“Permission granted,” she said.
“How is Captain Fletcher?”
“He’s dead. I’ll need you and Lieutenant Kazakov to meet in my office as soon as we secure from quarters.”
“Yes, my lady.” He paused in hopes that Lady Michi would volunteer more information, but once again she remained silent.
“May I ask how the captain died?” he said finally. He was prepared to wager that Fletcher had hanged himself.
Michi’s tone turned resentful. “Fell and hit his head on a corner of his desk, apparently. We don’t know any more than that because we went to quarters soon after the body was discovered. Dr. Xi had the body moved to sick bay and then had to go to quarters himself, so there hasn’t been an examination.”
“Would you like me to make an announcement to the ship’s crew?”
“No. I’ll do that myself. For now, I want to see you in my office.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Michi ended the communication, and Martinez shifted to the channel that enabled him to speak with others in Command.
“Secure from general quarters,” he ordered. “Well done, everyone.”
He took off his helmet and took a breath of air free off the smell of suit seals. As the tone to secure from quarters buzzed through the ship, he unwebbed and stood.
“Who’s normally standing watch at this hour?” he asked.
Chandra pulled the helmet off her head and wiped a bit of sweat off her forehead with a gloved hand. “The premiere, Lord Captain,” she said.
“Lieutenant Kazakov is called elsewhere. If you’re not too tired, Lieutenant Prasad, I’d be obliged if you’d take the premiere’s watch.”
Chandra nodded. “Very good, my lord.”
“Lieutenant Prasad has the watch!” Martinez said, loud enough for anyone to hear.
“I have the watch!” Chandra agreed loudly.
Martinez stalked out of the room. The horsebacked officers on the walls watched with unfriendly, calculating eyes.
“I’m appointing you to commandIllustrious, ” Michi said. “You’re the only captain we’ve got.”
Martinez wished she had phrased it so he didn’t sound so much like a desperate last resort, but the warm, exuberant pleasure of having a command again soon erased any discomfort.
“Yes, my lady,” he said, glowing.
“Give me your captain’s key,” she said. He took his key from the elastic around his neck and handed it to her, and she slipped it into the slot on her desk and tapped codes into the desk.
“Your thumbprint, please?”
Martinez provided it. Michi returned the key to him, and he reattached it to the elastic and tucked it again into his uniform tunic.
“Congratulations, my lord,” said Fulvia Kazakov. She sat next to Martinez, across the desk from the squadcom. Her dark hair was knotted as usual behind her head, but she’d changed hurriedly afterIllustrious secured from quarters, and hadn’t had time to stick the usual pair of inlaid chopsticks through the knot.
“Thank you,” Martinez said, then realized he should try not to beam quite so much. “A shame it had to happen after such a tragedy,” he added.
“Quite,” Michi said. She touched her comm panel. “Is Garcia there yet?”
“Yes, my lady.” The voice of her orderly Vandervalk.
“Send him in.”
Rigger First Class Garcia entered and braced. Under the loose supervision of the military constable officer, Garcia was the head of the ship’s Constabulary, all three of them, and was a youngish man, a little plump, wearing a mustache. He had never been in the flag officer’s office before, at least to judge by the way his eyes kept turning to the ornamental fluted bronzed pillars, the bronze statues of naked Terran women holding baskets of fruit, and the murals filled with poised human figures sharing a landscape with fantastic beasts.
“You’ve finished your investigation?” Michi said.
“I’ve interviewed Captain Fletcher’s staff,” Garcia said. “I wasn’t able to see them all personally, but I was able to speak to them through comm when we were at quarters.”
“Report then.”
Garcia looked at his sleeve display, where he’d obviously stored the particulars. “The captain worked with Warrant Officer Marsden on ship’s business till about 2501 yesterday,” he said. “His orderly, Narbonne, was the last person to see him. He helped the captain undress, took his uniform to be brushed and his shoes to be polished. That was about 2526.”
Garcia gave a polite cough that indicated his willingness to be interrupted by a question, and when there was none, continued.
“Narbonne returned at 0526 this morning to wake the captain, bring him his uniform, and help him dress, but when he entered the captain’s room he saw that the captain wasn’t in his bed. He assumed Captain Fletcher was working in his office, so he hung the uniform by the bed and returned to the orderly room and waited to be called.
“A few minutes later the captain’s cook, Baca, brought Captain Fletcher’s breakfast into the dining room. The captain wasn’t there, but that wasn’t unusual, and Baca also withdrew.”
“Neither of them looked in the office?” Michi asked.
“No. The captain doesn’t—didn’t—like to be disturbed when working.”
“Continue.”
“About 0601 Baca returned and saw the captain’s breakfast hadn’t been touched. He knew we’d be going to quarters shortly, so he paged Captain Fletcher to see if he’d be wanting anything at all to eat, and when there was no answer, he went into the office and found the captain dead.”
Again Garcia coughed politely to provide a convenient break in his narrative, and this time Michi obliged him.
“What did Baca do then?”
“He paged Narbonne. Then he and Narbonne put their heads together and paged me.”
“You?” Martinez was startled. “Why did they page the Constabulary? Did they suspect foul play?”
Garcia seemed embarrassed. “I think they were afraid they might be blamed for the captain’s death. They wanted me there so I could…assure them they wouldn’t be held responsible.”
Martinez supposed that was plausible.