Fortunes of the Imperium (38 page)

CHAPTER 33

As the shuttle conveyed them upward, Commander Parsons kept his eyes fixed upon the ships docked at the impound station orbiting Dilawe 4. The three Uctu Customs Police kept their distance in the spacious cabin out of courtesy, not wishing to appear to be eavesdropping, which of course they were. Parsons’s own small listening devices picked up the presence of “bugs” and observation lenses that the Uctu wished them to ignore. He would not mention them if they did not mention his. Donal Nirdan, of Ambassador Galeckas’s staff, rode with them. Parsons knew he made this trip frequently to negotiate on behalf of Imperium merchants and other travelers.

With Lord Thomas and the others safe within the palace confines, the rest of the team was free to make an inspection of the imprisoned merchants’ ships.

Lieutenant Plet had gathered her small force for an intense briefing. She had properly downloaded the protocols for dealing with evidence in an active investigation, and assured the authorities that she and the team would act within those parameters. Parsons did not need to check whether she had been thorough; she always was. He found it rather touching that she chided herself fiercely if she made an error. For all her outward maturity, there was a youthful soul that needed reassurance. Still, she was proving to be an excellent operative, and would be of great use to the Imperium for many decades to come. The others were intelligent and resourceful, each in their own way. His choices for a semi-permanent staff to support him and Lord Thomas had borne out his predictions. It was to be hoped that he could keep this team intact until his young lordship was capable of making his own decisions, though the Kinago trait of loyalty would undoubtedly compel him to keep staff whether or not they proved to be useful on an ongoing basis. Parsons was torn as to whether or not he should guide Lord Thomas to grow out of that tendency. He would have to wait and see if it got in his way in future missions.

They passed two other impounded ships before coming up on the one they wanted. The
Entertainer
was a moderate-sized trading ship, at least fifty years old, showing signs of pitting and ordinary wear.

“It stinks in here, sir,” Anstruther said, waiting in the engineering section beside Parsons with her tablet ready. The engineering section, in which they stood, lay in a protected position between the living quarters and the broad, empty cargo bays. Nesbitt clambered down the ladder between the hull and the waste tank to make a full physical inspection. Plet shone a light from the access port to follow his movements.

“The ship has been unoccupied for several weeks,” Parsons said. “The waste tank was opened by the authorities. It is possible that a leak remains that allows methane gas into the ship’s cabin.”

“No, sir, they all look intact,” the large noncom said, his voice hoarse and tinny through the speaker in Anstruther’s tablet. A video pickup attached to his chest followed his gloved hands as he ran them over the welds and brackets. “I don’t see any breaches or welds where the hull plates were opened.”

“Are there any other access ports where that fighter could have been inserted into the tank?” Plet called down to him.

“No, sir,” he said. The disembodied images of his hands tapped lengths of foils stamped with holographs and embossings overlain with six-sided stickers up to a third of a meter wide. “The original seals are still in place, though they have been slit and resealed with Autocracy official labels.”

“Those mean the ships are active crime scenes,” Nirdan reminded them.

Plet turned to the lead inspector, a ruddy-scaled middle-aged female wearing a dark blue robe and black boots like her fellows, but she had six-sided silver badges on her cuffs.

“You were the ones who detected the contraband, weren’t you?” They nodded. “Do you have any idea how that ship got into the waste tank?”

“No,” said the lead investigator. “It makes us concerned that we have missed many other smuggled items.”

“And you have no idea where they could have taken on such an item as a war shuttle?” Nirdan asked Anstruther.

“No, sir,” she said. “No other drydock facilities report working on their ship. They could have loaded it into a cargo bay in deep space. I know there’s a bunch of jockeying around out there if someone is carrying above the duty free allowance of certain goods. But that’s the cargo bays, sir. The waste tanks aren’t designed to be opened out there on any Imperium ship. Even if there are vacuum valves to protect the living spaces, there’s still too much of a chance of a life-support rupture.”

Nirdan cringed. “We’ve seen the results of that, too. I didn’t like having to view the bodies before everything was sent back to the Core Worlds for investigation, but it was part of my job. Sublight, it took two years to fly them home.”

“Couldn’t have been nice for the relatives when they got there,” Oskelev said.

“Out of curiosity, why
aren’t
the waste tanks designed to open in deep space?” Nirdan asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to dispose of, er, unpleasant matter elsewhere?”

“It’d require too much reverse engineering of most vessels, sir,” Anstruther said. “And, no, it looks like these ships weren’t altered for such a maneuver.”

Nesbitt climbed up the ladder again. Redius gave him a hand getting out of the access port.

“I need a drink of water,” he said. “Is life support still running?”

“Yes,” Nirdan said. “We try to keep the vessels in good condition, hoping that the crews can reclaim them at some point.”

The big man pushed past them into the living quarters of the ship. He returned with a beaker in his hand and a disgusted look on his face.

“What is the matter, ensign?” Parsons asked.

Nesbitt held out the cup.

“This water, sir. It tastes terrible.”

Plet immediately took the cup from him.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s brackish tasting, almost musty,” Nesbitt said. “Can water go moldy?”

“It shouldn’t be like that,” Nirdan said, looking over Plet’s shoulder into the glass.

“If the life support system is functioning, the water filtration system ought to be working, too,” Plet reminded him.

Nirdan looked at his pocket secretary for a schematic of the ship. He went to a panel on the common wall with the living quarters and removed it. Rows of red lights shone above one lone and overburdened green.

“That’s weird,” he said. “It isn’t working. Neither is the air system. None of the purification systems are operational.”

“Redius, get an oxygen level,” Plet instructed. The Uctu brought out his sensor and walked out of the chamber with it held aloft. The ship was not large; he returned fairly soon.

“Bad,” he said. “Ten percent oxygen, twenty carbon dioxide.”

Plet glanced at the scope in horror.

“Whatever they did to this ship, it would have become unlivable in practically no time,” she said. “They could have died in space of carbon dioxide poisoning. No hydroponics area to absorb it, like on large ships. A couple of herbs and a tomato plant to make all the processed and stable food taste a little better, but that wouldn’t do enough. They sacrificed their health to make money.”

“It’s impossible that they could have come this far with the systems compromised in this fashion,” Parsons said. “Run a diagnostic.”

Redius ran his fingertips over the touch screen. The lights went from red to green. The fans and pumps under the deck plates were already running. After a moment, the tiny points flickered, then each went back to red.

“Running, but not operating correctly.”

“That means there’s something we’re missing,” Oskelev said. “What are we not seeing?”

“If the pumps are operational, why isn’t the purification system working?” Plet asked.

The timid Anstruther all but blurted out her thoughts.

“Nanites. The pumps only circulate air, water and waste. Something has gone wrong with the nanites that do the processing.”

“Check on them,” Plet said. “Their programming might have gone inert.”

The crew scattered to several access points around the ship. Parsons monitored their inspections. He had a suspicion as to the cause of the malfunction, but did not want to prejudice their minds before they had gathered facts to support his theory. Redius, whose station was engineering, was the first to put his spatulate fingertip on the problem.

“Nanites gone,” he said. “All.”

Anstruther and Nesbitt returned with similar reports.

“There should have been kilos of nanites, in every system on the ship,” Anstruther said, showing Plet and Parsons her tablet. “There aren’t any that I can detect.”

“Or me,” Nesbitt said. “Even the self-healing pipes in the walls aren’t self-healing any more. I found a bunch of leaks in the hygiene room. The place stinks.”

“In the absence of nanites, there are undoubtedly hundreds of strains of bacteria and viruses that are growing unchecked in the systems,” Plet said. “The water reservoir is probably badly contaminated now.”

Nesbitt’s face contorted with dismay. Sweat broke out in small beads on his forehead. He put his hand to his mouth.

“I drank some of it,” he said.

“Hospital facilities at your service,” the chief inspector said, kindly. “Invite for checkup. I make appointment.” She lifted her hexagonal pad and made a few swipes with her fingertip.

“Thank you, inspector,” Parsons said. “If you need to make use of the facilities to rid yourself of the intake, Ensign, I suggest you do so before we get back on the shuttle.”

“Yes, sir,” Nesbitt said. He backed out of the room, and fled.

Parsons returned his attention to the remaining crew.

“What could have removed all the nanites from a ship?” Plet asked. “Were they experimenting with some kind of program to evacuate micromachines, and it got out of hand?”

“We need to discern whether this is a specific instance, or whether the situation exists over the other ships in custody,” Parsons said. “Are there any nanites left to analyze?”

“Not one, sir,” Anstruther said. “It’s the strangest thing I have ever seen.”

Parsons turned to Plet.

“I suggest you send a message under seal to FitzGreen on Way Station 46, lieutenant,” he said. “We were looking for the presence of a hostile agent, not an absence. Perhaps the nanites opened the panels of the ship on a microscopic level so that the insertion of a warship and a cache of weapons would not be visible to casual inspection, then departed from the ship so no trace could be found of their involvement. The removal of native nanites must be a side-effect. Ask him to investigate whether the trace remains of an unexpected drain of nanites. He must trust no one. These are dangerous people we are dealing with. They ruthlessly involve innocent traders as pawns to be sacrificed for the goods they are smuggling.”

“You say innocent,” the chief inspector said, her forehead wrinkled. “But court requires proof of means.”

Parsons met her gaze with confidence he only half felt. “We will find the evidence to support our theory, madam.”

“Hope you will,” she said.