by James Wilks
“I’ll see you on the ship, Captain,” he said as he produced his wallet. The two women stood up, leaving Staples’ half-eaten breakfast on the table. Staples swung Evelyn’s chair back into place, and together they walked out. Only a few of the patrons watched them leave.
Twice Evelyn began to speak on their walk back to the reception room and the ship beyond it, but Staples gently asked her to wait. They were nearly halfway back when the captain noticed her chief engineer striding purposefully in their direction. To the best of her knowledge, Dinah had not been sleeping on the ship the last few nights, but she seemed to be coming from that direction this morning. When they met, all three of the women stopped walking. Dinah briefly regarded Evelyn, who seemed to be further from tears than she had been since she had entered Saturn’s Satyr, then turned to Staples.
“We need to talk, sir.”
After a quick glance at the distraught computer scientist, Staples said, “We saw the announcement, Dinah. We know about Laplace.”
“Not about that, sir.” She looked around, but no one was nearby. “I have intel.”
“Can it wait?” She thought that Evelyn might insist on waiting herself, but when she did not, Staples judged that the woman really needed to speak her mind.
Dinah thought for a moment. “It can, sir, but not too long.”
“Okay. Come see me in my quarters in half an hour, and bring Don with you. He should be a few minutes behind us, headed for the ship.”
Dinah nodded and strode off the way they had come.
Ten minutes later, Clea Staples and her erstwhile passenger sat across the wooden table in her quarters yet again. It seemed to her that she had spent an inordinate amount of time here lately, and for the first time since she had bought Gringolet, she considered converting one of the unused rooms into an office.
“Now, Evelyn, please talk to me.” Staples was leaning forward, her arms folded on the table. “How did you know Laplace had died before everyone else?”
Evelyn slumped in the chair, gazing off at nothing in particular, her heart-shaped face still flushed and her nose red. “Because I woke up next to his body.” Staples did not react. Evelyn looked at her dubiously. “You knew I was sleeping with him?”
She shrugged and inclined her head. “It occurred to me as a possibility once Ducard made his announcement. Why else would you be so upset?”
“I suppose that makes sense.” She plucked a tissue from a nearby box that her host had provided and blew her nose.
Some silence followed, and finally Staples offered, “You seemed attracted to him from the start,” in hopes that the other woman would begin speaking.
She laughed a little bit. “No accounting for taste, I guess.” She put the tissue down lightly on the table. “He isn’t my usual type, I’ll grant you, but there was something about him.”
“You’re not the first person to be attracted to people in power, Evelyn.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that was it. At least, that’s not usually my thing. Confidence, yes, but not power so much. I don’t know, maybe it was. I was definitely his type, I’ll tell you that.”
Staples thought there was something here, and she seized on it. “What do you mean?” The man had been aloof and hardly genial. It was hard for Staples to imagine him as a sexual being, but of course, she had met him only briefly.
“Well, I flirted with him here and there when we spoke, and after a few days, he asked me out. When we talked, he admitted that he had a soft spot for red hair and freckles. He said I was really beautiful.” Staples tried to picture Laplace as charming or complimentary and failed. “Just his type, he said.” She smiled warmly, reminiscing. “I slept with him that night. I didn’t love him or anything, but he could be really sweet at times.”
“Evelyn, I am so sorry. It must have been terrible to wake up like that.”
“It was. It really was.” She looked traumatized, as well she might, Staples thought. Anyone would be, waking up next to a cooling body, let alone one they had made love to a few hours earlier. “My alarm went off at seven and I rolled over to touch him and he wasn’t warm.” Staples thought about sleeping next to a dead lover for several hours and suppressed a shudder. Then she frowned.
“Wait a minute. Seven this morning?”
She nodded again. “My shift starts at eight.”
“I’m not a doctor, but that’s a really short amount of time in which to conduct an autopsy.” She winced at her own statement. This was hardly the time to pursue this line of questioning, she thought, but Evelyn did not seem overly upset by it.
“You know, you’re right. I am a doctor, though obviously not an MD, but that does seem really fast to determine cause of death. I guess it makes sense; he did tell me he had had some heart trouble, so maybe the station’s doctor just assumed.” Even as she said it, it was clear that she didn’t believe it, and Staples shook her head.
“Medical doctors don’t make assumptions about the untimely deaths of Station Commanders, at least not in my experience. Not that I have experience with this, but-”
The other woman cut her off, not unkindly. “I know what you mean.” Her face had taken on a speculative cast, and she was clearly thinking the whole thing through as well.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Staples said absently. There was a knock at the door, a quick rap that was almost certainly Dinah. Staples opened the door; her first mate and chief engineer stood outside. “I’m going to need a bigger room,” Staples muttered.
A minute later, Staples’ chair was occupied by Templeton, and she sat on her bed. He had objected of course, insisting that she should remain seated, but it was difficult with Dinah preferring to stand, and Templeton wasn’t about to sit on his captain’s bed.
“Sir, are you sure that this shouldn’t be private?” Dinah asked the captain. She turned to Evelyn and added, “No offense.”
“None taken. I can go if you like.” She made to rise, but Staples waved her down with a hand.
“Evelyn can stay. I trust her, and I’d just as soon she not be alone right now.” Evelyn sat back down, looking grateful for the continued company.
“As you wish, sir. I conducted the investigation you requested. The Doris Day was hangared at another mining station, a small one operated by Suncorp.” No expansion on this was necessary. Suncorp was a power and fuel supply company, smaller than Libom, but competitive nonetheless. “They refueled, took some limited R and R, and left two days ago. I just got word. They were headed to Mars.”
“So they just followed us out here,” Templeton reasoned. “They don’t care what we do now. Unless they’re gonna wait for us out there.”
Staples shook her head. “I don’t think so. There is way too much space between here and Mars. We could slip by them without even trying. No, whatever they were up to, I think it’s finished now. Thank you, Dinah. That is valuable information. You’re sure of the source?” She knew better than to doubt the woman, but she couldn’t resist the chance to learn where the engineer had been spending her nights. Dinah simply nodded, disappointing her. “I assume that’s not all you have to say. It’s important, but it’s not pressing. What’s going on?”
Dinah glanced at Evelyn briefly, who was staring at the wall, her eyes still wide. “It’s about the Station Commander, sir.” Evelyn seemed to tune back in, and turned to focus on the woman standing in front of the door. “He and the second-in-command, Ducard, didn’t get along. They put on a good face for guests and the workers, but there are rumors. They apparently fought a lot about how the station should be run, the risks the workers should take, that sort of thing.”
“And now Laplace is dead, Ducard is in charge, and he’s sweeping the man’s cause of death under the rug,” Staples continued.
“Under the rug?” Templeton asked, his eyebrows raising.
“It seems,” Staples spoke as delicately as she could, “that Laplace was only found dead at seven this morning. For Ducard to call it a heart attack
before eight thirty looks a bit suspicious.”
“But hardly conclusive,” Evelyn rejoined. “I’m not a super light sleeper, but I find it hard to believe that someone snuck in and murdered him right next to me while I slept.” Staples was grateful that she had entered that information into the conversation; it was difficult to discuss the matter and maintain the woman’s privacy at the same time. If either of the other two was surprised, neither showed it. “It seems impossible,” she added.
“It’s not impossible,” Dinah said flatly.
“No, it’s not,” Staples agreed. “But it would be quite a risk. You could have woken up, something could have gone wrong. Hmm,” She mused for a moment. “I may have a theory, but I want more information before it can really take shape. I think that this Doctor Stewart might be the key. If he-”
“She.” Evelyn broke in.
“She. If she’s in on this, she might be helping Ducard. If that’s the case, then I don’t know that there’s much we can do, but if she’s not…”
“If you don’t mind me saying, Captain, what business is this of ours?” Templeton asked. “Laplace died. Sorry,” he murmured an apology to Evelyn. “But he died. His second-in-command and the station’s doctor say it was a heart attack. You’ve got no reason to believe it was anything other than that. In fact, it seems pretty farfetched that someone snuck in and killed him, since the person sleeping next to him is sitting right here saying that didn’t happen. How old was he?”
“Sixty-one,” the woman at the door provided. Templeton had stopped wondering how and why Dinah knew everything that she did.
“Okay. That’s young for a heart attack, especially in this day and age, but it does happen. Just ‘cause Ducard and Laplace didn’t get along, that doesn’t mean that Ducard murdered him, or had someone else do it. I think you’re reaching, Captain.”
Staples was silent for several moments, and they all looked at her expectantly. She gazed at the wall as she thought. Finally, she said, “I’ve got reason, Don. Lots of reason. This whole job has been weird from the start. Way too many coincidences… I can see the trees, but not the root systems connecting them.” Another moment passed. “But they’re there. I know they’re there.”
“Okay, I believe you,” he assented. “But that still doesn’t make it our business.”
Evelyn pointed at Staples. “If she’s right, then a man was murdered. A good man.” Tears sprung into her eyes as she spoke, but she wiped them away.
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Templeton said again. “I really am. But I talked with Davis Ducard for hours, and I don’t think he’s a killer.”
“He doesn’t have to be,” said Staples, still staring at her point on the wall, “to be complicit.”
“Fine then. That makes this a police matter.”
“There are no police on this station, Don.”
“But the law still stands. Nearly every corporation has adopted Earth Corporate Law, and there are station security to enforce that system of laws,” he objected, his voice rising a bit.
“And who do they work for now?” Evelyn asked rhetorically.
Templeton looked at the two women arrayed against him, one his superior. Finally he looked at Dinah, who stood calmly by the door, taking the whole situation in. “Are you gonna help me on this? We’re not cops; we’re a charter flight crew who delivers people and cargo. We get paid, we move on. It’s not our job to solve murders, assuming this even was one.”
Staples knew well that she could shut this conversation down, but she turned to Dinah to seek her input.
“With respect, sir, I think that a good member of our crew died on the way here. I don’t know if all of this is connected, like the captain believes, or not. But I’d like to know, and if possible, I’d really like to meet the person responsible.” The implied menace in her voice was enough to send a chill down Staples’ spine.
Templeton raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. We’re stuck here anyway. I just don’t want us to get into any trouble. Ducard has been really generous. He fought to have us get all of our pay, which we did by the way, and he only charged us labor for the repairs. The parts were free. And before you say it, yes, I can see how that might be him trying to placate us so we’ll just be on our merry way. I guess the real question is, what now? How do we figure this out?”
“I have an idea about that,” Staples said, looking at him squarely. “But I’m going to need Jabir’s help. I’ll let you all know as soon as we know something.”
Templeton and Evelyn stood up to go. The grief that had marked her face when she had entered the room had transformed to a steely resolve, and she now seemed far more angry than sad. Dinah left first, Templeton right behind her, but as Evelyn reached the door, Staples said, “Do you have another minute?”
She stopped and turned back. “Of course, Captain.”
Staples smiled warmly. “I’m not your captain, though I am beginning to think of you as a member of my crew. It’s been ten days since we dropped you off, and here you are back on my ship.” Before the other woman could utter the apology that she was clearly forming, she added, “Relax, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Believe me, I would hire you for the coms position if I thought we could afford you. And if you hadn’t signed what I assume is a legally binding contract when you took this job.”
Evelyn smiled in return, a bit regretfully Staples thought. “I can’t say that it hadn’t occurred to me. Anyway, what did you want to ask me?”
Staples formed her words carefully. “I wondered… given your proclivities, I would have thought that you and Jabir would have made a great pairing while you were here.”
Evelyn laughed, but her cheeks turned bright red. “He is quite the charmer.”
“Indeed he is.” Something in Staples’ voice gave her away.
Evelyn’s eyes grew wide. “Clea!” she said, her voice mingled with surprise and delight.
“What can I say?” Staples shrugged, grinning. “You said it; he’s quite the charmer.”
“Isn’t that against the rules? Fraternizing with a member of the crew?” she teased.
“This isn’t a military ship. Besides, I’m the captain. I get to make, or break, the rules as I see fit.”
“Well, I trust it went better with you than it did with me. I thought we might get together too, but…” The blush was stronger than ever.
“But?” Staples prompted.
Evelyn looked down at her feet, and then laughed again. Her brown eyes met Staples’ own, and she said, “But I puked on his shoes instead. I guess I was still sick from stasis.”
“Huh,” Staples said. “I guess so.”
“Why do you ask?” Evelyn asked, her hand still on the door handle.
“Just curious,” she mused.
Doctor Jabir Iqbal walked into the medical clinic of Cronos Station as if he belonged there. The clinic occupied a medium-sized two story building on the outskirts of the operations section of the cylinder, and it had broad windows overlooking Cronos Park for patients to enjoy when they were in recovery. Even with the higher injury rate implicit in work not only on an industrial energy mining platform, but one in space, the population of the station required only one doctor and three support staff. Two were nurses, and one was a receptionist and records coordinator. It was this last person that Iqbal approached confidently once he had entered the building.
The reception room mirrored that of a thousand others on Earth, no doubt designed to make patients feel more at home. The woman behind the glass window, a spinster in a pink sweater and hopelessly out of fashion horn rimmed glasses, looked up with a smile as he approached. Work this far out in the system often attracted those with few social ties and those who wanted to start over. Like nearly everyone he met, the doctor wondered what had inspired this woman to take a job over a billion kilometers from her likely home, but as he most often did, he resigned himself to not knowing.
The woman slid the glass partition aside and greeted him
warmly. “How can I help you?”
Jabir had decided to forgo his lab coat and simply wear a dark tie and blue collared shirt rolled to the elbows. He leaned forward on the counter and gave the woman his best smile. “Hello. I don’t have an appointment, nor am I a prospective patient. I am a visiting doctor, and I was hoping to meet with Doctor Stewart as a matter of professional courtesy.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re off the Gringolet?” She pronounced it gring-go-lett.
He lowered his voice conspiratorially and said, “It’s actually pronounced Gring-go-lay.” His look gave the impression that he had winked at her, though he had not actually done so.
“Oh.” She leaned forward in a similar manner. “Sounds French. Are you from France?”
He tried not to laugh at this absurd question given the obviousness of his accent, and instead settled for a confusing answer. “No, but the horse was named there. Tell me, is Doctor Stewart available?”
The woman looked nonplussed by the horse comment, but turned and looked behind her into the deeper recesses of the building. “I think so, but I’ll check. Just a minute.” She bustled off into the back.
Iqbal took the opportunity to look round the waiting room at the banal paintings of faded flowers in vases on the walls, and was immediately sorry. It was precisely to avoid trappings like this that he had elected to take work on a vessel rather than set up private practice. Life on a spaceship was sometimes boring, but it still seemed infinitely better to him than receiving the unending string of back injuries, thumb sprains, and stress-induced nervous issues with which he was sure this other doctor had to cope. Maintaining the health and fitness of a crew that constantly subjected themselves to changes in environment, gravity, and sometimes violence presented opportunities for unique and interesting solutions, and he had certainly been earning his considerable pay on this most recent journey.