Poseidon's Wake (23 page)

‘Since when have you been a mouthpiece for the Consolidation?’

‘Our differences look slight now compared to the danger you pose. I agreed to an information exchange with our allies in the Consolidation. They were more than willing to accommodate me.’

‘Which ship are you in?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It might. I am not a traitor. I have not sided with the machines or turned my back on humanity. I love humanity. I love my own people. But the machines are an opportunity – a chance to do great things, together. Between us we must confront the Watchkeepers, or at least find out what they want of us.’

‘How did they turn you, Kanu? How did the machines make you see everything through their eyes?’

‘They didn’t. I chose my own path. I’m still choosing it now.’

When Korsakov replied, all the reasonableness had gone. It was as if he had given up any hope of negotiation. ‘I cannot persuade you to stop, Kanu, but you should be aware of our capabilities. You will receive no warning shot across your bows when our long-range weapons lock on to you.’

‘I understand, Yev. And you know I won’t stop. That’s clear, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose it is, Kanu.’

‘Then for the love of god please turn around. I am also armed.’

‘You may be misguided, Kanu, but I know you are not a murderer. You were an ambassador, a man who stood for peace and negotiation, for the non-violent solution. You won’t fire on us. You don’t have it in you.’

‘You’re right,’ Kanu answered. ‘I was an ambassador, and I stood for all those things. I believed in them with all my heart. But then I died.’

He offered them one last chance to abandon the chase. When Korsakov refused, Kanu gave Swift the order to fire on the pursuing craft, once more allowing Swift control of his body. It was supposed to be the minimum effective force, a disabling shot. He was certain Swift had done his best to comply.

But in space there was sometimes no option but to kill.

Afterwards, with the memory of the two amplified flashes – two virtually simultaneous detonations – still fresh in his mind, Kanu felt no sense of relief or escape. With their present speed and course and the power available in reserve, Swift assured him there was no real prospect of any further trouble. The drive was functioning perfectly, the ship capable of much more than it was already giving. They had cleared Jovian space and were now burning out of the ecliptic, soon to be moving faster than any other human-made thing within a light-year of the sun.

‘The losses were regrettable, of course, but they were given every chance—’

Kanu told Swift to get out of his head, at least for the moment. To shut up and make himself invisible.

Alone, he stumbled on weak muscles to the bathroom nearest to the control deck. It was small but functional. He fell to his knees and vomited, but for all his nausea and revulsion, almost nothing came up. The dry heaving burned his throat and made him feel worse. His eyes stung. He was crying, in discomfort and loathing.

He had done the worst thing. The act he had never expected to commit, the sin above all others. He had taken another life, maybe several, and done so not in a blaze of terror or anger but in a cold assessment of his chances. Because it needed to be done, and he could not allow himself to fail.

Nothing excused it.

He was still weeping when he became aware of a presence standing over him, looking down.

‘I told—’ he began, certain it was Swift, outside his head again.

But the presence knelt down, took his head between her hands and for a moment looked on the verge of some tremendous kindness, a kiss to banish his shame. It was Nissa Mbaye.

Instead, she slapped him hard across the face.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘It’s one of them,’ Ru was saying, for the fourth or fifth time. ‘Why bother looking elsewhere? Why bother locking up the rest of us when we all know the truth? None of us wants the expedition to fail – why would we?’

‘Gandhari’s got to follow procedure,’ Goma felt obliged to point out. ‘It can’t be easy for her, dealing with this.’

‘And if and when they find out who it is, what do you think they’ll do? What kind of law are we working under now, anyway?’

‘Are you hoping for blood?’

‘I saw what happened to your uncle.’

‘So did I. But if there’s one thing Mposi would have opposed, it’s mindless retribution. He was on
Zanzibar
during the troubles – when all hell nearly broke loose. Mposi and Ndege tried to stand for something better. For reconciliation, acceptance – for putting the past behind us.’

‘And look where that idealism got him. Same goes for your mother.’

‘You don’t need to remind me.’ And it was true: it was a constant fight to keep that image of him out of her mind, his body slumping over in the slow-bubbling digestive machinery of the well, the milky horror of what had become of the rest of him. She did not want to carry that memory with her for the rest of her life, but the more she resisted, the deeper it branded itself.

She forced herself to think of better times. Mposi at his desk in Guochang, Mposi swimming, Mposi the way she imagined him as a young man, emboldened by the challenges of building a new world – squaring up to a future he had earned, with forgiveness and prudence and an abundance of precocious wisdom.

Presently there was a knock on the door of their quarters. Goma opened it. It was Captain Vasin, looking tired.

‘I thought you should be the first to know,’ she said in a low, exhausted voice. ‘It’s starting to look like Grave was involved. We’ve already moved him from his quarters to a secure compartment.’

Goma nodded slowly – on one level, none of this surprised her. ‘What do you have on him?’

‘Enough to detain him for now. Maslin and your uncle both had their doubts about him. It turns out he was a late addition to the Second Chancer delegation – forced on them at almost the last minute. He has strong connections to a much more orthodox, conservative strain of Chancer thinking and they had enough influence to get their man aboard the ship. The others – the moderates – didn’t know him all that well.’

‘So you’re saying he was – what?’ Goma said. ‘A plant, put aboard to sabotage us? Exactly the man he said he was sent here to track down?’

‘It could be as simple as that. As to whether he was acting alone or as part of a larger plan against us, we’ll have to wait and see. There’s only so much background I can dig into on the ship.’

Goma recalled their handful of conversations, and the opinion she had already formed of Grave. ‘What the hell was a throwback like him doing on the ship in the first place?’

‘Obviously, a mistake was made.’

‘Tell me what else you know. This can’t be just about his background – they’re all true believers of one stripe or another.’

‘You’re right – it’s more than that. To begin with, there’s a strong likelihood that Grave had the technical know-how to reprogram the nanomachines in the well. Even the records I have say that he spent time aboard the holoships, including
Malabar
. Obviously a mistake was made.’

‘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.

‘What would be the point? You know my past. But this is a starship full of scientists and technicians.’

‘Your point?’ Vasin asked.

‘I doubt I’m the only one aboard who has come into close contact with nanomachines. Have you investigated everyone to the same extent you have me? What about the medical team?’

‘He has a point,’ Dr Nhamedjo said placidly. ‘I have worked with small quantities of medical nanomachinery – so have the other members of my team.’

‘Could you have reprogrammed the Knowledge Room?’ Vasin asked.

His handsome features looked rueful. ‘For about five minutes, when I was just out of medical school.’

‘You do yourself a disservice,’ Vasin said, meeting his expression with a smile of her own. ‘The main point, though, is that very few of us ever need to enter the second sphere – or have the means to do so.’

‘Mine can’t have been the only forensic traces you found in that sphere,’ Grave said. ‘Or are you saying none of your technicians ever go in there?’

There was a reasonableness to his objections, but also a pragmatic acceptance that his fate was already sealed. He looked broken, his aspirations in tatters – a man going through the motions of justice, knowing he could offer no persuasive argument.

‘Did you meet Mposi?’ Vasin asked.

‘On several occasions.’

‘Why?’

‘We wished to speak. I had some concerns, and I hoped to share them with him.’

‘Were these vague concerns about a threat?’

‘I can’t help that they were vague. It was my job to find out more information – to safeguard both the expedition and the integrity of the Second Chance delegation. Had Mposi and I located a tangible threat, we would have brought our concerns to you directly. In the absence of anything concrete, neither of us wished to trouble you.’

‘I keep hearing about people not wanting to trouble me,’ Vasin said ruefully. ‘I wish they’d let me decide for myself. Being troubled is what I’m here for.’

‘You have spoken to Crucible. Presumably they have verified Mposi’s account of things?’ Grave asked.

‘Mposi was warned about a possible sabotage effort,’ Vasin said. ‘But as far as we know, you could have been the saboteur he was warned about.’ Her tone sharpened. ‘Why did you kill him?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Ah, this missed rendezvous. What was the point of it?’

‘We’d arranged to meet and explore the second sphere together. Mposi knew how to enter secure areas. He’d already shown me how to alter my bangle to achieve the same settings, but I still needed his help to get into the drive section. When I arrived there, though, Mposi was late. Or rather, now I think he was early – that he arrived before me and someone else was already there. I saw signs of disturbance – the blood you found.’

‘You’re saying Mposi had already been attacked, perhaps even killed, by the time you arrived?’

‘I only know that he wasn’t there. I have no direct knowledge of what happened to him after that, except that you say he was murdered and his body placed in the well.’ Grave paused, then asked with a sudden and plausible innocence: ‘You asked me about my history with nanomachines. Do you honestly think I had the expertise to do that
thing
to Mposi?’