Once I got to the right
place, I could probably get someone talking. But what, exactly, was the right place? My research hadn’t turned up the room number
for the Hrotata victim, Tharrliki. No
surprise there. Medical privacy was carefully guarded even when the patient wasn’t
the victim in a globally televised assault case. I was fortunate that the media had managed to
scent out the name of the right hospital.
That name came as no surprise: any of Layafflr City’s affluent
afflicted would be found at Vaktrri Medical.
So, say I got to the right
floor… who would I find there? If there
was more than one member of Clan Takerrl present, which would be my preferred target? What was my backup plan, if my initial tactic failed?
All this was presuming I didn’t
get barred from entry, or thrown out after entry, or arrested… The main blessing of being narcotized was
that I wasn’t as worried about everything that could go wrong.
Aside from that neural glazing, I also had
confidence in my own abilities. I could
probably bluff or sneak my way in. I
could bypass any security that didn’t involve a biometric or voice ID. If I rubbed one of the Hrotata relatives the
wrong way, I could talk their fur back down.
Yet even if I successfully
navigated to the right person at the right place, what would I learn? Was all this effort even going to pay
off? What, exactly, was I looking for?
I didn’t know. That was the point. This trip was another fishing expedition. Ideally, it wouldn’t end with me losing more
scales. Even better, it might turn up a
connection between the various, seemingly random pieces of this case. I was hoping for a lucky bite somewhere among
the less trawled reaches of the affair.
My preferred prey would be
the victim’s mate, Yavirrt. At a
minimum, she had a front seat perspective on the assault itself, plus the
events preceding and following it. I
might shake something useful out of her memory.
She would also know the most about Tharrliki’s personal background, his
associations, maybe his enemies. If this
attack had somehow been aimed at Tharrliki – like the second attack had been
aimed at me – then figuring out why might lead me to the who.
The first steps were hard enough. Literally, it required an act of
will to step out of my apartment, descend the stairs, and exit to the
street. From there, I had a couple
blocks’ walk to the nearest aircar shuttle depot. The exertion helped itself by stretching my
stiff, abused muscles. By the time I got
to the depot, I almost had my full range of motion back. By ‘pampering’ myself with
a ride to the hospital, I would tighten back up and have
to stretch out all over again. It figured.
The aircar was necessary, first, to prevent me from collapsing from exhaustion, which would happen if I
tried to walk the whole way. I also
needed to travel fast and alone. After
last night’s escapade, there was a good chance that custodians would be
watching for someone matching my description.
No reason to make their search any easier by popping up on mass public
transit. It was probably too soon for
them to make an ID and track me by my credit expenditures… I hoped. I’d find out soon enough if I was wrong; my
aircar would be diverted to the nearest custodial station for collection. Again, I was confident that I could argue my
way out of charges for provocation and assault, but that would waste time, blow
my cover on this case, and possibly require a court appearance to get
everything cleared up. I didn’t have any
time to spare at the moment.
Custodial tardiness was on
my side. I had a quiet, direct ride to
Vaktrri Medical. The sculpted stone
exterior of the ten-story monolith was a façade over a durable frame of Tsrrk-Tor
steel and plastic, along with some fancier meta-materials. The hospital had ductless homeostasis,
meaning that it regulated its own temperature and ventilation without requiring
contact with the external air. It was
near the city core and required very minimal sonics or charged fields to keep
its surface clear. Inside, the height
of medical technology – or at least, the height of what could be imported to
ChtkKttp – maintained the health of the city’s better insured citizens. I had been inside before, but only on
business. My ‘health plan’ was the
minimum protection legislated for the registered citizens of Layafflr
City. That meant my needs had to be
administered through my local
hospital, which was as proportionally shabby as the neighborhood it
served.
I could have
stopped off in the emergency room back there for injections that would relieve my
pain, stimulate the healing of my torn tissues, and even ensure the proper
regrowth of my lost scales. The billing
could be deferred until I had enough credit to seize. The problem was, I didn’t have all day to
wait for diagnosis… and I couldn’t risk the inevitable questions about how I
had received those injuries. I was
pretty obviously an assault case and the med-techs would probably identify the
assailant as Taratumm in short order.
Even my cleanup wouldn’t have removed every trace of genetic material,
and the size and type of the injuries pointed to a heavy blunt object about the
size of a stomper’s fist. They couldn’t
legally hold me at the hospital, but they’d have the custodians asking
uncomfortable questions much faster.
I caught the irony of
entering a hospital, wounded, for reasons other than my own care. I caught that irony and forced it to work for
me. When I sprawled out of the aircar at
the doors of Vaktrri, I played myself off as a wounded patient coming in for
attention. I waved off the attentions of
a pair of Vislin and Taratumm attendants that offered a supporting arm
each. I gave them my best act as a
grumpy, insistently self-sufficient old loner.
They backed off, as intended.
They weren’t going to go out of their way to help a rude, snappish
patient who could walk under his own power.
My next challenge was to
find where Tharrliki was being treated, without being caught out as
unauthorized. I wasn’t cleared to have
that information and I certainly wasn’t cleared to enter a treatment floor,
much less the patient’s room. Those were
guidelines meant to protect the patient’s safety and privacy, so I didn’t feel
bad about breaking the rules. I wasn’t
doing him any harm. Frost, I might just be helping him avoid an as-yet-unspecified
threat. Self-justifications firmly in
claw, I stalked the lower halls of the medical center, looking for an unguarded
compad or terminal.
There are a few tricks you
learn in the course of a career in investigations. At the hospital, I made use of a tidbit
scavenged from a more senior colleague while helping him out on a fraud
case. I’m not concerned about sharing
this with you; even if you warned the medical establishment for some reason,
sapient nature would ensure that this particular security hole would
resurface.
Basically, any big
institution that uses shared electronic records will create multiple accounts for secure
log-in. Inevitably, a few accounts will
get created as dummies, for testing or by duplication while making the
real employee accounts. If you know the
software used for that system, you might have some idea what default values are used
for the dummy accounts. Not all of them
are useful, mind you: most such accounts have minimal security clearance. But if you stumble onto a testing account, or
a dummy for an administrator, you can sometimes work backwards into useful
access.
Finding those unguarded
accounts is a matter of background knowledge plus access plus time. I had the knowledge, provided Vaktrri hadn’t
changed info-tech providers in the last couple of years. It pays to swap war stories with my
compatriots in electronic snooping.
Still, those default codes were only useful if I was inside the hospital
itself. A remote login would have
required defeating an extra layer of security.
I wasn’t savvy enough to accomplish that kind of hack. Now that I was inside, I just needed to find
an entry point that wasn’t being watched.
I was spared the trouble of
creating a distraction. The favorable
winds blew one up for me. A pair of
injured Vislin were wheeled into the emergency room, struggling and
hissing. I guessed that there had been a
transport accident or possibly a firefight, judging from the number of staff
needed to tend to their injuries. When
one of the attendants turned away to help restrain the maddened patients, I
scrambled with my best possible speed to borrow his terminal.
I had to try three different
default codes before gaining access, but my first search for ‘Tharrliki’ was
immediately successful. Even so, I barely
had time to locate and memorize his room number before someone looked up and
spotted me tapping at the keys.
“Hey, that’s a private
system. What are you doing?” shouted a
Hrotata female, in the register of a matriarch used to being obeyed. I guessed she was probably a head nurse or
some such petty authority.
“Tttt, sorry. Left my compad at the hotel. Wanted to check
the scores,” I shouted in my best off-worlder accent. Between my overly formal armor and the
implication that I was a clueless colonist, she seemed to accept that I was
just dumb and not conniving.
“Use the public terminals in
the lobby,” she chided, gesturing with her free hand. The other held a coil of intravenous
tubing. I hated to take advantage of her
haste, but couldn’t waste the opportunity.
“Sorry, sorry,” I groveled,
acknowledging my grievous misstep.
A couple more claw-taps logged me out of the system, drawing a stern
glare from the matron. Still, when I
backed away from the terminal, she had more pressing issues to deal with, and
returned to her work.
I would have liked to
read Tharrliki’s records more thoroughly, but had to be satisfied with the
necessary minimum. My target was in Room
1018, top floor, private room. Easy
enough. I just had to get to a lift and up to a private floor without being
challenged.
Who can travel within a
hospital unopposed? Medical staff, of
course, but I wasn’t going to be able to pass as a doctor or attendant... not even by stealing a lab coat. Patients, but for that I’d need an admissions
tag, you know, the little radio tracking chip that reminds the hospital who you
are. I’d have to take the third option:
pose as a cleared visitor. A little sleight of
hand gained me a ‘guest’ tag from the nurses’ station. Hopefully, I’d get to the 10th
floor before anyone noticed that no registration had been created for my
borrowed pass. I looped the cord of the
guest tag over my head and became a legitimate visitor… at least to the casual
observer.
The chip inside, swiped over the
lift panel, earned me access to the 10th floor. That would never have worked if I was trying
to get to a patient under custodial guard. Tharrliki's floor must have minimal security.
And why would Tharrliki be
under protection? As far as the official
accounts read, he was an unlucky bystander, a victim of happenstance. There was no reason to think he might be
attacked again. I had to wonder if that
were true. If Grust had been aimed
at Tharrliki, how was he set off? How was he targeted? Was he
actually in on the plot? The ‘drunk and frenzying’ excuse could be a smokescreen
aimed at… what, exactly? It didn’t
really help an assassin to use a cover story that would still get him convicted
anyway. If Grust had hoped to escape blame using the ‘drugged’
defense, that obviously wasn’t well planned either.
These thoughts occupied my
ride up. Nine floors later, the lift
doors opened onto a pleasant if tediously beige corridor. Unlike the temperate lobby, the
atmospherically sealed patient floor was slightly chilly and smelled
unnervingly neutral. The environment
might be conducive to physical health but it might eventually erode patients’
mental health. If there’s anything the
sapients of the Great Family truly have in common, it’s our love of strong and
varied sensation... and warmth.
There was no reason to waste
my time surveying the bland scenery. I
loped purposefully into the hall, aimed toward the room number I had discovered
for Tharrliki. Left turn out of the
lift, left turn again to block 15-20, then three rooms down…
I was stopped two doors
short of my goal. I wasn’t caught by
staff, though. Instead, a Hrotata
stepped out of the wing’s guest lounge.
It was a red-gold female with darker auburn streaks, head down as she
slid a miniature compad into her leather shoulder bag. She wore a simple pale blue jumpsuit that
could have either been budget cheap or fashionably expensive, depending on the
actual fabric. Silver rings with sapphires dangled from her ear-flaps. I didn’t recognize her
until she looked up. The shape and
pattern of her face matched a memory from my survey of Herd Torbur’s case
notes: Yavirrt, Tharrliki’s mate. She
must have come back to his bedside immediately after testifying in court that
day.
Perfect! This was one of the best witnesses I could
hope to talk to, better than questioning Tharrliki himself. I just had to convince her to talk to
me. I’d finally get the chance to test
the brilliant approach I’d been cooking up all day. Hopefully, it would play better than my act
at Trrptet Thunder Bar.
“Madame Yavirrt,” I began,
rushing forward to catch her before she could move far from the lounge, “may I
have a word? My name is Stchvk.”
She looked bewildered. It was evident that she hadn’t had much sleep
in the last few days. Her topaz eyes
took a moment to focus on me, lids too heavy to open fully even if she
perceived me as a threat.
“Who…?” she began.
“Stchvk Investigations. I’m looking into the attack on your mate,” I
continued, intentionally pressing forward both physically and
verbally. I wanted her
off-balance, before any preconceptions set in.
I hated using her distressed condition to my advantage but couldn’t
afford to be considerate.
“Oh? I’ve already talked to the detective and our
Clan representive, not to mention testified publicly. What else is there? Who…?” she tried to ask again.
“I’m representing Herd
Torbur,” I admitted, pausing to let her jump into my trap.
As expected, her expression
hardened and she showed teeth as her lip lifted in a snarl. “I have nothing to say to them. Direct all inquiries to our Clan…” she
started to bark.
I cut her off with a low bow
of abasement, curling my claws under, and saying, “I beg your indulgence. I am not here to defend Grust nor ask your
Clan’s forgiveness. I am actually not
a publicly declared asset. My purpose is to
determine if Grust will remain Herd or should be banished from Torbur.”
As I had intended, she stilled
to listen and then looked troubled as I finished my explanation. Banishment was a terrible punishment, even if
Grust had killed Tharrliki. It
essentially meant that the Herd wished to end all association with the former
member; it was an implicit acknowledgement not only of guilt, but an accusation
of deep flaws that made the individual unsuitable for family membership.
You have to do some really
heinous, anti-social things to get banished.
Among other things, it means very little likelihood of reproduction,
probable poverty, minimal social support, and permanent stigma. It’s very rare for a banished member of any
Great Family group to be accepted again into any new group, with the exception
of renegade families.
The latter aren’t a great
alternative. Most of their members are obviously already considered unfit by
one group and usually have only that abandonment in common. At best, members get some social interaction but are
still branded undesirable. At worst, members probably will be involved in some criminal enterprise, willingly or
not. After all, these are sapients with low public acceptance and
little else to lose in terms of their reputations. A packless Vislin like me is considered less
unsavory than a member of a renegade family.
At least I had left my pack willingly. My pack mates had also disqualified
themselves from banishing me, by being notoriously unpleasant.
I looked like the noble abstainer, by comparison.
Banishment is hardest on a
Taratumm. Isolated, they tend to develop
mental problems that typically culminate in suicide or self-destructive
behavior amounting to the same thing.
That is, presuming they weren’t already on a bad path to begin
with.
Most Herds, finding a member
guilty of a crime, will at least stand by them, continuing to plead innocence
or at least trying to explain the indiscretion.
In severe cases, they might admit guilt but then ‘encourage’ the wayward
member to seek help, in the form of psychiatric care, expiation, or whatever is
necessary to avert future problems. In
theory, it’s a great force for social correction. In reality, most Herds just ignore whatever
misdeeds don’t tarnish their reputation too badly or hurt those within the same
Herd. Not coincidentally, betraying members of your own Herd is probably the number one way to get banished. As I've said, that's great for enforcing loyalty but really lousy for an objective legal system.
For Herd Torbur to be
considering banishing Grust, he would have to be suspected of something
particularly nasty and incurable (or not worth the trouble to cure). They weren’t, of course. I was lying outright. But the suggestion that a worse fate than
imprisonment might await her lover’s attacker gave Yavirrt reason to stop,
think, and talk to me. I had hoped she
would either be vindictive enough to share lurid details of the attack and
ensure Grust’s damnation… or else minimally compassionate enough to offer
moderating evidence to prevent Grust’s condemnation.
It seemed to be the
latter. She continued to look stunned
and took a blessed step backwards.
I prompted, “If I could just
have a word, in private, I have only a few questions that would help the Herd
make their decision.”
She nodded and stepped
further back into the lounge, “I understand.
I’ll answer what I can. What he
did… it was terrible. Inexcusable. But I hate to think he couldn’t be helped.”
“That’s what I need to find
out. I’ve already reviewed your
testimony, both to the custodians and to the court,” I lied again. “What I’m looking for is something further,
most likely something you didn’t know was important.”
She continued to look
perplexed, “Like what? I’m certain I mentioned
everything I could remember.”
I sat down on one of the low
couches which worked as compromise seating for the three morphologies of Great
Family sapients. She took my social cue
and sat as well, although staying perched on the edge of her couch on the opposite
side of the room.
“First,” I ticked off, “he
might have been encouraged by others. Or
perhaps others knew what he intended and failed to restrain him. Did anyone exit the Thunder Bar not long
before or shortly after Grust?”
She twitched her tail in
negation. “No, his Herd mates didn’t
come out until after the… attack. I said
so.”
“All right, I wasn’t sure
the detective had been that thorough.
Still, someone could have stayed inside after setting him off.
Can I borrow your compad? I’d
like to go through some of the witnesses and see if you recognize anyone. There were a few bystanders that weren’t
called by the court, after all.”
She hesitated but eventually
gave in. I may not be a social
scientist, but I’m a student of the mind by necessity. By involving her personally in my
questioning, by asking her for small favors, I was encouraging her to think of
me favorably. We were on the same side now,
despite my employment by the ‘other side’.
I kept the compad angled
toward her as I logged in to my remote storage and brought up the files from
Herd Torbur. The fact that I had access
to their case notes helped to validate my cover story. I flipped through the obvious roster, first
with all the Taratumm that had been at the scene of the crime. She recognized Grust’s Herd mates, Veruth and
Ktuck, both from their belated efforts to stop Grust and from their appearances
in court. The others were mysteries to
her. I described the bartender, making
up the name, ‘Kmeth’, to make it sound as if I had researched her background,
also. Yavirrt had no familiarity with
her. The bartender had never stepped
outside, after all.
I went through the small
number of Vislin who had been present, with the same results. Other than her own Clan-assigned bodyguards,
Yavirrt had never seen any of the Vislin before or during the assault, only
long afterward, in court.
I was actually impressed
with Clan Takerrl’s integrity. They
could have briefed Yavirrt thoroughly about the case before her court
appearance, ensuring that her testimony caused maximum damage to Grust’s case. Certainly, her Clan could manage almost as thorough an investigation
as Herd Torbur was financing. Granted,
they already might have done so… in which case Madame Yavirrt was a brilliant
actor. She would have to be expertly
faking both extreme fatigue and extensive ignorance of the case. I doubted I could be fooled so completely
otherwise.
Now, I might sound like I’m promoting
myself as a smooth talking master of urban espionage here, with all sorts of tools to dig data out of
unlikely cracks. That’s only partially
true. I do have some useful skills,
gleaned through simple necessity, hard experience, a few generous tutors, a
decent childhood education, and some self-study. Some of my success comes from luck. I have botched a number of cases. In this
case, I was doing things quick and dirty, sacrificing stealth and secrecy
in favor of a higher likelihood and faster rate of success.
For example, I imagine you picked up on
my trail at the hospital. Maybe the
throwaway login I used to find Tharrliki flagged some search for suspicious activity. Maybe Yavirrt talked to someone afterward who
raised the alarm. Frost, maybe the
custodians’ report on my mess at the Thunder Bar tipped you off. Whatever it was, I couldn’t worry about being
noticed working, as long as the trackers didn’t catch me until after I had exonerated Grust and earned
my payday. If I did my job well, Herd
Torbur might even defend me against any criminal charges racked up along the
way. I hated the thought, but not so
much as to refuse their help.
One of the lucky leaps that
kept me ahead of you came when I finished the list of witnesses. The last entries were about the Hrotata
present. Yavirrt knew the shopkeeper she
had met before but verified that she hadn't seen him again after leaving his
store. She didn’t recognize the various
passers-by who had fled Grust’s rampage later.
But rrrr, did she bristle when I showed her a picture of Krrutoki: the
gawker who had watched me getting bludgeoned last night. He had also been present at Trrptet Thunder
Bar the night Grust blew a fuse.
Apparently, he was also a
familiar face to Yavirrt. She explained,
“I know Krrutoki. He lives in that
neighborhood… where I used to live until Mother was elected district Councilor. We
grew up together. I didn’t realize he
was there that night. I suppose it makes
sense. He likes that block. I just didn’t know he’d be interested in the
Thunder Bar.”
My nostrils were quivering
with a growing scent. “You know him from
childhood? That definitely was not in any of the official reports. Krrutoki didn’t mention it.”
“I didn’t realize he was a
witness. I’m surprised he didn’t say he
knew me. Or maybe I’m not
surprised. He might still be angry.”
I restrained the urge to
shake the already traumatized Hrotata female.
“Angry? About what?”
She shook herself out of
reverie and unconsciously licked her paw to start grooming. More Hrotata spit. I avoided pointing out her stress reaction
and tried to keep her focused on the questions.
After a moment’s pause to
slick down her cheek fur, she answered, “About Tharrliki. About Clan Takerrl. He had thought we might be mated and courted
me. My birth Clan had other ideas and
introduced me to Tharrliki. We’re a good
match and not just for practical reasons; we really complement each other well. It is true that becoming a matron of a rising
Clan like his benefits us both and my birth Clan by association. I am blessed that I also found love.”
She continued, the words
spilling out now: “Krrutoki pressed the issue.
He wanted me to reject Tharrliki’s proposal and return to him. I was young and indecisive. Our Clans put pressure on him to leave me
alone. Clan Takerrl, especially, warned
him off. Tharrliki and I were mated, I
moved into Clan Takerrl’s housing, and I lost touch with Krrutoki. I thought it was best. I had hoped he would find someone else, move
on, and forget me as well.”
“But he didn’t,” I ventured,
risking interruption to test a theory.
“No,” she admitted, “but he
seemed to have given up trying to win me back, at least. We talked again about a cycle ago. Little things, casual things, like our work
routine and dining preferences. I heard
from him last about six days ago. He was
telling me about a new silversmith’s shop that had opened in our old
neighborhood.”
“How did he sound then?” I
prompted.
She caught my meaning and
began to look sharper, more alert. Her
tone when she answered was defensive, “Exactly the same: pleasant, calm, and
open, like he just wanted to be friends again.
Let me be clear: Krrutoki has never since brought up his suit, never
threatened me or Tharrliki, and is not associated with your Grust in any way.”
I lowered my head in
agreeable submission, “I understand. It
seems unlikely to me as well. You
understand, though, that I must investigate every possibility. Are you certain Krrutoki has no further
connection to Grust?”
“Yes,” she spat back,
automatically, but then reconsidered. “Actually,
I don’t know for certain. I suppose they
could know one another, if they went to the same bar. It might be worth talking to Krrutoki in case
he does know Grust as an acquaintance.”
She sighed, deflated again, “If
I know him, Krrutoki will try to defend even a Taratumm if he considers him a
friend. He might be upset he couldn’t
stop the stomper.” Her use of the Vislin
epithet for Taratumm was an odd slip for a Hrotata, probably reflecting her
internal anger at her mate’s attacker.
“Well, I can’t think of any
other questions right now. I really
appreciate your time, Madame.” I spoke
quickly, ready to hurry away. I had been
fortunate to have this much time undetected at the hospital and was anxious to
leave. I likely could not obtain
anything further from Tharrliki, given the nature of his injuries, and especially
with his mate present. I was also
particularly anxious to talk to Krrutoki himself, given these new
revelations. Despite Yavirrt’s defense,
I was growing increasingly convinced that a certain lovesick Hrotata had a key
role in Grust’s actions… not to mention the bruises on my poor body.
Also, my pain pills were
wearing off. I rose to my feet with
considerable effort. A twinge made me
stagger forward, gasping. Yavirrt rose
hastily and steadied me. Her wet paw
made contact with my scales. I had a few
seconds to realize that we were soon going to be slightly better friends than
earlier. Or at least, I would be more
her friend than I was before. I had to
get going before I started feeling bad about exploiting her.
“Thank you again, Madame
Yavirrt. Hazard of my job, I’m
afraid. Some people get offended when
you ask certain questions and demonstrate their displeasure with over-enthusiastic
ejections.” I tried to sound wryly
humorous. To my own ears, I sounded
pathetic and nervous.
“You’re welcome…
Stchvk. If you do talk to Krrutoki,
please don’t mention that I told you about our history. I’d like to keep him as a friend.” Her words were diplomatic, but her gaze still
had a sharpened edge that made me wary. She was starting to suspect
something.
“Of course. Very discreet. Well, good day,” I concluded, turning and
striding from the room. I must have
looked like I had something to run away from.
Again, haste left an obvious trail behind me.
Don’t think I’m putting down
your own investigative skills. I’m sure
finding me took some work, especially in this city, on this planet. I could
have made it much harder if I had been trying, that’s all.
At the time, though, I had a
Hrotata to catch quick and grill on high heat.
Figuratively, of course.
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