by Timothy Zahn
“Why not?” she asked, watching in fascination as I selected the smallest of my multitool’s blades and dipped the tip into the vial containing Bofiv’s blood sample.
“Because you never know when you might have to do that same something a lot faster than they expect,” I told her. Touching the blade to the thumb guard, I deposited a droplet directly above the flame jet. “Here—hold this a second. Keep it vertical.”
Gingerly, she took the lighter, holding it at arm’s length while I pulled out my reader and data chip collection. The chip labeled Encyclopaedia Britannica was one of the oversized ones, as befitted its status as the repository of all Human knowledge.
Or so a casual observer would assume. In actual fact, that particular chip plus my specially designed, one-of-a-kind reader added up to a very powerful sensor/analyzer, one of the finest gadgets the Terran Confederation had to offer. I activated the sensor, took the lighter back from Bayta, and set the reader and lighter at the proper positions relative to each other. “Here we go.” I said, and ignited the lighter.
A blue-white flame hissed out, and there was a small puff of smoke as the blood droplet flash-burned to vapor. I shut off the lighter and handed it back to Bayta. then keyed the reader for analysis. “And that’s it,” I told her. “A few seconds, and we’ll have a complete list of what was in Master Bofiv’s blood when he died.”
“Amazing,” Bayta murmured, eyeing the reader. “And Mr. Hardin just let you keep it?”
“He was a little preoccupied with other matters at the time,” I said, thinking hack to my somewhat awkward final confrontation with Larry Cecil Hardin, multitrillionaire industrialist and erstwhile boss. “The trillion dollars I’d just extorted from him was probably weighing a bit on his mind.”
“I hope someday he’ll learn what his money did for the galaxy,” Bayta murmured.
“Actually, I’m not sure he’d really care,” I said. “Maybe if you gave him a medal at a big public ceremony.”
“After all this time, you still dislike the man that much?”
“I don’t dislike him,” I told her. “I just see him as he is, not as some idealized person he might someday become if you showed him where the profit was in being noble. Until then, he’ll con, finagle, bargain, or outright steal every last dollar he can.”
Bayta eyed me thoughtfully. “You practice that speech often?”
“Couple of times a week,” I told her. “Still needs a little work.”
“Mm,” she said noncommittally. “Still, you can’t deny that some good did come out of Mr. Hardin’s ambitions.”
“The trillion dollars,” I said. “I believe I mentioned that.”
“I was thinking of something even more valuable than that.” Bayta gave a little nod toward me. “You.”
I felt a lump form in my throat. “Worth more even than a trillion dollars, huh?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light. “I’m honored. Remind me to ask you to speak on my behalf the next time the Chahwyn try quibbling with me over the job we’re doing for them.”
“I’ve already done that,” she said simply. “One of the other times I went to bat for you.”
“Oh,” I said, a bit lamely. “Yes, I guess you have.”
“You do miss a lot not being telepathic,” she commented.
I peered at her, wondering if she was being serious or trying to be funny. But her face was its usual neutral, her eyes on the reader in my hand. “I know,” I told her. “I’ve been meaning to work on that.”
Her eyes flicked up, the hint of a frown touching her face. Probably wondering if I was trying to be funny. “What happens now?” she asked, looking back at the reader. “We test the rest of the samples and look for a common element?”
“Exactly.” The sensor beeped, and I watched as the analysis scrolled across the display.
And felt my stomach tighten. “Or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we probably don’t really need to test any of the other samples.” I turned the reader around to face her. “Second line just above the bottom of the display.”
She peered at the line. “Cadmium?”
“A heavy metal,” I told her. “Westali’s standard course on Shorshians was rather cursory, but heavy-metal poisoning was definitely one of the topics that was covered, mainly because it was considered one of the better ways of quietly dispatching members of that particular species. For the record, it’s pretty good against Humans, too.”
Bayta’s lips compressed briefly. “What exactly does that number mean?” she asked.
“That there’s enough in his system to kill a good-sized moose,” I said grimly. “Whoever wanted Master Bofiv dead wasn’t taking any chances.”
Bayta shivered. “Or whoever wanted whoever dead,” she said. “You said that he might have missed his real target.”
“If he did, that was one hell of a miss.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “What do we do now?”
“I suppose we might as well run the rest of the samples, just to make sure there aren’t any surprises,” I said. “After that, we’d better get to bed. Tomorrow’s likely to be a busy day.”
“Shouldn’t we let Dr. Witherspoon and the others know the results?”
I shook my head. “They’ve all gone back to bed. Not much point in waking them up just to give them bad news. Besides, I want some time to think about this before we spring it on them.”
“I thought you said you were going to sleep.”
“I said I was going to bed.” I looked at the cadmium listing on the analysis. “I never said I was going to get much sleep.”
FIVE
Sure enough, I’d been lying in bed for no more than five hours, and had been asleep for maybe three of those, when I was awakened by someone leaning on my door chime.
Sometimes I hated being right. Stumbling to the door, darkly promising to cripple someone if this wasn’t damned important, I keyed it open.
Kennrick was standing there, looking way too fresh and alert for a man who’d been up almost as late as I had. “Compton,” he greeted me shortly, taking a step forward as if expecting to be invited in.
“Kennrick,” I greeted him in turn, not budging from the doorway and forcing him to stop short to keep from running into me. “Any news?”
“That was my question,” he said, trying to peer past my shoulder into the compartment. “Dr. Witherspoon told me he and Dr. Aronobal gave you the samples from Master Bofiv’s body for analysis.”
“And I told him that I would let all of you know when I had the results,” I said.
“That was over five hours ago,” Kennrick countered. “What are you doing, framing the samples for an art-house display?”
“I’ve been working,” I told him stiffly. “These things take time.”
“Not that much time.” He ran a critical eye over me. “And if you don’t mind my saying so. you don’t exactly look like you just hopped up from your portable lab bench, either.”
Silently, I stepped aside. He strode in, his eyes flicking around the room and coming to rest on the reader I’d left on the curve couch. “So what did you find?” he asked as I closed the door again.
“More or less what we expected,” I said, brushing past him and picking up the reader. I turned it on, called up the analysis file, and handed it to him.
He frowned, tapping the control to scroll the numbers up and down the display. “How do I read this?” he asked.
I lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you worked for a medical company.”
“As an organizer and meeting facilitator.” he said patiently. “Not as a doctor. Come on—tell me what this says.”
“It says cadmium poisoning,” I told him. “Lots of it.”
He ran the scrolling again and found the cadmium line. “Terrific,” he muttered. “Any chance it could have happened by accident?”
“In theory, pretty much any death could have happened by accident,” I said. “But when the string of requ
ired coincidences gets long enough, I think you can safely call it murder.”
He flinched at the word. “That’s insane,” he insisted. “Who would have wanted Master Bofiv dead?”
“Wrong question,” I told him. “The right question is, who would have wanted Master Bofiv and Master Colix dead?”
Kennrick stared at me. “Are you telling me they were both murdered? By the same person?”
“Unless you plan to string a few more coincidences together,” I said.
He looked back at the reader. “No,” he said firmly. “No, this just can’t be. It has to have been an accident.”
“You mean like someone accidentally uncapped a bottle of cadmium powder over their dinner plates last night?” I suggested.
“Or they ingested it some other way,” he said. “Cadmium is used in batteries, alloys—all sorts of things. Maybe it flaked off a bad battery in Master Colix’s luggage, got on his fingers, and from there into one of their shared meals. Or it could even have come off someone else’s stuff and gotten into the air system.”
“And then carefully proceeded to target Colix and Bofiv, but not Tririn or any of the other Shorshians in the car?”
“People react differently to infections and toxins all the time,” Kennrick said doggedly. “There are cases on record where a group of Humans have eaten the same salmonella-infested food. Some got sick, some died, some hardly even noticed. Why should Shorshic metabolism be any different?”
I could almost feel sorry for the man, straining this desperately to find an explanation that didn’t include the word murder. But facts were facts, and the sooner we popped all the irrelevant soap bubbles, the sooner we could get down to the unpleasant business at hand. “Because this isn’t some random bug running up against a whole range of different immune systems,” I said. “For Bofiv to have swallowed that much cadmium, the stuff would have had to be raining down like volcanic ash. I guarantee someone at the table would have noticed that.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” he said heavily. “What do we do?”
“We let me get on with my investigation,” I said. “You said last night that you only met him a couple of months ago?”
“Yes, when he and the contract team arrived on Earth,” he said, taking a final look at my reader and then handing it back to me. “Pellorian had invited them in to discuss a proposed joint venture in genetic manipulation.”
“Were you the one who organized the conference?”
“I handled the details once the plan was up and running,” he said. “But only after the initial contacts had been made and the invitations sent out and accepted. I didn’t choose any of the contract team, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Who did?”
“The corporation’s CEO, Dr. Earl Messerly “ he said. “I imagine the board probably had some input, too.”
“You have their names?”
He eyed me as it I’d just turned a deep and fashionable purple. “Are you suggesting upstanding medical professionals would go to the trouble of bringing a couple of Shorshians all the way across the galaxy just to kill them?”
“You know for certain that none of your upstanding medical professionals is harboring a grudge against the Shorshians?” I countered.
He snorted. “You must be kidding,” he said. “I’ve been to full board meetings maybe three times in the seven years I’ve been with the company. I barely know their names.”
“In other words, you can’t vouch for any of them.” I keyed my reader for input. “So. Their names?”
Glaring at me, he ran through the list. There were twelve of them, plus CEO Messerly. I keyed in the names as he went, knowing full well that Kennrick was probably right about this being a waste of time.
Still, I had a few Who’s Who lists among my data chips, both the straightforward cultural ones and a rather more private set that had been assembled by the Confederation’s various law enforcement agencies. Running a check of Pellorian’s people against the latter might prove interesting.
But regardless of what the comparison turned up, Pellorian’s board was back on Earth, and we were here. “Thank you,” I said when Kennrick had finished. “Next question: did either Colix or Bofiv bring aboard any of their own food? Special treats or secret indulgences?”
“You’ll have to ask Master Tririn about that,” Kennrick said. “He was the one sitting with them.”
“He was the one sitting with one of them, anyway,” I said. “I trust he’s well this morning?”
“I actually haven’t checked,” Kennrick said. “You want me to go ask him if Master Bofiv had a private food supply?”
“Not until we can both be there,” I said. “Can you go off and amuse yourself while I shower and get dressed?”
He made a face. “It doesn’t qualify as amusement, but I do need to give Usantra Givvrac an update. He’s the head of the contract team.”
“At least you shouldn’t have any trouble waking him up at this hour,” I said. “Unless he’s been dipping into Bofiv’s secret stash, of course.”
Kennrick’s throat tightened. “You think this is funny, Compton?” he growled.
“Not at all,” I assured him. “Which is Usantra Givvrac’s compartment?”
“He hasn’t got one,” Kennrick said. “He’s in the first coach car behind the compartment cars.”
I frowned, thinking back to our embarkation at Homshil Station. “And yet you escorted them aboard into a compartment car?” I asked. “Even though they had coach car seats?”
“Into my compartment car. yes.” Kennrick said. “Usantra Givvrac and a couple of the others had some documents they wanted stored in my compartment, and they wanted to drop them off on the way to their seats.”
Which wasn’t proper procedure, since passengers were supposed to enter a Quadrail only through the door of their assigned car. Apparently, Kennrick and his Fillies didn’t have a problem with skirting the rules everyone else had to follow. “Whatever.” I said. “I’ll pick you up on my way back to talk to Tririn.”
Silently, Kennrick left the compartment. As I closed the door behind him, I felt the movement of air that meant the connecting wall was opening. “You heard?” I asked, turning around.
“Most of it.” Bayta said. She was dressed in her nightshirt and a thin robe, her dark hair tousled and unwashed. But her eyes were clear and awake. “He sounded upset.”
“He looked upset, too,” I agreed. I let my eyes drop once to the figure semi-hidden beneath her robe, then forced my gaze back above her neckline where it belonged. Bayta was my colleague and ally in this war, nothing more, and I had damn well better not forget that. “What did you think of his suggestion that the cadmium might have been airborne?”
She frowned. “Didn’t you already tell him that was ridiculous?”
“In the way he was thinking about it, absolutely,” I agreed. “But he was trying to make it a careless accident. I’m wondering about it as a somewhat more careful murder.”
“That still leaves the problem of why only Master Colix and Master Bofiv were affected,” she pointed out.
“True, unless someone managed to uncork a bottle of eau de cadmium under the victims’ snouts,” I said. “Or maybe it was in the form of some cadmium compound that only Shorshians can absorb.”
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “There are toxins that target specific species, but those also get absorbed by everyone else. And most cadmium compounds are as toxic as the element itself, and to nearly all species to one level or another.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Impressive.”
She shrugged slightly. “I couldn’t sleep last night after I went to bed, so I did a little reading,” she explained. “The other problem is that since cadmium compounds are inherently poisonous, anything in a liquid or gaseous form should have been screened out by the station sensors.”
“Maybe the killer brought the stuff aboard in component form,” I suggested. “The cadmium in, say,
a battery or alloy, and the delivery chemical as something else.”
“The sensors are supposed to watch for that sort of thing.”
“Supposed to being the key phrase.” I said. “Assuming something like that was done, could traces of it have gotten sucked into the car’s air filters?”
“Certainly,” she said. “All the air in a car eventually travels through those filters.”
I nodded. “It’s a long shot, but I think it’s worth checking out. What would it take to get into one of the air filters in that car?”
“It’s not that simple,” Bayta said, her eyes unfocusing as she conferred with the Spiders. “There’s a whole mechanism that will have to be disassembled. I’ve sent four mites to start the job, but it’ll take a few hours.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Have them contact you when they’re almost done.”
“All right,” she said. “Are we going to go talk to Master Tririn now?”
“Or we could stop and have some breakfast first,” I said. “Your call.”
She hesitated, and I had the odd impression that she was searching my face looking for the right answer. “I’m not that hungry,” she said.
That was the answer, all right. “Me, neither,” I agreed. “Go get ready. We head out in fifteen minutes.”
———
Eighteen minutes later, we passed through the rear vestibule of the third compartment car and entered the first of the first-class coach cars.
I’d rather expected that Kennrick would still be deep in conversation with Usantra Givvrac, and I was right. The Human was sitting on the edge of a scat near the right-hand wall, talking earnestly with one of the four Fillies I’d seen him boarding with at Homshil Station.
And now that I was focusing on the Filly himself, I could see that he had the graying body hair of someone well advanced in years.
That alone was mildly surprising. Fillies of that age and rank usually stayed close to home and sent out their younger colleagues and subordinates on fact-finding and contract-making missions. I wondered what kind of lure Pellorian Medical had lobbed into the water to bring out someone of Givvrac’s standing.
