Kill Station (15 page)

"Close enough for jazz," Joss said. "Cecile, who would want me dead? After I've been here all of two days and done nothing but get in a fight in a bar?"

The look she turned on him was thoughtful. "Sometimes that's enough," she said. "But I wouldn't think it was in your case. You just ran afoul of Leif the Turk. That happens all the time.''

"Leif the Turk?"

"And you're sops," she said, "and sops always get beat up a little when they first get here, to remind them that this isn't a desk job."

"I would have mistaken it for one in a second," Joss said, "believe me, I would." His stateroom chair had not turned out to be much good for extended keyboard work, and his back was letting him know about it.

"Hmm," said Cecile. "Well, at any rate, it's doesn't seem like enough to get you killed. Word has certainly been going around about why you're here—at least, what you said in the bar. People are secretive enough here, some of them, but not enough to go out there and try to mess you over. What happened?"

Joss told her, in brief. Cecile sat quiet for a bit, then said to him, "I think that was a dumb thing to do, Mister Sop Honey. Even without somebody annoyed at you. Or just trying to do you a mischief. This asteroid's movements aren't completely stable. Every now and then one of the little internal faults shifts, and things move."

"The point is that someone was willing to help it move," Joss said. "But I managed to knock a chip off them, if nothing else. Maybe it'll make them a bit more cautious in future."

' 'Or a bit more determined to do something sudden and

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permanent to you, the next time," Cecile said. "Tell me: would you know that suit again if you saw it?"

"In a minute. Observer training has its advantages."

"Good," Cecile said. "Listen. Most people don't bother taking their suits back to their domes with them; there's too little room at home, as a rule, to waste on the suit. Most people dump their suits near the airlock they tend to use to go in and out. I bet if you made the rounds, you niight find the suit in question. It would give you a hint, at least, of what part of the station the one you're looking for lives in."

Joss considered that a moment. "It would mean a lot of legwork, which I don't mind myself," he said. "But Cecile, what proof would there be that the place where I found it had anything to do with the person's whereabouts? If 7 had just been trying to kill someone, I would try to leave that suit as far as I could from where I came in with it. If in fact I didn't scrap it on the spot. The person has to know that if I could see well enough to shoot, I got a look at the suit itself."

Cecile pursed her lips and nodded. "That's true enough, I guess. But I don't think anybody here is flush enough to just throw away a suit. It might turn up in different form, recycled, after a while."

Joss nodded. "All right. Meanwhile, I won't go out for walks alone. I just wish I had a motive for that little attack, that's all. Motiveless attempted murder bothers me."

Cecile looked at him. "You know," she said, "just by yourself, you represent everything that a lot of people here have come to get away from. Organization, taxes—well, they haven't got away from that, much—governmental snooping, trouble of all kinds. It's not your fault, I know. You do good work. But some of the people we have out here won't see it that way. It might just have been mischief. It's just as well that you shot whoever it was. Word will get around, among other people who would want to make mischief. It may make them a little more reluctant."

Joss took a breath, thought about what he was going to

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say next, and let the breath out again. "You might hear," he said, "about anybody who needed medical treatment all of a sudden. An accident with a laser or something."

Cecile looked at him. "I might," she said. "And if I can find a way to let you know about it without jeopardizing my own position, Mister Sop Honey, I'll see what I can do. But I have to live with these people. And sneaks and snoops have a tendency to come to grief out here."

"So I notice," Joss said softly. "All right. And thank you. Meanwhile, what's your next one?"

"The same again," Cecile said, "a double."

"ANOTHER OUTBREAK OF WILD NATIONALISM, I

see," Joss said when Evan came in through the airlock.

"What?" Evan said.

"You're singing that Toasted Cheese song again. At least you haven't started in on "Men of Harlech" yet."

"I never," Evan said, mildly scandalized.

"You do too. Constantly, and especially in the 'fresher. And usually in the key of M."

"W, surely," Evan said.

"Hush up, Supertaff," Joss said from the computer console. "Come look at this."

Evan leaned over Joss's shoulder to look at the computer's readout pad. "I see lots of registration numbers," he said, "the significance of which is presently difficult for me to understand. So suppose you explain, which you're visibly itching to do."

"I'm more interested in finding out who was trying to kill me just now," Joss said.

"Been in the bar again, have you?" said Evan.

"You
should talk," Joss said, and Evan blushed. Joss noticed this with mild interest, but left it alone for the moment.

Joss told Evan about his excursion to the salvage pile.

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"You bleeding idiot," Evan said at the end of it, "why didn't you wait for me?"

"Who knew when you were getting back from your little pub crawl?" Joss said. Evan blushed again.
Goodness,
Joss thought,
what's going on with our lad tonight?
"And besides, who knew someone was going to go to all that trouble to try to off me? It can't have been easy, pushing all that metal around." He sat very still for a moment, considering what he had just said. "And besides," he went on, looking up at Evan, "how would one person alone have done it?

Without any lifting equipment? Without any heavy equipment at all? When I came out of that pile, there was nothing left but footprints."

Evan looked at him thoughtfully. "Someone," he said, "has been out there ahead of time, cutting through vital bits of metalwork. Making it dangerous for anyone to investigate too closely. Hmm?"

"You'd think that would be noticed," Joss said.

"Now why would it be, then? On this place's night shift—and there is one, apparently, though people tend to keep late hours—who would notice one lone person out there with a cutting torch?"

Joss nodded. "And there's evidence," he said, "that if people did notice it, they'd most likely keep it to themselves.

You may have a point there, partner."

"Let's take a moment, some time in the next few days," Evan said, "and tear that pile apart."

"I was going to recommend it anyway. I want to see how many other ships we're looking for might be hidden in there.

Probably not many more; it wouldn't be smart." Joss paged through the display of his data pad, brought up a graphic.

"But look at this."

Evan bent in close to look at the vidsnap of the hole in the engine pod of the VW Box. "What the hell?" he said.

"Right," Joss said. "What made it?"

"Nothing civil," said Evan. "That's military."

"Nothing standard military, either," Joss said. "That's brand new weaponry that can do that, my friend. One of
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your new charged-particle scoops, or one of those damn muon-augmented braided noble gas lasers you were lusting after in
Jane's
last month."

"I never lust after weapons," Evan said, and blushed again.

"Hah," Joss said, and his curiosity was really getting the better of him now. "Never mind that. Somebody out this way has been playing with state-of-the-art weapons that not even the Space Forces will buy yet because they're not yet fully tested—that is to say, the price hasn't yet dropped low enough for the boys in Acquisitions to justify buying them to the cheapskates in Accounting. This is not good news for us, Unka Evan, not at all. It means there are people running around out here who are
lots
better armed than we are; hell, lots better armed than the goddam Space Forces are—not that that would be hard. And these too-goddam-well-armed people have been getting terminally cranky with people who have been catching them at something they're doing. Maybe not even that. Maybe just being in the wrong places at the wrong times. But five'll get you ten that the people who have these weapons are somehow involved with the disappearances we're here to investigate. And ten'll get you twenty that someone has already attempted to get rid of one of the people investigating this situation, while
you
were in the bar shining up to the ladies. Hmm?"

Evan blushed furiously.

"I would have thought you were out starting a fight or something," Joss said, "to maintain parity, or the pride of the force, or some damn thing. Who is she?"

"Mell Fontenay," Evan said. "She's Maintenance."

Joss sat back at his console and listened to the tale Evan told him. It was an interesting one, but there were aspects of it that bothered Joss. "You know," he said, "I'm not entirely sure you weren't set up."

"What?"

"What's to say that she and this Turk character aren't in cahoots somehow? She seems awful full of the milk of

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human kindness for someone who was about to kill you. Not to mention that it was pretty providential that she walked in exactly when she did."

"It was a good thing she did, my boyo!"

"Look," Joss said, "I won't argue that it was a help to you. I'm just not so sure how accidental it all was.

Any more than my little contretemps out at the salvage pile was accidental. Though someone was trying hard to make it look that way.''

"Now, wait a minute—"

"And it's pretty handy that this lady knows all these miners she can recommend to help us dig," Joss said.

"Well, we'll see what Noel says about her in the morning. But as for the rest of it. Evan, come on!" Joss said. "Ce-cile is nice, too, but I'm not sure I trust her as far as I can throw her. I'm not sure I trust anyone here, except maybe Noel, and Noel seems so busy that he's missing a lot of things that are going on around him."

Evan looked at Joss as if he .were out of his mind.

Oh heaven,
Joss thought.
Why does this have to happen to us now?
"Never mind," he said aloud.

"We'll handle it in six hours or so. Both of us have had long days, and we need time to assimilate what we've found. Not to mention getting some sleep."

There came some subdued clanking sounds from outside the hull. Joss moved to one of the console screens, flicked it on, looked at it, and flicked it off again. "Just the station techs," he said, "come to look at that engine problem. I left the external access to the engine pod open for them. You want to sleep here tonight, or shall I?"

Evan looked suddenly stricken. Joss knew that expression: it was the one Evan had worn when first looking at the horrible rooming-house.

"Both of us, I think," Joss said, "and to hell with community relations. We've got a long day of digging tomorrow. ''

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"Right," Evan said. He headed off to his stateroom, and the door shut behind him.

Joss sat down at his command console and looked at the closed door, in thoughtful mood.

FOUR

IT WAS A LATE MORNING FOR BOTH OF THEM.

Joss was up first, partly because the data he had been amassing were on his mind, and partly because he was the

"lark" of the team. Evan was an "owl" and never got up before ten hundred if he could avoid it—though he also tended to be up till oh-three hundred the next morning, a habit which Joss found hard to understand except when one was out drinking. It generally meant that Joss got to make breakfast, and Evan got to complain about how his mother made it better.

This Joss was well used to by now. He was sitting by the computer with a mug of coffee when Evan came hulking out of his stateroom, dressed and groomed, but otherwise looking as horrible as he usually did until he had gotten some protein into him. "Morning," Joss said.

"Nnngh," said Evan, and headed down for the tiny galley.

"Your eggs are in the nuke box," Joss said, "and your tea is in the pot."

"Nnngh," came the reply. Joss smiled slightly and went back to paging through his missing-ship data.

Muffled clanking noises were still coming from outside the hull, and had been for some time. Joss had fallen asleep to them, and had woken to them an hour and a half ago. Evan put his head out of the galley and said, "They're still at it out there?"

"Sounds that way."

Ill

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"Incompetents," Evan muttered. "How long can it take them?"

"Drink your tea first!" Joss said; but there was no point in it. Evan was already on his way through the airlock to give someone a piece of his only half-formed mind. Joss sighed and got up to go watch.

Outside the ship, Evan was staring at a pair of legs that were sticking out from under the engine pod.

"Excuse me," he said, "but how long does it take you to do a simple engine repair? It was just a noise in the—"

His voice simply stopped in his throat with a sort of "gluck" sound as Joss came out the airlock. The mechanic had scooted out a bit from under the ship on his—
oops,
Joss thought, /zer—back dolly, and was looking at Evan with understandable annoyance. But the expression was quirky and amused as well.

"That's a hell of a question to ask someone who's been up all night trying to find out what the hell is wrong with your goddam ship," said the mechanic. Joss looked at Evan and watched him blush right up into his crewcut.

Aha!
he thought.

"Evan," he said, "you might perhaps introduce us."