Conventions of War def-3

by Walter Jon Williams

  Xi began with a report on the fingerprints found in Fletcher’s office. “Most belonged to the captain,” he said. “The rest were those of Marsden, the secretary, and the captain’s servants Narbonne and Buckle, who had cleaned and tidied the room the previous day. Three prints belonged to Constable Garcia and were presumably left in the course of his investigation.”

  Xi’s face screwed into an expression that probably intended to express wry amusement.

  “Five stray prints belonged to me. And four prints, the fingers of the left hand, were found pressed under the rim of the desktop at the front of the desk.” He made a movement with his hand, palm up, in the direction of Michi’s desk to show how this could happen.

  “The prints belonged to Lieutenant Prasad. Of course they could have been left at any time, since the servants wouldn’t necessarily polish daily under the rim of the desk.”

  Or,Martinez thought,the prints could have been made when Chandra held onto the desk with her left hand while slamming Captain Fletcher’s head into it with her right.

  Michi betrayed no evidence that this idea might have occurred to her. “Make anything of the hair or fiber evidence?”

  “I haven’t had time, but it’s not going to prove anything unless we already have a suspect.”

  Michi turned to Garcia. “Any information on the movements of the crew?”

  Garcia consulted his datapad, an unnecessary gesture considering the contents of his report. “My lady, aside from the few on watch, most of the crew were asleep. Those on watch in Command or Engineering vouch for each other. Of those in bed, the only people who admit moving at all say they were visiting the toilet.”

  “No reports of anyone moving outside the crew compartments? None at all?”

  “No, my lady.” Garcia’s tongue flicked anxiously over his lips. “Of course, we only have their word for it, and that’s all we’re going to get…” He cleared his throat. “…unless we find an informant.”

  Michi’s eyes hardened. Her fingers drummed on the desktop. She turned to Kazakov. “Lieutenant?”

  Kazakov’s tone was faintly apologetic. “It’s the same situation with the lieutenants and warrant officers, my lady. Those on duty vouch for one another, and those asleep were”-Kazakov began to shrug, then stopped herself-“asleep. I have no information that contradicts their stories.”

  “Damn!” Michi’s right hand made a petulant clawing motion in the air. She glared at each of them in turn. “We can’t leave it at this,” she said. “There’s got to be something else we can do.” She gave a snarl. “What would Dr. An-ku do?” She didn’t mean it as a joke.

  “We can search the ship,” Martinez said. “And search the crew.”

  Michi frowned at him.

  “There was a little blood,” Martinez continued. “Not much, but some. It just occurred to me that the killer might have got some on a shirt cuff or a trouser leg. Or he might have wiped blood off his hands with a handkerchief. He might have used a weapon on the captain and only slammed the captain’s head into the desk afterward, and the weapon might be found. Or the killer might have taken a souvenir from the captain’s room and hidden it.”

  “The captain might have fought,” Garcia said, “at least a little. He might have marked someone.”

  “Alert the people in the laundry,” Kazakov said. “They need to check every item.”

  Michi stood very suddenly. She looked at the others as if surprised to find them still in their seats.

  “What are we waiting for?” she said. “We should have done this yesterday.”

  SearchingIllustrious and its crew was the work of a long afternoon. Martinez and Kazakov called all off-duty crew into their sleeping quarters, organized the officers and petty officers into gangs, and subjected everyone to a meticulous inspection. Lockers and storage areas were searched for anything that might have been taken from the captain’s quarters. Lastly, the officers were searched, by each other. Martinez stood in the corridor outside the wardroom with Lady Michi and waited for the results.

  Michi had been growing more irritable as the afternoon progressed and the hoped-for evidence failed to appear. She stood with her hands clenching into fists and a scowl on her face, rising on her toes quickly and then dropping, over and over again.

  Martinez decided to distract her before the jerky movement drove him mad.

  “This is going to upset the crew,” he said. “We should settle them down as soon as possible. Perhaps tomorrow we could schedule the maneuver that was postponed today.”

  Her heels stayed on the floor as she gave him a thoughtful look. “Very good. We’ll do it.” Another thought struck her, and she frowned. “What am I going to do for a new tactical officer?”

  “You don’t want to use Coen or Li?”

  She shook her head. “Not seasoned enough. All their experience is in communications.”

  A vague sense of obligation compelled Martinez to make a suggestion. “There’s Chandra Prasad.”

  Michi looked at him suspiciously. “Why Prasad?”

  “Because she’s the senior lieutenant after Kazakov, and I can’t spare Kazakov. Not now.”

  Which certainly sounded better than,She wrung a promise out of me to help her, and much, much better than,If she didkill Fletcher, we could try being very nice to her and hope she doesn’t kill us.

  Michi frowned. “I’ll ask her to design one experiment. I’ll ask the other lieutenants too. We’ll see if any of them have a talent for it.”

  When Kazakov and Husayn came to report that no evidence had been found in the wardroom or the lieutenants’ quarters, Michi accepted the news without comment and then turned to Martinez.

  “You’re next, Lord Captain.”

  “Next?” Martinez said through his surprise.

  “You’re a suspect, after all,” Michi said. “You’re the one who benefited most from Fletcher’s death.”

  He hadn’t looked at the situation in that light. He supposed that, objectively, she had a point.

  “I wasn’t even aboard when Kosinic died,” he pointed out.

  “I know,” Michi said. “What difference does that make?”

  None, apparently. Martinez submitted without protest as a committee of male officers-Husayn, Mersenne, and Lord Phillips-searched his quarters and his belongings. Alikhan watched the inspection from the doorway, his body stiffened in outrage, watching every movement with glowering eyes as if he suspected the three Peers might pocket valuable items in the course of their search.

  The long, useless afternoon delayed supper, and consequently Martinez’s meeting with the lieutenants in the informal circumstances ofDaffodil, the requisitioned luxury yacht that had brought him to his new assignment as Michi’s tactical officer.

  The party wasn’t a success. Everyone was tired after having spent the day pawing so uselessly through others’ belongings, and also the officers didn’t quite know how the new relationship with Martinez was supposed to work. During previous get-togethers onDaffodil, Martinez had been a staff officer playing host to the line officers in a setting more congenial than the starchy dinners and receptions given by the captain. Though Martinez had outranked them, he wasn’t in their chain of command, and the lieutenants had felt far less inhibited than they would have been in the company of a direct superior. But now the relationship had changed, and they were more on their guard. Martinez was generous with liquor, but for most of the officers the alcohol seemed only to act as a depressant.

  The one exception was Chandra Prasad, who chattered and laughed all evening in loud, high spirits, oblivious to how much it irritated the others. Perhaps, he thought, she felt she had no reason to feel on guard around him because they shared a special relationship.

  Martinez hoped she was wrong.

  Finally he called an end to the dismal evening, and by way of good-night told everyone there would be a maneuver during the forenoon watch.

  Alikhan was waiting in his cabin to take his trousers, shoes, and unif
orm tunic for their nightly rehabilitation. “What are they saying in the petty officers’ lounge?” Martinez asked.

  “Well, my lord,” Alikhan said, with a kind of finality, “they’re saying you’ll do.”

  Martinez suppressed a grin. “What are they saying about Fletcher?”

  “They aren’t saying anything at all about the late captain.”

  Martinez felt irritation. “I wish they were.” He handed Alikhan his tunic. “You don’t think they know more than they’re saying?”

  Alikhan spoke with the utmost complacency. “They’re long-serving petty officers, my lord. Theyalways know more than they tell.”

  Martinez sourly parted the seals on his shoes, removed them, and handed them to Alikhan. “You’ll tell me if they say anything vital? Such as who killed the captain?”

  Alikhan dropped the shoes into their little carrying bag. “I’ll do my best to keep you informed, my lord,” he said. He sealed the bag and looked up. “By the way, my lord. There is the matter of Captain Fletcher’s servants.”

  “Ah.”

  Each officer of captain’s rank was allowed four servants, whom he could take with him from one posting to the next. Martinez had his four, and so had Fletcher; but now with only one captain remaining, that left four servants too many.

  “Are Fletcher’s people good for anything?” Martinez asked. “Anything besides being servants, I mean?”

  Alikhan’s lip curled slightly, the long-serving Fleet professional passing judgment on his inferiors.

  “Narbonne was a valet in civilian life,” he said. “Baca a chef. Jukes is an artist, and Buckle is a hairdresser, manicurist, and cosmetologist.”

  “Well,” Martinez said dubiously, “I suppose Baca could be sent to the enlisted mess.”

  “Not if Master Cook Yau has anything to say about it,” said Alikhan. “He won’t want that fat pudding of a man taking up space in his kitchen and fussing with his sauces.”

  “Alikhan.” Martinez examined himself in the mirror over his sink. “Do you think I need a cosmetologist?”

  Alikhan curled his lip again. “You’re too young, my lord.”

  Martinez smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Alikhan draped trousers over his arm, and then the jacket over the trousers. Martinez nodded in the direction of the door that led to his office.

  “Do you have someone sleeping out there again?” he asked.

  “Ayutano, my lord.”

  “Right. If the killers come by way of the dining room instead, I’ll try to shout and let him know.”

  “I’m sure he’d appreciate it, my lord.” Deftly, with the hand that wasn’t holding Martinez’s clothing, Alikhan opened a silver vacuum flask of hot cocoa and poured.

  “Thank you, Alikhan. Sleep well.”

  “And yourself, my lord.”

  Alikhan left through the door that led to the dining room. Martinez changed into pajamas and sat on his bed while he drank the cocoa and looked at the old dark painting. The young mother held her infant and the little fire glowed and the cat crouched with his ears pinned back, and it all took place inside a painted frame or maybe a stage.

  He kept seeing the painting for a long time after he turned out the light.

  In the morning Martinez printed a series of supper invitations on Fletcher’s special bond paper, and sent them via Alikhan to all the senior petty officers. He didn’t know whether Fletcher would have invited the enlisted to supper-he suspected not-and he was certain Fletcher wouldn’t have used the fancy bond invitations.

  He didn’t care. It wasn’t his bond paper anyway.

  The experiment began shortly afterward. The ships of Chenforce were linked by communications laser into a virtual environment, and while the ships themselves continued on their way, a virtual Chenforce maneuvered against a virtual enemy squadron of superior force, a squadron that was meeting them head-on at Osser, the system into which Chenforce would pass after Termaine. The system was largely uninhabited, with a pair of wormhole relay stations and some small mining colonies on some mineral-rich moons, but nothing else, nothing that would complicate an engagement between two forces.

  Chenforce deployed the dispersed tactics that had been created by Martinez and Caroline Sula and the officers of Martinez’s old frigate,Corona. The ships were widely separated, maneuvering in ways that seemed absolutely random but were in fact dictated by a complex mathematical formula devised by Sula, the ships riding along the convex hull of a chaotic dynamical system.

  The opposing force utilized the classic, formal tactics of the empire, tactics in which the ships were shepherded in a rigid formation so their commander could retain control of them till the last possible moment.

  Tungsten-jacketed antimatter missiles exploded between the converging squadrons in glowing fireballs and hellish blasts of radiation. Lasers and antiproton beams lanced out to destroy incoming missiles, and the missiles jinked and dodged to avoid destruction. Ships died under waves of fast neutrons and blasts of heat.

  Chenforce didn’t come through the battle unscathed: out of seven ships, three were destroyed and one severely damaged. Of the Naxid force, all ten were wiped out.

  For the first time, Martinez commanded a heavy cruiser in combat, albeit a combat that took place only in simulation. The crew in Command were disciplined and well-trained, long practiced at their jobs and at working with one another, and they obeyed his orders with perfect understanding and efficiency.

  Martinez ended the experiment pleased with himself and with his ship. The pleased feeling lasted until he returned to his office, where Marsden presented him with a vast number of documents, all requiring his attention, or his judgment, or at the very least his signature.

  He ate his dinner at his desk while he worked his way through the documents, and sent Marsden to his own meal.

  Chandra Prasad arrived half a minute after his dinner, as if she were waiting for him to be alone. He looked up at her knock, lowered his stylus to the desk and told her to come in. As she approached, he wondered in a curiously offhand way whether she’d come to murder him, but decided against it. The sunny smile on her face would have been too incongruous.

  “Lieutenant?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  “The lady squadcom just told me that I was the new tactical officer,” Chandra said. “I guessed you had something to do with that, so I thought I’d come by and thank you.”

  “I mentioned your name,” Martinez said. “But last I heard it was a temporary appointment. I think she’s going to try a series of people.”

  “But I’ll be first,” Chandra said. “If I impress her, she won’t need the others.”

  Martinez smiled encouragingly. “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need more than luck.” Chandra bit her lower lip. “Can you give me a hint about how best to impress the squadcom?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Martinez said. “I don’t think I’ve managed it lately.”

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if trying to decide whether to get angry.

  He picked up his stylus and said, “Come to dinner tomorrow. We’ll discuss your ambitions then.”

  Calculation entered her long eyes. “Very good, Captain.”

  She braced, and he sent her away and went back to reviewing his paperwork, and nibbling on his dinner in between paragraphs. He had no sooner finished both papers and the meal when Kazakov arrived with a new series of documents that, as executive officer, she was passing to him for review.

  It was mid-afternoon before he finished all that, and went into the personnel files to acquaint himself with the petty officers he would be having to supper. They were as Kazakov had said: long-serving professionals, with high scores on their masters’ exams and good efficiency reports from past superiors. All received high marks from Fletcher-including Thuc, the man he’d executed.

  Martinez then checked the documentary evidence that should have corroborated Fletcher’s good opinions, and almost immediately fou
nd something that appalled him.

  His supper, he thought darkly, would be more than social.

  He opened the supper with the traditional toast to the Praxis, then gave a preamble to the effect that he was counting on his guests to maintain continuity in a ship that had just suffered a series of shocks, and he knew from their records and their efficiency reports that they were all more than capable of giving all that was required.

  He looked from one of the eight department heads to the next-from round-faced Gawbyan to rat-faced Gulik, from Master Rigger Francis with her brawny arms and formidable jowls to Cho, Thuc’s gangly replacement-and he saw pleased satisfaction in their faces.

  The satisfaction stayed there for the entire supper, as Perry brought in each course and as Martinez questioned each of his guests about the state of their department. From Master Data Specialist Amelia Zhang he learned the condition and the capacities of the ship’s computers. From Master Rigger Francis he received myriad details, from the stowage of the holds to the state of the air scrubbers. From Master Signaler Nyamugali he had an informative discussion on the new military ciphers introduced since the beginning of the war, a critical task since both sides had started with the same ciphers and the same coding programs.

  It was a pleasurable, instructive meal, and the satisfaction on the faces of the department heads had only increased by the time Perry brought in the coffee.

  “In the last days I’ve come to see how well-managed a ship we have inIllustrious, ” Martinez said as the scent of the coffee wafted to his nostrils. “And I had no doubt that much of that excellent management was due to the quality of the senior petty officers here on the ship.”

  He took a slow, deliberate sip of coffee, then put his cup down in the saucer. “That’s what I thought, anyway,” he added, “at least until I saw the state of the 77-12s.”

  The satisfaction on the petty officers’ faces took a long, astounded moment to fade.