Santa Clues
a Christmas mystery
from
Juliet Eyeions
& Paul Brazier
 |
The trinkets and baubles hanging from the tree, especially imported from Earth at vast expense, gleamed their little reminders of the spirit of Christmas while the embers of the fire flickered in the great |
fireplace and gleamed through the glasses on the low tables. Escutcheons, stag heads, dirks and claymores on the walls, Black Watch tartan cushions on leather couches, and wooden quaiches on the tables showed no detail or expense had been spared in recreating a Scottish hunting lodge. The fireplace had been a problem, as chimneys are not a usual feature on space stations, and the interior designer of the Lagrange five Holiday Inn was particularly proud of it. From its mantelpiece, the Westminster chimes rang delightfully as the clock prepared to strike midnight.
A maid in period dress entered the room. As she began to collect the glasses, a scraping, tumbling noise came from the fireplace. The maid looked up but did not see the large, corpulent figure clad in soot-streaked red, trimmed with ermine, slump into the hearth and collapse over the fire. She had frozen where she stood. She remained upright initially, then coriolis forces gradually took over until she toppled sideways in a shower of smashing glass.
As the clock struck six, the maid’s eyes popped open. Righting herself, she swept the broken glass onto the tray with the side of her hand then set about picking up the other empty glasses. As she worked around the room, her eyes suddenly fell on the figure of Santa smoldering in the fireplace and something new turned over inside her. She knelt beside Santa and was surprised to find tears running down her face. She stood abruptly and left the room, returning a few minutes later with the manager and the night porter. Between them, they managed to drag Santa out of the fireplace and laid him on his back on the hearth rug.
His face was partially melted and there was a hole burned through his red tunic on the left, where a human heart might beat. The skin underneath was singed but unbroken. A faint aroma of grapefruit lingered about him.
The manager turned to the night porter.
“Lock this room and don’t let anyone in until I come back,” he said. “The guests must not be upset by this sight when they come down.” He turned to the waitress. “Don’t move anything else. And don’t mention this while you serve breakfast.”
Feefee la Pamplemousse had worked hard on designing the ‘Christmas in Scotland’ hotel theme and was looking forward to a few days rest before beginning the next redesign – ‘Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs’. She was enjoying her morning bath with her new perfume when the manager let himself into her room.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Her bubblebath kept her amplitude reasonably discreet but she felt she should make some protest.
“There is a situation I can’t handle,” he replied. He appeared disturbed by this. “The Santadroid is defunct in the hearth downstairs.”
“Oh, dear, that is a shame. But why come to me?”
“I am a manageroid.”
“I fail to see...”
“Androids have equality with humans but we are not human. Androids can only perform programmed tasks.” That smell. He had noticed it around Santadroid. His voice became rather shrill. “When we encounter a situation we are not programmed for, we have to refer to a human for further instructions. That is why I am here.”
“You think I am human?”
“No android could have designed the Scotch-theme bar. That is a creative job.”
“And what else,” she said, stepping out of her bath, a vision of loveliness in steam and curves and bubbles, the scent of grapefruit preceding her like a wave, “makes you think I am human?”
The manageroid blinked. This was most distracting. It was another situation he was not programmed for. As a night manager at a high-profile hotel, it would have been a mistake to program any libido into him – but new prompts were arising within his system and he found himself reacting strongly to her. He took a towel from the rail and held it up. She enfolded herself in it.
“While it is impossible to tell androids apart from humans for certain without invasive examination,” he said, “careful behavioural observation can help. Androids tend to conservative clothing and behaviour. You are not behaving conservatively – nor are you wearing any clothes.” He felt as if he was flushing, embarrassed.
She looked at him askance. His reasoning was impeccable. His red face was not.
“I will come down as soon as I am dressed.”
The distorted face of the inert Santadroid leered up at her unnervingly as she knelt by him. She slid one hand beneath his broad shoulders and lifted his torso gently, while the other probed the burnt hole in his jacket. The night manager stood next to her.
“Have you any idea when this happened?” she asked.
“No, but there was a broadcast power outage between midnight and six a.m. All androids without wired power would have been immobilised.”
“But that wouldn’t have deactivated him. Androids would simply resume function when the power resumes. Has anyone tried to reboot him?”
The manager shook his head. “It’s a simple procedure but in possible criminal cases it is forbidden until the police are present.” He turned as he heard the night porter let himself into the room.
“The police are here,” the porter announced.
“But I haven’t called them yet!” – the manager was surprised at the pique in his voice – “and no one else should have.”
A law-and-orderdroid entered, resplendent in the blue-and-gold of the L5PD. Ignoring the manager, he addressed the designer.
“Ms Pamplemousse, you are under arrest. Anything you say…”
“But you can’t arrest Ms Pamplemousse,” cried the manager, feeling oddly as if he needed to protect her. “This android has been deactivated, possibly illegally. Only a human detectivist can solve the crime and bring the culprit to justice…”
“Oh, dear, have we started already?” a quavering voice asked. “I thought the whodunnit was scheduled for this evening, after dinner.” The night porter had not relocked the door after admitting the law-and-orderdroid and several guests, having finished their breakfasts, were wandering into the lounge (“I swear I could smell grapefruit,” one of them muttered. “But I didn’t get any with my breakfast! The girl said there wasn’t any but I would know that smell anywhere…”)
“Is this the victim here? Why, it’s Santa Claus! He’s very convincing.”
“I’m sorry!” cried the manager, “but this is a crime scene and I must ask you to leave!” He was quite bewildered by his own astringent abruptness but that was as nothing to his incomprehension as Santadroid, Feefee’s hands still carefully placed in front of and behind his chest, sat up suddenly.
“Ms Pamplemousse,” said the law-and-orderdroid, “please do not tamper further with the evidence. The detectivist sent me here to place you under arrest. He saw you leave this hotel last night at 11.55 p.m. and reprogram the powercast computer. You are charged with interfering with the life-power of all androids of L5 by denying them power last night between midnight and 6 a.m.” The law-and-orderdroid produced golden hand-cuffs, linked to his belt by a slender titanium-gold chain. “Come along with me now please.”
As he reached for her wrist, she made one last tiny adjustment inside Santadroid’s chest who immediately stood upright and, with remarkable agility for one so large, sprang over the heads of everyone and blocked the door.
“Hold it, l’orderdroid! You’re not taking Ms Pamplemousse anywhere!” he bellowed. Then, puzzled, “Ho! ho! ho!” The laugh rang oddly, baffled and angry rather than jolly and heartfelt.
From outside the door a muffled voice shouted,
“Hold it yerself, Santa, or I’ll deactivate you again!” Santa appeared to know the voice, because he immediately stood aside and allowed the door to open. A small man with a large electronic gun stepped into the room.
“What’s going on ’round here?” he snarled.
“I might ask you the same question,” said the manager, stepping forward. “Who are you and what do you think you are doing coming into my hotel waving that thing around?” If the manageroid had been able to sweat, he would have been doing so profusely now. As it was, he trembled, eyeing the gun nervously.
The little man reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small wallet.
“Arch-detectivist Homelock Shirts,” he growled, flipping the wallet open to display a holographic badge.
“I’m in charge of this case. I shot Santadroid last night but he got away before I could arrest him.”
“But what is going on?” asked someone. Quite a large crowd had gathered, drawn by the apparently unscheduled police activity.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” called the manager, stepping forward and raising his arms, “please leave the room. This is a crime scene and…"
“Pipe down, bub!” interrupted the detectivist. “Let ’em stay. There ain’t no crime here. Santadroid is plainly not hurt – although a little cosmetic surgery and a new red suit might not go amiss.
“However, a very serious crime was committed last night, by Feefee la Pamplemousse. Interrupting androids’ life-power is now equivalent to murdering a human. And that’s a capital offence!” He turned to her, his face softening. “It’ll go better with you if you come quietly, Ms Pamplemousse,” he grimaced – a smile might have been intended but his face, unused to such expressions, looked instead as if he had just trodden in something soft and smelly and very sticky. The smile she returned, however, was radiant, and he felt his knees weaken.
“Perhaps if I explain what has been going on, it won’t be necessary to arrest me,” she said guilelessly.
After the fourth curtain call, with the applause showing no signs of abating, Feefee la Pamplemousse glided out in front of the actors. She was stunning in a full-length clinging red sparkly dress, with long gloves in the same material, that left her shoulders enticingly uncovered and her most positive physical attributes peeping over her neckline. A roar of approval greeted her. She gestured for silence and, reluctantly, the audience quietened.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. While I stand before you to accept your praise, the people who really deserve it are – the backstage crew <applause> the producers <applause> my sponsors, Parfums Diordna <applause> my own office back on Earth <applause> but mostly Arch-detectivist Homelock Shirts!” She raised a hand and indicated the diminutive figure in the front row seats.
“Without his hard work and diligence, I would now be in jail awaiting trial for my life and none of what we have seen this evening could have happened. Allow me to explain.
“To begin with, my name is not Feefee la Pamplemousse. I took the name to promote a radical new perfume from my sponsors, Diordna. It has long been known that a perfume more attractive than the venerable Lanech Cinq exists, a perfume that is fresh and uncloying and triggers both attraction and the protective instinct in men – the smell of fresh grapefruit! But it is too volatile to be captured which is why it has never been marketed.
“Well, Diordna researchers have come up with a way of mimicking it. The first experimental sample arrived just before I boarded the ship to come here and I have been using it since I arrived. The reaction was exactly as expected but –” she paused, “I began to suspect that some of those who appreciated it were not human.
“This suspicion was confirmed when Santadroid was in close proximity to me while we installed some equipment in the apartment above this room for the show you have just seen. He appeared to become intoxicated. Arch-detectivist Shirts was investigating a cluster of reports of android men behaving oddly in the hotel when he entered the room just as Santadroid seemed about to molest me. Shirts shot him to save me, then escorted me to my room to recover. When he returned, although he had locked the room, Santadroid was not there. The Arch-detectivist was not aware that the equipment we had been installing was the trapdoor that allowed Santa to come down this chimney.
“Meanwhile, I contacted Diordna about the perfume. Their chief scientivist told me in strictest confidence that, unlike traditional perfumes, Pamplemousse was not a pleasant-smelling inactive molecule but consisted of airborne nanobots that sought out and investigated the nasal receptors of nearby men and stimulated them to generate the desired – and desirous – mind state. It had been entrusted to me for a final field test in a closed and controlled environment before being launched to the general population back on Earth.
“The affect on androids was unanticipated – there are comparatively few on Earth, while they are up to fifty per cent of space colonists. I immediately called all the men I had worked with personally since I arrived, told them of my connection with Diordna, and asked what they thought of my perfume. Some were polite, said they liked it well enough. Others were much more passionate, several offering love, marriage, vast fortunes… these I guessed to be androids. I explained the situation and offered to reverse the intervention in their nervous systems.
“I was prepared and authorised to offer large sums of compensation to keep the whole thing quiet. I wasn’t prepared for the reaction I did get. Every one of them begged me not to take it away! Their lives had become so much more full of light and joy since they had met me. They thought perhaps meeting me had made them feel this and it would fade with time but, if it was a permanent effect, they wanted to keep it.”
“It’s true,” called Santadroid from behind her. “Me and the maidroid are gonna get hitched,” he added, holding up their intertwined hands triumphantly.
“Well, I thought about this deeply. Androids are nominally equal to humans but they still lack some human attributes. It appeared to me I had it in my power to enhance a lot of artificial lives at a stroke. Given the difficulties I had already experienced, I didn’t want to carry on spreading the joy piecemeal, so I decided to shut down the powercast and place my entire stock of Pamplemousse perfume in the air supply. It takes six hours for the air in the station to be completely replaced, so when the android power resumed, the entire station’s air supply contained Pamplemousse perfume nanobots.
“When I told Arch-detectivist what I had done this morning, he called in to his headquarters and found there were many reports of previously sober, ordinary people acting oddly but not a single report of any crimes or misdemeanours.
“So he decided to delay arresting me until after this evening’s show and wait to see if any incidents did arise. Have any, dear?” She looked down to the Arch-detectivist. He shook his head solemly.
“So am I under arrest?” Again, the headshake.
“In that case, I declare the spirit of good will to all well and truly revived! Merry Christmas everybody!” and the room rose as one and cheered and stamped and applauded until one might have feared they would bring the house down. The very steel girders seemed to ring with the celebrations so that, looking down at their little metal world, spinning but becalmed in the sea of space, gleaming with reflected sunlight and vibrating with good will, it might just as easily be a bauble hanging on a Christmas tree – but it would mean the same thing: the spirit of peace and joy and happiness is paramount in the hearts and minds of all beings.
T H E E N D
Santa Clues is copyright © 2015 Paul Brazier & Juliet Eyeions
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