Walter Williams - Logs

One fewer murder, anyway, Martinez thought.

"When I looked for fingerprints with the laser," Xi continued, "I found my own, and my assistants'. And I also found one large thumbprint on the underside of the jaw on the right side." He pressed his own thumb to the point. "Right where a thumb might sit if a person were grabbing Kosinic's head and slamming it into the hatch rim."

He gave a little grin. "It was quite a job to read that print properly," he said. "I couldn't use a normal print reader, and so I had to take several close-up photographs while the print was fluorescing, and then convert the format to-"

"Skip that part," Michi instructed.

Xi seemed a trifle disappointed that he was not getting the chance to fully reveal the scope of his cleverness. He licked his lips and went on.

"The thumbprint was that of Master Engineer Thuc," he said.

Martinez realized his mouth was open, and he closed it.

"I'll be damned," he said.

Thuc was enormous and covered with muscle, Martinez thought, and certainly strong enough to smash Kosinic' head on the first try. He looked at Michi.

"So Thuc killed Kosinic," he said. "And Fletcher found out about it somehow and executed Thuc."

She nodded. "That seems likely."

"He said he killed Thuc for the honor of the ship. He was very sensitive on points of rank and dignity, and maybe he thought it would be an affront to his own pride to order a formal inquiry to reveal the fact that one of his enlisted personnel killed an officer, and so he decided to handle it himself."

Michi nodded again. "Go on."

"But if that's true," Martinez said, "then who the hell killed Fletcher?"

Michi gave him an odd, searching look. "Who benefits?" she said.

Irritation rasped along Martinez' nerves. "If you're expecting me to break down and confess," he said, "you're going to be disappointed."

"Others may benefit besides you," Michi pointed out. "For example someone who knew that Fletcher would never favor her ambitions, but who thought you might."

Martinez suspected that Michi's choice of pronoun was not accidental.

"Thuc might have had an accomplice," he suggested. "An accomplice who thought he was next on Fletcher's list."

"Did you know," Michi said, "that Lieutenant Prasad excelled in Torminel-style wrestling at the Doria Academy?"

"No," Martinez said, "I didn't. I haven't had time to review her file."

Even if Torminel wrestling didn't quite allow bashing an opponent's head in, Martinez knew it was an aggressive style that included strangulation and all sorts of unpleasant, painful joint manipulation and pressure point attacks. He could now see Chandra immobilizing Fletcher long enough to hustle him to his desk and slam his head against its sharp edge, in the process leaving her fingerprints on the underlip.

"I also see," Michi said, "that you and Lieutenant Prasad shared a communications course some years ago."

"That's true. While she was there, she didn't murder anyone that I know of."

Michi's lips twitched into a grim smile. "I'll take your enthusiastic character reference under advisement. Did you notice that Captain Fletcher gave Prasad a venomous efficiency report?"

"I saw that, yes. But I know of no evidence that she was aware of it."

"Perhaps she wanted to prevent it from being written, but was too late." Michi tapped her fingers on her desk top. "I'd like you to inquire, as discreetly as possible, about Prasad's movements during the watch that Captain Fletcher was killed."

"I can't possibly be discreet with such an inquiry," Martinez said. "And besides, Garcia already accounted for everyone on the ship."

"Garcia is an enlisted man and experiences a natural diffidence when interrogating officers. An officer is best for these things."

Martinez decided he might as well concede. When he thought about it, he no longer knew why he was defending Chandra in any case.

"Well," he said, "I'm interviewing the lieutenants one by one anyway. I'll ask them about that night, but I don't think any will give me a story different from anything they've already told Garcia."

"I mess in the wardroom," Xi said. "I could make a few inquiries as well."

"We must find an answer," Michi said.

On his way to his office Martinez contemplated Michi's choice of words: she had said an answer, not the answer.

He wondered if Michi was willing to sacrifice the answer-the real answer-in favor of any answer. An answer that would end the doubts and questions on the ship, that would help to unify Illustrious under its new captain, that would put the entire incident to bed and let Illustrious, and the entire squadron, get on with their job of fighting Naxids.

It was a solution that would sacrifice an officer, that was true, but an officer who was an outsider, a provincial Peer from a provincial clan, isolated from the others who had all been hand-picked by Fletcher. An officer who no one seemed to like very much anyway.

An officer who was very much like the officer Martinez had been just a year ago.

He didn't like Michi's solution on these grounds, and on others as well. There had been three deaths, and Martinez thought Michi was too quick to consider the first two solved. He had a sense that the deaths all had to be related some way, even though he couldn't guess at anything that might connect them.

In his office he found Marsden waiting patiently with the day's reports. Martinez called for a pot of coffee and worked steadily for an hour, until a knock on the door interrupted him. He looked up and saw Chandra in the doorway.

He tried not to envision a target symbol pinned to her chest as she stepped into the room and braced.

"Yes, lieutenant?" he said.

"It was unfortunate that we couldn't discuss…" Her eyes cut to Marsden, whose bald head was bent over his datapad. "That matter we wanted to talk about at dinner today."

"We can talk about it tomorrow," Martinez said.

"It would be a little late." Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. "The lady squadcom had asked me to conduct my experiment tomorrow."

She wants to find out how much you're worth before deciding on your arrest. The bitter thought rose in Martinez' mind before he could stop it.

He sighed. "I don't know how I can help you, lieutenant." She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. "In order for this to be what you want, it can't be anything standard. Either my standard or their standard, if you see what I mean. It has to be something that's completely yours, and something that hadn't been done before, or at least not recently."

Her hands clenched into fists, and this time did not unclench. "I understand, my lord." From the sound, her teeth were clenched, too.

"It's not easy, I know." Martinez made a conciliatory gesture. "I'm sorry, but I have no useful ideas for you." He mentally reviewed the last few days. "I don't have useful ideas for anyone, it seems."

Her fists still clenched, Chandra braced, executed a military turn, and marched away.

Martinez looked after her, and a morbid part of his mind wondered if Chandra was angry enough to kill him.

Martinez was killed the next morning, during Chandra's maneuver. Martinez spent the time passing command of the ship to Kazakov in Auxiliary Command, so that his crew in Command could devote themselves entirely to the maneuver.

"The experiment assumes that we are six hours into the Osser system."

Osser again, Martinez thought. It was almost as if Chandra were repeating Martinez' last maneuver, not a good sign if she wanted to impress Squadron Commander Chen.

"Chenforce has entered hot, and we've been able to search the system a little more than three light-hours out. No enemy force has been detected. Are there any questions?"

Apparently there were none, because Chandra went on. "The exercise will commence on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."