Pico's Crush

by Carol Van Natta

  “Pico kept saying ‘not again’ about Valenia,” said Andra.

  Jerzi sighed. “I don’t know all the details, but when Valenia was eleven, she and her older sister were kidnapped for ransom. They were kept in a pitch-black cellar for days, and molested. The sister said she wouldn’t fight it if they left Valenia alone. When the police swooped in, the kidnappers slit both their throats, but Valenia lived. Her body is perfectly healed, but it took a lot longer for her mind.”

  “Was she a filer by then?”

  He kept forgetting how comfortable Andra was talking about minder talents. “Yes, that was part of the problem. One of the family matriarchs didn’t trust telepaths or sifters, and her parents had to fight her in court. Once Valenia finally got treatment, it took years to track down all the memory traces that had taken root, and to train her brain not to react to them. She’ll probably always be afraid of the dark.”

  “What is it with warped fucks and kids?” asked Andra. “You’d think, as a species, we’d grow out of it.”

  His wristcomp signaled a ping, which he answered when he saw it was Mairwen. He hadn’t remembered until that moment that Andra was supposed to visit Mairwen that evening for a debrief on the security assessment report.

  He routed the audio-only call to the flitter’s speakers, then apologized to Mairwen for standing her up and explained why.

  “We know,” said Mairwen. “Luka’s colleague asked him to consult. He agreed when he heard the name of the victim. We’re at the scene now.”

  “That’s… surprising,” he said. “We must have just missed you.”

  “Luka wants to know if Andra knows of any other incidents in the building today.”

  Jerzi looked to Andra, who was frowning with indecision. “Yes,” she said finally, “but you didn’t hear this from me.”

  “Agreed.”

  “There was a fatal accident this afternoon at the loading dock behind the Math building. A body was found in the water near a boat. The Math airpad and the dock are temporarily reserved for construction use only, but some people ignore the signs. Something my boss said makes me think the victim was a rich sponsor for the Chemistry department, and maybe the money came from controversial sources.”

  During the pause while Mairwen relayed the information, Jerzi asked, “How often do accidents happen?”

  “It’s rare, as rare as assault. Two incidents on the same day has the university in full spin mode. That’s why they were ordering me to keep quiet.” She tossed him a wry smile. “Optimal Polytechnic has killer message control.”

  “Hah,” he said.

  “Luka says thank you.”

  Jerzi thought of something. “I don’t know if it will help,” he told Mairwen, “but Valenia said blood was already there. Tell Luka she’s a filer and remembers everything.”

  “Yes.” The call cut off.

  “She’s not, er, talkative,” said Andra.

  Jerzi chuckled. “No, she’s not good in social settings. I don’t think she hates people; she just doesn’t know what to do with them.”

  The flitter console told him they were nearing Andra’s apartment building. He could probably fly there blind, as often as he’d been there since arriving in Tremplin.

  He set the flitter down. She thanked him and started to get out.

  A sudden pang of loss hit him hard. “Are you going to be okay?” He touched her arm, because he couldn’t stop himself.

  “I’ll be fine, Jerzi. I’m just really rotten company right now, and you deserve better.” Her face was hidden in shadow, so he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Go be with your daughter.”

  She patted his hand twice, then got out of the flitter and walked away without a backward glance.

  He input the coordinates for the medical center and focused on things that didn’t hurt, like how proud he was of his daughter, and the beautiful city lights reflecting off the water as his flitter rose into the dark.

  Chapter 11

  * Planet: Nila Marbela * GDAT 3241.147 *

  “You’re Mr. Foxe, yes?”

  Luka looked up from the large, borrowed police display to see a gold-haired Asian woman standing in the doorway of his tiny borrowed office. Her one-piece, sleeveless Tremplin police uniform was crisp and fresh. Unlike his clothes, which stank from being worn for twenty-three hours and counting. He’d become more conscious of odors since sharing his life with a woman who had extraordinary senses.

  “Captain Majeed said to tell you the briefing is starting.”

  “Thank you.” He stood up and stretched, realizing he’d been so immersed in his data hypercube that he’d been sitting in the same position for more than two hours. He’d make it up to his back later. After he got some sleep. After he ate something. After the meeting.

  He sent the report, then took the cup half full of cold coffee and dropped it in the recycler in the station’s kitchen area. His stomach rebelled when he contemplated getting another cup. He’d lost his tolerance for the acid-wash that police departments the galaxy over called coffee. Kaffa was easier on his stomach, but had less caffeine and was too sweet.

  Luckily, District Captain Rana Majeed, his contact on Nila Marbela from his former life as a civilian forensic reconstruction specialist for the military, would be presenting the data in person to the Tremplin Police Magistrate, Commander Farrow, and his assistant. All Luka had to do was stay awake long enough to answer questions. He was unaccustomed to all-nighters, and his eyes felt gritty.

  Farrow, a round, bald man in an expensively tailored version of the island-style Tremplin police uniform, grunted when Luka sat, which apparently passed for a greeting. Luka couldn’t bring himself to do any better.

  Majeed knew how to make her boss listen when she told him a serial killer and a contract killer, who were likely the same, single person, had been plying his or her trade in Tremplin. Two accidental deaths in twenty-four hours that fit the pattern Luka had been pulling together from previous records. She showed Farrow the data commonalities that were too strong for coincidence. As the icing on the cake, Majeed’s precinct forecaster-slash-finder had agreed with Luka’s hastily assembled profile.

  Luka would bet considerable funds that the killer took advantage of the lack of communication between planetary and interstellar police departments. He’d only seen the pattern because his intuition said the killer was highly experienced, so he’d crafted data search routines to dive through crime records throughout the Concordance. One of the privileges that made it worthwhile to keep up his High Court certification in forensic reconstruction.

  It was last night’s crime scene that had Luka’s intuition sparking like a live fusion wire. The injuries on the young woman stirred uneasy ghosts from past crime scenes. It meant delving back into his blood-drenched memories of other reconstructions he’d done for a comparison. His hidden minder talent for being able to reconstruct scenarios in his head without needing forensic test and measurement equipment ensured he remembered each and every detail. But each time he activated that talent, it drained his body heat, to where he felt like he was in a cold box, even when everyone else in the unfinished construction area had been sweating. It was a small price to pay, considering his talent used to be so out of control, and the images in his memory so overwhelmingly horrific, he’d go into catatonic shock. Then he’d met Mairwen, a woman with extraordinary control, who’d helped him find a way to keep his dangerous talents leashed until needed.

  His interview with the victim, Valenia Tamheurre, had convinced him the attack was the lucky intersection between whoever had left a trail of mutilated bodies across the Concordance, and the series of “accidents” and “natural deaths” that had befallen interesting people on the same planets. The murders were ritualized, with the environments chosen as carefully as the victims to satisfy the killer’s warped, pathological need for death theater. The “accidents” had been harder to trace, but they, too, had repeat elements, and the victims were what Luka had come to think
of as key players, such as an ambitious politician, a whistleblower, the president of a monopoly, a crusading journalist, or a blackmailing joyhouse worker.

  Tamheurre had been fragile but lucid, and her filer’s memory superb, providing more than enough detail to give him cover for what his secret talent had already told him. The man who had attacked Valenia was short and slender, about Mairwen’s height, with pale skin and short blond hair, and a mild manner, at least at first. Valenia thought he might be a shielder, a minder who could block his thoughts from any telepath, and lock down and fully contain both telepaths and telekinetics if he wanted. He’d made a comment that his “magic” didn’t work on everyone. She’d been terrified that he knew about her filer talent, and that he’d kill her because of it, but he hadn’t.

  Pico had already arranged for a sifter who specialized in victim trauma to help Valenia through the interview, and a therapy telepath would start working with her first thing in the morning. Luka had always thought of Pico as Jerzi’s amiable child until he’d seen her at dinner, and realized she’d grown up. He respected how she’d taken charge of the care for her roommate. Jerzi was the solid, trustworthy friend he’d always been, though quieter than usual. He’d retreated into what Luka thought of as mental sniper mode, probably as a way of handling what had happened.

  “This is all fascinating,” said Farrow peevishly, dragging Luka back to the present, “but we can’t do anything about an accident that technically happened in the water. You’ll have to talk to Division Colonel Bittman.” Farrow’s expression was the picture of regret, but his relaxed body language belied it.

  Luka had already encountered the jurisdictional problems in Tremplin. He’d spent most of yesterday with Majeed, looking for “accidents,” and they’d come up with a second “misadventure” death of a local pharma representative in Tremplin, on the mainland. Luka had convinced her the death was strikingly similar to at least two other accidents on other planets.

  Optimal Polytechnic had its own security force that also didn’t play well with others; only the horrific nature of the assault on Pico’s roommate had convinced them to let the Tremplin police take over that case, which fell in Majeed’s bailiwick. The university was very unhappy that Majeed had banned construction work for three full days, as a precaution to preserve the crime scene. Luka hadn’t known about the fatal accident in the water near the loading dock behind the Math building until Jerzi’s friend Andra De Luna had been willing to share what O-Poly wouldn’t.

  The Central Galactic Concordance Command’s Water Division had purview over any ocean waters on Nila Marbela. Because the rich sponsor’s body had been found in the water, Majeed had needed to spend hours working her unofficial contacts to get the military’s investigation results sent to her. Fortunately, water-related “accidents” were a tried-and-true technique of the contract killer, and Luka was able to provide five similar examples with the same unexplained ligature marks, tiny upper-spine burn marks, head injuries, water craft placement, and broad-daylight timing.

  Just as Luka had been about to call Sojaire for a flight back to their hotel, the pattern that had been teasing him, driving him crazy in fact, snapped into place. The killer had made Valenia bleed to disguise the fact that the construction area had been used in an earlier crime, the “accidental” death of the man with high placement in a notorious theft crew family. Whether it was arrogance or expedience, it was the first mistake by the killer that Luka could find in the three years of data he’d pulled together.

  Majeed cleared her throat and displayed the document she’d spent half the night getting. “We spoke to Colonel Bittman an hour ago, sir, and we have her full cooperation. She’s assigned an inspector.”

  Luka hid a smile at Farrow’s startled frown. He was, according to Majeed, a champion at avoiding responsibility, and Majeed had just made it impossible for him to use jurisdictional squabbling as an excuse. Bittman brought her own set of problems, in that she was bucking for promotion to High Command on Concordance Prime, and based everything she did on whether or not it would look good on her record, but Luka had convinced Majeed they needed the resources of the military to help close in on possible suspects. The military could immediately access all interstellar travel records, including in-system space stations and spaceports, which would be key to finding their killer.

  If the pattern he’d been reconstructing held true, the killer had arrived in Tremplin no more than three days ago, and the “accident” victims would turn out to be connected in some way, such as a hidden alliance or a business dispute. In the secret part of his pattern, the part he’d never committed to any record and had only whispered to Mairwen, the multiple “accidents” often turned out to benefit the interests of the Citizen Protection Service. Mairwen had escaped from a dark program of theirs, and Luka had made it his business in the last four years to very quietly study the CPS, in case they ever discovered she was alive. He knew they had covert units that believed themselves exempt from planetary law. Only the CGC military had the resources to go up against the CPS, if it became necessary.

  Farrow made a few more token objections, but Majeed had outmaneuvered him and he knew it. He ended the meeting when his assistant reminded him of his next appointment.

  Luka followed Majeed to her office. “Just before the briefing, I sent you some search parameters for finding our target.” A yawn ambushed him.

  “Get out of here, Foxe,” Majeed said with amusement. “You’re no good to me flatlined.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, smiling as he sketched a casual salute. “You’re wasted as a district captain. You could run the whole agency if you wanted.”

  Majeed laughed and shook her head. “Not for all the trust funds on the planet. I like my quiet little fiefdom here in paradise, where I get to go home at night.” She yawned. “Well, most nights. I’ll be on your heels out the door, as soon as I send your data to the analysts. I’ll ping you if something flares.”

  Luka could have asked for transport to his hotel, but he’d asked for enough favors for one day, so he pinged Sojaire instead with a quick message.

  He half dozed in the tiny borrowed office until his percomp pinged. When he went up to the airpad to watch their rented flitter touch down, he was surprised to see Mairwen piloting. He couldn’t help but smile at her as he got in. He didn’t think he’d ever get over the pleasure of seeing her again when they’d been apart, even when it was only hours. It had been astounding luck that brought them together and kept them alive long enough to enjoy it.

  “Sojaire?” he asked, as he strapped himself in.

  “Studying.” The traffic system and the flitter took over flying, but she kept her hands on the controls. The love of his life considered most technology to be unreliable. “How is your case?”

  “Sparking. Majeed is good. We might have a list of candidates by the end of the day.”

  “And if the target is in school?” It was their code for people who worked for the CPS.

  “Then we’ll transit out.” He was too exhausted to be more tactful about it.

  She was silent for a long moment. “I’m happy that you love me, but you can’t protect me from the universe.”

  “I know.” It was what kept him up some nights, especially when they were apart. “But sacrificing you won’t stop the students or their teachers.”

  She let go of the flitter controls and reached to take his hand in hers. “We humans deserve justice. We need it.” She caressed his hand with her thumb. “Use your brilliant mind and think of a way to get it.”

  Chapter 12

  * Planet: Nila Marbela * GDAT 3241.147 *

  Some days, the ghosts tried his patience like dull needles in his joints, but today, Taliferros Radomir could ignore them. He’d replenished his strength yesterday with just a taste from a mid-level energy source, and it had worked better than he’d imagined.

  There were no energy sources in the hotel bar, only ghosts. They were worthless, except perhaps the skinny,
barefoot, dark-skinned male in navy hunched over his percomp, because no one else in the bar gave him a second glance. Taliferros, safe in the shadowed corner booth, experimentally curved his shoulders as hung his head and angled his pelvis to round his back. It was an art form, hiding in plain sight among the talentless ghosts, one he practiced daily. When he revealed his true glory, they tended to react badly, or at least remember him. He often wished for a twister or a cleaner talent, able to change or erase the memories of the inconvenient ghosts who’d noticed him. It was, however, gratifying to use his high-level shielder talent to block holier-than-thou minders—energy sources—and make their bodies betray them, so he would gratefully accept what the exacting gods of his father had given him.

  It was time. Taliferros had rigorously trained himself to track seconds, minutes, and hours, but he’d cultivated a habit of checking a clock, because that’s what the ghosts did. He carried his empty glass to the recycler, under the guise of being courteous, but it was also good practice not to leave biometric traces around. He regularly had his fingerprints altered, but good habits stood the test of time.

  He smiled at the vacation-clothed female ghost with two children and held the lift door for her. The older child eyed him distrustfully, crowding into a corner to get as far away as possible. It embarrassed the female ghost, and she gave him an apologetic smile. He shrugged, as was expected of him. The mother ghost was a null, or close enough, and the toddler was too young to tell, but he suspected the older child, a girl, was a budding energy source, and had brushed up against the black hole of his powerful shield. Perhaps it would teach the stupid child not to poke her talent where it didn’t belong.

  Taliferros collected his small bag from his room and presented himself in the executive suite Dixon Davidro had designated as his office. Dixon’s things were untidily spread out everywhere, as usual. Renner, standing in the corner, crossed his arms and glared.