She would point that out to whoever took over the examination of this runabout.
She crouched and examined the area around the handprint, and saw a recent scratch, as if someone had ripped a device off the side.
“Look here,” she said. “See what you find.”
She pointed to the area around the panel.
“And record it,” she added, because she had to. These people had the brains of a nanobit. “Be sure not to touch anything.”
Then she moved to the other side of the chair, crouching again. The anacapa drive casing was open, and that too looked recent. A tiny tag glowed on top of the casing, warning, in those same letters she had seen on the door into the runabout, that the anacapa was dangerous.
She had her suit try to translate again, and again, she got the word Corporation, along with maybe Lost Souls or Ghost.
She had no idea what that meant.
Virji stood, hands on hips, and surveyed the cockpit.
If she had come on this in space, she knew what she would have assumed: She would have assumed that the runabout had been floating for some time. Years, decades. No power, and a single pilot who died, unable to get the runabout going again or to get to some sanctuary somewhere.
Then she would investigate.
She spun, deciding to examine the runabout herself.
“Captain?” Wèi asked. “What are we doing?”
“You are going to record everything, just like I told you,” Virji said. “I’m going to walk through the runabout.”
He started to say something else, something about his people, something about they were competent enough. She didn’t care enough to listen.
She went back into the corridor, pistol in hand, feeling like she was finally thinking like a captain again. What she had seen in that cockpit was evidence of scavengers, scavengers who either found nothing or had been interrupted in the middle of what they had been doing.
Or the runabout had been completely scavenged, and she only saw the remnants. That Lost Souls Corporation or whatever it was might have seen the energy signature on the anacapa, thought it was something, and then realized they had no idea how to remove it, so they left it behind.
It was a malfunctioning anacapa, and sometimes people died near them. Which would explain the danger label.
It might also explain the corpse.
She felt that surge of disappointment again, and she pushed it down.
She checked the captain’s cabin, such as it was, since it was only slightly larger than the other cabin. She looked in the closet, the tiny private bath, and moved anything that could conceal a person or the remains of a person.
Jammed into the ever-so-small closet, she found clothing that looked familiar—a dark, hooded sweatshirt and a pack that was in tatters—but nothing else. The blankets on the bed were tucked in military style, set for zero-g, like everyone in the Fleet had been trained to do.
Virji still ran her hands across the bed and registered nothing out of the ordinary.
She left the main cabin and went to the only other one, which was barely the size of a closet in her suite on the Ijo. Empty as well.
She let out a small sigh.
All they had found was an ancient, derelict ship, a mummified corpse, and evidence that someone who was not of the Fleet had been here.
Although she did wonder how those people got inside.
She turned and stared at the main door, then shrugged.
Probably the same way that Wèi had gotten into the airlock. With the right tools and a bit of muscle.
Virji held herself rigidly for a moment. She had to set aside the disappointment. She had so hoped that she would be able to confront Everly.
That clearly wasn’t going to happen today.
But she would get some answers.
Whether or not she liked them would be another matter altogether.
SIXTY-ONE
BRISTOL KEPT ONE eye on the cameras from the environmental suits running through the security system. But she was also trying, just like the rest of the team was, to coax some life into the runabout, to find out what kind of records it had, what it knew, and where it had been.
She didn’t like the corpse. The corpse could have been anyone.
Only it had been strapped in. That was strange in and of itself.
“Got something,” Fedo said, still messing with her screen.
Bristol cloned it, then stared at the work Fedo had been doing. Fedo managed to activate something using that maintenance mode. The cameras had come to life on the runabout five days ago, according to the runabout itself.
Five days ago, the runabout had been sitting in the storage room where it was right now. But not according to the runabout itself.
Five days ago, it had been floating, derelict, no gravity, no environment. Ever so briefly, images of people floated by, wearing environmental suits that looked ancient, with extra oxygen on the waist.
The camera that had been activated was on the navigational panel, and it looked up at the corpse, which was (of course) oblivious to the entire thing.
The images were silent, and only lasted two minutes before they vanished again.
Scavengers.
Bristol closed the cloned screen, then rubbed the heel of her hand over her face.
“What’s going on?” that Beck asked. Nicoleau put a hand on her arm, cautioning her, but she didn’t seem to care.
“Do you know what foldspace is?” Bristol asked her.
“Kind of,” the woman said. Bristol almost smiled at that. It was the appropriate answer for all of them.
“That runabout got trapped in foldspace,” Bristol said.
“You don’t know that for certain,” Fedo said.
Bristol gave her a withering look. “For certain? With scientific evidence? Not yet. But your eyes can see it. So can mine. That runabout is decades, maybe centuries, older than it was when it left here.”
“How is that possible?” Beck asked.
There were so many answers. Bristol didn’t have the time for any of them. So she turned her back on Beck.
“There’s some life in that navigational panel,” she said to Rajivk.
“I’ve already found it,” he said. “There’s some old records buried in the system. They didn’t decay. Those runabouts are well made.”
“Yeah,” Fedo said drily.
Then Captain Virji and the security team stepped out of the storage room. Virji’s hood was down, her hair moist with sweat.
She looked at Nicoleau, not at Bristol.
“Your man Wèi finally managed to test the DNA on that corpse,” Virji said, her voice dripping with contempt.
Bristol had no idea why Virji had said finally. They hadn’t been inside the runabout for very long.
“It’s Everly—Kimura—whatever you call her.” Virji sounded almost disappointed. “She died in there. It looks like she was alone.”
Trapped in foldspace. Bristol shuddered.
“Wait,” Beck said. “She died. How could she die?”
Virji looked at her almost as if the woman were beneath her. Bristol recognized the look, and didn’t quite like it. She knew she looked at people the same way sometimes.
“She left here,” Virji said, “but the runabout wasn’t working properly. It got her out of this base but, most likely, it trapped her in foldspace. She stayed there until she died.”
“That happens?” Beck asked, sounding completely appalled.
Bristol wasn’t sure if she was appalled at the way Kimura died or the fact that people could die in foldspace.
“It happens all the time,” Virji said. “That’s why everything needs to run at tip-top condition.”
She looked at Bristol when she made that last comment. Bristol wasn’t certain if it was an intentional insult, a reminder, or a compliment. Maybe a little of all three.
“God,” Beck breathed. “That’s why I don’t go into space.”
“Oh, you can go into spac
e,” Fedo said in her blithe way. “Just don’t let anyone get you into foldspace.”
Bristol ignored them and walked to the door of the storage room. She felt an odd relief. The woman who had disturbed her lab wouldn’t bother it again.
“Well,” said Nicoleau behind her, “we can go, Bassima. There will be no justice here.”
Bassima must have been Beck.
“No justice?” Beck asked, her voice rising. “Are you serious?”
Everyone looked at her. Even Bristol turned around. Virji had her head tilted as if she couldn’t quite believe what she heard.
“What are you people thinking?” Beck asked. “How long would it have taken her to die there?”
She addressed that last at Fedo.
Fedo shrugged. “We keep the runabouts stocked with enough supplies for four people for one year.”
“So one person, four years?” Beck asked.
They all stared at each other. Bristol’s stomach clenched.
“She was alone and trapped, unable to get out for years? And she knew it?” Beck shuddered. Bristol didn’t blame her. She would have shuddered too. “Was she able to fix the runabout?”
“I don’t know if I could have fixed that runabout,” Bristol said. “I had planned to talk to the Ijo after I tested a few things.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Virji said, her tone decidedly more friendly. “She didn’t have the training—at least when she left the Ijo, she didn’t have the training. Her training was not in engineering.”
“And she didn’t gain any of those skills here,” Beck said. “So she had no idea what she was doing. She was just trapped there, poking at things, for years, waiting to escape. God. Can you imagine?”
“She would have been relieved if we had pulled her back,” Virji said slowly. “I would have hated helping her.”
“Exactly,” Nicoleau said.
“She killed so many people,” Beck said. “And Taji. She killed Taji.”
“I brought Officer Beck here because we were going to have jurisdiction issues,” Nicoleau said. “I figured we’d get started with the problems right away.”
Virji let out a snort. “Jurisdiction.” She patted the pistol on the side of her environmental suit.
Her message was clear—it had to be, considering Bristol understood it. Virji had wanted to kill Glida.
Bristol looked at Virji in awe. And yet, something disturbed Bristol about that solution.
It was like exploding a ship that was malfunctioning. The explosion might be cathartic, but it gained them nothing.
“That woman,” Bristol said. And stopped. Only it was too late. Everyone was watching her.
She licked her lips. They were dry.
“That woman, Kimura. She was broken, right?” Bristol asked.
“And impossible to fix,” Nicoleau said. “There have been people like her throughout human history.”
Bristol nodded. She knew that. And she also appreciated the fact that Nicoleau knew part of what she had been thinking.
“Yes, there have been,” Bristol said. “But the opportunities she had, to kill—”
“We didn’t know until she had left our ship,” Virji said.
Bristol raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t been thinking of that, per se. She held up her hands.
“Opportunities here in Sandoveil and through the Fleet,” Bristol said. “Those things can be fixed, right? If we find out what happened? How she functioned? We can figure how what she did, what things she exploited, and make it impossible for someone else to do so.”
“People aren’t as simple as ships,” Virji said.
“But systems are,” Bristol said. “We can modify systems.”
No one spoke after that. Most of the people in her lab looked down, as if they thought she was embarrassing herself or being naïve.
Only the Beck woman kept her gaze on Bristol.
“I think you’re right,” Beck said. “I think we figure out what she did, exactly, to keep her hunting secret from all of us, and then we make sure no one else does it, ever again.”
“Hunting?” Virji asked.
“What would you call it?” Beck asked. “Because that’s what it looked like to me.”
Virji stared at her for a moment, then frowned.
“Hunting,” she repeated. “That makes as much sense as anything else.”
You couldn’t hunt anywhere on Nindowne without some kind of permit. Bristol almost said that aloud, then realized that most people wouldn’t see that as helpful: They would think she was suggesting that people like Kimura get a license.
But Bristol wasn’t thinking that. She was thinking about all the regulations and loopholes and the way that some hunters tried to go around them. She knew people who liked the challenge of hunting, but not the end result.
Her brain was already working the problem—the loopholes, the technicalities—even here, in the lab, which Kimura had broken into despite all the security.
Everything had to be fixed.
She let out a small breath, felt a lifting in her heart, and knew it for what it was. Relief. A way forward.
Something to fix.
She loved having things to fix. Her entire life was about that.
She looked at Beck, who was still watching her, and she nodded just a little, wishing she could invite Beck for coffee to discuss all of this.
Then Bristol stiffened. What would stop her from doing so? Aside from the moment here, where it was inappropriate. But outside the base. They could talk, and maybe work on the problem together, and find solutions—not for the Fleet. Virji and Fedo had to do that—not that Bristol was sure Virji would.
But here, in Sandoveil. She and Beck could work out all kinds of solutions, and in the lab too, solutions she could send to other sector bases. To the new base just starting up.
Improved security. More caution around the anacapas.
Bristol’s fingers trailed the closed anacapa frame. It would provide answers too, just like the anacapa in the runabout.
A thousand things to fix, even more to prevent.
She had work for the next ten years or more just because of this. Work that would benefit the Fleet, the sector bases, and the community.
She didn’t say any of this. She didn’t want anyone to know that her mood had gotten lighter.
She knew how she was spending the next several years—not watching the sector base close, but helping with the future.
And she liked that.
She liked that more than she dared say.
SIXTY-TWO
THE SUN WAS just starting to set over the Payyer Mountains as Rajivk made his way home. He walked the long way because he needed time to think.
So much had happened since the last time he had tried to go home, just a little over twenty-four hours ago. His entire worldview had changed. He had changed, and only because he had seen things that he hadn’t thought possible.
He took the upper trails, even though they were partly blocked off by the YSR-SR. Most of the blockages remained from a few hours before, when everyone thought they would have to make a case against whoever had killed the single body floating in the pool.
And then they discovered an entire pile of bodies, all, they thought (or so they said), killed by Kimura over years. Working alone.
Hunting, Bassima Beck had said.
Which was probably right.
Rajivk had spent the last part of his extra-long day pulling together the video record of the runabout. None of the record was corrupted, but it was excessive.
Glida Kimura—or Sloane Everly, or whatever she called herself—had ended up in foldspace, trapped and alone. For four years she moved back and forth in that tiny ship, apparently doing her best to repair it.
She broke down a lot. Crying, pounding the walls. Clawing at them. It seemed, after a while, that she just gave up.
Then she seemed to gain a second wind. Tried a few things. Gave up. Tried some more, and paced. Walking that tiny ship
like a caged animal.
Back and forth, back and forth, crying, calm, until she tried something, although he couldn’t figure out what that something was, something she had to strap herself in for. And that something had cut the power to the environmental system.
She had died there, alone, and—according to Captain Virji—contemplating her crimes.
Rajivk didn’t believe that. He didn’t think people like Kimura could contemplate their crimes. And he agreed with Beck: The punishment that Kimura got was the only kind of justice she would probably ever have gotten.
He reached the overlook where Kimura had left those shoes. He stopped, his face getting damp from the spray of the Falls. He hadn’t really heard them as he walked up—not because they had gone silent—but because he was so tired that parts of his body just didn’t seem to function.
He was spending all of his time thinking, lost in his own world, not paying any attention. He used to make fun of tourists for doing that, thinking that was what would get them in trouble, make them fall off the trail or into the Jeleen River or get trapped in the mud flats.
He thought their lack of attention would cause some of them to disappear.
But now he knew: Some of them disappeared because Glida Kimura had a system for finding loners, killing them, and dumping them in that pool.
She liked doing it. It had been a challenge for her.
He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his pants and stared at the water. The power of the entire planet in one gigantic waterfall.
And everyone who lived here had blamed the environment, not the human beings. Tourists died.
Now, Hranek had more work than he would know what to do with. He would have to identify all those bodies. The government of the city of Sandoveil would have to revise its cause-of-death statistics. The murder rate would skyrocket, and the accidental death rate would plummet.
Rajivk sighed, tasting the fresh spray. Water beaded on his face and along his clothing, but he didn’t care.
No one would have known about all the bodies if he hadn’t found those shoes. And it would have taken days before someone had seen the body floating in the pool.
Kimura had planned that. She wanted everyone to think that she was dead. She had apparently done the same thing in the Ijo.
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