Cold Welcome

by Elizabeth Moon

  “When you’ve got Inyatta settled,” she said to Lundin, “send someone to Stores, see if they can find something to wrap Marek and the commander in.” She looked at Gossin. “Can we agree they both died of gunshot wounds?”

  “Yes,” Gossin and Lundin said together.

  “Then we need to move the bodies, and get this space cleaned when you, Staff, are through with your examination.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lundin said, and stood up just as the two she’d sent for a litter returned with one.

  Gossin gave Ky a look mixing doubt and curiosity. “Admiral, you—I know you have killed before, in the war. But that was blowing up ships. This is different, isn’t it?”

  “Very,” Ky said. She closed her eyes a moment, then looked directly at Gossin. “I have been in close fights before, Staff. Remember, my whole family was attacked wherever they were; I was on a Vatta ship.” The incidents raced through her mind, like a fast slideshow on a travel site, one image for each fight. “Shot at, poisoned, shot at again…”

  “And that’s why you’re so calm?”

  “I suppose.” Ky stood up. “Betange, have you recorded the commander’s body? Then it’s time to record the weapons, close-ups as well as locations.”

  “How did you know I didn’t have a firearm, too?” Gossin asked. “You—when you came to the door unarmed—that surprised me.”

  “I didn’t know. But I didn’t want to scare you more.”

  “It was risky.”

  “Yes.” She nodded at the change in Gossin’s expression. “And it was necessary. Would you have trusted me enough to come in here and examine the scene with me if I’d had a pistol in my hand? Or even in a holster?”

  “No, Admiral,” Gossin said. “I’d have—I don’t know what I’d have done exactly, but I wouldn’t have trusted you.” After a moment she said, “You trusted me not to shoot you even if Marek had armed me.”

  “It was a risk I had to take. You’ve been solid before now; I thought you would be. Still—this would shock anyone. Everyone. Scare some of you, and with reason. I’ll tell everyone what I know, once we’ve finished with this room. It’s time to look at the weapons.”

  Marek’s, now that she looked at it closely, was not the same model Gordon 421 9mm she had used in target practice as a cadet at the Academy, but the 421-R model with doubled magazine and full automatic, usually an officer’s weapon. It lacked the familiar Spaceforce logo stamped into the metal. Marek could not have concealed that on the shuttle or in the raft. Where had he found it here? The butt had the usual palm-lock plate, but the blood and brain tissue it had skittered through, still firing after Marek dropped it, obscured it. Ky cleaned the blood off and put her hand there. Nothing. So it was palm-locked to him. Owned by him, or assigned to him…could have been either. He had to have been here, at this base, before.

  Betange approached. “Ready for another recording?”

  “Yes. You’ll notice that this weapon has no Spaceforce markings, but it’s a model Spaceforce uses.”

  “Palm-locked?”

  “Yes. Would’ve been ideal to get a palm print off it, but he had it on double-auto, and it had…organics all over it.” In a serious lab, it might’ve been recoverable, but not here and now. “If you scan this, right here, you can see the rate-of-fire setting.”

  Betange scanned the weapon, the workbench, the rags she’d used to clean it. “Done, Admiral.”

  “You’ll need to scan my weapon as well.” Ky nodded toward her pistol. “Personal, purchased at a weapons shop on Lastway years ago.” She released the clip, then removed the last round from the chamber. “As you can see, the clip was full, and I fired two rounds, both of which struck Master Sergeant Marek.”

  “I’m not a firearms expert, Admiral—”

  “I think my recorded testimony that this is my weapon and I did shoot the master sergeant should suffice, but if not the court can have the weapon tested once we’re back in Port Major. Meanwhile, I’m going to clean it. You should watch, so you can record that I’m not boring out the barrel or doing anything else that will alter the evidence. Be sure to collect the two cartridges.” In a few minutes she had the pistol clean, and turned to Gossin. “Do you want to keep this as evidence, Staff, or shall I keep it?”

  Gossin hesitated, then nodded. “It’s yours; you keep it. I trust you’re not planning to kill anyone else.”

  “I’m not. Now I need to check on Riyahn and see how involved he’s been in all this. When you’ve got the bodies wrapped up, we’ll take them up to the surface where it’s cold. I’d like to take Marek’s weapon with me; it may help Riyahn keep his facts straight. But it’s your call; you’re in charge of this investigation.”

  Doubt returned to Gossin’s expression. “It’s a mess, and it’s—”

  “Ugly, dirty, smelly…and, most important, unloaded. Psychological effect only.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  “Let me know when the bodies are ready for transport. See if there are enough spare boards or litters in the clinic; it’ll be easier to carry them that way.”

  “Just leave them outside?”

  “No, in one of the huts where they’ll be safe from animals and just as cold. Then all this mess needs to be cleaned up; Lundin will probably want it disinfected as well. She’ll tell you how.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  —

  Sergeant Cosper had Riyahn tied to a chair in the little office at the end of the barracks passage. “He’s not talking, Admiral Vatta.”

  She hadn’t told him to interrogate Riyahn. She hadn’t told him to pick the least suitable place—a room they would still need to use, a room full of things a dangerous person might use dangerously. Yes, the restraints were stored here, but he was supposed to have put Riyahn across the passage, in NCO quarters.

  Riyahn did not look dangerous now, but he had tried to grab Marek’s weapon. She laid the pistol, gory as it was, on the desk; Riyahn stared at it and said nothing.

  “Sergeant, wait outside. I will speak with Corporal Riyahn myself.”

  “Admiral—”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” Cosper gave a minute shrug and edged past her to the door.

  “He’s your size, Admiral. I wouldn’t untie him if I were you.”

  “No fear.” With Cosper out of the room, it seemed larger: the man had a talent for looming, seeming to take up more space than he actually did. She looked at Riyahn; he looked down.

  “Y-you killed him and now you’re going to kill me.” Riyahn’s voice trembled. “And Sergeant Cosper hurt me and yelled at me. My hands hurt.”

  “Did he hit you?” Ky pulled a pad of paper off the shelf, a stylus off the desk, and scribbled Riyahn and Cosper on it.

  “N-no. He grabbed my arm too tight and twisted it behind me, and then he tied me too tight. My nose itches and I can’t scratch it.”

  “You threatened an officer,” Ky said. “What did you think would happen?”

  “I thought you were going to kill everybody. I was going to protect—”

  “By snatching up an empty weapon and trying to kill me?”

  “No—I mean—it was there, I thought I could—”

  “Kill me with it.” Ky shook her head. “Marek tried to kill me and only managed to kill Commander Bentik.”

  “No! He didn’t want to kill her; he wanted to kill—” Riyahn’s mouth fell open and stayed open a moment. “I mean—”

  “You knew Marek wanted to kill me?” Ky nodded and noted that on paper. “And you did not report it?” She underlined what she’d written.

  “Well…no…I couldn’t. He said you were a traitor to Slotter Key, and you had seen classified things and had to be stopped—”

  “Killed, you mean.”

  “I suppose. I didn’t want to—I tried to talk him out of it—What are you doing?” That last in a squeak, as Ky picked up Marek’s weapon.

  “It’s evidence,” she said, tapping the barrel against her other hand. “I think you knew he
had it, and possibly where he hid it. I’m going to lock it away safely—you will not know where—and then lock you up.”

  “You’re not going to kill me?”

  “Not…now.” She drew that out, watching him. “If I don’t find a reason to kill you, you will be remanded to Spaceforce Security to stand trial for attempted murder of a senior officer and conspiracy to commit murder of Spaceforce personnel. If I remember correctly—” The relevant passages from the Spaceforce Code came to mind, even though she had a different implant now. “—Section five, paragraphs 3.14 through 3.23 list the punishments for those and several other crimes I suspect you committed, and I imagine you will spend most, if not all, the rest of your life in a Spaceforce prison. I hope to see to it that you do.”

  He said nothing, staring at her with the same terrified expression he’d had on the raft that first day and several times since.

  “Now. Until a relief force arrives”—a relief force she suspected might be intent not on rescue but on cover-up—“you will be confined away from the others; you will obey the orders of those I assign to guard you, and if you disobey you will be killed. We do not have the resources to waste on you if you are not cooperative. So: will you be cooperative, or should we end this now?” She nudged Marek’s weapon. Would he realize that she could not use it, that he himself could not have used it?

  “No—please! Don’t…I’ll do anything.”

  “Excellent.” Ky reached back and opened the door. “Sergeant Cosper?”

  “Admiral.”

  “You will find a small room suitable for a cell and see that it’s cleared out, provided with a couple of blankets and whatever else a prisoner should have. When it’s ready, take this man to the head, give him a bottle of water, and lock him up.”

  “His clothes, Admiral?”

  “We don’t have any prison uniforms here that I know of, Sergeant. Make him secure, whatever that is, within human decency.”

  “Right.”

  “And I’m sure you realize we’ll need to have a guard on the door at all times.”

  “Yes, sir—uh, Admiral. Right away.”

  “I’ll be meeting with the others. Call if you need me. You will bring Riyahn to the general meeting later this evening.”

  Ky detoured by her quarters to get her outdoor gear. When she got back to the armory, she found Staff Sergeant Gossin directing the cleanup. Marek’s and Jen’s bodies were already in bags, and two long backboards, bright red with EMERGENCY USE ONLY stenciled on them, stood by the wall.

  “Found the bags on a bottom shelf in the back of Stores,” Gossin said. “We’d inventoried only the food and water supplies. Lundin gave us the boards.”

  “Right. Glad you found them. Let’s get them up to the surface.”

  It was already dark topside. Eerie blue-green light danced in the sky, and vague shapes moved beyond the huts. The deerlike things, she decided after a few moments, not predators. They lugged the bodies over to the nearer of the two huts, and Ky unlocked the door. Inside, it was as cold as outside, cold as any freezer.

  “Where do we put them?”

  “On the floor there. We’ll lock them in; the animals can’t get at them and they’ll keep.”

  Once the bodies were down, Ky stooped to touch each one and let herself remember them as people she had known, then named them aloud. “Jenaaris Bentik. Ildan Marek. May you have rest.”

  “Even though—” began Droshinski.

  “Punishing the dead brings me no joy, whatever they did,” Ky said. Poor Marek, a decent man caught in someone else’s machinations. Poor Jen, dropped into a situation for which she was unqualified. “Yes, he tried to kill me; he conspired against me and possibly against us all, but—I cannot find it in me to hate him.”

  Outside once more, the hut locked, they stood a few moments in the bitter cold, watching the play of light over the snow and the buildings. “Well,” Ky said finally. “The day’s not over yet. Let’s get back down and call everyone together.”

  By the time she was back down the ramps, Sergeant Cosper had transferred Riyahn to a locked room. “I took out everything in it but blankets and a pillow for him, and he’s wearing only pajamas and socks. He’s been to the head; he’s got a bottle of water and a bar of concentrate. What about feeding him long-term?”

  “We’re not going to starve him. He’ll get rations same as the rest. Right now we need him in the mess hall. Do you have a guard on his door?”

  “It’s locked and I’m away just to report to you.”

  “And he may be desperate. We can’t risk his escaping. Put a telltale on the door, with the alarm set to loud, when you take him back after this meeting.”

  Gathered around one of the big tables in the mess hall, they seemed a much smaller group than the day before. Two dead. One injured, now in the medbox, one under guard. They looked tense, worried, and no wonder, Ky thought. They had much to worry about.

  “You’ve had a shock,” Ky began. “I’m sure you’re wondering what happened, why Commander Bentik and I were in the armory, why Master Sergeant Marek had a firearm, and what exactly led up to what happened. Here’s what I know.” Ky outlined it all, everything she knew for certain. Everyone looked at Riyahn for a moment; he didn’t look up. “Some of you,” she said, “were told by Marek that I was a traitor, or unfit to command because of my age. Some of you probably believed him. He was an experienced senior NCO, and you didn’t know me. You may still wonder about me, distrust me. If enough of you believe I’m a danger to all of you, you can manage to overwhelm and kill me—I have to sleep and eat and use the facilities sometime, after all. But I’m convinced that your best chance of survival—of getting home—is if we all band together and I continue as your commander.”

  “I’m with you, sir,” Kurin said, glancing at Gossin.

  “I am, too,” Cosper said.

  “With you,” McLenard said.

  “Thank you,” Ky said. All those who’d been in the life raft with her were nodding, leaning forward. Some of those who’d been in the other raft looked frightened still.

  “The admiral’s right,” Gossin said with a slap on the table. “I’m with her. I didn’t understand before, but when I put it all together, from the shuttle crash to here, she’s made good decisions and we’re alive now because of them.”

  “And,” Ky said, “there will be a legal investigation after we get back to Port Major. Staff Sergeant Gossin and Tech Betange have a record of the investigation they performed in the armory, and my testimony. So, questions?”

  “You didn’t notice anything wrong before?” Droshinski asked.

  “I noticed some things that troubled me,” Ky said. “But I attributed them to the stress of the crash and the difficulties we faced. No one is perfect; the struggle to survive exposes everyone. Looking back, I can certainly see things I might—in another context—have identified more clearly.”

  “You never let Master Sergeant Marek borrow your pistol to go hunting,” Kurin said. “Was that one of them?”

  “Yes. It seemed off that he kept asking. But even more, from my own experience, I’m not likely to hand over my only weapon to anyone.” She looked around the group. “I’ll be re-interviewing each of you individually. From the evidence, Master Sergeant Marek was part of a larger conspiracy, the kind of thing someone could be caught up in without knowing it, and the kind that might threaten the life of everyone here.” Should she drop the final bombshell? Yes. “We must prepare for the arrival of troops that may not be intent on rescue but on protecting a secret.”

  “You really think that—?”

  “It’s possible; I think it’s likely. I know this base was kept secret; people who keep secrets generally want them kept, and it would have taken a lot of power and money to keep this one.” When no one said anything or raised a hand, she went on. “It will be necessary to change duty assignments and rotations since we have fewer personnel. Staff Sergeant Gossin will prepare preliminary profiles for me that highl
ight combat and communications skills. We may be able to circumvent the communications lockout that we’ve experienced—” A hand went up. She nodded at Tech Hazarika.

  “Admiral, won’t that just bring down the—whoever they are—on us faster?”

  “Not if we can link directly to Rector Vatta without it being detected,” Ky said. “If I can contact Rector Vatta, so she knows we’re alive and where we are, I believe she will mount a rescue as soon as the weather allows. But the others might get here first. We need to be ready.”

  The faces ranged from blank to worried again. That wasn’t good. She replayed her last words in her mind. She knew better: just facts weren’t what they needed now. She made herself relax. Smile.

  “I’m convinced we can survive anything,” she said. “That’s what we are—survivors.” She paused. Two of the blank faces relaxed into an expression—not of confidence, not yet, but no longer frozen. “We’ve proved it, since the shuttle ditched. If we’d been easy to kill, if we’d been weak or stupid, we’d be dead.” A few grins now.

  “When Simon and Lazy stole rations and ate the puffer fish and died—” Corporal Barash scowled.

  “They were stupid. You lot—you were smart and tough when it was hard, when you were seasick, cold, hungry, scared.” She waited, letting them remember it. “And we’re still here. In spite of everything, you all—every one of you—did the right thing time after time. You never gave up. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. And I know you will keep at it, one task at a time, one day at a time, until we’re home.”

  “But if they—the ones coming—”

  “Whatever they do, whoever they are, we will make it,” Ky said. “We have time. We’re not going to sit here and make it easy for them. So: what I’m asking you all, right now, is this.” She saw them stiffen again, bracing for something near-impossible. “Who’s hungry? I missed breakfast; we all missed lunch. I could use a snack, and I’m sure you could, too. Who’re today’s cooks?”