Alibi Jones

by Mike Luoma

Chapter Four

  "Let's see." Alibi tries calling up sensor readings. "Nothing on the sensors... if they're working. No one following us!"

  "Nice!" Piccolo says.

  "I think I may vomit," Kit says. He gets up out of his seat. "I will go check on the engines."

  "Hold on," Alibi says. Kit gives him a pained look. "Sorry, man. But we've gotta figure out where we're going first."

  "Anywhere away from here is fine with me," Kit says, turning away. "You two figure it out and tell me what you decide. I will be in the engine room." He dashes out of the bridge.

  "Man, it does kinda stink. Smells worse than it used to!" Piccolo admits once Kit is gone. "Kronburg wasn't the most hygienic guy I've ever worked with. I don't think the refresher works on the ship."

  "I didn't think there was a refresher on this ship at all," Alibi comments. "I mean, judging by the smell. So," he changes the subject. "Where are we going? I'd like to follow the trail of my friend. The Tek'Tah grabbed her back on Remillar."

  "No kidding? Remillar? That's where I lost her. My, um, my sister, I mean," Piccolo tells him.

  "No kidding?" Alibi says. "I had just finished a negotiation with two merchants on Remillar. Had some time before my flight back to Cat's Eye, so I decided to look up an old teacher of mine, Minerva Kay. She was my Alien Cultures professor back in high school on Cat's Eye. She really was into alien cultures and ended up moving out to Remillar to study the Flaze and learn more about the Tek'Tah and the Dakhur. She's been working on a book on the Dakhur and Dakhur culture. She's the reason I know so much about them," he tells Piccolo. Alibi pauses, sad but still warmed by thoughts of his absent old teacher and friend.

  "I meant to look her up when I got to Remillar, but the negotiations were too involved. I couldn't get away. She knew I was there for a meeting. We'd even gotten in touch beforehand. I finally had a chance to visit her when the negotiations concluded."

  "There was no answer when I knocked on her apartment door. I knocked a few times, enough so that one of her neighbors came out to give me a hard time about the noise. She lives in a small apartment building in the Remillar Centropolis, in the human sector of the city. Has an old Domo for a neighbor. One of the last of them, I guess. The Domo actually came out to talk to me about knocking so much... and so loud. The Domo said he hadn't seen her around for a few days, if you can trust that."

  "A Domo, huh? I thought they'd all died out?" Piccolo asks.

  "Not all of them. Not yet," Alibi says. "This one was old, but still alive. It went back into its apartment and left me alone after that. It's too bad the people there didn't leave it alone," Alibi says sadly.

  "I tried Miss Kay's apartment door. It was open, so I went in. I was already worried that I was going to find her unconscious or worse, you know?" Piccolo nods. Alibi continues. "But I didn't find her at all. She wasn't in her apartment. But all her stuff, all her personal belongings, were still there. Her Wanderer was there, so she really couldn't have gone far. It hadn't been used in a week or so. I figured that's how long she had been missing.

  "I asked around, but the aliens that Miss Kay was so fond of had nothing to say to me about her. I thought a human among them would be different enough to stand out, but they didn't seem to have really noticed her." Alibi shakes his head. "And they didn't seem to notice she was gone. Her Domo neighbor bothered me. Seemed like he was hiding something. And the local Tek'Tah merchant outpost was downright hostile. It was the first time a Tek'Tah dressed me down for supposedly thinking I was 'special' because I'm human. They do NOT like us! I was glad I had my Mediator Corps uniform on. It didn't hurt to look official, you know?"

  "Guess that's why the cat thought you were military," Piccolo notes.

  "It didn't hurt at the consulate, either. I ended up finding some folks who knew Miss Kay at the Solar Alliance consulate. They have informal gatherings there for the local humans on weekends, and she used to attend. A group of them helped me knock on doors and ask questions. Until it got ugly."

  "It got ugly?" Piccolo asks, perking up. "Now I'm interested!"

  "Nice," Alibi says with a sneer. "Yeah, it got ugly with the Domo next door."

  "Really? Did it turn into a vampire? Try to suck your blood?" Piccolo prods.

  "They kind of just ARE vampires, they don't turn into them," Alibi corrects him. "They drain your life energy, not your blood. When I first met Miss Kay's next door neighbor, I felt myself getting tired. I don't think they can help it."

  "Or they don't care," Piccolo points out. "So what happened?"

  "I got together with the other humans at the consulate and found there were others whose friends and loved ones had gone missing. When I told them my missing friend lived next to a Domo, he became their prime suspect. They began accusing the Domo of abducting all the missing people.

  "He agreed to sit down for questions with me. Insisted he had no closets or freezers in his apartment where he could keep so many missing people. Invited me to search the place. But I was already feeling tired. 'You're draining me right now!' I yelled at him. 'I am not feeding on you!' he yelled back. I made the mistake of calling in backup. Four of the younger guys in the consulate group charged into the apartment to 'rescue' me.

  "The Domo was getting frantic as the guys arrived in his apartment. I remember him yelling, 'It happens! It just happens! I have no control over it! I don't even go out in public anymore! I try not to put myself in a position where I impose my needs on others. But you came into my home!' And he was right, you know?

  "Two of the guys helped me up, to help me leave. They helped me get out of the apartment and out into the building's corridor, where I collapsed, drained. I told the other two to search the apartment. They did. Didn't find anything. I chalked it up as an unpleasant dead end. Creepy, sure, but not our kidnapper."

  "What's so ugly about that?" Piccolo asks.

  "Some of the others didn't move on, still suspecting the Domo of wrongdoing. Later they dragged the Domo out and killed him, running stakes through him on the altar of the local NcC church.

  "I helped contribute to that. That's ugly. That's how their race dies, now, one at a time, after that Eldred plague killed off most of them. One by one the survivors are killed."

  "I don't think that was your fault," Piccolo tells him. "I mean, I can see where you might feel bad and all, but really? That wasn't your fault."

  "I agree. Not your fault," Kit chimes in over the com.

  "Kit? Didn't realize you were listening in."

  "I did not mean to eavesdrop. I was hoping to hear that you'd come up with a destination," Kit explains.

  "We're kind of takin' the long way," Piccolo cracks.

  "Fine," Alibi says, trying to sound hurt. "Long story short? Someone else disappeared after the Domo was dead. A girl who I'd met a couple of times at the consulate. A nobody, really, no one to miss her. Except me. She had been abducted by a Tek'Tah thug, a witness testified.

  "The Tek'Tah claimed they had no criminals among them in their trade enclave on Remillar. Maybe that was true. Maybe they don't consider kidnapping a human to be a crime... but I do. The Tek'Tah always seem to act together. All the time. Tight knit family. Most of the ones around here follow a local Overlord. That means there's probably some organized plot to kidnap humans going on... but I have no idea why.

  "I discovered that there was a Tek'Tah ship leaving with another group of captives, and I followed them, stowed away on board their ship. Of course, my friend wasn't aboard. She wasn't one of the people grabbed this time. She was long gone"

  "No?" Piccolo asks. "My sister was kidnapped pretty recently. She might have been one of the people on that ship. That's why I'm here. Kronborg was the only one who was willing to fly me out to Tek'Ti'Karn. I couldn't afford a better ship. Or a better smelling one," he says, wrinkling his nose. "I was asking questions at the bar in the port here, drinking with some other humans and asking about the Tek'Tah. I'd lost track of her by then. So I was drinking, maybe got loud abou
t it. Guess they got wind of my questioning and weren't too happy about it. A Tek'Tah guard showed up, started giving me a hard time. I think he spiked my drinks!"

  "Really?" Alibi asks, suspicion in his voice.

  "Well, yeah," Piccolo replies, on the defensive. "I can usually hold my liquor better than that! And I don't usually stay drunk for two days! I was out of it for way too long for it to have just been alcohol," he protests.

  "I thought that might be your usual state," Alibi cracks.

  "You don't know me!" Piccolo says. He sulks. "Just because I was out of it when you met me... I just lost my sister, man!"

  Regretting he made fun of the man, Alibi mutters, "sorry."

  "S'alright."

  "Are you two bonding or something?" Kit's voice comes purring over the ship's intercom.

  "Just figuring out what we have in common," Alibi says. "How's the engine room?"

  "It is filthy," the Dakhur says, disgust heavy in his voice. "But it does not smell as bad as the bridge!"

  "You know, you do kind of get use to it," Alibi notes, realizing his nose was no longer curling up in horror.

  "YOU might," Kit disagrees. "I do not acclimate as you do! To me it seems to be getting worse, not better!" After a pause, he continues. "But I heard what you said about a prisoner exchange between groups of Tek'Tah. I think I know where they might be headed. Junzias."

  "Junzias? That's an old, dead world, isn't it?" Piccolo says when he hears Kit's answer.

  "An old Eldred world, right?" Alibi remembers. "Why would the Tek'Tah go there? Aren't they worried about a plague, or old defense systems?"

  "The Tek'Tah are said to have 'cleansed' Junzias and made it safe for rehabitation," Kit explains. "But it still has a reputation as a dead world, and so the Tek'Tah use it as a place to conduct business they want to keep out of the public eye. I overheard a Tek'Tah communication that said one of their elite family freighters, a personal ship of the Overlord, left for Junzias just before you were thrown into my cell, Alibi. The timing makes sense."

  "So... let's go to Junzias!" Alibi exclaims. He looks for the star charts in the ship's systems. Junzias is listed as a dead Eldred world in the charts, no hint of Tek'Tah habitation.

  "I do not know if this is a wise course of action," Kit cautions. "They may have defenses. Certainly we should not just Transpace jump in on top of them."

  "I don't know that we have much choice, Kit," Alibi says as he studies the charts. "There's only two Transpace points mapped out on these charts. They're both pretty close to Junzias."

  "Why not map another jump point?" Piccolo suggests.

  "That is a risky proposition," Kit says. "You do not merely 'map' points for Transpace jumps. You need someone to have gone there before, to sight for obstacles and physically calculate the Transpace point."

  "I've done it before. Calculated and mapped a Transpace point blind," Alibi says. "SAIF ship training with the Project. We had to map potential jump points. Later, we jumped to one. Final Exam."

  "Final? Indeed," Kit says with caution.

  "Depends on how thorough the charts of the system are," Alibi insists. "Let me see what we've got for info here and then I'll be able to figure out whether I can do this or not."

  "If you insist," Kit says. The intercom ticks off.

  "I think you pissed the kitty cat off," Piccolo jokes. Alibi doesn't respond. He focuses in on the charts and ignores Piccolo.

  "I can do this," Alibi suddenly says out loud to himself. He looks through the ship's system files. "Looks like I've got the information. Just need some time to work the numbers."