by Troy Denning
Krosbi frowned. “I’m not sure what else I can tell you. I’m not a medical examiner.”
“But you observed the lividity patterns, correct?” Veta asked.
“Of course. Those were . . . peculiar.” Krosbi turned to the AV specialist posted at the far end of the cabin. “Bring up the images, please.”
The specialist touched a couple of pads on an in-wall control panel, and a few gasps and gags sounded as holograms of the corpses of Yuso and Catalin Tuwa appeared over the table. The bodies appeared much the same as when Veta had found them in the detention center, save that they were naked and their intestines were no longer heaped in their laps.
Krosbi reached out, using a finger to point out several pale ovals on Yuso’s shoulder blades, buttocks, and calves. Each oval was surrounded by an expanse of pale pink flesh.
“I’m sure you know what these white circles represent.”
“Of course.” Veta turned to the rest of the table and explained, “Those are areas where the blood was prevented from pooling by the body weight resting on a hard surface.” She pointed at the pink regions surrounding them. “These zones of lividity are where the blood began to settle after the heart stopped pumping.”
Ewen leaned forward to study Yuso’s image, then looked back to Krosbi. “So he died on his back?”
“They both did,” Krosbi confirmed. “Probably on an operating table.”
“Or something similar,” Veta added quickly. “All we really know is the surface was flat. It could have been a floor, for example.”
Ewen frowned. “That’s a pretty minor point, Inspector.”
“But an important one,” Veta said. “We don’t want to make assumptions that might lead us astray later.”
“Okay then.” Ewen looked back to Krosbi. “Something struck you as peculiar, Doctor?”
“Yes, sir,” Krosbi said. He pointed at an expanse of pink flesh surrounding one of the white ovals. “These areas are too faint. Given the volume of blood in a typical human body, I’d expect them to be a deeper red.”
“Which means?”
“In this case, that the organs were rapidly removed after death,” Veta said. She didn’t know whether Ewen was snubbing her because he had doubts about her abilities or because she was pushing him to continue the mission—and she really didn’t care. She was the most qualified person to lead the investigation, and she wasn’t about to let a deck-pacer get in her way. “They hold a lot of blood, so if they’re removed, there isn’t as much to settle.”
“Of course,” Ewen said. He turned back to Krosbi. “There was something else you found peculiar?”
Krosbi pointed at Yuso’s feet and ankles, which were puffy and almost purple. “The blood remaining in their bodies pooled in their feet. I don’t understand why.”
“Because the bodies were moved shortly after death,” Veta explained. “Since there isn’t any color on their flanks or the anterior planes of their bodies, we know they were moved in the same position they died . . . resting on their backs.”
Ewen look doubtful. “Then why are the feet so dark?”
“Acceleration,” Veta said. “They were stowed with their heads toward the bow of the vessel and their feet toward the stern, then subjected to some fairly strong g-force.”
“You’re sure it was a vessel?” Ewen asked, finally seeming to accept that Veta was his best resource. “Why not a land vehicle?”
“Stagnant blood doesn’t flow like water,” Veta said. “It seeps. To make it pool in the feet like that, a ground vehicle would have to accelerate continuously—and ferociously—for an hour or more. I’m talking traveling thousands of kilometers per hour.”
“Plus, you know, there’s the mess in the Turaco,” Mark said. “That gunk in the cargo hold was a big hint.”
“Which will probably match the Tuwas’ DNA,” Veta said. “But for now, that’s still an assumption. We need to work the facts first.”
“Toward what end, exactly?” Ewen asked.
“Toward finding the crime scene,” Veta said. “Once we have that established, we can begin to construct a theory of the crime.”
“Which will tell us who really assassinated Admiral Tuwa.” Olivia’s tone was helpful to the point of condescension. “And maybe we can get our mission back on track.”
“I got that part.” There was more patience in Ewen’s voice than he had shown Veta. “But I’m still vague on how lividity helps.”
“It narrows the time-of-death window,” Veta said. “And that shrinks our search radius.”
“Ah,” Ewen said. “Even better. Continue.”
“I was planning to.” Veta turned back to the holograms of bodies. “Right now, our search radius includes every system within a thirty-hour slipspace jump of Taram. That’s because the bodies are still in full rigor mortis, which normally begins to abate by that time.”
As Veta spoke, Ewen pointed a finger toward the AV specialist, who began to tap the wall controls again. The holograms of the two bodies drifted apart, making room for a tactical display centered on Taram. The image showed a web of slipspace routes connecting to more than a hundred systems—mostly uninhabited—within the designated travel time at a Turaco’s best slipspace velocity. Not all edges of the image appeared to be at the same distance, since slipspace routes ran through the eleven “nondimensions” folded into the four dimensions perceptible to human beings.
The range could actually have been expanded to a forty-hour slip, since environmental conditions such as ambient temperature affected how quickly rigor mortis advanced. But Veta saw no need to complicate things by raising factors that would have no bearing on the investigation. The Tuwas’ mutilated corpses had shown no obvious signs of decomposition when she found them, and given a reasonably warm temperature, putrefaction would have been evident after anything more than thirty hours.
Veta pointed at the area of faint color on Yuso’s back. “It usually takes lividity about thirty minutes to appear, so we know he was left lying at least that long before acceleration began.” She studied the lividity on Catalin’s back, noticing that it appeared even fainter. “And Yuso was killed before Catalin, so he was probably left closer to an hour.”
The AV specialist touched the wall controls again. The tactical display shimmered as its outer layer vanished, then wavered and expanded to its former size—but this time, it showed only the strands ending in less than a twenty-nine-hour slipspace jump. The number of systems in the image had been reduced to fewer than a hundred.
Veta studied the feet of both corpses for a moment, then turned to Krosbi. “Doctor, did the feet blanch when you examined them?”
“Not at all,” Krosbi said. “The lividity was fixed on both patien—uh, victims.”
“And you squeezed hard?”
Krosbi looked worried. “I was firm,” he said. “But I didn’t realize—”
“No, firm is good.” Veta could confirm his findings when she conducted her own examination of the bodies, but the uniform coloring on both sets of feet suggested the blood cells had already begun to break down and dissipate into the surrounding tissue. She turned back to the AV specialist. “The lividity is fixed in both subjects. That usually takes between eight and twelve hours. Given Doctor Krosbi’s observations and what I can see in the hologram, I’d say we’re well into that range. Let’s eliminate any system closer than a ten-hour journey.”
The tactical display wavered again, this time becoming a thick shell of system-designator codes wrapped around an empty core. The number of potential search locations dwindled to under fifty—still far more than the Silent Joe could reasonably visit. Veta racked her brain for a way to reduce that number still further and—knowing that insects invaded corpses on a predictable schedule—began to wish they had a xenoentomologist aboard.
“Doctor Krosbi, what did you observe in the way of insect colonization?” Even on Gao, where incubation was considered rapid, it took fourteen hours for the first midge larvae to appear. “
Was it just eggs, or did you see any larvae?”
Krosbi’s answer was immediate. “I didn’t observe any of that at all.”
Veta frowned. He probably wouldn’t have missed any larvae; they would have been writhing around and fairly obvious. But egg masses often looked like something else.
“Did you notice anything that looked like a moldy spot or crusted dirt?” She hadn’t seen any colonization herself—but she had been in too much of a rush to make a detailed examination. “Especially around the eyes, nostrils, or groin?”
Krosbi shook his head. “No. I’d have taken note of that. There wasn’t any.” He paused a moment, then added, “Which only makes sense, when you think about it.”
“How so?” Veta asked.
“Whoever excised the victims’ organs did so carefully,” Krosbi said. “And care implies purpose. They wouldn’t have wanted insect contamination.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” Veta said. She had been concentrating so hard on establishing a time of death that she had overlooked the connection between motive and location. “They were killed in a sterile environment.”
“Like an operating room,” Ash said.
“Probably,” Veta said. “But we can’t forget that they were held alive for nearly two weeks first. So let’s say part of a larger facility.”
“Like a hospital,” Ash said.
“Or maybe a lab,” Olivia said. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
Ash shrugged. “Maybe a little bit,” he said. “But whether it’s a lab or a hospital, it’s in an inhabited system.”
“Because?” Veta asked.
“Basic countersurveillance,” Ash said. “It’s easier to hide in a crowd than an empty room—especially if that crowd happens to live on a world hostile to the UNSC.”
“Camouflage is always smart,” Fred agreed. “But so is staying mobile, and I’ve been in enough infirmaries to know that most big ships have surgeons like Doctor Krosbi here.”
Ash thought a moment, then shook his head. “A vessel that big is too easy to spot, sir, and it would be likely to draw attention.”
“The UNSC has a lot of anti-pirate assets in the sector right now,” Hersh added. “Chances are high that we would have noticed a large vessel in a holding pattern.”
The room fell silent for a moment; then Ewen finally nodded. “A fine observation, Ash.” He looked down the length of the table to the AV specialist. “Filter out the uninhabited systems, Petty Officer Hovane.”
The tactical hologram went almost dark as dozens of designators winked out. With only half a dozen systems still illuminated, the alphanumeric symbols expanded until they were large enough to be easily read, and Veta saw a pair of familiar locations on the list.
Venezia—where the Ferret team’s mission had begun with the shootout in Trattoria Georgi—was the closest world at twelve hours away.
But it was the other location that really leapt out at her: Gao. Her homeworld was only a sixteen-hour jump from Taram.
And thanks to the inordinate biodiversity of its jungles, it had plenty of laboratories. Developing new medicines was one of its leading industries.
“It’s Gao. The crime scene is on Gao,” Veta said.
Ewen studied her for a moment, then asked, “I suppose you have map coordinates too?”
“Not yet,” Veta said. “But there are thousands of pharmacology labs there—and most of them have good security and sterile facilities.”
“Thousands?” Fred echoed. “I liked our odds better before you figured out where to look.”
“I can probably narrow down the list.” Veta turned to Krosbi. “Especially if we can figure out why a research team might want to keep the Tuwas alive for two weeks before emptying their chests.”
Krosbi frowned. “I can think of only one medical reason to do that before harvesting their organs.” A troubled light came to his eyes. “The researchers were trying to culture something.”
“Like what?” Ewen asked.
Krosbi picked up his datapad and began to tap the screen. “I’ll have to run a serological battery to determine the exact nature of those preparations, but I imagine it had something to do with the Barugi incident.”
Veta had never heard of the “Barugi incident,” but she recalled that Barugi was the fourth planet in the Tuwas’ home system, Tisiphone. Admiral Osman had mentioned that Kerbasi Tuwa had been the medical officer at a preparatory academy located there.
“What was that about?” she asked.
Before answering, Krosbi cast a nervous look toward Ewen.
“Her security clearance is higher than yours, Doc,” Fred said. He turned to Ewen. “And she has need-to-know, sir. We all do.”
“Fair enough,” Ewen said. “I’m not even sure why it’s been classified, much less compartmentalized. But for the record, nobody talks about it outside this wardroom. Clear?”
After a chorus of acknowledgments, Ewen nodded to Krosbi. “Carry on, Doctor.”
“Thank you, sir,” Krosbi said. “Fifteen years ago, the UNSC Preparatory Academy on Barugi experienced an outbreak of asteroidea merozoite.
“Which is?” Ash asked.
“A virulent protozoal disease,” Krosbi said.
“Ah,” Mark said. “That clears things up.”
“The important part is that it was deadly,” Ewen said. “Extremely deadly. Kerbasi Tuwa and his children were the only survivors.”
“The only long-term survivors,” Krosbi added. “It’s also important that this was the first—and only known—outbreak. That’s probably why it was so virulent.”
“How virulent?” Veta asked.
“The entire school was infected within thirty hours,” Krosbi said. “Nearly ten thousand people.”
“And the only survivors were from one family?” Veta’s detective radar was humming. “How did that happen?”
“It’s not as suspicious as you may think,” Krosbi said. “They were protected by a gamma-thalassemia mutation.”
“In English, please?”
Krosbi flashed a good-natured smile. “They had a genetic blood disorder that caused a minor deformity in their hemoglobin. The deformity wasn’t severe enough to cause symptoms . . . but it prevented the asteroidea from taking hold.”
“So that’s why the Tuwas were held alive for two weeks?” Veta asked. “Because someone was culturing this gamma-thawhatever mutation?”
“Cells containing it,” Krosbi corrected. “Asteroidea antibodies or antigens. I really won’t know until I see the serology results.”
“But it’s definitely related to the Tuwa mutation,” Veta said, pressing the point. “Whatever the kidnappers wanted, they couldn’t get it from somebody else?”
Krosbi returned his attention to his datapad, then nodded. “It does seem to be a unique mutation. The UGD doesn’t record it for anyone but Kerbasi and his children.”
Veta thought about this. The UGD—the UNSC Genetic Database—contained the genetic profiles of all non-covert UNSC personnel. The UNSC claimed the database’s primary purpose was to speed response time in medical emergencies . . . but there could be no denying that it was also a great aid in identifying battlefield remains. Something about this whole thing was suspicious. Then it hit her.
“None of this was noted in their personnel files,” she finally said. “I would have remembered it.”
“Actually, the thalassemia mutation was listed in a note in their medical histories,” Krosbi said. “I’d never heard of the gamma variant, and that’s what led me to the file on the Barugi incident.”
“Which was recently classified?” Olivia asked.
“And compartmentalized.” Krosbi checked his datapad, then added, “Two months ago.”
Olivia lifted her brow. “So just six weeks before the Tuwas were taken?” She turned to Veta and added, “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Probably not,” Veta said. “Let’s assume for now that the deaths of Kerbasi and his children had something to do w
ith the mutation. I need a list of everyone who’s accessed their files recently.”
“I’ll work on it,” Olivia said. “But there are probably a million nurses alone who have access to the UGD. When you add the doctors, medical examiners, and clerks, it’s going to be more like five million.”
“Yeah, but the files are still going to have access logs,” Veta replied.
“Probably,” Olivia said. “And the ID codes in them are going to be either false or stolen.”
“How can you know that?” Ewen asked.
“Because this enemy is too smart to make such a basic mistake,” Olivia said. “If whoever did this had the ability and the foresight to classify the Barugi incident, then they had the ability and the foresight to access the log using someone else’s identity.”
“True,” Veta said. “But you’ll still need to run it down when you have time. We need to be sure.”
“Affirmative.”
Veta turned back to Krosbi. “You said the Tuwas were the only long-term survivors,” she said. “What happened to the short-term ones?”
Krosbi’s eyes dropped to his datapad again. “There were six of them, all with delta-beta thalassemia.” He seemed to realize he was getting too technical and looked up. “Uh . . . meaning they had an asymptomatic condition similar to that of the Tuwas. But that didn’t protect them from the infection—in fact, it caused them to suffer far more.”
“How so?”
“When the asteroidea attacked, the mutation caused skin overgrowth and bone malformation.” Krosbi looked again to his datapad. “In two cases, the patients lived in an ONI hospital for several years before finally succumbing to their deformations. They appear to have grown quite grotesque over time. By the end . . . they barely looked mammalian.”
Veta resisted the urge to ask whether the ONI doctors had been trying to save the victims—or just studying them. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“And that’s why the Barugi incident was classified?” she asked. “Because ONI got involved?”
“I don’t think so,” Krosbi said. “As Captain Ewen suggested, it’s hard to see why someone classified this information at all. Except for ONI’s involvement, it’s been a matter of public record for fourteen years. And Barugi has been under permanent BQ for twelve.”
