“Much as it chaps Lee Klein’s ass.” Nick had negotiated that clause in his contract with Holmes Interplanetary before he had accepted command of the Aldrin: while the ship was in free fall around Sol, Nick had nearly the sovereign power of an old British sea captain. Oh, he couldn’t have you flogged, but he had pretty broad authority to run his ship as he saw fit. When Mission Control bought out Holmes, Director Klein discovered that Nick had fashioned the contract with all of his trademark attention to detail. Nick’s autonomy survived the end of Holmes unless the new owner wanted to dismiss Nick and pay him his full wage for five years plus bonuses while Nick sat on a beach in Brazil and drank caipirinhas. Klein was not about to do that, and so Nick’s authority was pretty much total until Earth’s gravitational force acting on us exceeded Sol’s.

  Nick didn’t continue, so I did. “And so it is your responsibility to investigate, Captain. Secure the evidence, prepare a report for the authorities on Earth, and make sure whoever is behind this isn’t a danger to our passengers and crew.”

  “My responsibility?” Nick turned one glaring eye upon me.

  “Yes, sir. And I guess this changes at least one thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “You were wrong about the expedition. The failure wasn’t their fault.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Well, clearly, it was deliberate. It wasn’t an accident.”

  “Oh, really? And what does that change?”

  “Well … everything!” Nick exasperated me. As usual. I think exasperating was one of his primary joys in life. Defying expectations and challenging beliefs was one of his many ways of testing people.

  “Does it change the fact that they didn’t plan for adequate backup water? Does it change the fact that they didn’t plan for the possible temperature extremes? Does it change the fact that they were completely unprepared for a Category V dust storm? Does it change the fact that they had no plan for what would happen if they lost their orbital platform like we lost ours?”

  “Nnnnno.” I had intended to needle Nick, but I hadn’t expected him to react so strongly. Riggs was squirming. The crew didn’t usually see Nick and I duel like this.

  “Then I wasn’t wrong! They had a poorly planned mission from start to finish. Though I grant you there’s one failure even I overlooked: they didn’t plan for a criminal on board.”

  I saw my opening. “And that’s another reason why only you can investigate this murder. You understand their expedition and you know what to look for.”

  Nick sighed, and I knew I had him. “Very well, then, Chief Carver. I guess I must end my exile here and deal with the members of the expedition. Interview them and find out who might have a motive for this crime.”

  “So should I bring them in, sir?”

  “Oh not all at once, one at a time. That’s all I want to deal with. Let us start with … I think we’ll start with Ms. Wells.”

  Tracy! I tried to stall. “Nick, surely you don’t think she had anything to do with this.”

  “What I think is none of your concern. Has she already messed up your head so much that you’ve forgotten how to follow orders?”

  Damn it, Nick, get out of my head! “No, Captain, if that’s your order, I shall carry it out, sir.”

  “That’s good, man, because I need to know if you’re going to have a problem with this. I need to know if you’re thinking with your brain, or somewhere lower.”

  I had manipulated Nick into taking charge of the investigation, and he was going to make me suffer for that; but I wasn’t going to let that impair my performance of my duties. “Sir, I shall carry out my responsibilities exactly as expected.”

  I left, Riggs in tow, and the door closed behind us. Facing off to Nick must have emboldened Riggs. Normally I wouldn’t expect personal questions from such a junior crewman, so his next question hit me by surprise. “Is there a problem with Ms. Wells, sir?”

  “No, we just have a … history. I’ve been avoiding her. Too many uncomfortable memories.”

  “He knows this? And he’s putting you in this bind deliberately? He’s a right bastard, isn’t he?”

  “That he is, Mr. Riggs. That he is.” We reached the tube to the berthing ring, and I turned off while Riggs continued back to his post. Under my breath, I echoed Riggs. “A right bastard he is.”

  * * *

  I had dreaded that encounter, but I couldn’t put it off. Three months ago I had looked up the cabin number where Tracy bunked with Arla Simms, another member of the Azevedo expedition. I had managed to stop myself from going there, but the number was lodged firmly in my brain.

  And now I stood before 32-A and held my finger on the door buzzer. Nearly four years … Too soon, and far too long. I pressed the buzzer.

  Arla opened the door: a trim young woman in a simple blue jumpsuit from the expedition, her blonde curls cut functionally short. We had met several times during the voyage, but never for very long. I had avoided prolonged contact with the passengers almost as thoroughly as Nick had. Arla seemed surprised to have a visitor. “Yes, Chief Carver?”

  I straightened to attention, hiding behind formality as best I could. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but the Captain has sent me. He has asked me to fetch Ms. Wells—” I managed not to stammer at her name “—so that he may ask some questions about the expedition.”

  “The expedition? Is there something wrong?”

  “Nothing I can speak of, ma’am. The Captain is just thorough.” It wasn’t precisely a lie. Not that I would hesitate to lie to keep the investigation under control, but I would stick as close to the truth as I could.

  “Well, come in, Chief. Tracy’s in here.” Damn. I had been afraid she would invite me in, and I hadn’t figured out a polite excuse to refuse. Arla stepped aside, and I entered the cabin.

  Instantly my eyes were pulled to Tracy where she sat on her bunk, a desk folded out from the cabin wall. She was editing expedition videos, and she paused them as I came in. Tracy wore a blue jumpsuit like Arla’s, but she had altered the legs to thigh-length shorts. She had always liked her legs free, and I had never minded the chance to see them. She looked just as I had glimpsed her in random moments since the expedition came aboard: a little older than when we had parted, and a little thinner from the tight rations on Mars, and somehow that made her even more beautiful than the day we had met. Her face was the same cocoa shade that I remembered. Her hair was the same black that I knew so well, but pulled back in a bun to keep it out of ship’s air systems. The auburn highlights that fascinated me so were only visible when she let her hair flow free, so I was safe from them for the moment. Her eyes … Her deep brown eyes looked up at mine, and I looked just a bit away.

  And her scent … It wasn’t possible, but the cabin smelled of lilacs. After months on Mars and more months on the trip there and back, she couldn’t possibly still have any of the lilac water she liked so much. I concentrated, and the odor faded away. It had been only a memory.

  Tracy still knew all of my tricks, too. She shifted her head to meet my eye line. “What is it, Anson?” My pulse leapt. Practically no one called me by my first name, and no one at all since we had broken up.

  I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I had to—but I couldn’t. “The Captain is conducting an investigation of the accident, and he has asked me to escort you to his office so that he may ask some questions.” There. I had gotten out a whole sentence.

  “Certainly, Anson. Anything I can do to help.” Tracy folded up the desk and stood from her bunk. I managed not to analyze how her body moved in the low gravity. “If you’ll lead the way. I have no idea how to find the Captain’s office.”

  Glad of the excuse, I turned on my heel and faced the door. I touched my cap. “My apologies for the intrusion, Ms. Simms.”

  I left the cabin. I heard Tracy’s soft tread behind me, and then the door closed. I waited until she was almost beside me, and then I set off through the passageway.

  I knew the silence wouldn’t last forever, but I still felt a stab when Tracy broke it. “You said there’s nothing you can speak of; so I assume there’s something you can’t speak of?”

  I never could fool Tracy. “I’m sorry you heard that.”

  “‘I’m sorry you heard that, Tracy.’ It’s okay to say my name, you know.”

  I missed my stride, but only by a fraction of a second. I tried for casual: “Why waste words? We both know who I’m talking to.”

  Tracy sped up, edged around me in the narrow passageway, and stopped in front of me, forcing me to stop as well. “You’re not talking, not really. You’re avoiding talking.”

  Before I knew what was happening, I answered: “We talked four years ago. That didn’t turn out so well.” I should’ve let it rest, I knew I should’ve. This could only get worse.

  And it did. “And you’re still angry? After four years?”

  “Still angry that you left me? Absolutely!”

  “I left you for Mars! My chance to film the documentary of my dreams! I couldn’t pass up that opportunity! You should know, you did the same to me when you left on the Bradbury.”

  “That was different!” I tried to control my emotions, but they were building higher.

  “Different? Different how?”

  “We barely knew each other then. We had only been together for a couple months. We hardly meant anything to each other then. Not like … Not like breaking our engagement.”

  “I had to break it! It wasn’t fair. I was going to Mars for nearly four years, with training and travel. I couldn’t ask you to wait that long!”

  “You couldn’t…?” And suddenly my restraints broke. “You couldn’t ask me? Why not? That made me angry, the way you just decided without asking me. But oh, I got past angry.” That took nearly a year. Then I tried hurt for a while. Hurt and drunk. Then just drunk, and then drunk and bitter. Eventually Nick dried me out and kicked my tail and got me to focus on work again. That’s what I have now: my work, and I’m damned good at it. “I ferry passengers to and from Mars now, and that’s all that’s going on here.”

  Tracy was silent for almost a minute; and when she did speak, I could barely hear her. “I thought maybe … maybe you joined this crew so you could … see me…”

  I looked away. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing how much that had touched me. She wasn’t my reason, though part of me wished she had been.

  Trying to keep a steady tone, I answered, “No, I joined this crew to serve under Captain Aames.”

  “Nick? He’s a bastard!”

  “That ‘bastard’ is the only reason I’m alive today. Me and the twelve other survivors from the second Bradbury expedition.”

  “Yes, but … The way he treats you! How can you put up with that abuse?”

  How could I explain it to her when sometimes I couldn’t even explain it to myself? But I had to try. “The safest place to be in this Solar System is under the command of Nick Aames—but just outside of shouting distance.”

  “And inside shouting distance?”

  “Third safest. Second safest if you can get him shouting at somebody else.”

  Tracy smiled. Despite myself, I did, too. Damn it! I couldn’t do this. I had to keep my distance. If I relaxed, if I let myself loose, it would happen all over again. I couldn’t take another round of losing her.

  I squeezed past her. “Come on. The bastard is waiting.”

  * * *

  Nick’s door opened, and the liquid notes of a trumpet emerged, accompanied by a soft drum beat and guitar. It was a sad, sweet tune, “Mue Esquema.” Now there was a title that suited Nick: “My Scheme.” We entered. Nick looked up and silenced the music.

  I stood by the door. “As you requested, Captain, Ms. Wells is here to speak with you. I’ll be in my office.”

  “No, Chief Carver, stay. I need your perspective on these interviews.”

  Nick had me right where he wanted me, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “As the Captain wishes.”

  “Ms. Wells, have a seat.”

  “Thank you, Nick.” Tracy had never been big on formality, and it looked like she wasn’t going to play by Nick’s rules. No surprise there. She casually dropped into the guest chair, settling easily in the low gravity.

  Nick stared directly at Tracy, his hands clasped on the desk. “So … You’ve had quite an expedition. It’s been a long time. How long?”

  “Almost four years, as you know. You always know details like that.”

  “Certainly! Attention to detail is my specialty. And yours, apparently, is distracting and ruining my best officer.”

  Tracy held her casual pose, but I could see the rising ire in her eyes. “I ruined him?”

  “Look at him standing there, all tense, ready to flinch at any moment.”

  “I wasn’t the one who talked him out of his opportunity to go back to Mars! And…”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “You know full well you did!” Tracy leaned forward. Despite her resolve, Nick was getting to her. He always did. “When you turned down the Liaison post on the Azevedo expedition, you knew there was no way Anson would go with us if you didn’t! Of course he wanted to go back to Mars! What member of the Corps didn’t? Three-quarters of your crew were on our applicant list. I’ve seen it! But not Anson, nooooo! He wouldn’t go on any expedition where you didn’t approve. He wouldn’t leave you.”

  “Not even to be with you.”

  “Not even to be with me.”

  “And that bothers you.”

  “No, not any more. It stopped bothering me a long time ago. But it bothered me then.”

  “And that’s why you broke up with him.”

  “Captain!” I had had enough of the two of them arguing over me as if I weren’t there. “You’re supposed to be investigating—”

  “Chief Carver, I am investigating, and I’ll do it my way. I expect you to respect my line of questioning and trust that I have my reasons.”

  I sighed, but not loudly. “Aye, Captain.”

  Tracy glared at me. “‘Aye, Captain.’ It’s still like that? All right, if you want to pretend this is germane, I won’t give you the satisfaction of fighting with you. I broke up with Anson because it would’ve been unfair to ask him to wait for me for nearly four years through the training and the expedition. It would’ve been different if we were together, but you made sure that wouldn’t happen. He had to get on with his life, even if his ‘life’ was following you and taking your orders.”

  “Taking orders. Discipline. Concepts you never really understood, aren’t they? That’s why you fit in so perfectly in the Azevedo expedition.” Tracy didn’t respond, but I could see she wanted to. “Carver tried to warn you about their poor planning, I know he did; but you were Mars struck. Or should I say star struck, perhaps? The great Professor Azevedo was going to Mars, the first mission of the Civilian Exploration Program, and he was taking the best of the best with him! Or at least that’s what his press releases said. And he chose you, a practically unknown film student, to record his journey! You weren’t about to let anything stop you from going. The dazzle of the spotlight blinded you to the actual state of the mission.”

  “It didn’t blind me.”

  “No?”

  “All right, it sounded glamorous and exciting at the start. All my life, I had dreamed of shooting documentaries on other planets and between planets. I wanted to capture life in space and on ships and space stations. That’s how I met Anson, when I was filming at Mission Control one time.”

  Nick didn’t interrupt, but I knew what he was thinking. He had told me often that he thought Tracy had used me as a stepping stone for her video ambitions. Tracy’s admissions came uncomfortably close to proving his point.

  “But I took my training seriously. Azevedo didn’t train us, you know, we had training from the Corps. From your protocols! And oh, I took notes, and I learned. I wanted to understand what Anson thought was so important, so vital that he would turn down a promotion if he thought the mission was poorly planned. I wanted to learn what made your way so important to him.”

  “And did you learn?”

  Tracy paused. I knew her face too well, I could read the reluctance there; but then she nodded. “I did. I learned the value of precision and protocol and observation. And … your way is right. So I learned.”

  “Uh-huh. And your proof is…?”

  Tracy pushed a file from her comp to Nick’s desk. “Here’s a list of my reports. And notice in particular the variances: every time I observed a deviation from protocols, I filed a variance. Every variance includes a risk assessment as well, and also my contingency recommendations. Every one filed with Professor Azevedo and also with Gale as the Corps Liaison. It got so they both stopped reviewing my reports. I was never wrong, but still they just kept doing what they wanted. Despite them, I did everything by the book. By your book, Nick.”

  “Hmmm … We’ll see, won’t we? These records do look impressive. I’ve had Bosun Smith running an inventory of the expedition gear. It’s sloppy, poorly maintained, articles are missing or misplaced … As I expected, most of your team weren’t as meticulous as you’ve been here.”

  Tracy stared blankly. She was used to abuse and criticism from Nick; but something close to a compliment seemed to baffle her.

  When Tracy didn’t respond, Nick prompted her to continue. “All right … Tell me about the Chronius Mons trip, and the accident.” I relaxed a bit. Finally we were moving on from personal matters—my personal matters—to the actual subject of the investigation.

  Tracy, on the other hand, became less relaxed. As she started into her report, she sat up and looked alert and … serious, in a way I wasn’t accustomed to from her. “As you know, Professor Azevedo selected Terra Cimmeria for the first CEP expedition due to two unusual phenomenon observed there, one measured and one inferred. The Mars Global Surveyor measured large magnetic stripes in Cimmeria and Terra Sirenum, which are hypothesized to be evidence of ancient tectonic activity; and albedo spectroscopy had indicated possible carbonate deposits that could be evidence of ancient life. The Professor hoped that by choosing that locale, he would double the chances of a momentous discovery that would bring in new investors for future expeditions.