Stars Beneath My Feet

by D L Frizzell

  “I’m in,” I said.

  “Good,” she replied. “Don’t disappoint me, Alex, or it won’t be a needle I come after you with.” She put the syringe back in the medkit and zipped it up.

  “I’ll keep my word as long as everybody ese does,” I said.

  “No,” she raised a finger. “You keep your word even if the whole human race turns its back on you.”

  I stared at her for a long time, realizing finally that she was absolutely serious. “Come on,” I said. “We’d better wake up Kate and get back on the road.”

  “Kate has already been tranquilized,” Norio said. “She will be asleep for some time.”

  “Carolyn said she was already sleeping by the time we got here.” I said. “Who gave it to her?”

  “She gave it to herself,” Hathan-Fen told me. “The tranquilizers were her idea.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “The drugs were Kate’s idea?” I asked, confused.

  “The T’Neth developed this drug to isolate sick minds from their hive,” Norio said. “She gave me the recipe as best she remembered, and I filled in the gaps.”

  “I can’t hear her thoughts because she’s drugged?” I asked. “Does that mean the T’Neth communicate with each other in their sleep?”

  “Yes,” Hathan-Fen said. “According to Kate, their mental link is always active. It works best on a conscious level, but also has a subconscious component. ”

  “How did you know that drug wouldn’t hurt me?” I asked Norio. It seemed like a good question, but all I got in return was a blank stare.

  “The risks were minimal,” Norio said. He seemed to want to say more, but Redland cut in and saved him.

  “You were the test case, kid,” Redland chuckled.

  I stared in disbelief. “You weren’t worried about injecting me with an alien drug?”

  “You put us in a precarious situation when you showed up in Dogleg unannounced,” Hathan-Fen said. “We had to improvise.”

  I thought about all the ways my life had been derailed lately. I’d been manipulated, lied to, and even kidnapped. Now I’d been used as a proverbial guinea pig in one of Norio’s medical experiments. The only person who hadn’t done me wrong was Oliver Jarnum, but that’s only because I hadn’t met him yet. Then I remembered the trap he set for me, hoping I would be killed without ever laying eyes on him. At least he was a convicted murderer. I sort of expected that from his kind. I stared at Hathan-Fen, so aghast and perplexed that words failed me.

  “I have studied T’Neth physiology for a long time,” Norio explained, trying to ease my concerns. “Their anatomy is comparable to ours and the ingredients themselves pose no risk to humans. If nothing else, it makes an effective sedative.”

  “It was all we had,” Hathan-Fen said, now sounding almost apologetic.

  What the hell had the major been thinking? Oh, that’s right – no explanations. I was going to have to accept that decision along with all the others I didn’t agree with. On the other hand, this could be a two-way street. Her lack of openness gave me the same freedom to explain absolutely nothing that I did. Which is how I normally operated anyway.

  “I understand,” I told them. “I might have done the same thing if our positions were reversed.”

  “Really?” Hathan-Fen said.

  I nodded.

  “You aren’t usually so,” she struggled to find the right word, “magnanimous.”

  The study’s door opened. Carolyn stood there, no longer with the happy look of a doting mother, but with a haunted expression. “The constable is dead,” she said, voice quavering, clearly shaken.

  “What?” Hathan-Fen turned to Carolyn in shock. “How?”

  “I…I don’t know,” Carolyn replied with tears already flowing down her cheeks. “Runners came by and told me. They’re telling everybody there’s a killer in town.”

  “Do they know who did it?” Redland asked.

  “No. They just said to lock our doors,” Carolyn said, her eyes pleading as she came over to hug me. “Donald went to over there right before you arrived.”

  I hugged her in return, thinking I should console her, but really wanting to do something about it. I locked eyes with Redland.

  “Let’s go see,” Redland said, marching past Carolyn and me toward the front door.

  “Brady and Traore,” Hathan-Fen said, “stay here and keep guard. We’ll be back shortly.”

  Both sergeants gave a muted yes, ma’am, and took up positions near the front door. Ofsalle remained in the study with his arms folded over his stomach, and Norio stayed with him. I squeezed Carolyn once more and promised her we’d figure things out. She begged me to be careful, but I was already out the door behind Redland and Major Hathan-Fen.

  We hurried through the grove to the constable’s home, pistols drawn. When we arrived, a small crowd of frightened citizens had already gathered outside the front door. There were driblets of blood scattered around the door on the frozen ground.

  “Has anybody else gone in?” Hathan-Fen asked. A few people shook their heads. “Stay out here,” she ordered. “Better yet, go home. If you have the means to defend yourself, then get ready.” The people stared at her, dazed in confusion. “Go!” she shouted. With that, they all scattered and went separate directions.

  We took positions on either side of the door, Redland on one side, and Hathan-Fen with me on the other.

  “T’Neth?” she asked under her breath.

  I shook my head. “There’s not enough blood here,” I said. “There’d be a lot more if this was a T’Neth attack.”

  Redland gave a curt nod in agreement.

  We entered the constable’s house in quick succession. The place was the same design as the Biedriks’ home except that, instead of a study, the constable had a cell where he kept prisoners. On the occasion that somebody drank too much cobblegrape wine and got into an argument, that’s where they’d be put to sleep it off. The other rooms functioned as his home, though his decorating style seemed to match that of his jail cell.

  The few spartan furnishings in the constable’s living room had been overturned in some kind of struggle. Bloody smears streaked back and forth on the carpet and the furniture, while the walls had spatter marks up to the ceiling. It looked as if somebody had been flailed to ribbons and tossed around the room for good measure. My offhand comment about not enough blood seemed callous in retrospect, even more so because I hadn’t considered whether the blood belonged to my foster dad. Hathan-Fen, Redland, and I took turns covering each other as we searched the place, checking the closet and hallway with our pistols drawn. The doorways to the bedrooms and basement were closed but were clean and showed no sign of entry.

  I motioned toward a stippled trail of blood that led into the kitchen. We maneuvered quietly around the doorway, pretty coordinated for a group that had been arguing vehemently only a few minutes earlier. I was the first one to enter the kitchen.

  Donald Biedrik, his shirt smeared with wet, crimson stains, hunched over a bloody man on the kitchen table. He held a towel against the man’s neck, attempting to save him. I’d seen enough violence over the years to know that the towel wasn’t doing any good because none of the wounds were bleeding anymore.

  I holstered my pistol and went to Donald. He was uninjured. Judging by the badge, the man on the table was the constable, stabbed numerous times in the chest and neck. Blood dribbled off the table and pooled on the laminate floor at Donald’s feet. I checked the constable’s neck to confirm my suspicion. No pulse. I pulled Donald away from the table gently. “You’ve done all you can here, Pops,” I said, employing the nickname that Cale used for his father.

  Donald looked at me, unseeing at first, and then recognized me. He looked back down at the dead man and slowly nodded.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” I asked. Behind me, Redland disappeared toward the hallway to check the rooms. Hathan-Fen stared at the body for a second, and then lowered her weapon.

  “I do
n’t know,” Donald said. “He was already injured when I got here. He tried to say something, but he’d lost too much blood to make sense.”

  “Let’s step away,” I told Donald. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

  Donald stepped over to the kitchen counter. He wiped his shaky hands with a clean white dish towel from a pile next to the sink. It quickly turned as red as the one on the dead constable. I took the towel from Donald and rinsed it under cold water. Donald watched gloomily as it faded to a dull pink.

  Redland came back down the hallway. “The house is clear,” he said. He looked at the dead constable. “Did he say anything?”

  “What?” Donald asked.

  “Before he died,” Redland said indelicately, pointing at the constable.

  “I don’t remember,” Donald said, his voice devoid of emotion. He was clearly in shock. “Maybe,” he corrected himself. “I couldn’t understand him. Maybe it was a number?” he asked, staring at the stained towel as if it would give him the answer. “Yes, he said a number. He was…he had trouble talking...but the first part was a five.”

  “Five one eight seven?” Redland asked.

  “It could be,” Donald said, his eyes darting once over to the body and lingering there.

  I stared at Redland. He knew what the number was, and so did I. “That can’t be,” I said.

  Redland put his pistol away. “Can’t be anything else,” he replied.

  “What does the number mean?” Hathan-Fen asked.

  “That’s the serial number for Oliver Jarnum’s shackle,” I said.

  It took a minute for that to sink in. “This wasn’t a T’Neth attack?” Hathan-Fen said.

  “T’Neth don’t stab,” Redland said matter-of-factly. “They dismember.”

  “Something’s off,” I said. “I mean, the odds that I would be in Sunlo are pretty slim, but the convict I’ve been chasing for a month just happens to show up at the same time?”

  Hathan-Fen and Redland stood silently, neither venturing an answer to my question.

  “His name was Fred Rappa,” Donald said after a minute, returning to the dead constable’s side and putting a clean towel over his face. “He was my friend.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Hathan-Fen said. “I don’t mean to seem indelicate, Mister Biedrik, but did Mister Rappa have a deputy?” Hathan-Fen asked.

  “No,” Donald replied. “We’ve never needed more than one person. Fred was only a part-time constable himself.”

  “Get him out of this house, major,” Redland said, motioning toward Donald. “I’ll handle things here.

  “You go, too,” Redland told me.

  Donald was shaken, and Carolyn would need to see him alive and safe. That made sense, but my suspicions kicked in. “I’ll take care of the Biedriks,” I told the major. “You’d better stay here and help Marshal Redland.”

  Redland balked at that. “I don’t need help.”

  Hathan-Fen and I shared a knowing glance. “Marshal Redland, we’re going to stay together and do this right.”

  Redland looked mad enough to chew off his wooden thumb. “Fine,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brady and Traore met us in the doorway. When they saw Donald’s bloodied shirt, they gave me worried stares.

  “Could you two patrol around the house for a little while?” I asked. “We need to take care of a few things inside.” I nodded my head toward Donald, who seemed to be in shock. “Don’t worry about him. He’s not hurt.”

  “Sure thing, marshal” Brady replied. They both grabbed their jackets and hurried past us into the dim, icy air.

  In the Biedrik’s entryway, we saw Carolyn sitting on the couch, legs pulled up to her chest, sniffling into a handkerchief. As soon as she saw Donald, she ran to him, wailing hysterically. He comforted her as he led her back into the living room, whispering repeatedly that he was okay. She cried all the louder.

  I waited at the door, only half-watching them, deep in thought.

  “Come on,” Carolyn said, trying to compose herself. She led her husband down the hallway, pausing only to peel the wet, sticky shirt off his shoulders. His torso was smeared red. She went to touch his chest but thought better of it. Instead, she tossed the discarded clothing into a laundry bin and pulled him into the washroom. He turned to me and mouthed the words ‘thank you’ as the door closed behind them.

  I walked over to the study. Ofsalle sat in the easy chair, looking extremely uncomfortable. Norio stood by the bookshelves adjusting the laces on his protective, elbow-length gloves

  “Was it the T’Neth?” Ofsalle asked, wringing his hands. Outwardly he looked nervous, but his horribly bloodshot eyes suggested something else. Irritation, maybe?

  “It wasn’t the T’Neth,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I could see Norio observing us from the corner of his.

  “Is anybody hurt?” Ofsalle asked. “I’d like to offer my help.”

  “Forget about it,” I said. “All the people involved are either healthy or dead. You’d only be needed for those in between.”

  “Well then…I’d still like to help in any way I can,” Ofsalle said, mildly offended.

  “Great,” I said. “Could you excuse us for a minute?”

  Ofsalle saw nothing but blank stares from Norio and me, so he shrugged in surrender. “As you wish.” He left the study and wandered into the kitchen. I watched him for a moment as he found a towel and wetted it. He returned to the living room and lay down on the couch, putting the towel over his eyes.

  “Alex,” Norio said, “Should you not be out there assisting the others?”

  “They’re handling it,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute, if that’s okay.”

  “Very well.”

  I pulled a random book from the middle shelf and thumbed through it. It was one of Donald’s older books, one that had a history of metallurgical studies dating back over a hundred years. It didn’t hold my interest, so I put it back and grabbed another. This one provided guidance on building septic systems. I knew my answers wouldn’t be found on the pages of some old scientific journal. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts. A glance at Norio assured me that he was waiting for me to speak. I closed the door to the study and regarded him. “What do you do when the facts contradict each other?” I asked.

  “They cannot,” Norio replied. “Facts are facts.” He said nothing further.

  I can usually rely on my instincts to suss out the truth, what Norio called the collection of all facts, but my instincts had been consistently wrong lately. At the moment they were almost silent, save for one nagging suspicion. “Norio,” I said, “do you trust Redland?”

  Norio didn’t look surprised when I asked that question. I’d seen him surprised once or twice in my life, so I knew what to look for. When he doesn’t react at all, it’s because he expected the question.

  “I answered this on the train,” Norio pointed out. I noticed his eyes narrow the slightest bit.

  “You really didn’t,” I countered. “I thought about what you did say. You said he was on our side but didn’t actually endorse him as trustworthy. You straddled the question with a vague answer.”

  “You do not trust him,” Norio said, “yet you travel with him. It is the same thing, I believe.”

  “Is it?” I asked. I watched Norio’s face for the telltale signs of deceit. There were none. He had been The Guile’s chief spy for a couple of decades, so I expected no less. It seemed pretty obvious I wasn’t going to catch him in a compromising admission, but I had to wonder if I’d already said too much. He may not trust me anymore. Still, I had to try. After watching Redland over the last few weeks, I had been reminded about his way of dealing with problems. He was a blunt instrument, never thinking a problem through when he could shoot his way through. Redland was devious – there was no doubt about that - but not cunning enough to orchestrate all the seemingly bizarre coincidences that occurred recently. That would need to be set in
motion by somebody with a finer intellect and a broader perspective. And since Norio had mastered those skills long before I was born…

  Norio sat down in the chair and folded his hands in his lap. It occurred to me that a nonthreatening pose such as this would put most people at ease. In my case it only made me more suspicious.

  “You asked me what I do when facts contradict one another,” he said. “My answer was perhaps too brief. I have found that when such disparities appear, it is because there are other facts that connect them. Other facts that remain hidden.” He stopped, thought for a long moment, and then said flatly, “I am keeping secrets from you, Alex.”

  “Secrets you aren’t going to tell me,” I said.

  “Correct.”

  I nodded in understanding. Norio was always direct, even when he was being evasive. I’d known him long enough to believe that he did everything with a good conscience, but it didn’t mean he was doing the right thing. It would do no good to browbeat him for answers, though. Norio had the patience and stubbornness of a mountain. The only way to get him to talk would be to convince him that I needed to know what was going on.

  “Redland is working with a T’Neth named Xiv,” I said.

  Norio said nothing. He showed absolutely no sign of alarm. In fact, he was as stoic as ever.

  “You knew?” I asked, shocked.

  He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “Who else knows?” I asked. “The major? Kate?”

  “Just me,” Norio said. “It would be best to keep that knowledge between us, Alex.”

  “Why?” I sputtered. “You know what the T’Neth do to people who cross them!”

  Norio leaned forward and gave me his trademark penetrating stare. “You might be surprised to learn that not all T’Neth are the same, Alex.”

  “Is he different from the pair of T’Neth who slaughtered everybody on the caravan after they left Dogleg?” I asked bitterly. Norio’s eyes went wide in shock. I’d finally managed to catch him off-guard, but I felt no victory in it.