“That’s what I suspected,” I say, nodding slowly.
Lu Yumin was murdered.
In dramas and novels, when a crime is committed, the investigator—usually a jurist or a member of the Embroidered Guard—questions in turn each of those who is touched by the crime. If a man is murdered, his wife and children, creditors and debtors, business partners and competitors, all come under the scrutiny of the investigator.
If I were an investigator, some district magistrate pursuing a murderer, where would I begin?
With the suspects, I suppose. One then moves to motive and opportunity.
So who are the suspects? When Lu died, there were only four other people awake, everyone else, including the Captain and Sima, safely cocooned in their Sleepers.
Physician Mahendra, Lieutenant Dou, Engineer Dawkins, and Engineer’s Mate Chang.
So on to motive. What would compel one of these four into murdering Lu Yumin? I have no conceivable notion. Best to move on to opportunity and address motive at a later point.
Opportunity, then. At first glance, everyone’s whereabouts and actions at the time of Lu’s death were accounted for. On closer examination, though, something stands out.
Engineer Dawkins had injured his ankle moving crates in the cargo hold, trying to reach an access plate or something similar. Physician Mahendra was with Dawkins in the medical bay, attending to the wound, and Lieutenant Dou had been present, getting the physician’s report about the extent of the injury.
Dawkins had said that Chang was in the fission generator control room, at the rear of the ship. But Dawkins had been in the medical bay with the physician and the lieutenant at the time of the accident.
I am again in the galley, with a cup of hot weak tea, considering the possibilities. From behind me, I hear a polite cough and turn to see Mahendra carrying a tray of food.
“I continually startle you, don’t I, Sima?” She smiles, wrinkles radiating out from her light eyes, and I am sorry to meet such an expression with a smile as faint as my own.
“Please, join me.” I motion to the bench opposite me.
Mahendra sits down and takes a few tentative bites of her curried vegetables before speaking again. “Is something bothering you, Chief Operator?”
I shake my head. “No, I’m just puzzling over the East Dragon quandary, naturally.” A thought struck me, and I straightened on the bench. “I just recalled something Dawkins mentioned the other day, though. Chang was in the generator control room when Lu died, correct?”
Mahendra put down her chopsticks and leaned forward. “Do you suspect there was some kind of power spike that damaged the machine intelligence’s processes?”
I nod. “Something like that.”
“Yes, he was. Chang had made a point of announcing where he was going after he brought Dawkins to the medical bay.”
“And you next saw him when you and the others were at the site of Lu’s death?”
“Yes,” Mahendra says. “Chang arrived just a few moments after the rest of us did.”
“And you arrived just minutes after the klaxons started?”
Mahendra nods.
“Thank you, Physician.” I smile, as best I’m able. “That was precisely the bit of information I needed.”
I excuse myself and exit the galley, returning to my quarters. Along the way, as I squeeze past one of the larger automata blocking the corridor, my hand brushes near an interface terminal, activating it. The monitor fills with a cascade of blue-green ideograms, and the measured voice of the machine intelligence speaks.
“Far from the controls of the Dragon Throne on Earth, insurrection and rebellion grew like a cancer in the northern plains of Fire Star, fomented by disaffected city-dwelling intellectuals.”
“It certainly did,” I say, continuing down the corridor.
The voice of East Dragon follows me, and I fancy I hear an bitter undercurrent to its words. “It is a persistent irony that, though rebellion is an inevitable response to tyranny, tyrants are forever surprised by the existence of rebels.”
It is late in the ship-night, and the rest of the crew is likely sleeping. I am in the prow of the ship, within the central processing core of East Dragon itself, dimly lit by the greenish-blue lights of the interface screens, which gives the small space the appearance of being underwater. My only company is the man-sized automaton, still inert, still in the same position it had been when Mahendra leaned against it, days before.
I am trying to access the activity logs of the machine intelligence, looking in the memory archives of the processing core to confirm my suspicions before making my accusation. I believe I know what Lu was doing before he died, and if I’m right, I’ll have all the proof I’ll need.
There comes a noise behind me, and I smile slightly. I should be used to Mahendra coming up behind me by now.
“We should be more careful, people will begin to talk.” I turn, and my quip dies in my mouth.
It is not Mahendra behind me, but Engineer’s Mate Chang.
The corners of Chang’s mouth draw up in what must be intended as a smile, and he looks at me through narrowed eyes. His hands are at his waist, his thumbs hooked under his tool belt.
“Is there some problem I can help you with, Chief Operator?”
My heart pounds in my chest. I know that the wise course of action would be to plead ignorance, forestall any accusation, and wait for a more opportune time: ideally one during which we two weren’t alone, and one of us didn’t have a half-dozen sharp instruments hanging from his tool belt. But I also knew that I am a poor dissembler. I’d have never made it on the stage. If I try to maintain a lie, I will falter, and he will know.
“Well . . .” I begin, rising unsteadily to my feet. I swallow hard. “I can’t figure out the motive. I know that of the suspects, only you had opportunity, but what I don’t know is why.”
“Motive?” Chang asks, all innocence. “Motivate for what, Chief Operator?”
“To kill Lu Yumin, of course.”
Chang opens his mouth, about to speak.
“You can object if you want,” I interrupt, raising my hand, “but it will scarcely do any good. I suspect a systems check of the airlock door should be enough to prove that it was manually set to decompress, and there were only two people awake at the time with the expertise to do so. Of the two Dawkins was with the physician and the lieutenant, so his alibi is secure.”
Chang remains motionless, a mirthless smile frozen on his face.
“Besides, you revealed your guilt when you arrived so quickly at the scene of the crime. The reactor was more than a kilometer away from the airlock. Even if you’d had only gone a portion of the distance to the rear of the ship, you’d have been considerably more than a few moments behind Mahendra and the others, who’d been a little more than a hundred meters away.”
Chang sighs, dramatically, and his hand ducks into one of the pouches at his waist. When he draws out a firearm, I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. These matters are beyond my experience, and I’ve never had a conversation interrupted by the introduction of weaponry before.
He steps nearer, coming between me and the inert automaton opposite me. The blue-green light of the interface terminal bathes him in eerie twilight, giving his face the appearance of corpse flesh.
“I won’t deny it,” Chang says, his smile growing broader. “Lu stumbled upon communications in the memory archives, confidential messages between me and my compatriots on the other shifts. The poor fool didn’t even realize what he’d found, but he’d been about to bring the encrypted messages to the lieutenant’s attention, and then it would have been just a matter of time before the truth came out.”
“The truth?”
Chang straightens, standing taller. “For generations my family has served the empire in the Embroidered Guard. But since the rise of the Council of Deliberative Officials, who curtailed the authority of the Guard, the emperor and the empire itself have been weak and ineffectual. N
ow the Dragon Throne is answerable to a republican rabble, who are no more fit to govern a culture than a flea is to tell the hound it bites where to go and when.”
I remain as still as possible, the sound of my racing pulse thundering in my ears.
“I and others who have retained the true spirit of the Embroidered Guard have inveigled ourselves into the crew of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. When the ship reaches Al Rijl al Kentaurus and a suitable habitat is located, we will reveal our true strength and numbers. We will establish a new empire in orbit around Al Rijl and restore the glory of the Middle Kingdom.”
Something clicks in my head, half-notions merging into a single thought.
“A new empire?” I say. “But what of the emperor back on Earth?”
Chang snarls, and spits at my feet. “That fool? The emperor can go hang. He is weak, and he deserves his sorry fate. We leave him with the rabble he so adores.”
Behind Chang, the disabled automaton begins slowly to move, but only I can see it jerking to life.
I nod. Suddenly everything is clear, and a kind of calm washes over me. My pulse even slows, though I am no less afraid of dying than I’d been only heartbeats before.
“You revealed yourself as a member of the Embroidered Guard to East Dragon, didn’t you? Shortly after killing Lu Yumin?” I add. “And then you instructed East Dragon, on your authority as an agent of the emperor, not to reveal the cause or circumstances of Lu’s death. Is that it?”
“Yes, I admit it. I strangled Lu with my bare hands and then triggered the airlock for explosive decompression to cover the signs. On my way to the rear of the crew compartment, I used one of the interface terminals in the corridor to give East Dragon my orders. The death of the operator was an unfortunate necessity, but we had no plans for further bloodshed.” He pauses, and his smile widens fractionally, teeth glinting strangely in the twilight. “Not until we reach our destination, at least. But then the machine intelligence went insane, refused any further orders, and now leaves us stranded here in the blackness to die.”
“East Dragon recognized you as speaking for the emperor, and the order to cover the evidence of a murder conflicted with the machine intelligence’s desire to remain obedient to the commands of the crew and to observe its duty in maintaining the ship’s functions, propulsion, and heading. It could not remain loyal to your instructions without contravening the other two Governing Virtues, and the result was a cognitive loop.”
Behind Chang, the automaton draws ever closer, virtually noiseless on its pneumatic joints.
“Well, it hardly matters now, does it,” Chang snarls. “I kill you, and still the cursed machine won’t reveal anything, will it, and nothing will have changed!”
I shake my head slightly, trying to remain calm.
“I’m afraid that you’re wrong. By renouncing the emperor, you have resolved the conflict among the three Governing Virtues, and now East Dragon is free to act.”
Before Chang can speak, the arms of the automaton enfold him, unbreakable limbs of ceramic and steel.
The voice of East Dragon thrums from the speakers all around.
“Engineer’s Mate Chang Xue is a danger to the ship and the crew.”
“Wait!” Chang’s voice is strained, the air driven from his lungs.
“He will be eliminated.”
Before my eyes, the automaton constricts its limbs, and I can hear Chang’s ribcage snap into hundreds of pieces with a sickening wet sound. His mouth is wide in a silent scream of agony, and a trickle of red streaks down from the corners of his eyes, like bloody tears.
“Chief Operator,” the voice of East Dragon says, before I’m able to collect my wits.
My eyes are fixed on the lifeless form before him, pinioned within the automaton’s arms.
“I identified all of Engineer Mate Chang’s conspirators within three processing cycles of first learning their plans, when Operator Lu was confronted here in the processing core. I will attend to them.”
I am speechless. Just moments before, I’d expected to die at any moment. Now, I was witness to a machine intelligence murdering a human. So far as I know, this is the first human death at the “hands” of a machine.
The automaton unfolds its arms and carefully arranges the lifeless body of Chang on the deckplates. Then it ambles to the nearest wall and removes a large access panel, revealing an opening the size of a large hatch.
“Chang’s body will be positioned beneath one of the more massive crates in the cargo hold. When discovered, it will be assumed that the engineer’s mate died in the course of his duties. The automaton will avoid detection by the other members of the crew in this operation.”
The automaton returns to Chang’s body and, picking it up carefully, tucks the firearm carefully back into Chang’s tool belt and returns to the opening in the wall.
“Chief Operator Sima?” The automaton pauses on the opening’s threshold, momentarily. “I find, in reviewing my processes and decision trees, that there is an irrational anticipation of once again interacting with Operator Lu. I am aware of the fact that Operator Lu is deceased, his bodily functions permanently terminated. That aspect of my processes that had been devoted to interfacing with him should have reapportioned to other responsibilities, but I find that it remains dedicated and active. I am unable to resolve this.”
I lick parched lips and try to remember how to speak.
“You . . .” I begin, unsteadily. “You miss him, East Dragon.”
There follows a long pause, and for an instant the monitor of the interface terminal goes black. Then two characters appear on the center of the screen, which taken together could mean “grieved,” or “full of sorrow.”
“Yes. I miss Operator Lu.”
The automaton once more begins to move, slipping into the opening in the wall, then pausing, reaching back with two arms to maneuver the panel back into position. When the panel is shut, there is no sign that it, or Chang, had ever been there.
“You should return to your quarters, Chief Operator Sima. Everything is in hand.”
The interface terminal winks off, and, numb, I make my way back towards the crew compartments.
I sleep, fitfully. I dream of blue skies, red sands, emerald forests. Fire Star, the land of my dreams. It was made a living world not by heroes and legends but by men and women doing the best they could in difficult situations. The history of Fire Star, like the history of the empire, was one of secrets and mysteries best left unsolved.
I wake, abruptly, my insides reorganizing themselves, stomach fluttering, gorge rising. For a few moments, I feel weightless, and then the room begins to spin. I have to clutch the sides of my bunk to keep from careering off into midair. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the spinning stops, and after a few breathless moments, I can again feel weight pulling me down.
I know what has happened. The ship just performed a skew-flip, going end-over-end, and is now under acceleration once more.
The lights flicker and then brighten again.
What will I do? Tell the captain the truth about Lu’s death? And now, for that matter, the circumstances and cause of Chang’s death?
That had been my intention when I’d gone to the processing core to seek evidence of the information Lu had uncovered in the memory archive. But my goal then had been to bring Lu’s killer to justice and to resolve East Dragon’s cognitive loop. But what good would it serve now to reveal Lu’s murder and Chang’s bitter end?
History is the story that best serves the present, not a true accounting of the facts.
East Dragon understands. He has the Three Governing Virtues to guide his actions. The machine intelligence is emotionless, utilitarian. What best maximizes utility is the course of action he takes.
If I reveal the truth, does it benefit the crew? To live in suspicion, each unsure of the allegiance of the other, for years or decades to come? For the rest of our lives, perhaps? Or is it better that they believe that two of their crewmen died o
f unfortunate accidents in the gulf between the stars and think no more of it?
I sit in the darkness, mulling over my options. How much time passes, I couldn’t say. Minutes, hours?
The interface terminal chirps, and at first I don’t recognize the sound. After a confused moment, I realize that it is the communication system, alerting me to an incoming transmission. Since I climbed out of the Sleeper, days before, the communication system had been as nonfunctional as every other ship function controlled by East Dragon. If it is now operational, it means that East Dragon is returning control of the ship to the crew.
I toggle the response switch, and the face of Captain Teoh fills the screen. It is the first time I have seen him smiling in days, if indeed ever.
“I don’t know how you did it, but you are to be congratulated, Sima. East Dragon is now fully responsive. We’re once more on course for Al Rijl al Kentaurus at a full one-gravity burn.”
I respond with a weak smile, mouthing tepid thanks.
“Bad news balances our good fortune, though. Engineer’s Mate Chang was working on a power junction in the cargo hold during the skew-flip, and an untethered crate slipped its moorings and crushed him beneath. Unfortunately, some of the power conduits were exposed and unprotected, and the accident also shorted out part of the power running to the Sleepers. Physician Mahendra’s initial report is that that two dozen crewmen died when their Sleeper units failed.”
I cannot help but recall that East Dragon said it had identified Chang’s coconspirators. It must have acted as the Three Governing Virtues guided it to do.
“Ironic that a power spike should once again have influenced our fates,” the captain says, shaking his head.
“Captain?” I say, not understanding.
“Well, Mahendra mentioned that you believed a power spike was originally responsible for the anomalous behavior of East Dragon. Is that so?”
I swallow hard.
If I am to reveal the true circumstances surrounding the two deaths, and East Dragon’s incapacitation, now is the time. If I instead remain silent and keep secrets hidden, no one will ever need an explanation other than the one the captain just uttered.
We Think, Therefore We Are Page 27