Zero Flux: A Central Galactic Concordance Novella Read online

  “Everyone all right?” The echo of his words said the room was bigger than a closet. What he could see of the stone floor looked clean, except for the shattered ice that had spilled in before the doors had shut.

  He focused on Mairwen as she slipped the forensic kit’s strap off her shoulder and rose to a crouch, her wrist knife still in her hand. She had a tendency to downplay injuries so he wouldn’t worry. He had yet to convince her that his imagination was worse than reality.

  She turned her face to him briefly and gave him a small smile that said she knew what he was thinking. “Yes, Luka.”

  Einar grunted as he got to his feet. “I’ll try for some lights.” He pulled off his left outer glove as he stepped up to a faintly glowing wall panel, gently nudging aside one of his hovering lights.

  Luka drew in a slow, calming breath. The air was still and dry, but the room was blessedly silent. The adrenalin rush was over, and his talent had gone quiet, leaving a bone-deep chill in its wake. He got to his feet and wrapped his arms across his chest, resigned to the likelihood that the last thunderous crash from the ice cave meant they were well and truly stuck in the obnoxiously cold room for a while. If the ice ceiling throughout the cave had collapsed, which from the sound of it was probable, they’d have to dig their way out through the icefall. The noise had been loud to him, so it must have been earsplitting for Mairwen. She had an amazing ability to ignore sounds, but that didn’t mean she didn’t hear them.

  Einar hadn’t lost his habit of muttering darkly when dealing with unfamiliar tech, even something as simple as a wall panel. Lumi Silta’s culture revered self-reliance and instilled a deep suspicion that all tech was semi-sentient and malicious, waiting for the worst possible time to fail. Yet another reason why Luka had moved off-world as soon as he could.

  Einar’s poking at the wall panel finally yielded results. The lights in the room blinked once or twice, then stayed on. From the look of things, it was a whole facility, and far more than someone’s secret contraband cache or exploration base, as he’d originally guessed. The room was huge, at least seventy meters square, with a seven-meter-high ceiling and walls of the same stone as the floor. It was completely empty except for a built-in kitchen area about halfway back along one wall. Behind that and along the back were four wide doorways, all open.

  Einar whistled low and long in amazement. “I’d never have believed it.” He looked around, then back toward the entrance. “Someone excavated half a mountain and built all this under a lot of noses.” He turned to Luka. “How did you know it was here?”

  “I didn’t. I only saw the recess and the door. When the ice started falling, I figured it would be the safest place.” He shrugged. “I thought it might be a glorified storage locker.”

  Einar snorted. “Some storage locker.” His naturally resonant voice bounced off the walls. “The geologist said the ice cave is natural, fed by an underground river. Maybe whoever built this place thought the cave made good camouflage for their entrance to…whatever this is.”

  Luka had already noticed that Einar had been cagey about the identity of the geologist and how he or she had come across the ice cave in the first place. Einar quietly collected secrets the way some people collected geodes. In the past, he’d used them rarely and judiciously, but perhaps he’d changed in the twenty years since Luka left. Einar was a politician now, as well as a law enforcer, and politics on Lumi Silta were influenced by an uneasy truce between the few founding families that had managed to hang onto their holdings. Einar’s family wasn’t one of them, so he undoubtedly had to plot a very careful flight path.

  Mairwen cleared her throat and she caught Luka’s eye. “I’ll scout,” she said, briefly brushing her ear as if it itched. It was their sign language code; it told him she was hearing something she wanted to check out. Luka nodded.

  He watched her turn and head for the kitchen area, returning her knife to its wrist sheath as she did so. There was a fluid grace in everything she did. Even wearing bulky expedition boots, she somehow managed to walk quietly.

  Einar poked at the wall panel some more, then growled in disgust. “Look for the building comp or environmental controls,” he said loudly.

  Mairwen waved a hand in acknowledgment.

  Einar put his outer glove back on. “This panel only controls the entrance door and lights. If we’re stuck in this cursed place for long, we’ll freeze our eistu off unless we can turn on some heat.”

  Luka was no judge, because the whole planet always felt cold to him, but it must really be cold if Einar was complaining about frostbitten testicles.

  Little bits of cable and stray fasteners on the floor suggested the facility had been vacated with some haste, and Luka was itching to explore their temporary refuge, but first he needed some answers from Einar.

  “Why do you think the male victim is my father?”

  Einar met his gaze with a neutral expression. “Four cyber fingers on the left hand, double-infinity embossed skin art on the right, short height, brown skin, geology toolkit around his waist. The geologist had an exploration myndavél, uh, camera, and sent images.”

  “Which you didn’t show me,” said Luka, unable to keep his annoyance out of his voice.

  Einar looked down and toed aside a few pieces of ice. “I didn’t want to prejudice your investigation.”

  Luka started to protest, then clamped his mouth shut and felt his fingers curl. Nothing he could say would make Einar repentant. It hurt that his old friend and mentor didn’t trust him.

  Einar shrugged a shoulder and drew in a slow breath. “Last anyone heard from Rye Foxe was fifteen years ago, when he was on Hitabeltinu on a contract job.”

  Luka considered the facts. Hitabeltinu was an unpopulated continent, so Rye getting lost would be understandable. He was a loner who had acquaintances, not friends, so his not being missed was understandable, too. Getting murdered was not so understandable. As far as Luka knew, his father wasn’t hated by anyone outside of family.

  Intuition sparked in Luka’s mind about how and why the crime scene had been discovered, but he’d have to finesse the information out of Einar a piece at a time.

  Luka shoved his hands into his middle pockets. “I’m surprised Hitabeltinu is finally being opened up for settlement. As I remember, the Frumfjölskyldafélag rather objected.” Collectively, the Primary Family Association owned a large percentage of the development rights on Ættinheim, Lumi Silta’s only settled continent, but nothing on Hitabeltinu. They’d successfully blocked settlement initiatives for at least the last hundred years. Land rights meant development royalties and seats on business and government councils, meaning their power base—and revenue stream—were about to be diluted.

  Einar snorted. “Falling out among thieves… Oh, sorry, honored members. The Bjartmar family held out the longest. I think they were trying to buy up exploration geomark claims, but they didn’t count on sóló refa who wouldn’t sell.” The Icelandic term literally meant “solo foxes,” but implied clever freelancers with flexible ethics and a disdain for tradition and rules. Rather like Luka’s father had been, when sober.

  “Any ideas on the female victim?” Luka asked.

  “None,” said Einar. Before Luka could assess whether or not Einar was withholding that information, too, they were interrupted by a call from Mairwen.

  “Luka, bring the kit.” She was still in the kitchen area.

  Luka stooped to grab the strap, then half-trotted toward her, relieved to delay more fencing with Einar, with his myriad secrets and hidden agendas. Einar followed more slowly.

  She stood next to a large, half-height, freestanding cold unit, with her gloved hand on the lid. The unit was notable because it had apparently been left behind, but when he and Einar got close enough and she opened the lid, he saw why she’d called.

  Inside was a frost-covered human corpse, looking like a marionette stuffed in a box. Or more appropriately, like a mech model, because the arms and legs were fully cybernetic,
visible underneath ripped and tattered synthskin. Luka’s talent and intuition flared hot.

  The body had been forced into the cold box long after death, and had required partially detaching the knee joints to get the legs folded to fit. The synthskin was almost blue, instead of the usual deterioration color of green or gray. The face was grotesque from the damage wrought by time and cold, but gracile. She’d have been tall, and tattoos and a skulljack said she’d once been a Jumper, one of the crack military commandos trained for war and peacekeeping. He’d bet money she’d died of a broken neck and maybe suffocation, the kind of fatal trauma sustained in an avalanche. The mountains were prone to them, which was why Einar’s geologist had needed to excavate a new small tunnel to get in, then discovered and cleared the larger natural opening.

  “Djöfull,” breathed Einar.

  Luka snorted to himself at Einar’s superstitious description. Not a devil, just a woman. Luka leaned in close to examine the torso, which had more torn synthskin. Exposed metal where her ribs should have been suggested that more than just her limbs were cybernetic. The Humanity Principles of 2703 made it illegal to convert a human to more than fifty percent cyber, and the woman in the cold unit looked to be synthetic from the neck down. The naked breasts were very realistic. Whoever had designed the flesh and dermal details had been a top-notch artist.

  He got the surprise of his life when he realized the cybernetics were still powered. It should have been impossible, since power sources approved for medical use only lasted a few years. He used the handle of his ice knife as a probe to gently touch the synthskin tissue around a power node that was glowing red in the torn palm of her hand. He saw hints of other similar nodes in the rest of her. Based on the sound that had drawn Mairwen’s attention and the small blue light that came on when the lid opened, the cold unit was still powered, too, but likely by more conventional means.

  The victim’s right elbow joint looked like it had been carefully disassembled. He didn’t know enough about cybernetics to know if the tech was standard, top-of-the-line, or experimental. He moved left to look more closely at the visible power node, only to run into Mairwen.

  “Sorry,” he said, and realized he’d lost track of the world for a bit. She only twitched an eyebrow at him; she’d have smiled if Einar wasn’t around. He gave her a smile back.

  “Now this,” said Einar, “is something worth hiding.”

  “Ó, já,” agreed Luka. He looked around for his forensic kit, only to realize he was still holding it.

  Mairwen took it from his hand, so he focused on the cold unit itself. Ordinarily, he’d have to look up makes and models, but he knew this one because he’d ordered one for the criminal investigation unit he’d been assigned to about ten years ago. It was designed for industrial settings where rapid cooling and consistent temperatures were important. He lowered the lid to check the temperature readout. He lifted the opaque gray tape that covered it, probably to hide its glow, though he couldn’t imagine who’d see it.

  Mairwen had placed the kit on the closest kitchen counter behind them and unfolded one of the sections. “Cameras?” she asked.

  “Yes, please.” They hadn’t worked as many crime scenes together since they’d left La Plata, their former employer, to strike out on their own, but she knew his routine. “Make sure to get coverage of her tattoos. They’re unique enough that someone in the Jumper Corps might recognize them.” From what he’d seen, members of the elite force of the Citizen Protection Service had a tight camaraderie and looked out for their own, even after they left active duty.

  While she readied the camera swarm, he pulled out his customized kit for sampling bodies. Standard kits didn’t include multiple cryo sample tubes, but his did, ever since he’d encountered a ship’s hold full of the frozen bodies of murdered children.

  He shook off the stir of uneasy ghosts from his memory and glanced at Einar. If the older man had any ideas about what they were dealing with, he was keeping them to himself, as usual.

  They stood and watched the cameras work. It only took a couple of minutes, even with the extra coverage on the body. The momentary inactivity reminded Luka how miserably cold the room was. He checked his kit’s temperature gauge, and was not surprised that the reading was fifteen degrees below freezing. The cold unit was trying its damnedest to keep its interior at minus fifty, even with the lid open.

  Luka worked quickly, asking for help when he needed it, to collect as many measurements and samples as possible without moving the corpse. There was little normal human tissue to collect for biometric matching. He gave them a running commentary on his observations, including the fact that the victim was likely twenty years dead, and that the cold unit was new ten years ago, and was purchased off-planet.

  Einar frowned. “Any other evidence to support that time of death?”

  Luka well remembered that Einar dealt only in facts, not feelings, and had chided Luka time and again when he couldn’t explain his intuitive suppositions. Although it had annoyed Luka to no end at the time, it had made him a much better investigator, and had given him the means to cover for his unique minder talent as it continued to strengthen.

  “Little things. The condition of her hair, model of the skulljack, style of her tattoos, the deterioration rate of synthskin when frozen. We’ll need lab work to confirm.” Luka closed the cold unit and his kit, pulled on his outer gloves again, then crossed his arms to shove his aching hands under his armpits. “Is the storm still brewing? It’s too cold to stay in here without gear.”

  Einar opened a tab on his left glove to access his percomp, a high-end model appropriate for a planetary police commissioner. He subvocalized a command, then frowned. “No links, side or up.”

  “The mountain?” asked Luka. Both their flitters had permanent uplinks to satellite communications and could act as sidelink routers. Einar’s expensive percomp should have been able to find at least one of them.

  Einar shook his head. “Maybe. I’ll try near the door. It was working in the cave.”

  “While you’re doing that,” Luka said, “Mairwen and I will have a quick look through the rest of the facility.” He caught her eye, then strode purposefully toward the open doorways in the back before Einar could object or issue other orders. Luka needed the warmth generated by activity, and he wasn’t ready to cede his or Mairwen’s independence.

  CHAPTER 3

  * Planet: Lumi Silta * GDAT 3240.350 *

  Luka wished the people who had vacated the facility had been a little less thorough. The configuration of the rooms and hallways suggested it was an abandoned research station, with living quarters for ten, a few offices and storerooms, and five large laboratories with letter designations above the doorways. The wall panels in two of the living quarters weren’t working, but everywhere else, they were just like the one in front, with only lighting and doorway controls, but oddly, no environmental or building comp access. Which made him wonder where the main facility controls were and why they were hidden. In the labs, traces of dust shadows indicated where large equipment had stood, and the built-in work areas and counters had two levels of continuous powerbars at ankle and waist height.

  The doorways were wide and the stone walls were a meter thick or more. Oxygen exchange had to be going on somewhere, or the air would be stale, but Mairwen said she heard no fans or rattling ducts. Somewhere, probably deep below them, was a geothermal energy converter, the ubiquitous method for generating power on volcanically active Lumi Silta. The facility had been expensive to build, which suggested the builder had deep pockets. He and Mairwen agreed it could be the Citizen Protection Service, the CGC’s covert operations agency, or maybe a pharma company.

  When they entered what may have once been an exercise room at the other end of the facility, Luka drew Mairwen in for a brief hug, though the cold-weather gear made it awkward.

  “A frozen lab isn’t the nicest introduction to my homeworld, elskan.” He’d developed a habit of calling her “beloved”
in a variety of languages, but he liked Icelandic the best.

  She gave him a teasing smile. “Nicer than your mother’s family.”

  He supposed he should have been insulted, but all he could do was laugh ruefully and shake his head. “Truly. Now you know why my first career goal was any contract that got me off Lumi Silta.”

  The time they’d recently spent at a hastily arranged get-together at his great-grandparents’ house had been among the more unpleasant hours of his life, including the time he’d been in desperate combat against mercenaries on an uncharted planet. He’d only agreed to go because Mairwen had expressed an interest in seeing the town where he’d spent his childhood.

  When he was growing up, he’d actively detested the Ragnheiour family for not helping his dying mother or protecting them from his father’s violence, but the years, and perhaps some maturity, had softened his view. They could have been in the Primary Family Association if they’d worked together, but they were too dysfunctional, too perpetually consumed by their own drama. Internal alliances were made and betrayed almost weekly, and even his direct line relatives, such as his grandparents, argued over worthless trivia but forgot everything significant. His mother, Arndís, had signed the cohab with the older, obviously outlander Rye Foxe the day she’d turned seventeen just to get away from them.

  For everyone but his pleasant second cousin Rorno Tómasson, a successful energy engineer, Luka had been the new sparkling toy to gnaw on during his and Mairwen’s visit. He’d fielded dozens of salacious questions about sensational cases, whether he’d ever killed anyone in the line of duty, when he was coming “home where he belonged,” and his relationship with Mairwen. He’d steadfastly described her as his partner, to protect her from rude prying into her personal history. Not that she’d tell them, regardless. Even professional interrogators foundered when Mairwen didn’t want to share.