“You did say you want to see the context?” I waved three claws at the vehicles. “Will I whistle up a scene-of-crime bot?”
I walked round the flatbed. The front had been caved in, and the torn and stressed metal had rusted badly. I ran a few simulations based on my scanner data. “It was doing better than 140 miles per hour when it struck the limo.”
“No need, both vehicles were scanned with better equipment than we have,” Marshal Harry said. “I just want to look round them and try to put myself in the place of the killer.”
“That’s the oldest limo I’ve ever seen,” I said. “It must be a couple of centuries old.”
“Yes, the paperwork states it’s been in the family for 342 years,” LB said. “This was a part of berOVO’s identity, Zurgl said. He knew him.”
“cruisOVO didn’t tell us that in the office,” Marshal Harry said, nibbling her lip. She climbed up, dragged a door open, and crawled in. The damage to the front did not quite extend as far back as the emergency crew cab, but the doors had buckled slightly.
“I’ve got the reports here,” LB said. “They gave the crew cab an in-depth scan then moved on to the black box.”
Harry’s face reappeared out of the door frame. “Did they climb in, move stuff around?” she asked.
“No, they just opened the door, scanned it, and got onto the black box data logs.”
“Someone’s been in here.”
LB beat me up the side of the flatbed and into the crew cab by a hair’s breadth.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“This chair has been moved.” She pointed to a slider at the base. “Someone with longer legs than me has moved it back. You can see where the dust and grease have been pushed aside. There’s an open slot here. You can see where a cover clipped over it. That must be the auxiliary control slot.”
“But scans found no trace of organic residue in the cab. That’s probably why they didn’t notice the missing panel.”
“So? We had a case where the guy wore a cryosuit,” I pointed out. “He didn’t leave any fingerprints or organic residue behind.”
Harry pulled on a plastic glove and ran a finger back and forth in the slot. “The private investigators concluded the poisoning and crash were committed by a programming genius. But we’ve now confirmed that the poisoning had nothing to do with the servobot, and this murder was carried out on manual. Someone just erased the drone’s logs. That wouldn’t take much specialist knowledge.”
LB slid back down to the road.
“You know what this means? It means anyone could have done the murders. We’re back to square one.”
“Far from it,” Harry said. “Not even close. Someone at the table in the Nice Big Chop restaurant poisoned cruisOVO, and then that same person drove this vehicle. There are only five people who could have done it: the lawyer, the wife, one of the two PAs, or the waitress who served him.”
“The waitress was cleared. No motive,” LB said.
“That was before she came into a large pile of cash and bought her own restaurant,” I said.
“Yes, we’re going there next,” Harry said. “I know it’s getting late and we’ve had a busy day, but I want to talk to this cleoroCASS before dinner.”
“Erm,” LB said. “Guess I’ll stay with the flatbed?”
“See what background you can find on a Qoh Mode called rokALL,” Harry ordered. “PA for 221B about four years ago. Not his real name, but I got the impression he was around her for a few years and it might help us find out where he is now.”
“In that case,” I said. “can we take a lift on the flatbed? Since we’re in a hurry?”
“I can’t perch on the back bumper like you two,” Harry pointed out. I really didn’t want to walk.
“There’s a passenger cab up in the tow drone,” LB said. “I was only sitting on the tailgate because I like the feel of the wind in my fur.”
We took the lift. Harry on a seat in the passenger cab, LB and me on the flatbed. I hung onto the ground car and enjoyed the wind as we hovered along at a brisk fifty miles an hour. This section of town was a step down from Nice Big Chop. The buildings were all standard Waddudu construction, sandstone and clay boxes. The restaurant had a broad front where holographic diners enjoyed and extolled the quality of the food to passers-by, but there were no queues waiting to enter, and no ground cars dropping off.
Marshal Harry dropped to the paved area, studying the holograms.
“That must have cost a lot to inst—"
My cybernetics raised an alarm and I swiped the marshal in the back of the knees with a claw. “Down!” I yelled. “Incoming.”
I pulled Old Number Seven with two claws while another two grabbed the second-stage amplifier. With my main claws, I locked the two pieces together. At the same time, I brought up the four-dimensional targeting suit, pointed the muzzle up, and turned the power up to eleven. The explosion was ninety metres above our heads and must have damaged roofs. I felt the blast push me down, but that’s the advantage of getting around on fourteen legs.
Long Barnacle grabbed Harry by one ankle and dragged her beneath the flatbed. The heat signature appeared at the outer edge of my sensor range. I worked on speed, distance, windage, and shot it at the two-mile mark. The Waddudu mark streets with pheromones for their own kind. I caught a whiff of the street name in the after blast.
“Don’t hide, LB,” I shouted at full volume. “Get into the tow drone and run for it.”
My targeting suit tracked the various wind speeds all the way up to vacuum. The next blast hardly touched us. Bystanders ran and screamed. My sensors picked up the void beneath my feet. I recognised the shape.
“Oh shit.”
Without a word, LB got out from under the trailer, threw the marshal over a shoulder, and loped for the cab.
“Who is shooting at us?” Harry called. Only person I ever met you could put in front of a firing squad and she would still be asking questions in that same insistent way.
“Spaceship in low orbit,” I shouted back. ”It’s outside my scanner range. I’m tracking the missiles coming towards us and can make a guess about where the spaceship is. But I’ve got five shots left and a spaceship has dozens of missiles.”
“Come on then,” LB shouted, holding the door open.
“I can’t leave. We’re standing right on top of the Queen of Shaw’s Egg Chamber,” I said.
“Oh shit,” LB said.
“One of those missiles hits the ground and thousands of Waddudu eggs are dead.”
I could never look the queen in the face if I ran away. I shot another missile.
“Four rounds left. Save the marshal.”
I swear I heard her shout “No” as the flatbed disappeared down the street. The missiles were coming at fifteen second intervals. I had less than a minute to live. I fired, watched a missile blow up. Not a bad way to go, I thought. Quick, as they say.
“But the ship may be making a mistake,” I said to myself. I hoped so, or this could be the shortest last stand in my career. I brought down two more missiles. “I’ve got one more round left in Old Number Seven and then I’ll have to pull Trembling Bob. I’ve got nothing else that can bring down a spaceship.”
The math was the problem. I had factored in Smuds’ orbital spin and the distance to orbit, but I could not get an accurate measure of the speed of the craft.
“I’m going to have to be damn lucky,” I said. I could feel movement under my claws. The nest in full panic mode, moving the eggs, sending soldiers to the surface. But the Waddudu did not have the weapons for this kind of fight. I stood in an empty street, a bug alone, facing the inevitable. Would make a good final image to a biopic, I thought.
A beam of light shot from a Port Authority defence tower, then flicked off. Several seconds later, a faint boom reached street level. Port Authority does not muck about when its rules are infringed.
“Told me they were making a mistake,” I said, putting Old Number Seven away. �
��The ship drifted into Port Authority space and then fired. That’s against the rules.”
While I waited, I performed maintenance on my weapons and checked the news feeds. They announced that a ship had fired on Port City and been destroyed by Port Authority defences. No mention of a centipede making a courageous last stand. Typical.
The tow drone drew up and LB dropped down first.
“Is it safe?” he asked.
“One spaceship destroyed and no sign of anymore missiles, so I think it’s over.”
“Whatever `it` was,” LB said, opening the door and letting the marshal out of the cab.
“Contact Port Authority,” Marshal Harry ordered. “Say thank you for the assist and ask for details of the attacking ship.” She has it in her head that I’m friends with Port Authority.
“What do you want,” it asked when I reached out. Truth is, Port Authority doesn’t have friends. Even other AIs find it dry and humourless.
“I’m to tell you thanks for the assist from Marshal Harry,” I said. “And ask for details of the attacking ship.”
“One, I was not assisting you, I was simply upholding the rules. Two, that information is available for a fee. That is also the rules.”
I passed that last bit on to Marshal Harry, since I’m not authorised to make transactions on behalf of the Marshal Service. People had begun to shuffle back out to the street. They were all looking up but there was nothing to see. Part of Port Authority’s job is to make sure nothing crashes into the planet, and it takes that job very seriously.
“Good day, sir,” Marshal Harry said, cutting in on the Port Authority feed. “Could you assist us with some information about who and what was shooting at us?”
“Yes, for a small fee,” Port Authority said. “As I already told your pet.”
I would have bristled but there’s no point. Bristling is water off a fowl’s back to Port Authority.
“Chunglie is my deputy, sir,” Marshal Harry corrected in a calm way. “Not my pet.”
“Port Authority, it’s me, Long Barnacle,” he broke in. “Could you help us out with that information? Our budget is a little stretched this month—"
“The Marshal Service budget is always stretched,” Port Authority said.
“But It seems those missiles would have struck the Queen of Shaws’ egg store and I am sure she would be grateful to know who arranged that.”
“Why did you not tell me that before, LB?” Port Authority asked. I’d never heard him address someone informally.
“Port Authority,” Marshal Harry interrupted, “send the information to Chunglie, please.”
“Why me?” I asked as the email popped onto my system.
“Because you’re better equipped to examine the data and work out what size ship and perhaps an ID?”
I opened the packet. There was a lot of statistics and tracking information since Port Authority has access to sensors I don’t have. Long Barnacle rapped the top of my head with his knuckles.
“You’re not the only one with surprising friends, eh?” He laughed.
People of various species began crowding around us, looking from me and up to the sky and back.
“Nothing more to see,” Marshal Harry called as she walked towards Big Rump. There was a Qoh Mode woman examining damage to the outside of the building. Between that first blast and the beam Port Authority fired, all the windows were smashed.
“I’ll stay here and check the flatbed for damage. Probably didn’t make any difference to the limo,” LB said when he saw the Qoh Mode.
“Good day, ma’am. Would you be Miss cleoroCASS?” Marshal Harry asked. The Big Rump owner nodded. “I am detective Marshal Harry Ward and this is Deputy Marshal Chunglie. We’ve come to—"
“My, that was quick. I’ve only just called the police about someone letting off explosions and damaging my restaurant.”
I got on with analysing the data. Port Authority’s better sensors allowed me to track the missiles from launch and project the target area with better accuracy.
“We are not here about the broken windows,” Marshal Harry said. “We’re investigating the death of Mr cruisOVO in Nice Big Chop, to which you were a witness.”
“What? But that was years ago… I don’t want to talk about it. I won’t.” She crossed her arms and pulled her head into her chest.
“But you owe me a big favour, lady,” I said.
“You? Why would I owe a bug a favour?”
“I shot those incoming missiles because I thought they were aimed at the marshal—"
“So it is your fault my restaurant was damaged?” cleoroCASS interrupted. “I shall send the repair bill to the marshal’s Service.”
I was getting irritated by her habit of interrupting everyone.
“I’ve just finished analysing the data from Port Authority and I can tell you definitively that the missiles were not aimed at the marshal.”
“They weren’t?” Marshal Harry said. “That makes a nice change.”
“They were not? They were aimed at… you?” cleoroCASS asked me.
“They were aimed at you.” I tapped her knee with a claw.
“Wuh? Wuh?” Was all she managed. I wondered if her expensive-looking translator had taken damage.
“Why would someone shoot at me?”
Oh dear. If there’s one thing I knew about the marshal, it was that she is suspicious when someone answers a question with a question. “Shall we go inside and talk?”
“I’d rather not,” cleoroCASS said.
“Then we can go down to the marshal’s office and put you under caution. After that, your responses will be checked with a lie detector.”
“Oh…Tea or coffee?” cleoroCASS asked, leading the way. “You look like a cappuccino human to me.”
“You have… cappuccino?”
“Oh yes, we serve all species here. We’re not proud.”
“Got any onions?” I asked as I followed them in.
“No!” Marshal Harry said. “We won’t have anything. We are on duty.”
This was news to me. I’ve never refused free anything in my life. But the marshal wore expression number four, which meant she would keep repeating her last statement politely until everyone gave in and went home.
After many years of living in close proximity to a human, I wrote a small pamphlet called Human Facial Contortions Actually Mean Something. It was hailed by the arthropodforms as a breakthrough in cross species communication.
“Why would anyone aim missiles at my restaurant?” cleoroCASS asked as she led the marshal to a table with four human-sized chairs around it. Big Rump had gone with stone floors, high ceilings, and a mix of yellow and green lighting. Two walls were green and two were blue. I got the feeling the décor was trying to please everyone.
“That’s not the question I’m pondering,” Marshal Harry said. “The question really is, who was desperate enough to aim missiles at you and not care how many other people they killed? The second question is, is it connected to the cruisOVO poisoning?”
cleoroCASS’s mouth fell open and she stared at the marshal.
“It cannot be connected to cruisOVO’s poisoning,” she said. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“But you do know something?” Marshal Harry said. “I queried your bank on the way over here. The money was put into your account three days after the poisoning.”
News to me, Marshal Harry must have been messaging the bank while I was shooting the missiles down. Her marshal status gave her access to banks that a deputy marshal didn’t have.
“That,” cleoroCASS squeaked, “that is just a coincidence. I saved my tips for years and then got a lone from the C BondTrust. It has nothing to do with the poisoning, and I don’t know anyone who would launch missiles at me.”
The marshal stared her in the muzzle.
“You know, I spent a couple of decades on your homeworld,” I said, “and I never met a CASS before. There are suddenly a lot of people from tiny, unhear
d of families on Smuds.”
“Not suddenly,” cleoroCASS replied angrily. “I have lived on Smuds since I was a baby.”
“Do not leave town,” the marshal decided. “We will need to talk to you again, if only to give you a crime report number for your insurers.”
We left cleoroCASS calling her insurers and shouting down the phone when they called the missiles an act of god.
“Well, they did fall from above,” I pointed out, before making a quick escape.
Harry strode into the street and I scurried after. She had on a thoughtful expression, so I left her to it. I still fancied the wife for the murders, but I couldn’t see how an uptown socialite could arrange a restaurant bombing from space. I was coming to the conclusion she was knocking booties with some bit of very rough stuff.
“You know, the Auld Gowk Cabal could arrange a hit by spaceship,” I said.
“That has occurred to me, but the question is still why.”
CHAPTER 13
Outside, the Waddudu had dug a new exit from their nest in the middle of the street. Two-metre-long, shiny black bodies scurried about as workers surveyed the damage with scanners or treated people for minor injuries. Soldiers had taken up positions on the rooftops. They were ten times the size of the workers. Some had scanners, most had anti-aircraft weapons grafted onto their heads. Their armoured bodies silhouetted by the setting sun.
“Bit late,” I said. Workers began moving the rubble from the street, taking it back into the nest. “Maybe I should visit the Queen of Shaws? Reassure her?”
“Normally I’d be all in favour, but I am worried. The three attempts on Mr cruisOVO’s life were limited to him. Not one other living thing was hurt. But this?” She waved her arms at the street. “If you hadn’t been here with Old Number Seven, dozens of people would have been killed and maybe hundreds injured. This has escalated.”
“That lot is nothing,” I said, waving a claw at the broken windows and roofs. “The workers will have it repaired in a couple of days. But under our feet is the next generation of Waddudu. Hundreds of eggs. The Queen of Shaws will be raging, and the Mother of All Mothers will be right behind her. Someone’s pissed off the wrong people, here.”
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 28