KILLER PLANET

Minutes later, Fabio, Martha and Keiichi were drinking large mugs of dark beer sitting around a table lit by a Russian chandelier. Keiichi was examining letter-size images of Anaximandra Gloucester’s wedding party guests. Her brown eyes narrowed, scanning the face of Mrs. Grave, whose photo he ceremoniously placed on the table.

“Mrs. Agatha Grave; emigrated from Coltan City in the early 3850s. Her husband died of a heart attack last year. A fierce pro-degenetization activist, in her spare time she owns a Bed & Breakfast, which she runs : “The True Martian”.

“A fierce pro-degenetization activist…” Fabio underlined.

“In 3869 she threw a can of red painting on a pro-genetization bishop.”

“I see.”

Keiichi dropped a pic of Nefertiti over the table.

“Nefertiti Schreiber. Born in Uranium, she arrived on Mars shortly after the Second Universal War. Her parents died in a gravimotor accident. A doctor of musical composition from Oxford, she used to work as a violin teacher. She was, in fact, the Gloucester Girls’ Music Tutor. She is also a well-known pro-degenetization activists.”

“There’s a pattern,” Martha murmured, passing the photographs, “this is Severus...

“Severus Urwin,” Keiichi nodded, “a student of dentistry. He is also an advocate for degenetization rights.”

“I knew it,” said Martha.

“He owes around £ 500,000 to credit institutions.”

Keiichi then showed a photo of Guillermina.

“Guillermina Grave,” he said, “a quite well-known property manager. Ex-psychologist of the Gloucester girls, he still maintains a close relationship with Anaximandra.”

Keiichi then pointed at a picture of Sir Weyden.

“Sir Maximilian Weyden. A gambler and a playboy, who spends his holidays in Monaco and Las Vegas. As I’ve learnt, Cleopatra opposed Anaximandra’s marriage with him.”

“You told us about their mutual hostility, don’t you remember?” Martha asked.

“Sibling rivalry. Both sisters were always meddling in each other’s business. Cleopatra used to complain about the parties Lord Gloucester was throwing for her sister in Titanium City. About one hundred thousand pounds per celebration; at least that was what Cleopatra used to say publicly over and over.”

Martha took Fabio’s hand.

“Don’t you remember the day Cleopatra visited us in Neptune?”

“Her first comment was about Anaximandra’s monthly allowance,” Fabio answered. “Yes, I remember it.”

“Family tensions are commonplace,” Keiichi said, ordering with a gesture of his fingers three more pines of beer. “Where does your intuition take you?”

“We have reasons to suspect Cleopatra was murdered.”

“I’m sorry to tell you that I agree with the official report,“ Keiichi argued, “according to her medical records, Cleopatra had a history of depression. The fact that she chose her sister’s wedding day to commit suicide does not surprise me at all. Did you read her suicide note?”

“Yes,” Fabio replied, “I took it out of her hand.”

The images of a gravilimousine Benz getting smashed against the wall returned to his mind. Then flashes of light over groups of people staring at a scene cordoned off with black & yellow plastic ribbon, Martha taking pictures of an ambulance waiting for a cadaver and a wounded man, two nurses placing Hernan, unconscious, inside the ambulance, Martha taking Hernan’s left hand.

Fabio sipped suddenly from his pint of beer, as if it were an antidote against remembrances. But the images went on: Nefertiti crying, leaning on the shoulder of Lord Gloucester; tears rolling down Martha’s cheeks; two policemen lowering Cleopatra’s body from the tree; Martha perusing a surgeon’s knot; he himself taking a small note from Cleopatra’s flaccid hand: “Don’t blame anyone... Cleopatra Gloucester;” his hand placing it back to her hand; his body walking under the tree where Cleopatra was found; his eyes discovering several footprints on the grass.

His pint was empty.

“Did you see the footprints under the tree?” he asked Keiichi.

“By the time we arrived they were no longer visible.”

“Too many people had stepped on them,” Fabio admitted. “But, surely, you noticed the trampled bushes.”

“As if someone had fallen on them,” Keiichi admitted. “Still I wonder whether it happened during the party.”

“What did the graphologist say?” Martha asked.

“He confirmed Cleopatra’s handwriting,” Keiichi said.

“I didn’t expect another finding…” Fabio muttered.

“Her own relatives are not interested in supporting an investigation,” Keiichi said.

“Lord Gloucester authorized me to proceed with my own inquiries,” Fabio said. “Just about thirty minutes ago.”

“I’m surprised,” Keiichi said.

“So am I,” Martha said with tense countenance. ”Lord Gloucester should suspect something so thorny, that he doesn’t even dare to express it.”

Fabio looked at her with a touch of annoyance.

“I think you both should have a private talk,” Keiichi said as he stood up.

On the old Magnesium Stadium, Players from the local team rolled the ball over the grass. Fabio and Martha looked at them from the stands —two colorful spots among hundreds of chairs. They were sharing a plate of fries. 25-year-old goalkeeper David Bogle caught a soccer ball —a difficult bent shot, under the goalpost.

“Yes!” Martha screamed.

Minutes later Fabio, Martha, and Bogle walked over a green, desolated field.

“I don’t like to gossip about people’s private lives, Mister…” Bogle said as he read a printed card from his hands: “’Saint-André, Fabio Saint-André.’”

“You can call me Fabio.”

Bogle smiled at Martha.

“Are you Neptunian or Mercurian?” he asked with a whitened smile.

“I’m from Venus, but my last name is Neptunian.”

“My wife is from South Saturn, from a Neptunian colony called Arcadia.”

“The oyster city,” Martha remarked with Neptunian sarcasm.

“Cleopatra...” Fabio muttered tactfully.

“My wife was also one of my classmates at Titanium University,” Bogle went on.

“I’m sure my wife will share her political points of view,” Fabio said, “South Saturn is a continent unwilling to adjust to the modern world. You know it. Northern leaders supported by multinational companies are bombing local industries every day. That way they all remain as Saturnine Republics.”

“Have you gone virtually to Machu Picchu?” Bogle asked.

“Not yet,” replied Fabio, “I often read the classics from Mother Earth’s iron age, but I don’t feel well visiting the places of a planet destroyed by the northern dogmas.

“That was more than six hundred years ago,” said Bogle, “otherwise, the northerners allege that they were the southerners who destroyed the planet.”

“The so-called southerners never existed,” said Fabio. “They were an invention of the northerners to excuse their perfidy.”

“Can you prove it?”

“It’s in the books of that era,” said Fabio. “The problem is that people today only read famous journalists, and they are all subsidized by the traffic of organs, or the DNA traffic, both illegal activities legalized by the Northern ideology.

“I thought that, being a Venusian, you would be interested in visiting your ethnic roots.”

“Humanity’s biggest mistake was distributing on planets, according to their language, the survivors of the Socialist Hecatomb of 2920. The angels of the Orion Constellation had already warned us.”

“The earth had only a few days to live,” said Bogle, “and it was the Orians themselves who told us that, in our free will, we were the only ones to decide our future.”

“If they introduced themselves as angels,” Martha said, “why do you insist on calling them Orians?”

“I’m an agnostic,” Bogle admitted. “That humanity witnessed miracles in that era, no one doubts; that they stopped with advanced technology the radiation that threatened to pulverize us, nobody doubts it; that they talked with the quick and the dead, nobody doubts it; that they conditioned the planets of the solar system so that they became all habitable, no one doubts it. There is enough holographic material on those facts. But, unlike the believers, and as the northern guru Sayonara Vanakam prescribes, It’s obvious that we are victims of an advanced civilization that takes delight in promoting our fear and hardships. Nothing else would explain their modus operandi.”

“But every two or three hundred years they correct the injustices of the universe.”

“I think they do it all the time,” said Bogle. “Does it matter? Even if I see angels and demons, even if Jesus Christ himself appears to me, I will always believe that everything is the result of an illusion produced by more evolved entities. I believe that since the Orians prohibit all weapons of mass destruction, we, human beings, have very few issues to cope with.”

“Murder is still one of them” Fabio replied.

“Fair enough,” Bogle assented.

“Tell us about Hernan and Cleopatra.”

Bogle smiled condescendingly.

“My wife and I were going to travel with them to Mercury this Christmas! We wanted to discuss our future with our team. We are teammates, after all. Players don’t always get along with their coach, you know. There are factions here and there. You have to trust someone else.”

“As in any club,” Martha commented.

“As in any club,” Bogle agreed, slightly disturbed. “My prayers are with Hernan.”

Martha laughed loudly at the sound of the religious invocation.

“I mean, my good wishes ...” Google apologized.

“You don’t have to explain,” Fabio agreed.

“I read that his head had smashed into glass,” Bogle said with a slight blush on his cheeks. “ I mean, Hernan’s head.”

Bogle suddenly clutched his head, expressing his helplessness in a gesture of reproach.

“His brain, however, is intact,” Fabio comforted him. “The police believe he lost control of his gravimotor when he discovered his girlfriend hanging from a tree.”

“Lies!” Bogle exclaimed.

“I see we both agree on that point, Mister Bogle,” Fabio said.

“Beware of the Gloucester family, Monsieur. They own half of this city.”

“I’m quite aware of it. Just yesterday passersby bent before Lord Gloucester on Main Street.”

“I’d like to introduce you, you both, to my wife.”

Hours later, Fabio descended on his gravibike over the top of an oak tree placed in a bend obscured by oaks and pines, along the lawny road that led to the Gloucester mansion in Magnesium City. Accommodated on the branches, he graduated from his thermal binoculars and watched Sir Weyden behind the marble wall below. Another graceful figure, carrying a glass of champagne, walked out onto the main garden. A gravipatrol with two policemen crossed the space and Fabio instinctively hid inside the tree.

“Show your face!” Said the voice of a policeman with an air of rudeness.

Fabio sighed and, ascending, removed his binoculars and showed his face.

Another gendarme studied his data inside the gravipatrol.

“He has permission from Inspector Keiichi,” the policeman murmured to his companion.

“Any problems you have,” said the other policeman, “don’t hesitate to contact us.”

The gendarmes moved quickly away under the blue sky, furrowed by thousands of gravimotors and gravibykes.

Fabio returned to the tree and recognized Anaximandra in the slim figure that moved over the Gloucester lawn. She stopped and drank the contents of the cup just below the weeping willow where Cleopatra was found hanged.

A roar of thunder rumbled over the fields and Anaximandra raised her neck. Fabio saw a storm coming from the north. Anaximandra scanned the firmament with an air of annoyance, turned on herself, and re-entered the house. Fabio descended stealthily and, compressing his aero-bike in a small briefcase, walked on the opposite side of the road. In spite of the heavy clouds, the mountainous landscape was beautiful, covered by a green blanket dotted with thousands of variegated flowers of various shapes.

He walked a couple of kilometers, until an unusual sight stopped him: he noticed that all trees diminished in size before disappearing before a flat, open field, to his right, of carefully cut grass. It would be said that it was part of a golf course, due to the whimsical shape of its edges, but its vast extension, almost to the horizon, gave it a dreamy appearance, as if an eccentric millionaire preserved a vast field for his parties. The absence of a lake or stream, however, was unsettling in the wet Martian landscape. Fabio walked about six kilometers on the velvety grass until he saw a twisted piece of metal, about forty centimeters long. He photographed it and I took it back to the main road. His steps were interrupted by the sound of an approaching engine. He hid in the branches as he saw a Rolls Royce brand Silver Spur 3885 gravilimousine rushing across the grass on the official road to Titanium City. He identified two characters inside: Sir Weyden in the front seat, with a triumphant smile on his face, and Frank driving at his side.

Fabio got into the main aerial passage and sent his coordinates to Martha. In less than twenty minute a black gravitaxi descended from the zenith and flew beside Fabio’s gravibike. The back door slid open, revealing Martha’s expectant face on the opposite seat. Fabio’s gravibike fit into the gravitaxi’s back seat, allowing Fabio to greet his wife with a kiss.

“Home, please,” he ordered to his robotaxi.

“I already have instructions from the lady,” it said in its universal velvety voice.

“According to protocols,” Martha replied, “I programmed it to skirt the perimeter of Titanium City.”

“You’re so lovely!” Fabio exclaimed, kissing her.

“I found a very mysterious lawn track that you just discovered,” Martha sighed.

“I love when you watch me,” Fabio said.

Since their marriage, both spouses shared their vision through the ocular nerve.

“Did you notice how mellifluous all our suspects look at us?” Fabio asked in Neptunian.

“A cultural trait, Tico. Martian curiosity.”

They kissed and caressed each other.

The robotaxi looked at the Saint-André through the rearview mirror and, according to Martha’s programming, looked away and darkened the windows.

“I purged the artifact,” Martha said.

“We have an hour then,” Fabio said, unbuttoning his shirt.

They made love before descending on the garden of their residence.

Upon alighting, Fabio felt the oppressive gaze of one of his neighbors. He was already used to the locals being shocked by the red color of his Venusian skin.

“I’m glad to be back home,” Fabio said as several robotic servants undressed them. “Do you suspect Anaximandra?”

“Five years can turn a murderer into a thief,” Martha assented.

“I don’t quite agree,” replied Fabio, entering naked into the bathroom.

“I saw how she tried to seduce you,” said Martha.

Fabio diluted the youthful memory of Anaximandra’s kisses in his proposal of adultery.

“You may be right,” he mused. “Did Cleopatra say something important to you? I mean, before she stopped responding to your messages.”

“That she had accepted Hernan’s DNA.”

Fabio looked at her in amazement.

“But the implant was beaten to death by a thief,” Martha added.

“This world is a battleground between pro-desgenetization and pro-genetization activists. I try to keep my hands away from them”

“I only see supporters of pro-desgenetization,” Fabio objected.