Ancestor's World

by T. Jackson King

  After years of dealing with alien customs, it wouldn't be the first time she'd made some kind of gaffe without intending to.

  After a short, loaded silence, Krillen asked, "Matron in Charge, is your... is your cleansing pond available for nonfamily use?"

  "It is." The Matron eyed Mahree. "Daughter of Sky, my name is Coreen, of the clan Farms Well, of the Trade Father Snoring, and I am Mother of two eggs. My cleansing pond is located in the courtyard behind the kitchen. You may use it tonight."

  Tension sang between the two aliens, and Mahree hadn't the slightest idea of what she'd said to set it off. Too tired to worry more, she touched her forehead in the greeting custom of the Na-Dina. "Mother Coreen, I am honored by your sharing." The female's fan-ears twitched. "Uh, I am Mahree, of the clan Human, of the Trade Interrelator, and Mother of one daughter,"

  Mahree said softly. "My family gives you thanks."

  "Your thanks are accepted." The tension eased. The Matron offered them each a ceramic token, inlaid with a cloisonne glass pattern. "Your room ownership tokens. No

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  one will disturb you so long as these hang from the pivot- bar. Do you require a meal?"

  "No," said Krillen. "We brought our own food. Thank you for asking."

  Coreen shuffled back behind her counter, tail lifting. "As you wish. You are both welcome to join the break of our morning fast, at first light of Mother's Eye."

  Mahree shouldered her duffel bag, wondered if her equipment would be safe in the skimmer, then recalled the Na-Dina penalty for theft--amputation of one or both hands. She shuddered, and followed after Krillen as he shuffled up the stone steps to the second floor, his tail slithering through a rut cut deep into the edge of each step.

  "Uh, Krillen," she said after they had passed out of earshot of Coreen. "What did I say wrong back there?" Kril en continued climbing but slowed. "We Na-Dina can speak bluntly. I will oblige you. Bathing is often a sexual activity among us, and your juxtaposition of my name with your desire to bathe could be construed to mean that... you wished to share sex with me." Mahree opened her mouth, but found nothing to say. "Of course, I know better from observing your species' toiletry rituals at Base Camp. Matron Coreen does not."

  Mahree felt her face grow warm. Good grief! That's a new one! "Oh, Krillen, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you."

  "No offense taken." The alien stepped out of the stairwell into the stone hallway of the upper floor, his supply bag in one talon-hand, the room token in the other. He pointed with his tail. "That is your room, on the left. Mine is here. Do you wish to be awakened for morning devotions?"

  She was still trying to recover her aplomb. Morning devotions? Oh. yes. "Uh, yes, please. I would be honored to share in your devotions. Thank you for inviting me." Krillen pushed open the cat door of his room and laid down his supply bag inside. Looking over his shoulder, he stared at her. "You're quite welcome. I hope you enjoy your bath and your night's rest."

  "Just one more thing, Krillen. I noticed Coreen staring

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  at you intently, but you kept your gaze downcast. Does this mean she is ...

  appreciative of you, for some reason?"

  Krillen blinked rapidly, then sighed. "Serves me right, daring to be blunt.

  Some kinds of gazing are, well, different ... Coreen's mate has joined the Ancestors, yet she is still lively, even at her age. She was inviting me to share a soak in her pond, then her bedchamber tonight. I declined."

  Krillen turned to go into his room.

  "Oh," Mahree murmured. God, it's been a long day ...

  Minutes later, Mahree stood at the edge of the stone-lined pond in the rear courtyard. Alone under the stars of early evening, she shucked off her shorts, panties, and blouse, then climbed into the shallow waters. The water was sleepy-warm, heated by the light of Mother's Eye during the day. Easing down with her back resting against the rough warm stone rim of the pond, she stretched out her legs and decided to soak first.

  It was luxury. Pure, sensuous luxury.

  Her pores opened up. The soles of her feet softened. The salty sweat floated away. And when she sank under the water to soak her hair, coming up for air with a shout, she felt indeed as if she had experienced something sexual.

  The stars above spoke to her. Rob was out there, somewhere amid those stars. Awake? Asleep? Asleep and dreaming of her?

  Mahree refused to continue that line of thought; it would just make her even lonelier and more depressed. She swam a few short laps and got out.

  She slipped on her clothes, then padded back to her room, ducking under the cat door. I'm so tired, I'm not even hungry. She was, however, thirsty, and had a long, cool, refreshing drink from her canteen.

  Then, pulling a faded old sleep-shirt over her head, she walked over to the padded, circular bed platform. Lying down, she tossed and turned, experimenting with positions. Na-Dina beds were too small for humans, even for a woman of medium height. She wondered for a moment

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  whether Gordon Mitchell had ever had to try sleeping on a Na-Dina bed. He was a big man....

  After a few minutes, her body relaxed and her eyelids grew heavy ... so heavy.

  And there was somebody with her, in the darkness. Mahree felt her arms tingle as he stroked them sensuously. His hands traced the contours of her shoulders, trailed along her neck, then moved downward, covering her breasts.

  It had been such a long time since she'd made love ... Mahree, half realizing she was dreaming, reached up to draw his face down to hers, wanting his kisses, wanting him.

  His features hovered before her, dreamlike, indistinct. "Rob?" she tried to say, but of course she was dreaming and could make no sound.

  And then the shifting image coalesced, sharpening, becoming, for a moment, only too clear.

  Gordon Mitchell.

  Mahree gasped, and awoke. No, she thought. No, I won't. I can't. Shaken, she lay there, making herself relax, muscle by muscle. It was only a dream, she repeated to herself, reassuring herself. You can't control dreams.

  They're not real. Nothing happened. I didn't DO anything. Relax... relax...

  But it was a long, long time before she was able to sleep again....

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  CHAPTER 7 The Locked Room

  The next morning, as the golden gleam of Mother's Eye cleared the eastern horizon, Krillen watched Mahree of the clan Human offer water to Father Earth and salt to Mother Sky. Kneeling on the sandy ground of the rear courtyard like he and Coreen, she seemed unusually subdued. Perhaps the lava flow of yesterday still worried her.

  Mahree looked to him. "Krillen, did I do that properly?"

  "Very properly." He glanced briefly to Coreen, who sat on his right; then Krillen looked away and bowed low to Mother's Eye. "Mother Sky, we your Children honor you. Give us another day in which to honor the Ancestors, and we promise to show true devotion." He slapped his tail hard against the ground, as did Coreen.

  Mahree quickly slapped her palms against the wet sand. Then she spoke.

  "We are finished?"

  "Yes." Krillen stood up and brushed wet sand from his knees. He winced.

  His hands! They still pained him despite Coreen's healing salve. "Now to our travels. If we leave immediately, we should reach the mesa top before Mother's Eye scalds our feet."

  Mahree stood up too. "Thanks to the replacement batteries the Matron gave us and my tinkering with the re

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  charger, we'll get there." His colleague brushed sand from her bare knees.

  She was dressed as she had been yesterday, though the blouse was of a different color. Her supply bag lay behind her, like his. She bowed to Coreen. "Matron Coreen, thank you for your hospitality. Thank you also for inviting me to your morning devotions."

  The Matron smiled with her ears, clearly pleased by the alien female's piety.

  "It was a minor sharing. My home is your home, my water your water, my ...

  salt, your salt." She was honoring the
Ambassador with the offer of salt?

  Krillen was both amazed and pleased. Mahree, seeming to understand the importance of her words, bowed deeply.

  They left Blue Pond in a glow of good humor. So good he hardly noticed how they flew above the ground, through the unsupported air, until they were nearly at the mesa.

  The skimmer slowed as they approached the desolate pile of brown rock.

  Mahree looked at him. "Is there a way up to the top?"

  Krillen pointed to the southern edge of the flat-topped mesa. "That way. A rockfall ages ago created a ramp of boulders. Sand has blown over it, filling in the crevices. I was able to walk down it when last I was here. It should do."

  "Thanks." Mahree aimed the skimmer and sped them that way, unmindful of the pebbles that flew to the touch of her air fans.

  When they reached the top of the mesa, there was the jumpjet, just as it was when Krillen had last seen it.

  "I'm surprised Nordlund didn't insist on retrieving it," Mahree said.

  "They could not. By my order, it has been left undisturbed," Krillen said.

  "One of the primary rules is not to disturb the scene of the crime until the investigator has discovered everything he or she can about it."

  "But Bill was killed so long ago."

  "Long?" Just when he was beginning to think he understood these Humans.

  "Two months is not a long time. Some cases I have solved took ten years to close." Mahree kept her eyes fixed on the rock-strewn ground, 120

  guiding them safely around several large boulders. Krillen let out his breath.

  "Well," she murmured, "now I understand why Gordon was anxious for me to come out here. The sooner we check this out, the sooner he gets back his camp jumpjet."

  Ahhh. She was concerned over obligations owed to the Philosopher. "Don't worry. The Nordlund Combine has always diverted a jumpjet to Base Camp, whenever requested."

  "Like the one that brought us down from the spaceport? It came again to pick up Beloran and the Vardi." Mahree stopped the skimmer not far from the jumpjet's ramp. "That's very cooperative of them."

  "Of course they are cooperative." Krillen waited until the skimmer touched earth, then got out. He reached for his supply bag. "We have great mineral riches in the Mountains of Faith, and the Council has given them exclusive exploitation rights--for off-world trade, that is. Still, our Finders of Fact know the Law wel , and made sure a reversion clause was included in the original contract. Nordlund is thus attentive to our requests."

  Mahree chuckled. "I'll bet. Though it seems the Project Engineer has reason to resent our presence." Standing by the rear of the skimmer, she pulled the weather tarp off her equipment and waved at it. "I'll bet this stuff is something not even Nordlund possesses!"

  Krillen stared at the off-world devices. "What are they?" Pointing, she explained. "An autocam. Controlled by this gold bead I put just under my eye. See? I wink, it records. I look to one side or another, the camera tracks the same way. I move, it follows after me. With this we can record everything in the jumpjet so we can look at it any time we want to."

  She pointed at another device. "That's a portable scanner, tunable from infrared all the way up to ultraviolet. It radiates light, like Mother's Eye, and can reveal residual impressions, leftover heat, wear patterns, stuff like that.

  And this"--she pointed again--"is the autosampler. It bags up, seals, and records crime scene evidence from the

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  microscopic up to palm-size. I borrowed it from Gordon. This is a standard archaeological field tool."

  "Yes indeed," Krillen said, marveling at the off-world technology. No wonder the Modernists were so determined to have it all for their own!

  "And, in the best Sherlock Holmes tradition ..." Mahree grabbed a metal band adorned with a stem, at the end of which gleamed a glass tube. She put it on her head and pulled the band down until it covered her forehead.

  Then she moved the glass tube in front of her left eye. She smiled at him.

  "It's a large-field microscope. It enlarges anything I look at, by powers of ten controlled by my blinking, and the number of lenses that cycle in or out of the tube." Krillen looked down at his supply bag. Into it he'd stuffed his bronze writing slate, a blank sheaf-scroll, ink and stylus, evidence bags, measuring tape, photo-prints of the crime scene he'd taken right after the body was found, a collapsible telescope for distance viewing, a large battery- light--the latest invention of forensic science, able to illuminate the evening without shedding torch fragments on the crime scene--and glass plates for the mounting of blood and tissue samples. Krillen sighed at the unspoken comparison.

  Mahree was quick to sense his mood. "Look, I apologize if I'm showing off too much. This is my first chance to try out this stuff. And ... I really want to find Bill's murderer. But, Krillen, you're the one with the gold chevrons, you're the one who is the expert detective. Not me."

  Krillen's tail twitched with emotion. He was touched by her words, and the faith she expressed in his abilities. He glanced over to the west, where an isolated range of mountains rose up out of the mesa lands and the town of Salt Dream held onto a precarious existence at the edge of the Great Desert.

  The horizon was clear of clouds. He turned back to Mahree. "Very well, then, let us begin."

  He waved at the mesa top around them, then up at the open door of the jumpjet. "The first thing you should know is that no rains have fallen since the murder. Nor have any sandstorms visited. The season is too early. And we are

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  beyond the reach of Father's Anger, so the Ash of Sorrow has not fallen here in a long time. Thus, the ground is as it was when your colleague died."

  Shouldering his supply bag, Kril en took out his sunshade, clipped it to his forehead scales, and noticed immediately the easing of light reflection off the sand. "Now, if you will follow after me, I will retrace my steps up to the jet's stair-ramp, enter the craft, and then proceed to the pilot cabin."

  "After you," Mahree said quietly.

  Krillen found his old track pattern, where he'd paced over his own footprints time and again during his first examination of the crime scene. A Prime Principle of Case Solving is to minimize the Investigator's disturbance of the crime scene. He was pleased to note that Mahree was careful to follow his footsteps exactly.

  Single file, they walked up the ramp and into the stifling hot interior of the jumpjet. Krillen blinked, adjusted his pupils to accept light from the shadows, and then pointed for her benefit. "To the right is the sanitary unit. Its door was unlatched and open when I entered. We stand in the central aisleway. And to our left is the pilot cabin." Picking up his feet, Krillen headed that way, hugging the left-hand side of the aisle.

  She gasped. "Is that Bill's blood there on the floor?"

  It had dried to a rusty brown in the ensuing two months. He fanned his ears affirmatively. "Correct. There was also brain matter leakage. Tissue and blood samples were taken." Her silence puzzled him. "And there, to the right, is the metal bar used to crush his skull. See?"

  Walking slowly, Mahree came closer. Krillen swung his tail to the left, giving her room to walk. The autocam floated over her right shoulder. She blinked her right eye twice, presumably turning it on. Her face was paler than he recalled. Perhaps her sweating, with its loss of fluids and salt, was weakening her. "Do you feel able to continue? Do you need salt? Water?"

  "Noooo." Mahree choked, then swallowed hard. She patted the autosampler hanging from her waist-belt, but absentmindedly,

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  as if she did not intend to use it. Then she unclipped the scanner from her belt and aimed the device at the metal bar, using her pocketknife to turn it over so the device could record every bit of its surface.

  The tubular steel bar itself was very ordinary. Many were used in construction platforms at the dam site, or elevated recording perches at the City of White Stone. "Does your device show anything unusual?"

  Mahree clipped the tool back on
her belt, then shook her head. "Hard to say.

  There are whorl patterns on the bar that could be wear marks. Or they could just be differences in tempering of the metal. I'll have to show these scannings to the Metallurgist when I get back to Base Camp. You say you found no fingerprints on the bar?"

  "None."

  "Do you mind if I step closer and examine it with my large-field monocular?"

  "Go ahead. But be careful not to step in the dust film that lies underneath the bench seats. There could be residual footprints under there."

  "Of course." Moving carefully, Mahree stepped to the right, stood on the aisle-facing bench seat where it ran along the outer hull of the jumpjet, and bent forward. Blinking with her left eye even as the autocam hovered over her right shoulder, buzzing to itself, she stared intently at the bar on the floor, again using her knife to roll it over.

  Moments later she looked up, rubbed at her neck, then pointed at the bar.

  "You're right. No fingerprints at all." She glanced up at him. "Now that we've examined it, will you be taking it back to Spirit?"

  Krillen fanned his ears affirmatively. "Yes, now that you have seen the murder site."

  "Okay." She stepped down off the bench, again watching where she put her feet. "Now I want to see the pilot cabin."

  "You may enter yourself. I've been inside." Krillen peered at the control panel, clearly visible even though the pilot and copilot seats were hidden by the partition walls on either side of the aisleway. "Please record everything 124

  inside, including the boot scuff-marks near the entry. Do not forget the settings of the instruments."

  Mahree nodded. "Of course." She moved carefully and lightly, walking along the bench seat cushions rather than touching the metal floor. The autocam followed her like an obedient servant. She peered around the partition wall and then went in, carefully, turning her head to record everything. "Okay, it's all recorded," she said after a moment. "If I put on gloves, may I touch the controls? There are some things they can tell me."

  "You may," Krillen said. The Na-Dina watched intently as she bent over the pilot's console, unwilling to sit in the seat.