Dead Man on the Moon (5 page)

"You get the passenger side," Linus said into the comm. "I'm driving."

It took him a moment to realize that he was alone. Linus turned. Noah was still standing inside the airlock. He looked like a silvery statue in his suit. The faceplate of his helmet had gone black, so Linus couldn't see his expression. He could, however, guess at it.

"You coming?" he asked.

Another pause. Then,
"Yeah. Sorry. Just not
...
I mean, I'm coming."

Linus watched warily as the kid made his way to the rover. The suit still hid Noah's face, though it didn't take a detective to see that Noah was nervous. The ex-Marine inside Linus wanted to bark at him to deal with it and get a move on, but this wasn't the Marines. In any case, Linus knew it wouldn't help.

"First time in outdoor vacuum?" he asked instead.

Noah clambered carefully into the passenger seat.
"Yeah."

"I can't tell you not to be nervous," Linus said. "But I can tell you it'll get better. Let's get over to the scene and maybe the investigation will take your mind off it."

Noah didn't comment. Once their safety harnesses were fastened, Linus switched on the power and drove smoothly away. The domes of the city receded behind them as they headed into what Linus thought of as Luna's wilderness—an endless series of craters, rocks, and deserts. The sun shone hot and deadly overhead, but Linus felt perfectly comfortable in the suit. His breathing echoed regularly in his ears.

"You get a lot of murder victims out here?"
came Noah's voice over the comm.
"Out in vacuum, I mean?"

Linus paused before answering. "How do you know it's a murder?"

"If you thought it was an accidental death, you wouldn't have called me.
"

"True." Linus started to scratch his nose, then remembered he couldn't. "Truth is, is, we don't get many victims at all. We get occasional accidents, usually from someone who panics or does something stupid. Some people get claustrophobic in these suits and they freak. Luna isn't very forgiving when that happens."

"Right.
" Noah's voice was flat and carefully even.
"How far out is it?"

"Not far," Linus said. "Karen's already on the scene, and we should see her rover just about. . . now."

The rover in question hove into view at the lip of a wide crater. Security beacons made a ring all the way around the depression, shouting a recorded radio message that this was a crime scene and entering it without permission was a felony. Linus parked beside the other rover and made his way down the crater wall with Noah close behind him. Another suited figure was kneeling on the ground behind a fair-sized boulder. Linus skirted the rock and came to a halt. He was in a permanent section of shadow created by the boulder and the wall of the crater. An indicator in the lower right section of his helmet display told him the outside temperature had just plunged from 247°C to -213°C, a difference of four hundred sixty degrees. The interior of his suit felt slightly cooler, though he couldn't tell if it really was, or if it just seemed that way.

In front of the kneeling figure lay the body. It looked like a collection of freeze-dried jerky topped by a mummified head. The skin was mottled and dark, the hair brittle and broken. Its clothes looked too big for it. Linus noticed automatically that one foot was clad in a black sock. The other foot was encased in an ordinary-looking brown loafer. Exposed skin and flesh had shrunk away from the fingernails, turning them into blackened claws.

The figure kneeling near the body was running the wand to a holographic scanner over the corpse. The figure paused when Linus approached, then went back to work.

"This is a bad neighborhood, Karen," Linus said. "You never know what kind of reprobate will find you out here."

"Hoy, Linus,"
Karen said without turning around. Her voice came crisp and clear over the corn-link.
"Are you going to wrap this up for me nice and easy? I'm a doctor, not a medical examiner."

Linus blinked. "What? Yes, you are."

"That was a joke, son. You missed it."

"Oh. Right." He changed the subject. "Karen, this is Noah Skyler, just arrived from Earth. Noah, this is Karen Fang. She's Luna City's doctor. And medical examiner."

Karen clipped the wand to her belt and rose. Noah waved.
"Dr. Fang?"
he said.

"Actually, my name should be pronounced
fong," she said dryly.
"But that's not near as much fun, is it?"

"Uh..."

"Don't let her fool you," Linus said. "She
loves
being Dr. Fang, and you get brownie points for telling her a new vampire joke."

"Why do vampires drink blood?"
Karen said promptly. Her voice was low and rich, and had a strange accent— Australian mixed with a pinch of something Asian.

"I don't know,"
Noah said, and Linus thought he detected a hint of Groucho Marx.
"Why
do
vampires drink blood?"

"Because coffee keeps them awake all day."

There was a pause. "You don't have to laugh when they're not funny," Linus said.

"That's a relief,"
Noah said.

"Hey!"

"So anyway, Kid," Linus said, gesturing at the crime scene. "Tell me what you see."

Noah's helmet bent as he scanned the ground. Linus waited patiently. It was a test, of course. Noah knew it was a test, and Linus knew Noah knew it was a test. And the kid took his time.

"Probably a white male, but hard to tell,"
Noah finally said.
"About one and three-quarters of a meter tall, weight uncertain, since the body fluids have all boiled away. The victim's clothes are those of someone of a proportional weight to his height, however. Average-quality red shirt and brown trousers. One shoe missing, probably a brown loafer to match the one currently worn by the victim.
"

He knelt near the corpse as Karen had done, removed a flashlight from his kit, and shined it over the body.
"Bruising and lividity are impossible to check under these conditions. Time and cause of death aren't immediately obvious. It could be the result of exposure to ... to vacuum, but the victim could have
b
een already dead upon such exposure. I see two post-mortem puncture wounds, one to the upper left shoulder, the other to the upper left thigh."

Pretty good. Linus felt a little finger of relief. No matter how good someone looks in their application, you never knew if they were
really
any good until they hit the field. Still, it wouldn't be a good idea to let the kid think he had everything completely nailed.

"How do you know the punctures are post-mortem?" Linus asked, a little sharply.

Noah pointed his flashlight at the corpse's shoulder.
"The fibers of the victim's shirt didn't adhere to the area around either wound, indicating that the flesh was punctured after the bodily fluids had boiled away. I'm guessing meteors."

"All right," Linus conceded. "What else?"

"Pockets are empty. No identification, communication equipment, or other helpful clues there. The victim's onboard might tell us who he is, but we'd be better off checking that during the autopsy. "

"Why not right now?"
Karen demanded before Linus could say anything. He automatically shot her a hard look, but her helmet hid her expression.

"No urgency in the case,"
Noah said.
"It's not as if the killer might still be in the area, and examining the onboard out here might damage it. We'd lose evidence."

Linus folded his arms, growing impressed but still reserving judgment. "Go on, then."

"Several sets of footprints around the body and what looks like a drag mark trailing after the feet. The drag mark has been partially obscured by footprints, either those of the person who brought him here or of the person who found him."

"People, actually,"
Karen said.
"Two of them."

"The drag mark indicates the body was brought here postmortem, so this isn't the site of the actual murder. We need to find the primary crime scene."
Noah stood up and shined the flashlight around the body in concentric circles.
"No vehicle tracks in the immediate area, though that's hardly surprising
—
the crater
w
alls are pretty steep. That's all I can tell you without moving the body."
He paused.
"So do I pass?"

"What would you do once the body was moved?" Linus asked.

"Assuming I wasn't checking the victim's back for wounds or other trace evidence"
Noah said,
"I'd make casts of the footprints and of the drag mark. I'd also want to examine the soil in the immediate area for further trace."

"Even though it's unlikely you'd find any?" Linus said. "A vacuum suit doesn't leave fibers, and it would prevent the killer's fingerprints and DNA from being left at the site."

"Still have to check"
Noah said.
"Unless there's some rule about Luna City investigations I don't know about."

"No, you're right," Linus said. "And you pass. So far."

"I love it when you get all hard-assy,"
Karen said. She leaned over the body again.
"I don't envy you blokes doing the grunt work on this one."

"Why do the weird cases always come to me?" Linus sighed.

"You get
all
the cases, love,"
Karen replied.
"And you aren't fooling anyone
—
you
like
the weird cases. So which one of you strapping young gents wants to help me get this poor bloke on a board? I can't just toss him in a body-bag
—
he might break into bits."

Linus retrieved a stiff piece of plastic the size and shape of a surfboard from Karen's rover and carried it down to the body. Even after living on Luna for five years and spending countless hours in vacuum, he never got past the feeling that there should be air around him. The board, for example, should have met air resistance when Linus turned, like a sail would. But Linus felt nothing. The board itself weighed next to nothing, though it could support six or seven bodies in the local gravity.

Back at the scene, Linus found Noah and Karen carefully turning the victim to examine its—his?—back.

"Exit wounds from the meteors"
Karen said.
"Back of the skull seems to be intact, though that doesn't rule out a head wound. Oh good
—
bring that over here, Linus."

Linus set the board to one side and the trio positioned themselves around the body with Linus at the head, Karen holding the middle, and Noah getting the feet.

"Careful you don't lift too hard, Kid," Linus warned. "You don't want—"

Linus felt rather than heard something snap. Stupidly, he looked at Karen, then at Noah. The kid was holding an odd black object in his hand. It was the victim's right foot, the one without a shoe. Noah was staring down at it, his blank faceplate revealing no expression. Karen remained silent. A lick of anger flashed through him. The idiot had compromised evidence at a crime scene. He had—

Linus forced himself to take a deep breath. Shouting wouldn't change anything. Shouting wouldn't help. The kid knew he had made a mistake. Now wasn't the time to deal with it.

"All right," Linus said at last. "Freeze-dried and brittle as an Egyptian mummy. Let's do the rest more carefully."

Using exquisite care, the three of them lifted the body onto the board. It was feather light, maybe seven or eight kilograms. Karen wordlessly strapped it down, putting the broken foot into a strap of its own. Her movements were quick and tight, and Linus knew she was angry. Noah backed up a pace, remaining out of the way. Still without speaking, Karen drew what looked like a shiny sleeping bag over body and board, sealed the end, and picked up the entire assemblage by herself. Linus had to restrain an impulse to offer his help.

"I'll meet you lads back in the lab,"
she said, and then she was gone.