I had no reason to want him dead!”
Francis flashed the weaponer a look of perfect disdain but said nothing. Martinez saw Gawbyan’s big hands closing into fists.
If this were one of the Dr. An-ku dramas that Michi enjoyed, Martinez thought, it would have been the moment at which the killers produced weapons and made a murderous lunge for him, or taken hostages and tried to bargain their way out. But that didn’t happen.
Instead Martinez called for Alikhan, and Alikhan entered from the kitchen with Garcia and four constables, including Martinez’s servants Ayutano and Espinosa. All, even Alikhan, were armed with stun batons and sidearms.
“Gawbyan, Gulik, and Francis,” Martinez said. “Lock them up.”
All three were cuffed from behind. There was no resistance, though Francis gave Alikhan a scornful look.
“Wait, Captain!” Gulik said as he was manhandled out the door. “This isn’t fair! Theymade me!”
Alikhan remained behind, hovering behind Martinez, who felt a great tension begin to ebb. He picked up his wineglass, took a long drink and put the glass back on the table.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve a drink right now.
He looked at the remaining petty officers. “There were lines crossed on this ship,” Martinez said. “Four senior petty officers conspired to rob recruits of their pay, and no one complained, no one talked, and no one did anything about it. Those same petty officers branched out into sale of Fleet property, and they put the ship in danger over and over. People died at Harzapid because of those four.
“And it wasn’t just the petty officers,” Martinez said. “Captain Fletcher crossed some lines too, and maybe that made others think it was acceptable.”
He looked at his remaining guests and saw them staring at nothing, or perhaps looking inward. Cho and Zhang seemed angry. Nyamugali looked as if he were ready to weep.
“If any of you were involved with any of these schemes,” Martinez said, “I need to knownow . I need to know what you know. Believe me, it will go better with you if you turn yourselves in than if I find it out on my own. Right now I haven’t done anything more than spot-check the logs, and I haven’t looked at financial records in any kind of detailed way. But Iwill . Now that I know what to look for, I’ll have that information very soon.”
There was silence, and then Amelia Zhang turned to Martinez and said, “You won’t find anything wrong in my department, my lord. And you can look at my finances and see I live on my pay and that most of it goes to my kids’ school fees.”
“My department’s clean,” said Strode. He brushed one of his mustachios with a knuckle. “I yarned my log, I admit that, but I didn’t like those others, Thuc and Francis particularly, and whenever they talked to me about ways of making money I wouldn’t listen.”
Martinez nodded.
“Illustriousdepends on you all,” he said. “You’re more important to this ship than the officers. You’re all professionals and you’re all good at what you do, and I know that’s the case because Captain Fletcher wouldn’t have had you aboard otherwise. But those others—they’re theenemy . Understand?”
He had a feeling he’d made better speeches in his career. But he hoped he’d succeeded in creating a dividing line, the kind that was necessary in war, between us and them. Those he’d just labeled asus were people he needed very badly.Illustrious had been scarred, not in combat but in its heart, and the remaining petty officers were going to be a vital part in any healing. He could have had the killers arrested in their beds and dragged to the brig, but that wouldn’t have had the same effect on their peers. It could have been put down to arbitrary action on the part of an officer, and that wasn’t what Martinez wanted. He wanted to demonstrate in front of their peers how guilty the killers were, and exactly how long and detailed their treachery was, and how badly it had put the ship in danger. He had wanted to separatethem fromus .
Martinez felt a sudden weariness. He’d done everything he’d set out to do, and said far more than he’d intended to say. He pushed back his chair and rose. Chairs scraped as they were pushed back, and the others jumped to their feet and braced.
Martinez reached for his glass and raised it. “To the Praxis,” he said, and the others echoed him.
He drained his glass, and the others drained theirs.
“I won’t keep you,” he said. “I’ll talk to the new department heads tomorrow morning.”
He watched them file out, and when they were gone, he reached for a bottle and refilled his glass. He drained half of it in one long swallow, then he turned to Alikhan.
“Tell Perry I’ll have supper in my office after I report to the squadcom.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Alikhan turned and marched, adjusting the belt with its sidearm and baton. Martinez looked at Marsden.
“Did you get all that?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Turn off your record function, please.”
Marsden did so, and stood bald and impassive, waiting for Martinez’s next order.
“I’m sorry about Phillips,” Martinez said.
Surprise fluttered in the other man’s eyes. He turned to Martinez. “My lord?”
“I know you would have saved him if you could.”
There was an instant of surprise on Marsden’s face, and then he mastered it and his face was impassive again.
“I’m sure, my lord, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You people have hand signals and so on, don’t you?” Martinez asked. “You would have given Phillips a warning if he hadn’t happened to be on watch in Command.” He took in a breath and sighed it out. “I wish you had.”
Marsden looked at him with intense brown eyes but said nothing.
“I worked out a while ago,” Martinez said, “that Thuc may have been a killer, but he wasn’t a Narayanist. The tree pendant was found in Thuc’s belongings because you put it there, Marsden, when I sent you to collect his things. You knew that I was about to launch an investigation into cult affiliations, and you wanted to get rid of the evidence. So you took the pendant from around your own neck and put it in with Thuc’s jewelry.”
Marsden’s neck muscles twitched. He looked stonily at Martinez.
“My lord,” he said, “that’s pure speculation.”
“I couldn’t work out why you were behaving so strangely,” Martinez said. “You were very angry when I first mentioned Narayanists—and then you denounced me for daring to insult the Gomberg and Fletcher clans. You forced me to search you right then and there, though of course that was after you’d ditched your pendant. I thought you were some extreme kind of snob. What I didn’t realize was that I’d just insulted your most deeply held beliefs.
“The problem is, that pendant helped to condemn Phillips. You didn’t know that one of Thuc’s fingerprints was found on Kosinic’s body. That linked murder and Narayanism in my mind, and I charged off on a campaign to find cult killers. That’s the way cultists are always portrayed in video dramas—killing people and sacrificing children to false gods. I was misled by a lifetime of watching that sort of drama. I forgot that Narayanism isn’t a killing sort of belief.”
“I wouldn’t know, my lord.” Marsden spoke with great care.
Martinez shrugged. “I wanted you to know I was sorry about the way I handled things. You won’t forgive me, I’m sure, but I hope you’ll understand.” He took a long drink of his wine. “That’s all, Marsden. If you can copy me that recording, and append a transcription as soon as you can, I’d be very much obliged.”
Marsden braced. “Yes, my lord.”
“You are dismissed.”
Marsden turned and walked away, his back straight, his head facing rigidly forward. Martinez watched the door close behind him.
Apology not accepted,he thought.
He took another long drink of his wine, and then he walked to his office, put the wineglass on his desk, and walked out into the corridor.
It was time to report to Lady Michi.
