The Sea is Full of Stars

but the kind of questions she asked had less to do with the crime than with wanting exact details about it. Angel had the impression she was being interrogated, and she didn’t like it.

“I am not going into any more detail right now,” she told the businesswoman. “Sorry. Why do you want to know every little thing, anyway?”

“Just curious. Maybe curious as to why somebody would do this, and looking for some clues.” Ming sighed and smiled and patted Angel on the shoulder. “Sorry. I should know better. Force of habit. Still friends?”

Angel frowned and looked up at the other woman, feeling both patronized and lied to at the same time. Still, she answered, “Yes, of course. It was a very tiring day and I am short on sleep.”

Afterward, Angel wondered about her own reactions. Ming and Ari were kind of private detectives, after all. Was she getting as paranoid as Kincaid? But then, Ari hadn’t pressed her as Ming had. Why would Ming give her the third degree? Unless… unless she wanted to find out how much she and Kincaid really knew and what they might have in mind to do about it. That possibility annoyed Angel. She didn’t like the notion of being reduced to a pawn.

Promptly at 1000 hours, Jeremiah Kincaid showed up. He was dressed in utilitarian work clothes and boots, but he’d obviously had a shower and cleaned himself up, and he looked in remarkably good shape.

He seemed genuinely happy to see her. “How’s your feet?”

“Colorful, but otherwise no problem,” Angel assured him. “They are pretty tough.”

“Are you ready to go on back up?”

She nodded. “Lead on.”

They went back through the cafe and out the rear once more, into the bowels of the module. This time, however, Kincaid stopped her short of the ladder.

“That’s a storeroom with light over there,” he told her. “I think the pragmatic thing to do is to get you into general disposable work clothes. I took the liberty of having some made up by the computer. I think things will be warmer and generally better suited to this sort of area.”

She wanted to object and point out that the robe was okay with her, but she saw his point. The stretch jumpsuit was the same bright orange he was wearing. It fit like a glove and adhered to her body. The ankle-top sneakers grabbed where they met the deck, and she had to admit that the outfit was far more utilitarian.

She walked out and struck a pose. “Better?”

“Somehow I hadn’t expected you to have quite that good a figure. But, yes, it’ll serve. For one thing, it breathes but can also be a good insulator if need be, and the bright color allows you to be seen at a distance, which can be imperative inside the bowels of a ship this size. If you are satisfied, the computer can deliver a dozen more to your cabin. When you are done with this one, simply dispose of it as trash. Now— you aren’t bringing a Bible or something?”

“I don’t need one,” she assured him. “It is a simple affair.”

They went topside and then down the long tubular corridor to the main ship and bridge. Kincaid had been right about the work suit and shoes—there were few drafts and it was quite comfortable and flexible; and the sneakers, while feeling odd to her after not wearing shoes for so long, hugged the deck and gave her confident footing through the varying gravity field.

The bridge was almost unrecognizable. It gleamed, and everything seemed to be on and work. It looked brand new, as if nothing at all had happened. Only the body in the area behind the command chair reminded her of what had happened here only the day before.

The computer maintenance robots had prepared the dead captain’s body after running a full pathological study, then placed it in a gel-filled container. It was impossible to make the body look presentable, but at least there was a discernible human form inside and the gory parts were not obvious to the onlookers. Four small cleaner robots floating a hair above the deck by magnetic levitation held the makeshift sarcophagus.

“Would you like to say something?” Angel asked Kincaid. “Even if you did not know him, you knew his kind.”

He nodded. “Masters of spacefaring ships are the most lonely of people,” Kincaid began solemnly, “often cut off from friends and family by the time differential wherein we in space age at a rate far slower than those who never move. His family is his ship; his friends are whoever books passage from point to point. He doesn’t do it for the money, but because this is what he loves doing, what he is born to do. Captain Melak Dukodny died at his post, in his chair, doing what he loved. He certainly would have preferred it to go on longer, but he would not be sorry as to the place of his dying, nor the manner of disposition of these, his last mortal remains. I accept the temporary assignment of his commission, and bid him farewell.” Kincaid stood ramrod straight, faced the body, and saluted.

Angel began the Prayer for the Dead and the Commission of the Souls. It was a mantra less biblical than traditional, out of the sect’s book of common prayers.

“May he pass on, his soul joining the Universe of Eons, the Plane of Angels, cleansing him of all that is mortal and all that is sinful, and present himself to God bathed in the Ultimate Light. May he touch the six points of ultimate truth, and have everlasting life in the bosom of the Lord. That which cannot pass we commend to the deep, as the ashes of a fire long burning that now has passed beyond mortal ken, leaving only husks. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we return him to the stars from which all came. Amen.”

She bowed her head in silent prayer, did the sacred signs of the Hidden Truths, touching the six points and then making the cross within, then looked up. “Convey the Captain’s remains to their final destination,” she said, looking up.

The robots began to move it across the bridge, into a compartment in the rear, which then closed behind it. There was the sound of hissing as a seal was made, and then a roar, and it was over.

“Interesting ritual,” Kincaid noted. “I hadn’t ever seen that one before, although some of it is the same.”

“We have many levels to our faith. It is not as simple as most people believe faiths should be. Why should God be simple and create such complexity?”

He sighed. “Why indeed?”

“You have checked out the water breathing passengers?”

He nodded. “There are some bad sorts, and it’s clearly somebody or maybe most of them there, but the one I expected isn’t among them. I’m still having a physical inventory of all the barges ahead of us done, and that will take some time. We can’t trust anything except a true examination and analysis, and there are 311 cargo modules, including the passenger one. If something illicit in the cargo is the reason for this, it may be fairly small and be in a false compartment in just one of those. It will take a great deal of time for the probes to do their work. Days perhaps. Anybody in our area not surprised by the news?”

“It is more remarkable how really unconcerned they all were,” Angel told him, running down those who had something of a normal reaction, like Ari, and those who were unnaturally curious or equally unnaturally not curious.

He listened carefully until she was done, then said, “It may be worse than I thought. You see, of course, what the link is to many of those aboard?”

“Not exactly.”

“Jewels. Gems. The Rithians are all from the Ha’jiz Nesting, and that family’s entirely involved in the gem trade. The Kharkovs are gem cutters and also specialists in fine settings. Wallinchky is a man who likes the universality of gems both as collectibles and as commodities, and he doesn’t care about the source. I would suspect that, somewhere in that vast train in front of us, we have some very, very hot gems that are changing hands here. There is no particular reason for Wallinchky to be selling, so let’s assume he’s the buyer and that he’s brought the Kharkovs along to render the loot into something customs won’t recognize without devaluing them. The Rithians are the go-betweens who are guarantors of the deal. They will certify the transfer and ensure payment. I strongly suspect that the payment isn’t money. So what is it? What could be of such importance that this kind of crime, the murder of a starship captain, the sabotage of a ship, and the almost certain intent to do in the uninvolved passengers, would be warranted?”

She gasped. “They mean to murder us?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not in the way you think. Wallinchky, for example, has more money than any human can spend in a thousand lifetimes. He’s not really interested in that except as a means to power. Power is what drives his type. Power over just about everyone and everything. Those two women he flaunts as his companions—they are treated like property. He has them in his grip and he enjoys showing it. It could be drugs, some kind of mind control,