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Poseidon's Wake

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Goma searched all the permitted areas in the lower half of the forward sphere, and then as much of the spine as she had access to. Since Travertine was still accelerating, entering the spine felt like descending into the supporting tower of some huge sphere-capped building, with another sphere at its foundation. Beyond a certain point, though, the lower levels were open only to technicians. Mposi might have had a way of getting through those locked bulkheads but she certainly did not.

Some doors offered access — via airlocks, disposal vents or cargo bays — to open space. But Goma was certain that Mposi could not have opened any of those doors without Gandhari Vasin being informed immediately. There would have been alarms, emergency procedures, staff dashing to the affected area. No; Mposi could not have left the ship — or been pushed off it, for that matter.

The thought was there, then. The possibility of murder. Was that melodramatic of her, given so little evidence of misfortune?

But Mposi had been aware of a possible sabotage plot, and he had spoken to Maslin Karayan only recently.

So yes, murder: why dismiss the obvious?

But she found neither Mposi nor his body. When she and Ru checked in with each other, at half-hourly intervals as agreed, Ru was having no more success.

‘I’ve accessed every room I can get into,’ she said. ‘That excludes all the private quarters, unoccupied rooms and various areas closed to anyone who isn’t on the technical staff. To get into those, we’ll need to see Gandhari.’

‘Maybe now we have cause,’ Goma said.

‘Have you double-checked his room, just in case he was sound asleep after all?’

‘Twice. And I’d have woken the dead the second time.’ She regretted the choice of words immediately. ‘I don’t think he’s in there. But again, we’d need the captain to open that door.’

‘Then we go to Gandhari. I had my doubts to begin with, Goma, but you’re right — we should have found him by now.’

‘One more sweep,’ Goma said. ‘If we were unlucky, he could have been taking one set of stairs while we were using another. Did you check the Knowledge Room?’

‘No, it was locked. Who ever uses that place, anyway, other than you?’

‘A few,’ Goma said. ‘And I’ve never known it to be locked.’

Still, Ru was right: Goma very rarely met anyone else in the Knowledge Room. Even after other people had started spending more time there, she had managed to hang onto the idea of it as her personal kingdom, an enclave of privacy and solitude where not even Ru was likely to wander.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said. ‘We go straight to the captain now.’

‘I agree.’

Gandhari Vasin was readying herself for the day when they disturbed her, although still in her nightclothes. If Goma had expected resentment at their early arrival, none was evident.

‘You were right to tell me,’ she said, after taking a few moments to dress for the rest of the ship. ‘You ought to have found him by now, and I doubt he had the means to get through any of the sealed doors. Rest assured, though — he’s still on the ship, and we will find him.’

Goma mentioned the Knowledge Room. They had checked it again on the way to Vasin and found it still secured.

‘I’ve given no orders for it to be locked and I can’t see why it would be. Was it somewhere Mposi went very often?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Goma said.

And it was true. As the data in the Knowledge Room had hardly altered since departure, few people saw any reason to go in there at all. It would be different when they neared Gliese 163, but for most of them that was decades of sleep away.

‘Mposi’s not a scientist anyway,’ Ru said.

‘I know. And thank goodness for that,’ Vasin said. ‘He’s the one person on this ship the scientists and Second Chancers can both talk to.’

‘There’s you,’ Goma felt obliged to point out.

‘Next to Mposi, I’m a rank amateur. Your uncle’s liked and trusted by all parties, and that makes him as invaluable to me as any part of this ship. I shudder to think how we would ever have managed without him.’

Vasin opened a drawer and snapped a bangle around her wrist. ‘We had some lengthy discussions about the functionality of these devices. They allow access to the rooms, but they’re clearly capable of much more than that. Have you ever wondered why we didn’t make provision for communication, for localisation?’

‘I am now,’ Goma said.

‘The truth is, the bangles can do all of that and more if they need to, but our psychologists were against the idea. The dynamics of a ship aren’t the same as those of a city or even a planet. They considered it unwise to implement the full functionality. Sometimes it’s good to have the choice not to be found, not to be spoken to — especially on a starship. There’s enough to drive us mad without engineering the last traces of privacy out of our lives.’ But she offered a semi-smile. ‘Still, rank has its privileges. My bangle can locate any one of you if the need arises.’

‘You didn’t need to tell us that,’ Ru said, Goma sending a nod of agreement — both of them aware that Vasin had shown her trust in them with this confidence. ‘You’d have figured it out sooner or later.’ Vasin touched a stud on the bangle’s rim and raised her wrist to her lips. ‘Find Mposi Akinya, please. Throw his location onto my wall and open a vocal channel to his bangle.’

A diagram of the ship appeared on a blank portion of Vasin’s wall, outlined in glowing red lines. Lilac cross hairs appeared over part of the forward sphere, and then the whole thing zoomed in on that section.

‘That’s his room,’ Goma said, ‘but he isn’t answering his door.’

‘Mposi? This is Gandhari. Are you there? Speak, please. We are concerned about you.’

There was no answer.

Vasin lowered her wrist. ‘We’ll visit his room first, then look at the other possibilities.’

There was no need for a search party — Vasin had all the tools and authority she needed. They went quickly to Mposi’s quarters, where a touch of another stud on her bangle unlocked his door. Goma braced herself for the worst as they entered his rooms, but it was clear after a moment or two that he was not present. The bed was only slightly rumpled, a cup of honeyed chai standing cold on a table.

Vasin found his bangle tucked under a cushion.

‘He may have left it here by mistake,’ she said. ‘None of us was used to these things on Crucible.’

That was true, but after so long on the ship, Goma now felt naked without her bangle. She could not imagine Mposi feeling differently. Still — absent-minded old Mposi. She supposed it was possible.

‘I’d like to look in the Knowledge Room,’ Goma said.

‘Of course.’

They were there in minutes. Vasin opened the door, bidding Goma and Ru wait at the threshold while she went inside. Not only had the door been locked, but the room was totally dark. A second or two passed before the lights came on.

Goma caught Vasin’s intake of breath, a single sharp sound in the silence.

‘Gandhari?’

She came out again, visibly shocked, and in the gentlest of ways prevented Goma from entering or looking into the Knowledge Room. She closed the door and elevated the bangle to her lips. ‘Gandhari,’ she breathed, as if the shock had taken all the air from her lungs. ‘We have a technical emergency. Doctor Nhamedjo… Nasim, Aiyana… anyone who’s listening — come to the Knowledge Room immediately.’

‘What’s going on?’ Goma said.

‘I am sorry, Goma. I saw Mposi in there. In the display… in the Knowledge itself. He’s dead, Goma.’

‘Open the door.’

‘You do not need to see this. I want my technicians here, people who understand—’

‘Gandhari. Open the door. I want to see him.’

It was Goma speaking but the words almost felt like someone else’s, stuffed into her mouth. No, she did not want to see him at all. The last thing she wanted was evidence of her uncle’s death, plain and undeniable. She wanted to run away, to bash her head against a wall until she woke up from this awful dream. But the brave thing, the noble thing, was to pretend otherwise. To let everyone think she was courageous enough even for this.

Ru took her hands. ‘Let us in, Gandhari. It’s better that we see.’

Gandhari gave a regretful nod and opened the door. ‘You should not touch anything,’ she said, ‘no matter how much you want to. Something bad has happened to him. It may not be safe.’ And then, as if the words demanded a second utterance: ‘Something bad has happened.’

Mposi was in the Knowledge. Goma knew instantly it was him even though he had his back to the door. He was leaning against the side of the display tank, head lolling, left arm hanging over the side so that his fingers brushed the floor on which Goma now stood. There was a gash on his forehead, traces of dried blood around the wound, but no sign of any more grievous injury. He looked supremely relaxed — like a man who had dozed off in a jacuzzi.

‘Mposi,’ Goma said.

Her instinct was to rush to him, but she knew better than that. Something was very wrong with the well. As she circled around to his side, she saw that no part of Mposi was visible beneath the well’s surface. Instead of being transparent, the matrix of nanomachines had turned opaque and muddy. The colour quivered before her eyes, and the surface — normally flawless — rippled and surged. Mposi, what she could see of him, was unclothed. She moved around the tank for a better view of his lolling head. His eyes were closed, his expression slack, as if he had indeed drifted into sleep. But he was much too still for that, and their presence would surely have roused him by now.