★★★☆☆ Murderbot solves a mystery

Fugitive Telemetry

Martha Wells

The action starts with the discovery of a dead human in a disused corridor on Preservation Station. The guy has been murdered by having something jabbed into the back of his head. Murderbot is initially concerned because it is her (on pronouns, see my review of All System Red) self-appointed job to keep Dr Mensah safe from GrayCris, and she worries that this murder may be a sign of GrayCris activity.

Now, Preservation Station has a police force. The investigation of this murder is properly their job. However, murder investigations are not something that Preservation police have a lot of experience with -- their expertise runs more to keeping drunks out of harm's way and keeping port traffic moving. Mensah proposes that Murderbot join the investigation team, and everyone involved says yes, though for different reasons. Murderbot sees this as a way of pursuing her investigation of the GrayCris possibility and of checking on Station security, in which she has no faith at all. The police are reluctant to work with a SecBot, but, strong-armed by Mensah, are willing to admit that Murderbot may bring something of value to the table. Mensah wants Murderbot to learn to work with humans and wants the humans to learn to value Murderbot.

So, we're off. Like most Murderbot books, this one has two plots. The obvious plot is the investigation of the murder. It's a pretty standard murder mystery, and not a bad one. There's less in the way of pew-pew space battles than we've seen previously. The second plot is Murderbot's personal growth. You will not be surprised to hear that Murderbot shows herself to be clever. Furthermore, Mensah's little plot, of making Murderbot work with humans and prove herself valuable, pays off. (I'm not going to call that a spoiler, since the publisher's blurb says, "Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!")

I was less entranced by this installment of the Murderbot Diaries, because this one felt to me more like set up for what is to come than a complete story in its own right. In fact, I felt that the main purpose of Fugitive Telemetry was to set up political questions that will probably play out in future books.

The murdered man turns out to be one Lutran, who has been running an underground railway smuggling slaves (known by the euphemism "contract workers") to freedom from a colony run by BreharWallHan. The Corporation Rim allows this sort of slavery -- it is illegal in Preservation. The political conflict between Corporation Rim and Preservation has not previously played a major role in the the Murderbot Diaries, but it's always been looming in the background and was highlighted in the story Home. Murderbot and the Preservation police rescue the shipment of freed slaves being smuggled, but with Lutran having been murdered, the slave smuggling operation is now seemingly at an end. I suspect that will not sit well with Murderbot, who has previously shown sympathy for the plight of contract workers, and that in future books she will be moved to do something about it.

Also, at the end of Network Effect, ART invited Murderbot to join ART's crew on a temporary basis, with a possible option to become permanent. That doesn't happen in Fugitive Telemetry -- ART is entirely absent. Thus, Murderbot's relationship with ART was left hanging, presumably for future books.

So, this was fun -- it's Murderbot, after all! -- but not quite as much fun as the previous Murderbot books. Murderbot is somehow a little less adorable than usual in this installment, and the story feels like a mere step towards bigger stories to come.

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