“Or else Galfvi’s here for his robe,” Selene warned as she also stood.

  “Well, if it is, he’s not getting it,” I said as we stepped through the dayroom hatchway and headed aft. “Not until we sort all this out and figure out where all that cash came from.”

  The triple tone sounded twice more before we reached the entryway. Dropping my hand to my plasmic, I turned on the outside display.

  And felt my stomach tighten. It wasn’t Perrifil standing out there in the rain, or Galfvi, or even my Patth attacker here for round two. Giving Selene a quick look, I keyed open the hatch.

  “Mr. Gregory Roarke?” the uniformed woman outside asked in a formal tone.

  “Yes,” I confirmed cautiously. The last time a badgeman had showed up at the Ruth’s entryway I’d been subsequently hauled off on suspicion of murder. “You?”

  She held out her ID, just in case the badge on her chest wasn’t clear enough. “Detective-Sergeant Tandra Kreega,” she said, her eyes shifting to Selene. “You’re Mr. Roarke’s partner, I assume?”

  “Yes, this is Selene,” I said before Selene could answer. “What can we do for you?”

  “There’ve been a couple of incidents this evening I need to talk to you about,” Kreega said. “May I come in?”

  “What kind of incidents?” I asked, staying exactly where I was.

  Her lips compressed briefly. “Two disappearances,” she said. “One of them was a boy named Tirano. One of your people, I believe,” she added, looking at Selene. “The other was a Patth named Galfvi who works with Tirano at Javersin Brothers Seafood.”

  “You say they work together?” I said, resisting the reflexive impulse to express surprise over there having been a second disappearance. A response like that—commenting on one bit of news while ignoring the bit of news you already knew—was the kind of unthinking mistake badgemen were always watching for. “Okay, so maybe they’re just out on the town together or something. You said they were boys, right?”

  “The Kadolian is a boy,” Kreega corrected. “The Patth is a young adult. It’s very wet out here, Mr. Roarke. May I come in?”

  Technically, I knew, I could refuse. Without a warrant or probable cause she had no right of entry. But upright citizens with nothing to hide usually didn’t object to taking a wet badgeman in out of the rain.

  More to the point, with a couple of Bilswift’s citizens having apparently dropped off the edge of the planet, I didn’t want Kreega suspicious enough to try to get official permission to search the ship.

  Not to mention that if I didn’t let her in, her Plan B for getting out of the rain would probably be to invite us to the station for whatever conversation she wanted with us.

  I already had one stack of wet clothing in my cabin. I didn’t really want to add a second to the pile.

  “Of course, of course,” I said, backing into the corridor to let her enter. “Sorry. Come in.”

  “Thank you,” she said, shaking the water off her hat outside as she stepped over the threshold. “Afraid you’re going to have to get used to this weather as long as you’re here. Afternoon and early evening rains are typical of Bilswift this time of year.”

  “A little rain never hurt anyone,” I said. “The dayroom will be more comfortable than standing here in the corridor.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Kreega said, gesturing me to lead the way. “Oh, and there was one more incident this evening I didn’t mention.”

  “A mugging?” I suggested as I headed down the corridor, wondering if someone had witnessed my attack. “Theft? Pillage?”

  “Oh, nothing so pedestrian,” Kreega said as she fell into step beside me. “Seems we’ve had ourselves a murder.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “And I see I’ve interrupted your dinner,” Kreega went on as we stepped into the dayroom and she saw the table and half-eaten chowder. “My apologies. Please; continue.”

  “Yes,” I murmured, my head still spinning from her deliberately casual revelation. A murder? Here? “Ah . . . the foldout’s there. If you want to sit.”

  “Thank you,” she said, moving toward the couch.

  But still keeping me at the corner of her eye. The folksy, offhanded manner was just an act, I realized now. Everything she’d said and done had been carefully planned to elicit a response from me, an attempt to see what I knew and whether or not I was trying to hide any such knowledge.

  Fortunately, the very unexpectedness of her verbal gut-punch had overwhelmed any guilty reactions she might have been hoping for.

  “Yes, it’s the first murder we’ve had in Bilswift for over ten years,” Kreega went on as she settled onto the couch. “Actually, there may have been two murders. We’re not sure. But please; continue with your meal.”

  I looked at Selene, only then noticing that we were both still standing. “That’s all right,” I said to Kreega. “I think I’ve lost my appetite. You said two murders?”

  “At least sit down,” Kreega pressed. “This could take a while. Yes, it could be two, though we only have one body. The other is suggested by the Patth blood we found at the Javersin brothers’ fish shop.”

  I felt a fresh shiver run up my back as Selene and I resumed our seats at the table. Selene’s earlier warning flashed across my mind: Kadolian changelings can drift ethically into crime, psychopathy, or sociopathy. “You’re sure it’s Galfvi’s blood?”

  “They’re checking it now,” Kreega said. “But there are only a few other Patth in town, and as far as I know none of them patronizes the Javersin brothers’ place.”

  “We’ve been told at least one of them sometimes goes to Panza’s Café,” Selene offered. “That’s not too far from the fish shop.”

  “You’ve been both places, then?” Kreega asked. “I mean, to know where they are relative to each other.”

  “There are these things called maps that also do that job,” I said, letting my tone go a little testy. It was time I got over my shock and started feeling a little righteously indignant. “But yes, we’ve been both places. If this is a formal interrogation, can we get on with it?”

  “Nothing formal about it, Mr. Roarke,” Kreega assured me, pulling out her info pad. “We’re just trying to collect information, and you’re two of the people we’re hoping to collect it from. So. Darnell Javersin says you talked for a while with his Kadolian employee, Tirano. What exactly did you talk about?”

  “I’m sure Mr. Javersin could tell you that,” I said. “He made sure he was close enough to eavesdrop.”

  “Oh, he did tell us,” Kreega said calmly. “I just want to hear your version.”

  “Not going to be any different from his,” I said. “Tirano told us his age and that his parents were dead. Darnell said he’d been indentured to them by a broker named Lukki, told us we could find her at Panza’s, and then Tirano went back to work. End of conversation.”

  “What about Galfvi?”

  “What about him?” I asked. “We didn’t talk to him at all. We didn’t even know his name until you mentioned it a couple of minutes ago.”

  “And did you then go to Panza’s to confront Ms. Parsons?”

  From across the table I caught the subtle catch in Selene’s breath. Kreega’s scent had shifted, which meant her emotions had changed, which meant she’d just sidled casually up on one of the truly critical questions. “If by Ms. Parsons you mean Lukki, yes, But I went there to talk to her, nothing more.”

  “I’m told you pulled a weapon on her.”

  We’d reached the crucial question list, all right. “To be precise, I pulled a weapon on one of the men who attacked me.”

  “Attacked you?” Kreega echoed, her eyebrows rising. “I’m told it was a simple shoving match.”

  “I suppose that’s fair.”

  “And you were the one who escalated it?”

  I shrugged. “I just shoved harder than they did.”

  “Mm.” Kreega peered at her pad. “Tell me, what kind of terms did you and Ms. Parsons separate on?”

  “They were mostly cordial on my part,” I said. “You’d have to ask her for her take on it.”

  “That would be a bit difficult,” Kreega said, “given that Ms. Parsons is the one who was murdered.”

  I felt my lip twitch. So we’d finally gotten where I’d figured we were going. I really needed to stop opening the Ruth’s entryway to badgemen. “I suppose this is where I’m supposed to trot out my alibi?”

  “If you have one, yes, this would be the time.”

  “I’m sure it would,” I said. “Unfortunately, I don’t. I headed straight back here from Panza’s on foot. I got mugged about three blocks from—”

  “Mugged?” Kreega cut me off, frowning. “Why didn’t you mention that before?”

  “Because it wasn’t a big deal,” I said. “Someone shot me with a vertigo dart, rifled through my wallet without taking anything, and left me in the rain to recover.”

  “I don’t suppose you kept the dart.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, but I assume it’s still lying around the street somewhere. You want to see where it hit me?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, standing up.

  I took off my jacket and shrugged my shirt off my right shoulder. “Somewhere there,” I said, pointing to my upper back.

  “Okay, I see the puncture mark,” Kreega confirmed, taking a couple of quick pictures of the spot. “I’ll have a couple of my guys look for the dart in the morning. I don’t suppose you’d like to give me a blood sample to confirm it was a vertigo drug?”

  “Is that an official request?” I asked, pulling my shirt back into place.

  “If you mean do I have a warrant, no,” she said, returning to her seat on the foldout. “But most people with nothing to hide are happy to cooperate with badgemen.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “But as my father used to say, Everyone has something they’d prefer to keep to themselves, and you might as well put bodily fluids at the top of that list. Besides, the drug’s been metabolized and out of my system for at least the last half hour.”

  “Maybe,” Kreega said, still not looking happy. “A sample still might help support your story.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes.” Abruptly, Kreega shifted her eyes to Selene. “What about you, Ms. Selene? You want to tell me where you’ve been this afternoon and evening?”

  “Whoa,” I protested. “What are you asking her for? I’m the one who had the run-in with Lukki and her thugs, remember?”

  “And she’s the one with blood ties to our missing Kadolian,” Kreega countered. “The missing Kadolian, moreover, who was indentured to the Javersin brothers by the late Ms. Parsons.”

  I looked at Selene. There was quiet turmoil in her pupils, and a simmering anger.

  She’d killed before, of course, back in our bounty hunter days. That was the price of the job: eventually you took someone’s life, or someone took yours.

  But those deaths had always been last-ditch decisions, and always done in self-defense. I’d never thought of Selene as someone who could kill in cold blood.

  Now, gazing into those pupils, I wondered if maybe she could.

  “I drove up into the mountains,” she said. Her voice and face were their usual inexpressive calmness, and it occurred to me that if Detective-Sergeant Kreega was hoping to read guilt or innocence there she was going to be seriously disappointed. “Highway 306, the main road that leads up and around the mountains toward Cavindoss.”

  “Yes, I know it,” Kreega said.

  “I went as far as I could before sunset, then started back,” Selene continued. “I drove through Bilswift and arrived at the Ruth about an hour ago.”

  “You came straight back from 306 to the ship?”

  Selene’s pupils went a little uneasy. “No,” she said. “I first drove past the Javersin brothers’ seafood shop, then past Panza’s Café.”

  “Why?”

  “The first because I wanted to see if Tirano was still there,” Selene said. “The shop’s shutters were in place and there were no lights showing, so I assumed he was gone. The second because I thought Gregory might have only recently left and that if I could catch up to him along the way I could give him a ride back.”

  “You didn’t go into either place?”

  “No.”

  For a moment the two women stared at each other, Kreega trying her best to read Selene’s mind, Selene just being Selene. “So straight down the mountain, past the scene of two disappearances and a murder, then back to your ship.”

  “Or straight down the mountain, past two business establishments, then back to the ship,” I growled. “If you’re going to slant the evidence, at least wait until you’re on the witness stand. And if you’re going to formally charge us, let’s get on with it.”

  “No one’s charging anyone yet,” Kreega said, standing up. “Right now, we’re still just investigating. Thanks for your hospitality. We’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I said, standing up as well. “By the way, may I ask how and where Lukki was killed?”

  Kreega regarded me coolly. “Not that it’s any of your business, but she took a single plasmic shot to the chest outside her apartment house.”

  “Range?” I asked. “Angle?”

  “Point-blank,” Kreega said. “One to three meters. Straight in.”

  “Lighting?”

  “You saw what the streetlights are like out there,” Kreega said. “Adequate, but nothing more. You always this nosy on matters that don’t concern you?”

  “You’re on the edge of accusing Selene and me of murder,” I reminded her. “I think that gives us a claim to it being our business. More than that, as a former bounty hunter I’ve had a certain amount of experience with such things.”

  “I’ll just bet you have,” she said darkly. “Oh, and don’t try to leave the planet. We’ll know if you do. Good night. Sleep well.”

  * * *

  Selene was still seated at the table, staring into her bowl, when I returned from seeing Kreega out and locking the entryway behind her. “You all right?” I asked as I sat down across from her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, still keeping her pupils out of my view. “I reheated the chowder a little.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I’d already noticed the heightened aroma. “She’s a real peach, isn’t she?”

  “She’s worried.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “This might be the first murder she’s ever had to deal with. Not to mention all the political repercussions.”

  Selene raised her eyes to me, her pupils frowning. “Political repercussions?”

  “Our Lukki Parsons wasn’t just your normal working-class citizen,” I pointed out. “She’s a self-styled dealer in exotics.”

  “And?”

  “And look where we are,” I said, waving a hand around me. “Bilswift doesn’t exactly have the population density to support a brisk trade in exotic alien slavery or even exotic alien indenture. She set up shop here in this out-of-the-way place where all the major Alainn authorities are either oblivious to her business or winking at it in exchange for nice monthly payments.”

  “She might just use this as her base while she travels around,” Selene pointed out. “She could have her own aircar, and there’s a daily shuttle to Tranlisoa.”

  “True,” I conceded. “Plus there’s the StarrComm center there, so she might be able to do some of her business long-distance. Regardless, she must have had protectors, and whoever they were I suspect they’re sweating ten-millimeter slugs right now that it wasn’t just about Lukki.”

  “Yes, I see.” Selene looked up, her pupils earnest and a little fearful. “Gregory . . . you believe me, don’t you? That I didn’t kill her?”

  “Of course,” I said with more conviction than I really felt. There were few enough Kadolians in the Spiral as it was, and to find one of them in slavery would surely have dug deeply into Selene’s heart and soul. And I had no idea what her species’ view was on retribution.

  And lurking in the back of my mind was her reluctant admission a few months back that some of her people had once been hired as assassins, and that many of them had apparently taken to the job. “Look, there’s nothing we can do about all that right now,” I continued before she could respond. “Kreega and the other badgemen are on it, and we need more information before we can take our own look at it. So let’s focus on the reason we came to Bilswift in the first place. Did you get anything from your drive up the mountain?”

  “Yes, a little,” she said, her pupils changing as she shifted mental gears. “There’s definitely a major archeological site up there, with everything fenced off.”

  “How much everything?”

  “A lot,” Selene said. “The fencing starts at the edge of the forest about three kilometers outside of town, then runs along the road for at least fifteen kilometers before it curves back away again. A little ways north of the enclosure I found a jeep trail and followed that five kilometers to the river. From what I could see, it looked like the fence went all the way west again, paralleling the river’s southern bank.”

  “Terrific,” I growled. So the Patth had cordoned off an area of around seventy-five square kilometers. That was a lot of territory to search for even the twenty- to forty-meter diameter sphere of a typical Icarus-style portal. “What kind of fence was it?”

  “A quick-set,” she said. “Depending on how many Patth are in there, it could have been put up in two or three days.”

  “So how many are in there?”

  “I couldn’t get close enough for accurate numbers,” she said. “There are a large number of plants and animals I’m not familiar with that confuse the scents. But I’m fairly certain it’s just Patth.”

  “What, no Drilies?” I asked. With their squat builds and gorilla-length arms, Drilies were one of the chief go-to species for excavation work when bringing in digging machines wasn’t practical.

  “None that I could smell.” Her pupils shifted to wry humor. “I know: Patth doing their own heavy labor. I’m as surprised as you are.”

 

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