Chapter Ten
The last crew member of the rundown corvette entered the hatch nearly an hour after the captain had exited the cargo hold. Soon after, the corvette left the ground, and left the atmosphere of Capella.
Now came the devious part of the captain's plan. The corvette moved slowly out to a safe distance from the planet's gravitational pull, and then entered hyperspace along the route that would take them straight back to where they began: Levo. And almost a week would have passed on Levo itself.
If the hypertrail left by the ship the first time still remained, it would now be covered by the second. Two jumps, one trail.
With all the factors put together, it may have looked as though one corvette left, and another arrived, or even just the one arriving. The man had covered all is tracks so far. It would be very hard to catch him now.
-------------
The corvette arrived in the Levo system, now a lot less busy after the price of commodities had risen back to normal. The captain looked at both the real planet and the computer read-out. He couldn't believe his luck. It was already dark on the side he planned to land on.
The corvette was guided to the spaceport that it had left just under a week ago.
-------------
While the ground crew were doing their job outside, the captain headed down to the cargo hold. He locked the door again once he was inside. He walked through the rows of drums and found the one that was empty. He opened it, and carefully put the body of Heather Nerrott inside.
The man then resealed the drum and put it with the others. He headed over to the main loading doors, and opened them, much to the surprise of some of the nearby members of the ground crew.
"I have a drum to offload!" he yelled to them, over the background noise. "Could you give me a hand with it?"
-------------
Getting the drums through intergalactic customs was a little more difficult, but the man got Heather through. He miraculously found himself alone near Heather's house, just as he had wanted to be. The lie about making the delivery had worked. But he had little time before his escort returned.
He took the drum to another random spot nearby. He opened the drum and tipped the body out. In the man's coat pocket was another label to go on the drum. He removed the old one and burnt it.
With what now looked like a brand new, empty drum, the man was picked up a while later and they headed back to his ship.
Chapter Eleven
It took him almost a week, but he finally did it. Detective Rick Cholten had at last made a detailed suspect list. He read over it once more to pick out any faults that may have been within it.
The most obvious suspect was, of course, the Astex Mining Corporation, but it obviously wouldn't have been the entire corporation. Rick had narrowed it down to three people who had, along with everything else, the authorization to carry out the devious scheme that was presented here. They were Jack Krink, Steve Mostle and Tom Scorn.
He had obtained a list of the corvette's crew and the name of the former captain: Paul Sivetski. Unfortunately, Rick had been unable to discover the name of the current captain. There were simply no files that recorded his or her name. It must have been an unofficial sale. After all, it was now a former militia corvette.
And as for the courier company, Rick had been unable to gain any information at all, only a name: Destor Couriers. But the lack of information itself was important. It raised the question "why?" Why was there no information? This would require more research. But not now. He was at home and now was a time to relax.
He took a deep breath and reclined in his chair. His wife, Elena, came over to help him relax, her extremely dark brown hair flowing freely behind her, which was rare with her. Seeing that sight sent Rick's mind way back to when they had first met.
-------------
Rick once worked voluntarily at a small theatre when he was still a teenager. During one show, however, he found himself noticing Elena. He thought it was because she was wearing her hair out that day, and it was, but he found it was other factors as well.
It was the smile that initially did it. It was almost hypnotic. He also discovered she had an amazing singing voice, as beautiful as a siren's, and Rick immediately fell in love with her. Afer that, the love he had for her just grew and grew.
Over the course of two years or so, Elena grew to love him as well, but when she was seventeen, she was kidnapped. Rick was assigned to the case and begun his excellent reputation by finding her in less than a month. Rick caught only one of the men responsible. The other, the ring leader, escaped, but not before Rick gave him a permanent scar and limp with his blaster. No one has been able to find the man. He was too clever, and obviously still is.
The reason why Rick continued to work as a detective was not to capture this guy. Fate would decide when that would happen. He did it to give other people the justice and complete closure that he and Elena did not get. They deserved it as much as he did.
-------------
As Rick sat silently with Elena, the familiar feeling of fatigue washed over him. He would rest now, and use the morning for light work. Elena would probably be gone by the time he had woken up. She was a reporter for the local news, but she respected the authorities need to investigate without interruption. She was the only exception to Rick's hate for the press. Despite this, she was still an actor every now and again.
In the afternoon, Rick would begin his interviews with his suspects. His research into Destor Couriers could wait for now.
Chapter Twelve
Rick arose the next morning once again completely refreshed. He was now so alert that the first thing he noticed was a note from Elena: Rick, some of your people want you to visit the coroner. They won't give me any more details. I've gone to work. See you tonight. Elena.
The uplifting feeling that had accompanied Rick Cholten's refreshing morning vanished rather quickly. A visit to the coroner could mean only one thing. They had found a body.
-------------
What began as Rick's plan to have a slower start to the morning than usual turned into something just a bit faster than his normal morning routine. He was out of the house in less than an hour.
He arrived at the coroner's section of the LIB complex soon after. Compared to other rooms in the section, the one Rick now stood in was virtually empty. There was a table in the middle of the room, obviously for a body, and it was currently occupied by something covered in a white sheet. At a couple of walls were benches for sets of tools, samples, and whatever else the coroner decided to keep on them. Besides that, there was nothing but empty space.
The coroner, Luke Mills, handed a file over to Rick, who, by force of habit, immediately started skimming through it, picking out the essential details. There wasn't much, but it was enough to cause Rick's heart to sink.
"Heather Nerrott," he sighed, slowly putting the file to one side. "Third to disappear."
"Yep," Mills said. He could always seem light-hearted, even at the worst times. That was what helped Rick to get through sessions like this. "I'll fill you in on the basics. Local patrol found her in some back alley near her house early this morning and sent her over here because this is the only place that could identify her in the condition that she's in."
"What do you mean?" Rick asked.
"This won't be pretty," Luke warned, and pulled the white sheet off the body. Rick immediately felt queasy, but it soon past. In front of him was a half-burned body, barely recognizable.
"Please tell me that isn't how she died."
"Your lucky. It's not. She was shot once, in the head, with a blaster. A quick and, hopefully, painless death."
Rick was relieved, if only a little. "What else can you tell me?" he asked.
"The burning was controlled," Luke replied. "You can tell because the entire body isn't burnt, along with remains of a foreign substance. This would suggest it was burnt somewhere inside."
"I'd think most likely a ship," Rick suggested. "This guy's moving all over the place. It would be the only place he could do it without being noticed."
Luke continued. "The intensity of the fire was increased as well."
This caught Rick off guard. "With what? That substance you found?"
"Yeah. I took a sample as soon as I noticed this. I thought it was oil at first, so I ran some tests for additives. I knew that additives would give away the company, because each oil company uses different additives."
Rick already had a feeling he knew where this was going. "Did you get the results?"
"Yeah, as well as one hell of a surprise. The company? Astex."
"What's so surprising about that?"
"It's not the company. It's something else. We all know about fool's gold, right? Have you ever heard of fool's oil?"
Rick could only admit that he hadn't.
"Okay, somewhere in the early twenty second century, oil became a very high demand, because people had turned back to producing products that used oil as fuel. Well, for some companies, this demand was too high, and so they were literally at the point of selling it as soon as they had brought it up from underground. To get around this, they invented a substance that had the same characteristics as oil, except for a lower energy rate. It wouldn't last as long as oil, but it could be passed of as oil. When everyone found out, there was public outrage. Although it's not used much anymore, the manufacture of fool's oil isn't outlawed, and so neither is its use, because it's cheap substitute. But it is illegal to pass it off as normal oil."
"Are you saying that..."
"Yes. To keep up with demands, Astex has probably been making fool's oil, and selling it as normal oil. These refugees are probably the only eyewitnesses, and evidence, we have."
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 01-07-2002).)