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were a number of rateds in blue coveralls busy scrubbing and polishing, but no officers.
    “Damn the woman,” Finesz muttered. “Command has gone to her head.”
    Grumbling under her breath, she entered the troop-deck, turned left and began ascending the ladder leading up the forward bulkhead to the upper deck. If Rinharte was anywhere, it would be on Tempest ’s bridge.
    The moment she stepped through the hatch onto the upper deck, she saw the two she sought walking towards her. She paused for breath, winded from the climb, and then raised a hand —
    A figure appeared on the ramp at the far end of the gangway and hurried towards Rinharte and Kordelasz. A naval officer, coltish, slim, with long blonde hair in a queue. Midshipman Maganda, Tempest ’s acting executive officer. Something seemed urgent.
    Maganda caught up with Rinharte and Kordelasz. The captain’s hair, Finesz noticed, was no longer white, but back to its original black. The two officers stopped and turned. The midshipman delivered her news in a breathless rush. Finesz could not hear what was being said, but saw Rinharte’s features turn pale. The three abruptly turned about and began to jog back towards the ramp Maganda had descended.
    “What in heavens is going on?” Finesz demanded of no one in particular.
    There was little for it. Muttering oaths, Finesz hurried after the three Tempest officers. No more than half a dozen paces later, she realised she would never catch Rinharte unless she increased her pace. Annoyed at the indignity of it all—an inspector, running —she broke into a quick trot. By the time she reached the ramp, she’d concluded she was not as fit as she’d thought. Assaun, damn him, was not even breathing hard.
    Rinharte, Kordelasz and Maganda had stepped off the ramp onto the quarter-deck. Finesz caught up with them in the gangway into which the ramp debouched. They stood by the door to a crew cabin, looking down at a pair of marines sprawled on the decking. From the splay of the marines’ limbs, and Rinharte’s expression of disgust, Finesz realised the men were dead.
    What, she wondered, had happened? Had Mubariz escaped?
    No. He was an honourable man. He had given his word. He would not break free and murder his guards.
    Or could she have misread him so badly?
    “We have a problem,” Rinharte snapped at Finesz as she came to a halt. “One of the clones has woken up.”
    Finesz felt relief. It was not Mubariz.
    In ten cabins aboard Tempest , twenty clones lay brain-dead, kept alive in sophisticated sarcophagi. Rinharte had discovered them like that when she, Kordelasz, and a boat-squad of marines had found the troop-transport seemingly abandoned, and boarded it. It appeared likely the clones were—had been—the ship’s crew. But what had happened to them was a mystery.
    “‘Woken up’?” parrotted Finesz. That she had not expected.
    Marine-Captain Kordelasz gave a feral grin. “Perhaps now we’ll find out who they are.”
    “Where is he?” Finesz demanded, as eager to learn the secret of the clones as the marine-captain.
    “He escaped,” Rinharte said. “Killing these two as he did so.”
    Rinharte turned to the young woman. “Romi, I want a boat-squad up in the forecastle immediately. They’re to guard the bridge and signal house.” To the marine-captain: “Mr Kordelasz, you will organise me some boat-squads to search Tempest from fo’c’sle to keel. The Winter Rangers can hold the troop-deck. We must find this clone. ”
     
     
     
    Investigators in melodramas might have been able to “read” a crime scene, and from their reading determine perpetrator and method, but Inspector Finesz had no such supernatural deductive powers. Like any member of the OPI’s Enquiry branch, she relied on a combination of knowledge, logic and common sense. But perhaps she did occasionally depend overmuch on intuition. Sadly, none of her skills or experience was of much use in this situation. She saw a typical naval