by Kal Spriggs
“Perhaps,” Elena frowned. She looked around again, “I think that is all. I have the entire scene recorded, you are done, no?”
“Yes, I am done,” Simon said. He stood up and backed out, careful not to step in the blood.
Run looked up at him, “May I recover the corpse for my research?”
Simon grimaced in distaste. He somehow doubted that the little Chxor would stop at merely finding out what had killed the man. On the other hand, they needed to know. Why does every decision I make here seem loaded with moral implications, he wondered to himself. Still, he answered the Chxor without hesitation, “Yes, you may take the body.”
Elena gave a grimace, “I will assist you.” The look she gave Simon suggested she didn’t trust the little Chxor as far as she could throw him.
Simon turned away and walked towards the stairs. He toggled the automated doors without much thought as he balanced the computer in one hand. Could they get information from the device, and if they did, would it tell them anything about why persons unknown murdered Crowe? If Elena is right… he thought, can I trust any of my companions to try?
He almost walked into the aimed weapons of Mandy and Miranda. Simon froze, but the two lowered their weapons after a moment, “You scared the crap out of us,” Mandy said. “Weren’t you supposed to help Mike search the rest of the ship?”
He glanced behind them and found Pixel and Ariadne also ready for combat. Though with Pixel, the engineer looked rather comical with the pistol in his hand.
“Sorry,” Simon said. “Elena and I were searching the crime scene.”
“We heard about Crowe…” Ariadne said. She shook her head, “I’ll admit, it’s awful that Ghost killed him. I guess we know that he wasn’t working with the Wrethe then.”
Simon shrugged, “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“We’ve been working with Anubus and he hasn’t killed us,” Ariadne said.
“Yet,” Pixel muttered. The engineer echoed Simon’s own thoughts.
“But I don’t think it was Ghost,” Simon said. “Anubus says he didn’t smell Wrethe pheromones in the compartment. For that matter, someone knocked him down before it cut him up and the wounds are too deep for claws.”
“You think one of our passengers?” Mandy asked. “I told Mike we can’t trust those Nova Roma—”
“Or crew,” Simon said calmly. “You and Miranda didn’t get along with Crowe, as I remember. One of you could have held him down while the other cut him open.”
“He was a selfish pig, but I wouldn’t murder him!” Mandy snapped.
Her response seemed truthful enough, Simon figured. It was hard to fake that kind of instant revulsion. Then again, women tended to be better actors than men, Simon knew.
Pixel interrupted, “Hey, is that his computer?”
Simon nodded, “You think you could crack it, find out what information he might have on it?”
“Maybe…” Pixel frowned. “He loaded his own software on it from his implant. I’m not sure what information would be on this one as opposed to the other.”
Simon frowned, “I forgot about his implant. I need to tell Run to try and recover that…”
He trailed off at the looks of shock on the others faces. “What?” Mandy and Miranda both shifted away from him and moved back towards the doors to the bridge.
“He would have to open his head to get it out… and pull it out of his brain,” Ariadne looked very pale. “You’re going to not only let Run play inside Crowe’s head, you’re going to tell him to do it.”
Simon thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, it’s a little gruesome, I’ll admit. But maybe we can get some information off of it. And lets be honest… Run probably had his head opened up already. And if he gets to play with Crowe’s brains, maybe he’ll be less likely to try to open up your head, Ariadne.”
She shivered at that. “Promise me, none of you will let that happen if I die.”
“Of course not,” Simon answered instantly. “The little weirdo won’t get anywhere near you, alive or dead, with his ‘medical’ tools.” Pixel grunted noncommittally as he plugged in the computer to a console. “I like you with your brains inside your head, thank you.”
Ariadne gave him a weak smile, “Thanks, you say the sweetest things.”
* * *
Mike and the others arrived on the bridge a few minutes later. “Ship is secure, no sign of Ghost on-board, so we probably have the damned thing somewhere out on the hull. The armored suit is missing from the armory, probably Crowe’s work. But we can figure that out later.” He looked around at the others, “In the meantime, we need to figure out what happened to Crowe and how it is related to Ghost.”
“What about our other passengers?” Ariadne asked.
“As victims… or accomplices?” Simon responded.
“For now, we release the lock-down,” Mike said. “And I’ll want to do an interview of everyone aboard, to include all of us.”
Eric grew red, “You think one of us-”
“I don’t know what to think,” Mike said. “But for someone who swears they’re a great shot, I’m not sure how you missed a Wrethe’s head from point blank!”
“At least I wasn’t a psychic’s meat puppet at the time, huh?” Eric responded with a snarl.
“We don’t solve anything by bickering!” Ariadne said. She looked back and forth between the two, “I think we need to focus on finding out what happened before we move onto accusations, agreed?” Her smile disappeared as she looked at the sullen and angry faces. For a moment, a flicker of something like fire glinted in her eyes. “Agreed?” She asked, her voice sharp.
“Yeah,” Eric said and Simon felt a spurt of humor at the surprise and fear on the mercenary’s face. Serves him right for pushing her so far, Simon thought wryly, maybe he’ll learn a lesson.
“Of course,” Mike answered a moment later. Simon saw the elected Captain rub a hand over his close cropped black hair. Perhaps it was the light, but it almost looked like the smaller man had added some gray hairs to his head. He looked over at Simon and met his gaze, “Okay, we need information.”
“I’m working on Crowe’s computer,” Pixel said. He still hadn’t looked up from the console, “Simon found it. It has lots of interesting code. Crowe was much better at this than me.”
“I’m sure he’d love to hear it,” Simon said with a snort.
“Humility was his middle name,” Eric said with a smirk. Like he’s one to talk, Simon thought. The big mercenary looked around at the others and passed a hand through his blonde hair, “Okay, so… what next?” He looked far too cheerful for Simon’s peace of mind.
“I am disturbed by the likelihood that we have a murderer and possibly a traitor among our group,” Rastar said. The big Ghornath had an odd shade of orange to his hide. “Ghost was bad enough, but that someone could have helped it… and that someone murdered Crowe…” The alien paused, and his hide went white. “Could they be the same person? Perhaps Crowe found out about it and was killed for it?”
“Or someone found out Crowe helped Ghost,” Mike said, “And they killed him for it.”
“Or the two things are unrelated,” Simon said. His head hurt and the constant accusations made it worse. “Look, I say leave this to the professionals. Pixel works the computer, Run works the body, and Elena and I do some interrogations.”
“What about the murderous Wrethe on the hull?” Eric asked. He hefted his rifle and gave a smirk, “Maybe someone should do something about that.”
“No.” Mike said. “We tackle our problems one at a time, and Ghost can’t get inside or kill any of us—”
“Any more of us,” Ariadne said.
“— if we’re inside and it is outside,” Mike finished. “So stay inside and maintain security of the airlocks. You emplaced the telltales in case someone tries to open a hatch, right?”
“Yes,” Rastar said, but Simon caught a strange glance between him, Pixel, and Eric. Why do I have the
feeling, Simon thought, that these telltales involved Pixel’s help too?
“Good,” Mike frowned. “I feel like I’m forgetting something…”
The lift door opened. Mandy gave a shriek.
Simon drew his pistol and saw that at least half of the others in the compartment had done the same. Most of the weapons were aimed at the open lift doors.
A moment later, Run stepped out. Red blood had splattered across his face and tunic. His arms were red all the way up to his shoulders. His shoes, as well, seemed sodden with blood and he had left bloody footsteps in the elevator. His shoes made squish sounds as he walked forward. He had a completely bland expression on his face. “I have completed the initial autopsy,” Run said. “I have determined that Crowe was terminated by a large bladed knife, approximately twenty centimeters in length. In addition, the fatal attack was the central wound. The others were done afterward to give the appearance of Wrethe claws.”
“Uh…” Mike gulped as he stared at the Chxor. “You could have cleaned up and then told us.”
“I find that making a report while the material is still fresh facilitates greater insights,” Run answered. “I also projected that you would wish to know this information as soon as possible.”
“The answer is both yes…” Simon said, “…and also a resounding no.” He closed his eyes, “Next time, Run, please take the time to clean yourself before you tell us the results. If nothing else, it is more sanitary.”
“True, I would not wish to contaminate my control population,” Run nodded. “Very well, I will clean myself.” He turned around and squished back into the lift. “I will decontaminate the area after I decontaminate myself.”
“The little Chxor scares me,” Miranda said.
“Yeah…” Pixel still hadn’t looked up from his console. “Oh, hey, I think I’m making progress here.” The engineer appeared oblivious to the stares of disbelief of the others, Simon noticed.
“So, we know I didn’t kill Crowe,” Anubus growled.
“Unless you figured a clumsy frame would exonerate you,” Simon said. “So you used a knife and made it obvious that it wasn’t you, to throw us off. And you could have worn your ship’s suit and hosed it off afterward.”
“That is…” Anubus cocked his head, “Remarkably astute. Actually, I wish I had considered that. I like how you think, human. You are more dangerous than I thought you.” Great, Simon thought, I just made myself more of a threat to our paranoid homicidal alien.
“Come on, guys,” Rastar said. “We know Annie didn’t do it, he wouldn’t just murder someone in cold blood like that.” Rastar, like Pixel, seemed immune to stares of disbelief. “He just does the whole dangerous personality thing to keep people at arms length.” The Ghornath slapped Anubus on the back.
“Touch me again and I will rip your throat out with my teeth,” Anubus growled.
Simon saw Mike bury his head in his hands. Yeah, he’s definitely getting some gray hairs up top, Simon thought, thank god no one tried to give me that job. Simon looked around at the others. Part of him wondered if this murder was some part of a conspiracy as Elena had suggested. Most of him wondered if the murder was the thing that would finally shatter their little alliance.
If that happened, he just hoped it didn’t turn into a complete bloodbath.
* * *
“Well, that’s interesting,” Pixel said.
“What is interesting?” Simon asked. He walked up to stare over the engineer’s shoulder. Lines of code filled the displays. “It looks like gibberish.”
“It is gibberish,” Pixel said. “Crowe had an extremely complicated encryption algorithm to protect his data. Worse, apparently if you attempted to hack it and failed, his software triggered a virus that would scramble everything. Then the virus would have the computer overwrite all of its data storage a couple thousand times with random code.”
Simon frowned, “So, you can’t crack it?”
“Oh, maybe… if I hadn’t already triggered the virus,” Pixel said.
Simon sighed, “Damn, that could have been the break we needed. So I take it there’s no way to get the information, then?”
Pixel pulled the connection from the console to Crowe’s computer. The tall engineer looked at Simon with surprise, “Oh, I didn’t say that.” He slid the casing off of the computer and exposed the guts of the machine. Pixel set it down on top of the console and pulled out his multi-tool. The engineer carefully pried a small cooling fan out of the way and then pulled a tiny data crystal out of a hidden slot underneath it. “We’ve got this.”
Simon quirked an eyebrow, “What exactly is this?”
Pixel gave him a half smile, “Yeah… so Crowe had me build this computer for him, right?”
Simon nodded. “So he could reprogram some of the systems on the ship.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly trust him,” Pixel said. “But I knew he could program better than me, so I couldn’t expect to ever hack his equipment.” He pushed the data crystal into a slot on the console. A moment later, a new folder came up. Pixel browsed through it for a moment. “So, when I made the computer, I added this, a backup drive that was hardwired in so that it copied all of his files. Even stuff he deleted. It has limited storage, but I made it so that when the storage got full, it would cause an internal switch to kill power to the unit. Crowe would probably come to me to fix it.”
Simon shook his head, “That’s…”
“Smart?” Pixel asked
“Devious,” Simon said. Remind me again not to underestimate Pixel, he thought. He also made a mental note to check anything the engineer did for him, just in case. Now that he thought of it, Pixel’s services included life support and the fusion reactor. That thought, in turn, reminded Simon of the two Chxor ships that Pixel had destroyed; one through the reactor overload and the other he’d programmed to ram into the Chxor orbital ring. So the engineer might be one of the more destructive people aboard, Simon thought. That led to a thought that made him go cold: what if the laid back and friendly engineer were some sort of high-tech serial killer?
Pixel sorted through the files, “Okay, let me read through these and I’ll see if anything applies.”
“I could do that, you know,” Simon said.
“You could,” Pixel said. “Then again, it would take you hours. You could use that time doing something useful, like, oh, I don’t know, maybe finding the psycho killer?”
“Right,” Simon grunted. He really needed someone else to help out, someone he could trust. Mike had taken Elena for his interviews with the passengers.
On cue, Pixel spoke up, “Oh, did you ever talk with Santangel? He said he did some police training, maybe he could help.”
“Assuming he’s not our deranged killer, of course,” Simon said. Even so, he kicked himself for forgetting about the Saragossan. The other man had been useful a few times to keep the other escaped prisoners in line. He seemed smart, highly educated and Simon could use someone with police or investigative training.
Especially since Mike had absconded with Elena. As Captain, Simon couldn’t really complain, and he would agree that the bounty hunter would be a net asset in interviewing the passengers. Even so, that left Simon by himself to search down other clues.
“Alright, let me know as soon as you have something,” Simon said.
Pixel looked up, his blue eyes innocent, “Of course.”
* * *
Simon found Michael Santangel in the cargo bay they had converted into quarters. The olive-skinned man sat at a table by himself with a small notebook. His dark hair was meticulously groomed and his dark green eyes were focused entirely on his work. He didn’t look up when Simon cleared his throat. “Yes?”
“You probably heard,” Simon said. “There’s been a murder. The Captain appointed me to investigate it.” It wasn’t, technically, a lie, but it did take liberties with what Mike had told him to do. Still, without some authority, he couldn’t expect the crew to listen to him.
> “Yes, of course. You have a background in law, this is fortunate, no? I assume you have come to me, my friend, to provide assistance?” His accent, whether an affection or not, made him seem cultured and educated. The way he said it all, without the need to look up from his notes, made it clear that he considered his assistance a favor… one he would expect to be repaid.
Simon could deal with that. He recognized the type: Santangel was well-born, and probably had expected to become a police chief or senior investigator within five years due to his family connections. He had the skills, Simon would guess, but he also had the connections. He clearly saw this as his opportunity to make new connections. The other man probably had aspired to politics eventually. Instead his planet was conquered by the Chxor and he was stuck aboard a vessel full of fugitives.
“Yes, I need your assistance,” Simon said. “Crowe was killed with a knife of some kind, but the cuts were made to look like a Wrethe’s claws…” He filled him in on the details. The other man jotted down some additional notes as he spoke.
“I have made observations on who among the crew and passengers that Crowe spoke with and was known to deal with,” Micheal said. “It is a long list. Although Crowe might have thought himself quite adept at interaction, he was also disliked by most aboard because of his arrogance and untrustworthiness.” He turned the notebook so Simon could look at the list. As he had expected, it included most of the people aboard. Simon noticed stars next to several names, to include his own.
“And these marks?” Simon asked.
“They are to note people that Crowe either angered or that viewed him with suspicion,” Santangel smiled. “I’ve also annotated who I know had business arrangements or agreements with him, to include the details, when I knew them. I’ve also asked around among the other passengers down here to fill in additional details.”