Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

‘For what?’ Goma asked. She was drained, shocked, numbed — so overcome with grief that she could not begin to feel it as a distinct mental state. She was swimming in it, breathing it into her lungs. The only emotion she felt was a sense that the universe had been wrenched rudely off course, carrying her along with it. She had to speak to Mposi about this. He would have something sensible and calming to say, a way to lessen her problems.

Uncle. Uncle. Uncle.

‘This wasn’t planned,’ Ru offered. ‘That’s my take on it, anyway. Someone killed him, and it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Why would anyone ever think killing someone on a ship was a good idea?’

‘Because they were insane,’ Goma said.

‘They killed him,’ Ru went on, ‘but there wasn’t time to make it look like an accident or find a better way of disposing of the body. This was the best alternative they could come up with. They knew it would be discovered sooner or later — you can’t just lock the Knowledge Room and expect no one to notice — so all they needed was a little time to… hide their tracks, maybe.’ She looked up sharply. ‘Gandhari — whoever did this?’

‘Yes?’

‘They had a means of locking that door. A bangle like yours — or the capability to alter one. It can’t be someone like Goma or me — we knew next to nothing about this ship until we were aboard it.’

‘So technical staff — one of my own people? Is that your suspicion?’

Ru hesitated then nodded. ‘I’m sorry, but who else could it be? A scientist, maybe — but I’m one of them, and my expertise doesn’t begin to extend to this kind of thing. Nor does Goma’s. Mposi himself couldn’t have done this, even if he had a reason to.’

‘He wasn’t wearing any clothes,’ Goma said. ‘How did he get from his room to the well without someone noticing?’

‘I suspect he was dressed, whether he was moving on his own or being carried,’ Vasin said. ‘Whoever did this probably feared the nanotechnology wouldn’t treat his clothes and his body in the same fashion. They must have undressed him in the Knowledge Room, then taken the clothes somewhere else. Easier to hide clothes than a body — easier to dispose of them later, too.’

‘Why?’ Vasin asked. ‘What did he do, that someone had to kill him for?’

‘I have a good idea,’ Goma said. ‘Mposi told me something not long ago. You can check with Crucible, if you like, Gandhari. He was in contact with them.’

‘About what?’ Vasin asked.

‘Sabotage,’ Goma said, with a sort of flat resignation. ‘They warned him there was a possibility of it. Something on this ship — a weapon, maybe, that you don’t know about, put aboard by people who don’t want this expedition to succeed.’

‘Why didn’t he tell me?’

‘He was trying to gather more information. I don’t think he wanted to come to you with something half-baked, especially if it was a false alarm.’

‘Dear god,’ Vasin said. ‘What kind of weapon was he thinking of? What was he looking for — how much did he tell you?’

‘You had better speak to Maslin Karayan.’

‘He’s the suspect? Is that what Mposi told you?’

Goma closed her eyes. This was all too much, a surfeit of troubles over and above those she had already accepted.

‘Maybe. There’s someone else you should look at. Karayan was asking what Mposi knew about Peter Grave.’ She swallowed. ‘We see him as a Second Chancer, but he’s different from the others. There’s something about him. Even they don’t trust him.’

‘You think he killed Mposi?’ Vasin asked.

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Goma answered.

Before the news of Mposi’s death reached the entire ship — which it was bound to do, with or without official disclosure — Vasin declared a state of emergency, a condition-yellow situation. This was wisely chosen, being only one level above the routine condition green: not serious enough to suggest that the ship or its occupants were in immediate peril, but sufficient to limit the movements of crew and passengers, and oblige everyone who was already in their cabins to remain there. It was the kind of alert that might attend a problem with the air supply, such as the presence of a mild toxin or a breakdown of the proper equilibrium of component gases. There had been a couple of condition-yellow situations since they left Crucible, and the encounter with the Watchkeeper had elevated the emergency status a whole two levels above yellow, so this development was neither unprecedented nor liable to cause panic.

‘Do you want us to return to our room?’ Goma asked Vasin.

‘No — you’re here now so you might as well stay. I can’t completely eliminate you as suspects — or anyone else, for that matter, including myself, until we have more evidence — but the fact that you were actively searching for Mposi and directed our attention to the Knowledge Room… Well, if you had murdered him — and again I am sorry that we must speak so bluntly, Goma — but if you had done it, you would not be in such a rush to bring the body to my attention.’

‘I appreciate your compassion, Gandhari,’ Goma said, ‘but he was murdered, and the only way to find out who did it is to talk about it. I might as well get used to it.’

While they waited in her quarters, Vasin’s immediate subordinates had sealed the Knowledge Room and were now sweeping the rest of the ship, with a particular view to apprehending Maslin Karayan and Peter Grave.

‘In theory,’ Vasin said, ‘the bangles’ localising function should enable us to identify the killer just by backtracking everyone’s movements and finding out who was with Mposi since you last saw him. But whoever did this clearly knew their way around both the bangles and the nanomachines in the Knowledge Room. If they could tamper with one, they could just as easily tamper with the other — concealing their movements, if necessary. Still, it looks like they were in a rush — perhaps they were not as thorough as they might have wished.’

It took under thirty minutes to find the two men and bring them both to Vasin’s quarters. Neither showed any signs of having offered resistance, but of the two, only Maslin Karayan looked like a man who had just been dragged out of bed. He had a puffy, dishevelled appearance — even his beard was unruly.

Peter Grave by contrast was fully dressed, clean-shaven and had been apprehended en route to his cabin, apparently on his way back from the connecting spine.

They were in the formal stateroom adjoining Vasin’s private quarters. Vasin was seated behind her desk, Aiyana Loring and Nasim Caspari to either side of their captain and Ru and Goma at one end of the desk. Maslin Karayan and Peter Grave were seated opposite Vasin, and Dr Nhamedjo stood off to one side with his arms folded.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’ Vasin asked the two Second Chancers.

‘I’m waiting for you to explain why we’re under a yellow emergency when there is clearly nothing wrong with the ship,’ said the older man, bristling with righteous indignation.

‘What’s happened?’ asked Grave, his tone milder but still demanding of answers.

‘Mposi Akinya is dead,’ Vasin said. ‘He was found a few hours ago, in the Knowledge Room. The nanomachinery was in the process of digesting his body. Aiyana — can you confirm what happened?’

‘Machines had been reprogrammed — their core architecture altered? Very difficult thing. Process of disposal would have been complete.’

‘Would anything have alerted us about what had happened to him?’ Vasin asked.

Loring shook vis head, but the gesture was equivocal. ‘Not immediately? Nanotech was programmed to revert to a safe mode once the body was broken down. Conceal obvious evidence of its earlier reprogramming? Safe enough in the well — wouldn’t have started trying to dissolve you. All that absorbed biomass? Affected it in subtle ways, but take an expert to spot the signs.’