“Did you arrange for the hit?”
“Did I what? Arrange for Derabyi to die so I could spend my last moments freezing to death in his belly?”
“Tonight, when I am asleep, and don’t you fracking dare disturb me, look up Pyrrhic victory,” Dena said. She slapped a hand on the control panel. “That’s enough. I need some lunch.”
“A lean protein substance?” K’t’ank asked. “Perhaps with a vitamin-enriched beverage? It is what I preferred to get with Derabyi.”
“Tough,” Dena said. “You’re getting falafel with double tahini and diet soda, and you’ll like it.”
IF THEY DIDN’T HAVE a callout, Dena and her friends in the precinct played poker over lunch. The table in the breakroom was more crowded than usual. Everyone who could, wanted to meet Dena’s alien tenant. She let K’t’ank chat with the other officers and staff while she crunched on deep-fried falafel balls and arranged her cards. In fact, he was the life of the party. He knew a lot about poker, way too much. His voice trumpeted out of the bracelet.
“Play the king! Yes, that one! The red one. It will make a collection with the other face cards. You could make a straight.”
“Shut up!” Dena snarled. She threw her cards in. The others grinned.
“So, Scaly, what’s it like living inside our friend, here?
“Douglas!”
“It is much quieter within Malone than in the professor,” K’t’ank replied cheerfully. “He had many strange internal noises, and he spoke often to himself.”
“So, Malone doesn’t have as much gas?” Douglas asked, with a wicked grin.
“No. Far fewer eruptions! Her internal systems are much better balanced, as well. He had to take antacids often. I believe he barely qualified for the symbiote program. Malone is a better candidate. And I enjoy her baby’s company. It is growing well. So different from the way our species reproduces.”
“Lucky me,” Dena said dryly.
“I think it’d be cool,” Tiani said. “I tried out for it, but I didn’t qualify.”
“That’s because you’re a deviant mutant organism,” Ramos said. He was the other detective sergeant on day shift.
“Oh, all that matters is the salinity of the bodily system, and whether the immune system rejects my excretions.”
“You poop in there? I suppose you’d have to.”
“Not poop as you emit it,” K’t’ank said. “All of my digestive output is ejected through Malone’s system. The sloughed off cells can cause allergic reactions. Malone does not react.”
Ramos’s eyes twinkled. “You mean she’s immune to you?”
“Not even close,” Dena said, taking a swig of her diet soda. It made her belch. K’t’ank laughed hysterically. She winced, and snapped at Tiani. “Deal or go home.”
“Do Dena and your other host have anything else in common?”
“Buttocks,” K’t’ank said promptly. “They both like to observe buttocks. And eyes. Often.”
The others laughed. Dena wanted to crawl into a hole. Her colleagues would never let that go. Douglas flirted his thick black eyelashes.
“Really. I never knew, Malone. I knew I should have worn my skin-tight jeans to work.”
“How come you need the bracelet to talk?” Idlewild asked. He worked in Evidence. “I thought you folks were naturally social.” He looked apologetic. “Well, that’s what it said on the National Geographic Channel special about Salos.”
K’t’ank’s voice went professorial. “We did not lose contact with others on our homeworld. Our hosts there had an orifice to the outside that human beings do not that we employed to communicate.”
Idlewild frowned. “They had a hole just so you guys inside them could talk?”
K’t’ank hastily corrected him. “The excretory orifice. When they were not using it, we did.”
“You mean,” Ramos asked, with an exaggerated wink and a nudge of his elbow into Dena’s ribs, “you spent all your time talking out of somebody else’s ass?”
The other officers bellowed with laughter. Dena joined in.
“Why is that funny?” K’t’ank asked innocently.
“Look it up,” Dena said. She nodded at Idlewild. “I’ll raise you ten.”
She felt K’t’ank shift, curling up on himself so he could surf the net from his little implant box. K’t’ank was silent for a few moments, then the room erupted with high-pitched merriment.
“Oh, that is good! Wait until I text all my Salosian friends!”
“You’ve started a trend,” Dena said to Ramos.
“Do you know other jokes about asses?” K’t’ank asked eagerly.
That made them think. Good. Dena could concentrate on taking their money.
THE SALOSIAN MADE no more headway on the images from the databases. The next day, Dena took him to investigate at the conference where Derabyi was supposed to have spoken.
She wore a neat dress with several bangles on her wrist to conceal the Alien Relations bracelet. Not only was she armed with non-lethal deterrents, she had a few extra gizmos tucked around her person. The convention organizers pleaded with her not to interfere with events. Otherwise, she was welcome to go anywhere she pleased. They issued her a badge and an interactive show book.
The conference center chart showed several gaps in video coverage. That meant it was possible for someone to have approached Derabyi without being observed. The center had a variance to allow for privacy from eavesdroppers or lipreaders to ensure security for trade secrets, but it made police work more difficult. Dena scanned the crowd wandering the broad hallway in between the lecture halls, feeling not one molecule more obvious than a horse in a hair salon.
“Have you seen the killer yet?” she asked K’t’ank through the side of her mouth.
“No. Look at more people, please.”
Obediently, Dena scanned the attendees.
“I see that you are checking out the buttocks of the man in blue,” K’t’ank said loudly. “Is he suspicious in some way?
“No! Just professional curiosity.” Dena blushed. She really had to be more conscious of what she was looking at.
“Professor Derabyi was always checking male buttocks,” K’t’ank said. “I didn’t realize he was interested in police work.”
“That’s not police work,” Dena said, embarrassed. “Was Derabyi gay?”
“Often. He sang to himself, and once in a while he skipped—most disconcerting when one is trying to concentrate. But he was also homosexual. Once in a time he brought a suspect home with him.”
“That’s not a suspect,” Dena corrected him. “That’s a date. You hope they’re not suspects. But it happens. Did he pick up anyone at the conference?”
“No, Professor Derabyi kept his contact to handshakes and kisses,” K’t’ank said.
“I mean, did he find dates here?”
“No. We were both too busy making connections with fellow scientists. This is a very important conference. We do not meet often in person. Space is too big.” Dena’s eyes swept across the room, lighting briefly on the sign beside the ballroom door.
“Stop your eyes there, on the card!” Obediently, Dena returned her gaze to the easel and read the few lines. “Hurry,” K’t’ank shouted. She reached for the bracelet to turn down the volume. “The lecture is about to start! My colleague Seithro is going to speak on this panel. I must hear it.”
“Wait a minute, I didn’t agree to sit in on speeches.”
“Why else do you think I came sixteen light-years?” K’t’ank asked. “Go, Malone. Now!”
The subject under discussion was far beyond Dena’s education, but K’t’ank kept up an acerbic running commentary. Dena had to admit, grudgingly, that he was really smart, which proved again that looks weren’t everything.
“Poorly researched!” he snorted. “I have many sources from several species who say that particular theory is outside empirical evidence!”
“Empirical?” Dena asked, from the corner of her mouth.
“What can be readily observed. As what you do. I read several manuals of police procedure last night. When will you arrest someone?” She felt the tail lash her organs.
Dena turned the volume lower still. “When you identify the murderer for me.”
K’t’ank subsided. “Oh. Of course, you are right.”
He was silent through the rest of the debate. When it broke up, the lights came on. Dena looked around. K’t’ank burst out.
“Take me there. There! To that scientist with hair the color of rusty iron. Yes, him! I need to speak to him. Professor Omysk.”
“That’s a woman, not a man,” Dena said.
“And that makes what difference?”
“We…use…different…pronouns,” Dena said slowly, to the amusement of the other humans in the room. Everyone could hear them. “Professor Omysk is a female, so you have to refer to her, hers and she. Got that? If Omysk was a man, you would say him, his and he.”
“Terrans are strange. We have only one set of pronouns.”
“Terrans are strange, Mr. I-live-in-someone-else’s-intestines?”
“And that is Doctor, not Mister, by your nomenclature. I am a degreed engineer and scientist. Strictly speaking, I am not in your intestines, but around them. They are very attractive, I might include mention.”
“Well, as long as you don’t try to mate with them,” Dena said. “My husband wouldn’t understand.”
“And a likeable mate you have,” K’t’ank said, grandly. “You may remain with him.”
“Like you have a choice in the matter!”
“I do. You are my host. If I find living arrangements unsuitable, I can demand change. According to subsection D of rule 348 of the Fair Housing Act…”
That was something that the Alien Relations Department had failed to explain, in their haste to implant the oversized tapeworm in her.
“You’re just a living buzzkill, aren’t you?”
“Catch Omysk! Catch him! I must speak with him.”
“Her,” Dena said, picking up the pace. But the redhead had very long legs and obviously didn’t want to talk with K’t’ank. Dena felt like yelling “Stop in the name of the law!” Curse not being able to attract attention. Curse attracting attention. “Do you think she’s the one who killed Derabyi?”
“I think she would botch anything she did,” K’t’ank said severely. “Her methods are scientifically unsound. She could not pour, er, wastewater out of her ass without instructions.”
“Do not try Ramos’s jokes without practice,” Dena said, sympathetically. “He’s been working on his delivery since you were roiling in clusters.”
K’t’ank sighed. “I thought I could do it. I can see that Terran humor is its own science.”
A man tried to catch up with them. He was about the same height as Dena, but squarely built, with hair dyed pale blond that contrasted with his ruddy complexion.
“Professor K’t’ank? Is that you in there?”
“Who is that? Look at him, Malone.”
Dena obliged, then caught a glimpse of their quarry out of the corner of her eye.
“Omysk is going into the stairwell.”
“Follow him. Doctor Nedland is coming with us. Yes, Nedland, I have a new host. What is your question?”
“Are you still thinking of reporting my thesis as unworkable?” he asked. “I mean, Professor Derabyi was pretty adamant on it. You sounded like you agreed with him.”
K’t’ank’s voice turned pedantic as Dena started to mount the concrete stairs. “I have examined the proofs that you offered in support of your theorem. I agree with my late host that you are wrong and must rewrite your paper.”
“But I could lose my job!”
“If your employer prefers to keep a researcher who falls in love with its own theories to the exclusion of evidence, then that is its business,” K’t’ank said. “But science must be served by truth.”
“Are you always that sanctimonious?” Nedland asked, bitterly.
“Always. Malone…this is where it happened! Someone tried to kill me in this place!”
Dena reached into her handbag and touched a control.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I will never forget a moment of that terrible event!” “…terrible event!”
Suddenly, K’t’ank’s voice was coming from two different places. Nedland gawked. He grabbed for Dena’s throat. She snapped an arm up and stepped back. Her heel caught on the stair. She tripped backwards. Nedland went for her throat with both hands. Falling, Dena bruised the same spot on her hip as she had the night before. She cursed.
“Stop him! Do not let him hurt us!”
“I won’t,” Dena said.
K’t’ank kept up his frightened ululations as Dena flipped Nedland on his back and cuffed him.
“No! You’re both dead!” came a wild scream from above.
Over the rails three floors up, Omysk looked down at them with frightened eyes. Dena stared up at her.
“The murderer, Malone!” K’t’ank shouted, his voice echoing above and below them in the stairwell. “That is the way the murderer looked! It is him!”
DR. OMYSK WAS SO STUNNED that she was easy to apprehend. Dena charged Nedland with assaulting a police officer, and Omysk for murder and attempted murder. Lieutenant Cossen shook his head admiringly over his skinnypad. He took down Dena’s statement while K’t’ank was giving an interview to several reporters at her right hand.
“So scientists will kill over lost jobs, just like real people?” Cossen asked.
“Yeah,” Dena said. The hotel medic dabbed at her bruises with healing salve. The sting made her hiss. “Thanks to Derabyi and K’t’ank panning a paper of hers she lost a chance at a university seat on Titan.”
“And you got her to confess how? What’s that blue bracelet?”
“Baby’s First Karaoke Machine,” Dena said, holding up the plastic bangle. “My uncle sent it to us as a shower present. I figured that whoever took Derabyi’s bracelet had to have it hidden somewhere. I know firsthand how weird it is to have K’t’ank’s voice coming out of nowhere. If I set it to the same frequency as the hidden bracelet the murderer was keeping, we’d scare the crap out of him. Or her. And it worked.”
“Sergeant!” one of the reporters shouted for her attention. “Is it true that Dr. K’t’ank is going to join you on the job? How do you think he’ll be as a detective?”
Dena turned a puzzled glance toward the cluster of microphones and cameras. “Terrible. But they’re removing him soon.”
The first man to speak shook his head eagerly. “An implant is a permanent arrangement, Sergeant.”
“It’s what? No!”
“Please, Malone?” K’t’ank asked, in his indoor voice. Not blaring through the bracelet, but the soft, private, bone-conduction voice. “I enjoy being with you. You have saved my life. I can give you much interesting perspective. And I will help look after your baby. Please?”
“Oh, why the hell not?” Dena said, patting her belly affectionately. “A worm’s eye view can be a helpful perspective. As long as you shut up once in a while.”
“I promise,” K’t’ank said.
“Yeah, right. Okay, who’s got the first question?”
©Mike Jacobsen seemikedraw.com.au
THE SECRET LIFE OF SLEEPING BEAUTY
Charity Tahmaseb
“Try it,” my cousins say. They are the perfect princess trifecta, all in pink, peach, and plum.
I hesitate. I don’t trust myself. Not around things that are sharp. My mother, the queen, has banned all things pointy—embroidery and knitting needles, even crochet hooks, but the object in the corner of my room is different.
“Come on,” Plum says. She holds up her cell phone, ready to take a picture while the other two urge me forward. “You know how she is.”
I do. So does my mother, who always intones, “Never trust a woman whose only goal is to look as young as her teenage daughters.”
My aunt’s gifts have a way of backfiring. Last year, she gave me an elixir that makes your lips red like cherries and your cheeks glow like apples. I refused it, but my cousins guzzled it down. At that evening’s ball, fruit flies swarmed around them the entire time.
What I really want for my birthday is a baseball bat and glove. I want to round up the pages, cajole the scribe into keeping score, and play until the sun hovers low in the sky and it’s too late to bathe for a formal dinner, never mind the ball afterwards. But my cousins tremble; if they don’t get proof that I’ve at least touched the present, their mother will rage. Pity compels me forward. Besides, compared to last year, a spindle is downright practical. I reach out. Plum’s cell phone camera clicks.
Three seconds before I hit the stone floor, I think: my finger is going to hurt all day long.
Chaos roars around me, but I can’t wake. A narcoleptic slumber is no way to spend your sweet sixteen. My mother thunders at my cousins and they cower, all quivering tulle and satin.
My finger still hurts.
The sobs subside. Yawns fill the air. Courtiers sink to the floor. Page boys slump against the wall. My cousins, too, sleep. My mother tucks a blanket around me and kisses my forehead before taking to her own bed.
For one hundred years, we lie dormant. This wouldn’t be so bad except my cousins, they snore.
Heavy boots stomp. Swords rattle. The door crashes open. The scent of blood and sweat fills the room. Something looms above me, something I think means to kiss me.
I worry about one hundred years of neglected dental hygiene. But really? He’s the one with dragon breath. Volumes have been written about epic first kisses. This one? I’m not sure it rates a Facebook status update.
My eyes spring open, that kiss the living embodiment of caffeine. A boy I don’t recognize kneels by my bed. I worry about being nearly one hundred years older than he is. We will have to rename the village. Cougarville has a nice ring to it. First, we should probably get to know each other.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Charming.”
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