The Jovian Run: Sol Space Book One (29 page)

              “And now Laplace is dead, Ducard is in charge, and he’s sweeping the man’s cause of death under the rug,” Staples continued.

              “Under the rug?” Templeton asked, his eyebrows raising.

              “It seems,” Staples spoke as delicately as she could, “that Laplace was only found dead at seven this morning. For Ducard to call it a heart attack before eight thirty looks a bit suspicious.”

              “But hardly conclusive,” Evelyn rejoined. “I’m not a super light sleeper, but I find it hard to believe that someone snuck in and murdered him right next to me while I slept.” Staples was grateful that she had entered that information into the conversation; it was difficult to discuss the matter and maintain the woman’s privacy at the same time. If either of the other two was surprised, neither showed it. “It seems impossible,” she added.

              “It’s not impossible,” Dinah said flatly.

              “No, it’s not,” Staples agreed. “But it would be quite a risk. You could have woken up, something could have gone wrong. Hmm,” She mused for a moment. “I may have a theory, but I want more information before it can really take shape. I think that this Doctor Stewart might be the key. If he-”

              “She.” Evelyn broke in.

              “She. If she’s in on this, she might be helping Ducard. If that’s the case, then I don’t know that there’s much we can do, but if she’s not…”

              “If you don’t mind me saying, Captain, what business is this of ours?” Templeton asked. “Laplace died. Sorry,” he murmured an apology to Evelyn. “But he died. His second-in-command and the station’s doctor say it was a heart attack. You’ve got no reason to believe it was anything other than that. In fact, it seems pretty farfetched that someone snuck in and killed him, since the person sleeping next to him is sitting right here saying that didn’t happen. How old was he?”

              “Sixty-one,” the woman at the door provided. Templeton had stopped wondering how and why Dinah knew everything that she did.

              “Okay. That’s young for a heart attack, especially in this day and age, but it does happen. Just ‘cause Ducard and Laplace didn’t get along, that doesn’t mean that Ducard murdered him, or had someone else do it. I think you’re reaching, Captain.”

              Staples was silent for several moments, and they all looked at her expectantly. She gazed at the wall as she thought. Finally, she said, “I’ve got reason, Don. Lots of reason. This whole job has been weird from the start. Way too many coincidences… I can see the trees, but not the root systems connecting them.” Another moment passed. “But they’re there. I know they’re there.”

              “Okay, I believe you,” he assented. “But that still doesn’t make it our business.”

              Evelyn pointed at Staples. “If she’s right, then a man was murdered. A good man.” Tears sprung into her eyes as she spoke, but she wiped them away.

              “I know, and I’m sorry,” Templeton said again. “I really am. But I talked with Davis Ducard for hours, and I don’t think he’s a killer.”

              “He doesn’t have to be,” said Staples, still staring at her point on the wall, “to be complicit.”

              “Fine then. That makes this a police matter.”

              “There are no police on this station, Don.”

              “But the law still stands. Nearly every corporation has adopted Earth Corporate Law, and there are station security to enforce that system of laws,” he objected, his voice rising a bit.

“And who do they work for now?” Evelyn asked rhetorically.

Templeton looked at the two women arrayed against him, one his superior. Finally he looked at Dinah, who stood calmly by the door, taking the whole situation in. “Are you gonna help me on this? We’re not cops; we’re a charter flight crew who delivers people and cargo. We get paid, we move on. It’s not our job to solve murders, assuming this even was one.”

Staples knew well that she could shut this conversation down, but she turned to Dinah to seek her input.

“With respect, sir, I think that a good member of our crew died on the way here. I don’t know if all of this is connected, like the captain believes, or not. But I’d like to know, and if possible, I’d really like to meet the person responsible.” The implied menace in her voice was enough to send a chill down Staples’ spine.

Templeton raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. We’re stuck here anyway. I just don’t want us to get into any trouble. Ducard has been really generous. He fought to have us get all of our pay, which we did by the way, and he only charged us labor for the repairs. The parts were free. And before you say it, yes, I can see how that might be him trying to placate us so we’ll just be on our merry way. I guess the real question is, what now? How do we figure this out?”

“I have an idea about that,” Staples said, looking at him squarely. “But I’m going to need Jabir’s help. I’ll let you all know as soon as we know something.”

Templeton and Evelyn stood up to go. The grief that had marked her face when she had entered the room had transformed to a steely resolve, and she now seemed far more angry than sad. Dinah left first, Templeton right behind her, but as Evelyn reached the door, Staples said, “Do you have another minute?”

She stopped and turned back. “Of course, Captain.”

Staples smiled warmly. “I’m not your captain, though I am beginning to think of you as a member of my crew. It’s been ten days since we dropped you off, and here you are back on my ship.” Before the other woman could utter the apology that she was clearly forming, she added, “Relax, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Believe me, I would hire you for the coms position if I thought we could afford you. And if you hadn’t signed what I assume is a legally binding contract when you took this job.”

Evelyn smiled in return, a bit regretfully Staples thought. “I can’t say that it hadn’t occurred to me. Anyway, what did you want to ask me?”

Staples formed her words carefully. “I wondered… given your proclivities, I would have thought that you and Jabir would have made a great pairing while you were here.”

Evelyn laughed, but her cheeks turned bright red. “He is quite the charmer.”

“Indeed he is.” Something in Staples’ voice gave her away.

Evelyn’s eyes grew wide. “Clea!” she said, her voice mingled with surprise and delight.

“What can I say?” Staples shrugged, grinning. “You said it; he’s quite the charmer.”

“Isn’t that against the rules? Fraternizing with a member of the crew?” she teased.

“This isn’t a military ship. Besides, I’m the captain. I get to make, or break, the rules as I see fit.”

“Well, I trust it went better with you than it did with me. I thought we might get together too, but…” The blush was stronger than ever.

“But?” Staples prompted.

Evelyn looked down at her feet, and then laughed again. Her brown eyes met Staples’ own, and she said, “But I puked on his shoes instead. I guess I was still sick from stasis.”

“Huh,” Staples said. “I guess so.”

“Why do you ask?” Evelyn asked, her hand still on the door handle.

“Just curious,” she mused.

              Doctor Jabir Iqbal walked into the medical clinic of Cronos Station as if he belonged there. The clinic occupied a medium-sized two story building on the outskirts of the operations section of the cylinder, and it had broad windows overlooking Cronos Park for patients to enjoy when they were in recovery. Even with the higher injury rate implicit in work not only on an industrial energy mining platform, but one in space, the population of the station required only one doctor and three support staff. Two were nurses, and one was a receptionist and records coordinator. It was this last person that Iqbal approached confidently once he had entered the building.

              The reception room mirrored that of a thousand others on Earth, no doubt designed to make patients feel more at home. The woman behind the glass window, a spinster in a pink sweater and hopelessly out of fashion horn rimmed glasses, looked up with a smile as he approached. Work this far out in the system often attracted those with few social ties and those who wanted to start over. Like nearly everyone he met, the doctor wondered what had inspired this woman to take a job over a billion kilometers from her likely home, but as he most often did, he resigned himself to not knowing.

              The woman slid the glass partition aside and greeted him warmly. “How can I help you?”

              Jabir had decided to forgo his lab coat and simply wear a dark tie and blue collared shirt rolled to the elbows. He leaned forward on the counter and gave the woman his best smile. “Hello. I don’t have an appointment, nor am I a prospective patient. I am a visiting doctor, and I was hoping to meet with Doctor Stewart as a matter of professional courtesy.”

              “Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re off the
Gringolet
?” She pronounced it
gring-go-lett
.

              He lowered his voice conspiratorially and said, “It’s actually pronounced
Gring-go-lay
.” His look gave the impression that he had winked at her, though he had not actually done so.

              “Oh.” She leaned forward in a similar manner. “Sounds French. Are you from France?”

              He tried not to laugh at this absurd question given the obviousness of his accent, and instead settled for a confusing answer. “No, but the horse was named there. Tell me, is Doctor Stewart available?”

              The woman looked nonplussed by the horse comment, but turned and looked behind her into the deeper recesses of the building. “I think so, but I’ll check. Just a minute.” She bustled off into the back.

              Iqbal took the opportunity to look round the waiting room at the banal paintings of faded flowers in vases on the walls, and was immediately sorry. It was precisely to avoid trappings like this that he had elected to take work on a vessel rather than set up private practice. Life on a spaceship was sometimes boring, but it still seemed infinitely better to him than receiving the unending string of back injuries, thumb sprains, and stress-induced nervous issues with which he was sure this other doctor had to cope. Maintaining the health and fitness of a crew that constantly subjected themselves to changes in environment, gravity, and sometimes violence presented opportunities for unique and interesting solutions, and he had certainly been earning his considerable pay on this most recent journey.

              As he pondered this, repressing a shudder at his drab and staid surroundings, the door opened and a short, silver-haired woman in a white coat and blue scrubs stood looking at him. Her hair was bobbed short around her chin, and there were slight wrinkles making inroads to her face from her lips. Her eyes were a vivid hazel, bright and sharp, and she looked up at Iqbal keenly.

              “Doctor Stewart, I presume.” He smiled and held out his hand.

She shook it firmly, but did not return the smile. “Yes, how can I help you? It’s been a bad day.”

              His face fell to sympathy. “Yes, I’ve heard, I’m afraid. It is for that reason that I have come to see you. I am Doctor Jabir Iqbal, the ship’s doctor on
Gringolet
.” He glanced around the empty room, spying the receptionist back at her post, and added, “Can we adjourn to your office that we might speak with confidentiality?”

              Stewart evaluated him with her intense eyes for several seconds, then nodded and led him through the door, past the usual examination rooms, to a generously sized office. A surface sat dark on a large imitation mahogany desk, and a tasteful green couch hunched against a far wall. Stewart sat in her chair behind the desk, putting the false wood between them, and indicated that he should sit in one of the chairs facing her.

              “Now then, how can I help you Doctor Iqbal?” she asked, settling back in her cushy office chair.

              His seat was not so comfortable. “It’s a delicate matter, but when I learned of the death of your Station Commander, I had to come see you. You see, I have reason to believe that his death might not have resulted from natural causes.”

              Again, there were several moments of silence as Stewart stared at him. It unsettled him, but he did not let this show on his veneer. “Go on.”

              “You may be familiar with the TPSC virus. It is a mutation of the common flu that originated in a colony on Venus. In some cases, it can exacerbate heart conditions and otherwise cause health problems in relatively healthy people if they have particular genetic susceptibilities. It is not well known, but the ship on which I am currently employed made a port of call on Venus recently, and it is a matter of protocol that I follow up on all possibilities. I consider it unlikely that your Station Commander, a mister Laplace I believe, contracted the virus from one of our crew members, but it is remotely possible. If so, it is critical that I ascertain his exact cause of death. As both a professional courtesy, as well as in the name of keeping your crew and mine healthy, I came to ask if you would share the autopsy records of your Station Commander.”

              Stewart continued to lean back in her chair. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she replied.