Empire of Light

Chapter Twenty-five

By the time Corso and Martinez reached the maintenance bay, Perez had found some opaque plastic sheeting to cover Olivarri's body. Schiller had meanwhile headed back to the bridge.

Corso winced when Perez pulled the sheet back from Olivarri's head and upper torso, because the back of his head had been caved in. Dried blood had crusted around his mouth, and his nose was crushed flat against his skull.

He was barely recognizable, Corso thought.

Martinez leaned in close to the body and looked up at Perez. 'Where exactly did you find him?'

'Over there.' Perez nodded towards where a large steel panel had swung away from the wall. 'Whoever did this wedged him behind that maintenance panel, but it then set off an alert on one of the control boards. I got the shock of my fucking life when I pulled the door open to check it out.'

'Question is,' said Corso, 'why hide him here? Why not just drag him to an airlock and push his body outside the ship? That way we'd never have known what happened to him.'

Martinez shook his head. 'Too much chance of getting picked up by the hull's sensor arrays. They run on their own power and control systems, so whoever did this presumably knew they'd be spotted if they tried to do so. To be honest, we're lucky we found him at all. This ship is big enough that, apart from an alert being triggered, it might have taken a long time before we eventually found him.'

Perez looked up from Olivarri's pulped features. 'Look, this is pure speculation, but is it possible all this – the sabotage, the systems failures – was intended just to cover this up?'

The three men exchanged looks. 'The same thought did cross my mind,' said Corso. 'We've already got most of the primary systems back online. At first we thought we were looking at a catastrophic system failure, but in the end it proved to be not much more than an inconvenience.'

'A distraction, in other words?' said Martinez.

Corso stared down again at the dead man and felt a flash of resentment, as if this new crisis were somehow the victim's fault. It was hard to connect this crumpled ruin with the living, breathing human being Olivarri had been.

Martinez sighed and turned to Perez. 'Any sign of the weapon?'

'Not that I could find,' Perez replied. 'But I'd say it was a wrench or something similar. There are diagnostic programs we can run to figure out how it was done, within a fairly narrow margin of error. Same thing goes for any DNA or other chemical traces left behind – assuming we find them.'

'We're going to have to search everyone's quarters,' decided Martinez. 'These labs, the bridge, and anywhere any of us have spent much time.'

'Surely whoever did this wouldn't have been stupid enough to leave a murder weapon lying around their own quarters?' Corso protested.

'We don't know, do we?' said Martinez. 'Any idea who was the last of us to see him before he was killed?'

'He was outside doing hull repairs with Nancy and Nathan,' said Perez. 'But that was several hours before the outage.'

Corso recalled that Olivarri had spent a lot of time visiting remote parts of the ship, checking up on various life-support and maintenance systems in areas where the surveillance coverage was often less than adequate. There might have been any number of opportunities for someone to track him down and kill him.

Martinez glanced over at Perez. 'Dan, would you mind giving me and Lucas a minute alone?'

Perez looked warily at the two of them, then walked out into a passageway adjoining the bay. Martinez turned to Corso, his expression grim.

'I was still in the med-bay when that Shoal-member came on board,' he said, sounding heated. 'And since then I've listened to all your arguments about why he's here, but I don't get the sense you're anywhere near as much in control as you seem to think you are. Merrick didn't show herself until we were already on board, even though we needed her around well in advance of the launch. The way it seems to me, she doesn't give a damn what anyone else on this ship says or thinks, and now we're one man down, which means we've got a killer somewhere on board. Let's just say you're not inspiring my confidence in your leadership skills.'

Corso felt his jaw muscles tighten. 'I told you already why things are the way they are.'

'And yet I keep asking myself the same question again and again: who's in charge of this expedition? You or Dakota?' Martinez raised his eyebrows a fraction. 'Or maybe Trader's the one who's really running things?'

'You're saying you could have done things better?'

Martinez sighed. 'Once word about this gets around, everyone's going to be wondering if they'll be next. What you need to do now is make them feel like you're in control of things, because you're the reason we're all here. And if you thought your job was hard before, it's about to get an awful lot harder. I mean, you do realize Dakota's going to be top of everyone's shit list when they start looking for someone to blame for his death? Assuming,' he added, 'that she didn't do it herself

Corso let his shoulders sag. 'All right,' he conceded, 'what do you suggest?'

'Talk to Dakota – Lamoureaux as well. See if their stories add up, and if they do we can get on with finding out who actually did do this.'

'Fine. I'll talk to Dakota first.'

'We'll both talk to her.'

'No,' Corso shook his head fiercely, 'I'll talk to her alone. The rest we can interview together.'

Martinez fixed him with a look that made Corso wonder if he was asking for too much this time.

'All right.' Martinez nodded at Olivarri's corpse. 'We'll play it your way for now, but just for now. Just show me you've got a handle on things.'

'Thank you, Eduard. Right now she needs to work with Ted to get the rest of the data-space back online, but I'll talk to her as soon as they're finished.'

'No.' Martinez shook his head slowly. 'Don't try to thank me. Just figure out what the hell's going on before anyone else ends up like this.' 'Are you serious?' Dakota looked offended. 'You think I had something to do with Olivarri's death?'

Corso leaned against a bulkhead and closed his eyes for a moment. They were back in the debriefing room located on the centrifuge. Dakota slumped back in her chair, her eyes puffy and red from too much stress and too little sleep. They had all been working long and hard at getting the last of the systems online.

Tension had hung heavy in the air since Olivarri had been found dead less than twelve hours before, and large parts of the frigate had been declared off-limits. People got on with their jobs, or talked over food in one of the canteens, but it was impossible to miss how they all kept glancing over their shoulders, or the careful way they looked at each other. Corso could feel it too: the sense that nowhere was safe.

'You know that I have to ask, because no one but you and Ted has the kind of high-level access needed to pull something like this off

She gave him a withering look. 'Nice to know you've got my back, Lucas.'

'Jesus and Buddha, Dakota, I only just managed to convince Martinez to let me talk to you on my own.'

'Why? What is it you don't want him to hear?'

'For a start, he's better off not knowing about some of the things that happened at Nova Arctis. It's a matter of public record that the Uchidans mind-controlled you at Port Gabriel, but if he knew how Trader did it to you a second time, he'd lock you up or throw you out the nearest airlock, and to hell with me or the Mos Hadroch.'

'And that's what you think is happening to me?'

Corso felt his face grow hot. 'I'd be an idiot if I ruled it out.'

She stood up and leaned against the table, facing him obliquely, her arms folded defensively over her chest. 'Then I'm ruling it out for you. And, in answer to your next question, I've barely even spoken to Olivarri, except for the one time we were out on the hull working on some repairs along with Dan.'

'There's no possible way Trader could have got to you somehow, without your being aware of it?'

'Look, what Trader did to me back then was a kind of rape. But he had to get physically close before he could do it. I'd know if he tried anything like that again, and he knows that I'd know.'

'And yet you said you met him in person, the time he gave you control over the Meridian weapons.'

'That's true,' she nodded, 'but there still wasn't any direct or even indirect contact of any kind. Certainly nothing physically passed from him to me in any way.'

'But it doesn't always have to be physical, does it?'

'No, but this time I'd have known it. If I'd been affected in any way, the Magi ship would have told me.'

'Except that your Magi ship isn't around any more.'

'Yes, but…' She hesitated. 'Look, I see where you're going. But if I was compromised, Ted would know.'

'All right.' Corso moved away from the wall and came closer to her. 'Can you think of a reason why anyone might want to kill Olivarri? Even Trader?'

'Hell if I know,' she replied. 'Have you talked to Trader?'

'I did. He says he knows nothing about it. But even if he's lying, what can we do?'

Take his yacht away, for a start. Dakota wasn't ready to tell Corso or anyone else just what Moss had given her at Derinkuyu. She had thought more than once of trying a gentle infiltration of the Shoal-member's ship, but had held back for fear such an intrusion might be detected.

'I can't make any suggestions when it comes to the rest of the people on board,' Dakota replied. 'They tend to… keep their distance.'

'They do?'

She shot him a look of annoyance. 'Come on, Lucas, of course they do. I'm a machine-head and, worse, I'm the one they've all heard of, the one who gets blamed for just about everything that's gone wrong in their lives since Nova Arctis, right? I mean, apart from me and Ted, who the hell else has some kind of implant?'

A strange look passed over Corso's face, as if he had suddenly remembered something.

'What?' asked Dakota, peering at him.

'Nothing,' said Corso, a little too quickly. 'Look, it's true the rest of them can't help but remember what happened at Port Gabriel every time they see you. But that just makes it all the more important to prove you've not been compromised in the same way again.'

'And how do you propose to do that?' she asked, tightening her lips into a thin, bloodless line.

'Remember how I tracked down and destroyed the routines that Trader placed in your head back at Nova Arctis? Well, the med-bay should be up to the same job, and a deep scan on your implants would show if they're clean or not.'

Dakota's expression turned defiant, but Corso could detect the faint dampness at the corners of her eyes.

'All right,' she said, standing up. 'If that's what it takes. But you're going to have to persuade Ted to do the same.'

'I've already talked to him,' said Corso, straightening up once again. 'He's going to meet us there.' They found Ted Lamoureaux waiting at the entrance to the med-bay. He was looking distraught.

'You'd better take a look inside,' he said. 'I've already alerted the bridge.'

Dakota and Corso entered and immediately saw that the diagnostic equipment had been badly vandalized. Every unit above the examination table was blackened and burnt with scorch marks.

Lamoureaux came in behind them. 'I got here about twenty minutes ago,' he said. 'Everything's fried except for the medboxes.'

Dakota surveyed the damage, feeling suddenly numb. The labyrinth of bays and corridors that contained the med-bay was one part of the ship they had not searched during their hunt for Olivarri earlier.

Lamoureaux pushed past them, bringing himself to a halt by grabbing the edge of the examination table and pulling himself close to it. He reached up and levered open a panel on the side of one of the diagnostic units, revealing the scorched and blackened circuitry.

It occurred to Dakota that the easiest way to go around destroying the diagnostic gear would have been by using a handheld plasma cutter, just the kind of thing you would expect to find lying around a ship like the Mjollnir.

'The Commander told me to get here as fast as I… shit.'

Dakota turned to see Nancy Schiller appear in the doorway. She stared at the ruined scanner, then turned to look at Dakota, her knuckles turning white where they gripped the plasma-rifle that had barely left her hands since the start of the outage.

'We can manufacture new units, can't we?' asked Corso.

Lamoureaux pushed himself away from the table. 'I don't know if we can. It's going to take time to get the rest of the fabricators back online and up to full capacity, and we're pushing them to the limit as it is in manufacturing the new drive-spines. Full-body imaging gear like this is pretty advanced even for the fabricators we've got on board. It's not like knocking out gun-drones or spider-mechs.'

Corso gestured to Nancy to follow him out into the corridor, where they began conversing together in quiet tones.

Lamoureaux touched Dakota's elbow and she moved closer.

'This is going to make things harder for us both,' he said, keeping his voice low enough not to be overheard. 'It's going to seem like one of us did this so we couldn't be scanned.'

'Don't take this the wrong way, Ted, but you were in charge of the ship when everything shut down. And you were also the first one here.'

'I've been up on the bridge the whole time until now, and I'd also say this damage was done during the outage.'

'All right,' she said. 'Does it feel to you like someone's trying to set us up?'

'If they are, they're doing a very good job – not that we were winning any popularity contests before this.' As he said it, he glanced towards Nancy.

'You know,' said Dakota, 'I came down here and ran a scan on myself the first chance I had after coming on board. Just to be sure. Anyway, I'm clean.'

The corner of Lamoureaux's mouth twitched slightly. 'I did the same thing. Also clean. Did you tell the others that?'

'You think they'd just accept our word for it?'

They pulled apart as Schiller and Corso re-entered the med-bay.

'Commander Martinez is on his way here,' Nancy announced, still glaring at them both. 'Nobody moves until he gets here. Got that?' The several minutes before Martinez arrived were some of the most uncomfortable Dakota had ever experienced.

She could have communicated with Lamoureaux via their implants, but her gut told her that Nancy would only become even more paranoid if she guessed what they were doing. So they waited in silence, trying to avoid looking directly at Nancy, while Corso checked data-files on the med-bay's terminal.

Martinez, when he arrived, studied the ruined equipment with a defeated expression. 'Well, looks like nobody's getting scanned any time soon,' he muttered.

'Or maybe one of them did it,' said Nancy, her eyes burning into Dakota's. 'It's what we're all thinking, isn't it?'

Dakota did her best not to flinch from her gaze. 'Or maybe you did it, Nancy,' she suggested. 'It's not like anyone doesn't know you've got a problem with me and Ted.'

'Oh, come on,' Nancy snapped, gripping her weapon closer to her chest. 'Nobody's going to smash this stuff to pieces unless they were scared of what it might reveal.'

'Shut the hell up, Nancy,' growled Martinez. 'I don't want to hear one more word of idle speculation.'

Nancy fell silent, but still looked defiant.

'Lucas,' Martinez continued, 'how long would it take for us to build some new diagnostic units?'

'We can't,' Corso replied wearily. 'I just checked the fabricator databases and the med-bay blueprints have all been wiped as well.'

Nancy's gaze once again settled on Dakota, as if she had just heard a piece of particularly damning evidence. 'Well, what do you know,' she murmured, and stepped back out of the room.

Corso stared after her with an alarmed expression. 'Eduard-'

'Don't worry about her,' Martinez interrupted quietly. 'She's not going to do anything stupid. She's just scared – like the rest of us.'

Scared people do dangerous things, Dakota almost observed, but thought better of it. Martinez declared the bay off-limits and sealed the room with Schiller's help, placing a couple of dedicated sensors on the door that would sound a full alert if anyone tried to enter without permission. Corso and Lamoureaux made their way back to the bridge together.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Lamoureaux pulled Corso to a halt. 'We have to talk about Whitecloud,' he said urgently.

Corso nodded, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'I think I know what you're going to say. He's the only other one on board with an implant, so maybe he can also be compromised.'

Lamoureaux nodded. 'Uchidan implant technology isn't so very different from what I've got in my head.'

'I thought the Uchidan technology was a lot more limited?'

'Sure, extremely limited,' Lamoureaux confirmed. 'No localized environmental data, no ability to interface with any machinery outside of a dedicated transceiver, and even then only in the crudest possible way. I could stand right next to him and I wouldn't be able to tell if there's anything lodged in his brain, but that wouldn't necessarily mean he isn't vulnerable to outside control. I mean, I don't know whether it can be done, but that's not the same thing as saying it can't.'

'You've got to admit,' said Corso, 'it'd be kind of ironic if that did turn out to be the case.'

'Ironic how?'

'He's at least partly responsible for what happened at Port Gabriel, so it'd be a kind of karmic justice, don't you think?'

'Maybe.' The corner of Lamoureaux's mouth twitched slightly. 'I'll have to admit I hadn't thought of that.'

Corso nodded in the direction they'd been heading. 'We should get back to the bridge now,' he said, pushing away from the bulkhead they had paused to rest against.

'Lucas, wait. I didn't just want to talk to you about Whitecloud.'

Corso grabbed a rung, before he could drift too far ahead. 'What then?'

'I mean Olivarri. Your aides asked me some questions about him when we were back at Ocean's Deep.'

'What kind of questions?'

'About who I might have seen him talking to.'

Corso frowned. 'Ray Willis was Olivarri's boss. He'd have told me if something was wrong.'

'I had the impression they were just feeling something out, like there was just the merest suggestion of irregularities. That's what Nisha said to me.'

'Why are you telling me this now?'

'It's not too late to send a signal back to Ocean's Deep. I don't know what's happened to Nisha or Yugo since the Legislate took over, but maybe one of them might still be in a position to help us run a deeper background check on him.'

'I don't know,' said Corso. 'It's going to use a lot of power to boost a signal that far.'

'Sure,' Lamoureaux agreed. 'But on the other hand we might find out why someone wanted him dead.'