He blurted it out, as if he had to say it before some prohibition intervened. He looked uncomfortable in the wake of the remark, and she knew he would have called it back if he could.
She took his hand, not knowing quite what to say. There’d always been an unspoken understanding between them, a distance created by the knowledge that they would not risk a long friendship to a sexual encounter. But there were occasional hints, suggestions from Solly that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the status quo. Still, he was all the family she had, and she did not want to lose him. “I’d hope so,” she said cautiously, smiling, but using a neutral tone.
While Solly called the desk and booked tickets on the Snowhawk in the morning, Kim parked herself in front of the display and began running the Hunter logs again. Emily and Kane.
I love you, the early encounters said, the passion reciprocal. There was no way to miss it.
And: “As always, Markis, it was nice to spend time with you.”
The nonverbal cues were almost professionally correct, no suggestion of sexual tension, no touching, no wistful smiles. Nothing. Even the voices were friendly but detached. Pass the coffee.
“It’s all wrong,” she said aloud.
“If you figure it out,” said Solly, stretching, getting up from the sofa on which he’d been spread out, “let me know. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Kim put up her split screen again, Kane and Emily from early in the mission on one side, Kane and Emily saying goodbye on the other. She ran both sequences forward at normal speed, then backed them up and ran them again at one quarter. And then she saw it.
My God.
She reversed it and watched it again. There was no question.
She knocked on his door. “Solly.”
He came out with a sigh, securing his robe, wearing an expression of infinite patience. “Yes, Kim?” he said, emphasizing the aspirate.
She killed the sound and ran it for him. “Watch the seats,” she said.
He lowered himself onto the sofa. A table lamp burned steadily beside him. “What am I looking for?”
On the left side, the early conversation, the encounter coming to an end and Emily shifting her weight and beginning to rise. Kim stopped the picture.
On the right, the talk also winding down. Again Emily shifting her weight and getting up. Kim restarted the sequence, both images synchronized, both in slow motion. In each, Emily flicked the harness open with a graceful left hand and used the other to push off the chair arm.
She hit the pause function. “Do you see it?”
“I give up,” said Solly.
“Look at the seat.” The polymod fabric in the early sequence contained the unmistakable imprint of a human bottom. On the right, it was perfectly smooth.
“That’s strange,” he said.
They ran other sequences. Whenever anyone sat in the right-hand chair, the seat showed the imprint afterward before returning gradually to its own shape.
Anyone except Emily. Emily on the return flight.
But outward bound, she always left the imprint. Kim looked at the first conversation on the return flight:
“Can’t really expect to hit it right away,” said Markis. “We have to be patient.”
“We’ve been patient.”
“I know.”
Emily sat silently for several minutes. Then unbuckled. “Gotta go.”
Kane nodded as she rose.
Kim stopped the picture.
No imprint.
“Tell me what I’m thinking, Solly. You’re good at that.”
He scratched his head. “I’d say that on the return flight we’re looking at a virtual Emily.”
“So the logs are faked.”
Solly took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’d say so. But a missing crease in a seat isn’t compelling. Maybe the light wasn’t right.”
“How hard would it be to do this? To falsify a ship’s log?”
“It wouldn’t be easy. You have to get all the visuals right. You also have to make sure the data streams reflect the story you’re telling. When the Hunter makes a jump, the instruments have to show that.”
“Could you do it?”
“Fabricate a log?” His teeth glittered in the lamplight. “Yes. I think I could manage it. Given some time and the cooperation of my colleagues.”
“So why would they use a virtual Emily?”
“Because the real one wouldn’t cooperate.”
“—Or wasn’t functioning.” They stared at each other.
“It could be,” said Solly. “Look, no fraudulent log can stand up to a serious investigation. So, if you’re right, we should be able to show it convincingly. Everything on the visual record has to be consistent. The lighting is always about the same, but it changes as people move around in it. You’d have to match that up. There are too many details and there’s just no way to get them all absolutely right.”
She turned away from the screen and looked out at the city. “Kane?”
“Oh yes. It would have to be Kane. Have to be somebody intricately familiar with the ship.”
“Which brings us to the bottom line: What happened to Emily?”
“Let’s go slow, Kim. Let’s have the lab do an analysis and make sure you’re right.”
She nodded, sat down at the phone, and brought up the directory. She was looking for the Customs Service office at Sky Harbor. When she found it, she called through.
A uniformed officer appeared onscreen. “Greenway Customs.”
“Hello,” Kim said. “My name’s Brandywine. May I ask a hypothetical question?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Arriving passengers,” she said. “If anyone is supposed to be on a ship, but isn’t, you’d know, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. They have to pass physically through customs.”
“How about crew members?”
“They do too.”
“You have a manifest, then, and you check everyone against the manifest. And if someone doesn’t get off—”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I misunderstood you. If a person doesn’t get off, we don’t really care. We’re only concerned with people seeking entry onto Greenway.”
She decided to try another tack. “Does Customs keep a record of persons debarking from arriving vessels?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you interview everyone?”
“Not in person. Customs declarations are usually taken electronically.”
“If I were on the manifest, and I submitted a declaration, but I did not get off, would you know?”
“No, ma’am. We would not.”
Kim thanked him and disconnected. “I’m beginning to understand why Emily never got to her hotel.” She poured herself a drink but only stared at it. “She never got off the Hunter, did she?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Solly, what’s the penalty for falsifying logs?”
“It can be criminal, depending on circumstances. The very least penalty would be disbarment. Logs are sacred.”
“So it’s not something you’d do without a very good reason.”
“You got it.”
“All right, let me ask another question. If you created a bogus set of logs, what would you do with the originals?”
Solly’s brow wrinkled while he thought about it. “It would depend,” he said. “If I’d murdered somebody and thrown her out the air lock, then I’d certainly lose the originals. But if somebody else had done something, if my only participation in whatever this is about was as, say, part of a cover-up, then I’d keep the original logs in case I eventually needed to prove I didn’t do the murder.”