Where’s Paul?” Maria said as she came into the medbay with a tray of sandwiches and a coffeepot.
“He left because he’s bloody useless,” Wolfgang said. He was sitting up on his cot, glaring at everyone he could focus on.
“Pretty much,” agreed Joanna. “And lie back down if you don’t want to throw up,” she told Wolfgang. “You don’t need to be on constant alert. We’re fine.”
She stood back and wiped her forehead, which was glistening with sweat. She had been prepping Hiro for surgery, and he was asleep, his hip isolated with a tent. She’d moved him as far away from the others as she could. “I could use a hand. One bullet is still inside.”
Maria put the tray down on the counter near the doctor’s terminal. She grabbed a towel and wiped Joanna’s forehead, then went to wash her hands. “And how are you, Wolfgang?”
She glanced over when he didn’t reply. He had fallen asleep.
“Finally,” Joanna said. “He’s going to work himself into early dementia if he doesn’t get some rest. He wanted to chase Paul down for mutiny because he deals with blood about as well as he deals with nudity.”
“How’s the captain?” Maria asked, joining the doctor at Hiro’s bed. Katrina lay asleep on her cot, face heavily bandaged.
“Sedated. She’s got an IV drip of nanobot-enhanced Lyfe going in to mend her wounds. She won’t get the eye back, though.”
“Our third day with possibly our final bodies and we ruin everything,” Maria said, touching her own swollen face. “I guess I got off lucky.”
Maria helped Joanna get the bullet out of Hiro and did the cleanup suturing as Joanna prepared the synthetic blood transfusion.
“The crew is down to three, Doc,” Maria said as she secured the last stitch. “Are you in charge now that the command staff is down for the count?”
Joanna went over to her sink and washed the blood off her hands. “I guess I am. But you know your jobs, right?”
“Make meals. Wash blood off the walls. Stitch up Hiro. Got it,” Maria said, and flexed her injured wristal, wincing. “I’m going to feel that in the morning. Maybe my next body will have better upper-body strength. If I get one.”
“Do you have the energy to get back to the cloning bay?”
Maria winced inwardly, but nodded. “I kind of have to, don’t I?”
“How about if Paul helps?”
“I think it’s best if I work alone. I’ve got a system by now,” she said. Besides, who knows what other clues I’ll find?
Joanna nodded. “Sure. I need to stay in here to watch them. I don’t know what will happen when Hiro wakes up.”
Maria was very glad she was alone in the cloning bay. IAN decided to keep her company.
“So guess what?” he asked.
“What?” Maria said, screwing the last clean filter onto the vents.
“That restraining code was a pain in the metaphorical ass. Because while you were adventuring belowdecks I found something.”
“Some logs?” Maria asked hopefully. “Mindmap backups?”
“Personal logs. Some people are better with setting firewalls than others. I found your logs.”
“Well, what did they say?” Maria tried not to show excitement. She was learning that the new and improved—or at least unrestrained—IAN loved stringing them along when he could.
Her own voice, tinny and far away, came through the nearest speaker.
“July twenty-third, 2493. The captain is getting more and more paranoid. She’s gotten it into her mind that we must all confess our crimes so she can know who to trust and who not to. She said if we don’t confess, she will tell our secrets to the rest of the crew.
“I don’t know how she got them. The only people with access to those files are the doctor and, well, me, although I’m not supposed to have them. But I’m not the only one who could be in big trouble with the crew if I’m found out. Hiro’s past is messed up, poor guy. Wolfgang I wouldn’t cross, but I would pay for a front-row seat if he and Katrina ever have a cage match.
“July twenty-fourth, 2493. I keep wondering the point of this timekeeping. Aren’t we going to come up with a new kind of time when we get to Artemis? It’s the day after yesterday anyway.
“Okay, I’m stalling. The captain was attacked today. All I know is it wasn’t me. Joanna found her outside the door to the gardens. She’s in a coma. Even with the tech we have on board, the doc may not be able to heal the brain injury. We can clone a new body, we can alter a personality, but we can’t fix an existing brain. Something wrong with that.
“I suggested we euthanize her and wake up her new clone, but Wolfgang says we won’t have any idea who attacked her if we lose her. So we’re keeping her around for a week to see if she wakes up.
“Look, we all know who the big suspect is. No one has forgotten Paul’s little deep-space freakout our first year into the mission. No one but Paul, of course. Wolfgang hit him so hard he didn’t remember what happened. We watched him for years. He healed, but never showed any sign of violence again. I suppose even for clones twenty-four years is a long time to watch someone for signs of violence. That kind of vigilance gets exhausting.
“But anyone could have done it. Katrina has been alienating everyone the past few days, long interrogations, accusations, demands that we all reveal our secrets. I’ve been angry, of course. She doesn’t trust anyone, and I think Wolfgang is going to talk to Joanna about relieving her of duty.
“Of course, she’s been relieved now. And we don’t know who did it.
“Dinner was quiet. Joanna was in the medbay with the captain. Wolfgang, Hiro, Paul, and I just sat there, picking at leftovers—God, I’ve had a lot of leftovers recently, I hate wasting them even in the recycler. Hiro’s pale and won’t meet anyone’s eyes, but he’s been like that for weeks, ever since we woke up his last clone. Paul is sullen, but again, what’s new? Poor bastard has never fit in, not before his episode and not after, and we’ve got a long way to go.
“Wolfgang announced he would start interrogations tomorrow. I left the table.
“I don’t care if that incriminates me. I need to figure this out. I’m going to go over the files again tonight. I’m locking my log files under another layer of security, Aunt Lucia–style.”
“Hang on,” Maria said, and the recording paused. “Are those files also within these locked logs?”
“No, just your ‘dear diary’ moments,” IAN said. “There’s one more. Want to hear it?”
Maria chewed her lip and tried to make sense of it. “Go ahead.”
“July twenty-fifth.” Maria’s voice was breathless and panicked. She sounded in pain, or ill. “It’s the fucking end. IAN’s been hacked, we’ve lost a ton of data, including our own mindmaps. He’s losing data faster than I can fix. We’re going off course. Grav drive is off, we’ll be weightless soon. We’re scrambling to fix things, but I think someone put something in my breakfast. Feel like shit.” A pause, a few shuffling steps. Then vomiting. Her voice, strained and tired, returned. “I think it’s poison. I’d ask IAN but he’s not here. I don’t have lo—”
The recording skipped and immediately picked back up, her voice strained and frightened. Screams sounded in the background. “Hiro’s fucking hanged himself. I am definitely poisoned. We’re not the only ones who need a wake-up. One last log, oh, please don’t lose this. Remember where you squirrel things away, next me. I copied the first mindmap backups we made when we got on board. Old habits and everything. I think I can get”—she paused a moment to gasp for breath—“to the resurrection button to wake us up before I’m gone. We’ll be confused, but at least we’ll wake up. If you’re hearing this, I guess I succeeded.”
The recording ended. Maria sat, listening to the chug of her steamer beside her, making her think of her own gasping breath as hemlock shut her body down.
She blinked, bringing herself back to the present. “So after that I guess I ran down here, hit the switch, threw up, and someone finished killing me.”
“That sounds about right, based on what you’ve told me,” IAN said. “Isn’t this great?”
“Isn’t what great?” she asked numbly.
“You’re not the murderer! And neither is Hiro, if he was dead before the slaughter began. Congratulations!”
“Yay,” she muttered. She wondered if she should put the restraining code back into the AI.