Logs (dread empire's fall)

by Walter Jon Williams

  Kosinic had been Lady Michi's first tactical officer, and unusually for a staff officer had been a commoner, not a Peer. He had died early in Chenforce's journey from Harzapid to Zanshaa, and his death provided an opening on the staff that Martinez had jumped to fill; and he joined the squadron later, at Seizho.

  "Coincidence?" Martinez said again. "I don't understand what you mean by coincidence. I thought Lieutenant Kosinic died from wounds received at Harzapid."

  "No." Michi's glare was savage. "He fell and hit his head."

  Martinez returned to his cabin to find his orderly Alikhan, assisted by his other servants Espinosa and Ayutano, were packing his belongings.

  Alikhan turned to him as he paused in the doorway. He was a tall, iron-haired man, a thirty-year veteran who had retired with the rank of Master Weaponer, and who had returned to the Fleet in Martinez' service.

  "I presume we will be moving to the captain's cabin, my lord," he said.

  "I suppose we will." Martinez hadn't actually got that far in his thinking.

  Nor was there any point in wondering how Alikhan had known of the vacancy in the captain's quarters. Even though no announcement had been made, everyone on the ship might well know by now.

  "We've removed your staff tabs from all your tunics except for the one you're wearing now," Alikhan said. "If you'd care to give me your jacket, my lord?"

  Martinez changed into another tunic and stepped into his sleeping cabin. Alikhan and his mates had nearly finished the job, remarkably efficient considering the amount of gear an officer was supposed to carry with him from one posting to the next.

  "Are the captain's belongings also being packed?" he asked.

  "Everything but what was in his office," said Alikhan. "There's a constable on guard there."

  "Right," Martinez said. He turned, left his cabin, buttoned up his collar, and marched down the corridor to Fletcher's office. The constable there braced as he entered.

  "Come with me, constable," he told her, and walked through the office, deliberately turning his eyes from the desk with the blood and the scrapings of Fletcher's scalp. He entered Fletcher's sleeping cabin, stopped in the doorway, and gaped.

  Something Chandra said had led him to conclude that he'd find erotica on Fletcher's walls, but Fletcher hadn't adorned his private room with anything so ordinary. In place of the bright tile work or classically balanced frescos Fletcher had placed elsewhere on his Illustrious, in the sleeping cabin the walls were paneled in ancient dark wood. The wood was rough-hewn and scarred and had never been painted or polished. Presumably it had been fireproofed as Fleet regulations required, but otherwise it looked as if it had been acquired from some timeworn ruin of a house, a timbered hulk survived from a distant, desolate dark age. The ceiling panels might have been equally as old but were in a different style, dark wood again and roughly hewn, but polished to a mellow glow. The floor was laid with mud-colored tiles with geometrical patterns in faded yellow. Lights were recessed into crude copper sconces. Small dark old pictures sat on the walls in metal frames that winked dully of gold or silver.

  Dominating the far wall was the life-sized figure of a man, cast apparently in porcelain. The man had been savagely tortured and then hung on a tree to die. Cuts and blood and the marks of burning tongs were vivid in the translucent porcelain flesh and rendered in immaculate detail by the artist. Despite the many wounds and the agonized posture, the clean-shaven face of the man was serene and unearthly, with unnaturally large dark eyes that wrapped partly around the sides of the head. His hair had been braided in long ringlets that hung to his shoulders. As Martinez took a step closer, he saw that the figure had been lashed by metal bands to what appeared to a chunk of a perfectly genuine tree.

  He looked in amazement from the object on the wall to the two servants who stood braced by open trunks half-filled with the captain's belongings.

  "What is that?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.

  "Part of Captain Fletcher's collection, my lord."

  The answer came from the older of the two, a gray-haired man with a long nose and a mobile, liquid mouth.

  "You're Narbonne?" Martinez asked.

  "Yes, my lord."

  "Stand by a moment."

  Martinez paged Marsden, the captain's secretary. When the secretary arrived, Martinez turned to him.

  "I want a complete inventory taken of all Captain Fletcher's belongings," he said. "I want that signed by you, and witnessed by everyone here, including-" He nodded toward the guard. "Your name?"

  "Huang, my lord."

  "Including Huang."

  Marsden nodded his bald head. "Yes, my lord."

  "I'll try to access the captain's safe so that we can inventory the contents as well."

  "Very good, my lord."

  Getting into the captain's safe proved more difficult than Martinez expected. A combination was available in records available to the captain, but Fletcher had changed the numbers at least once since he'd taken command, and the old combination was no longer valid. Martinez got Fletcher's captain's key from Michi, but that didn't serve, either. In the end Martinez had to get Master Machinist Gawbyan and an assistant to drill the safe. Gawbyan, who had a truly spectacular pair of mustachios that curled so high and broadly they nearly met his eyebrows, settled grimly to work, and when the safe was finally open the contents were uninteresting: some money, a beautifully made custom pistol with a box of ammunition, some bank records, notes on investments, and a pair of small boxes. One box contained a small, frail old book written in some incomprehensibly ancient alphabet. The other box held a carved white jade statue of a nearly naked four-armed woman dancing atop a skull, a sight that wasn't very shocking after the sight of the tortured man lashed to the tree.

  Martinez supposed the book and the statue were valuable, so he decided to keep them in his own safe once Gawbyan finished repairing the damage he'd just inflicted. "Make a note," Martinez told Marsden, "that I've kept in my own possession a small book, and a small statue of a woman."

  "Very good, my lord," Marsden said, and wrote on his datapad.

  He took the objects to the safe in his own office, and on his return encountered Doctor Xi coming up the companion, climbing amid the faint scent of disinfectant. Xi braced rather apologetically, then said, "I was on my way to report to Lady Michi."

  "Yes?"

  His sad eyes contemplated Martinez for a moment, then grew hard. "Join me if you like."

  Martinez led the doctor to Lady Michi's anteroom, and stepped in to find Lady Ida Li behind the desk. "Captain Martinez and Doctor Xi to see the squadron commander," Martinez said.

  They were shown in. Xi made another unpracticed salute.

  "I've performed the autopsy," he said, "but it was hardly necessary, since it was obviously murder nearly from the start."

  Michi pressed her lips together in a thin line, then said, "Obvious? How?"

  "I put a sensor net around the lord captain's head and got a three-dimensional image of the skull. Captain Fletcher's right temple was struck by three separate blows, grouped closely together-the multiple blows weren't obvious from the superficial examination I was able to conduct this morning, but on the three-dimensional image they were very clear."

  "His head was driven into the desk three times?" Michi asked.

  "Or hit with a blunt object twice, then slammed into the desk to make it look like an accident."

  Michi spoke to her desk. "Page Rigger First Class Garcia to the squadcom's office." She looked at Martinez. "Who's Military Constabulary Officer?"

  "Corbigny, my lady."

  Michi turned to her desk again. "Page Lieutenant Corbigny as well."

  Martinez turned to Xi. "I don't suppose Lieutenant Kosinic's body is still on the ship."

  Xi looked at him. "As a matter of fact, the body's in a freezer compartment. We didn't cremate."

  "Perhaps you ought to take a look at it."

  Xi turned away, his gaze directed at the wall over Michi's
head. His lips pursed out, then in. "I should," he said. "I wish I had when he died."

  "Why didn't you?"

  Michi answered for him. "Because the cause of death seemed so obvious. In the fighting at Harzapid, Kosinic suffered broken bones and head injuries. When he came on board he insisted he was fit, but his medical records stated he was subject to blinding headaches, vertigo and fainting spells. When he was found dead, it seemed obvious that he'd fainted and hit his head."

  "Where was he found?"

  "In the Flag Officer Station."

  Martinez was surprised. "What was he doing there alone?"

  Michi hesitated. "Li and Coen told me he sometimes worked there by himself. It was less distracting than the wardroom."

  "Was he working on anything in particular?"

  "He was tactical officer. I'd had him plan a full schedule of squadron maneuvers, concentrating on the defense of Zanshaa."

  Martinez turned at the sound of someone entering. Rigger Garcia came into the room and braced.

  "Rigger/First Garcia reporting, my lady."

  "Thank you. Stand at ease, and take notes if you need to."

  "Yes, my lady."

  Corbigny arrived a few seconds later, looking a little intimidated in the presence of the squadron commander. The slim, dark-haired young woman was the most junior lieutenant on the ship, and therefore got the jobs none of the other officers wanted. One of these was Military Constabulary Officer, which put her in theoretical charge of the ship's police. If nothing else, supervising the constabulary would give Corbigny a rapid education in the varieties of vice, depravity, and violence available to the average Fleet crouchback, an education desirable and probably necessary for her further development as an officer.

  Garcia adjusted his sleeve display. "I'm recording, my lady."

  Michi spoke in quick, clipped phrases, as if she wanted to get over this quickly. "The lord doctor's autopsy showed that Captain Fletcher was murdered. You'll be taking charge of the investigation."

  Garcia's eyes went wide at this, and Corbigny turned pale. Michi continued.

  "Captain Fletcher's office should be sealed off and subject to a minute examination. Look for fingerprints, traces of fabric or hair, anything that may have been carelessly dropped. Take particular care-"

  "My lady!" Garcia said almost desperately.

  Michi paused. "Garcia?"

  "Fingerprints-hair analysis-I don't know how to do any of that!" Garcia said. "The Investigative Service is trained for that sort of thing, not the Constabulary!"

  Martinez looked at the man in sympathy. The Military Constabulary investigated cases of vandalism or petty theft, broke up brawls, or arrested crouchbacks drunk on wine brewed up in plastic bags they'd hidden in their lockers. Any technical investigation was well outside their strengths.

  Michi's lips thinned to a line, and then she relaxed. "Perhaps I've been watching too many Doctor An-ku dramas," she said. "I thought there were professionals who handled this kind of thing."

  "There are, my lady," Garcia said. "But none on this ship, I guess."

  Michi rubbed her forehead under her straight bangs. "I still want the office examined very carefully," she said.

  Doctor Xi had a smile behind his little white beard. He turned to Garcia. "I might be able to create some fingerprint powder out of materials I have in the pharmacy," he said. "I'll do the research and see what I can manage."

  "Good," Michi said. "Why don't you do that now, my lord?"

  "Certainly." Xi straightened his slouch slightly in salute, and turned to leave. He hesitated, seeming to remember something, and then reached into his pocket and took out a clear plastic box, the sort in which he probably kept samples.

  "I took the captain's jewelry from his body," he said. "To whom should I give it?"

  "I'm having an inventory made of the captain's belongings," Martinez said. "I'll take the box, if you like."

  Martinez took the box and looked through the plastic lid. Inside were a pair of rings, a heavy signet of enameled gold with the Fletcher and Gomberg crests interlinked, a smaller ring made of a kind of silver mesh, wonderfully intricate, and a pendant on a chain. Martinez held the box to the light and saw that the pendant formed the figure of an Ayaca tree in full flower, and shimmered with fine diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

  "We should try to make a list of where everyone was during the critical hour," Michi continued. "And if anyone was seen moving about."

  Again Garcia looked as if despair had him by the throat. "There are over three hundred people aboard Illustrious, my lady," he said. "And I only have two staff."

  "Most of the crew would be asleep," Michi said. "We'll have the department heads make the reports, so you don't have to interview everyone personally."

  "I'll send the department heads instructions later today," Martinez added.

  Michi gave Garcia a level look. "Start now with a careful examination of the scene," she said.

  "Very good, my lady."

  He braced in salute and left, clearly relieved to have made his escape. Michi watched him go, then turned to Martinez. There was irony in the set of her smile.

  "Any thoughts, captain?"

  "Three deaths," Martinez said, "and I don't see the connection. It would be better if there were only two."

  Her eyebrows rose. "How do you mean?"

  "If it were only Kosinic and Fletcher killed," Martinez said, "then I'd say the killer was someone with a grudge against officers. If it were only Thuc and Fletcher, I'd say that Fletcher had been killed by someone wanting revenge for Thuc. But with all three I don't see anything to link them."

  "Perhaps there is no connection."

  Martinez considered this notion. "I'd rather not believe that," he decided.

  Michi slumped in her chair and looked sideways, at the serene bronze seminude woman in the corner, the one offering a bowl of fruit. Apparently she found no answers there, so she turned back to Martinez.

  "I don't know what else to do, so I'm going to have a cocktail," she said. "Would you to join me?"

  Martinez began to accept, then hesitated. "Perhaps I'd better supervise Garcia in his efforts."

  "Perhaps." Michi shrugged. "Let me know if you find anything."

  Martinez braced in salute, turned to leave, and then saw Sub-Lieutenant Corbigny, who had stood without speaking for the entire interview.

  "Any questions, lieutenant?" he asked.

  Her eyes widened. "No, my lord."

  "You may leave," Michi said. Corbigny braced and fled.

  Martinez walked to the door, then turned back. "Are we still doing the maneuver tomorrow?" he asked.

  "Postpone."

  "Very good, my lady."

  Very little was found in Fletcher's office: Narbonne and the other servants simply kept it too clean. Crawling on hands and knees, Garcia and Martinez found several hairs that were placed in specimen flasks sent them by Doctor Xi. When Xi turned up with a squeeze bottle of his homemade fingerprint powder, they blanketed every solid surface and produced a few dozen prints, most of them of sufficient quality to be read by an ordinary fingerprint reader they procured from Marsden's desk.

  While they worked Michi Chen made an announcement to the ship's company, confirming that Captain Fletcher had died and that Martinez had been appointed to fill his place. Martinez, on his knees peering at an eyelash that he'd just picked up with tweezers, failed somehow to be overcome by the sudden majesty of command that had just officially dropped onto his shoulders.

  "I regret to inform Illustrious," Michi continued, "that Captain Fletcher's death was the result of foul play. I ask any crew with knowledge of this event to report to the Constabulary, or to an officer. As the lord captain was murdered between 03:01 and 05:01, the testimony of anyone with knowledge of unusual movement or activity around that time would be very useful."

  A new firmness, almost a ferocity, entered Michi's voice. "The squadron is alone, moving deep in enemy territory. We are too vulnerabl
e to the enemy to permit any kind of disorder and lawlessness in our own ranks. Any weakness on our part only makes the enemy stronger. I am determined-" The word was almost a shout. "-determined that the killer or killers of Captain Fletcher will be found and punished.

  "Once again," more subdued now, "I ask anyone with information to come forward before any more crimes are committed. This is Squadron Commander Chen, in the name of the Praxis."

  Martinez was impressed. The cocktails had done her good, he decided.

  Before long Martinez began to envy Michi her cocktails. If anything were going to be solved this way, with fingerprint comparison and hair and fiber analysis, it would be through long and tedious work, and Martinez had no time for that.

  He had a warship to command.

  When the job was finished, he rose to his feet and looked at the office, the fine tile and elegant paneling, the martial statues of men in plate armor and the glass cabinets holding objects of beauty, all of it smudged with fingerprints and covered with powder. If he'd set out to disfigure all the grace and perfection with which Fletcher had filled his life, he could scarcely have done a better job.

  "Lord captain," Xi asked. "May I have the codes to the ship's fingerprint file?"

  "Yes. As soon as I can find them." Martinez was happy to have Xi do the job.

  "I'll return to my office," Xi said, "and proceed as best as I can."

  Martinez thought again about Michi's cocktails. "May I offer you a drink first?"

  Xi accepted. Martinez paged Alikhan and told him to serve Xi in his old office. "I have a brief errand," he told the doctor. "I'll be with you in a few minutes."

  He brought Narbonne and the others into the office to finish packing Fletcher's belongings. Martinez got a signed copy of the inventory from Marsden, then had the captains' possessions transferred to a locker. Martinez locked the door with his captain's key, and put it under his key and password, so that only he could open the locker.

  He remembered the captain's rings and pendant only after he'd returned to Fletcher's office, and so he had Marsden make another note to the effect that he'd taken them into his own possession.