All Fall Down (21 page)

           
“Your voice will remain calm, Doctor Currie. You are free to step into this corridor and explain the real situation to your colleagues from MI.” Daoud put his
 
hand to the door's controls.

           
Masjid sighed, defeated. His back sagged. “No.” He looked at the floor, back up. “What about the specimens?”

           
“They are no longer your concern. That particular research programme is at an end. That's all you need to know. You will bring your confidential files to me. The files, their subjects, no longer exist.”

           
“What are you going to do with them? You can't release them.”

           
“It is no longer your concern. You have more pressing issues. Staff rotas need completing. A memorial service needs to be arranged.”

           
Masjid watched Daoud tap a comlink on his arm.

           
“It's safe to leave now, Doctor. We will walk back past the schools. Are you ready?”

           
Masjid closed his eyes, gave a curt nod. He walked over to the door. Daoud put a hand on his shoulder. “Very soon, all this will go away. I promise.”

           
Daoud opened the door and Masjid followed him.

Chapter 8 – Echoes

Kate sat with the sound of silence. She floated in it, this quiet sea. She
 
listened to its tidal tone. Eventually she felt the need to break the silence. In the holo chamber, she leaned forward from her seat to set a metronome ticking.

Snick
. Behind him, Djembe heard the Central Operations Room holo suite door softly close. The murmur of voices and electronic sounds washed over him. He looked at and nodded to the technicians in the Operations Room. On the way to the elevator, his footsteps gave multiple echoes, tap-taptap, tap-taptap. The elevators chimed when they arrived. The doors shushed when they closed.

The shuttle descended on a whine which collapsed into a boiling kettle of white noise as the landing jets flared. The landing pads made metallic
dink
s on the hangar floor. Win dropped through the access hatch, in the middle of the shuttle's settling noise. The pilot's access hatch birthed Kiran into an overhanging shadow. Automatons rolled in with tubes and cables, or clustered, watching and waiting.

           
“Thank you for taking me up Kiran.”

           
“The pleasure was mine, Sir. Duty calls, I'm afraid. I have to complete docking procedures.”

           
“Of course. It was nice to meet you.”

           
“I'm usually on the fourth floor refreshment area after twenty hundred hours, if you and your team need a break.”

           
“Thank you. I'll bear it in mind.” Clanging noises replaced the conversation. Win picked up his bag. Walking to the door, through the great cavernous hangar, he thought over the last few hours. The silent desolation of Fall's surface. The empty quiet of space, filled with conversation of events past. The screaming violence of atmospheric re-entry. The old Colony, a mausoleum to the dead, impossible to visit, no longer discussed. As the hangar door creaked into the adjoining corridor, he wondered about the ground survey he'd undertaken at the old Colony with its great crashing silence, and what stories it would tell him.

The metronome Kate had started in the holo suite ticked away the seconds. It was one of Win's programs. She enjoyed the rhythmic sound, and looked forward to the soothing sound and light show that would follow when the others arrived and downloaded their data. She needed the rhythm and the distraction to keep her awake. She focused on the metronome.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Djembe opened the door onto the meeting room. A rich bass note spread around the room when the door intersected the room's holo grid. Sine waves rippled out. His feet tapped across the floor. When he reached the holopit he sat on an antigrav field one hundred and twenty degrees around from Kate, causing points of light to sparkle in the room, the sound of sweet raindrops. Kate's tired eyes remained fixed on the metronome, rhythmically slicing time.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Another rich bass note reverberated the room when Win entered. He nodded immediately in understanding. More raindrops twinkled in the air when he reached the holopit and shifted around in his antigrav support field: invisible chairs on which the three sat. He looked across at Djembe, one hundred and twenty degrees to his left, who was settling into the metronome's regular beat. He may not like these programs, but he liked order.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Win took the sensors out of his bag. He handed one to Kate, the action causing a further bass ripple. She held the sensor in front of her, pushed it into a hardlight download port. The sensor's curved surface flowered open on small clockwork mechanisms. Each cog turn set off the chiming rain. The data download formed staccato tomtom sounds in the holo grid.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Win handed another sensor to Djembe. Again the same, the new bass note causing the fading ripples of the previous to gently resound as if in echoed answer. More staccato, more ringing drops.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Win placed the third sensor into a port projected from the holopit, holding the sensor in place with subtle antigrav fields. Bass. Staccato. Raindrops.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Kate caught Win's eyes. He was smiling, and it was infectious. She roused herself, caught his smile. Perhaps the mission simplicity would be OK. She placed her datapad into the hardlight download port, next to the sensor. Bass. Staccato. Raindrops.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Djembe connected his datapad. The bass notes were catching up with each other. Constructive interference raised their tone. The staccato became quicker, louder. Somewhere in the distance was the sound of heavier rain falling, and the sound of crystal being struck by a tuning fork.

           
Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

           
Finally Win plugged in his datapad. An insistent deep tone crashed into the room, the data download brought the staccato into a tribal drumming. The room was filled with a lightshow of accidental music.

           
Kate put out her hand and stopped the metronome. The hologrid fuzzed, faded. The sound ticked away into dull remnants, quietened, faded too. Win smiled in his seat. Djembe looked over, “This is one of your old programs, isn't it?” Win nodded. Djembe shook his head, rolled his eyes.

           
“I used it for some light relief. We've been on mission too long, I needed a moment.”

           
“Fair enough,” Djembe put his hands up. “We are months overdue for a rest.”

           
“Shall we get to business?” Kate tapped on her datapad. The heads of the Colony directors appeared between the three of them. “I've interviewed all the Colony directors. Everything seems in order. They've all heard this rumour about the death being due to vendetta. Doctor Currie is going to put on a memorial service. I don't really have anything else. I think it's interesting that we have this coded message mentioning murder, and the colonists believe the scientist was killed.” Kate felt lost again, swinging between hope and anxiety, “Win, what's your report?”

           
“I still need to check the victim's training records and operational log, to see why she was out at such a time. The rock island where she was killed has very poor survey maps. I scanned it for biologicals, but there's nothing. No remains on the surface.
 
And no body.”

           
“What do you mean 'no body'?” Suddenly Kate was alert again, anxiety forgotten. “That wasn't in the report.”

           
Win shrugged, “Sophie says the body would have been carried away by the storm.”

           
“What about the biotag the colonists wear?” asked Djembe.

           
Win shook his head, “Apparently it recorded Doctor Maki's skin, all of it, being in greater contact with the storm. As if she'd taken off her clothes. And then it registers her death about two seconds later.”

           
Djembe shook his head, “What does that mean?”

           
“That we have our first clue to murder.” Kate sat upright, behind her the hologrid fluoresced with each word spoken. “What else, Win?”

           
“The probes are in position. One at the Lagrange One point. The other will be on its way to the Lagrange Delta point between the wormhole and effective solar centre. I've already detected some residual particle flow from the wormhole from our own exit.”

           
Djembe nodded in agreement, “I had that too, when I was checking the comms systems.”

           
Win continued, “The blue star is about to eclipse the yellow. There are already changes to
 
em
-radiation and gravity lines. If this death was murder, then we'll probably lose any ion trails before we can properly detect them.”

           
“OK, a good start.” Kate was starting to feel lighter. “Djembe, do you have better news?”

           
“There was something else, sorry.”

           
Kate looked back to Win, “What is it?”

           
“On the surface. Something's wrong.”

           
Djembe frowned, “Wrong?”

           
“Yes. I walked the route of the victim. First, I don't understand why she was out there. Someone so well trained, in this sort of facility, should have been in an aircar. And second, you can hardly see the crevice where the final signal came from.”

           
“How large is it?” Kate started looking over the download on her datapad, to match up Win's description.

           
“It's not the size. It's... In a sandstorm like they have here, the wind over six hundred kilometres per hour, the suns barely in the sky, you wouldn't see anything. You wouldn't see it.” Win was getting excitable as he outlined his suspicions. “So my first question is, what made her stop? What made her see the crevice? Then next, why go in?”

           
Djembe interrupted, “To shelter, of course.”

           
Win was shaking his head, but Kate took up his thread, “I think I see where you're going. It says here only one sun was up at the time of death, but the second sun was a few minutes from sunrise. You can struggle through the storm if you're lucky, but her personal log shows her environment suit was only rated for one sun.”