Logs (dread empire's fall)

by Walter Jon Williams

  "Damn it!" Martinez entertained a brief fantasy of hurling his coffee cup across the room and letting it go smash on the nose of one of Fletcher's armored statues. "We got so close."

  Chandra gave the wall display a bleak stare. "There's still one chance," she said. "The system makes automatic backups on a regular schedule. The automatic backups go into a temporary file and are erased by the system on a regular basis. The files aren't there any longer, but the tracks might be, if they haven't been written over in the meantime."

  "The chances of finding those old files must be…"

  "Not quite astronomical." She pursed her lips in calculation. "I'd be willing to undertake the search, my duties permitting, but I'm going to need more authority with the system than I've got as a staff lieutenant."

  He warmed his coffee while he considered Chandra's offer. He supposed that she was still theoretically a suspect. But on the other hand it was unlikely she'd offer to spend her time going through the ship's vast datafiles track by track.

  Unless of course she was covering up her own crimes.

  Martinez thought were interrupted by a polite knock on the dining room door. Martinez looked up to see his cook, Perry.

  "I was wondering when you'd be wanting supper, my lord."

  "Oh." Martinez forced his mind from one track to the next. "Half an hour or so, then?"

  "Very good, my lord." Perry braced and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

  Martinez returned his attention to Chandra and realized, a little belatedly, that it might have been the polite thing to invite her to supper.

  He also realized he'd made up his mind. He didn't think Chandra had killed anybody-had never believed it-and in any case he had to agree with Michi that the squadron couldn't spare her.

  If she wanted to spend her spare hours hunting incriminating tracks in the cruiser's data banks and erasing them, he didn't much care.

  "If you'll give me your key," he said, "I'll see if I can give you more access."

  He awarded her a clearance that would enable her to examine the ship's hard data storage, then returned her key. She tucked the key back into her tunic and gave him a provocative smile.

  "Do you remember," she said, "when I told you that I'd be the best friend you ever had?"

  Martinez was suddenly aware of her rosewood perfume, of the three tunic buttons that had been undone, and of the fact that he'd been living alone on the ship for far too many months.

  "Yes?" he said.

  "Well, I've proved it." Chandra closed the buttons, one by one. "One day the squadcom talked to me about whether or not you could have killed Fletcher, and I talked her out of the idea."

  Martinez was speechless.

  "You shouldn't count too much on the fact that you married Lord Chen's daughter," Chandra went on. "The impression I received was that if you died out here, it might solve more problems for Lord Chen than it would cause. He'd have a marriageable daughter again, for one thing."

  Martinez considered this, and found it disturbingly plausible. Lord Chen hadn't wanted to give up his daughter, not even in exchange for the millions the Martinez clan were paying him, and Martinez' brother Roland had practically marched Lord Chen to the wedding in a hammerlock. If Martinez could be executed of a crime-and furthermore a crime against both the Gombergs and the Fletchers-then he couldn't imagine Lord Chen shedding many tears.

  "Interesting," he managed to say.

  Chandra rose and leaned over his desk. "But," she said, "I pointed out to Lady Michi that you'd played an important part in winning our side's only victories against the Naxids, and that we really couldn't spare you even if you were a killer."

  The phrasing brought a smile to Martinez' lips. "You might have given me the benefit of the doubt," he said. "I might not have killed Fletcher, after all."

  "I don't think Lady Michi was interested in the truth by that point. She just wanted to be able to close the file." She perched on his desk and brushed its glossy surface with her fingertips. A triumphant light danced in her eyes. "So am I your friend, Gareth?" she asked.

  "You are." He looked up at her and answered her smile. "And I'm yours, because when Lady Michi was trying to pin the murder on you-with far more reason, I thought-I talked her out of it using much the same argument."

  He saw the shock roll through Chandra like a slow tide. Her lips formed several words that she never actually spoke, and then she said, "She's a ruthless one, isn't she?"

  "She's a Chen," Martinez said.

  Chandra slowly rose to her feet, then braced.

  "Thank you, my lord," she said.

  "You're welcome, lieutenant."

  He watched her leave, a little unsteadily, and then paged Mersenne. When the plump lieutenant arrived, Martinez invited him to sit.

  "Some time ago," Martinez said, "before I joined the squadron, you found Lieutenant Kosinic leaving an access hatch on one of the lower decks. Do you happen to remember which one?"

  Mersenne blinked in utter surprise. "I haven't thought about that in months," he said. "Let me think, my lord."

  Martinez let him think, which Mersenne accomplished while pinching his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger.

  "That would be Deck Eight," Mersenne said finally. "Access Four, across from the riggers' stores."

  "Very good," Martinez said. "That will be all."

  As Mersenne, still puzzled, rose to his feet and braced, Martinez added, "I'd be obliged if you mention my interest in this to no one."

  "Yes, my lord."

  Tomorrow, Martinez thought, he would schedule an inspection, and something interesting might well come to light.

  After breakfast Martinez staged an inspection in which Access Four on Deck Eight was opened. The steady rumble of ventilations blowers rose from beneath the deckplates. Martinez descended with Marsden's datapad, squeezed between the blowers and a coolant pipe wrapped in bright yellow insulation material, and checked the serial numbers on the blowers against the numbers on the 77-12 that had been supplied by Rigger/First Patil.

  The numbers matched.

  Martinez crouched in the confined space and checked the numbers again. Again they matched.

  He straightened, his head and shoulders coming above deck level, and looked at Patil, who looked at him with anxious interest.

  "When were these blowers last replaced?"

  "Just before the war started, my lord. They're not due for replacement for another four months."

  So these were the same blowers that Kosinic had seen when he'd gone down the same access. If it wasn't the serial numbers, Martinez thought, what had Kosinic been looking for?

  Martinez ducked down the access again and ran his hands along the pipes, the ductwork, the electric conduit, just in case something had been left here, a mysterious message or an ominous warning. He found nothing but the dust that filled his throat and left him coughing.

  Perhaps Mersenne had been wrong about from which he'd seen Kosinic emerge. Martinez had several of the nearby access plates raised, and he descended into each to find again that everything was in order.

  It was hours later, while he was eating a late supper-a ham sandwich made of leftovers from the meal he'd given Michi-that a memory burst on his mind.

  With Francis it's always about money.

  That had been Alikhan's comment on the cruiser's former master rigger, and suddenly, days after they'd been spoken, the words suddenly seemed to echo in Martinez' skull.

  Gambling, he thought.

  Martinez carried his plate from the dining room to his desk, where he called up the display, then used the authority of his captain's key to access the commissary records and check the files of the commissary bank.

  Actual cash wasn't handed to the crew during the voyage: accounts were kept electronically in the commissary bank, which was, technically anyway, a branch of the Imperial Bank which issued the money in the first place. Crew would pay electronically for anything purchased from the commissary, and any gambl
ing losses would be handled by direct transfer from one account to another.

  The crew were paid every twenty days. Martinez looked at the account of Rigger Francis, and saw that it totaled nearly nine thousand zeniths, enough to buy an estate on nearly any planet in the empire.

  And this was only the money that Francis had in this account. She could have more in accounts in other banks, in investments, in property.

  Martinez called for Alikhan. His orderly came into the dining room first, was surprised to find Martinez in his office, and approached.

  "Would you like me to take your plate, my lord?"

  Martinez looked in surprise at the plate he'd brought with him.

  "Yes," he said. "No. Never mind that now."

  Alikhan looked at him. "Yes, my lord."

  "I want to know about the gambling that's going on among the petty officers." Martinez looked at him. "Do they cheat?"

  Alikhan considered his answer for a long moment before speaking.

  "I don't think so, my lord. I think they're very experienced players, and at least some of the time they play in concert."

  "But they gamble with recruits, don't they?"

  Martinez thought he saw an angry tightening of Alikhan's lips before the answer came.

  "Yes, my lord. In the mess, every night."

  It's always about money. Again Alikhan's words echoed in Martinez' head.

  Gambling was of course against Fleet regulations, but such regulations were applied with a degree of discretion. If the petty officers played cards in their lounge, or the lieutenants wanted to play tingo in the wardroom, or the recruits roll dice in the engine spaces, action was rarely taken. It was a minor vice, and nearly impossible to stop. Gambling games and gambling scams were almost universal in the Fleet.

  But the gambling could become dangerous when it crossed lines of caste. When petty officers gambled with recruits, serious issues of abuse of power came into play. A superior officer could enforce a vicious payment schedule at extortionate rates of interest, and could punish recruits with extra duties or even assault. A recruit who owed money to his superior could not only lose whatever pay he happened to possess at the time, but could lose future salary either in direct losses or interest payments. The recruit might be forced to pay in other ways: gifts, sexual favors, performing the petty officers' duties, or even being forced to steal on behalf of his superior.

  It had been months since Chenforce left Harzapid, and it would be months more before Illustrious would stop in a Fleet dockyard. A recruit in the grips of a gambling ring could lose his pay for the entire journey, possibly the entire commission.

  "Who's taking part in this?" Martinez asked.

  "Well, my lord," Alikhan said, "I'd rather not get anyone in trouble."

  "You're not getting them in trouble," Martinez said. "They're already in trouble. But you can exclude those who aren't a part of it by naming those who are."

  This logic took a few seconds to work its way through Alikhan's mind, but in the end he nodded.

  "Very well, my lord," Alikhan said. "Francis, Gawbyan, and Gulik organize the games. And Thuc was a part of it, but he's dead."

  "Very good," Martinez said. He turned to his desk, then looked back at Alikhan. "I don't want you talking about this."

  "Of course n-"

  "Dismissed."

  Martinez' mind was already racing to the next problem. He called up the accounts of Francis, Gawbyan, Gulik, and Thuc, and saw that they jumped on every payday-but when he looked at the figures, Martinez saw they were being paid far more than their salary. Nearly two-thirds of their income seemed to becoming in the form of direct transfers from other crew. Martinez backtracked the transfers, and found no less than nine recruits who regularly transferred their entire pay to the senior petty officers. They'd been doing it for months. Others were paying less regularly, but still paying.

  Anger simmered in Martinez. You people like playing with recruits so much, he thought, maybe you should be recruits.

  He would break them, he thought. And he'd confiscate the money, too, and turn it over to the ship's entertainment fund, or perhaps to Fleet Relief to aid distressed crew.

  He checked the totals and found that Gulik was losing the money practically as fast as he was making it. Apparently the weaponer was truly devoted to gambling, and eventually lost every bit of his earnings to his friends. At the moment he had practically nothing in his accounts.

  The scent of coffee wafted past his nose, and he looked up from the accounts to find that someone had placed a fresh cup of coffee by his elbow, next to a plate of newly-made sandwiches. Alikhan had made the ghostly delivery and Martinez hadn't even noticed.

  He ate a sandwich and drank a cup of coffee.

  Always about the money, he thought.

  He opened the 77-12 that he'd viewed just that morning and looked again at the serial number of the ventilation blowers. He backtracked through the record and found that Patil had corrected the serial number from the purely fictional one that Francis had originally recorded in the log.

  Every item in Martinez knew, came with its own history. Every pump, every transformer, every missile launcher, every robot, every processor, and every waste recycler came with a long and complex record that recorded the date of manufacture or assembly, the date at which it was purchased by the Fleet, the date at which it was installed, and each date at which it was subject to maintenance or replacement.

  Martinez called up the history of the air blowers on Deck Eight and discovered that, according to the records, the blowers had been destroyed with the Quest, a Naxid frigate involved in the mutiny at Harzapid.

  Rebel Data, he thought.

  He checked the history of the turbopump that had failed at Arkhan-Dohg, and found that the turbopump had been decommissioned three years earlier, sold as scrap, and replaced by a new pump fresh from the factory.

  His mouth was dry. He was suddenly aware of the silence in his office, the easy throb of his pulse, the cool taste of the air.

  He knew who had killed Kosinic and Fletcher, and why.

  Invitations went out in the morning, sent to all the senior petty officers. An invitation for drinks with their new captain, set for an hour before supper, was not something the customs of the service would let them decline, and decline they did not. The last affirmative reply came within minutes of the invitations being sent out.

  The petty officers entered the dining room more or less in a clump: round-faced Gawbyan with his spectacular mustachos, Strode with his bowl haircut, burly Francis, thin, nervous Cho. Some of them were surprised to find the ship's secretary Marsden waiting with his datapad in his hands.

  The guests sorted themselves out in order of seniority, with the highest-ranked standing near Martinez at the head of the table. Gulik was on his right, across from Master Cook Yau, with Gawbyan and Strode the next pair down, each with a grand set of mustachios; and then Zhang and Nyamugali. Near the bottom of the table was the demoted Francis.

  Martinez looked at them all as they stood by their chairs. Francis seemed thoughtful and preoccupied, and was looking anywhere but at Martinez. Yau looked as if he had left his kitchens only reluctantly. Strode seemed determined, as if he had a clear but not entirely pleasant duty before him; and Gulik, who had been so nervous during inspections, was now almost cheerful.

  Martinez picked up his glass and raised it. Pale green wine trembled in Captain Fletcher's leaded crystal, reflecting beads of peridot-colored light over the company.

  "To the Praxis," he said.

  "The Praxis," they echoed, and drank.

  Martinez took a gulp of his wine and sat. The others followed suit, including Marsden, who sat by himself to the side of the room and set his datapad to record. He picked up a stylus and stood ready to correct the datapad's transcription of the conversation.

  "You may as well keep the wine in circulation," Martinez said, nodding to the crystal decanters set on the table. "We'll be here for a while, and I don't
want you to go dry."

  There were murmurs of appreciation from those farther down the table, and hands reached for the bottles.

  "The reason this meeting may take some time," Martinez said, "is because like the last meeting, this is about record-keeping."

  There was a kind of collective pause from his guests, and then a resigned, collective sigh.

  "You can blame it on Captain Fletcher, if you want to," Martinez said. "He ran Illustrious in a highly personal and distinctive way. He'd ask questions during inspections and he'd expect you to know the answers, but he never asked for any documentation. He never checked the 77-12s, and never had any of his officers do it."

  Martinez looked at his wine glass and nudged it slightly with his thumb and forefinger, putting it in alignment with some imaginary dividing line running through the room.

  "The problem with the lack of documentation, though," he said, keeping his eyes on the wine glass, "is that to a certain cast of mind, it means profit." He sensed Yau stiffen on his left, and Gulik gave a little start.

  "Because," Martinez continued, picking carefully through his thoughts, "in the end Captain Fletcher only knew what you told him. If it looked all right, and what he was told was plausible, then how would he ever find out if he'd been yarned or not?

  "Particularly because Fleet standards require that equipment exceed all performance criteria. Politicians have complained for centuries that it's a waste of money, but the Control Board has always required that our ships be overbuilt, and I think the Control Board's always been right.

  "But what that meant," he said, "is that department heads could, with a little extra maintenance, keep our equipment going far longer than performance specs required." He looked up for the first time, and he saw Strode watching him with a kind of thoughtful surprise, as if he was recalculating every conclusion he'd ever drawn about Martinez. Francis was staring straight ahead of her, her gray hair partly concealing her face. Cho seemed angry.

  Gulik was pale. Martinez could see the pulse beating in his throat. When he saw Martinez studying him, he reached for his glass and took a large gulp of the wine.

  "If you keep the old equipment going," Martinez said, "and if you know where to go, you can sell the replacement gear for a lot of money. Things like blowers and coolers and pumps can bring a nice profit. Everyone likes Fleet equipment, it's so reliable and forgiving and overbuilt. And they were getting this stuff new, right out of the box."