Chapter Text
When Zoë and I had gone our separate ways, at the end of our visit to the Deep Space R&R Centre, we'd promised to keep in touch, and we'd kept that promise. We'd met now and again, socially, or because Zoë wanted to try out some new extreme sport she'd discovered. We'd usually manage to get through those without any severe injuries, except to our dignity.
I never brought up the topic of her association with UNISYC, and neither did she. I was pretty sure that was still involved with them, though. Zoë isn't good at lying or covering things up, and once or twice she'd catch herself too late. And one Friday night she turned up on my doorstep, wearing a huge raincoat and with a suitcase chained to her wrist, and asked if she could stay the night. I made her up a bed of sorts on the floor, but I don't think she slept at all. In the morning she left straight after breakfast, and the next time we met she acted as if the whole thing had never happened.
It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, then, to get a call from her suggesting we take a few days' holiday together.
"Are you doing anything, Lily?" she asked. That was how she usually started a conversation, when she'd got curious about what it would be like to jump off a bridge with a rubber band attached to her ankles, or ride a glider from the edge of the atmosphere down to near ground level and then parachute the rest of the way.
"Not particularly," I said. "Why?"
"Well, I've got an invitation for a week on board the Liberty, and I can bring a friend. I get to stay in Claremoor Holiday Village, no less, starting next Saturday week. How would you like to come along?"
"I'd love to. But..." It took me a moment to organise my thoughts. "It doesn't sound like your sort of thing. Was it your idea?"
"No, more of a present. I'll tell you all about it when I see you."
We talked a bit more, agreeing when and where we'd meet. I didn't manage to steer the conversation back to how she got the tickets, but I did try asking if there was anything particular I should bring. I'm not sure how I'd have reacted if she'd said "fingerprint powder" or "a forensic scanner" but at least I'd have had some idea what was going on. All she told me was that I should dress for hot weather, which I knew already.
The story goes that Liberty was built decades ago by some crazy billionaire, who wanted to set up a self-propelled offshore tax haven. He spent all of his fortune building her, but she was nowhere near finished by the time he died. Since then, she'd been passed from one owner to another, bringing each of them headaches as they tried to figure out how to make money from her. She ended up being used as an oversized cruise liner, so big that there was hardly anywhere she could dock, and too slow to compete with ships built for the purpose. Now and again, she'd been owned by syndicates who'd thought to use her for illegal purposes, but they'd invariably discovered that while her defences could hold off the occasional pirate, they were no match for a properly-organised navy.
Liberty's fortunes had improved with the invention of T-Mat. Now that people and supplies could get on board without the need to shuttle them back and forth, it became a lot easier for people to visit, and a lot easier to make the ship into a place that people would want to visit. When I emerged from the ship's T-Mat terminal, I might have been in an exclusive shopping district in Paris or Volgograd. A spotless glideway whisked me to the exclusive 'holiday village' where we were staying, and I met Zoë in a luxuriously-appointed suite. Within minutes, we'd changed into bikinis, put on dark glasses and sunscreen, and made our way to a private balcony where two well-padded sunloungers were waiting for us.
We started by taking a good long look at the view. Above the main deck, the superstructure of Liberty was shaped like a horseshoe, with the open end pointing forward. Each level was stepped back from the last one, and the whole thing ended up looking something like a scaled-up stadium, open at one end. At that end, we could see the sea, tranquil and dark blue. It was a sunny day; according to the brochure, it almost always was. The weather control stations could give enough notice of scheduled rain for Liberty to move out of the way in time.
Our balcony was somewhere in the curved bit of the horseshoe, to the left of the centre, and fairly high up. To left and right there were other balconies, and we could look up and down to where the adjacent floors had similar arrangements, but they were all far enough away to give us a sense of privacy.
Once we'd got a good idea of the layout, we settled down for an afternoon's sunbathing — and, I hoped, some idea of why we were there.
"All right," I said, once we'd got comfortable. "Spill the beans."
"I don't know what you mean," Zoë said. She didn't sound the least bit convincing.
"I mean what we're doing here. Usually when you want me to do something with you, it's dangerous and uncomfortable. Bog-snorkelling or hang-skateboarding or something."
"I've never suggested we go hang-skateboarding. In fact, I don't think there even is such a sport. If you're going to start making things up I might as well drop this conversation now." She lay back on her lounger with a grin and put her hands behind her head.
I sat up slightly and looked around. Conveniently close by my hand was a drinks dispenser, with an attachment for making ice. I pressed the appropriate button, and the machine obligingly spat out an icecube, with the word 'Liberty' etched through it. I took the cube, leaned over Zoë's couch, and dropped it onto her exposed midriff. She shrieked, and sat bolt upright, grabbing at the ice.
"I surrender," she said, and threw the melting icecube back at me. "I can't stand up to torture. What do you want to know?"
"Let's start at the beginning," I said. "How did you get us asked out here in the first place? You said it was a present."
"Yes. From UNI... you-know-who."
"Did they say why?"
"They said two of their people were going to come and then had to cancel, and was I interested? Maybe I could take a friend."
"Do you think they meant me?" I asked.
"Quite possibly. You're the only one of my friends they've met... at least, as far as I know."
"I don't like it. It sounds as if they want us here for something."
Zoë lay back on her couch again. "Go on," she said.
"What do you mean, go on?"
"Assuming you're correct and we've been deliberately sent here, what follows from that?"
I racked my brains. "There's something wrong here. Or there may be. If they were sure what it was, they'd send a trained agent, not us. You aren't a trained agent, are you?"
"No. Go on."
"I can't think of any more."
"How about this? If we've been sent to investigate something, it's been going on for a while. I got the invitations a fortnight ago. I think they aren't sure if there is anything to investigate, and they think perhaps we'll spot something, or make someone nervous enough to show their hand. They've used me for that before."
I didn't ask when; that was the sort of topic we didn't discuss.
"Next," Zoë continued, "this ship is a huge place, almost a small city. It's got every sort of accommodation. It would have been perfectly easy to put us in one of the normal hotels. But they got us invited here, and that can't have been easy — it's very exclusive."
"So you think whatever's happening is happening here? I mean, in this part of the ship?"
"Probably. I can't be sure, of course, and we certainly shouldn't rule any possibilities out at this stage." She looked across at me. "Any ideas?"
"Let's see. We need to find out more about the people round here. You know, are they all here for a few days like us, or are there long-term residents?"
Zoë nodded. "If this has been going on some time, it's more likely the person involved is living here permanently. Of course, it doesn't necessarily follow. You remember when we investigated that murder before, all the suspects were short-term visitors, but the conspiracy behind it had been going on for years."
"I remember." I'd been very relieved, on the other holidays we'd taken, that nothing similar had happened. "And I suppose we should explore the ship, so we know our way around."
"Explore the ship, with particular reference to the shops and the nightclubs?" Zoë asked mischievously.
"Why not? We're on holiday."
"Fine. But remember to keep an eye out."
I closed my eyes and lay back. "And all of it can wait until I've got some more sun."
Zoë, curse her, waited until I was half-asleep before retaliating in kind for my prank with the ice.