The Legacy of Lehr

by Katherine Kurtz

  Wallis shrugged. “There’s some cause, I suppose. Mather and I exerted quite a lot of pressure, trying to persuade him to join our expedition. He won’t let us forget that it didn’t work. I was hoping you might talk to him.”

  “Me?” Shannon rolled her eyes. “The things I do in the line of duty. Who’s our other expert?”

  Wallis smiled across at her unperturbed. “Believe me, you’ve got the better end of the bargain. I thought I’d pay a call on Lorcas Reynal. He boarded at B-Gem, too, but I don’t think you’ve met him yet. He keeps pretty much to himself. He was born on Il Nuadi, as he prefers to call it, and he was a member of our expedition, albeit a less than enthusiastic one. He didn’t think we should capture the cats, and he especially didn’t want to see them taken off-planet.”

  “Then why did he help catch them?”

  Wallis grinned. “Filthy lucre. Our fee would have been very hard to turn down—and he didn’t. He’s something of a cultural anthropologist—mostly self-educated, but respected on his own planet. I think he’s using his ill-gotten gains to finance a sabbatical on Wezen I, where your friend Torrell did his work. That’s why he’s aboard. But once the cats were captured and he’d been paid, he made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing further to do with us. Still, he might be able to tell us something.”

  “Aren’t ‘able’ and ‘willing’ two different matters, in this case?” Shannon asked.

  “Probably. But at least I ought to try—and I’ve got a better chance than Mather would of learning something. The two of them had a running battle—verbal, fortunately—almost from the first day we arrived on B-Gem. A few of our younger Rangers seemed to get along with him a little better, but even that was a strained truce, at times.”

  “Then why did you keep him on?”

  “He knew how to track Lehr cats. Men like that are rare.”

  Shannon mulled that for a moment, then swiveled toward her console and punched up a medical record. The name at the top was Lorcas Reynal. “I think I know where to find Torrell, this time of day,” Shannon said, skimming down the readout. “You’ll probably find Reynal in his cabin—number thirty-nine, Deck Three. I see he’s not a well man—but I expect you knew that. He asked for a sterile atmosphere in his cabin, which we gave him. He also wears a contagion force field most of the time. His record says he’s extremely susceptible to outside infection off his own planet.”

  “I think he’s a hypochondriac more than anything else,” Wallis said, getting to her feet, “besides being a master of insults in several different languages.”

  “Well, if you think there’s going to be any problem, I can send someone from security with you, but they’re all a little busy right now,” Shannon said.

  Wallis shook her head. “No need. I’ll pick up a Ranger on the way and meet you back here when we’re finished.”

  At Reynal’s cabin, Wallis buzzed four times before getting a response. She had begun to think Reynal was out after all, but it was his familiar, unpleasant face that came up abruptly on the door viewer. He did not appear at all pleased, and Wallis suddenly was very glad she had not come alone.

  “Good morning, Mister Reynal. Or perhaps I should say good afternoon, since it’s past lunchtime. May we come in for a moment?”

  Reynal eyed both of them suspiciously, then thumbed the door control and stood aside as the door slid back. He gestured reluctantly for Wallis and Wing to enter. The room was chilly, the lights very low. As Wing took it upon himself to bring up the lights, Wallis was reminded again how unpleasant-looking Reynal was. Tall and long-limbed, almost painfully thin, with dull, mud-colored eyes in a pasty, hairless face, he seemed almost a caricature of a man, even though he was of human stock.

  “Say what you have to say, Doctor, and then please leave,” Reynal said. “I thought I made it clear before we left Il Nuadi that I have nothing further to say to you.”

  “Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” Wallis said, “except that I need some additional information about the Lehr cats. There was some trouble earlier this morning, as you may have heard. Some questions have been raised.”

  Reynal shifted his cold eyes from Wallis to Wing, then back to Wallis. “Did I not warn you that the animals were unpredictable, Doctor, and should not be taken off Il Nuadi? I take no responsibility for their behavior.”

  “No one said that it was your responsibility, Mister Reynal,” Wallis replied. “However, we learned this morning, to our very great surprise, that the cats scream telepathically as well as vocally. We wonder whether they might have other psychic accomplishments you haven’t told us about—like the ability to teleport out of their cages or something. If you could—”

  “I could do many things, if I wished, Doctor,” Reynal said stonily. “However, I do not wish. My responsibility for the creatures, and to you, ended when the terms of my contract were fulfilled. I am not required to remind myself constantly that I sold my integrity for money.”

  “You were paid handsomely, Reynal,” Wing said.

  “Paid in Imperial credits—yes,” Reynal snapped. “But eventually, it is I who shall have to pay with the coin of my soul, for having betrayed the Shining Ones. I shall not betray them again.”

  “Reynal, they’re animals,” Wallis said. “Clever animals, perhaps—maybe more clever than we know—but they’re not gods. And one of them may have killed someone on this ship.”

  Reynal half turned away. “That is of no concern to me.”

  “Now, see here, Reynal—” Wing began.

  “I do not need to see anywhere, Lieutenant,” Reynal interrupted coldly. “You are the intruder here, not I. Now, if you will excuse me, I was on my way out. Unless, of course, you plan to detain me illegally.”

  With a perplexed sigh, Wallis moved toward the door, tapping Wing on the elbow as she passed. “Never mind, Wing. Mister Reynal is under no obligation to assist us further, if he doesn’t want to. As he has so succinctly pointed out, he has honored his contract already. My apologies for having disturbed you, Mister Reynal.”

  Nor did Shannon have much better luck. She found Vander Torrell winning at Four-Card Deltikan in the ship’s casino, but the historian was understandably reluctant to abandon his game. After several hands in which he began to lose, however, Torrell sourly dealt himself out and joined Shannon at the table where she had been waiting and watching him. He drained one Tejat brandy and ordered a second before he would look at her.

  “Now that you’ve thoroughly destroyed my winning streak, Doctor, what can I do for you? I’m not at all accustomed to having my game interrupted.”

  “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, Doctor Torrell. I was fascinated by something you said at dinner last night.”

  Torrell glanced at her as if really seeing her for the first time behind the maroon uniform. “Oh, and what thing was that, Doctor?”

  “Something you said about the Lehr cats and their relationship with the lost race of Il Nuadi. I wondered if—”

  “Ah, wait, Doctor. Don’t tell me. Let me guess,” he said unctuously. “The persistent Commodore Seton has sent you to pump me for information, hasn’t he?”

  “Commodore Seton knows nothing about this, Doctor Torrell,” she said. That much, at least, was true. “But the Lehr cats are of special interest to me just now. I hoped you might be able to help me.”

  “Ah, yes, I heard about the little problem with the cats this morning. Naturally, you would have medical interest, wouldn’t you? Ah, such an unfortunate occurrence.”

  “Unfortunate enough for you to tell me more about Lehr cats?” Shannon countered.

  Torrell smiled and covered her hand with his on the table top, leaning forward conspiratorily when she did not pull away.

  “Well, perhaps we could discuss it over drinks. What would you like to know, dear lady?”

  And at the murder site, his mission concluded with the engineering section, Mather had been pursuing his own lines of investigation. It was always a pleasure to watch prof
essionals doing their jobs well, and the forensic specialist of the security team, an elderly man named Jones, was definitely a pro. Mather chatted with him for nearly half an hour, while the man gathered his samples and quietly questioned the guards who had been first at the scene. When Jones had left, Mather wandered closer to the murder site itself. One of the cleanup crew was rubbing at a particularly stubborn stain just where the body had lain. Casually, Mather crouched down beside the man.

  “Looks like hard work,” he remarked.

  The man glanced at him amiably and continued scrubbing at the carpet. “Just this one spot, sir. I think Jonesie must’ve splashed some fixative here when he was taking his samples. Most of the blood washed right out, though—and there really wasn’t that much of it, considering what happened. I guess the poor devil must have died from internal hemorrhaging.”

  “Oh?” Mather tried to keep an interested edge out of his voice. “It looked like a pretty bloody affair to me.”

  The man shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. Two runs back, we had a couple of drunks go at one another with force blades in the main salon, and you should’ve seen the mess. The place looked like a slaughterhouse by the time security could break it up, but they both lived to talk about it.”

  “What about this one?” Mather urged.

  “Oh, not this guy. He was definitely dead. There wasn’t that much blood, though. An easy cleanup job.”

  Mather glanced around him at the drying carpet, then back at the man. “How much blood do you think he lost?”

  “How much?” The man stopped scrubbing and looked around him, then said, “Oh, half a liter or so, if that. When it’s spread out, it can look like a lot more, but—half a liter, maybe. Certainly no more.”

  “I see.” Mather slipped the man a sharply creased note. “Thanks very much. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Within minutes, he was approaching Medical Section. The reception area was deserted, but he could hear Wallis and Shannon laughing behind a door that was partially ajar. With a quick knock, he slid the door open enough to pass, then let it glide closed behind him. Wallis had her feet up on Shannon’s desk, and Shannon was washing her hands at a scrub sink across the room. They both grinned at him as he settled into a chair opposite his wife.

  “Shivaun was just telling me about her near-capture at the hands of the notorious Van-der Tor-rell,” Wallis said, intoning the name with mock solemnity. “I sent her to see if she could get any more information out of him about Lehr cats, and he decided it was really an attempt to get to know him better.”

  “Ugh, what a slimy character!” Shannon said, drying her hands and chucking the towel into a waste chute. “I found out some interesting things, though. How about you? Did the lab come up with anything on your gray box yet?”

  Mather shook his head. “Not much. The crackle finish didn’t take prints very well. All they got were a few of mine, badly smudged. I doubt they’ll have much better luck on the inside. All the components are either handmade or else they’ve had the manufacturers’ marks removed. We may be able to restore some of the marks, but I doubt that will be much help, either. I’ve got them running function analyses of the circuits now.”

  “Well, you didn’t really think they’d be able to tell us much anyway, did you?” Wallis asked.

  “No. How about you two? Did you determine the cause of death?”

  Shannon sat down behind her desk and picked up a stylus.

  “Vascular collapse, caused by massive loss of blood. Of course, we could have told you that after the first look.”

  “And the wounds?” Mather persisted.

  “Other than the throat wound, mostly superficial, really. Much worse-looking than they actually were, for the most part. No significant trauma to any major organ, and certainly none that should have been fatal—other than the throat, of course. He simply bled to death.”

  “I see. And how much blood would you say he lost, for it to be enough to kill him?”

  “Oh, two or three liters, given his other injuries and the amount of blood left in the body. Maybe more—he was a good-sized man. Why do you ask?”

  “Intriguing,” Mather said, by way of reply. “Tell me, Doctor, you never actually saw the murder site, did you? Or photos?”

  “Not yet. Why?”

  “Because I just talked to one of your cleanup crew, and he can only account for about half a liter of blood at the site. What do you suppose happened to the other two liters or so?”

  Shannon stopped toying with her stylus and looked at him oddly. “What are you trying to imply? That’s impossible.”

  “Not unless your autopsy findings are grossly inaccurate, which I doubt. Wally, does this suggest a pattern to you—what I’ve just told you?”

  “About the missing blood?” She looked quizzically at Mather, her auburn head cocked to one side in horrified suspicion as she guessed where he was leading. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really want me to say it?”

  “I am deadly serious.”

  “Oh, my. Well, since we can’t account for the missing blood at the murder site or in the victim’s body, it sounds as if someone or something has either consumed or carried off the rest of the blood. If the cats are responsible, which isn’t likely, it’s obviously the former. If a human, probably the latter.” She paused a beat.

  “Mather Seton, you don’t really want me to tell Shivaun she’s got a vampire on her ship, do you?”

  CHAPTER 7

  “A vampire?”

  Incredulously, Shannon looked back and forth between the two of them, expecting—and then hoping for—a sign of jesting that did not come.

  “That—that isn’t funny,” she murmured, fighting back a nervous laugh as she set both hands very precisely on the desk top in front of them. “There are no such things as vampires. They’re myths. They don’t exist.”

  Mather rested his elbows on his chair arms and folded his hands, making a tower of his first two fingers. “Maybe not in the traditional sense,” he agreed. “But it’s curious that there’s evidence of vampire legends in practically every race we’ve ever encountered, human or alien. The old Earth legends abound with tales of vampires and other related beasties, in otherwise widely divergent cultures. And as for alien races, why, the Aludrans have a version, and the Ainish, and the Warflemen of Procyon II. I could go on and on.”

  “Superstitious nonsense,” Shannon stated flatly.

  “Hmm, perhaps,” Wallis joined in. “I suppose one could try to dismiss most legends as superstition or deliberate fiction. The only problem is that legends almost always have some basis in fact, if you look hard enough. And even discounting supernatural explanations, there are physiological and psychological bases for behavior patterns that simulate at least portions of activity we’ve come to associate with vampirism. Certain chemical deficiencies and imbalances in the body can lead to very bizarre behavior, as I’m sure you know. And psychotic individuals have been known to believe they were almost anything—and to act accordingly. Why not a vampire?”

  Shannon hugged her arms across her chest as if suddenly chilled and hunched down in her chair. “This is ridiculous. You’ve almost got me believing you! There has to be a more plausible explanation.”

  Mather shrugged. “I’d certainly welcome one. But when we’re dealing with a situation this bizarre, and no more logical explanation seems likely, then we need to consider bizarre possibilities. Now, either the cats are responsible, as our gross physical evidence indicates—except that we can’t figure out how they did it—or else someone is trying to make it look like the cats did it, by carrying the blood away to make it appear that the cats drank it—which is not an altogether unexpected behavior for carnivores like the Lehr cats. Or he’s consuming it himself and making it look like the cats did it.”

  “Or the murderer is carrying away the blood and then consuming it,” Wallis added.

  “Or he’s flushing it down the toilet!” Shannon snapped.

  “Also
possible,” Mather agreed. “And a true psycho might be doing it with no thought of implicating the cats at all. It could be just coincidence. But the blood has to go somewhere.” He cocked his head at Shannon wistfully. “I think you’ll have to admit that the basic vampire theory has merits in this case, Doctor—‘vampire’ covering the whole range of what we’ve been discussing, of course. At least it gives us another angle to consider.”

  Shannon glanced nervously at both of them again, her brow furrowed in concentration, then averted her eyes.

  “Look, I think I understand what you’re trying to do. You want to clear your cats, and I can’t say I blame you. But this—theory of yours—I’m sorry, I just can’t accept it.”

  “Well, it’s as useful as all the other theories we’ve considered,” Wallis said, “which is to say they all stink. Let’s sleep on it, shall we? And don’t we have another phase jump coming up soon?”

  Wearily, Shannon glanced at the chronometer on her console and sighed. “Yes. I hadn’t realized it was so late. You’ve got about twenty minutes. Commodore, if you still want to try that new suspension system, you can speak to Technician Gallinos, two doors down. She can set you up for it.”

  As she punched up a display on the console, obviously dismissing them, Mather murmured, “Thank you,” and started to make an additional comment, but Wallis caught his eye and shook her head. Mather, with a sigh, got up and left the room, Wallis following behind him. When they had gone, Shannon turned to stare uneasily at the door for a long time, stirring only when the lights dimmed momentarily and the phase warning began to chime its five-minute signal.

  She sat up at that, long enough to shake a tiny, rose-colored tablet from a dispenser in her desk drawer. Then she laid her head against the back of her chair and slipped the tablet under her tongue. She could feel it taking effect as the one-minute warning vibrated through the ship; she relaxed and let the medication do its work, wondering idly what it would be like to jump unmedicated—wondering how Wallis Hamilton managed it with no ill effects whatsoever. So absorbed was she in her speculation that the jump itself passed almost unnoticed.