“But, where did it come from, sir?” asked Peterson, Perelli’s second partner. “No one’s been in here, except our people and ship’s security, since we brought the cats aboard.”
“The tapes confirm that, Wing?”
“Yes, sir. There’s been absolutely no unauthorized entry.”
“I see.” Mather thought for a moment. Then: “Mister Webb, how clear a view did you actually have of this area on the tapes?”
Webb blinked and glanced at Wing, at the other Rangers, and back at Mather. “Are you asking if I think one of us could have planted the device, sir?”
“I’m asking you to eliminate that possibility for me,” Mather said. “Can you go back through the tapes and see who, if anyone, had the opportunity to place such a device? I’m going to have to give Captain Lutobo some kind of report, after all, even if it’s a negative one.”
“We’ll see to it sir,” Webb said. “Is there anything else?”
Mather pursed his lips in thought, then glanced at the cats, now sitting or lying peacefully in their cages. One of the males was grooming a huge blue paw with studied nonchalance. The other male and his mate were observing the activities of the humans with bored indifference. The fourth cat had opted for a nap, and occasional snorts of contentment came from her end of the cage.
All eyes turned to follow Mather’s line of attention, then returned to him questioningly. Mather’s lips compressed in a grim line as he hefted the device in his hand. “As a matter of fact, there is something else that you can do. Wing, do you remember those force nets that we didn’t use on Il Nuadi? I think it’s time we broke those out and set up a new perimeter.”
“Aye, sir, I can do that,” Wing said with a nod. He looked puzzled. “But—is it true, what security said—that someone was murdered, and the evidence points to our cats?”
Mather sighed, glancing back at the cats reflectively. “That’s the way security is reading the evidence,” he conceded, “though there has to be another explanation. Doctor Hamilton is working on the autopsy with the ship’s surgeon right now. Since I’m going to have to answer to Captain Lutobo far sooner than I’d like, I don’t suppose anyone wishes to change his statement as to unusual occurrences here in the hold since last night?”
No one did. There was some nervous shuffling of feet, a cough or two, but each man continued to look directly at Mather without evasion. Mather smiled grimly, nodding acknowledgment of his faith in their competence.
“Thank you, gentlemen. That’s the response I expected, but you understand why I had to ask. Mister Fredricks, I’ll ask you and Neville to help Wing with the new perimeter setup, since you’re both fresh. Peterson, you go on the tapes with Webb. Casey will have to man the door lock alone for now.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And Perelli,” Mather continued as the others began dispersing to attend to their new assignments, “perhaps you can help me with something else. I want to take our gadget up to engineering and run some tests before I have to confront the captain. Who’s their best electronics expert? Who helped build these earmuffs?”
As he pulled the headset from around his neck and handed it to Perelli, the Ranger shook his head.
“We worked with a Wes Brinson, sir. But I can’t guarantee he’s ever seen anything like this.”
“I’d be surprised if he had.” Mather smiled. “Frankly, I’ll settle for an open mind and some cooperation.”
He whistled a grim little tune under his breath as he left the hold and headed for the crew lift, fielding the questions of the waiting security men with a polite but firm “No comment” and picking up his escort again, in the process. The rest stayed to keep watch on the cats.
In Shivaun Shannon’s surgery, meanwhile, the situation had deteriorated badly. Wallis’s and her confrontation with the Aludrans quickly escalated to the point that Shannon was ready to call security to escort the aliens from the room, except that Captain Lutobo arrived—and he called the guards.
Within three minutes the aliens were gone, Lutobo had viewed the body of the victim, and an abashed chief of security was trying in vain to explain what his men had been doing instead of protecting the ship’s passengers. Lutobo was not inclined toward charity this morning.
“I find it truly incomprehensible that my entire staff could be this incompetent, Mister Courtenay.” Lutobo was raging, and Shannon wished she could disappear through the floor. “A Lehr cat is not a small animal. I want to know how a creature that large could have made its way from the cargo level to Deck Three, and back, without anyone seeing it.”
“We’re looking for additional witnesses, Captain,” Courtenay began, “but I only have so many men.”
“For all the witnesses you’ve found, it doesn’t appear it makes any difference how many men you have!” Lutobo retorted. “And Doctor Shannon, according to your testimony, the victim was still alive when Lord Elderton found him. From the damage done to the body, how long could Fabrial have survived, between the attack and his death? I can’t imagine that even a Lehr cat could move that fast, in that kind of situation, and not have someone see it. Doesn’t anyone have any answers?”
Shannon toyed with a power probe she had picked up from beside the now covered body of Fabrial, and Courtenay shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, not daring to drop his attitude of attention. Wallis had tried to make herself as unobtrusive as possible behind the draped body, for she had no more answers than Shannon or Courtenay, but her reprieve was shortlived.
“Well, Doctor Hamilton? I haven’t heard you offering any brilliant explanations. And where is Commodore Seton?”
“I believe he’s gone to check on the cats, Captain. We’re aware how the situation must appear. I expect word from him at any moment.”
“You say that as if there were some doubt of who’s to blame,” Lutobo retorted, moving to the intercom and punching the call button. “ComNet?”
“ComNet here.”
“This is the Captain. I want you to locate Commodore Seton. He should be in the cargo hold where his damned cats are berthed.”
“Stand by, please, Captain.”
As the tally light beside the Gruening logo went from red to amber, the captain glanced at Wallis again.
“Come, now, Doctor. Speechless? I seem to recall being reassured by your people, several times, that this could never happen. I suppose it does make a difference when one has seen the mangled body of a victim, however. Even the most calloused—”
At the sound of a chime, the tally light went to red again and the image of a uniformed crewman appeared on the screen. The man was half turned away from the video pickup, but the permanent legend across the bottom of the screen identified the location as Engineering Section. As the crewman moved aside, Mather Seton stepped into frame.
“I thought you’d be with your Lehr cats, Commodore,” Lutobo said icily, not waiting for Mather to speak first. “Why are you in Engin—what the devil is that?”
Mather, a look of resigned patience on his face, had held up a gray, metallic box with several wires trailing from it.
“I found it in the hold with the cats, Captain. We didn’t place it here. Regarding the cats, I did not find any sign of blood, a fight, or tampering with the cages. Nor, according to your own security scanners and the testimonies of your and my men, has anything happened in the hold in the past twelve hours that could be construed as unusual in any way—which the exit of one of the cats certainly would be. Furthermore, your people tell me they’ve never seen this thing before, or even anything like it. I have my Rangers rechecking the security tapes now, just to see who even had the opportunity to plant it.”
The captain glanced at Wallis and Shannon, both now standing to one side of him, then stared suspiciously at the object in Mather’s hand.
“You still haven’t answered my question, Seton. What is that?”
“Apparently, it’s a psychic irritator,” Mather replied. “It’s a very sophisticated device, just
to make a few Lehr cats feisty. It transmits psychotronic energy on a fairly narrow band. In this case, it was set on a frequency that would be irritating to the cats—and to humanoids, to varying degrees—but that could not be specifically detected otherwise, unless one knew precisely what to look for. Incidentally, this tends to confirm that the cats do scream telepathically, Wallis, though I’ll still want to check that aspect more specifically, when we have the time.
“But even though the screaming may have had some effect on those within the cats’ broadcast range—probably a few hundred meters, at most—I suspect that we’ll find the bulk of the irritation—to the cats, the crew, and probably the Aludrans—was due to this transmitter.”
“The Aludrans?” Lutobo said. “But, I just had them—Are you trying to tell me that they may also have been affected by that device?”
Mather cocked his head thoughtfully. “That’s possible. It’s just occurred to me that their cabins are on Level Five, right above the cargo deck—maybe even right above our hold. That could certainly explain last night. I thought at the time that Muon’s reaction was a little excessive to be entirely self-induced. Wally, does that sound plausible to you?”
“Well, they are slightly telepathic already, so it makes sense that they’d be more susceptible to that kind of transmission,” Wallis said. “And with Muon being a seer …”
Lutobo rubbed a hand across his jaw and frowned. “Well, could the Aludrans have—damn it, you two! You’re getting me away from the point. The Aludrans didn’t kill Fabrial! I don’t see how the cats could have done it, either, but that’s the only evidence we have to go on.”
“Then who put that device in the hold, Captain?” Mather asked. “And why?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t the Aludrans!” Lutobo replied. “We all know they’re afraid of the cats. They certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to stir them up.”
Shannon folded her arms across her chest in speculation. “But remember what Doctor Torrell said about cat legends at dinner last night, Captain. We know that the Aludrans see the cats of their own mythical tradition as demons. Maybe their own discomfort was worth it, to make the cats miserable.”
“Doctor, you’re beginning to sound like those two!” Lutobo snapped, gesturing toward Wallis and the electronic image of Mather. “The next thing I know, one of you will be trying to tell me that the cats aren’t involved in this at all.”
“Your own technology suggests their innocence, Captain,” Mather said.
Lutobo’s jaw tightened and he said nothing for several seconds. Then he carefully clapsed his hands behind his back and looked directly at Mather’s image.
“I can’t account for that just now, Commodore. I do know one thing, however. I want the guard doubled around those cats.”
“I’ve already stepped up security, Captain. From now until we reach Tersel, I intend to allow no one besides my Rangers, Wallis, and myself inside the cats’ hold. I’m also having additional restraining devices installed around the cages, just to reassure you that the cats cannot possibly be involved in what happened.”
“Yes, well,” the captain said lamely. “I—ah—also intend to confine the Aludrans to their quarters until we reach Tersel. And if I could detain certain other people”—he glanced pointedly at Wallis, then glared into the viewscreen—“you can be sure that I would. As it is, I sincerely hope that both of you will stay out of my way and out of the affairs of my ship. Is that clear, Doctor, Commodore?”
Mather’s bland expression betrayed none of his undoubted annoyance.
“I understand perfectly, Captain. If you don’t mind, I wish to run some additional tests on this device, here in engineering. After that, if it is your wish, I shall withdraw as much as possible.”
“Just make sure nothing else happens, Commodore!” Lutobo said, before he punched the button to break the circuit.
As the screen went to black, the captain cast one last, disapproving glance at the two physicians, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the surgery. Shannon, with an apologetic shrug of her shoulders, picked up a scalpel and began pulling back the drapes on the body of Fabrial.
“Doctor Hamilton, if you wish to stay for the remainder of this autopsy, I won’t ask you to leave,” she said quietly, not looking up. “This is my surgery, and I determine who is qualified to practice medicine aboard this ship.”
“I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with your captain,” Wallis said carefully.
Shannon gave her a wry, sidelong glance and tiny smile. “He didn’t order you out of here. He simply expressed the hope that you would stay out of his way. I don’t see him around, do you?”
Wallis could hardly argue that point. With a faint grin, she moved to the other side of the table and pulled an overhead light closer, losing herself for the next little while in the buzz of force probes, the whirr of suction devices, and the always fascinating exploration of the marvel that was a human body.
CHAPTER 6
Shannon and Wallis finished the post mortem an hour later. Their findings confirmed Shannon’s original opinion of the cause of death, but they still could not agree on the agent. Shannon grudgingly admitted she was less than convinced that the cats were to blame, despite the physical evidence surrounding the deceased; but there she faltered in an alternate hypothesis, as did Wallis.
“Well, it was Lehr cat fur we found in his hand, after all,” Shannon said, frowning over the printout of their report.
“Yes, but is it from one of our cats?” Wallis replied. “I know, you can’t tell me that until I get you samples to match against the evidence—and I’ll do that a little later. But there’s got to be another explanation. Did Fabrial have enemies? Do we know of anyone who might have wanted to see him dead?”
“I don’t know,” Shannon said. “I could ask the same question about the cats. We know the Aludrans hate them. Could they also have some reason to hate Fabrial? Is there any chance that one of them somehow killed Fabrial and then deliberately tried to make it look like a cat was responsible?”
“An Aludran? Almost certainly not,” Wallis said. “Violence is completely at odds with their philosophy. That doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t have tried to frame the cats, though.”
“But why?” Shannon sighed. “Dammit, Wallis, maybe the cats did somehow manage to get out and hunt! Torrell says that almost every culture has myths about supernatural cats. Maybe they walk through walls!”
The two racked their brains. They sat in Shannon’s office for over an hour after orderlies had come to take Fabrial’s body away to cold storage and tried to establish some possible motive for his murder, even if they could not assign suspects to those motivations. In desperation, they pulled Gustav Fabrial’s files and set up a computer run to correlate his background against that of everyone else on the ship who had known or had contact with him. They went over their medical findings again and again.
“Try this,” Shannon said, as they sipped hot tea in her office. “You’re fairly sure the cats are telepathic screamers. Is it possible that telepathy is not their only psychic talent?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some kind of memory-erase? To a certain extent, we can do that with machines. Maybe the cats can do it naturally.”
“Or”—Wallis raised an eyebrow thoughtfully—“maybe some people did it with machines, to cover their tracks. Who has access to yours, besides yourself?”
“Just Deller. We have two machines, but no one else is authorized to use them. And it takes a thumbprint to key them. Also, there’s an automatic record made each time either one is used; falsifying it would be very difficult, if not impossible.”
“It isn’t impossible,” Wallis said quietly, “believe me. However, I’d think it is impossible to have all seven of our Rangers up here, plus your security guards, without someone noticing such a mass troop movement and without at least one of them remembering something odd. Are the machine
s portable?”
Shannon shook her head. “Not readily. What you see above the tables is only part of the apparatus. The rest is built into the wall.”
Wallis nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fairly standard. Let’s get back to the cats, then. Unless they’re a whole lot more sophisticated than we’ve been led to believe, I don’t see how they could change or erase the perceptions of trained observers without being detected. The gaps in continuity would stand out like supernovas.”
“How about mass hallucinations, then?” Shannon asked. “What if only one cat gets out at a time—don’t ask me how—and the others somehow create the impression that he’s still there. No gaps, that way.”
“True,” Wallis conceded. “And a hunter who can make his prey think he’s where he’s not—that could be very useful.” She shook her head and sighed. “But Imperial Rangers and trained security specialists are not the same as game animals, Shivaun. I think my men would know, even if yours didn’t. Besides, nothing like that happened on B-Gem.”
Shannon had to agree. For several seconds neither woman spoke, each lost in thought, until finally Wallis looked up and cocked her head to the side. “You know, I just had another idea. It’s farfetched, and it’s going to sound as if I’m conceding that the cats might be responsible for Fabrial’s murder, but there are a couple of people aboard that we might talk to, who know a lot more about Lehr cats than Mather and I do. Vander Torrell is one of them. You heard him expounding on the lost race of Il Nuadi last night at dinner.”
“One of the more boorish men it’s been my misfortune to meet,” Shannon observed with a grimace. “I don’t suppose I should say that about a passenger, but nothing in my contract says I have to like them all. Come to think of it, he didn’t seem to care much for you and Commodore Seton, either.”
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