Anvil of Stars

trouble?”

“No,” Martin said.

“Then it’s on.”

Hans’ wand chimed. Erin urgently asked to be let in. Hans casually motioned for the door to open and she entered, Ariel and Kai Khosrau behind her.

“Rosa’s dead,” Erin said, gasping for breath. “We found her body in her room just a few minutes ago.”

“You killed her,” Kai said, pointing to Hans, then to Martin. “You killed her!”

“How did she die?” Hans asked. He sat up on the pad and got to his feet.

“She was clubbed to death,” Kai said. “You clubbed her to death!”

“Shut up,” Ariel said. “Martin, she was beaten.”

“How long ago?”

“Less than an hour,” Erin said. “There’s…” She turned away and choked.

“The blood isn’t dry yet,” Ariel said.

“Who found her?” Martin asked.

“I did,” Kai said in a child’s voice, eyes glassy, in shock.

“Who else knows?” Hans asked.

“I have to tell the others.” Kai stepped uncertainly to the open door.

“Hold it,” Hans said. “We’ll all go look. Nobody tells anybody until we’ve seen what happened. Kai, stick with us.”

Kai stared at Hans. “You think I killed her? You slicking insect.”

“Stop it, stop it!” Erin cried, head still bowed. Her body trembled as she tried to control her nausea.

“Martin, we should get a mom. Now,” Ariel said.

Martin called on his wand and asked for a mom to meet them in Rosa’s room.

Rosa lay face up, one arm tucked under her back, the other outstretched, hand forming a limp claw.

Red hair outspread, mixed with clots of blood; lip split, blood smeared down her jaw and chin. Face terribly slack, the innocent relaxation of death, eyes indolent.

Martin bent over her as the others stood back. Hans kneeled beside him, scowling, squinting, head tilted to one side.

The mom hovered above Rosa’s head. Martin reached out to check the pulse on her bloody neck. None.

“She is dead,” the mom confirmed.

“We’ll need to roll her over,” Martin said softly. He looked around the quarters, as if asking for someone to object, so he would not have to do this. Nobody objected.

Kai stepped forward. Hans stepped back. Kai and Martin took her by one side. She hung limp, flesh cooling but not yet at room temperature. Martin grasped her shoulder, Kai her leg. As gently as possible, they rolled her over.

She had been struck from behind, on the back of the head. The occiput was misshapen. Beneath the red hair a pool of blood had gathered, and sticky strands of blood and hair clung to the floor, breaking loose silently as she rolled face down.

Jeanette moaned. Erin seemed fascinated now, past her nausea.

“What should we do?” Martin asked the mom.

“Rosa Sequoia is no longer useful,” the mom said.

“Do you know who killed her?” Erin asked the robot.

“We do not know who killed her.”

Kai looked up at Hans. “Where were you?”

“He was with me for the past couple of hours,” Martin said. “I don’t think she’s been dead more than an hour.”

“She has been dead for fifty-two minutes,” the mom said.

Kai’s face wrinkled in grief. “How do we know you’d tell the truth?” he asked Martin.

“I believe Martin,” Jeanette said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Somebody else killed her.”

“Why?” Erin asked.

“Because she was speaking God’s truth,” Kai said. “Will you let us tell the others, or are you going to pretend this didn’t happen?”

“Everybody will know.”

“Even the Brothers?” Ariel asked.

“They’re our partners,” Hans said. “We have no secrets from them.”

Martin and Kai rolled Rosa over. Nobody’s thinking straight, Martin told himself. He looked at the pots of flowers, the pad off to one side, seeking evidence of who had been here. The room around the body was normal but for the drops of blood sprayed in one corner; empty except for Rosa’s things, and the nonessential parts of Rosa.

“Do you wish to have a ceremony?” the mom asked.

“Yes,” Jeanette said.

“I’d like you to make arrangements,” Hans said to her.

They don’t want to know who killed her, Martin realized. They aren’t looking. He alone was examining the room closely. He wished they would all leave so he could talk with the mom in private.

“Martin, you and Jeanette clean her up,” Hans said. “Wipe her down, dress her in her best… What should she wear?” Hans asked Jeanette.

“I don’t know,” Jeanette said. “I don’t…” She finished with a sob.

“Gown,” Hans said. He looked at the faces one by one. “She was my lover,” he said, eyes hooded, lips downturned. “We’ll find out who did this.”

The others left. Martin and Jeanette silently, grimly stripped Rosa and washed her with water. Martin used his wand surreptitiously to record the body’s condition, and swept the room for more details as Jeanette reverently dressed her, weeping. “She’s a martyr,” she said. “Rosa died for us.” Martin nodded. That was probably all too true. The moms didn’t stop this. But they had learned this very hard fact many months, many centuries before: the crew of a Ship of the Law was free.

Free to die, and now free to kill.

The human crew took the news much as Martin had expected. Some wept, some cried out in anger, others held on to each other; still others listened in stunned silence as Hans revealed the details.

Only Twice Grown had been invited to join the humans as Hans spoke. Coiled, without scent, he listened to Hans and to Paola’s quiet re-Englishing.

Hans finished by saying, “Rosa was murdered. That much is known. We know nothing about who murdered her, and we will not have time to find out before the ship splits and we move on to the next part of the Job. I wish our partners, our Brothers, to know…” He seemed to search for the right words, the diplomatic expression, but shook his head. “This was an aberration—”

“The failure of a broken individual,” Paola said softly to Twice Grown.

“A hideous wrong.” Hans shook his head again, lips pressed tight. “Rosa is going to be recycled by the moms in a few hours. Her family and associates will wait in her quarters to receive those who wish to grieve.”

Martin stood before the mom alone as it entered his room. “Do you know now who killed Rosa Sequoia?” he asked after the door had closed.

“Hans has asked me the same question,” it answered.

“Do you?”

“We do not track or survey individuals.”

“You keep medical records—”

“We monitor health of individuals when they are in public places.”

Martin knew that, but he would not let his questions go. One by one, he would ask them, and that would be his peculiar grief; for he had in a sense been relieved by Rosa’s death, and he was sure Hans had been relieved as well, and a kind of guilt drove him now.

“Could you detect who had been in her room?”

“It is possible to identify numbers of presences in a room, after the fact, but we lack the means to identify