Inferno - Caliban 02

by Roger MacBride Allen

  There were pleasures in seeing every hour of the day, to be sure. Few men saw as many sunrises, as many sunsets, as many of the midnight stars, as Gubber Anshaw. But the dawn gave him no pleasure that morning. Not with the terrible news.

  He was in the solarium, his personal robot serving him breakfast, when he heard the first report. Almost before he knew it, he was rushing to the bedroom, bursting in on Tonya, still asleep.

  Tonya. Tonya Welton. Even in that moment of horror and panic, there was still a tiny part of him that paused to marvel at the fact that the beautiful, hard-edged, tough-minded Settler leader loved him, lived with him, lived with a soft-spoken robot designer. There were not many Spacer-Settler couples in the universe, and there were good reasons for that. It was never easy living with Tonya. But it was always exciting, and always worth it.

  “Tonya!” Gubber went to the bed and shook Tonya’s shoulder. “Tonya! Wake up!”

  “Hmmn’? Hmm? What?” Tonya sat up in bed, yawning. , ‘Gubber, what in the stars is it?”

  “It’s Grieg! Governor Grieg! He’s been assassinated!”

  “What?”

  “Shot dead! Sheriff Kresh just announced it a few minutes ago. No real details yet--but Grieg’s dead!”

  “Burning hell,” Tonya said, shock and astonishment in her voice. “Last night. I saw him, talked to him last night. And he’s dead?”

  “Dead,” Gubber agreed.

  “And they don’t know who did it?”

  “I don’t think so. They said they were still investigating. But they aren’t going to say anything for a while, no matter what happens.”

  Tonya reached for him, and they threw their arms around each other, held each other tight. “This is trouble, Gubber,” said Tonya, her voice a bit muffled with her face in Gubber’s chest. “Trouble for everyone.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “But who did it?” Tonya asked, pulling back a little to look into Gubber’s face. “Some lunatic? Was it a plot? Why did they do it?”

  Gubber shook his head and thought a minute. “I don’t know,” he said, forcing himself to settle down and think it through, forcing himself to be rational. “It doesn’t matter. The chaos will be the same. All sorts of people will try and take advantage of Grieg’s death. If it wasn’t someone trying to take over who killed him, then someone else is going to try taking over now that he’s dead.”

  Tonya Welton nodded, her expression dazed and confused. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said.

  “Maybe we should try and get away,” Gubber said. “Get off-planet. There’s going to be trouble.”

  “No,” Tonya snapped. Her face took on a hard, set expression. “We can’t. I can’t. I’m here to lead the Settlers on Inferno, not to run off and leave them when there’s trouble. ” She stared deep into Gubber’s eyes, but then she seemed to be looking right through him, past him, at something else “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no.”

  “What is it?” Gubber asked, grabbing her by the shoulders, trying to get her attention. “Tonya, what is it?”

  “The dust-up last night,” Tonya said. “I told you about it when I got in. The two men who got in a fight with me, and were taken away by the phony SSS agents.”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “Don’t you get it? Kresh will assume--will have to assume--that the attack on me was part of it, part of the plot. A diversion, or something. That it was staged for some reason to do with Grieg being killed.”

  And then Gubber did understand, and he pulled Tonya close and held her tight. He knew instantly that it would be impossible to talk her into leaving, that the Rangers or the Sheriffs Department would stop her from leaving even if she tried. Because he did understand, and understood far more than what she had told him. Kresh would assume the attack on her was staged because of Grieg’s murder: He would also assume that Tonya was one of the people who helped to stage it.

  But far worse than that was the tiny bit of Gubber’s own heart. The part who knew how tough, how hard, Tonya could be. How she never flinched from doing what was necessary. She and Grieg never had seen eye to eye. Besides, Tonya and he had both been suspects in the Caliban case.

  And Tonya Welton was a good actress. She could always convince Gubber of anything.

  Never mind that Kresh would have to suspect Tonya of complicity in the Governor’s murder. The worst of it was that Kresh’s suspicion might even be justified.

  Captain Cinta Melloy of the Settler Security Service was angry, and when Cinta Melloy was angry, no one else nearby was likely to find much peace and quiet--not that Kresh would have been likely to get much in any event.

  She was leaning over Kresh’s makeshift desk in the ops center. I am shoving myself into your territory, her posture told him. You have slighted me, and I have to bully you to make sure you know to respect me in future. “Why the double-damned hell did I have to find out the Governor was dead off the morning news?” she demanded.

  Because we suspected you in the plot--and we still do, Kresh thought. He couldn’t tell Melloy that, of course. Sooner or later that explanation was going to occur to Melloy, if it hadn’t already. If she chose to do something about it, then there would be major trouble, to put it mildly.

  For the time being, however, Kresh was resisting the temptation to give Cinta her own back. One rarely got anywhere trying to bully a bully. “This is a Spacer matter, Cinta, pure and simple,” Kresh said in his most diplomatic tones. “A Spacer citizen was shot on Spacer territory. I agree that perhaps we should have contacted you as a courtesy, but there is nothing that required us to do so, and, to be honest, we had other things on our minds besides protocol. ”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that my SSS has jurisdiction over nearly this whole damned island besides the Residence?” Melloy demanded. “Didn’t it cross your minds that you might need my help? Didn’t it occur to you that I might decide to see to it you got booted out of your job?”

  Yes, and I took the risk eyes-open. “Cinta, we will take all the help we can get. I promise you there was no intent to insult you. ” Just to keep you isolated, and to make sure you weren’t running the investigation. “It was an oversight in the midst of a crisis situation, not a deliberate slight,” Kresh lied, his voice sincere and his expression solemn. “Our head of state was murdered eight hours ago. Most of my people are still in a state of shock. I’m still in a state of shock. With all due respect, under the circumstances, contacting you was not the first thing on anyone’s mind. I’m sorry.”

  Melloy took her hands off the desk, and stood up straight, slightly mollified, but nowhere near satisfied. “I’m not quite sure I believe you,” she said. “It all sounds a bit too damned reasonable to be coming out of your mouth, Kresh. ”

  “Be that as it may, Cinta, we could use your help,” Kresh said, attempting to move the conversation on into other topics. That is, we could use your help now that we’re fairly sure you can’t hurt us by suborning the investigation. “There are a hell of a lot of people being detained at Purgatory’s transport center. The people from the long-range aircars we diverted back from Hades and other spots on the mainland could cause us some trouble. We still have all airspace shut down for the time being, and things are likely to get a bit unruly.”

  It was unusual for a place the size of Limbo to have a major transport center, but Purgatory was far enough from the mainland to be out of safe range for the average private aircar. The average citizen either had to use public air transport or a special-purpose long-range aircar to make the journey.

  “How much longer can we keep the transport center shut down?” Melloy asked.

  “Not long,” Kresh admitted, not failing to notice that Melloy had said “we. ” That was at least somewhat promising. “In fact, come to think of it, I didn’t have the authority to shut it down in the first place. Closing the ports was almost a reflex action, I suppose. First thing I thought of. ” That much at least was true. The odd supporting
fact always made a lie seem much more plausible. “Limbo City and the island’s airspace are in your jurisdiction. You’ll have to decide when to lift restrictions. ” In other words, I’ve made a mess and I’m leaving it for you to clean up.

  “Oh, the hell with jurisdiction,” Melloy said, though she didn’t sound entirely sincere; How could she, given the battles she had fought over the most trivial threat to her turf? “What are you looking for? What sort of person?”

  “I’m not looking for anyone, yet,” Kresh said. At least no one I’m going to tell you about. Tierlaw Verick had identified Caliban and Prospero as the last ones to see the Governor alive, and they were still at large, but Kresh had no wish for a trigger-happy SSS agent to blast one or both of them down to slag. Kresh knew too many stories about SSS suspects conveniently silenced by “accident.”

  Kresh was suspicious of Cinta’s cooperative attitude. Her behavior from anyone else would be gross belligerence. Coming from Cinta Melloy, it was all a bit too friendly.

  “If you aren’t looking for anyone, why are you holding people?” Cinta asked.

  “Mostly what I’m after is names and addresses, identifications. Something we can run against a list of all the people who were here last night or in the vicinity. I’d like to get as many of them as possible to account for their movements last night--and I’d like to have a list of those who can’t.”

  “It’s a tall order,” Melloy said.

  “It’s a big case,” Kresh replied. “Can you imagine the consequences if we don’t solve it?” Kresh hoped Cinta noticed his use of the word “we. ” He did not know if she was sincerely offering her cooperation, but he was determined that he was going to rope her in as thoroughly as possible--while doing what he could to keep her away from more sensitive areas of the investigation.

  Getting her people involved in dull, slogging, but essential spadework might be no bad thing at all. But there was no need to be utterly transparent about it. “Can your agents do some of that ID and interview work? I’ve got teams of my deputies flying in right now. I was planning to turn some of them loose on photographing and interviewing the airport detainees--but the more bodies we have on the job, the faster it will go. And, after all, it is your jurisdiction. It might be smart to make sure your people are on the scene. ”

  Cinta sat down, moving slowly into the seat without taking her eyes off Kresh. “We’d be delighted to help out,” she said, speaking in a measured, cautious voice.

  “Good,” Kresh said. Kresh was rather proud that he had thought of using the SSS for all the grunt work on the case. Not that processing the people at the transit center was makework, far from it. He really did need to know who was trying to leave the island. “There’s every chance that someone at the transport center was at the reception and saw or heard something--perhaps without even being aware of it. For that matter, I wouldn’t be surprised if the perpetrator is out there with the rest of the stranded passengers. ”

  “That would be pretty sloppy work,” Cinta said. “Sure, the killer would want to get off the island, but wouldn’t he or she have found a way to get off without being caught? Hell, all you have to do to escape this island is disguise yourself as a rustback. ”

  The cheap shot about rustbacks annoyed Kresh, but he didn’t allow himself to show it. “You’re right, except that the killer--or killers--weren’t expecting Grieg to be found so soon. They went to some trouble to insure that he wouldn’t be. If his body had been discovered in the morning, I’d agree with you that the killer would be long gone by now. As it is, maybe--maybe--we were able to shut down the transit system in time.”

  “But what good does the killer being there do if you don’t know who the killer is?” Cinta asked.

  “Maybe a lot. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the killer will make a slip or panic. But even if the killer doesn’t reveal himself, or herself, and manages to slip through our fingers for now, having a photo and name and address--even a false one--could be damned useful later on. ”

  “Hmmph. Yeah. Your killer might be the only one with a phony name. Maybe. Do you expect any sort of trouble from the people out at the transport center?” Cinta asked.

  “Well, Infernals aren’t used to being told where they can and can’t go,” Kresh said. “They might get a bit unruly. We’re going to need all the help we can get in crowd control and air patrol operations to keep things under control.”

  “You planning on my people being anything but traffic cops and crowd control in all this?” Melloy asked, a little of her old assertiveness showing through.

  “Oh, of course,” Kresh lied. If and when he had cleared her of complicity in the plot, then maybe he would give her people something a bit more challenging. But not just yet. “I want--I need--your agents involved in every phase of this thing. ” So I can have them tied down and where my people can keep an eye on them. “But right now we have several hundred people to deal with at the transport centers, maybe a couple of thousand. We’re going to need all the help we can get to sort through them all. I can’t tell you what else we’re going to do because I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  Cinta grunted and folded her arms in front of her chest. , ‘You just see that you keep me posted. No more surprises, all right?”

  “Absolutely,” Kresh said, having not the slightest intention of holding himself to that. Devray had finally given him the Huthwitz lead from Ranger Resato. That he planned to sit on for a while. The one Ranger who happened to be killed guarding the Governor, the Ranger wherein Cinta Melloy had known his name without being told, just happened to be a Ranger involved in the rustbacking trade that the Governor wanted to shut down. That was just too much of a coincidence. There had to be a connection.

  But damnation, when would he get a chance to deal with Huthwitz? Suddenly Kresh realized just how exhausted he was. He no longer had the slightest idea what time it was, or how long he had been awake. He wanted to keep going, to press on, but he knew that would be a mistake. This case needed a chief investigator who could think clearly, not a muzzy-headed fool playing the hero. “Look, Cinta,” he said, “I’m just about to drop dead at my desk. I need to find a bed somewhere and get some rest. Can we meet a little later, when I’m awake?”

  Cinta nodded. “Of course. You’ve been up all night. But there is one other thing. Something that seems incredibly suspicious to me, but no one else seems to be bothered by it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The empty house. Grieg was all alone in this--this palace. No one else at all. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “This Tierlaw Verick fellow was here,” Kresh said. “But there’s nothing unusual about there only being one person in a house. If anything, Verick spending the night is the unusual thing. ”

  “Let me understand this,” Melloy said. “ Apart from Verick and the Governor--and the assassin--there was no one in the house? In a house this large? There were no other humans at all? Just robots?”

  “That’s right,” Kresh said, a trifle bewildered. “What is it you’re getting at?”

  “What I’m getting at is that there wasn’t a room to be had in Limbo last night. The city was packed to the rafters--and yet Grieg’s enormous residence stands empty on the night he wanted to play the host. If that happened back on Baleyworld, and the host woke up dead, I’d be damned suspicious. I’d think someone had arranged to keep the place empty so the killers would have a clear field.”

  Kresh frowned. “That honestly never occurred to me. Sharing your home--giving up some of your own turf--is a very difficult and unusual thing for a Spacer to do. We value our privacy very highly. Probably too highly. I suppose from the Settler point of view, it does seem very implausible. Not to a Spacer, though. We’ll feed you dinner, care for you if you’re hurt or sick, rescue you from danger, defend your civil rights to the hilt. We’ll even put you up for the night--someplace besides our own home.”

  “Hmmph. Some things about you Spacers I never will get used to. I’m s
ure you’re right, but it still seems more than a little odd to me. ”

  “Well, it couldn’t do any harm at all to look into the point,” Kresh said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Grieg was used to a house full of people and last night was the aberration. ”

  “Mind if I take enough people off traffic duty to check it out?” Cinta asked.

  Kresh hesitated a moment. Sandbagged. She had set him up and knocked him right over. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was let her choose what part of the investigation to head up. Suppose this was the very point she needed to muddy up in order to protect herself? How Grieg’s choice of slumber-party guests could possibly matter, Kresh could not imagine, but never mind that. The problem was he could not see any way of saying no to Cinta without flatly stating that he didn’t trust her. And he was far too tired to deal with the twelve kinds of hell that would be sure to kick up. “No, Cinta,” he said. “You go right ahead.”

  But even as he spoke, he found himself wondering if he had just made the first big mistake of the investigation.

  10

  FREDDA LEVING POINTED her finger at another party guest and watched him disappear. It was a strange sort of game, but one that needed playing. She rubbed her eyes and sighed.

  “That’s as many as I can get in this pass. Run it back again, Donald,” she said. “Let’s try that sequence again.”

  The integrator’s three-dimensional images scrolled back to the beginning again and started over. Fredda sat and watched as the party guests started to filter into the Residence. By now well over half of the people at the party were missing. Every time Fredda or Donald or the computer managed to identify a person, they would eliminate his or her image trail from the integrator’s event sequence for the evening.