by Scott Sigler
Yolanda knew she was going to kick herself, but she wanted that story.
“Fine,” she said. “You are a source. I give you my word I won’t reveal your name or implicate you in any way.”
He held out his left middle hand. “Shake on it.”
She sighed. Humans controlled most of broadcast media, and to fit in Tarat had adopted Human mannerisms, even ones that were hopelessly outdated.
She shook. Her blue hand with its white-painted nails vanished in his huge, three-pincer grip. His chitin felt cool to the touch, but in the places where the skin beneath showed through, Tarat felt warm. It reminded her that he was a sentient, just like she was.
“I wanted a story on how Ju Tweedy was romantically involved the team owner’s significant other,” Tarat said. “So I hired someone to put illegal listening devices in her apartment.”
Yolanda covered her eyes with her hand and hung her head. For all of Tarat’s big speech, this story, the biggest story of the season, was all about whom was dating whom. How could she have not put those pieces together? She shook her head to clear the thoughts — right now it didn’t matter how he got the info, all that mattered was an innocent sentient was accused of murder while the real killer was walking free.
“You have video of the murder?”
“No,” he said. “I have audio of the attack and video of Miriam being thrown onto the bed.”
Yolanda glared at him. “Tarat, are you telling me you put video in the bedroom? What were you going to do, sell that to the Galaxy Starz site? You know the one, the site that’s so clever, they spell Stars with a z?”
Tarat looked away. “No, Yolanda, that would lack integrity. If I was going to report that the Orbiting Death’s star running back was copulating with the team owner’s significant other, I needed confirmation. I don’t report hearsay.”
Amazingly, the ex-linebacker was using the words integrity in conjunction with putting a video camera in a woman’s bedroom.
“You’re disgusting,” Yolanda said. “That is a total invasion of privacy. And you told this to Froese when the murder happened? Why didn’t Froese take the information to the OS1 police?”
He spoke without looking at her. “He could not, not without implicating me, which he promised not to do. He could not just say there is an audio recording of the murder and not tell them how he knew.”
“So he did nothing?”
“Correct,” Tarat said. “It was enough information for him to know Ju was innocent. Why do you think he let Gredok the Splithead keep Ju away from an interview for almost an entire year?”
Yolanda’s eyebrows rose. She had ridiculed Froese for ineptitude on that very point, but it turned out Froese let Gredok keep Ju away?
“Froese hoped the OS1 police would solve the crime,” Tarat said. “He knew that Ju was innocent, so he let Ju hide behind the GFL’s diplomatic immunity. If the Commissioner had wanted Ju to answer for the crime, I believe Froese would have made that happen very quickly.”
“So you guys did nothing. A sentient had been murdered, the killer is walking free, and you did nothing.”
“What could I do? I came forward and made sure the Commissioner would not grab Ju Tweedy and send him back to OS1, where he would surely die at the hands of Anna Villani. It is not my job to solve every petty murder in a city of fifty million residents, Yolanda. There is no audio on my recording that identifies the killer. If I took my information public and revealed what I had done, it would have solved nothing. Would you throw away your career for such a thing?”
“Yes,” Yolanda said instantly. “Your damn right I would have.”
Tarat paused before speaking. “Maybe you think you are telling the truth,” he said. “Did you hear the sentients cheer for you when they saw your face on the holoscreen? Try to imagine that they do that for you every Sunday for ten seasons. Then something happens where you can no longer do what you do, and the cheers come no more. Imagine being forgotten.”
In that moment, she understood everything she needed to know about Tarat the Smasher. He missed the adoration of billions. He had been the best there ever was, then came the degenerative hip injury that slowed him — not much, just enough that he lost a step. Losing a step in the GFL was a career death sentence. Tarat the Smasher had to watch as younger, faster players started to outperform him. He finished his career in OS1, where his instincts, savagery and knowledge of the game covered up for his deteriorating physical skills.
Tarat the Smasher wasn’t about finding the truth, he wasn’t about righting wrongs or uncovering corruption — he was about Tarat the Smasher. He became a reporter so people would see him again, watch him and cheer for him.
She didn’t want to be anywhere near this sentient. “So what was on the recording?”
“The video was only in the bedroom, as I said. We have audio of a scuffle.”
“Did someone break in the door?”
“No,” he said. “All we have is Grace McDermot saying how did you get in here, then a scream, then the sound of conflict, then the sound of the door breaking in when Miriam came through. Less than a minute after that, someone out of the range of the camera threw Miriam on the bed. She has a great deal of mass — she broke the bed, which destroyed our camera.”
Yolanda pounded a fist into her thigh. “So that’s why you gave me Miriam as a lead. Because you knew she was there.”
“That is correct.”
“What about my safety? What about the safety of Whykor? You could have told us we were going up against Anna Villani.”
“You seem uninjured,” Tarat said. “Perhaps you are more resilient than you know.”
Yolanda suddenly wished that Puck had given her the gun instead of throwing it down the refuse chute. “Well, this doesn’t do much for us. Miriam knows the time of death, but we’re no closer to finding the killer.”
Tarat’s eye swirled with yellow-orange — he was excited. “She knows the exact time of death?”
Yolanda nodded.
“I did not have that information. Before I hired someone to put a camera in Grace McDermot’s bedroom, I had the same person investigate what cameras and scramblers were already in place in the building. There are no cameras in the upper floors, but there are cameras in the lobby. If you could find where those cameras send their footage, you could establish what time Ju Tweedy entered the building.”
He walked to the door of the study. “Yolanda, as your colleague, I feel this conversation has helped your cause. I know you have contacts in the OS1 police department. Now all you have to do is have them access the building security footage, and you will have proven Ju Tweedy innocent. Now I must leave — my broadcast duties cannot be ignored. Please call me when you wrap everything up.”
Tarat walked out, leaving Yolanda alone in a study filled with his trophies. He made it sound so easy. Could it really be so? There was only one way to find out. She needed to meet with Joey Clark, alone, and away from that psycho, trigger-happy partner of his.
• • •
WEEK FIVE:
OS1 ORBITING DEATH
at THEMALA DREADNAUGHTS
Yolanda had heard of gin joints many times but had never been inside of one. If the Two-Eyed Mutant bar in Madderch’s lower sector was typical of the places, she hoped she’d never be in one again.
The place seemed to sing a song that was one part desperation and one part hopelessness. Two dozen Quyth Workers were in the place, in various stages of inebriation. Some were leaning against waist-high pillars, sipping on clear glasses of gin. Others were sitting on the floor, and still others were lying passed out. The Workers wore the uniforms of day laborers, delivery staff, waiters and mechanics, and more than a few wore the orange coveralls of the city’s endless maintenance staff.
These sentients seemed so different from Whykor, which was a testament to how far Whykor had elevated himself above his caste. The vast majority of Workers could hope for little more than a life of hard labor, a life witho
ut reproducing or having any real chance at advancement. So many of them opted to dull their pain with drugs. In an odd bit of evolution and quite fortunately for many exporters back on Earth, nothing affected Workers quite like juniper berries.
She was the only non-Quyth in the bar, but judging from the mental state of the other patrons, if any of the Workers even noticed her, they either wouldn’t care or they just wouldn’t remember. Still, Yolanda wore sunglasses, a scarf over her head and an Orbiting Death jacket that camouflaged her figure.
She hadn’t been waiting long when Joey Clark walked in. He had to bend over to walk through the low-ceilinged place. Even when he sat at her table, his head was only an inch below a support beam.
“Great place,” Yolanda said.
Joey smiled. “No one is going to recognize you here. All these poor bastards care about is their next drink.”
Yolanda looked around. “Seems so … I don’t know … so tragic.”
Joey shrugged. “Don’t try and understand the Quyth culture because you can’t. They are more like Humans and HeavyG than any other race, Yolanda, but they are still alien. The Workers outnumber Leaders and Warriors — combined — by about a hundred to one. Any time they wanted to rise up and change things, they could.”
“So why don’t they?”
“Biology,” Joey said. “They’re all sterile. They can’t have children, so what’s the point in changing things?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, better working conditions?”
Joey waved a hand as if she was annoying him. “It’s been this way for millennia. If you want to change the Galaxy, do it on your own time, will you? It smells in here. What was so important you had to meet me?”
Yolanda leaned in even though there wasn’t in the sentient in the bar that cared about what she had to say.
“You know the exact time of Grace McDermot’s death,” she said.
He stared, then nodded. “And how do you know that?”
“I have my sources,” she said. “Do you deny it?”
Joey shook his head. “I wouldn’t have given you that info if you’d asked, but since you found it some other way, I can neither confirm nor deny that it’s true.”
Then he winked at her.
She smiled. “Ah, you won’t say I’m right, but I’m right.”
He winked again.
“Okay,” she said, “so if you know the exact time of death, why didn’t the cops check the building’s camera recordings? If one of those shows Ju entering the building after the time of death, it proves Ju didn’t do it.”
Joey nodded. “We did check. Most OS1 cops are on the take, Yolanda, but not all. We checked, but there were no building recordings that day. Seems the system was out of order.”
She should have known that was coming. “So Anna Villani told the building IT staff to shut off the system, huh?”
Joey winked.
“What about any cameras from surrounding buildings? Or public cameras? Can’t you do facial recognition or whatever, see if you can establish where he was at the time of death?”
“Against the law,” Joey said. “You can’t just take recordings on Madderch, Yolanda. As a cop, I can’t even ask for them because it creates a situation where the sentient with the footage will either expect a favor in return or will feel that if they don’t provide it, the police will harass or hurt them.”
“You’re kidding me.”
He shrugged. “Look it up if you like. All we can do is announce that we’re looking for footage and hope someone brings something in with an authentic time-code that the courts recognize as valid.”
She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “What if I get footage like that myself?”
“Then I can clear Ju Tweedy,” Joey said. “As long as you get permission for the footage, that is. But don’t hold your breath, Yolanda — Ju Tweedy was the most popular sentient in the city. If someone had footage clearing him, it would have come out by now.”
“You’re telling me not to even try?”
Joey reached out and took her beer. He drank it in one pull.
“What was that for?”
He set the glass down. “That was for asking a stupid question. Of course you can try. If you can clear an innocent sentient, I’m all in. I’m just saying it won’t be easy is all. But if you find anything, let me know. It would look really good on my record if I’m the one to clear Ju Tweedy.”
Yolanda laughed. “Help yourself to the credit, Detective Clark.”
“Oh, please,” he said. “You know how much crap I take for being a contact for you? Trust me, I’ve earned a little stolen credit. Man, I’d love to be there when you clear Ju … the other cops would be so pissed if I got that credit because you helped me for a change, instead of me helping you. Go after it, and let me know if I can help, okay?”
She nodded. “Hey, wait a minute. You know we’re meeting here because Villani tried to kill me, right?”
Joey winked.
“So why aren’t you offering me police protection? I figured you’d be giving me the hard sell to either get out of the city or get me somewhere safe.”
Joey looked off to the left, staring absently at the drunken Workers. “There is nowhere safe, Yolanda. Wherever you are now — and I don’t want to know where that is — stay there. You should get out of the city and off of OS1, but I know that you know that, and you’re still here anyway.” He looked at her, his expression very solemn. “If you stay here, she’s going to get you. It will happen. Is this story worth your life?”
“No,” Yolanda said. “But I have to do it anyway.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Why do you keep doing your job when most of the police department is corrupt?”
He stared, then laughed. “Because I have to,” he said. “I don’t know any other way.”
“There you go.”
He stood. “Keep your head down, lady. If things get too hot, remember I’m here and that I’m legally allowed to carry a gun.”
He rapped his knuckles on the table, then left the bar.
Yolanda signaled for another beer. She knew better than to leave at the same time as a source. She sipped at it, more for something to do than to quench a thirst. The place was just so depressing.
Could she really find that video? What was she going to do, ask an entire city for it when the cops had already done just that? What she needed to do was narrow down the search parameters.
“High one,” she said when it hit her. “I have to talk to Ju Tweedy.”
If she could find out where he was that day, maybe she could find video establishing where he was at the time of the murder. The police had never questioned him — there was no record of where he was that day, other than that he’d come to Grace’s apartment and, presumably, fled when he saw the body.
But the universe was a vast place, and she couldn’t just dial another solar system for a nice chitchat. You could talk in real time to anyone on or orbiting your planet, but to communicate to someone elsewhere in the galaxy meant you had to record a beacon and send it through punch-space. Getting a reply could take days, even weeks. Ionath was only a half-day punch from OS1, but even that meant Yolanda would have to send a request, then wait a day to hear if she’d even been answered — there was no way to actually talk, no way to convince someone in the Ionath franchise to let her speak directly with Ju.
But … hadn’t the Krakens been a visiting team in Week Four? Yolanda opened her palm-up and quickly dialed in the GFL schedule. Yes, Week Four, Ionath at Hittoni in the League of Planets. She called up a galactic map, tracing the route the Krakens would take to return to Ionath, and a damn long trip it was: a full day from Wilson 6 to Waypoint, another full day from Waypoint to Reiger 2, followed by half-day jumps to Free Station, then Quyth …
She smiled. The stop between Quyth and Ionath? Orbital Station One. She didn’t have to go to Ju Tweedy; Ju Tweedy was coming to her. She’d have a half-day to try and talk her w
ay into a conversation with him.
She closed her palm and the holographic display blinked out. Luck again? The schedule had been set for over a year, so it was just coincidence — but she still felt lucky. This was going to work; the story was going to break.
Enough time had passed since Joey left. She stood and walked out of the place. The Two-Eyed Mutant wasn’t in the best part of the city, but it wasn’t a slum, either — she could only imagine how bad the gin joints were in the really poor parts of the city. She started to hail a cab when she saw him, there, across the street, peeking out from the entryway to a convenience store.
Parmot the Insane.
Looking at her.
Yolanda turned and quickly walked into the Two-Eyed Mutant. She dug in her pocket for cash — she never paid with credit so Villani couldn’t track her whereabouts — and held out a handful of crumpled plastic.
“You got a back door to this place?”
The Worker bartender stared at the pile of cash, then at her. “That’s at least a thousand credits. You know that, right?”
“Sure,” she said. “Now get me out of here.”
The bartender stuffed the money in his pocket, then came around the bar and led her to a back door. “Just go out and turn left, next street down there are all kinds of cabs. If someone out front is who you’re avoiding, they won’t catch up in time.”
Yolanda walked as fast as she could without running and flagged down the first cab she saw. She gave the driver Tarat’s address, then slid down low in the seat.
Her heart was hammering almost as badly as it had during the crawler fight, and with good reason — Madderch’s deadliest cop was following her.
• • •
Yolanda, Tarat and Miriam stayed near the back of the Tarat’s living room, out of sight of the holotank’s camera. They couldn’t be seen, but they could still see.
In the tank was the image of Messal the Efficient, manager of the Ionath Krakens. Standing in front of the tank was Whykor.
“I am afraid my answer is still no,” Messal said. “Whykor, your efficacy for the Commissioner is known by all, but Gredok the Splithead has decreed that no one from the Krakens franchise is allowed to talk to Miss Davenport or her representatives.”
