Timothy Zahn - Judgment at Proteus

For a moment I considered asking how he thought I could have pulled off a cold-blooded murder with my station-issue conscience Doug at my side. But given that both Doug and Ty were presumably supposed to be sticking close to me, and given the fact that only one of them was actually there with me in my cell, I decided it might not be the wisest thing to bring that up. I still didn’t know what this tag-team game was that the watchdogs were playing, but I didn’t want to draw any attention to it until I had a few answers of my own. “Understood,” I said instead. “What about the rest?”

Wandek frowned. “The rest of what?”

“The rest of the suspects,” I said. “I figure the list includes everyone who works in Buildings Twelve and Eight, plus the night crews in the other buildings—oh, hell, let’s just make it everyone in the medical dome and be done with it. Plus all the victim’s friends and enemies, of course.”

“Do not mock me,” Wandek warned darkly. “You are the one who was found with the body.”

“Which either makes me the dumbest murderer in this half of the galaxy or else makes my story true,” I countered. “But suit yourself. If I were you, though, I’d get that autopsy up and running as soon as possible. There’s this thing we Humans call the 24/24 rule: the most important part of a murder investigation are the twenty-four hours immediately before the crime, and the twenty-four hours immediately afterward.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Wandek said with an edge of sarcasm. “In the meantime, you will stay here.” He turned a glare onto Minnario and Bayta. “The discussion is over. Return to your quarters.”

I looked at Bayta, noting the fresh tightness in her expression. “Bayta will be staying here,” I said quickly.

“What do you say?” Wandek demanded.

“I want her here with me,” I told him. “Which part of that didn’t you get?”

Wandek turned to Bayta, his blaze going into full mottle mode again. “That is ridiculous,” he insisted. “She is charged with no crime.”

“No, but since you haven’t yet charged the real suspects with the crime, it’s got a sort of weird yin/yang to it,” I said. “She can bunk down in the other cell.”

“No,” Wandek said firmly. “Keeping her here could be construed as an unstated charge, permitting the possibility of counteraction against Kuzyatru Station. I cannot permit it.”

[There would be no such liabilities if the cell door was left open,] Minnario spoke up. [If her actions aren’t hindered, there would be no construing that she was under charges.]

“She could even sign a contract waiving her right to counteraction if those parameters are met,” I added.

Wandek bit out a phrase that had somehow been missed in the Westali language classes. But contracts were king, queen, and the whole royal flush in the Filiaelian Assembly, and now that I’d invoked that magic word he would have a hard time turning down my request. “I will prepare the contract,” he said reluctantly. He turned a baleful eye on Bayta and raised his voice. {Lieutenant of the Guard? Come at once and open this cell.}

One of the Jumpsuits hurried forward. He reached for my cell door—{The other one, fool,} Wandek gritted.

The Jumpsuit frowned in obvious confusion. But an usantra had spoken. Dutifully, he touched the pad of the unoccupied cell. The door gave a snick, and he pulled it open. {Is the Human female also to be charged with murder?} he asked.

{She merely wishes lodging for the night,} Wandek growled. {She may come and go as she pleases. See that she and the prisoner are fed in the morning.}

{I obey, Usantra Wandek,} the Jumpsuit said.

Without another word, Wandek spun around and strode from the room. Once again, the loitering Jumpsuits made sure to get out of his way.

[I take my leave, as well,] Minnario said. He looked around and leaned in close to me. [Whatever speech you wish to share, remember there’s a camera pointed at you,] he added quietly. Getting a grip on his chair’s controls, he swiveled around and headed out in Wandek’s wake. This time, none of the Jumpsuits bothered to interfere.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Bayta asked softly.

I looked behind me. The two cells were set up as mirror images of each other, with the cots pressed end to end against the dividing set of bars. “Later,” I said, giving an elaborate yawn that required no acting whatsoever. “Let’s get to bed, shall we?”

Bayta’s eyes flicked past me to the cot arrangement. “Good idea,” she said.

She stepped through the door of her new quarters and walked to her bed, lying down with her head to the bars. Ty, for once, didn’t try to hog the headboard position, but merely curled up on the floor beside her. I lay down, too, my head toward Bayta’s, then gave the three remaining Jumpsuits in the room a baleful look. “Do you mind?” I asked. “A little privacy, if you please. You can also turn off the lights while you’re at it.”

Taking their own sweet time about it, the three Fillies strolled from the room. The lights, naturally, stayed on.

“Are you all right,” Bayta whispered. “I mean, really all right?”

“As all right as someone can be who’s being framed for yet another murder,” I told her sourly. “They’re doing an especially terrific job on this one, too. Did I mention that the two cameras in the dome had already been taken out when I got there?”

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “How was it done?”

“One of them was twisted up on its gimbals where it couldn’t see anything but the top of the dome,” I said. “The other isn’t even there anymore. No idea when it was done, but certainly sometime before the murderer got busy.”

“So that no one would see the killing,” Bayta murmured.

“ And so that I couldn’t prove when in the timeline I arrived on the scene,” I said. “Fortunately, I have an ace in the hole that so far no one seems to have noticed.”

“The msikai-dorosli ?”

“Exactly,” I said. “I didn’t see much of the victim before I was hauled away, but I saw enough to know that he’d been stabbed at least twice. They looked a lot like the wounds Muzzfor inflicted on our allies aboard the super-express.”

“Allies.” Even in a whisper, I could sense the odd flatness to the word. “I’m sorry, but it still sounds wrong to talk about the Modhri that way.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to get used to it,” I assured her. “That was a specific mind segment, in a specific situation, and the truce we had died when he did. So just forget it.”

“I’m trying,” Bayta said. “So you’re saying one of the Shonkla-raa was the killer?”

“I’ll know better if and when I get a look at the autopsy,” I said. “Those fancy self-locking stabbing fingers Muzzfor had aren’t likely to be mistaken for a knife or any other kind of weapon. It’s probably too much to hope that we’ll be able to match the wounds to any specific fingers, but we should at least be able to prove they were fingers.”

“Though a specific match may not be impossible,” Bayta said thoughtfully. “The Proteus computer system is quite extensive.”

“So I’ve noticed,” I said. “Speaking of which, what exactly were you doing on the computer when I went to bed?”

There was just the briefest hesitation. “I was mostly just looking around,” she said.

“Mostly?”

“Yes,” she said, her tone warning me to drop it. “We’ve talked about how those enhanced Shonkla-raa throats look like the ones Filiaelian opera singers sometimes get to extend their range and volume.”

Whereas the Shonkla-raa used their additional vocal capacity to send out an ultrasonic tone that could paralyze Spiders and take control of Modhran walkers. All things considered, I’d rather have opera. “So what were you were looking for, the headquarters of the Proteus Operatic Society?”