Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 13

13. The Well Dressed Astronaut Will Be Airtight This Summer

"- and we believe everyone on board has a space suit. All the suits are stored close to the aft maintenance lock, which is specially designed for spacewalk. We have a key to the suit locker." Cleo waved the key in her hand as she spoke into her mobile phone, even though Alastair plainly could not see it.

"Excellent", said the phone. "Have you recruited Hammond Karg to help you?"

"Uh, this was Mr. Karg's idea. He used to be a policeman." Cleo looked over her shoulder nervously. "In order to get the key, we had to tell Captain Jenkins. He was very enthusiastic about the whole concept. He insisted on helping us search. Personally. By himself."

Behind her, Jenkins was rifling through the suit racks, an expression of intense concentration on his face.

"Ah well", said the phone. "It can't be helped. Watch him carefully."

"Where's Penelope right now?"

"We're still quartering the settlement...it's a big settlement. Lieutenant Farthing is over by the steel mills and cat litter plant with Sergeant Crawshaw."

"CAT LITTER plant?"

"Producer of the most absorbent heavy duty cat litter in Soviet space, apparently. It produces over fifty thousand tonnes of cat litter per day."

"I don't understand. How much cat litter does Soviet space need?"

"I'll hazard a guess at significantly less than fifty thousand tonnes, but that won't stop anybody, that's the way the Soviet economy works. Did you know the life forms of this world use a substance very like rubber for their skeletons? Virtually anything that moves or grows on Krasnaya 3 can be carved up and made into wellington boots. As it happens, Vladlena's mother invented the vulcanizing process -"

"When did you last hear from Penelope?"

"We check in with each other every five minutes. It's in my best interest, Cleopatra. I want there to be a living human being on this planet who is qualified to fly me off it. Vladlena Matveyevna and I are doing the salt warehouses. She is showing me how to survive in a gooped environment. The blue goop lurks in potholes in the road. It actually insinuates itself under beds of gravel so it isn't easily visible. It also appears to have learned to position itself over the mouths of air vents so that a gust of wind will shoot it out into the street like dangerous bubble gum. It really is the most amazing substance -"

Cleo clicked the call closed. She waited, but the phone did not ring again.

Karg was shoving suits aside at breakneck speed, checking them off against a clipboard list of crewmembers. Each suit had a name patch on its left breast. Jenkins laid a hand gently but firmly on Karg's arm.

"Mr. Karg, d-do you actually kn-know what you're looking for?"

Karg, shamefacedly, shook his head.

"L-luckily, I do. We're l-looking for any s-suits which have been u-used recently. Now, as l-luck would have it, we've r-recently undergone a r-refit. All these s-suits are n-new. They've never been in sp, sp, space." He appeared to find what he was looking for, and pulled a suit free of the others. "So wh-what made one of them l-look like this?"

He held up the suit visor. It was criss-crossed with tiny scratches.

Cleo gawped in horror. "Space will do that?"

"Oh yes. Space is full of full of c-cosmic rays z-zipping along at n-ninety nine per cent of the sp, sp, speed of light, tremendously energized. When they hit your s-suit visor, they don't just stop. They m-make their mark in it. This s-suit has been in sp, sp, space recently." Jenkins glanced down at his own clipboard. "Unfortunately for us, th-that's because this one is Mr. Catchpole's suit. He went outside to s-search the hull for t-transmitters, and f-found the t-transmitter we already kn-know about. But now you kn-know the s-sort of s-suit we're l-looking for -"

Cleo was sorting through the suits at the far end of the rack. "Erm. I think I might have already found it." She had stopped dead, and her hands were shaking. Jenkins peered into the rack over her shoulder.

"Ah", he said. "I see." He ticked off a name on his clipboard. "I th-think we can s-safely say that Able Sp, Sp, Spaceman Edwards is now above suspicion. B-but I think we've found our s-suit. Well done, Miss Shakespeare."

He moved back into the ship.

Hammond Karg loomed moistly behind Cleo. "I don't understand", he said. "What is it?"

Cleo moved aside. Karg looked into the rack, breathed out slowly, and nodded. He gave the legs of the suit an experimental kick. "Not eight hours gone, I'll bet. He's still floppy."

"Do you mind? I've never, I've never, I mean, I've never seen -"

Inside the scratched and pitted faceplate of the new suit was a human face. A grey face that was not making any effort to breathe. On the left breast of the suit was a name: EDWARDS.

***

"G-GENTLEMEN", said Jenkins, clapping his hands for attention. The Bridge fell silent. Callaway sat intent on the various coloured lights at the communication station. Godrevy sat at the helm. Everybody else stood in a respectful semi-circle around Jenkins, or, in the case of Cleo, lounged on a charting table. According to Jenkins, the Admiralty had insisted on the charting table when Black Prince had been built. Apparently they had been ignorant of the fact that space had three dimensions.

"G-gentlemen - and lady", said Jenkins, suddenly remembering himself and nodding to Cleo, who scowled back, "there is an en, an en, an enemy agent on board this ship. One of our crew has been k-killed, probably after surprising the t-traitor in the act of using his sp, sp, space suit."

"Edwards might have been in league with the traitor", said a sour voice from the back of the room. There were murmurs of agreement.

"Th-that is a possibility", said Jenkins. "H-however, it is m-more likely that Edwards s-saw someone wearing his own s-suit, which would have aroused immediate s-suspicion. If I s-see a man in a s-suit with a name patch saying EDWARDS, I think Aha, there g-goes Able Sp, Spacehand Edwards. If Able S-Spacehand Edwards sees someone in a s-suit with a n-name patch s-saying EDWARDS, though, he kn-knows something f-fishy is afoot. In any c-case - somebody k-killed J-Joe Edwards, s-stabbed him in the h-heart. Therefore, somebody is s-still loose on this sh-ship."

He raised a hand, clicked his fingers. Six extremely tall Royal Terrene Commandos and one extremely tall deck rating filed in and stood behind him, arms folded, expressions grim as thunder.

"Do you kn-know", said Jenkins, "why these men are standing behind me, and y-you men are all s-standing in front?"

The remaining crewmen stood dumbstruck and goggle-eyed. Hammond Karg, meanwhile, raised a hand.

"Can I try?" he said. Jenkins nodded.

"They're all too tall to have used crewman Edwards' space suit", said Karg.

Jenkins nodded. "W-well done. Th-that's why th-they're no longer suspects. Unlike the p-people in that end of the r-room."

"And you", said Cleo. "Don't forget yourself, Captain."

"Yeah", said a stage whisper. "Don't f-forget y-yourself, Acting C, C, Captain."

Petty Officer Kay separated himself from the short men's group and turned on them. "WHO SAID THAT?"

Jenkins raised a hand to wave the insult away. "Don't w-worry about it, Mr. K-Kay. It's true. I am not really a C-Captain, and I do have a st-st-stutter. But", he said, rounding on the shorter members of the crew once more, "I h-haven't killed anyone today. One of y-you has. B-before the day is out, I will kn-know who that person is. And the p-penalty for treason is death."

A hand went up amid the crew. "Erm. Permission to speak, sir? The death penalty for espionage was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1981, sir."

"Not on my sh-ship", said Jenkins.

The crew tried hard not to look at Jenkins, each other, or anything else.

"In actual fact, Captain", said Karg, "the suspects can be rounded down to Mr. Godrevy, Mr. Callaway, Petty Officer Kay, Miss Shakespeare, myself, and yourself. Everybody else would have been either too tall to fit into Mr. Edwards' space suit, or too far away from the bridge to overhear Mr. Callaway say he'd discovered an unauthorized signal coming from Black Prince -"

"You also m-missed out two other suspects", said Jenkins. "D-don't forget them just because they're down on K-Krasnaya 3 right now."

"Mr. Drague?" said Cleo. For some reason, the idea was unthinkable.

"A m-member of Special Ops, a S-Soviet agent?", said Jenkins. "H-how could that happen? But of c-course, it would be only too easy. An agent on board B-Black Prince would be worth l-little to the Soviets. At b-best he could tell them how m-many crew she has, wh-what w-weapons systems she h-has on board, h-how accurate they are, h-how many G's of acceleration she can p-push out, and s-so on. B-but a man in Special Ops - h-he would kn-know every move the f-fleet made, have access to every d-document on every sh-ship -"

"Russian", said a voice from among the crew. "He speaks Russian." There were murmurs of agreement.

"And th-then we have Lieutenant F-Farthing, if that's her name", said Jenkins, "who h-hijacked our ship and deliberately p-piloted it here. Who would have b-been in a b-better position to plant a device that w-warned the enemy we would shortly be arriving at K-Krasnaya?"

Another hand went up.

"Er. Excuse me, sir. Who are the enemy?"

Jenkins clasped his hands behind his back, pursed his lips, and glowered at the bulkhead.

"I'm not sure."

The crew stayed silent, but their faces spoke volumes. He's cracking up. Doesn't everyone know the Soviets are the enemy? Can we have our old Captain back, please? He was a real officer.

Cleo put her own hand up. Jenkins turned and looked at her as if the furniture had talked.

"Can I answer the question?" said Cleo.

Jenkins shrugged.

"I'd say the enemy is whoever killed one of us. And whoever is doing this isn't giving us the courtesy of wearing a uniform and saying HI, I'M IVAN, I'LL BE YOUR ENEMY FOR TODAY. So we have to be as sneaky as they are. We've all seen the pictures from Krasnaya 3 and the inside of that cruiser. Do we really think the Russians are the enemy here?"

Jenkins blinked at the bulkhead as if appealing to it for an answer; then, he shrugged helplessly again.

***

"It's Alastair! Of course it's Alastair! How could I have missed it? He pretends to have his nose out of joint when Lieutenant Jenkins sends him down to the surface, when that's exactly what he wants! He wants to be down on Krasnaya 3 with his Soviet controllers! He's running from the British! They've found out he's been a mole burrowing in the corridors of power for years!"

Cleo was pacing up and down the Recreation Room, which was a steel box aft of the Bridge, only slightly larger than the table tennis table it contained. There was less room to pace than there had been in the Officers' Mess. Hammond Karg was standing in one corner, cringing at the extent of Cleo's detective skills.

"Do moles burrow in corridors?" he said.

"He's a spider in their besom", explained Cleo.

"I think you mean viper in their bosom", said Karg. "I don't wish to sound negative, but how would Mr. Drague have known the ship was coming here? The ship's course was set by Lieutenant Farthing."

"Oh my God", said Cleo. "Penny's in league with him. It's so obvious now. That's why they cunningly manoeuvred themselves onto the same boat together."

Karg scratched his head uncomfortably. "Cleo, it was Jenkins who decided they should go on the same boat."

"So Jenkins is in it too! That explains why Captain Pulsipher was shot, in order to bump Jenkins up the ranks. That's why Alastair and Jenkins pretend to hate each other, so no suspicion will attach itself to Jenkins when Alastair runs to the Soviets and Jenkins has to become the new mole -"

"And it was Pulsipher who decided to promote Jenkins. There's another lieutenant on board, the ship's doctor, Prendergast. No-one could have been sure Pulsipher wouldn't choose to promote him instead."

Cleo stopped dead in her pacing, and slumped wearily. "So what do you suggest?"

"I suggest we admit to ourselves that we have no idea who our man or woman is yet, and start looking at why the enemy agent is on board. So far our theory is, correct me if I'm wrong, that they were planted here to broadcast a warning that Black Prince was about to arrive at Krasnaya?"

Cleo nodded. "So that the enemy would have enough warning to to launch an attack on the colony and put out a fake distress signal, and so that we would end up getting the blame for the attack when we answered the distress call, in the same way the Soviets got the blame for New Dixie."

"Okay. It's a good theory, so let's run with it. Now, we don't know who the enemy are, so let's just park that for the time being by calling them an unspecified foreign power -"

"Maybe they're not human at all", said Cleo. "Maybe they could be anything on the ship." She looked at the table tennis table in trepidation.

"Hardly. I checked over poor old Edwards' body rather more thoroughly than you did. It's a weird looking wound he died of, I'll grant you - no defensive cuts to the arms where he tried to fend off his attacker, just one long killing stroke straight to the heart - and it looks nothing like any case of stabbing I've ever seen. But I'll lay long odds he was killed by a human being, and a human being, judging by the fact he didn't defend himself, who he knew and trusted. Someone who was able to get right up close enough to kill him, and from the front, which isn't easy."

"Which narrows it down to just about anyone on the crew", said Cleo.

"But excludes Lieutenant Farthing", pointed out Karg.

The relief which flooded into Cleo was surprising. She had not realized she had been so depressed by the possibility that Penelope might be a murderer. Out loud, she managed to say: "Yes, I suppose it does."

"Okay. So, assuming our enemy agent is on board for the purpose suggested, who would the enemy choose to recruit for a mission like that? They're hardly likely to choose a Royal Terrene Commando, for example. It has to be someone who knows where the ship is going most of the time. And a lot of the time, this ship's destinations are going to be a closely guarded secret - soldiers like to say they're First To Go, Last To Know. That narrows our number of suspects down to Jenkins, Godrevy, Callaway, maybe Kay."

"And Alastair", said Cleo.

Karg shook his head. "Alastair only works as a suspect if he's operating with someone else. Look for the simple explanation first. Look for the complex one only when you know none of the simple ones check out. It's called Occam's Razor. It's very useful in police work."

Cleo looked doubtful. "It's not the way Sherlock Holmes would have done it."

"Cleo, I hate to break this to you, but Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. In my brief career as a detective, I spent very little time tailing suspects in a deerstalker. I can only put this down to the fact that deer commit very few serious crimes."

Karg was interrupted by a balding yet tousled head poking through the doorway. "Oh. Sorry to interrupt. I'm Prendergast. Justin Prendergast. The ship's sawbones. Doctor. Experimental human veterinary surgeon." He looked Cleo and Karg up and down meaningfully, lingering particularly over Karg. "I take it you're feeling all right? No pooling of fluid around the ankles? Heart arrhythmia? Any unexplained anaemia or alopoecia at all?"

Cleo and Karg shook their heads.

"Jolly good. Jolly good." He looked Karg over doubtfully again. "The over forties are a major death risk in space flight, you know. Are you sure you're all right?"

Karg nodded.

"Oh well. Can't be helped. Ah - is the Lieutenant in here? - sorry, the Captain? He's needed on the bridge urgently."

Cleo and Karg shook their heads. "Why?" said Karg.

Prendergast opened his mouth to begin to say ah, you don't need to know, saw Cleo's stare, and thought better of it. "Two of our ground observers have got theirselves surrounded by the Gunge. We think their lives may be in danger."

Cleo rushed out of the Rec Room, elbowing past the crewman. "Who? Who's in danger? Is it Penelope?"