“I didn’t ask a whole lot of questions,” I say. “To be honest, there was a lot of yelling. I think some of those guys were pretty drunk.”
“Let me smell your breath.”
I clutch my free hand to my chest. “You wound me, sir! I am of sound mind and body.”
“This is a sobriety test, not a cute test.” She taps her jetpack controls to nudge herself closer to me. I can’t find another nearby handhold to escape, and honestly, I don’t want to. “I want to know how drunk you are.”
“Well—”
Before another lame excuse can escape my mouth, Ellie kisses me.
Her eyes are shut, and I look around frantically to see if anybody’s watching. Fortunately, Ellie’s smart: she maneuvered me into a niche between the control console and one of the side access doors. We’re completely hidden from view of the rest of main engineering.
Might as well enjoy it, Kangaroo.
I let my eyelids close. Her lips are incredibly soft. Her tongue dances over mine. She pulls away long before I’m ready to stop. “Yeah, you’re good,” she says, smiling.
“Are you sure you don’t want to check again?” I ask.
She pats my chest, pushing herself backward. “I’ll have someone deliver a portable spinner to your room.”
“Oh, I can move it myself,” I say. “I know everybody’s pretty busy today. Wouldn’t want to interrupt anyone’s work.”
Ellie frowns. “It’s a large piece of machinery.”
“We’re in zero-gravity. It’ll be fun.”
She shakes her head and taps at her wristband. “If you say so. But you break it, you buy it, mister.”
“I’ll be careful. I’m very good with my hands, as you know.”
She actually blushes. “All right, you need to leave now, Casanova. You know where ship’s stores are?”
I don’t. She gives me directions to one of the upper crew decks and a requisition number to repeat to the chandler.
“Also,” she says, “I’m off duty at 1800 hours today. That’s six o’clock to you. And I’m free from then until midnight.”
I do my best to keep my grin merely stupid and not entirely shit-eating. “Do you already have plans for dinner?”
“Why, no, I do not, Evan.”
I try to recall the name of the fanciest restaurant on the ship. “Have you tried the food at that Silk place yet? I hear it’s new.”
Ellie’s eyebrows threaten to lift her entire face. “Are you talking about Fête Silk Road?”
“That’s the one. Say seven o’clock?”
“I’m not sure you can get a reservation this late.”
“Let me worry about that.” I’m confident President Maitland and his brothers can get us in.
“If you say so.” She taps her jetpack controls, spinning away from me slowly. “Make it seven-thirty. That’ll give me more time to get ready.”
She gives me one more dazzling smile over her shoulder before she flies away.
I float, literally and figuratively, up to ship’s stores. The chandler gives me a funny look, but the chief engineer’s signature on a requisition isn’t something he’s prepared to argue with. He brings out the centrifuge in a bulky, padded bundle, a cube roughly one meter across on each side. I wrestle it down the corridor until I’m sure nobody’s watching, then think of a fuzzy blanket with a colorful zigzag pattern and push the centrifuge into the pocket with a nudge.
Zero-gravity! Fun. I start thinking about what I’m going to wear to my fancy dinner tonight. I can’t possibly be seen in the same tuxedo two nights in a row. And Ellie’s going to be out of uniform, I’m sure.
I nearly have a heart attack when I run into Jemison coming out of the elevator.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asks.
“Going to Mars?”
“What are you still doing in the crew section,” she says, enunciating every word.
“Where else am I going to go?”
“You’re on a goddamn cruise ship, Rogers,” Jemison says. “There are fifteen decks of amenities to keep our passengers entertained at all hours.”
“I told you, I’m not a tourist.”
“So you’re just creeping around here watching people work?”
That probably wasn’t the best explanation I could have come up with. “Are you saying I’m not welcome here, Chief?”
Jemison stares at me. “She’s on duty right now. That’s why you can’t find her.”
“Who’s on duty?”
Jemison folds her arms. “You do understand what a ‘vacation romance’ is, right?”
I don’t like what she’s insinuating. “Sure. As a matter of fact, I just picked up Scotsmen Prefer Blondes from the bookshop on the Promenade. Want to borrow it after I’m done?”
Jemison rolls her eyes. “Forget it. Did you get Wachlin’s file?”
I blink my eye over to comms. “Not yet.” Paul must be busy; a routine request like that wouldn’t take very long to clear. “How’s your investigation going?”
“We can talk about it over lunch. Come on.”
“Does this mean you want my help?”
“Lunch first,” she says. “I can’t deal with you on an empty stomach.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dejah Thoris—Deck 17, crew mess hall
8 hours before I start dosing civilians with experimental biotech
The crew mess hall seems more crowded than yesterday, but I quickly realize that’s because people are standing on every available surface, including walls and ceilings. In zero-gravity, every room has six possible floors.
Lunch here is similar to what was available in the passenger buffet. Everyone has a choice of meal types today: “Apollo,” which re-creates the rehydratable food-in-a-tube menu options available to the very first space travelers; or “Discovery,” which offers more conventional preparations served in sealed plastic trays. Thirty seconds in a wide-spectrum light oven, and that chunky yellow brick turns into a serving of shrimp and grits you can actually eat with a spoon like a civilized human being.
Jemison grabs two trays of food and an empty drink bulb. She heats both trays in an oven while filling the bulb from a coffee dispenser. I choose a chicken quesadilla, then look around the room while waiting for it to cook.
The crew must know about the murders by now. Santamaria couldn’t keep that quiet, not with so many people involved in the radiation cleanup detail. That’s got to be pretty unnerving.
Jemison leads me to an empty table, and we “sit” across from each other. In zero-gravity, human bodies at rest naturally relax into a sort of half-crouch. I unwrap my food carefully, blowing away the steam that was sealed inside the plastic.
“We need Alan Wachlin’s file,” Jemison says. “Logan’s scrubbing through the ship’s security footage, but if the killer was planning this before we sailed, they wouldn’t want to be seen interacting with any of the Wachlins. We need background information to cross-reference with our passenger records.”
“You’ll know as soon as I hear back from the office,” I say. “Have you worked up any other leads? Do you want me to interview anyone else? I can use my eye—”
“It’s not that we don’t appreciate your help, Rogers,” Jemison says. “But everyone on this ship, including you, is stuck here for the next four days. You’re already risking exposure. If something else goes sideways, you don’t have an escape route.”
“I hear this ship has plenty of lifeboats.”
“Not funny.”
“Too soon? Or I could just hide out in the crew sections and keep you company.”
Jemison replies through a mouthful of food, but my train of thought has just switched tracks. I look around the mess hall. Unlike the passenger areas, where people are dressed in all kinds of gaudy outfits, everyone here is wearing some kind of uniform. Nobody stands out.
It’s the perfect place to hide.
“What if it’s one of the crew?” I ask, interrupting whatever Jemison w
as saying.
She frowns at me. “What are you talking about?”
“The murderer,” I say. “What if it’s one of the crew? All the access doors into crew sections are locked. No one gets in without a thumbscan. But what about within the crew sections?”
“We have additional locks on sensitive areas,” Jemison says. “Engineering, the bridge, the computer core, some of the supply areas. Also anything leading to an airlock. You need special authorization to open those doors.”
“What about the elevators? Stairwells? I haven’t seen a single security camera in either of those places. Crew members can move between decks without being observed.”
“I get the idea,” she says, biting off the words. “Shit.”
“Logan’s looking at the passengers,” I say. “Nobody’s looking at the crew.”
“I can put some guys on that.”
“Danny and Mike? Are you sure you can trust them?”
Jemison makes a face like I just asked if she wants to eat some Moon rocks. “My people are solid.”
“Do you have a motive for these murders yet?” I ask. “Security would have the most access of anyone on this ship short of the senior officers. Are you one hundred percent certain that your people could never be turned?”
“Yes,” she replies. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Kangaroos don’t bark.”
My best material is wasted. “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Rogers.”
Before I can provoke her any further, my eye lights up with a comms notification. It’s from the office. There’s a vid message and a data attachment. I ignore the former and check the latter.
“I’ve got the data,” I say. “Alan Wachlin’s complete service record.”
“Good.” Jemison opens a pouch on her belt and pulls out a data card. “Copy it onto this.”
I take the small rectangle of translucent blue memory crystal. “You understand this is classified information.”
“Air-gapped machine, burn after reading. I know the drill.” Her eyes are cold. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.”
I nod. “This’ll just take a minute.” I reach one hand under the table, think of a green pencil, and open the pocket with the barrier. I push my forearm through the portal to grab my field data inscriber.
“What are you—” Jemison ducks under the table for a second to see what I’m doing. “What the hell! Are you crazy?”
“Relax.” I pull my arm back, close the pocket, and put the inscriber on the table. “All done. Nobody saw anything.” I risk a smile. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.”
“Just give me the file, Rogers.”
“What’s the magic word?”
I didn’t think it was possible for Jemison to look angrier than she did just a minute ago. “Now.”
It takes a few seconds for the inscriber to start up, half a minute for me to transmit the data from my shoulder-phone to the inscriber, and maybe fifteen seconds for the inscriber to write everything to the data card. Jemison grabs the card out of my hand as soon as I pull it from the inscriber slot.
“You want to talk about security risks?” She stands up and leans over me. “In my professional opinion, you are our biggest liability at the moment. I get that you’re special, Rogers. You can do things that nobody else on this ship can do. But that doesn’t give you immunity from screw-ups. If anything, it makes you more vulnerable to exposure. Do you understand?”
I don’t like being talked down to. “I’m not an idiot.”
“We’ll take care of analyzing this data. Consider yourself off duty until I call you again. Don’t do anything operational. Go have some fun. Just stay out of trouble, okay?”
There appears to be no chance of that, ever. “I’ll do my best.”
“Enjoy your lunch.”
Jemison takes her tray and pushes away from the table. I resume eating my quesadilla, which has now cooled and hardened into some kind of salty plastic substance.
Might as well watch the vid that came with the Wachlin file. Can’t be any worse than getting chewed out in person.
I twitch my fingertips to start playback. It’s Paul. Great.
“Kangaroo, Lasher,” he says. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s not wearing a tie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Paul without a necktie. “I’m sending the data you requested. Since you didn’t state the precise nature of your interest in this person, I can only assume you suspect him of some wrongdoing. I’ve reviewed the file, and I urge you to proceed with caution. Though I would prefer you to avoid contact altogether. Please advise soonest any escalation.”
He reaches toward something offscreen, then stops. “If, for some reason, the situation worsens but you are unable to contact the office, I want you to reach out to Dejah Thoris’s captain and the ship’s chief of security. They are both agency employees. Authenticate using live drop challenge. Whatever might happen out there, Captain Santamaria and his crew can handle it.
“Stay out of trouble, Kangaroo. Keep your head down. That is all.”
The vid ends. I don’t feel very hungry any more.
Everyone is so concerned about me screwing things up. It’s true, I’m not as experienced or skilled as Jemison or Santamaria at certain things. That’s fine. I’ll stay out of their way. But there are other things that only I can do.
I open Alan Wachlin’s service record in my eye and flip through it. Joined the army, Special Forces training, Mars deployment, dishonorable discharge, blah blah blah.
There it is. Thoracic implant: particle emission capture core. Radiation hazard. Quarterly medical inspection recommended.
Nobody else aboard this ship has radiation-treating nanobots in their blood. And it’s always easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dejah Thoris—Deck 6, Stateroom 6573
7 hours before my dinner with Ellie
After returning to my stateroom and locking the door, I power up my comms dish and call Jessica. She doesn’t answer. I wait fifteen minutes and try again. Still nothing.
I have no idea how the audit’s going or when she’ll be free again. And honestly, I’m not looking forward to getting yelled at by a third person in one hour. I know what I need to do.
I think of a fuzzy blanket and pull the centrifuge out of the pocket.
All the furniture in my stateroom is bolted down to prevent it from moving. I unpack the boxy centrifuge from its padding, place it in the center of the low coffee table, and retrieve some elastic straps from one of the many field equipment kits I always keep in the pocket.
After securing the centrifuge to the table, I open the pocket to a different location and find my emergency medkit. I haven’t actually looked at this thing since my annual first aid refresher course, which was several months ago. It takes me a minute to remember which of the gadgets are the blood samplers. I feel like Jessica could have labeled these a little more clearly.
I try to convince myself that the queasiness I feel while poking the syringe into my arm is my lunch disagreeing with me. It’s not the pain of the initial puncture that bothers me, or the soreness afterward, or even the sight of blood. I’ve seen plenty of blood—knife fights with artisanal hand-crafted shivs were a popular orphanage pastime. Also, a good hard punch in the nose will bust open some arteries and stop most arguments.
Bleeding doesn’t bother me. It’s knowing what else is in my blood now that disturbs me.
After I fill the test tube, I bandage up my arm. Then I realize I have no idea how to use this centrifuge.
I unstrap the metal box from the coffee table and find its make and model stamped into a plate on the bottom. I tie the centrifuge back down and use the desk computer to go online and find an operation manual. The medical section of my omnipedia says that spinning human blood at three thousand RPM for three minutes should be enough to separate plasma from heavier cells.
I call Jessica again. Still no
response.
I find an eyedropper in my bathroom and siphon about a third of my blood out of the test tube and into a plastic vial from one of the roulette-wheel sections in the centrifuge rotor. I fill another vial with water for counterbalance, then close the lid and punch my settings into the control panel.
Before starting the spin, I put the half-full test tube of blood in the mini-bar refrigerator and try Jessica again. Still nothing.
Do I really need her to walk me through this? How difficult can it possibly be? College undergraduates run lab centrifuges all the time. I’m a smart guy. I read the manual.
I double-check the centrifuge settings and push the START button.
The metal box starts wobbling almost immediately, and I grab the straps and hold it. My arms vibrate as the whine of the motor rises in pitch, and I feel the urge to look away, as if the thing might explode right in front of me. I remind myself that’s pretty unlikely, since the vials inside are made of a shatterproof polymer.
Regardless of my sound reasoning, the noise and vibration are nerve-wracking. I consider leaning forward and trying to press the ABORT button with my nose, but decide I don’t want to get my face that close.
The three-minute run lasts for an eternity, and when I hear the centrifuge spinning down, I realize that I was holding my breath.
I open the lid of the centrifuge and pull out both vials. I take the blood—now separated into a thick red layer at the bottom and translucent yellow liquid at the top—into the bathroom. This next part might be tricky.
The nanobots in my blood have short-range wireless radio transceivers. They communicate with my other tech implants to form a mesh network. As long as I keep the nanobots within about half a meter of some part of my body, they’ll remain connected. They’re programmed to stay close to blood serum proteins, some of which they use as raw materials or fuel. That means they’re all floating in the top layer of yellow liquid in this vial.
I work fast, because the blood won’t stay separated for long in zero-gravity. First I use another eyedropper to suck up all the blood plasma. Then I squeeze the plasma into an empty vial and close it tightly.
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