The Genie Out of the Vat

by Eric Flint

  They didn’t. But they did find a small wheelbarrow and a shovel. A very small wheelbarrow. “Maybe a garden gnome did it,” said Holmes thoughtfully.

  NCOs were of course allowed a sense of humor. Just not in public or with their superior officers. She decided to ignore the comment. “And moved her on the barrow, which is easier than dragging,” she said dryly. The barrow looked far too small to move a body. “Better have a look for wheel tracks,” she sighed.

  Holmes shone a focused beam of light down the center of the dusty tunnel. Shook his head “It’s been wiped. There is one footprint, fairly small. And mine, of course. He must have carried her.”

  “A man with small feet and a strong back,” said Rebecca rubbing her jaw. “So... what is the barrow doing here. Who does it belong to?”

  “‘Tis a rat-miner’s barrow,” said Firkin. “I have such a one myself. We purchased it from Abe.” She eyed it speculatively. “As it is lying about, methinks the owner has no further need of it,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll have it.”

  “Looter. Despoiler. Capitalist,” said the bat. “To take thus from those less fortunate than you.”

  The rat jerked a thumb at the corpse that the miner and Marine had just carried out. “She doesn’t exactly need it any more. Besides, methinks Cindy-Jane would have been willing to try anything, but a position involving a small wheelbarrow taxes even my imagination.”

  It taxed hers too, admitted the captain to herself. “It’s evidence. I’ll hold onto it,” was all that she said, however.

  “Tch,” said the rat, producing her amber-fluid filled bottle and having a good chug. “Well, do tell me if you ever work out just what a hooker needed a rat miner’s barrow for. I’ve heard of fetishes, but...”

  “Shut up, will you? Let’s get a blanket and carry the corpse out of here. Sergeant. Bring me that incriminating barrow. Let’s go and talk to Private Sampson,” she said grimly.

  ***

  Private Sampson might actually not have had enough money in that wallet. He was an acne-cure advertiser’s dream, poor kid. And he was just a kid, thought Rebecca. A kid with a black eye, and a cut on his cheek. Maybe the girl had got a last few blows in. “This yours, Private?” She held out the wallet. He blinked. You could almost see the thoughts crossing his mind, using heavy levers to shift the expressions on the spotty face. He beamed. And reached for it. “Yeah! Thanks, Captain. I thought I was in trouble or something.”

  She pulled the wallet back. “Not so fast, Marine.”

  His expression turn woeful. “I guess my money’s gone then.”

  “How much was there?” she asked speculatively.

  “About twenty in front flap. But,” he said, doing his best attempt at a cunning expression. “I got some more in the secret place at the back. Three hundred.”

  “You lost the twenty,” she said. “But the rest is still there. So, tell me when you last had your wallet.”

  He was smiling again. “That’s the rest of my pay. I reckoned I’d lost it all.”

  Either this kid was the best actor in the world, or he was a damn stupid young fool who nearly got strung up. “When did you last have it, Marine?” she asked again.

  He looked wary. Something in her tone must have finally gotten through to him. “Me and a couple of the boys slipped off to the Last Chance last night. I don’t remember too well, but I didn’t have it this morning.”

  “When you woke up in the brig,” she said, trying to keep her face expressionless.

  He nodded. “They said if I volunteered for security duty I was off the hook, Captain.”

  It looked like she had her murderer after all... or maybe more than one of them. “Just who was with you, Sampson?”

  He looked wary. “The colonel said we was all off the hook, Captain.” His voice said: You do not split on your mates. Not if you want to live.

  She restrained herself from solving his pimple problem forever by starting to squeeze at the neck. “I’m not playing games now, Private Sampson. I need to know. And I need to know now. I can look in the unit records if I have to. You’re wasting my time.”

  Her answer came from another source, though. “Private Ogumba, Private Wilkins and Private Mikes,” said Sergeant Holmes. “It was Mikes who found the body, Captain. He’s still here. Shall I haul him in?”

  “Body? I didn’t kill no-one, Captain... did I? I was in a fight... I think,” said the boy. He was now pale, beginning, finally, to realize that he might be in deep trouble.

  Holmes brought Private Mikes through to her office-cave. The entire thing was obviously preying on Mikes’ mind so much that he barely managed to salute before he blurted out:

  “I been thinking, Captain,” he said. “It can’t be Sampson. Me and Gumbo only got separated from him once, just after the fight when we got thrown out. And we found him maybe fifteen minutes later. He was blind-drunk, Major. Plooks can’t hold much. Gumbo and me, we took him back to camp. He couldn’t hardly stand when we got thrown out. And then he got into a fight with one of the Guard Commanders...”

  “Me,” said Holmes, with a nod. “They were all in the brig at 22:00 hours.” His expression said that he considered this a ridiculous time to be drunk and arrested by.

  “That still gave him fifteen minutes.” Or them, she thought to herself.

  “Indade,” said the bat, quietly from the corner. “Except that she was still alive at 22:30. I saw her then. I was doing my picket.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Rebecca

  “Sure as death,” said the bat. “I don’t get times wrong.”

  Bats didn’t. Their soft-cyber chips had inbuilt clocks. She knew that well from dealing with bats on the demolitions course. Bats made up most of the sappers. They regarded humans as ludicrously vague about time and memory, as that part of them was cybernetic. She sighed. “We’ll have to try to confirm it, Private Sampson. But it looks like you may just have got your wallet back, and escaped a hanging. That’s a lifetime’s ration of luck. Stay out of the Last Chance from now on, see.”

  The youth nodded earnestly. “Yes, Captain. The drinks is cheaper in the Miner’s Rest anyway.”

  Why did she feel she was better off talking to the rat, even it laughed at her? ”Get out of my office, Private. Stay here at ops. And stay out of all of the bars,” she added, knowing that order was pointless.

  “Can I have my wallet, Captain?”

  In the grim certainty that only the absence of money would keep him out of the bar, she shook her head. “No. It’s still evidence in a robbery, rape and murder trial. You may get it back, if we ever find the culprit. You nearly got hanged for losing it last time, you brainless idiot.”

  When he’d gone, saluting sheepishly, and accompanied by his fellow genius of the night before, Rebecca sat down on the makeshift desk and swore. She was not surprised to see the flouncy rat appear from under the desk and clap appreciatively.

  She tossed the “evidence” wallet down. “Well. That’s the wallet. Stolen during or after the fight. The owner was locked up when the crime happened. Which leaves the damned wheelbarrow. And no matter what that rat says,” she said, pointing at Firkin, “I refuse to even consider it as a sex-toy.”

  “What about the little shovel, then?” asked Firkin with her favorite evil laugh.

  Rebecca decided it was best to just ignore her, if she could.

  “It might have been there by accident, Captain,” said Holmes, keeping his face carefully expressionless.

  “‘Tis likely,” said the rat. “Well, as you’ve no further use for that wallet...”

  Wuollet slapped the reaching paw away. “Do you loot everything? Don’t answer that. I already know the answer.”

  The rat shrugged. “‘Tis rattish nature, methinks. If it is not tied down one steals it.”

  “And it had better be tied down very thoroughly.” Rebecca sighed. “How about if you do some asking about who has lost a barrow?”

  Firkin yawned. “A waste of time, methinks.
But I will ask about who is trying to steal one.”

  The rat sauntered out. That was no guarantee that it had actually gone anywhere, of course. She could hope, though.

  “Someone deliberately planted that wallet, Captain,” said the sergeant.

  “That much is elementary, Holmes. Someone wanted the Marines to take the rap. Colonel De Darcy didn’t realize what a live, pin-less grenade he’d handed me,” said Rebecca, wishing she had enough hair to pull out. “The big question is whether they were just letting us take the rap or whether they wanted to try and get rid of us. Whether we are dealing with murder, or treason.”

  Act II, Scene II: An arras, or possibly a rattish bar.

  “Thou hast the most unsavory similes,” said Snout loftily, returning—as rats would under pressure—to the Shakespearean downloads that had once made up their linguistic source. “To think that I would indulge in such things, sweet wag.”

  “Ask, morelike, when you have ever done anything else,” said Firkin, yawning. “I know you were there, you and your paramour Mercutio. I smelled it at the time, but said nothing.”

  “A good idea, my flouncy bit,” said Mercutio, from the shadows. “Keep it thus. We did a little looting, nothing else.”

  “Methinks that was enough. You will need to tell her that,” said Firkin, knowing that this would be dangerous ground.

  “And be put into durance vile. I think not,” said Mercutio. “Humans have odd ideas about property.”

  Firkin had to admit that that much was true, even if it was unlikely anything else Mercutio volunteered would be. “Mayhap a deal can be arranged,” she said, heavily. Not likely. Humans should understand rats better, as they were so ratlike themselves.

  Act II, Scene III: Enter various gentlemen of Verona, Chicago, Dublin, Bangbanduc... heck. Miners and prospectors. Don’t ever ask where they come from.

  “You could take the barrow to Abe,” suggested the bat. “Maybe he can tell you more about it.”

  “This Abe is the one who sold it?” asked Holmes, examining the little barrow he held in one hand.

  The bat scowled. “He is the entrenched capitalist exploiter of the downtrodden masses, or the miners at least, yes. He sits on the council. With his skull-cap and ear-locks.” Her innate sense of justice had a brief wrestling match with her conscience. “There are worse,” she conceded.

  Coming from her that was probably high praise. “Let’s go, Ms. Zed,” Rebecca said, pulling aside the curtain that served the ops-cave as a door.

  “That’s not actually my full name...”

  She broke off. A large mob was marching down on them, led by Laggy and several of his search party from their earlier encounter. “We hear you got the man who done it, Captain. Hand him over to us. We’ll deal with him,” said Laguna.

  Rebecca wished really hard for some nice shaped demolition charges—set in the tunnel just ahead of this lot. She stepped into the middle of the passage and spoke loudly and clearly. “That rot-gut of yours is making you hear things, Laguna. What I did catch was a set-up. Unfortunately, they set up a man who definitely couldn’t have done it, because at the time he was behind bars back at the camp. Now, you tell me who told you that we had the man. That must be the one who actually did this. And I’ll take him into custody. There’ll be no lynching.”

  The mob stopped dead.

  A beard came racing around the corner, followed somewhat later by the rest of the mayor. “Huh... huh—what’s going on here?” he panted. “Break it up now!”

  “It was him,” said Laggy. “Or rather it was that rat of his. She told me.”

  The worst of it was that it could possibly be perfectly true. Firkin had known about it. And she did seem to be a rat that was familiar with Laggy’s girls if nothing else. Anything that lacked virtue would attract a rat. And, looking at the mayor and then his feet... if anyone was short enough to stand upright in the tunnels, and was strong enough to carry a harem, let alone one woman, it would be him. It could be, after all. He might want complete control over the rock and have seen this as a way to get rid of the marines.

  “Lynch him!” yelled one of the front-men of the mob. “The bastard has been killing our women!”

  Rebecca stepped in front of the mayor. “The first person to try any lynching on my watch is going to be dead.” Her voice could have cut across three parade grounds.

  “There’s more of us than you,” said one of the mob, fingering the butt of his flechette-pistol.

  “Yep,” said Holmes stepping out of the office cave, cradling a Mark 24 automatic flechette rifle. “But who will be first to die?”

  The Mark 24 made an impression on the mob. It was normally tripod mounted.

  “You said you’d arrest whoever told us,” said Laggy sulkily.

  “I will take him in,” said Rebecca, wondering if the colonel had known just what a treasure he’d given her in Sergeant Holmes. ”And that rat too, and hold them until I get some answers. But the rat was here when I found out that it was a set-up. So tell us what you heard?”

  “That you had found a Marine’s wallet under her.” That was said by a gangling man with a planar face and an outsize nose.

  Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “Oh? Full of money, no doubt.”

  That got a laugh from the crowd. “Not likely!” said planar face.

  “Well, you’ve told me all I needed to know,” she said, reflecting that they’d told her something anyway—that the information had come from someone who either hadn’t wanted to mention the money or hadn’t known about it. “Now get along with you. The mayor will stay right here with me.”

  Act II, Scene IV: In some shady hostelry, where you might find the likes of Doll Tearsheat

  “It took me long enough to find you,” said the bat crossly. “I should have known that you’d be off carousing, when Albert needs you!”

  Firkin sniffed and raised her goblet. “Zed, methinks that there is very little that Albert cannot do for himself. I am his partner, not his nursemaid.”

  “Ah. Even though they were after lynching him for those murders?”

  “What!” Firkin leapt off her stool, spilling drink onto the bat, who spluttered, and swore and fluttered up to the ceiling, to shake off her wings with an expression of distaste. “Where have they taken him, Zed? Come here, you blasted winged teetotaler!”

  “He’s with the polis,” Davitta answered, flying higher. “The captain kept him from the mob.”

  It went against her socialist and revolutionary instincts but the authorities had been very welcome then. She’d been unsure what to do. Albert, for all that he was a reactionary sellout, was none too bad a mayor.

  “Methinks it is the first time that I have heard of them being useful,” said Firkin, shaking out her ruffles. “I’d better go and find Mercutio.”

  “That blackguard!” Davitta exclaimed. “What need do you have of him?”

  Firkin yawned artfully. “Firstly, because he’s a blackguard, a weasand-slitter and a rogue. I’ve a feeling that I might have need of him to deal with this poxy mess that Albert has wandered into. Secondly, he has another property, more unusual in rats. He can think. And thirdly, he was there. I smelled his presence at the scene. He and that doxy of his, Snout. Officially, they traffic in ordure, and that makes them quite noxious.”

  Davitta nearly fell out of the air “Why didn’t you say so to the captain?” she squawked.

  “Why?” Firkin raised her nose. “We rats stand for ourselves, and the devil take the hindmost. I will not betray a rat to the constabulary. A policeman’s lot should not be a happy one, anyway.”

  “And such is honor among rats,” said the bat, sardonically. “Well, let us find him without delay then, because the mob will be drinking themselves into courage for a second try.”

  Act II, Scene V: Enter a merchant with all the perfumes of Arabia

  “I’ve come to see the prisoner.” said the small man with the side locks and skull-cap. “You can call me his lawyer if you h
ave to. I did train as one once, although I don’t usually admit to it.”

  Rebecca studied him. Regrettably, he had large feet for a relatively small man. “He’s not strictly a prisoner,” she said. “I decided that he would be safer here than out there. At the moment I am using him as a tea-boy.”

  Abe shook his head in mock horror. “A clear infringement of his rights. Tell him I take two sugars.” He lifted a heavy flechette rifle from his shoulder and leaned it against the wall. “They’ll be back, you know. That’s actually why I came with this. I can’t shoot very well, but at least I’m an extra man.”

  With questionable motives, she thought. Everyone had questionable motives in this darned case! But all she said was: “Then leave the shooting to us. The passages are narrow and—”

  He interrupted. “And you’re dealing with miners, Captain. According to your colonel, you know how to use explosives. So do they. They probably have even more experience than you do.”

  That was true enough, she supposed. “So we need to take action first.”

  “Perhaps by finding the murderer.”

  “Or by laying mines in the passage,” said Rebecca sourly. Did everyone have to assume that she knew the first thing about detection? “Where is that rat when I need her? I need know what, if anything, she said to Laggy. If it wasn’t for a lack of motive and his size I’d suspect him first. You couldn’t tell me anything about a little wheelbarrow could you?”

  “A miner’s barrow?” Rat-size? If it is one of mine—it will have a serial number. I guarantee them.”

  “Let’s hope it is one of yours, then,” she said. The way this case was going it wouldn’t be.

  He smiled with quiet confidence. “Bound to be. I’ve cornered the market. My competitors don’t understand that quality and a reasonable price almost always trumps them.”