, handshakes and smiles all round. But in the months which followed none of my colleagues who went up before promotion boards ever seemed successful. We got crappy assignments. We pulled the night shifts for weeks at a time. Overtime was denied. Expenses were queried. Call me cynical, I quit and went into corporate security. Companies regard employee loyalty and honesty as commendable traits – below board level anyway.

‘I like to think I am, yes,’ I told the Governor. ‘But if you’re expecting trouble soon, just remember I haven’t had time to build any personal loyalties with my officers. What did you mean that the murder’s timing stinks?’

‘It looks suspicious, that’s all. The company sends a new police chief who isn’t even affinity capable; and,
wham
, Penny is murdered the day after you arrive. Then there’s the cloudscoop lowering operation in two days’ time. If it’s successful, He
₃
extraction will become simpler by orders of magnitude, decreasing Jupiter’s technological dependence on Earth. And the
Ithilien
delivered the Ararat seed; another habitat, safeguarding the population if we do ever have a major environmental failure in Eden or Pallas. It’s a good time for Boston to try and break free. Ergo, killing the leader is an obvious option.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind. Do you have any ideas who might have killed her?’

Fasholé Nocord sat back in his chair and grinned broadly. ‘Real police are never off the case, eh?’

I returned a blank smile. ‘You have been emphasizing your own innocence with a great deal of eloquence.’

It wasn’t quite the response he was looking for. The professional grin faltered. ‘No, I don’t have any idea. But I will tell you Penny Maowkavitz was not an easy person to work with; if pushed I’d describe her as stereotypically brash. She was always convinced everything she did was right. People who didn’t agree with her were more or less ignored. Her brilliance allowed her to get away with it, of course; she was vital to the initial design concept of the habitats.’

‘She had her own biotechnology company, didn’t she?’

‘That’s right, she founded Pacific Nugene; it’s basically a softsplice house, specializing in research and design work rather than production. Penny preferred to deal in concepts; she refined the organisms until they were viable, then licensed out the genome to the big boys for actual manufacture and distribution. She was the first geneticist JSKP approached when it became obvious we needed a large dormitory station in Jupiter orbit. Pacific Nugene was pioneering a microbe which could digest asteroid rock; initially the board wanted to use those microbes to hollow out a biosphere cavern in one of the larger ring particles. It would be a lot cheaper than shipping mining teams and all their equipment out here. Penny proposed they use a living polyp habitat instead, and Pacific Nugene became a minor partner in JSKP. She was a board member herself up until five years ago; even after she gave up her seat she retained a non-executive position as senior biotechnology adviser.’

‘Five years ago?’ I took a guess. ‘That would be when Boston formed, would it?’

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Let me tell you, the JSKP board went ballistic. They considered Penny’s involvement as a total betrayal. Nothing they could do about it, of course, she was essential to develop the next generation of habitats. Eden is really only a prototype.’

‘I see. Well, thanks for filling me in on the basics. And if you do remember anything relevant . . .’

‘Eden will remember anyone she ever argued with.’ He shrugged, his hands splaying wide. ‘You really will have to get a symbiont implant.’

‘Right.’

*

I drove myself back to the station, sticking to a steady twenty kilometres an hour. The main road of naked polyp which ran through the centre of the town was clogged with bicycle traffic.

Rolf Kümmel had set up an incident room on the ground floor. I didn’t even have to tell him; like me he’d been a policeman at one time, four years in a Munich arcology. I walked in to a quiet bustle of activity. And I do mean quiet, I could only hear a few excitable murmurs above the whirr of the air conditioning. It was eerie. Uniformed officers moved round constantly between the desks, carrying fat files and cases of bubble cubes; maintenance techs were still installing computer terminals on some desks, their chimps standing to attention beside them, holding toolboxes and various electronic test rigs. Seven shirtsleeved junior detectives were loading data into working terminals under Shannon Kershaw’s direction. A big hologram screen on the rear wall displayed a map of Eden’s parkland. Two narrow lines – one red, one blue – were snaking across the countryside like newborn neon streams. They both originated at the Lincoln lake, which was about a kilometre south of town.