by Timothy Zahn
They were like berserkers or Juggernauts, living in a secret self-contained world within their own minds, creating their secret rules for others to follow. Only when the protocol was broken did they come out of those shells, and then only to kill with instant and emotionless efficiency. No one knew where they lived, if they indeed lived in any particular place or society. The colony ship’s sensors hadn’t spotted any such groupings on its way in, and the handful of brave or rash souls who had tried to track the Stryders back through the forest had never been heard from again.
Every possible approach to communication had been attempted, to no avail. The colonists had tried human speech, both at normal pitch and as shifted to other segments of the auditory spectrum. Lights had been tried, and mathematical and geometric symbols, and odors and tastes and Morse and Jartrac codes. Kla’ka Four, the nearest thing to a general trade language that the archaeologists had ever found in this region of space, had had no more impact with the Stryders than any of the Earth languages had.
Someone had even talked the colony’s governors into letting her try an interpretive dance. That had garnered the same nonresults as everything else, except that the dancers had died even faster.
The Stryder was coming closer now, his slow, steady footsteps shaking the ground and sending shivers through Aimee’s knee. She kept her eyes down, double-checking the angle of her elbow and wondering if the crowd was too tightly packed for the Stryder to get through without stepping on someone. As far as she knew, that had never happened, but there was always a first time. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the man directly in front of her fidget slightly, possibly wondering the same thing. Hold still, she pleaded silently with him as he fidgeted again. The approaching Stryder was well within razordisk range, and she had no desire to see the man fidget his way to a bloody death. The footsteps were practically on top of her—
And suddenly, the air filled with a sound that froze her blood and wrenched her back a dozen years to that horrible day with Aunt Ruth. A sound like the moan of a wounded wolfbat.
The Stryder had activated his razordisk.
A scream bubbled up in Aimee’s throat; desperately, viciously, she forced it down. Screaming wasn’t part of the protocol.
The nervous man in front of her apparently wasn’t as strong or as self-controlled as she was. He gave another twitch at the sound, the worst one yet.
Aimee’s breath was coming in short, painful bursts now. No doubt; the razordisk was for him. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, to block out her view of his back before the silvery death cut through his heart and lungs and spine and left him broken on the roadway.
But shutting her eyes wasn’t part of the protocol, either. Instead, she focused her attention on the back of her own hand, counting the veins and praying that for once a Stryder would change his mind and go away without killing someone—
The wolfbat moan changed pitch; and with a flash of reflected sunlight the razordisk shot past her forehead, snapping back in its return flight half a racing heartbeat later. A burst of bright red erupted across her vision, obscenely brilliant in the morning sunlight.
And without even a last gasp, Ted toppled over and collapsed into a spreading pool of his own blood.
The footsteps resumed their plodding, and the Stryder passed through the rest of the crowd, without so much as stepping on an outstretched toe.
The Sanctuary was a slightly irregular circle, perhaps ten meters across, in the center of the village square and bordered by a hedge of meter-high bushes dotted with delicate orange-colored flowers. For some unknown reason, the Stryders always avoided the ring, as well as ignoring everything that went on inside it. Anyone who wanted to relax and not have to think about Stryders for a few minutes could step through one of the three narrow gaps into the circle and sit down on one of the benches set around the inside.
The time limit for most people was ten minutes before they had to give up their place to someone else and move on. For someone like Aimee, there was no such restriction.
She was sitting in the shady side of the circle, staring down at the ground, when a pair of booted feet suddenly intruded. “Here,” a man’s voice said, sounding like it was coming from far away.
She looked up, the haze of unreality glazed across her eyes parting just far enough to show an earnest young face gazing down at her from above a stiff uniform collar. “What?” she asked. Her voice sounded as distant as his.
“I brought you something to drink,” he said. “It’ll help you feel better.”
She lowered her eyes from his face, down past the policeman’s badge pinned to his uniform jacket, and focused at last on the cup in his hand. “No, thank you,” she murmured.
He seemed to hesitate, then moved to the bench and sat down beside her. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Shondar,” he said quietly. “I wish there was something I could say or do to help.”
“Thank you,” she said mechanically, still staring at the cup in his hand. “I don’t … what did he do wrong?”
“I don’t know,” the patrolman said. “Did you happen to notice anything?”
Aimee shook her head, tearing her eyes away from the cup to look across at the far side of the hedge and the orange flowers. Once, she knew, there had been a plan to plant this species of hedge around the whole colony, giving them permanent protection against the Stryders. But everywhere else that it was planted, the flowers came out yellow, and the Stryders trampled them into the ground as uncaringly as they did tomokado vines. “I saw the man in front of me twitching,” she said. “I wasn’t facing toward Ted.”
“No, of course not,” the patrolman agreed. “Well, Sergeant Royce is running the facplates’ records now. We’ll know soon enough what happened.”
“But how could he have done anything wrong?” Aimee protested. “It was all right there. He knew how to follow the protocol.”
“I know,” the policeman said. “But sometimes it’s such a small and subtle mistake that you don’t even notice it until it’s too late. You’re sure you didn’t see anything?”
“No,” Aimee said, frowning up at him. Granted that it had been twelve years since the last time she’d gone through this, the questions weren’t going at all the way she remembered them. “I’m sorry. What was your name again?”
“Patrolman Ricardo Clay,” he told her, not taking offense even though she had the vague feeling he’d given her his name at least twice already. “The reason I ask, Mrs. Shondar, is that we’ve already talked to most of the people who were closest to you. None of them has any recollection of your husband breaking protocol, either.”
“But that’s impossible,” Aimee said. “If he follows protocol, they have to let him live. Don’t they?”
Clay’s lip twitched. “As far as we can tell, they don’t actually have to do anything,” he reminded her soberly. “But up to now, yes, as long as a person stayed within protocol, he was okay.”
“What do you mean, ‘up to now’?” Aimee asked. “Has something changed?”
“I don’t know.” Clay’s eyes shifted over her shoulder. “Maybe we’re about to find out.”
Aimee looked behind her. An older patrolman was coming toward them, sergeant’s braid glittering on his shoulder, her facplate gripped in his right hand. “Mrs. Shondar,” he greeted her as he stepped up beside Clay. “I’m Sergeant Royce. We’ve just done a complete analysis of yours and your husband’s plate records.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “And we’ll be damned if we can find anything he did to break protocol.”
Aimee’s skin began to prickle. There’d been just the slightest emphasis on the word he. “What are you suggesting?” she asked. “If he didn’t break protocol, why is he dead?”
“As I said, we really don’t know,” Royce said, an odd glint in his eye. “Though it’s possible we might have missed something. Your plate doesn�
��t have a very clear view of the event; we’re still analyzing your husband’s.”
“But if you didn’t miss anything?”
Royce was still eyeing her strangely. “Then we may have something new cropping up,” he said. “Maybe some little nuance we haven’t gleaned from the Pyramid record yet.”
Automatically, Aimee’s eyes drifted over his shoulder to the slivers of white that could be seen through the surrounding trees. The Great White Pyramid, with its detailed listing of the protocol set out in five languages—Kla’ka Four among them—had been the colony’s salvation after all the attempts to communicate with or destroy the Stryders had failed. “But that’s impossible,” she said. “Isn’t it? The archaeologists and linguists have been over it a thousand times. How could they possibly have missed anything?”
“I don’t know,” Royce said evenly. “But I’m sure you agree that anything’s possible.” He paused, just a fraction of a second too long. “By the way, have you ever gone out and looked at the Pyramid yourself?”
“My aunt took me to see it once when I was ten,” she told him slowly. “I haven’t been there since.”
“Uh-huh,” Royce said. “That was your Aunt Lydia, wasn’t it? The one who was pretty good at reading Kla’ka Four?”
Aimee looked at Patrolman Clay, who was in turn peering up at Sergeant Royce. The younger man looked as confused as she felt. “She read me a few lines,” she acknowledged. “Mostly parts of the protocol I already knew.”
“‘Mostly’?” Royce echoed.
“All right, it was all parts of the protocol I already knew,” Aimee said, anger beginning to seep into the numbness. What was he trying to say, anyway? “Is that better?”
“If it’s the truth,” Royce said, his expression not changing in the slightest. “Tell me, Mrs. Shondar: how have you been getting along with your husband?”
The wisps of anger vanished into something very cold. “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.
“What I mean is that several of the people we interviewed mentioned that the two of you had an argument on the way to Venture this morning,” Royce said. “What was it about?”
Aimee swallowed. “That was a private matter between me and my husband.”
“Maybe,” Royce said, his eyes hardening. “Maybe not. This is a death investigation; and in death investigations we have a lot of latitude as to what gets to stay private and what doesn’t.”
Clay cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m a little confused. This is a simple Stryder death, not a homicide.”
“Is it?” Royce countered. “Again, maybe or maybe not. You haven’t answered my question, Mrs. Shondar.”
It took Aimee a moment to even remember what the question was. “Ted was angry because I did the protocol from memory instead of calling it up on the plate,” she said. “I told him I knew that particular one by heart; he didn’t think it was a good idea to do it that way.”
“He was right about that, actually,” Clay murmured. “Two-thirds of all Stryder killings are a result of people getting complacent or careless.”
“I wasn’t getting complacent,” Aimee snapped. “If anyone out there this morning knew what messing up the protocol would mean, it was me.”
“Yes, of course,” Clay said hastily. “I didn’t mean to suggest you were taking it lightly.”
“Still, as long as we’re on the subject,” Royce put in, “how about telling us what your relationship was like with your Aunt Ruth?”
Aimee felt the memory of that day tearing through her stomach. “What kind of a question is that?” she snarled, her voice starting to shake. “I loved my aunt.”
“Just like you loved your husband?” Royce asked pointedly. “Tell me: did you have a similar argument with her that morning? Possibly on the same subject of being treated like a child?”
Royce’s face was beginning to swim in front of her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice sounding like it was coming out of a deep well. The whole world was starting to swim now. …
She awoke with a start, to find herself lying on the bench where she’d been sitting. Directly above her, the sky had turned a dark shade of purple with tinges of red and yellow in it.
What in the world … ?
She started to lift her head, instantly regretting the decision as her neck abruptly screamed from a dozen locales at the hasty movement. Carefully, stifling a moan, she eased it back down again.
“Ah—you’re awake,” a voice came from behind her.
More carefully this time, Aimee lifted her head and turned it around. Patrolman Clay was walking across the Sanctuary ring toward her, his shirt sleeves rippling in the evening breeze.
The evening breeze?
She looked around again. It was evening, all right, with the brilliant colors of sunset peeking through the trees to the west. “What happened?” she asked.
“You fainted,” Clay explained, coming to her side and helping her sit up. “We called Dr. Bhahatya, who said it would be best to let you sleep, so we had him give you an injection.”
“Was that your idea?” Aimee asked, carefully stretching stiff arms. “Calling the doctor, I mean.”
Clay shrugged slightly. “Mostly.”
“Sergeant Royce won’t be very happy about that,” she warned bitterly. “Interrupting his interrogation that way.”
Clay waved a hand casually. “He’ll get over it.”
“I don’t think so.” Aimee closed her eyes briefly. “He thinks I murdered my husband, doesn’t he?”
She opened her eyes in time to see Clay purse his lips. “You have to admit it’s an intriguing idea,” he said. “If you could somehow find a way to make someone break protocol—without also doing it yourself, of course—you’d have a way to commit the perfect murder. In front of witnesses, too.”
A lump rose into Aimee’s throat. “I loved my husband, Patrolman Clay,” she said. “I really did. I didn’t want him dead. I didn’t want Aunt Ruth dead, either. Doesn’t anyone believe me?”
“I believe you,” Clay said quietly. “But I don’t believe what happened today is just an unexplained accident, either. Something happened to cause that Stryder to attack.”
“But what?” Aimee asked. “I didn’t do anything. I know I didn’t.”
“Maybe it was something subtle,” Clay suggested. “Something so small that you didn’t even notice it. Or maybe it’s something else, some new layer in the protocol that we haven’t figured out yet.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Clay said. “Maybe it’s something having to do with you personally. You were, what, twelve years old when your aunt was killed?”
“That’s right.”
“And it’s been another twelve years since then,” Clay continued. “Maybe the Stryders are celebrating an anniversary or something.”
Aimee winced. “That’s a horrible thought.”
“I agree,” Clay said. “And personally, I don’t believe it for a second. But until we figure out what happened, we can’t afford to dismiss any of the possibilities.”
“Including the possibility that I deliberately murdered them?”
Clay started to speak, but apparently thought better of it. “Look, it’s going to be dark soon. Why don’t you stay in the Sanctuary tonight where you’ll be safe, and we can talk more in the morning.”
Aimee’s first reaction was to insist that she wasn’t afraid of the dark, and that she was perfectly capable of traveling. But the reaction was pure pride, and her pride had already caused enough damage for one day. Besides, she really didn’t feel like a walk all alone in the dark. “All right,” she said.
“Good.” Almost shyly, he smiled at her. “I’ve got to get back to work—I’m on evening patrol tonight. I’ll leave you my coat, though, in case y
ou get cold.”
She looked down, noticing for the first time that his jacket was neatly folded right where her head had been lying on the bench. Apparently, it had already served duty as her pillow. “Thank you,” she said.
“No problem,” he said, moving toward one of the gaps in the hedge. “I’ll look in on you a little later.” He paused at the gap, glanced around for any signs of Stryders, then strode out into the gathering dusk.
For a long time, Aimee sat on the bench, watching the sky fade into purple and then into starlit black. The businesses around the square were long since closed, but there were enough lights from nearby residences to throw a faint glow over the area.
And with the ghostly light washing over her, she gazed at the stars and listened to the night breezes whispering through the trees.
And tried to think.
What had she done? Because she had done something. Everyone agreed on that, even those like Patrolman Clay who didn’t think she’d done anything on purpose. Somehow, something she’d done had caused a Stryder to kill her husband.
But how? And why? Could she have been angrier at him than she’d realized? Some kind of deep or lingering anger that she didn’t even know was there?
No. She’d loved her husband. Hadn’t she? Of course she had. And she’d loved Aunt Ruth, too. The older woman had irritated her sometimes, but everyone had irritated her sometimes back then. Part of being twelve, she supposed.
But if somehow her subconscious had latched onto that irritation and figured out a way to break protocol for someone else …
She shook her head decisively. No. Aunt Ruth had sneezed. That sneeze, and the resulting rearrangement of head and torso and arms, was what had broken protocol and gotten her killed. These were two entirely different cases, despite Sergeant Royce’s efforts to link them.
What about Patrolman Clay’s theory? Could it be a matter of who she was, rather than something she’d done? Had the Stryders somehow gotten it into their heads that every twelve years someone standing or kneeling or crouching beside her should die?
