David Weber - Worlds of Honor

"I saw you this morning at the coronation, Mr. Zyrr."

"Were you there?"

"No, I've been assigned to the Salt Flats Detail since my leg was broken—I don't regenerate, and the docs couldn't fix it perfectly. Most of the time the post is little more than an honorable semi-retirement, but I've been needed here today. The pilgrims have been showing up since an hour after the King's death was made public."

Adderson pressed Justin's hand to a print scanner, pricked a blood sample, and then directed him to look into an optical scanner. His tone as he continued was a trace defensive.

"Some of the Detail thought of the visitors as ghouls and I suppose some were just that—especially the newsies. Most respect the perimeter, though. They just come to weep and pray. That's why I think of them as pilgrims."

Justin nodded. "That was exactly my thought when I saw them. What did the newsies think they'd find here?"

Adderson shrugged. "I don't rightly know. The King's body has been taken away, the wreckage cleared. All that was completed within an hour of his death."

His voice softened as he spoke, so that the last words were all but inaudible.

"Were you on duty yesterday?" Justin asked.

Pretending to be busy transferring the scanner results to the personnel files gave Adderson a moment to collect himself. When he spoke again, his tones were almost normal.

"I was," he said. "And I saw what happened right in there."

Adderson gestured toward the holotank with his head. Behind him the computer pinged its acknowledgment that Justin's record agreed with the data he had just supplied.

Justin took a deep breath. He could move on now, but if Elizabeth's guess was correct and not simply the out-welling of grief, Adderson could be a valuable resource—or a potential enemy.

"Could you tell me what you recall of the King's last day—the little, personal details?"

Adderson looked suspicious. "You're not looking to sell this to the newsies, are you?"

"No, I'm not." Justin kept his instinctive resentment from his voice. "I'm asking so that I can tell Queen Elizabeth. She's just lost her father, her mother is brokenhearted, and her little brother . . ."

"Poor Prince Michael," Adderson said. "So young to have so much sorrow."

"Exactly," Justin said. "I wanted to be able to give Beth a verbal portrait of her father's last day. Something for her to hold onto during these next few days when it will be too easy to only remember him laid out for his funeral. Was he cheerful?"

Adderson nodded. "Laughing and teasing the Queen, making plans for their competition. They'd been practicing fancy maneuvers. She was nearly as good as him—better at some things."

Justin nodded, remembering the holo of the King and Queen gracefully gliding, looping through the air side by side. For a moment he entertained the terrible suspicion that Queen Angelique might have plotted to kill her husband, but he dismissed it as soon as it had formed.

"So they agreed to ski separately," Justin prompted.

"That's right," Adderson continued. "The Detail techs checked their equipment, and the King had a bit of a row with them when they refused to pass the ski he'd brought with him."

"Oh?" Justin felt his pulse quicken.

"Yes, it was a new model," Adderson said, "and they didn't like the power reading on the molycirc connecting the ski and the belt unit. The King didn't want to hear what they told him, said he couldn't believe it was malfunctioning. I think it was a new set."

Justin refrained from mentioning that the grav ski had been a gift from the new Queen. If that ever became common knowledge, Elizabeth's own honor might be in question.

"But he listened to the techs' advice?" Justin asked.

"That's right, in the end he did. He had other equipment stored here, from other jaunts, and he ended up using an older set." Adderson frowned. "For all the good it did him."

Determined to distract the captain before he could think too far into the implications of the King's accident, Justin rose.

"Has the computer cleared my identity?"

"It has indeed," Adderson said. "Unless you've altered your hand prints, eye prints, blood, and genotype, you are indeed Justin Zyrr. Do you want to tour the grounds?"

"If I might," Justin said.

"Of course you might," Adderson said. "You're as close to the Queen's husband as you might be, and this is her family's land. The records show that you've been here before."

"Yes."

"Then you know the basic rules." Adderson chuckled and quoted: " `Wear a hat and dark glasses to protect you from the sun's glare, don't eat the salt, and carry water along if you expect to be out more than a short time.' "

"I have everything I need in my air car."

"Then take your walk. I'll keep a weather eye on you from here." Adderson paused as if considering, then he continued, "And you may meet another man walking about out there. He's a scrawny fellow with a fringe of white hair—pre-prolong. I didn't ask and he didn't say, but I believe he may be with the Security Ministry. The computer accepted his clearance faster even than it did your own."

"Thank you for warning me," Justin said. "I'd have been startled to meet someone out there unaware. I'll check in with you before I leave."

"Thank you, Mr. Zyrr."

Justin gathered hat, glasses, and a belt flask of water. Then he crunched down the sandy blue slope to the flats over which the King and Queen had skied just the day before.

He didn't really have much idea what Beth expected him to find. Popular wisdom still held that a criminal would be drawn to the scene of the crime, but, even if that were true, the assassin would be mingling now with the throng of pilgrims, perhaps gloating, feeding on their grief, or perhaps feeling remorse, an urge to confess . . .

No, that would be too easy. Adderson's recollection that the King's ski had indeed been changed for another set—a set that could have been sabotaged in advance—did lend some credence to Beth's theories, but then it had been the difference between the skis that had led her to become suspicious in the first place. To pursue that too closely would be merely to confirm circular logic. He needed something more.

Trudging across the blue salt sand, he wasn't at all certain he would find anything, but for Beth he would continue to look.

Using what landmarks he remembered from the holo, Justin located the general area where King Roger must have crashed. Here the glittering blue crystal sand was gouged and torn, not only from the King's fall, but from the emergency vehicles and personnel who had rushed out to him.

Hunkering down, Justin shifted some of the salt through his gloved fingers, knowing even as he did so that the effort was futile. Perhaps he should go to the morgue where the King's body was being prepared for the viewing, but what could he learn there? He was no pathologist, no forensics specialist. He was just a research engineer!

Footsteps crunching across the sand brought him from his revery. Rising and turning in one graceful motion, he faced the newcomer.

"Justin Zyrr?"

The man who extended his hand in a friendly manner was small and wiry, his features shadowed beneath the brim of a wide straw hat. Justin's general impression was of twinkling grey eyes set amid deep lines and a great floppy mustache. He took the proffered hand and shook it firmly.

"I am Justin Zyrr."

"Captain Adderson told me I might find you out here." The man's voice seemed too deep to come from such a slim chest. "I decided to make `might' a certainty."