Dead Space by Kali Wallace (e novels to read online .TXT) 📗

as the frozen talus that made up the surface of Hygiea.

What she hadn’t known was that not everybody had missed the danger aboard Symposium. Vanguard hadn’t. It had known Kristin was trouble from the start. We had just been too arrogant to listen.

He said she let things slip through the cracks, Hunter had said, about the way David and Mary Ping worked together. I didn’t know how much I could trust anything Hunter said. Things that she ought to have trained the Overseer to catch.

I powered on the incinerator in Nimue’s cargo warehouse. My thoughts were scattered, tumbling over one another, but I still had this one small, insignificant task to perform. The unit didn’t require any sort of crew ID or access code. Its logs showed that it had been used the night of David’s death. During the surveillance blackout.

A small burn. Very brief. Only a few kilos of material.

I leaned my forehead against the smooth, cool control panel while the machine pulled up the automated content assessment.

Polymers. Metals. Both of varieties common in radiation-proof vacuum suits.

Trace amounts of organics. Amino acids, lipids, proteins, water. Enough to trigger the sensors, not enough to require a biohazard alert.

“Hey.” I didn’t speak loudly, but my voice echoed through the vast warehouse. “I found it.”

Adisa came over to look at the screen then tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned one shoulder against the front of the incinerator. “So Prussenko arranged to meet somebody out here. Maybe an accomplice. Maybe not. Either he learned something about what they were up to or they learned something about what he was up to. Something that required them to go outside.”

I called up the station maps on my PD to take another look at what was accessible through the airlock. “There’s the power structure and lots of other machinery for the cargo transport system. A big crane complex. Oh—and one of the radio antennae. It’s about thirty meters from the door.”

“Any sign Prussenko was using the radio array? Could he be hijacking that antenna too?”

“I didn’t see evidence of that, but I also didn’t look as closely because the radio array hasn’t had any ongoing problems,” I said. “It would be far from ideal for transferring any large amount of data, but he might have used it for encrypted messages. Okay, so David and the killer were supposed to head outside. But they disagree about something. They fight.”

Adisa tilted his head slightly. “Do they? Why did the killer bring the weapon into the airlock?”

“Oh. Right. Well, then, maybe they fight. Or maybe the killer attacks without warning. And afterward cleans up by getting rid of the vac suits.”

“We should try to identify where those suits came from. And narrow down what it is out there we need to look for before we go look for it.” He pushed away from the wall. “I want to talk to the man who’s been in and out that door and never mentioned it. After that, we’re going to have to take a look for ourselves.”

Of course. Of course we would have to go outside. Actually outside this time, not just near it. We had to see what David had been planning to see. The prospect made me cold and queasy.

“Are we going out . . . tonight?” I said.

Adisa looked at the time on his PD. “That seems unwise. We’ve all been on duty too long to make a safe exterior walk, and if any more of my junior officers get hurt on duty, people might start asking questions. We’ll get a few hours’ rest first, aye? I’m going to talk to Ned Delicata again.” He took a few steps backward, then added, “Grab the data from this unit, yeah? We’ll need it for the report.”

I did as he said before starting back toward the warehouse entrance. The lights followed me, rising and falling in the gaps between the shipping containers. I was thinking about how else I could search the Overseer’s data. About what I would say to Ryu when I checked on them again that wouldn’t give away how worried I was. About how impossible it would be for me to sleep while knowing I had to go outside the station soon. About what the hell David had been trying to tell me. I wasn’t paying much attention to what was around me, so when the next bank of lights came on and illuminated a figure standing before me, I was so startled I flinched and dropped my PD.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” said Mary Ping. She was smiling, that enigma of a smile that made my skin crawl. “I only want to talk.”

THIRTEEN

Mary Ping approached with a graceful stride, moving from the edge of our shared spotlight to the center. She stopped about two meters away. A bank of lights switched off behind me. The darkness in the warehouse grew deeper.

“You needn’t look so worried. I’m no threat to you,” she said.

She was empty-handed, dressed only in her jumpsuit, without even a PD or a radio. I had both, although I had no weapon. I wasn’t approved to use an OSD-issued nonlethal electroshock weapon. For that, I would need Adisa or Ryu. I would have to call for help—and I could, if I needed to.

Knowing that did nothing to ease my nerves. I didn’t like that Mary Ping was here. I didn’t like that Sigrah refused to let us restrict the crew movement because it would negatively impact productivity. I didn’t like that Ping had waited until Adisa was gone to approach me. The rest of the station suddenly felt very far away.

I bent down to pick up my PD. “What do you want?” I asked. There was an angry snap in my voice, one I would normally try to quash, but now I didn’t bother.

“I wonder why the company would assign you to this investigation,” Mary Ping said. “The rostering algorithm usually