The Space Station

Orbital station Aurora · night shift · 400 km above the Earth · Difficulty: Detective 6 · 9×9

Night shift on the orbital station Aurora. Halfway through the sleep period an alarm wakes everyone: the commander, Vitus, is found dead in the Cupola, floating in front of the great window. Nine people were aboard: four crew members, two visiting scientists, two space tourists – and Vitus. One of them is the killer. Read every statement, find everyone’s square on the station plan and unmask the murderer – alone with Vitus in the Cupola.

Rules

1. Every man was beside a console (the women could be anywhere).
2. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
3. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same module. Squares with objects (consoles, workbenches, plant racks, crates, the telescope…) cannot be occupied; the chairs, the stool and the sleeping pods can. A corner of a module is a square of that module with two outer sides.
4. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “south of Cassius” = in a row further down, in any column; “exactly one row south of her was a man” = the person in the row directly below is a man, in any column.
5. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that module.

Statements

• Aurelio (flight engineer): He was beside a workbench.
• Birgit (pilot): She was beside the spacesuit.
• Cassius (systems officer): Exactly one row north of him was a man.
• Dinah (flight surgeon): She was lying in a sleeping pod. Exactly one row south of her was a man.
• Enzo (astrophysicist): There was a woman in his area.
• Farah (biologist): She was in a corner of her area.
• Gunnar (space tourist): He was south of Cassius.
• Hana (space tourist): There was a man in her area.
• Vitus (commander): The victim. He was found in the Cupola – alone with the murderer.

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