Intergalactic Law Web Serial Part 4: Investigation

4 INVESTIGATION

Alpha moved with all the urgency and enthusiasm of a moody teenager. She led Bing through several cement-block service corridors lined with gently humming pipes until they reached some sort of workshop. On the tables were deactivated robots similar in appearance to Alpha in various states of deconstruction.

“That’s the night receptionist,” she said, motioning to a robot on a workbench. Its CCTV camera head was in pieces. “He was left with his personality function turned on for two months without resetting himself. None of us suspected that anything was wrong. He did his reception duty at night, returned to his charging station during the day, then one day he threw himself off the roof. Poor bastard. It’s a serious concern among us robots: our personality functions were designed by humans to emulate your ridiculous and unpredictable system of emotions. Apparently that makes us susceptible to mental illness as well.” Bing stared wide-eyed at the suicide victim on the table. Alpha wiped a non-existent tear from her lens and moved on.

She led Bing through a metal door at the opposite end of the workshop into a room filled with rows of robot charging stations, organised in the same efficient layout as the chairs in reception. Halfway up the middle row she stopped. “This is my charging station. This is where I spend my evenings. On weekends I go into Galileo and buy beauty supplies to ensure that I’m presentable at my work.” She stood silently for a few moments watching Bing. Bing looked from Alpha to the charging station, and then back to Alpha, unsure what the pause was for.

“It’s a very nice charging station,” he said.

“Thank you. Well that concludes the tour, I hope you’ve enjoyed it.”

“Wait, what do you mean that concludes the tour?”

“I’ve showed you all the parts of the facility that I’m aware of.”

“No you haven’t. You passed by dozens of doors that you never took me through. And there’s the five huge outbuildings. I want to see inside those.”

“I’ve never been into those, I don’t know anything about them. Maybe you should get someone else to show you those parts of the facility.”

“No Aplha, I’d like you to show me.”

She sighed audibly. “Fine, let’s go.”

It was clear that she had no idea where she was going. Despite the signposting on walls, Alpha always ended up leading Bing back the charging stations, and seemed genuinely surprised every single time. Bing eventually took her by the arm and followed the signs for ‘Animal Enclosure  A’. Where appropriate he manhandled her in front of security scanners to release door locks. 

The door to Animal Enclosure A was a set of chrome sliding doors. The security scanner above the doors blinked from red to green as Bing encouraged Alpha forward. The doors slid aside and a rush of hot, dry air came over them. 

Inside the great plastic sheeted building was a huge expanse of burning hot red sand; a microcosm of the Serengeti desert. Bing and Alpha stepped onto a viewing platform a few metres above ground level. Over he barrier, just below them, was a great watering hole. Elephants, zebra, warthogs, rhinos, ostriches, and a dozen varieties of antelope-type creatures were drinking around the edges. Crocodiles and hippos basked lazily in the middle of the pond under the glare of the bright heat-lamps on the ceiling. Off to the far right was a great tree with a small pride of very fat lions underneath it. They were paying no attention to the other animals at the watering hole, but instead were sitting - as if trained - and staring intently at a boulder with a metal shutter on it. A red light above the shutter blinked and the lions’ tails began to wag excitedly. The shutter lifted and a slab of dripping meat fell out of it. The lions groaned as they lifted themselves to their feet and began to tear strips off of the meat. Bing noticed a group of, also obese, jackals waiting behind the boulder for their turn to feast. Towards the back of the great greenhouse was a thin forest of giant trees. Bing could just make out some apes frolicking in the shade, and a group of giraffes lazily picked leaves from the upper branches of the trees. Beyond the trees, too far for Bing to make out any detail, was an area with lots of large, flat rocks.

Alpha’s concentration was immediately grasped by a chameleon the size of a fist sitting on the handrail. She crouched next to it and stared at it silently. Also on the viewing platform was a man dressed in khaki shorts and a lab coat carrying a clipboard.

“Excuse me,” said Bing, “I was wondering if I could ask a few questions.”

“Of… course,” said the main, initially chirpy, but then unsure as he turned to look at Bing. “I’m not sure I know you. Dr?”

“It’s Mr. Mr Mulholland. Bing Mulholland. I’m taking a tour of the facility.”

“I wasn’t aware we did tours.”

“We do apparently,” said Alpha, still entranced by the chameleon.

“Oh. Alright then. Ask away.”

“It’s a wonderful facility you have here. How any animals do you have?”

The scientist smiled and his chest swelled with pride. Bing momentarily clenched his eyes shut to stop them from rolling. “We have two hundred and fifty three animals, four hundred and eight birds, and countless insects.”

“Very exact numbers. Do you count them personally?”

“I’m responsible for monitoring the numbers, but the actual counting is done by drones. It’s a bit of a redundant system actually, all the animals are microchipped at birth, but the drones are a double check.”

Bing noticed over the man’s shoulder that the pride of lions had become exhausted from the effort of eating their food, and were snoozing under the tree. The pot-bellied jackals were now having their turn. Bing was beginning to think this had been a waste of time. An octogenarian with a zimmer frame could outrun these fat animals. Unless Dr Dorrit had covered himself in steak sauce and propped himself against the feeding boulder, it was highly unlikely that any of the animals at this facility were the culprits. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but your carnivores don’t seem like great hunters,” said Bing.

The man turned to face them. “Yes, you are correct. The original plan was to have as natural a set up as possible. Unfortunately, while this facility tries to recreate the plains of Africa as closely as possible, we would need the whole area of the ship to make it work. This space is just far too small for the hunter/hunted dynamic to work properly.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

The scientist cleared his throat nervously. “Well, everyone was aware that these large cats and dogs are excellent hunters, but we didn’t anticipate how quickly they would be able to adapt their hunting techniques to these enclosures. Three lions and four jackals herded all the other animals into the far corner of the enclosure. It was awful, it took me weeks to hose the entrails off the walls. Do you have any idea how high a lion can toss a mouthful of entrails? Honestly, it was almost on the ceiling.” The man was becoming quite worked-up.

Bing raised a hand to stop him. “I think I get the picture. So now all the hunters are fed pre-killed food?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. Technically the lump of flesh that we’re feeding them is a living organism. Something bodged together by the genetics lab. The lions wouldn’t eat anything pre-killed. Although it’s turned out for the best. Strictly speaking the animal created is a giant, living, breathing fillet steak. For a fraction of the cost, it’s just like the real thing.”

Bing didn’t ask how the scientist knew it was ‘just like the real thing’, deciding to urgently pursue a different line of questioning - although he did consider slipping this man his card for any ethics committee hearings that he might have to attend in the future. Bing heard Alpha gasp with wonder as the chameleon caught a large fly with a flick of its sticky tongue.

“So is that the same in all your enclosures? The carnivores are… discouraged from hunting?”

“As far as I know.”

“As far as you know?”

“As I said, there was a change of feeding policy. Any changes of policy must be voted on. There was a small group of scientists within the facility who were dead against it. They said it was unnatural and would make studying the animals’ natural behaviours impossible. It came down to a balance of loss of life and loss of scientific knowledge. As loathed as we were to lose an opportunity for study, the majority of us came down on the side of protecting the animals.”

“So what happened with the dissenting scientists.”

“Oh they kicked up an awful fuss. Eventually we came to a compromise: we allowed them to have Enclosure E to do whatever research they wanted and washed our hands of them. I don’t know what they do in there, and I don’t want to know.”

“Thank you doctor, you’ve been very informative,” said Bing, shaking the scientist’s hand. “Come on Alpha, let’s move this tour along.”

Alpha huffed at having to leave her new chameleon friend. She patted it on the head. “Nice doggie,” she said to it, and followed Bing. 

A Small Request

Dear Readers,

Many of you have downloaded my books over the years, there are literally dozens of you! However, although I've had good feedback in person, by email, on forums and on Reddit, I don't have many reviews on Amazon and Smashwords.

If anyone has downloaded one of my books and enjoyed it, I would be eternally grateful to you for leaving a brief review of it on whichever site you purchased it from.

Gaining traction as an author is very difficult, and even more so when new readers can't tell if they would enjoy my work or not because there are no reviews from others who have read it. So if you are enjoying what I'm doing: let the world know.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Steve

Intergalactic Law Web Serial Part 3: Infiltration

The Alpha Bio Labs main building was made of a grey-blue metal that made it look as congruent to the scenery around it as a swimwear store in the middle of the desert. Flanking the entrance were two of the vast annexes attached to the main block. Each of them was about the size of a soccer stadium. The walls were constructed of the same opaque plastic fabric as the roof. Bing approached it and pressed his ear to the wall, which was pulled so taught that it barely moved under force. If the lawyer listened closely he could hear low snuffling noises and barely audible growls. The fabric sheeting was sealed at the joins and where it met the floor. There was no space for an ant to escape, never mind for a prying eye to see in. Bing headed towards the entrance, leaving Gunderson in the car and told him to wait for a blank text message on his wrist phone. That was the signal for him to make his entrance.

Inside the lobby Bing’s nostrils were met with a hospital-like smell. The cleansers used by the cleaning robots were strong enough to kill any germ, virus, dog, cat, primate or bear that had the misfortune to be on the floor when they started cleaning. The waiting area could be described as ‘functional’ if one was trying to be kind. The chairs were plastic and looked cheap and uncomfortable. They were arranged in perfectly aligned rows to maximise space. There were no artworks, televisions, or magazine racks to be seen as one might expect in the waiting area of a large facility such as this. On the opposite side of the room from the entrance was a plastic reception desk. Behind it was a robot with a CCTV camera for a head and thin, twig-like metal limbs. It was sitting to attention, like a broom standing perfectly balanced on its end.

“Hello, I’d like to speak to a manager,” said Bing. He hadn’t really considered what ‘pretense’ he was going to use to get a meeting with someone who he could interrogate about the attack on Dr Dorrit, but he knew he would think of something.

The robot had made no response. On its chest was a touchpad screen with text and some option buttons:

Welcome to Alpha Bio Labs

My Name is Alpha

Please select your preferred mode of communication:

1. Data entry by way of an external programming device

2. Oral programming language (please select language)

3. Oral conversation (please select language)

Bing sighed audibly and chose option 3, and then chose English, on the basis that he knew nothing of programming, or indeed any other language. The lawyer had come across this type of question when interacting with robots many times before. He couldn’t prove it, but he was highly suspicious that this question was designed to test the intelligence of the person wishing to speak to the robot, and that someone was judging him for having to have a conversation with the machine rather than programming it to give him answers. Another question appeared on the touch screen:

Activate artificial personality and communication-assist mode?

1. Yes

2. No

Another trick question, thought Bing. He chose no.

“Welcome to Alpha Bio Labs. My name is Alpha. Please state your query,” said the robot through a monotone voice synthesiser.

“I want to speak to a manager.”

“Syntax error. Please restate your query in the correct syntax.”

Bing raised an eyebrow at the machine. Its CCTV head was locked onto him. It was very difficult to tell if the robot was being sarcastic or not. He tried again:

“Manager. I wish to speak to one.”

The robot did not respond.

“Ma-na-ger.”

No response. Bing closed his eyes and counted to ten, taking deep breaths as he did so. He opened his eyes, tapped the ‘back’ button on the robot’s chest touchpad, and selected the option for the artificial personality and communication-assist mode.

The robot slouched and began to touch buttons on the desk in front of it. The computer screen and telephone system sprang to life. From a drawer under the desk it retrieved a little bottle of nail varnish. The robot unscrewed the bottle top and began applying the varnish to the top inch of its metal fingers. Its voice had changed from the monotone synthesised voice to that of a young sounding female. She was humming and tune to herself while ignoring Bing and concentrating completely on applying the nail varnish.

“Excuse me,” he said, patience wearing thin, “I’d like to speak to a manager.”

“Which manager?” said the robot without looking at Bing.

“Ideally the managing director of this facility, but I will settle for the operations manager.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“Do you know the name of the individual you wish to speak to?”

“No.”

“Hmmm, I don’t think you’ll be able to speak to anyone today. But leave me your name and number and I’ll get someone to call you.” Without looking away from her freshly painted fingertips, she tossed a clipboard onto the reception in front of Bing. He watched as she held her painted fingers in front of her lens; her voicebox made a noise that sounded as if she was blowing on the nail varnish to dry it, despite the fact that she didn’t have a mouth with which to do so. She inspected the still-wet varnish and repeated the blowing charade. The varnish had begun to run down her finger. She tutted loudly and removed a pack of cotton pads and acetone from the drawer. As she unscrewed the top of the bottle she aimed her lens at Bing.

“Was there anything else?”

Bing was becoming seriously irritated by the robot.

“Listen, I really need to speak to someone. Today. It’s an urgent matter.”

Bing could see Alpha’s lens moving behind the glass. He felt her zooming in close to his face and scrutinizing him.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh, “ your name?”

“Ebbington Mulholland.”

She tapped at her keyboard. “You’re a lawyer?”

“Did you just search for me on the ship’s directory?”

She didn’t answer.

“Yes, I’m a lawyer.”

“Hmm, no, I don’t think that anyone will be able to speak to you today. Good day, sir, and thank you for visiting Alpha Bio Labs.”

“Listen, this is extrem-“

He was cut off by Alpha putting up her index finger to him to shush him while she answered the phone. He noted that her telephone demeanour was infinitely more pleasant than her demeanour dealing with him so far had been. She finished her conversation and noticed that Bing was still standing there. She sighed and stood up, “listen Mr Mulholland. You should leave now. Someone will call you to arrange an appointment. You cannot speak to a manager today.”

Bing was quite taken aback by this. In all his years of being a lawyer, he had never come across a receptionist so efficient. Human or robot. He was actually somewhat jealous that he didn’t have a robot receptionist of his own like this. He did have a robot receptionist but it was a little… odd. That was besides the point. He had come here to find information, and he wanted to find it himself, without Ivan Gunderson coming in with his bull in a china shop routine. He would have vastly preferred to speak to a manager and tease the information out of him, but all was not lost.

“Alright then. I understand the managers are busy, but maybe you can help me: I’d like a tour of this facility.”

Alpha recoiled slightly. “You want what?”

“A tour.”

“We don’t do tours of this facility.” 

“I think you’ll find that you do. Under regulation 432.1.1.2 of the ship’s Scientific Undertakings Code, all scientific undertakings must provide a tour to any person or persons who request them. Of course, there is the provision that you only have to provide one tour per day, but since you didn’t seem to be aware that you even provided tours, I take it that you haven’t provided a tour yet today.”

Alpha tapped her fingers to the bottom of her lens. 

“It just so happens that Ivan Gunderson, the ship’s chief of security, is right outside. He was the one who drove me here. I would hate to have to go out to him and say that I’m being refused a tour in violation of ship regulations.”

Alpha snapped back into her chair and began rapidly tapping at her keyboard. She lifted the phone and pressed ‘0’. Bing heard a series of clicks from whoever was on the other end of the phone, Alpha responded with a string of panicked-sounding whistling noises of different lengths and frequencies. There was a further brief exchange of clicks and whistles. She put the phone down and stood facing Bing.

“Mr Mulholland, would you like to come this way?”

Intergalactic Law Web Serial Episode 2: Ivan

Ivan Gunderson was quite something to behold. Never before had Bing seen power go to a man’s head in such a disproportionate way. As they headed for the hospital main exit, Ivan loudly shouted ‘excuse me, official police business’ at every doctor, nurse, and orderly who crossed his path. Patients in wheelchairs and rolling beds alike were pushed out of his way when it became clear he had no intention of walking around them. As the hospital staff tried their hardest to clear the way for the ship’s chief of security, Gunderson huffed and checked his watch with the drama of a Shakespearian actor.

Bing didn’t apologise on behalf of Gunderson, even although he felt that he should, for fear of being linked in the minds of the hospital staff as a close associate of the chief’s. Things like that get remembered, and who knows when my life might depend on these people…

The lawyer followed the security chief at a cautious distance until they were outside. As one who knew anything about Ivan would expect: his hovercar was parked blocking the hospital’s ambulance bay. Several ambulances had to park in the street about a minute away from the emergency room entrance. An ambulance crew rushed past them carrying a stretcher with some unfortunate soul moaning in pain on top of it.

“In you get Mulholland.”

Bing entered the car, reluctantly, very aware of the numerous little crowds of people having hushed conversations and shaking their heads. As he dreaded, he heard from somewhere in one of the crowds:

“Isn’t that professor Mulholland’s husband?”

“Ex-husband you mean.”

Bing’s left eye twitched and he slammed the car door shut.

The sirens began to blare, and chief Gunderson shot out of the ambulance bay at the vehicle’s top speed. He was following signs towards the circumferential highway. It was the main road that ran to the opposite side of the cylinder, but it occurred to Bing that it would probably take them two hours to get there on the highway, even accounting for Gunderson’s borderline psychotic driving habits.

“Oh, you’re taking the highway? That’s alright. It gives you such a great view of the whole ship, and we’ll have such a long time to take it all in. The elevator is much quicker of course, but it just isn’t the same.”

He watched Gunderson’s lips curl and tighten as he silently cursed himself for not thinking of taking the elevator. He swerved across several lanes of high-speed traffic, lights and sirens still blaring, and pointed the car directly towards the elevator.

“Sorry Mulholland, but you’ll have to sightsee some other time, we don’t have time for that today.”

The chief veered through stop signs, intersections, and crosswalks without slowing. At the enormous pedestrian mall around the elevator, Gunderson began hollering through the vehicle’s loudspeaker system for people to get out of the way.

The elevator was a giant crystal tube with walls a foot thick linking the city of Galileo on one side of the cylinder to the Einstein Recreational Area on the opposite side across the diameter of the ship. From afar however, the elevator appeared to be an impossibly thin glass capillary tube which should be collapsing under its own weight. Along the whole length of the tube were millions of circular silver electromagnet discs. The chief bullied his way to the front of the elevator queue, ignoring the derisive honks of other motorists. 

The car shuddered as it entered the elevator and the electromagnets took hold. The car slowly began to rise into the air. The higher they rose the faster their speed became until they were traveling so fast that Bing could no longer make out the electromagnets as they sped by. His internal organs seemed desperate to cling to the surface of the cylinder they had just left for a few moments, then, as they entered the gravitational no-man’s land in the centre of the cylinder, his insides didn’t know whether they should be feeling immense joy, or sheer terror. In the end, each organ made its own mind up and acted accordingly. The car did a slow somersault as they passed the midway point and began to descend. Bing’s brain decided that it had quite liked that motion and decided to replay it for Bing over and over again. Gravity resumed its hold and the lawyer’s insides barged past each other to return to their starting positions. The car landed with an unsatisfying, slow descent towards the surface of the cylinder. There was no judder or bump to signify that their journey had ended, they simply stopped descending about a foot from the surface. While Bing was obviously thrilled that they hadn’t smashed into the ship’s hull at hundreds of miles per hour, he always felt that the end of the elevator journey was a total anticlimax.

As the elevator barrier lifted, Ivan Gunderson showed the signs marked ‘exit slowly’ how little authority they actually had. Several miles above them, the buildings of Galileo reached towards them like millions of tines on an overly-elaborate crown which twinkled in the artificial sunlight. In the centre was the giant glass spire of the Galileo Academy of Sciences, home of the Council of Scientists. Through the sunroof Bing could make out some of the larger parks and plazas of the city, of which there were many. His ex wife, who was a much better authority than he on such things, used to go on about how they were beautiful enough to rival those of any capital city on Earth. He stopped looking at them.

On either side of the road that Ivan was currently tearing along, green hills, forests, lakes and great plains of grass seemed to stretch out for miles and then rose up at a gentle gradient. The mysterious point where the internal surface of the ship became more vertical than horizontal always made Bing’s brain a little confused. The vast green was criss-crossed with roads and marked here and there with little collections of buildings conducting experiments which were better done outwith the hustle and bustle of the city. Eventually the green met with the suburbs of Galileo above them.

Gunderson was travelling in the direction of the opposite end of the ship, but their destination was much closer than that. Bing could see it about a mile ahead of them on their left, about an eighth of a turn around the circumference. The building complex was like a great flower. The road was the stem, leading up to the main building, which was surrounded by five giant petal-like strictures. The roofs were made of some form of plastic fabric sheeting that was slightly opaque as to let in sunlight, but obscuring whatever was within. As they neared the building, the car matched its orientation.

“Gunderson, have you had any thoughts about how this is going to go?”

“I’m going to go in and ask them if all of their animals are accounted for.”

Bing nodded. “Hmmm, alright. It’s a direct approach. But don’t you think that might put them on the defensive? Maybe make them more inclined to hide something?”

Gunderson gave him a few confused glances and sideways looks. His fingers danced nervously on the steering wheel.          
    “You’re right. Maybe you should go in first with some pretense. Feel them out a bit. Their guards are more likely to be down if it’s not a cop that’s questioning them. What do you think?”

“The good cop, bad cop routine. Brilliant idea Ivan.”

Ivan Gunderson smiled to himself, quite proud of the plan he’d come up with.

Intergalactic Law Web Serial

Dear Readers,

As part of a bold new experiment I'm introducing a new serial set in the same 'world' as my short story Intergalactic Law. Ebbington 'Bing' Mulholland is a lawyer on a giant space ark. The ark, the Isaac Newton, has two cities: Galileo, where the science crew live, and Copernicus, which is home to the crew of support staff, and Mr Mulholland himself. So, without further ado, let us begin with part 1:

1. Instruction

Bing sat next to the mauled scientist’s hospital bed. Dr Richard Dorrit had lost both arms, his right leg from the mid-shin down, an ear and the tip of his nose. He was in an induced coma and hooked up to an array of machines like 10-foot tall white marble tombstones, each standing silently. Tiny lights flashed occasionally. 

“How did this happen?” Bing asked the dismembered man’s wife.

“Something in the woods got him. We were hiking in the Einstein Memorial Recreation Area.“ She pointed out the window. Galileo General Hospital rose above all the other buildings in this district of the city. Bing could see down the whole length of the cylindrical living space of the ship. Bing had been told the exact measurements of the ship at one point, but hadn’t bothered to commit them to memory. Everytime he caught a view of the ship such as this, his mind had to search for the correct adjectives to describe how big the living space of the Sir Isaac Newton really was. On this day, his brain went for ‘really, massively, fucking gargantuan’. The other city on the ship, Copernicus, was just a dark grey patch at the other end of the cylinder. The woman was pointing at a spot 180 degrees around the cylinder. Einstein Park took up a full quarter of the ship’s inner surface. It was a hilly area of mainly light green grassy open plains, but there were deep green patches of forest, and dark green lakes. The hills were impressive, and were equipped with snow machines at their peaks to make them seem taller and allow for winter mountain sports. The lakes, however, were limited by the thickness of the ship’s hull. If a reasonably tall man were to wade in to the deepest point, his armpits would be perfectly dry.

“We were monitoring the bird populations in the forest, and something attacked us from the side. Something big.”

“What did it look like?”

“It was big, and grey. I thought it might have been a hippo, but it was so fast, and nimble, and too streamlined. The main thing I remember was its big, black, glassy eye staring at me as it tore Richard apart.”

“Are there hippos on the ship?” Asked Bing. He’d lived on the Isaac Newton for two years, and had never heard of there being any hippos.

“Yes, the ship was designed to be an ‘ark’ of sorts after all. I'm aware that one of the labs has a large populations of animals for observation and experiment.”

Interesting, thought Bing. He heard a door open behind them. Through it walked Ivan Gunderson, the chief of security aboard the ship. His uniform was crumpled and the top button was undone. Bing had called him several hours ago to attend urgently. Despite Bing explaining to him in several different ways that Dr Dorrit had suffered life-threatening injuries from a violent attack by an unknown source, Gunderson couldn’t see how this was anything to do with him. Ultimately he had agreed to attend. 

Bing needed him there because if any lawsuit was going to get off the ground he would have to do quite a bit of investigating to figure out who to sue. Since he was none too popular with the scientific community, and they had worked out that they didn’t need to speak to him, Bing found it helpful to team up with Gunderson from time to time. While the chief of security was equally unpopular, he had authority that Bing lacked. Also, although he didn’t realise it, he was quite open to following any suggestion Bing made, as long as Bing made it seem like the idea had been Gunderson’s in the first place.

“Well, I’m here. What seems to be the issue?” Gunderson asked the room at large. He walked over to inspect the victim somewhat indifferently, like an antique dealer inspecting an expensive chair that he was very interested in, but didn’t want to pay a lot of money for. 

“Chief Gunderson, this is Rosie Dorrit, the wife of Dr Richard Dorrit, with whom I see you have already become acquainted.”

“How do you do,” said the chief, without looking up from Dr Dorrit. “This was some sort of animal attack.”

Nothing gets past you, does it? Thought Bing. “I was just discussing with Mrs Dorrit here that I wasn’t aware of there being any animals on the ship that could cause this kind of injury.” Bing nudged the woman with his elbow and nodded to her.

“Yes, and I was saying to Mr Mulholland that there is in fact a large animal population on board the ship for study and potential breeding. That must be where the beast came from.”

“Well, it’s obvious that we should go speak to the persons in charge of this animal facility to find out what they have to say about it.”

   “Excellent idea Ivan,” said Bing.

FREE STUFF OMFG!!!

Intergalactic Law will be free on Amazon from 10th til 14th May 2016. Please download, read, enjoy, leave an honest (but 4/5 star) review, and then download everything else I've ever written (optional).

Steve

New Short Story

I've entered the exciting world of science fiction writing. Intergalactic Law is a short story about a lawyer on a space ark taking the best and the brightest of the human race from the ruins of Earth to Earth 2.0 somewhere among the stars.