"Well, what about your human body? Where is that?"
"Sold it. Seed money for the operation. Brought a good price. Ask Don. Archie was a young handsome fellow in good health. Brought almost two million."
"Mr. Quartermain, I have to ask about your own possible interest in your partner's death."
"Mine?"
"If Lady Ida is found guilty of Miles Bowman's murder, you stand to inherit quite a respectable sum, not to mention a very lucrative operation."
"Money. That's what you're talking about, isn't it? Money?"
"Of course."
The fox began pacing again, his nose sniffing at the chamber floor. “Mice,” he said as though to himself alone. “Mice are important. Mating, grubs, grass, eggs, gates, cubs, fast-fast legs, and chickens are important. Money: that's paper.” He abruptly turned and fled through that opening at the rear of the chamber. “The game,” he growled huskily as his voice faded. “The game is all!"
Archie's soliloquy on priorities concluded, I tracked out of the muddy burrow and called down the cruiser. Shad was in it just completing his transfer to the micro, a flat-black colored hover vehicle resembling a stealth lipstick, one end encrusted with instruments. After hosing out the mech, I went back to my meat suit and Shad darted off to map the burrow system. While Shad was occupied doing that, I went to the lodge.
* * * *
As evening approached, making everything dismally dark as well as wet, Shad and I were back in the cruiser, the vehicle parked at the skydock, our engrams back in our current selves. Shad was labeling the GPS tunnel map he had made. That done, he leaned back from the screen and said, “So, while I was grubbing in the dirt, you did a tour of the palace?"
"Yes."
"So? What was it like?"
I thought for a moment. “Good taste and great vision meet big money and unlimited energy."
The duck faced me and said seriously, “That sounds like approval."
"I confess, Shad, I was prepared to view the whole place as outmoded values wallowing in unlimited wealth, but it is quite well done. All the halls, rooms, great rooms, and the shopping center are stunningly beautiful, and the service is prompt, polite, and practically invisible. Did you know there are hunt clients and their families that live there all year?"
"Service?"
"Why, yes. I had a cream tea at one of the shops in the mall."
"Cream tea,” he stated flatly, that hint of menace sharpening his tone just a trifle. “I don't suppose the place was set up to entertain ducks."
"Actually, the shop had a fountain, and there were ducks entertaining themselves in the fountain's pond. They appeared to be enjoying themselves, but who can say? Ducks are so inscrutable.” I glanced at him to see if he was properly steamed, but he was onto me.
His bill was open as he emitted a low laugh. “You're one of those people who believe that life is a test, aren't you?"
"How did you find your old roommate, Archie? Different?"
His demeanor grew serious. “You notice how Archie kept referring to me as Don even after I told him my name was Guy? He's in some kind of weird zone."
"I'm afraid your old roommate's gone a bit native, Shad. He said his mate has cubs on the way, and you should've heard his paean to a plump warm mouse. He said something strange to me—"
"You mean other than liking Mickey sushi?"
"He was telling me what was important to him. He ended by saying, ‘The game is all.’ Does that mean anything to you?"
"The game is what we used to call live theater.” Shad thought for a moment. “That's what he's doing now, isn't it? Live theater?"
"He's not after money. In fact, Bowman's death jeopardizes everything Archie Quartermain currently holds dear, doesn't it?"
"The same could be said for Lady Iva, boss. Miles might have been getting a little on the side from Sabrina Depp, but take my word for it, Sabrina had to have been only the latest in a long string of honeys. That's the way Miles always was. Anyway, if you are Lady Iva and want to protect hearth and home against a homewrecker, who do you kill?"
"The other woman,” I answered. “And, if you want to get revenge on a rich, philandering husband,” I continued, “who do you see? A hit man or a lawyer?"
"Ninety-seven point three percent of prospective vengeance wreakers go for the court shark,” responded Shad. He looked at me. “It's time to see a horse about a man—a dead man."
"I agree."
* * * *
After leaving the cruiser in an unused loading dock, Shad and I were standing in the antechamber to the complex, a space reminiscent of the hanger deck of an aircraft carrier. Very big, very white, with technical, mechanical, and horsy looking personages hurrying this way and that at the direction of automated panels festooned with blinking lights and glowing indicator bars. The air in the space carried trace scents of paint, prepared foods, hot electrical boards, polished leather, hay, and horse manure. Directional signs pointed to various wings in the structure. In one, tally-hovers were being repaired, cleaned, polished, stocked with refreshments, and stored for the next hunt. In another wing were the vid studios sectioned into units that operated and repaired vid and sound systems, viewed, edited, and “supplemented” vids with complete sound stages and computer animation facilities. There was a third wing in which mechs of animals and other appliances were programmed and maintained—it seemed a significant portion of the birds singing in the treetops, as well as bunnies munching leaves along the paths, were mechs. There was a complete hospital wing capable of handling most human and animal illnesses, both natural and bio. The last wing was where the operation kept horses, with stalls for two hundred of Houndtor Down's horses and another three hundred guest-leased stalls. There were two barn-sized rooms attached to the wing for feed and other supplies, and a third barn-sized area that contained offices, tack rooms, employee lockers, and changing rooms, and a full-sized indoor riding paddock. The hounds, we were informed, had their own separate kennel complex. All of this because at some point back in prehistory, some farmer got fed up with foxes eating his chickens.
Diana Weatherly, Huntsman to Houndtor Down Hunts, joined us in her office, which was richly appointed with a walnut desk, brown leather overstuffed chairs, and liquid crystal walls that currently showed striking views from the top of Hound Tor, but on a sunny day. Weatherly was in her middle forties, good-looking in a sturdy sort of way, and gave the impression of being quite fit. As she sat in one of the overstuffed chairs facing us, she was wearing a buff suede jacket over a black blouse and black skintight lowers, the cuffs tucked into highly polished brown riding boots. From the records we knew that Weatherly had been Master of Horsham Hunts out of Manaton, a much smaller and much less successful operation than Houndtor. When they were starting up Houndtor Down, Miles Bowman and his fox of a partner sold Archie Quartermain's old self and used the proceeds to make a down payment to buy out Horsham Hunts. Once they closed, Bowman, Quartermain, and Weatherly moved the entire operation to Houndtor Down, Diana Weatherly becoming the operation's Huntsman, responsible during the hunt for controlling the hounds through three whippers-in, the lead whipper-in being Thomas Flock.
"Didn't Bowman run you out of business?” the duck pressed.
She actually held her hand to her mouth as she giggled. “You're a queer duck."
He stared at her for two seconds. “Nevertheless."
"If you insist, ducks.” She then laughed out loud with sufficient zeal and abandon to raise her exhibition to the level of wanton guffawing. Calling a duck “ducks” somehow struck her as the absolute zenith of wordplay wit. Once she regained control of herself, she said, “When I was the Master of Horsham Hunts, ducky, I was up to my ears in debt, only a step ahead of my creditors, and literally didn't know from where my next meal was coming. Thanks to Miles and Archie, I ride to the hounds at least three times a week, drive a Steel Gazelle, vacation wherever I want, live in my family's ancestral home—all taxes and debts paid—and I'm earning per y
ear sixteen times the amount I earned the best year I ever had at Horsham. I haven't even mentioned the stock sharing plan, which brings in as much as my earnings. I wouldn't have to be ungrateful to resent Miles. I'd have to be insane.” She glanced at me, a bored expression on her face. “Anything else?"
"Could we see Champion?” I asked.
"I'd say it was about time,” she said coolly as she stood.
We followed Diana Weatherly out of her office and the duck said to me out of the corner of his bill, “'Horse Throws Rider.’”
"For money, ducks?” I asked with a smile.
Shad glanced in my direction, studied me for a moment, then shook his head. “You're being sneaky. What do you know that I don't?"
"Five dimensions to a case, Shad."
"Left-right, up-down, in-out, time, and ... what?” he asked. “What's DI Jaggers's fifth dimension?"
"The fifth dimension, dear fellow, is this: chances are the murderer—if indeed a murderer there is—has looked at and considered the other four dimensions much longer than the investigators, and with a lot more at risk."
"Staged?” whispered Shad as we entered the cavernous hall of the operation-owned horse stables. “You think there's a killer, and the killer staged this to make it look like the horse did it?"
I pointed toward Diana Weatherly's rapidly receding back. “Let's see the horse and find out."
* * * *
Miss Weatherly left us inside Champion's spacious stall with instructions to call one of the grooms or attendants in the area if we needed anything. The horse was a largish, glossy, black Arabian. He had a handsome face with a pure white patch in the center of his forehead. The source of the hair and blood from Champion found on the tree at the scene was a deep scrape high on Champion's left shoulder. “I'll check him over, Shad. While I'm doing that, give Champion a scan and see if you can access his memory."
I passed the analyzer over the horse's body and legs, checking principally for blood. I found a good bit of medium-velocity spatter on his chest and the front of his neck. The analyzer matched it to Miles Bowman.
"I don't get it,” said Shad.
"What's that?” I asked as I logged and filed the data.
"I've been wringing this nag's sponge with my neural image reader, and Champion isn't just subhuman, boss; he's subhorse."
I faced Shad and returned the analyzer to my pocket. “How so?"
"Watch out!” screamed Shad looking behind me at something way up there.
I turned and Champion had reared back on his hind legs, his front hooves pawing at the air, his wild-eyed gaze fixed directly on me. “Bloody hell!” I cried as the hooves came down hard. Thanks to Shad's timely warning, I avoided the brunt of the onslaught, only catching a glancing blow above my left temple. Nevertheless it was sufficient to knock me off my feet. I collapsed in the straw in one of the corners, my ears deafened by the most horrible screaming. When I could focus my eyes again, I was momentarily powerless to do anything but watch as Shad distracted the murderous brute from killing me by flapping his wings and running figure eights between and around the horse's legs, all the time screaming “Aa-flak, aa-flak, aa-flak, aa-flak!"
Torn between trying to get away from the duck and trying to kill it, Champion lost track of me long enough for me to pull myself up, stumble to the stall's gate, and get on the other side. As I slammed shut the gate, automatically latching it, Shad came flying over the top, landing in the center of my chest with sufficient force to knock me on my backside.
As I sat up I saw Shad flat on his back, wings straight out against the floor, his webbed feet sticking straight up in the air. It looked to me as though he had lost a considerable quantity of feathers from his left wing and tail. “Well,” he said, looking between his legs at his missing tail feathers, “I'll be plucked."
"Close to what I was just thinking, as well, Shad."
"I bet.” Using his wings, he rolled himself over on his left side, at last flopping on his breast. Another couple of flaps and he was wobbling on his feet, which is more than I could say for myself. I noticed several drops of my own blood decorating the left lapel of my suit. “Oh, dear."
"Not that bad,” said Shad, looking at my head. “Cut. Bruising. You might need a butterfly or two. Not as bad as it looks."
"You'll have to come home with me for dinner, Shad."
He cocked his head at me in modest wonderment. “Great. When?"
"Tonight."
The duck stared at me for a moment. “Kind of short notice."
"Can't be helped.” I debated with myself for a moment, then confessed. “My last year in Metro I was wounded during an arrest. Shot. In and out my left bicep. I had it treated, went home, and told Val it was nothing."
"Then she found out the truth."
"Quite. Ever since, if I have any kind of injury, I need to provide a witness if Val is to believe that it's nothing serious. There's a man who comes in to cook—the mech I mentioned, actually. His name is Walter. I'm sure he can make something you can eat."
"I eat everything but waterfowl and spinach,” Shad answered. He seemed to frown for a moment. “I can tell Val your injury isn't serious, but how you got that injury is real serious. It's what I was trying to say when we were so rudely interrupted. About the neural scan I was doing on Champion?"
"Yes?"
"That nag has been fried, partner. I'm surprised he has enough of a nervous system left to feed himself."
"He seemed bloody spry to me."
Shad cocked his head to one side, glanced at the door to Champion's stall, and looked back at me. “While we were in there, someone hit Champ with an image implant. I was reading it when the horse freaked: Truck full of toilets runs over horse? Desert equine destruction—"
"Charge of the Light Brigade,” I completed. “How could someone do an image implant in a horse stall unobserved? For all that matters, how could they do it in a forest? As I recall, that equipment is heavy, awkward, and that doesn't even include the power requirements."
"However impossible, that horse was panicked into trying to kill to defend itself."
"Someone is going to a lot of trouble to pin Miles Bowman's death on a horse."
"And whoever it is doesn't seem too particular about who gets killed to do it."
We both thought upon that for a moment, then I faced him. “Shad, when we were in there and you were busily and quite bravely saving my current life, there was something you kept screaming."
"Oh, that.” He squatted and sat like a duck, his gaze wearily on the beautifully tan and rust tiled floor. “From my old commercials. ‘Aa-flak!’”
"Yes."
"Spelled different than it sounds. Pressure is what does it. Handy during cattle calls when you're really stressed. I never forgot a line. See, when the weight's on, all I can think to say are old lines from scripts I've memorized.” He faced me and said, “'Here's looking at you, kid,'” with the voice of classic actor Humphrey Bogart.
We heard a siren and in moments we saw a Houndtor Down ambulance approaching us through the corridor. “I wonder,” Shad asked with just a touch of perpetually rejuvenated comedian Robin Williams in his voice, “is that for us or the horse?"
* * * *
After informing D. Supt. Matheson of our progress, leaving him even more convinced that Lady Iva was innocent, I brought Shad home for show and tell. Even after his harrowingly honest account of our brief misadventure with the deceased's horse, Val seemed less concerned about my condition or who might have caused it than she was about how famously I was getting on with my new partner.
Walter had prepared an appetizing eggplant Parmesan and judging from the quantity Shad put down, it was duck-compatible. Despite being a mech and frequently in a state of melancholy, that evening Walter couldn't resist laughing at his own duck jokes (There was a veterinarian he knew who was a duck, but the guy was a quack). Despite Shad's exception to fowl references upon our first acquaintance, he gave Walter as good as he got with a
repertory of his own mech jokes that even had Val laughing (How many screws in does it take to light a robot's bulb?).
Once dinner was finished, Walter cleared the table and began cleaning the dishes. Val, Shad, and I moved to the lounge. Shad stood on an end table and slurped at his mint tea, Val curled up on the folded duvet on the settee, and I sat next to her and sipped at my Assam. The telly was on to BBC 228, which was airing the original Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart, the lovely Ingrid Bergman, and the forgivably corrupt police official, Claude Rains. I had imagined it would be a treat for both Shad and myself, but I wasn't able to concentrate. It had been a while since anyone had tried to kill me, and all those old feelings were back again: fear, paranoia, anger, and a sense of relief I couldn't trust. Shad wasn't paying attention either.
"Jaggers?” he said. “All right if I call you Jaggers? The boss-inspector thing seems a little bulky."
"No objection. How is your south end?"
"Sore. How's your head?"
"It feels like a horse kicked it. Something you wanted to ask?"
"Yeah. After I did that scan on Champion, remember I said the nag was fried?"
"Something about being surprised he could still feed himself."
"Yeah.” The duck jumped down to the floor and began pacing. “On the Benton-Lutz AB Scale, average horse intelligence is twenty-seven point something. Back there in his stall Champion came in at a four, which is only a little better than a banana slug."
"That's not fried, Shad. That's cremated."
Shad froze, then slowly turned and looked at me. “Insects. Fly on a wall,” he said at last. “The expression, you know? I wish I was a fly on that wall, meaning I wish I could've seen and heard what was going on in a particular place unobserved."
"Yes?"
"Remember years ago the surveillance industry offered a prize to whoever could figure out how to successfully human imprint a mech or bio vehicle under one and a half millimeters in size?"
"Yes. They couldn't compress a complete human imprint below something much larger—well, the micro you used to map the burrows today. That's as small as it can be done without a severe loss of information. Didn't the industry began experimenting using remote auxiliary processors to hold the mass of the imprint and through it direct the bio?"
Analog SFF, November 2006 Page 5