“Registered residence as Dr. Omar Derabyi,” she said. All of them looked at the body on the table.
“Very well. That means at the moment you are homeless, Dr. K’t’ank,” Barin said. “Are you otherwise unharmed?”
The voice lost all trace of hysteria.
“Yes. I am intact and in health.”
Potopos cleared his throat and stepped forward, the small silver rectangle of the witness recorder in his hand.
“Uh, sir, what was the last thing you remember when the attack came?”
“I recall seeing daylight penetrate my sanctum,” K’t’ank said. “Dr. Derabyi attempted to compensate, of course, by flooding the apertures with blood, but it was ineffective. My sight went black. Then he fell to the floor. It was extremely inconvenient.”
Dena smothered a snicker.
“Er, I was thinking about what happened before the attack,” Potopos said. “Did you see anyone suspicious approach your host?”
“So many people!” K’t’ank said. “Many of them suspicious.”
“But did you see the killer?”
“I did. It was a Terran.”
“What did he look like?”
The swimming worm in the sink didn’t change expression, but the voice coming out of the bracelet did. It sounded embarrassed.
“I have trouble telling many of you apart.”
Potopos was unconcerned.
“Do you think you could identify him if you saw him again?”
“Oh, yes! Although the position was unusual. I only saw him from below.”
“Uh, how did you see him?” Captain Potopos asked. “Didn’t you live in Derabyi’s belly? I mean, we saw you come out of his intestines.”
Tiedler was genial. “Captain, don’t you know about Salosians?”
“Sure. They live in your body. They, uh, observe. I don’t know how.”
Tiedler beckoned to the alien, who stopped his frantic figure-eights and came to the side of the tank where they could see him.
“Those eyes. The retinal nerves protrude at will. They insert them into the spinal column of the host organism.”
Dena twisted at the very thought. Her stomach tried to turn itself into a knot. “Eww.”
Tiedler turned big sad eyes to her like a puppy deprived of its toy.
“It’s perfectly natural, Sergeant.”
“So is taking a dump, but no one likes to think about the details.”
“Some people do,” the medical examiner piped up, with scientific scrupulousness.
Dena glared a “shut up” at him.
“Did I say anything wrong?” the coroner asked, innocently. Dena ignored him.
“In other words, he sees through his host’s eyes?” she asked. “They see everything?”
“Yes, of course,” Tiedler said.
“I mean, everything?” Her brain ran a rapid slide show of her life through her own eyes, and she felt her cheeks burning as if everyone in the room could see those images.
“What’s your problem, Ms.?” Hargrent asked.
“That’s Detective Sergeant Mrs.,” Dena snarled.
Barin regarded her seriously, then turned to his two associates. “You have screened this candidate for suitability?”
Hargrent held up her skinny pad. “Yes, sir. A search of the local pool with the correct antibodies identifies her as the best and most logical choice. Also, she’s right here, sir.”
“You can’t ignore that, sir,” Tiedler put in.
Barin studied Dena with calm, gray eyes. “Sergeant Malone, the choice of victim likely means the killer knows that there was a Salosian inside his victim. Dr. K’t’ank is a valued member of the scientific community, as well as a guest on this planet. You are a sworn law enforcement officer. This being is an innocent witness to a heinous crime. You are trained in both self-defense and keen observation. Your record speaks for itself, with your list of citations and certificates of praise. I feel that even if a pool of hosts who would not be allergic to Salosians were here in this room, you would still be the best choice, both to detect and defend. Won’t you undertake this mission? You are already the guardian of a small and helpless life. For the sake of Earth and her alliances, not to mention protecting another living creature that needs what you and you alone can provide?”
Dena felt pride rising in her soul. Her planet needed her! She felt her back stiffen and her chin rise. Potopos’s double chin quivered with emotion, and his dark eyes were full of patriotic tears. So were hers.
“All right, sir,” she said, resolutely. “I’ll do it.”
Barin snapped the bracelet on her wrist. It felt as heavy as the needle gun in her holster. He barked at his inferiors.
“Implant her. I have another appointment.”
With that, Barin turned on his heel and left. The door slid shut behind the heel of his very expensive boots. Dena gawked after him.
That son of a bitch!
Hargrent held her arm and ran a scanner over it. When it came to her medchip, it beeped. Hargrent shoved the skinnypad in Dena’s face.
“Your FIN, please?”
Dena applied her right pinky and middle finger to the screen. Another grudge added to the growing heap in her belly. Now she’d have to change the fingers she liked to use on privacy screens, once four people plus an alien had watched her put in her FIN.
Tiedler had his own skinnypad out now.
“I just need to ask you some questions.”
“What? Why?” Dena asked.
“It’s all part of the protocol to determine if you’re good host material. Now, do you ever participate in any risky activities?”
“Yes.”
Potopos did a doubletake. So did the Yes-twins beside him.
“What?”
“I’m a cop,” she said. “Duh.”
“Uh, I mean, apart from that,” Tiedler said patiently. “Risky sex? Recreational pharmaceuticals?”
“Yes. You bet. I indulge in a helluva lot of none of your goddamned business.”
Dena felt her temper rising, but Potopos gave her an encouraging nod.
“Now, Malone, answer the guy. It’s just routine.”
Routine, maybe, but she wished that the coroner and her boss weren’t listening as if they were at a dirty movie. Finally, she ground out the information she had been keeping to herself.
“I’m…two months pregnant.”
That admission called for raised eyebrows all around.
“Licensed? A legally implanted fetus? From your own genetic storage?” Hargrent asked, tapping away at her skinnypad.
“Yes! As if that is your business!”
For once the imperious woman seemed embarrassed.
“Uh, well, it is. Gender of incipient offspring?”
Dena crossed her arms firmly over the location of her yet-to-be-born child.
“We don’t know. We don’t want to know yet.”
“Um-hm,” Hargrent murmured, and tapped in, “Allowable superstition number sixty-two.”
“What?” Dena demanded, offended to her marrow. “Who’s superstitious?”
Hargrent didn’t have time for her protests.
“It doesn’t hurt the child to reveal the pregnancy, you know. Do you also practice allowable superstition number fifteen, not informing anyone as to your condition? I mean, those who are legally permitted to know.”
“Yes,” Dena said resentfully. “You are the first people I have had to tell.”
“Nothing to interfere with the implantation,” Tiedler agreed.
“Let’s proceed, then. Sergeant,” Hargrent said. “It’s an easy procedure.”
“Not like a spinal tap?”
Hargrent smiled like a cobra sizing up a victim. “Not very.”
Dena backed away.
“I changed my mind!”
“The planet needs you, Detective Malone,” her captain said. “Don’t make this harder than it is.”
She stared at him in astonishment. The big suckup!
“Harder? For who? Do you have a giant tapeworm floating around in your belly?”
Potopos smiled. “Lucky for me, I don’t qualify.”
“Right this way, Sergeant,” Hargrent said, taking her by the arm. “Let’s get this over with.”
THE IMPLANTATION had been painless. The Yes-twins hadn’t given her any more opportunities to back out. In fact, Tiedler kept his back against the door of the procedure room. They got her pinkyprint on a contract, seventy pages long in two-point type she couldn’t read without a magnifier and a lawyer, and promised to email it to her. The worst part was watching the pink length of the Salosian slither into the small, bloodless incision they made just under her bellybutton. She still felt K’t’ank wriggling as he moved among her internal organs, heading for her spine. Occasionally he wagged his tail, causing a ticklish itch there was no way she could scratch. Once he had attached himself to the inside of her backbone, she could hear his voice without the bracelet via bone conduction. And he never, but never, shut up. He kept up a running commentary on everything. Everything.
But the worst of it still lay ahead. Dena had to tell her husband.
The Yes-twins had treated her to a skycab home. When she got out at their sixty-seventh floor apartment, Neal was sitting on the balcony, working at his computer, swiping away at an architectural rendering, completely oblivious to the altitude, the traffic, the dogs barking from other apartments, and the booming thunderstorm rolling toward them from just over the state line. His ability to concentrate would have made a yogi jealous.
She kissed him on the back of the neck. He jumped, wiping out half the drawing on the screen.
“Restore!” he commanded it. “Hey, darling!” He had sandy brown hair, tan skin, and green eyes. She hoped the baby would look like him.
“Hi, love,” she said. All her nerves were in her belly, along with her problem. “Neal, I’ve got to tell you something.” She held out her wrist. He glanced down at the platinum bangle.
“You bought a bracelet?” She saw the muscles along his jaw bulge out as Neal clenched his molars together, but he kept his smile bright. That was why Dena loved him. They were a little tight financially at the moment. The baby license had been pretty expensive. The government didn’t want just anybody reproducing these days. She and Neal had gotten so good at jumping through hoops they could have joined the circus. It might have paid better than police work. “No problem. I’m sure we could afford it. As long as you like it.”
Dena struggled to find words.
“Uh, no, not exactly.”
“Hello, Malone’s husband!” K’t’ank’s voice burst out of the bangle. Neal looked even more dismayed.
“It talks? Honey, I thought we said no more AI technology. I’m sick of judgmental toasters.”
“That’s not the bracelet. What it’s connected to. It’s a communication device. For it. I mean, him. They put an alien inside me. A Salosian.”
Neal’s eyes lit up.
“Hey, cool! What’s its name?”
That was the other reason she loved Neal. Very little fazed him. Dena took his arm and slid open the glass wall to the kitchen.
“Let’s eat and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“SO HOW’D YOU GET INTERESTED in supplementary cognitive processes?” Neal asked. Dena was beginning to feel like the third wheel on a date.
“Natural progression,” K’t’ank said, his voice echoing out of the bracelet. “We do not get out much, but we think deep thoughts.”
“Sounds like ninety percent of the scientists I know,” Neal said. He glanced at the clock over the entertainment center, then—at last!—met Dena’s eyes. “Bed?”
She raised her eyebrows suggestively. “Bed.”
Arm in arm, they walked toward their bedroom. Neal leaned over to nibble at the side of her neck. She shivered with pleasure. His lips descended to meet hers. They bumped into the clothes press on the way, but she ignored what would probably be a bruise in the morning. Dena ran her hands down Neal’s body, noting his growing interest. She closed her eyes and let him lower her gently to the bed. His mouth left her parted lips and began to trace down her body, which his hands bared for it along the way. Dena wriggled with pleasure, enjoying every small sensation.
“This is most curious,” K’t’ank remarked suddenly. “The spasms in your internal organs are rather pleasurable to me.”
Dena opened her eyes. Neal looked down at her in dismay.
“He can feel what we’re doing?”
She shrugged guiltily. “I didn’t know. Please, don’t stop!”
Neal made a face. “Okay, darling.” With a deep breath, he bent to kiss her again.
Dena warmed to the moment, wrapping her arms and legs around his body.
“What is he doing to make you behave in that fashion?” K’t’ank inquired. “The convulsions and tremors are not like anything I have experienced in five different hosts!”
“K’t’ank!”
“I only state the truth.”
“That’s it,” Neal said. He pushed himself off her and flopped onto his back. He glared at the ceiling. “I thought I was going to have to stay away from you because of the baby. But this! At least the kid’s not giving a play-by-play.”
Dena started a blithe denial. Then K’t’ank chimed in.
“Oh, the fetus is responding as well. It is flexing and moving. I believe it is enjoying your motion. Carry on.”
“No.”
“Oh, honey, yes!” Dena pleaded, reaching for Neal.
“Uh-uh. Sorry.” Neal leaned over, gave Dena a chaste kiss, and rolled over on his side of the bed, with his back to her. Dena crossed her arms and thrust herself peevishly against the pillows.
“What is happening?” K’t’ank asked. “Where is more motion?”
Dena ripped off the bracelet, flung herself out of bed, and stormed to her sweater drawer. She addressed the bangle.
“If you’re in trouble, yell. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until morning.”
“But, Malone! I wish to ask…”
She interrupted him firmly.
“No. Not a thing. Go watch Animal Planet or something. Just keep the volume off.”
She shoved the bracelet deep into the midst of her lambswool crewnecks and slammed the drawer shut. Inside her head, she heard vague protests, but at least nothing was coming out of the relay.
NEAL LEFT FOR WORK before she got up. Dena was grateful not to have to be civil to anyone. Even breathing exacerbated her nausea. Morning sickness absolutely sucked. She crawled to the bathroom, and was violently sick in decent privacy.
Or so she thought.
“That is amazing!” K’t’ank announced in her inner ear, as she heaved up her insides. “Do that again! Reverse peristalsis is great fun!”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she gritted out, sitting on the cold tiles. “And no, I will be damned if I do it again.” Once her belly was empty, she could start her normal routine. She made a cup of weak tea and clutched it in both hands to sip.
“Is that all you are going to consume?” he asked.
“You’re lucky I’m hydrating,” Dena said. His voice went right through her head. She couldn’t even put her fingers in her ears to keep it out.
“Please, nutrients! I require food!”
“I can’t handle anything at this hour! I’ll eat later.”
“But I am hungry! You do not wish me to drain sustenance from your tissues, do you? Remember,” he said, sounding hopeful, “you are eating for three, now.”
“You goddamn vampire,” Dena said. But unlike a vampire, garlic and silver crosses wouldn’t get rid of him. She had to do what he wanted, or he’d probably rat her out to Alien Relations. Though her stomach did heave-hos the whole time, she forced herself to eat a bowl of fortified hot cereal.
“Wonderful! I feel stronger already!”
At least he was grateful, Dena thought. She handed the bowl off to the housekee
ping ’bot and went to get ready for work.
SHE CHECKED IN at the clock wall of the precinct with a handprint. Behind her, she could hear whispers.
“There she is! Ready?”
Dena spun. Most of the precinct personnel stood in a group around her. Starting with desk sergeant Nina Tiandi, they all began humming.
“…Uuuuuuuh…Shai hulud!”
Dena aimed a mock punch at them.
“Oh, not you morons, too? It’s not a sandworm, it’s an alien. An intelligent one. And he can hear you.”
“Sandworms are aliens, too,” Tiandi said.
“I like sand,” K’t’ank piped up. “It was fun to swim through when I was a young one.”
“See?” Lieutenant Cossen gloated. “Sandworm.”
Dena groaned. “Remind me to go back in time and convince Frank Herbert to take up another branch of literature. Can we just pretend today’s an ordinary, boring duty?”
“Sure, just as soon as you stop talking in two voices.”
Potopos had left half a dozen major databases in her in-box, all images of people who were attending, working, or passing through the same conference as K’t’ank and Derabyi on the day of the murder. K’t’ank either could not or would not identify any of them. She felt strange sitting in the interview room by herself, staring at thousands of holographic images and waiting for a hit.
“No. No. No. Wait. No. They are all too flat!” K’t’ank complained, his voice echoing off the enameled ceiling. She felt his tail hit the back of her stomach.
“Ow! Stop that! What do you mean, flat? They’re all three-dimensional.”
“But flat! They have no life. I cannot identify anyone this way.”
“How about if I turn the pictures so you’re looking up at them?” Dena asked. She adjusted the play so they were virtually looking up the nose of each person.
“Heh-heh, that is funny! They all look like orifices now,” K’t’ank said.
Dena was losing patience.
“Let’s approach it from another angle. Do you think the killer was trying to get to you, not Derabyi?”
The voice was diffident. “We both had many enemies. I believe that you must concentrate harder on the evidence I have already provided.”
Unidentified Funny Objects Page 22
