Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  “No.”

  “When did this woman leave this afternoon?”

  “Around 1700.”

  “1700. Just about the time the forensics boys think he bought it. Did the woman leave before or after 1700?”

  “I don’t know. I left around 1615 and she was still there. Why? Do you think she . . .”

  “I don’t know. We won’t know anything beyond what you’ve told me until the lab finishes. You don’t know where she lives, do you?”

  “Yes. Liz at the Handi-Mart said she lives on Violet Seven, just above the caf.”

  “And how about the Squams she works for?”

  “Across the square in that condo.”

  “That’s all you’ve learned?” I said.

  “Is it enough?”

  I laughed. “If you hadn’t taken an interest in your boyfriend, I’d be in a real jam now. You’ve given me something to go on.”

  “The blonde?”

  “The blonde. That reminds me . . .”

  I walked over to a com and called HQ. “This is Bailan. Cal, pull the file on Violet 7.135.280.”

  “You got it, Detective,” the kid said on the other end. As com operators went he was a good one, no silly questions and backed up about ten of us and occasionally came to our rescue with a squad of uniforms if things got rough. I heard the sound of a keyboard.

  “Rugh Hass, Squam Indie. Nonresident landlord.”

  That meant he paid the bills but didn’t live there. “Any other listings for Hass?”

  More keys being punched. “Yeah. Violet 8.135.310. Big place on Violet Eight.”

  I figured that put him in the condoplex across the square. “Put a plainclothes on the first address. If a blonde comes out, stay on her and call me right away.”

  “You got it.”

  I hung up. “I’ve got to get going,” I said to Viv. “Why don’t you turn in?”

  “No way. This is too interesting. Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got to go up to Med Green. The body boys should be finished pretty soon and I want to get the report in person.”

  “Why?”

  “Transmissions and files can be intercepted. I know we’re under martial law, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Internal Security or Military Intelligence screw this up.”

  “Okay. Will you be back down later?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try.”

  “If you are, I could use some consolation.”

  Twenty minutes later I was warming my heels outside Dr. Obor’s lab on Green Five. She saw me through the window and came out in her operation greens. Behind her I could see him on the slab. His white hair made the victim look like a statue waiting to be posed and placed. Not human anymore, no one that loved or hurt.

  “Hey, Bailan.”

  “Doc.”

  “Do I get to wash up first or are you going to grill me right here?”

  “We’ll compromise,” I said. “How about you tell me in the scrub room?”

  We walked in. She took off her gloves and started to clean up. “Death was almost instantaneous. The victim was shot from between twenty meters and eighty meters away. The projectile was a six-centimeter ceramic dart with a triangular cross-section. Standard round.”

  “Where was he hit?”

  “In the skull,” she said. “One point seven centimeters above and behind the right ear—that’s why there was so little external bleeding.”

  “Any idea how fast the dart was moving?” I asked.

  “I’d say that based on the penetration about 270m/second.”

  “Pretty low velocity,” I said. Whoever did it could have used a silencer. “Okay. What about the victim?”

  “Human. Mainstream. White male. Caucasian. Twenty-eight years old. Evidence of extensive physical training, probably tank swimming and unarmed combat. And get this. Implants.”

  “Where?”

  “In the fingertips. Very simple mobile keyboard linkup with squirt-transmission capability.”

  “I better check how many of those we have aboard.”

  “Eighteen,” she said, smiling as she pulled off her booties. She was a pro. “None of them match up. This guy isn’t on any Hawking files.”

  Or maybe he wasn’t on the kind of files normal people had access to. “Anything else?”

  “Excellent health. Remarkable physique . . .”

  “Yeah, I heard that from Viv.”

  She raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. “Scar on left shoulder indicates reconstructive surgery,” she continued, “probably from a blaster deflection or laser wound, about three years ago.”

  “How about the clothes?”

  “No labels. Very used and shabby, except for the underwear and socks.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re practically new. The pants are pure silk.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that so I kept my mouth shut.

  “The shirt and pants were permeated with very fine hybrid flour—not pure, but mixed with traces of rice. His glasses are hard-tempered acrylic with a slight amber tint.”

  “Shooting glasses?” I asked.

  “Shooting glasses,” she confirmed.

  “Fingerprint matching came up with a big zero,” she said. “Like I said, no one on the database has heard of this guy.”

  She looked at me. I didn’t say anything.

  “That’s it,” she said finally.

  “All right, Doc,” I said, going for the doors. “You’ve been a lot of help. Really.”

  She smiled. “Tell me about it sometime.”

  Back on the lift, I tried to imagine him. Not as the corpse on the table, but as a living man, twenty-eight years old. Handsome, fit, putting on the cheap old clothes over the expensive underwear before heading off to a little caf on Violet Eight.

  Where did he go? What did he do until 1300? Did he always dress like a bum or did he change somewhere? How was it possible for him to sit there for hours every afternoon, staring at a point in space, while quietly typing? And where was the computer he had been typing into?

  How long had it been going on?

  Where did he go at night? Did he have a private life? Who did he see? Why the flour and traces of rice in his clothes?

  All these questions kicked around inside my head as the lift dropped me back to Violet Eight. I retraced my steps back to the square and walked into the condo. A human guard—more of a doorman really—stood inside the lobby.

  He wasn’t terribly impressed by my badge. He kept his knees from knocking together long enough to say, “What the hell do you want?”

  “Which of your tenants employs a nanny?” I asked him. “Beautiful. Blond.”

  “Agnes Wunderlei?”

  “Could be. Every afternoon she takes two Squam kids across the square to the caf.”

  “That’s Agnes,” he said. “She works for Mr. and Mrs. Hass, resident aliens. Squams.”

  “Which is theirs?”

  He pointed down the hall. “Second door on the left, pal.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Mr. Hass is listed as being in speculation and arbitrage. The missus is a tech aboard one of those fancy destroyers the Squams brought into the Fleet.”

  “Either of them here now?”

  “Mr. Hass just went out, but she’s still here I think.”

  “And Agnes?”

  “She doesn’t live here.”

  “Thanks,” I said, making for the hall. I clipped on my translator and rang the bell. I could hear it ringing inside, but nobody answered. I rang again. At last the door opened.

  She was well over two meters tall and she knew it. Her scales were smooth, tapering to frosty edges of near-transparent tissue. The skin on her neck lightened evenly into a pale powder-green and her eyes were true jet, not the charcoal color that a lot of the females had. From what Viv had told me about their aesthetic, she would be considered a real knockout. She was wearing a silk floral-print dressing gown.


  “Yes?” she said. The translator turned her hiss to a flat monotone.

  “My name is Bailan,” I said. “I’d like to speak with Mr. or Mrs. Hass. I’m from the police.”

  “May I see your badge?”

  I showed it to her.

  “Very well.”

  She opened the door reluctantly, holding the gown closed tight in front of her. I walked in.

  It was a magnificent apartment. The walls were tiled all the way up to the intricate moldings of the high ceiling. The furnishings were tasteful, the ornaments expensive.

  “I’m sorry if I seem rude,” she said, “but I’m alone with the children. How did you get here so quickly? It can’t be fifteen minutes since my husband left.”

  “You were expecting me?” I said, hoping the translator would disguise the surprise in my voice.

  “You or somebody. I didn’t know the police were so quick. I suppose my husband is on his way back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t see him?”

  “No.”

  “But then how . . . ?”

  I wasn’t going to help her.

  “Do you mind waiting for just a minute?” she stammered. “The children are in the kitchen and I’m always concerned little Rugh will try to put his sister in the oven and dry her out.”

  She walked away, her claws remarkably quiet on the tiled floors.

  I heard her saying something in the next room. When she came back there was a faint smile on her snout. She showed me her teeth.

  “Please excuse my manners,” she said, “I never asked you to sit down. I do wish my husband were here. He’s the only one who really knows the value of the jewels. After all, he bought them.”

  Jewels? And why was she so impatient for hubby to get home? She seemed almost afraid to speak.

  I kept my face as neutral as I could.

  “We’ve heard of so few robberies here,” she said, still stalling. “I guess it must come from living in such an enclosed community.”

  “When did you get home tonight?” I asked.

  She gave a start. “How did you know I went out?”

  “I know you work and where.”

  “You work fast.”

  “I was already in the neighborhood.”

  She was wondering what I had meant by that. I let her wonder.

  “Have you checked her room? I’m the only other one who ever goes up there. Besides, it’s a real mess . . .” She hardly suppressed a sigh of relief as footsteps pounded outside the door and paused. A card key slid through the lock. “My husband. Dear? In here!”

  This one was getting his vitamins. He was closer to three meters than two, filling the room like a fist fills a boxing glove. His head barely cleared the ceiling and the disk case he carried looked like a cigarette lighter in his horny fist. He looked at me.

  “Darling,” she said. “The detective got here ahead of you,” she said. “I was telling him you’d be right back.”

  He looked down at me with polite interest, but I could sense an air of defiance in him. “I beg your pardon,” he said in English. Perfect accent—even too perfect—with just the slightest trace of hiss. “I’m afraid I do not understand, Mr. . . .”

  “Bailan,” I said. “Detective Bailan.”

  “Detective Bailan,” he corrected himself. “But how odd. And you wanted to speak with me?”

  “In your capacity as employer of the nanny, Agnes Wunderlei.”

  “Oh. But you cannot mean that you have already recovered the jewels? I know this all must seem peculiar, but the coincidence is so curious that I am still trying to understand it myself. You must realize that I have only returned from Security headquarters where I lodged a complaint against her. I come home and I find you here, and you tell me . . .”

  It was hard to tell with something that couldn’t sweat, but he seemed nervous. It was clear the wife had no intention of leaving the two of us alone.

  “What was the nature of the complaint?” I asked him. His wife went stiff.

  “The jewel robbery, of course,” he said. “Agnes did not come for the children this morning, nor did she call. When I went to her room, she was gone. While she was at work, my wife realized it might be good to check our valuables. She called me. When I looked, it was clear why Agnes had gone.”

  “You went to her room?” I said. “The doorman said she didn’t live here.”

  “She lives on a higher deck, directly above,” he said. “Our building connects through a service passage.”

  “I see,” I told him. “You went up and the box was empty.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What time did you check the box?”

  “Around 1800.”

  “So you stayed with your children?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I turned to her. “And you returned . . .”

  “About 1830,” she said evenly.

  “Why did you wait until nearly 2200 to lodge the complaint?” I asked him.

  “I had left dinner cooking all day,” she said, a little too fast. “We didn’t think . . .”

  “I should like to know what you were doing down here,” Hass asked me. “Is it usual for Security to assign people in our residential area?”

  It was apt to get racial pretty fast unless I could get out of it. “I’m not from Security. Like I said, I’m just the police. And I was off duty.”

  “But you were questioning my wife in your official capacity, were you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Regarding what?” he demanded. “I’m sure Alliance Relations would be very interested to hear that the police are invading people’s homes. . . .”

  “And listening to what people tell them?” I said. His righteous act was starting to bug me. “You can’t say it’s my fault. Since I got here, you’ve done nothing but talk about some jewel robbery that doesn’t interest me in the least. If you want to get tough, we can do that, too. Right now I’m here investigating a much more serious crime.”

  “More serious?” she said. There was a lump in her throat.

  I kept my eyes on the husband. “You didn’t hear about the crime that was committed this evening in the caf across the square?”

  “No,” she said with some relief.

  “I fail to see,” he said, “what concern . . .”

  “This could be of yours?” I said. “As far as I can tell, none. I’m just interviewing people who might have seen something.”

  “Murder?” the wife gasped.

  “I don’t recall I mentioned the nature of the crime,” I said, “but as it happens, you’re right.”

  The husband shot her a cold look through eyes that were half-lidded in warning.

  “We have reason to believe your nanny was acquainted with the deceased. What time did she disappear?”

  “Sometime between 1830 last night and 0800 this morning,” Hass said without any hesitation.

  “That would be logical,” she chimed in.

  “Okay. Can you show me her room?”

  They looked at each other. “Very well,” he said. “Let me get my key. I’ll show you up.”

  He took me upstairs and through a converted utility shaft. He had a tight squeeze getting through. When we got to the other side, we were on Violet Seven. Through the grilled deck I could see the square below us.

  We came to a door. The key was already in the lock. Hass pulled it through. The door opened.

  I looked at him. “Your wife just said she was the only one who came up here.”

  “Of course. But sometimes I . . .”

  The lights came on automatically. The room was bare and cluttered at the same time. Only one corner seemed clean. I walked over to the small dresser and opened it.

  “She left without her clothes?” I wondered aloud.

  “She’s not very bright,” he said. “After all, how far can you run on a battlestation? Of course, if she’s sold the jewels she could easily buy a new face, new ID. As I told the
man at headquarters, they’re worth in excess of two hundred thousand credits.”

  “Free enterprise,” I said. I walked over to the bare patch on the deck and went down on my knees. Two levels of the deck had been cut out with an oxyacetylene torch. About sixty-five meters down and across, I had a clear line of sight through the plastic front of the caf.

  “How long has she been with you?” I said.

  “We hired her when we arrived on the Hawking—about a hundred days ago.”

  “You found her through an ad?”

  “Her references were impeccable,” he said. “And she spoke perfect Squam within weeks.”

  I stood up and filed that one away.

  “Mr. Hass,” I said. This was going to be a tough one. “By any chance—and this is just a routine question, you understand—by any chance was your relationship with Agnes anything more than employer and staff?”

  It was just a shot in the dark, but oddly enough, he paused. He looked more concerned than he had been. “Will my answer be a matter of record?”

  “It’ll never come up.”

  If he knew what the hole in the floor meant, he’d know I was lying. “Yes.”

  “Here or in your apartment?”

  “Here, of course. She was of great help in my trading business, unofficially. She often entertained potential clients, or . . .” he hesitated. “Sometimes I would find it expedient to entertain certain clients of my own and she would absent herself. With so many of our men serving on ships many of my race are here alone, without the benefit of husband or family. It is almost my duty . . .”

  “I can take it from there.” Or could I? Jesus. “I asked because I noticed that a button of your tunic has fallen off. I just found one like it under the bed.”

  I held out the button. He took it with surprising speed.

  “When was the last time?” I said.

  “Two days ago.”

  “Did you see Agnes last?”

  “When I was entertaining my last guest here. She waited until I arrived and then left. She often waits in a nearby caf for . . . me to leave.”

  “She didn’t act unusual?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Did you know if she had any visitors?”

  “Visitors?”

  “Any . . . males?”

  His snout seemed to disappear into his long neck. The teeth came out. It wasn’t comforting. “The question never came up,” he said flatly. “However, had Agnes had a lover, I would in no way have known. That would have been her own business.”