CHAPTER 7
Mattoso used to hate waiting, but cycles into a half-lifetime-long journey had cured her of her impatience. At least, that’s what she thought — now that she was actually waiting for something as important as this, her predilections returned with a vengeance. The diagnostic techs were positively gleeful — she reckoned this was probably the first time they had to investigate a malfunction more severe than a squeaky hinge. At least their enthusiasm was a tiny bit infectious; they explained the workings of the molecular scanner with real zeal, even while waiting for the minute lenses to complete their nigh-undetectable, and seemingly endless, movements across the surface of the faulty breather filter.
She realized she was nigh-buzzing with energy. An actual murder! It should be terrible – and she recognized intellectually that it was terrible – but she was as excited as she’d been in cycles. Well, maybe a murder. Maybe it would just be an accident. That felt disappointing to contemplate, which made her feel a momentary wave of shame.
Mattoso checked a message on her wearable – her girlfriend/boyfriend (Pat alternated which term they preferred) complained about their kids and promised fresh vat-grown duck breasts for dinner. She smiled, well aware that they adored teaching, and especially adored the children in their class.
A bell rang, setting the lab techs back in motion. Chief Chari frowned as she passed — Mattoso had had to pull rank in order to remain in the little diagnostics lab while the techs worked, and the DGT chief had not been pleased. After a two-minute huddle, Chari approached her.
“It was the edge of the filter, Lieutenant,” she said gruffly. “There was enough scoring along one side that it didn’t seal properly when fully installed.” Chari pointed out the scoring on an imager. “Normally it wouldn’t matter, but this one stuck out a few extra microns — enough to sort of stick between the connection.”
She asked about possible causes.
The diagnostics chief shrugged. “Normal wear and tear, a fab error, who knows?”
Mattoso subvocalized, making a note, and saving the images from the scanner. Can’t be a fab error, can it, if this filter was used before? But she recalled that, according to procedure (and according to the breather unit logs), breather filters were only used once and replaced. Then that might argue against wear and tear, right?
Her wearable vibrated — a call from the chief inspector. The department head meeting had completed. She updated him on the results from the lab. “What’s the next step, CI?” she added.
“Cy, please. Next step is interviews.”
Konami beat her to MRT2 Gustafson’s hab, one of a sixteen identical units in a standard Hab near the central Ring. She was pleased to find him waiting in the passageway, examining the ministrations of the blocky TrashBot as it cleaned the edges of the walkway — she had been worried he would go ahead and start the interview without her.
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Chief Inspector. Earthers made her feel just a bit nervous, but she knew that wasn’t quite fair. Yes, the problem of violence and aggression throughout the solar system was inherited from Earth’s history, but all the teachings of the SNH abhorred any sort of bigotries based on categories like place of origin. He struck her as competent, and his reasoning for the recent drills made logical sense… but just the knowledge that someone onboard was capable of the assaults, even in a drill, she’d read about in the aftermath reports, gave her the willies. Now why would that creep her out, but the prospect of investigating a murder did the opposite?
She asked about the autopsy – there was nothing surprising, just asphyxiation and toxicity from the gas mixture.
She was annoyed that she had to ask, and he apologized and promised to keep her informed.
Gustafson turned out to be a prematurely balding young man in a sleeveless shirt and shorts. “Uh, who are you?” he grunted while a shirtless youth gestured in the air, a cluster of wearables arranged around his head. A yellow jenji dog sniffed the visitors’ feet before returning to the food dispenser.
Gustafson’s eyes went wide when Konami introduced them. They ignored the triumphant shout from the vidgame player.
Konami met Mattoso’s eyes and tilted his head toward the young tech, suppressing a yawn. She swallowed her surprise. He’s telling me to lead the interview! “According to the breather logs, Second Gustafson, you were the last one to use the thinsuit and breather before the deceased.”
“Breather?” The tech scratched his neck. “Guess I was on watch, and had to go into a hazspace.”
A pause, and Konami broke the silence. “Mr. Gustafson. Try to think back. We can pull up your watch records if it would help.”
Damn it, Bea. She was annoyed at herself for waiting too long and allowing Konami to take the lead again.
“No, that’s okay,” the tech answered Konami. “Let me think for a minute… Sewage, right? Yeah, I have to stand Sewage every quarter-cycle, I think, for proficiency — yeah, I remember. Purifier clean and inspect — a bi-cyclical, or tri-cyclical, or something. Big pain in the ass — nearly took all watch… the offgoing should’ve started it, but—”
“Please, Second, the breather?” interrupted Mattoso. She chided herself for checking to see if Konami approved. Doesn’t matter, Bea. It’s not like he’s your boss.
“Yeah, the breather. What’s to tell? I followed procedure, donned the thinsuit and breather, scrubbed down the crap on the purifier, and doffed it.”
“Can you remember donning it?” asked Konami.
“I don’t know, I just put it on.”
“Do you remember any problems with the breather?”
“No, it worked fine.”
“How about doffing it?”
The second just grunted. “I just took it off. What’s—”
Konami scrolled down a projection. “Did you replace the filter?”
“Uh… yeah, of course. That’s procedure.”
“And then…?”
“Then? Oh, then I put on a new seal. No wait — the seal is last. I recharged the tank, then the new seal. Then I thumbsigned the logs, of course.”
Mattoso was impressed — she wasn’t sure if she could recite the procedure from memory without consulting the posted info plate. But then, I don’t have to stand Sewage watch. As an Operational officer, the closest she might come would be the Machinery Control watch, supervising all of the various non-vital machinery systems watches onboard from the Machinery Control Room.
“Okay, Second. Thank you for your cooperation.” He turned to her, but she didn’t have any more questions. “We’ll let you know if we have any more questions, Mr. Gustafson. Don’t leave town.”
They left the young tech with a confused look on his face.
“‘Don’t leave town’?” she asked Konami.
“Sorry,” he chuckled. “Earth joke.”
They made their way to the Central Ring in silence. “Do you miss it?” she asked while they waited for the Ring. “Earth?”
Konami looked at the deck. “I miss the sky. I miss seeing… nothing.” He pointed upwards. “You look up on Aotea, you just see the other side of the Can. On earth, you look up — you might see clouds, or the moon, or the sun… But every so often, and especially at night, you see nothing. Emptiness. Not even stars, unless you’re outside the city, though I miss those too. In Lagos, it was like a grey blanket over the city.” He laughed. “A warm, grey, reeking blanket.” Doesn’t sound like something worth missing.
Mattoso considered this. “I’ve never seen sky before, except through a window.” She honestly wasn’t even sure if the empty black vacuum of Ceres’ surface counted as “sky.”
Konami raised his eyebrows. “Really? Where are you from?”
“Ceres City. One of the exurbs, actually. We took a tube into town for school.”
“Exurbs?” chuckled Konami. “I thought Ceres City was all there was.”
She was too far from home to be offended. Few that hadn’t grown up in the asteroid belt knew much about the solar system’s largest asteroid. “There’s New Hawking, on the south pole, and Mahatma, on the equator, and—” She stopped herself as felt a twinge of homesickness. “It’s as big as India, you know. Ceres, I mean. It’s not so small.” She knew nothing about India aside from its status as a large land region on Earth, but ever Cerean student learned that their home was approximately the same size. “So just the sky? Anything else?”
“The dogs. Maybe I miss the dogs.”
“The dogs?”
“Yeah. On Aotea all the dogs look alike. Jenji dogs and cats are all the same, except for the colors, and they all have the same personality. They’re great, but in Lagos there were dogs that looked like wolves, and dogs that looked like rats, and everything in between. My neighbor had a big yard and a dozen dogs, and I used to watch them play with her children. And not just dogs — monkeys, antelope, squirrels, and birds — oh, the birds are beautiful—”
They were interrupted by a chirp from Konami’s wearable as they stepped onto the Ring. With effort, Mattoso managed to refrain from eavesdropping. The conversation was short.
“They found the hatch malfunction,” said Konami.
“Really? What was it.”
“Just an interlock short. You know, the inner door can’t open unless the outer door was shut, with both doors failing shut. Truly ancient technology, say the techs.”
“Tried and true, the engineers often say,” she replied. “The fewer moving parts, the fewer things that can go wrong.”
“Maybe that wasn’t the best philosophy in this case.”
Considering the result, she couldn’t argue with that.