The Jovian Run: Sol Space Book One (30 page)

              “If it is a matter of confidentiality, I assure you that precedent is set to allow the release of information when a further infection of communicable-”

              “I can’t do that because there was no autopsy,” she interjected, cutting him off.

              Iqbal did his best to cover his lack of surprise with surprise. “No autopsy records? But then, how did you determine the cause of death?”

              Stewart pursed her lips. “It was a natural conclusion. Laplace had a heart condition, and though it was not considered life threatening, there was always a remote possibility that something might happen. Sometimes people just die, Doctor Iqbal.”

              “Of this fact, you need not acquaint me,” he replied somewhat reproachfully.

              “All outward signs seem to point to death by cardiac arrest. I would still prefer, of course, to conduct an autopsy, but I have been ordered not to.” Her demeanor had not changed, but her irritable disposition seemed to make more sense to Iqbal now.

              “Ordered not to? I thought that the senior medical officer on a station of this kind had governance over all matters medical. Is this not the case?” he inquired innocently, though he suspected what the answer might be.

              “In theory, yes,” she sighed, then sat forward and rested her elbows on her oversized desk. “But we’re a long way from Earth, Doctor, and station employment decisions, and station security I might add, fall to someone a good deal closer.”

              “I see. That is regrettable.”

              The woman pushed her chair back and stood up. “It is regrettable. As I have already told you, I have been specifically ordered not to perform an autopsy on Laplace. That means I can’t even be in the room when you conduct yours.”

              Jabir stood as well, his eyes widening and then creasing in a smile. “Won’t that result in troubles with your new Station Commander?”

              She shrugged as she crossed the room back to the door. Her hand alighted on the door handle, but she did not open it. “Probably, but a request by an MD with a legitimate medical concern is what the log book will say, and he certainly doesn’t know that TPSC has entirely too short an incubation period to have made the trip undetected from Venus to Saturn.” She shook her head at him chidingly. “You should have chosen something else.”

              He put up a grim smile. “There really wasn’t anything else. I hope you will forgive my prevarications, but I had to take the chance that you didn’t know much about TPSC. I cannot guarantee I will find anything that disagrees with your initial analysis.”

              “Even if you do, there’s no way to keep you from lying to me about it. That’s all right. I’d appreciate it if you can share, but if not, this still helps me.”

              “Indeed,” he nodded in understanding. “It sends a distinct message to your new Station Commander, I would imagine.”

              “Yes. It’s a nice way to say ‘screw you’ while still following orders. Quite convenient, really.” She finally opened the door and gestured down the hall. “We have a morgue with attendant facilities on the second floor. It doesn’t see much use, but we’ve kept the cobwebs away.”

              He followed her out. “I would imagine the last time was for your former Computer Scientist.”

              Stewart shook her head again. “Can’t help you on that one. Decompression is a bad way to go, but there was no way to tell what made the hole in his suit.” She indicated a heavy metal door at the end of the hallway. “The stairs are through here.”

              “Evelyn, there is one more piece to this. It is not going to be pleasant, and if things turn out the way I fear they might, it might be even more unpleasant for you, but I think we have to get to the bottom of this.” Staples looked the other woman steadily in the eye as she spoke. They were alone in medical. Evelyn sat in a medical examination gown on the same bed she had laid in when she had collapsed back on Mars. Jabir was waiting outside for her decision.

              Evelyn, wide-eyed but serious, returned the look. “I understand, Clea, but I wish you’d tell me what you expect to find.”

              “I… don’t want to, not yet. It’s not the kind of thing you say without proof. I am probably wrong. I hope I’m wrong.” She added more emphatically, though Evelyn looked dubious. “I don’t think there’s any danger to you.” The moment stretched. “It shouldn’t take long,” she added, lamely she felt.

              “Well, I don’t like it, but I trust you.” She drew herself up, raised her chin slightly, and sighed. “Send the doctor in.”

              Staples did so, and stepped outside to wait as he entered.

              Thirty minutes later, the door opened. Staples closed the book she had been attempting to read. “You can come in now, Captain,” he said. “Ms. Schilling has insisted that you be present for this.”

              She entered and walked over to her former passenger. Evelyn looked frightened. She knew that Jabir had not yet discussed his findings with her, but she must have had an inkling of what he had found based on the nature of his examination.

              “So.” He stood near the two women, his surface in his hands for reference. “First, I’d like to report that you are perfectly healthy, Ms. Schilling.” She looked only slightly relieved. Jabir took a deep breath. He seemed uncharacteristically unsettled. “Now for the bad news: I believe that someone has performed illegal genetic modification on you.” He paused while that sunk in. Evelyn’s eyes were wider than ever, and Staples tried not to show her disappointment that her suspicions had been confirmed. “There are two major modifications. The first is relatively harmless.”

              “You said there was nothing wrong with me!” she objected.

              “Forgive me,” he stated, looking down at the floor for a moment. “I meant harmless to others. Your endocrine and glandular systems have been slightly modified. Essentially, the chemical makeup of your perspiration has been altered. All humans produce low-level pheromones, but your pheromonal makeup is over three times stronger than the average person.”

              “Meaning what, exactly?” Staples asked.

              “The science of attraction is hardly exact, but scent and pheromones are a part of that science. Essentially, Ms. Schilling has been rendered more attractive to those who would be inclined towards her in the first place.”

              Just as Staples was reexamining her passing attraction to the lovely woman in front of her, Evelyn gasped for breath. “Oh my God!” she cried. “Parsells and Quinn. They might never have-”

              “Hey, no. No.” Staples interrupted firmly, and stepped forward to take Evelyn’s hands. She looked her squarely in the eye. “No. Do you hear me? There are plenty of people on this ship who were and are attracted to you, including,” she glanced at Jabir who stood resolutely nearby, “some in this room. None of them tried anything like that. This is an old argument, and it doesn’t matter if you’re pumping out pheromones, wearing a slinky dress, or even walking around naked. People are responsible for their own actions. Pheromones didn’t make Parsells and Quinn into monsters. It was them, and them alone. Okay?”

              Tears had welled up in Evelyn’s eyes, but as was her habit, she wiped them away. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. My God, why? Why would someone do that to me?” She looked searchingly towards the other doctor.

              “I’m afraid that the second modification to your body might explain that. The other alterations were to your genitalia. There are tiny fluid sacs contained in your vaginal walls. The sacs end in microscopic barbs.” Evelyn’s mouth hung open in shock, but the doctor continued. “The chemical they contain still needs analysis, but my assumption is that it is potassium chloride or another similar agent that has a high chance of causing cardiac arrest, especially if the person so injected has a weak heart or heart condition to begin with, which, incidentally, Mr. Laplace had. The man did die of a heart attack, and I found trace amounts of the same substance in his bloodstream when I performed my autopsy earlier today. There are problems with that theory; potassium chloride injections would hurt. I’ll know more when I have time to examine the fluid more closely.”

              Evelyn had a look of abject horror on her face, and Staples didn’t blame her. She looked down at her groin, then back at Jabir. “I’m an assassin?”

              The man looked genuinely disconsolate. “No, but I think that someone is. You are not a murderer.”

              “No, I’m the murder weapon.” Expressions of shock and horror warred on her face.

              “I am so very sorry. I deeply wish that my previous examinations had revealed this, but the alterations do not fall within the purview of routine exams.” Staples had never seen Jabir look so aggrieved. He was most assuredly correct; she had never known the doctor to shirk his duties. The fact that these changes in her went undetected was undoubtedly not his fault, but he looked as though he blamed himself nonetheless.

              “Who would do this to me? Why?”

              “I have some ideas about that,” Staples answered. “Certainly about the second question. You told Jabir that you spent some time with a man shortly before you came on board. I suspect that this is when this illegal modification took place.”

              “That fits,” Jabir added. “These modifications are recent. Scar tissue is still forming. I would say that the surgery was performed no more than a month ago.”

              “But why don’t I remember it?” Evelyn asked desperately. “I remember what I did with him.” There was no blush in her cheeks; her complexion was blanched with fear.

              “I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that you were hypnotized.”

              “Hypnotized?” she almost shouted the word.

              “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Staples said sadly. “Let’s go through this. Someone wanted Laplace dead. They knew that he had a heart condition, and they knew that he liked redheads. He said that you were his type. I don’t know if that someone was Ducard or not, but he almost certainly had to be in on it. He was the one who hired you, wasn’t he?” she guessed, and Evelyn nodded, her mouth slightly agape. “So they pick you out for the job, drug you, perform surgery on you not only to make sleeping with you lethal, but to guarantee that Laplace would want to. Then they hypnotize you so that you won’t remember it.

              “And the hypnosis wasn’t just to alter your memories, I’d wager. You might have been Laplace’s type, but that didn’t make him yours. The moment you met him, you were attracted to him. You commented on it to me. I’m sorry to say it, Evelyn,” she wore a grim and regretful look, “but he wasn’t very attractive. I actually thought you were joking at the time. It’s likely you had a post-hypnotic suggestion to go to bed with him.”

              Understanding was beginning to dawn on Evelyn’s face, and, Staples thought, some acceptance as well. “That’s why they paid to have us put in stasis. Herc said he was surprised. Three weeks is a long trip, and the idea of going to sleep and waking up somewhere else was appealing, but really they didn’t want me sleeping with anyone else along the way. I might kill them too and give up the game.”

              Staples nodded. “And that was likely not enough insurance for them. Remember what happened when you did try to sleep with someone else?”

              Evelyn looked down at Jabir’s shoes and then groaned, covering her face with her hands. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this.” She spoke into her palms, though her tone said she was beginning to.

              “I’m not sure I do either,” the doctor broke his silence. “There is no denying the medical certainties of this situation, nor the state of my shoes, but this is an incredibly elaborate way to kill a man on a space station orbiting a gas giant a billion kilometers from Earth, especially when our prime suspect is a man who worked with him on a daily basis.”

              “No, I agree,” Staples said. “He couldn’t have acted alone, and I’m not convinced that he is the person behind it all, though he is unquestionably involved. Frankly, given the elaborate nature of the murder and given his mistakes since, specifically his choice to announce Laplace’s death before there was time for a proper autopsy to be conducted, I would conclude that he is not the mastermind.”

              “I am inclined to grant, for the moment, that this was a murder plot targeted at Laplace,” Jabir conceded. “There are ways to see if someone has been hypnotized, but I am not a psychologist, so I’m afraid we must work with the unconfirmed supposition that you were for now.” He looked at Evelyn as he spoke. “I admit I can find no fault in your reasoning, but this still leaves a bevy of unanswered questions. The first and foremost of these is who orchestrated this assassination, and why? Why does it matter who is commander of a fuel station orbiting Saturn? Other questions remain unanswered as well. Who hired the pirates to attack this ship, and how did they know about Evelyn? Perhaps we can assume that whoever it was learned of this plot and hoped to stop it, but hiring pirates is hardly the most efficient way to do so. Simply contacting us and telling us about Evelyn’s condition would have sufficed.”

              Staples held up a finger. “The
Doris Day
might well have made that impossible; they were blocking all of our Sol-side communications. I think we can assume that Vey was hired to ensure that we got Evelyn safely to this station, but there is still a lot that doesn’t make sense. Why did Vey drop a satellite in front of us, then fight us for it? Or better yet, why not just hire Vey to make the delivery himself?”