It Was Murder

by Jack Q McNeil

  The lights were on here too, and six bipeds dressed in green uniforms sat around the table. That meant they were humans, since only humans wear clothes. I didn’t think anything of them sitting in silence until I’d shouted.

  “Hey, guys. You got passengers locked in the baggage hold.” No one moved. “Hey, it’s me. Chunglie, the big tipper. How about some hands here?”

  When I was close enough to smell them, I realised why the mammals were uncharacteristically silent. They were dead.

  2.

  The Cuckoo

  I should tell the marshal right away.

  But it’s been my experience that bodies have valuables they don’t need anymore.

  “But what if Marshal Harry spots stuff missing from your pockets? Why did you guys have to die today, when there’s law on board?”

  I left them and scuttled out of a corridor, past the chill room and freezer, and found the kitchen door locked from the outside. Chalk up another oddity. If the crew is sitting at the table, who locked the door?

  “Ah-ha,” I said. “This must be a clue, and stop talking to yourself.”

  It was only an interior door—I put my head against it and pushed until the lock burst from the frame. The corridors in this part of the ship were old, dirty and cheaply lit.

  As I trundled down the corridor, I thought I heard a door close. But there was no one else around. I called ‘greetings’ in twenty-seven universal languages, but no one responded.

  “Wish I hadn’t pawned my guns,” I said as I scuttled for the baggage compartment.

  This door was not a light interior door. It was a great big lump of metal with a key card lock. I slapped myself for not thinking to check the corpses for a card and ripped the reader box off the wall. A power cable from my cybernetics, clipped to the wires sticking out of the door, produced nada. I tried a different wire, more nada. I wouldn’t be much of a hero of the hour if everyone died in the meantime. Third try, the lock buzzed and turned. I heaved it open and turned up the volume on my voice box.

  “Anyone still alive in here?”

  “What took you sho long?” Leebris grumbled as he waddled sideways out of the opening.

  “I nearly died in that pipe,” I said. “But don’t you go worrying about me or anything.”

  “We were freezing in there,” Ummen said. He had to bow to get his antlers through the door. “And it was getting hard to breathe.”

  In the light, Ummen had long fur with black and white stripes. His beard was his pride and joy and he kept it braided and waxed.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t turn you into a fur coat,” I said. “I’ve heard humans do that to prey animals.”

  “I’m no one’s prey!”

  The short guy knuckled out on all fours and a female of his species did the same and wrapped herself around him.

  “I couldn’t find you,” he claimed.

  “I was too scared to move,” she said.

  The marshal remained inside the door, directing people to follow the sound of her voice. The corridor became very crowded as people shuffled around, blinking in the light and asking each other questions.

  “What’s happening now?”

  “Where’s the captain?”

  “Who did this to me?”

  Good questions which no one had answers to.

  Marshal Harry stepped through the door and male heads turned and closely studied her. Black hair reached her shoulders, the light material she wore clung to her figure and left her legs bare. She adjusted the pink material covering her chest.

  “I was in bed when they grabbed me,” she said. The males found something interesting about the ceiling. It looked like an ordinary ceiling to me, coated in flaking paint, but they examined it and then the floor. I tried to recall when the human breeding season was, and remembered it was all year round.

  “Thank you for getting us out of there,” she told me. “Have you met anyone else on this ship? Kidnapping this many people must involve the crew somehow, so where are they?”

  “They’re in the staff dining room.”

  “Did they try to stop you letting us out?”

  “No, on account of them being dead.” I pointed the way with a claw. I was just glad no one asked me how I knew my way through the air ducts from the baggage compartment to the kitchen.

  “Hang on, how do you know the layout of this ship so well?” she asked.

  Bugger.

  “Well, this is the regular shuttle from Paradeezoom to Smuds.” I waved my claws around. “I’ve been on it a couple of times.”

  “So you’re a gambler as well as a drinker and muscle-for-hire?” Marshal Harry asked. Her face had an expression. Look, my species don’t have expressions; you couldn’t expect me to know what they all meant without years of research and experience.

  “They shay the gambling and drinking wash why you were ashked to leave your homeworld,” Leebris said, grinning gummily.

  “I was not asked to leave my planet.” There was no asking involved. My species are farmers and hate waste, so if I returned home it would be a quick trip through the wood chipper machine for me.

  An enormous fat man crawled out of the baggage compartment on his hands and knees. His belly dragged on the floor as he supported himself on his arms. Everyone stared as he huffed his way into daylight and collapsed.

  “Didn’t,” he panted. “Think,” he puffed. “I was going… to make it.”

  “Man, why did you do that to yourself?” Ummen asked.

  “I am a wealthy man. My weight is a status symbol.”

  I’ve found in the past that humans can’t take a hint, so let me repeat: everyone’s eyes were pointing at the status symbol crawling on the floor. This turns out to be important later.

  A tall woman with strange torture instruments strapped to her feet clattered out from the group. The straps were there to attach five-inch poles to her feet. There were two patches of silver foil stickered to her chest and another piece wrapped around where her legs met her body. The purpose of this eluded me. My species label our body and legs and that’s it. Humans have a word for armpit. This obsession with their bodies is why the other species think humans are weird.

  “Bubby, you were in that horrible place too?” she cried. She grabbed a load of arm and heaved, but nothing happened. Another tall woman stepped through the group. Unlike the first woman, she carried a pair of the strange, strappy red contraptions clutched to her chest, and her chest and lower body were covered in black cloth.

  “Oh, darling, what’s happened to you?” she asked Bubby.

  “Who are you two and how do you know this… man?” the marshal asked.

  “This is Albert Koosa, and I’m his fourth wife, Maya,” the metallic-coated woman said.

  “And I’m his lawyer and premier wife, Frances[MVN2],” the woman in black said, as she pulled the strappy contraptions onto her feet.

  “There are spare power packs for my anti-grav harness in my suite. Could someone fetch me one?” Albert Koosa stayed on the floor; the women didn’t have the strength to move him.

  “You two, make yourselves useful and prop this man up,” the marshal ordered Ummen and Leebris. But Ummen pointed at me.

  “He lied. He doesn’t have his guns!”

  I waved a claw up and down the corridor. “And you’ve got no back up, so it’s just you two and me. Ready when you are.”

  Ummen grunted, reached under Koosa’s armpit with one hand, picked him up, and propped him against the bulkhead.

  “Oof, you gotta weigh over a ton,” he said to the guy.

  Proudly, Albert Koosa corrected him: “One thousand and twelve kilos.”

  “Okay,” Marshal Harry decided, “I think someone should go up to this poor man’s suite and fetch a power pack, while the rest of us find the bridge—”

  “Could be a command deck,” Leebris supplied.

  “Or command deck and report what’s happened to the authorities.”

  “I’m not a poor man,
” Albert Koosa corrected. “I’m very wealthy, actually.”

  Leebris raised his hand. “I’ll go get a power pack.”

  “Anyone else?” the marshal asked. “Someone not a criminal?”

  “But I want to look for my bossh,” Leebris said. “He wash with ush in the shuite, but he’sh not here now.”

  “There’s someone missing?” Marshal Harry asked.

  “Yes, Mr Stormen, our boss.” Ummen pointed a finger at himself and Leebris.

  “Your boss is missing?” Koosa said.

  “Is anyone else missing?” Marshal Harry asked. The other mammals shook their heads, and I noticed a young man and woman shuffle to the other side of the group from Leebris and Ummen.

  “Look, we were drugged and locked in the baggage compartment,” the hairy little guy pointed out. “There’s already one person missing and the crew are dead, so maybe we should stay together for safety?”

  “But there are twenty decks on this ship,” Ummen pointed out. “So there must me hundreds of passengers.”

  “Good point,” Marshal Harry said. “So I’d like three non-criminal members of the group to go up to my suite, number two-three-two, and fetch my uniform, then pick up this Mr Koosa’s—”

  “You can call me Albert, Harry,” Koosa said.

  “So! Three volunteers,” the marshal interrupted the interruption. “To pop up to the passenger suites and get help?”

  “Why are you giving us orders?” the premier wife asked, standing in front of the marshal with her hands clasped at her waist and her elbows projecting sideways. She was taller than the marshal and reminded me of the old queen of our burrow.

  “Because I’m a detective marshal,” Marshal Harry said. “I said… earlier.”

  “I know what you are,” Frances hissed. “And what you did. I have friends in the marshal’s service. So, for the second time, why are you giving us orders?”

  The marshal seemed to grow taller. She stared the premier wife in the face.

  “I don’t care what rumours you’ve heard. I do my job, and I do it well. Right now, I’m investigating a group kidnapping and, as one of the members of that group, I would think you’d want a successful outcome to that investigation.”

  “Frances,” Albert Koosa said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Please let the marshal get on with her job. I really need that power pack for my anti-grav harness and the marshal is the only one making plans at the moment.”

  “I can make plans,” Frances insisted. “I’m a very capable lawyer.”

  “You are a very capable lawyer,” Koosa nodded. “But right now, I think we should let the marshal get on with her job.”

  The premier wife deflated and took a step back. I could smell anger off her, though.

  “I’ll go,” the premier wife said, stepping forward. “I’m a senior partner of the firm of Jee, Jee, and Embaya, so not a criminal.”

  “Not technically a criminal, Frances.” Albert Koosa smiled.

  “We will go, too,” the little guy’s mate said. His face fell, but he nodded.

  “This is my life mate, Leeli Kveen, and I am Kord Rooni,” he said. “We are honest people and will steal nothing.”

  “I’ll go too.” A man raised his hand. “If we’re to face more danger, I don’t want to do it in my pyjamas.”

  “And your name, sir?” Marshal Harry asked.

  “James Emgeenie. I’m a deep learning systems developer,” he said, puffing out his narrow chest.

  “Okay, you four go and the rest of us will head for the bridge.”

  “Or cockpit,” Leebris said.

  Everyone not going remembered something they wanted from their suite. They passed key cards over until the marshal waded into the middle of the crowd and said, “Wait a minute, please. I just noticed something. Stop, please. Listen a minute.” She waved her arms in the air.

  “Shut up and listen!” I shouted at full volume. There was silence.

  “Are we all on deck two?” Marshal Harry asked. Check your key cards, please. Are we?”

  Various eyes pointed at various key cards and realised that they were. Looked like I was the odd one out again.

  “That could mean something,” she said. “Stick your heads out the lift on deck one and see what everyone else is doing on this ship.”

  3.

  Locked Out

  “Okay,” Marshal Harry said. ”First things first, I’d like you three to introduce yourselves.”

  A plump female squeaked: “Us?”

  “Yes, everyone else has introduced themselves, miss.”

  “I’m no one.” She wore layers of black cloth and her hair was red. Is she trying to appear dangerous?

  “But you have a name, surely?”

  “Sarah Kody?”

  “Is that your name or a question?”

  “It’s her name. She’s an accountant suing my father’s organisation,” the young male said. He had his arm around the unintroduced female and kept pointing his chin at everyone.

  “How do you know all that?” Kody asked.

  “You know that copy of the Paradeezoom Casino accounts you are using to prove my father guilty of fraud?”

  “Yes?”

  “I sent it to you.”

  Kody stared open-mouthed. “You must really hate your father.”

  “And what’s your name, sir?” Marshal Harry asked, turning to the hateful son.

  He, too, glanced at Ummen before he answered, then pointed eyes at his feet.

  “My name is William Faa, son of Big Bill Faa,” he said, then looked up at Ummen. “And I’m not going back to Paradeezoom.”

  Ummen shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Heesh our bossesh bossesh shon,” Leebris pointed out, thoroughly soaking the young man in spittle. “Maybe we should be guarding him?”

  “No… ah… no need to guard me,” William said, wiping his face with a sleeve.

  “And your name, miss?” the marshal asked the final biped. She was shorter than her mate, and the jewellery on her neck and wrists were platinum.

  “What kind of criminals drug people and lock them in the baggage compartment but don’t steal their jewellery?”

  “Good question,” Marshal Harry said.

  Did I say that out loud?

  “I’m William’s fiancée. We’re leaving the star system to get married.”

  “That’s a long way to go just to get married.”

  “If you think that, you haven’t met his father,” Kody said.

  “His father has influence throughout the system,” Albert Koosa said. “I’ve had some run-ins with him myself.”

  “You like getting the last word, don’t you?” I said, trying to get in the last word.

  “Not at all, I just try to be helpful,” Albert Koosa said.

  “Do you two mind if I finish this interview?” Marshal Harry asked, then continued. “So… your father is against the marriage?”

  “He will be when he finds out.”

  “I’m nobody. William’s father has big plans for his future.”

  “I still need your name, miss?”

  “Sorry, sorry, my name is Soh Lukt.”

  “I wish I had something to write all this down on,” the marshal said, scrubbing fingers through her hair. “Now, if Ummen and Leebris will bring Mr Koosa, we’ll head to the control room and contact the authorities.”

  I led the way. I’d never been to the control deck before, but I had seen the signposts. The corridor took us deeper into the core of the ship, and when we came to a tee junction, the four going to the bedrooms turned right and the rest of us turned left.

  “Look, I’m… ah… sorry for the way I spoke,” Frances said to the marshal, taking her hand and patting it. “This was supposed to be a working holiday for us and it has all gone wrong, but that’s no excuse for rudeness. Once again, let me say I am sorry.”

  “You are sorry,” Albert Koosa said. “Very well said, Frances.”

  As we passed doors, Marshal Harr
y tried each handle. They were all locked. The last door on the right was ajar and led us into the navigation console.

  “Frances is a very good lawyer,” Albert - said as he was carried along at the back of the group. “But sometimes her anger gets control of her mouth. She often says things she doesn’t mean.”

  “I noticed that,” Marshal Harry said.

  The room was small, with a holo control system and a backup keyboard, and had a dusty, unused appearance.

  “Now then,” Marshal Harry said. “Is anyone experienced in navigating starships?”

  Leebris raised a hand: “I supervishe the AI in the bosh’es aircraft.”

  “We could use that system developer about now,” I said.

  “I’ve designed robot systems,” Soh Lukt said. “I should be able to work the com system.”

  “It’s a small room, Soh, Leebris and I will go in and everyone else wait here,” Marshal Harry decided. She pushed the door wide and led the way. It was cramped, but I managed to fit my body under the desks and around the wall. My tush brush tickled my face.

  “Chunglie, I thought you might want to wait outside,” Marshal Harry said.

  “Well, it’s a little tight but I’ve managed,” I said. There were three chairs; Soh Lukt took one and Leebris placed the other two together and sat on both. That left the marshal standing.

  “That’s a bit of luck,” Lukt said. “There’s a backup keyboard and screen in case the cybernetics and holo systems are down.”

  “’Bout time we has shome good luck,” Leebris said, pressing keys with his pinkies.

  “If you can get the com system working,” I said, “I know a couple of people with their own ships.”

  “The nav system is asking for a PIN,” Lukt said. She swivelled the chair and pressed another set of buttons. “And the nav system has locked out the com system as well.”

  Leebris pulled a tablet out from between two stacks and began swishing through the pages.

  “I never knew you could read,” I said.

  “There must be something else you can try?” the marshal asked.

  “I’m not a hacker,” Lukt shrugged.