by Gordon Grainger
I could try to describe the man I’m on my way to meet. I mean, physically at least, he’s shorter than average and unimpressive in every other way. But if you want to know about his character, I’d just have to point at the walls.
Aboard a standard deep space mining station, cylindrical sections connect the various modules. From the inside, the cylindrical shape isn’t readily apparent. The floors have flat walkways over the grav generators and the drop ceilings hold light panels that illuminate as you pass. Panels on the left and right complete the squared interior, hiding and protecting the essential elements of the station – water and waste pipes, air circulation vents, heat and electrical currents, and communications lines.
Aboard the Tantallon, there were no panels, left or right. All the vital pipes and wires lay exposed, vulnerable to anyone passing through. They had disappeared slowly over time, replaced only by an improved video surveillance system and a new regulation – if ever there was wilful damage done to the exposed systems, the last person seen on the video feed would be considered guilty of the crime and liable for any loss. But nobody was ever caught stealing the protective panels. Or at least nobody was arrested, which in this case is an important distinction. I’ve heard a rumour that one person was discovered in the middle of taking a panel by the head of security himself, but he just nodded at the thief and kept walking by. The rate the panels disappeared increased quickly after that.
That’s about all I can say of Malcolm Helling, the station chief and head of security, the man who’s put off my efficiency review for three days so far. You’d think he would have done more, just to relieve some boredom on the station. Instead he mostly keeps to his paperwork and keeps to himself. He’s not talkative, which has made my job all the more difficult. Standing before his office door, I take a breath and prepare for the confrontation ahead.
The door irises open, and before I can speak Helling is already half past me, walking down the corridor. “Oh, there you are. Good. Come with me,” he says. I think that’s the most he’s said to me since I arrived.
“See here, Chief. I’m not on vacation. There’s a reason I’m here in person. There have been some stories, and this latest incident… well, head office wants a first-hand report. You can’t avoid this company review by avoiding me.” I berate him on the lax protocols I’ve discovered, his lack of adherence to efficiency regulations – many of which I personally wrote – and a disturbing lack of decorum throughout the station. I’m still talking at him several corridors later as Helling pauses beside a doorway and checks with his e-pad, probably confirming the location. He looks up and rings the intercom.
“Yeah?” squeaks the box. Cheap speakers make everyone sound hollow.
“Helling. Station Security. Mind if we come in and talk?” There was a pause, then the door opened.
The man now facing us was the typical dirty nondescript inhabitant of a mining operation. He was slight of build (because robotic mining takes technical skill rather than brawn), not too worried about his appearance, with a bland face. Except for the eyes, I note. His body looks tired and worn, but the eyes are awake.
“What’s the problem?”
“There’s been an accident. I need to ask a few questions. Pursuant to the Standard Rights Code, you are advised that all conversation will be recorded, and this questioning is considered witness testimony.”
The man in the doorway relaxed slightly at these words, and led Helling inside. I followed. The declaration of witness testimony assured the man that he could not be interrogated, that he was under no obligation to answer any question, and although he had the right to counsel he would not need it. Helling ran the full spiel of rights to him and received an acknowledgement in return. I took the opportunity to give the room a visual sweep.
It was a standard single crew module, a cylinder like the hallways. A galley kitchen was recessed into the left side, along with an almost discretely hidden toilet facility. To the right hung a zero-G cot. The back wall held an entertainment unit, with a sofa facing it in the middle. Behind the sofa sat a small dining table with two chairs. It was a simple, efficient design. Helling took the chair on the left, and the crewman sat on the right. Neither suggested a location for me, so I took to leaning against the cot.
“This is Chief Enforcement Officer Malcolm Helling, conducting an interview with Neil Barson,” Helling began, monotonously. “Please confirm your identity.”
Barson took a second to react. “Uh, Neil Barson, Robotics Maintenance.”
“Very good. Now Mr. Barson, as I said I’m looking into a recent accident, and I am required to interview all associated individuals in the course of my investigation. Proceeding alphabetically, yours is the first name on my list. I trust you are comfortable?”
Barson shrugged. He seemed a little unsettled, from what I could tell looking at the back of his head. Helling’s face was a mask.
“Last cycle, there was an incident involving a grav generator…”
“I don’t work on the grav units.”
Helling paused, took another look at his e-pad. “Yes, you work in the robotics repair centre. As I said, the incident involved a grav generator.”
Again Barson interrupted. “I really don’t know anything about them.”
“You do know that each corridor contains several small grav generators, which provide an Earth-like gravity field?”
“Not quite. They’re .8 Earth.”
“Point eight?” Helling replied.
Barson nodded. “Yeah, a lower level of gravity than Earth. Lets the new arrivals feel like heroes. At least at first. Then your body becomes accustomed to it. Me, I’d crank it up to a little above Earth-normal. That way you have to work at it, become stronger.”
Helling sat up a bit straighter. “But your body would eventually become accustomed to that as well, so there’s no lasting benefit either way. So why do you think it’s done?”
“This is a remote mining operation, right? Our miners aren’t out there in the asteroid field with a pick, they’re running remote control robots. There’s no need for strength. Company bosses aren’t stupid. My way, you’re stronger when you get back to normal, or at least even. Their way, you’re weaker. Once they got you here, they’re not interested in finding ways to make leaving more appealing.”
Helling smiled slightly, and nodded slowly. But it’s not like it was company policy or anything. Well, not a written one.
“Fine, that’s the corridors. But in the junctions linking multiple corridors together…”
“They’re vector grav units. You step into them in zero-G, grab a handle, and the generator orients gravity to match the exit corridor. A little tricky to deal with at first, but not so bad. This is basic station knowledge. Is this leading somewhere?” Barson said.
“The incident took place in one of these junctions, so it’s important to be clear on how they operate. Entering’s easy, one step and you’re floating free. But once you’re in them, how do they know which direction you want to exit? Some junctions have five, six, even a dozen exits.”
Helling paused, like he expected Barson to answer. He didn’t, so Helling continued.
“Most people think it’s just the hand-holds. Instinct says we’ll grab hand-holds where we want the ceiling to be, on either side of the exit we want, and facing that exit. That lets the junction calculate quickly where you intend to go, and set itself accordingly. But not everyone does that. Whether it’s pique, laziness, contrariness, whatever… some just grab a single hand-hold, others grab hold to opposite walls. The junction doesn’t always have enough information to go on from hand-holds alone. So it also does a bio-scan to identify who is in the junction, checks your work schedule, where you’re coming from, what you’re carrying, et cetera, and predicts where you’re most likely heading. Ever had a junction open up on a wrong corridor? Likely you were heading somewhere unusual.”
Helling’s description, though simplified, was correct. The company had several programmers permanently tasked on improving the junction predictor algorithm, a tremendous drain on the company to my thinking. I had once proposed eliminating the procedure altogether, and force workers to use the junctions properly – one time doing it improperly would be all it would take – but I was voted down.
Helling leaned in slightly. “There’s a voice override as well. It’s all designed to minimize the chance of an accident. Because there’s nothing worse than expecting gravity to come from a direction it doesn’t, especially if you’re moving something heavy or dangerous. That’s what happened here. Miner Eustace Millner was transporting a new cooler unit to his quarters when he entered a junction and it… malfunctioned.”
“Bad luck.”
“You don’t sound all that disappointed.”
“I should wish it was me in that junction?”
“Let’s talk about your relationship with the deceased.” Helling looked for a reaction, but if he got it I couldn’t tell.
“I didn’t know the guy, actually.”
“You mean personally. You did know him professionally.” There was a hint of a question in Helling’s tone.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, you worked together…” Barson was about to protest, but Helling continued, “that is, you interacted with him on the job. His job and your job. Sometimes you crossed, uh, paths… came into contact with each other while working, that sort of thing?”
“Well, yeah. I run the bot shop. He’s a miner. He’d come in to sign out his mine bot. I’d sometimes be watching the counter, when my guys were on break or out sick, that sort of thing. He’d sign out a bot and sign it back in at the end of his shift. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him outside of that, really. No more’n a face in the crowd to me, to be honest.” His hands mimicked the actions he described, a routine of many years.
“That all?”
“Like I said, never shared a drink with him or saw him at the club. We didn’t socialize.”
“No, I mean was that all there was at work?”
“Most miners have no interest in talking to bot techs. We’re just faces behind the counter to them.”
“That bother you, just being a face?”
“Naw, not really. A few of them, the good ones, you can tell. Even from the first day they arrive. They’ll say hi, maybe get your name, ask you how you’re doing. Those ones, I get to know. Like I said, good ones. The rest, they got other stuff to think about. Maybe they nod, or might say thanks sometimes, nothing big. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s their job. Nobody said we has to be friends.”
“Sounds rather depressing.”
“Does it? Not to me. I chum around with a couple guys, we have fun. I get my 60.” That was station slang – 60 days of off-station vacation after five years of service. The time was usually spent in some far off pleasure colony, cramming as much depravity and sensory overload as possible, filling up on stories to last the next five years. In the everyday sense, it meant making the most of the precious few free moments available to the men and women of a remote station.
Helling smiled and nodded. “Not friends… that covers a lot of ground.”
Barson slouched back in his chair, his arms crossing at his lap. “I suppose there’s a record of it, is there? Is that what put me on your list?”
“Record?”
“Look, he said things and I said things. I take my work seriously, and he was a slackoff. I let him know it. I’m sure a few others heard me, otherwise it wouldn’t be in the records.”
“The information I have indicates you got the worst of it.”
That brought him upright again. “Then you only got his side of it.”
Helling tilted his head slightly to his right. “Records can always be updated.”
Barson’s shoulders dropped a bit. “Fine. I do some modding. Modifications, you know, tinkering with the bots, making little improvements. All the miners know it. The better I can match up a bot to a miner’s style, the more productive we are. Hell, there are worse hobbies.”
“Granted. So you’d been modding the bots,” Helling said.
“Yeah. Listen, does this have to go on the record?”
Helling looked closely at Barson, then tapped a button on his e-pad. Typical. The guy’s about to admit to something, probably illegal but definitely against regulations, and the security chief gives him a free pass. And with me in the room no less.
“The bots are supposed to go in rotation, all of them. But out there, stuff happens even to the careful ones. Damage, routine wear, shit knows what else. And they’re not in the shop long enough to do a lot of testing for the mods. So I keep one aside, like a prototype or test unit. I try out mods on it, run a few simulations to see how it responds, and once I’ve got something worked out I start adding that mod to the others as they rotate back in. It’s a little extra trouble, but not really. And it lets me make all those fine adjustments I need.”
“And Millner…?”
He’s… was… a bit rough with the bots, you know? No finesse. And I know this, so I always rotate him an older model, slower, more shielding, a brute. Maybe he thought I was insulting him by it, but really it’s a matter of matching talent with hardware. He didn’t have the talent for anything over a hulk.”
“I’ve checked his reports, and his ore extraction levels were adequate.”
“Yeah, he was good at always doing the bare minimum required. One day he was waiting for his bot, and he starts in about how it’s the bot’s fault, that if he had a faster one, a more responsive one, he’d hit a few caps.”
I must have made some reaction to that, because Helling’s eyes briefly lifted to mine. In my evaluation of the miners I had a fair appreciation of their capabilities. The chance of him hitting capacity on any ore expedition was pretty remote.
“And that’s when you said something?” Helling asked.
“Nah, I hear that crap all the time. But he goes on, talking about how mine’s the worst bot shop he’s ever seen. Can’t fix anything right, always problems, slow machines, really getting in his shots. That got me going a bit. Maybe the bots aren’t the most modern, not much I can do about that, so that’s fair game for grousing. But my work, and the work of my guys? I gotta defend my team. And I did. Nothing bad, nothing too nasty. Might’ve been something in there questioning his parentage…”
Helling didn’t react. He just kept watching Barson.
“Well, anyway, he says something about how slow we are to repair things, which isn’t true. My team’s got one of the fastest turnarounds on basic repair in the company. And I told him that, loud and clear. That’s when… man, I should have seen it coming, you know?”
“Seen what?” Helling asked, leaning in slightly.
“My bot, my test unit. The one I mod. He pointed it out and said something about it being in the shop forever with no signs of it being ready for duty. And me, stupid me, says there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s ready to go anytime. So he demanded it.” Barson’s shoulders slumped. “What could I do?”
“So when he brought it back at the end of the shift…?” Helling asked.
“Didn’t come back. Like I said, he couldn’t handle anything but a hulk. He clipped an asteroid, fumbled the correction, blazed through the thrusters trying to right it. It’s pinwheeling out there somewhere, maybe catching an orbit but most likely just… going.” Barson’s right hand drew a slow path to oblivion.
The two just sat there for a moment, then Helling leaned back. “Think it was deliberate?”
Barson shook his head. “Doesn’t matter if it was or not. Technically, I broke the rules by not keeping it in rotation.” He paused. “Is this helping your investigation somehow?”
“Not really, just fulfilling the paperwork requirements.” Helling looked down at his e-pad, pushing another button. “Everything points to an accident, a gross system malfunction.” He looked up. “Ever happened to you, a grav spike in a junction briefly kick you in the wrong direction?”
Barson nodded. “Yeah, it’s a little odd when the gravity is suddenly coming from somewhere else. Feels like you’re tripping over your own feet.”
“Well, our estimates suggest the grav generator exerted a pull of about five times Earth normal in 28 distinct vectors in rapid sequence. Because of the cooler he was transporting, I doubt he lasted beyond the fourth vector change.”
“Sounds awful. But like you said, it was an accident. This far out, we’re all taking a big risk just being here.”
“Yes, it looks very much like an accident. I checked the maintenance logs on that junction, of course, and everything’s up to code. There’s no indication anyone tampered with the logs either. And even if they could have adjusted the logs and erased their tracks, they’d appear on the video surveillance, and nobody on the feeds is anywhere near a terminal to access the logs. It looks like just one of those technical glitches we just have to accept.”
Helling’s gaze drifted away from Barson. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at anything in particular. Barson sat for a moment, then started to say something, but Helling interrupted.
“I’m sure you know that part of my responsibilities as station chief involves preparing detailed station energy consumption reports. Nasty things, really, very time consuming. Rather than do it all manually, I’ve… automated… a few elements. Saves me quite some time, and the company can’t tell the difference. Any time a light goes on anywhere in the station, any time a lift or a junction or an air recycler engages, it’s recorded and the power consumption noted. Every piece of electrical equipment on the station is logged that way. It even compares the results to previous usage levels for that particular system or outlet… good way to spot when equipment is wearing out, when its average energy consumption increases,” he said. I didn’t have a clue how this was relevant, and it didn’t seem like Barson did either. “When I get ready to send the company a routine report, I have ready-made statistics on power usage throughout the station, automatically. However, and of this I’m sure you were unaware, I have a few mechanical consumption meters as well. They’re not accessible from outside my office. I use them as a backup, So I know when the electronic report of power consumption is incorrect. Or when somebody alters it.”
Barson shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He moved his right foot back, against the chair leg, and his right hand moved to his lap. His left hand was flat on the table, fingers splayed.
Helling continued. “I do have to give you credit. Whatever code you inserted into the grav generator programming left no trace behind. It even modified my security logs to overwrite the access entries, so even a thorough investigation would have revealed nothing to suggest any of the systems were tampered with in any way. You even erased the security video footage that showed you accessing the computer system outside the junction to reprogram the grav generator. Had you only known I monitor the station’s energy consumption mechanically, and figured out a way to bypass that, you probably would have gotten away with it.”
Barson’s voice was strained. “Are you suggesting I had something to do with this?”
Helling ignored the question. “You see, there was a difference in the energy usage I couldn’t account for, a sizeable amount. Enough, for example, to power the lights and security systems on a path from this crew quarter to the junction that failed, and back again. Once I knew when and where the system was compromised, it was a simple process of elimination. By checking the security feeds I could account for everyone on the station at the time of the tampering. Everyone but you. Once I was satisfied I had the right person, I transmitted my findings to the sector judicial office, and they concurred. Neil Barson, you have been found guilty of the premeditated murder of Eustace Millner.”
I didn’t even have time to let that sink in when Barson moved. With his weight shifted to his right foot he started to lunge at Helling, his right hand raising with some sort of weapon. He didn’t get far. I swept his right foot from under him, grabbed his right wrist, and with my left hand on his right shoulder drove him face down onto the table. I think he had actually forgotten I was in the room, from the surprised grunt he made. I took a look at Helling. He hadn’t moved. I doubt he even blinked. He continued speaking in that same steady rhythm.
“Now there’s still the matter of sentencing.”
“You can’t do this!” screamed Barson. He also said something about his rights, but with his face pressed into the table top it was hard for him to be articulate. “What about a trial?”
“You do have that option. If you wish, I can have you transported to the nearest sector court, where we can go through the entire procedure. But you and I know you’re guilty. Just as knowing the system had been compromised led me to you, knowing you did it led me to more and more evidence. You’ve been planning this for some time. You’ve even staged a few grav malfunctions to test out your code, and dummied up a medical request for Millner’s bio profile so you would have the data to reprogram the junction. You should know I’ve added a fair number of security protocols into the system that even the company doesn’t know about, all covered by the standard company waiver you signed when you were hired. There’s no question of the outcome.”
“I want a lawyer. You can’t do this! It’s illegal!”
Helling shook his head slowly. “Now you’re starting to disappoint me, Barson. I thought you were smarter than that.” Helling looked up at me and nodded, so I let him go. But I did take the weapon away… a butter knife. I guess he wasn’t expecting our visit to go the way it did. Then again, neither did I.
“Wait… you said you had just started your investigation,” he said. “You said I was just the first to be interviewed.”
“So it was a short interview list. As I said, you can go the full trial route, but you will still be guilty and likely sentenced to death, or get a life sentence on a penal colony. But I have a different sentence in mind.”
Barson tilted his head. “Like what?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“What?” I said. I didn’t even realize I had said it; it was such an instinctive reaction. Helling ignored my outburst just as he had earlier ignored Barson’s.
“You go to trial under the presumption of innocence. That means the company won’t send a replacement worker until the case is settled. And even though the evidence is complete and unassailable, any murder trial is likely to be lengthy, and followed by lengthy appeals. It’s only after you’re found guilty and all appeals exhausted that the company will look for and send a replacement. That’s a long time for the station to be shorthanded in the bot shop. Not to mention being without the one or two miners I’d have to send to escort you to trial. The station and the company don’t need that kind of inefficiency if it can be helped. We’re already down one miner, but from the sounds of it replacing someone of Millner’s productivity shouldn’t be so tough, and the station would likely be more productive in short order.”
“So nothing’s going to happen to me?”
“You’ll be under no restrictions from me. You’re free to go wherever you want aboard the station and live your life as you always have. If you ever want to leave, well, then you’ll have to go through the full trial procedure so I wouldn’t recommend that. You won’t be watched or tailed or anything… other than the usual security systems I have in place that everyone endures. From the point of view of the company and my office, it will be as if nothing has happened.”
Barson rose slowly, and looked back at me before turning towards Helling again. “So you came here to tell me what… that I’m a free man?”
“Not really. Partly I wanted to see how you would react to my questioning, to determine if you had thought ahead to the inevitable investigation. I wanted to understand better with whom I was dealing. I was curious to see if you’d deny being angry over the bot incident. Most people become suspects when they try to hide things like that. You were smart to openly admit it. Someone like Millner’s bound to have picked up enemies, so you’d just blend in.”
Barson looked like a five year old finding a pile of cookies with no adult supervision in sight.
“No, the real reason I came here wasn’t to let you know you were a free man. I wanted to let him,” Helling said, with a nod in my direction, “know you were a free man.”
Again Barson turned towards me, with a puzzled look on his face. I’m sure I had the same look.
“He knows you got away with murder. And after I leave here, I’ll be telling two others. Maybe three. That should do it. It’s a relatively small station, and people love to talk. It won’t take long for word to get around to everyone else that you won’t get punished aboard the Tantallon if you murder an unproductive worker.” Helling finally stood and headed for the door. “So I’d make sure you remain a very productive worker, Mr. Barson.”
I couldn’t help but smile, which likely gave Barson the wrong impression. Those eyes that had once looked so alive suddenly turned very tired. Then I too headed for the door, catching up with Helling in the corridor.
“I trust you have everything for your report now,” Helling said to me over his shoulder.
I looked at the walls of the corridor again, at all the vital systems clearly exposed yet untouched, and thought of all those old panels with their materials recycled into countless other more worthwhile uses. Yes, you could tell an awful lot about Helling’s character by looking at those walls. You just had to understand what you were really seeing.
About the Author
Gordon Grainger is an award-winning copywriter and former science columnist who writes stories that sneak up on you to reveal the familiar from a whole new perspective.
©2009 Gordon Grainger
