The Trojan Trajectory
by
Vince Malba
Chapter One – Floating in the Firmament
“Cordite survey ship L-19 calling Europan Station. Come in, Europan Station. Over.”
“This is Europan Station, L-19. Read you loud and clear. Over.”
“This is Second Mate Romo. Request to speak with your head of security as soon as possible. Over.”
“Roger, Romo. I am transferring your call. Over.”
“This is Captain Goldberg. Over.” a gruff baritone announced.
“Captain, I am Nadia Romo, Second Mate aboard Cordite L-19. Switching to visual. Over.”
Goldberg pressed a button on his desktop to transition from audio to 3D video feed, opened his 3D viewer wall and stared at Romo’s image. She acknowledged Goldberg with an abbreviated wave. Goldberg got out of his chair and moved closer to the wall where the inside of Romo’s cabin was displayed.
“What do you need, Romo?”
“Captain, we have an issue that may fall within your jurisdiction. We were in close orbit around a medium sized rock in the Trojan asteroids when we found something unusual. Sensors reported sighting what appeared to be a non-metallic object about 280 km from our position. It was moving away from us. Upon further investigation, the ship’s AI determined that the object was most likely a body. We are now on an intercept course and should make rendezvous with the object in 16 min. Request instructions.”
Goldberg straightened up sharply.
“Romo, did you say a body?” Goldberg replied incredulously.
“Yes sir.”
“Hmm. Are you missing any of your crew?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, this is a first. No one has ever found a body floating out here in the Depths. Have you pulsed the ID chip?” asked Goldberg.
“Yes, sir, first thing. No response. We are continuing to pulse it as we draw near.”
“Romo, with all due respect to your AI, no ID chip means no body. I think it might be time you sent that AI of yours in for a checkup.” Goldberg's attempt at a smile looked more like a grimace.
Romo glanced over at Third Mate Evan Shaw seated across the control isle and rolled her eyes. They both looked at the monitor currently displaying the AI’s projected image, an attractive elderly female figure named Marie Curie. Marie raised a single eyebrow, but did not comment.
“Honestly, Captain, I don’t think the Marie Curie is out of whack. The dimensions of the object roughly correlate to the size of an average human male. Our long range imaging, ladar, radar, and microwave backscatter, all show four limbs and a head. The chemical signature also is consistent with a human body,” said Romo.
“Any direct visual images yet?”
“No. We won’t have a good visual until we can get a lot more light on it.”
“Call me when you are about to make rendezvous. I’d like to see your AI blush if your body turns out to be nothing but an overflowing garbage bag,” he said.
“Yes sir. Romo out.”
Europan Station was a huge rotating cylinder that had been constructed in the early part of the 22nd century by the Stagmite Mining Cooperative. It moved around Jupiter in the orbit of the moon Europa. The station resembled nothing so much as a large tin can. Most of the interior of the can was empty space. Living quarters had been constructed on the inside of the outer shell, where the rotation of the station provided one gee of artificial gravity. Areas closer to the center axis experienced less artificial gravity, while the center axis itself experienced none. Every half kilometer along the length of the can, large hollow spokes extended to the central axis, providing R&D, manufacturing and recreation areas with varying amounts of gravity. The current population of the station was over 100,000.
Goldberg watched the wall panel display showing the command cabin of Romo’s craft fade to gray, then black. His small office, like most offices on Europan Station, was stark and bare. All the furniture in the room, a large black-painted metal desk, an office chair, a well-used reclining chair and an old sofa with table, was bolted to the carpeted floor. The plasti-steel walls were empty of artifacts, and glowed with a bright, non-directional light that made objects stand out from the background. Goldberg ran his hand over his bald pate and mumbled “office décor-2”. The room was transformed instantly into an English country manor library, with dark mahogany furniture, a glowing fireplace, and soft, muted lighting coming from virtual sconces. One wall was converted into a three dimensional autumnal scene enclosed within a huge picture window, showing all the colors of New England in October. The oranges, yellows, reds and browns were a soothing balm for a man with a headache. Mysteries always gave Goldberg a headache. He knew he would need help with this one, and he was not a man who liked to ask for help. He moved across the room to his comfortable chair and slid his ample frame into the seat.
Ten minutes later, Goldberg received a second call.
“Captain, this is Romo again. Score one for Marie Curie, sir. The object is indeed a body. Unless we’ve finally found the long awaited intelligent aliens, or maybe Big Foot, this must be the corpse of a human being,” she explained in a slightly sarcastic manner. “We are maneuvering in close proximity to the body now. We will be picking it up momentarily.”
Goldberg winced at the news, then snickered to himself. Good for you, Romo, he thought. You’re tougher than you look.
“My apologies to Madame Curie, Romo. Hope her feelings weren’t too badly bruised.”
“I think she’ll survive, Captain. How would you like us to proceed with the recovery, sir?” Romo asked.
“Handle the corpse with utmost care. We need to preserve the crime scene as best we can.”
“Yes, sir. Third mate Evan Shaw is suiting up and will go out and get it.”
“Have him go through a standard decontamination procedure with his suit before leaving the ship. Let’s try to keep all the little nasties in your cabin from confusing our poor underpaid and overworked lab personnel.” Goldberg said.
“Alright, sir.”
“Can you keep the body under vacuum during transport? We may be able to get some useful data from residual gases or fluids,” Goldberg asked.
Romo hesitated for a moment.
“Ah, yes, I think it might be possible. We have a cargo compartment that is accessible from the outside. I’m checking on its contents now.” Romo moved through various images on the isle monitor.
“The compartment is empty. We will have to strap down the body, of course. I could have my partner bring a new set of straps through the decontamination process with him.”
Shaw had been standing by, full suited, his surface tension boot soles holding him in place while he waited for Romo to give him the go ahead to enter the airlock. He grimaced when he heard Romo’s conversation with Goldberg. "We had 30 min to get all this ready, and he waits until I’m suited up and ready to go to decide we need to keep the corpse in vacuum," he grumbled to himself. He moved clumsily to a series of stainless steel drawers aft of the control console, and procured a new set of polymer straps.
“I’m entering the airlock, Ma’am.”
“Roger, Evan.”
Four minutes later, Shaw announced that the decontamination procedure was completed.
“I’m ready to proceed. I am opening the outer hatch." He gazed out into the blackness of space, slowly surveying the vastness.
“I see the body, ma’am. I am leaving the lock now.” He pushed off, heading for the corpse and voice-commanded the suit stabilization and control system to maneuver directly in front of it. Jets were fired in short rapid pulses.
“Shaw, this is Goldberg. You need to adjust the lighting a bit. It is very difficult to distinguish much from your video feed.”
“I’ll try to optimize the feed, sir…Hope that’s better.”
“Is that the best you can do?” Goldberg asked peevishly. Shaw decided to ignore him. They both knew the optimization was computer controlled.
“I am face to face with our corpse, Captain. It appears to be a male. Shorter than average, I would say. The body has not become mummified, and there is no sign of the puffiness and bloated look one would expect from a recent explosive decompression, but facial features suggest extensive loss of fluids. Clothing is unusual. He has a thin white coat over blue or black pants, and a soft whitish pair of shoes.”
“They look like old fashioned sport shoes,” Goldberg interjected. He couldn’t stop himself from twisting and turning to get a better view, though he knew it was useless.
“There’s some kind of insignia or logo on the shoes that I’m not familiar with. Let me do a quick net check…logo belonged to a defunct company called Saucony that went out of business in 2081. They made athletic shoes. Oh, and he has something around his neck.” He blinked his eyelids in a preset series and the magnification of his artificial retinas increased three fold. “The artifact around his neck appears to be a pair of eyeglasses hanging on a polymer strap. Who would need eyeglasses?” he mused.
“You’re sure?” Goldberg asked.
“I think so. I remember seeing an old photo of my great grandfather wearing something akin to what I’m seeing on this body.”
“Curious. Any signs of foul play? Can you see any obvious wounds, blood stains, or burn marks?”
“No, sir. Nothing like that. I’ve scanned with ultraviolet and see no obvious dried bodily fluid marks.”
“Anything else you think I should know about, Shaw?”
“Infrared scan shows internal heat. The techs should be able to get a time of death from the readings.”
“Good, Shaw. Anything else?” Goldberg asked.
Shaw moved around the body, looping the straps around it. “I don’t think so. Oh, hold on.” He noticed an object on the wrist as he inadvertently raised the coat sleeve. “He appears to have something strapped to his wrist. It has a small plastic face, metal casing touching the wrist, what looks like an old-style LCD display. A wrist watch, I’d guess. Looks like the victim must have been an antiquarian of some sort.”
“Antiquarian, huh? Move him into the compartment now and secure him with as much care as possible,” ordered Goldberg.
“Romo, I’ll have someone meet you at docking port A-9 as soon as you arrive. Goldberg out.”
A-9 was the closest port to the Security Offices, and was used exclusively for security related activities. Forensics team leader Luki Eriksson hurried along corridor M8. She was a few minutes behind schedule, having been in the middle of a zero gravity zone ball game with the rest of the team when she received the call from Goldberg. She had extricated herself from the large padded game sphere amidst groans from her team mates. She took a thirty second mist-vac shower, changed clothes, and arrived at the high gravity outer corridors in time to see the crew members of L-19 disembarking. She introduced herself to Romo, who filled her in on the corpse recovery effort. Luki took control of the body with the help of the Station ME, Dr. Laurie Xiang, who arrived a few minutes after Luki.
Goldberg’s temples throbbed. A dead body moving through space without an ID chip or space appropriate gear? Ancient artifacts and clothing? He was struggling with possible scenarios to explain the known facts. He spread his desk display to cover the entire desktop surface in the hope of seeing the bigger picture. He stared at the data but could not see the connections he was sure must be there. He uploaded the recorded videos from the corpse retrieval effort, and raised the third dimension of the video above the desk surface with a slight motion of his right forefinger. Now Shaw and the corpse appeared to be above the desk, slowly moving around each other. As he expanded the central portion of the moving image, Luki walked into the office, a flex pad under her arm. “Cap, I have some interesting preliminary results for you on that body found out among the Trojan asteroids.”
Goldberg continued to stare fixedly at the image of Shaw and the corpse. He looked perplexed, and was making faint noises Luki couldn’t quite hear.
Luki cleared her throat loudly and called out in a throaty alto voice, “Cap?”
Goldberg continued to mutter to himself as he raised his right hand in a gesture of acknowledgement. “Be right with you.” After a few moments he turned his head and looked at Luki for the first time.
“Luki, what have you got for me?”
“We haven’t been able to identify the corpse yet. He has no locator chip and probably never had one. His DNA is not in our data base. I can tell you that the body is male, approximately 188 cm tall, weighing 71 kg. We estimate he probably weighed about 86 kg when alive. The rate of loss of bodily fluids to the vacuum together with the infrared scan Shaw took allowed us to determine the approximate time of death as no more than 300 hours ago, assuming he died as a result of exposure to vacuum. The doc hasn’t completed her examination yet, but preliminary findings are unusual.” Her face contorted into a puzzled look.
“Go on,” prodded Goldberg.
“Well, first of all, he was wearing what appears to be very simple indoor clothing. No enhancements were found at all.” Luki moved next to Goldberg, and gestured at the three dimensional image floating in front of them. “No thermal protection, no emergency breathing apparatus, no common emergency safety kit. Inexplicably, there is no sign of the standard bio-monitors all space-based clothing has. The clothing fabrics are unusual, too. We’ll know more after the doc has completed her research, but they appear to be terrestrial,” said Luki, “Natural fibers with some synthetic yarn blended in, though we haven’t had a chance to identify exactly which naturals and synthetics we’re dealing with.”
“Natural, as in cotton, hemp or wool?” interrupted Goldberg impatiently.
“Yes, though it’s still too soon to know which.”
Goldberg shook his head in consternation.
“What more do you have, Luki,” he quizzed.
“The man appears to be young, probably less than 50. He was a Caucasian. His hair and eyes were dark and his skin color was light.
“So, out in the vastness of space, among the Trojan asteroids, we found a human male body with strange clothing, no embedded ID locator chip and no communicator or bio-feedback implants, and whose DNA is not in our database. Is that an accurate summary?”
“Yes, Cap.”
“Great,” groaned Goldberg.
Two hours after Luki had left his office, Goldberg received a call from Dr. Xiang, who was not only the station's medical examiner, but also the chief of pathology for the station's medical center. Xiang was an aloof but competent physician who had crossed swords with Goldberg many times in the twenty years they had both been aboard the Can, as it was affectionately called.
“The body you recovered was dead no more than two weeks before you found him, Goldberg. Biologically he was about 40 years old at the time of death. But my identification shows that he must be 172 years old.”
“What the hell does that mean?” asked Goldberg.
“It means that the body of the man we found among the asteroids in 2162 was born in 1990. He appears to have been 40 years old at the time of his death in 2162 when we found him.”
“So a man dies at the age of 40 in 2030, and we find him floating in space in 2162, appearing to have died recently. Correct?”
“Correct,” replied the Dr. Xiang.
“Xiang, are you eventually going to tie this all up into a sensible package?”
“I can give you the facts and the unavoidable inferences, but a neatly tied package is beyond my capabilities at the present time. Shall I continue?”
“Certainly, doctor. By all means dazzle me with your findings.”
“I have undertaken an extensive survey of earth records from the past two centuries, and I have identified the corpse. He was a Scottish physicist named Alfred Sumner who mysteriously disappeared from his laboratory in 2030. He was 40 when he disappeared. The police were baffled. No one was ever accused of being complicit in his disappearance. There was no sign of foul play. There was no ransom note. No one took credit for his disappearance. At the time most of his associates thought that he had wandered off and fallen into a bog in the Scottish highlands, though extensive remote sensing failed to find his body. There seemed to be no motive for anyone to harm him. His research was hardly the kind of thing that promised commercial success, and his relationships with other physicists were cordial for the most part. He had no family or sexual relationships, as far as the documentation goes.
“Xiang, may I intrude on your ruminations for a moment? What the HELL is he doing floating out in space?” said Goldberg, his frustration about to boil over.
“I have no idea. His presence is an enigma.” Xiang’s expression was serene.
“Could the identification be wrong?” Goldberg asked.
“No. The person is Alfred Sumner. DNA records are a perfect match. There is no escaping the fact that this man cannot be Alfred Sumner, but that he, in fact, is Alfred Sumner.
"Could he be a son or grandson? A twin? A clone?"
"A twin or clone, perhaps. But now you're really stretching. Face it, Goldberg, you have a real mystery on your hands.”
“Lucky me,” moaned Goldberg.
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