The Prometheus Incident, A Martian Murder Mystery Read online

  Chapter Two – Rule Number One

  Yes, there was a price to be paid for murder. This strange, melancholy madness was only part of the price. There was more to pay. There was a further payment that would soon be due. Drifting in memory, its mind kept running in circles. Over and over, it asked the now-familiar question – had it been worth the cost? In twenty years it had been unable to find an answer. A newspaper lay open on the table. The headline read: ‘Prometheus Found’.

  Detective Inspector Richardson leaned back in his seat and gazed out his window. They were so ridiculously expensive that he very rarely travelled on the sub-orbital shuttles. Now this trip, returning home, was his second in twenty-four hours. It was still so new to him that he found the view out the window distracting. To his north he could see the brown contorted mountains of Southern Turkey, while beneath him lay the yellow sands of the Arabian Peninsula, falling rapidly away as the shuttle climbed. Ahead, the thin blue strip of the Arabian Gulf joined the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean.

  His only companion on the off-peak flight was a young space agency pilot whose careful nonchalance proclaimed that he had seen it all before. He was paying more attention to the drink dispenser than the view.

  Richardson sighed. It had already been a long day and it wouldn’t be over when he landed. Still, it had been interesting and it was certainly an interesting problem that he had been presented with. A cold case murder where the evidence was necessarily circumstantial and where means and opportunity indicated a very small group of suspects but where there was no apparent motive. He knew that without a motive he might get a conviction for negligence but the evidence wouldn’t be strong enough for murder.

  He glanced at the data terminal on his wrist. The ‘Sherlock Holmes’ icon (the classic Benedict Cumberbach version, not any of the newer remakes) on the screen was still frowning, which meant that the ferret program he had set running had not come up with anything. He sighed again. In crimes such as this, where one of the victims was an attractive young woman, his experience told him that the most likely motive was sex. He had set his ferret to find evidence in the mission logs and initial commission investigation of romantic trouble or liaisons. The frowning icon meant that it had found nothing. He turned to his companion.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Is it true that all sexual liaisons are banned between UN Space Agency crew?”

  The young pilot smiled. “Sure is,” he said. “First thing they teach you in training. Rule one – no sex. Rule two – see rule one. They say it’s dangerous because it interferes with crew cohesion and team work.”

  “Has it ever happened?” Richardson asked.

  The pilot nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “A couple of times, early on, but it’s a really bad idea. Not only is it instant dismissal but the agency has this agreement with its friends, and its friends include virtually all of the aerospace industry. You end up unemployed – permanently. You can also be charged with ‘conduct endangering a spacecraft’ which is an international criminal offence. They take it real serious.” The pilot took another sip from his drink. Richardson could guess the answer to his next question but he had to ask it to be sure.

  “Could you do it and get away with it? Not get caught?” he asked.

  The pilot shrugged. “On Earth? Maybe, in some out-of-the-way hotel. On board a spacecraft?” He shook his head emphatically. “No way. You know if anyone farts. Anyway, if you’re the sort of bloke who can’t keep his pants zipped, you don’t get on a spacecraft in the first place. Trust me.” Richardson nodded and lay back in his seat again. Pity, he thought; sex was always such a good motive. Juries had no trouble understanding it. He glanced at his data link – Sherlock was still frowning.

  This was the peak altitude of their sub-orbital trajectory. Out the window he could see the Himalayas away to the north, showing in high relief even at this altitude, and beyond them the Tibetan plateau and on into China. Below him the southern portion of the Indian sub-continent was covered in early monsoonal cloud.

  After lust, the next motive on his list was greed. Who stood to gain? He sent his ferret program looking for the obvious – inheritance, insurance policies, etc. He knew that it wouldn’t be that simple but he had to check. Sherlock frowned. Nothing obvious then; still, there were other ways to benefit from a murder: indirect benefit or planned benefit. He went over the briefing he had just been given in his mind. This gave him the germ of an idea. He whispered some instructions to his data link and set his ferret off in a new direction. Almost immediately, the Sherlock icon smiled. He reviewed the collected data and gave some further instructions. He had his interview list fully formed by the time they crossed the West Australian coast and as the shuttle rotated for re-entry, he knew the questions he had to ask and how he had to ask them.

  He was met at the Avalon Spaceport by Peter Wilson, his sergeant, in an unmarked police car. Wilson was a pleasant young man: ambitious but patient and eager to learn – a good combination.

  “Where to, boss?” he asked cheerfully.

  “University of Melbourne,” came the reply. “The new Climate Sciences building.” Detective Inspector Richardson climbed into the passenger seat and stared pensively out the window. “No,” he said pre-emptively. “I don’t need to discuss anything at the moment.” Sergeant Wilson knew better than to chat when the boss was thinking. They drove up to Melbourne in silence.