When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set

by Jack Q McNeil

  CHAPTER 5

  The first two security firm offices were a ten-minute walk from our office. That’s not accidental; the area next to the space port is the oldest, most prestigious part of the city. Everyone who is anyone has an office there. We walked. LB was whistling, so I turned to Harry and realized there was no point talking to her either. She was walking with hands behind her back, right holding the left wrist, eyebrows together. My studies of this human led me to believe that her ears were turned off at this point, and a bomb going off would not get her attention.

  “I wonder what she’s thinking about,” LB said, startling me.

  “I’m hoping she’s thinking about this case,” I said. “But I’ve noticed the boyfriend left the planet last month and hasn’t come back. So she might be thinking about being the only human on the planet.”

  “She’s not the only apeform on the planet,” LB pointed out. “She can come and hang out with my crowd.”

  “Humans are an odd apeform, though. Have you noticed she never uses the climbing frames at the Irish Bar? I’ve known her fourteen months and I’ve yet to see her climb a tree or walk on her knuckles.”

  LB worked a shrug into his walk. “When my species first met humans, we classified them as avianforms because they only walk upright on their back legs. Apparently, it’s been millions of years since they last nested in trees.”

  “They don’t know what they’re missing, eh?”

  “Damn right. I still miss the old family tree. Dad waiting until we kids had just nodded off and then shouting `Fire!` How we used to laugh.”

  “We’re here,” I said.

  “Should I give the marshal a shake?”

  “No need,” I said. “I find if I stop walking, she notices after a while.”

  “We’re here?” Harry asked after a moment. “Nice place.”

  It was. Fifty stories high, faux powder-blue marble stone facing, with a timber frame outlining the doors and windows in black. Wood is an off-world commodity, Smuds never having evolved past giant ferns. A sign said Vi Scount Private Security Co. in twenty-seven languages.

  “Wasn’t it the Waddudu who built this?” I said. “They must have imported all the materials and the expertise.”

  “So the company has money?” The marshal raised one eyebrow at LB and he mumbled.

  “Financial records, right. I’m on it.”

  I could look up financial records with my in brain cybernetic dashboard but, for some reason, the marshal never asks. I led the way through the doors and scanned the foyer.

  “Don’t make any sudden moves,” I said. “There are concealed weapons systems at three points covering the door, and a force shield protecting the receptionist’s desk. It can target us at will and there’s nothing I can do.”

  Odd feeling, that. Being vulnerable to attack. The marshal approached reception and identified herself to the hologram occupying the desk. As she spoke, it changed from a hybrid whatchamacallit to a human female with lustrous dark hair, pouting red lips, and dark sloe eyes. I’m not even the same species and I was impressed by her beauty.

  “I am Marshal Harry Ward, here to see the investigators of Mr cruisOVO’s first murder. We have an appointment.”

  “Yes,” the receptionist agreed. “The Legal Response Team are waiting for you in room 4027. This floaholobot will show you the way.”

  No kidding, I heard the capital letters of Legal Response Team in the way she pronounced the words. The floaholobot rose from behind the desk and glided away.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Marshal Harry said before nodding and following the guide.

  “You know that’s just an AI, don’t you?” I asked. “You don’t have to be polite to machinery.”

  “I am always polite to persons pointing weapons at me,” Harry replied. “Besides, good manners cost nothing.”

  “I’m into their financial records,” LB interrupted before I could deliver the scathing put down about the worth of pride I was sure to think of. “Anything in particular you want me to look for?”

  “Any connections to the case, or the people involved,” Marshal Harry said.

  “Done. berOVO owned eighty percent of the company at the point of his death,” LB said, reading off the information projected onto the inside of his eyes. “Which was sold after the first murder of cruisOVO, by his wife, who had power of attorney while he was dead and recovering.”

  Harry stopped walking, just short of an open elevator. The floaholobot entered the lift before turning and coming to find us.

  “Mr cruisOVO’s wife had power of attorney while he was dead? He didn’t tell us that.”

  “Must have slipped his mind,” I said. “Being dead three times probably affects the memory a bit.”

  “She didn’t tell us either,” LB pointed out. “I wonder if she had power of attorney the other two times he was dead?”

  “Find out,” Marshal Harry ordered.

  “This way, please,” the floaholobot said. “We are about to enter a high security area, where deviating from instructions may result in life termination.”

  “Cool way of putting it,” I said. “Mind if I borrow that line sometime?”

  “You are welcome,” the floaholobot said. “I thought it up myself. I love to be quoted.”

  We stepped into the elevator. There was more powder-blue faux marble with wooden framing outlining each wall and meeting at the corners.

  “They must really like this stuff,” I said.

  “They got the wood cheap as bankrupt stock,” the floaholobot added.

  “Doors closing, mind fingers, count your toes,” the elevator said.

  “That’s one of my lines,” the floaholobot said proudly. “I pointed out to all our elevators that organics have bits that get caught in doors.”

  “That was thoughtful of you, sir,” Marshal Harry said. I would have ground my teeth if I had any. A floaholobot has the lowest level intelligence of the AIs and there is absolutely no cause to be polite to one. It’s like being polite to a coffee machine.

  “Every time cruisOVO has been dead, his wife has exercised power of attorney,” LB said.

  “Interesting. Okay, I want to know, in as much detail as you can find, what happens to the money and business while cruisOVO is dead. Anything that happens when he is dead, but doesn’t happen while he is living, is especially interesting.”

  “On it.”

  The doors parted silently and the floaholobot led the way. A standard hallway with six doors lay beyond. There are only so many basic shapes in architecture. An office door opened and the floaholobot moved to one side and announced, “Please enter and have as pleasurable a day as your physiology and mentality allow.”

  “You’re overthinking your job,” I told it. “Keep it simple.”

  The three Moordanaap waiting in the office were hard to spot at first. A holoprojector was on, giving the appearance that we were standing on a thick bough, high in a family’s tree. Whichever of the three this tree belonged to would be the leader of the group. LB led the way across to a clay-baked nest, while looking around and down at the view. Holo-Moordenaap walked the thicker boughs and in the distance were other family trees. Some of them had boughs grafted to this one, for people to walk across and visit with other friends. These boughs supplied a walking area two metres across.

  “Marshal,” LB whispered from the side of his mouth. “It is considered polite in my society to admire the height and age of the tree. Taller the tree equals greater tribal status.”

  “I’m not good with falls,” Marshal Harry admitted. “I’m okay looking up, but I really don’t want to look down right now.”

  “But that’s only a quarter mile to the ground,” I said.

  “The Long family tree is much higher,” Long Barnacle bragged.

  “Really? We don’t have trees that high on Earth.”

  “Look,” I said and trotted off the bough path, through the air and back. “It’s just a hologram. You can’t fall.”
r />   “My brain knows that, Chunglie, but my eyes see a great, long drop.”

  “Are you familiar with our social customs, Marshal?” LB asked.

  “No. You take the lead in the interview.”

  LB stepped into the large ceramic nest which made the office space. There were two bench seats around the cupola and a table in the middle. The table had the usual recording and holoprojection devices, as well as a spare translator.

  There was no verbal greeting. The man groomed LB, then LB groomed him. A woman brought out a brush and a comb from a drawer and groomed the marshal, and the third brought out some dry rags and gave my carapace a nice polish. It was the nicest twenty minutes I had in a month, and it showed they had expected us and done their research.

  Harry picked something wriggly from deep in the fur, closed her eyes, and popped it in her mouth. I’ve no idea what she has against eating invertebrates, some of the little ones are very tasty.

  “If you don’t want that,” I said, “I’ll have it.”

  “No, I can manage,” Harry said and swallowed.

  I was on my back getting my tummy polished when LB and the other Moordanaap decided they had groomed enough. There doesn’t seem to be an exact time limit. Someone catches someone’s eye, there’s a nod, and they start talking. I thought about starting a Moordanaapwiki too.

  “My name is Col Meaney, Marshal,” he said. “Patriarch of the Col family on this planet. This is SugaSuga and Honihoni.”

  “I am Long Barnacle, patriarch of the Longs on this star system,” LB said. Which was stretching the truth a little. His brother was also the patriarch of his branch of the family but was away in another system at the time. “This is Marshal Harry Ward the 23rd of that name. This is Chunglie 1st of that name.”

  I waved a claw at Honihoni, in appreciation of the polish and the wriggly snacks her fur had provided. She glanced down demurely. I’ve still got it.

  “It is good to finally meet you, Marshal,” Col Meaney said. “I have followed your career on this world with interest. Your success rate is unprecedented and admiral.”

  Harry shrugged that off. “There is a murder almost every day here,” she pointed out. “I’m only amazed there’s anyone left alive by the end of the year.”

  “But you solve them. Every one. My own success rate is a solid seventy percent. I’m looking forward to finding out who is behind the murder of Mr OVO, because his family used to own a majority share in this company and his death and the sale of those shares caused us some discomfort.”

  “All we have to start with are the reports that were passed along to the other two private security companies.”

  “Yes, we passed along everything we had.”

  “What about the servobot that you suspected of poisoning the food? I’ve been through the reports, and there is no location for that piece of evidence.”

  “Once it was scanned and the logs downloaded, it was scrapped.”

  “What? You destroyed evidence?”

  “Well, no one wants a killer bot around the place, and we had all the salient data.”

  “But… But…” Sometimes the politeness centre of Harry’s brain is so shocked by what wants to come out of her mouth, it shuts everything down.

  “There are new techniques and services available every damn day,” I said. Thankfully, I don’t have a politeness centre in my brain. “That we could have used to get further… salient… information from that servobot.”

  Meaney bristled, which looks quite impressive on a Moordanaap. I raised my head to his eye level and slowly stretched my venomous palps. I saw this move in a horror film once. LB raised an arm between us.

  “Obviously, it is wise to save space,” he said in a rush. “No one can blame you for that, especially after the case was handed on to another company. However, could we have the address of the scrap merchants you used?”

  “What?” I said.

  “What?” Meaney said, second.

  “It may be lying at the back of a lot somewhere, and our marshal has a very reliable IT department.”

  “Oh, right,” Meaney turned to Honihoni. “Find out which service we use for disposal and pass it along to the marshal.”

  “Very good, sir.” She nodded at him, glanced at me, and delivered a million-watt smile. Hang on… was she trying to play me? SugaSuga squirmed up against LB until their hips were touching. Yup, a play.

  “Sir, were you in charge of the investigation?” Marshal Harry asked.

  “I had a supervisory role, yes. Honihoni and Sugasuga were in the field.”

  The marshal turned to SugaSuga.

  “You went to the restaurant? Did any of the witnesses seem off?”

  “I didn’t go the restaurant personally,” SugaSuga said. “I dispatched our scene of crime bots and supervised them from my office.”

  “So… who went to the restaurant?”

  “The Socbots.”

  Harry’s mouth fell open, slowly. “You didn’t send a detective to investigate a serious crime?”

  “We sent Socbot XP5000s,” Meaney said, as if laying down aces in a card game. I could have told him he was on a loser, but it is fun when the marshal blows up unexpectedly. She has such nice manners, no one expects it.

  “And all it came back with was a hacked servobot? What about witness statements? What ab—"

  “Unnecessary,” Meaney interrupted. “We have the recording, and the scans. We know the poison was in OVO’s food—"

  “But you don’t know when it was put there,” Marshal Harry took a turn at interrupting.

  “Well… no, but obviously it happened between the kitchen and the table. The servobot—"

  Marshal Harry raised a hand with her holoprojector and a 3D version of the scans of the servobot appeared on the table. It was a wheeled box with arms and divided areas to hold the food, beneath movable covers. All plastic, white, and sterile.

  “Scans show there was no sign of poison in the remaining food,” she said.

  “You’ve seen how Qoh Modes eat,” Honihoni said. “I concluded that it was only in the portion Mr cruisOVO swallowed.”

  “How?” Marshal Harry demanded. “How did the killer set this scene so that only Mr cruisOVO would eat the poisoned portion? They all ordered the same thing. The tail was pre-sliced before it left the kitchen. So how can the killer be certain which slice went to the victim?”

  “Erm,” Honihoni looked at the marshal, at her boss, no help there, back to the marshal. “You know it’s not my job to ask questions like that. It’s my job to collate the data from the various Socbots and compile a complete report. Which I did.”

  “It is anything,” Harry raised her voice, “but complete.”

  SugaSuga stood. “You can’t talk to us like this. We are professionals. Our reputation is—"

  “For private security, not investigation,” Marshal Harry said. “And if this is an example, you should give the OVOs their money back.”

  SugaSuga raised a fist above her head.

  “I wouldn’t do that if—" LB said quickly, leaping to his rear feet, but it was too late. I caught the wrist halfway to the marshal’s face and bit deep.

  “You nasty little… bug…” SugaSuga slumped to the floor.

  “Can we all agree she was going to say bug?” I asked. Meaney and Honihoni gaped at the heap on the floor and then stared at me.

  “Assault of a marshal is a serious offence,” Marshal Harry said, standing. “But since the blow did not actually land, I am willing to overlook it this once.”

  “Is my colleague… deceased?” Meaney asked in a hoarse voice.

  “No,” I said in my normal voice. “But she will have a nasty headache when she wakes up.”

  “Chunglie’s job is to protect the marshal, and he is good at it,” LB said. “You might want to, you know, tell your colleague when she wakes up.”

  Marshal Harry led the way back to the elevator.

  “You’re right, LB,” she said as she strolled across
the bough walkway. “It isn’t that tall a tree after all.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “I’m sorry about that, Harry,” LB said as we reached street level.

  “And don’t come back,” the floaholobot shouted as it slammed the door behind us.

  “I’m afraid my species express themselves very… physically.”

  I made the sign of the dustbin at the floaholobot with two claws and it scurried out of sight.

  “Not your fault, LB,” Harry said. “I do forget sometimes that nearly everyone on this planet is bigger and stronger than I.”

  “Luckily, they’re not as quick as me,” I pointed out.

  Harry grinned. “That is true,” she said. “Did you see SugaSuga’s face when you caught her wrist in your jaws? Ha, definitely not a bug lover.”

  “About that,” LB said as he led the way along the street. I noticed Wongloshoe throwing the shutters up on the windows. Their freeze-dried ruminant is the best, but I knew Harry would not break for lunch this early in the day. “I’ve been looking up your species online and I found a reference to… ah… arachnophobia?”

  “That’s fear of spiders, LB. Doesn’t apply to Chunglie.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Chunglie,” LB said. “You haven’t been in the star system long, so you may not have run across the Investonidia.”

  “Never heard of them,” Marshal Harry said. “Is that the name of the company?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It is also the name of the species. They don’t have a big imagination for names.”

  We reached a single-story building. It was flanked on either side by forty-story towers.

  “I thought this place would be bigger,” Marshal Harry said.

  “It is bigger,” I said and led the way through the door. The room was painted a basic cream, the floor was tiled in dark grey. Business-like and dull.

  “So… you don’t suffer from arachnophobia, Marshal?” LB asked.

  “No, LB, I don’t.”

  “Just me then,” he said, standing erect and pushing his chest out as the floor began to drop. Street level rose up the window frame and swallowed the scene in painted white bricks.