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Personal Journal of Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Chevalier de Lisieux
Night of 11/12 July 2297
After departure from Vogelheim
Henri Valois is dead.
He died after the Jean Bart departed Vogelheim, during the night between the eleventh and twelfth of July, while under my protection.
The phrase is unpleasant to write.
At first, ship personnel described the death as natural. Valois was not a healthy man. He had medical complaints, took regular treatments, and possessed the general appearance of someone assembled in haste from weak tea, nerves, and bad linen. A sudden failure of the body did not seem impossible.
But he had come to me afraid.
Men invent enemies readily enough. They do not often invent fear.
I therefore refused the convenient explanation.
Sergeant Blanc had been assigned as his protection. He is many things, not all of them suitable for polite entry in a personal journal, but he is not negligent. If someone reached Valois, it was either by subtlety, by poison, by systems access, or by means that would not have been prevented by a man standing near the door with soldier’s eyes and no official weapon.
I went to First Officer Beaulieu.
There are times when rank is useful, times when family is useful, and rare times when indignation is useful. I employed all three. Beaulieu did not enjoy being pressed, but he understood the matter at once. A passenger had requested protection from a French officer. The officer had accepted. The passenger was now dead aboard a French ship in interstellar transit.
It could not be filed as unfortunate indigestion and forgotten.
Doctor Mireille Okafor examined Valois and found what I had feared.
There was foul play.
His medical history contained nothing that should have killed him in that manner, at that hour, under those circumstances. Something had been altered, administered, or concealed. The details remain unclear at present, but in Doctor Okafor’s capable hands I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of the matter in short order.
Commandant Delaunay was less pleased by my involvement.
This is understandable. Security officers dislike interference. They dislike armed passengers. They dislike soldiers. They particularly dislike soldiers who combine rank, family, responsibility, and just enough guilt to become immovable.
Nevertheless, the ship’s security section is not equipped for murder. Not truly. It is equipped for drunks, thieves, domestic scandals, smugglers, and the ordinary lies of rich travelers. This is different.
I insisted that we be involved.
Not in command. I am not a fool. But involved.
The dead man had asked for my protection. I had given it. He died. Therefore the matter remains mine until I am relieved of it by lawful authority, superior order, or death.
Delaunay did not appreciate the phrasing.
He did return our service pistols.
This improved Sergeant Blanc’s mood considerably.
The three of us have been attached, temporarily and somewhat awkwardly, to the security investigation. Blanc and Miss Cassart have taken more naturally to the practical work than I expected. Blanc sees patterns of movement, doors, timing, and opportunity. Miss Cassart sees records, artifacts, people’s mistakes, and details no one else considers worth noticing. She may be unsuited to the Legion. She is not stupid.
As for me, I am an officer and a gentleman, not a detective. My proper function is to ensure that those better suited to crawling through the machinery of this affair may do so with authority behind them.
Blanc said this meant I intended to stand back and give orders.
I told him he was beginning to understand command.
Then matters worsened.
Colette Marceau is missing.
The fact was first presented as an administrative confusion. She failed to appear where expected. A record suggested movement where no one remembered seeing her. Another record contradicted the first. Such things happen aboard ships, I am told, though usually not within hours of a murder.
Miss Cassart has become increasingly unwell since the start of our investigation. The ship’s doctor had treated her for spin sickness, but I no longer believe that explanation accounts for everything. She speaks strangely now, sometimes too quickly, sometimes as if answering a question no one has asked. She grows pale, then flushed. She looks at people with sudden alarm. At one point she asked Sergeant Blanc to stop thinking so loudly.
Blanc did not know what to do with this.
Neither did I.
Élodie Vannier has withdrawn to her suite and receives few visitors. This is unlike her. She had made a theater of attachment to Miss Cassart and Colette, calling them sisters until the word ceased to be charming and became almost true. Now one is missing, one is ill, and one has closed her door.
I dislike coincidences when they accumulate.
Finally, there has been a break-in at the Ruffin Collection.
Doctor Sorel has not yet provided a full accounting. Something was disturbed. Perhaps something was taken. Perhaps only the appearance of theft was desired. Danton is said to be distraught. Masson is said to be furious. Valette, representing Ruffin’s interests, is said to be calm, which may be the most suspicious fact of all.
The ship continues toward Dunkelheim.
A passenger is dead. A purser has vanished. The exhibition has been breached. Miss Cassart is ill in ways I cannot name. Élodie hides. Sergeant Blanc checks his pistol too often. Delaunay looks at everyone as if already disappointed by their future confessions.
I had thought the Jean Bart a floating salon with engines attached.
Perhaps I was mistaken, but I quite liked that way things were aboard before the late unpleasantness.
I shall endeavor to have the matter closed sooner rather than later, so we may debark with memories of good company and fine champagne, not murder and bad faith.