Children of a Dead Earth Book One (18 page)

“Sure, you can see it at the trial like everyone else.”

“I seem to recall this part of the conversation, too,” Mahama sighed. “Come inside, I will listen to this new evidence, and I will listen to Commander Feng's reply. If his explanation does not satisfy me, I'll rescind my emergency authority and turn him over to you right now. And I can personally guarantee that you will be satisfied with the outcome. Deal?”

“You know I don't have to take any deals. The command module isn't your personal fiefdom, the rules still apply up here.”

“And you know that I can invoke emergency powers and we'll be tied up in court with counter-complaints until well after landing. I'm offering to accommodate you, detective. Take it or leave it.”

Through a force of will, Benson tamped down on his immediate reaction and weighed his options. Long term, he knew he'd win a court challenge against the captain's actions, just as Bahadur's challenge would eventually. But for now, the captain held all the cards, unless Benson was prepared to stun the entire bridge crew and drag Feng out by his hair.

While that plan held a certain undeniable caveman appeal, it wasn't very practical.

“Fine, deal. Where is he?”

“We can speak in the conference room. This way.” She flipped over and pushed off against the wall. The other three officers waited for Benson and Korolev to push off before following.

Benson soared across the bridge's enormous open space, drifting through holographic displays and work stations as he flew. Korolev's micro-grav wings proved to be less accurate, and he drifted off course. He bumped into a holo-projector console, knocking a large image of the local comet population out of place. One of the crew shouted something about a “bull in a china shop”, followed by a chorus of mooing. Korolev ignored them, but overcorrected and hit another display a few seconds later, leading to general laughter throughout the bridge.

Benson grabbed his spinning body and helped right his trajectory. “Don't worry about them,” he whispered. “Just challenge them to run one lap around Avalon. See how quick they shut up.”

Korolev snorted as they touched down on the far side of the bridge. Captain Mahama waited by an open portal and motioned them inside. It wasn't a conference room in the traditional sense. Built in between the command module's double hulls, the three of them drifted down through the ceiling and towards the floor, so much as those concepts applied in micro gravity. The room had no table, because anything set on it would just float away anyway. Instead, the walls had a dozen small alcoves each, with footloops and handholds to keep everyone in place, and refreshment tubes that had been hooked up for water, tea, or a variety of fruit juices and protein shakes to keep everyone from getting parched or hungry during long meetings.

Nestled nervously into one such alcove on the far wall floated Commander Feng.

“Ah, our resident witch-hunter has returned. Wasn't Salem hiring?”

“Hello again, commander. You may be less jovial in a minute or two,” Benson taunted.

“That will do, gentlemen,” Mahama said. “This is an official inquiry, and I expect you both to act like professionals.”

“Professionals?” Feng shouted. “He broke into my home and arrested me. I can't believe you're allowing this harassment to continue, captain.”

“Detective Benson is doing his job, as he understands it, and he assures me that new evidence has been uncovered.”

“Don't you see what's happening here?” Feng bit off. “This is a vendetta. You know his family's history. That line's been holding a grudge for generations. Now one of them gets a whiff of authority and immediately makes a suicide run against the crew. We never should have promoted him.”

“That's enough, Chao,” Mahama snapped. “The civilian magistrate has heard the new evidence and believed it merited a warrant, and that's an end to it.”

Feng's face twisted up in desperate rage, but he remained silent.

Mahama continued. “Good. Personally, I've grown very tired of this distraction, so it ends right now. Commander, I am ordering you to submit to a BILD scan.”

Feng's face turned white, or at least whiter than normal. “You can't give me that order.”

“My emergency powers go pretty far, Chao. And right now, I'm seriously questioning more than one promotion I've approved over the last few years. This ends in this room, right now.”

“Wait, hold on,” Benson said. “What's a ‘Build' scan?”

Mahama looked back to Benson, then glanced over at Korolev. “I'm going to have to ask your constable to wait outside.”

“Like hell I will,” Korolev blurted out before remembering to add, “Sir.”

Benson put a hand on Korolev's shoulder. “Pavel, I need you to cover the door. Please.” He pitched his voice lower so only the two of them could hear. “Don't worry, I can handle these floaters if they get too rowdy.”

Korolev relented. “OK, chief. I'll keep anyone from sneaking up behind you.”

“Good man. See you shortly, and keep your stick handy.” Korolev nodded understanding, then floated back up through the hatch in the ceiling. Once the door span shut, Benson turned back to the captain.

“Your subordinate is a loyal one,” Mahama said. “A little rough around the edges.”

“He'll polish up in time. Now, let's hear it.”

Mahama nodded. “BILD stands for Brain Imaging Lie Detection. It's actually a very old technology, dating back to old Earth. It–”

“Scans the electrical activity of the brain, looking for patterns that indicate recognition of pieces of physical evidence or the regions of the brain associated with creating and telling lies,” Benson said for her. She looked at him in confusion.

“What?”

“Well, it's just that you have a reputation as a bit of a…” Mahama grimaced. “A Luddite.”

“You think I've just been looking at sports almanacs for the last ten years? I read. I've just never heard that particular acronym before. I know about the tech, I also know it's been illegal for almost three hundred years. There was a damned UN treaty against it. It's one of the reasons I
am
a Luddite when it comes to stuff digging around inside our brains.”

Captain Mahama shrugged. “The United Nations is a footnote. The software was preserved, we've even upgraded it here and there.”

“But our laws are based on our original UN charter,” Benson objected. “They still apply.”

“To citizens, yes. In fact, the safety interlocks prevent it from being used on citizens at all,” Mahama agreed. “But crewmembers are another matter entirely. The crew gives up quite a few of their civil rights, just as members of old Earth militaries were required to. And as I've already said, my emergency powers go pretty far. This is how we handle problems in the command module, detective. So, how about it?”

Benson looked back and forth between the two of them. Feng's defiance had melted away, replaced by a pleading expression that almost managed to generate a pang of sympathy from the pit of Benson's stomach.

Almost.

“Do it,” he said at last.

Mahama nodded. Feng cowered, sinking into his alcove as if he hoped to become incorporeal and slide right through the hull. A jolt ran through his body as Mahama activated a holo-emitter in the center of the conference room. A moment later, a much-larger-than-life false-color image of a human brain coalesced in three dimensions in the middle of the room.

“What you're seeing right now is a live stream of Commander Feng's brain being fed directly from his plant. The pulsing blue netting represents electrical activity between neurons, while the red-through-green spectrum represents oxygen consumption. Green means more calories are being burned, red less.”

The captain asked Feng a series of calibration questions, such as what day it was, what his name was, etc. Once that was finished, she turned back to Benson.

“The BILD software will match up truthful patterns and give you a result in nearly real time, but don't rush it. Ask specific questions, and give the system enough time in between to return to baseline. Do you understand, detective?”

“I think so.” Benson pushed off and floated over to Feng's alcove. Little droplets of sweat drifted off the commander's forehead. He retreated even further as they came face to face, determined to find a place to hide.

But whatever empathy Benson felt was overridden by the ache in his forearm and shin. This man had sent someone to kill him, and it was time to collect on that debt.

“Does the scan hurt?”

“N… no.”

True.

“Darn. Let's start with the little stuff, shall we? Did you give Edmond Laraby the Monet Haystacks painting from your collection?”

“No,” Feng said unequivocally.

Benson glanced back up to the brain floating behind him. Even to his untrained eye, the patterns of activity changed noticeably. It was less than a second before multiples of the word “false” appeared in crimson, slowly orbiting the display like scarlet letter satellites.

“Really? You sure about that?”

“OK,” Feng panted. “I gave him the painting as a gift.”

“True” appeared in green a moment later.
Damn,
Benson thought to himself,
no wonder they banned this tech. This is too easy. I wouldn't be surprised if cops fought the hardest to get rid of it. Who would need them?

“And did you arrange to get Edmond assigned to that palace he was living in when he died?”

“Yes.”

True.

“Why?”

“That's too broad a question, detective,” Mahama injected. “The results get less reliable the more nuance the subject can introduce. Narrow it down to simpler yes or no questions.”

Benson nodded. “Did you alter Edmond's personal files before they reached my desk?”

“Yes.”

True.

Benson's smile nearly reached around his head to shake hands with itself.

“Did you murder Edmond Laraby?”

“No!”

True.

Benson's smile shrank.

“Did you conspire to murder Edmond Laraby?”

“No, I did not.”

True.

Benson leaned further into the alcove and closer to Feng's face. “Did you hire someone to kill Edmond Larby?”

“That's the same question,” Feng protested. “And the answer is still no.”

True.

“Did you send someone to attack me the night I returned with Edmond's body?”

“No.”

True.

Benson's frustration threatened to boil over. “I think your machine needs recalibrating, captain.”

Mahama shook her head. “It's within parameters. You're just not getting the answers you expected.”

He looked back to Feng. “Did you alter the security video logs of the locks to mask whoever killed Laraby?”

“No! No one killed Edmond. He committed suicide.”

True.

“He threw himself out of an airlock, then erased the video from the outside? That's a neat trick. How did he do that, commander?”

“Well, I…”

A chime sounded from the display behind him. Benson turned around to see an error alert flashing in orange.

“What does that mean?”

“I'm not sure, exactly.” Mahama dug through the menu, sifting through conflicting data and system messages. “He's experiencing cognitive dissonance. You're confusing him.”

“That makes two of us.” Benson turned back to Feng. “You really believed Laraby killed himself?”

“Of course. I called you in, remember? I wanted you to find him more than anything.”

True.

“Then why did you alter his files before you gave them to me?”

Feng didn't answer.

“I know something was hiding in his files. Was he blackmailing you?”

“No.”

True.

“Then why are your skin cells under his fingernails?”

That got Mahama's attention. The room went very quiet as they both waited to hear Feng's response.

“Well? Answer his question, commander.”

Benson got back in his face. “Why the lavish presents? Why the huge apartment? He was hiding something for you, but the price got too high, didn't it? You confronted him and got into a fight. Things got out of hand, didn't they?”

“No! For the last time, no!”

True.

“Then how do you explain your skin under his fingernails?”

“Because we were lovers!”

Benson stopped cold. You could hear a pin drop, if indeed a pin could drop. Benson looked back over his shoulder at the BILD display.

True.

Feng's face twisted up in pain and shame. “Are you happy now, you bastard?”

“You're gay?” Benson asked, utterly confused.

“That would follow, wouldn't it?” Feng snapped sarcastically.

“But, you're married…”

Feng just shook his head. “You wouldn't understand.”

“You're right, I wouldn't,” Benson said. “It's nothing to be ashamed of. No one cares if you're gay. Hell, one of my teammates taught me how to dance at La Cage. The only people left who give a shit is that ultra-orthodox Shia sect, and there can't be more than a couple dozen of them on the entire ship.”

“It's not that simple,” Feng sobbed. “Oh, sure, you all congratulate yourselves on being so fucking enlightened, but if any of us want a family, the door gets slammed in our face.”

“That's not true. You can get married just like everyone else. That's been true from the beginning.”

“And then what?” Feng demanded. “When was the last time a homosexual couple was given a child license? Never, that's when. They always go to married, biological parents. And with every woman on birth control, there are no unwanted children. There are no adoptions, there are no orphans. So either we let our lines die to live openly, or we stay in the closet. I chose to have a future.”