by S. H. Jucha
“We store the weapons below … the third level,” Harbour directed, “and we keep their location a secret.”
Jessie scanned the empty deck. “The convertor sections are aboard the Belle,” he noted. Then Devon and he took care of secreting the launch tubes and drums below.
“Aurelia, locate the Belle, please,” Harbour requested.
Aurelia activated a panel and requested a system scan. Four ships were displayed at Emperion, Pyre’s second moon. The Belle’s massive signature was evident.
“Looks like Dingles took the opportunity to load some slush and stay close,” Harbour commented. “Call the ship.”
Aurelia received an instant response.
“We saw you arrive,” Birdie said excitedly. “Seeing that platform light with its blue energy never gets old.”
“Loading slush, are you?” Harbour inquired.
“Yes, Envoy. Captain Bassiter is getting clever in his old age,” Birdie quipped. What was ironic about Birdie’s comment was that she had many more years on Dingles. “When we arrived, we transferred the Pearl’s slush to our tanks. Then the slush the crews gathered off the surface has been emptied into our ship.”
“What’s your load?” Harbour asked.
“About eleven percent … three Pearl loads worth,” Birdie stated proudly.
“Tell Captain Bassiter that we’re in need of transport,” Harbour said.
“Envoy, this is Danny. Emperion and Triton are approaching alignment. Claudia and I could make the round-trip flight to Triton with the new shuttle. It would allow the crews to load more slush, and we’d be the faster transport.”
“Good suggestion, Danny, if you’re confident in making the trip safely,” Harbour replied.
“Danny, what about access to the ship from vacuum?” Aurelia asked.
“You’ve ruined my surprise,” Danny replied, appearing pained. Then he chuckled. “After our last visit to Triton, it seemed to be a good idea to install a one-person airlock on the inner side of the hatch.”
Aurelia pointed a finger at the console’s pickup, and she winked at Danny.
Danny laughed and said, “We’ll launch within the hour, Envoy.”
* * * *
“Lie here with me,” Tacticnok requested, patting the pallet beside her. “You look as if you carry the weight of Na-Tikkook on your shoulders.”
Jaktook stretched out on the pallet Tacticnok indicated. He faced her. They were in the royal apartment, and the staff had placed the two pallets close.
“I spoke to the Crocians before they left,” Jaktook explained. “But it was some private moments with Hangor that were most illuminating.”
Tacticnok reached a hand to Jaktook, and he gently grasped it.
“As a fellow administrator, Hangor and I share common interests, and he chose to be forthright with me,” Jaktook continued.
“What did he tell you about the Pyreans’ weapons?” Tacticnok requested.
“He said they journeyed to the moon of a simian race called Loopah. The Loopah had acquired access to their dome but not activated their console. The Pyreans admitted to the Crocians that they traded knowledge of the console for the weapons.”
“It’s good the Pyreans aren’t alliance members,” Tacticnok commented.
“That was my thought,” Jaktook said. He enjoyed the feel of Tacticnok’s hand in his and realized that he’d been playing with her fingers while they talked. Her contented expression told him that she enjoyed his touch.
“I wonder if the Pyreans will welcome alliance membership after they’ve heard the Tsargit’s strictures,” Tacticnok mused.
“The envoy made a startling comment to me,” Jaktook said. “She speculated on whether Rissness Station directors would want to employ Pyrean empaths.”
Tacticnok’s eyes popped open, and she chittered. “A delightful idea,” she said. “I must speak to the directors about the concept at their next meeting.”
Tacticnok regarded Jaktook. He wore the same worried expression as when he’d first entered the apartment.
“You’ve not said what’s bothering you, Jaktook,” Tacticnok urged.
Jaktook sighed. It was time to have the conversation he’d dreaded.
“I stayed with the Pyreans while they tested their weapons,” Jaktook said.
“And?” Tacticnok gently urged.
“They’re as we thought. The Pyreans have acquired offensive weapons,” Jaktook explained. “They use compressed nitrogen to fire a dart. The projectile’s second capsule contains more of the gas, and its release disrupts the flesh of the target. They’ll be deadly against a red or gray.”
“Did you fire a weapon?” Tacticnok asked.
“Yes, frequently,” Jaktook replied. “They’re fairly light and accurate for a short distance.”
“And this is why you’re in turmoil?” Tacticnok asked. Jaktook didn’t answer her. He stared past her. Instead of requiring a response, she asked, “Did the Crocians practice with the weapons?”
“Yes,” Jaktook replied. “At first, Mangoth told the envoy that he wouldn’t need one. Then his sibling offered a frightening scenario. He asked Mangoth what he would do if the Colony had developed offensive weaponry.”
“That is a frightening thought,” Tacticnok said, “and it would be like those insectoids to do something like that, especially after their disastrous encounter with the explorers.”
“It’s a credible concern,” Jaktook commented.
“I don’t feel that I’ve heard what worries you,” Tacticnok said.
“It’s this, Your Excellency,” Jaktook said, sitting upright. “You and I’ve spoken of the danger that the Colony represents. We agree the Tsargit will be slow to respond to the threat. We’ve the advantage of perceiving the issue from a different perspective than the Pyreans. The Pyreans journey and explore in trade for the infrastructure gains they desperately need. We see the greater concern … the Colony’s intense desire for expansion. The Colony wants the galaxy, and they won’t stop until they possess it.”
“Is that why you want to go with the envoy?” Tacticnok asked.
“Want to go? No, Your Excellency. I need to go,” Jaktook admitted. “For the sake of the Jatouche, I must see the extent of the problem for myself.”
“You’ll take one of the Loopah’s weapons, won’t you?” Tacticnok asked.
“I’m concerned that my killing of the sentients will place the Jatouche in jeopardy with the Tsargit,” Jaktook replied.
Tacticnok sat upright, and she reached for Jaktook’s hands. She stared earnestly into his eyes.
“Hear me, Master Advisor Jaktook,” Tacticnok said. “I’ll allow you to journey with the envoy under two conditions. First, you’ll carry one of the simian weapons. Second, you’ll expend every effort to use it effectively to save yourself and return to me. I’m ruler. The Tsargit’s perceptions of our actions are my responsibility, not yours. Am I understood?”
The fire in Tacticnok’s eyes had Jaktook firmly replying, “Yes, Your Excellency, I understand.”
* * * *
Lieutenant Cecilia Lindstrom couldn’t let go of it. The thought had repeatedly tumbled through her mind, and she’d finally embraced it. Emerson Strattleford, the ex-commandant, hadn’t committed suicide. He was murdered.
Everyone knew Emerson to be a nasty, self-centered man, but Cecilia thought he wasn’t the type to take his own life.
That security hadn’t solved an additional murder was another vexing problem. It was while thinking of both deaths that Cecilia began to wonder if the two cases weren’t related.
It was obvious that Roby was killed, while in medical, by a downsider. A stationer, who could commit that type of crime, would have been caught. Security would have had abundant information on his or her past criminal history and would have quickly apprehended the murderer.
Cecilia operated on the assumption that she was correct, and Emerson didn’t commit suicide. To her, this meant that the murderer was extremely cleve
r and cautious. That fit with some of the details by which the killer dispatched Roby — a disguise, a false ID, and the method, which was subtle.
A check of the Strattleford case records revealed the ex-commandant had a visitor shortly before his death. It was assumed that someone had delivered the toxic Dreeson oil. However, from Liam on down, no one in security could understand why Emerson’s stun stick lay on the table alongside his comm unit and the oil. Was he worried about who might show at his door?
It struck Cecilia that she had a narrow time window for each death. If the murderer was a downsider, she figured he or she would want to clear the JOS as soon as possible, and there was only one way off the station.
Cecilia accessed the vid log of passengers taking the El car downside immediately following the murders.
In the case of Roby, the car left the station terminal arm within minutes, which made the next drop her target. She accessed those vids and cued them on her monitor, while she searched the El’s timeline for Emerson’s case.
The ex-commandant’s supposed suicide took place in the late evening, and the El car didn’t descend for another hour. Due to the lesser demand, the El’s night schedule called for drops at lengthy intervals.
Splitting her screen, Cecilia ran two sets of vids side-by-side. Over and over again, she watched passengers assemble, wait, and then load, but she couldn’t discern a similar individual in both cases.
“Lori, come to my office,” Cecilia called to a bright young corporal in the tech department.
When the corporal arrived, Cecilia said, “Watch these vids until you spot the same individual.”
“Are you positive the person you want is in each of these drops?” Lori asked, examining the sources of the vid logs.
“If you were Commandant Finian, Corporal, I’d have to say no, but you aren’t. Find my target,” Cecilia said and left the corporal to work, while she hurried to join a meeting with Liam and Miguel.
During the meeting, which was a regular weekly event, Liam reviewed their case progress. When Cecilia finished her list, she paused and then said, “I’ve reopened the Strattleford and Roby cases.”
“Why?” Liam asked.
This is why Cecilia had regained her love of security after Liam’s election. Attitudes across the department had dramatically changed. Liam didn’t rail at her for overstepping her authority and order her to close the investigations. He simply asked her to explain her actions.
“I think the two cases are related. None of us believes Emerson took his life, despite the lack of evidence to the contrary,” Cecilia replied. “I think the same person, a downsider, committed both murders.”
“Roby’s murder was clever, but it wasn’t perfect,” Miguel argued. “If Emerson’s death was an execution, it was untraceable, if not perfect. How do you explain the difference?”
“Time,” Liam replied. “We know Roby was hired by someone, and we were waiting for his medication to subside so that we could talk to him.”
“Exactly,” Cecilia replied with enthusiasm. “The killer was in a hurry with Roby. In Emerson’s case, he or she had time to plan the murder.”
“She?” Miguel queried.
Cecilia barked a harsh laugh. It wasn’t her usual reaction in meetings, but she couldn’t help it.
“What, Miguel, you don’t think a woman can be an assassin?” Cecilia asked.
Miguel was taken aback, but Liam looked intrigued.
“The families are capable of hiring this sort of individual,” Liam mused. He regarded Cecilia, and she could see the wheels spinning in his mind.
“You wouldn’t have brought this up, Lieutenant, unless you had a theory you were pursuing,” Liam surmised.
“Yes, sir,” Cecilia replied. “Two murders, one killer, a downsider, who needs to exit the station immediately after both deeds.”
“The El,” Miguel supplied.
“And we have the timelines,” Liam added.
Cecilia was smiling, when a sharp rap at the door grabbed everyone’s attention.
“Sorry, Commandant,” Lori apologized. “I’ve got her, Lieutenant.”
Cecilia threw Miguel a reprimanding glance. She didn’t wait to excuse herself. Instead, she ran after Lori, who’d disappeared down the corridor. She heard Liam and Miguel’s footsteps close behind her.
Lori sat in Cecilia’s chair, and the three officers crowded behind her.
“I didn’t spot her at first, Lieutenant,” Lori explained. She rolled back the El records after Roby’s execution.
“Look here,” Lori said, playing a vid at half speed. It covered the El’s passenger lounge soon after Roby’s death. “See the older woman. She’s clearly a wealthy downsider but watch the other woman who’s helping her.”
“Could be her daughter,” Miguel proposed.
“Agreed,” Lori allowed. “Now look here.”
Lori ran the second vid. It was of the El’s lounge that preceded the drop after Emerson’s demise. Deliberately, she ran it at normal speed. The attendant was about to close the car’s doors, when a group of revelers yelled to hold the car and raced aboard.
Lori grinned at Cecilia, reversed the imagery, played it at quarter speed, and stopped it at an opportune moment. Then she returned to the first vid, enlarged the image, and ran a sharpening scan on the woman aiding the wealthy downsider.
Next, Lori enlarged the group of revelers, singled out a woman in the center of the throng, and processed her image. Then she ran an analytical program on the two images. A confidence match of ninety-eight percent was returned within moments.
“That’s not a coincidence,” Liam remarked quietly.
Cecilia patted Lori’s shoulders. “Well done,” she said.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Lori replied.
“Now excuse us, Corporal,” Cecilia said.
Liam stopped Lori and extended his hand. “Good work,” he said.
Lori beamed, shook Liam’s hand, and swiftly cleared the office.
“So, we have a suspect,” Miguel said. “It’s a she, who is probably a consummate killer, and we’ve no idea who she is or who hired her.”
“You’ve my permission to pursue your theory of these cases, Cecilia,” Liam said. “Keep me apprised,” he added before he left.
“I think I liked it better when we were ignorant,” Miguel said to Cecilia.
“I don’t,” Cecilia replied, dropping into her chair. “I hate the idea that downsiders, specifically family heads, feel free to murder our citizens.”
“How do you intend to proceed?” Miguel asked. “I can’t see you dropping downside, going door to door with your images, and asking, ‘Do you know this woman? She’s a suspect in a murder case.’”
“Two murder cases,” Cecilia corrected.
“No, one murder case and a suspicious death,” Miguel retorted. “Although your theory and these vids are compelling.”
They stared at the imagery — two faces, two disguises, but the same person.
“If this is our assassin, how do we identify her? More important, how do we prove she committed these murders?” Miguel asked.
“We can be sure that she works for a family,” Cecilia replied. “It takes serious power and coin to order and execute these killings. My thinking is that she’s a faceless person.”
Miguel shuddered. The Garmenti family held that status until Aurelia escaped and made it topside. That a family had the power to keep people incognito was frightening.
“If she’s a hidden person, she won’t have a comm unit ID,” Miguel said in exasperation.
“She won’t have a registered comm ID,” Cecilia reminded Miguel. “All I can think to do is set a priority alert on her face. When we get a match on her exiting the El onto the JOS or roaming the station, we’ll block the car’s trips downside, while we scour the station for her.”
“Fifty thousand plus citizens aboard this station, and we’ll be trying to spot one woman in a disguise,” Miguel commented. “I don’t think th
e odds are in our favor. We’re more likely to spot her dropping downside, when she’s not trying to disguise herself so heavily.”
“Unfortunately, that will probably be after she murders someone else,” Cecilia replied in a desultory fashion.
* * * *
Sika checked her vac suit’s air reserve. She’d been working hard and needed to know that she had sufficient air to finish the job and return to the dome.
Vac suits were uncommon items for downsiders. Engineers and techs, who constructed the domes, were the only downsiders known to possess them. The unknown individuals were the families’ security personnel, and they had them for only one reason. It was for the same reason that Sika was out on Pyre’s surface.
Sika tightly gripped her auto-digger and finished her trench. She’d heard that Pyre’s surface might be opened due to the Jatouche intravertors. That necessitated that she dig a deeper trench than usual.
On this occasion, there was another difference from the usual exercise. The downsider, who lay beside the burial mound, wasn’t sanctioned by her mistress, Dorelyn Gaylan. It wasn’t the first time Sika had hidden her work from Dorelyn, and she understood the risk. Discovery of her unsanctioned killings would destroy their bond of trust and necessitate her elimination.
In Sika’s mind, these retributions were a necessity. She’d crossed the path of another family’s security agent. He’d attempted to seduce her, and she’d rebuffed him. He didn’t take it well and started to make problems. Worse, he lived in the same building as her. Sika couldn’t care about his hurt feelings, but she calculated that he would become a problem … and problems existed to be eliminated.
Yanking the auto-digger out of the long, deep trench, Sika placed a boot on the naked body and shoved it into the hole. Then she ran the digger across the mound of surface material and soon covered the body. She took a few moments to tamp down the new mound.
A check of the vac suit’s air reserves indicated to Sika that she must immediately return to the dome. She dragged the digger behind her. Its wheels dug into the rocky terrain, slowing her pace to reach the airlock.
