The Methuselan Circuit (24 page)

The legionaries marched Alexander to the closest airlock. It was a relatively large chamber and could easily take in a full century of legionaries or a number of Zanks or excursion vehicles. They entered the main chamber and then the legionaries led him into an ante-chamber. This was much smaller and didn’t necessitate pressurizing the entire airlock. The door sealed behind them. There was a hiss and Alexander felt the pressure grow outside his suit. A green light went on.

“All right cadets, you can take your helmets off now,” one of the legionaries told them. The troopers took their helmets off as well. They were both male Terrans like most of the legionaries. The airlock door opened, and they were marched down a long aluminum corridor. Every intersection they passed carried a letter and number designation on the ceiling of the junction, visible in all directions on a lighted placard. Alexander tried to keep track of where they had been, but he got lost after three of them—they all looked the same. The legionary obviously knew where he was going, though, and in five minutes Alexander was ushered into a windowless room. Khandar went on to another room.

“There’s a regeneration dispenser in the corner, cadet,” the legionary told him. “Grab yourself a drink and a snack; someone will be with you in a moment.” He closed the door. Alexander found himself alone, waiting to be interrogated.

“What have I got myself into,” he whispered. “Dad’s not going to be happy.” He got a drink—milk, and a snack—a fruit bar. Settling into a chair, Alexander tried not to be nervous. There was no reason to be, he reminded himself. After all, he didn’t kill those three people. He didn’t have anything to hide—he stopped himself. Did he have something to hide? He remembered Khandar’s warning. Alexander saw these very same people with Professor Strauss and the Methuselan Circuit. Wasn’t that something to hide?

“Cadet Wolfe!” announced a strident voice. It was Centurion Fjallheim. Alexander jumped. He hadn’t heard the door slide open. Springing to attention, he waited until the officer came into view. Fjallheim was out of his space suit, but now he wore the black and crimson sash of the security forces over his uniform. “At ease cadet,” he said evenly, but the glowering expression on his face didn’t make him feel at ease. Walking around the table the centurion sat down heavily, glancing up at Alexander with his green eyes almost hidden by his bushy red brows. He touched the pad on the edge of the desk and a pair of screens rose up from the table-top, one facing the centurion and one facing Alexander.

Fjallheim synchronized his screen, announcing, “I am First Centurion Fjallheim, Chief Instructor of Tactics and Weaponry at the Academy.” He waited until the computer acknowledged him before continuing. “This is an inquiry into the murder of three people,” he listed their names for the record, “whose corpses were found by Cadet Alexander Wolfe and Cadet Janus Khandar. This record is the interrogation of Cadet Wolfe.” He sat back and nodded to Alexander, meaning it was his turn to synch himself into the computer. Alexander did so. When the computer finished questioning him it announced that he was who he claimed to be and reminded him that he was under oath.

“I swear to tell the truth so help me God!” Alexander swore, but he couldn’t help but be nervous. Fjallheim noticed it, and his expression was not the least comforting.

“You will tell the truth cadet. I should remind you that the lie detector is on, and that if either the lie detector or I get the idea that you are being evasive that is grounds for expulsion from the Academy. Do you understand?” When Alexander answered in the affirmative, Fjallheim observed. “You’re jumpy Cadet Wolfe; you’re going to make me think you shot those three people yourself.”

“Begging your pardon sir, I didn’t shoot anybody!” Alexander assured him.

“Whether you did or did not we will discover in the course of this investigation, but it is quite clear that you had a history with Professor Nussbaum,” he said, manipulating something on his screen. The centurion rubbed his chin as he studied the hidden display on his screen. “You debated Professor Nussbaum on more than one occasion; in fact, I would describe your exchange as baiting him—if I can believe an Academy cadet could have the nerve to bait a professor.”

“I’m sorry sir, but what does Professor Nussbaum have to do with the three bodies Khandar and I discovered?”

“We will get to that in due time cadet, but for now I’d like to hear your take on your relationship with Professor Nussbaum. This wasn’t the first run in you had with the good professor. You did, in fact, complain about him to Lt. Mortimer.”

“On behalf of my entire flight sir,” Alexander informed him. “I was selected to speak to her about him by my flight.”

“What was the nature of the complaint?”

Alexander fidgeted, but he couldn’t avoid the truth. “Professor Nussbaum doesn’t like Terra; at least he’s not very patriotic. As cadets, we simply don’t understand what he’s trying to teach us; it doesn’t make any sense to teach future officers to hate their country or their Homeworld.”

“That’s a very good way of putting it,” the centurion nodded. “So you followed channels and reported to Lt. Mortimer. Did that solve the problem?”

“No sir,” Alexander admitted, “but it did affect my grades.”

“Are you accusing Professor Nussbaum of altering your grades because of some personal dislike—that’s a serious charge, I warn you.” The centurion’s eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared.

“I haven’t accused anyone of anything sir,” Alexander said quickly, becoming somewhat flustered. “It is the truth. Since I confronted him in class my grades have fallen from a B to a C-minus.” Fjallheim nodded, touching something on his screen. Alexander was beginning to get frustrated and confused. “I don’t know what this has to do with finding the bodies in the crater.”

“It’s not your job to know,” the centurion snapped, and then he glanced back at his screen. “You have a busy history of trouble at the Academy thus far, Cadet Wolfe—very busy. Yet this isn’t the only Professor you’ve had problems with, is it?

“I don’t know what you mean sir,” he replied, the fear of being expelled growing in his breast.

“Don’t you; what about Professor Strauss?”

“Professor Strauss!” Alexander couldn’t help the surprise in his voice. Did the centurion know about his encounter with Strauss; should he say something?

Fjallheim leaned back in his seat, looking at the ceiling as if in deep and troubled thought. He sighed, and said, “As a cadet you no doubt think the Academy is a well honed machine and long ago discovered the very best manner possible in training our future officers—not so! Unfortunately, wherever you have people you have ambition, and wherever you have ambition you have politics.” He stopped and looked at Alexander, his eyes steely serious. “Professors Strauss and Nussbaum have dubious political histories at best, but they are in favor with the current political Administration. They are not fans of the military. They are not fans of our empire, our history or our traditions.” The centurion hesitated and finally nodded. “You were right to bring it up to your advisor, but unfortunately your advisor is, I believe, sympathetic to their views. At the very least, Lt. Mortimer has done extensive work for Professor Strauss on the professor’s current study project.”

Could he mean the Methuselan Circuit? Certainly the centurion could mean nothing else, but why was he telling Alexander this. What did this have to do with the bodies? The centurion answered him by tossing a yellow memory card onto the table. It was the same one he gave to Professor Strauss at the request of Commandant Augesburcke.

“Do you recognize this?” Fjallheim’s voice was matter-of-fact. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “Before you answer Cadet Wolfe, be advised that your fingerprints, the fingerprints of Professor Strauss and the Commandant’s fingerprints were found on the card.”

Alexander swallowed hard, but said, “Of course they were sir, that is, if that’s the memory card Commandant Augesburcke ordered me to give to the professor. I followed orders and gave him the card.”

The answer seemed to surprise Centurion Fjallheim. “Where did this happen?”

Alexander answered the question exactly, but he didn’t volunteer the information that the Professor was not alone; he wondered if the centurion would ask. He did not. Instead, he asked if Alexander had seen what was on the memory card.

Alexander answered truthfully that he had never seen what was on the memory card.

“Good,” the centurion said sharply. “If you did I imagine Professor Strauss would flunk you out of the Academy—or worse. That brings us back to our three friends,” he brought up a hologram of the bodies Alexander and Khandar discovered. The three dimensional image floated on the table between them. The centurion looked up at him and pointed to a holographic picture of the bodies. “These are the bodies you and Cadet Khandar found are they not?”

“Yes sir.”

Instead of asking the obvious question; that is, whether Alexander knew them, Fjallheim used his laser pointer to study the damage to the bodies. “You will notice that each body has multiple blaster shots in the thorax,” he said, pointing out the fist sized holes in the dried up corpses. “We have determined that the shots were fired from a range of two to three meters. What does the placement of the shots tell you?”

Alexander was momentarily confused, “I don’t really know, sir,” he stammered, knowing at once that was not an acceptable answer—even for a first year cadet. The glowering expression of the centurion forced him to examine the hologram again, but as he did, Alexander sensed something deeper, something behind the obvious in the centurion’s question. He mentally shook his head; that didn’t matter. The centurion was waiting; what was he going to say?

The centurion stood up, breaking Alexander’s concentration. Alexander shot up out of his chair—you didn’t sit when a centurion stood! The centurion seemed not to notice, and instead he went over to the small open space next to the desk. “Computer, put the hologram here,” he said, pointing to the floor. A very realistic life sized hologram of the three corpses appeared on the floor. Glancing down at Alexander, the centurion said, “Visualize yourself as the shooter. How do the blaster shots explain the situation?”

Alexander cleared his mind, as his father taught him. That reminded Alexander of similar quizzes from his father.
If you don’t see the answer, break it down into bite sized chunks; start with the obvious.
He took a deep breath, and said, “The Terran male has a blaster shot in his left breast but it missed the heart. He has one in his stomach, one in his shoulder—wait,” Alexander looked the other two corpses over. “All three corpses have multiple blaster wounds but none of them by themselves looks fatal. Whoever did this wasn’t a good shot. It might have been more than one person; in fact, I think it was more than one person.”

“Why,” asked the centurion.

“There are eleven blaster wounds. One person couldn’t have put that many shots into two government agents and an Ambassador, especially a bad shot.”

“What makes you think they are agents cadet?”

Alexander caught his breath, but he quickly recovered, pointing out their clothing and the glasses. It apparently satisfied Fjallheim. “That’s an interesting hypothesis but couldn’t the target’s movement be the reason for the poor shooting?”

“I don’t know sir, that doesn’t make any sense,” Alexander admitted.

“Demonstrate the attack,” the centurion snapped. “Computer, animate the victims to a standing group. We will assume the attack came from the front since there are no blaster wounds in the back.”

The holograms shifted to standing positions and their blaster wounds healed. Centurion Fjallheim handed Alexander a blaster. “This is the type of blaster we guess was used in the attack based on trace elements found in the wounds, the size of the blaster holes and the temperature of the blaster beams.” He took Alexander by the shoulder and placed him two meters from the group. “You are the shooter—shoot them, shoot them all!”

Alexander froze, not entirely sure what this was all about.

Fjallheim didn’t allow him any time to consider his position. Looming over Alexander, he shouted, “Shoot them cadet; shoot them now, that’s an order!”

Alexander raised the gun and shot the Terran male at point blank range. He fell immediately. Swiftly moving his aim toward the Seer’koh he immediately recognized the problem. The Seer’koh crouched instinctively in surprise, hiding his chest behind his shoulders. The head bobbed up and down making it an almost impossible shot, but Alexander was pressed for time, the Terran female was reaching for something. He fired at the center of the Seer’koh, at the largest area of mass—his belly. The saurian spun to the ground shrieking. Alexander leveled the gun at the female just as she was drawing her own weapon. It was a hurried shot, hitting her in the shoulder and spinning her around. Both the female Terran and the Seer’koh were on the ground, writhing and crying out in pain.

He pointed his blaster at the woman’s chest, feeling as if he were shooting his own mother as he did so, and he squeezed the trigger—or he tried to. Alexander’s finger froze, quivering on the trigger, but he hadn’t the strength to pull it. He dropped his arm, knowing he failed, failed to kill even a hologram.