Four Bodies in Space: New Voyages, #1

By Luna Harlow

Set on the space ships and space stations of the Union of Allied Planets, Four Bodies in Space follows Commander Solaris, a scientific officer on a small ship that just wants to be left alone to check her experiments in peace. A peace threatened first by the murder of an ambassador and then by the friendly overtures of his emotionally volatile widow. With her ship in danger and her future on the line, Solaris can't hold back her curiosity about the murder.

Into this mess steps newly promoted Captain Li, eager and a little too friendly, and fascinated by the psychic gift Solaris considers her greatest burden. Solaris would rather cling to everything she holds dear than accept the difficulty of something new and untried even if pushing away Captain Li's help risks damage to her career and the people she wants to protect, but fleeing from Jennifer Li's hand in friendship could mean falling into the killer's hands instead...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luna Harlow
• Release date: Sep 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393063292

Luna Harlow

Luna Harlow is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. By day Luna does confidential (if very boring) admin work, and by night she indulges her passions for writing and the creative arts. Her hobbies include using books as an excuse to not talk to people on the train, and singing along to every song at parties.

Book preview

Set on the space ships and space stations of the Union of Allied Planets, Four Bodies in Space follows Commander Solaris, a scientific officer on a small ship that just wants to be left alone to check her experiments in peace. A peace threatened first by the murder of an ambassador and then by the friendly overtures of his emotionally volatile widow. With her ship in danger and her future on the line, Solaris can't hold back her curiosity about the murder.

Into this mess steps newly promoted Captain Li, eager and a little too friendly, and fascinated by the psychic gift Solaris considers her greatest burden. Solaris would rather cling to everything she holds dear than accept the difficulty of something new and untried even if pushing away Captain Li's help risks damage to her career and the people she wants to protect, but fleeing from Jennifer Li's hand in friendship could mean falling into the killer's hands instead...

1. The ship

The Moving Along Silently was a small but powerful ship, one of the finest of the old vessels in the fleet. Though largely devoted to scientific exploration and discovery, even the Moving Along Silently was required, at times, to ferry VIPs from one part of the system to another. As such, Solaris accepted that there would be times when they would ferry dignitaries such as the Ambassador-at-large for the small nation of Oizys, Humphrey Menken, and his wife, Veronica, the latter derisively described as scandalously young by a Space Lieutenant who hadn't realised Solaris could hear her. Solaris did not care for gossip, of course. It was a pointless human habit, that all her people had raised themselves above.

Humphrey Menken, late 40s, neither tall nor especially short, with a face memorable only because it looked so weathered, alighted from his shuttle, the Small But Useful, straightened his coat, then turned to offer his wife an arm. Veronica Menken, 22, had a much more memorable face, with fashionably sharp-boned features and wide eyes. Solaris was no more swayed by fashion than by gossip, but Bill Johnson next to her gasped and muttered under his breath, as if he, too, had forgotten that Solaris's pointed ears could gather more sound than a normal human's rounded lobes.

Inappropriate, Mr Johnson, Solaris admonished.

Sorry, sir.

The Ambassador bowed the correct amount and gave the required words of greeting.

Veronica Menken smiled and said, I've never met a woman so much taller than me before, then made the mistake of reaching out a hand for Solaris to shake. The men around Solaris became silent. Mrs Menken looked down, down at the dark gloves on Solaris's hands and the stars embroidered on the sides to declare her psychometry to the world, and then retracted her own hand with a strange, small laugh.

Solaris bowed at the exact angle required of her and then returned to her full height. Lieutenant Johnson will escort you to meet Captain Savage in the meeting room. And then she turned and walked away from the scene, without bothering with the politeness of excusing herself.

The captain would be bothered by her behaviour, she was sure, but she was just as sure that when they deposited Menken and all the other assorted dignitaries on Newport Space Station for their conference that she would never have to suffer the indignity of remembering this moment.

*

The cocktail party, a wearisome obligation, was as richly decorated as anything was likely to get on the Moving Along Silently. There were no pointless frivolities aboard this ship to match anything Solaris had heard rumoured about the star cruiser glamour ships. Nonetheless, there were rustling coloured paper streamers, and patterned tablecloths bearing almost childish representations of flora from the captain's planet, pinned down by trays of food – carefully labelled to ensure alien guests endured no food allergen surprises – and water dispensers full of luridly coloured liquids.

Next to Solaris was the ship's second in command, Lady Saya Free, her face bearing the aggressive boredom of the thoroughly unimpressed. This exercise is a pointless waste of time but Savage requires that we baby-sit these diplomats, so don't let me down.

Bill Johnson's, Yes, sir, was like the overenthusiastic chirp of a baby bird.

At the opposite end of the room was Bob of the Nectarens, his true name unpronounceable by humanoid mouths. His tentacles were dark under the lacklustre lights of the room. His human translator sometimes misted him with water, and colour rippled across his skin, as if in thanks, though perhaps it was only a reflex. Solaris was ashamed to acknowledge she knew too little about his people to understand what it actually meant.

Bob was there as a representative of one of the small satellites on the way to the station that sought to trade with the increasingly prosperous post-war nations of planets and satellites nearby.

But to Johnson he seemed to represent nothing more than their former enemy, a strange attitude considering that Johnson had surely still been a screaming infant when the war ended.

Damn squiddies, Johnson muttered under his breath, only to have to endure a strict remonstration from Lady Free, who appeared even more unimpressed than Solaris felt at Johnson's disrespect of what their Captain had organised.

The Nectarens share only the slightest similarities to squids, Solaris said. The superficial similarities to the Cephalopodan species that humans are reputed to have brought with them from their ancestral home are limited to the appearance of tentacles, large eyes, and a beak, as well as minor similarities in colour changing abilities. In all other respects, the Nectarens, defined as they are by their ability to stand upright and spend long periods of time out of the water, are a fundamentally different species...

Yes, thank you, Commander Solaris, the captain said, arriving on the scene. Any of us could read the Info net article.

I'm sorry, sir.

With the Captain arrived Ambassador Menken, still looking rumpled in his trench-coat, along with his wife, slender and eye-catching in a