“My lord.” Martinez and Michi both turned at the sound of Marsden’s flat, angry voice. “You should check me first, my lord. I’m from Sandama, and I was one of Captain Fletcher’s clients. That makes me a double suspect, apparently.”
Martinez gazed at the secretary and his annoyance flared. Marsden was offended on Fletcher’s behalf, and apparently on behalf of the crew as well. A search of the crew’s private effects was an insult to their dignity, and Marsden had taken it to heart. He was going to insist that if Martinez was going to violate his dignity, he was going to violate it personally, and right now.
“Very well,” Martinez said, having no choice. “Kindly remove your tunic, open your shirt, and empty your pockets.”
Marsden did so, a vein in his temple throbbing with suppressed fury. Martinez sorted through the contents of Marsden’s pockets while the secretary pirouetted before him, arms held out at the shoulder to show he had nothing to hide. No cult objects were detected.
Martinez clenched his teeth. He had degraded another human being, and for nothing.
And the worst part was that he felt degraded himself for doing it.
“Thank you, Marsden,” Martinez said.You bastard, he added silently.
Without a word, the ship’s secretary turned his back on him and donned his tunic. When he had buttoned it, he resumed his seat, put his datapad on his lap, and picked up his stylus.
“The last inspection was too helter-skelter,” Michi said. “And it took too long. This next has to be more efficient.”
The two of them discussed it for a while, then Michi rose. The others rose and braced. “I’m going to dinner,” she told Martinez. “After dinner we’ll confine the crew to quarters and begin the search, starting with the officers.”
“Very good, my lady.”
She looked at Marsden and Jukes, who had spent the entire meeting sipping coffee and eating one pastry after another. “You’ll have to dine with these two in your quarters. I don’t want news of this getting out over dinner conversation in the mess.”
Martinez suppressed a sigh. Marsden was not going to be the jolliest of guests.
“Yes, my lady,” he said.
Michi took a step toward the door, then hesitated. She looked at Jukes, her brows knit. “Mr. Jukes,” she said, “why exactly are you here?”
Martinez answered for him. “He happened to be in the room when I had my brainstorm.”
Michi nodded. “I understand.” She turned away for a moment, hesitated again, then returned her gaze to the artist. “There are crumbs on your front, Mr. Jukes,” she said.
Jukes blinked. “Yes, my lady,” he said.
The officers’ quarters were searched first, by Martinez, Michi, and the three lieutenants on Michi’s staff. The officers’ persons were also searched, with the exception of Lord Phillips, who was officer of the watch and in Command.
“This is what you’re looking for,” Martinez told them, showing them the two pendants. “These are cult objects, representations of ayaca trees. They need not be worn around the neck-they could be a ring or a bracelet or any kind of jewelry, or they could be on cups or plates or picture frames or practically anything.Everything needs to be examined. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” they chanted. Kazakov and Mersenne looked determined. Husayn and Mokgatle were uncertain. Corbigny seemed worried. None spoke.
“Let’s go then.”
The lieutenants, Martinez, Michi, and Michi’s staff marched off in a body to inspect the warrant officers and their quarters. No ayaca trees were found, on jewelry or anyone else. Now reinforced by the warrant officers, the party moved on to the petty officers’ quarters.
The petty officers stood braced in the corridor, out of the way, and did their best to keep their faces expressionless. Lady Juliette Corbigny held back as the other officers began going through lockers. Her white, even teeth gnawed at her lower lip. Martinez ghosted up to her shoulder.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
She gave a little jump at the question, as if he’d startled her out of deep reflection, and she turned to him with her brown eyes open very wide.
“May I speak to you privately, Lord Captain?”
“Of course.” Corbigny followed him into the corridor outside, where he turned to her. “Yes?”
She was gnawing her nether lip again. She paused in her champing to say, uncertainly, “Is this a bad cult we’re looking for?”
Martinez considered the question. “I’m not an expert on cults, good or bad. But I think the cultists are responsible for Captain Fletcher’s death.”
Corbigny began to gnaw on her lip some more. Impatience jabbed at Martinez’s nerves, but instinct told him to remain silent and let Corbigny chew on herself for as long as she needed to.
“Well,” she said finally, “I’ve seen a medallion like that on someone.”
“Yes? Someone in your division?”
“No.” Her eyes looked wide into his. “On an officer. On Lord Phillips.”
Phillips? That can’t be right. It was the first thing he thought. He couldn’t imagine little Palermo Phillips banging Fletcher’s head against his desk with his tiny hands.
His second thought was,Maybe he had help.
“Are you sure?” Martinez asked.
Corbigny gave a nervous jerk of her head. “Yes, my lord. I got a good look at it. I remember him running out of the shower that day you paged him and inspected his division. He was in a hurry to get his tunic on, and the chain of the pendant got caught on one of his buttons. I helped him untangle it.”
“Right,” Martinez said. “Thank you. You may rejoin the others.”
Martinez collected Cadet Ankley, who was qualified to stand watches, and Espinosa, his former servant who had been shifted over to the military constabulary, then walked straight to Command.
“The lord captain is in Command,” Lord Phillips called as he entered. Phillips rose from his couch to let Martinez take his place if he so desired.
Martinez marched forward until he stood before Phillips, who even fully braced failed to come up to his chin.
“My lord,” Martinez said, “I’d be obliged if you’d open your tunic.”
“My lord?” Phillips stared up at him.
Suddenly Martinez didn’t want to be there. He had begun to think the whole day had been a mistake. But here he was, having joined the role of detective to his authority as captain, and he could think of nothing but following the path he’d set himself, wherever it took him.
“Open your tunic, Lieutenant,” he said.
Phillips looked away, suddenly thoughtful. His hand came slowly to the throat of his tunic and began undoing the silver buttons. Martinez looked at the rapid pulse beating in Phillips’s throat as the collar came open and he saw the gold links of a chain.
Anger suddenly boiled in Martinez. He reached out, took the chain, and brutally pulled until the pendant at the bottom of its loop was revealed. It was an ayaca tree, red and green jewels glittering.
Martinez looked down at Phillips. The chain was cutting into his neck, and he was on his toes. Martinez let go of the chain.
“Please accompany me, Lieutenant,” he said. “You are relieved.” He turned and addressed the room at large. “Ankley is the officer of the watch!” he proclaimed.
“I am relieved, my lord!” Phillips repeated. “Ankley is the officer of the watch!”
As Ankley came forward, Martinez bent to speak in his ear. “Keep everyone here,” he said. “No one is to leave Command until a party arrives to search them.”
Ankley licked his lips. “Very good, my lord.”
Cold foreboding settled into Martinez’s bones as he marched to the ship’s jail. Phillips followed in silence, buttoning his tunic, and Espinosa came last, a hand on the butt of his stun baton.
He walked through the door into the reception room of theIllustrious brig, and the familiar smell hit him. All jails smelled alike, sour bodies and disinfect
ant, boredom and despair.
“I’ll need your tunic, belt, shoes, and your lieutenant’s key,” Martinez said when he came to the brig. “Empty your pockets here, on the table.” He had been military constabulary officer on theCorona, and he knew the drill.
The stainless steel table rang as Phillips emptied his pockets. He rolled an elastic off his wrist, one that had his lieutenant’s key on it, and handed that to Martinez.
The sense that this was all a horrible mistake continued to hang over Martinez’s head like a dense gray cloud. He couldn’t imagine shy, tiny Phillips committing a crime as serious as stealing a candy bar, let alone killing his captain.
But it had been his own idea that the deaths were cult related, and that cult symbols would mark the killers. He had begun this. Now Fate would finish it.
“All your jewelry, please,” Martinez said.
Phillips took off his academy ring with some effort, then opened his tunic and reached for the chain with both hands. He looked at Martinez.
“May I ask what this is about?”
“Two people wearing that medallion have died,” Martinez said.
Phillips gaped at him. “Two?” he said.
Martinez’s sleeve comm chimed. He answered and saw Marsden’s frozen face resolve on his sleeve’s chameleon weave.
“The lady squadcom was wondering where you went,” he said.
“I’m in the brig, and I’m about to report to her. Have there been any developments?”
“None. We’re about to finish here.”
“Tell Lady Michi that I’ll be right there.”
Martinez ended the conversation and looked at Phillips, to see bewilderment still on his face.
“I don’t understand,” Phillips said.
“Your jewelry, Lieutenant.”
Phillips slowly took the chain from around his neck and handed it to him. Martinez issued him a pair of the soft slippers worn by prisoners and showed him to his narrow cell. The metal walls were covered with many thick layers of green paint, and the single light was in a cage overhead. The room was almost filled with the acceleration couch used for a bed, the toilet, and the small sink.
Martinez closed the heavy door with its spy hole and told Espinosa to remain on guard. He put the ayaca pendant in a clear plastic evidence box and returned to the petty officers’ quarters. The cabins had all been searched, and the search party had gone on to the body search, women searching women in the petty officers’ mess while men searched men in the corridor.
Nothing was found. Martinez approached Michi and handed her the box with the ayaca pendant inside. She looked up at him in silent query.
“Lord Phillips,” he said.
At first Michi was surprised, and then her expression hardened. “Too bad Fletcher didn’t get him first,” she said.
Michi’s expression didn’t soften throughout the rest of the search, and Martinez could tell she was thinking hard, particularly after the search of the enlisted and those on duty in Command and Engine Control produced no cult symbols, no murder weapons, and no suspects.
“Page Dr. Xi to the brig,” Michi told her sleeve display. She looked up at Martinez. “Time to interrogate Phillips,” she said.
“I don’t think he killed Fletcher,” Martinez said.
“I don’t either, but he knows who did. He knows who the other members of the cult are.” Her lips drew back from her teeth in a kind of snarl. “I’m going to have the lord doctor use truth drugs to get those names out of him.”
Martinez suppressed a shiver. “Truth drugs don’t always produce the truth,” he said. “They lower a person’s defenses, but they can confuse a prisoner as well. Phillips could just babble names at random, for all we know.”
“I’ll know,” Michi said. “Maybe not this first interrogation, but we’ll keep up the interrogations day after day, and in the end I’ll know. The truth always comes out in the end.”
“Let’s hope so,” Martinez said.
“Get Corbigny here as well. I’ll take her to the jail with me. You and”-with a look at Marsden-“your secretary can get back to running the ship.”
Martinez was startled. “I-” he began. “Phillips is my officer, and-”
I want to watch as you use chemicals to strip away his dignity and his every last secret. Because it’s my fault you’re putting him through this.
“He’s not your officer anymore,” Michi said flatly. “He’s a walking dead man. And frankly, I don’t think he’s going to welcome your presence.” She looked at him, and her look softened. “You have a ship to run, Captain.”
“Yes, my lady.” Martinez braced.
He and Marsden spent the rest of the day in his office dealing with the minutiae of command. Marsden was silent and hostile, and Martinez’s mind kept running into blind alleys instead of concentrating on his work.
He supped alone, drank half a bottle of wine, and went in search of the doctor.
As he approached the pharmacy, he encountered Lady Juliette Corbigny leaving. She was pale and her eyes were wider than ever.
“Beg pardon, Lord Captain,” she said, and sped away, almost in flight. Martinez looked after her, then walked into the pharmacy, where he found Xi slumped over a table, his chin on one fist as he contemplated a beaker half filled with a clear liquid. The sharp scent of grain alcohol was heavy on his breath.
“I’m afraid Lieutenant Corbigny isn’t well,” Xi said. “I had to give her something to settle her tummy. Partway into the interrogation she threw up all over the floor.” He raised the beaker and looked at it solemnly. “I fear she isn’t cut out for police work.”
Savage, pointless anger roiled in Martinez. “Didanything go well?” he asked.
“The interrogation wasn’t a success, particularly,” Xi said. “Phillips said he hadn’t killed the captain and didn’t know who did. He said he doesn’t belong to a cult. He said the ayaca pendant was given to him by his sweet old nurse when he was a child, and by the way, the story can’t be confirmed because she’s dead. He said he had no idea that the ayaca had any significance other than being a pretty tree that a lot of people put in their gardens.”
Xi slumped over his table and took a drink from the beaker.
“When the drug hit him he kept to his story until his mind got the addles, and then he started to chant. Garcia and the squadcom and Corbigny-when she wasn’t spewing-tried to keep him on the subject of the captain’s death, but he kept going back to the same chant. Or maybe they were different chants. It was hard to tell.”
“What was he chanting?”
“I don’t know. It was in some old language that nobody recognized, but we heard the word’Narayanguru‘ all right, so it’s a cult ritual language, and when the Investigative Service hears the recording they’ll find someone to identify it, and that will be the end of Lord Phillips. And if the I.S. is on speaking terms with the Legion that week and passes the information, the Legion will probably arrest half the Phillips clan and that will be the end ofthem, because the Legion have many more methods of interrogation than are available to us here, and doctors who are far more bad than I am and are very proud that their confession rate is nearly one hundred percent.” He looked at the beaker again, then raised his head to look at Martinez.
“Captain, I have been remiss. I am a bad doctor and a bad host. Will you share my beverage of consolation?”
“No thanks, I’ve had enough already. And you’re going to have a hell of a hangover.”
Xi gave a weary grin. “No, I’m not. A dose of this, a dose of that, and I will rise a new man.” His face fell. “And then the squadcom will turn me into a bad doctor again, and have me shoot chemicals into the carotid of a harmless little man who didn’t hurt anybody, if you ask me-which nobody did-but who’s going to die anyway, and I wish I’d kept my damn mouth shut about the captain’s injuries.” He poured more alcohol into his beaker. “I thought I was going to be a brilliant detective, tracking clues like the police in the videos, and
instead I find myself involved in something soiled and disgusting and sordid, and frankly, I wish I could throw up like Corbigny.”
“Keep this up and you will,” Martinez said.
“I shall do my best,” Xi said, and raised his glass. “Bottoms up.”
The bitter taste of defeat soured Martinez’s tongue. As he left the pharmacy, he swore that the next time he had a brainstorm, he’d keep it to himself.
Acall from Garcia brought Martinez out of bed and running to the brig while still buttoning his undress tunic over his pajamas. “There was a guard here all night, Lord Captain,” Garcia said in a rapid voice as soon as Martinez entered the room. “There’s no way anyone could have got to him.”
Martinez walked to Lord Phillips’s cell, looked inside and wished he hadn’t.
Sometime over the course of the night, Phillips had torn open the acceleration couch that served as his bed, pulled out fistfuls of the foam padding, then filled his mouth with the foam and kept packing it in until he choked.
Choked to death. Phillips was half off the couch and his mouth was still full of foam and his face was black. His eyes were open and gazed overhead at the light in its cage. Bits of the foam floated in the air like motes of dust.
Dr. Xi knelt by him. He eyes were red-rimmed and his hands trembled as he made a cursory examination.
“He knew he’d crack,” Michi said after she arrived. “He knew he’d give us the names sooner or later. He decided to die first to protect his friends.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought he had the nerve for it.”
Martinez turned to her, rage poised on his tongue, and then he turned away.
“We’re still no better off than we were!” Michi cried, and slammed her fist into the metal door.
Later that morning Martinez conducted vicious, mean-spirited inspections of Missile Battery 1 and the riggers’ stores, but it didn’t make him feel any better.
TWENTY-ONE
Lord Chen’s comm unit began to make an urgent squeak. “Pardon me, Loopy,” he said. He put down his cocktail and reached into the pocket of his jacket.
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