Waypoint Kangaroo (19 page)

As soon as we're in a crew-only section and the door shuts behind us, I ask, “Okay, what's going on here?”

Jemison waves off the two guards, who seem happy to be rid of us, and points toward the elevator. “This way.”

I resist the urge to reply with “If I could walk
that
way…” and attempt to follow her, with limited success.

The floor and wall surfaces here aren't covered in red stick-strips like the passenger sections. Instead, there are handholds built into the paneling every meter or so. For some reason, I literally can't get the hang of moving down this hallway in zero-gee.

I miss half a dozen handholds and managed to crash into all four walls before Jemison stops and turns around. She grabs my collar and drags me into the elevator.

“Thanks,” I say. “It's been a while.”

“It's not acrobatics.” She pushes a button. The elevator doors close. “Keep it simple. Small moves.”

“Right. Can we talk now? What was all that with the guards back there?” I ask.

“Sorry about the theatrics,” she says. “I had to get you out of the passenger sections without anybody thinking you're someone special.”

That seems bad. “What's going on?”

“David Wachlin's awake,” Jemison says, “and he says he doesn't remember anything.”

“Schizophrenic episode?”

“No. Doc Sawhney says Wachlin went to sleep after our first day in space and didn't wake up until this morning.”

I frown. “He's been asleep for two days?”

“That's what Sawhney says,” Jemison says. “He ran blood tests and a basic brain scan, didn't find anything unusual. Not an episode. He also says Wachlin's blood sugar levels and other body chemistry are consistent with his last meal being two days ago, followed by a long sleep.”

“You're not convinced.”

“Which is more likely?” Jemison snaps. “That he sleepwalked his way through a double homicide and into that lifeboat, or that he's lying?”

The elevator dings, and the door slides open. “So why are you telling me this? And where are we going?”

“Sickbay,” Jemison says. “Doc refuses to give Wachlin any more drugs, so I need your eye to play lie detector.”

I smile at her. “You need my help.”

Jemison pushes me into the elevator. “Not if you're going to be insufferable.”

“I guarantee plenty of suffering.”

“Already regretting this,” she mutters as the doors close.

*   *   *

It's not much of an interrogation. David Wachlin is confused and belligerent at first, but he cracks in less than a minute under Jemison's barrage of questions. My left eye can detect basic vital signs—skin temperature, heart rate, respiration—and run software to analyze those involuntary responses for possible deception. This guy doesn't trip any of the thresholds.

As far as David knows, he went to sleep in his stateroom and then woke up in Sickbay, secured to an exam bed with restraining straps. He breaks down completely when Jemison tells him that the rest of his family is dead. She tops it off by showing him the bloody knife from the lifeboat, and he starts bawling like a baby.

My eye confirms he's not faking. My heart sinks. We still have a murderer on board the ship, and now we have no idea who it could be.

“What's going on there, Chief?” I hear Dr. Sawhney calling.

He flies around the corner, summoned by David Wachlin's miserable wailing, and nearly slams into the wall beside me, managing to stop himself on a handhold. I jerk away only to thump into Jemison. The evidence bag holding the knife slips out of her hand.

My arm collides with hers as we both grab for the loose pointy object tumbling away into Sickbay. She elbows me in the side and grabs the knife.

“What the hell!” she says.

“Sorry,” I say. “Zero-gee. But you see this?”

David didn't even look up. His body convulses with loud sobs.

“Yeah.” Jemison doesn't look happy, and I'm sure it's not because she feels any sympathy.

“What happened?” Sawhney asks, glaring at Jemison.

“Just had to ask him a few questions,” Jemison says.

“Are you done now?”

“We're done,” Jemison sighs. “He didn't kill them. Right, Rogers?”

“Right,” I say. “I guess that's the good news.”

“Unfortunately, I may have some bad news,” Sawhney says.

Jemison frowns. “What?”

“I will report to the briefing room in ten minutes,” Sawhney says. “The captain will want to see as well.”

“Fine.”

I follow Jemison out to the elevator. She doesn't have to drag me this time, but I still lag a good fifteen seconds behind. Are these handholds just small, or are my hands really that huge?

Jemison pushes the elevator button once I'm inside, then pulls a small canister off her belt and hands it to me. “You know how to use one of these?”

I turn the object over in my hand. It looks like a flimsy set of brass knuckles, molded from aluminum and with a narrow cylinder as the palm grip. A nozzle protrudes from the knuckle-guard between my index and middle fingers.

“Hand thruster, right?” I say.

Jemison nods. “The thumb switch is semi-automatic. One short burst of compressed nitrogen, whether you hold it down or not; recoil pushes you backward. Don't point it at anyone. That's two hundred atmospheres in there. The gas kicks out at fifty meters per second.”

“Right. And why do I need this?”

“For moving around the ship. I'm tired of watching you flounder in zero-gee.”

“I don't work in outer space that much.”

“Thank God.”

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dejah Thoris
—Deck B, officers' briefing room

16 stupid hours before we get gravity again

I feel underdressed. Everyone else in the briefing room is wearing sleek jumpsuits with colorful rank insignias and department emblems. Captain Santamaria, Commander Galbraith, and Chief Jemison wear PMC's standard navy blue and gold; Cruise Director Logan stands out in bright orange and yellow; and Dr. Sawhney broadcasts his profession in white and red. I'm wearing denim jeans and a faded T-shirt.

Jemison updates everyone on the situation. “Dr. Sawhney, Mr. Rogers, and I all examined David Wachlin, and we concur that he's not lying.”

“How is that possible?” Galbraith asks.

“That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Santamaria says.

“I never know what you're talking about,” Jemison mutters.

“It's a game show,” I say. “You know. Like
Twenty-One.
Or
Jeopardy!
”

Jemison squints at me. “You are not helping.”

“I believe I have an answer,” Sawhney says. He touches the conference table to clear the display, then holds up a plastic bag containing two pill bottles. “These are David Wachlin's prescribed medications: Stelomane and Dalazine, standard schizophrenia treatments.”

He opens the bag, pulls out a bottle, and hands it to Logan. “Mr. Logan, please remove one of the tablets from that vial.”

Logan unscrews the cap and gives the bottle a gentle tap. Three round yellow pills float up out of the container. He catches one between his thumb and forefinger, then scoops the rest back into the bottle and replaces the lid.

“That vial is labeled ‘Stelomane,'” Sawhney says. “An antipsychotic. Here is the pharmacy reference.”

He taps the table. A rectangle of text, a spinning molecule, and a photograph appear. He touches the image to make it larger: two pills with numbers embossed front and back.

The pills in the picture are oval, not round.

“These aren't the right pills,” Logan says. “The shape's wrong. And the code numbers don't match.”

“Could they be generics?” Galbraith asks.

“That is what I thought as well,” Sawhney says. “But the labels on these vials claim differently. And when I looked up these actual tablets by their appearance, I was faced with disturbing results.”

He brings up a second pharmaceutical record, showing the round pill Logan's holding. A few keywords in the text jump out at me. Sawhney's right. This is bad news.

“Phencyclidine,” he says. “Originally an intravenous anesthetic, abused recreationally during the twentieth century. High doses can cause catatonia in schizophrenics.”

Jemison says what I'm thinking: “Fuck!”

Santamaria snaps his fingers. “Erica, I need passenger background checks. Find out who had connections to the Wachlin family.”

“Yessir,” Galbraith says, and kicks herself back from the briefing table. She does a twist in midair to end up sailing head-first toward the door.

“How does a schizophrenic not know he's taking the wrong pills?” I ask.

“As Commander Galbraith said. Generics often look different than brand-name drugs,” Sawhney says. “But I fear this was an intentional deception. These vials were not pharmacy printed. The bar codes are fakes; they don't scan properly. Somebody wanted David Wachlin to take the wrong medication.”

“Doctor, I want you to run another tox screen on David Wachlin,” Santamaria says. “Verify that these drugs were in his system.”

“It's been over two days,” Sawhney protests. Then he sees Santamaria's glare. “We'll do our best, Captain.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Santamaria drums his fingers on the edge of the table as Sawhney collects the bag of pills and heads for the elevator.

“Jeff,” Santamaria says after a moment. “How do we handle this?”

“We can't tell the passengers,” Logan says. “Especially not now. A panic in zero-gravity would be impossible to control.”

“Agreed,” says Santamaria.

“We don't know what the killer wants,” Logan continues. “It may be that he's already accomplished his goal of killing Emily and Alan Wachlin and framing David. But if that was all, he could have waited until the end of the cruise, when we'd have less time to catch him.”

“So he's not done,” Santamaria says. “We need to find out who his next target is.”

“I should go help Erica,” Logan says. “Cross-reference onboard activities. We'll start with passengers who haven't been doing much, haven't been eating in public areas. The killer would need time to cover his tracks.”

“Go,” Santamaria says. Logan spins himself and flies off toward the bridge.

Now it's just the captain, Jemison, and me in the briefing room.

“Rogers,” Santamaria says. “I need you to contact our mutual friend and authorize the release of Alan Wachlin's complete military service record.”

*   *   *

I see a message waiting for me as soon as I power up the comms dish. I blink away the notification. I'll have to deal with that later.

After coding a text message directly to Paul with my records request and very vague explanations for why I want the information, I turn back to Jemison, who's huddled over the tabletop display by herself. I guess the captain returned to his other duties.

“I'll check for a response in half an hour,” I say. “What are we doing now?”

Jemison frowns. “You go do whatever you want. Pick up a phone and dial security when you get the file.”

“I can help with whatever analysis you're doing there.”

The frown becomes a scowl. “I don't have time to explain this to you.”

“I'm a pretty quick study. I can just watch over your shoulder—”

“Let me put it another way,” Jemison says. “This will go a lot faster without you annoying me the whole time. Come back when you have the file.”

The agency has never been shy about stating that the pocket is the reason they keep me around. But it still peeves me to hear someone say it out loud.

“Fine,” I say. “I'll try not to get too drunk because I have nothing better to do.”

She doesn't even look up when I leave the room.

I'm getting tired of being treated as less than human.
Special
doesn't always mean
better
; I've known that since I became an orphan. Discovering the pocket made things interesting for a while, but now I seem to be in a rut.

As strange as it sounds, I think I was actually happier during the war, when I couldn't go out on pocket missions and had to develop other skills to earn my keep at the agency. Well, now I'm on vacation. I should stop trying to work and start having fun.

Just as soon as I figure out what “fun” is.

An alert pops up in my eye again, reminding me that the comms dish still has a buffered message waiting. Might as well deal with this now. I move into an empty crew stairwell to watch the vid.

It's Jessica. “Kangaroo, Surgical. Respond soonest. Out.”

Her words seem even more clipped than usual. I ping her to request a live connection. She responds in just under five minutes, wearing her usual white lab coat over a plain blue shirt. Steam rises in translucent gray spirals from a large mug on her desk.

“I found out which radioactive isotope was used in Alan Wachlin's PECC,” she says without any preamble. “I have a solution for the radiation treatment problem, but it's going to require some work on your part. And you can't tell anyone about it.”

“If I can't tell the crew, how am I supposed to treat them?” I say to myself.

“I know that makes things harder, but you'll figure it out.” Jessica looks into the camera. It feels like she's staring straight at me. “You need to do this. We are talking about saving lives here. Please acknowledge, over.”

“Surgical, Kangaroo,” I say. “I'm going to have to tell these people something. I can't give them pills or shots or whatever without explaining it, right? I just need a cover story. Over.”

“Kangaroo, Surgical.
No.
” She snaps the word like a curse. “We are operating off the books, fully in the black. If this goes sideways, you can tell them it was all my idea. Save this vid for evidence at my court-martial, I don't care.