STOWAWAY TO THE STARS

Rachel’s funeral was delayed until the police had completed their forensic tests and released her body. It was not until after the funeral that Karen was able to give any further thought to the vow she had made to her dead sister.

The police had categorized her death as suspicious. There was no firm evidence that anyone else had been in the room with her, but they found no trace of Rachel’s fingerprints on the syringe, and her body position was not normal for a suicide. For weeks Karen pestered them for news, in between trying to catch up with her work and comforting her parents – at a time when she could have used some comfort herself.

At first the police were sympathetic, but they had little to go on and soon exhausted all their lines of enquiry. It quickly became apparent they had put the case on the back-burner. They had other, more pressing and clear-cut problems to deal with.

If Karen was to fulfill her vow, she needed to make her own investigations. She started by talking to friends, neighbors and Rachel’s work colleagues. No one knew anything useful, only two colleagues even knew Rachel had a boyfriend.

Karen didn’t know what Grant looked like or what he did. She tried the hotel staff where Rachel had been found, but they were either uncooperative or genuinely knew nothing. She almost got to the point where she doubted his existence, until she found Rachel’s diary and some passing references to “G”.

She needed a way to make him reveal himself. She could walk right past him and not realize who he was. Maybe she could make him recognize her instead. She and Rachel were very much alike, they’d been mistaken for twins more than once.

She would disguise herself as Rachel and visit all the local concerts. If Grant had met Rachel at a concert, chances were he would still be going to them. If he saw someone looking like Rachel, it might startle him long enough for him to give himself away. Once she knew what he looked like and where he could be found, she could tell the police. If they were no longer interested, she would hire a private detective. It was a long shot, but it was the best plan she could think of. She had made Rachel a promise and she would not give up.

****

The commanding officer eventually managed to calm down Larry’s fury over Annek’s death. He helped further by relieving Larry of the need to attend to practical details.

Larry paid an immediate visit to his close friend to seek advice. Ket was also his brother-in-law, having married Larry’s sister, Genietta. Gen answered the door.

“Larry, it’s so good to see you. We’ve heard about the trouble on your Trajia trip. Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry, sis, I’m fine. But you must have heard that they shot the poor girl I was training. That’s what I want to talk to Ket about.”

“He’s working in his study, I’ll get him. Come in and tell us the details.”

Larry recounted his story to the two of them, peppered with interruptions and exclamations by his voluble sister, and the odd studied comment by Ket.

At the end he asked Ket, “What can I do to get something done about Annek’s death? I feel I ought to bang some heads together at the Ziloni embassy.”

“Absolutely not. That would be a futile exercise, and I know your hot temper. You’ll just cause needless trouble. Leave it to me, I’ll talk to some people I know.”

Once he had calmed down, Larry could see the sense in leaving it to Ket. He was itching to pound on some desks until he got action, but Ket was more likely to get results. He worked as an official for the Council of the Galactic Union, and he would know how to get something done about Larry’s discovery on Inferior.

Larry was left with time on his hands to brood. He kept going over what had happened in his mind. If only he hadn’t insisted on going to Inferior; if only he hadn’t climbed down the fissure; if only Annek hadn’t decided to leave the ship; if only she hadn’t climbed up high where she was so exposed; if only the bastard of a Ziloni hadn’t shot at her when he should have been pursuing him. If any one of the chain of events hadn’t occurred she would still be alive.

People rarely died young any more. Union medical technology was so advanced that they could revive patients from almost any trauma, repair any injury. But death was still irreversible, and he hadn’t managed to get Annek home before she died. She had been young and full of life, but that pointless, random laser burst had wiped it out so casually. All he could do was re-live the events on Inferior over and over, along with memories of Annek during their time on Trajia. She had been so diligent about the work, and keen to impress him.

****

It took two frustrating weeks before an inquiry was set up into the circumstances surrounding Annek’s death.

The inquiry started with preliminary reports by the doctors who had attended Annek at the military base. Next Larry was summoned to give a full account of the events leading up to her death. He felt uncharacteristically nervous about the meeting. He was a man of action, not good with words, and he was also concerned about the possibility that he could be considered negligent in what he had done.

The inquiry was taking place in an imposing room in the main courthouse of Greti city. The four panel members sat behind a huge, ancient desk on a raised dais at one end of the room. Larry took the stand on the left hand side, opposite the section reserved for interested parties. He saw Annek’s parents sitting grimly at the end of the row, and was thankful that they’d refused his offer for a personal explanation of events.

After he was sworn in, the panel chairman invited him to explain his role in the affair. He took a deep breath and began.

“When Annek completed her basic training with the Interstellar Exploration Program, I was asked to accompany her on her probationary investigation, to a planet called Trajia. It was a standard, covert visit. We make them to all inhabited planets periodically, to assess the state of technology and whether the planet is ready to be invited to join the Union. The mission was successful, and Annek worked well. I was going to recommend her to be signed off.”

The inquiry chairman broke in. “What I don’t understand is why you decided to take this detour to an outer planet?”

Larry shifted in his chair to get more comfortable. “It was because of a visit to one of their universities to interview an astronomy professor. We were using the standard interview technique, with Annek posing as a reporter and me as her cameraman. The professor told us about his investigations on two satellite planets that were trapped in Lagrangian orbits, sixty degrees before and behind the largest gas giant planet. The Trajians called them Superior and Inferior to describe their positions. It’s most unusual to find both Lagrange points occupied –”

“Excuse us, Mr. Rasilii, we don’t need all the technical details.”

“I’m sorry. Well anyway, he mentioned that he’d observed the presence of hydrogen in the atmosphere of Inferior, and a suspicion of oxygen as well, but never on Superior. That seemed highly unlikely to me, but he was quite positive about it, so I thought I should take a quick look to see if he was right.”

The chairman rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Didn’t you consider the danger involved in such an unscheduled trip? Surely it would have been better to leave it to the Investigation Branch?”

Larry had asked himself the same question a thousand times. “Obviously if I’d had the faintest idea that it was a man-made effect I would have done. I bitterly regret the decision now, but that never occurred to me for an instant. I was convinced it was a strange natural phenomenon. I also thought it would be valuable for Annek to experience work in that type of environment, which is never covered in basic training.” Not to mention the fact that she was keen to make the diversion.

“So what did you find when you landed on Inferior?”

“We didn’t land straight away, we set up in orbit around the planet first, where we observed a huge cloud formation that broke through the general haze. The whole planet was covered in a haze layer that you often get on such planets. It’s caused by the methane in the atmosphere reacting with the weak sunlight. Anyway, we followed the cloud down to the surface, and found it was issuing from a large fissure. My belief now is that what we saw was the oxygen plume, due to its reaction with the methane in the atmosphere. The hydrogen that was also being vented wouldn’t have reacted at all, it would have punched right up to the top of the atmosphere. That was why the astronomer saw mainly hydrogen.”

Another panel member butted in. “Mr. Rasilii, we aren’t interested in your theories. Please get on to the circumstances that led to the accident.”

Accident be damned, why couldn’t anyone realize that it was murder? “We’d found where the gas was coming from, but we still didn’t know the cause, so I decided to climb down into the fissure to investigate further.”

“Wasn’t that a dangerous thing to do?”

Larry shook his head. “I didn’t think so at the time, especially not for Annek, who stayed with the ship. There was nothing to indicate that the gas might be man-made. I had Annek waiting for me, with orders not to follow if I didn’t return, but to go back to Central for help.”

The man persisted. “Surely clouds of gas emanating from a fissure in the planet surface sounds like nothing more than geothermal activity?”

“In the normal way, yes. But I’ve never heard of geothermal activity giving off hydrogen, have you?”

The chairman held up his hand. “We’re getting off track here. Tell us what you discovered on this foolhardy exploration?”

“I followed the fissure down as it formed a vast tunnel into the depths. After about ten minutes I thought I could detect light and sound coming from below. After that I didn’t consider turning back until I discovered the source.”

Larry pulled at his ear and leaned forward in his chair. “The tunnel eventually opened out into an enormous cavern, and the tunnel mouth was high up the side of the cavern at one end. Hectares of the cavern floor were strewn with equipment, cabins, bunkers, machinery of different types. Far in the distance I could see people moving around. I could just make out that they were all in spacesuits, and some were driving open vehicles. They had also started to build several huge buildings.”

“But where was all the gas coming from?” asked the chairman.

“That came from their excavations. They were enlarging the cavern, and because the rock was actually deep-frozen water-ice, they were vaporizing it. Obviously they couldn’t just blow the water vapor up the tunnel because it would freeze straight away, so they electrolyzed it to break it down into its constituent gases. I could see vast pipeworks they were using to keep the gases separate and vent them up two fissures. I don’t mind telling you it turned my stomach over to think I was in the oxygen stream, but I figured maybe they were mixing it with nitrogen from the planet’s atmosphere.”

“Why would they go to all that effort?” That was the awkward panel member again.

Larry shrugged. “I suppose it was less effort than man-handling the stuff up through those steep fissures to the surface and dumping it somewhere.”

The chairman intervened. “Okay, that explains the gas. You have accused these people of being Ziloni. Why do you think that, and what were they up to?”

Larry sighed. He wasn’t accusing them of being Ziloni, he was just reporting what he’d seen. “I could see markings on some of the vehicles and buildings. They all had the distinctive Ziloni logo. I’ve no idea what they were doing. It looked as if they were still in the early stages. I’ve asked repeatedly for a team to investigate further, but nobody seems interested.”

The chairman ignored his last comment. “Seeing the Ziloni logo is scarcely proof they were from Zilon. Anyone could use that as cover.”

Larry snorted. This had to be political pressure from the Ziloni – no one seemed to want to upset them by believing his report. “If they were so concerned about anyone seeing them that they used false logos, they would have posted guards as well. And, for that matter, they would have had scanners to detect my ship when I landed. They must have assumed they were so well hidden that no one would find them. It was only the astronomer telling me about the anomaly that blew their cover. I would never have paid any attention to the planet otherwise.”

“Unfortunately, we only have your testimony that there were Ziloni logos. Why did you not get any recordings of what you saw? Surely your suit must have had the standard logging facilities?”

If only he had made recordings, this interview would indeed be so much easier. “When I first saw the Ziloni, I was concentrating on finding out more. Before I could start recording, the alarm went off and I had to run for my life.”

Larry continued his report with details of his escape and the way Annek had been shot. He went on to describe the missile attacks and the fact that he had destroyed two of the attacking spaceships.

The best piece of evidence he could produce to back up his story was his ship’s computer logs. In particular, his missile log showed he had launched six attack missiles and a large number of interceptors. He omitted the detail of the missile attack on the ground troops. Not because he felt in any way guilty about it, but because he thought it prudent to minimize the number of casualties for which he might be held responsible. No one picked up on the fact that the first missile had been launched a considerable time before the remainder.

The inquiry gave Larry a lukewarm exoneration over his part in Annek’s death. It also recommended that his report should be investigated, but it took nearly another month before the Galactic Union mounted an expedition to Inferior. Even then, it was only because Larry had badgered Ket, who had in turn pestered the Council, that they sent the expedition at all. Larry demanded to be included in the expedition, but he was refused with the excuse that it was a Council matter and they didn’t need IEP personnel.

The day after the expedition returned, Ket arrived at Larry’s house with news. He had received advance information on their findings from a contact in the Union offices. Larry could tell from the look on his face that it was not good news.

“What’s happened,” he asked anxiously. “Did they find the cavern?”

“I’m sorry, Larry, they found nothing at all. There was no venting gas or definite evidence that any humans have ever set foot on the planet. They found small amounts of hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere but not enough to convince anyone it was manmade.”

Larry threw up his arms in despair. “That’s ridiculous. They must have found something, for goodness sake. Did they search on the right planet? It’s so easy to get Superior and Inferior mixed up. They’re roughly the same size, the same distance either side of the parent, and when you come out of hyperspace you’re any which way up.”

“Larry, they’re experienced investigators – they made a thorough search. And anyway, they had a quick check on Superior as well, just in case. There were no plumes of escaping gas and no signs of life. They found dozens of fissures like the one you described, they checked out every one of them, and they looked for the wreckage of the ships you said you had shot down.”

Larry started pacing around his living room. “So how do they square that with my ship’s computer logs?” There was a long pause. Larry eyed Ket suspiciously. “Okay, Ket, what are you not telling me?”

“Um, well, no one has been able to find them.”

“What? You have got to be kidding. How could they be so incompetent as to lose them?”

Ket shook his head. “It’s a mystery. There are thorough systems in place to keep a sequence of backups. Yet there are no records of those logs anywhere. In fact, I can’t get anyone to admit they were ever lodged in the system.”

Larry sat down abruptly. “It’s those damned Ziloni. They’ve got a mole in the records section. It has to be.”

Ket frowned. “Hmm, I wonder. I suppose it might be possible. But suggesting it makes you sound paranoid, and there’s no way we can prove it. Whatever you do, don’t start saying things like that in front of anyone else.”

Larry brightened. “It doesn’t matter. They saw the logs at the original inquiry. Several people saw them, so they know what was in them anyway.”

“They remember you launched a few missiles and carried out some pretty crazy maneuvers, and you saw traces on your screens. But the logs never confirmed any ships shot down. You know what people are like. They rely on the records, and after all this time their memories are pretty vague. And another thing. I had a hard time justifying the fact that you had attack missiles on board. You know you should have a special permit. I persuaded them that IEP explorers could run into difficulties and it was reasonable for you to have them, but for goodness sake, get yourself a permit if you want to carry attack missiles. Don’t buy any more on the black market on Drazen.”

Larry ignored the last comment. “They should have let me go with them. I would have been able to figure out my exact landing spot. They couldn’t have looked very hard, and I’ll bet the Ziloni had already cleared up the wreckage of the ships. If I’d been there I wouldn’t have stopped till we found the bastards.” He started pacing again.

Ket looked at him in annoyance. “That’s why they didn’t let you go, Larry. I know you’re bitter, but you’ve got to drop this before it consumes you. I’ve done everything I can. The Council considers it unproven and they don’t want it to turn into a major interplanetary incident. The Ziloni furiously deny it, and there’s only your unsubstantiated word that the men you saw were Ziloni.”

Larry turned anxiously to Ket. “You believe me, don’t you?” He looked straight into Ket’s eyes as he spoke, and was relieved when Ket returned the gaze without flinching. Ket was a terrible liar, Gen always joked that he couldn’t possibly be unfaithful to her without giving himself away immediately.

“Yes, of course I believe you had a run in with someone. I saw the logs before they went missing. But you can’t be sure they were Ziloni, much less whether they were official and not a bunch of space pirates preparing a nice hideaway. It would help if we knew what they intend to use that cavern for.”

“I wasn’t able to see enough to figure out, or even guess, what they planned to do with it. I don’t think they had started the main phase, they were still excavating and preparing when I saw them. Whatever it is, it must be illegal, seeing how they went to so much trouble to cover it up, and they tried to kill me to stop me escaping.”

Ket scratched his chin thoughtfully, then looked up at Larry and raised his finger. “There’s another thing that puzzles me. It seems like an amazing coincidence that they set up their operation on Inferior where you were able to discover them.”

Larry shook his head. “Not really. They had to choose somewhere for their base. A known solar system has documentation that they could check out to find somewhere suitable for their operation, rather than having to do their own exploration of unknown stars. And a known system is actually safer than an unexplored one.”

Ket wrinkled his nose. “I don’t understand. Safer in what way?”

“In an unexplored solar system, there’s always a slight risk the IEP will get round to exploring it while they are there. Whereas, once the planets in a system have been checked out, no one is ever likely to visit a useless iceball like Inferior again. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it if it hadn’t been for what the astronomy professor told me. For their purposes, Inferior was a good choice.”

“How so?”

“Well they obviously couldn’t use a gas giant planet. They wanted a planet or moon made of water-ice to make the excavation of their cavern easy. Normally that would mean choosing a satellite of a gas giant, but the great majority of the gas giant moons are inside the hyperspace boundary of the planets.”

“Ah yes, of course, that would make them much less convenient to use. Whereas Inferior is in a Lagrangian point orbit instead, millions of kilometers clear of the hyperspace dead zone. There won’t be very many planets like that.”

“It was pure bad luck, from their point of view, that the astronomer noticed the hydrogen from their excavations and I went to investigate.”

“Okay,” replied Ket. “That does sound plausible. But I’m afraid all the evidence is gone. There’s nothing more that can be done, you’ve got to move on. Get yourself another exploration lined up, a tough one that will give you something else to think about. In the meantime, I assume you’re not still going out with that girl from the model agency?”

“No, she broke it off before I went to Trajia.” She didn’t like the idea of me spending so much time with Annek.

“I thought so. In that case, Gen has suggested you come and stay with us. You don’t have to be on your own with nothing to do but agonize over what has happened.”

“I’ll think about it, Ket, and please thank Gen for the offer. Thanks for all you’ve done as well. I appreciate having you to pull strings for me with the Council, and I know you’ve done everything you can.”

****

After Ket had left, Larry found it impossible to settle to anything. He would start a job, lose track of where he was up to and have to start again. He couldn’t get his mind off the injustice. The bastards had escaped any blame for Annek’s death. They had even managed to conceal all evidence that they had been involved in a covert, and undoubtedly illegal, operation.

When he found himself opening a second Insta-pack of food while another pack was getting cold in his living room, he made a snap decision. Ket warned him repeatedly about being hot-headed, it had always been his short-coming. But this was different, wasn’t it? He had to do everything in his power to seek out justice for Annek. It wouldn’t matter even if something did go wrong. He couldn’t move on while he was haunted by his sense of guilt.

He stopped just long enough to eat the second Insta-pack while it was still warm, before he drove out to the spaceport and filed a flight plan for an off-planet private flight. He would have it out with the Ziloni. Someone was going to pay for Annek’s death.