Approach

by Edward M. Erdelac

“You sure this is a good idea, Inspector?” Brendermeyer asked for the fourth time.

“The Peace Council is expecting me to arrive with a passenger, Brendermeyer. It’ll look fishy if the compliment scan only shows up one life form,” Considine explained for the fourth time.

The police shuttle rose through the upper atmosphere and shuddered as the fiery sky turned black and starry.

“Never been up to Avenir,” Brendermeyer muttered, his eyes wide and full of stars. “Never even been in space before. Is it true you used to work up there?”

“I did. A while ago.”

“Why the hell would you transfer down to Zirconia?”

“I liked the view better.”

“You can’t see a damn thing down there.”

“Precisely.” Considine said, angling the shuttle for the huge ship. “It’s not all stars up here, Brendermeyer. There’s all that blackness in between.”

“I hear the women are choice, though.”

Considine pursed his lips. Brendermeyer wasn’t listening. There was a hell of a lot of politics on Avenir. A lot of clean fingernails with dirty palms. It had got to him. He had been ordered to overlook one too many shady deals, ordered to let one too many cases cool. Avenir was a stagnant place, with its unchanging air, its never shifting castes.

He much preferred Zirconia. He saw the underwater city as a happy medium between Avenir’s static, festering rot, and the violent upheaval of the surface of Eclectica. He liked the leaky hallways and the shifting light that played on the floors, filtered through fathoms of ocean and the thick viewing ports, chilling the raging red skies far above until they were no more than a placid shimmer. 

He liked the glimpses of sea life in all its forms, from the flitterfish to the ethereal angels themselves, going about their alien, inscrutable business on the edge of the Boatic Trench.

The dark waters. Dark waters. Croix had said he was sinking into the dark waters. Then something about the wardens, rising, and freedom.

He puzzled over this when the panel began to blink and Brandermeyer nudged his arm.

He keyed the receiver.

“Zirconia Peacekeeper Shuttle ZP-40, you are cleared to land in docking bay 882.”

“Understood, control,” Considine answered. “882.”

They’re certainly putting us in the proverbial boondocks. Why hadn’t they been directed to the police bay, or even the Peace Council?

“Keep sharp, Brendermeyer.”

Brendermeyer took his sidearm out from under the passenger’s chair and belted it on.

“You expecting trouble?”

“Just keep sharp.”

Mr. Tolliver’s Offer

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Kes stared at the disease-ridden corpse with its alien parasite. He practically rubbed his hands together. So much to be done. So much to study and record. This would make his career.

He was so intent on the body that he almost didn’t notice the door open.

Damn! He had to be more careful. He should’ve locked it. He drew the sheet over Croix hastily and turned to regard the well dressed, tall, dark skinned man who entered.

“Who’re you?” Kes demanded. “This room’s quarantined. You’ve got to leave.”

“My name’s Tolliver, Dr. Kes. And let me preface any further discussion by telling you I know who is under that sheet, and what is within them.”

Kes’ stomach bottomed out.

“What?”

“You’re a talented physician to be toiling down here for the masses and the ZMB,” Tolliver said, strolling across the room to the bed. “I could list your qualifications, but you yourself know your skills are being underutilized, patching up brawling kelp farmers and Enforcers and checking immigrants for syphilis. Your area of expertise is research. Not much call for it here though, is there? Until yesterday, that is.”

Tolliver stared at Kes. The covered body of Croix was between them now. Tolliver reached out and lifted the sheet, staring impassively at the putrid body beneath, which was spotting the white coverlet with yellow grease as the various pustules on the skin burst of their own accord.

He replaced the sheet.

“Do you think the ZMB is going to let you keep sole credit for your discovery? What if I could provide you with state of the art equipment in a private lab space offworld, with unlimited funding for your research?”

“Who are you?”

“I represent parties interested in preventing an impending health crisis of a highly sensitive nature, doctor. They feel they could use someone with your knowledge, especially as it pertains to hitherto unknown lifeforms.”

“What? What kind of a health crisis?”

“I’m only at liberty to speak about it should you say yes to my offer, Doctor. If you do, I can have you and your discovery offworld within the hour.”

“What about Inspector Considine and the Peace Council?”

“Not your concern, nor mine either.”

“What if I refuse?” Kes asked, looking sideways at Tolliver.

Tolliver frowned and clasped his hands behind his back.

“If you refuse….”

Kes held up his hand. A smile broke across his face. “Never mind. I’m being dramatic, I guess. You’re pushing the right buttons, Mr. Tolliver. I’ll have questions of course, but….yes. Yes, I’m interested. I want this.”

“Very good, Dr. Kes,” said Tolliver, slipping the tiny black stingpistol back into his sleeve behind his back. “Let’s talk arrangements.”

Last Words

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Kes ushered Considine into a white room within a white ward, where beneath a white sheet Croix lay, his face a mass of lesions, eyes bloodshot, pale hair now scattered on the pillow.

It had been only nine hours or so since last he’d seen him, but Croix now looked like what he was, a man on the verge of death.

“Great God,” Considine muttered at the sight of him. “What’s happened to him?”

“His condition’s worsening,” Kes said, “at a substantially accelerated rate. It’s as if the parasite’s tripled its normal feeding habits.”

“As if it’s trying to kill him,” Considine said.

“Oh it is,” Croix murmured, his voice shockingly harsh and rasping amid the relative silence of the room, which was broken only by the steady pulsing and chugging of his various life support systems.

Considine went to Croix’s side. Kes hovered near.

“What is it, Croix? Do you know?”

Croix smiled, and that cracked and bleeding smile was terrible to see in that wasted face.

“It’s God,” Croix said. “My own personal God.”

Considine glanced at Kes.

Kes shook his head.

“You’re not going to get anything sane out of him.”

“Faith isn’t sane, Dr. Kes,” Croix said. “I don’t expect you to understand that.”

Considine narrowed his eyes. Croix didn’t appear to be rambling in the throes of fever.

“What do you mean it’s God, Croix?”

“Not God per se. An intermediary, really. Like a saint. A saint bred by God, for communion with this unworthy body. But it brings me close. First, it shuts you out, lets God wear you like a pressure suit. You know nothing of God’s purpose. You only watch yourself, like you’re a character in a story. But then, now….now I begin to see God’s plan.”

“Did God tell you to use the detonite, Croix? What on…?”

“These are incidental questions, Inspector. I am closer to God now then I ever have been. No longer a mere suit, a puppet. I am near to Him. So very near. And you ask God such mundane questions. Really, Inspector. You’re a waste of flesh and lungs.”

“What’s the thing inside of you? Attached to your spine? How did it get there?”

“Incidental, incidental,” Croix yawned. “I’m tired. Very tired. Feel like I’m sinking. Back into the blackness. The darkest waters.” A cloud seemed to fall across his serene though ravaged features, and his eyes popped open, wildly rolling. “No! Not back down there. Not the prison! Hate it! Hate! End is coming! End of all! Must get loose! Must rise! Rise! Kill them! Kill the wardens! Free! Must be free!”

The last he shouted, his gums distended, cracked lips splitting, oozing blood and pus. He went rigid, and then fell back into the pillow, the monitors and scanners flatlining.

“Damn!” Kes said, rushing forward.

Considine turned away and frowned as Kes worked futilely over the corpse for a few moments before throwing up his arms in exasperation.

“He’s dead,” Kes announced.

“Yes,” said Considine. “Dr. Kes, how long can you keep his death a secret?”

Kes stared.

“Come now, doctor. I know it’s in your best interest. You want time to dissect and study the thing inside him. I need that time too. How long?”

“I could possibly get him into a forensic pathology lab, or the morgue, without anyone noticing. If he doesn’t leave the ZMB I could maybe push him around on a gurney-lev for some time. Maybe a day. Two, if I don’t go home.”

“You won’t.”

“What if your interested parties come looking for him?”

“They won’t. Officially, you’re going to release Croix from quarantine into my custody, and I’m going to extradite him to Avenir.”

“Will that work?” Kes asked doubtfully.

“We’ll see. Is my man Enforcer Brendermeyer still here?”

“He’s about to be discharged.”

“Where is he?”

Kes told him the room, and Considine shook his hand and went off down the corridor.

Test Results

by Edward M. Erdelac -

It was morning when Considine received the call from the ZMB. He didn’t bother picking up. Whatever the result of Croix’s scan, he wanted to hear it on the spot. He showered, dressed, picked up a stimgulp from the shop at the north junction of his habitation ring, walked to the ZMB facility, and smoked.

The fish were roiling above his head through the observation bubble in the central axis, but he barely paid any attention. He’d lived in Zirconia six years now. Most of the time he forgot the city was underwater. It really wasn’t that different from living on Avenir. Oh, a little dingier, but really, the air was less stagnant, and there was a better class of people down here. Not in the traditional sense of class, but in the one that mattered.

The Zirconian Medical Bureau was a blazing white bank of pods and corridors that stood out starkly in its contrast to the rest of Zirconia. He went in, and found the receptionist, a cyborg woman jacked into her flat, monitor-less desk terminal by a hardwire running from her left eye port.

“Yes?”

“Inspector Stanlon Considine. I received a call.”

“Yes Inspector, one moment.” She blinked, her one human eyelid closing, the eye beneath flitting sympathetically back and forth beneath as the cyborg eye transmitted pages of data into her mind.

The eye opened again, lovely and brown.

“Doctor Kes is waiting for you in the Imagery Lab. To your left, six doors down. Just follow the placards.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled, her teeth chrome.

Doctor Kes proved to be the very same doctor who had tended to Croix’s cuts and bruises following his rough ride to the surface.

“Inspector, I have some exciting news this morning.”

“Exciting?” Considine repeated innocently, though he had expected some kind of excitement.

Considine proceeded to a terminal and ran his hands over the interface, calling up a colorful holoprojection in the shape of a human form, the features replaced with throbbing blobs of color and hints of a blue skeleton.

“What am I looking at, Doctor?”

“Results of Mr. Croix’s internal scan. Do you see it yet?”

Considine said nothing, but watched as the trembling doctor turned the image of the body with a sweep, tapped and zoomed in on the lower spine.

“See that discoloration there? Sort of intertwined with the spinal column?”

“No,” Considine admitted.

“Well it’s there. A foreign object. An organism. Parasitic, I’d say, that’s why he’s dying. It’s feeding off of him. Has been for some time, breaking down his immune system, sucking the pigment out of his hair even. Look at the size of it! It spans from the lower lumbar right up into the base of the brain. How long must it have been there….”

He traced it with his finger, and Considine did think perhaps he saw something, some snake-like thing spiraling up the vertebrae, pulsing ever so slightly independent of the rest of Croix’s internal workings, whatever they were.

“What is it?” Considine asked, swallowing.

“No idea, unless I remove it,” he looked hopefully at Considine.

“Can you remove it? It looks pretty well lodged in there.”

“Not without killing him. But…he is dying.”

“He’s not dead yet. How did it get inside him?”

“After I detected it, I examined him, noticed a small scar in his lower back. Much too small for this thing to pass through – that’s why I can assume it’s grown for some time.”

“But where could he have picked it up?”

“I have no idea. Not here in the city. Out in the open sea maybe, maybe even up top. I’ve never seen such a creature.”

“Any danger of contagion?”

“No. When I detected it, I held over your Enforcer for scanning, just to be sure.”

Brendermeyer. Considine smiled thinly. So he’d never made it to his comedy show, poor lug.

“He’s completely healthy,” Kes went on. “The normal MB immunizations prevent the viruses he’s carrying. Croix’s dying because this thing has sapped his defenses. He’s picking up everything floating around that we don’t even notice anymore. Every impotent bug and fever.”

“What happens when Croix dies?”

“It’ll die with him. It has no way to exit the body that I can see.”

“Is he still conscious?”

“Yes. He’s completely lucid.”

“Doctor, have you told your colleagues about this discovery yet?”

“No,” Kes said, biting his lip.

Considine nodded. New species, new medical phenom, Kes wanted people calling this thing after him. He hadn’t invited his colleagues in until he could fully study and register the thing.

“Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

“I’m in total agreement,” Kes said with forced nonchalance.

“Where is Croix?”

“Right this way.”

Match

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Considine opened the door to the interrogation room and stepped in.

“Alright Ms. Pacoy, I understand you’ve got a match.”

She was sitting at the table where he’d left her, a pixviewer in hands. She turned it to him, screen glowing in the dim room.

“That’s him. That’s the one that loaded the cargo on Avenir.”

Considine took the pixviewer and regarded the face and file in front of him.

“Alright, you can go, Ms. Pacoy. Let’s keep a closer eye on our cargo bay, shall we?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jelly stepped aside to let her leave the room.

“Orin Bantry,” Considine read, skimming the details of the man’s personnel file. He was rusty-bearded, balding on top, green eyes.

“Should I call it in, Inspector?” Jelly asked.

“No Jelly,” Considine said. “I think I’ll handle this one personally. You can go back to the garage.”

“Alright,” Jelly said.

Orin Bantry, thirty-four years old. He’d been with Morgenstar Munitions for seventeen years, was a Cover by birth, his father a miner on Sheba, mother a teacher on the space station, one of the glorified tutors who passed a rudimentary education on to the kids of the Sheba miners. They had to know how to read their oxygen regulators, didn’t they? How to seal a pressure suit and operate a drill.

Humble background, yes. He’d made the jump to Avenir as part of Morgenstar’s outreach program, basically a quota filling, much publicized hiring process the company ran every year to keep the Sheban miners from thinking they were a slave class. One lucky soul in a million got a cush job, got to live on Avenir.

Bantry’s job hadn’t been exactly cush, as the program put most Shebans and Covers into the freight depot, packing detonite and hauling crates. He’d apparently been one of the few to display genuine career aptitude. He wasn’t just a leg-upper. Worked his way up from freight to R&D, concocting the zero-G explosive devices his family used to safely blow holes in Sheba without scattering the miners into infinity.

But after eight years of being a hands on worker, he’d been promoted only a few months ago to administrative assistant to Aloysius Morgenstar himself, latest in a long line of corporate heads who could trace their lineage back to the founding of the company.

And now he was smuggling detonite to a whacko ex-grit breather on Zirconia.

But why? And why the confluence of two one-in-a-million individuals? A topsy bug hunter who made the jump to kelp farming and a brilliant chemist who’d been dug out of Sheba….two caste jumpers.

Something in his jaw pained him. That little man, that homunculus he used to joke about. The one that kicked him in the tooth when something wasn’t right.

He made his way back to his office and keyed in Gorsh again.

“Stanlon!” Gorsh in his clean suit, in his nice Peace Council office. “We’ll have the extradition crew ready in about ten minutes, so have Croix ready in about thirty?”

“I’m afraid there’s going to be a delay,” Considine said. “ZMB has quarantined the suspect for the time being. Seems he’s riddled with all sorts of viruses.”

“What! I’ve already put the extradition in motion.”

“I know, but you know how ZMB is. They’re adamant about scanning him.”

“Scanning him?” Gorsh repeated, a little nervously it seemed. “Under no circumstances!”

“Sir?”

“That is, I won’t have the delay. The wheels are already in motion.”

“Well I’m sorry, but we’ve no jurisdiction over the Medical Bureau, as you know. The doctor told me there’s a danger of contamination, and you know how touchy the sea monkeys are down here about germs. Nothing short of a squad of Enforcers is going to get him released early.”

“Damn!” said Gorsh. Something certainly wasn’t going his way.

“May I make a suggestion? How would it be if I maintained a close watch on the whole thing personally, and brought Croix up myself as soon as he’s released?” said Considine.

Gorsh was chewing his lips. What was the matter with him? Why did he want Croix so badly?

“Very well, Stanlon,” said Gorsh, straightening his tunic. “But I want you to keep a very close eye. And I want the results of the scan transmitted to my office as soon as….no, wait. I want you to bring me the results. And impress upon the ZMB the need for candor. We’re building a case, here after all, and anything, any narcotics in his system, for instance, any abnormalities at all, could be admissible as evidence.”

“You want the results kept secret?”

“Dammit, Stanlon….yes.”

“Alright….sir. I’ll advice discretion.”

“Do more than advise it.”

“Gorsh, do you expect some abnormality to show up in the scan?”

“I don’t know of course. Don’t be ridiculous. Look, we’ve had some botched sentences up here lately. Lot of angry relatives, influential people petitioning the Peace Council. I just want this to go very smoothly.”

“I see. Alright.”

“Alright. Stay on top of it, and call me as soon as he’s released, or if there are any complications.”

“I’ll do that.”

Gorsh winked out again.

Well something was surely going on here. He’d felt it prudent not to mention the doctor’s diagnosis that Croix was dying from his ailments.

Croix. What was it about the man that agitated Gorsh? Well, Considine’s purpose in delivering the man personally was two-fold. He could continue this investigation better on Avenir.

Now all Croix had to do was survive long enough to make the trip.

The Trouble With Croix

by Edward M. Erdelac -

“He’s dying,” said the Doctor outside the interrogation room where Croix was sitting peaceably.

Considine wasn’t overly surprised. The man looked almost as if he’d died already. Lung deterioration was a common cause of death to Topsies. They worked half their lives to get out of the poison air only to find it had already killed them long ago. Sometimes the knowledge drove them to a nihilistic kind of crime. It made a kind of sense. He just wished he knew what Considine’s target had been.

“What of? Not his injuries, surely.”

“Without a complete scan I can’t say, but by his symptoms, a multitude of things.”

“A multitude?”

“Pneumonia, syphilis, orange and yellow fevers….”

“What?” Enforcer Brendermyer interjected. “Is he contagious?”

“Oh yeah. But most of the things he’s got we’ve all had inoculations for. The thing is, he should’ve had them too prior to entering the city.”

“Couldn’t he have slipped the requirements?”

“Not on your life. The Zirconia Medical Bureau is extremely tough on topsy immigration. Even the crooks don’t bypass the physical requirements. Nobody wants some nasty bug bite disease running rampant in Zironia. Could deep six the whole population.”

“How could he have contracted multiple viral infections?” Considine wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” admitted the doctor. “I’m going to have to request that he submit to a full scan back at the Medical Bureau before I release him to psychiatric care. I’ve got to catalog all he’s got, make sure he’s safe to move.”

“He’s not going to psych. The Peace Council’s requested he be extradited to Avenir.”

“Well he’s not going anywhere till he’s released medically.”

“Alright, Doctor. Can you arrange transport?”

“I’ve already alerted the ZMB. They’re sending a haz-mat team to bubblewrap him and take him back.”

“Fine.” He would have to tell Gorsh Croix wouldn’t be ready in two hours.

Considine looked through the porthole in the door at Croix. The man smiled at him, a little wearily, but still present of mind.

“Could his condition affect his mind, Doctor?”

“Definitely.”

“Will you alert me once the scan’s complete?”

“Sure thing.”

Jelly came tromping down the corridor in his Enforcer gear.

“Hey Inspector, that freight jockey’s gone through the personnel pix from Morgenstar, says she thinks she’s got a match.

“Thank you, Jelly,” Considine said, going off toward the room they’d left her in.

“Hey Inspector!” Brendermyer called.

“What?”

“The club! My gig! Can I go or what?”

“Once the ZMB comes and picks him up, and as long as the Doctor checks you out, it’s alright with me.”

“I’m not gonna have time to change out of all this crap,” he said, gesturing to his tactical wear.

Considine shrugged.

“Maybe it’ll improve your act. Make it a gimmick. Brendermyer: The Laughing Enforcer.”

Jelly at least, chuckled.

Jurisdiction

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Considine settled in front of the console and keyed in the call to Chief Inspector Gorsh on the Peace Council.

After a moment the screen flickered and the ‘Connecting’ icon appeared.

Considine stared at his reflection in the dark screen. Broad, meaty old face, sharp, squinty blue eyes, graying hair. The bronze badge pinned to the lapel of his drab topcoat.

Then his own visage was replaced by the head and shoulders of another man, scrawny, balding, wearing a dress uniform.

“Stanlon,” Gorsh acknowledged, then went back to sifting through something on his desk just out of frame. “Been waiting for your report. What’s the word on the incident in the habitation ring?”

“We extracted Croix without any casualties aside from his cabin seal. I understand the engineers are already reattaching it to the outer seal. Croix’s in custody, but I can’t get a thing out of him. He’s a lunatic apparently.”

“Obviously.”

“I’m letting the psychs have him once the doctor’s finished sewing him up.”

“No that won’t be necessary. Peace Council wants him in relation to another matter. What about the pilot…what’s her name?”

Considine raised his eyebrows, but continued.

“Arden Pacoy. She’s just a hauler trying to make a little dosh on the side. Had no idea what she was carrying. Didn’t even know her contact’s name on Avenir. But she did say the perp wore a Morgenstar company cap. I’ve got her sifting through personnel pix, looking for a match.”

“So you make it to be an inside job?”

“Like we expected.”

“Alright. Good show as always, Stanlon. Forward me your findings and we’ll take over up here. Oh and, you can prepare Croix for extradition in about two hours. I’ll scramble a shuttle.”

“Certainly.”

Considine watched the image of his old partner wink out. Gorsh had done well for himself. They’d all thought him mad to request duty on Zirconia, but there’d been too much politics on Avenir mucking about. Still were, apparently. Why did they want to extradite a nobody like Croix? His records showed he’d never set foot on Avenir, and he was further removed from the higher ups in the bomb plot than even his clueless courier, Arden Pacoy.

Arden. Time to check on her. He rose from the telecam and exited the booth to see Jelly standing there.

“Doctor wants a word, Inspector,” he said.

Strange Fish

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Inspector Considine experienced the same feeling he’d had when he’d first met the Peacekeeper dispatcher whom he’d only known by voice as a rookie on Avenir. He had conjured a face to go with the voice he’d heard day in and day out, and he’d been far off the mark when at last they’d met.

Almer Croix was like that. He didn’t speak the way he looked. He looked a wreck, barely able to manage a bar of soap let alone string words together coherently.

But his tones were measured, his speech refined, despite the limitations of his throat, scarred by years of living on the surface.

He couldn’t place the accent either, which was strange, as he’d always had a good ear for that sort of thing.

Croix raised his slashed and purpling eyebrows, waiting for a response from Considine, when he himself hadn’t answered one of the inspector’s queries yet.

“Space is cold, and dark, and dead,” said Considine. “Like the sea. And you breathe canned air, the same as you do down here.”

“Oh but the sea isn’t dead, Inspector,” Croix smiled. “Not by a sight.”

“Feel like talking now do you?” Considine asked.

“Oh yes.”

“Back to the matter of the detonite then.”

“Oh not about that,” he said, waving his hand. “Tell me about Avenir. Are there very many people? Why did you ever leave there?”

“Mr. Croix,” Considine said, losing his patience. “You’re looking at a spot in the Penal Labor Force on Sheba if you don’t start cooperating. A lot of hard, thankless work in tight spaces interspersed with solitary confinement. The gravity’s always on the blink. Have you ever tried to sleep in intermittent gravity? You rise and drop several times in the middle of the night. All your dreams are of falling. The crumbs of anything you’ve eaten winds up rattling in the vent over your head, and God help you if it happens while you’re on the toilet.”

Croix was smiling at him.

“Tell me about dreams. And about God.”

Considine pursed his lips. Had the man’s brains been shaken too hard?

“Six years, Croix. That’s the minimum penalty. Think you can hold out six years?”

“Oh, Croix won’t live six days, Inspector Considine.”

“What?”

“I won’t live six days.”

Superb. A lunatic. He’d be put on suicide watch then, no shoelaces or belts, no shaving.

“Why? Are you ill?”

“Croix cannot sustain me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Croix smiled and looked up at the ceiling.

“I should have liked to have seen space.”

“OK, last chance. Who supplied the explosives?”

Croix closed his eyes, still smiling.

“Friends.”

“What were you going to do with them?”

He only smiled.

Considine stood up and went to the door. He rapped on the hull, heard the wheel groan as Jelly Galveston swung open the door.

Over the big enforcer’s shoulder, the doctor in the white coat peered suspiciously in.

“All yours, doctor,” he said, and went past him outside.

“Jelly,” he said, when the doctor had re-entered and shut the door behind him. “Stay here till the doctor finishes up. I’m going to arrange for his transfer to the psych ward.”

“He a loony?”

“As loony as they come.”

Croix

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Almer Croix looked as if he had been stuffed in a sack of bruiser beetles and shook. Well, that’s what riding a titanium sphere rapidly to the surface with no restraints or padding did to a man.

He was only a few minutes out of the hyperbaric chamber, was still be checked over by a doctor when Inspector Considine wrenched open the hatch door and stepped inside.

“I’m not finished,” the doctor, a thin man as pale as his coat said, looking up from a suture he was applying to a gash on Croix’s brow. His huge eyeglasses made him look insect-like.

“Take a break, Doctor,” Considine said, taking the seat across the table from Croix.

“If you’re denying him medical attention—”

“He can have all the medical attention he wants after we’ve spoken. Doctor, if you please?”

The doctor finished the suture and Considine and Croix watched each other quietly as he did so.

Croix was a sickly looking bugger, even for a grit-breather who had gone through what he had. He had a topsider’s red eyes, and he coughed now and then, but there was something else. A sunken-ness to him. He looked deflated, dried up, his cheek bones very visible beneath his bruised and slashed skin, his bloodshot eyes deep in hollow sockets. His sparse hair was leper-white, though he was not as old as Considine.

The doctor stood up to pack his instruments.

“You can leave them, Doctor. I’ll look after them,” Considine said.

The doctor looked at Croix and reluctantly went outside.

When the door clanged behind him, Considine leaned forward.

“Let’s have a talk, shall we, Almer?”

Croix coughed.

“What were you going to do with the explosives?”

Croix stared and coughed again.

“Was it your intent to use them on the habitation ring all along?”

Croix looked somewhere past his shoulder, and his head leaned to one side, animal-like.

Was it possible he was suffering some ill effects from his ordeal? Did he have a concussion? Maybe he should have let the doctor look him over more.

“The detonite was stamped Morgenstar Munitions. Who did you arrange to purchase it from?”

Nothing.

“Almer, you worked as bug hunter for your whole life prior to moving down to Zirconia. That must have taken a lot of hard work, a lot of scrimping. A lot of topsies go their whole lives and never save up enough to get out of that damned air.”

The story was the same all over. Shebans and Carlston’s Covers wanted to get down to Eclectia. Topsies wanted to get below sea. Everybody wanted to get to Avenir. But even on Avenir there were divisions between the decks. He knew. Nobody was ever happy where they were at.

“Then three days after you move in, you get pinched trying to transport stolen explosives. To where?”

Almer was looking at him, almost through him.

“You’re not from Zirconia, Inspector,” he rasped in his gravelly voice. No point offering him a cigarette. Topsies smoked from the day they were born.

This time Considine said nothing.

“Your accent….you’re from Avenir.”

Croix leaned in, the disinterested eyes in his ravaged, battered face suddenly alight.

“Tell me what space is like.”

The Pilot

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Arden Pacoy was heavyset and dark-skinned, obviously annoyed to have been pulled out of pre-flight checks to sit and wait in the dim, rusty interrogation room when she should have been earning her daily bread.

As soon as Inspector Considine entered, she said, “What’s this all about? I’m due on the flight deck in fifteen minutes.”

“Put a lid on it, Ms. Pacoy. You didn’t complete your pre-flight. Your company’s already bumped you. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Is your office going to compensate me for time lost? I’ve got a kid to feed…”

“You’ll be lucky if you fly again.”

“Why what’s this about?”

“Tell me how you know Almer Croix.”

She blinked, then shrugged.

“Never heard of him.”

“Well he’s heard of you,” Considine said. “This morning he tried to blow up one of the habitation rings. He demanded safe passage to Avenir and picked your name off the flight duty roster as his preferred pilot.”

“It was probably random!” she exclaimed.

“If it was random he would’ve asked for any old pilot. He demanded to see the duty roster, and asked specifically for you.”

“Well, I don’t know him….he might’ve been a customer.”

“A customer? Aren’t you a company pilot? Your only customer is the people who own your ship.”

She pursed her lips.

“You’re taking side jobs?”

She nodded slowly.

“So you flew cargo for Almer Croix?”

“Not specifically for him. The way it works is, people pay for cargo space on my supply runs.”

“Does the company know you’re renting out space on their freighter?”

“I have a kid to feed, like I said. Besides, the space I leave for independent cargo is negligible. It doesn’t detract much from the company runs.”

“Would they see it that way?”

She bit her lip.

“What was the cargo?”

“I don’t peek. That’s part of the arrangement.”

“Even if it’s high explosive detonite?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I never take suicide cargos. That’s my stipulation.”

Considine studied her face. She had blanched at the mention of the explosives. She was scared. It was obvious.

“Why would he ask for you?”

“I don’t know! I swear! Because he’d dealt with me already, I guess.”

Or maybe because had he gotten on board her ship she could’ve delivered him to somebody sympathetic on Avenir, no need for a transmission that they could’ve intercepted.

“I’m willing to believe you didn’t know what you were hired to deliver. But I want to know who your contact on Avenir was. We know the detonite went missing from a shipment bound for Sheba from Morgenstar Munitions. But we don’t know who lifted the detonite in the first place. It’s likely the same person who delivered it to you on Avenir.”

“I don’t know his name.”

“Could you pick out his face?”

“I don’t know. But he had on a Morgenstar cap.”

Considine pushed back the chair and stood. He took out his pack of cigarettes and offered her one. This was a break. There was a slim chance the perpetrator on Avenir was just wearing a Morgenstar cap. They weren’t exactly the height of fashion. More likely the man who’d delivered the package to her was the same who stole it. If he was an employee of Morgenstar that would make sense. If he was an employee he’d be on record.

She took the cigarette and put it in her lips quick so he wouldn’t see her hand shake.

“I’m going to hold you here just long enough for you to go through some pics. After that I’ll release you.”

“What about the company?” she asked, leaning in to take his light. “Are you going to report me?”

He lit her and then himself, sucked in the fishy smoke and blew it through his nose. She was just one freighter pilot trying to scrape by on a pittance.

“You’ve got a kid to feed,” he said.

She closed her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t thank me, Arden. If you’ve lied, he’ll be an orphan.”

He went outside without another word, letting the hatch clang behind him. The cigarettes didn’t go with the canned air. He dropped it and ground it out with his boot.

“Any luck?” asked Galveston.

He’d asked Jelly Galveston and Brendermyer to stay suited up for the time being, watch the prisoners. The other Enforcers had gone back to their day jobs.

“Yeah, Inspector, can we go home? I’ve got a gig tonight at the Starboard I gotta get ready for.”

Brendermyer worked as a comic there.

“I’ve seen your act, Brendermyer. You’re in no rush. You stay here and guard the door. Jelly, let’s go see if Croix is ready to talk.”

“Come on!” Brendermyer whined as they went off to the hyperbaric chamber where Croix was decompressing.

“How about you, Jelly? Got some place to be?”

“Nossir,” said Galveston. “My brother can hold down the dock while I’m on duty.”

“Good. Put it in a call to Morgenstar Munitions on my authorization and have them send a transtat of their personnel files. Males only. When it comes in, see that Ms. Pacoy has a chance to go through it.”

“Yessir,” said Galveston, going off.

Extraction

by Ed Erdelac -

Inspector Considine called the team in at 0300.

Considine had traced the illegal sale of some mining explosives to an ex-grit-breather named Croix, but somebody had tipped him off and he was barricaded in his cabin with the stuff, threatening to blow the entire southeast habitation ring into the Boatic Trench if he wasn’t given safe passage to Avenir.

There was a negotiator cooing at him like a babe through his door com, but Croix sure as hell wasn’t going to Avenir.

At 0305 as he laid out his demands, the Enforcers had suited up on the north end of Zirconia. Haj began passing out standard-issue GTL’s and pneumatic pistols, but Wilfort pointed out Croix’s cabin pod on the outer edge of the habitation ring and laid out the standard extraction plan. No need for hardware, but Haj was trigger happy and brought his pneumatic along anyway.

At 0310 Croix and the negotiator were arguing over the details of the shuttle that would take him up to Avenir. He wanted to pick the pilot himself from the duty roster. At the same time, the team was already wet, gripping the handlebars of a six-man sea-sled and puttering the long way around the city. Haj spotted an angel, a bioluminescent ghost stroking its way across the blue-black. He tried to take a shot at it, but Galveston, the pilot, warned him not to, and backed the warning with a meaningful tap on the diving knife on his belt. He was the only believer on the team—Jelly, they called him—short for Jelly Roller, the name some called the ones who attributed divinity to the angels.

At 3:17 Croix had the duty roster and was combing it for a name he knew. The team had ditched the sea-sled and cut their external suit lights, freefalling to the habitation ring, being careful not to bang their equipment against the hull. They hand over fisted their way to Croix’s outer shell connection joints and broke out their ratchets.

At 3:19 Croix selected Arden Pacoy as his getaway pilot. Considine made a mental note to nab Pacoy for questioning and checked his watch while the negotiator assured Croix his shuttle had been scrambled on floating launchpad B and was just about fueled and ready.

3:20 Croix was pacing his cabin, getting impatient. The team could see him through the portholes, a wiry, unshaven man with the terminally dirty, red-eyed look of a grit-breather. He hadn’t lived in Zirconia long enough to shake the look yet, long enough to know about the emergency surfacing apparatus installed in every habitation pod. The automatic release controls were on the wall beside Croix’s bunk, hid by a gaudy antique hula girl lamp. In the event of some catastrophe, the controls blew the explosive bolts that held the inner titanium pod in place, and the air-filled sphere would shoot to the surface like an inflatable toy. Of course, the ride wasn’t a smooth one by any means. It was fast and dangerous and survival wasn’t even guaranteed. Even if you lived through the ascent, you still had to get to a hyperbaric chamber or your blood would bubble up in your veins. The team was doing it the old fashioned way, from the outside. They’d bypassed the safety casings and were halfway through loosening the shell bolts. Brendermeyer was moonlighting as a comic in the Starboard Bar. He started to tell a joke about how many grit-breathers it took to empty a CO2 scrubber, but the punchline was lost at 3:22.

3:22. Croix asked the negotiator if Pacoy was ready to go yet, but received no answer. Considine and the negotiator had retreated beyond the emergency airlock in the outer hall and sealed it. The team popped the last of the bolts and Croix’s buoyant cabin was released from the outer hull container. The lights in Croix’s cabin turned red and the air inside lifted it away from the rest of the ring.

“Thar she blows,” said Brendermeyer over the team’s inter-suit com as the silvery sphere of the inner cabin rocketed away from the rusty outer hull and went tumbling end over end surface-ward.

Croix was tossed and shaken like a shoe in a clothes dryer. He’d be too battered and bloody to remember his own name, much less trigger the twelve pounds of HE detonite the Peacekeepers found in the shambles of his cabin when it bobbed to the surface approximately five seconds after the team had launched it.

Considine flicked the purple stub of a cigarette off the bobbing submersible and watched the cyanotine ash mingle with its distant relatives already drifting in the hot air. The medics carried Croix below. In about two hours he’d have words with the skinny grit-breather, when he’d been released from the decompression chamber.

For now there was Arden Pacoy to talk to.