“You’re next, Hom,” the Human behind him said.
“Oh. Of course.” Kurr stepped forward and the tag operator tapped a metallic rod to Kurr’s gold airtag. It dropped from his cheek to the operator’s hand and then humped into the reader.
“One full station day charged to the account of Kurr di Sarc,” the operator said. His goldtag guaranteed a rounding up. “We hope you enjoyed your stay, Hom.”
“Yes,” he said. “Thanks.” Kurr stepped forward, adrenaline and anticipation building for the certainty of the confrontation. Turning his head as he walked away from the tag point, he saw the puppet in line. Clan eyes stared straight at him from a Human face. Kurr changed course, walking toward the series of accommodations. He found one appropriate for humanoids and opened the door. As soon as it closed behind him and he saw he was alone, he pushed . . .
. . . reappearing a short distance away, high up on a catwalk. Kurr maximized his shields, keeping his presence small and hidden. For a moment Kurr recalled the game of childhood: ’port and seek, which he’d played with Barac, Osbar di Parth, and others as children. But this was no game. From here he could see the stranger move through the tag point and cross the space to the door Kurr had just passed through moments before.
Once the puppet opened the door and went through, Kurr took a deep breath and pushed again. He appeared behind his target just as the other slid open the cubicle door to check inside. Kurr rushed forward and grabbed him by the back of his jacket. The Human jerked from his grip, turned, and raised a weapon. Instinctively, Kurr flung him across the room with a surge of Power. The weapon fell to the floor, and Kurr scooped it up: a compact pistol. The puppet groaned and shook his head. His hand clutched and scrabbled around the floor, searching for his weapon before he looked up and saw Kurr pointing it at him.
Kurr looked at this Human, enslaved to a M’hiray like Kurr, but one unknown to him. It was to whoever controlled this Human that Kurr spoke.
“Who are you? Why do you want to keep me from Acranam? What connection do you have to the Destarian?”
The Human’s face twisted into a grinning rictus. “Council lackey, you shouldn’t interfere in matters beyond you.”
Kurr reached for the Human’s mind and braced himself for the contest, mustering his Power against the puppet’s master. Then came the attack against Kurr’s shield. Tendrils of Power lashed at him, searching for weak points. His foe was strong, no doubt of that. He hammered aside the attack. Kurr sent a flare of power against the Other’s shields. They cracked. He found a weak point and sent Power pouring into it. The Clansman tried to counter, but Kurr ripped his shields apart. He grasped the presence then, and a name: Larimar di Sawnda’at.
Shock thrilled through him. One of the Destarian’s passengers. Larimar was behind this?
What happened to the others from the Destarian? Tell me what happened to Quel di Bowart and her Chosen.
No.
Then I will find out when I reach Acranam.
You’ll never reach Acranam. Scorn ran through Larimar’s response.
Kurr sent a scream of triumph through the Power coursing between himself and Larimar. Before he could exploit this victory, though, the other presence retreated and disappeared. Kurr found himself alone in the Human’s mind, and it was empty. There was nothing left. No answers for him. He severed the link and was aware he stood over a mindless husk. Blood ran from its nose and drool from its mouth.
Kurr bent down and searched the Human’s pockets for anything to identify him, but wasn’t surprised when he found nothing. He couldn’t afford to have the body found here like this.
“Just another pawn,” Kurr said and pushed the husk into the M’hir.
Kurr realized he was still holding the Human’s weapon and pushed that into the M’hir as well. Exiting the accommodation, he walked along the hall to the air lock for his ship. His questions were unanswered, but he knew where the answers must be: Acranam.
* * *
• • •
Kurr boarded the liner through the connection tube. The ship’s steward greeted him and directed him to the humanoid deck where his cabin would be. He was alive, and so Dorsen’s faith in him had been proven. But Kurr still felt awhirl from his confrontation. Questions distracted him, but he had one answer, a name. What was Larimar’s game? Were the others from the Destarian still alive and held hostage or dead? He would get his answers. He was stronger than Larimar. This they both knew. And he’d force them from the Clansman in person, not through some Human puppet.
The cabin on the liner was old and shabby, but there were few ships that passed through the Acranam System, and it was only for a few shipdays. In the cabin was a bunk, a workstation, a chair, a large screen, and a number of stains both fresh and faded in the carpet. At least it had a private fresher stall.
He locked the door behind him, then sat on the chair in front of the foldout table and activated the ship’s network. No virtual assistant greeted him, only a menu. The external cams showed the inside of the ship’s docking bay. Internal cameras in the liner’s public spaces showed its limited amenities. Nothing that would tempt him from his cabin.
Around him, he could not detect any other M’hiray. Larimar, through his puppet, had been alone. Soon the ship departed Plexis, leaving the station behind and going to translight on its way to Acranam.
Kurr contacted Jarad through the M’hir and relayed what had happened so far.
Interesting, was Jarad’s reply, though Kurr could detect no actual sense of interest from the head of the Council. There is nothing to suggest Larimar has accomplices within the Clan. Nevertheless, I will question Degal on the possibility his son has contacted him. You should know, Kurr, that your brother has experienced no incidents. He and Sira will arrive on Auord in two standard days.
Kurr would happily leave it to Jarad to follow up on investigating a Council member, an entanglement any Clan preferred to avoid. At least Barac was having an easier time with his assignment.
Over the next day Kurr had little else to do but plan the details of his time on Acranam—how and where he would search. The ship’s captain insisted there was no shipcity and that all it could do was send him down in a shuttle. Once done, he’d ’port home with answers to the mystery and, hopefully, survivors.
* * *
• • •
Space travel is boring, he complained to Dorsen on the last night of his voyage. I’ll be glad to get off this ship and onto Acranam.
My poor dear. Cooped up in your cabin.
His contact with her over the voyage had mostly kept his sense of confinement at bay, but being almost at his destination the cabin felt especially small.
How long until you arrive?
Soon. This shipmorning.
You should rest.
Yes, my dear.
Get your answers for both of us and come home for the birth. Little Elia grows impatient to arrive.
A name they’d chosen together. Kurr reveled in the feel of their connection, letting it relax him into sleep. Good night, my Chosen.
Be safe.
I will be.
* * *
• • •
Danger woke him; felt on an instinctive level: a threat nearby. A presence here on the ship. Clan.
“Lights,” Kurr ordered as he sat up.
A tall, lean stranger stood in his cabin, casually, as though he had every right to be there. Bright gray-green eyes stared at him from beneath a high, broad forehead and thick blond hair. In that moment Kurr knew who it was.
“Yihtor di Caraat.”
With the recognition came fear. He could feel Yihtor’s Power through the M’hir and knew it to be much greater than his own.
“So you’re the fly who’s buzzing around my business.”
“You’re dead.”
“Am I?” Yihtor mocked.
“What do you have to do with the Destarian and Larimar? What game are you playing?”
“One that only the most powerful can play—” Almost casually, force ripped through Kurr’s mind, searching, FINDING . . . You should know, Kurr, that your brother has experienced no incidents. He and Sira will arrive on Auord in two standard days . . .
“—and your part in it is done.”
* * *
• • •
Light-years away on the planet Tinex 14, Dorsen sat alone in her family’s library when Kurr’s fear shocked through their connection. His pain followed hard after. Fighting for his life, but not alone. Clan Chosen were never alone. She fought for her life as part of him. Instinct drove her to lend her strength as his faded, to bolster his shields for both their sake and for the sake of the presence in her womb.
Too little. Too late.
She felt his cry to her along their link, and then he was dead, slipping away, dissipating into the roiling dark of the M’hir and pulling her and Elia inexorably, inevitably down with him. So strong was the bond between Chosen that they shared not just life, but death. With a scream of rage at their sacrifice she was gone then, too.
. . . Truffles continues
Interlude
“IT’S NOT THE Clan.”
“Huh.” Terk had a gift for expressive monosyllables. That grunt, coupled with a snort? Implied a target more to the constable’s liking.
They’d come a long way from the days when Terk had made himself a thorough nuisance, ordering searches of the Silver Fox whenever the whim or opportunity struck, for some reason convinced the ship and her captain were smugglers.
Might have been, Morgan admitted to himself, a few cargoes he’d prefer not be examined by authorities, but avoiding exorbitant local fines were expected of a free trader and hardly the business of a Trade Pact Enforcer. Terk’d had a mole fly in his ear, that was all, and the game had its entertainment.
Until Sira. These days Bowman backed his Chosen and her approach with the Clan, and so long as they hunted someone else? Well, there was a quadrant’s worth of miscreants to pursue, none of them his concern or Sira’s.
Unless—a target Terk preferred? On Plexis? Deneb’s syndicates operated here, but he knew Bowman considered them a local nuisance. The sector chief’s mandate was to ensure the interactions between Trade Pact signatory species remained peaceful. Criminal activity rarely crossed her desk.
Smuggling banned goods between species did. Alarmed, Morgan lowered his voice to a whisper. “Tell me it’s not the Facilitator.” The name referred to the mysterious smuggler king, identity—even species—unknown, behind a growing proportion of that trade. Mostly in Human space, so far. What wasn’t a secret? A chilling ruthlessness.
“Not.” Terk gave an exaggerated wink, disturbing flakes of drying blood. “Happy?”
He’d be happy not to be involved. Morgan stood. “I’d say stay out of trouble, but you’d ignore me.”
“S’truth.” Terk lifted his mug suggestively. “What’s y’hurry?”
He grinned. “We’re going dancing.” To meet with the next on his inner list. To ease the melancholy he sensed around Sira’s thoughts.
And with Bowman on the hunt?
The safest place to be was out of her way.
Little Enigmatic Monster
by Wayne Carey
LYDIS BOWMAN STUDIED the body lying on the morgue’s steel slab. She breathed in the cold sterile air and the chemical stench that would take weeks to remove from her uniform. The corpse was of a male Human in the latter part of his fifth standard decade, once tall, slender, and distinguished, now a hollow shell. Covered in a thin sheet from the neck down, he bore no status that the clothes, folded on a shelf, would have provided. The suit he had worn at his death was expensive, the product of one of the most exclusive shops on Plexis. It had marked him not only as a wealthy person, but also one of importance. Bowman barely recognized the sunken face as belonging to Jak Chesterton, Trade Commissioner for Imesh, but his position in the hierarchy of the Trade Pact and signatory species made this dead Human very much her business.
“Okay,” she said to Inspector Gregor Wallace, head of Plexis Security, “you have a dead body with no signs of violence, no trace of foreign substances to indicate poisoning, no previous health issues such as heart disease. Nothing to actually indicate a cause of death.” She wished she could see into the dead being’s inert brain, to sift through any possible damage, search for evidence of someone or something that had ripped his mind away.
“Cardiac failure,” Wallace announced in a bored tone. “I’ve told you—”
“Which merely means his heart stopped beating. Your scans have indicated no previous heart condition, weakened cardiac muscles, or anything else that would support such failure. So what caused his heart to stop?”
Wallace took a deep breath, his mouth forming a thin line. “You’re suggesting an assassin. A mindcrawler assassin. It didn’t happen. Chesterton had a meal at the Claws & Jaws and collapsed in the service corridor at the rear of the establishment. He dined with his aide, Rykard Kessler, who left the restaurant first to deal with reports or some other business. Chesterton was alone while he finished his meal and when he left.”
“And how did he end up in the service corridor?” Bowman asked.
Wallace shrugged. “Visual recordings show that he exited through the rear of the restaurant rather than through the front. He was important. Might have worried about being left alone, without his typical escort, and wanted to avoid any media reporters. He was a Trade Pact Commissioner, as you keep reminding me. The vismedia are always hounding them in public for statements. It isn’t unusual to use a rear entrance and take the service corridor to a less crowded section of the station, it’s just rarely done.”
“So he dies in the service corridor, apparently of natural causes,” Bowman said, skeptical. “Who found the body?”
“A member of the restaurant staff, Hom Ansel.”
“I’ll want to speak with him,” Bowman said.
Wallace tightened his jaw. “That will not be necessary.”
Bowman glared at him. “Why?”
“We have his statement. The case is closed, Commander Bowman.”
“Not until I have reviewed all of the facts, Inspector. In case you’ve forgotten, as a commissioner, qualified to sign interspecies trade agreements, Chesterton—and his death, natural or not—falls under Trade Pact jurisdiction, not Plexis. I will need complete access to all your files concerning this case.”
“You’re wasting your time, Commander.”
“It’s mine to waste, Inspector.”
Wallace exhaled another heavy breath. “Very well. I’ll provide the usual office space—”
“No need. I’ve taken quarters here on Plexis. Have everything transferred to the terminal there. I’ve made certain it is secure. Access to myself and to my staff, Constable P’tr wit ’Whix. And I assume you have holo reproductions of the scene of the death.”
A glare. “I’ll have copies transferred to your terminal, Commander. Anything else?”
“That’s all for now. But I’d also want other scans made on the body.”
* * *
• • •
Trade Pact Enforcers had no permanent presence on Plexis. This trip, Bowman did not want to remain shipbound and ordered rooms for her and one staff, ’Whix. The Tolian’s Human partner, Russell Terk, was off chasing the Silver Fox—again. The Tolian was quartered next to her, and she set up her living space as an office, linked to the Conciliator.
Her room’s terminal was fine for receiving data from station security, but she knew better than to depend upon it for investigative work. Wallace and his minions would be monitoring every keystroke. They’d try, anyway. True to his word, though, he had uploaded all their files to her terminal. She transferred the data
to her secure devices, then pocketed a holo projector and headed toward the restaurant district with the Tolian constable hurrying at her heels.
As the sign outside proclaimed, the Claws & Jaws was a restaurant of complete interspecies cuisine. The owner, the Carasian named Huido Maarmatoo’kk, was known to Bowman even beyond his capacity as restaurateur. He had many colorful associates, including Terk’s nemesis Jason Morgan, some of which could be suspected of assassination. Could one of them kill without leaving any determining trace? Perhaps. There were many exotic poisons from a thousand planets.
If Wallace’s scans revealed no damage from foreign substances, and Bowman felt natural causes unlikely, what she was left with was the nagging suspicion of mental invasion. She expected more elaborate scans of the body, particularly the brain, would provide the evidence she needed. In the meantime, she wished to examine every aspect of the last moments of Chesterton’s life.
The Queeb hostess of the Claws & Jaws noticed the enforcer uniforms and gave a hint of anxiety in a telltale twitch from two of her left eyes and the curl of one tentacle. Otherwise, she was remarkably calm.
“Table for two?” she asked.
“Is Hom Maarmatoo’kk available?” Bowman said. “I’d like to speak with him.”
The hostess’ six eyes were blinking randomly. “I regret that will not be possible. Hom Maarmatoo’kk is presently offstation. Is there any other way I can be of help?”
“How decidedly inconvenient of him,” Bowman said, wondering when the Carasian had planned this latest trip off Plexis. “Then I’ll speak with Hom Ansel.”
“Of course, Commander,” the hostess said. She was uncharacteristically polite for a Queeb. “He is in his office. I will inform him you are here.”
“Just take me to his office,” she said.
The hostess waved a tentacle beyond the dining area. “This way, Commander.”
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 17
