by Kacey Ezell
“Then let me help settle it, Diaden. I want to get paid, and you know I do good work. A Depik repeatedly hired me. Give me a list of things you need done or sorted, and then I’m closer to payment, yeah?”
The voicebox made clicking sounds as the Cemarap considered, the cilia down his left side all moving in unison like a Human tapping fifty fingers. Flame wanted to pull a handful of the thick strands, as though that would push the aide to a decision.
“That’s not a bad idea. Here, I’ll send the video over—did you know we have video? Depik are so legendary at killing you’d never think they’d forget about a camera, of all things—and the witnesses. I’ve only talked to half, so just get their general statements.”
Busy work, and of course they’d seen the video, but Tamir had Flame and some confiding notes from Hrusha. With that, between the two of them they could piece some order to what Hrusha had been putting together, sending Tamir to Khatash with that cryptic warning.
Blade was the littermate who most enjoyed digging into information and forming the right pattern, and Flame didn’t know where he was, but she could honor him in applying what she’d learned from him. She had not become a devastatingly effective assassin by accident, and she would apply herself here, alongside this Human bounty hunter. In the end, there would be someone to kill, and it would mean clearing their dama’s name, reinstating their clan, and honoring her siblings and Reow in the resulting blood and death.
It was worth a little busywork.
* * *
The interviews had been so boringly unhelpful that Flame took a break and returned to the ship to watch the video again. They had both watched it on a loop through most of the night, and studied it with every program each knew, but no part of it turned up faked or doctored.
Reow and the Peacemaker walked, focused on something, toward the ship. They walked at a normal pace, looking natural, until they walked directly into an explosion. Neither of them could have gotten out of the way.
Flame had seen her dama hunt many times, and every shift of muscle, fur, claw, indicated focus. She did not know Hrusha, but her reactions looked genuine as well, before both Hunters disappeared in the explosion.
But why would Reow have been visible at all, going after such a dangerous—and forbidden—target? No, regardless of how skillfully edited or created, the video had to be faked, at some or every level. Her dama would never betray their kind, their clan, and her kits in such an unforgivable way.
Impatient at giving into another cycle of the same thoughts, Flame stood and shook herself thoroughly. She rubbed the backs of her front paws briskly against her cheeks and over her closed eyes, then forced her body to adopt an air of easy calm. No one would see her once she left the ship, but she would know.
The airlock remained open, so she moved unnoticed through it and back to the station proper, using the walk to expend all her excess energy. She’d spent long stretches of time covered by her quintessence field while completing contracts before, so she shouldn’t be so restless only days in, given that she freely prowled the ship when it closed up for the sleep shift. Tamir refused to sign it back to the Peacemaker pool before she got paid and formally closed out the last job. It was the small leverage the Human wielded, and Flame supposed she should be grateful for it.
She remained ungrateful regarding the time spent interviewing the witnesses, few of whom had actually witnessed anything at all. Few of the species represented had any special senses, and none of the individuals had any training in discerning the subtle differences of explosions, so ‘I heard the boom’ had unfortunately been the theme of most of Tamir’s interviews. Flame had suggested that if anyone had actually seen something of import, Diaden would have already talked to them, and Tamir reluctantly agreed.
Perhaps she would have the opportunity to slice globs out of the Cemarap aide after all, if this waste of time continued. If no one knew she stalked the Peacemaker halls, no one could blame her or the Depik race. Even were she to be caught, her life couldn’t be more forfeit, and her clan had already been destroyed.
Again, she pushed calm through her thoughts and forced each joint to relax as she moved through corridors and around oblivious beings. It had become a mantra, reminding herself not to do anything stupid, do nothing that would keep her from discovering what had happened to Reow and the Peacemaker. Nothing that would stop her from clearing her clan’s reputation and allowing all of her siblings to come home. The accomplishment would never repair what they had lost, but it was enough to keep her from indiscriminately carving into the useless beings that filled Tamir’s days with their idiot talking.
She paced outside Tamir’s borrowed interview room until the door slid open. Flame gave a cursory look at the older Human female who slouched out. She was clearly worn, tired, and no threat at all. Flame assumed she’d given a detailed account about seeing a flicker of motion, or reeling back from a percussive force, and dismissed her from any further thought. She let the woman pass, then slipped inside the small cube of space.
Desk, chairs, refreshment table, darkened screen, Tamir already slamming back down into her seat as the other Human left.
“Close record,” Tamir said, and the computer beeped softly to confirm the record had stopped. Flame brushed a paw against Tamir’s hand and leapt onto to the table, glancing half-heartedly at the notes still visible on the desk.
“Anything?” she asked, whisper too soft to travel far, restraining herself from flopping onto her side over the pad. Invisible she might be, but a measure of discipline remained required.
“I’m beginning to think these interviews are a waste of time,” Tamir muttered, as though talking to herself. Her tone was rueful, conveying either sarcasm about the interminable task she’d asked for, or the oddness of pretending to talk to herself when really she was communicating with the invisible assassin who haunted her steps these days. Both, probably.
They’d agreed Flame should remain undetected. It served their investigation best to have a secret weapon, especially when they had no way of knowing what enemies were in plain sight around them. That didn’t keep it from getting frustrating for both of them at times, but it was still the right call. Especially when they weren’t even sure what, or who, they were trying to find.
A tentative knock clanged against the frame of the open door, and a small blue figure in a bright orange wrap leaned inside. Flame looked over, mildly interested—she hadn’t smelled it coming. A Terling, maybe? They ranged a body length taller than the average Hunter and were able to alter their scent trails with impressive thoroughness. She thought they were more green than blue, but perhaps there were variations. She had never gotten to kill one. They had a reputation for being gentle, advice-suggesting trade partners. They also had a knack for giving their customers the better end of the deal, while still making a profit. If any of them had ever been put under contract, Flame hadn’t heard of it.
Tamir sat more professionally upright in her chair and raised a hand in a gesture that conveyed both ‘come in’ in Human and ‘let’s begin negotiations’ in Terling. Flame would have found this most impressive, except that she was busy trying to remember the best way of taking out the spindly trader. She had just remembered that blue Terlings tended to be non-fertile males when the other being made a series of fluting noises and scurried inside on its base of fifty little feet-pods.
“Sorry to interrupt.” His small slit of a mouth managed Tamir’s language surprisingly well, and Flame thought, all other things being equal, she could jam a front paw in there and claw out his throat from the inside, rather than wasting time on the thick hide of his neck.
“I have time before the next interview.” Tamir tilted her head slightly, offering the empty chair across the desk to her unscheduled visitor. Flame sat up straight now too, interested, and stopped idly weighing options for bloodshed at the hope something useful might happen.
“Yes, yes. Uh. Yes. No need to record, I am just passing through, and rememberin
g when you allowed me the first word of Tirric Station’s need for grapples. Yes?”
“Yes,” Tamir said, smiling without teeth. Flame supposed it was proper etiquette for Terlings, and resisted the urge to bare all of her own teeth to move this along. No one would know, and she was the most patient of her siblings. She had to remind herself of her own patience at least twice more while the blue creature levered itself into the chair and shifted until half of its foot-pods were folded comfortably under him and the other ones dangled off the front and sides of his seat.
“Yes. Yes! Passing through, and heard the saddest news about Peacemaker Hrusha. She liked pinpecks from the Cemarap home world, and I had a deal, and she was very happy to have pinpecks. Yes. It is sad news.” After Tamir had made the proper noises to agree that the news was, in fact, sad, the Terling shifted and kicked a dozen or so foot-pods.
“Sad, yes. It is strange, that her friend the Governor Kelket did not bring her pinpecks, from her own world, yes? The Cemarap Governor knows so much about her friends and usually brings gifts, but this time did not. I ordered extra pinpecks to make up for it, thinking the Peacemaker Hrusha would like it even more, after seeing so much of a Cemarap, but not having any pinpecks.”
Flame hoped Tamir understood this better than she did. Hrusha was friends with Kelket, Kelket usually brought Hrusha presents, but hadn’t this time, and yet had spent more time with Hrusha lately. Without presents. Fascinating. She considering returning to ways to pick the Terling apart, but the blue male had more to say.
“Governor Kelket did bring presents for her friend Governor Sissisk, who also sadly died. Old for a Depik, yes? Thirty or nearly so, but healthy, yes, we all thought. Maybe just how Depik are, Hunters to the last moment. But that was before Governor Kelket started to get sick, too. Oh! I have to bring some oquet to a friend before it spoils, so delicate. Yes? So nice to see you, yes, see you again soon!” Abruptly he hopped back off his chair, foot-pods propelling him with alacrity, and he scurried out still fluting ‘yes’ before Tamir could answer.
The bounty hunter took a breath, typed a command to reschedule the rest of her interviews, and stood just as abruptly as the Terling.
“I need a bath,” she said, and left.
Finally, Flame thought, knowing something was happening, and jumped down to follow Tamir back to the ship.
* * *
Tamir did not waste time with a second cleansing for the day, though she did change into a flowing sort of casual outfit while Flame did a scan to ensure there were no new listening devices installed while they were gone. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it gave her something to do, and Diaden had tried to leave a subroutine in the comms system the first time he wobbled through. Better to be thorough than surprised.
“The Cemarap Governor was friends with the Hunter Governor and the Hunter Peacemaker,” Flame said as Tamir returned draped in goldish-oranges long enough to hide her practical boots. “You knew that already.”
“The gift thing is weird,” Tamir said, pacing around the small galley in a way that made the space smaller. “Cemara pride themselves on gift-giving, even if you just saw them, and the higher ranked they are, the bigger deal giving something is—especially because they have the aides to get it done properly. The Depik Governor’s death isn’t…” She frowned and stopped talking, and Flame reminded herself once more how patient she was.
“I didn’t think the Depik Governor’s death was connected, because Hrusha acted normally after it happened.” Tamir spoke slowly, eyes unfocused as she thought back through the series of events. “But it’s weird for a Cemarap to be so close to both Peacemaker and Governor from Khatash, but to only gift one…I need to talk to Gerren.”
“Does that mean anything to me?” Flame’s tail lashed once, but she lounged comfortably on the galley table with every other indication of calm attention.
“Gerren knows the gossip. Runs one of the smaller bars, sees and hears enough to know when to shut his face and when to open it. We had a falling out, or I would have gone to him first.”
“You have a source, who knows things, who you know knows things, and we’ve wasted ninenights on hand-fed idiots?” Flame’s voice held steady, but her ears flattened, and her tail snapped back and forth across the table.
“He wouldn’t know anything about an explosion thirty decks away, and we needed a picture of what happened there. And if he won’t talk to me—“
“He’ll talk.” Flame’s eyes rolled in the Human gesture of disgust as she moved for the door. “And if you don’t want him to talk while holding his own kidney, I suggest you get him to do so before I have to drop my field.”
* * *
The bar was built into the curve of the station, up in the further edges, away from the spin that gave them gravity. Its first proprietor had put up only two walls, leaving the final side open to the branching hallway that deposited traffic directly into the rounded triangle dominated by the dark mek-wood. The bar was surrounded by tables, benches, and chairs of various heights and configurations that changed location more often than should have been practical. Open for every shift, the clientele ebbed and grew in a cycle only Gerren and his employees had figured out.
Given the scarcity of customers, the mid-part of the third cycle appeared to be an ebb, and no one moved behind the bar. A standard ‘buzz for service’ glowed above the multilayered blacks and greens that shaded the bar, and Flame resisted the temptation to jump ahead of Tamir and do just that.
Before either of them reached the bar, a spare, tall figure rose from the table closest to the wall, and Tamir stopped short, muttering ‘Gerren’ under her breath. Flame had already guessed the Humans’ falling out had been of the torrid lover variety, and found herself mildly disappointed. Gerren had the webwork of lined and sagging skin that suggested at least triple the years Tamir had lived, and though he moved well enough, Flame doubted it was enough to provoke any kind of passion from the bounty hunter. Boring.
“Thought you’d taken to drinking at Midships.” Gerren stood between Tamir and the bar, arms crossed across his chest.
“Not here for a drink,” she replied, dropping her arms to keep from mirroring his posture.
“Apology then?”
“Wouldn’t say no to one.”
Gerren snorted so hard his arms uncrossed. He turned his back on her and moved toward the bar, cocking his head back to listen for her. Halfway to the bar he slowed.
“You coming?” he asked, turning his head and speaking over his shoulder.
She snorted as well, muttering something under her breath obviously not meant for Flame’s ears. Maybe this encounter wouldn’t be entirely boring after all. Flame dropped to all four legs to run ahead, stretching out to make the most of the short distance. She aimed for a tall stool near the bar rather than the bar itself, knowing mek-wood was often prized for the ability to insert electronics between its layers, and not wanting to set off any weight sensors. She’d chosen well, as Gerren walked around the bar and Tamir leaned against it, casting up next to Flame’s stool.
“Well?” He poured something dark and sharp smelling halfway to the top of a fat, beveled glass. After a moment, he added a splash of something golden with bubbles, and Flame leaned closer to get a better sniff.
“How often do Governors visit Peacemakers?” she asked, picking up the glass in one hand and turning it in the glow of light from behind the bar. “Cross-species, I mean. Rough guess.”
“Here and there.” After a moment of consideration, he poured another glass with the same dark liquid, drank it swiftly, and refilled it, leaving the squat bottle on top of the bar. “Not the most common, but we’ve had a fair number of Governors pass through the Corner.”
“The Depik Governor come through?”
“Depik don’t spend a lot of time in bars, Tam. Not a whole lot of us provide ongoing entertainment to them, unless they’re thinking about eating us.”
Flame, not needing to keep her composure, dropped her
jaw and scrunched her nose in distaste. Eating a Human would be a waste—they weren’t nearly enough of a challenge to hunt to enjoy the resulting feast, and she’d probably just see Susa’s face the whole time, which would extinguish any speck of joy in the kill.
“No one’s trying to eat a toothpick, Gerren. They like meat and the chase, and you’d give little enough of either.” She took a hefty sip from her glass and tapped the fingers of her free hand in a random pattern against the bar. “What about the Cemarap Governor?”
“Those ooze-rounds? Yeah, she likes to come here and soak up the gasses. Wish she’d put on some drapes like her aides.” Neither the term nor his supposed disgust had any heat, and Flame considered him curiously. His attempts to insult seemed more some sort of ritual than any kind of judgement, which made some sense given they were aimed at two species so demonstrably his superior, one physically and one mentally.
“Yeah, they’re just as grossed out by Humans’ need to go expel waste every couple of hours, so you’re probably even. Done playing the cranky old man, or do we need a few more rounds of this?”
He put his glass down and stared at her for a long moment, cementing for Flame that it was some sort of routine they did, him hating everyone and her refuting it with some insult toward humanity. Her cutting it short meant either she fought the same impatience Flame had been dealing with, or she remained uncertain enough of Flame’s temper to keep from going down any lines the Hunter might take violent issue with. Hopefully both.
“Temper, Tam. I don’t owe you anything.”
“You owe me your grandson’s life, and that twice over.” She drank more, holding the glass in the air rather than putting it down, and dipped it toward him as she continued, “You also owe me for your boney ass being in one piece after those Oogar had a rough night, if I remember correctly.”
“I paid you for that in whiskey.” He snorted again, louder this time, and refilled her glass. “Yeah, when the Cemarap Governor’s in her visiting cycle, she usually comes by. Usually just with Cemara, though she’s met with a few other species now and then. Maybe the Depik Peacemaker once, now I think of it.”