Mark Tiedemann - Chimera

Chief Palen no longer seemed angry, but Derec felt uneasy under her gaze.

"We'll have to post an agent with the robot," Harwol said.

"That's out of the question-" Polifos began.

Leri jabbed his elbow into Polifos's ribs. "In company with one of our own security officers," he said, "I don't see a problem with that."

Harwol looked miserable. Derec guessed that his orders had been vague but succinct. He was ill-prepared to negotiate, and he knew his presence in Auroran embassy precincts was questionable at best.

"We require full disclosure," he said.

"We would probably require your help in any case," Hofton said. "I am curious, though. You said in the case of a death of a Terran agent. What Terran agent?"

Harwol clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head.

Derec stared at him. "You had agents in that group of baleys."

Harwol met his stare stoically. Finally, though, he nodded.

"Shit," Palen hissed.

"Well," Hofton said, "that changes a few things."

Derec stepped up to Palen. "Maybe you should show us the crime scene now. I think it's time we all see for ourselves." Derec gazed up at the cargo bin. Till now, he had only seen it on a screen. Small and manipulable on his desktop, it lacked any impact. Here, though, it disturbed him. It was both larger and smaller than he had expected.

People were going to travel to another star system in this…?

Lights shone within the container. Folding tables held portable datums, but no one paid any attention to them. Derec looked at the office where Palen and Harwol talked with Leri and Hofton. Derec feared a jurisdictional fight, the worst kind of battle. Hofton, at least, was capable of steering the situation past that-if he was allowed to.

Derec wandered to the row of datums, keeping watch out of the comer of his eyes for any move from the armed officers spaced around the bay to stop him. He occupied a fuzzy zone in the hierarchy, so the odds were even that he could do nearly anything he wanted.

Most of the screens showed blank. Two contained schematics of the interior of the bin. A third showed a chemical analysis of some kind. To Derec, it looked like a crystalline structure, but he could not identify it. He stepped closer to one of the schematics.

Cages supported acceleration couches arrayed around the inside surface of the bin. A very simple design, easily modified, completely modular. The rebreather unit sat bolted to what was now the floor but in freefall would be just another bulkhead.

Fifty-three couches.

How many bodies?

Fifty-two. Logically, the empty couch would have held the murderer.

Who got out how, exactly? Derec wondered.

The only evidence of escape was the crack in the hull in which Nyom Looms' body had caught. But that hole was far too small for anyone to slip through.

So that meant the killer did everything before lift-off and remained on Earth.

That did not follow, either. What would have prevented the robot from opening the hatch and saving the baleys by just admitting fresh air? No, the only time the poison would have been effective-and the robot ineffective-would have been in freefall, in vacuum.

Therefore, the killer was in the container and committed the murders en route to Kopernik.

The crack let out the atmosphere, forcing the baleys to stay on the rebreather, which eventually poisoned them. The robot had attempted to intervene-hence the blood and material in its hands-and failed. It would have been forced to do what? Whatever it could. It was found trying to shut off the rebreather.

Which would have meant suffocation for the baleys.

Either way, they would be dead.

So one of the bodies removed from the bin had to be the killer. Easy enough to check, just find one with tom clothes.

But how could the DW-12 attack a human?

And what about that empty couch? Derec assumed they would have known how many passengers, so what good would one extra couch be unless it was for someone who intended to get out before discovery?

Or for someone who never showed…

He crossed the bay to the cargo bin. No one stopped him as he entered.

Lights brightly illuminated the inside. He climbed up the scaffolding that supported the couches to the crack in the ceiling. The metal showed a clear curve where something had gouged it from the interior and pushed it out. Derec ran his hand over the surface and found a number of indentations on either side. A hand?

"Sir."

Derec looked at the entrance. A uniform stood there, sidearm out.

"I have to ask you to leave," she said. "You aren't supposed to be in here."

"Really?" Derec climbed down. "Why is that?"

"This is a crime scene, sir. "

He stepped past her. "It is, indeed. Thank you for pointing that out."

Derec entered the office-and walked straight into a full-blown argument between Palen and Harwol.

Harwol was fuming. "-what in hell you thought you were doing, but you overstepped you authority by a considerable margin!"

"This is my station, Harwol," Palen shot back. "It is my margin!"

"Excuse me," Derec said.

Everyone looked at him. Palen and Harwol both were breathing hard.

"I was wondering, " Derec continued, "if anyone had bothered to count the bodies."

"Of course we did, Avery," Palen snapped. "We counted them as we carried them out."

"Yes, but have you counted them since?"

Palen frowned at him, mouth open.

"I didn't think so," Derec said. "Maybe we should."

Coren almost reached for her, to pull her into Wenithal's apartment. Jeta Fromm tensed, looked left and right, then, with a harsh sigh of frustration, stepped forward.

"Shut the damn door, gato," she muttered.

She stopped halfway between Coren and Wenithal, who still held his pistol in her direction. Coren closed the door, the soft snik bringing her around to face him again. Her long, almost gaunt face showed anger and fear. She blinked nervously. Coren glanced at Wenithal, who now looked away, hands clasped in his lap.

"You've wrecked my life," Jeta said suddenly. "That's going to cost a bit more than my usual fee. "

"Where've you been?" Coren asked. "I tried to find you right after-"

"Right after you gave me away to the sanitaries? What happened, did they offer you more credits than your wildest imagination? Or did you just decide to piss on some warren rat for fun and see how long it took her to die?"

"The 'sanitaries'?" Ariel asked.

Jeta glared over her shoulder. "Who are you?"

Coren cleared his throat loudly. "Sanitaries are enforcers. They clean up things. Sanitation workers."

Ariel made a silent "Oh" and nodded. "How clever," she said. "I'm Ambassador Ariel Burgess from the Auroran Embassy. Pleased to meet you, Ms…?"

"This is Jeta Fromm," Coren announced. "The freelance data troll who found Nyom for me…then vanished before I could thank her for doing basically what she's accusing me of."

"Me?" Jeta shouted. "You vatdrip! Someone's tried to kill me twice since I talked to you, once right after you left with the data I got you. Second time was at the Lyzig tube station, morning after I took off."

"Did Cobbel and Renz tell you I was looking for you?"

Jeta frowned uncertainly, just for a moment, then looked away. "I was looking for you myself."

Coren caught Ariel's eye and gave a slight shake of his head.

"Who did you tell about the baleys?" he asked.

"You," Jeta said.

"Who else?" Coren took two quick steps toward her. She backed up only one. "They were all murdered, Jeta! Fifty-two dead baleys! Someone knew they'd been found, and killed any possible witnesses! If I'm the only one you told, then how did they know?"

"I'm asking you the same question! How did they find me?"