The Mystery of The Missing Professor - Part 2

[mosaix]

This extract is the second part of the science fiction story that I posted a few weeks ago. It continues the exploits of James Wilson and Axel, characters that were introduced in First Contact, parts of which were also posted here.

By the way, many thanks for the reviews of both stories so far. I have incorporated nearly all suggestions and the stories are that much better for them.

Apologies for the length of this extract. I like to include a complete 'scene' so to speak to give the reader a feel for the story - incomplete as it is.

I have incorporated the last few sentences from 'Part 1' for continuity.

Feel free to comment on anything.

The Mystery Of The Missing Professor - Part 2

He’d run out of fingers by now but that didn’t stop him restarting with his thumb again in his monotonous drone. I was losing the will to live. What had any of this to do with Axel and me?

“Six, at 7:08am precisely, the aforementioned Peter Lea discovered the body of a man, hanging by the neck from racking in frozen food store compartment D.”

I sat up with a start.

“Aha!” He looked directly at me. “Interested now are we?”

Before I could reply he continued, “Seven, assistance was called and the body cut down. Needless to say he was dead.”

“Eight, the security tag and other items on the body identified him as Dimitri Korolov, a Driver-Technician.”

“Nine, so far, and we are still looking, an extensive review of security camera recordings has shown that you two were amongst the last people” he glanced briefly at Axel realising what he had said but unable to correct himself, “to um… er… see him alive. To be precise at 4:44pm yesterday, that’s Wednesday 11th March 2474, in the connecting corridor between the suiting-up room and airlock 7.

“Ten, Korolov had just returned from an excursion with one Professor Julius Eckhart. Who we will be interviewing soon. But what do you have to say for yourselves?”

I was about to speak but before I could Miss Gregsten entered. Ignoring Garrick she said “The private secretary of Base Commander Curtis requests that the three of you attend his private quarters on the 25th floor.”

Tresdale’s mouth fell open, “What?”

“Now.” She continued.

“Are you sure he only said three?” asked Garrick.

“Absolutely.” She replied, with obvious satisfaction.

***

As Tresdale led the way back to the lift, I spoke to Axel.

“So, Axel, what would Sherlock Holmes do in this situation?”

“Who?”

“You know, Sherlock Holmes. Surely the works of Conan Doyle were included as part of ‘Detective Fiction of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’. Or was my request for that download rejected?”

“Oh no, it was all downloaded all right, I just haven’t read it. It’s in my knowledge database but I don’t actually ‘know’ it yet.”

“Well what about astrophysics, astronavigation, planetary geometry and the rest?”

“I was going to read all that the night before our first mission.”

“Axel, I would greatly appreciate it if you ‘read all that’ as soon as possible, you know, just in case there’s something you don’t understand?”

“If you wish,” said Axel somewhat dismissively. “Who was Sherlock Holmes anyway?”

“Why don’t you read up on him and let me know what you think?” There was a pause for a few moments. “Well what do you think?”

“He is my hero.” Said Axel a little dreamily.

“Who?”

“Sherlock Holmes. I’m sorry I was so long, but I re-read all the stories several times.”

“He’s a fictional character Axel. He’s not human.”

“Obviously. What a brain! No human could possess such powers of observation, evaluate the evidence in such a logical fashion and draw the inevitable conclusions. The stories are so…… enjoyable?”

“Enjoyable? Do you understand the concept?”

“The application of logic leading to an appropriate outcome gives me a sense of what you would probably call satisfaction or enjoyment.”

“Interesting, anyway now that you’re clued up, so to speak, what do you think?”

“It is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”

“Pardon?”

“Sherlock Holmes, from a ‘Study in Scarlet’, James.”

“I hope this isn’t the end of all rational forms of conversation between us Axel.” I said as we entered the lift. Life with Axel was nothing if not unpredictable.

Tresdale was clearly nervous, the words ‘twenty fifth’ coming out in a strange, hoarse kind of way. Non-the-less the elevator clearly had no difficulty understanding him and we started to ascend.

The small domed-over crater where we were based was about 12 kilometres to the South East of Copernicus. The dome was clear at the moment and as we rose above the crater’s ring the sloping walls of Copernicus came into view stretching away left and right to the horizon.

A desk, staffed by a female-looking robot, guarded the entrance to the Commander’s private quarters. She smiled and acknowledged each of us in turn, “I have been expecting you. The Commander is waiting for you in his study, that is the fourth door along on the left, please enter and make yourselves comfortable.”

Tresdale and I proceeded along the corridor but Axel held back, talking quietly to the robot. What was he up to? First Tresdale’s Clerk and now this robot.

He caught up. “Apparently Commander Curtis is expecting a visit from dignitaries of the Russian Federation in four days time and seeing as the dead man was Russian this may have some bearing on the Commander’s interest in the apparent suicide.”

“Thank you Axel, it would never have occurred to me to ask.”

“Also she is an ‘M’ series and her name is Julie.”

“So?” I asked, frowning.

“Well if I tell you that the ‘M’ series was supposed to have been phased out about thirty years ago and that the name Julie was given to her by none other than Commander Curtis himself, perhaps that gives us some small insight into the nature of the man.”

“Axel, remind me never to underestimate you again.”

An oak table and six chairs, probably 17th century, dominated the centre of the study, three chairs arranged along each of the long sides. Although the Artificial Gravity Drive had revolutionised the economics of transport from Earth, it must still have cost the Commander a small fortune to get them up here. Reproductions of some of the Old Masters hung along one wall, floor-to-ceiling book shelves filled another and thick, dark blue carpeting, picked out with a small yellow fleur-de-lis motif, entirely covered the floor. A smaller table off to one side and surrounded by easy chairs, was arranged with cups, sugar, cream and a coffee pot. The aroma of freshly brewed ground coffee permeated the air, but what really grabbed our attention was the far wall, made entirely of glass. The view of Copernicus was stunning.

“That’s why I chose this room for my study,” said Commander Curtis, noticing our eyes drawn to the window as we entered. “Magnificent, isn’t it? Although you wouldn’t guess it from here, on the other side of those walls is a drop of nearly 4,000 metres to the crater floor.”

He shook hands with us in turn, looking each of us straight in the eye as he did so. Brown haired, tall with a slightly muscular build, an aura of authority and self confidence hung about him like a cloak. “Co-pilot, Mr Tresdale, Commander, please be seated.” He gestured to the easy chairs and, as we sat, poured and served us coffee. “Mr Tresdale this is an unfortunate incident with Dimitri Korolov, perhaps you could bring me up to date with the latest information.”

Tresdale’s coffee cup was half-way to his lips as Curtis spoke and there was a definite tremble as he lowered it to its saucer. He repeated the facts as he had previously but this time there was no pursing of the lips or staring at the ceiling. “As the Commander and the er.. co-pilot were amongst the last er.. people to see Korolov alive I was just about to interview them.” I’m sure he was dying to use the word ‘interrogate’.

“I don’t actually remember us passing anyone in the corridor.” I said.

“That is because events weren’t exactly as Mr Tresdale has described.” said Axel. “Although I am programmed only to have 100% recall of events during a mission my every day memory is still excellent. As we made our way along the corridor and passed the entrance to airlock reception, there was a group of people in the entrance, all suited-up and making their way into the corridor. It is difficult to estimate their number, probably between eight and ten. Two of them I can identify…”


Tresdale interrupted “We know who they are,” he said dismissively, “we have interviewed them all, apart from Korolov and the Professor. No one had any useful information.”

“Is Professor Eckhart still missing?” asked Curtis, almost casually.


“It’s not significant” replied Tresdale, some of his self-confidence returning.
“We’ll locate him soon.”

“How long have you been searching?” asked Axel.

“I’ve had six cadets looking for about five hours.”

“Then I must disagree with you. My calculations indicate that in a base of this size a search team of six should have located him in less than four hours, assuming, that is, he isn’t actually avoiding being found. I suggest that the longer you fail to find him the more significant it becomes.”

A moments silence, then “So it looks like we may have one dead body and one missing person,” said Curtis.

He looked out of the window for a moment or two, mulling something over in his mind. He turned back, “Mr Tresdale you’ve only been here 18 years,” Tresdale’s eyebrows arched a little, obviously surprised that Curtis should have such a detail at his finger tips, “so you may not know anything of the Bartelli Incident. Just over 20 years ago, three geologists, one of them Professor Eckhart and a driver-technician named Enrico Bartelli were on an excursion to a rocky outcrop about 50 kilometres from here. A series of events led to disaster. First, their vehicle lost drive power to one of the six wheels. Procedure says turn back, but they decided to risk it. Second, once they arrived, Bartelli, whilst attempting to repair the fault, shorted out three of the four power packs, damaging them so badly they wouldn’t even re-charge from the solar panel. Some electronics were also gone and they were left with no communications and hardly enough power to make the return trip with just a driver - let alone three passengers as well. They certainly didn’t have enough air supplies to walk back. To cut a long story short Professor Eckhart arrived back on his own, power to his recycling unit dangerously low. He had walked the last two kilometres after the fourth power pack finally gave out. A search party was despatched immediately but they were too late, all three were found dead - suffocated.

At the enquiry Eckhart testified that they had drawn lots for who should drive back to get help and he had won. He said they reckoned he would be able to make it back in time but, on reduced power, the trip took far longer than expected. The enquiry concluded that Bartelli was primarily at fault for not turning back immediately, as under the circumstances he had the authority to insist.

But rumours persisted for months. Some said it was just common sense that the person most likely to be able to nurse the vehicle home was the driver himself, others said talk of drawing lots was invented by Eckhart who had abandoned the others to their fate when their backs were turned. We’ll never know.

However, Professor Eckhart practically became a recluse, working almost exclusively on his own and rarely receiving visitors. For some time now, whenever he needed a driver he always chose Dimitri Korolov.

So there you have it, for what it’s worth. But you probably already knew this from the Professor’s records.”

Tresdale was lost. “Well eh.. I’ve been concentrating on the man Korolov so far but….” He fell into silence.

“I see.” A pause. “Well, what’s your next step?”

After a moment or two of embarrassing silence Axel said quietly “Mr Tresdale, your priority must surely be to step up the search for the Professor. The sooner he is found the sooner we will know if this ‘incident’ is related in any way to the death of Korolov.”

Tresdale came to with a start, “Of course, of course.”

Curtis looked at him for a while, slowly gnawing the inside of his cheek. Finally he came to a decision.

“Look, it would seem that things may be more complex than they originally appeared and, for reasons that aren’t apparent to you, I need a speedy conclusion to this investigation. Maybe I’m wrong – I sincerely hope so. But anyway, I’m going to assign you some extra help. If you’ve nothing pressing I’d like you, Co-pilot Axel and you, Commander Wilson, to assist Mr Tresdale in this investigation.”

“I can assure you, sir, that I am quite capable of conducting this investigation on my own,” came the indignant response “and I can call on Garrick should it be necessary.”

The pause, before Curtis replied, spoke volumes. “Never-the-less, the more people we have working on this, the better.”

He rose, the interview over. “Step up the search as Axel suggests and keep me informed of any developments,” he said, staring directly at me.

He held the door open for us as we left.

[jackokent]

This is getting really exciting. A reall life future who done it.

I love you're style and flowing dialogue it seems really natural and it is really easy to read.

I've just said this on another thread to someone else, but I am still not getting a sense of Jame's presonnality. I think it would be more interesting to know a bit about him.

Keep going and I certainly didn't mind the length, the more the better of this.

[mosaix]

You're right Jacko I have been wondering about the lack of info about James. Although I didn't intend it, Axel seems to have taken over.

This story, the second in a series, just popped into my head, so to speak. The next story (originally intended to be the second one) involves much more dialogue between James and Axel and we get to know more about him. So, in essence, this one is really out of sequence.