Nights Dawn (№7) - A Second Chance at Eden

«Your children are examining a tortoise they have found in the garden of your new house. Your wife is talking to Mrs Zimmels, they are in the kitchen.»

Michael Zimmels raised his eyebrows in amusement. «Sally Ann's cutting her in on the local gossip.»

«You can see them, too?»

«Hear and see. Hell, it's boring; Sally Ann's a sponge for that kind of thing. She thinks I don't look after my advancement prospects, so she plays the corporate social ladder game on my behalf.»

«Do you show anybody anything they ask for?» I asked.

«No,» Eden replied. «The population are entitled to their privacy. However, legitimate Police Department observation requests override individual rights.»

«It sounds infallible,» I said. «I can't go wrong.»

«Don't you believe it,» Zimmels retorted knowingly. «I've just given you the good news so far. You're not just responsible for Eden, the entire JSKP operation in Jupiter orbit comes under your jurisdiction. That means a lot of external work for your squads; the industrial stations, the refineries, inter-orbit ships; we even have a large survey team on Callisto right now.»

«I see.»

«But your biggest headache is going to be Boston.»

«I don't remember that name in any of my preliminary briefings.»

«You wouldn't.» He produced a bubble cube, and handed it over to me. «This contains my report, and most of it's unofficial. Supposition, plus what I've managed to pick up from various sources. Boston is a group of enthusiasts—radicals, revolutionaries, whatever you want to call them—who want Eden to declare independence, hence the name. They're quite well organized, too; several of their leading lights are JSKP executives, mostly those on the technical and scientific side.»

«Independence from the UN?»

«The UN and the JSKP, they want to take over the whole Jupiter enterprise; they think they can create some kind of technological paradise out here, free of interference from Earth's grubby politicians and conservative companies. The old High Frontier dream. Your problem is that engaging in free political debate isn't a crime. Technically, as a UN policeman, you have to uphold their right to do so. But as a JSKP employee, just imagine how the board back on Earth will feel if Eden, Pallas, and Ararat make that declaration of independence, and the new citizens assume control of the He3 mining operation while you're here charged with looking after the corporation's interests.»

The PNC wafer's bleeping woke me. I struggled to orientate myself. Strange bedroom. Grey geometric shadows at all angles. A motion which nagged away just below conscious awareness.

Jocelyn shifted around beside me, twisting the duvet. Also unusual, but the Zimmels had used a double bed. Apparently it would take a couple of days to requisition two singles.

My questing hand found the PNC wafer on the bedside dresser. I prayed I'd programmed it for no visual pick-up before I went to bed. «Call acknowledged. Chief Parfitt here,» I said blearily.

The wafer hazed over with a moir

Detective Lieutenant K

«We have a major crime incident inside the habitat, sir.»

«What incident?»

«Somebody's been killed. Penny Maowkavitz, the JSKP Genetics Division director.»

«Killed by what?»

«A bullet, sir. She was shot through the head.»

«Fuck. Where?»

«The north end of the Lincoln lake.»

«Doesn't mean anything. Send a driver to pick me up, I'll be there as soon as I can.»

«Driver's on her way, sir.»

«Good man. Wafer off.»

It was Shannon Kershaw who drove the jeep which picked me up, one of the station staff I'd met the previous afternoon on my lightning familiarization tour, a programming expert. A twenty-eight-year-old with flaming red hair pleated in elaborate spirals; grinning challengingly as Zimmels introduced us. Someone who knew her speciality made her invaluable, giving her a degree of immunity from the usual sharpshooting of office politics. This morning she was subdued, uniform tunic undone, hair wound into a simple tight bun.

The axial light-tube was a silver strand glimpsed through frail cloud braids high above, slightly brighter than a full Earth moon. Its light was sufficient for her to steer the jeep down a track through a small forest without using the headlights. «Not good,» she muttered. «This is really going to stir people up. We all sort of regarded Eden as . . . I don't know. Pure.»

I was studying the display my PNC wafer was running, a program correlating previous crime incident files with Penny Maowkavitz, looking for any connection. So far a complete blank. «There's never been a murder up here before, has there?»

«No. There couldn't be, really; not with the habitat personality watching us the whole time. You know, it's pretty shaken up by this.»

«The personality is upset?» I enquired sceptically.

She shot me a glance. «Of course it is. It's sentient, and Penny Maowkavitz was about the closest thing to a parent it could ever have.»

«Feelings,» I said wonderingly. «That must be one very sophisticated Turing AI program.»

«The habitat isn't an AI. It's alive, it's conscious. A living entity. You'll understand once you receive your neuron symbiont implant.»

Great, now I was driving round inside a piece of neurotic coral. «I'm sure I will.»

The trees gave way to a swath of meadowland surrounding a small lake. A rank of jeeps were drawn up near the shoreline; several had red and blue strobes flashing on top, casting transient stipples across the black water. Shannon parked next to an ambulance, and we walked over to the group of people clustered round the body.

Penny Maowkavitz was sprawled on the grey shingle four metres from the water. She was wearing a long dark-beige suede jacket over a sky-blue blouse, heavy black cotton trousers, and sturdy ankle boots. Her limbs were askew, the skin of her hands very pale. I couldn't tell how old she was, principally because half of her head was missing. What was left of the skull sprouted a few wisps of fine silver hair. A wig of short-cropped dark-blonde hair lay a couple of metres away, stained almost completely crimson. A wide ribbon of gore and blood was splashed over the shingle between it and the corpse. In the jejune light it looked virtually black.

Shannon grunted, and turned away fast.

I'd seen worse in my time, a lot worse. But Shannon was right about one thing, it didn't belong here, not amongst the habitat's tranquillity.

«When did it happen?» I asked.

«Just over half an hour ago,» Rolf K

«The personality saw it happen?»

«Yes, sir.»

«Who did it?»

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 Fashol

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 Fashol

«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, He3 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?»

Fashol

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 K

Rolf was standing in front of the screen, hands on hips, watching attentively as the lines lengthened.

«Is that showing Penny Maowkavitz's movements?» I enquired.

«Yes, sir,» Rolf said. «She's the blue line. And the servitor chimp is red. Eden is interfaced with the computer; this is a raw memory plot downloaded straight from its neural strata. It should be able to tell us everyone who came near the servitor in the last thirty hours.»

«Why thirty hours?»

«That's the neural strata's short-term memory capacity.»

«Right.» I was feeling redundant and unappreciated again. «What was the servitor chimp's assigned task?»

«It was allotted to habitat botanical maintenance, covering a square area roughly two hundred and fifty metres to a side, with the lake as one border. It pruned trees, tended plants, that kind of thing.»

I watched the red line lengthening, a child's crayon-squiggle keeping within the boundary of its designated area. «How often does it . . . go back to base?»

«The servitor chimps are given full physiological checks every six months in the veterinary centre. The ones allotted to domestic duties have a communal wash-house in town where they go to eat, and keep themselves clean. But one like this . . . it wouldn't leave its area unless it was ordered to. They eat the fruit, their crap is good fertilizer. If they get very muddy they'll wash it off in a stream. They even sleep out there.»

I gave the screen a thoughtful look. «Did Penny Maowkavitz take a walk through the habitat parkland very often?»

He rewarded me a grudgingly respectful glance. «Yes, sir. Every morning. It was a kind of an unofficial inspection tour, she liked to see how Eden was progressing; and Davis Caldarola said she used the solitude to think about her projects. She spent anything up to a couple of hours rambling round each day.»

«She walked specifically through this area around Lincoln lake?»

His eyelids closed in a long blink. A green circle started flashing over one of the houses on the parkland edge of the town. «That's her house; as you can see it's in the residential zone closest to Lincoln lake. So she would probably walk through this particular chimp's area most mornings.»

«Definitely not a suicide, then; the chimp was waiting for her.»

«Looks that way. It wasn't a random killing, either. I did think the murderer might have simply told the chimp to shoot the first person it saw, but that's pretty flimsy. Whoever primed that chimp put a lot of preparation into this. If all you want to do is kill someone, there are much easier ways.»

«Yes.» I gave an approving nod. «Good thinking. Who's Davis Caldarola?»

«Maowkavitz's lover.»

«He knows?»

«Yes, sir.»

The «of course» was missing from his voice, but not his tone. «Don't worry, Rolf, I'm getting my symbiont implant this afternoon.»

He struggled against a grin.

«So what else have we come up with since this morning?»

Rolf beckoned Shannon Kershaw over. «The gun,» he said. «We handed it over to a team from the Cybernetics Division's precision engineering laboratory. They say it's a perfect replica of a Colt .45 single-action revolver.»

«A replica?»

«It's only the pistol's physical template which matches an original; the materials are wrong,» Shannon said. «Whoever made it used boron-reinforced single-crystal titanium for the barrel, and berylluminium for the mechanism, even the grip was moulded from monomolecule silicon. That was one very expensive pistol.»

«Monomolecule silicon?» I mused. «That can only be produced in microgee extruders, right?»

«Yes, sir.» She was becoming animated. «There are a couple of industrial stations outside Eden with the necessary production facilities. I think the pistol was manufactured and assembled in the habitat itself. Our Cybernetics Division factories could produce the individual components without any trouble; and all the exotic materials are available as well. I checked.»

«It would go a long way to explaining why Eden never saw the pistol before,» Rolf said. «Separately, the components wouldn't register as anything suspicious. Then after manufacture they could have been put together in one of the areas where the habitat personality doesn't have total perception coverage. I'd say that was easier than trying to smuggle one through our customs inspection; we're pretty thorough.»

I turned to Shannon. «So we need a list of everyone authorized to use the cyberfactories, and out of that we need those qualified or capable of running up the Colt's components without anyone else realizing or querying what they were doing.»

«I'm on it.»

«Any other angles?»

«Nothing yet,» Rolf said.

«What about a specialist to examine the chimp?»

«Hoi Yin was recommended by the habitat Servitor Department, she's a neuropsychology expert. She said she'll come in to study it this afternoon. I'll brief her myself.»

«But you must be very busy, Rolf,» Shannon said silkily. «I can easily spare the time to escort her.»

«I said I'd do it,» he said stiffly.

«Are you quite sure?»

«OK,» I told them. «That'll do.» I clapped my hands, and raised one arm until I had everyone's attention. «Good morning, people. As you ought to know by now, I'm Chief Harvey Parfitt, your new boss. I wish we could have all had a better introduction, Christ knows I didn't want to start with this kind of pep talk. However . . . there are a lot of rumours floating round Eden concerning Penny Maowkavitz's murder. Please remember that they are just that, rumours. More than anyone, we know how few facts have been established. And I expect police officers under my command to concentrate on facts. It's important for the whole community that we solve this murder, preferably with some speed; the habitat residents must have confidence in us, and we simply cannot allow this murderer to walk around free, perhaps to kill again.

«As to the investigation itself; as Eden's personality seems unable to assist us at this point, our priority is to search back through Penny Maowkavitz's life, both private and professional, to establish some kind of motive for the murder. I want a complete profile assembled on her physical movements going back initially for a week, after that we'll see if it needs extending any further. I want to know where she went, who she met, what she talked about. On top of that I want any long-time antagonisms and enemies listed. Draw up a list of friends and colleagues to interview. Remember, no detail is too trivial. The reason for her death is out there somewhere.» I looked round the dutifully attentive faces. «Can anyone think of a line of inquiry I've missed?»

One of the uniformed officers raised her hand.

«Yes, Nyberg.»

If she was embarrassed that I remembered her name, she didn't show it. «Penny Maowkavitz was rich. Someone must inherit Pacific Nugene.»

«Good point.» I'd wondered if they'd mention that. Once you can get them questioning together, working as a team in your presence, you've won half the battle for acceptance. «Shannon, get a copy of Maowkavitz's will from her lawyer, please. Anything else? No. Good. I'll leave you to get on with it. Rolf will hand out individual assignments; including someone to take a statement from the Governor about his whereabouts over the last few days. Apparently we have one or two conspiracy theorists to placate.» Several knowing grins flashed round the room. Rolf let out a dismayed groan.

I let them see my own amusement, then signalled Shannon over. «It might be a good idea to check out that theory of yours about the pistol being manufactured up here,» I told her. «Get on to the Cybernetics Division, ask them to put a Colt .45 pistol together using exactly the same materials as the murder weapon was built from. That way, we'll see if it is physically possible, and if so what the assembly entails.»

She agreed with a degree of eagerness, and hurried back to her desk.

I would have liked to hang around, but harassing the team as they got to work wasn't good policy. At this stage the investigation was the pure drudgery of data acquisition. To assemble a jigsaw, you first have to have the pieces—old Parfitt proverb.

I went upstairs to my office, and started in on routine administration datawork. What joy.

The hospital was a third of the way round the town from the police station, a broad three-storey ring with a central courtyard. With its copper-mirror glass and mock-marble fa

I was ushered into Corrine Arburry's office just after two o'clock. It was nothing like as stark as mine, with big potted ferns and a colony of large purple-coloured lizards romping round inside a glass case in the corner. According to her file, Corrine had been in Eden for six years, almost since the habitat was opened for residency.

«And how are you settling in?» she asked wryly.

«Well, they haven't gone on strike yet.»

«That's something.»

«What were they saying about me out at the lake?»

«No chance.» She wagged a finger. «Doctor/patient confidentiality.»

«OK, what were the pathology findings?»

«Penny died from the bullet. Her blood chemistry was normal . . . well, there was nothing in it apart from the prescribed viral vectors and a mild painkiller. She hadn't been drugged; and as far as I can tell there was no disabling blow to the head prior to the shooting, certainly no visible bruising on what was left of her skull. I think the personality memory of her death is perfectly accurate. She walked out to the lake, and the chimp shot her.»

«Thanks. Now what can you tell me about Penny Maowkavitz herself? So far all I've heard is that she could be a prickly character.»

Corrine's face puckered up. «True enough; basically, Penny was a complete pain. Back at the university hospital where I trained we always used to say doctors make the worst patients. Wrong. Geneticists make the worst patients.»