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She tapped at the doorplate and the door swung partly in. It was neither
locked nor sealed. Startled, Lunzie leaned cautiously forward to investigate.
The chamber was dark inside, reeking with a peculiar, heavy smell. She passed
her hand over the panel for lights, and jumped back, gasping at what she saw.
There had been a fight. Most of the furniture was smashed or bent, and there
were smears of blood on the walls. The sink had been torn out of the wall and
stuffed halfway into the disposer unit. The equipment cabinets were smashed
open, with their contents strewn throughout the chamber. Still attached to the
wall, the shattered hand dryer sputtered fitfully to itself, dropping hot
sparks.
Orlig lay sprawled on the floor. Guiltily Lunzie thought for a moment that
internal bleeding had begun again. The cause of death was all too evident.
Orlig had been strangled. His face was darkened with extravasated blood, and
his eyes bulged. She had seen death before, even violent death. But not
ruthless murder.
The marks of opposable digits were livid on the dead man's windpipe. Someone
with incredible strength had thrown Orlig all over the room before pressing
him to the ground and wringing his neck. Lunzie felt weak.
Only another heavyworlder could have done that to Orlig. And she'd thought
that he was the biggest one on the
ARCT-10
. So who? And what did that person know or suspect about her? She checked the
door to see how the killer had forced its way. But there was no sign of a
forced entry. The seals were unsecured.
Orlig had let his assailant into the room himself. Had the killer followed
her, undetected, and overheard her use the agreed password? Or had Orlig
overestimated his own returning strength and cunning? Sometimes being a
lightweight was an advantage -
you found it easier to recognise physical limitations.
If the murderer should decide to eliminate Orlig's medic on the possibility
that the dead man had passed on his knowledge, she was once again in jeopardy
from heavyworlders. How long had
Orlig been dead? How much more "safety" did she have left?
"I've got to get off this ship. Just finding Tor and passing on that brick are
not going to be the answer. But how?"
First she had to report the death to the CMO, who was appalled by the murder
but not terribly surprised.
"These guys are temperamental, you know. Strangest things set off personal
vendettas." But the CMO could and did slam a security lock on the details.
Since the CMO didn't ask more details from her, Lunzie ventured none. Enough
people had seen Orlig manhandle her after the accident so that she would seem
an unlikely recipient of any confidences. But she wouldn't rest easy on that
assumption. She continued to feel vulnerable. To her own surprise, she felt
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more anger than fright.
She did take the precaution of attaching her personal alarm to the door of her
cubicle at night. She was cautious enough to stay in a group at all times.
"They wanted me to find him, that's clear," Lunzie mused blackly as she went
about her duties the next day. "Otherwise, they'd have stuffed the body into
the disposer and let the recycling systems have it. His absence might even
have passed without any notice.
Maybe I should grumble about patients who discharge themselves without medic
permission." She doubted that would do any good and scanned the updates on
mission personnel with an anxious eye. Surely she could wangle the medic's
spot on the next one.
Even if she had to pull out her FI ID.
Chapter Twelve
"It's Ambrosia," was her greeting from those in the common room the next
morning. She recoiled in shock. "It's Ambrosia!" people were chorusing
joyfully. "It really is Ambrosia."
Lunzie was stunned to hear the dangerous statement delivered in a chant, taken
up by every new arrival.
"What's Ambrosia?" she demanded of Nafti, one of the scientists.
He grabbed her hands and danced her around the room in his enthusiasm. She
calmed him down long enough to get an explanation.
"Ambrosia's a brand-new colonisable, human-desirable planet,"
Nafti told her, his homely face wreathed in idiotic delight. "An EEC
Team's on its way in. The comlinks are oozing news about the most glorious
find in decades. The team's called it Ambrosia.
Believe it or not, an E-class planet, with a 3-to-l nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere
and .96 Earth gravity."
Everyone was clamouring to hear more details but the captain of the EEC Team
was wisely keeping the specifics to himself until the
ARCT-10
labs verified the findings. Rumours ranged to the implausible and unlikely but
most accounts agreed that Ambrosia's parameters made it the most Earthlike
planet ever discovered by the EEC. Lunzie wasn't sure of her reaction to the
news: relief that
"It's Ambrosia" was now public information, or confusion. The phrase that had
already cost lives and severely altered hers might have nothing at all to do
with the new planet. It could be a ridiculous coincidence. And it could very
well mean that the new planet might be the next target for the planetary
pirates. Only how could a planet, which was now known to the thousands of folk
on board the
ARCT-10
, get pirated out from under the noses of legitimate FSP interests by, if the
past was any indication, even the most violent means?
The arrival of the Team meant more than good news to her.
Zebara was the captain. A lot easier to find than that one Thek named Tor. She
asked one of the communications techs to add her name to the queue to speak to
Captain Zebara when he arrived. A moment's private conversation with him and
she'd have kept faith with Orlig.
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Like most of her plans lately, that one had to be aborted. When
Captain Zebara arrived on board, he was all but mobbed by the people on the
ARCT-10
who wanted to be first to learn the details of Ambrosia. Lunzie heard he'd had
to be locked in the day officer's wardroom to protect him. Shortly afterward,
an announcement was made by the exec officer that Zebara would speak to the
entire ship from the oxygen-breathers' common room.
With a shipwide and translated broadcast, everyone could share
Zebara's news.
Lunzie waited with Coe amid a buzzingly eager audience packing the common
room. There was a small flurry as the Team Captain
entered the room. Lunzie peered around her neighbours, saw a head of fuzzy
blond hair, and belatedly realised that the man towered a good foot above most
of those in the surrounding crowd.
"He's a heavyworlder," she said, disbelievingly.
"Zebara's an okay guy," Grabone said, hearing the hostility in
Lunzie's tone. "He's different. Friendly. Doesn't have the chip on his
shoulder that most of the heavyworlders wear."
"He's also not from Diplo," added Coe. "He was raised on one of the heavyworld
colonies which had a reasonably normal climate.
I'd never thought climate had that much effect on folks, but he's nowhere near
as bad as the Diplos."
Lunzie did not voice her doubts but Coe saw her sceptical expression.
"C'mon, Lunzie, he's a fine fellow. I'll introduce you later," Coe offered.
"Zebara and I are old buddies."
"Thanks, Coe," Lunzie murmured politely. Zebara had a very catholic selection
of friends if both Orlig and Coe were numbered among them.
"Wait, he's starting to speak." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]