CHAPTER 5
Beatriz Mattoso followed the chief inspector as he made his way stiffly down the crawlway, looking over his hunched shoulders every few moments to ensure that she was still behind him. Steel yourself, Bea. You didn’t minor in investigation for nothing. Maybe he was just as nervous at the prospect of death as she was, despite the cycles (she recalled they counted by years on Earth, rather than the three hundred-day cycles on Aotea) of experience he had. So she had heard, anyway.
But it couldn’t be anything but an accident. This wasn’t Earth. This was Aotea, and everyone onboard was a member of the Society for a New Humanity. It wasn’t just the genetic screening – psych tests, background checks, interviews… surely any hints of a capacity for violence would have been finagled out and sent packing.
She had to tamp down her sense of excitement. This was a tragedy, of course, but she felt exhilarated – which led to a wave of shame. It wasn’t the way of the SNH to find any positive feeling in death, even in the death of one’s enemies. Per the SNH, there were no enemies, at least no human ones. The real enemies were those aspects of culture that glorified violence and conflict – the parts the Society had purged.
This exhilaration she felt must be a remnant of that culture – even on Ceres, and with parents that had subscribed to the Society’s tenets, she couldn’t help but be influenced by the wider culture. It wasn’t her fault, she decided. The important thing was that she recognized that it was wrong, and did the right thing. She knew how to do the right thing; that sometimes she had feelings otherwise was merely an obstacle to be overcome.
The sewage control space was already manned by a junior HabTech, who greeted Mattoso and Chief Inspector Konami with a nervous nod. The department chief arrived moments later. HTM Wells was a lanky, angular woman in a rumpled jumpsuit. XO would send her back to change. Or maybe not — he didn’t seem as stuck on appearance with the bluesuits as he was with her fellow khakis. Inspector Konami started to brief the HTM on the incident, but she interrupted him.
“I already heard the scuttlebutt,” said Wells. “DT1 on watch, non-responsive in the purifier lockout space.”
“Right,” answered Konami. “So what would he be doing there?”
“Purification Bank clean and inspect, which is a periodic task, or clearance of a filter clog.” Wells projected a field of numbers on the bulkhead. “Bacterial was a bit high with the last log, so he must have decided to clear it himself. Wish all my watchstanders were as conscientious…”
“Can’t the rover clean a filter clog?” asked Mattoso. Konami raised his eyebrows minutely.
“Of course,” replied Wells. She reached over the HabTech’s shoulder and swiped one of the screens. “RoverBot is in recharge.” The HTM tapped the Voice unit.
“Atmo, MT2 Taki.”
“Atmo, this is HTM Wells. Did you have the RoverBot busy earlier?”
“Uh, yes it was. Some emergent repair with the TechBot.” Mattoso could still hear the machinery white-noise through the Voice channel. “Did something happen to the Sewage watch?”
Konami spoke before Wells could answer. “Atmo, this is the CI. We’re conducting an investigation right now, so we can’t answer any questions. Thanks for your assistance.” He gestured and the HabTech closed the Voice channel. “So the RoverBot was occupied…”
HTM Wells talked them through some technical background for the purification filters as they walked back toward the scene. The discussion went silent at the sounds of an argument in the crawlways around the corner.
“Just tell me what’s going on…” said a short, balding master technician. “I heard that one of my guys was hurt in there.”
“I’m sorry, Master Tech, but the CI ordered us—”
The chief inspector cut in. “That’s okay, Constable.” He thrust out his hand to the master technician. “Chief Inspector Konami.”
“I know who you are,” grunted the master tech, but he took the proffered hand. “Master Data Tech Lopez. Muahe’s one of mine.”
“DT1 Muahe is in Medical right now,” said Konami. “But you can join us, if you like — we’re trying to recreate his most recent activities.”
Mattoso felt an opening. “Master Tech, can you tell us about Muahe’s duties?”
He turned to her with raised eyebrows, as if he didn’t even realize she had been there. “Data systems maintenance, for the most part. There are dozens of possible—”
“Can you pull up his work log?” she interrupted.
DTM Lopez blinked and scowled. “Yes, of course.” He projected a blank screen onto the bulkhead and navigated through it with casual skill. He stared at the screen for a few moments before showing it to the CI and Mattoso. “Just before his watch he was running a NetBug tracer.” Mattoso noted some technical jargon along with references to the NetBug, slang for a class of particularly creative problem-solving programs. “That’s no big deal — a task to track down any anomalies in the data storage systems. Every thirty days.”
“And before that?” she asked.
Fingers danced and swiped through a few more screens. “He was off duty. Before that, a weekly consolidation, a virus drill, a clean—”
“That’s okay, DTM,” said Konami, to Mattoso’s annoyance. But she stayed silent. “Let’s get back to Muahe’s last few minutes before the incident.”
“Incident?” said Lopez. “Don’t you mean accident?”
Konami ignored the question. “So now he would have donned the thinsuit.”
“Right,” said HTM Wells. “Then he would have entered—”
“Shouldn’t we go through the thinsuit procedure?” asked Mattoso. She wasn’t quite sure how it might help, but she recalled the emphasis on thoroughness during her classes on criminal investigation. She hoped her nervousness wasn’t visible; she was wracking her brain for every little detail she could recall from those classes that might give her a veneer of the competence she didn’t feel.
“I don’t think—”
The CI interrupted Wells. “No, that’s a good point. Let’s go through the thinsuit procedure.” He called over a deputy and sent him to the clinic to retrieve Muahe’s thinsuit.
The silence of waiting frazzled Mattoso. “So who was the last one before Muahe to wear the suit?” she asked HTM Wells.
She scanned the logs. “MRT2 Gustafson.”
Mattoso made a note and pretended to lose herself perusing a projection while they waited. It didn’t take long — the CI’s deputy returned after just a few minutes with the thinsuit, bagged as evidence. Konami and his deputy dutifully donned plastic gloves, thumbprinted the evidence log, and opened the bag. HTM Wells reluctantly put on the gloves, and Mattoso stopped herself from grinning as the HTM performed the thinsuit donning procedure, ignoring the gaping holes the MedTechs had cut into the suit to treat the data technician.
Just as Mattoso started to worry that she had insisted on this delay for nothing, HTM Wells paused, frowned, checked a projection, and frowned again.
“What is it?” asked the CI.
“It’s the breather mask,” she answered. “It failed the pressure test.” HTM Wells demonstrated, closing the test device over the mask, activating it, and pointing to the telltale red “failure” light.
They looked at the locker logs again — MRT2 Gustafson had fully annotated the thinsuit logs, including the pressure test, as did DT1 Muahe.
“So that was it…” said Konami. “The mask couldn’t protect him from the toxic gas.”
“Wait a second — the filter’s in, right?” asked Mattoso. “Because Muahe was wearing it, and already installed it. But wouldn’t he test the mask before he puts in the filter? According to procedure?”
DTM Lopez nodded vigorously. “Muahe would follow procedure. Definitely.”
“Actually, you’re right,” answered Wells, pointing out the steps on the posted procedural guide. She removed the breather filter and tested it again, and this time it passed.
“But that doesn’t make sense.” Wells scratched her head. “The filter shouldn’t make a difference — it’s entirely inside the mask.”
The CI was about to speak when he got a call and stepped aside. He returned a moment later with a grim expression. “I’m sorry, Master Tech,” he said, hand on Lopez’s shoulder. “DT1 Muahe is dead.”