Identity Read online

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  Once on Bertie, Buckman took a shower and began feeling a little better about what had happened that day. Bertie was a well-worn tug with many years of service in low earth orbit. It had started out as a basic passenger and cargo transport, but as the ship aged and passed through various owners, her mission became even less glamorous. Amenities were sparse, with most of the quarters sleeping up to six men or women, each with a shared shower. Since it had been a ship built for passenger travel, it did have some decent communal areas that had been converted to lounges, a cafeteria, and meeting rooms. The ship carried a crew of sixty workers, all of whom were a mixture of legal and illegal Bents. The remainder of the ship was dedicated to hauling and processing waste. For most of the waste, Bertie had the facility to process and return it to the host ship for another purpose. Some went back to Earth as basic materials. The material collected from the tanks like the one Buckman and Charles had worked on was turned into fertilizer or fuel. The decomposition chemical was extracted and recharged. Most of the crew could care less where all this went or how ingenious the system was. They just wanted to be paid for moving it.

  After the shower and a change of clothes, Buckman joined some of the other workers for dinner in the cafeteria. The conversation around the tables ranged from family to work to personal relationships. The jokes were often crude, but laughter was easy after a hard day's work. As he listened and joined in, it struck him again how many of the Straights lacked a sense of humor, or at least what he thought was humor. When he watched their broadcasts, what little laughter there was, was usually subdued. He could never figure out their jokes, or even tell if they told jokes. All they seemed to do was talk, talk, talk. Straights were good at that. Their news broadcasts were always professional and well done. Entertainment was restrained and never ventured towards anything that included emotion and real expression. Maybe, Buckman thought, they just did not have the capacity to be actors, writers or musicians. They were, as the Bents often said, a race of boring overlords.

  Jack came into the room and sat next to him. “Ready to lose some money?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Buckman said. Jack was a decent dart player, and was always up for a game. In the cafeteria, there was enough room for cards and darts. They had a pool table, but the slight rocking and false gravity of the ship made for problems.

  “Best two out of three,” Jack said, leading the way over to one of the dartboards. “Got your favorite darts?”

  “They’re all my favorites.” They began playing 301, and Buckman won the first one. At first, he forgot what had happened that day, but partway through the second game, he heard someone ask where Charles was. Buckman started missing his shots as he began to remember his head half submerged and the glint of gold. He tried thinking of Marie and his sister, but this turned into thoughts of what they would do if he were caught for what happened. Buckman quickly lost the next two games and paid Jack off.

  “Another set?” Jack asked.

  “No,” Buckman said. “That’s all I can stand to lose.

  Buckman went back to the lounge area and sat in a large overstuffed chair. He sank into it, closed his eyes, and wondered what his family was doing. Communication back to the province was sketchy, so over the next couple of months much could happen. This strained relationships, and all kinds of rumors would be going around when he returned, but that was part of how he lived. The violence he had been involved with earlier that day was odd. He had lived with it between Straights and Bents but had never seen anything between Straights. The society the Straights had created was so orderly and strict he never gave this any thought. As far as he knew and experienced, their hate was always aimed at the Bents. Though even in this hate, passion of any kind seemed to be lacking. It was almost a prearranged response. The sounds and voices around him began to drift off when a hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him back to the present. He looked up and saw Charles standing next to him.

  “Bucky, come on. We gotta talk,” Charles said.

  “Anything happen after I left?” Buckman asked as they left the lounge area and walked into a passageway.

  “Let’s find a place we can talk in private,” Charles said.

  Charles knew his way around the ship better than anyone. Though Buckman had been aboard a number of times before, he was always surprised when he stumbled on yet another small corner or room he did not know about. Charles seemed to have a hidden sense for where all the monitors and sensors were around Bertie. He led Buckman through a number of passages until they came to a door that he was not familiar with. It went into a storage area full of parts for the ship power generator. Since neither Buckman nor Charles were part of the ship's crew, they did not have an occasion to be in there. The people who actually ran the ship and those hired for maintenance on the Queen in many ways kept themselves apart, though they would share parts and supplies on an as-needed basis.

  Charles closed the door behind them and checked the small storage area for any other people. “We supposed to be in here?” Buckman asked.

  “Got some adhesives shit that needs to be stored in here.” Charles went over to the freezer and pulled a door open. “This stuff’s age-dated. Controlled. Has to stay frozen ’til we use it. I need to tomorrow, so I have a reason to be here. At least that’s what we’ll say.”

  Charles pulled a few things out, checked the date codes, and put them back. He slammed the door, and small puff of vapor came out. He leaned against the metal case. “I need four tubes of this slime tomorrow. Looks like they got enough.” He went over to a computer screen and entered in his request so it would be reserved for him in the morning. “Those two ass-sniffers say anything to you before they came in?”

  Buckman had to smile for moment. “They asked what I saw. I told them everything but what we did with her.”

  Charles went ahead and sat down on a plastic box by the freezer. “Huh,” was all he said as he ran his stubby hand over his mouth. He had not shaved for a couple of days, so his hand made a scratching sound as it went back and forth.

  “What do you think?” Buckman asked. Clearly, the man had more on his mind than getting some glue.

  “Police, whatever, security coming in there right then. Sounds strange.” He put both hands on the edges of the box he was sitting on and looked down at his feet.

  “Still think it’s a set up?” Buckman asked.

  “More so. Remember that valve, how I thought it was screwed with?” Charles rocked forward slightly.

  “You showed me. Showed me how the bolts looked like they were backed out,” Buckman said. He thought through this for a second. A person could not do that without some planning and knowledge of the system. If someone simply loosened the bolts while under full pressure, they would likely be knocked off the platform. “The line had to be shut down first.”

  “It can be done from the control room, but there’s an emergency manual valve not too any know about. Buggers on the other side o’ the hull. In an access way that’s tighter than a Straight accountant’s butthole.”

  Again, this was knowledge that only someone like Charles would know. “You find it, take a look?”

  “Course I did. I had to check it out. Regulation. I squeezed in there. There’s a hatch from inside the containment area. Valve needs a big tool and a lot of torque to work it. Damn thing had fresh tool marks all over it.”

  Charles ran his hand over his mouth and then over his curly hair. He groaned a couple of times and then farted.

  “You have to do that?”

  “Helps me think,” Charles said, not looking up from his boots.

  Despite his crude behavior, Charles was smart in very practical ways. Buckman had spent enough time around him to know he could figure out situations and put facts together in a very orderly manner. Clearly, the man had the knowledge to have figured out how this could have been done. Knowing the
existence and workings of that valve and the line coming in was something few people knew. “You know what happened? You put this together?” Buckman asked.

  “How’s your ciphering?” Charles asked.

  “Fair.”

  “Try this,” Charles said, standing up. “Here’s the best I can figure. That containment area’s about 50 meters square. The poop was about a meter deep, so’s that's 2500 cubic meters. Follow me?” Charles did not wait for an answer as Buckman tried to do the math in his head. “That line was spitting out about a 5 cubic a minute, 300 an hour. For that to fill crotch deep, means that sonofabitch was busted for 10 to 12 hours before we found it.”

  “Isn’t there an emergency or something?” Buckman asked. He knew that all these systems had backups and redundancies.

  “That’s the other part. The sensor line was broke. Broke some time ago, long before the valve was screwed over. Nothin’ to tell the pumps to start. This’s been planned for months. That incoming line is a feed from a grouping of staging tanks all over the damn ship. It only gets used every few weeks when they need to process. Or when we get ready to service.”

  “Timed it so it started when we got here. Reported her missing right when we arrived,” Buckman said, stating the obvious, but starting to understand the complexity and planning this took.

  Charles said, “Exactly. Somebody wanted us, me really, in there around the same time. Poor girl. Even a Straight don’t deserve that. Violent bastards. Must’ve kept her somewheres ’til I did my check, then drug her out and smashed her head in. What we did, probably for the best.”

  “Wish I could believe that,” Buckman said. “How’d they get in?”

  “Probably through that same one I went in to get the emergency shutoff. ’Nother hatch goes other side of the passage. There’s a couple more like it on the other side.”

  “They’re not monitored?” Buckman asked, thinking every inch of the ship was under surveillance.

  “Emergencies aren’t. But not too many know it.”

  Buckman thought about this. A pump kicked on in an adjoining room as various functions went on around them. “Take an expert to know all that.”

  “Have to know your shit, that’s for sure,” Charles said.

  Buckman started laughing, though he was not sure if Charles realized the joke. “Know your shit. If anyone does, it would be you.”

  “What?” Charles asked, his head popping back up. “Oh, sure. Makes me the crap authority. Professor of caca. I’ll write a book, A Bent’s Guide to Poop.” They both started laughing. The laughter felt good, as if they had not breathed all day and finally grabbed the first gulp of air.

  Once they calmed down, Charles said, “listen, we can’t fry our brains over this. Try to get some sleep. Remember, they still gotta find her. If they do, I can prove how it was done.”

  10

  The next morning, Buckman grabbed a cup of coffee and some rolls from the counter and sat down at a table with a few of the other workers. There was a mix of people, some had just gotten off a shift and were eating dinner and some who were just coming on. Early in the cruise, it was easy to tell who worked when, as the ones coming off looked tired and relieved to be done for the day, and the people coming on were refreshed but preparing themselves for work. Later, as the fatigue of daily manual labor wore on, it would become harder to tell the shifts apart. This day, Buckman stirred his coffee and picked at the sweet roll rather than engage in the banter going on around him.

  Workers came and went from the table, when he heard someone say, “Whaddya lose?”

  Buckman heard it, but for a moment did not think the question was directed at him. “Hey numb-nuts? You here this morning?” This time the question got through, punctuated with a flick of a finger against the side of his head. Charles had sat next to him without Buckman even knowing it.

  “Sorry. What was that?” Buckman asked.

  Charles took a bite of his scrambled eggs. “Sleep well last night? Dreaming about your woman’s legs?”

  “No. No on both. Well, maybe some on the second.” Buckman tore off some of the roll and put it in his mouth. “I just can’t get this out of my mind.”

  Everyone else at the table had left, and Charles dropped the joking around. “Same here, pal.”

  They continued for a few more seconds in silence, Buckman eating his roll and Charles spooning the eggs into his mouth. “You inside today?” Buckman asked.

  “No. Have to change out a filter assembly in the recycling plant. Straights think their stuff is gold. Turns out it’s just brown like everyone’s. Yourself?”

  “I’m back here.” He checked around to be sure nobody was within earshot. “You need to go back into the hold?”

  “The bilge needs a few days to pump. Then I’ll go back in. Probably do some cleanup and checkout.” Charles drained the last of his coffee and set the mug and his bowl onto Buckman’s tray. His hand rested there a moment. “I can set it up so we do the cleaning. Keep other people out of there.”

  Buckman could feel Charles looking at him as he finished eating the sweet roll. He was not really hungry, but he knew it would be a few hours before he had another chance to eat. Lack of sleep only made things worse, and he would need whatever energy he could muster. All night he thought of the decomposing body in the hold. The image could not be erased. He thought of how they pushed her off the beam, the Alkalinium enveloping her body and finally closing in around her face as she sank. “You sure about the bilge? It’ll take a couple of days?”

  Charles had been a plumber for years aboard various ships. Though he had little education, he knew how the valves, lines, and tanks worked in zero gravity. Pressures and flows established by the various pumps and pressure environments of the ship were all clear in his head, though he would readily, and sometimes proudly, admit he did not understand the science behind it. He ran his index finger across his upper lip. “I figure it’ll take at least two days for that area to drain off. We got the pumps working on more immediate problems we gotta fix, so they just got a little emergency sucker bilge working in there. Pressure’s so low in the hold, that fuckin’ tiny pump can’t pull hard enough to get it out.”

  Buckman pictured the security men standing around the hold as the level dropped. First, her outline would become apparent as enough of the material drained away. Shortly after that, they would wade through and take a closer look. “Have to jack up the pressure in the hold to speed things up?”

  “Been thinking about it all night. Be a big deal to jump the pressure in a space that big. Have to be a good reason to do it.” Charles stood up and came over to Buckman’s side of the table. “Look, I’m working on one of the main pumps today. I dropped the pressure in the hold last night in preparation for what I’m doing today. It’ll slow it way down. Don’t worry about it. Come on, Reg starts bitchin’ in five minutes.”

  At that moment, a bell sounded, signaling the start of the shift. The hall was empty as the few remaining workers ran to their workstations. Buckman was going to be a few minutes late getting there. He walked out to the main aisle that ran the entire length of the ship. He needed to go down four levels to get to the station that day, but first he needed to get into his medium weight contamination gear. There was a small locker room outside the reconstitution plant where he was able to change into the suit. The plant was pressurized and the suit he was wearing was much lighter than what he had had to use in the hold the day before.

  Buckman entered what was called the reconstitution plant. The area was four levels tall and brought in solid waste from the host ship, in this case the Queen, where they manually separated the waste and sent it to different process areas. Metals and plastics were recycled and broken down into elements. Glasses were pulverized. Natural products, woods, fibers, and other products that could not be reused, became fuel for the fusion reactors on the ship. All this was well contr
olled and regulated, but as Buckman stepped into the processing area, there was no escaping the fact that they were working inside a massive garbage and sewage plant. Despite the best efforts, the odor of refuse was always apparent. New crew members were always bunked in the smelliest part of the ship, while more seasoned workers had better accommodations.

  But, this was part of what he did and was paid well, allowing him to send money back to his extended family through various channels. The Straights knew banking and had set up services to transfer money back and forth for Bent clients. Banking across the border was a thriving business despite the societal differences. In the quest to make money, prejudice could be set aside temporarily.

  Buckman shut the hatch behind him and finished zipping up his suit. “Who the hell’s in Bertie?” he heard someone say over the com line. This was not Reg, Jack, or anyone he recognized.

  “Running a few minutes late, sorry. Ready to receive. Start bringing this over.”

  There was a slight shift in the incoming chute, signaling they had started the transfer. A few seconds later, a private line opened, and Buckman heard Reg come on. “Don’t want to hear about you being late without a good reason. Don’t make this a habit.”

  “Under—” Buckman started to say when the line clicked off. “—stood.” He guessed Reg had put his twisted foot down.

  Buckman finished sealing up his suit and grabbed a long pole. The chute shook and rattled again. The first thing to drop in was a large, elaborately upholstered couch, complete with cushions and blanket. The worker across the conveyer belt looked at him and shrugged, the couch being worth more than all the furniture the two men had together. It certainly would have been the center of attention in Buckman’s crowded, dingy house. They both pushed it onto the bulk items belt, where a few seconds later, it was pulverized to dust by a large press followed by an industrial ultrasonic blast. This was followed by more furniture, kitchen appliances, and various unidentifiable pieces of hardware. At first, he thought it was the remnants of someone’s wrecked home, and wondered why people would dispose of such things. After about 30 minutes, he forgot about trying to figure this out, and spent the rest of the day mindlessly destroying people’s discarded possessions.

  11

  As soon as her picture came up on the screen, he knew he was in trouble. At the end of a tiring day, Buckman was relaxing in the lounge watching the newscast on the wall viewer.

  “Looks like she was here when we docked,” Stuart, one of the electricians said.

  Her picture went away and was replaced by Parren delivering a comment. Parren was well known for his strident views on separation. He made no effort to hide that he was from the highest Straight order, less than .001% of the population, and was a founder of an almost quasi-religious organization, the Council Superōrum, which was devoted to further enforcing the separation. Bents and low-level Straights had been seeing the results of their efforts. Jobs became restrictive. They produced data to support measures such as basing insurance rates on a person’s DNA order. Buckman knew well enough of these efforts, but he again returned to seeing her ripped-open hand. This was all dangerously wrong.

  “Listen to him,” one of the other workers said. They were watching the screen as much for the shared hate of the man as to listen to what he had to say.

  Parren read off a memorized statement. “We will apply all resources to find those responsible, and we ask anyone with knowledge to please contact the authorities. The immorality of this act is beyond description, and the perpetrators are still at large. They will be hunted and punished. We are concerned with everyone’s welfare and pray for this to be settled in an expeditious manner. As always, keep in mind we live in a dangerous society. Control and order are the only methods for resolution of collective disturbances and incongruities. Thank you for your time.” Questions were asked, but he instead turned around and disappeared through a door.

  “What’s an incongrudity have to do with finding his wife?” Stuart asked. There were a few snickers around the table. Buckman smiled as well, despite the alarm of her having been found. Bents often joked that if they waited long enough, they would take over simply by sheer numbers. The lack of passion that Parren exhibited was strange but not altogether unusual. Straights had a lower birthrate than Bents, a fact that was held in high esteem and used to raise fear about the Bents taking over. Buckman and many other Bents believed that Straights had such boring sex lives that reproduction just did not happen. There is a difference between not being able to and not wanting to.

  The broadcast continued, and since it was a prime story, it would probably be analyzed from all kinds of angles before they moved on. Buckman sank back into the worn couch he was on and watched as they recounted the last few months of her life. He learned she had been traveling around the outer stations for about six months. She had met up with her father, a mining tycoon named Rogef, for a fundraiser for orphans a few weeks before coming back to the Queen for the last portion of her journey. Partway through, they announced a reward leading to the capture of the murderers. Buckman had to think about this, and he wondered if the risk of revealing their involvement was too big.