The Absconded Ambassador

by Michael R. Underwood

  “So, maybe I did hear something,” the Nbere said. “But I remember a lot better when my beard ain’t yanking on my brainstem, you get me?”

  Roman released some slack on the alien’s beard, but kept his grip. “That jog your memory?”

  “I’m jogging, I’m jogging!” the alien said. “I saw three, no, four crews come through over the last week. Three of ’em left today, one said they was staying around for another week, bleeding off credit before their next long run on the rim.”

  “And those three that left?” Roman asked, releasing some more pressure, letting the Nbere stand up to a stoop instead of a full crouch.

  “There was the Dark Stars, the Widowmakers, and, which was it, Garro, Velocities?”

  “I think it was the Seventh Sons,” the Yai said.

  “The Seventh Sons it was! See, no hassle, no bother. So how about you let me go like a civilized ape.”

  “Ape?” King asked. Roman tightened his grip.

  “Sorry, habit. Like a civilized and upstanding totally evolved Terran.”

  Roman let go, then turned to the bar, cupping hands in a low-tech megaphone. “Can I get some shots for my new friends?!”

  * * *

  Do Mal and Garro were, when not being threatened or browbeaten, rather friendly company.

  Roman realized he should have gone for the Yai first—he was far chattier than Do Mal.

  “The Widowmakers like to gab, they does. Anyone with grease under their nails and a functioning set of ears, flesh or tech, can find out what they’ve been up to.”

  King leaned forward. “Especially when they have friends like you. What were the Widowmakers talking about this time around?”

  The Yai tipped back his third stout, belching. “Just some good honest smuggling. Heavy metals towing through the Gaan blockade.”

  Roman scoffed. “They’re still blockading? I thought those lunks would have just swallowed their pride and accepted the tariffs by now.”

  “The Gaan are as likely to swallow their pride as I am to ask one to be my wife,” the Nbere said. “Could you imagine that? Bearded lizard-babies thumping around making an abysmal racket with their trunks.” He stomped his feet, wavering.

  King extended a hand and steadied the drunkard. “And the Dark Stars? What’s the word from them?”

  Garro shook his head. “No, they don’t talk. Uriah whips them if they gab outside the compact. You gotta go direct to them to find anything out.”

  “Any Stars stick around more permanent-like?” Roman asked.

  “Zoor retired from the Dark Stars last cycle, settled down with his Ethkar partner and opened a flower shop, if you’ll believe it.”

  “Flowers?” King lurched forward, as if he’d just remembered something. “It’s my anniversary! I need to get flowers, or my wife’ll space me. Where’s the shop?”

  “Too far, friend. They set up on wheel three,” Garro said, waving for another pint. “There’s a half-dozen shops between here and there.”

  Roman kept on track while King worked the angles. “If we’re going to find the right crew for our job, my client needs to know that we found only the very best.”

  “Zoor ain’t the one to talk to, though. He can maybe get you an introduction, but not like I could. Me and Uriah are like this,” Do Mal said, holding up a braid of his beard, wet with backwash from his beer.

  “Soggy and matted?” Roman asked.

  The Yai pounded the table, roaring. “A tongue on this one! How come I haven’t met you in this hole before?”

  “Just passing through, looking for work.”

  King watched the room, checking for prying eyes. The nearest table of drinkers had moved farther away, but that was more likely due to the Nbere’s wild swings than anything they were saying.

  Roman mimed drunkenly counting to three, mouthing the names of the crews. When he reached three, he asked, “And what’s the other crew up to, Seventh Sons? What’s their specialty?”

  “Wetwork and banditry, son. You want someone bled or something stolen, you call the Seventh Sons. Bloody folk they are. Ain’t no one a proper Seventh Son until they’ve been painted in the blood of a kill.”

  “That’s right,” the Yai said. “A clutch-mate of mine joined the Sons, vicious egg he was. He was going to meet me here, but they blasted out like a comet earlier today.”

  “He say why?”

  “No, his beam just said he couldn’t make it, that he’d be back in maybe a month.”

  “What a cutter!” Roman said. “I thought clutch-mates were supposed to stick together. Am I right?”

  The Yai cheered at that, then again as the next round appeared.

  Roman nodded to King. They’d have to keep tabs on this pair. They were leakier than the bathroom pipes in the men’s room at HQ. Hopefully, Shirin and Leah were turning up good information on the higher-class side to go with their greaser gossip.

  * * *

  Laran led Shirin and Leah out, the three of them pushing their way through the sea of supplicants to the corner and around to another door. Two station security guards flanked the entrance. They nodded to Laran as she lifted her wrist-screened hand, which opened the door.

  “Quickly, now.”

  Ambassador Reed’s apartment was even bigger than Do-Ethar’s, but this one was decorated with more familiar material—Terran art and artifacts, though alien affectations were still present—here a pearlescent vase with horizontal handles, there an incomprehensible musical instrument, and so on.

  “Whispers have not yet reached the public, though the station staff knows,” Laran said. “Without Reed, the fragile Alliance will collapse.”

  “Shouldn’t we be worrying about contaminating the scene?” Leah asked, indicating the room around them.

  “The detectives have come and gone. Only the bedroom remains forbidden, for now.”

  Shirin slid into one of the floating chairs and patted the one next to her, which Leah took, holding back the lip curl of disdain that usually accompanied her response to being led around like a child. She was new to the job, not a toddler. “We received word six hours ago,” Laran said, “when the guardian system returned after being struck down by a fell blow. They were silent as shadows, but they failed to disable the automated resets.”

  “The redundancies still on an alternating four-hour rotation?”

  The Ethkar nodded.

  “Then the kidnapping had to have occurred between 1400 and 1600, judging by the camera data. What does security say?” Shirin asked, leaning forward.

  “Multiple assailants, all wearing working boots. All bipedal.”

  “So none of them were Gaan, though there might have been some Xenei as well,” she said, listing off the possible races of the attackers.

  “So it would seem. The shadows knew their prey, knew the terrain, there were no tracks anywhere else in the suite. They were well-informed, lucky, or—”

  “They had her itinerary.”

  “Possible. The light of truth will scatter shadows, but dawn is yet hours away at best.”

  “What happens if Reed doesn’t come back? Does the Alliance have a chance?”

  Laran looked away, glancing back at the bedroom. “Without the sun, the system will spin out of control, the cosmos of consensus we’ve built will dissolve. A lesser alliance might be found between the Ethkar, Terrans, and some others. A dagger forged from the shattered steel that might have been a sword, but a dagger is of little use when hunting a Vren.”

  Leah hung “Vren” in her mental overhead-storage space, not sure if her cover would be expected to know. If she was, but went to her encyclopedia right away, Laran might twig to their deception. Instead, Leah did her best to sit still, not fidget, not ask follow-ups, and to generally ignore every inclination she had in the strange and marvelous place.

  That part of the job she’d still have to get used to. But she wouldn’t be new forever.

  “When Reed’s absence is revealed, the day’s proceedings will be
gin to unravel almost immediately. The day will devolve into distraction, deflection, and bribery to keep the ambassadors on-point. My team cannot preserve the nascent web alone. Tend to the web’s more disagreeable nodes. As Ambassador Reed would say, we will ‘plug holes with our fingers until the dam breaks.’”

  Shirin nodded. “We’re all yours. Just beam over the dossiers and any notes you have on who to speak to first, we can begin first thing in the morning.” Shirin reached a hand out to Laran. “I know how long you and Reed have been working on this. We won’t let it wash away like a sigil in the sand.”

  Laran stood. “It will be done.”

  “I have a colleague working this case with me,” Shirin said. “He was once an investigator. I’m sure he’d want to take his own look at the room, if it would be permissible. I’ve gotten clearance from Commander Bugayeva.”

  “Bring him. May he shed light.”

  Laran and Shirin shared another gesture of greeting, which apparently doubled as “goodbye.”

  “Good luck, Shirin, and to your apprentice, too. Next time, perhaps you will allow her to speak. I would be very interested to hear what she has to say.”

  And with that, Laran strode out, the door irising open and closed automatically. The Ethkar stepped into the waiting mob without hesitation, the commotion filling the room for just an instant before the door closed once more.

  “Get on the line and beam the boys to tell them we’re clear to scrub the bedroom. Then you can look up what Vren are.”

  “How do you do that?” Leah asked, hands thrown out to the side.

  “Practice, newbie. Now let’s get to it. King and Roman will be back from their slumming intel trip soon.”

  King and Roman arrived fifty minutes later, coming from the nearest wheel wing of the station.

  Roman took video of the room while King sprayed an aerosol can around the room, stepping carefully in boots coated with plastic booties. Leah watched from the hallway. The spray stayed visible, didn’t dissipate into the air. It just hung there, gray and passive.

  Shirin sprayed the other side of the room, similarly tiptoeing in covered shoes. They’d have to empty two whole cans to cover a room this big. Luckily, that’s what they’d brought. Not that the quartermaster would be happy to see them return empty-handed. This stuff wasn’t cheap, and the High Council wasn’t made of money. Well, not endless amounts of money.

  “These are versatile particles,” King said, taking the expository role. “With stimulus from the wrist-screen, they’ll react with various chemicals. Each spectrum covers a different type of search. But they’ll take a little while to change between types.”

  “So what will this tell us?” Leah asked. “Can we get genetic scans, find out what species the kidnappers were, what material their shoes were made of, Sci-Fi Sherlock stuff?”

  “Basically. We’re looking for as well-rounded a picture as we can get. I read the security report on the way over, and I’m not impressed.”

  “Why not?” Shirin asked.

  “Station security has never impressed me here,” King said. “Makes sense, since that allows the crimes to happen in the first place that move stories forward. But it doesn’t make our jobs any easier.”

  “If this is normal, then why does it count as a breach?” Leah asked.

  Finished with his scan, Roman stepped lightly out of the room to join Leah in the hall. “It’s a breach because the forecasting team back home says it’s a breach, and because our guts tell us it’s a breach. Unless something else is going on and we’re totally missing it.”

  “How likely is that?”

  From in the room, King said, “More likely than I’m comfortable with. But bringing the ambassador back will stabilize this region, and that’s better for this world’s stability, regardless. And judging by the intel we got out of our chatty, drunk friends, my gut tells me we’re on the right track.”

  Roman pulled up a feed on his screen while the others worked.

  Leah asked, “What are you looking at?”

  The Genrenaut rotated his arm to show her. “News reports. Trying to sort out which of the local gangs kidnapped the ambassador. So far it looks like the Dark Stars are probably small potatoes for the job, but I can’t count them out yet. How’s forensics coming, King?”

  “Just a second.” King tapped his wrist-screen, and the versatile particles disappeared from sight. “We’re coming up now. Leah, watch this.”

  Leah squinted as King tapped his wrist-screen, trying to tell where the versatile particles had gone.

  King slipped the aerosol can into his belt, then pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Up in three. Cover your eyes.”

  Leah slipped the glasses on in a hurry, poking herself in the eye with the plastic earpiece before getting the shades into place just as King shut off the light, revealing . . .

  Green. Tons of green, all in a cloud, catching the light that King’s screen was putting out. But it was all undifferentiated, some kind of neutral.

  King tapped his screen. “Infrared is first.” The screen changed colors, and the particles in the air moved to the ground, showing footprints in cool blues and greens, as well as a residual shape on the bed.

  “Signs of struggle here.” He walked to a cluster of overlapping footprints. “I’d say . . . three attackers, and one more in the room.”

  “They threw her to the ground here, then she was pinned, probably hooded or gagged,” Shirin added.

  King and Shirin circled the heat signatures in opposite directions, leaving their own tracks on the floor.

  The pair stopped, their eyes meeting for a moment. An understanding passed between them, and King tapped his screen. The color changed to blue, and some of particles pulled up off of the ground. A group rushed to the doorframe and the door, spilling out into the hall behind her.

  The lit particles settled on scratches and scuffs and shapes on the floor, as well as on the door, swung open into the room, and the door hinges.

  “Door was kicked in, superficial scratches to the floor corroborates the struggle,” King said.

  “Now for the real lottery. Do we get any particulates, hair, saliva, or fibers?” Shirin asked, glancing up to Leah by way of indicating context.

  The light changed to yellow, and the particles shifted again, some staying on the door, others moving to scatter along the floor like a dusting of snow.

  Ew, yellow snow. Bad comparison, she thought. Like dust, she thought, reframing the sight.

  Shirin looked to the door. “Residue on the door, that’ll give us the boots.”

  “It’s in the report,” Roman said from the hallway. “Work boots, size twelve. Available a hundred different places on the station.”

  “We’ve got biological material all over the floor, but distribution looks like hair, dead skin. Did station security already take samples?”

  “They’re running them now. They usually take six hours on analysis, should be done before you bunk down,” Roman said.

  “You?”

  “King and I are going to head back to chase down more leads on the working class side.”

  Shirin turned to Leah. “And by chase down leads, they mean drink and fight until answers spill out of people’s mouths along with teeth and blood.”

  Roman shrugged. “It works.”

  King said, “We tried a mission all-diplomacy style a few years back. Shirin called the shots. And we almost let the killer get away.”

  Shirin raised a finger. “Objection. Extenuating circumstances. It was a brand-new alien species. How was I supposed to know it was preying on the fears and hunger of the poor people living in air ducts?”

  “And that,” Roman said, “is why we cover all of our bases.”

  “It just happens that covering bases in the rougher parts of the station tends to be fairly hands-on and high risk.”

  Leah asked, “So a little brutalization and casual violence to see you through?”

  Roman bristled. “Nothing casua
l about it. But we do what we must to get the story back on-track, Probie.”

  “I’m good, I’m good. Just be careful, and don’t whack anyone you don’t have to.”

  Shirin shook her head. “The local security does enough of that as is.”

  King took charge. “We’re done here. Shirin, you and Leah start first thing tomorrow. You’ll have the materials analysis, and we’ll send updates from the fringe if we get any leads.”

  “Okay, newbie, you’re with me.” Shirin walked toward the door, smiling with her whole body. “Let’s go find ourselves an overpriced diplomatic district hotel and charge it to HQ.”

  * * *

  Their quarters were literally a quarter of the size of the ambassador’s suite, but Leah’s own room was still as large as her entire apartment.

  The door opened into a common room with couches and comfy seats, a wall-sized screen, and space-faux-homey details like digital paintings of nebulae and a selection of plant life. Each painting was more science fictional than the last—from something that looked like carnivorous orchids to fiber-optic grass and a bush that had leaves made out of flattened rocks.

  That was, of course, until Shirin started rearranging everything, enlisting Leah for extra muscle.

  “We’re going to be taking meetings here, which means doing a bit of no-cost redecorating.”

  Shirin repositioned the furniture to create a two-on-one chair-to-couch space, and moved another couch across the room to just inside the door. She pointed at the chair by the door, designating it as the “waiting area,” and the couch-and-chairs section as the “meeting room.”

  “Why not make them wait outside?” Leah asked.

  “Some we will, others we’ll want to see who we’re talking to and for those people to see who we’re about to talk to.” Shirin tossed a pillow across the room, turning toward her bedroom. “A lot of diplomacy is managing public image, the interplay of information, who knows what, and who knows who else knows what they know.” She paused as she went into the bedroom, then returned with a trio of throw pillows.