Mark Tiedemann: Chimera

"In a detention cell?" Sipha asked wryly. "She was alive when we put her in there. Small-quantity Brethe peddler, nothing major, ever-public nuisance, more than anything else. She was supposed to be, you see, because she worked for me."

"Regular cop?"

"No, she really did used to deal in black market. I made her a better deal. It worked out. She worked the Settler section for me."

Coren felt himself smile. "And when there was something really important to report…?"

"She got herself arrested. This hadn't been the first time she'd visited one of my cells. The next shift, we found her like this. Very simply, every bone in her body had been broken. A lot of them were crushed."

"What was she reporting?"

"I don't know. She came in 'under the influence.' I was tied up with arranging all this for you and didn't get a chance to talk to her."

"No one heard or saw anything?"

"Evidently not. That's why I'm not really sure about my people. Can you think of a way that could happen and no one on watch would know about it?"

Coren shook his head. "What about surveillance?"

"Blank for that section. I suspended two of my officers for negligence, but I honestly don't think they were the ones who did it. Someone with a bit more expertise fiddled the recorders. The problem with that is, I have at least five people on my staff who could have done it, but none of them has a motive." Sipha gestured toward the image on the screen. "Besides, look at that and tell me how it was done. A couple of adjusters with clubs? I don't think so."

"But since you don't really suspect your two discipline cases, you have an idea. "

Sipha nodded. "During autopsy we came up with this. " She tapped the keypad. "The bruising is uninterrupted over the entire body and none of the fractures are consistent with blows. "

The screen changed, showing an image of a shoulder, blackened like rotting fruit. Sipha adjusted the scan and one shape emerged, slightly darker than the surrounding bruise. Coren stared at the vague outline of a hand. An odd hand, to be sure, the fingers too thick and short, the spread too wide.

"Was it clear enough for any kind of prints?" he asked.

"No prints. Perfectly smooth except for a couple of joints. And the bone beneath this impression had been ground nearly to powder. No, partner mine, this isn't a human hand."

"A robot?" He shook his head. "But you said-"

"I said that robot-" she pointed out at the bay "-didn't do it. But that's still my best guess. And if a robot did this-" she gestured at the screen "-if a robot-maybe your second mystery robot -got into my cells and did this, then I have a serious problem." She looked up at him. "Will you help me?"

"I-" Coren began.

The door opened. One of Sipha's men leaned in. "Chief, you need to see this. " "Couple things," the older man-Baxin, Sipha's staff pathologist -said when Sipha and Coren entered the bin. He pointed at the rebreather unit. The umbilicals had all been disconnected and had retracted into the unit. "That's a standard Fain-Bischer rebreather. About six years old, out of date, but still in good working order. No reason it won't last another hundred years once it's been cleaned out."

"Cleaned out of what?" Sipha asked.

"We don't know yet, but it's evident from the postures of the deceased that they've been poisoned. Something in the rebreather, we assume. Something clever, too. The filtration system should have blocked it, but it didn't." He nodded sharply. "That's one thing. The other…" He pointed up.

Nyom's body had been taken down and now they could see how she had been suspended. The roof had a crack in it, about half a meter long and perhaps five to eight centimeters at the widest. The metal around it was discolored, heat-scored.

"The bin was pressurized," the tech explained. "The air leaked out through that crack. My guess is that the body was drawn to it during freefall. The fabric of her pants got caught in it. "

"Did decompression kill her?" Coren asked.

"No. A broken neck did that. She was dead before she got stuck in the ceiling."

Coren looked down at the rebreather. "Why? If everyone else was poisoned…" He looked around. "Where's the robot?"

"I've got it in an impound locker," Baxin said. "I didn't know where else to put it."

Sipha extended her hand. "Give me the tag. I'll take care of the robot. How long on autopsies?"

"Fifteen, twenty hours," Baxin said. "A few preliminaries sooner than that maybe. "

"What made the crack?" Coren asked. "It looks intentional. "

"It is," Baxin said. "Heat induction, industrial grade drill or welder, crystallized the metal, made it brittle."

"What kind?"

"We don't have it. There's nothing in here that would do that."

"Not even the robot?"

"No, I don't think so. Specialized tool, in my opinion."

Coren gave the hole in the roof a last glance, then left the bin.

When Sipha joined him, he said, "Doesn't make sense. Who broke her neck if Coffee didn't?"

She glanced at him. " 'Coffee'?"

"That's what she called the robot." He saw Sipha's expression. "Don't ask me, I don't know why. But who else could have broken her neck?"

"We'll check the bodies to see if time of death matches in all cases. But I still think you're wrong about the robot. Maybe it knew they were being poisoned-that's what it was trying to stop."

"How did it know? And who-"

"I know, who broke Nyom's neck. Maybe the same one who crushed that Brethe dealer?"

"And which one would that be? Which dead one in that bin who had never been to Kopernik before would that be?" Coren asked sarcastically. "Oh, wait, I know. The same one who cracked a hole in the bin with an inducer that no one can find. "

Sipha snarled at him. "I don't damn well know, Coren. So I repeat: will you help me?"

He nodded. "Oh, yes. I'll help you. No question." He mulled his options for a few seconds. "I'm going back down. You can handle the autopsies without me. Also, I'll need ID on all of them."

"What's down there?" Sipha frowned. Clearly, she had thought they would be working together for a few days.

"I have a couple of people to talk to. For one, the data troll who put me onto Nyom in the first place. I want to find those people Nyom was dealing with, and she's my best chance right now." He drew a deep breath. "And we're going to need a roboticist."

"There's a lab full of them here-"

"Do you trust them?"

Sipha scowled, then shook her head. "Not till I find out who killed my Brethe dealer. "

"I'll see if I can take care of that, then."

"I suppose you know a roboticist?"

"Of one, yes. I think it's best to stay away from anyone involved directly with the Spacer sector on Kopernik."

Sipha nodded. "I'll get you on the next shuttle back to D.C."

"No, not D.C. Lyzig District-that's where my informant lives. I'll take the suborbital back to D.C. after I talk to her. Send me the autopsy data when you have it."

"What are you going to say to Looms?"

Coren shook his head. "I'll worry about that when I see him."

The flight down frightened him more than the trip up to Kopernik. Perhaps it was the idea of falling, but Coren felt at the edge of panic from the moment the shuttle left dock till he walked, legs trembling, into the concourse at Lyzig Station. It did not make sense-he never reacted this way on a semiballistic-and he resented the idea that it was all psychosomatic. He went directly to a public restroom and rinsed his face in cold water, then sat in a stall till the sweating and nausea passed.

"Never again," he muttered as he finally gathered himself up. He checked his watch-twenty minutes wasted getting over his reaction-and left the restroom.

He rented a locker and shoved his one bag inside, then headed for the station lobby.