Logs (dread empire's fall)

by Walter Jon Williams

  "Maybe it's was a gift from someone he cared for."

  "A cultist he cared for," Martinez muttered.

  He leaned back in his chair and followed his chain of reasoning again, piece by piece. No part of it was implausible by itself, he decided, and therefore his ideas were better than any other theory that had come his way.

  Much of it had to do with the way the Praxis viewed cults, and the way that the servants of the Praxis had interpreted their duty.

  The Shaa had believed in many things, but they did not believe in the numinous. Any cult that promoted a belief in the supernatural was, by definition, a violation of the Praxis and was illegal. When the Shaa conquered Terra, they had found the place swarming with cults, and had acted over time to suppress them, moving gradually over several generations. Meeting houses of the faithful had been torn down, turned to secular use, or converted to museums. Believers were dismissed from government and teaching posts. Cult literature was confiscated and its reproduction forbidden. Cult organizations were disbanded, any professional clergy dismissed, and schools of instruction shut down.

  Any believer determined on martyrdom was given ample opportunity to exercise his choice.

  Cults had never vanished, of course. The Shaa, who were not without their own shrewd intelligence, had perhaps never expected they would. But by forbidding the spread of doctrine, by forbidding professional clergy and houses of worship, by forbidding the reproduction of literature and cult objects, they had turned what had been by all accounts a thriving business into a strictly amateur affair. If there were meetings, they were small meetings that took place in private homes. If there were clergy, they had no opportunity for specialized study, and had to hold regular jobs. If there was literature, it was copied clandestinely and passed from hand to hand, and errors crept in and many texts were incomplete.

  Believers were usually not harassed as long as they did not practice in public or proselytize, and in time learned discretion. Though belief was not destroyed, its force was reduced, and in time cults became indistinguishable from superstition, a set of arcane and irrational practices designed to achieve the intervention of who knew what against the inflexible workings of an unknowable fate. Over the centuries the supernatural had simply ceased to be a threat to the empire.

  Marsden returned within a few moments, carrying a pair of grey plastic boxes. "I assumed you wanted possessions other than clothing, my lord," he said. "If you want to examine the clothing as well, may I requisition a hand truck?"

  That would be for Kosinic's trunks containing the amazing number of uniforms required of an officer, plus his personal vac suit. Thuc would have had fewer uniforms, and used a vac suit from the ship's stores.

  "The pockets would have been emptied, and so on?" Martinez asked.

  "Yes, lord captain. Pockets are looked through, and other places where small items might be found, and anything discovered put in these boxes."

  "I won't need the clothing, then. Put the boxes on my desk."

  Martinez opened Kosinic's box first. He found a ring from the Nelson Academy, from which Martinez had graduated before Kosinic arrived, and a handsome presentation stylus, brushed aluminum inlaid with unakite and jasper, and engraved "To Lieutenant Arthur Kosinic, from his proud father." There was a shaving kit, a modestly-priced cologne, a nearly-empty bottle of antibiotic spray that a doctor had probably given him for his wounds. Martinez found some fine paper, brushes, and watercolor paints, and looked at several finished watercolors, most planet-bound landscapes of rivers and trees, but including one recognizable impression of Fulvia Kazakov sitting at a table in the wardroom. To Martinez' unpracticed eye none of the watercolors seemed particularly expert.

  In a small pocketbook were a series of foils, neatly labeled, that held music and other entertainments. At the bottom of the box was a small pocket-sized datapad, which Martinez turned on. It asked for a password, but Martinez wasn't able to provide one. He slotted his captain's key into it, but the datapad was a private one, not Fleet issue, and wouldn't recognize his authority. Martinez turned it off and returned it to the box.

  The few belongings, the cologne and the academy ring and the inexpert watercolors, seemed to add up to an inadequate description of a life. Whatever had most mattered to Kosinic, Martinez thought, it probably wasn't here: his passions remained locked in his brain, and had died with him. Martinez looked again at the stylus, sent by the father who might not yet know that his son had been killed, and closed the box on Kosinic's life.

  He turned to the box labeled Thuc, H.C., Master Engineer (deceased), and found what he was looking for right on top.

  A small enameled pendant in the form of a tree with green and red blossoms, hanging from a chain of bright metal links.

  "I think there was a group of Narayanists on Illustrious," Martinez explained to Michi Chen. "I think Captain Fletcher was one of them. He wore a Narayanist symbol around his neck, and he had a huge statue of Narayanguru in his sleeping cabin. I think he adopted the pose of a collector of cult art so that he could collect Narayanist artifacts legally, and he covered his activities by collecting artifacts from other cults as well."

  "If you insist on that theory," Michi said, "You're going to have trouble with the Gombergs and Fletchers, maybe even a suit in civil court."

  "Not if I'm right, I won't," Martinez said. "If there are Narayanists in either of those families, we won't hear a word from them."

  Michi nodded silently. "Go on," she said.

  He had asked Michi into his office on a confidential matter, and she had been surprised on her arrival to find Marsden and Jukes present.

  "I think I know why Captain Fletcher was killed, but you'll have to be patient," Martinez began.

  "I've been patient so far," Michi said. Martinez could have quibbled with that, but decided against it. He called to Perry to bring out coffee and snacks, and ordered Marsden to record the meeting and take notes.

  "I think there were, perhaps still are, a number of Narayanists aboard," Martinez said. "Captain Fletcher protected them. Somehow Kosinic found out about at least some of this, though possibly he didn't know the captain was a part of the arrangement. As Kosinic's knowledge was now a menace to the cultists, one of them-Thuc-killed Kosinic."

  Michi nodded. "Very well," she said.

  "It was a masterfully done murder, and we would never have found out about it if Captain Fletcher wasn't killed the same way and made us suspicious."

  Perry and Alikhan arrived at that moment with coffee and little triangular pastries, and Martinez fell silent while everyone was served. He took an appreciative taste of the coffee and felt heat flush at once to the surface of his skin. He could feel his theories boiling in his skull, and he wanted to let them escape; he was so impatient that it took an effort to compliment Perry on the coffee. Finally the two left the room and he was able to continue.

  "We know that Thuc was a Narayanist because he, too, wore a Narayanist medallion. I think that once Kosinic was killed, Captain Fletcher began to realize that he was in a bad spot. All it would take would be a little indiscretion on the part of a petty officer, and Fletcher would be implicated in the death of a fellow officer-and not just any officer, but a member of the squadron commander's staff.

  "He couldn't indict Thuc, because any public proceedings would expose his own membership in the cult. So he used his officers' privilege and executed Thuc during the course of an inspection. You didn't see him do it, but I did-and it was very clearly premeditated, and very cold-blooded. He'd obviously practiced cutting Thuc's throat many times before he performed it."

  Michi's eyes flickered as Martinez said this, and she turned to Marsden.

  "You were there, Mister Marsden. Do you agree with this assessment?"

  Marsden had been listening with his bald head bent over his datapad, and his stylus poised to make corrections on the transcription of the conversation that his pad was automatically making. He looked up with a face that might have been carved o
f flint.

  "The lord captain was not accustomed to leave anything to chance," he said.

  Michi listened to this, and slowly nodded. She turned back to Martinez.

  "Go ahead, my lord."

  Martinez gave a little shrug. "Everything from this point is completely speculative," he said. "I think Captain Fletcher was intent on eliminating every member of the cult in order to protect himself, but I can't be certain that he wasn't just after Thuc. In any case, one or more other cult members assumed that Fletcher was going after them, and they acted to kill him first."

  Michi absorbed this quietly. "Do you have any idea who those other cult members might be?"

  Martinez shook his head. "No, my lady. The only people I'm inclined to exempt from suspicion are Weaponer Gulik and the crew of Missile Battery Three. Fletcher inspected them on the day of his death and didn't execute any of them."

  "That still leaves something like three hundred people."

  "Though I would start with those among the crew who are from Sandama, like the lord captain, or who are Fletcher's clients. Doctor Xi, for example."

  "Xi?" Michi was startled. "But he's been helpful."

  "He helpfully explained away his own fingerprints that were found in Captain Fletcher's office."

  "But he was the one who proved that Captain Fletcher was murdered in the first place. If he'd been part of the conspiracy, he would have kept silent."

  Martinez opened his mouth, then closed it. Doctor An-ku I'm not, he thought.

  "Well," he said, "let's not start with Doctor Xi, then."

  She held his eyes for a moment, and then her shoulder slumped as she seemed to deflate slightly. "We're no better off than we were. You've got an interesting theory, but even if it's true, it doesn't help us."

  Martinez took the two pendants, Fletcher's and Thuc's, in one large hand and held them dangling over his desk. "We searched the ship once, but we didn't know what we were looking for. Now we do. Now we're looking for these. We look in lockers and we look around necks."

  "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 Marsden 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 his secretary pirouetted before him, arms held out at the shoulder, showing 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 of it 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 Martinez and donned his tunic. When he had buttoned it, he resumed his seat and 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 this matter for a while, and 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 most delightful of dinner guests.

  "Yes, my lady," he said.

  Michi took a step toward the door, then hesitated. She looked at Jukes, her brows knit.

  "Mister 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 Jukes.

  "There are crumbs on your front, Mister 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 then, 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 and Martinez and 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?"

  "Yes." He looked over his shoulder and saw precious little privacy to be found, only the row of narrow cabins being searched by a gang of officers.

  "Come with me," he decided.

  Corbigny followed him to the companionway, where he walked to the shadow of the steep stair and 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' 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."

  The first thing Martinez thought was, Palermo Phillips? That can't be right. He couldn't imagine little 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' throat as the collar came open, as the gold links of a chain were revealed.

  Anger suddenly boiled in Martinez. He reached out, took the chain, and brutally pulled until the pendant at the bottom of its loop 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' 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 Illustrious' brig, and the familiar smell hit him. All jails smelled alike, sour bodies and disinfectant, boredom and despair.