INVESTIGATION
Grant stood in the reception area as the four accident investigators filed through the access tunnel from the lobber that had carried them to Farside.
Three men, all of them in unadorned blue-gray coveralls. Engineers, from the look of them, Grant thought. And one tall, willowy black woman who was obviously their boss. Wearing a sea-green long-sleeved blouse over darker slacks, with a necklace and bracelet of jade, she was strikingly good-looking in a lean, long-limbed way, like a professional athlete.
Even Nate Oberman, at the reception desk, seemed awed by her as the other three new arrivals lined up at his desk.
She ignored Oberman and walked straight to Grant.
“You are Grant Simpson, are you not?” she asked, in an accent that Grant recognized as Bantu.
“That’s right,” he said. “Professor Uhlrich sent me here to see that your accommodations are comfortable for you.”
“I am Latisha Luongo,” she said. “I am the head of this investigation team. Could you please take me to Professor Uhlrich?”
“Don’t you want to go to your quarters first? Unpack? Freshen—”
“Professor Uhlrich, please,” said Luongo. “Business before pleasure, Mr. Simpson.”
* * *
Trudy Yost sat at one of the consoles in the teleoperations center, watching the data rastering across its central screen. The big display screen on the wall showed a blurry sphere, New Earth. The resolution was poor, but it was the best that Trudy could get from the telescope at Mendeleev.
Josie Rivera was working the console next to Trudy, monitoring the construction robots at Korolev crater. Nate Oberman sat beside her. The other two consoles were unoccupied, dark and silent.
Trudy wondered why Oberman was here at the teleoperations center, instead of his regular post at the reception center. Not that there’s much of anything to do at the launchpad since the lockdown. Then she realized, Nate’s coming on to Josie!
“The accident team from Selene arrived this morning,” Josie said to Oberman.
“Yeah, I checked them in,” he replied.
Looking up from her screen, Trudy asked, “Do you think the investigators’ll poke in here?”
Oberman shook his head. “Probably not. They’re outside gathering up the pieces of the lobber. They’re not interested in what we’re doing.”
“Good,” said Trudy.
But Josie said, “I’ll bet they do come in here, sooner or later. They’ll want to stick their noses into everything.”
“Let ’em,” said Oberman. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Josie gave him a knowing grin. “What about those vids you showed me?”
“That’s got nothing to do with their investigation!”
“No,” Josie agreed, “but it might be the most interesting thing they see while they’re here.”
Oberman made a mock scowl at her. Trudy turned her attention back to her work.
* * *
Grant spent the day outside, tediously searching for pieces of debris from the wrecked lobber. This must be the way archeologists work, he thought as he spotted another twisted chunk of metal. He carefully photographed it before picking it up and labeling it with an indelible marker. He marked its position on the ground from the GPS satellites’ signal, and then deposited it in the cart that trundled faithfully behind him.
The ground around the landing pad was strewn with wreckage. Three of the accident investigators were spread out across the area, gathering pieces. The fourth was inside, reviewing the flight monitor’s records of the lobber’s liftoff.
The lobber that had brought in the investigating team sat on the pad now, a squat dark cone, like some ancient monument. Archeology, Grant thought again. We’ve gone from astronomy to archeology.
Walking slowly along the sandy, pockmarked ground, Grant realized that he would have to tell the investigators about his nanomachines. Cardenas says they’ve got nothing to do with the accident, but I can’t keep quiet about it, not if there’s one chance in a million that I caused the blowup. One chance in a billion.
He did not look forward to making his confession.
* * *
After an hour’s session with the quartet of investigators in Uhlrich’s office, Carter McClintock made it his business to have dinner with their chief. Just the two of them, in McClintock’s quarters.
Latisha Luongo was a couple of centimeters taller than McClintock, lean and long-legged with shiny black skin, big deeply brown eyes, and hair cropped down to a fuzzy skullcap. Not a raving beauty, McClintock thought, but her face was remarkably striking, like some sullen fashion model. And she appeared to be somewhat intelligent and rather shapely beneath her open-necked blouse and snug slacks.
She also seemed quite wary once she realized that this dinner would be for just the two of them.
McClintock offered her a glass of fruit juice as he invited her to sit on the sofa. She accepted the drink and perched on the armchair instead.
“I thought you had invited the others of my team,” she said, her voice a rich low contralto.
“Perhaps I should have,” McClintock answered easily. “But I thought it would be easier to discuss your work one-on-one.”
“I see.” She sipped minimally at the juice.
“I’m afraid alcoholic beverages are practically nonexistent here at Farside,” he said as he sat on the sofa alone. No sense wasting decent wine on a woman who’s here to investigate us, he thought.
“Professor Uhlrich disapproves?”
McClintock made a vague gesture. “Let’s say he doesn’t encourage it.”
Luongo almost smiled.
Getting businesslike, McClintock asked, “How does the nanomachine factor affect your investigation?”
“It’s too early to tell,” she answered.
“If … somehow … nanomachines caused the explosion, could your team discover it?”
“You don’t have the necessary equipment here. We will have to take the wreckage back to Selene for examination.”
“The chief of our technical staff believes that nanomachines might have penetrated the ship’s oxygen line.”
That sparked her interest. “Does he?”
“It’s just a wild idea of his.”
“I would like to speak to him about it.”
“I could arrange that.”
“Now,” Luongo said. “I would like to speak with him now.”
“But dinner—”
“Dinner can wait,” she said. “Please order him to come here at once.”