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a little sharply.
    Noah pointed his flashlight at the corpse's shoulder. "The fibers of the victim's shirt didn't adhere to the area around either wound, indicating that the flesh was punctured after the bodily fluids had boiled away. I'm guessing meteors."
    "All right," Linus conceded. "What else?"
    "Pockets are empty. No identification, communication equipment, or other helpful clues there. The victim's onboard might tell us who he is, but we'd be better off checking that during the autopsy. "
    "Why not right now?" Karen demanded before Linus could say anything. He automatically shot her a hard look, but her helmet hid her expression.
    "No urgency in the case," Noah said. "It's not as if the killer might still be in the area, and examining the onboard out here might damage it. We'd lose evidence."
    Linus folded his arms, growing impressed but still reserving judgment. "Go on, then."
    "Several sets of footprints around the body and what looks like a drag mark trailing after the feet. The drag mark has been partially obscured by footprints, either those of the person who brought him here or of the person who found him."
    "People, actually," Karen said. "Two of them."
    "The drag mark indicates the body was brought here postmortem, so this isn't the site of the actual murder. We need to find the primary crime scene." Noah stood up and shined the flashlight around the body in concentric circles. "No vehicle tracks in the immediate area, though that's hardly surprising — the crater w alls are pretty steep. That's all I can tell you without moving the body." He paused. "So do I pass?"
    "What would you do once the body was moved?" Linus asked.
    "Assuming I wasn't checking the victim's back for wounds or other trace evidence" Noah said, "I'd make casts of the footprints and of the drag mark. I'd also want to examine the soil in the immediate area for further trace."
    "Even though it's unlikely you'd find any?" Linus said. "A vacuum suit doesn't leave fibers, and it would prevent the killer's fingerprints and DNA from being left at the site."
    "Still have to check" Noah said. "Unless there's some rule about Luna City investigations I don't know about."
    "No, you're right," Linus said. "And you pass. So far."
    "I love it when you get all hard-assy," Karen said. She leaned over the body again. "I don't envy you blokes doing the grunt work on this one."
    "Why do the weird cases always come to me?" Linus sighed.
    "You get all the cases, love," Karen replied. "And you aren't fooling anyone — you like the weird cases. So which one of you strapping young gents wants to help me get this poor bloke on a board? I can't just toss him in a body-bag — he might break into bits."
    Linus retrieved a stiff piece of plastic the size and shape of a surfboard from Karen's rover and carried it down to the body. Even after living on Luna for five years and spending countless hours in vacuum, he never got past the feeling that there should be air around him. The board, for example, should have met air resistance when Linus turned, like a sail would. But Linus felt nothing. The board itself weighed next to nothing, though it could support six or seven bodies in the local gravity.
    Back at the scene, Linus found Noah and Karen carefully turning the victim to examine its—his?—back.
    "Exit wounds from the meteors" Karen said. "Back of the skull seems to be intact, though that doesn't rule out a head wound. Oh good — bring that over here, Linus."
    Linus set the board to one side and the trio positioned themselves around the body with Linus at the head, Karen holding the middle, and Noah getting the feet.
    "Careful you don't lift too hard, Kid," Linus warned. "You don't want—"
    Linus felt rather than heard something snap. Stupidly, he looked at Karen, then at Noah. The kid was holding an odd black object in his hand. It was the victim's right foot, the one without a shoe. Noah was staring down at it, his blank faceplate revealing no expression.