Concept YUS (Cross-World Murder Cases Book 1) Read online

  “I’ll never forget you, old man,” I whispered. “Never!”

  I thought about Fowler and Stein. Two men, murdered before I arrived, yet ironically so close to me.

  Their plan if Franklin replied affirmatively must have been decided on beforehand and simplified to the maximum: Stein would have needed to enter the necessary information for decoding of his restricted data bank into Reder’s computer and head for the Yusian base immediately afterward. Fowler, in turn, was supposed to camouflage this and misdirect the search for Stein by sending his shuttle to the southern settlement.

  Apparently everything in this plan was dictated by their attempt to gain enough time. Until the experiment scheduled for noon, Reder had some work to do in the open field, so—if he hadn’t been spying on Stein—he would have found Stein’s instructions in his own computer that afternoon at the earliest, which was the only thing that could have aroused his suspicion that Stein had in fact gone to the Yusians. By then, however, Stein would have been on his way; as everyone knew, the starship always took off for Earth one day after its arrival, which is always when Ridon is at its zenith.

  So Stein informs Fowler of Franklin’s approval, and the exact time of this radio contact sets the plan in motion and synchronizes their next actions. Fowler leaves in his trailer for the shipment drop-off but hides it behind the first cone in the valley behind the slope. Then he finds a good vantage point on the ridge and bides his time until he climbs down to the parking lot to program Stein’s shuttle. Stein calmly proceeds to Reder’s office, not knowing that all the time Reder has been watching his every move.

  Why Stein didn’t decode his research results through his own computer is clear: it would be checked for clues as soon as they learned of his disappearance. Nor could Fowler assume that task, or he would have incriminated himself as Stein’s accomplice. So they chose the computer most convenient for the purpose, which, unfortunately, happened to be Reder’s.

  I looked down at the transparent floor. The shuttle was crawling just centimeters above the tops of the pillars, but I gradually stopped noticing them. In my mind’s eye, they became instead long rows of the weird reddish ferns, just as they had been on that last morning for those two…

  Stein finishes the first part of the plan, and it is already time for him to head for the Yusian base. That is when he begins to hesitate. Fate or his convictions may have decided him to become an IBI agent, but he was above all a great scientist. Having devoted most of his life to his research, the thought that he would not be able to complete it probably galled him. Naturally, he understood very well that going to the Yusians with a record of the research results in his possession would be an unacceptable risk. Still, at the last moment, when one’s sense of inevitability is the sharpest, his scientific passion drives him to throw caution to the wind and make the fatal mistake—not only for himself but also for Fowler—of using Reder’s computer to request the microdisk of his records from the server. Then, instead of heading for the Yusian base, he returns first to the base to collect it.

  From that moment on, Reder stops stalking him because the data in his computer eloquently revealed that, after getting the microdisk, Stein intended to ask the Yusians to take him as a passenger on the starship. And they would give him their permission, since it was not the Yusians but Zung who wanted to isolate the people here, so that he could exert greater control over them.

  I gave the shuttle a command for another low, slow flight over the area below and concentrated on the events of that morning. Reder was determined to stop Stein, whose return to Earth would compromise the colonization project. But how could he act without incriminating himself? Well, that was easy—by using someone else from our base to alert the Yusians. So Zung’s agent, who had for months demonstrated nothing but overwhelming horror of everything Yusian and who even preferred his rickety jeep to their “unnatural” machines, goes to the lodge and, without hesitation, lays his hands on a communication disk. He pretends to be Stein and says, “I would like to travel to Earth with you. If you don’t mind, please confirm by returning this call,” or something of the kind. The Yusians, very polite as usual, hurry to honor the request of “Hans Stein.”

  But who do they really contact? The person on duty at the base, Elia? Or Larsen, the base commander? Or Vernie, Larsen’s deputy? As a matter of fact, since only these three communicator codes were operational, and since they are indifferent toward us as individuals, they probably use one of them at random.

  So Fowler and Stein would be murdered, and the one who would commit those murders did not even suspect yet that this was going to happen. After the Yusians called, he—or she?—carried out an emergency check of the most important data stored in the server. Whoever did that would not have found evidence of any ill-intentioned operations on Stein’s part but would have noted his request for the microdisk and so would have headed for the main server, hoping to waylay him as he was collecting his copy.

  In the meantime, Fowler loads the automatic program into Stein’s shuttle and returns to the ridge again to wait for the shuttle to take off. These minutes turn out to be fatal for him because, before the shuttle leaves, Stein appears at the base. I can only imagine Fowler’s astonishment at this alteration in their plan. It must have been difficult for him to decide what to do after he figures out from seeing Stein enter the administrative building that he is there to collect a recording of his research results.

  Stein leaves the base shortly afterward and this time heads for the forest, in the direction of the Yusian base, while Fowler remains to confirm activation of the shuttle program. Whatever he intended to do after the shuttle’s departure—try to stop Stein or let him go to the Yusians with the microdisk—doesn’t really matter. What followed was something neither had foreseen.

  The person provoked by Reder’s plotting arrives after Stein has already picked up the microdisk and enters the administrative building before Fowler’s eyes. Discovering that the microdisk was picked up just minutes before, Reder’s “tool” decides to catch up with Stein, but without using a shuttle so that the Yusians would think that Stein canceled his trip on his own, that it was his decision. This is also the reason why the pursuer doesn’t sound an alarm.

  But Fowler is still waiting on the ridge. When the pursuer leaves the building and heads on foot straight for the forest, he immediately realizes that this person has somehow learned about his and Stein’s plan. Since Stein’s shuttle is already on its way toward the southern settlement, Stein will have turned off his mobile phone, as arranged beforehand, so that anybody who called him would think he was still in his shuttle. I remembered that these Yusian machines in flight always lose radio contact. So Fowler no longer has a choice. He must catch up with Stein first, without being noticed by the other one.

  The chase continued for at least about an hour, while the Eyrenean forest was still in its maddening morning condition. The three of them must have rushed among the dancing trees, struggling to overcome their euphoria. Stein’s pursuer could have only one objective: to reach the end of the forest before Stein and ambush him there on the empty strip between the forest and the pillars, which was the only spot with good visibility. Fowler must have had the same idea. When he nears that spot, however, he runs into the escaping pursuer. Fowler, judging maybe by a reaction or facial expression, understands that this person has just killed Stein. Despite that, he trusts this person so much that he lets a killer come closer. “Fowler was my friend,” Larsen, Elia, and Vernie had all told me. Yet one of them shot Fowler at point-blank range.

  Did the murderer return to retrieve Stein’s personal belongings or already have them, planning to check them out safely elsewhere? That doesn’t matter much. The important thing is the decision to leave them instead in Fowler’s pockets—except the microdisk, of course. Discharging part of the charge of Fowler’s flexor before carefully securing it in his right hand, the now double murderer fails to notice that Fowler’s left hand is still clenching Stein�
��s effigy. Realizing that Stein was probably dead, Fowler must have involuntarily taken out this “keepsake” Stein had given him earlier.

  Next the murderer would head for the biosector and commit a substantial error by deleting the hard drive in Stein’s computer before double-checking to be sure that the request to the server originated from there. In a hurry, afraid of being discovered in Stein’s office, the murderer chooses what seems a logical solution. Who would suspect that Reder’s computer could be involved too—that Reder himself would have a part to play in this crazy story?

  Then the murderer returns to his or her workplace and waits there for the inevitable alarm signal.

  At the same time, but in his open field, Reder waited as well, impatient to learn the outcome of the events he had triggered. He of course supposed that Stein would be detained alive on Eyrena. And then? Stein would admit to using Reder’s computer before heading for the Yusian base, but Reder would pretend he hadn’t “discovered” that yet. He could deny contacting the Yusians, raising the unanswered question of who had called them? And Fowler? He would only speak up if Stein had been murdered. In any case, his testimony couldn’t endanger Reder.

  Anyway, when the double murder was discovered, Reder found himself in an even more advantageous position. Now he possessed Stein’s research results in secret—a secret not even shared by the murderer because, without the access codes, the microdisk was worthless.

  And while the provocateur and the murderer waited…

  Back in the forest, the crystal rain trickling down each and every branch of the leafless Eyrenean trees gradually abated. The tree trunks shrank, releasing long sighs; their white coats melted and ran down in glistening rivulets. Their rough bark slowly turned yellow—as did the dead faces of Fowler and Stein. The tree roots slowly sank back into the ground, rocking the lifeless bodies with indolent curiosity, as the supersensitivity of this hybrid pseudoforest—neither Yusian nor earthly—was lulled to sleep, satiated. All fell silent, immobile, and heavy with time—the “accumulated individual time” plundered from those two bodies by the most destructive of biological processes—death. Then replaced by another time: both human and Yusian, terrestrial and nonterrestrial.

  “Every object that takes part in a chronal exchange with Yusian bioinorganic structures gives its memory to them and at the same time keeps it intact to itself. In turn, however, it becomes a carrier of their memory as well, expressed in the combination of their chronal connections with the Yusian system,” Stein had written. If that were so, then in the silence and yellow twilight, those two dead human bodies were both themselves and particles that had no analogy: details, links in the polyplanetary system of the Yusians, integrated inextricably into it, transformed into Yusian property. They had taken on the unique task of “remembering” in every cell entire human and Yusian histories and unite them into one.

  Chapter 31

  “This is outrageous, Simon!” Reder protested as soon as he pulled up in front of the lodge. “I’m a busy man. I work, you know. You can’t waste my time like this.”

  I sat beside him as his jeep deftly navigated the cones. “No need to drive too far,” I said. “My time’s precious too.”

  “Ha!” he made a scornful grimace and slammed on the brakes. “Come on! Let’s talk now. Why did you call for me?”

  I beat around the bush at first. “You’ve been sending robots to the deserted base to bring you things—like the Yusian figure of Odesta, for instance.”

  “Ha, ha, ha! ‘Figure’!”

  “It doesn’t matter what we call it, Reder. What’s important is that in that base is a hall where strange flames are being ejaculated—”

  “My God! What are you saying? That’s obscene, Simon!”

  “And its floor,” I continued, “has somehow interacted with the biopolymer plates on the elbow and knee joints of these robots. Which means that they’ve been lying on that floor, on their ‘bellies,’ since the same plates on their necks haven’t been affected.”

  “So what? I really don’t understand what all this nonsense means!”

  “You should say you don’t understand why some robots lie on their ‘bellies,’ here or there. Or maybe you do understand that?”

  “I understand nothing!” he snapped but suddenly paled, making the bruises from our fight the day before stand out on his cheeks even more clearly.

  “Last night I took a trip to the active Yusian base, Reder, where there were also flames like those I just described to you. And some Yusians were lying on the floor among them.”

  “And maybe you too?” He glared at me.

  “See, you do understand! Of course I participated. We must respect the rituals of other cultures, right?”

  “It’s a matter of principles, Simon. Personally, I would never subject myself to the effects of any alien rites.”

  “True, it would be much easier for you to watch them with Zung on the holofilms you’ve been receiving from the Yusians—the ones you’ve squirreled away in your steel-plated strong box, though you were supposed to treat them as communal property.”

  “You’re defending these wretched creatures? You think they’re your friends?”

  “If that’s true, we must have mutual friends, Reder.”

  “What! How dare you!”

  “Well, judge for yourself. You knew back on Earth that the essiko robots are jammed with Yusian “memories,” thoughts, intentions, and so forth. You know that the Yusian mentality and their attitude toward us have been programmed into them. Yet you still use these same robots freely, knowing perfectly well that everything they hear, see, or do is instantly conveyed to the Yusians.”

  “That is precisely why I use them!” he exclaimed. “For camouflage! I use them solely for insignificant activities or those activities I don’t need to keep secret. They have no idea, Simon, about the serious work I do.”

  “Your colleagues, though—”

  “They treat them in the same way, even though they think essiko is a human company. These robots are not transported in sealed containers as are all the other shipments, so everybody here is convinced that the Yusians have equipped them with espionage devices.”

  “So you think that no one suspects the real truth?”

  “I have no idea,” Reder said nonchalantly. “It’s possible they all suspect it—by now.”

  I studied his face closely and, after I felt I had given him enough food for thought, added just as nonchalantly, “By the way, I wanted to meet Vernie today too, but he didn’t answer his mobile phone. He must have left it somewhere before he went down below.”

  Despite this sharp turn in our conversation, Reder quickly managed to look astonished. But his attempt to respond smoothly and logically was far from successful. “Why do you think he left his phone behind?”

  “Because down below it would be out of range. Or maybe it wouldn’t?”

  “Where is this down below, Simon?”

  I let him sweat some more. “The bunker” was apparently the answer he feared I might give.

  “In the underground rooms at the defractor site, of course,” I finally said. “I assume the important work is done there, since all the surface machinery is operated by the robots.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s true.” Reder nodded. “We use them everywhere we can. As soon as we got here, we took all precautions to disarm them.”

  “What precautions did you take?”

  “Simple but efficient. At the entrances to all the important places where we don’t want alien observers, we installed laser barriers that are harmless to us, but the robots can’t cross them.”

  “How did you do that without the robots’ help? Especially underground?”

  “It was hard, Simon. Extremely hard! It certainly wasn’t easy. While we do have our own REM robots, all they can do is the rough work. We were left with all the operations requiring precision.”

  “OK, Reder. Let’s say you solved the robot problem here. On Earth, though—” />
  “Don’t worry about that, OK?” He smiled. “The number of robots there has always been strictly limited. And on Earth the company isn’t entirely owned by the Yusians, Simon. We have our share in it and monitor everything the company produces. As soon as this colony is operational, we’ll destroy the robots and raze their damned company to the ground.”

  “Don’t try to focus my attention on that company,” I said. “To me, it’s quite clearly just an auxiliary link in something much more global. That’s why I want to ask you directly: What do you and your boss think is the main goal of essiko?”

  “One word: assimilation,” Reder immediately responded through clenched teeth, not even impressed by my insight. “Yes, their goal is to assimilate humankind! You should have found that out yourself.”

  I shook my head. “What I found out is that the essiko project is nothing but a mistake. Or to be more precise, a series of mistakes, both ours and theirs.”

  He sighed, pretending to be bored. “Tell me, then, what their mistakes are.”

  “Everything they’ve done, since arriving on Earth until now, has been a total mistake. The fact that they’re engaged in producing pseudoterrestrial materials and objects, this entire modified planet with its metamorphoses and frenetic effects, and their naive creations bearing the label essiko—”

  “Naive you call them! If you let Yusians remain on Earth, they’ll literally flood it with these creations! Among them are things we haven’t even dreamed of, but I’ve seen them, even experienced how they work! Take the robots alone as our example: Can you imagine what it will be like if the Yusians multiply them by the thousands, even by the millions?”

  “What will it be like? Do you expect them to start a war with robot soldiers and turn us into slaves? If the Yusians really wanted such an outcome, they wouldn’t have played with robots and euphoria, Reder. That’s not what they want, but not because they have any particular affection for us. Do you know why? Out of concern for themselves. They understand that an ultimate failure in their relationship with us would have dire consequences for them as well.”