by M. G. Herron
Even though she was mad at me—it seemed like everyone was mad at me for some reason—I trusted her instincts. The sensible part of me was also keenly aware that I wouldn’t be able to kick her out without making a scene. I was out of options. So I did the only thing I could do, and rolled with it.
Turning, I began to walk the downward spiral of the corkscrew boardwalk, joining the crowd. As expected, Anna followed.
“Try not to look like such a tourist,” I whispered to her over my shoulder. I felt like a tourist myself, but I was doing my best to act casual.
Anna took off her sunglasses and pocketed them, then adjusted her hat. We still drew side-eyed glances from the crowd, but once we were walking at a normal pace and not staring so obviously, the attention we drew became less intense, and I began to enjoy watching Anna gawk around and occasionally gasp.
She was in paranormal heaven.
Once, she shuffled up so she was pressing her soft body against my back, and whispered, “Did you see those gray-skinned guys with the big eyes? I bet they inspired the Roswell stories. Oh my god, what I’d give to interview one of them…”
“Uh-huh.” With her breasts pressed up against me like that, and her hand clutching my bicep, I was having trouble forming words that were more than noises of vague acknowledgement.
“Later,” I managed to say, grabbing her wrist and dragging her onward. “We have somewhere to be.”
She gave me a look and narrowed her eyes slightly, but started to move faster.
The gate to the racetrack was just up ahead. I could tell it was open before I could see it because the stream of offworlders around and ahead of us suddenly surged forward.
When Anna spotted the racetrack, she gave me a look. “Horse races?”
“Not exactly,” I said, smirking. “You’re going to love this. Come on, let’s find our seats and I’ll explain.”
The seat Hix had chosen for me was across from the gate, in the middle of the track, but high in the bleachers. A little far away if you were here to watch the races—Vinny’s seats had been much closer to the track itself—but this one was good for our purposes, giving us a wide vantage of the entire crowd.
As we stepped down to our assigned row, I whispered, touching my ear out of habit, like I would with a regular earpiece, although it wasn’t necessary for this one. The tiny bug in my ear transmitted my voice just fine. “Hix, Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Gunn. Who’s the girl?”
He must have been in the camera room with Wally.
“She’s with me. Just point out our guys, would ya?”
“Wally will once you’re seated,” prompted Hix. “I changed someone else’s ticket so there’s an extra seat next to yours for the girl. I’m going to make my rounds. You just make sure she doesn’t get in the way. Now that you’ve roped us into this stage play, we’ve only got one chance to get it right.”
I clenched my jaw, grinding my teeth.
“Who are you talking to?” Anna asked.
“Remember when I said I was going to be setting a trap?”
She nodded.
“The game is on.”
Her eyes brightened. “Good, I was afraid I’d missed it. What can I do to help?”
“Pretend to be interested in the races.”
As I said it, the ramp lowered and a pair of Jel’ka darted into the arena, sprinting in opposite directions around the track.
Anna gasped, a hand going to her mouth. Guess she didn’t have to pretend. “They’re beautiful!”
“And vicious.”
“Every rose has its thorn, Gunn. What are these lovely, colorful birds called?”
“Jel’ka.”
Anna was equally delighted when we sat next to an elderly, gray-skinned Lodian. Anna took the empty seat to my left. He wore slacks, loafers, and a baggy blue blazer over hunched shoulders. He was completely bald, and the characteristic ridges of his species were sunken into the wrinkles of his sagging skin. He smiled and nodded at me as I took the seat next to him, and I had a brief moment to wonder what the average lifespan of a Lodian was. This dude was that old.
On the other side of Anna sat a group of excited young Torliks, their attention fixated on the running Jel’ka just like Anna’s was.
“Would you mind watching my seat for a second?” the old man asked.
No harm in that, I thought. “Sure.”
“Thanks,” he said, then muttered, “Bladder’s not what it used to be.”
I took note of the empty beer cup on the floor at his feet and nodded.
When the old Lodian had left, I put the binoculars in my lap and said. “All right, Wally. Show me the money.”
18
What money?” Wally asked.
With a regular earpiece, I would’ve had a hard time hearing him over the deafening roar of the quickly-filling stands. Incredibly, Wally’s voice in my head was crystal clear, sharp and nasally. It was like Wally’s voice was being piped directly into my brain.
Hell of a thing. But I had more important things to focus on apart from how the offworlder tech worked.
I had a suspect to fish out.
“Earther movie reference. Never mind. Point our suspects out to me so I can keep an eye on them.” I squinted at the stands around and across from me.
Beside me, one of Anna’s eyebrows quirked up under the brim of her hat. She was listening to the one-sided conversation with one ear while watching the race and gasping at all the right moments. Genuine gasps of shock and surprise, too, nothing faked. The Jel’ka were now leaping through rings of fire. Rashiki circled in his pod overhead, opening the race in his best dramatic announcer’s voice, a big smile plastered on his face.
“…and during intermission,” Rashiki’s voice boomed. “Seven lucky guests will be invited to a private tour of the Jel’ka stables! A few tickets have already been distributed, but three remain, and three lucky winners will be also chosen from among those in attendance here tonight!” His voice reverberated around the stands as Rashiki made another lap in the air over the track.
The crowd roared their delight at this news. Rashiki had been right about the appeal of that prize.
“They’re all seated now,” Wally said in ear. “Let’s start with Perekles Urkstaff, who is sitting below you, to your right. Row three, seat three forty five.”
I put the high-tech binoculars to my face and looked where Wally had indicated. It took me a while to make sense of the seat numbers, but I finally found him, the first Pangozil on our suspect list. His cotton toga was a different color today, a deep maroon, but even from behind I recognized his arrogant—some would call it “regal”—bearing. I pointed Perekles out to Anna and handed her the binoculars.
“According to Rashiki’s files,” I explained while she looked, “Perekles was some kind of beaurocratic functionary, an ambassador or something. After he failed to broker a deal and fell out of favor with the higher ups on his home planet, he came to Earth to retire. Which I think might be a nice way to say he was socially ostracized and moved to the sticks to escape. He doesn’t seem like a friendly dude.”
I took a second look at the Pangozil when Anna handed the binoculars back. He sat ramrod straight in his maroon robes and watched the races with a lifted chin, his nose high in the air, rubbing two betting chips together between his palms.
“Where’s the next one, Wally?”
“Directly across the track from you, seat six seventy five.”
I lifted the binoculars from Perekles and pointed them across the track at the sixth row. Again, it took a moment to find who I was looking for because I was unfamiliar with the seat numbering.
There weren’t all that many Pangozil in the crowd, and I finally recognized the one with the skin condition that I had initially mistook for some kind of drug addict. He was scratching at an open sore under his ear, and in the enhanced view through the binoculars I could see small particles of dead skin floating down to dust his bare shoulders with e
ach itch. Today he wore jeans, but again, no shirt or shoes.
“This one’s name is Amarkis Oleander. All of these Pangozil have fancy names.”
Anna took the binoculars and studied him. Her nose wrinkled. “What’s his deal?”
“The file said he had some kind of skin condition. He doesn’t look like he’s smart enough to orchestrate the kind of scheme our hooded assailant pulled off, but the last thing I want to do is underestimate anyone. Appearances can be deceiving. Wally, who’s next?”
“Up above Amarkis about six rows, and slightly to the left.”
This time, I spied the dark-furred Pangozil, the one with scars along his head and neck. His name was… my mind grasped for my mnemonic device—Emergency Room…ER…Ezembaster Releclaw. The cuts on Ezembaster’s neck and head were long-since healed, a faint puckered pink color. Not a skin condition, but old scars that gave him a menacing appearance, matching the scowl on his face. His snout was the stubbiest and blockiest of the Pangozil.
I showed Anna.
“He doesn’t look friendly, either,” Anna pointed out.
“The info Rashiki provided says he was an overpriced personal bodyguard back on Lodi. Worked for some rich guy and was able to retire early. I’ve been wondering whether he’s ex-military, too. Rashiki didn’t have much info on anything beyond his recent job history.”
Ezembaster looked like a tightly coiled spring. His shoulders had the upright, confident posture military men acquired after years of being trained to stand at attention. Even when they relaxed, he was still alert. While I thought I could match him in a fist fight, I also wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley. And while he watched the Jel’ka races with interest, he seemed to be highly aware of every movement happening around him. He sat next to the aisle, and when a young Torlik boy tripped on the step and pitched forward, Ezembaster reached out and caught the kid with a quick hand.
“All right Wally, where’s the last one?”
“Left side of the track, at the far end. Second row above the medical access elevator.”
I was immediately suspicious. Quick access to the elevator might be ideal for someone who wanted to leave themselves a quick exit if plans went sideways. That kind of thinking would fit the hooded assailant.
But when I found… T2, Terminator Two… Theo Theomorrister in a baggy black suit split by a garishly patterned pink and green tie, a sleek onyx walking cane hooked over his thigh, and a bag of some kind of fried food in his lap, I was taken aback.
He didn’t seem that dangerous at all. In fact, he looked even more like a goofy grandpa in person. The computer may have matched him because he fit the body type, but…
Looking closer, I saw one of the pieces of fried food twitch, and I realized that they were tiny, battered insects, still alive. Did they have wings?
A little cricket—or whatever the bugs were—hopped out of the bag. Theo Theomorrister snagged him out of the air and popped the little bastard into his mouth, crunching down with satisfaction.
“Ugh,” I said.
“Oh, oh, I wanna see,” Anna said.
I let her take the binoculars from me. A moment later her mouth twisted and she grimaced. “Oh, gross, they’re still jumping!”
But I noticed Anna didn’t look away, either.
I chuckled, and so did the elderly Lodian as he returned. He smiled as he sat down. His teeth were yellowed with age, but his face was open and honest. I immediately felt drawn to him. He was the first offworlder I’d met at Rashiki’s who hadn’t regarded me with utter suspicion.
“Thanks,” he said. “Interesting crowd, isn’t it?”
I nodded, keeping one eye on Perekles below us. “You could say that.”
“First time? You two seem to be enjoying yourselves.”
“We are.”
He smiled and leaned back in his chair, perhaps sensing that I was distracted.
It was true, I didn’t want to lose sight of my suspects. But then, wasn’t this what I had originally come to Vinny for? To learn more about offworlders so that I could parse the mystery of the Gatekeeper’s original request? Now, sitting beside me completely by chance, was a friendly offworlder—a Lodian, no less—who might be willing to talk to me.
This realization passed in an instant. The moment it came together, a tingle scampered up my spine. I would be a fool not to take advantage of this opportunity. The Jel’ka would race for an hour before the intermission, at least.
“Keep an eye on those Pangozil for me, would ya?” I whispered to Anna. Then I turned back to the old Lodian.
“I’m Anderson,” I said, holding out my hand.
He took it, hands callused and—although smaller than mine—they packed a mighty grip. Whatever he did for a living, it was hard, physical labor.
“Tanamir,” he responded.
“You’re Lodian, right?”
He nodded, a twinkle in his eyes. “That’s right.”
“Just trying to get my species straight—hope that's the right term.” I laughed and he smiled, which I took as a good sign. “I’m curious, if you don’t mind my asking, what brought you all the way to Earth? What’s a gentlemen of your age doing in a backwater like this?”
He chuckled. “It’s not all that bad, is it?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I think we live in the most prosperous nation on Earth, at the height of our world’s civilization. I wake up every morning and thank God to be able to spend my days on this planet. But the rest of the offworlders I’ve met think Earth is some kind of hillbilly backwater. From what I understand, most come here to escape their former lives. And because of the Federation regulations, they live here in hiding. I just want to understand why.”
His expression darkened. “I can understand where you’re coming from. It’s not something most would feel comfortable talking about. But the Federation is not the splendid utopia they would have you believe. The appeal of your world is simply that, thanks to its ignorance of other intelligences occupying the galactic neighborhood, Earth remains untainted by Federation influence. Only an obscure regulation about silent planets, written into the millennia-old system of laws my ancestors created to keep intergalactic peace, keeps them from interfering here.”
“Wow,” I said, taken aback. “I kind of had an idea, but no one has put it to me quite like that before.”
Anna, beside me, was also paying close attention even as she swung the binoculars between our suspects. Crowd-watching seemed to be the perfect cover.
My gaze was drawn upward as Rashiki made a shrill announcement. The first racing Jel’ka entered their starting gates.
The old man shrugged. “Age gives me a certain… freedom of perspective. Besides, you’re not wrong that most offworlders who move to a fringe planet like Earth do so to escape their troubles. It’s no surprise that they have no interest in speaking of their former lives. Me, I’m an open information system.”
The old Lodian smiled blandly, then waved down a vendor moving among the bleachers and ordered another beer. He offered me one, but I didn’t want to lose my head right now, so I politely declined.
The starting pistol in Rashiki’s hand cracked, the gates flung wide, and the brightly feathered raptors tore out across the dirt track on the first race of the evening. The noise of the crowd soon made talking with my neighbor challenging, and we lapsed into silence.
Except for the drama unfolding on the dirt track, the next hour of races passed uneventfully. One Jel’ka tumbled down off a jump and broke its ankle, only to be spirited below by medical personnel. Another race was punctuated by laughter when a trailing Jel’ka jumped through a flaming ring and caught his tail feathers on fire. The surprise was followed by shocked gasps from the crowd when the literal fire on his ass propelled him into a surprise victory.
Next came a new kind of race I hadn’t seen before, one involving small robots bearing neon lights. My heart leapt into my throat until I saw that these robots were of a different, ball-shaped construction tha
n the ones that had attacked me. They were batted around the track by pairs of Jel’ka organized into teams. The tactical nature of such a game, with paired teams pitted against each other, reminded me how intelligent the Jel’ka seemed to be.
In dinosaur movies, velociraptors were always the ones people underestimated. I had no intention of making the same mistake as the morons in those films, pretty feathers aside.
My suspects sat glued to their seats. Apart from one nervous span of time when old Theo doddered up the stairs to hit the head and returned shortly thereafter, they all stayed in my sight.
Theo snacked, Perekles gazed haughtily, Amarkis itched, and Ezembaster scowled.
As we approached the intermission, a pair of Torliks coming down the stairs behind us whispered with their heads together, but even among the noise of the racetrack I caught a couple snippets of their conversation.
“…human authorities crawling all over the club…”
“…I can’t believe it…was just there last night…”
“Who do you think the Gatekeeper pissed off this time?”
“Shh. I don’t know, but keep your voice down.”
The elderly Lodian caught me eavesdropping. He was studying the small cuts on my face, and for the first time since we’d sat down, I felt self-conscious.
“They were talking about the attack on Harbor earlier today, weren’t they?” I asked.
“Many are. Powerful offworlders like the Gatekeeper are bound to make enemies.”
“Who would be stupid enough to do that to him, though?” I asked the question hoping that I would get confirmation of my earlier suspicion that it was, indeed, the Tetrad behind it.
Tanamir shrugged and seemed to lose interest. He sipped at his beer and gazed out into the track. I let him hold his silence. The downstream effects of what had happened today were obviously still reverberating throughout the offworlder community.