Masters of the Galaxy

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  It’s a pity he didn’t have a longer nose, so he could have enjoyed looking down it even more. “In his office, sir.”

  “As soon as I’m done here,” I said, and spent an extra fifteen minutes unpacking, shaving, brushing my teeth, doing whatever I could to show him I wasn’t someone an Ambassador’s flunky could order around. Finally I couldn’t think of any more busywork, so I told him to lead the way, and he headed off toward the stairway.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “What floor is the Ambassador’s office on?”

  “The second, sir.”

  “I already know what the stairs look like. Let’s take the airlift.”

  His face became a totally impassive mask, and he led me to the nearest airlift. He was clearly one flunky who wasn’t going to do anything to make me report him. A moment later I was ushered into an office that made Henshall’s office back on Odysseus look like a broom closet. He actually had a wall of real, honest-to-god books; not holodisks or litcubes, but real paper. It must have cost him a fortune.

  There were three men in the office. One of them wore a Security uniform.

  “Mr. Masters?” said a tall, good-looking man with steel gray hair and eyes to match.

  “Right,” I said.

  “I am Ambassador Philip Ruskin. Allow me to introduce Philip Finn, Odysseus’s chief negotiator, and Bradley McKay, our Chief of Security.”

  I shook each of their hands.

  “I’m sure the Ambassador wants to speak to you in private,” said Finn. “Just solve this damned thing quickly. We’ve got to get them back to the table.” He turned to Ruskin. “I’ll be in the office down the hall for the next hour.”

  He left the room, and McKay left a moment later.

  “I trust your journey was uneventful?” said Ruskin to me when we were alone.

  “I suppose so,” I replied. “I slept through most of it.”

  “Secretary Henshall has contacted me and told me that you’ve been briefed on the situation.”

  I nodded. “A Tjanti was murdered, and the Tjantis don’t trust the embassy’s security team to solve it—or at least to reveal the truth if they do solve it.”

  “That pretty much sums it up,” agreed Ruskin. “It’s an awkward situation. The Tjantis don’t trust the Droons either, though we have insisted that we must have access to the local forensics unit.” He paused and sighed deeply. “I just hope you’re as good as our people back on Odysseus think you are.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said.

  “They tell me you worked for the police before going private a few years ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why did you leave the force?”

  “It was strongly suggested,” I said. He seemed to be waiting for an explanation. “I arrested the wrong men.”

  “Innocent?”

  “No,” I said. “Elected.”

  Which closed the subject.

  “We’ll provide you with any assistance you require,” he said as if the last few sentences hadn’t been spoken. “I’ve never been involved in a murder investigation before, so I don’t know what that will entail.”

  “I’ll let you know, once I know,” I told him.

  He fidgeted uncomfortably. “There’s another complication, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The Tjantis want you to be in charge of the investigation…” he began.

  “I know that.”

  “But they want their own observer on the scene, someone from their security team who can keep them informed about the progress of the investigation.”

  “Their own spy,” I said.

  He grimaced and nodded. “In essence.”

  I couldn’t repress a smile. “So they trust me to solve the murder. They just don’t trust me to tell them who done it.”

  He shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t refuse their request,” he said. “We are in the middle of a peace conference.” Another grimace. “At least we were.”

  “Before I start, have you got any ideas about the murder?” I asked.

  “Someone clearly doesn’t want Odysseus to cease hostilities with Tjant,” said Ruskin.

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? There’s always money to be made during a war, even a small one like this.”

  “Could it have been a third party?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

  “You’re on Purplehaze,” I said. “I know that Men and Tjantis were meeting here, but did any Droons have access to the embassy the day Ambassador Mglias was murdered?”

  “Yes,” answered. “After all, it is their planet. They were sitting in on the talks.”

  “As referees?”

  “As interested observers, anyway,” he said. “There were the Droons, Mglias and his team of Tjantis, and Mr. Finn and the Odysseus team. Have you met him before?”

  “I don’t think we belong to the same clubs,” I replied with a smile.

  “Very nice man. Fine command of the issues.”

  “I’m sure. You didn’t participate?”

  “I am the Democracy’s ambassador to Keladroon II,” he pointed out. “I am not a citizen of Odysseus. It’s my job to be host to the conference, not a participant and not a partisan.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “How many representatives of each side are here?”

  “That was negotiated before the conference even began. There are six members on each team, and one security agent for each member.”

  “So there are a dozen on each side?”

  “There were. The Tjantis have said they won’t send a replacement for Mglias until we can guarantee his safety, and of course we can’t do that until we apprehend the killer.”

  “And how many men on your staff—cooks, servants, security, everything?”

  “Sixty-three.”

  “So we’ve got eleven Tjantis, seventy-five men excluding yourself, and however many Droons you’ve let in as observers.” I sighed. “That’s a shitload of suspects.”

  “Surely you don’t think one of my staff could have done this?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “And with all due respect, neither do you.”

  He seemed about to object, then restrained himself. I guess it goes with being an ambassador. “You’re quite right, Mr. Masters.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I might as well take a look at the crime scene. I assume it’s been sealed off?”

  “After the initial confusion.”

  “How much initial confusion was there?” I asked, though I could guess the answer.

  “Quite a lot,” he confirmed. “He was their chief negotiator.” He sighed and shook his head. “I still don’t know how the killer beat our security system.”

  “I assume he wasn’t killed in whatever passed for the conference room?”

  “No, he was in his own quarters.”

  “Third floor?” I asked.

  “Second,” he said. “Why did you assume the third?”

  “That’s where they put me.”

  “Meaning no disrespect, Mr. Masters, his quarters were somewhat more luxurious than yours, as befitted his station.”

  “So his room was just down the hall from your office?” I suggested.

  “Quite a bit down the hall,” he said. “I’ll summon your Tjanti…” He seemed to be deciding between “friend” and “partner”.

  “Watchdog?” I suggested.

  He nodded. “I’ll have him take you there.”

  He touched a spot on his timepiece, and a moment later the door irised and the first Tjanti I’d ever seen entered the office. He was about five feet tall, with a face like a bulldog: huge undershot jaw, canines peeking up over his lower lip, great big wide-set purple eyes that looked like they didn’t miss much, a couple of slits for nostrils, two more for ears. He walked erect, and gave the impression of being musclebound. His hands were unique: each possessed a pair of thumbs, with two long, tentacle-like fingers in betwee
n. He was covered, head to toe, with a light red down that made him look like he needed a shave from top to bottom. He wore a single garment, a metallic blue fabric that started at his chest and wound up just above his knees; it looked like a corset with shorts, or a child’s playsuit built big.

  “Mr. Masters,” said Ruskin, “this is Djimbi, a member of the security force that is part of the Tjant mission. He’ll be assisting you.”

  I waited for his reaction, because some races get annoyed and others panic when you reach out to shake their hands. But he stepped forward and extended his hand, or paw, or whatever the hell it was. “I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Masters,” he said in heavily-accented Terran, “and I shall enjoy working with you.”

  “Call me Jake,” I said, taking his hand. It felt strong.

  “Jake,” he said.

  “I think I may have a little trouble pronouncing your name, so if you don’t mind I’ll just call you Jimbo.”

  “I can answer to that,” he replied. “It is only a concoction of sound.”

  A philosopher, yet. “Well, Jimbo,” I said, “shall we take a look at the murder scene?”

  “Follow me,” he said, heading out the door.

  “If there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask me,” said Ruskin. It figured; this was important enough that we had access to the Ambassador, not one of his flunkies. As we left, another well-dressed and self-important man—they seemed to inhabit government buildings—entered.

  “I hope you are not offended that I have already examined the murder scene,” said Jimbo.

  “Why should I be?” I responded. “After all, you were here when it happened.”

  He looked as relieved as a red bulldog can look. “I think we are going to get along well.”

  Jimbo led the way down a long corridor, turned left at the end of it, and walked another fifty yards before he came to a stop.

  “Impressive building,” I remarked.

  “There is a lot of wasted space,” he answered.

  “By the way,” I said, “are you a cop back on Tjant?”

  “A cop?” he repeated.

  “A policeman.”

  “No,” he said. “I provide security for a minor government building.”

  He seemed friendly enough, but it would have been nice to have someone who knew a little something about murder, or at least police methodology.

  “This is the room in which Mglias was murdered,” announced Jimbo, uttering a code that caused the door to iris and let us through to the interior.

  I looked around. The room was empty, and neat as a pin.

  “I guess no one ever heard about not tampering with a crime scene,” I said as I walked across the thick carpet.

  “They didn’t know how long it would be before they could agree upon an investigator,” said Jimbo. “They couldn’t just leave the body here.”

  “Actually, they could have,” I said. “Well, there’s no sense wasting any time here.”

  “Wait,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I made sure they captured everything before they restored the room.”

  He uttered another multi-digit code, and suddenly I was standing five feet away from a perfect hologram of Mglias’s body. It was so real you could almost smell him. There was a chair near him, one that wasn’t there now and had obviously been taken to the lab for examination, and the small trash atomizer by the desk had been kicked over by someone in a hurry to get to the door.

  “That’s pretty impressive technology,” I said. “So why didn’t the security system make a holo of the murder?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, someone must know.”

  “There is a screening room in the basement where all the rooms are monitored,” said Jimbo. “According to Chief of Security McKay the system for this room was temporarily disabled during the murder.” He paused, and his face came as close as a Tjanti’s face can come to a frown. “The humans who run the embassy would not allow my security team or the Droon police to examine the system or question the security team.”

  “Do they want this damned thing solved or not?” I grumbled.

  Jimbo’s expression said it all. The odds were that the murder was committed by a Man. What did I think the answer was?

  I squatted down next to the representation of the body. You could have seen the marks where its head had been staved in from twenty yards away: the top, mildly domed in life, was now concave, and the left temple had been crushed for good measure. There were a few marks on his left side; I couldn’t be sure what caused them. Not a drop of blood anywhere. “Good professional job,” I commented. “No chance to cry for help, no blood to splatter on the killer, no way he lives long enough to make it to the door. Have you identified the weapon yet?”

  “No,” said Jimbo. “At first we thought it might be one of the lamps, or a stone sculpture from the shelves, but they all turned out to be negative when examined by the lab.”

  “The Droons’ lab ?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do they know what they’re doing?”

  “They seem to,” he replied.

  “Nothing taken from the body?” I asked. “He still had his money and anything else of value?”

  “Yes.”

  I stood up. “I just love a clueless crime on an alien world,” I said grumpily. “You got any notions?”

  “Notions?”

  “Ideas. Reconstructions. Accusations.” I paused. “Solutions?”

  Another shrug. “Only the obvious: someone wished to sabotage the peace conference.”

  “Do we have a list of everyone who was in the embassy at the time the murder occurred?”

  “Yes.”

  Something was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I hoped if I kept talking it would come to me.

  “I assume no one left the building before the Droon authorities arrived?” I said.

  “That is my understanding,” he replied.

  “Did the Droon police question anyone?”

  “They briefly questioned the members of the negotiating parties, but they were not allowed access to the rest of the embassy. This surely gave the killer time to get rid of the murder weapon.”

  I shook my head. “Why get rid of it?” I said.

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “It will identify him.”

  “Why?” I said. “This is an embassy. They’ve got all kinds of security devices. If anyone tried to walk in with a blackjack”—I made a gesture to show what it was—”it would have set off every alarm in the building. Whatever he used, he picked it up inside the building.”

  “That makes sense,” he acknowledged.

  “Once we learned it was missing,” I continued, “we’d know what it was, and who had access to it. I told you: this was a very professional job. The killer’s had well over a day to cover his tracks. For a guy who knows his business, that’s as good as a month.” I paused, trying to order my thoughts. “How many blunt instruments—statuettes, lamps, ornate carvings, whatever—have they got in this place?”

  “Too many,” said Jimbo.

  “I knew you were going to say that,” I muttered, lighting up a smokeless cigar. I’d been trying to cut down; it was only my second of the day.

  “I suppose we should go to security headquarters next,” he said. “I believe it’s in the basement.”

  “Not just yet,” I said.

  “Oh?” he replied, suddenly alert.

  “Something’s not quite right here,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I need a minute or two to figure it out.”

  I walked around the room once and stopped where I’d started. I still hadn’t spotted what was bothering me.

  “How much of this stuff isn’t really here?” I asked.

  “Two chairs, a waste basket, a small table, a lamp, and of course Mglias.”

  “Can you make just the lamp disappear?” I asked.

 
“I can’t, but I’m sure someone in security can,” he said. He spoke briefly into his pocket computer, and the lamp vanished.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Nope. The table next.”

  One by one we eliminated everything but the corpse, and I stared at it intently.

  “What is it, Mr. Masters?” asked Jimbo.

  “Jake,” I corrected him. “And I don’t know. But something’s still wrong.”

  I walked twice around the hologram. I don’t know what the hell I was looking for. I just knew I was missing whatever it was.

  “He never yelled?”

  “No.”

  “Just dropped where he was.”

  “That is the way it appears, Mr. Masters.”

  “Jake, damn it!” I said irritably.

  “I apologize, Jake.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “I’m just mad at myself. Something’s staring me right in the face, and I can’t figure out what it is.” I went back to staring at Mglias. “All right. He enters the room. Is the killer waiting for him, or does he accompany him?” I muttered an obscenity. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean, Jake?” asked Jimbo.

  “The result is the same. Mglias turned his back on the killer.”

  “Then the killer must be a Droon or a Tjanti, because Mglias wouldn’t turn his back on a Man.”

  “During a peace conference, in a human embassy?” I said. “Of course he would.”

  Jimbo made an inscrutable face as he considered it. “Yes, I suppose he would,” he said at last.

  “Okay,” I said. “So Mglias enters the room, with the killer or without him.” I walked to where the corpse was found. “He gets this far, and gets clubbed from behind. He’s probably dead before he hits the floor.” I stared at the holograph. I was getting so close I could almost taste it, but it was still just out of reach.

  I stepped back a few paces, as if that would make everything become crystal clear. It didn’t, and I walked forward again. “So he gets bopped on the head, and he falls down right here. Never moves once he hits the ground.”

  “That’s right,” said Jimbo.

  I uttered an obscenity under my breath.

  “What is it, Jake?”

  “There’s no blood.”

  “I know. There’s no blood, and no indication that he moved after he hit the floor. What are you getting at, Jake?”