Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent (30 page)

“If
Amy did it,” Sikes said slowly, “then it was because either Dr. Petty stole something from her or she stole something from him.”

Angie waved an arm at Amy Stewart’s house. “Look at the size of this place, Sikes. What would she need to steal? What would be important to her? Think, man, think.”

Sikes screwed his face up as he recalled his talk with Amy Stewart. She had definitely been edgy. Was that because she had been trying to hide how she felt about Petty, or because she had been truly upset and frightened?

“Her career,” Sikes said suddenly.

“Astronomy?”

“Whatever was stolen had to do with—” Sikes turned away and dragged his hand through his short, spiky hair. “This is no good, Angie. It just brings us back to the photographs.”

“But take it from the other side,” Angie urged. When Sikes turned back to face her his partner was waiting for him. “What if Petty was the one who came up with the photographs—or whatever the
real
material is—and
he
passed them to
her?”

“So every word she said to me was a lie?” Sikes asked.

“Maybe some of it was true, maybe none of it was, but at least we can see a way through it.”

Sikes frowned. “You can see a way through all this?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time an academic type bumped off a coworker over research, rook. It’s the stuff careers are made of. An important career move might trigger some people into wanting to kill, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Sikes said. He guessed he could understand the urge to kill—if not the action—when it came to preserving one’s job. And he could certainly understand the need to make up wild stories for self-protection.

“So what do we do now?” Angie asked.

Sikes grinned despite himself. She had done it to him again. “I go back to the university and find out what the old man was working on and what Amy was working on and interview other faculty to see where their interests might have overlapped.” He sighed.

“Pretty boring stuff, hmm?”

“I hated college,” Sikes said.

The uniformed officers had finished with their serviceable but makeshift repair of the broken pane in the French doors, so Angie threw an arm around Sikes’s shoulders and steered him across the perfectly manicured lawn toward the front gate. “If you think interviewing faculty is dull, rook, wait till you start doing the paperwork that will let you track Stewart by monitoring her credit-card use and bank transactions.” She shook her head in condolence. “You know you have to file more than thirty different forms for that? Looks like I’m going to have to give you an extension after all. Maybe even a whole week just to do the typing.”

Sikes was aware that he felt much lighter leaving than when he had arrived. Everything had been a jumble—alien spaceships, government agents, losing his detachment, Amy Stewart missing. But Angie had managed to sort through the garbage and lies and cut the whole situation down to size. The most likely explanation was that this was simply a personal incident between two professionals—one old and at the end of his career, one young and on her way up. For whatever reason, bad blood had arisen between them, and one had attempted to kill the other. Whether Petty had set out to kill his student and had died in the attempt or whether the student had gone after her professor remained to be seen. He sighed again as he thought of Amy and the instant effect she had had on him. But still, on the face of it, the scenario worked. Randolph Petty’s death might just be what Sikes had first thought it to be—a deliberate killing, not a random one. Now all that remained to be done was to put in the necessary hours of plodding, detailed investigation that would bring the last few pieces together. He shifted restlessly from foot to foot, eager now to get the tedious follow-up out of the way and get back to his own life.

“Jesus, Sikes,” Angie said as they reached the Mustang, “the way you’re hopping around, you look like you’re ready to fly or something.”

“I don’t like mysteries,” Sikes said. “And thanks to you, this one looks like it’s on its way to being solved. That’s making me feel good. Like at least something in my life’s under control . . . or something.”

Angie glanced at the photograph she was still carrying—Amy Stewart, the mystery man, and two others. “Let’s hope so. Got time for a beer at Casey’s before you get started?”

Sikes checked his watch. He still had two hours before Kirby would be home from school. “Why not?” he said. “We can celebrate this case finally getting back to earth.”

Angie tossed the photograph into the Mustang’s backseat. “Let’s hope so,” she said.

I
T HAD BEEN YEARS
since Moodri had been forced to use the complex network of half-size service tunnels to move undetected through the ship, and his ancient joints creaked with the strain of his doubled-over gait. But he had no choice. In time, as it was measured on the planet the ship was approaching, fewer than four days remained until the moment the Elders’ plan must be set in motion, and without even knowing it, the Overseers were successfully counteracting that plan by searching for all who bore the markings of Moodri’s lineage in their spots. Moodri was certain the goddess would share his appreciation of the irony of his predicament.

At last he saw a dim glow up ahead and knew that he was near the eight-way intersection where the meeting had been set. Melgil and Vondmac—the other two members of his cell of conspirators—were already there waiting for him. He had moved more slowly than he had estimated.

Vondmac smiled wistfully as Moodri gathered his simple skirt around him and settled on a wide pipe. Moodri’s customary robes had proved too cumbersome for easy movement in these confines. He had abandoned them near the hidden entrance hatch he had used to escape the pair of Overseers who had appeared at his dormitory to question him.

“Doesn’t this remind you of our youth?” Vondmac asked. She gazed around at the spherical intersection, which was lit only by the eight dull lamps that glowed by each tunnel entrance, over the timeworn signs written in alien script. “The whispered secret meetings? The fervent plans for an armed revolt?”

“The ease with which we were infiltrated,” Moodri added. “The quickness with which the Overseers identified and executed the conspirators.”

Vondmac nodded in sad remembrance. “But in the end, the Overseers didn’t succeed. They simply accelerated the evolutionary pressure that would inevitably force the birth of a conspiracy that could overthrow them, just as their breeding program has created family lines of workers that are naturally resistant to the gas.”

“Exactly,” Moodri said. “And while an armed revolt by the masses is not practical in these circumstances, a single act by a lone individual—”

“Will not happen,” Melgil stated flatly.

Moodri turned to Melgil. As soon as he had entered the intersection Moodri had seen that the old
binnaum
’s mood was foul, but he had assumed it was the pressure of the decision they would soon have to make that had affected his colleague and friend. It was often difficult for Moodri to judge the moods and thoughts of those of his own generation who had achieved the same oneness with Ionia that he had, and apparently he had misread Melgil badly.

“What do you know?” Moodri asked calmly. At his age, after all this time in these circumstances, there was little that could disturb that calm.

“I have talked with your great-nephew.”

“His interrogation by the Overseers went as we had hoped?” Moodri asked, though he had few doubts that it had.

“Yes, yes, fine,” Melgil said, as if anxious to get this part of his report out of the way. “Finiksa told Coolock the story you imprinted in his mind—seeing the clearing charges beneath the water worker’s membrane suit, hearing the scavengers call his name. Coolock accepted the story just as you said he would.”

Moodri was pleased. “Then the operation at the water hub was successful.”

“Seven of our best people were killed,” Melgil said.

Moodri closed his eyes. “They returned to the mother so their people could have a chance at freedom. Even now they move within the currents of stars in the fields of home.”

Reflexively the three Elders touched their fingers to their hearts in a sign of blessing.

“Rest easy, Melgil,” Moodri said reassuringly. “We knew the Overseers could not help but discover that we were planning diversions in the water hubs all through the ship. All of our workers who volunteered to be the visible part of the operation and be caught knew what risks they faced—death in the hub or in the Game. But because of their heroism our other diversions went as we planned, and the Overseers obviously feel no need to search further. We are in control of the ship’s water system, Melgil. Our plan will succeed.”

But Melgil looked more despondent than Moodri had ever seen him look before. “Not if we are to depend on Finiksa.”

For a moment Moodri sought the peace of the goddess. Then he asked his old friend to explain himself.

“I told him about the key,” Melgil recounted. “I told him when it would be given to him and how he was to use it when he was on the bridge.”

“And you told him those were my wishes?” Moodri asked. With the Overseers patrolling for him he had not been able to risk moving through the open corridors into the service tunnel system that linked the infirmaries to reach his great-nephew himself.

“Of course,” Melgil said. “He has great love and respect for you. But he also respects the Overseers. He is third generation, and the flames of hate do not burn in him as they did in us at his age.” Melgil reached out his one good hand imploringly. “I told you, Moodri, this has been the flaw in the plan from the beginning. Only
we
lived on Tencton. We
know
what was taken from us, and so we alone are willing to risk everything to win it back. But our children’s children know only this ship.” His voice echoed against the pipes and cables of the intersection. “And to those who are in the Watcher Youth, the Overseers are a source of rewards, not punishment.” Melgil shook his head. “Moodri, when I told Finiksa about the plan he said it was not for the good of the ship. He intends to report us all to his Watch Leader.”

Vondmac, who had been listening quietly, started in alarm at Melgil’s words. Her watchful gaze fell on Moodri.

Moodri closed his eyes in silent prayer. He had seen that possibility in Buck’s nature. The ship was his world. The Overseers brought order to it. Not knowing what had been stolen from him, he could not regret its absence. But still Moodri had seen the spark of the goddess in the boy. He had not been wrong about that. Buck was the key to the plan’s success and had been ever since Moodri had gently guided him to say and do the things that would bring him to the Overseers’ attention as a possible recruit for the Watcher Youth.

For the plan to succeed, the rebels needed access to one of the most highly secured areas of the ship. Overseers alone performed bridge functions. The maintenance workers who were allowed past the security precautions were either lobotomized or drugged. Only the children in a Watcher Youth Brigade could get through without difficulty. So the oldest among the captive Tenctonese had created a plan that relied on the youngest.

“What have you done with him?” Moodri asked, knowing full well that Melgil could not have left Buck without ensuring that the child would not make his report to the Overseers.

“He sleeps,” Melgil said. “In order to be rid of me, Gelana, the cargo specialist, gave him drugs as I requested. Coolock had already agreed to have Finiksa excused for three shifts. He will not be missed for another cycle.”

“I will go to him before that,” Moodri said. He knew that if he had a chance to talk with Buck, the boy would understand why the Overseers could not be informed. Why the plan was necessary.

“Too dangerous,” Melgil protested. Yondmac nodded agreement. “The Overseers are looking for anyone with spots remotely resembling Family: Heroes of Soren’tzahh and Family: Third Moon’s Ocean. Your nephew, Stangya, has already been interrogated.”

Moodri was surprised that Melgil had not added
and executed.
“He survived the interrogation?”

“They checked his blood for traces of
eemikken\.
They found none.”

Moodri took a moment to smile wryly at the predictably lockstep blindness of the Overseers. The tattoo around their wrists had long been suspected of cutting the flow of blood to their brains.

“What about Ruhtra?” Moodri asked.

Melgil looked at Vondmac for the answer to that question. “No word,” she said tensely. “The Overseers have been to his dormitory, but he was not present. You realize what that means, don’t you?”

Moodri did. “Two workers were seen calling to Finiksa in the water hub. That means they recognized him, implying that they knew the pattern of his spots, suggesting that they were of the same family. And now two of that same family are missing from their dormitories.” Moodri sighed because the situation, no matter how personally dangerous, could be of no importance so close to the culmination of their plan. “The Overseers have therefore concluded that Ruhtra and I were the observers in the water hub.”

“If we had allowed Stangya to operate within a cell as I urged, he would have known about the importance of staying away from the water hubs,” Melgil said.

“And if the revolt had been compromised, then an entire family line would have been eliminated,” Moodri said. “You know the rules we set for ourselves. At least one from every family involved must remain untainted.”

Vondmac cleared her throat and adjusted her position on the pipes she sat upon. Moodri knew her well enough to simply wait for her to say what she felt she had to.

“Moodri, it distresses me to have to relay this,” she began.

“As I can see,” Moodri said kindly.

“But there are those on the council who suggest that it is no accident that Finiksa does not appear capable of using the key. Especially in light of the Overseers’ sudden interest in those who share your spots.”

Moodri felt a sudden flare of temper rise up in him, and he quickly squelched it. “Does the council accuse me of cowardice?” he asked blandly, though he could feel his spots darken at the implied insult.