The Ares Weapon Page 16

  Instead, he saw a legitimate argument existed for the betrayal of his patron under the right circumstances. Horrified at discovering a way to justify the sin he always considered mortal, he tried to bury the idea as deeply as possible and refused to give it any more active thought. But once released, there was no putting the jinn back, and Dunn soon found himself actively examining every opportunity for betrayal’s profitability.

  Now he stood on the shore of the Rubicon of his conscience. Time remained for him to abort everything and loyally complete the assignment, but the opportunity was fast passing. Too many things were in motion to easily go back. Plans within plans and contingencies for plans were his trademark and he had outdone himself this time. This mission demonstrated some of his most intricately conceived work. It would be a shame to abandon the project because of scruples.With an effort, he might still do so. Once this ship entered solar orbit, however, his decision must be made.

  He rose from the bed and retrieved his bag with the secret compartment. He removed the remote control unit for their original vessel, the Fortuna. The engineer, Schmaltz, had been talented and impressed him with the sophistication of the programming put into the device. A great pity he needed to be killed, and perhaps the youngster had acted too rashly. Still, nothing was to be done about it now. He was grateful for the elimination of one variable from the equation with the death of Schmaltz. Better for his own man to be in charge of what happened in engineering.

  His hand hesitated over the interface as he considered the consequences. If he activated the pre-programmed sequence, he would set into play unstoppable events. He knew his own people on Victorem had been replaced by Mundi’s. It would be difficult to justify keeping the ship a secret from his patron, but he was confident he would still salvage their relationship if he kept the planned rendezvous.

  Of course, there would still be the idiot Captain of the Athena to deal with. Buying him off did not prove any challenge. The man didn’t even know how to properly negotiate and had settled for the opportunity to recover the abandoned Helios and a sample of the virus. Eliminating him to assure his silence would be simple.

  Or, he could follow through with his plan and instruct the Fortuna to intercept the Helios. A heavily armed warship would be a definite asset if he chose to betray Mundi. Then the only decision remaining would be how many, if any, of this crew he would take with him.

  His finger traced the hard outer edge of the thin control unit. No matter which way he looked at the situation, the Fortuna might be the most valuable piece on the board. He turned on the device and entered the command.

  His decision made, he now needed to ensure that there were no witnesses to his departure.

  Chapter 29

  We gently laid Schmalz on an examining table in medical.

  “Do you want me to stay with you for a bit?” asked Shigeko.

  “No, thanks. I think I just prefer to be alone.”

  Before she got to the door I called after her. “What happened on the bridge after I left?”

  “Garrick got pretty mad at you for ignoring him. Dunn offered to retrieve you and followed.”

  I frowned. “What about Hodgson?”

  “He left right after the gravity came on. Garrick sent him to find out why you and Dunn weren’t answering.”

  I thanked her. I was glad for her answers but gladder for her departure. I didn’t trust her more than the rest of them. The only two people I knew anything about were Schmaltz and myself. Everyone else could be in this with Dunn. Any of them might be Schmaltz’s murderer and I was most likely the next on their list.

  My whole body shivered and my stomach insisted it turn over and empty itself. I needed a distraction, so decided to perform the medical examination on Schmaltz. Probably not the smartest thing for me, but I wanted to do something for him. A good stiff drink would have helped, but that wouldn’t be wise, even if I managed to locate any booze aboard Garrick’s ship.

  I threw a sheet over Schmaltz’s face and forced myself to take deep, slow breaths. My pulse raced and a thousand confusing thoughts fought at once for my attention. I experienced similar emotions when I looked after my first patient on the day of the terror attack, the day that claimed Carlos.

  The victim was a kid, barely four years old, his hips and legs crushed by falling debris. I only found the courage to work on him by pushing my emotion into the backseat. I desperately wanted that to happen again. I closed my eyes and placed myself back in the chaos of that emergency room. I tried to imagine the bloody metallic odours and nauseating stench of charred flesh and listened hard for the screams of dying and injured people. Strangely, once the images formed in my mind, I became calm enough to begin my examination of Schmaltz.

  I cleaned and examined the wound to his neck. That bastard Dunn was correct. A solitary, deep laceration cut into the trachea and severed the carotid and jugular. The killer required a lot of strength and skill to subdue a man of Schmaltz’s size while dealing this killing blow with a single stroke, eliminating Shigeko from the list of suspects.

  No other marks or wounds appeared on the body. The murder had been fast and professional, but there would have been a huge amount of blood. The murderer would not avoid getting covered. Bogdan was the only person with blood on him, but that would also result from trying to help Schmaltz, as he claimed.

  Physically, the young man didn’t impress. Taller than Schmaltz by ten centimetres, he possessed a thin, wiry build. Possibly, with training, he might be able to pull it off. He certainly appeared to be in shock, but perhaps he was a good actor.

  Dunn, of course, remained the prime suspect. His change of clothes gave me the biggest reason to convict him. Even if Hodgson found a clean, torn shirt in his quarters, there’s nothing to say that Dunn didn’t plant it as part of an alibi, though I didn’t understand why he needed one. If the crew worked for him, he could act with impunity and everyone would go along with him, so maybe he acted alone. A possibility remained Dunn told the truth, but I would never want to accept that.

  Garrick was big and strong enough to murder, but Shigeko told me he stayed with her the entire time.

  What about Hodgson? Where did he go after the power outage? I’d left him on the bridge and hadn’t seen him again until he followed Bogdan and me to engineering. He had no blood on him, but possibly he slipped away and changed before Bogdan found the body.

  My brain spun. I covered up Schmaltz again. The door to medical opened and Hodgson entered, grim. He placed a long double edged knife on the counter and stepped back without saying anything. I regarded the weapon from a safe distance, not wishing to touch it. The handle, hilt and blade were coated with dried blood.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In engineering.”

  I looked at him quizzically, and he quickly added, “Bogdan was with me when I found it.”

  “And now your fingerprints are all over it.” I frowned at him.

  He shook his head and held up the rag he’d brought the knife in. “Mel, I don’t know how to lift fingerprints, do you?”

  My shoulders slumped. Then I straightened up again and asked, “What about Dunn’s shirt?”

  “He still thinks I’m his man. He provided a clean, torn shirt.”

  “But you think he’s guilty?” It was more of a plea than a question.

  Hodgson nodded. He changed the topic. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m a wreck. Why did he need to kill Schmaltz?”

  “The boy could have been the killer. We have no proof that it was Dunn directly...”

  “Yes, it was! You fucking well know that. He may not have cut Schmaltz’s throat, but it happened on his orders.” I glared at him, ready to tear him apart. “Are you Dunn’s man? Where the hell were you when all this came down?”

  “Me? Nowhere near engineering.”

  “Stop evading.”

  “After the gravity and lights came on, I left to locate Dunn.”

  “Not me?”


  “What?”

  “Garrick didn’t tell you to learn why I didn’t answer his calls? Shigeko told me. So why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you come look for me? Is it because you were helping Dunn kill my friend?”

  I backed up to the counter and reached behind me, making sure the knife behind my back remained within my reach. Hodgson watched every movement of mine.

  “I didn’t go looking for you. That is true.”

  “So you went to find Dunn and helped him, then?”

  “No, I didn’t find him either. I went to his quarters and he wasn’t there.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “I needed to search them.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  He stepped towards me. I picked up the bloody knife and pointed it at him. He raised his hands in surrender and retreated. “Please try to calm yourself, Mel. I’m with you in this.”

  “The hell you are. You’re working for him.”

  “I don’t work for Dunn. I work for Mars.”

  Chapter 30

  “Bullshit.” I threatened Hodgson with the knife I pretended I knew how to use but lost my resolve at his unexpected revelation.

  “I swear I’m telling the truth.”

  “Prove it.” The larger portion of me didn’t want to believe anything I heard, but that part was shrinking rapidly.

  He raised his eyebrow at me. “Prove you’re a doctor.”

  “I’m the one holding the knife, asshole.” I again waved the blade around like an ignorant child.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t calm down. Put it down and let me explain. If you don’t like what I say, I’ll let you cut my throat.” He glanced at Schmaltz’s body on the examining table.

  The sight of Schmaltz overwhelmed me and my tears exploded from me like a volcanic eruption. I dropped my would be weapon and fell to my knees with my hands over my face, sobbing like the pain of my loss was going to kill me.

  Strong, gentle hands took me by the shoulders and helped me to a seat. Hodgson brought me a glass of water, then pulled up the other chair to sit knee to knee with me and patiently waited for my grief to subside.

  “That was an asshole thing to say to me.” I sniffled.

  “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t disarm you without hurting you.” He offered me the knife, handle first. “Hang on to this if you don’t trust me. Just, please, listen to me?”

  I waved it away. He was bigger, stronger and more skilled than I. He could easily overcome me and end my life with minimal effort.

  “I am an agent for the Martian Governing Council.” He indicated the isolation chamber at the other side of the room. “I have been on the trail of that nano-virus since it was stolen from our research facility two years ago.”

  “Who took it?”

  “We don’t know. It dropped off the grid until last year when intelligence surfaced indicating Terra had acquired a special ship to study it. This one.”

  “Okay, that could be an explanation for your own nanites.”

  Hodgson smiled. “Yes, as you’ve determined, mine are not exact antigens because the original virus and all the specs vanished along with the all the backup data. Our scientists only had incomplete notes available to try again.”

  “They came close, from what I could tell.”

  “Yeah, but there is no prize for second place. It’s a doomsday weapon, Mel, and I need to recover or destroy it before it falls into the wrong hands.”

  “Why did Mars build a doomsday weapon? Who did they plan to use it against?”

  “Terra.”

  I stared at him, stunned into silence. What he proposed was monumentally absurd.

  “More bullshit,” I said.

  “I know it’s not something easy to believe, but it is true. There is an influential faction which believes our terraforming efforts are doomed to fail, or at least not succeed for several thousand years. That version of things is significantly different from the bill of goods sold to the general populace who believe Mars will be the second Eden in another few generations.”

  “Is that true? Will terraforming take thousands of years?”

  “I’m not a scientist. All I know is if the belief becomes widespread, Martian society will collapse.”

  “Why?”

  “A small elite lives in the orbiting cities protected from radiation and living in Terran normal gravity. The rest of the populace, 35 million, are in underground habitats. Neither environment is designed to support a population growth of more than five generations. The original idea was for Mars to sustain human life within a couple of centuries and we would live on the transformed planet long before our infrastructure failed.”

  “So why not build more habitats and space stations?”

  “The Terran embargo is the biggest reason. Since they lost control of Luna, they’ve been more hardline in their relations with Mars. All trade in graviton tech is now restricted, as well as the sophisticated medical treatments available to long-term Lunar residents which prevent the genetic drift we’re experiencing. If we’re to survive as a society, let alone a species, we desperately need those technologies since we can’t produce them ourselves.”

  “How does the bio-weapon figure in all this?”

  “The old government believed our only hope was to abandon the terraforming effort and return to Terra en masse.”

  “With a Terran population of 500 billion people there’d be nowhere to put them.” As I said this, the penny dropped and I understood. “It comes down to you or them?”

  He nodded. “Martians would become the refugee trash of the solar system. With nowhere to put us on Terra, we would be confined to Mars. Our home would become a planet sized concentration camp. The old regime determined that to save our own people, a place needed to be made. The nano-virus would kill most of the humans on Terra, making room for a mass migration of Martians.”

  “You mean an invasion.”

  “Semantics, I suppose. The plan is monstrous no matter how you couch it. The people who commissioned the virus were deposed, but while in power, they put into play plans for a first strike against Terra.”

  “What would end the embargo? Governments change. Surely if not the current Terran regime, a future one might be amenable to negotiation on humanitarian grounds?”

  “The stakes are high for the Terrans as well. Their growing population needs increasing access to the mineral resources controlled by Mars in the asteroid belt. A terraformed fourth planet is an ideal place for the excess children of Earth in a few thousand years, relieving the overpopulation problem. Terra wants to control Mars. Martians want autonomy.”

  “So everything comes down to a pissing contest? Unbelievable!” I regarded Hodgson, who had dispassionately recited all the facts like a professor describing an amoeba. “Where do you stand in all this?”

  “There is still a chance the millennialists are wrong. Regardless, I’ll be long dead by the time either scenario is proved true. I think I agree with you and a solution can be worked out between the two worlds. That’s only going to happen if this doomsday weapon is removed from the table.”

  “And you share this view with your current leaders?”

  “Politicians are...fluid. Publicly, the knowledge of the terraforming controversy is restricted to a few members of the elite, for the obvious reason its revelation would have on the populace.”

  “You mean the people might not look too kindly on them?”

  He smiled. “Something like that.”

  “So, to maintain civil order, you infiltrated Dunn’s organization to gain access to this mission?”

  “Not just civil order, but our survival. If Terra ever discovers the nature of this weapon, I shudder to think what their military response will be.”

  “What is Dunn’s roll in all of this?”

  “Our network flagged him as a key player and I wormed my way into his inner circle. His assignment was to recover the nano-virus for Rego Corpo
ration, which in itself would not have been a bad scenario. Regis Mundi is desperate to ingratiate himself with certain parties on Mars. He intends to return the lost sample and get back into favour with them.”

  “Then why not simply let Dunn complete his mission?”

  “Yes, well, as you might guess, Erik Dunn is an ambitious man. He is also not above betraying his patron for a large enough prize. He plans to steal the nano-virus for himself, presumably to sell to the highest bidder.”

  “So you just buy it from him. Duh?”

  Hodgson regarded me like I was the class dunce. “He doesn’t want money. He wants power, and possessing this virus would make him the most powerful person in the system. He would deal it to multiple parties. There is nothing better for business than conflict, and he would find a way to profit, even from a war of armageddon. He is ruthless, resourceful, with no conscience and would happily serve as the first horseman of the apocalypse for what he would gain. He killed your friend and is behind the deaths of countless others. What happens to him is not my assignment and I’m supposed to be able to keep a distance from my feelings, but he makes my soul sick and I mean to see him dead before this mission is completed.”

  “Get in line behind me. I’m presuming you have a plan?”

  “I had one. Now I’m improvising, but I think Dunn is too.”

  “Can you tell me or is it above my pay grade?”

  He grinned at me. “Dunn’s original mandate was simple. Retrieve the nano-virus and return to Luna in the Fortuna. However, I found out he commissioned a second ship to rendezvous with. He planned to kill this crew and take the virus, leaving Mundi with a stolen Terran vessel to explain. We infiltrated the secondary craft intending to intercept this one and recover the nano-weapon.”