Марта Уэллс: Fugitive Telemetry

Gurathin kept saying we should leave, but I didn’t and Ratthi didn’t, so he stayed too, shifting around uneasily and occasionally pacing. “You don’t think this is related to GrayCris, do you?” Ratthi had asked me after he had called Station Security.

“It’s a possibility,” I said. I explained my idea about Lutran being another corporate agent who had been killed by a GrayCris agent. “But without corroborating evidence, the threat assessment is undetermined.” I could come up with scenarios where a GrayCris agent would have reason to kill another passenger on their transport, but without evidence I was just making up shit. (If I’m going to make up shit I’d rather do it about something else besides how a human got murdered by another human.)

“Then why was this Lutran killed?” Gurathin asked, his big brow creased.

“We don’t have enough data to make a guess yet,” I said, not as patiently as would have been required by my governor module. “There are too many factors involved, like did Lutran and the killer know each other before they boarded the transport. We don’t even know yet if the killer was another passenger or someone who was invited aboard, or who managed to trick or force the transport into letting them aboard. We don’t know how they moved the body from the transport to the station mall junction. We don’t know the motive, if it was corporate espionage, theft, a fight, or even a random opportunity killing.” We didn’t know shit, basically.

Because this is Preservation, Ratthi said, “What is a random opportunity killing?”

“When a human kills another human just because they can.” It’s also the kind of thing that’s much more common on media than it was in real life, but still.

Neither one of them seemed happy with that answer. I actually wasn’t either. From everything I’d seen in the media, assholes who just like to kill other humans are hard to catch. But without more info, I thought it was more likely there was a reason that Lutran had been killed, and that it would have to do with who Lutran was and why he was traveling. Threat assessment agreed.

Besides, as soon as Station Security got off their collective ass, we’d—they’d have the surveillance video from the transit ring cameras.

Indah stepped out of the hatch, speaking to another officer I hadn’t seen before, with a private feed ID. Then she walked over toward us, trailed by the officer and Tural, the tech who had been trying and failing to identify Lutran.

Something in their body language made Ratthi step up beside me. It occurred to me Gurathin was maybe right for once and we should have left. It would have possibly been another point up for me, to send the report about the incident to Station Security and then be back in the hotel or Mensah’s office acting like it was just another day by the time Station Security arrived at the transport. But it was too late now.

Indah stopped just out of what humans would consider comfortable conversational distance, looking at me. Then she hesitated, glanced with some annoyance at Gurathin and Ratthi, then back at me, with more annoyance. Tural was looking at Indah, and a little agitated like they wanted to talk and were just waiting for permission. The other officer was trying to do a stony stare at me but good luck with that, you need an opaque helmet to really make that work. Indah said, “Officer Aylen, this is… SecUnit.” She didn’t quite stumble over it. “And Survey Academics Ratthi and Gurathin, our other two witnesses.”

Gurathin said, “We didn’t really witness anything. I don’t think we have much to tell you.” Gurathin seems to hate talking to strange humans almost as much as I do. And he wasn’t wrong, he and Ratthi hadn’t seen anything that I didn’t have video of. But him talking gave me a chance to work around the privacy seal on Aylen’s feed ID and see she was listed as a Special Investigator. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was a good job title and honestly it made me a little jealous.

Indah was looking at me again. I hadn’t said anything because what was I supposed to say at this point? Oh, I guess I could have said “hello.” Well, it was too late now. Indah said, “I saw the report and I know how you identified Lutran as our deceased. We got verification from Medical on the body scan right after that. But how did you know Lutran was a passenger on this transport?”

Ratthi had shifted from acting defensive to acting like this was a meeting we were all having. He said, “So it was him who was killed in there, then? The person who was found?”

Tural said, “Unless it was spoofed, there was a DNA match. Spoofing isn’t unlikely, but in this case—” Indah glared at Tural and they shut up.

I answered, “The transport identified him when I asked it. With its systems damaged it was unable to report the onboard incident to the Port Authority.”

Tural was nodding. “The transport’s giving us nothing but error codes. The analysts are going to try to do a restart but they’ll copy the memory core so they can get the latest passenger manifest, and restore if anything—”

Indah gave Tural a “not now” eyebrow scrunch and they shut up again. She asked me, “But how did you know it was this particular transport?”

“I didn’t, I was checking all the transports.” Then I added, “That’s why it took so long.” Yes, I was rubbing it in.

Indah squinted one eye. Aylen looked me over again in that way humans do when they’re trying to intimidate you and they fail to understand you’ve spent the entire length of your previous existence being treated like a thing and so one more impersonal once-over is not exactly going to impress you. Then Aylen said, “One point I’d like to get out of the way. Did you have anything to do with this?”

Wow, really? I’m better at keeping my expression neutral after so much practice, but I was surprised at how pissed off it made me. Compared to a lot of things that had happened to me, you’d think it wouldn’t matter. But here, now, for some reason, it mattered.

Ratthi made an angry snorty noise. Gurathin was grimly staring up at the arch of the transit ring’s ceiling; they had both suspected this was coming, that’s why Gurathin had wanted us to leave and then had stayed around himself when we wouldn’t. I said, “No, I didn’t. Why would I?”

Aylen was watching me intently. “I don’t like having private security with its own agenda aboard this station.”

Oh wait, she thought it was GrayCris. That maybe I had found out Lutran was a GrayCris agent and killed him, and now I was trying to lead the investigation along a specific path, using my two oblivious human friends as cover.

So, the problem was, that wasn’t an unlikely idea at all. It was something I might have to do if I did find a GrayCris operative on the station. Which meant I had to answer very carefully.

There were a lot of humans lying to each other on The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon , and I knew outright angry denials tended to sound incredibly guilty, even though they were often an innocent human’s first impulse. You wouldn’t think lying would be a problem for me, after 35,000 plus hours lying about not being a rogue SecUnit while on company contracts, then the whole lying about not being an augmented human and lying about being a non-rogue SecUnit with a fake human supervisor. But the last two hadn’t exactly been failure-free; what worked best was misdirection and not letting myself get caught in the wrong place at the right time, and making sure no humans ever thought about asking the wrong questions.

Misdirection, let’s try that. “I would have either disposed of the body so it was never found, or made it look like an accident.”

Indah frowned, and Aylen’s brow creased, and they exchanged a look. Eyeing me, Indah said, “How would you dispose of a body so it wouldn’t be found?”