“I told you so?” Harry asked. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“Ah… me and my big mouth.” There was movement in the fern tops. Moordenaap like to travel high in the fronds. “ACM from Chunglie, do you have anyone in the fern tops?”
“Yes, because the assassins are up there.”
I shot three trunks with the captured gun. The ferns burst and fell. Men yelled and ran. They would return.
“If I have to choose between saving Harry or everyone else… well… sorry in advance.”
“No, Chunglie,” Harry said. Her eyes fluttered and fought to stay open. “Do not sacrifice one life for me. Not one. I won’t…” Her eyes closed.
“I’m the first to admit I have a slim grasp of right and wrong, but I’ve already lost one friend today.”
“There are only two assailants left,” the ACM messaged. A fern exploded, a body fell. I hoped it wasn’t one of ours. “Keep that gun holstered.”
Shrubs were pushed aside and a figure entered the clearing. Black armour, twelve-point antlers. He roared like… well, to be honest, he roared like a raging Tooyr which is impressive all on its own. He charged at us, guns blazing. Earth exploded around us. I raised Trembling Bob.
“Sorry guys,” I broadcasted. “Been nice working with you.”
A boot caught the assassin in the fork and launched him twenty metres across the clearing. The ACM had a rifle in each hand and Swiss-cheesed the guy before he landed headfirst.
“I hate you pricks,” she yelled, still blasting away. “You give our species a bad name.”
“I think he’s dead, ma’am,” I pointed out.
“Didn’t ask you,” she said. “And never point that damn gun in my direction again.”
“No, ma’am.” I holstered Trembling Bob. Face to face, the ACM can be quite intimidating. More marshals left the woods. Some carrying armoured bodies and some dragging live prisoners. Some drawing me dirty looks.
“Molson, start a bonfire,” the ACM ordered. A Tooyr marshal began hefting logs into a pile. “Line up the prisoners for interrogation.”
“Can we skip that and get the marshal to a hospital?” I asked.
“Mr cruisOVO’s doctors are boarding a train right now,” the ACM said. “Should be here in minutes.”
She strode up and down in front of five prisoners. They either had bits of armour missing, limbs missing, or both.
“You pricks will tell me everything you know about the Auld Gowks Cabal,” she said. “Or we will have a barbeque right here.”
“You can’t do that,” one Tooyr said. Brave or just stupid, I could not tell you. “We’re sentients. We got rights under law.”
“Ah,” the ACM said. “I’m glad someone mentioned your rights because we are in the Cornlands and the Queen of Corn has revoked your rights.”
“She can’t do that!”
“She can, because the queens were the ones who conferred those rights.”
The bushes sprouted Waddudu soldiers. Their weapons were primitive but they had size and numbers on their side.
“Seems you killed her friend,” the ACM pointed at the wrecked AirCobra. “She got in touch and revoked your right to be considered sentient beings.”
The doctors arrived on the backs of workers. In all my years, I’ve never seen Waddudu allow that. The doctors were avianforms, with broad heads and long legs and beaks. The colourful plumage made them look cheerful and out of place surrounded by soldiers and weapons. Two came over to Harry while the others headed for the car.
“Help me up,” Marshal Harry said. She gripped my claw. “I know who the killer is. We need to end this before—“
“Sir,” the doctor said, leaning over Harry with a scanner, “you need to lie back and let me work.”
“Can’t this wait? I’m in the middle of a murder enquiry.”
“This…” the doctor flapped his hands over her legs, “wait? You have been in a severe accident.”
“I know, but this is important.”
The doctor stared for a moment then ran a scanner around her head. “No brain damage, you’ll be happy to here. But the broken bones in your lower extremity are causing internal bleeding. If I don’t seal the blood vessels and glue the bone back together, you will be able to talk to the murder victims in person.”
“Do you know who did all this?” I asked, waving four claws at the clearing, the burnt wreck, and the prisoners. I noted doctors sealing mamaBEN into a large metal pod.
“Yes. I had a good idea of the who, and Miss cleoroCASS gave me the why while you were shooting up the scenery.”
The ACM marched forward and stuck her head between us. “Who did it? I’ll have them in front of the Mother of all Mothers by the end of the day.”
“It was…” Harry’s eyes flickered and closed. The doctor straightened up, holding his hypo-pen.
“Ah… bad timing?”
“Wrap everything up,” the ACM ordered. “We’ll head back to the railhead.”
CHAPTER 21
I looked around at the clearing. mamaBEN’s container had been moved. Doctors were fitting Harry with a gurney. Marshals marched off the prisoners or searched bodies.
“Don’t tell me we’re walking to the railhead?”
“It is only fifty metres that way.” The ACM pointed at a giant fern with the blade of her hand. “The aircars are busy picking up survivors from the town.”
“Thank you, ma’am… sir,” cleoroCASS said. “How many people died? Do you know their na—“
“There is no tally yet. We are concentrating on getting survivors out,” the ACM interrupted. “As I said earlier, we didn’t have time to bring medics.”
“Can I have a gurney? It’s been a long day,” I asked, looking along my body. I counted one leg missing, two broken and twisted, and cracks across two of my segments. Only the painkillers flooding my bloodstream from the cyber implants were keeping me going. The ACM walked over and studied me.
“Any of you doctors studied bugs?” she asked, straightening up. An avian raised a hand while using the other to inject a Tooyr prisoner in the shoulder.
“With you in a moment,” she said.
“Aren’t they insectivores?” I asked.
“Yes, but you still have that damn gun.”
“I said sorry in advance,” I pointed out, noticing a bit of an atmosphere in the clearing. Marshals I had worked with were not looking my way or talking to me.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. You were going to blast all your colleagues to save Ward.”
“My job is to keep Harry alive,” I pointed out.
“You are a member of the Marshal’s Service now!” The ACM leaned down to roar in my face. “We do not shoot our own.”
“Hi, my name is Sarenee. I will be your doctor today,” the avianform said, bustling up with a sensor pad and running it along my body.
“How bad is it?” the ACM asked. Grudgingly, I thought.
“He’s badly cracked down here,” she said, running a hand over my carapace. “Although this light crazing is nothing to worry about.”
“So… no change then?” The ACM strode away. I felt points had been scored at my expense.
They pulled me onto a gurney and marched off through the trees. Sarenee climbed on top of me and went to work with a bucket of cement and a trowel, repairing the cracks in my carapace.
The railhead had not changed. Your basic hole in the ground. My gurney was placed next to Marshal Harry. She was still unconscious. A doctor still worked on her legs, pushing micro-tendrils into the knee joint.
“Hey, this blue stuff isn’t skin,” he announced, tearing off a piece of Harry’s trousers. “It just comes off.”
“Is the marshal going to be alright?” I asked him. “We need her able to talk by the time we get back to Port City.”
“Hm?” He turned and looked down his beak at me.
“Is Marshal Harry going to be alright?” I asked again. “We’re still under threat, and she is the only
one who knows the perpetrator.”
The ACM loomed over us. “You know, Ward can be damned annoying,” she said. “Take the Booryboory case. Seventy-nine years marshals investigated the murders. The chief sent Ward the file and she called the answer an hour later. How does that much detective genius fit into that little head?”
“It will relieve you to know the head is fine,” the doctor said. “It’s the legs, chest, and internal organs I am worried about.”
“I thought you were an expert in apeform medicine?” the ACM demanded.
“I am, but organs and bones take time to heal,” he said with dignity. “What’s odd is—“
Harry opened her eyes and motioned cleoroCASS over.
“She shouldn’t be conscious,” the doctor finished. “I gave her enough anaesthesia to drop a Moordenaap.”
“Come over here,” Marshal Harry ordered hoarsely. The doctor whipped out his anaesthesia pen, but the ACM grabbed his hand.
“Wait for it.”
“Tell them what you told me about mapoTHER coming into money.”
“The night of the poisoning,” CASS said. “I had not seen mapoTHER for about five years. I didn’t recognise her at first…”
“Why?” I asked. The marshal shushed me.
“But when I did, I agreed to stay in touch. We had always been close as children. A week after the murder, mapoTHER told me she had inherited five million simoleans the moment her husband’s face hit the table and wanted to set up a trust to help her clone siblings.”
“So she did it for the money!” the ACM said, straightening up.
“No! mapo would never hurt a soul. You missed the point. She didn’t know she was in line for any money! We are clones and have no right to inherit under law. Mr cruisOVO set it up with his lawyer that money would be transferred to mapo the instant he died but before his accounts were frozen. He wanted to make sure she would be financially secure if he died first.”
“You only have her word that she didn’t know about the money,” the ACM pointed out.
“You only have my word that she got any.” cleoroCASS pressed her chest against the ACM, but the top of her head only did not reach the Tooyr’s chin. “I will never testify against her.”
“Brave words, tiny.”
“You won’t have to,” Marshal Harry said. “Get us to 221B Quaker… Street…”
Her eyes closed.
“Finally,” the doctor said. “I was beginning to think I’d have to smack her with a shovel.”
“I’m beginning to think I have to bury you right here.”
“Chunglie,” the ACM said, “stop scaring the doctors. We need them. Doc, we are on the next train out of here and Ward needs to be talking when we reach Port City.”
“I cannot guarantee that,” the doctor said. “Although I have experience with apeforms, I have never worked on this specific apeform before.”
“My guns will have recharged by the time we get to Port City,” I said. The ACM drew me a look. “Just saying.”
“Being clones has marked a lot of us,” CASS said. “But I can’t believe a clone did all this.”
I got an incoming message on my cyber dashboard and answered it. LB appeared, overlaid on the scenery.
“I can’t reach the marshal,” he said. “What’s happening over there?”
I thought about allowing him access to my sensors so he could see for himself but settled for telling him. “We survived a fire fight but the marshal was injured. We’re on the way back to the city. Meet us at 221B Quaker Street.”
“Why?”
“I think the marshal is doing the big finish there,” I said.
“Was she badly injured?”
“Badly enough.” I found that hard to admit.
“Damn. Listen, you are not going to believe this—“
“I probably will. Why don’t you just spit it out?”
“We had an anonymous call. Someone is recruiting killers for an attack on the Cornlands.”
“We just had that,” I pointed out.
“But this call came in two minutes ago,” LB said. “I think you can assume there is another attack coming.”
“Right.” I hung up and told the ACM what was happening. She spun on her heels and shouted orders. Marshals ran around deliberately. There was a nasty cracking sound behind me. I twisted round and stared at Sarenee. She was holding my favourite limb.
“Sorry, I was trying to straighten it and it just… came off. Please don’t shoot me.”
“That’s my trigger claw for Old Number Seven,” I pointed out. “I’ve had that limb for centuries.”
“Sorry. But look, it will grow back.” She raked in her medicine bag. “I have some gloop here that will help it grow.”
“Lucky I have twelve spares, eh?”
The gurney was carried down and placed on a train. They placed the marshal next to me. cleoroCASS took the seat nearest, looking down. “Sorry for running away,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Don’t worry, Harry will sort this out,” I said.
“But I need to know… was the massacre my fault?” She stared at me, terror on her face. I’m not good at reading faces, so you can assume the terror was written in extra-large print. I had to think hard. What would Marshal Harry say?
“I doubt it because” sounded good so far. “The marshal said the killer was trying to erase his past. I mean, what could you know that was worth killing a whole town for?”
“So a clone was behind the murders?” cleoroCASS realised.
“I’ve been around a few planets, never met a species that didn’t have some screwed-up people.”
The train took off.
CHAPTER 22
By the time we reached the streets of Port City, I was prepared to forgive Sarenee. I was off the pain meds and able to scurry into the evening light without help. Marshals placed Harry’s gurney next to Car 54 and we all looked at the doctor. He looked ready to run for it.
“Look, accelerated healing isn’t an exact science.” He held up his hands. “I can wake her up but I cannot guarantee she can go back to work.”
“There is an attack coming. Innocent people will die,” the ACM said, looming behind the doctor. “Only Ward can stop it. We need her talking if nothing else.”
Marshal Harry sat up and looked round. Her eyes were unfocused and her head wobbled. ”Are we back in the city?”
“How did you do that?” the doctor spluttered. He took out his anesthetic pen and checked it over.
“Yes,” the ACM answered. “We’re outside the train station and Car 54 will take you to 221B. Do you know who the killer is?”
“I’ve a good idea,” Marshal Harry said, climbing to her feet. “But no physical evidence yet.”
“Shit,” the ACM spat. “I hate those cases. Could be years before we find enough evidence for a conviction.”
“Not necessarily,” Marshal Harry said. “I want cruisOVO, mapoTHER, the PA, cleoroCASS, and the Tooyr lover brought to 221B’s office.”
“Why?” the ACM asked.
“Sheesh,” I said, “don’t you watch detective programs? This is the showdown.”
“More like a fishing trip,” Marshal Harry nodded. “But if I work it right, I think I can promise a very large fish.”
Long Barnacle arrived at a fast knuckle.
“I thought you were meeting us at the lawyer’s office?” I pointed out.
“Yes, but I wanted to see the marshal was okay,” he said, looking her over.
“What about me?”
“You’re the narrator, you have to be okay. But Harry’s the nice one everyone likes, so I worried.”
“Didn’t think of that.”
“If you think you’re fit enough,” the ACM said, “I’d like you to arrest the killer while I lead the heavy squad in taking down the Auld Gowks. The Queen of Shaws has issued a blank warrant. I intend to kick down every door they own. The suspects will be in the lawyer’s office when you get ther
e.”
I was torn as we three piled into Car 54 and headed for the lawyer’s. Kicking down doors is my second favourite hobby.
I looked up at the faraway ceiling of 221B Quaker Street’s entry hall. There was a new piece of art hanging there. The label was too small to read what it was supposed to be.
“Let’s take the stairs,” I said.
“What’s the fuss?” LB asked as he stepped onto the elevator platform.
“Everyone else is up there, and I don’t want to give the suspects too long to think,” Harry said.
She stepped onto the platform and I followed. I would not back down before the mammals. The platform rose on invisible force-fields. Again.
“What the—" LB gasped. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“But you were born in a tree,” Harry said.
“Trees. The first thing you notice about trees,” LB explained, “is that your average tree doesn’t move around on invisible forcefields.”
“Chunglie, I’m expecting to pull a large, dangerous fish,” Marshal Harry said.
“I hope that’s a metaphor,” I said. “Because I hate water.”
“Itis a metaphor.” She nodded and staggered. LB caught her and held her upright with one hand. “Remember that horror film with the shark we watched the other week? Well, we might need a bigger gun.
“I’ve got Old Number Seven fully charged.”
“We might need a bigger gun than that,” Marshal Harry said. She pulled cotton waste from a pocket, tore off half, and passed it over to LB. “Got this from the doctors. Stuff it in your ears when I give the nod.”
“Er okay?”
We arrived at the top without mishap and I scurried off the platform, trying to look like I wasn’t scurrying. When the marshal wasn’t looking, I popped a bit of her favourite stilton cheese into Trembling Bob’s holster.
“It is a very unpopular mode of travel,” Gostick20 said when we reached her desk, “but I do not understand why.”
She got up from her desk and ushered us into 221B’s office. Her tail blushed a deep red, meaning she was not sure what was going on but had decided to ignore that feeling and soldier on. Tails communicate a lot of information.
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 34