Odd Girl Out q-3

by Timothy Zahn

  I looked toward the bar and the sleeping men piled along the walkway around it. "I gather they've been doing a lot of losing?"

  "Yes," Oved said, sounding a little mystified that I'd come to that conclusion so fast. "I don't know what's in those bottles they brought, but one shot and you're done for."

  "Dark brown bottle?" I asked. "Triangular base with a short, wide, corkscrew-shaped neck?"

  "Yes," he confirmed. "They must have a dozen of them, packed away in wraparound belt bags. But it can't be poison—they're drinking it themselves."

  "It's not poison," I said. "It's dilivin. A classic Filly drink never intended for Human stomachs. Where's Karim?"

  "Behind the bar," the boy said. "Standing on the door to the storage cellar. The main storage cellar, I mean. Not the one—you know. He told me to come out here and wait for you."

  I nodded with approval. If the Modhri had figured out Rebekah was underground, he would reasonably assume she was in the cellar. Karim standing defiantly on the access door would add weight to that conclusion, which in turn should have the Modhri working on a way to get him off it.

  But even the Modhri wasn't crazy enough to take on an entire bar's worth of Humans with only six Fillies. Hence, the rigged drinking contest to thin out the crowd. "Okay, I'll handle it," I told Oved, and headed back to the car. I would go in alone, I decided, and have McMicking find a nice shadow to hide in as backup. Bending down, I looked into the car.

  McMicking was gone.

  I straightened up, looking around as I silently cursed the man. But he was nowhere to be seen.

  "What is it?" Oved called softly.

  "Nothing," I said, turning back toward the bar. The least McMicking could have done was wait for my instructions before deciding to ignore them. "Stay here."

  The tavern had been reasonably full before I left for Veldrick's place. Now, it was even more crowded, with wall-to-wall people laughing and hooting and generally enjoying themselves at the tops of their lungs. Clearly, word had traveled about the strangers in town providing free entertainment and free firewater.

  Both of which were still going strong. Peering through a narrow gap between the bystanders, I saw two Fillies and a burly middle-aged Human seated at a table in the center of the main room. The Human was arm-wrestling one of the Fillies while the other alien looked on, a dilivin bottle and set of shot glasses neatly lined up on the table in front of him. Both Fillies, I noted, had turned their chairs around and were seated on their knees and shins in normal Filly style.

  Behind the Human, a third Filly and two more Humans stood watching the action. One of the Humans was holding a notebook and pen, the other was cupping a fist full of coins. Apparently, book was being made on the various contests. All three Fillies were wearing the distinctive layered tunics and flared hats that always reminded me of Genghis Khan's thirteenth-century Mongolian warriors.

  Fastened around their waists at their backs were the belt bags Oved had mentioned, five bags per Filly, each long enough to hold a dilivin bottle. Clearly, they'd come prepared to make a night of it.

  The rest of the tables had been pushed back, leaving a small open area around the main event. I pushed my way through the rows of spectators, ignoring the growls and complaints that followed me, until I reached the inner edge. Just as I eased between the last two men the Human slammed his opponent's hand to the table. Through the mixed roar of triumph from the winning bettors and groans of disgust from the losers, I gave the room a careful scan.

  Three of the Fillies, as I'd already noted, were standing prominently in the center of the room. The other three Oved had mentioned were nowhere to be seen.

  Were they even now with Bayta and Rebekah?

  "There you are," a throaty voice said.

  I looked back at the table. All three Fillies had turned in my direction and were gazing at me down their long faces in a way that reminded me of an old man in a dit rec drama peering at fine print through the reading section of his bifocals.

  They were definitely Filiaelians. No one else in the galaxy looked even remotely like that. And yet, as I studied the somewhat shorter lengths of their faces, the shapes of their scalloped ears, and the colors of their bristly facial hairs, I was struck more by the differences between them and Filiaelian norm than by their similarities to that standard.

  And if there were that many differences showing on the outside, there were probably even more drastic changes on the inside. Clearly, someone had done some serious genetic work on them.

  But for this bunch, altered DNA was the least of their problems. As I looked more closely, I could see the slightly unfocused eyes and slackened jaws and the minor darkening of the distinctive blaze marks on their long faces. Changes that had taken place sometime since I'd first seen them thirty seconds ago.

  The Modhri had taken over.

  "Here I am," I agreed. "Question is, what are you doing here?"

  The two Fillies seated at the table reached behind them into their belt bags, each producing two more dilivin bottles. "For all," the losing arm wrestler said, reaching behind him to hand his bottles to two of the men in the crowd. "Enjoy to the fullest."

  There was a fresh roar of appreciation as the second Filly passed his bottles off to his side of the ring. With the free entertainment over, but an even better deal on the free firewater, the audience broke up, the onlookers redistributing themselves into new groups centered around the four bottles.

  I waited until their attention was firmly elsewhere, then closed the last couple of meters to the Fillies' table. The winning Human arm wrestler had also joined the rest of the crowd, leaving the half-full dilivin bottle behind. "I repeat, what are you doing here?" I asked the Fillies, keeping my voice low.

  "A strange question," the Filly still standing said, peering down his long face and comet-shaped blaze at me. "Surely you know we're here to destroy the Abomination."

  "That wasn't the deal we made at Yandro," I insisted. "Or aren't you in the loop yet on that?"

  "I'm aware of the agreement," Comet Nose said gravely. "I'm also aware of how badly you've kept other such agreements in the past."

  Unfortunately, he had a point. "So what exactly are you planning to do?" I asked.

  Comet Nose flipped his head. "I?" he asked, stepping right up to me and resting his hand on my shoulder in classic the-car-salesman-is-your-friend fashion. "I will do nothing." He slid his hand off my shoulder and down the front of my jacket.

  As he did so, I felt him slip something into my outer jacket pocket. I reached up a hand to see what he'd put there—

  "Everyone freeze!" a Human voice snapped from behind me.

  Instantly, the bar went silent. Keeping my hands motionless, I carefully turned my head.

  There were six cops spread out around the wall by the door. All six had their guns out.

  All six guns were pointed at me.

  I took a deep breath. "Is there a problem, Officer?" I called.

  "Stay exactly where you are, Donaldson," one of the cops ordered. "You—everyone else—get up and move calmly out of the way. Calmly, I said."

  I turned back to Comet Nose. "Neatly done," I murmured. "I presume that was the murder weapon you just put into my pocket?"

  "Correct," he said. "You now have two choices, Mr. Compton. You may refuse to give up the Abomination, whereupon the officers will take you to prison. They will examine the contract pen in your pocket and discover traces of Human blood on it.

  "That would probably be bad," I agreed. "What's option number two?"

  "You give up the Abomination, and this Eye will take back the pen," he said. "When asked, he will state you had borrowed it only a moment ago to write a note and forgetfully put it in your own pocket."

  "We made a deal," I reminded him firmly. "I handle the Abomination. You stay out of my way."

  "Don't be foolish," Comet Nose said scornfully. "You were allowed here to bring the Abomination out of hiding. Now that you have fulfilled that role, you will
step aside."

  I could hear boots on wood now as the cops started toward me. "I don't quit in the middle of a job," I said. "You really should know that by now"

  "This is not the middle of the job," the Modhri warned. "For you, it is the end."

  "Don't count on it," I said, trying not to think of me being in jail and Bayta trying to hold off the Fillies by herself. The Fillies, and whatever else the Modhri might have available to throw at her. "You're not getting the girl, period."

  Comet Nose flipped his head again. "The Human female?" he asked. "When did I say I wanted any Human females?"

  I stared at him. "You don't want—?"

  And then the cops were on me, two of them grabbing my arms and roughly turning me around. "Easy," I told them. "I'll need those arms later."

  "Very funny," a third cop said, opening my jacket and pulling McMicking's Beretta from my holster. He was older than the others, with lieutenants' insignia on his collar. The plate above his right shirt pocket gave his name as Bhatami. "Well, well—what have we here?"

  "I have a carry permit," I reminded him.

  "I understand Mr. Veldrick has canceled that," Bhatami said as he tucked the gun into his own belt.

  "Mr. Veldrick has no such authority," I said.

  "Perhaps not," Bhatami said. He gestured to the cops holding my arms. Reluctantly, I thought, they released me. "We, on the other hand, have all the authority we need."

  "Oh, please," I said with a snort. "This isn't about that bogus warrant Sergeant Aksam tried to spoil my dinner with, is it?"

  "This is far more serious," Bhatami said grimly. "A short time ago we received a tip that you were involved with the murders of two of our officers."

  I felt sweat gathering beneath my collar, freshly aware of the slight bulge of the contract pen nestled in my jacket pocket. "An anonymous tip, I presume?"

  Bhatami shrugged slightly. "True, and we both know the general value of such tips," he conceded. "However, given that we've been unable to contact either of the two officers by comm, we're inclined to take this one a bit more seriously."

  I looked past his shoulder at the three cops by the door, their guns now pointed at the ceiling but still ready for action. So that was where at least one of the three missing Fillies had gotten to. He'd been lurking outside somewhere where he could spot my return and sic the cops on me. "May I ask who it is who's missing?"

  I looked back at Bhatami in time to catch his flicker of disappointment. Sometimes murderers gave themselves away by forgetting to ask the identity of their alleged victim. Obviously, he'd been hoping I would add that indicator to the case against me. "Sergeant Aksam and Officer Lasari," he said. "The fact that you had a run-in with them earlier this evening makes the tip somewhat more credible."

  "I didn't have a run-in with them," I explained patiently. "They tried to serve me with a trumped-up warrant and my legal representative politely invited them to take a hike."

  "So I gather," Bhatami said. "They called in for a new warrant, which was subsequently issued."

  "Which I was never served."

  "Because both officers subsequently vanished."

  "Which I know nothing about," I said. "Allow me to point out I've been on New Tigris less than a day, hardly enough time to work up a good grudge against anyone, let alone a pair of cops just doing their duty. Furthermore, there must have been twenty people who observed Sergeant Aksam and Officer Lasari accost me in the restaurant. If any of them had a grudge, they would have seen me as a gift-wrapped patsy."

  "Facts which also have not escaped my notice," Bhatami agreed. "But the serious nature of the information requires that we make inquiries."

  "I suppose," I said, looking over his shoulder again as the door opened and a newcomer shambled into the bar. Caught up in his own thoughts, or else blurred by his blood alcohol level, he got a full three steps inside before he noticed the cops lining the walls around him.

  He jerked in shock and skittered nervously in a wide circle around the two nearest ones, keeping a wary eye on them as he backed hurriedly toward the bar. He looked toward me, his eyes narrowing as he peered at the evident object of the cops' attention. As he did so, he lifted his closed fist, thumb extended upward, toward his face. He dabbed the tip of his thumb at the corner of his mouth, the hand wiggling slightly as he did so.

  Only then, as I gazed into his eyes, was I able to pierce the layer of grime and sweat and recognize McMicking's face.

  McMicking's face, and a wiggling fist with thumb extended upward. The sign-language symbol for ten.

  Ten cops? Ten minutes?

  Ten seconds?

  McMicking turned away and continued his shambling walk toward the bar. "But there's no reason we can't be comfortable, is there?" I asked, looking back at Bhatami. "Let's sit down."

  Before the two cops flanking me could react, I took a step backward to the Fillies' table and sat down in the chair the Human arm wrestler had recently vacated. "Lieutenant?" I invited, gesturing Bhatami to the other empty chair as the two cops hurriedly moved back to my sides.

  Bhatami looked pointedly at the two Fillies still seated at the table. "I think we'd do better to have this convers—"

  From somewhere outside came the muffled thundercrack of an explosion.

  Automatically, every head in the room spun that direction, every eye probing the half-dozen frosted windows for signs of what had happened.

  And with their attention momentarily elsewhere, I pulled the damning contract pen from my jacket and dropped it, point down, into the open dilivin bottle.

  Quickly but casually I pulled my hand back again, glancing at the two Fillies at the table and the one still standing nearby. If any of them had spotted my gambit and yelled for the cops, there might still be time to retrieve the pen before the witch's brew in the dilivin destroyed all traces of the murdered cops' blood and my own fingerprints.

  But the Fillies weren't yelling, or even looking accusingly at me. All three of them were staring straight ahead, their necks stiff, their eyes glazed over, their lower jaws trembling in the classic Filly indicator of extreme emotional agitation.

  And I suddenly realized what McMicking had done. The explosion that had so neatly distracted the bar's attention had been the car with the two dead cops inside. Probably not coincidentally, the blast had also fried the hidden Modhran coral, creating a surge of pain and shock that had kicked back through the group mind connection into my three agitated Fillies.

  I looked at the bar, where McMicking was staring in the direction of the explosion with everyone else. His eyes flicked sideways to meet mine, one eyelid dropping in a sort of half wink.

  I inclined my head microscopically. Whether he'd deliberately intended it or not, his stunt had just pulled the other half of my bacon out of the fire. With the car probably now blazing away, any traces of DNA that the contract pen might have left in the cops' chests were rapidly disintegrating into their component atoms.

  Bhatami recovered first. "Bomb squad and fire department," he snapped, jabbing a finger toward one of the cops beside me. "You—stay with him," he told the other, the jabbing finger shifting to me. Turning, he raced for the door.

  It was the signal for instant mass chaos, with everyone in the bar either shouting, gasping, or clawing their way toward the door to see what was happening out there. A minute later, the only ones left in the bar were me, my police escort, the Fillies, the bartender, Karim, and about a dozen men already slumped in their chairs or collapsed across the bar in dilivin-induced slumber.

  And, of course, McMicking.

  I looked at the Fillies. All three were looking back at me now, their eyes blank in a way that sent a shiver up my back. "I hope that didn't hurt too much," I said.

  It was probably the wrong thing to say. Slowly, deliberately, one of the Fillies reached into his tunic and pulled out his contract pen. Staring into my face, he turned it around in his hand, gripping it like a knife—

  "Is there a problem?" the
cop standing behind me asked.

  The color of the Filly's blaze paled a bit, his eyes coming back to normal focus. "Problem?" he asked. He looked at the pen in his hand as if wondering how it had gotten there, and tucked it away again. "No. There is no problem."

  "Glad to hear it," the cop said. "Maybe you and your friends should move to a different table."

  The Filly looked at me. Then, without a word, he and his companion climbed off their chairs, and the three of them walked over to a table across the room. They settled themselves around it, one of them facing me, the second facing the door, the third watching Karim behind the bar.

  "Thank you," I said quietly to the cop.

  "Save it," he muttered back. "If I find out you killed Aksam and Lasari, I'll take you apart myself."

  I sighed. Clearly, I still had the knack of making friends wherever I went.

  Someday, I really should work on that.

  TEN :

  Over the next half hour or so the bar's patrons dribbled back in, talking in the subdued tones of people who've just seen something horrific. At the same time, though, I could sense the excitement and relief that something had happened to shake up their otherwise boring routines. This evening, I guessed, would be fodder for barroom conversations for months to come.

  Still, despite the excitement, the free dilivin continued to take its toll. Soon after returning to the bar, most of the patrons began wandering back out again or else joined the ones already snoring away. McMicking was one of the latter group, pillowing his head on his folded arms on the bar.

  By the time Bhatami returned, the place was down to the sleepers, the Fillies, me, and maybe four other conscious patrons.

  The lieutenant looked tired and angry and bitter. "I take it whatever happened out there wasn't good news?" I suggested as he pulled out one of the chairs at my table and dropped into it.

  He tried to glare at me, but fatigue was starting to overwhelm the anger and all that made it out past his eyes was a sort of pensive annoyance. "We found Sergeant Aksam and Officer Lasari," he said, glancing up at the cop still standing guard over me. "Or what was left of them."