Alastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Wake

‘That’s an understatement if ever I heard one,’ Ru commented darkly, standing just behind Goma.

‘What’s the significance of Malabar ?’

‘After the information wave hit Crucible, Malabar was one of the few holoships that still managed to maintain viable populations of industrial nanomachines. All the nanomachinery now in use, here or anywhere else in the system, derives from the Malabar samples. Grave was there as a schoolteacher. There’s no direct link, but with the right connections, he could easily have gained practical experience in handling and reprogramming nanomachines.’

‘Enough for what he did?’

‘With some additional tuition, maybe,’ Vasin said.

‘You’ll need more than that to nail him.’

‘When we first found Grave, not long after you found Mposi, he was returning to his cabin from the direction of the drive sphere. That’s suspicious, although not damning in and of itself. But we’ve now found blood traces in one of the secured areas. Evidence of a struggle, too — skin and hair scrapings, a shred of torn fabric.’

‘Grave’s blood?’

‘Mposi’s. Saturnin’s already run a match — he has your uncle’s blood on file from the skipover tests.’

‘What about Grave?’ Ru asked.

‘There’s no sign that he was hurt in the struggle. The fabric doesn’t appear to have come from his clothes, either. But he’s younger and stronger than Mposi was — it’s not really a surprise that your uncle would have fared worse in a struggle.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Ru said, still speaking over Goma’s shoulder, ‘That Grave killed him there, and then carried him all the way back through the ship to the Knowledge Room without anyone seeing?’

‘That’s not as outlandish as it sounds. There’s a cargo elevator connecting both spheres that bypasses all the main accommodation levels, and Grave wouldn’t have had far to go from the elevator to the Knowledge Room. Again, ordinary passengers can’t access the cargo elevator. But if Grave had already altered his bangle to allow entry into closed areas, it would have been no trouble to operate the elevator.’

‘What was that throwback doing in the drive sphere?’

‘That’s what I hope to find out. Of course, it’s not just propulsion systems in that area — there are equipment bays, supply stores and so on.’

‘We’re still alive,’ Goma said. ‘That has to mean something, doesn’t it? If there is a sabotage plan, it hasn’t worked so far.’

‘Maybe we’ve been lucky,’ Vasin said. ‘In which case we have your uncle to thank. I can only wish that he had come to me rather than keep this to himself. I’ve a feeling we will miss his skills and experience acutely in the days to come.’

Captain Vasin’s search parties worked their efficient, methodical way through the spine and aft sphere of Travertine . Before very long they found a storage room that had been closed but not locked, against normal protocol, and within that room was a rack of supply cases. The cases were examined thoroughly and with caution. One of them, supposedly containing spacesuit parts, was found to be unlocked. Inside, instead of helmets and neck rings were a dozen bottle-sized demolition charges packed in cushioning material.

Vasin explained to Goma that they were MH devices — metallic hydrogen charges. Their presence aboard the ship was not odd in itself, for such items were part of normal expedition equipment. These were not the itemised charges, however, which were stored under high security in the forward sphere. These must have been smuggled aboard, probably quite late in the loading operation. A single charge would easily have been sufficient to destroy much of the rear sphere, and perhaps the whole ship. Certainly Travertine would have been crippled beyond repair.

‘How in hell—’ Goma started saying.

‘The final preparations were completed in too much of a rush,’ Vasin said. ‘Our supporters wanted us away as quickly as possible, before someone changed their minds and decided the expedition shouldn’t go ahead after all. Corners were cut, details missed. First Grave, then letting something like this aboard.’

‘It’s a little late for regrets,’ Goma said.

‘Perhaps we’ve been fortunate. I’ll have the rest of the ship picked clean as a bone, of course.’

‘What does Grave say?’ Ru asked.

‘Still sticking to his story. Says he arranged to meet Mposi — that they were both looking for the same thing. Whatever his defence, it’ll be difficult for him to shrug off the forensic traces in that room. Grave’s fingerprints are as clear as they could be on the box containing the charges, and he left skin flakes in the room, too. Maybe he was on the verge of blowing us all up, or maybe he just meant to extract the charges and spread them around the ship in preparation.’

‘Why wait?’ Ru asked, frowning hard. ‘If blowing us up was the plan, why not do it there and then?’

‘We don’t know what his ultimate objective was,’ Vasin answered. ‘Maybe it wasn’t to destroy Travertine itself. When we get to Gliese 163, we’ll use the lander for close-up studies, not the ship. His target could be whatever we end up investigating.’

‘You’ll make him confess,’ Goma said, hardly daring to imagine the damage a bomb could do to her beloved Tantors, if they were present. ‘I want to know exactly what happened and why.’

‘A man with deep convictions can be hard to intimidate,’ Vasin said.

‘I think I could have a go at it,’ Goma answered.

Mposi’s body had been removed from the well and the nanomachines rendered safe. There was a funeral service, of sorts — a difficult, harrowing ceremony, which Goma was glad to put behind her — and then his remains were placed in skipover, to be carried all the way to Gliese 163 and — perhaps — back to Crucible. Vasin told Goma that she was obliged to preserve the evidence of any crime even when the circumstances appeared unambiguous — Dr Nhamedjo’s post-mortem examination was as thorough as it could be but, given the limited resources and expertise available on the ship, not completely exhaustive.

For Goma’s peace of mind, she would much rather have seen the remains incinerated or cast into space. Then she could begin to grieve for Mposi.

Even so, she slowly began to adjust to his absence. Ru was a wonderful strength, and Goma found herself blessing the chain of circumstances that had kept them together. If it had taken the death of the matriarch Agrippa to bind them closer, then she was grateful for the old elephant’s parting gift. She could not have faced the future without Ru.

Eventually, photons crawled back from Crucible. There had been a day or two of delay in addition to physical time lag. A stringent investigation of Grave’s background had added to the picture already formed, reinforcing their existing impression of him. His ideological background and link to the most conservative branch of the Second Chancer movement were established beyond doubt. So, too, was the fact that Grave had the necessary basic grounding in nanomachine programming, acquired during his time on the orbiting holoship. Given that unexpected expertise, he had the skills required to override the bangles’ intended security functions. There was no reliable confirmation that Grave had been installed aboard the ship as a kind of counterterrorist infiltrator.

Vasin still gave him his chance to defend himself. The ‘trial’ was an ad hoc affair attended by nearly the entire complement of crew and passengers. Grave was asked to explain his presence in the second sphere. He did not deny it, accepting that the forensic evidence was irrefutable. Nor did he deny that he had some experience with nanomachines.