Bones Burnt Black: Serial Killer in Space (2 page)

“But what if she doesn’t want to go?”

The captain was making unsightly faces in response to
the various pains shooting back and forth through his body. He tried to keep
this to a minimum as he spoke for fear it would show in his voice. “Tell her
that her life depends on it. If she still won’t go— I don’t know, hit her in
the head with something and drag her there by her feet. Captain: out and
clear.”

The taste of blood had grown strong in his mouth. He
decided to wait until later to push each of his teeth with his tongue to
discover which were loose. “Ship, send a message to Von Braun.”

“To our dispatcher at Hyperbolic Shipping?”

“No, you idiot! SpaceGuard! And use the emergency
channel.” He strained his eye muscles trying to look at the images still
displayed on the surface of the dome. Because of the angle at which his head
rested he could see only the image nearest him, the one pressing cold and hard
against his left cheekbone. Viewed at this range the image was highly distorted
and hopelessly grainy—so much so that he couldn’t even be sure what it
depicted. “Tell them our situation. Send them the recorded images from Kim’s
headset and any other information that will help them understand what’s going
on out here. Request assistance and an immediate reply.”

“Aye, Captain. I’m swinging the high gain antenna
around now. Transmission in— in— Captain, the ship is tumbling six times faster
than the antenna’s motors are capable of re-aiming it. I cannot keep it
directed at Von Braun.”

“Damn!” He thought for a moment. “What about using one
of the low gain antennas?”

“Low gain antennas are not intended for communication
at this distance. Once the signal reached Von Braun it would be extremely
weak.”

“But by transmitting on the emergency channel, wouldn’t
a weak signal still be detected?”

“Yes, I think it would. But you understand that the
bandwidth would be exceedingly narrow. I wouldn’t be able to send images. The
transmission would have to be voice-only.”

“No images? Damn. OK, OK. Send this, verbatim: This is
Captain Lawrence Palmer of the commercial carrier and merchant ship Corvus.
This ship has been purposely sabotaged by persons unknown.”

He paused briefly. Swallowing was becoming painful.
Drooling proved a better choice. “We had just begun the J-maneuver for our
docking approach at Von Braun when a bomb exploded rupturing a liquid hydrogen
fuel filter near the engines. The resulting leak has already spilled more than
a quarter of our fuel and—since it’s spraying out sideways—is causing the ship
to tumble end-over-end so rapidly that the damaged area can no longer be
reached for repairs due to the centrifugal effect. My passengers are probably
safe at present, but I’ve lost my chief flight engineer and believe she may be
dead. She was thrown from the ship by the centrifugal effect while working on
the engines.”

He paused again. His throat was dry and he needed full
use of his face in order to grimace properly as he swallowed.

“As for myself, I’ve fallen from my command chair to
the ceiling and can’t move without excruciating pain. I think I’ve broken my
left arm, right leg and several ribs. Soon, we will have lost all our fuel and
will be tumbling out of control. I request assistance and an immediate reply.
This is Captain Lawrence Palmer: out and clear.”

“Do you wish to edit before I transmit?”

“No, just send it; but follow it with your own verbal
analysis of our situation—in case I left anything out.” He coughed
uncontrollably five times in rapid succession. It was definitely
uncontrollable; if he could have controlled it, he wouldn’t have done it. Each
cough burned in his chest like the fires of Hell.

“Aye aye. Transmitting now. The message will arrive at
Von Braun in 2.4 minutes. Initial confirmation that they have received this
message should return in 4.8 minutes, though a meaningful response will take
longer.”

The captain stopped drooling for a moment and attempted
to lift his unbroken right arm; a move he thought might be safe. The action,
however, only pressed his broken ribs more firmly into the ceiling. When his
facial expression returned to normal he asked in the softest of whispers,
“What’s the g-force in here?”

The ship spoke in its normal tone. “Two point seven
gees: inverted.”

Chapter Two

Mike’s cabin was on deck four. Due to the ship’s
unnatural rotation he was now standing on its ceiling.

The overall configuration of the spaceship Corvus was
rather like that of a tall building: a skyscraper in space. Its shape was that
of a cylinder, one about four times as long as it was wide. The flat ends were
the ship’s top and bottom: metaphorically, its roof and foundation. The engines
sprouted from the foundation; the bridge was a dome on the roof.

Ship’s decks numbered from zero at the top to nineteen
at the bottom. Deck zero was the bridge. Nineteen was the lowest of the four
engineering decks and the last pressurized level. Go any farther down and you’d
find yourself outside with the engines.

Most of Corvus’s exterior was covered with a mirror
finish and a grid pattern of dark lines. This reflective grid-work suggested
windows—even in places where there weren’t any—and contributed to the general
appearance of a tall building.

Like its three sister ships—all less than four years
old—Corvus was designed and built to shuttle people and supplies to the various
colonies scattered throughout the solar system. Most, though not all, of these
people and supplies originated from the City of Von Braun, which orbits Earth’s
Moon. For the last nine months Corvus had been assigned solely to the Von
Braun/Huygens run.

Huygens Colony, named after the Dutch astronomer
Christian Huygens, was a large well-funded research facility orbiting Titan—the
largest moon of Saturn. This colony was currently growing so fast and
experiencing such a boom-time that far more people traveled out to it than
returned. Consequently, as Corvus was now returning to Von Braun, its cargo
decks were ninety five percent empty as were eighty percent of its passenger
cabins.

Why wouldn’t Larry tell me what’s wrong with the
ship? And why’d he cut me off so fast? I was just about to tell him about Val.
Mike frowned.
And what about Kim? She can’t still be outside trying to work
on the engines. Not in these gees!

Mike pushed his cabin door open and raised his foot
high enough to clear the door’s lintel and step out into the hallway. He pulled
the door closed behind him and paused to consider jumping up to shake its
handle to verify that it was properly locked, then decided that would be
overkill.

Walking down the hallway, his progress was slow. His
movements were awkward and seemed composed of over-reactions. This was his own
fault. It had been nearly two years since he’d practiced walking in anything
more than the Moon’s one-sixth gravity, and five years since he’d done anything
in a full gee.

Physically, he was tall and sturdy, almost to the point
of being muscular. He had the kind of rugged face that, if not quite handsome,
was at least boyishly youthful—or as boyishly youthful as can be expected of a
man forty-one years old.

As always, he wore loose, comfortable clothing.
Clothing that, should the need arise, he could work in. He’d never felt at home
in clothes that had to be kept spotless or protected from harm. He believed his
clothes should be protecting him; not vice versa.

His shirt was flannel: a lumberjack style plaid in red
and black that practically shouted
construction worker
. Without giving
it any thought, he’d rolled the sleeves up to the elbow, which suggested a
willingness—perhaps even an eagerness—to get his hands dirty.

His pants were just blue jeans, but they had extra
pockets on the front and side of each thigh; and like most zero-g pockets, had
flaps with Velcro closures to keep their contents from floating out.

His zero-g boots were soft and black and conformed to
the shape of his feet and ankles. With soles the same thickness and flexibility
as the uppers, they were little more than black leather socks.

He stepped over a florescent light fixture, around a
ventilation grid and past some kind of electrical access panel. Deck four was
currently experiencing one gee, and it was growing stronger.

Mike’s walking improved rapidly. Hardly surprising: it
didn’t take much practice to remember old skills. And besides, walking is just
like riding a bicycle: once you learn you never forget.

He thought of her body, suddenly: limp and pink and
dead. He still couldn’t believe it—though he himself had found the dying woman.

It happened less than an hour ago. Corvus had been in
zero-g at the time; both its engines having just gone into emergency shutdown.
He remembered how he’d pushed-off from his cabin’s door frame and glided the
dozen yards down the hall where he’d grabbed a handhold to bring himself to a
stop in front of Val’s door.

He’d knocked gently, but the force of his knock caused
the door to swing open several inches.
That’s odd,
he’d thought.
It
wasn’t even closed.
He called out, “Val?”

There had been no answer.

He’d pushed the door open a little farther. “Val? Are
you in there?” Still no answer. He shrugged and began pulling the door shut
with the intention of trying her again later but before he could close it all
the way he caught a glimpse of a tiny curious movement.

Opening the door slightly, he saw several small
irregularly shaped objects up near the ceiling drifting slowly across the room.
Strung together like a prickly necklace, they tumbled gently as though wafted
about by the shifting air currents from the ventilation ducts. He stared at
them for several seconds before realizing they were the broken fragments of a
small black computer.

How did Val’s pocketsize get smashed?

Easing the door open, he pulled himself inside and
glanced around the sparsely furnished room. It looked similar to his cabin and,
for that matter, all the cabins aboard Corvus. It was a small white room with
one round window on the far wall and an elastic fish-net style tube-hammock
stretched horizontally in front of the window. On his left were a dining table
and two chairs that could all be folded into the wall. On his right was a small
kitchen that could be hidden behind sliding decorative panels; and to his left,
just this side of the tube-hammock, was a bathroom that he knew would contain
an airflow bag-shower and—

A small bare foot, its toenails painted red, extended
out of the bathroom.

“Val? Is that you?” He pushed himself toward the
bathroom door and discovered Valentina Cortez floating limp and unconscious.
The dark-haired woman was dressed only in white bra and panties. Her breathing
was heavy, her eyes were closed, and her skin was a hideous bright pink.

He was so stunned at the sight he forgot to grab the
bathroom doorframe to stop himself. He coasted past the bathroom and bumped
into the wall near the little round window and tube-hammock. The impact roused
him from his momentary trance. “Pocketsize, get me the medsys!” He pushed
himself back to the bathroom door.

From his pocketsize, he was answered by a synthetically
masculine voice: deep, calm and self-assured. “Medsys here.” It was the ship’s
robotic doctor. “How may I help you?”

“Valentina Cortez is unconscious!”

“Please calm down, Mister McCormack. First, take your
computer out of your pocket and point it at the patient’s face.”

Mike hurried to comply, fumbling only slightly.

“That’s good. Now show me her body and pan the room.”

Mike did this too.

“How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know. I just found her.”

“Do you smell anything unusual in the room? Chemicals?
Medicines? Strange gases?”

“No.”

“Have you, yourself, started feeling weak or
lightheaded now that you’ve been breathing the air in the room?”

“No.”

The medsys fell silent for a moment, then said, “Smell
her breath for me.”

Mike brought his face near hers. He felt the warm,
moist wind of her breath play across his cheeks and nose. He blinked a few
times as it ruffled his eyelashes. She was breathing fast and deep but Mike
kept watching her eyes. He half expected them to pop open and display shock at
his being so close to her while she was so insufficiently dressed. He took a
shallow sniff, then a deeper one and was surprised by the aroma. “Her breath
smells like almonds. But funny. Kind of bitter.”

“Mister McCormack, I need you to bring her up here to
the medical office. The task will be made easier since the ship is, at the
moment, in a condition of zero-g. But please, you must hurry. This woman is
dying.”

The trip from deck four up to deck two required three
full minutes. It was, however, unavoidable since the medsys was not able to
travel within the ship.

When Mike pulled Val’s limp underwear-clad body through
the door into the medical office her arms, legs, and head flopped about like
those of a marionette.

“She’s stopped breathing!” he shouted, sounding out of
breath himself.

One of the room’s two large examination arrays swung
out from its wall on a stout metal arm and stopped in front of the unresponsive
floating woman. The array’s lights came on and the unit hummed and clicked as
it scanned Val with radio and sound waves, examining her insides to determine
where—and if—it could safely touch her without doing further harm.

Mike had once told Kim that this particular model of
medsys resembled a chrome-plated outboard motor with eight stainless steel
lobsters square-dancing on its top: an image that for some reason did not cross
his mind at this moment.

To prevent his drifting around the room at the mercy of
whatever air currents might be thrown out by the ventilation ducts, Mike
grabbed the nearest handhold. It was located at the center of a wall between an
anatomical diagram of the human body and a reproduction of an antique eye
testing chart—two items which, in this age, were useful only as decoration.

The examination array spoke with the deep masculine
voice of the medsys. “Mister McCormack, if you are squeamish about medical
procedures you may wish to step out into the waiting room.”

Mike thought about it, even glanced at the door, but
couldn’t bring himself to leave. Once she’d stopped breathing he’d begun to
fear the worst, and now he had to know:
Was she going to die?
He looked
at the machine. “I think I’d like to stay.”

“As you wish.” Six mechanical arms swung out of the
examination array and gently but firmly grabbed Val’s floating pink body. One
seized her around the waist, one around each ankle and wrist, and one around
the top of her head just above the eyes. The array then drew blood from her
arm, and smoothly lifted her eyelids to examine her pupils. “I’m sorry, Mister
McCormack. But I might as well tell you: Ms Cortez is dead.”

Mike stared at the body and squeezed the handhold hard
enough to produce pain in his fingers. He recalled how cheerful and full of
life she’d been the last time he talked with her. He felt his throat tighten.
He fought it, but didn’t win.

He recognized the sensation from a few years ago when
his favorite aunt, a kindly woman who’d often baby-sat him as a child had
passed away; and from a few years earlier when his saintly grandmother had
died; and from a number of years before that when his buddy and partner had
‘bought it’ too. He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, then sighed
and closed his eyes. “What did she die of?”

“Are you sure you are not squeamish?”

He brought his head down level and looked at the
medsys. With a noticeable trace of hesitation, he said, “I don’t think so.”

The array emitted a long black snake-like appendage
that slithered into Val’s mouth and continued slithering an additional two
feet.

Mike tried to hide his involuntary grimace from the
medsys by briefly covering his mouth with one hand.

“Her stomach contains a high concentration of sodium
cyanide,” the machine said.

“Cyanide?” Mike’s eyebrows went up. “She was poisoned?”

“Yes, and yes. Either by herself or by someone else.”

Mike’s eyebrows went down. “But she was still alive
when I found her. I thought Cyanide killed instantly.”

“Only if hydrogen cyanide is used—sometimes called
hydrocyanic acid or Prussic acid—in which case, the victim can fall dead still
holding a poisoned drink. But this was sodium cyanide: a cyanide salt. It must
first be broken down by stomach acids so that free cyanide can be released into
the stomach and absorbed by the blood. Once in the blood, the cyanide then
enters into chemical combination with the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin producing
a new molecule: cyanhaemoglobin. This new molecule prevents the blood from
releasing oxygen to any of the tissues throughout the body. A victim of cyanide
poisoning is thus starved of oxygen; the pulse becomes weak while respiration
speeds up. It’s also the cyanhaemoglobin in the blood that turns the skin pink
and gives the breath an odor of bitter almonds.”

Mike couldn’t think of anything to say. He just floated
next to the antique eye chart with his mouth open.
She was so young. Had so
much to look forward to.
He thought about the last time he and Kim had had
dinner with her. The young woman had displayed a wonderful sense of humor
exemplified by the series of amusing stories she’d told about her childhood in
Barcelona. Her hair, long and thick and dark, had bounced festively as she
laughed. Her eyes too were dark, though her skin had been surprisingly light,
almost creamy. Above all, it was her bright and gentle smile that had made Mike
feel so at ease.
And I think Kim liked her too.
He was wrong, of course.
He had no understanding of women, even the one he loved.

“Did you know her well?” the medsys asked.

“Not really. I’m a structural engineer; she’s
lifesupport. We both worked on the construction of this ship but we never met
until this flight.” Mike didn’t mention that he’d found her somewhat
attractive. He made a mental note to never mention it.