Fugitive Telemetry （The Murderbot Diaries #6）
Martha Wells
Chapter One
THE DEAD HUMAN WAS lying on the deck, on their side, half curled around. A broken feed interface was scattered under the right hand. I’ve seen a lot of dead humans （I mean, a lot） so I did an initial scan and compared the results to archived data sets, like human body temperatures vs. ambient temperature, lividity, and various other really disgusting things involving fluids that happen when humans die. This was all data I still had in longterm storage. The comparison let me estimate a time of death. I said, “Four hours, approximately.”
Dr. Mensah exchanged a look with Senior Officer Indah. Dr. Mensah’s expression was dry. Senior Indah looked annoyed, but then she always looked like that when I was around. She said, “How do you know?”
I converted my scan data, my query, and the comparison results into a report that humans could read and sent it to her feed address, with a copy to Mensah. Indah blinked, her gaze turning preoccupied as she read it. Mensah acknowledged the report as received, but kept watching Indah, one eyebrow raised. （I was still using scan and visual to examine the scene, but I had a task group of my new intel drones circling above my head, supplying me with video.）
We were in a junction in the Preservation Station mall, a circular space where three small corridors met, one a short passage that led through to a large secondary main corridor: the Trans Lateral Bypass. （All the corridors here had names, a Preservation tradition that was only mildly annoying.） This was not a well-traveled junction, whatever its name was; it was mostly a shortcut to get from a residential area to a work area. （On this station there was no separation between transient spaces and longterm station housing like on stations in the Corporation Rim, but that wasn’t even close to being the weirdest thing about Preservation.）
This junction, and Preservation Station in general, were also weird places for humans to get killed; the threat assessment for both transients and station residents was low anyway, and mostly involved accidents and cases of intoxication-related stupidity/aggression in the port area. In this specific junction, threat assessment for accidental death was even lower, close to null. There was nothing here except the lights in the high ceiling and the standard silver-blue textured wall panels, marked with some old graffiti and drawings that were actually being preserved as part of a station-wide history exhibit. I guess if you were really determined, you could find a way to get yourself killed by exposing the power connectors under the panels and shielding and, I don’t know, licking them or something, but this dead human clearly hadn’t.
The full station threat assessment for murder was sitting at a baseline 7 percent. （To make it drop lower than that we’d have to be on an uninhabited planet.） （I’ve never been on a contract on an uninhabited planet because if I was on the planet on a contract then we’d be inhabiting it.） You never found dead humans lying around on the floor like this.
“Well,” Indah began, having finally finished reading the report. （I know, it takes humans forever.） “I don’t know how accurate this is—”
Another security person walked in, one of the techs who normally worked on checking cargo shipments for biohazards, feed ID Tural. They said, “Our scan analysis says the victim’s been dead for about four hours.”
Indah sighed. Tech Tural, who had obviously expected this information to be greeted a little more enthusiastically, was confused.
“ID?” I said. The dead human’s interface was broken so I couldn’t pull anything off it. If whoever did it had been trying to conceal the dead human’s identity, were they naively optimistic? Preservation Station kept an identity record and body scan for permanent residents and every disembarking transient passenger, so it shouldn’t be that hard to run an identity check. “Known associates?”
Tural glanced at Indah and she nodded for them to answer. They said, “There was no subcutaneous marker or clip or augment or anything else with ID. We’ve done an initial search on recent arrival passenger lists using physical details, but couldn’t come up with anything.” At Indah’s dissatisfied expression, Tural added, “Without an interface, we have to wait until Medical gets here to do the body scan so we can try to match it with the visitor entry logs.”
Indah said, “And Medical isn’t here yet because…？”
Tural’s face formed an anticipatory wince. “It’s preventative health check day at the school and the bot who normally does the mobile body scan is busy with that? It has to move the mobile medical suite they use?”