by Scott Moon
No corporate executive at the top of the food chain could survive without a top-tier education from both formal institutions and the school of hard knocks. For all Thaddeus knew, the Sagittarian Conglomerate had a standard operating procedure manual for conducting gang wars and assassinations. He just wasn't sure about the latest murder. Something wasn’t right. It had to be tied to the other bodies.
Transport ships descended from orbit and made their way to the spaceport. Humans and Ungloks marched to their jobs or road trams. Somewhere, several streets away by the sound, a local herdsman was moving animals to the slaughter. Street vendors wailed their singsong sales pitches loud enough for him to hear. The Mother Lode seemed quiet as a church by comparison. Neither Pierre nor Dixie were doing much business these days. He wondered if they were distracted or just going out of business.
A group of Unglok women in long, black mourning robes approached the semi-vacant lot. Thaddeus needed to clean the area up. The evidence of his last workout several days ago wasn't improving his fitness or maintaining the condition of his outdoor gym.
One of the older women in the group stepped forward. "Are you the sheriff?"
Thaddeus stared at her, shocked by the clarity of her words.
"Your deputy is not of high social station. His language skills are not his fault,” the woman said. “I am Kandor, mother of Chiklak and other children who bother me,” she said. Her tall form accentuated the willowy effect of the long robes covering her from chin to feet.
Unsure if she was joking about the last part, Thaddeus moved forward and tried to shake her hand as he smiled, but she didn’t smile. She stared at his hand like it was covered with sewage.
“It is proper for me to express thanks,” she said. “I am not required to touch you.”
Thad stepped back. “I haven’t found your husband’s killer.”
She made a shooing motion with her left, robe-covered hand. Thaddeus wasn’t sure what it meant. “Do you require the simpler speech of the uneducated?” She paused. “Trankot muchly bad. Wrongly in business and meanly with fists.”
“I apologize,” Thaddeus said. “No one told me you were coming today.”
“Why muchly tell you? Humans muchly hate Ungloks,” she said.
“You can talk normally. I said I was sorry about my surprise and any embarrassment is all mine. Please accept my apology. And humans don’t hate Ungloks,” he said.
She stared at him as her following of Unglok women, all of them younger than she was, went silent. “Trankot was bad and not as rich or powerful as he claimed. Saying a thing is so does not make it so. He was not killed during the robbery. His death was unnecessary but inevitable. I have done my duty. Muchly good-bye, Sheriff Thaddeus Fry.”
“Wait. I have questions.”
She crossed her arms and that at least appeared equivalent to the human gesture. "You are ugly, short, and thick. Your people have no respect for our culture or our planet. The negotiator said it would be for ten years, yet you continue to dig deeper mines. The worst Ungloks welcome your corruption. Trankot was one of these.”
"Did you kill him?" Thaddeus asked.
"No. It is forbidden. Not forbidden for him to kill me, however," she said.
"Taking you at your word, that narrows my suspect list. Was it ShadEcon or their rivals who killed your husband?”
"He was not a member in good standing.”
Thad made a skeptical face, twisting his head sideways as he shrugged. "That doesn’t answer my question.”
"My name is Kandor, and I have no more words for you." She turned and walked away. The younger Unglok women followed her.
"The rest of your family could be in danger. Help me help you," Thaddeus said.
One of the younger women looked over her shoulder at him, eyes wide, but continued to follow the others. He thought about trying to talk to her, but decided it would be a bad idea in the current setting.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Stitches
Mast worked on the computer Thaddeus had given him until the sun came up. He learned many things about his people and discovered disturbing incidents of wealth being hidden among the poorest residents of Darklanding. None of it was finding its way back to their homes in the valleys and mountains beyond the influence of the human industrialists.
He thought it was sad, but nothing to get a man killed.
The new payment system lessened the amount of cash floating around, but not as much as Mast would have thought.
There were no police reports from the Unglok neighborhoods. Everything he found was in the form of banking notes, shipping receipts, and building permits. He wondered what his people did when they had a problem. Informing the authorities did not seem to be a popular option.
“What a strange thought, Mast Jotham,” he said to himself. "Why would they take their problems to a human?"
Computer search engines dominated his attention for the next hour as he learned to search the criminal database. If he had a name—or part of a name—he thought he could learn much about a human criminal. His imagination burned with ways to seek the identities of the four men who had attacked him and his friends. He scrolled though thousands of humans with ShadEcon tattoos visible in their booking videos.
“My search feels muchly hopeless.”
He left the small room of his apartment near the market and walked to the edge of the Unglok neighborhood. There were several small buildings that were not residences. One belonged to a man who practiced medicine. Twice a week, he came in from the country to attend to his people. They paid him in goodwill and the occasional gift. Some gifts were more useful than others.
He placed his hands on the door and leaned his head close to the imitation wood paneling of the SagCon structure. After a careful pause to suppress a cough, he knocked with his forehead three times. “Hanviat, it is Mast Jotham, apprentice and acolyte to Lingviat, your brother in knowledge. I have completed a spirit quest this cycle. The coughing illness persists and sometimes there is blood, as I mentioned during my previous visit. Several of the muchly well-stitched stitches have popped and need attention.”
It was a long time before the door opened. Hanviat, one of the shortest of his people he had ever seen, stared at him with sadness and caution in his eyes. "Did you bring these humans here to explain themselves while I treat your wounds?"
"No, Hanviat, I have not."
“I told you to bring them. They were wearing metal on their hands when they struck you and I need to know who created such a horrible weapon and why they didn’t just shoot you.”
“I do not know who they are,” Mast said. “They will not be using the metal knuckles next time, I think. Blasters next time. Surely.”
Privacy was never important to the medicine man. The structure contained a single room. The ceiling was as high as it could be. Mast suspected they had removed the insulation for more headroom. On one side of the room was a mat and several of the medicine man's tools and texts. On the other was a small crowd of people sitting very close together and waiting for his attention.
One was a woman he recognized. “Kandor, I am Mast Jotham. Anything I can do to help you after the death of your husband will be done.”
She seemed happier than when he last saw her, but tired. "You can do one thing for me, and one thing only.”
Mast waited for her demand.
"Tell your human sheriff to leave my family alone. Trankot is dead and will remain dead no matter who is to blame," she said.
Hanviat spoke quietly with Kandor and gave her several bandages and ointments. Mast saw her hands as they left her robes for a short moment. She had scarred knuckles and the slow-ache that plagued Ungloks who had recovered from many broken bones.
"I will not need so many. Thank you, Hanviat,” she said. “Nor will I need burn ointment.” When she left, most of the crowd went with her.
The medicine man turned to Mast. “You will need some new stitches. Then I can find something to ease your coughing."
&nb
sp; Mast bowed his head and accepted the medicine man’s remedies and advice.
“You do not need another vision quest, no matter what Lingviat says,” Hanviat said.
Mast nodded in relief. He bowed again, backed away, and watched Hanviat treat an old man for sun exposure. Behind him, a soft voice caused him to turn around.
“I am Chiklak, daughter of Kandor and Trankot,” a young woman said.
Mast examined her. “My condolences for your loss.”
Tears formed at the edge of the Unglok girl’s eyes. “Everyone hated him but me.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
She shook her head. “I just wanted you to know he wasn’t evil. He protected me.” She twisted away and hurried through the door to catch up to her mother and sisters.
“Do not pursue her, Mast Jotham,” Hanviat said without looking up from his current patient.
Mast nodded, then stepped through the door, hoping the medicine man didn’t think he was disregarding his advice.
Am I disregarding his advice?
He watched the Unglok women stride past a tram stop. “They are muchly going to the market. Which is more human than Unglok. Muchly strange.”
He headed into the market to purchase his food for the week and maybe something to read. Several lots had been reserved for the market. The aroma of cooking food drifted from food carts. Vendors chanted the wonders of their wares from other carts, tables, and tents. Mast walked among them, seeing many good deals but buying nothing.
Chiklak seemed to know he was there, but the rest of the Unglok women ignored him completely. He waited for her to move away from her mother, then approached cautiously.
She picked up a piece of thorny rock fruit and spoke to him as she examined it. "I am flattered that you have followed me this far." She twisted the fruit and lifted it to examine the part that had been resting on the table. "I do truly desire to talk to you about what has happened. However, I must point out that you have someone following you."
Mast hesitated and looked around. She spoke so fluently that he wondered if he had forgotten his people’s language during his effort to learn Galactic Common. He felt like he was being terribly obvious. Chiklak, daughter of Kandor and Trankot, had the foresight to contrive a reason to be standing here in the middle of the market. He was just staring like an idiot. She was very young, but of a marriageable age. Slowly, as her words sunk in, he turned to spot a familiar Unglok child. He snorted in a manner that would not impress Chiklak.
"One moment, Chiklak, daughter of Kandor and Trankot. I must see to this juvenile," he said and moved quickly toward Andronik, the youth who had taken to following the sheriff around and pestering him with questions.
"You there, Andronik, what are you about? Why are you following me?”
Andronik attempted to slip away, but Mast snatched him by his dominant wrist as Thaddeus had taught him during their training sessions. He doubted the child had a weapon, but the sheriff insisted he practiced good habits when it came to fighting. "I have you. You mustn’t run.”
The young Unglok turned his face up and smiled slyly. "If I was gonna run, I wouldn't have let you see me. Do you think Chiklak is pretty? Would you like me to tell her that you think she is pretty?"
“Foolish YanYan boy. She is leaving now. Why do you waste my time?” Mast asked in his native tongue, holding the boy but staring after the women leaving the market more rapidly than he expected.
"Can you teach me to speak Galactic, like the humans use?" He twisted to break free and failed. "You're stronger than I thought you would be. I have watched you exercise with Sheriff Fry. He's more impressive than you are. Much stronger. And very fast. And when he does martial arts, it looks like he has actually been in a fight and knows what he is doing.”
"Unlike me," Mast said as he watched the women disappear down a sidestreet.
Andronik stomped on Mast’s foot and jumped away.
"Hey there, stop that!" Mast said.
"I know where they are going. We can follow them. You have to do what I say and try not to be so clumsy and obvious. You would be a terrible burglar," Andronik said.
"Thank you, I think. Why would you want to be a burglar? Are you a burglar? What would the sheriff think?" Mast asked.
The boy hurried toward a street that seemed to run adjacent to the one where Kandor and the women of her family had gone. "I would only steal from the rich.”
"Which is still against the law. You cannot penalize them because they are more fortunate than you are," Mast said, hurrying to keep up.
"This way," Andronik said as he ducked into a narrow alleyway. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
"Forget about fair.”
It seemed like they were running in circles, covering two or three times as much distance as was necessary, but eventually reemerged on a walkway between several buildings in the poor part of town. He looked down on Chiklak and her mother. "What if they look up and see us?”
"No one looks up,” Andronik said.
Kandor paused, held up one hand for everyone to stop, and then looked up. Each of the women followed her lead.
Mast flattened himself against the wall of the building that the walkway traveled around. Andronik hissed through his teeth. "You should never move when they look up. Movement draws the eyes.”
"You just told me no one ever looks up.”
Andronik gave him another sly smile. "I guess some people look up. I look up, so it makes sense other people might look up. This is just the first time I have seen it is all. Surprised me. I hope they didn't see you hopping about nervously.”
Kandor and the women paused for a long time, then began to move again.
"I wasn't hopping about," Mast said. "We need to follow them."
He did not like anything about this. It felt like an invasion of their privacy. Chiklak must surely know what he was doing and did not seem to mind. But how would he know for sure with her covered in her robes?
"You want to learn their secrets," Andronik said.
“Well, I have a good reason. It is a necessity," Mast said.
"I'm very good at learning secrets. No one pays attention to children. I can tell you where they are going and why.”
Mass stared at the child, completely forgetting to watch the women for several seconds.
"They're going to the Chok, what Sheriff Fry would call a ShadEcon meeting. We can go get him, but they always move the Chok. If you want to witness what they're saying, this is the only way.”
As much as it embarrassed him, Mast wanted to spy on their conversation. "What do you think they're going to say?”
"They are going to return some of the items that had been stolen from Trankot and Kandor. The four human mercenaries found the thieves and punished them.”
"Did these thieves kill Trankot?”
Andronik stared at him. "Why would they do that?”
"Perhaps he resisted. Someone killed him," Mast said. "I must learn who it is. It does not sound like this conversation they will have will help.”
"I think you still want to listen and watch," Andronik said.
"Take me to this Chok. I want to see what they say.”
The boy hurried along walkways and over rooftops until they were staring down into what seemed like a very secret and dangerous meeting. There were armed guards at all the alleyways leading to a large, circular water fountain without water. Ungloks sat around the circumference of the fountain as though it were a long, circular bench.
Mast watched and listened for a long time.
CHAPTER NINE: Sweeping the Saloon
Thad stepped to the bar and rapped his knuckles twice upon it. “Barkeep.” He watched some of Dixie’s girls play cards on the sly as he waited. A small group of regulars stared into their drinks as though they had been working double shifts for weeks.
A young man wearing a service apron stepped up behind the bar, his manner quiet and sullen.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Pierre.”
“Junior?” Thad asked.
“No relation.”
“You always this much fun?”
“Pretty much.”
Thad tapped his fingers a few times as he studied the gloomy young man. “I'll take one whiskey, neat."
"It's not good for you," the young Pierre who wasn't related to the old Pierre said as he slid the drink across the bar.
"I think you're the worst bartender I've ever met.”
"Thank you for your honesty."
Thad sipped his drink and pretended he didn’t know how much it cost. "Can you at least look around a bit? Maybe break eye contact once in a while?”
The young Pierre turned back to cleaning glasses. Thaddeus pivoted so he could watch the tables and the small number of very quiet and well-behaved patrons. "This is surreal. I thought I wanted peace and quiet.”
An old Unglok ducked through the front door and stopped to look around. The moment was so awkward that Thaddeus felt bad for the old dude. He thought about going to see what he needed, but it felt a bit outside of his work parameter. Eventually, the oldster edged across the room and stood at the bar. Thaddeus listened with interest to the conversation that followed.
"I am Ummak. Where Pierre?"
The young Pierre put away the glass he was cleaning with the slow reverence of a priest at a Catholic mass and turned around. He stepped to the inside of the bar and placed both hands on it. What followed was an epic staring contest between the emotionless barkeep and the nervous Unglok.
"My name is Pierre. I work here. I'd rather be painting a mountain landscape."
This blew Ummak’s mind. Thaddeus had seen his friend Mast express Unglok confusion and it could be amusing. The quivering consternation that crossed this Unglok’s face was amazing.
"Why you paint mountains? I never see painted mountains. How much paint does it muchly take?"