“This is most exciting,” said Blaish, though the t-pack took all the excitement out of it.
“Oh?” I said. “Why is that?”
“We have only had four murders since I have been on the force, and I have not participated in any of them.”
He seemed like an eager enough rookie, and since I had no budget, I figured: what the hell, I can use all the help I can get.
“As soon as we get to the embassy,” I said, “we’ll round up the most likely weapons and have them sent back to the lab.”
“Them?“ said Blaish. “What about me?”
“How’d you like to work on a homicide?” I asked him.
“I would love to!” he said eagerly, and this time even the t-pack couldn’t totally hide his enthusiasm.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have the Ambassador fix it with your boss.”
“Might I ask what you think I can bring to the investigation?” he asked.
“You know what happened here,” I said. “A Tjanti was murdered in a human embassy during peace talks. The Tjantis are very likely certain that the killer was a Man, and won’t trust me to find him. The Men are just as sure it was a Tjanti, and probably think Jimbo here wants to frame a Man. Nobody has anything against the Droons, so you might be able to get some answers out of Men and Tjantis who are distrustful or resentful of Jimbo and me.”
“I’m very grateful,” he said.
“I just hope you’re very lucky,” I replied.
We pulled up to the entrance, which like all embassies was built to impress, and if Blaish had had a jaw it would have dropped. His narrow eyes got as wide as they could get, and he just looked at everything with awe. A man and two women, the on-duty greeters, came by to meet him, then turned away and went back to their posts when they saw he was with Jimbo and me.
We had him sign in. That’s probably not the right word, since what he did was extend a tentacle from his left hand (after first extending his upper left arm from within his body). A kind of orange slime extruded from it and made a mark on the page. That seemed to satisfy the officer in charge of the guest book, and a moment later we took the airlift up to the second floor and went up and down the row of rooms, collecting anything that looked like it could conceivably have been the murder weapon. Jimbo wore Tjanti surgical gloves and neatly packaged each one. At the end of an hour we had sixteen potential weapons.
“You see anything else that could have been used?” I asked as we took one last look at Mglais’s room.
Blaish pointed to a lamp on the desk. “How about this?”
Jimbo shook his head. “Metal’s too soft. It would show a dent.”
“Send it along anyway, just to be on the safe side,” I said.
Blaish wandered around the room, but he couldn’t find anything we hadn’t found earlier. There was a small artifact, perhaps three inches in height, on the mantelpiece over the fake fireplace.
“This?” he asked, picking it up and carrying it over to us.
“No,” I said. “It would have shattered from the force of the blow. Besides, it’s too small to have done the damage I saw.” I took it from him and stared at it. It seemed as much a puzzle as an art object, and you’d have sworn half of it was in some dimension that you could only guess at. “Fascinating, though,” I added.
“That is from our world,” said Tjanti. “I suppose we’ll ship it home with Mglais’s effects when this is settled.”
“Moebius would be proud,” I remarked.
He frowned. “Moebius?”
“Never mind,” I said, putting the artifact back. “Let’s cart this stuff down and send it back to the lab.”
“I have a question,” said Blaish, as we began loading our haul onto an airsled prior to taking it to an embassy vehicle.
“What is it?”
“Should we be posting guards on all the negotiators on both sides, until we know who the killer is?”
“We have a state-of-the-art security system to keep tabs on them,” I answered, without mentioning that it clearly wasn’t tamper-proof. “Besides, this wasn’t a political killing—and that means that right now there are only three people who are in any danger.”
“Who?” he asked.
“You, me and Jimbo,” I replied.
I figured we’d gone about as far as we could go with our preliminary questioning of the staff and talking to forensics. It was time to learn a little more about Mglias. After all, if it wasn’t a political murder, then we needed to know all we could about him to find out who would want to kill him, and why.
McKay set us up in one of the storerooms in the basement next door to the room where we’d questioned his staff, with a chair for me, an almost-chair for Jimbo, and what looked for all the world like a tub filled with gelatin for Blaish. I watched, fascinated, as he slithered into it and somehow wound up with his torso propped up and one set of arms resting on the rim, looking like he belonged there.
There was a large holoscreen at the far side of the room, and McKay had tied the computer into the main databank and keyed it to respond in Terran.
“Before we start,” I said to Jimbo, “can you suggest any area of his life we should be looking at?”
He shook his bulldog head. I half-expected saliva to fly in all directions from those pendulous jaws, but nothing came out. “He is a great hero to my people,” he said, “but other than that I know very little about him. I was just seconded to his security staff when the conference was announced. He was too busy preparing for it to socialize with us.”
I knew that situation. I’d been a bodyguard once or twice, and it was amazing how your client acted like you were an inferior life form and tried to pretend you didn’t exist—until he needed you, that is.
“How about you?” I asked Blaish.
“I never saw him when he was alive,” he replied. “And while I knew there was an important meeting going on at your embassy, I didn’t know what it was about or who the participants were until we were contacted after the murder.”
“All right,” I said, pulling out a smokeless cigar—my third of the day—and lighting it. “Let’s put the machine to work. Computer?”
“Yes?” said a disembodied voice from the vicinity of the screen.
“Show us the most recent holographic videos of Mglais.”
A Tjanti, a little older and a little shorter than Jimbo, appeared on the screen. He walked with a slight limp, and he had a number of glowing cubes bonded to his arm, from the shoulder down to the wrist.
“What are those things on his arm?” I asked.
“Medals,” replied the computer.
“Do you see the multi-colored one just above his wrist?” said Jimbo. “That’s our Medal of Extreme Valor. He got it in our war against the Zantees. I believe only three were given out.”
“So he was a brave soldier. Is that where he picked up the limp?”
“I suppose so.”
“Computer, what is the cause of Mglais’s limp?”
“A wound received in the Braxite conflict.”
“He got around,” I said. I watched the image of the great warrior limping toward the embassy’s entrance, and suddenly a thought occurred to me. “Computer, why was he limping?”
“He received a wound in the Braxite conflict,” answered the machine.
“You just asked it that,” noted Blaish.
“I worded it badly,” I said. “Computer, why didn’t he have a prosthetic leg? They work as well as real ones, they’re stronger and sturdier, and they don’t feel pain. Was there something about the nature of his wound that precluded the use of prosthetics?”
“No, there was not.”
“Was he offered one?”
“Checking…yes.”
So he limped when he didn’t have to, probably to remind everyone that they were looking at a hero who had suffered for his people. More than a little bit of egomania there. I saw what passed for a smile on Braish’s face and a frown on Jimbo’s, which meant they got i
t too.
“Computer, was Mglais involved in the conflict against Odysseus?”
“No.”
“Was he still in the military during that conflict?”
“I can answer that,” said Jimbo.
“Just tell me if you answer differs from the machine’s,” I said.
“Mglais retired from the military seven years ago,” said the computer. “The conflict between Tjant and Odysseus began three years ago.”
“What did he do after retiring?” I asked.
“He ran for political office—”
“And won, no doubt,” I said.
“—and lost,” concluded the computer.
A military hero lost a run for office? That ran counter to my experience. I turned to Jimbo. “If I ask the computer why, all it’ll do is tell me his opponent got more votes. Can you give me a better answer?”
He shrugged. “I was at one of his rallies. He drew a huge crowd, but he seemed too arrogant, like we owed him the office.”
“That explains the limp,” I said. “It reminds everyone he’s a hero. What about his private life?”
“I have no idea,” Jimbo replied.
“Computer, was Mglais married?”
“The Tjantis do not marry,” said the computer.
“What do they call it, Jimbo—taking a life partner?”
“A life mate.”
“Computer, did Mglais have a life mate?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Was he wealthy?”
“I cannot answer your question as worded,” replied the computer. “Wealth is subjective.”
“If he never worked again and survived to his life expectancy, would he have been able to pay his bills if he incurred no extraordinary unanticipated expenses?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Did he have any close friends?”
I got the whole rigamarole about subjective questions again, and it took me three tries to word it in a way that finally elicited an answer—and the answer was no.
“May I ask one?” said Blaish.
“Go ahead,” I replied.
“Computer, did Mglais have any known enemies among the races of Man or Tjanti?”
“No.”
“Did he have any known enemies among the race of Droon?” he continued.
“No.”
“Thank you.” Blaish turned to me. “I thought you were going to ask about enemies next.”
“I was,” I said.
“I further thought that if you didn’t limit it to the three races that were inside the embassy, the answer would be Yes, for surely he had enemies among the races that he went to war with.”
“Good thinking,” I said. I considered my next question for a moment. “Computer, what has Mglais been doing since he lost the election?”
“Checking…He has made infrequent public appearances, usually speaking on holidays and at nonpartisan events. Other than that, his actions are unknown.”
“Computer, let’s see the last video taken of Mglais before his death.”
A holo of Mglais showed the Tjanti limping down the corridor to his room. He entered, sat down on his desk chair, and leaned back. He uttered a low command and his computer came to life, the holoscreen showing a restful kaleidoscopic display. You could see the tension draining from his body, and he ordered the lights to go out. I listened to see if he’d given the room another command, or I could hear any hidden Man or Tjanti shuffling, breathing, anything. But there was just the flickering image from the screen playing across his face.
Then the screen went blank, and when it came on again there was Mglais lying on the floor with his head crushed. I waited to see if Blaish or Jimbo had any more questions. When they didn’t, I ordered the computer to go into pause mode.
“All right,” I said. “What have we got?”
“Not much,” said Jimbo.
“I haven’t seen anything to make me change my mind,” I said. “This wasn’t a political murder.”
“Then what was the motive?” asked Blaish.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But let’s look at what we’ve got: a great war hero who somehow managed to piss all the public’s goodwill away in a very short time. War heroes don’t lose elections, especially just a few years after they retire. He kept a game leg so no one would forget his heroism, which shows a marriage of egomania and insecurity: he wanted everyone to know he’d sacrificed for the cause, and he was afraid they’d forget.”
I paused and looked at Mglais’s image again. “Whatever his accomplishments, he never took a life mate, and I assume Tjanti celebrities don’t have to look any farther for qualified life mates than Men do. He had no close friends. His private life seems to have been a lot more private than most.” I paused. “I get the feeling he was a brave and brilliant warrior who was unlikable as all get-out, who knew it, and who in the end was giving these nonpartisan speeches because he knew he’d never hold elective office and he was fishing for invites to do just what he was doing here: trying to make sure he didn’t slip into obscurity.”
“You draw all these conclusions from a limp and a handful of vague answers from the computer?” asked Blaish.
“You deal with people who have something to hide long enough and you get a feel for it,” I said.
“And what was Mglais hiding?” he persisted.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But someone killed him for it.”
“It is the opinion of the Droon police that he was killed by a Man who did not want the peace negotiations to continue,” said Blaish.
“If your forensics lab can show me a single fact to support it, I’ll buy it,” I answered.
He seemed about to reply, then decided not to.
“Jimbo,” I said, “did you have any contact with him at all during the conference?”
The Tjanti shook his head. “I was just one of the security staff. He was preoccupied with the conference, which took many hours each day.” He paused. “I doubt that he’d have had anything to do with me anyway. I got the impression that he wasn’t easy to get along with, though it just may be the pressure he was under to end the conflict.”
Which gave me another line of questioning.
“Computer, activate,” I ordered.
“Activated.”
“Can you access the Master Database on Tjant?”
“I can access every planetary database in this sector of the Democracy, except for classified material. For that, you will need Ambassador Ruskin’s personal code, or possibly an even higher clearance.”
“I don’t want any classified material,” I said. “I want you to access every biography of Mglais that has appeared on Tjant.”
“Accessing…done. There have been eleven.”
“Read them all.”
“Working…done.”
“Now tell me what you have learned about his private life.”
“He was a voracious reader of military history, both Tjanti and other.”
“That’s all?” I asked, surprised. “You know nothing else about his private life?”
“Only by indirection.”
“Explain,” I said.
“When he was twenty-three years old, he stood trial for the fatal beating a female Tjanti. He was found innocent.”
“I’d call that his private life,” I remarked.
“The trial was public, and there were conflicting reports, never proven, about his behavior in private.”
“Were there any other court cases?” I asked.
“No.”
“May I asked another question?” said Blaish.
“Be my guest,” I told him.
“Computer, were there any charges brought against Mglais in a court martial?”
“One.”
“That’s a court case, damn it!” I said.
The computer took four minutes to explain the difference to me.
“Fine,” I said at last. “Now can you t
ell us what the charges and outcome were?”
“When he was twenty-seven years of age, Mglais was court martialed for sexually abusing a female under his command, and was incarcerated for one month and reduced two ranks.”
“What a sweet guy,” I said. “How long did it take him to get back to his former rank?”
“Seven months.”
“Tough punishment your army metes out for rape,” I commented sardonically to Jimbo.
“Rape?” he repeated.
I decided it would take too long to explain, and besides I was sure the Tjantis had their own word for it or they’d never have found Mglais guilty.
“I’m surprised it took someone this long to kill him,” I said. “He shoots the enemy, and he kills and sexually abuses the allies. Who the hell is left?”
“When you put it that way, maybe we should just go home and forget about it,” said Jimbo, only half in jest.
“I wish I could,” I said. “I have a feeling this son of a bitch deserved what he got—but I’d like to work again someday, so I can’t just pack my bags and walk away.”
“Well, what’s next?” asked Jimbo. “We’ve interviewed the security staff, we’ve been to the lab, we’ve researched Mglais as far as we can.”
“We interview the staff again,” I said. “One of them deactivated the security system in Mglais room and the corridor. That much we know.”
“May I see or hear the original interviews?” asked Blaish.
“Sure,” I said. “In fact, both of you should. I’ll tell McKay to run them into this room for you.” I got to my feet. “I’m going to grab some lunch. Catch up on the interviews, and when I’m done the three of us will speak to the staff again.”
“They won’t tell us any more than they told us last time,” said Jimbo.
“Probably not,” I agreed.
“Well, then?”
I sighed deeply. “Did someone tell you catching murderers was going to be easy?”
We grilled the security team, and we grilled them hard. No one broke, no one changed their stories. Finally, just before we questioned Roberts, the last of them, again, I sought out McKay.
Masters of the Galaxy Page 22
