085: DRUG

“You saw Adin?” Captain Sands asks. “Making his way in the direction of Renn and the Friend, right before the murders?”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t going to NEAR 2,” Tal says. “He was just dipping into Storage Ring 5 to grab more alcohol, it was right next door to the others.”

“How long until he came back to the Habitation Ring?” I ask.

“I’m not sure, I was doing other stuff.”

“Thank you, Mt Smithson,” Captain Sands says, walking abruptly out of the room. I hurry after him.

“Sunset,” he calls as we approach the suspects all huddled in their little group with their two guards, “has Celi began doing the medical checkups yet?”

“Yes, ke’s with Lina now. Why?”

“Next time you see kem, can you make if very clear that I want the most thorough bloodwork that we can do? Neurostimulants, specifically. Mr Klees, your turn.”

Adin follows us back to our ad hoc interrogation room. “Are you alright?” I ask him quietly. He looks at me like I’m an idiot.

Tal’s still in the room when we get there, but leaves without a fuss. Captain Sands points to the bed; Adin sits down.

“Did you kill Renn Sunn and the Public Universal Friend?” the captain asks.

“No.”

“Tal says ke saw you heading in that direction at the time of the murder.”

“And you believe Tal over me? When ke was leaving the actual scene of the murder?”

“Did you run into Tal outside Habitation Ring 2?” I ask.

“Yeah, ke was heading through the storage ring while I was looking for Tinera’s alcohol. Because ke was returning from NAER 2. Where the murders happened.”

“Tal absolutely is a major suspect,” the captain says, “and we will question kem further on hes activities. But that doesn’t change the fact that your kitchen knife – ”

“Anyone could’ve grabbed that knife from the kitchen!”

“ – was buried in the Public Universal Friend’s back to the hilt, something that our doctor assured me would require an absurd amount of strength. Something that only Denish would be realistically capable of… or, perhaps, somebody suffering the side effects of a recent neurostimulator dose. So tell me, Mr Klees, are you currently taking neurostimulators against my orders?”

“I’m not currently experiencing the side effects, if that’s what you mean.”

“The bloodwork will show us that either way, I suppose. But you are taking them?”

Adin glares at him.

“Last time I stopped by the medbay, Celi mentioned that the locks on one of the medicine cabinets had been broken,” I say. “Have you been stealing neurostimulators, Adin?”

“What the fuck is it to you, Dr Greaves?” he snaps.

I step back, trying not to tear up. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this,” I say. “I’m not suggesting – ”

“You are suggesting, though, aren’t you? You’re suggesting that the big bad druggie dosed up so he could go and murder two people with a knife, aren’t you?”

“I’m just trying to eliminate possibilities!”

“And when you’ve eliminated them all, what then? Someone needs to be guilty.”

“And if it isn’t you, then this would all go a lot fucking smoother if you’d help us find out who it is!”

Adin raises an eyebrow at me. “You want to know who I think killed Renn and that Friend?”

“Yes!”

“I think it was you.”

I lean against the wall as my knees go weak. “What?”

“Sunset and Sam gave us the rundown on the situation. The two people in the right place at the right time are you, and Tal. And only one of those people has a history of actually holding a knife to someone’s throat and threatening to kill them.”

Captain Sands steps in. “Aspen’s history has nothing to do – ”

“Oh yes it fucking does. Because you, you high-minded, elitist piece of shit, seem to delight in treating half of your crew like dirt as much as you can get away with, and your excuse is always our pasts. And don’t pretend it’s about safety or whatever, because you let the cybercriminal run the computer systems and you let the drug runner prepare your food and you let the Angel of Death work in the medical ward, and you let this literal terrorist be your second-in-command instead of Tinera because Tinera has a criminal record and Aspen managed to get off on some technicality for being well-connected and a little bit famous. We’re suspects and they’re not because you’re a classist bastard who’s decided that prison is – ”

“You are suspects and Aspen is not,” the captain cuts in sharply, “because Dr Celi Tate determined that at the time of the murders, Aspen was still playing computer games with the rest of us. Aspen was sitting right next to me when this occurred. If they were absent at the time of the murders, I can guarantee that they too would be a suspect.”

“Bullshit. But it’s not like you care what I have to say, so.” He gets up to leave.

“We’re not done here,” Captain Sands says.

“Yes, we are.” Adin opens the door.

“If you don’t come back here right now – ”

“You’ll what, Keldin? Lock me in my habitation ring and accuse me of murder? Fuck off.” Adin freezes. This is because Captain Sands has grabbed his arm. Adin glares at Sands. “Get your fucking hand off me,” he growls, “or I actually will demonstrate a sudden capacity for extreme violence.”

Sands lets him go. More out of surprise, I think, than actual fear.

Adin storms off.

The captain and I look at each other.

“Well,” Captain Sands says. “That’s a side of Adin that I can honestly say I never suspected existed.”

“He’s drunk and probably on neurostimulators,” I shrug. “And also two of his crewmates died. And we accused him of killing them. It’s an unusual situation.”

“What did you do to make him so pissed at you, specifically?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” There are a few reasons, I suppose, that someone might be so randomly aggressive. He could’ve been quietly resentful at me over something for a long time, and it’s bubbling up now that he’s drunk and stressed. He could just be generally angry at the situation, and lashing out. Or – since he’d accused both Tal and myself with absolutely anything he could think of, and a whole lot of fervor – he could have realised he’s caught, and be trying desperately to blame anyone else.

“So, I think that we can agree that we have a main suspect,” Captain Sands says. “The questions are, how certain can we be, and if it is him, was he acting alone?”

“Of all the people who’d actually murder proponents of Lyson projects, he wasn’t high on my list,” I say. “I mean, obviously he’d disapprove of the projects, but – ”

“What makes you so sure this is about Lyson projects?” Captain Sands asks as we leave the room.

“Um… because it’s the only thing that the victims have in common?”

“That’s not necessarily indicative. It’s possible that somebody had a personal quibble with Renn, and the Friend was simply in the way – plenty of people do not value the lives of Friends, and it’s very easy to develop a grudge against one’s psychologist. Or, there’s the other thing that they both have in common.”

“What?”

“Atthe time of the murder, they were both translating Kinoshita Keiko’s extremely informative diary.”

“Is this conspiracy stuff again? Yeah, captain Kinoshita was part of our ship’s weird science experiment, fine. And this may or may not have something to do with whatever Antarctica was or wasn’t doing on Earth. But the randomly awoken crew aren’t part of her weird conspiracy or of Antarctica’s weird conspiracy. They were woken up randomly. The chances are absurd.”

“I was woken up randomly, and I was put here as an agent to prevent such sabotage. We don’t know the density of players seeded through the ship.”

“There were five thousand people put in chronostasis on this ship. It’s not a giant game of counterspy.”

“Denish admitted that he went to inspect the aft engines tonight. The engines that may have malfunctioned naturally, or may have been sabotaged. It’s possible that since we’re now seriously looking into this issue, he was attempting to hide evidence of – ”

“Captain, as the current resident psychologist, I have to ask. Does your family have a history of clinical paranoia?”

“Captain!” Celi rushes over.

“How goes the medical investigation?”

“Fine, I’ve got Lina in the scanner right now. I ran the bloodwork of the victims while I was scanning, and thought you might want to be informed right away – both of the victims had antidrenomate in their bloodstream.”

“Antidrenomate? You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“Fatal levels?”

“No. Enough to make someone numb and sleepy, perhaps.”

They were drugged, then. Antidrenomate is a general anaesthetic that’s relatively cheap, easy to manufacture, can be stored unrefrigerated, can be given orally or intravenously,and is extremely unlikely to provoke allergic reactions, but it does have the downside of being fatal when overdosed, like pre-Neocambrian anaesthetics. The ship definitely has a good supply of it; any decent medical facility does.

“Celi,” I say, “that medicine cabinet with the broken lock. Did it contain antidrenomate?”

“Yes. I’d have to confirm if any is missing, but we do store some in there.”

“It’ll be missing whether it was stolen or not, since it’s inside Renn and the Friend.” But this is vital information. It means that this attack was definitely premeditated, not an attack of opportunity, which practically clears Tinera from an active role – she had no way to know in advance that she’d be able to leave the ring. And if the cabinet was broken into to obtain the drugs, then that just about clears Lina and our living Friend, too, since they’re doctors and can just unlock the cabinets.

“Find out if it’s missing,” Sands says. “If it was taken from another cabinet, then that means that Lina or our Friend almost certainly did it. Again, we’re certain it’s antidrenomate?”

“Yes. It’s very easy to detect and very distinctive.”

“Alright. Thank you for the information.”

Celi leaves. Captain Sands frowns into the distance for a bit.

“Is it important, that it’s specifically antidrenomate?” I ask.

“Hard to say. It’s a very common anaesthetic; it could mean nothing. But, well… I know you don’t like to be informed of this sort of thing, Aspen, but I feel that it’s quite relevant for you to know that antidrenomate is the weapon of choice of our resident Angel of Death.”

That’s the second time someone’s used that phrase today. “What’s an Angel of Death?”

Captain Sands sighs. “An Angel of Death is a doctor who takes it upon themselves to – ah, speak of the angel.”

I follow his gaze to see the Friend approaching. (The living one. Obviously.) It clearly should still be in the medbay, leaning heavily on a set of crutches for balance and squinting against the light like somebody incredibly hung over.

“Friend,” Sands greets it with a wave. “How can we help you?”

“The question is how I can help you, Captain.” It fixes its gaze solidly on Captain Sands. “I am here to confess to murder.”