Stars & Empire 2: 10 More Galactic Tales (Stars & Empire Box Set Collection) Page 4

  Zoop. Zoop. Zoop.

  The small tech-bot sidled up alongside Richard, signaling its arrival in sound and light. Richard reached down and tapped the sensor on the top. The proximity alert cut out. A small vid-screen raised up from the side of the tech-bot, displaying the latest data from John’s station. Looked like Richard needed to run over there one more time before taking his dinner break. He tapped his wire to talk to Amelia.

  “Hey Amy-kins, where are you?”

  “Dad! I’m here, coming down from the shuttle! I’ve got this fantastic soup from the counter over by the park—you know, the one where they use that imported kelp powder? You’re going to love it!”

  “That sounds great, honey. Hey, I’m covering for John, and I have to run down to his station quick for a few minutes to adjust a few things. Just wanted to let you know in case you get here before I’m back.”

  “Okay, sounds good. Don’t take too long, or I’ll eat this soup all by myself!”

  Richard grinned. “I’d like to see you try,” he returned. “See you soon.”

  “Bye Dad.”

  The whole walk down to John’s station Richard continued to glance back over his shoulder apprehensively. He didn’t know what he would do if he actually saw someone or some thing there, following him. And every time he checked, there was nothing to see. In fact, everyone seemed to be gone at the moment. He glanced towards Julia’s station: empty. Nils: gone. Joo-won: nothing. Where had everyone gone? They must already be at dinner. He hadn’t meant for things to get so late, but managing both his and John’s data streams this afternoon had been a bit more involved than normal.

  When he arrived at John’s station, he glanced around. Everything appeared to be normal. He dragged a finger absentmindedly across the nameplate at the station: John Bucksmith, Engineer #3, Plant #2, Plast Inc. He inhaled slowly, held the breath for a count of five, then exhaled. He crossed over to examine the readouts for the data stream on the vid-screen.

  Richard wasn’t sure how he ended up on the floor, but there was no denying the fact that his eyes were no longer looking towards the vid-screen. In fact, they didn’t seem to be looking anywhere. He could feel the cold, hard plasticene flooring beneath his head, but when he opened his eyes, they seemed to be stuck together. Some sort of thick, warm liquid covered them.

  Using what seemed to be an undue amount of effort, Richard struggled to raise his right hand to his face in order to wipe away whatever was keeping his eyes glued shut. He noticed that his heart, which had been racing and pounding away all afternoon, had apparently decided that now was the moment to finally get things under control and slow down. In fact, no matter how hard he tried to get his hand moving, his arm failed to respond.

  Richard could not move.

  He could not see.

  He could hear, but what he heard made no sense: a faint, almost silent, hum. A slow swishing as hands cut through air: down, and across. Far away, across seconds that stretched like eons through Richard’s fading consciousness, he heard the sharp sound of hardened plasticene colliding with itself, the clattering ringing in his ears like a bell. Richard struggled to move something; anything. He knew what that sound meant. He could smell the pungent soup wafting through the air. He needed to get up. He had to be there to meet her. He just needed to rest first. Then he would arrive. And help clean up. But first, this peace, this rest—

  13.

  Sister Esther Dale of the Order of the Sainted Cumulus Mesofactia turned her t’rosary over in her hands. She rubbed a few spattered drops of blood with the edge of her sleeve. The clothes would be incinerated anyway as soon as she returned.

  Normally, she was fairly certain, one ought to dispose of the body when killing someone. But normally, if she were to make a habit of this sort of thing, she would not have been startled and the kill would have been cleaner. Still, for her first effort, she was, she supposed, pleased with herself. After all, the engineer working Station #3 at Plant #2 was now dead at her feet. Esther glanced down. She knew she ought to close the man’s eyes. It was the only decent thing to do, given the circumstances.

  Esther extended her thumb and index finger towards the blood-caked eyes. After a bit of delicate poking around, she located the eyelids and drew them down. The white skin of the eyelids, only slightly smudged due to Esther’s retrieval methods, appeared to gaze at her, stark and pale against the thick band of blood that ringed the man’s head. Under this accusing stare, Esther felt herself begin to retch, violently and swiftly. She turned her head to the side to avoid further desecrating the corpse.

  She stared at the evidential nightmare piled in front of her. Her skills with the t’rosary were considerable, but she had not planned on leaving a large pile of intermixed bodily fluids for the local police to sift through. Ganic, she swore silently, then wiped her mouth across the back of her sleeve.

  Manipulating the t’rosary with lightning fingers, Esther positioned herself over the body and pulled a small, metallic square out of her pocket. She unfolded the square, stretching the sticky material that unfolded over and around the body, taking care to extend the edges out over the pooling blood and vomit. She gestured violently with the t’rosary to up the power of the internal dampening field already in place. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she twisted the t’rosary to the side, and hit the small black dot in the center of the tacky metallic sheet that now covered all organic matter in the room, herself excepted.

  There was the briefest of power surges, slight enough that Esther was able to convince herself that the data streams had remained uninterrupted. The last thing she needed at this point was for a full investigation to be triggered due to a data breach. Manipulating the Panopt system was as close to child’s play as it got when learning to use the t’rosary, but Esther had been moving quickly given the complexity of the operation involved in entering the right building at the right time in the middle of the crowded Pendle downtown. Esther watched as the metallic sheet began to slowly crumple, collapsing in on itself. The remaining organic matter beneath the sheet was burnt beyond crisp: all that remained of Engineer #3 at Plant #2 was a small pile of dust-like ash.

  For a split second, Esther was tempted to gather up the ash and deposit it in the closest incinerator loop, where it would mix with other waste material. But she could not bring herself to do this. She didn’t know the man whose ashes now lay piled a few centimeters from her feet, but she knew herself. While apparently she, Esther Dale, could kill another human being, she could not cavalierly then dispose of the remains by tossing them into the waste system.

  She had a decision to make, and she needed to make it quickly. Apparently her body was not quite finished with its efforts to empty the entire contents of her stomach. Quelling her nausea, Esther flipped and folded the metallic sheet down to about a quarter of its original size before placing it on the floor alongside the remains. With a decisive push, she slid the ash pile onto the sheet. Forcing her hands to remain steady, she folded the sheet several more times until a makeshift pouch had been produced. She opened her jacket and slid the pouch into the interior pocket. It was heavier than she had been expecting; the dead man’s ashy weight would throw her off balance if she wasn’t careful.

  She called out to the tech-bot in charge of cleaning the area and quickly programed it to scrub the place down before engaging in self immolation via the incinerator loop. Not her most creative solution—she still felt incredibly guilty about having to clean up another person’s remains in this industrial manner—but one that would work. Her original plan had been to simulate an unexpected cardiac arrest through a manipulation of the electrical currents available at Station #3, but when her proximity sensor had sounded, indicating the presence of an interloper (Who? How? The timeline was cleared!), she had had to improvise.

  She wished her original plan had been successful. It would have been much neater: a body, dead of natural causes, available to the family for the mourning process. As it was, she now had a missing per
sons case, which would be periodically reviewed by the police and occasionally perhaps even investigated. All of which could bring trouble later on. But she would deal with that later. She was fairly certain that the Mother Superior had access to the Panopt that exceeded her own, perhaps even to the point of actual complete data erasure. That would come in handy at times like this. Perhaps she ought to be thinking about ways to obtain this access herself. It would be helpful to look at the data reverse-scrubbed by the t’rosary and see if the proximity alarm had been triggered by anything significant, or just a stray tech-bot wandering off schedule.

  All these thoughts swirled as Esther Dale exited the room she had entered five minutes ago. If she hadn’t been watching, she might have slipped in the puddle of soup that lay just outside the door to Station #3. The fact that the soup was still steaming troubled her. It must have been spilt just before she arrived, though she didn’t remember seeing it. Her attention had been directed elsewhere. Understandably so. But the price had been paid; the key killed; the shadow network assuaged. And Sister Esther Dale was relieved to realize she would not have to kill again.

  14.

  “Welcome, Sister Agnes. We hope you will be happy with us here. The Conglomerate Church appreciates your willingness to serve. Why don’t you step into my office, and we will discuss your service path?” The Mother Superior motioned to Esther, maintaining an unnerving amount of eye contact throughout her perfunctory welcome speech. Although it was unusual for the sisters to leave one convent for another, it did happen from time to time. And since the monthly off-world transport ship had just landed on NuO several days ago, Esther supposed that a quadrant transfer made the most sense as the backstory to her new identity. Still, the loss of her identity was hitting home now that she actually was home. She felt like the ancient prodigal: resources spent, and seeking for the familiar comforts of home, all while anticipating rejection. Apparently those comforts were to be denied, at least for the time being.

  Esther closed her eyes, then stiffened. Flashes of the bloodied face, her own vomit pooling alongside the neck—she opened her eyes, concentrating instead on the peace she had felt as she released the man’s ashes over the open dust fields at the edge of the dunes to the north of Pendle. May your flight be long, she thought, as if the addition of prayer at this point in the procedure could help in any way. She rubbed her cold fingers against her temples, straining against the silence of the room and the pounding in her head.

  “I am sorry that you have returned at this juncture,” the Mother Superior said. The tone of her voice—dangerous? Disappointment? Esther looked up, steadily.

  “I have completed the task set before me by the Shadow Network, and as such I request sequester in the convent with the restoration of my full identity so that I may continue my training as initiate in the High Tech and serve the Conglomerate God.” Might as well lay things out on the table, since they were off to such a good start.

  “You misunderstand, Sister Agnes. The key has not been turned. The mission is not complete.”

  Esther stared at the Mother Superior, noting distractedly the fine network of lines that surround the Mother’s eyes. She felt the bile rising against the back of her throat, and consciously relaxed the muscles in her upper thighs.

  “But the third engineer at Plant #2—the position identified on the paper as the key—I killed this man. I admit that it was not a clean kill, and that the disposal of the remains without the family’s mourning was unfortunate, but given the circumstances I felt I had no other choice. The alternative would have involved a fairly complex revisioning, and I felt my time was better spent in distancing myself, and thus the convent, from the unfortunate events that lay strewn at my feet.” Esther could hear the tension in her voice, the pleading edge to her words. She winced at such an unprofessional display.

  “You killed the man who entered Station #3, but we have received intelligence that this man was not, in fact, the man assigned to this position,” replied the Mother.

  “Then what the ganic was he doing there?!” Esther swallowed the rest of her unexpected outburst. She hoped the Mother Superior would overlook her lapse into vulgarity. Her hands crept together unconsciously, seeking solace in her own skin.

  “Apparently, covering for a friend. That friend, we have recently learned, is named John Bucksmith. It is he whom you were meant to kill.”

  Esther concentrated on stilling the emotion she could feel rising in her chest. When she spoke again, she spoke calmly. “So I have killed a man who was, for all intents and purposes, innocent not only once, but twice over? I have this blood on my hands?”

  “Yes. But the mistake was an honest one. We are not trained to kill, Sister Agnes. All initiates of the High Tech seek to extend life, not end it. We dedicate ourselves to upholding the order and peace that has been the way of life for man in the universe for hundreds of years. And you were given a direct order in contradiction of all your teaching, and all your training. You were told to apply your knowledge without hesitation, and you complied admirably. As the Mother Superior, I absolve you of this death, and dedicate the sacrifice. He will be remembered in our prayers,” said the Mother Superior. Perhaps these words were meant to be comforting, but Esther could not shake off the guilt that was descending on her mind and soul so easily. She had killed an innocent man. Fear raced along her nerves, crackling down her spine and into her gut.

  “You will be in need of comfort, Sister Agnes. At such times, it would do you well to remember your vows. They have the power to help you find both strength and comfort.”

  “Remember my vows?” Esther repeated dazedly.

  “When I accepted you into my convent, you gave us your word, which was archived and recorded, to serve the God of the Conglomerate Church in all things. And when you found your vocation and entered the path as an Initiate to the Mysteries of the High Tech, this vow was repeated, and archived again. You have bound your soul twice over to the Conglomerate God, you have learned His mysteries, and you understand the degree to which the narrative of mankind among the stars is bound up to His will. We will not continue should we fail Him. And we must ever maintain our diligence against corruption.”

  Esther shook her head, trying to clear away her exhaustion, her guilt, and a pounding headache. She knew her duty. She knew the Mother Superior was simply trying to give her the strength she would need to face the task that lay before her. She knew that she would return to the lower level of the convent, secure a tech sanctum, and initiate Protocol 43F, again. What she didn’t know, what she could not ascertain at this point in time, was what she would do when she returned to Station #3 at Plant #2.

  15.

  Sister Beatrice Cortez, who had been Sister Agnes Bartholomew, and who had been and still was, at least in her own mind, Sister Esther Dale, paused. She cocked her head to one side, listening for the faint and steady breath of the man she intended to kill. But for all her good intentions, all her dedication, she could not muster up the strength to move forward.

  As she made her way back to Plant #2 near the center of Pendle, Esther had felt an unsettling mixture of exhaustion, revulsion, guilt, and fear swirling about her mind and body. The first time, she had gone about it all wrong, she decided. She had simply walked out the front door of the convent and continued until she reached the plant, at which point she had located Station #3 on the plant schematics, and then simply manipulated the surrounding areas so that they were cleared from any witnesses. Her plan had been straightforward: induce a heart attack, and kill the person inside Station #3. But her little plan had, she saw now, been too clean: it was a kill designed to conceal the person she was killing. And in hiding this person from her awareness, she had unwittingly and, even worse, unknowingly killed the wrong man.

  Esther would deal with her guilt later. Right now, however, she needed to concentrate. She needed to develop a plan that would allow her both access to and confirmation of this John Bucksmith, prior to her murdering him. Sacrifice, s
he mentally corrected. Better to call things as they really were. The death of the man at Station #3, Plant #2 was not some pointless murder: it was a death full of significance, and saving. It would set things right. It was a sacrifice.

  So Esther watched security footage hacked onto her vid-screen and waited. She listened to the audio file recorded by the Panopt, looped via her t’rosary into her wire. She heard John Bucksmith talk, and laugh, and worry about his friend Richard, who hadn’t shown up to work today. She heard him breathe. In and out. Over and over.

  It was the breathing that convinced Esther, as she sat squirreled away, that she would kill him. The words of her vows repeated again in mind in time with his breathing, and she saw herself giving her word and archiving that word away in the drive towers. She knew what that recording signified: the drive towers housed the essence of the Conglomerate God. That was, in part, why the lives were recorded and archived. They were an offering to this god, this tech that ran through every strand of their existence. It was impossible to conceive of life separate from the various techs that, by their very existence, made the continued expansion of the human race possible. So as John Bucksmith breathed in, and out, Esther remembered what she had offered, recorded, and vowed.

  If only she could communicate this conviction to her body.

  Her legs shook, her stomach roiled, and her headache had shifted from mildly annoying to blinding. Each time she reached toward her t’rosary to initiate the series of events that would leave sector empty, taking people away on various errands, assigning last-minute tasks and meetings and rerouting the data streams from the sector to avoid any possible interruptions due to unforeseen power fluxes or any other innumerable permutations of the events that would go down during the five minutes it would take Esther to enter Station #3 and kill John Bucksmith through the original application of electromagnetic impulses previously but ineffectively deployed (she thought she had fixed that bug), her arm would freeze, and her fingers would again feel the pressure of warm blood on unseeing eyes.