The Navy had always been the thing in his life that didn’t change. The permanent factor. His relationship to it might shift. He did his tours, he mustered out, but those changes were all about him. His life, his fragility and mortality and impermanence. The idea that the Navy itself could be fragile, that the government of Mars might stumble or collapse, was like saying the sun might go out. If that wasn’t solid, then nothing was.

So maybe nothing was.

Kaarlo Henderson-Charles’ hole was in a stretch of a hundred just like it, spare and spartan. There was nothing on the gray-green door to identify it beyond numbers. No flowers in the planter, only dry soil. Alex rang the bell. When he knocked, the door opened under his knuckles. He heard someone grumbling angrily under their breath. No. Not a person. The recyclers on high, scrubbing the air. He caught a whiff of cordite and something like rotten meat.

The body was on the kitchen table in its uniform jumper. The blood had pooled under the chair and spattered along the wall and ceiling. A pistol still hung in the limp right hand. Alex coughed out a laugh of mixed disbelief and despair, then he pulled out his hand terminal and called the MPs.

“Then what happened?” Bobbie asked.

“What do you think? The MPs came.”

The hotel lobby was decorated in crimson and gold. A wall fountain burbled and chuckled beside the couches, giving the two of them something like privacy. Alex sipped at his gin and tonic. The alcohol bit a little. Bobbie pressed her knuckles against her lips and scowled. She was looking solid for any other person who’d been tortured and shot, but still a little fragile for Bobbie. The bandages that covered bullet wounds on her left side made an awkward bump under her blouse, but nothing more.

“They questioned you?” she said, barely even making it a question.

“For about eight hours. Duarte was able to give me a solid alibi, though, so I’m not in prison.”

“Small favors. And your friend? Fermín?”

“Apparently his terminal’s not on the network. I don’t know if he killed the guy or if whoever killed the guy killed him or… anything. I don’t know anything.” He drank again, more deeply this time. “I may not be good at this whole investigation thing.”

“I’m not much better,” Bobbie said. “Mostly I’ve just been shaking the trees and seeing what falls out. So far the only thing I’m really sure about is that something’s going on.”

“And that people are willing to kill each other over it,” Alex said.

“And now that the MPs are involved, they’re going to lock down the investigation like it was fissionable. I’m not going to be able to do a damned thing.”