"Come on," the man said, gesturing with the sonic pulser. "It's party time, girls." Behind him, the others grinned and moved forward.
"You're going to spoil their fun," Methlin Meharry said. Oblo shook his head.
"Not me. If they find a nice room and spend the night together, fine—but that's not the mood Yrilan's in. She's out for trouble of some kind. I know that look."
Methlin gave him a poke. "You should. You're always out for trouble . . ."
"Captain'll be upset if we let Sirkin get trashed because of Yrilan's foolishness. You know what she thinks—and besides, the girl's worth working on; she could have been Fleet." High praise, for Oblo. "And they'll never know we're watching, 'less something goes sour."
"I can think of things I'd rather do on my off shift—"
"Fine. Let me do it."
"Not you alone . . . I know better."
They lounged in the doorway of Uptop, drinking pirate chasers from the outside bar. "Classy one sitting with 'em," Oblo said. "Doesn't fit here."
"Don't like her looks. Actin' like a shill. Let's check 'er out." Methlin pulled out her very illicit Fleet data-capture wand. Oblo grinned.
"Good idea." Methlin pointed it at the overdressed woman for a moment, capturing her image, then looked around for a public dataport. "Go on," said Oblo. "I'll wait here."
Methlin found a 'port two shops down, and it even had a privacy shield. Her wand stabbed into the port and overrode the usual restriction codes, sucking the data she wanted out of the station computers. When she slid the wand into the 'port of her handcomp, the display showed everything the station personnel files knew about Kirsya, Melotis Davrin.
"A therapist," she murmured to Oblo.
"Wipe your hand," Oblo said. "Never."
"Says. Licensed and all that. Does work for the Station militia, mostly addicts up for minor stuff. Has interesting friends."
"Oh?"
"That agency." They both knew which agency; Heris had told them her suspicions about the employment agency before sending them over to get their civilian licenses and ratings. It had smelled as rotten to them as it had to Heris. "Finds jobs for clients, sometimes."
"Ah." Oblo sucked his teeth noisily, drained the rest of his drink, and grinned. "Sounds whole to me. Got?"
"Got. Who?"
"The kids. We'll stay with the kids, but put a ferret on the tinker." They retreated across the corridor. Methlin slid the wand into another public connection, and transmitted both the data on Kirsya and Oblo's request to the Sweet Delight.
"Ah—there she goes." Oblo grunted. "Huh. Just passed a signal, too. Wonder who that was?"
"I didn't see . . . oh, yes. Classy rear view the lady has."
"Keep your mind on business."
When Sirkin and Yrilan came out, Oblo could tell that they were at odds. He and Meharry dropped back a little. No need to embarrass Sirkin if she suddenly stormed back this way.
"Just a little chat," the man said. "Just a suggestion your friend wasn't confident enough to take."
"I don't need to chat with you," Sirkin said. "If Amalie didn't want to do it, I don't either."
"Unwise," the man said. "You're smart enough to know she's not. And we're offering an unusual opportunity here. We'd pay well for a contact aboard the Sweet Delight. No risk worth mentioning, and a profit—and no harm done your employer, if that bothers you."
"No risk?" Sirkin was glad to find her voice didn't shake. "Like Captain Olin?"
"He didn't follow instructions," the man said. "He upset the old lady, got himself fired—and then we hear that Iklind died and the goods were discovered because he was trying to double his profit with a payoff to the refitters. He double-crossed us . . . we couldn't let that pass."
"I suppose not." Sirkin had been hoping someone would come into the park, but no one did. Had these people somehow cut it off from the corridors? Had they bribed the Station militia?
"Don't hurt her!" Yrilan's voice was shrill.
"Convince her, then," said the man.
"No—let her alone. It's not her fault. She had nothing to do with it, any of it."
"Get out of the way." His voice had flattened, utter menace.
"No." Yrilan, stubborn, was immovable. He lifted the weapon, his finger tightening, and Yrilan launched herself in useless rage and love. Sirkin grabbed for her lover and missed, but it was already too late. Yrilan screamed as the sonic pulser focused its lethal vibrations on her; she curled into the agony, still screaming. Sirkin, on the edge of that cone, felt as if someone had stabbed her brain with a needle; tears burst from her right eye and she lurched sideways. The man strode forward, but somehow Yrilan grabbed at his leg and tripped him. Sirkin, fighting off the dizziness of the sonic attack, managed to knock the weapon out of his hand before he could turn it on Yrilan again.
The others joined the melee then, knives and fists and boots. Sirkin tried to get to Yrilan, but one of them slammed an elbow into her face, and another kicked her legs out from under her. She hit someone hard enough to make him grunt, then a blow in the belly took all her breath. And Yrilan—she couldn't see. She couldn't hear anything but curses, grunts, the slam of boots and fists. A hand came over her mouth, and she twisted her head and bit, hard. A curse, a blow to the head that made her eyes water—someone yanking her arms up behind her—then more yells and the feeling that someone else had arrived.
Gasping, Sirkin tried to break the armhold and find a way to strike back. Another kick, this one in the ribs—she felt something crunch—and then someone fell on top of her, hard knees and elbows and too much weight. She couldn't breathe . . . she couldn't complain about not breathing . . . her vision grayed out, and the next blow sent her into darkness.
"Captain Serrano!" That was the Warden, with quiet urgency. She wondered why he hadn't simply buzzed her carrel until she saw his face. He was gray around the lips, his eyes showing too much white. She came at once, ignoring a few surprised glances from other captains who had noticed the Warden's unusual invasion of the inner rooms.
Heris didn't bother to ask; she simply followed him back to the reception area. He almost scurried. Waiting for them were two uniformed Station Security Police, faces grim. Heris felt her heart begin to pound, a great hammer. If they had come, instead of asking her to visit one of the waitstations, whatever had happened was serious—even fatal.
"Captain Serrano?" asked the shorter one. "I'm Detective Morin Cannibar. We have a problem concerning your crew."
"Who is it?" asked Heris. Oblo came automatically to mind, but he ought to be busy installing that semipirated bit of navigational electronics he had come back with the day before. He had wanted to do it himself, when Sirkin and Yrilan were not aboard. That thought struck a chill in her—those two?
"We aren't sure, Captain Serrano. The—uh—body carried identification as a member of your crew, but—uh—"
Heris felt herself going cold, the protective freeze of emotion that would carry her through any necessary action. "Do you need me to identify the body?"
"It's—it's not going to be easy, ma'am. She's a young woman, that's all we can tell. Hit with a sonic pulser, then . . . pretty well beaten to a pulp."
Let it not be Sirkin, Heris thought, then hated herself for thinking that. Yrilan might be a bit lazy and not overbright, but she had not deserved anything that would put that expression on the faces of police officers.
She nodded shortly. "I'll come now. I have two young female crew members, and they are both off duty at present. Can you tell me something about it?"
The taller one shrugged. "Someone wanted her dead. Messily. Either of them have enemies you know about?"
Heris looked at him sharply. "You know I filed a report when we arrived that my crew might be the target of retaliation from some criminal organization. And that I had been contacted, subsequently, by someone whose credentials worried me."
"Yes, but you didn't know many details. Made it hard for us to help you."
"True—nonetheless, my guess is this young woman ran afoul of that group, not an enemy of her own. Neither of them had been on this station very long. One arrived with my ship, and the other met her here after finishing her technical training. I don't suppose you know where the other is—"
"No, ma'am. If it's some group like you're thinking of, and they were together, then I'd expect both . . ."
"So would I." She walked along between them, trying not to feel trapped. "Where are we going? The morgue?"
"No, ma'am. We'd like you to see the . . . body . . . in place. In case you can help figure out what happened."
In place meant in a corner of Rockhouse she'd never known about. "It's a park, actually," one of the men said. "Reasonably safe during shiftchanges, because it's a shortcut from a concentration of civilian housing units to two big employers. There's a primary school that uses it during mainshift for recreation and exercise. But it's a bit out of the way—especially midshift on Second. And the usual patrol had a domestic disturbance call and missed two rounds through here."
"Planned?" Heris asked. She could see the cluster of people working ahead, under brilliant lighting.
"Maybe. Can't tell—it's a family with a history. This time they'll be split up for a while, see if that settles them."
Then they were close enough for Heris to see the bodies under the lights.
Chapter Five
She recognized Yrilan by the hair and clothes. The young woman's face was disfigured by parallel knife slashes, the skin reddened by the sonic pulser wound. "That's mine," she said, pointing. The man beside her nodded.
"Right—do you know which?"
"Amalie Yrilan, on temporary contract. She left the ship today about when I did, and that's what she was wearing. Also the hair—" That ginger-colored hair, once fluffy and now matted with blood.
"You don't seem—that upset by . . . the other . . ." the man said. She could hear the suspicion in his voice.
"My background's Fleet," she said. "Regular Space Service." Let them think she was a coldhearted military bitch . . . easier than explaining that her feelings would come later, when she felt safe. That she would have the right number of nightmares about the ruin of Amalie Yrilan's face, enough to prove her own humanity. She braced herself for criticism, but the man merely nodded.
"Right. You've seen combat trauma, then." It wasn't a question. "This was sonic pulser plus, I suspect, being on the ground in the midst of a major brawl. We think the knife wounds were after death, maybe accidental; the autopsy will check for that."
Heris stared at the parallel wounds across Yrilan's face, and the deep gash between thumb and first finger on both hands. Did the militia not recognize those wounds? Or did they wonder if she did? Better to be honest.
"Those marks—the last time I saw something like that, it was a Compassionate Hand action."
"Ah. I wondered if you'd know."
"We were called to Chisholm once." They could look that up in her service record, the public part. "They had trouble with their ore haulers being hijacked between the insystem Stations and the jump-point insertion." They had had more trouble than that, but the rest was classified.
"Two of the dead bodies had C.H. marks on the thumb web," the man said. "Did Yrilan?"
"Certainly not. Not overt, anyway. But you're right, that hand cut's usually given to traitor members, not stray associates." And where was Sirkin, her mind insisted? Was she, too, a Compassionate Hand victim?
"You recognize any of the others?"
None of the others had mutilated faces, beyond a bruise or two. She knew none of them. But something about the pattern of injuries on two—she frowned. "No. But—" Suddenly it came clear. The time she had had to get Oblo out of trouble . . . the miners he'd felled had exactly the same marks. "But none of them are my crew," she said, finishing smoothly. "We've been staying close to the ship, most of the time, getting it ready to leave the Royal Docks—"
"I know." He had checked, then. "I didn't really think you would recognize them, but it was a chance." He paused, then asked, "And you say this—Yrilan, was it?—usually had a companion?"
"Yes—she did tonight. Brigdis Sirkin, my Navigator First. They'd known each other at school, and Yrilan had hoped I'd hire her. Unfortunately, she wasn't nearly as qualified."
"Was Sirkin going to leave your crew?"
"I'm not sure. I had hoped not, but they were close. She had a tough decision coming up. I hope—" It was stronger than that, a plea to whatever powers ran the universe. "I hope Sirkin's not a prisoner or anything."
"We can't tell." The man frowned. "Five dead, including your crew member. This Sirkin must be some kind of fighter if she didn't have help. Someone badly wounded got away that direction—" He pointed to smears of blood heading to the far end of the little park. "There's all too many ways out down there, though we're looking. But two bounce tubes, and a slideway."
Heris looked again at the dead she already thought of as "enemy." She couldn't see the thumb-web marks from here—probably they were flesh-colored tattoos, designed to fluoresce under UV light. But the pattern—again she thought of Oblo. One of the dead had been hit by someone shorter, she thought, but this wasn't her field of expertise. Shorter than Oblo would be most of her crew, but her mind drifted to her weapons specialists. Arkady Ginese? No; Arkady, even onstation, would have carried something that left distinctive marks. No one had ever broken him of the habit. Besides, he had the standing watch; he wouldn't have been here. Methlin Meharry, perhaps? Those sleepy green eyes had fooled more than one, but her unarmed combat skills topped even Arkady's. And the two of them could have got Sirkin away—somewhere. Where?
"Ah—Captain Serrano?" That was another of the investigating militia. She turned to him. "Urgent message from your ship. Shall I put it on the local tapline?"
She hoped that meant they'd gotten Sirkin back to the ship safely. She nodded, and stepped over to the little communications booth set up for the investigators. The headset they gave her hissed a bit—no doubt from the offtake tape spool—but Petris's voice was clear enough.
"Captain? Hate to bother you, but we've got a problem here."
"Ah, yes, Mr. Petris." That should warn him. "I'm dealing with one here, too. It seems Yrilan has been killed by thugs, and the investigating officers have found no sign of Sirkin."
"Right. I'm at the Royal Security office, at the access. The officer in charge prefers your personal authorization before passing some of our crew members who . . . have had an accident. The scanners picked up bloodstains."
"How many?" Heris asked, mentally crossing her fingers.
"Mr. Vissisuan, Ms. Meharry, and Ms. Sirkin," Petris said. "With injuries." Such formality could only mean trouble. No one had called Oblo "Mr. Vissisuan" since his second tour. At least Sirkin was alive.
"Would it help if I spoke to Royal Security?"
"Maybe," Petris said cautiously. "Here's Major Defrit."
Major Defrit sounded as frosty and formal as Heris would have in his place. She explained that she was on the site of a murder, with the station militia.
"Your crew seems to have a talent for trouble," Major Defrit said.
"I hardly think that justified," Heris said, in the same tone. Actually Oblo had more than a talent for it—genius, more like—but it wasn't something to brag about. "Are any of my crew injured?"
"Ms. Sirkin seems to have some injuries, but I would judge them not serious. She is conscious and her vital signs appear within normal limits." He sounded entirely too certain; Heris trusted the worry in Petris's voice.
"I'd prefer to have Sirkin evaluated by medical personnel. You are not, I gather, a physician?"
"Well no, but—"
"Since one of my crew died from a murderous assault, and Sirkin is injured, it would be prudent to have her examined, don't you think?"
"But that would mean admitting her to this Sector—unless you want her sent to the central clinic—" His resolution wavered; she could hear it
in his voice, a faint whine.
"Major, Sirkin has a valid Royal Docks pass, as have my other crew members. You have no real reason to exclude them. I can understand that you might want to escort them to medical care—"
"But—"
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