Gaia's Brood

by Nick Travers

  Chapter 9

  I see the burning funeral balloon before I spy our quarry.

  From the safety of cloud cover, I watch the Shonti Bloom pulling away from the trading platform.

  “Now, grab her,” Borker snarls. He’s been pacing the cabin like a tomcat on heat.

  “Too far away.” I decide. “She’ll see us coming and run. Better to visit the trading station and find out where she’s headed.”

  “Pah. Coward.”

  The man is insufferable. I can feel the crew, ill-at-ease and pretending not to stare at us. They are all wondering who’s really in command and what I’ll do next.

  “To get a conviction,” I explain patiently, for the benefit of the crew rather than Borker, who will ignore anything I say anyway, “and prove the Shonti Bloom is not airworthy, we need to take it intact. If we engage her in mid-flight we risk losing our evidence and damaging ourselves. It’s not like she’s a hardened criminal or anything.” I can see the crew agree with this reasoning, Borker can see it too so he limits himself to a sneer at my expense.

  I wave vaguely towards the trading station. “Take us in.”

  “Captain,” the lookout cries from the bow, “black flag, Sir.” At least they are still addressing me by my rank.

  “It’s a ruse,” Borker growls, “Swift’s trying to put us off her trail. She’s sneaky like that.”

  She might well be sneaky, but a black flag cannot just be ignored like it doesn’t exist. Besides, there is no way I’m doing quarantine with Borker. On the other hand, I’m desperate to know who died. Could it be Nina or one of her crew?

  A world without Nina Swift will be dull and grey. For all her annoyances, she brings brightness and color to life. She certainly makes the work of a New Frisco constable interesting. If pushed far enough, I would have to say I will miss her, not something I will ever admit to Borker, of course.

  Then I hit upon an ideal way to rid myself of Borker for a while. “We will dust off, with one crew member on deck, so if there is plague, we’re not totally out of the game.” I smile to myself. “Borker, you are the most experienced so you will go explore.” He might be happy to disobey my orders, but he doesn’t want to look cowardly in front of the crew, especially as he’s just declared it all a ruse.

  He glares at me. “Aye, aye, Captain,” he growls. I wonder if the crew realizes he’s being insolent. Probably.

  We drop Borker down a rope and back off upwind. A tense ten minutes follows until the giant form of Borker reappears signaling us in. Damn—the place is clear; I’m stuck with him.

  Borker waves me over as soon as I land on the platform, he’s grinning like a demented Reaver. I know him well enough now to realize that means trouble for someone; Borker loves nothing more than catching someone out. “I told you she’s no good. Just you wait 'til you see what she’s done here.” My heart sinks; I don’t think I’ve ever seen Borker happier.

  Blood. Everywhere. A pool of blackened fluid behind the counter of the trading post, the shape of a large body clearly outlined in dried blood. With relief, I notice the body shape is too large to be Nina or one of her compatriots. Someone has died here and Borker is salivating as he announces his verdict. “She’s only gone and murdered her own Uncle.”

  “That is yet to be established,” I snap, though I fear he is correct.

  We investigate the scene. “The victim was first stabbed over here by this table,” Borker declares, keen to get his own version of events fixed in everyone’s mind, “probably stabbed in the back.”

  He’s jumping to conclusions. “There’s no evidence for that.”

  “Look at the size of the victim’s body, how else is she going to get to him?”

  “You’re assuming it was Swift herself.”

  “A working hypothesis, McGraw.” But it’s clearly the only hypothesis Borker is willing to consider. “He drags himself across to the counter. She follows and stabs him again, hence the additional blood, but the wounds are still not fatal. He staggers on.”

  I follow Borker to the counter, he’s enjoying this grisly business. “He falls against the steps to the pigeon loft and then falls to the ground here, where she finishes him off.”

  This doesn’t make sense to me. “Why? What’s the motive?”

  Borker sweeps his arm round the room. “The place has been ransacked. Obviously, she came here looking for something, probably money. But her Uncle wasn’t willing to part with it, so she took it by force.”

  This doesn’t sound like the Nina Swift I’m familiar with. “She may be a tricky customer, but I can’t imagine Nina as a killer.”

  “You’d be surprised what the mildest of people will do if they are pushed hard enough.”

  Borker is right about that. I’ve seen normally stable people turn into screaming banshees when threatened or pushed too far. If not Nina then who? Izzy Swift kills her own estranged Father—a crime of passion? Scud loses control and lashes out? Possible I suppose, but three times?

  “This is cold blooded, premeditated murder,” Borker announces, “and the person who did this is a dangerous psychopath.”’

  Much like yourself, I think. He’s right, though, this is a serious business and it requires a serious response.

  One of the crew shouts down from the pigeon loft. “A bird is missing—Westward Passage.”

  That could mean anything.

  “Aha,” Borker exclaims, “I bet he managed to send whatever they were looking for to Westward Passage.”

  I’m appalled the man can even make such a flimsy connection. “I’ll grant you that the Shonti Bloom headed South West .But there’s not a shred of evidence to support that theory.”

  “We have a murder, a victim, a motive, a guilty flight, and a suspect,” Borker declares, “That’s sufficient.”

  “All that is speculation, Lieutenant Borker. For all we know, Felix Swift might be safely on the Shonti Bloom heading to Westward Passage to report an accident.”

  “You believe that?” he snarls.

  No, I don’t, but neither do I believe Borker’s version of events.

  I look again at the large outline of a body in the dried blood, I’m pretty certain Felix Swift is dead. I’m also certain that Nina Swift paused to give him a decent burial, which is not the action of a cold-blooded psychopath. However, even if she is entirely innocent, Nina Swift still has a lot of questions to answer. Questions she needs to talk to us about.

  The troops are waiting for orders. “Ok,” I announce, “we pursue the Shonti Bloom to Westward Passage and detain the occupants for questioning. If she runs again, we issue an international arrest warrant.”