“I have received the written reports from the first two attacks on the wagons by the Wagon Masters. They have identified positively the attacks to be from the Pawassa Tribe,” Jacob said, “there wasn’t a lot of detail beyond what we discussed earlier but apparently the attack occurred about four hundred kilometers south of Stanton. Basically, half way between Stanton and New Naples.”
“Do you now know how bad were the injuries and was anyone killed?”
“One of the waggoneers was hit by an arrow and may not make it, but apparently he more or less stepped in front of it. The other injuries were minor. The report was way different from what they said in the excitement right after the attack. That is what I wanted you to know right away. I am afraid I caused you to send officers to what was probably a bunch of youth playing wild Indians.”
“What about the third attack? From what you told me earlier it was more than a couple of kids.”
“I am beginning to think even that attack was still child’s play. When I arranged for a special aircar for the injured driver, he wouldn’t go, he said he wasn’t that injured.
“These attacks seem to be awfully far north to be carried on by any of the jungle tribes” Captain Santos said. “One would think that the attacks would be south of Stanton rather than so far north. This sounds like some crazy kids or an initiation of some kind.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me either but the injuries have got some of them spooked. The other reason I commed you again today is that the Wagon Masters say if there is another attack that causes injuries some of the caravans will refuse to continue their routes, at least in the northern sector.”
“Well, did the third caravan return the Stanton? It will make it easier if my team can interview both Wagon Masters there as Stanton at the same time.”
“No, the third caravan went on to New Naples since it was as close as going back to Stanton, Jacob replied to Captain Santos. Normally they would resupply at Stanton and then return north, but I have advised the Wagon Master to stay in New Naples until further until notice. I hope they are not detained too long as most of the caravans’ dislike spending time in the cities and villages. Some drink plus idle time results in fights.”
“I have our team working as fast as possible but they have to get to the root of this. We can all feel lucky that the founders prohibited personal weapons for citizens other than bows and arrows and stunners and that the government has continued that prohibition except for law enforcement officers. Can you imagine the destruction that a bunch of kids could do if they had readily available energy weapons Oh, there may be a few energy weapons and long-range stunners available on the black market, but very few, probably due to the extremely severe punishment given to anyone found with one, much less what faces a dealer?”
“Yah, but an arrow can kill you just the same. I have to go now and deal with a bunch of Commission members and a few Wagon Masters, so that’s all I have right now. Just wanted to let you know what this wagon master reported.”
“I will have my team report as soon as anything is found Jacob.” Have fun with the Commissioners.”
After Jacob signed off, still complaining, Amanda spent quite a few minutes trying to figure out what in the world could be the reason for these attacks: could not come up with any reasons. And why is Jacob so interested in what we find that he makes room in his crowded day for two comm calls that really could have been made by one of his assistants. Information dammit, she said to herself, that is what I need.
I need the interviews with those Wagon Masters at Stanton as soon as possible. And at New Naples, also.”
Amanda then placed a comm to her team on what had happened at Stanton and New Naples as far as interviews, she instructed them to go to New Naples as soon after the Stanton interviews as possible. “Sue, Jacob Ericson just gave me another buzz. After your team is finished with the caravans why don’t you swing by your father’s village and get his take on all of this? Particularly if you can get any hint that the Pawassa are involved in this in any way. The attacks have occurred so far north that in spite of what Jacob says, I doubt that they are involved, but someone is involved and there is nothing but small villages and farming communities in that jungle area closest to the attacks.”
“Yes, Captain. I read that other report from Jacob that my partner has. I haven’t gotten through to them via comm so I am concerned about my family anyway. I will report back as soon as I find something concrete.”
“Something strange is going on and I wish I knew what is was.”
“Your hunches telling you something again?” Sue said.
“I wish. Get back to me as soon as possible.”
With the office quiet for a moment, Amanda decided to call home and see if her daughters were back from Charlie’s on time. She would be glad when this school break was over; she always worried about them, probably too much, whenever they were out of school. However, when she commed home it was Marilyn, their one and only household staff that answered the comm. She kept the house and their clothes clean, and an eye on the girls. What she didn’t do was cook. Marilyn was from one of the jungle tribes and what they considered a gourmet meal was inedible by Amanda’s standards although many of Amanda’s officers actually claimed to enjoy it. Amanda had grown use to some of their foods during the short time she spent in the jungle, but she didn’t like most of it.
“Good afternoon Marilyn, how are the twins?”
“Oh, they are doing fine, Captain. Hard at work studying, which is a surprise.”
“Don’t think they have reformed, Marilyn, they just want me to lift their house arrest so they can go play with their friends or go work with Charlie again. As soon as I say ok, that will be the last of any studying till school starts again. But if they get all of their assignments finished they will deserve a break. Even I think the schools pile on too much homework for the school breaks. Tell whoever is cook tonight that I should be home for dinner on time for a change.”
“I will tell the girls about dinner. According to the schedule it is Kristina’s turn to cook and Tamara’s to clean up after.”
Captain Santos quickly ended the comm when Lt. Adams hurried into her office.
“We just heard from the City Militia. They found the body of that scientist that Dr. Blake was in here the other day reported missing.”
“Where was he found and by whom?” Captain Santos asked.
“Apparently one of the janitors at the Atlantic Hotel found him in the basement. That is all I know right now. One of the City Militia Investigators commed us and wanted to know if we wanted to send someone to the crime scene,” replied Lt. Adams.
“We are a little short of Investigators in the office right now due to those caravan attacks. Mm, I suppose I could send Sargent Townsead over. She worked several years for the Militia before coming to OSI. Why don’t you send her into my office? I think she is in the computer room finishing some reports.”
“Will do, Captain.”
While waiting for Sgt. Townsead, Captain Santos wondered why she was sending an investigator to the scene of what obviously was a City Militia crime scene. There is just that nagging worry that we are going to end up involved with these scientists in some way, she thought.
“What’s up, Captain?” asked Sargent Townsead.
Sargent Tracy Townsead was a short, slender woman with an elfin cut to her. Short, black hair and a knowledge of unarmed combat that even Captain Santos wouldn’t want to go up against, as a number of would-be criminals found out the hard way. She also loved clothes; seldom had Captain Santos seen her in the same outfit when off-duty more than twice. Unmarried, without kids or other ties allowed Tracey to spend most of her paycheck on the latest fashion, or what was fashion for her.
“The City Militia has a dead body on their hands. Normally not our concern, but he is a scientist that another team member of his research team came in here this morning to report missing,” said Captain Santos
“You se
nt her over to the Militia didn’t you?” asked Sgt. Townsead. “Why are we involved, or are we?”
“You are right, he is the Militia’s case right now, but I have a feeling that there is going to be OSI involvement before all this is finished. I want you to go over to the Atlanta Hotel see what the Militia knows. Talk to Adams before you leave and find out who is investigating for the Militia. I am leaving pretty quickly for the day, so you can give me a report in the morning.”
“Ok Captain, I’m on my way.”
The kids will be astonished that I actually made it home on time, Amanda thought to herself.
*****
When Sargent Townsead arrived at the Atlanta Hotel she quickly found Investigator Yagoslav from the City Militia interviewing a small, elderly man about seventy-five years old. He had graying long hair and thick bushy eyebrows and mustache. Tracy thought that he looks a lot like the dust bunnies that she found under her bed. Yagoslav nodded to her as she entered the conference room where he had several individuals waiting to be interviewed but continued questioning his witness.
“Tell me again how you happened to find Dr. Pierson in the basement Mr. Carson,” Thomas asked.
“I tell you, Sir, it was all out of the blue. I don’t normally go into that storage room in the basement very often, just when I need a break to get away from cleaning floors all day.”
“And when was the last time you were in that storage room before finding Dr. Pierson?”
“I think maybe… yesterday? Or the day before? I’m not sure. Not for a day or two, I’m sure of that.”
“Why did you go down there today, then?”
“I’d been working down-stairs all day, like. I just wanted to take a short break without going upstairs to the employee’s lounge, see?”
“I would bet that our Mr. Carson takes more than a few ‘breaks’ in that room, but I doubt he would have failed to tell someone if he had found the body earlier,” thought Investigator Yugoslav. The techs gave an estimate time of death as sixth day morning, a day and a half ago, so Dr. Pierson could have been in that storage room most of the day yesterday.
“I want you to go give a statement to Officer Bays, Mr. Carson. I don’t think you will need to come down to the station right now, but we definitely need your statement before you leave.”
“But I got off work an hour ago and won’t get paid no overtime. My boss is a tight son-of-a-bitch, and I really need to get home.”
“You can give us a statement here or we can’t take you down to the station, your choice,” Sgt. Yugoslav said.
“All right,” Carson grumbled reluctantly “I guess I got no choice. Who is it going take my story?”
“Officer Beys is in the room across the hall, Mr. Carson. He will take your statement and then you can leave.”
Carson got slowly to his feet, a sour expression on his face, and shuffled out of the room.
“He doesn’t look like he had the energy to carry a body six foot,”
exclaimed Sargent Townsead, if you were thinking of him as the guilty party.”
“No, he probably has trouble pushing a floor cleaner. I’m Investigator Yagoslav, and you are…?”
“Sorry, I am Sargent Tracy Townsead. The Captain sent me over in case there is a tie-in here with our country folk.”
Tracy and Yuri had had a relationship off and on for several years, but strictly in private.
“We don’t have much to go on yet,” Yuri replied, “but there certainly is tie-in for you. As far as we can determine, two tribesmen were seen entering Dr. Pierson’s room early on Sixth day morning. We haven’t found them yet.
“What about the other team members. Have you been able to talk to
them?”
“Not so far. They apparently left the hotel this morning, possibly going
someplace in the jungle. We don’t know for sure as we have not yet found
anyone who knows where they went after about midday. I have two officers
checking other hotels but no luck.
yet. It has only been two hours since Dr. Pierson’s body was found and we
started looking for them so they could be anywhere.”
Sargent Townsead thought about that for a minute.
“That is certainly interesting. I suppose if the Professor was killed by a
Team member maybe OSI can skate on this one. You have sent out an alert
To our office, haven’t you?”
“Did that about an hour ago. Their leaving so suddenly, with their team
leader missing, is certainly suspicious, but I am more interested in those two
village girls. How did Pierson know them, or about them? at least
enough to set up a meeting? Why did he need them in the first place? No, I
think OSI is going to be involved in this case in one way or the other.
“Thanks loads,” Tracy replied. I will make sure we have sent out an alert
for any and all members of that research team. Before I leave here I want to talk to anyone that saw the tribal girls enter the Dr.’s room. That may give us enough
to determine which tribe that they belong to.”
“One of the staff saw Pierson’s visitors got off shift before I arrived, but we will interview her tomorrow when she gets back to work. I suppose that we could send an Officer to her home and bring her back here, but I don’t think she is that crucial to the investigation. The other employee is being interviewed right now.”
“It would have been better if Sgt. Sue Onn was here,” said Tracy. She knows the tribes well enough to figure out what tribe those girls belong to from a second person description.”
“Would you like to sit in with me during the interview anyway?” asked Yuri? “I will send copies of our interviews to your office, but I thought maybe you would want to sit in on this one.”
“I think I will. I may come up with some questions that you don’t, seeing as I do have some experience with the various tribes, though not anything like Sue.”
*****
Captain Santos arrived home at six thirty, to the surprise of her daughters who were playing a net game rather than studying. Considering that she had not been home for dinner any night the previous week, they probably figured they were safe for a few more hours.
“Evening girls, I hope you have your homework done.”
Both girls looked up from the comm unit that they had been playing on with somewhat guilty smiles.”
“Oh…Hi mom,” Kristina said, “you are home early.”
“Yah, no crime to fight today?” piped Tamara.
“Unfortunately, there will always be crime to fight,” answered their mother. “And you still haven’t answered my question about homework.”
“We finished all that you gave us this morning,” replied Kristina. “We still don’t think it’s fair that we have to do homework every day while we are on school break!”
Tamara didn’t say anything but nodded her head in agreement.
“You know perfectly well why you are doing homework when you would rather be out with your friends and we are not going to discuss it again. If you keep up with your homework for another five days, you will still have a week off before the next session of school starts.” Neither girl seemed as upset about having to do homework as I had imagined and I wondered what was up. Normally they would tag-team her with arguments trying to change her mind. Both girls were very quiet during dinner, only speaking when asked a question although there were many looks shared between themselves. I had always thought the twins communicated with each other in ways other than speech although I had heard from other parents that this was not uncommon. They may be as thick as thieves right now, doing everything together, it will be interesting to see what happens when they start dating in a couple of years.
Amanda was in her office an hour or so after dinner, trying to keep up with her non-work-related paperwork when both girls came to the office.
“Uh…mom, can we ask
you something?” Kristina said. If there was any difference between the twins, it was that Kristina was the talker and Tamara very quiet, who usually only spoke up to support her sister, although Amanda had noticed a change lately with Tamara often taking the lead in conversation’s.
“Sure girls, what do you have on your minds?”
“Part of our homework is in the area of biology. Charlie Norton talked with us today and asked if we could help him some more with his senior project. He probably asked us since we are good friends and helped him with his project before school let out. If you would let us help him a few hours each day maybe this would count as our biology homework.”
“Yes, and he really needs our help,” put in Tamara.
“What exactly is Charlie’s project? I know that you told me briefly earlier in the year but I am not sure of details.”
“Charlie actually started his project a couple of years ago as a hobby,” explained Kristina. “Animal life has not really been studied here on Edge World. Charlie’s father did a study for the government and this got Charlie interested in some of the field studies of his father. Unfortunately, his father died of some exotic bug he encountered in the course of his work when Charlie was twelve.”
“I think he continued studying animal and plant life as a connection to the
father he lost,” put in Tamara.
“Charlie’s father had arranged to get unusual plant specimens from
traders on the Atlanta to Southport river trade run, paying a little
something for every new species they found,” continued Kristina. When
Charlie had to select a project for senior year, his advisor recommended that
he uses some of his plant studies as his project. Charlie really wants to be a
xenobiologist so his project is perfect.”
“What exactly is Charlie doing as his project?” asked their mother.
“He has a big bunch of sorties that he is using to examine the effects of
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