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Buckman left the lounge for about an hour and came back. Charles was relaxing on the couch, smoking a small cigar that burned at a low temperature and produced very little smoke or odor. Buckman settled into the other side of the couch. Charles turned his face towards the ceiling and pointed the cigar straight up as if he were deep in thought.
“That help?” Buckman asked.
“Not really. These damn safety cigars are like smoking a cat’s ball sack.”
“Why bother?” Buckman said.
“‘Cause a cat’s ball sack is better than nothin’.” Charles bent forward again.
“How was your day?” Buckman asked.
“Had to crane in a class 7 pump to the main transfer room. Pumping juice again.” Charles said, the cigar bouncing with every word. “A little of that stuff and you’d be rich.”
“Like that story Jack and the Giant?”
Charles thought for a moment. “Let’s see. Kid gets a golden duck, meets a giant that falls on his can. Something like that.” Charles snuffed out the cigar and put it into his shirt pocket. What’s on your mind?”
“You hear what they found?” Buckman asked, pointing to the wall viewer.
“Some. They just finished jabbering about her.” Charles slapped him in the shoulder. “You’re worn out. Don’t let it get to you.”
“I thought you said you slowed it?” Buckman said, remembering that morning’s conversation, needing to talk about it.
“Shush,” Charles said, trying to get Buckman to keep his voice down. “I did. I was watching the flow throughout the ship all day. Saw the siphoning on a few of the lines was off. They must have done something in there.”
“So they knew where she was.” Buckman looked at Charles and saw something he had never imagined. There was worry. The man had worry in his face, a clenched jaw and slightly furrowed brow.
“Looks that way. But think about what these idiots did. They knew she was there. They went in and looked for her there. They were told where she was.”
Buckman wished he could believe this, but there were too many ways to point this back towards them. “Charles, what happened? We were in there. They got us there.”
“Look, we’re both beat. Nothing we can do about it, so don’t get your guts all scrunched up about this. We were just doing our jobs, nothing else. We just did what our orders were.” Charles put his hand on Buckman’s shoulder again.
“Still,” Buckman said.
“‘Still’? There’s no damn ‘still.’ We did nothing outside o’ what we was supposed to. Get that through that thick Bent skull of yours. They think we’re dullards, half a step above a retard. Keep that in mind. Use it to your advantage. Most of them Straight bastards think we can’t string a thought together longer than my dick. And that’s only slightly longer than average.”
Buckman laughed. “You wish.” Only Charles could make a comparison like that and have it make sense. He was right about the assumption of a Bent’s intelligence. He had played that card many times throughout his life when he was accused by a Straight. Act like there was no way possible to have been that smart, and go with whatever preconceived notion the Straights had.
“Ah,” Charles slapped him on the back. “Us damn Bents are all alike. We think with our groins. Go get some sleep.”
Buckman stood up and stretched, looking at the grimy ceiling for a moment. “See you in the morning,” he said to Charles before walking off through the lounge and back to his quarters. As if on cue, the lights in the hallways dimmed to simulate nighttime.
He shared the quarters with another man who worked the second shift. They only occasionally saw each other, which was how they tried to arrange the sleeping quarters. Each person could get a complete night’s sleep alone that way. Buckman straightened out the blankets on his bed and pulled a picture of his family out of the drawer built into the wall beside him. He ran his hand over the picture. What were they doing now? All space-born craft ran on synchronized clocks, but Earth still had time zones. At his home, they would be ten hours behind, just getting ready to start the day, to work or to care for the various people in the house.
Buckman stretched out on the bed and set the picture face down on his chest. Marie would be helping prepare breakfast with her mother and sister. The kids would be running through the rooms, fighting, yelling as they seemed to do from the moment they woke until they collapsed wherever they ended up at the end of the day. He wished he could talk to Marie. She had an inner strength and clarity he had long since realized he needed to rely on.
There was a good chance they had seen the broadcasts of the murder and discovery. She would know this had happened on the ship he was working on, and this would turn into a topic of conversation around the kitchen. If he were there, they would need to talk. He would be in that kitchen with them, the heat and dust from outside rolling in through any open window or door. The constant traffic in and out of the house would make it difficult to have any kind of meaningful conversation. “You’re worried, dear,” she would say. “Let’s talk.”
Marie would take his hand and they would go to their room, a small space in the back of the house. She had done her best to decorate the place with whatever she could find, but décor was not something in which she was skilled. The drapes were thin but clean, same as the bed linens. The remaining furniture was in a similar state. Marie went to lengths to make sure their private space was comfortable.
Marie had a wild head of red hair that came down along the sides of her face. She had a habit of sitting sideways, one of her long legs folded and the other foot on the floor. “Tell me, Bucky. Why are you so worried?” she said.
“I’m not sure. I can’t decide. I’m in serious trouble.”
She wrapped her arms around him and brought warmth. They stayed like that for several minutes. “You have to do what you can, but be careful. Listen to Charles. He’s been there before. Say as little as you can. You know how they are.”
“But it’s wrong,” he said. “A woman’s dead. Murdered. It’s wrong and people need to know.”
Marie understood the conflict, having seen numerous friends and family go through the same thing. She had him lie back, and then climbed on top of him and continued to soothe his body and emotions, all the while assuring him that he would make the right choice. She kissed him and asked, “What difference would it make? Stay out of this.”
Buckman thought for a moment and knew this was the right conclusion. If he mentioned what Charles had said about the valve and how they found her on the beam, they could twist it however they pleased. For all he knew, they had been set up to take the blame, make this look like Charles and Buckman had worked together to kill her and hide the body. “But I saw her. We both pushed her in.”
Marie extended her lithe body to do her best to cover him. He felt the strength in her as her chest rose and fell with each breath. She raised her head. The look in her eyes was one of determination and assurance. “That is all you can do. They found her. They went in and found her. You can’t trust them, ever. Whoever did this wanted her dead and they don’t care who they have to tear down to get there. They’re mean, and don’t care what is really right. Don’t make yourself a target.”
Buckman managed to get a few hours of sleep, but then the pounding on his door brought him back to consciousness. At first, he thought it was his roommate coming back from his shift. He realized the picture was still lying on his chest and placed it back into the drawer. The door opened and two security guards entered.
12
Captain Markley had worked aboard spaceships for almost 40 years, Bertie was supposed to be an easy assignment that would take him into retirement. He had long since satisfied his sense of adventure by piloting crafts like Space Queen or deep space explorers that had taken him away from Earth for years on end. He had done all that and seen
the universe and what it had to offer him. Now he was content to work a few more runs to get to where he needed to be before heading out to K23, a space station set up for people who wanted to retire in comfort. As always happened, there was an incident on every run that reminded him of why he wanted to fully retire. A dead woman in a hold and couple of Bents, probably not even legal, mixed up with this. It had to be that asshole Parren’s wife to make matters worse.
Markley sat at the small conference table in his office, thumbing through the regulation binder, looking for how he would need to handle this without being fired. Most everything else was in an electronic format, except for the regulations. Being a paper copy was a symbol as much as being useful. At the start of every run, a revised set of regulations were physically handed to him as a way to enforce what it contained. What it really contained in his estimation was the most convoluted set of instructions any Straight lawyer had ever put together. The rules were purposely convoluted with clauses and addendums that could be enacted to shift blame to someone else. That was what he was trying to do this morning.
He came to the section on the hiring strata of different orders. There was a complete subsection on jobs Bents were allowed to work, which he compared with the two men in question. The one was a common laborer. There was no conflict with what jobs he had been hired for, according to section 23.6.5.a, subsection 5, table IV. The other was more of a problem. He was in a skilled position, which meant he had access to certain ship functions without direct supervision at all times. This was not an altogether unusual situation; however, this was a point his pinhead overzealous manager would use to cause trouble. If it came to it, he could somehow prove the man had frequent contact with his Straight supervisor. If worse came to worst, there was a subsection in the appendix that allowed blame to be shifted to the direct supervisor, thereby excusing himself, Markley, from any negligence. With that clear in his mind, there was a knock on his door.
Reg walked in with Buckman, Charles, and two security men. “You two wait in the hall,” Markley told the two officers. The other three joined him at the table.
Reg began. “Looks like they want to bring these two in for questioning tomorrow. One of the...” he said before Markley cut him off by raising a hand.
“Let me start with this. Seven more months and I leave with a full forty years of service. You two know what that means?” There were blank stares from the other side of the table. “That means that no matter what happens, none of this will come back to me.”
“Well, sir, none of it will,” Reg said. “They’re going in for questioning. They were working in the hold before the body was found, but there’s no evidence showing they were in any way involved.”
“That’s for the authorities to decide, but I know what these men are. Probably illegal. I know how they’ll be treated. Honestly, I don’t even want them here, but your company hires this ship and allows them to work here. What I mean is that if there is even a remote chance they were involved, they will be fired and sent back to the dirt in their own province as fast as possible.” He emphasized this last point by slapping the regulation book on the table.
“Sir,” Buckman said, “neither of us had anything to do with the woman winding up in there.”
Markley looked at Reg. “I don’t care what. Anything that looks out of place, and I want them gone.” Though Reg ran the crews and technically did not work for the Captain, this was Markley’s ship, and his was the final word. “I got a call with Corporate in an hour. How do you think I explain this? One of your crewmembers murders that wife of a prominent leader. How do I explain that?”
“Sir,” Charles said. “There is no possible way that’s true. Neither of us did a damn thing.”
“Tell it to the interrogators, you illegitimate bastard. What do you do back home? Make more stupid Bent babies and send them over the line? I read and watch what happens. Create havoc and problems. We got it fine, I had it fine, then the Bents come over and screw it all up.” Markley stood up with a groan. “All I know is that you work here. I don’t know where you’re from or what you really do. Get out of here. I have to prepare a report.”
Markley watched them leave and close the door behind them. God, he hated Bents. Look at how they acted and dressed. They stank up his office. He exhaled audibly and leaned forward on the table. He went back to his desk to the finish the report for the V.P. and to wait for the call in about an hour. The V.P. was a higher order Straight who no doubt did not care for Bents either. Markley had never met the man, but he could envision the type of person who would be in an upper level position. He was an ass-kissing little prick son of whoever thought they were important. The thought of being done with people like that made him think this would be his last run. Markley clicked on his computer and began to wonder how he was going to word this properly.