Starbase Human Read Online Free Page B

that expression a smile, but it wasn’t. It was rueful.
    “They told me that there was a woman in crate A1865.”
    DeRicci made a mental note about the number. Before this investigation was over, she’d learn everything about this operation, from the crate numbering system to the way that the conveyer operated to the actual mulching process.
    “That’s what they said?” she asked. “A woman in the crate?”
    “Crate A1865,” he repeated, as if he wanted that detail to be exactly right.
    “What did you think when you heard that?” DeRicci asked.
    He shook his head, then sighed. “I—we’ve had this happen before, Detective. Not for more than a year, but we’ve found bodies. Usually homeless people in the crates near the port, people who came into Armstrong and can’t get out. Sometimes we get an alien or two sleeping in the crates. The Oranjanie view rotting produce as a luxury, and they look human from some angles.”
    Member species of the Earth Alliance had to stop at the Port of Armstrong first before traveling to Earth. Some travelers never made it into Earth’s protected zone, and got stuck on the Moon itself.
    Right now, however, she had no reason to suspect alien involvement in this crime. She preferred working human-on-human crime. It made the investigation so much easier.
    “You’ve found human bodies in your crates before,” she clarified.
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “And the police have investigated?”
    “All of the bodies, alien and human,” he said. “Different precincts, usually, and different time periods. My grandmother started this business over one hundred years ago. She found bodies even way back then.”
    DeRicci guessed it would make sense to hide a body in one of the crates. Or someone would think it made sense.
    “Do you think that bodies have gotten through the mulching process?” It took her a lot of strength not to look at the conveyer belt as she asked that question.
    “I don’t think a lot got through,” Ansel said. “I know some did. Back in my grandmother’s day. She’s the one who set up the safeguards. We might have had a few glitches after the safeguards were in place, before we knew how well they worked, but I can guarantee nothing has gone through since I started managing this company twenty-five years ago.”
    DeRicci tried not to shudder as she thought about human flesh serving as compost at the Growing Pits. She hated Moon-grown food, and she had a hunch she was going to hate it more after this case.
    But she had to keep asking questions.
    “You said you can guarantee it,” she repeated.
    He nodded.
    “What if someone cut up the body?” she asked.
    He grimaced. “The pieces would have to be small to get past our weight and size restrictions. Forgive me for being graphic, but no full arms or legs or torsos or heads. Maybe fingers and toes. We have nanoprobes on these things, looking for human DNA. But the probes are coating the lining of the crates. If someone buried a finger in the middle of some rotting lettuce, we might miss it.”
    She forced herself to swallow back some bile and wished she had some savings. She wanted to go home and purge her refrigerator of anything grown on the Moon and buy expensive, Earth-grown produce.
    But she couldn’t afford that, not on a detective’s salary.
    “Fair enough,” she said, surprised she could sound so calm when she was so thoroughly grossed out. “No full bodies have gone through in at least twenty-five years. But you’ve seen quite a few. How many?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d have to check the records.”
    That surprised her. It meant that enough had gone through to make it hard to keep track. “Any place where they show up the most often?”
    “The port,” he said. “There’s a lot of homeless in that neighborhood.”
    Technically, they weren’t homeless. They were people who lived on the city’s charity. A lot of small, cubicle-sized rooms existed on the port blocks, and anyone who