Sven bade the women goodbye and beat a retreat back to the shop. He wasn't sure whether to feel sorry for the succubus or the detective. What he would have given to be a fly on the wall during their discussion.
Thirteen
Instead of her desk in their open plan office, Minali led Violet to the lunch room instead, which was mercifully empty at this time of day.
The moment the door closed behind Violet, Minali snapped, "What do you think you're doing? We have a responsibility to arrest him. He confessed his guilt right there on record. What more do you need? Letting him go like that is a criminal offence all on its own!"
Violet didn't look the slightest bit ruffled. "He didn't confess to anything. He claimed responsibility, which is tantamount to warning us off his case."
"Since when do Intra take orders from criminals?" Minali demanded. Realising her mistake, she amended, "At least, the ones who aren't crooked, I mean."
"Some people are not subject to the same justice as the rest of us," Violet said.
"No one's above the law," Minali insisted.
Violet laughed. "Oh, I never said he was above the law. Just that he's subject to different justice to the rest of us. And he called us on it. His people take a different view on violence to Humans or even Metas. And the Ama Seldova know this – they built it into the peace treaties. I'm sure it's in the laws for the Complex, too, though well hidden in lawyer-speak and all. Why do you think I'm on this case? I sure didn't do anything to deserve the promotion. I liked where I was." She sniffed. "Beat cop is much more fun. I had my hand right on the pulse of this place. But the powers that be insisted they needed my special knowledge on this case. Now I see why." Violet's gaze turned calculating. "How much do you know about Mer?"
Minali laughed shakily. "Until this case, I didn't know they existed. Even now I've seen one, it's still hard to believe."
"Ah." The single syllable seemed to hold a world of knowledge and superiority that Violet doubted Minali would ever understand. Violet glanced at her wrist. "Good thing we have a few hours before we're expected at the Mer community. We're going to need every second to bring you up to speed."
Minali's head spun. First merpeople existed, and now she was going to see a whole bunch of them. The universe was a stranger place than she'd thought.
Fourteen
If Minali had thought her head was spinning before Violet launched into her anthropology lecture, she was mistaken. Her head hurt at everything Violet had told her.
Minali held her hands up for silence. "Okay, let me get things straight. Mermaids are one of the most dangerous Metas, if not the most deadly, because they could wipe everyone else out if they wanted to. The only reason they haven't is because they don't feel like it, but they could change their minds tomorrow and we'd all be dead. They brokered the peace treaty between Metas and Humans, and they get special privileges as a result. One of them is an isolated colony right here in the Complex, which doesn't mix with the rest of the population except at Uni Fish Supply, where they provide fish to sell to the other residents."
Violet nodded.
Minali continued, "Okay, so that explains a few things. One, I've never seen them before because they keep to themselves. Their part in the peace process was not publicised because that's the way they wanted it. They're here in the Complex to maintain the peace and make sure we don't kill each other. So a body found on their premises has the potential to be a diplomatic incident if it shows they're the ones who broke the peace. But I still don't understand why we couldn't arrest their employee and charge him for the murder. It's not like Sven's a mermaid!" Minali couldn't help laughing at the thought of the big man sitting on a rock, singing and flapping his sparkling tail while he combed his hair.
Violet looked like she wanted to explain some more, but she contented herself with, "You'll see when we get there." She brought the flyer to a halt in a nondescript corridor in the Aquatic Dome. The only door in view had no number on it, like the numerous utility doors in the maintenance corridors, but Violet approached it hesitantly. "Look, Mer can be easily offended, and that's the last thing we want. Given your inexperience with them, let me take the lead on this. Try to say as little as possible. If you have any questions, write them down. I'll answer them later, or if I can't, we can make another time to ask the Mer."
Politics had never been Minali's strong point, as her supervisors had loved to remind her. It had cost her more than one promotion. Though it rankled to play second fiddle to someone who had only been a constable last week, Violet acted like she knew what she was doing. If she didn't, and she blew the whole investigation because of it, Minali would simply say so in her report. After all, Sven was still here in the Complex. All Minali would have to do was swing by his place and pick him up – arresting him would be easy. It wasn't like he could flee the planet.
Minali nodded curtly. She would let Violet lead, just this once.
Violet palmed open the door, and ushered Minali inside.
Minali walked down a short, curving corridor before stopping in wonder. The corridor opened up into a private parkland, not unlike the public ones throughout the other domes. Given this was the Aquatic Dome, she shouldn't have been surprised at the number of pools, set on various different levels so that water cascaded from one to the other in an ornamental display like some of the ancient gardens she'd heard about on old Earth. Fish splashed and played in the pools. Occasionally, the jewelled colours of a mermaid's tail broke the surface, only to vanish into the depths again.
"It's beautiful," she breathed.
Violet managed a rueful smile. "They think they're slumming it, to hear them tell it. They've claimed an island archipelago in the tropics of one of the Meta planets, and most of them can't wait to go back. The S-Co they earn here will go toward island infrastructure, I'm told. Even the income from the fish shop is held in the communal accounts. It's a strange system, but it works for them."
Minali had heard of communism in her history lessons at school, but all she could recall was that it was a corrupt system that hadn't worked well on Earth. And the police of that regime had relied on a network of paid informers that spanned more than a third of the population. A climate of fear Minali wouldn't have wanted to live in.
"Do they have a spy network, too?" Minali asked. That would explain their different justice system. People who committed crimes just…disappearing.
Violet laughed so hard she almost doubled over. "Mer spies? Among their own? What a waste of time. Mer are so open with each other, in the time it took a spy to make a report, the whole community would already know. They don't keep secrets here."
But they did keep secrets from the outside world, and the rest of the Complex, Minali added silently. Or she would have heard of mermaids before now. Everyone in the community would know about Sven and the murder, but they might not breathe a word of it to her. Closed communities like this didn't warm easily to outsiders.
Was Violet an outsider to them, or had she earned their trust?
Minali's instincts told her the latter.
"Is Allie here?" Violet asked a woman who surfaced in the nearest pool.
"No idea. Try up at her house." The woman lifted a dripping arm from the water to point at a cluster of low buildings halfway up the hill. She ducked under the water again, her silvery tail blending with the fish until she disappeared altogether.
Violet shrugged and led the way up the hill.
The sounds of a small child screaming grew steadily louder as they approached.
"Allie?" Violet called as she reached a doorway.
The door flew open, and a harried-looking man wearing shorts and nothing else peered out. He held a struggling baby in his arms, whose lusty screaming drowned out all other sound. "She's not here, and she should be home by now. Cece was due a feed an hour ago and she won't stop screaming."
Violet held her arms out for the bawling infant, apparently immune to the noise the child made. "Didn't one of the other Mer have a ba
by recently? You could ask her to feed her. If not, I'm sure you can buy baby formula from one of the stores in town."
"You can buy breastmilk?" the man asked, incredulous. The dark circles under his eyes spoke of many sleepless nights.
"Humans do it all the time," Violet said. "I'm sure it won't do her any harm."
Human. The word made Minali look at the man. Two legs, just like her. "You're Human?" she blurted out. "What are you doing living with mermaids if you're Human?"
Violet held up the squirming baby. Out of the blankets peeped the flukes of a pink tail. "He married one," she said shortly, a warning note in her tone.
Quiet, with no questions, Minali remembered. Right. Not that it helped. Now she couldn't help but think about how a Meta-Human pairing had produced a child. A Meta child. Did that mean all the Metas could have children with Humans? If they could, then in the future, both races could become so mixed no one would be able to tell Meta from Human. No one wanted to go to war against their parents or their children or their siblings. You couldn't have war unless there was a difference between us and them. If there was just us…
"Are you entertaining without me?" a female voice called. Into the room stepped…
"Allie," Minali said in surprise, recognising the cheerful plumber who'd fixed her toilet when Phil shoved so many condoms down it that it got blocked. Only now did it dawn on her that he'd probably been having orgies for longer than she'd realised. "Is there a plumbing problem here in the Mer habitat?"
"I sure hope not," Allie replied, scooping up the squirming baby with one hand and planting a kiss on her head. "I have a milk emergency to see to first, right, Cece?"
She settled into a chair to feed the baby, gesturing for the others to find a seat, too. "Galen, could you sort out some refreshments, please? I think we'll need them."
Allie's husband disappeared through a door Minali hadn't seen before. When she peeped through it, she found Galen stood in a kitchen larger than her lunchroom, with a bigger table, too.
For a plumber, Allie sure had a lot of space. Minali's tiny apartment could have fitted inside this place twice over, and there'd still be room to spare. Not to mention the windows that looked out over the ponds. Minali definitely couldn't afford an apartment with a window on her salary. Yet Allie…
Violet held out a box of what Minali recognised as the most expensive chocolates in the Complex. "I brought you a little gift," she said.
Allie thanked her and set the box on the table beside her. Didn't she know her gift had cost more than a week's salary? Minali couldn't believe Allie would leave such a precious item out where anyone could see it, instead of locked away where no one could steal it.
Violet accepted a cup of coffee from Galen. "A few days ago, the Intra received a report that there was more than just fish floating in the tanks of your shop. So I got called in to investigate…" She proceeded to tell Allie everything Minali herself knew about the murder case. Details no member of the public should be privy to, in Minali's opinion. More often than not, some of those lesser-known details were how they identified the killer, because only he knew all of them as well as the Intra themselves.
None of this seemed to surprise Allie, who simply nodded as Violet told her tale.
Finally, Violet reached the part about Sven. She described all of the evidence against him, and finished with, "So what do you think?"
Allie paused to hand her now sleeping baby to her husband, before she said gravely, "I think if he's the one who killed this woman, then he has no place here with us."
"And if he didn't?" Violet asked.
Allie smiled bleakly. "Then someone is playing with fire, and they will be burned."
Fifteen
Sven swam the length of the fish ponds, from top to bottom and back again. Then he did it again. He was stalling, and he knew it. He didn't know enough about Human-Meta politics to solve this mess on his own. He needed the help of an expert, and no one knew diplomacy like Allie. If he wanted to keep his position and solve this murder, he needed to cast his pride aside and beg for her help.
So it was with a heavy heart that he headed up the hill to the house she shared with her husband.
Allie's voice floated out of the open window. "I think if he's the one who killed this woman, then he has no place here with us."
Sven froze. It was one thing for the detective to believe him guilty of murder, but Allie, who'd known him since he was a boy? It took him a moment to realise she was speaking again, talking about how he'd always been eager to join the war effort and fight against Humans, but that she never thought he'd actually do it.
It was one thing to kill people on the opposing side of a war where your own survival was at stake, and another to kill a defenceless girl in cold blood in peacetime. Not that Sven had ever killed anyone. No, what he'd meant was that he supported Allie in her quest for vengeance during the war. Nothing more. He wasn't sure he could lift a hand against anyone, Human or Meta, if it came down to it.
But Allie believed he could.
Sven didn't want to listen any more to her misguided ideas about him. No wonder she'd turned him down – she'd never really known him at all. Well, he'd show her – he'd solve this mystery without her and prove he was every bit the leader he deserved to be.
A splash drew his eye to the ponds. Ah, Melusine and Melpomene had patched things up. Melusine's baby was nowhere to be seen – probably in the newly created creche Sven had arranged only this week, he thought smugly – as the two women twined around one another, demonstrating how deeply they cared for the other's pleasure.
Sven sighed, feeling a stirring of envy as he watched them. He'd give anything to have a partner who cared so deeply for his body and his needs. Someone who knew him better than he knew himself. Of course, he'd happily reciprocate. Twice over, if need be. Such an incredible woman deserved an attentive man.
Sven slid into the water, shifting to his tail to hide his desire. Not soon enough, however.
"I know. I'm going crazy here," mourned a male voice beside Sven. Theron couldn't take his eyes off the two women. "They don't need me at all."
Melpomene glanced in their direction and gave Melusine a particularly passionate kiss as she tweaked the other woman's nipples.
"I showed her how to do that," Theron complained.
Sven watched for a long moment, making sure his hypothesis was correct, before he said, "You know they're teasing you, don't you? I bet if you asked to join them right now, you'd have both hands full before you can blink."
"Really?" Theron's voice glowed with hope.
Sven felt unbearably hot. The girls were really putting on a show. If he were Theron, he'd be in the thick of things five minutes ago. "Definitely."
Theron swam so fast, he skimmed across the surface to the women he loved.
Sven would have given anything to be in Theron's position right now.
Sixteen
Violet rose, thanking Allie profusely for her time. Minali wasn’t sure why – the plumber had hardly offered any new information for their investigation.
"I'll have a talk to Beems, and see what he can come up with. Perhaps he'll have an answer to your surveillance issue," Allie offered.
This meant nothing to Minali, but Violet nodded. Evidently she knew this Beems person, and respected his advice. Minali said nothing. Any further information on this case would be welcome, however biased it might be.
Violet lingered to say her farewells to Galen and Cece, while Minali headed down the hill. She stared across the pools as she waited, wondering what exactly she was seeing. It looked like around a dozen Mer clustered in the one pool. Minali moved closer for a better look.
Some of them were swimming so closely together their tails bumped on every stroke, while some looked as Human as she was except for the gills striping their sides. Two women kissed passionately, waist deep in the water, and Minali cast her eyes down to give the women some privacy. Only to discover that both women were sitting on a t
hird person submerged a couple of feet below the surface. One woman straddled the thrusting hips while the other seemed to hold the person in a headlock between her thighs. The headlock woman threw her head back and let out a loud moan, urged on by her friend.
Stars. Another bloody orgy, Minali realised. A dozen naked mermaids…no…merpeople, she realised, seeing a rippled sixpack for a moment before it was obscured by a pair of ample breasts. There were mermen, too? The more she looked, the more she saw. Tails and legs, arms and heads, all tangled together above and below the surface, without a scrap of clothing in sight. This place made Phil's orgy look tame. But from the bliss on these women's faces, their orgasms weren't faked.
Why didn't the merpeople go out and conquer the Seldova system?
Because they enjoyed screwing each other too much to be bothered with anyone else.
Maybe there was something to this hippy nudist community after all, Minali mused. If the guys gave orgasms that good, maybe she should try nudity for a few days when she got leave.
"Want to join in?" a male voice asked.
Minali glared at the speaker. How dare he read her thoughts like that?
But her thoughts hadn't been read by just anyone. In the pool before her sat a grinning Sven, fanning his emerald green tail out before him as he gestured along the length of his perfectly muscled torso. "Man or fish, take your pick, lovely lady," he purred.
Though her head screamed at her to run from the murder suspect, her loins felt an unfamiliar burn that she thought she'd extinguished years ago. The man was sex incarnate, she had to admit.
"Not now, not ever, Fishtail," she retorted in a tone so frosty it could have chilled deep space. If only it could cool the fires of her roaring ardour.
He winked at her, then leaped into the air, like a dolphin. He turned a lazy somersault, then flipped over to execute a perfect dive. "Maybe another time, lovely lady," he called over his shoulder. He undulated away, giving her a good view of his perfectly formed, bright green arse.
Fishtail (The Complex Book 0) Page 4