Tropic of Death by Robert Sims Page A

friend.’
    ‘In that case I apologise. I didn’t mean to be officious.’
    He dismissed that with a grunt. ‘How is he anyway?’
    ‘Popular,’ she answered. ‘A bit too popular, sometimes.’
    ‘Still tweaking the faculty’s nose? Still preaching hi-tech revolution?’
    ‘His big theme is machine intelligence, if that’s what you mean,’ she replied. ‘But his nose-tweaking will be at Cambridge next semester. He’s landed a post as visiting professor.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Steinberg nodded sadly, as if revisiting a source of regret. ‘He’s always been smart, young Huxley. One of my brightest students, then he overtook me. He was destined for success.’
    Rita studied his expression. ‘And what about you? You don’t seem too happy with where destiny’s brought you.’
    ‘ Here? Of course not. But you already know that.’
    ‘Yet many of your fellow academics would be envious - of a defence research salary, if nothing else.’
    ‘The money’s generous because it purchases your soul. The discoveries here have nothing to do with enlightening humanity.
    Quite the opposite. Working here negates the reason I became a scientist.’
    ‘Why don’t you leave?’
    ‘Timing, my dear. Timing. And endurance.’
    ‘At least you’ve got a pleasant location to endure.’
    ‘Ha!’ There was no humour in his strangled laugh. ‘You may think you’ve arrived on an idyllic stretch of the Queensland coast, but you haven’t. You’ve entered no-man’s land.’
    ‘You’re talking about a tropical beach resort.’
    ‘No. I’m talking about a tropic of death.’
    ‘I assume you’re speaking metaphorically.’
    ‘Not at all. Look …’ Steinberg hesitated, then went on. ‘I don’t want any friend of Byron to find themselves in harm’s way.
    But if you stay here and conduct your investigation with anything like integrity, that’s exactly what will happen. You’ll be treated as a hostile.’
    ‘By whom?’
    ‘The real authorities here.’
    ‘Dr Steinberg,’ Rita said. ‘I’m having trouble making sense of what you’re trying to tell me.’
    ‘Think East Berlin in the seventies. Think Stasi.’
    ‘I find that hard to imagine.’
    ‘Not for me. Members of my family had to suffer it, and the parallel here is unnerving.’
    ‘When you say here , you mean the base?’
    ‘A closed institution with a reach far beyond the perimeter fence,’ he answered. ‘ Here is wherever it wants to be. Unlike the Stasi, our guardians have access to the full range of twenty-first-century technology.’
    ‘The comparison, I’ve got to say, seems a bit Orwellian.’
    ‘The comparison is valid and if you stay long enough you’ll see why. There’s a line I keep thinking of: “death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush.”’
    ‘What’s that from?’ she asked.
    ‘Conrad’s Heart of Darkness .’
    Rita couldn’t decide if the physicist was giving her a genuine warning, or if being embedded in a military research establishment had made him more than a little paranoid. Either way, she needed evidence.
    ‘What do you know about the murders?’ she asked.
    ‘I have no direct knowledge. Sorry to disappoint you.’
    ‘But you know something.’
    ‘There’s no doubt the death of Rachel Macarthur served a purpose. Ergo, so did that of the first victim. The purpose was to silence them.’
    ‘You don’t believe they’re victims of a serial killer?’
    ‘No. That flies in the face of probability. And logic.’
    ‘Logic?’
    ‘Yes, Miss Nederlander.’ Steinberg clasped his hands together in something of a professorial pose. ‘Ever heard of Ockham’s razor?’
    ‘Isn’t that some medieval concept?’
    ‘It’s a scientific principle: the simplest explanation to fit the facts is most likely the correct one. A random lunatic on the loose is a superfluous entity and an all too convenient misdirection.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Rita still needed convincing. ‘Silence them about what?’
    ‘The environmental threat