“Max is going to blurt out to her that we think you’re the killer, and we hope to be able to prove if before long. Then you’re going to have a public blowup with me and Shea—you hate Men, remember?—and stalk off to spend the night in the suit house. Max and his agents and I are all going to spend the night on the main floor, waiting to hear the latest news from my forensics expert.”
“And sometime during the night she plants the evidence in my room?” said Toblinda.
“Right. You’re the only one who could spend the night in an outbuilding and make it believable; my race isn’t at war with anyone else. I’ll have Max and at least two of his agents make a complete inventory of your room before we have our little scene, so they can testify that you didn’t possess whatever it is that she’s going to plant there.”
“She’ll just say someone else planted it.”
“She can say anything she wants,” I replied. “The house’s security system isn’t disabled.”
“Yet,” said the Thrale.
“Yet,” I agreed. “But I’ll post one of Max’s agents by the computer that runs the house and the system, and if she tries to disable it in front of a witness, that ought to be enough to convict her.”
“If anything goes wrong, you’ll testify that this was your scheme and I merely agreed to follow your orders?” demanded Toblinda.
“I’ll put it in writing or state it for your personal computer, whichever you prefer,” I said.
“Both,” he answered.
“Agreed,” I said. “Now all we have to do is figure out what she’s got that could leave a microscopic trace, and yet wouldn’t seem totally out of place in a Thrale’s room.”
“That requires us to enter her room and examine it,” said Max.
“Why?” I said. “She’s made use of the security system. Why shouldn’t we? There has to be a control room for the computer that runs the retreat and the security system. Take Toblinda there and scan her room until he finds something that fits our needs.” “You’ll stay here?” asked Max.
“No, I’m going down to socialize.” They both looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I’ve been cooped up here all day, questioning them one at a time. I just spoke to Toblinda a second time. If I go down to the main level now, it may lend the impression that I’ve found what I’m looking for.”
“You are as devious as a Thrale!” said Toblinda with a laugh. “And that is a high compliment.”
“Thanks. I think.”
We all left the room and took the airlift down to the main level. They turned one way and headed toward the control room, while I joined the five Gaborians and Malcolm Shea in the huge room where I’d first met them.
I hate small talk, but I made my share of it for the next few minutes. Once I awkwardly let slip that I didn’t trust Toblinda any farther than I could spit with my mouth closed, and if things worked out the way I anticipated he was going to be sorry he’d ever met me.
Then Max and Toblinda joined us. I didn’t know if they’d found what they were looking for, but after a few minutes the Thrale picked a fight with Shea and me and then stalked off in a fury, announcing that he wouldn’t spend the night under the same roof as any Man, and he was going to the suit house.
I kept talking for another fifteen minutes while Max and a pair of his agents made their inventory of Toblinda’s room. When he returned I announced that I was going into the pantry kitchen to find something to drink, and he knew enough to follow me. “Okay,” I said. “What was it?”
“We made an educated guess,” answered Max. “The robots sterilize the rooms every day, and the residue of their chemicals causes some very minor discomfort, especially for the Gaborians. They have each been supplied with a small vial of powder that, when opened, eliminates the discomfort. Thrales do not suffer from the affliction, or perhaps it is a weakness. At any rate, Toblinda does not have such a vial. That seemed to be the only thing in her room that was not in his.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “This is our only shot at her, and it requires her to think this powder leaves some residue on her hands or gloves, whatever she was wearing, and she also has to think that it wouldn’t be out of place in a Thrale’s room when Toblinda tells you it would.”
“We don’t have to tell her anything, Jake,” said Max. “We can wait and try something else.”
I shook my head. “How many times can Toblinda stalk off and sleep in another building?” I said. “Besides, I’ve already dropped a hint that I think he’s the killer. No, we’ll have to go with it, but I sure have bad vibes about it.”
“Vibes?”
“Never mind. Just find a way to clumsily impart the information to her.”
“Yes, Jake.” Then: “I’m sorry if I’ve made it more difficult.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You found the only difference in the two rooms. You were just doing what I told you to do.”
I poured myself a glass of water, then went back to the main room. After a few minutes Ktee and Kchang announced they were going to bed, and Malcolm Shea followed suit a minute later. Bdale was the next to leave. Then, when Kmorn went into the kitchen to hunt up a snack, I followed him and engaged him in some meaningless conversation, leaving Max alone with Ktamborit. I kept Kmorn in the kitchen for a good ten minutes. When I came back, Max actually winked at me to show me he’d dropped the info on Ktamborit.
I explained that Max, the Order Keepers, and I were all staying by the subspace radio, waiting for definitive word from my expert on Bramanos, and that should any of us feel the need to sleep, we’d hunt up empty rooms on the main level so as not to disturb any of the executives, who were all housed on the second level.
Ktamborit went off to bed about five minutes later, and Kmorn followed suit a few minutes after that.
“All right, Max,” I said. “All the groundwork has been laid. There’s only one more thing for you to do.”
“What is that?”
“At some point Ktamborit is going to come back down to this level, ostensibly to get something from the kitchen, or to retrieve something she left down here. And then she is going to very quietly sneak off to the computer room and deactivate the retreat’s security system, with the intention of coming back down in another hour or two to reactivate it. I want you to keep all your agents in the main room and let her do it.”
“And that’s all?”
“Almost,” I said, giving him his final instructions.
I waited until all the executives were in their rooms, then went to the computer room, made a quick adjustment, and took the airlift up to the second level. I tiptoed down the corridor to Toblinda’s room, waited for the door to iris and let me pass through, then ordered the lights on just long enough to find a nice comfortable corner and sit down with my back propped against the wall. I pulled my burner out, laid it in my lap, ordered the lights out, and waited.
I was afraid I might fall asleep before anything happened. I’d been up a long time, and there aren’t many things duller than sitting on a plush carpet in a dark room when it’s been a day and a half since you had any sleep. In fact, I think I did nod off once or twice, but each time my body would start to relax I’d wake up with a start.
And then, finally, the door irised again, and I saw the figure of a Gaborian silhouetted against the light in the corridor. It walked over to a small table. I couldn’t see or hear what it was doing, but it didn’t matter. My hand closed on the burner, and when I sensed the Gaborian started to walk back to the door, I said, in a loud, clear voice, “That’s far enough, Ktamborit. Lights on.”
It took both of us a few seconds to adjust to the flood of light. I’d expected her to panic, or at least look surprised, but nothing affected her calm.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded coldly.
“Waiting for you.”
“It will do you no good,” she said. “It is just your word against mine, and I am the Chairman of the Braaglmich Cartel.”
“For another few weeks,” I said. “Then you’re just another inmate.”
“I heard you moving around in here. I know that Toblinda is in one of the outbuildings, so I entered to see what was happening, and I came across a common thief.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “But I don’t think it’ll play in court.”
“Oh?” she said with an expression that was as close to a smug smirk as a Gaborian can come. “Why not?”
“It’s not your word against mine,” I said. “It’s your word against everything that was captured by the infrared holo camera.”
“That camera is not working,” she replied.
Suddenly Max’s image appeared before us. “Oh yes it is,” he said.
“Damn,” I said apologetically. “I guess we forgot to tell you that we got the security system codes from the manufacturer.”
“It makes no difference,” she said, still cold as ice. “The record will show that I have transported nothing lethal or criminal to this room.”
“It doesn’t matter what you brought,” I answered. “Your presence here is enough to incriminate you.”
“Your case will never hold up,” she said.
“Ready to bet your empire on it?” I asked.
A long pause. “Name your price,” she said. “We can deal.” “Before or after we turn off the camera?”
She uttered some obscenity that the T-pack couldn’t translate, as we both realized she’d blown it, that beneath the icy calm exterior she’d been caught so off guard that she forgot the security system was capturing everything.
I contacted Malcolm Shea’s security team, which was orbiting the planet, deputized them—it was probably illegal, since I myself wasn’t an officer—and had them transport Ktamborit and a pair of Max’s agents off to Bramanos for trial.
Then we brought Toblinda back to the retreat and told him what had transpired while the other executives and Bdale, all of whom had been awaked by the commotion, gathered around and listened.
“Did she really think that anyone would believe a Thrale would use that disgusting powder?” asked Toblinda.
“You know,” I said, “I was so concerned about taking her into custody that I never even looked. Max, was she planting the powder?”
“No, Jake,” he answered. “Actually, she planted a form of hand cleanser.”
“You mean like a bar of soap?” I said, surprised.
“The equivalent. Evidently each room has its own distinctive cleanser—different color, different scent—”
“And of course different chemical makeup,” added Toblinda. “So she probably disabled the suit with her bare hands,” I said, “or at least some bare flesh may have touched it, or she thought something may have touched it, and she figured that was what our expert had found or would find.”
“She appropriated Toblinda’s cleanser and replaced it with her own before you turned the lights on,” said Max, “but of course we captured it all on infrared holo.”
“Well, when you get right down to it,” I said, “I don’t suppose a bar of soap is any dumber than a tube of powder. If she’d just sat still and not worried about it, we’d never have nailed her.”
“She could have doubled the size of the company,” said Kchang bitterly. “Kdin was on his way to the grave anyway.” He glared at me. “Why did you have to ruin everything?”
“It’s my nature,” I said. “I can’t stand rich executives.”
I think my sarcasm was lost on the Gaborian, because he began calling me every obscene name the T-pack could translate and more than a few that had never been programmed into it.
I’ve been cussed out by experts, so I just let it roll off my back, but I could see Max getting more and more upset, and finally he took a swing and decked the executive.
“Don’t you ever speak that way to my friend again!” he bellowed. In just a day and a half he’d come a long way from the nervous little alien who shook like a leaf at the mere thought of contradicting someone.
We stuck around another day, did some paperwork—I don’t know why we call it that, since no paper was involved—and finally boarded Max’s ship (but not before I’d made arrangements to meet Toblinda for drinks once a year on a neutral planet).
Max was silent, even morose, for the first couple of hours. Finally, just after we entered the MacNaughton Wormhole, I asked him what was bothering him.
“I should never have struck Kchang,” he said.
“Feeling guilty?” I asked, amused at his discomfiture.
“Certainly not!” he replied heatedly. Then he seemed to collapse within himself. “But it was reported to my superiors, and I have been terminated.”
“They sacked you for hitting the little sonuvabitch?” I demanded.
“Yes,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I loved my work, and the past two days have been the most fascinating of my life. Now I shall have to learn another trade.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Maybe not,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You didn’t hit the Gaborian because of what he was saying about you,” I said. “I could use a partner I can trust, one who isn’t afraid to back me up.”
His alien face lit up. “Do you mean it, Jake?”
“I only lie to the Bad Guys,” I said, extending my hand.
He took it, and this time he didn’t tremble a bit.
HOXBOMB by Harry Turtledove
They met by twilight.
The hours when day died and those when night passed away were the only ones humans and Snarre’t comfortably shared. Jack Cravath thought it was a minor miracle humans and Snarre’t shared anything on Lacanth C.
You had to try to do business with them. Everybody said so. Everybody, in this case, was much too likely to be right. If the two races didn’t get along, they had plenty of firepower to devastate a pretty good stretch of this galactic arm. Black-hole generators, ecobombs, Planck disruptors, tailored metaviruses . . . The old saying was, they’d fight the war after this one with rocks. Not this time around—there’d be nobody left to do any fighting, and the rocks would be few and far between, too.
By one of those coincidences that made you think somebody had it in for both species, they’d found Lacanth C at the same time 150 years earlier. They’d both liked the world. What was not to like? It was a habitable planet, as yet unscrewed by intelligent life of its own. They both wanted it. They both needed it, too. In lieu of a coin flip, stone-paper-scissor, or that spiral-arm- wrecking war, they decided to settle it jointly.
Codominium, they called it. On Earth, such arrangements went back to the seventh century CE—ancient days indeed— when the Byzantines and Arabs shared Cyprus for a while. The Snarre’t had precedents of their own. Jack Cravath didn’t know the details about those; he just knew there were some.
And he knew codominium worked—as well as it worked, which often wasn’t very—only because all the alternatives that anybody could see were worse. His own alternatives were none too good right this minute, either: By choice, he would have closed his scooter dealership when the sun set and gone home to dinner with his newly pregnant wife. But that would have shown interspecies insensitivity. You didn’t do such things on Lacanth C, not if you had anywhere close to your proper complement of marbles you didn’t.
He sat in his office instead, while darkness deepened around him. The ceiling lights began to glow a dull, dim orange. As far as anybody could tell, that amount and shade of illumination annoyed both races equally.
In a little more than an hour, when it was full dark outside, he could legitimately close. Then he could use his IR goggles to get out of the interspecies business district in Latimer and back to the human residential zone, where such perverse curiosities as streetlights were allowed. His stomach growled. Beverly’s good chicken stew tonight. He was hungry, dammit.
He could watch the street from his dealership. Humans went by on scooters or, occasionally, on Snarre’I, drofs, or caitnops. Far mor
e Snarre’t rode their beasts, but some of them sat on scooters. That was why—aside from law and custom—he kept the dealership open into their hours. Every so often, he did business with them. He wasn’t allergic to fattening up his credit balance, not even a little bit.
That wasn’t the only reason he was always happy when he unloaded a scooter on a Snarre’. Drofs and caitnops creeped him out. They looked like nothing so much as Baba Yaga’s house, only with most of the house part gone: oversized yellow scaly legs with a platform for the rider and handholds through which he controlled his drof. Press here, and it went forward. Press here, and it stopped. Press here, and it turned right. Press here—left. Press here and here, and it opened its mouth so you could give it some yummy drof treats.
He shivered. The Snarre’t had a technology that mostly matched and sometimes outdid humanity’s. But theirs was biotech from the ground up, with mechanical gadgets as relatively recent high-tech innovations. It wasn’t the way humanity had done things, but it worked.
Caitnops and drofs did what they did about as reliably as scooters did the same thing. Human programmers and engineers had loudly insisted biocomputers could never come close to electronic gadgets . . . till the Snarre’t showed they were talking through their hats.
For their part, the Snarre’t thought the idea of the Turing test was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Of course computers were intelligent, as far as they were concerned. How not, when they were built from neurons? And the Snarre’t had left in the pain response, even amplified it, to make sure their servants didn’t turn into masters. Jack shivered again.
He looked at his watch. Half an hour till he could bail out. He thought about chicken stew, and about Bev, and about the baby due in 270 days or so (talking about months was pretty silly on a world without a moon—Lacanth C’s year was divided into neat, tidy tenths). Beverly’d found out within hours that she’d caught. That was a Snarre’i-derived test; humanity’s reagents weren’t nearly so sensitive. He smiled. The baby would be their first.
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