Spider Play

by Lee Killough

  “Thank you. Any questions, Mr. Doubrava? No?” Geyer returned the evidence bags to Cathmore. “Will you please place these back in Evidence?”

  Cathmore left without looking at Doubrava again.

  After the portal closed behind her, Doubrava raised his brows at Geyer. “You have enough to arrest me, but what now? Ship me back to Earth for a legitimate trial? The question is, where? These alleged crimes have been committed outside of any jurisdiction there, even Chenoweth’s supposed murder . . . unless I’m wrong about the exact date of independence.”

  “You’re correct,” Lanour said. “It does cover the period when Mr. Chenoweth died. But that means there is an applicable jurisdiction. And you’re in it.”

  Doubrava’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “The station becoming solely my property has conferred on it the status of a ship.”

  “Brilliant,” Mama breathed. “On a ship, the Captain is the law.”

  Lanour nodded. “Precisely. In this case, Director Fontana.”

  Doubrava stared at him for several moments, then sniffed. “That explains this kangaroo court.”

  “Are you denying the DNA evidence?” Geyer asked.

  “I’m saying you don’t have the authority to convict me on it.”

  “Athena, is this a legitimate proceeding?”

  “It is a legitimate proceeding.”

  “Bullshit. You can’t convict me. I’m thinking you can’t even stop me from leaving on the next shuttle.”

  “To live on what?” Geyer said.

  Doubrava’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Meaning . . . most of your digidough is a mirage.”

  Janna’s neck prickled. Mirage?

  Doubrava added a frown to the narrowed eyes. “Mirage?”

  “Tell him.” She turned toward Fontana and Lanour, voice hardening. “Tell him how you’ve been skinning him . . . that thanks to Athena alerting on the large size of the pictures downloaded to his femfriend Cooper, and analysis finding data hidden in them, you’ve known from the beginning about his insider trading and various smuggling plans . . . and prevented them.”

  Doubrava stiffened. “Prevented them?”

  Her tone went bitter. “Though until this morning they never revealed any of this to me. Never informed me who I had working for me.”

  “I—” Fontana began.

  “You were only ‘following orders’. Yes.”

  What steel, talking to her bosses like that, Janna reflected.

  Fontana’s mouth tightened at her contempt.

  Lanour shrugged. “To avoid scrutiny of the station. I had my plans for it years ago. We found Ms. Cooper just in time to protect her from an SEC investigation.”

  Doubrava’s voice rose. “What do you mean, prevented them?”

  Geyer moved around the table to him. “Lanour owns Cooper. Every request you’ve sent, from stock purchases to arranging smuggling deals, ended with her. The deals, the profits, the bank records she’s reported . . . all just smoke and mirrors. Most of your insider trading never happened. You’ve never smuggled anything. They just let you think so while he used your keen eye for profit as a guide to suggesting legitimate deals.”

  Doubrava stared at her in disbelief, then, eyes blazing, he started to surge out of his chair.

  Only to have Geyer’s hands slam him back down. “You’ve disgraced that uniform enough.”

  Janna’s own anger flared. “Chenoweth’s death and mutilation for a real data stick isn’t smoke and mirrors. What happened there?”

  Lanour’s mouth tightened. “When Doubrava informed Cooper what he intended to smuggle out this time, she got greedy. She decided to do the deal for real. Since she used some of my contacts, word leaked to me. In time to intercept the agents and data stick in Miami, but too late to prevent Chenoweth’s death or intercept the hearse.”

  Geyer said, “Interception of the data stick means even your last attempt at smuggling failed. You’ve murdered an innocent man, and attempted murder of these detectives, for nothing.”

  He twisted in the chair to look up at her. “Until I’m found guilty by a real court, I haven’t murdered anyone. And how can anyone here judge me?” He pointed at Fontana and Lanour. “How can either of them be impartial when they’re just as much to blame for Chenoweth’s death. If they hadn’t—”

  Geyer cut in. “They had nothing to do with your decision to use Chenoweth for smuggling out that data stick or your decision to kill him.” Her mouth thinned. “But you do unfortunately have a point about impartiality.”

  Mama said, “You want impartiality, let Athena judge.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  Doubrava scowled. “Athena? She isn’t human.”

  “Yet who is more logical and impartial? I’ve seen you rely on her every time you turn around, and she’s named for the goddess of wisdom.”

  “I’ll accept her judgement,” Lanour said.

  Doubrava considered, then shrugged. “Fine.”

  Fontana said. “Athena, review the statements and evidence offered in this proceeding. Based on those, is Ian Doubrava guilty of causing Paul Chenoweth’s death and attempting to kill Detectives Maxwell and Brill?”

  “Based on statements and evidence there is a ninety-eight point seven percent probability that Ian Doubrava caused the death of Paul Chenoweth and a ninety-nine point three percent probability that Ian Doubrava attempted to kill Detectives Maxwell and Brill.”

  Doubrava sniffed. “Well, there’s your judgement. Probabilities. What now?”

  A good question, Janna reflected. What kind of sentence could they impose here?

  “Put me in the detention cells or confine me to quarters? Sentence me to labor in Recycle?”

  “Nowhere here,” Fontana said. “This proceeding will remain confidential, but we can’t prevent gossip. You need to be elsewhere before there’s chop about you killing Chenoweth.”

  A chill ran through Janna imagining the reaction. Oh yeah. There had been menace enough in the vineyard with the construction crew just wanting to intimidate Mama and her.

  Doubrava smiled. “Send me back to Earth, then. I’m sure Lanour can arrange for a stay in some private institution.”

  Avoiding the word prison, but from which, Janna reflected, he would immediately set about finessing his way free. “Are you sure you want that, where your father and Lieutenant Mom can learn what you’ve done?”

  That hit home. He stiffened.

  Mama said, “What about the asteroids? I know you didn’t mean it, but last evening you mentioned going out there.”

  Janna saw refusal in the set of Doubrava’s jaw.

  Even as Lanour pulled out his slate. “Excellent. Like going West in the 1800's to leave trouble behind. I expect a number of individuals applying there do so for that very reason. The Nakunda mining station is about to go operational. They need personnel.”

  “Not interested,” Doubrava snapped.

  The pirate’s eye squinted a little more. “You seem to think you have a choice.”

  Doubrava’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ll, what . . . force me? Send me in chains?”

  “I’d prefer you not go as a prisoner. Sign up for Security. You’re qualified and it’s better than wrangling rock.” Lanour peered at his slate. “There’s transport leaving for the station from the Europa platform in two weeks. I can fly you to the Europa in my private shuttle as soon as you pack and arrange for you to stay in VIP quarters until the transport leaves. Other than being accompanied as far as the station by an agent of mine, to make sure you sign a long-term contract, there’ll be no constraints on you. Contact your family from the Europa and tell them you’re off to the frontier. They need never know why.”

  Janna watched wheels turn in Doubrava’s head, considering how he might take advantage of the situation. After several minutes she caught a glitter in his eyes. Though he shrugged as though indifferent. “Fine.”

  Fine indeed, he must
be thinking.

  She glanced at Mama, who gave her micro-shrug. Better than nothing.

  Geyer let out a breath Janna never realized the Chief was holding. “Then as one of my last official acts, I’ll help you pack and escort you up to the shuttle.”

  Janna blinked. What?

  At the portal with Doubrava, she turned back to Janna and Mama. “A couple of officers will be over shortly to return you to the hospital.”

  “Last official act?” Mama said as the portal closed behind him.

  Fontana sighed. “She’s resigning. Says she can never trust us again. I don’t blame her.”

  “Nor do I,” Lanour said. “But we did what we had to do. Go on. You have plenty of work I’m sure. I’ll wait here with the detectives.” With Fontana gone, he tapped and swept the slate’s screen a bit longer, then looked up. “Detective Brill, isn’t this justice enough for you?”

  She thought she wore her cop face. “Will Chenoweth’s family think so?”

  “In the end, maybe.” Lanour sent the slate screen scrolling back in its spindle. “Are you familiar with the term transporting?”

  “Yes,” Mama said. “The Brits used to ship what they considered their undesirables off to American and Australia. Often arbitrarily and unfairly. How does that apply here?”

  “Because Doubrava is going much farther than the asteroids, and for life. I lied about the mining station. He’ll be going to the Glenn platform, not the Europa. My crew will see that he arrives a bit toxy to make him cooperative as he’s hustled to their medical center where members of the Jubilee colonial company are being prepped for their sleep capsules.”

  Mama said, “That sounds more like shanghaiing.”

  Disbelief, then anger, rose in Janna. “Wait, wait, wait!” She slapped the table. Pain shot up from her hand, fueling her anger. “No! I don’t know how it’s possible to join a colonial company that way, but you can’t send a killer off with unsuspecting colonists!”

  Lanour laughed. “What do you think colonists are? Not innocent vacationers on a camping trip. They’re pioneers, prepared for hard lives carving homes out of an alien wilderness.”

  “Think about your old partner,” Mama said. “That’s a colonist.”

  True. Wim could handle a Doubrava. Still . . .

  “Besides, they aren’t unsuspecting. I had a frank conference call with the company officers and they know all about him. Since he’s not a psychopathic killer and has hunting and wilderness survival skills, they agree they can be an asset. They’ll watch him. When I pretended to be looking at transport to the mining colony, I confirmed his place on the ship.”

  “But . . .” Her head swam. “You say you had a conference call, and now confirmed his place on the ship. You can’t have arranged this since you arrived.”

  “Of course not. I started looking for a way to deal with him when word about Ms. Cooper’s double-dealing and the fact the data stick would arrive in a corpse reached me. I didn’t know then how Doubrava planned to arrange for that corpse, but I foresaw the difficulty of making him answer for it. A news item about that actress becoming a colonist suggested a solution. Contacting company officers on the Glenn, I learned they had two capsules available and I bought a share of the company for Doubrava to put him in one.”

  Mama grinned. “A colonist is the last thing he wants to be, though. He’ll be so cranked when he wakes up.”

  Anger sparked in Janna again. “This plan was in motion before you arrived? Before we had any evidence to even try him? What if we hadn’t? What were you going to do . . . drug and abduct him?”

  “Yes.” Lanour met her glare frankly. “I haven’t gotten where I am without occasional ruthlessness.” Lanour paused. “I feel better, though, having a legal justification for my actions.”

  She bared her teeth. “Is that what you call it!”

  He smiled wryly. “Consider this. While life was hard for those transported, and not all survived, many of them made new lives. With no other choice, maybe Doubrava will, too. He has the stuff in him for it. Look how he kept everyone on DeGroot’s plane alive.” He paused. “I’m now looking forward with great relish to the expressions on the board and my opposition in the family when I make my announcement tomorrow. After which I’ll be free to go back to my roots and play in the greenhouses. That’s what I really enjoy. What about you, Detective?” He cocked a brow. “There’s time for you to warn Doubrava if you feel compelled to.”

  Mama murmured, “It’s not our jurisdiction, Bibi.”

  Janna took deep breaths. However unscrupulous his treatment of Doubrava, Lanour made valid points. Plus, if she interfered, they opened the question of sentencing all over again.

  “Right.” Crap. She sat back and closed her eyes. “I want to go home.” Between secrets, machinations, betrayals, and smiling villains, the station was beginning to feel less hospitable than the ice and snow below.

  Mama cleared his throat. “Speaking of home, I’ll still have that housing problem facing me when we land. Since you have an empty bed . . .”

  Her eyes flew open. “What?” Let him move in with her? “No! Does the frostbite on my face spell ‘zipwit’?”

  “Just until I find another place. I’m sure it won’t take any time.”

  Oh, right.

  Then she eyed the frostbite on his face, thought of their near death in that frigid darkness, and heaved a sigh. What the hell. “I’m probably wickers, but all right. Until you find a new place.” She could take it for a while. Partners had to stick together.

  The End

  Lee Killough books also published by Books We Love

  Spider Play, Brill/Maxwell #2

  The Doppelganger Gambit, Brill/Maxwell #1

  Blood Hunt, A Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Book #1

  Blood Games, A Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Book #3

  Wilding Nights

  The Leopard’s Daughter

  Aftershock

  Lee Killough has been storytelling since the age of four or five, when she started making up her own bedtime stories, then later, her own episodes of her favorite radio and TV shows. Because she loves both SF and mysteries, her work combines the two genres. Although published as SF, most of her novels are actually mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference--thanks to a childhood hooked on TV cop shows--for cop protagonists.