Final Inquiries Read online

  Hannah let out a silent sigh of relief. No, not another, male, dead Kendari. Just an ignorant, thoughtless teenage human who couldn't tell the difference. Probably she assumed all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.

  "How could you tell?" Jamie asked. "I mean, ah, that the Kendari was dead?"

  "He wasn't moving," she said, suddenly agitated again. "Not breathing or anything. And there was this sort of slime on his ears and mouth and stuff. But I thought that--that maybe he was just asleep, or passed out or something. I--I--"

  She burst into tears.

  "Drink some water," Jamie said. "Take it easy. We're almost there. You what?"

  "I--I touched him. Sort of poked at him. Pushed at him with my fingers, and then with my whole hand, pretty hard. He was cold, and he didn't move--and he was dead." Tears were running down her cheeks. "And then--then I realized that my dad--I love my dad, he's a good guy and everything--but he hates the Kendari. Says all sorts of terrible things about them trying to trick us and attack us and how we have to get them before they get us--and there I was in this super-secure place with a dead one, and they'd say I killed him because of my dad--"

  She stopped, gulped air, and grabbed at the edge of the table, as if she was afraid of flying off into space. "I tried to get out on the human-side doors, but the keycode Madame Mutambara gave me wouldn't work. It would just flash ENHANCED SECURITY MODE IN EFFECT CONTACT SECURITY OFFICE. I--I almost did that. But then I thought of my dad again, and the dead body, and started thinking about how they--you, I guess, would think I did it--and--and just went a little panicky-crazy, I guess. I decided to hide. I went to the survival bunkers in the basement."

  "How did you know about the bunkers?"

  "Safety orientation," she said. "They made everyone take it who was going to have to work at the embassy. They even walked us through one of them. I thought it was cool--back then. A private dungeon. Plenty of peace and quiet. And the longer I did it, the longer I stayed down there--the worse it got. The more I was sure that you'd find me, sooner or later, and figure that I must have done it, because why else would I be hiding? But I didn't do it. I didn't."

  "Okay," said Hannah, a little harshly. "We got that. Quick follow-ups. Did you see or notice anything around the body? Anything odd or unusual."

  "Just the dead alien! That was unusual enough for me!"

  She burst into tears again, and Hannah gave it up. She stepped out into the hall while Jamie calmed the girl down again. Linda Weldon wasn't going to be describing broken coffee mugs or appearance of stains on the carpet or hard flooring. It didn't matter. They had confirmation of all that evidence, and her story fit into the narrative perfectly.

  Hannah walked down the hallway, idly checked the layout of the rooms, and found the one with a pile of reference materials and a neat stack of printed pages. She checked a page or two, and sure enough, it was an historic analysis of the Vixa, with neat proofreading marks on nearly every page. Weldon had done good work. Madame Mutambara would want to recover it before the evacuation.

  Weldon had as much as said she was alone in the same building with the victim for an extended period that included the time when the murder must have taken place. That meant they had her placed in the main ops center, just at the time of the murder, with nothing to stop her from killing Emelza 401. All she had to do was take a break from reading her fascinating Big Book of the Vixa, commit the murder, then go back to her work for however long she judged would best suit the cover story. And it didn't hurt at all that her father was her father. All they had to do was uncover one lie in her story, catch her being wrong in one significant detail, and they'd have themselves a big, fat, juicy, very solid suspect that would make everyone very happy indeed.

  The only trouble was, Hannah didn't buy it at all.

  Hannah stepped back out into the hallway and spotted Jamie just coming out of the conference room. They walked toward each other. "Hey, Hannah. Well, there's our handprint."

  "Yeah."

  "Under the circumstances, do you see any real harm in letting her see her father?"

  Hannah thought for a moment. "No. The hell with interrogation procedure, and the hell with not liking Daddy's politics. Let's be decent human beings instead of cops, just for a moment. Go get her, and let's take her out to her dad."

  "Right. Thanks."

  Hannah waited for him to retrieve the wan, tired, frightened girl. They were just about to take her through the inner human-side doors of the ops center when the interlock system kicked in.

  "Oops," said Jamie. "We're stuck here for a minute."

  "What? Why?" asked Weldon.

  "The Kendari-side doors are in use," said Jamie. "They rigged the system so only one set of doors can be used at once, and only one door on each side can be opened at the same time. Paranoid security thing to keep us from rushing straight through the building and attacking them, or vice versa."

  "I don't want to see any Kendari!" Weldon protested. "I don't!"

  Hannah bit down on the half dozen or so replies she was tempted to make. They wouldn't do any good anyway.

  "We don't always get to choose what we see," Jamie said.

  Weldon did her best to prove him wrong by covering her eyes with her hands and turning her back on the door--and bursting into tears yet again. Reminds me of her daddy's politics. Nothing is so big or important that you can't pretend it isn't there, if you try hard enough. Hannah knew that the girl had been through a hard time, but she had just about had her fill of Linda Weldon.

  The Kendari-side inner door rolled open. Brox, Remdex, Flexdal, and Zhen Chi came through the door, Zhen Chi carrying the same large box that Hannah had handed to her earlier that day. "We need you two, and the ambassador, in the conference room, right away," said Zhen Chi. "And yes, it's important enough to interrupt evac preparation. I'm pretty sure we found what you expected."

  Hannah stepped forward eagerly. If Zhen Chi was right, that would be the best news she'd heard in a while. And maybe the worst news too, but one disaster at a time. Hannah nodded at Jamie. "Let's get her out of here, then go find Stabmacher. We can get him up to speed on what Weldon--Miss Weldon--told us on the way." She turned to the new arrivals. "A lot's been happening today," she said. "We'll get you caught up as soon as we're back."

  Hannah followed a step or two behind as Jamie led Linda Weldon through the human-side door, and out into the human embassy compound.

  "Daddy! You're here!" Linda spotted her father at once, and he was as fast on the uptake as she was. Zamprohna jumped up, knocking over his chair, and rushed to his daughter.

  The two of them embraced, and Tancredo Zamprohna comforted his child, ignoring the chaos of the world around them as he stroked her hair and rocked her gently in his arms. "You're safe," he said. "It's all right. You're safe now."

  Hannah wasn't impressed, but plainly Jamie was.

  "That's it," he said quietly, gesturing toward them. "That's our job, right there. To hell with the politics and the plots and the investigations. That's what we're out here for, at the end of the day. To find people. To get people home. To put families back together."

  Just for a moment, Hannah allowed herself the luxury of feeling it. Right then, Zamprohna wasn't a pol on the make, or a con man working both sides against the middle. He was a father, and they had found his daughter, and they had given them back to each other. That was worth doing.

  And it would be even more worthwhile if we can keep all of us from being blown apart, she told herself. "Okay," she said to Jamie, patting him on the shoulder. "Break's over. Time to go back to being cops. We have to go find Stabmacher."

  TWENTY-ONE

  DISCUSSION

  Finding the ambassador didn't take long. Two minutes after leaving Zamprohna with his daughter, they found him in his office, at his desk, dealing all at once with a dozen details related to the evacuation. Hannah left Jamie with him, tasked with the job of peeling Stabmacher away and bringing him in at the earliest possible moment.


  She returned to the joint ops center conference room that was rapidly becoming her home away from home, and filled the time until Jamie got Stabmacher to them by briefing the others on what they had learned from Zamprohna and his daughter.

  "You should not have let her see her father," Brox said, when Hannah had finished.

  "Maybe not, but we did," said Hannah.

  "You will be holding her, of course," Brox said. "She is, at the very least, a crucial witness, and she is also the leading suspect at the moment."

  Hannah leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Brox, somewhere, on one of the human-settled worlds, there is a tough, hard-edged, cunning, calculating cold-blooded killer of an eighteen-year-old girl. A girl--and I emphasize that I mean girl, and not woman--who is capable of forcing a fatal dose of caffeine into a Kendari who outweighs her two to one at least, planting evidence carefully designed to implicate someone else, then hiding out for hours. A girl who knows her Kendari postmortem effects backwards and forwards and takes advantage of them by sneaking out of her hiding place, poking and prodding a corpse to make it look like she came upon it accidentally. A girl who has the raw, unvarnished--I won't say character, call it amoral strength of nerve--to then lock herself up in a survival bunker for days on end in order to simulate a case of blind, unreasoning panic. Given the size of the human population, probably there are hundreds, even thousands of them out there. But Linda Weldon is not one of them."

  "I would point out that, in order for a young girl to carry out the scheme you have just described successfully, she would have to be able to play the part of someone incapable of doing all that. I would also suggest that, for anyone with the internal resources required successfully to carry out so elaborate a scheme, playing the part of a hapless and guileless child for a few hours--or days, or longer--would be by far the easiest part of the job. I must insist that you hold her."

  "We will," said Hannah, at least so long as there's an embassy to hold her in. "I grant the point you are making, and we will not be casual about checking her story. But she didn't do it."

  "I'm inclined to agree with all of that," said Stabmacher as he came in, trailing Jamie behind him. Stabmacher had changed out of his suit and into a set of shipboard overalls. A holstered sidearm dangled from a utility belt that sprouted half a dozen other equipment pouches. There was nothing costumelike or dress-up about any of it. He had been a diplomat a few hours ago. Now he was a field commander, ready for action.

  The humans in the room stood up for him, and the Kendari shifted to a pose of equivalent deference. After the morning's adventures, it would be a long time before Hannah would hesitate about granting him that small sign of respect. "Be seated, everyone," he said as he took his own seat. "She's not going anywhere, except with us, in a few hours' time."

  "That might be a problem," said Brox. "We are both instructed to evacuate 'all and only accredited' personnel. The Vixa are likely looking for excuses to cause even more trouble. They would be within their rights to stop and search the outbound embassy ships--and I expect they will exercise that right and take full advantage of any anomalies they might find."

  "We'll solve it," said Stabmacher curtly. "We have a great deal more to deal with. I want to start with why you're being kicked off the planet. When we left the meeting, you seemed to be in a position of high favor."

  "That changed the moment your party departed," Flexdal replied. "Kragshmal, our not-so-nameless Preeminent Director, instantly and very grandly awarded us the Pentam System--subject to Vixan basing rights and Vixan rights of passage through all Kendari-controlled star systems, indemnities to be paid in recompense for Vixan expenses incurred during the negotiations--and, as the climax of their demands, they insisted on our, in effect, paying one of the planets to them as a fee. All of it ignored the terms and agreements and procedures that we had worked out long ago. The conditions of what Kragshmal proposed would essentially turn the Kendari into a Vixan dependency or, at best, a Vixa client state.

  "When I pointed this problem out, and declined the offer as politely as I could, and suggested that we revert to the previously agreed framework, he accused me of deliberately wrecking the negotiations and of conspiring with humans to insult the grandeur of the Vixa. He demanded that I accept his proposal then and there, without any modifications. I pointed out that there was not so much as a written text to consult, and that I could not agree to something I could not even read. Then--well, it went on in the same vein, but not for long. We very quickly reached a situation nearly as acrimonious as the one you faced, and we too departed--though we managed without the gunfire," Flexdal added drily, looking at Hannah and Jamie.

  "We couldn't have managed without it," said Stabmacher. "I don't know if the simulants were trying to pull us out of the aircar, or board it themselves, or simply trying to force us to a violent response, but it doesn't matter now. The short form is that the Vixa imposed impossible conditions on us--and then on you. Our refusals serve as the pretext for breaking off negotiations and ejecting us from the planet. The negotiations grind to a halt. And yet neither of us can simply abandon the Pentam issue. It has to be resolved before much else of importance can be done. Therefore your people and mine have no alternative but to restart the negotiations about the negotiations that we thought we had resolved."

  "And so the Vixa get what they want," said Flexdal. "A Pentam System that remains vacant for that much longer, which improves their odds of scooping it up for themselves in the end--and meanwhile they grind our muzzles into each other's throats, goading us on to fight."

  "Your imagery is--vivid, Xenologist Flexdal," said Stabmacher. "And I believe your summing-up is accurate. But I was brought in to hear something else." He turned to Brox. "Forgive me, Inquirist Brox, for saying this--but the sudden ejection of both our embassies makes the question of who killed Emelza 401 suddenly seem almost academic. We will pursue the investigation with vigor, of course--but her murder was a crisis because it could wreck the negotiations--and now the negotiations are wrecked in any event, through unrelated causes. We will have to suspend the investigation until the evacuation is complete, and things are more ordered. We will seek justice for the dead--when the demands of the living permit us the time. We simply do not have that time now, with the evacuation deadline hours away."

  "I had foreseen that the changed circumstances might have the effects you have described, Ambassador Stabmacher," said Brox. "I regret the necessity of suspending the investigation, but I appreciate the courtesy and frankness with which you express the situation. Your words are both comforting and upsetting," said Brox.

  "And they're also flat wrong," said Zhen Chi. "From beginning to end."

  "What!" Stabmacher looked stunned, and every face around the table looked at Zhen Chi in some degree of shock and surprise. "What, exactly, are you accusing me of, Doctor?"

  "Forgive me, sir, I did not mean to accuse you of anything. I'm just tired, and strung-out. I think my tactfulness circuit shut down. What I should have said, more respectfully, is that your assumptions are, in fact, quite faulty. Technist Remdex will confirm that."

  Remdex, far from happy about being put on the spot, made a gesture of reluctant assent. "I agree must," he said in his sketchy Lesser Trade. "With respect."

  "And what, of my assumptions, might be at fault?"

  "That the death--the murder--of Emelza 401--is no longer relevant," said Zhen Chi, "and that it is unrelated to the incidents of today. I, at least, believe that is absolutely central to the current crisis. I further believe that it is urgent that the case be resolved at once, even if it means missing the evacuation deadline."

  "How is this so? How could it be so, when the Vixa have sent a clarifying message in the last few minutes? You might not have received your copy yet, Xenologist Flexdal, but I expect you will. We are informed that if the Kofi Annan is still on the ground after the evacuation deadline, she will be declared an enemy vessel. Precision-aimed bursts will target the ground coo
rdinates of the embassy ships immediately after the deadline, whether they are there or not--just to keep us moving along. We are assured that, if the Kofi Annan departs on time, she will not be molested. I'm sure that is a great comfort to us all. Are you still willing to risk missing departure, and put all our lives in grave peril, in order to solve this one murder?"

  Zhen Chi nodded expressionlessly. "If, as I believe, the missions of this embassy--to represent humanity, to defend the interests of humanity, and to defend the honor of our race--are in fact more important than the embassy itself, then yes. And if that mission is not of greater value than all our lives, we might as well give up now."

  "I see," said the ambassador, working to hold his temper. "You view the stakes as being rather high. All I am aware of is that you found some sort of evidence."

  "Urgent, vital evidence."

  "If it is urgent, then please present it at once."

  "We will. At the suggestion of Special Agents Wolfson and Mendez--and I have to say, we weren't thrilled to get the suggestion--we went a little past Remdex's earlier analysis of the coffee mug found at the scene, and my analysis of the chip broken off it. Remdex had merely confirmed that the cup contained a residue of caffeine, and that the interior surface area of my chip was really too small to get anything more reliable than a confirmation that caffeine was present.

  "The central thing that the BSI agents had us do was get swab samples from this collection"--she tapped the box--"of beverage containers that had been used by the various members of the human embassy staff. We were also provided with video imagery that confirmed that the containers had been used--and what had gone into them."

  Zhen Chi looked around the table, and raised one eyebrow. "One of our key findings was that humans are a bunch of slobs. The exteriors of the mugs from the human embassy were covered with all sorts of residues and compounds, covered with fingerprints, handprints, lip prints, and so on, along with drips and dribbles of residue of the contents. The crime scene mug had no exterior prints or marks at all, not even glove marks. Indeed, it almost seemed as if its exterior surface--and the interior surface, for that matter--had been lightly etched by some sort of strong acid or solvent. The samples we took from its interior surfaces confirm that the mug had held caffeine. It might be more accurate to say the mug had been saturated with chemically pure caffeine dissolved in distilled water--and nothing else.