5

Crime

 

Will, Alexandra, and Lisa stopped their inspection tour to watch the dust devil approach. It was fairly small—a mere hundred meters across and perhaps a kilometer high—but it seemed particularly fierce. From the rooftop garden of Catalina Biome, above the ground level, they had an unobstructed view of terrain around Aurorae Outpost, and they were surprised to see the dust devil veer a bit and bear straight down on them. They all felt momentary apprehension—a sucking in of breath—for a moment as the swirling cloud passed right overhead. The gale force winds were visible in the rapid whirl of the dust around the funnel. Then it passed and a rain of talcum-powder dust fell on the plastic bubble.

“Wow, that was something!” said Lisa. “In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen that before!”

“I did once before!” exclaimed Will. “It was about a kilometer in diameter and the entire Outpost was shrouded in dust for several minutes!”

“I thought my heart would stop for a moment!” added Alexandra. “I suppose I knew intellectually that it couldn’t hurt the dome, but it still felt like we were about to be in a tornado!”

“We were, but the atmosphere’s not thick enough to do any damage, fortunately,” replied Will. He looked at the thickening deposit overhead. “Your crew just blew the dust off the dome, and now they have to do it again. Twice in one sol.”

“I hate the dust storm season,” growled Alexandra. “Dreary, dark, cold inside, and we never have enough power.”

“Well, you got building two done,” said Will, looked around at the flourishing rooftop garden. “Lisa, the garden’s not doing badly either, in spite of the diminished sunlight.”

“The insolation’s only down twenty percent; this isn’t the worst storm season. It’s diffused sunlight that comes from the entire sky instead of from a solar disk. The solar power units are devastated, but plants don’t mind it much.”

The three of them turned and walked back into building two’s rampwell. “Even so, Will, we do need more space in the biomes in the future,” exclaimed Alexandra. “That means building smaller buildings or putting them in bigger biomes.”

“I know. I was asking about the mass and cost issues of a biome fifty meters in diameter so that I was informed, not because I was opposed.”

“The bio-50 design will mass thirteen tonnes instead of eleven, but it’ll have sixty percent more interior space. That’s possible because we can now make more of the needed parts here, and because the larger dome will incorporate some new materials. The Swift-B shuttle can lift twelve tonnes to low earth orbit and the actual dome itself is a bit less than ten tonnes, so it can be lifted by a Swift. The rest will be flow up separately. We estimate—”

Will raised his hand. “You already told me, Alexandra.” Will stopped on the ramp where it reached the top floor landing and opened a door. It led into a classroom; the electronic blackboard had been installed, but nothing else. He entered, admired the work, then walked out the other side and went down another ramp. The women followed. “MarTech’s got a great facility,” he said.

“Thanks,” replied Alexandra. “We should be able to start classes the first week of January; spring semester, as it were. Assuming we can make the furniture in time.”

“It’s in the energy budget,” replied Will. “Ethel’s getting started tomorrow. We have to get them ready.”

“Will, if we could shake loose even five hundred kilowatt-hours per sol, we could get started on Riviera Biome,” said Alexandra, pressing a point she had made several times since the dust storm season had started two months earlier. She stopped at the bottom of the ramp in the MarTech lobby. “That’d be enough to run a ranger with excavation equipment and finish the hole, with some energy left for making and pouring duricrete.”

“Where will we get five hundred kilowatt hours per sol? Besides, right now you don’t have the people anyway. It’s either fabrication or construction; we don’t have the energy for both until the storm season clears. But it’s already showing signs of decrease, and the long-term forecast for Aurorae is for fewer storms.”

“They think,” said Alexandra. “They also think their forecasting has been seventy percent accurate!”

“I’ll concede that one to you,” agreed Will. “Thank God we took the conservative approach, got a nuke from Cassini, and sent them the solar power units.”

“But did you have to send out the two geology expeditions? The nuke they’re splitting would make all the difference here.”

“Not to mention safety issues,” added Lisa.

“Safety seems fine. Cassini can offer better emergency services than Aurorae could on its first two columbiads, and its weather has consistently allowed sunwing and shuttle flights. Mission Control’s satisfied. The explorations have been concentrated in the northern hemisphere where the atmosphere is dusty, but not stormy. Even the solar power units have worked fairly well at Cassini. The exploration teams have been essential for keeping up our media presence, and they’ve done that very, very well. Elysium-Utopia has been geologically fruitful and interesting.”

“And where will we put Viking 2?” asked Lisa.

Will smiled. “How about the park below Face Rock? No, I’m joking. I think we need to put it in our first museum, after we’ve taken it apart and studied it thoroughly.” He turned to Alexandra. “But back to your concerns. Alexandra, why not go to Cassini yourself for a few months and oversee the construction there? Nature has conspired to concentrate our resources there; Cassini’s got plenty of solar power, while we’re struggling on limited nuclear and wind power. We can send people there to get everything finished while the folks here turn to fabrication, then when the storm clears the extra personnel can return here and turn to construction with a vengeance.”

“I know.” Alexandra sighed. “I just hate to think of Cassini as getting as big and sophisticated as Aurorae.”

“Oh, Alexandra, don’t worry about that! We have to think about Mars, not about our borough!” Will had raised his voice. He lowered it. “Come on. Let’s look at this rationally. Catalina’s done, and if we start Riviera in April or May, we can still finish it and Shikoku before Columbus 7. Let’s get phase two finished so agriculture can begin at Cassini and generate more food for us. Then let’s turn to a few other essentials; phase 3 and the completion of building one; and installment of the microwave power relay.”

“We’ve got to get the relay system running,” she conceded. “We need the experience of beaming power from Cassini to the gold fields so that we can beam it to here from the top of the escarpment, where the atmosphere is much less dusty.”

“Hell, we may be able to beam the power from here to Phobos, and Phobos to Cassini!” replied Will. “And vice versa. And from either one to a mobile expedition almost anywhere on the planet. Or for that matter, if this works well, power can be beamed from Magellan station to TROVs on the Venus surface. They’ve already successfully beamed power from the various peaks around Shackleton to the facilities in the permanent shadow, and last month they test beamed power to ion engines pushing cargo from earth orbit to Gateway. Doesn’t that capacity excite you?”

Alexandra hesitated. “Yes, it really does. I agree, we need to test that equipment. I was hoping to test it here, though.”

“Why, when it was meant to be tested at Cassini?”

She shrugged. “As I said, I had hoped. Okay, Will, I concede your logic. I don’t like it, but I agree it is logical. I really think you’ve been giving away too much to our greedy miners. But I will go to Cassini next month, for two months, and I can take another six people along. They’ll be enough to get all of building one finished and haul in regolith to get agriculture started.”

“Good.” Will smiled; he was pleased he had convinced her, even if it was grudging. “A Mobilhab and a ranger are scheduled here the sol before Christmas with four crew. Two Mobilhabs can go back, carrying as many as ten or twelve. They’re departing January 3.”

“How long will that take? Why not fly?”

“There are still no shuttle flights. Besides, you can use the ten sols pretty efficiently reading or whatever. You can relax, too; it’s allowed on Mars.”

“I might even drive Prospectors; I haven’t done that for a while.”

“The Mobilhab has the capacity to control four Prospectors at once,” replied Will. “The guys coming back will be pretty busy; some will be running mining equipment all the way home.”

Alexandra nodded. “Okay, I’ll go.”

Will smiled. “Excellent. I think you’ll enjoy the trip.”

-------------------------

Less than a week later a Mobilhab and a ranger rolled into Aurorae bearing four workers from Cassini and two explorers who had flown to Cassini from Elysium. The power cart bearing the reactor carried five tonnes of gold, the total production by both companies for the previous month.

“The work is hell,” Eliseo Andaluziano said to Will over coffee that afternoon. “Curry is a real slave driver and Bach, to compete, has felt he had to be the same. So we’re all working about seventy-five hours a week, sometimes more. And something is always breaking; the mining equipment was never designed to operate in cold like this. They’re lucky to keep the equipment going seventy percent of the time.”

“We don’t have the energy to run it all the time, anyway,” added Louis Tremblay, who had also just returned from Cassini. “Even with extra solar power units, the combination of mining and construction is very power hungry. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how we’d keep fuel in the shuttles.”

“You did a good job, Louise,” said Will. “How’s morale?”

“It ain’t great, but it ain’t horrible either. Emily got the biome bubble set up in record time and by next week the bottom floor of building 1 will be enclosed, which means everyone will have a real room to live in. Of course, it’ll be another month or two before the rooms are painted and comfortable.”

“Less,” replied Will. “We’re send down Alexandra and six workers to replace the four of you who left, and they’re taking more construction materials. They should have all three levels of building one enclosed in two months. They’ll set up the bubble for building two, also, to provide redundancy, though the structure inside it will be minimal.”

“That’ll help a lot,” said Louise. “I understand Ray Munson has bought a flat here in building 2, and that Curry tried to order him not to.”

Will was surprised. “He has bought a unit, but I don’t know anything about the circumstances. The Werners have as well, and I don’t think they’re mad at Bach.” He pointed to Chester Stoughton, one of Consolidated’s staffers, who was strolling through DiPonte’s store. “So, why did he get permission to accompany all of you here?”

Eliseo shrugged. “He hasn’t told us, but my impression is that he has come to hate Curry and the work. But I gather he’s still working hard, just remotely. He was running mining equipment twelve hours a sol on the ride here.”

“Interesting. I guess I should ask him.”

“I’d go now, before he disappears into a Prospector operations cubicle!” said Louise.

Will nodded and rose from the table. He walked over to DiPonte’s store; the door was wide open and Stoughton was the only one inside. There was no need for DiPonte to staff it; anyone with questions could call him, and if anyone walked out with an item, they’d be billed for it anyway. A computer chip in each item, video cameras, and a paid monitor in India did the rest.

Chester was examining the Cuban cigars and the Russian vodka, though the latter was inside a locked cabinet. He looked up. “Oh, Commander. Good sol.”

“Good sol to you, too. Welcome back to Aurorae.”

“Thank you. Two and a half months away; this place is a sight for sore eyes.”

“Cassini’s still pretty limited. We’ll be sending the Mobilhab back to Cassini in a bit over a week, so the visit won’t be that long, I’m afraid, especially when you add ten sols of travel each way.”

“It’s sort of like being on an old-fashioned cruise ship, except there’s no swimming pool and no open bar. Commander, is there any possibility we can arrange for me to stay here? I could continue to provide support services telerobotically. The isolation, especially the lack of women, was driving me crazy.”

“Well, have you talked to Bruce about it? He’s your boss, after all. He’s made it very clear that he wants his people in Cassini for maximum flexibility.”

“I know, but here, five time zones behind Cassini, I can provide support services to Cassini in the middle of the night that are much harder to provide there.”

“And what did Curry say to that?” asked Will, point blank.

Stoughton looked down. “I think he’d be as happy to be rid of me as I am to be rid of him. I want to stay on Mars, but not work for Consolidated. Maybe we can arrange a swap with someone else?”

Will shook his head. “I think the chance of anyone else wanting to work for Consolidated is pretty remote. I hear working conditions are difficult.”

“Difficult! Impossible! Morale’s in the toilet! He’s a slave driver! Bach’s just as bad, too! Scoville’s driving her people too, in response. There’s constant repair work and a lot of work is being done by hand or in a spacesuit that was supposed to be done remotely because one thing or another is broken.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Set a limit on work hours, for personal safety! It really isn’t safe. Send down more people, and figure out how to replace the parts that are breaking with other parts that are more robust. It’s an experimental operation, not a working operation.”

“Either way, it’s an operation recovering five tonnes of gold per month.”

“At the cost of a lot of sweat, and maybe blood.”

That got Will’s attention. “We will have to look into the matter, then. We’re sending down a bigger support team; that’ll help. Some of the people going down are experts at safety and others are experts at design; maybe they can solve some of the frequent breakdowns.”

“I hope so.” Stoughton looked at the vodka bottle, a liter, with a price tag of $3,000. “When will someone be here, so I can buy this?”

“The vodka? It isn’t a question of who. The cabinet will be unlocked automatically Frisols and Satursols 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Those are the only times alcohol can be purchased or consumed here. The cafeteria sells cheaper stuff, though; we’re now brewing beer locally, and it’s supposedly pretty good. We even have a contract to export five hundred liters to the Hilton Orbital.”

“I’ll try some, but I really want the vodka.”

“Come back tomorrow evening, then. Meanwhile, can I offer you chocolate? It’s the best quality money can buy.” Will reached down and picked up a 25-gram, $75 bar that had a famous logo cheaply printed on locally made paper.

Stoughton smiled. “No thanks, Commander. I really want something stronger.”

-------------------------

Frisol was busy and Satursol was pleasant. After half a sol of working Satursol morning, Will came back to Yalta Biome for lunch, then remained for the quarterly flea market. About forty people had things for sale. Some had used clothes and toys they no longer needed, at prices half as outrageous as those inside DiPonte’s Store. Even used paperback books sold for $50, roughly the cost of flying them to Mars. But more interesting were Lal Shankaraman’s remarkable photographs of natural objects on Mars, Enrique Delrio’s metal furnishings, Madhu Gupta’s ceramics with geometric designs, Friday Nguru’s wicker chairs, Radha Bhatt’s hand-woven rugs, Ernesto Alves’s carved plastic and wooden sculptures, and Ryoko Furukawa’s beautiful water color paintings of flowers. They were not cheap; generally they were priced five to ten times more than they would be on earth. But the buyers knew that raw materials cost vastly more and labor was worth eight times as much as on Earth. Many objects were snatched up in a few minutes in spite of the price tag. Everyone walked around with a wad of thousands and hundreds; few items required anything smaller. The average consumer spent $5,000 to $10,000 that sol and thought nothing of it; their average incomes were higher as well.

Then Will and Marshall went for a swim while Lizie napped and Ethel rested. Supper was always special on Satursol, with more meat and desserts than usual, even during the dust storm season when agricultural productivity declined. When the dishes were cleared away and the sun set, the stage was illuminated for the performance of a locally written one-act play by the “Aurorae Players.” Marshall sat spellbound and a bit baffled by the play, but he had seen enough theatre to love it.

After the play ended about 8:30, the families began to drift out, the kids went to bed, the lights dimmed a bit, the music became more contemporary, and the cafeteria changed its character as Mars’s singles gathered to socialize. Will and Ethel put the kids to bed, then sat in the living room to watch television; Earth’s favorite Saturday evening shows had been downloaded onto the Outpost’s computers. They watched their usual lineup, then went to bed as well.

At 2:30 a.m., Will’s communicator suddenly began to beep wildly. In response, the house computer brightened the bedroom lights. Will jumped out of bed and grabbed the device. He deactivated the video, noted the name of the sender with trepidation, and opened the circuit. “What is it, Kent?”

“Will, sorry to awaken you, but about five minutes ago Sheila Burns came into the bridge crying and saying she had been raped by Chester Stoughton. I called Eve Gilmartin and Martha Vickers right away, waking them up, and they asked Sheila to meet them at the hospital. Martha stopped by to bring her. I figured I had better call you.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right there. Call Silvio as well and tell him I want him to come to the bridge immediately as well.”’

“Got it. Bye.”

“Bye.” Will closed the circuit, apologized to Ethel, pulled on his clothes, and jogged to the bridge. He felt numb and in shock, which the freezing air in the tunnels didn’t cure. Mars had never had a problem like this before. It wasn’t prepared.

When he arrived in the bridge, Kent was reviewing videotapes. “I found where she left Chester’s apartment, and the computer’s looking for the moment when she went in. They were in the patio all evening, so there will be a lot to review. Shall I call up the tapes of inside Chester’s room?”

“No; not yet. We need legal advice. The hallways and the dining area are public spaces. What happened?”

“Sheila was gradually going from shocked and angry to hysterical, so I can’t guarantee we know all the facts yet. Basically, she said she had a few drinks with Chester, he invited her to his room to take a look at something—I was never quite sure what—and he forced himself on her.”

There were footsteps behind them. They turned and Silvio DiPonte, hastily dressed, tired, and grumpy, entered the bridge.

“Has the price of gold collapsed?” he asked.

“No. Sheila’s in the hospital right now; she says she was raped by Chester Stoughton.”

“Who?” Silvio didn’t know the name.

“He’s one of the workers for Consolidated; he arrived here yestersol. Kent, you summarize.”

“Sure.” Kent repeated the account he had told to Will.

“Perhaps we should go talk to Sheila?” suggested Will.

Silvio shook his head. “Not yet, and I had better not go at all. I don’t need to know all the details of the alleged incident; I need to know enough to render an unbiased opinion.”

“You’re the borough judge, but Silvio, who will be the lawyers? What law do we follow?”

“We have to follow the laws of the state of Texas, since the Commission headquarters is in Houston. Of course, we can’t follow either the laws exactly or the legal procedures, because this is Mars, not Houston. I don’t know the details of the rape statute, but we can assume that rape is a serious crime, punishable by imprisonment. We’ll need to get the details.”

“But how can we hold a trial here?” Will exclaimed, worried.

Silvio shrugged. “I’ve thought about this problem, but only at a theoretical level. Trial by jury would fit our circumstances best, with the judge and jury empowered to ask questions. We may need to hold a town meeting to establish the legislation needed for a trial. I’ll reread the Aurorae Declaration.”

“But we have no prison, and an angry resident can sabotage this place pretty easily,” said Kent.

Silvio nodded. “If this person were found guilty, most likely he would have to be sent back to Earth for punishment. But we would have to set up a system that maximizes his cooperation here; time off for good behavior if he cooperates, for example. And we don’t need a prison because we can enforce house arrest and all sorts of other restrictions. We’ll have to be creative.”

“Do we have the jurisdiction to be creative?” asked Will.

“Of necessity, we do. As chief judge I can make constitutional rulings.”

“Okay.” Will looked at Kent. “Let’s go talk to Sheila.”

Silvio shook his head. “Let the physicians do their job first. I’ll go to the sick bay and remind them of the legal need for evidence. Sheila came here and told to Kent; you have cause to arrest the accused. I’d bring him here, ask him if he wants a third party present to advise him, remind him of his rights under United States law, and ask some questions.”

“Who? The Commander?” asked Kent.

“No, the Duty Officer, who is charged with maintaining the health and safety of the residents. That includes law enforcement.”

“But I have no training!”

“Never mind about that, Sheriff Bytown,” replied Will, putting on a western drawl.

“Watch out, I’m swearing you in as deputy!”

“This is not the wild west,” replied Silvio. “Security is listed among your duties, Kent. Read the—”

“I know, I just never thought I’d need to do it! I’m a systems analyst!”

“Well, you are the borough constable as well; that’s a better term than sheriff, I think,” replied Silvio. “You are authorized to arrest, hold, and question the suspect for a reasonable time. So go get him. I’ll talk to the physicians. The Commander will go along as your deputy.”

The men headed their separate ways. Silvio had a very short walk from the Bridge in Habitat 1 to Aurorae Hospital in Habitat 2. Getting the attention of any of the women was more complicated, however. Finally, Eve came out. When she saw it was Silvio, she immediately knew what was going on. “She can’t talk to a lawyer now. She’s been traumatized.”

“Fine, Eve. I’m here to remind everyone of their professional duty. If a crime has been committed, it has to be decided in a court. The court will need evidence. The court will also need testimony; yours, Martha’s maybe Sheila’s.”

“Court? We’re on Mars!”

“Indeed we are. That means we can’t ship Sheila and Chester to Houston tomorrow for a trial. No one can get to Earth for about a year and a half. And we can’t just push Chester out an airlock without a spacesuit. If we intend to be a civilized society we have to hold a trial and determine a punishment.”

“I see what you mean.” Eve looked horrified. “This is terrible.”

“Be thankful our first serious crime wasn’t murder. We’ll have one of those some sol, too.”

“I suppose. The Garden of Eden has just found its serpent.”

“No, the serpent has always been here; he just hadn’t bitten anyone. Now he has. As a physician, you have to play your professional part. Martha can counsel Sheila and the counsel will be confidential because of the physician-patient relationship, but she should be careful not to distort Sheila’s memories. You and Martha need to consider what evidence of rape should be submitted to the court.”

“I understand.” Eve nodded. “I’ll tell Martha.”

“Thank you.” Silvio turned and walked back to the bridge, partly to think, partly to watch the systems.

Kent had his attaché with him so if an emergency developed, he’d be able to handle it, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He and Will were somewhere between frightened and high on adrenaline as they crossed Yalta Biome, entered Catalina Biome, and headed to the main entrance of building two. They went down the steep ramp to the garden level and knocked on the door to Chester Stoughton’s room.

No answer. They knocked again, then again. Then they knocked loudly.

“Maybe he isn’t there,” said Will.

“He should be.” Kent knocked loudly again several more times. Then he raised his attaché and pushed a series of icons to see where Chester’s identifier was. It was a chip, usually in the communications earpiece most people wore during the sol. “His identifier is in there.”

“He’s probably there. How many times have we knocked?”

“Six or eight.”

“We’ll knock some more, and then we’ll ask the computer to open the door.” Will knocked loudly on the door. “Chester, please open the door!” He exclaimed loudly.

Another door opened nearby and Eliseo appeared. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll hear about it tomorrow,” replied Will. He knocked two more times. “Okay, constable.”

Kent nodded. “Computer, this is Kent Bytown invoking safety condition orange. Please unlock the door.” There was a pause, then every door on the hallway emitted a faint clicking sound.

“You should have been more specific. Let’s go,” said Will.

Kent opened the door. Chester had a flat eight meters by five. The front two meters was a hallway with a bathroom on the left and a closet on the right; the rest was a bedroom with a high window in the far wall. The lights came on automatically when the door opened. Chester was lying on top of his bed, naked, sound asleep.

The two of them had to shake him several times before Chester stirred, and then he wasn’t coherent. “He must have passed out from alcohol consumption,” said Kent.

“Then let’s get a bathrobe on him and carry him to the hospital,” said Will. “We’ll call in some more doctors and keep him in another room.”

 

© 2004 Robert H. Stockman

 

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