It took the rest of that day and a good portion of the next to fully disassemble the bomb, run all of its components, and scrub them for fingerprints, skin cells, strands of hair, blood, sweat, dried saliva, anything.
It was clean. Almost impossibly so. Theresa quipped at one point that it was clean enough to pass planetary protection protocols. And while that was an exaggeration, Benson sympathized with the frustration behind the sentiment. It reminded him of the Laraby case, actually, with his ridiculously clean love nest which, of all places, should have had an ample amount of DNA samples to collect. Somebody in the Ark’s underworld had figured out how to thoroughly sterilize large volumes and spread that little trick around.
However, while the exact identity of the bombmaker still eluded them, they hadn’t completely dead-ended. Theresa had put out an order for an explosives inventory check on the walk back to the station house. The results came back the following evening. One of the seven mining operations on the continent had filed a reorder request after reporting receiving only twenty kilograms of an expected two-hundred kilogram resupply. Just one problem; two hundred kilos had been tracked coming down from the Ark, signed for coming off the elevator car, and scanned onto the delivery drone.
Someone had tricked the receiving end software out of a decimal point and made off with one hundred and eighty kilos of high explosives and used it to kill dozens of people and kidnap Benexx. Benson was going to find out who. Theresa had to stay behind to handle the back end of the investigation, as well as keep an eye on the increasingly restless Native Quarter, but she’d given her blessing to let Korolev come along on his little field trip.
Benson’s only concern with the expedition was neither of them would be very convincing playing the “good cop” during the questioning. Korolev was almost as ruthlessly protective of his, er, niece as zer parents were.
Kexx and Sakiko offered to tag along as well, despite the fact Kexx was even more uneasy about flying than Benson was.
They took a pod down to the airfield to commandeer one of the quadcopters for the trip. Which ended up taking quite a bit of cajoling from Benson before the air master would approve the battery charge expenditure for “non-essential business.” Benson had to keep himself from throttling the man at that statement, but electricity rationing had begun to hit everyone pretty hard while the Ark raced to repair the beanstalk and restore the flow of power.
With the weight of the four of them and their gear, the little quadcopter only managed around a hundred minutes of flight time. And that was provided they weren’t in a huge hurry. But it was more than enough endurance to give them a round trip to any of the satellite farms, mines, or quarries that defined the outer reaches of human infrastructure on the continent. For now, at least.
“How you doing back there, partner?” Benson glanced over his shoulder at Kexx. “You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m looking forward to standing on the ground with great anticipation,” Kexx answered.
“C’mon. It’s not every day you get to enjoy an injri’s eye view.”
“It’s not any day I enjoy that view.”
Benson laughed. “I know what you mean, buddy. Believe me. We’re only twenty minutes out. Just close your eyes and imagine you’re swimming in the ocean.”
“There’s so many wildcat homesteads,” Sakiko said as she peered out the bulbous canopy glass. The quadcopter’s rotors sat above the cockpit at a slight dihedral, both for stability, and to afford its passengers as unobstructed a view as possible.
“Just north of four hundred at last count,” Korolev replied. “About eleven hundred people in total. A new one pops up almost every week.”
“Humans, or…”
“Mostly humans. The Atlantians I think define themselves as village builders. They grew up being told they were better than the nomads because they were building roads and civilization, while our people were cooped up in that fishbowl being fed stories about taming a wild frontier, getting their own patch of land to settle instead of living in an apartment tower with a thousand other people.” Korolev shrugged. “Honestly, I’m surprised there aren’t more of them.”
“That sound about right to you, Kexx?” Benson asked.
“A little generalized, but yes. My people are very proud of what we’ve built, and we know the benefits of working together.”
“The biggest cities started out as a single home,” Korolev said. “These wildcat plots will add a home for the kids when they grow up. Then they’ll put down real roads so they don’t have to hack through the forest to bring in their crops. Then they’ll start building stores so they can trade with each other instead of going all the way into the city. We’re looking at Shambhala’s future suburbs.”
“Yes indeed,” Benson concurred.
Two more of the little prefabs streaked by underneath. Everyone who had come down from the Ark was entitled to a house, but it was only free inside the city limits of Shambhala. The wildcatters had to either pay up to transport the 3D construction printers out here, or build their own shelter. From Benson’s quick and dirty survey, the ratio ran about four to one in favor of prefabs. And some enterprising dissident could be hiding Benexx in any one of them.
“It must be difficult to patrol such a large area,” Kexx mused.
“Not really, there’s almost nothing to patrol,” Korolev said. “These people pretty well keep to themselves. That’s why they’re out here in the first place. And when things do crop up, they tend to hash out conflicts among themselves. We only get sent out here a couple times a month. Usually on anonymous tips.”
“Tips for what?” Kexx asked.
“Drugs, mostly. Somebody cooks up amphetamines in the barn and their neighbor’s kid gets hooked on them. Or, you know, the barn blows up. Hard to do if you’re just storing yulka beans.”
“I don’t know. Yulka beans made me explode once,” Benson said.
“Yeah, I was there,” Korolev said.
Almost every homestead had a small field where they grew crops, or kept a handful of animals. Most were either right on the river, or within easy walking distance of the ready water source. The city’s large fields were further inland, irrigated using diversionary channels and grids of belowground pipes. A few of the wildcatters further from the river had dug their own diversionary channels off the mains, which was technically illegal, but obviously wasn’t high on the enforcement priority list. Honestly, the leadership back in Shambhala was probably happy for anyone who willingly left the city taking pressure off the city’s growing pains.
“What did Theresa want us to talk about?” Kexx asked, probably trying to distract zerself from the flight.
“Hmm?” Benson said.
“Back in the tunnel you said Theresa wanted us to talk about something.”
“Oh, right. Well, it’ll seem a little petty at this point, but before the attacks and Benexx going missing, we were having a lot of trouble connecting like we used to. Ze’s been irritable, combative, and short-tempered. Especially with me.”
“Combative with you? How unprecedented, my friend.”
“Fine, even more combative than the baseline average. We expect it out of hormone-poisoned human teenagers–”
“Still sitting in the cabin,” Sakiko said.
“–but we’re kinda in uncharted territory with Benexx,” Benson continued, ignoring her.
Kexx chuckled. It wasn’t even a human affectation ze’d picked up. From the very beginning, laughter was the one thing the two races hadn’t needed translated for each other, a fact that had probably saved an awful lot of misunderstandings and violence over the ensuing years. “Cuut endowed our adolescents with all the tools they would need to break the bonds of family and get thrown out of the hut, too. They just do it a couple of years earlier. When the community finds their behavior completely intolerable, they’re put through the Rite of Hulukam.”
“What’s that?”
“We kick them out of the village and don’t let them back in until it looks like they’re about to starve. Usually takes a Var or so. The elders say it’s to help the youth find their spiritual center, but really it’s to get them to stop being such self-centered little dux’ah shits. Bearers like Benexx aren’t usually as bad as the rest, but they’re hardly immune.”
“That’s certainly one solution,” Benson said. “Not sure I can sell Theresa on it, though. Right now, all I want it to get zer back.”
“We will,” Kexx said. “If we have to shake down Xis zerself for clues, we will.”
Benson turned his attention forward. The mining site was coming up on the horizon. While it wasn’t the environmentally destructive open-pit or stripmining operation so popular among consortiums on old Earth, its footprint was still significant enough to spot from several klicks out. Benson opened his plant to get a feel for the site. Mostly automated, like the rest. A little over two dozen people on scene to play shepherd to the mining equipment. Most of them human techs, but a handful of Atlantian laborers and an elder to consecrate everything and make sure Xis was properly attended to under their traditions. It was zer body they were plundering, after all.
There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about the mine itself. Of those operating on the continent, it was mid-sized, extracting necessary but unsexy ores of iron, copper, and aluminum, with only traces of tungsten for variety. The most prestigious mining assignments were all in Atlantis, where a fluke of geology and the Atlantians’ peculiarly sensible social priorities meant they’d only recently turned to excavation after running out of gold nuggets in dry riverbeds to pick up by hand.
“We should probably give them a ring. Let them know we’re incoming in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Roger that,” Korolev said, then closed his eyes to bring up his plant’s com directory. “Hmm. That’s weird.”
“What is?” Benson asked.
“Well, the camp’s nav beacon is showing up strong enough, but I can’t get anybody on coms.”
“They’re not answering?”
“No, there’s no connection at all, like their local network is down.”
Benson opened his own directory and tried to connect with identical results. “That is weird. Down for maintenance or updates?”
“I suppose it could be…”
“You been out here yet, Pavel?”
“Yeah, couple years ago. Not long after the site got up and running.”
“What was the call for?”
“Some domestic bullshit between two of the workers. Took me and another constable to physically separate them.”
“Who was at fault?”
Korolev snorted. “No telling. They were both nuts, fed off each other. Just a really ill-advised pairing, you know?”
Benson nodded. “Been in a couple of those. Sex was usually amazing. Never worth it in the end, though.”
“Ew,” Sakiko wrinkled her nose. “Child onboard, remember?”
“Child? You’re eighteen in what, three months?”
“Four. And I won’t want to hear about your sexual history then, either.”
Benson smiled and returned to Korolev. “What was your impression of the site foreman?”
“Ms Lind? Hardnose. No nonsense. She was one of the first wildcats out this far. Built a house all by herself at night while surveying the area for the mine during the day. Good lady, doesn’t have a lot of patience for stupidity. She had those two I mentioned earlier transferred out of her mine to opposite sides of the planet by the end of the week.”
“So not somebody you’d expect to let a terrorist cell operate with impunity under her supervision?”
“Yeah, no.”
“Roger that.”
The quadcopter slowed to a hover over the mining site’s modest landing field, then spooled down its electric motors to come in for a silky smooth landing. Benson was still not a fan of flying, and he’d been intensely apprehensive about being taxied around in the little autonomous eggs for quite a few years after landing. But the autopilot had never failed, and had even seen him safely through a couple of the nasty seasonal squalls that Gaia’s coasts kicked up without warning.
Still, his stomach thanked him as soon as the soles of his feet settled into dirt again. Korolev hopped out on the other side and grabbed his gear off one of the rear seats. A quick weapon check later and he was squared away.
“The operations shack is on the far side of the compound, over there.” Korolev pointed to the northeast, but all Benson could see were lavender trees. “Lind will either be in there or down in the mine itself.”
“I don’t see it.”
“It’s up on the ridge overlooking the mine, just behind the treeline for shade. Follow me.”
They walked up a well-worn dirt path in silence. Benson noticed Korolev’s rifle had migrated from his shoulder and down into a low-ready position. Not out of fear of any of the mine’s workers, but out of caution for the half dozen different critters out here who still regarded humans and Atlantians alike as a viable source of protein. This far from Shambhala, true wilderness was never more than a football field away, and fifteen years of experience hadn’t been enough to fundamentally rewire millions of years of instinct among the local carnivores.
They weren’t the only troublesome creatures that called the forest home. “Ow!” Benson called out as he slapped something on the back of his neck. It went crunch, then fell away. Benson wiped the greenish goo onto his pants. “What the hell was that?”
Kexx nudged the dead bug with a toe. “Don’t know, never seen one before. Nasty piece of work, though. Oh, and you’re bleeding.”
Benson touched a finger to the burning spot on his neck. Sure enough, it came back with a dot of crimson. “Dammit! Why do they always find me?”
“It’s not because you’re made of sugar and spice, that’s for sure,” Korolev said. “The operations shed is just around the bend up here.”
The shed was a modest prefabricated affair. It was a standard, four-room administrative design, probably airlifted by shuttle and dropped in place already fully assembled and ready to go to work. The small com array on the roof looked intact enough, leaving the mystery of their radio silence open for the moment. But it wasn’t the only kind of silence that caught Benson’s attention.
“Pavel,” Benson said.
“Yeah, coach?”
“This is a mine, yes?”
“Last time I was here, yes.”
“Then why isn’t there any noise?”
Korolev stopped dead and swiveled his head around, as if taking in the scene for the first time. “Holy shit, you’re right. It’s dead quiet. There should be drills, mine carts, skid loaders.”
“Maybe everyone’s on break?” Sakiko said, her hand suddenly gripping the handle of her dagger instead of resting on top of it.
Korolev shook his head. “This place is almost entirely automated. The machines work around the clock unless one of them breaks something important. The people are just here to troubleshoot.”
Benson grabbed his sidearm and double-checked to make sure a round was chambered. Its little stun rounds wouldn’t do much against a determined carnivore, but they had just dropped a notch on his threat spectrum.
“The first one of you wise asses to say, ‘It’s quiet. Too quiet,’ is getting a stunner in the neck.”
“That’s fair,” Korolev answered.
They reached the door of the ops shack. Benson stepped forward and gave it a big knock to announce their arrival, but as soon as he did the door swung inward from the contact. Benson jumped back half a step, first thinking someone had pulled the door open from the inside. Korolev’s rifle went from low ready to shouldered in an instant.
“Hello? I’m Bryan Benson. I’m here with Constable Korolev and representatives from Atlantis.”
Silence.
“We’re looking for Foreman Lind. We just have a few questions for her. Hello?” Benson looked back at Korolev and Kexx and made a palms up shrug. “Stack up?”
“Roger,” Korolev answered. “I’ve got the big broom, I’ll go first.”
“Broom?” Kexx asked.
Korolev patted his rifle. “Yeah, it can really clean out a room.”
“I see.” Kexx turned to zer young apprentice. “Sakiko, you will go behind Benson. I will be our tail.”
Sakiko, uncharacteristically, nodded and obeyed without comment. The four of them took places along the outside wall of the ops shack. Once everyone was in position, Korolev held up three fingers for their countdown. Two. One. His arm dropped back down to his rifle as Korolev surged for the door and kicked it the rest of the way open enough to swing it back into the wall, proving no one hid behind it and sweeping his half of the room. Benson hadn’t run any room-clearing exercises in more than fifteen years, and they’d never featured firearms back then, only stun sticks. But as soon as he started moving, it all came flooding back. He entered the building right on Korolev’s heels, sidearm out and his eyes sighted in along the front post, looking for anything in his half of the room that scanned as dangerous.
“Clear left,” Korolev called.
“Clear right,” Benson answered.
They repeated the process twice more for the small breakroom/kitchen, and the conference room. The final room was a small unisex bathroom that required only a cursory peek from the door to prove it was unoccupied.
“Is it just the two doors in and out of here?” Benson asked.
“Yeah,” Korolev said.
“Will you go watch the front door for me? Sakiko, can you watch the back?”
“I guess.”
“Thanks. If anyone, or anything tries to come in, do not engage them. Just shout your head off and fall back here.”
Sakiko made her way to the back door without complaint.
Benson looked at Kexx. “She’s awfully quiet. What’s wrong with her?”
“Ze’s nervous. Ze doesn’t like to show it, but I can tell. This place has zer spooked.”
“She’s got plenty of company, there.” Benson looked around the office/reception area. “Do a walkthrough with me, will you?”
“This is a human building, what am I looking for?”
“Same thing as always, old friend. Whatever I’m not looking for.”
The building had power, so it wasn’t a disruption in the solar grid or batteries that had brought down the network. Benson went to the desk and tried to access the computer terminal, but it was locked out.
<Hey, Pavel. I need a constable’s override on this terminal,> he sent.
A few seconds later, the login page disappeared, replaced by the system’s interface.
<Done, chief.>
<Thanks.> Benson skimmed for the last few days of entries and correspondence, only to find that there were none. Everything stopped on the morning of the First Contact Day parade, aside from a couple of pieces of mine equipment sending automatically generated error messages which had apparently gone unread. A few system messages sat queued up, waiting for the local net to recover so they could upload to central routing.
“Well that’s ominous as hell…” The mine’s machinery had apparently gone into automatic shutdown two days ago when one of the ore haulers had a breakdown along the main tunnel, blocking traffic and preventing operations from going forward. That explained the silence.
Benson opened the network interface and ran a diagnostic to try and find the connectivity issue, but it threw an error code he’d never seen before. Changing directions, he dug back into the archived data and read a few of the most recent entries from Foreman Lind. It all seemed pretty normal. A tech calling in sick, griping up the logistical chain about delays in repair parts for one of her mining drone rigs. Exactly the sort of day-to-day minutiae one would expect to crop up running an industrial operation. On a hunch, Benson copied the last two months’ worth of entries and saved them to his plant to review later anyway.
Out of habit, Benson flicked open Lind’s calendar, just for a peek. It was much the same as her messages and log entries. Work rotations, preventative maintenance schedules, production quota projections. Lind had an eye for detail and obviously ran a tight ship. So then where the hell was she? Benson’s stomach churned with the same slightly nauseous feeling he had during the Laraby investigation, after he’d gone missing but before Benson had recovered the body floating a few klicks away from the Ark. His fear was this mystery wasn’t going to end any happier.
But at the same time, he was certain now that he was on the right track to finding Benexx. And there wasn’t a damned thing in Heaven or Gaia that was going to shake him loose of the scent now.
An item on the calendar jumped out at him. He’d overlooked it scrolling past, but an unfamiliar word leapt out at him a moment later. He scrolled back to read the day’s notes. It was dated two weeks before the parade.
Wednesday, 14th: Atlantians have asked off for Chumincha holiday (sp?). Push back breaking ground on Tunnel 3a until 16th when the elder returns to perform necessary blessings for Xis.
Benson scratched his chin. He’d been working with and living around Atlantians for fifteen years now. He was lucky to call several of their number close friends. In all that time, he’d never heard of any holiday called Chumincha, Chimichanga, or any close approximation of it. And he didn’t remember so much as a peep coming from any of his players two weeks ago, or from anyone in the Native Quarter, for that matter.
“Hey, Kexx,” Benson called out. “C’mere a minute.”
Kexx’s oblong head appeared through the doorway from the breakroom. “Yes? Did you find something?”
“Not sure if I did. Is there an Atlantian holiday called…” Benson referred back to the calendar, “Chumincha? Chumin’cha? Anything like that?”
“Er…” Kexx stumbled. “I don’t think so. What time of year?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Kexx shook zer head in the exaggerated way ze always did when imitating human gestures. “No, definitely not.”
“Not even a Dweller thing?”
“No,” Kexx said with finality. “I can’t speak for the customs of the nomadic clans, but I’ve spent enough time among the Dwellers by now to know their sacred days.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. The nomads still haven’t sent any of their elders, have they?”
Kexx’s skinglow fluttered the Atlantian equivalent of a shrug. “Not officially. Some have probably filtered through as refugees, of course. But nothing openly. They still don’t even have an ambassador in G’tel, much less Shambhala. Messages are passed through traders, runners when the need is urgent.”
“Yeah, figured that’s what you were going to say.” Benson sighed and laced his fingers under his chin.
“What are you thinking, old friend?” Kexx asked.
“I’m thinking that someone made up a fake holiday and tricked Foreman Lind into giving them a little convenient time off to build bombs and organize an attack. I don’t suppose you know the elder who’s stationed here to consecrate the dig, do you?”
“Sadly, no. I can tell you who’s been posted at the active mines in Atlantis, but there’s too much going on over here to keep track of.”
“That’s OK, we can look zer up later. Right now, I really think we need to get down to the mine and have a look around.”
Kexx swept an arm towards the door. “After you, partner.”
Benson pulled everyone out of the shed and grabbed his hand torch out of his pack. He turned to Korolev. “How do we get down to the mine entrance?”
His friend pointed towards the other trail leading away from the shed and their quadcopter. “Down that way. It’s not far.”
Around the back of the hill, the main mine tunnel came into view. Several yellow-painted, dirt-streaked pieces of equipment sat idly just outside the mouth of the tunnel, waiting for the blockage to be cleared so they could resume their pre-programmed work. One of the loaders overflowed with blasted rock that had yet to be dumped into the processor. The ore in this mine was so rich that Benson could see coppery flecks with his naked eye. Compared to Earth, Gaia’s crust was light in heavy metals. The Tau Ceti system was more than a billion years older than Sol had been, and came from an earlier generation of stars that were metal poor by comparison.
But unlike Earth after millennia of mining, Gaia’s crust was virgin, and even the lower quality ore was drastically richer than the rocks with traces of one percent or less by weight that remained on Earth after nearly its entire surface had been picked over.
At this early stage, the mines were still following rich veins of ore concentrated over millions of years of geologic activity. The ugly, destructive open-pit mines of the past weren’t necessary. At least not yet.
The tunnel was a good four meters wide, more than enough for all of them to walk abreast, but still just barely enough clearance for the machines. It was also black as charcoal. The machines all used lidar and GPS to get around, and people were seldom in the mine, so there had been no sense in lighting the tunnels. Benson really wished they had anyway. The cone of light from his hand torch was adequate, however. And it was accompanied by the light on Korolev’s rifle, as well as Kexx’s skinglow, on the front of zer body, at least.
The tunnel was moist and smelled of rust, rock powder, industrial lubricants, and the sharp ozone taste of discharging capacitors. It also didn’t bother sporting any shockcreate or internal reinforcement bracing that a tunnel built for passenger travel would feature. Stray rocks coming loose from the ceiling didn’t pose much threat to industrial machinery. They did pose a pretty big threat to the four unprotected heads and their squishy brains walking through the cavern at the moment. Benson regretted not searching the shed for safety helmets.
“Everybody keep an eye on the ceiling. If you see any rocks that look shady, call them out and move around them.”
“On it, coach,” Korolev said, pointing the light and muzzle of his rifle at the roof of the tunnel.
“Just don’t shoot them, Pavel. That won’t help.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The procession moved cautiously down the perfectly circular hole carved through rock that had lain undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years, pausing only to avoid any portions of ceiling that appeared prone to collapse. No one spoke, their eyes were too busy chasing shadows. The tunnel was not a straight shot downward into Gaia. Instead, it meandered like a river, following the rich vein of ore through the rock.
“Losing my plant signal, coach,” Korolev said.
Benson glanced up at the signal strength indicator in his peripheral vision. It flashed red, then went to a solid crimson “X” with his next step. “Yeah, same here. Too much rock above us.”
“Poor babies,” Sakiko taunted. “Stuck with just the senses Xis gave you.”
Benson glanced back at Kexx. “You don’t beat her enough.”
“Now, now, Benson. Let’s not skip directly to child abuse. There are other remedies we might try.”
“Loader’s ahead.” Korolev’s voice held an edge that put an end to their banter. The blocky yellow loader was little more than an oversized rock cart, but it took up almost the entire tunnel’s width. It was difficult to discern the front from the back of the automated vehicle, as it lacked a cab or seat for a driver. Indeed, it was probably designed to work equally well in either direction. The loader’s hopper reached almost all the way to the ground, leaving only a few centimeters of clearance.
“Don’t suppose you can shimmy under there, could you Sakiko?” Benson asked.
The teen squatted down to get a better look at the gap. “That’s a no. I could probably go over the top, though.”
“Here, take my light.” Benson handed her the hand torch. “And don’t be stupid. If you see anything dangerous, turn your butt right around.”
Sakiko nodded understanding and tucked the light into one of her traditional Atlantian wristbands, giving her light while keeping her hands free, then hopped lithely onto the face of the loader. She scampered up like a cat climbing a tree, then disappeared over the lip of the hopper.
“It’s empty,” she called out. “Must have been on its way back to refill when it broke down.”
There was the sound of feet shuffling, a little grunting, and the bouncing of the hand torch’s light against the ceiling.
“I’m on the other side,” Sakiko shouted back. Benson couldn’t see any part of her through the loader. Anxiety washed over him. He’d sent her because she was the smallest, and the most agile. Sakiko was so near to adulthood that for just a moment Benson saw her as another member of the team, instead of his dear friend Mei’s priceless little girl.
Because of that mental slip, his favorite niece was alone in the dark and cutoff from immediate help. The command to abort and withdraw was on Benson’s lips when Sakiko’s shriek filled the tunnel like a flood.