“Uh-huh.” Rachel met her eyes. “It’s a motive thing. I don’t think it’s a lone serial killer; I think we’re up against a professional assassin, or a team of assassins, from an interstellar power. And they’re intent on obscuring their tracks. Now they know we’re onto them, they could do anything. I hope they won’t do anything that threatens the ship, but I can’t be sure.” She shrugged uncomfortably.
Steffi looked alarmed. “Then I must insist you tell the Captain immediately. If there’s any question that the, uh, killer might do something aboard her vessel, she’s responsible for it. Master and commander and all that. And so far” — her gesture took in the mound of open windows and entity/relationship diagrams in the table-sized screen — “we’re not getting very far. We have about two and a half thousand passengers, and seven hundred crew. We generate over three thousand personnel movements every time we berth, and frankly, the two of us are snowed under. If you’ve got something solid to tell the skipper, it’ll make it easier for me to get you more help.”
“Okay, then let’s go see the Captain.” Martin stood up. “Want me to come along?” he asked.
Rachel took a deep breath. “Think you can carry on without us for a while? I don’t expect it’ll take long to fill her in…”
“I’ll keep at it.” Martin shook his head. “I’m still working through the tourist-class passengers. I thought it was going to be simple, then Steffi here asked what if a passenger disembarked and checked out, did the job, then took passage under a different name in a different class? It’s a real mess.”
“Not totally,” Steffi volunteered. “We have some biometrics on file. But we’re not geared up for police-style trawls through our customer base, and pulling everyone’s genome out for inspection would normally take an order from—” She glanced at the ceiling. “So shall we go visit the skipper?”
Captain Nazma Hussein was not having a good day.
First departure had to be delayed six hours because of some stupid mess downside, delaying a couple of passengers who had diplomatic-grade clout-enough to hold the ship, even though each hour’s delay cost thousands. Then there was a problem with mass balance in one of the four ullage tanks that ringed the lower hemisphere of the liner’s hull, a flow instability suggesting that a stabilizer baffle had been damaged during the last docking maneuver. She’d managed to get away from the flight deck, leaving Victor in charge of the straightforward departure, only to find a queue headed by the deputy purser waiting in front of her desk for orders and/or ruffled-feather smoothing. And now this …
“Run that by me again,” she said, doing her best to maintain the illusion of impassive alertness that always came hard after a twelve-hour shift. “Just what do you expect to happen aboard my ship?”
The diplomat looked as tired as she felt. “One or more of your passengers or short-term crew have been bumping off people at each planetside port of call,” she explained again. “Now, I’ve been ordered to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Which is all very well, but I’ve got reason to believe that the killer is acting under orders and may try to cover their tracks by any means at their disposal.”
“Disposal?” Captain Hussein raised one sharply sculpted eyebrow. “Are you talking about a matter of killing witnesses or passengers? Or actions that might jeopardize the operational safety of my ship?”
The woman — Rachel something-or-other — shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said bluntly. “I’m sorry I can’t reassure you, but I wouldn’t put anything past these scum. I was downside yesterday, and we managed to abort their latest hit, but the trap misfired, mostly because they demonstrated a remarkable willingness to kill innocent bystanders. It looks as if they started out trying to keep a low profile, but they’re willing to go to any lengths to achieve their goals, and I can’t guarantee that they won’t do something stupid.”
“Wonderful.” Nazma glanced sideways at her overflowing schedule screen. Numerous blocks winked red, irreconcilable critical path elements, overlapping dependencies that had been thrown out of balance by the late departure. “Do you know who you’re looking for? What would you have me do when you find them?” She looked past the diplomat. The trainee kid was doing her best to melt into the wall, clearly hoping she wouldn’t dump on her for being the bearer of bad tidings. Tough, let her worry for a few minutes. Nazma gave her a grade-three Hard Stare, then looked back at the spook. It hadn’t been so many years that she had forgotten what the kid would be feeling, but it wouldn’t hurt to make her ponder the responsibilities of a mistress and commander for a while. “I really hope you’re not going to suggest anything like a change of destination.”
“Ah, no.” The woman, to her credit, looked abashed. Bet that’s exactly what you were about to suggest, Nazma told herself. “And, um, the safety of your ship is paramount. My main concern is that we identify them so that they can be discreetly arrested when we arrive at the next port of call — or sooner, if there’s any sign that they’re a threat to anyone else.” Nazma relaxed slightly. So, you’re not totally out of touch with reality, huh? Then the diplomat spoiled it by continuing: “The trouble is, you generate so many personnel movements that we’ve got a pool of about 200 suspects, and only ten days to check them. That’s the number who’ve been downside on all of the planets where an incident occurred — if we’re looking for a team, alternating targets, the pool goes up to 460 or so. So I was wondering if we could borrow some more staff — say, from the purser’s office — to help clear them.” She forced a tense smile at Nazma.
Give me patience! Captain Hussein glanced back at her display. The red bars weren’t getting any shorter, and every additional hour added to the critical path added sixteen thousand to her operating overhead. But the alternative … “Lieutenant Grace.” She watched Steffi straighten her back attentively. “Please convey my compliments to Commander Lewis, and inform her that she’s to provide you with any and all personnel and resources from her division that you deem necessary to requisition for, for Colonel—”
“Mansour,” offered the woman.
“—Colonel Mansour’s search. When you have a final suspect list I want to see it before any action is taken. File daily updates with Safety and Security, cc’d to my desk. I also want to know if you don’t find a murderer aboard my ship, of course.” She nodded at the spook. “Satisfied?”
Rachel looked surprised. “More than,” she admitted. This time her smile was genuine. “Thank you!”
“Don’t.” Nazma waved it away. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t take murderers running around my ship seriously.” She sniffed, nostrils flaring as if at the scent of skullduggery. “Just as long as you keep it low-key and don’t frighten the passengers. Now, I trust you will excuse me, but I have a ship to run.”
He looks like a gorilla, Martin thought apprehensively as he approached the warblogger across the half-empty lounge. The journalist was slouched in a sofa with a smile on his face, one arm around a pale-skinned young woman with a serious blackness habit — black hair, black boots, black leggings, black jacket — and a big baby blue dressing on her left temple. She was leaning against him in a manner that spelled more than casual affection. Isn’t that sweet, Martin thought cynically. The blogger must have been about two meters tall, but was built so broadly he looked squat, and it wasn’t flab. Close-cropped silver-speckled black hair, old-fashioned big horn-rimmed data glasses, and more black leather. The woman was talking to him quietly, occasionally leaning her chin on his shoulder. The gorilla was all ears, grunting agreement from time to time. They were so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t seem to have noticed Martin watching them. Here goes, he thought, and walked over.