The Alien Trace [Cord 01] (24 page)

    "… defector?"

    "Better call security…"

    "… infirmary…"

    Fragments of conversation came to him: words with no meaning attached.

    "Get something under his feet, Sam'l-he's too pale."

    And then there was nothing.

    

    

    There was a buzzing sound. It droned on and on, and Cord thought of some swarm of insects on a warm afternoon. The great white cloud-flowers were in bloom, their sharp scent filling the air…

    But he was in the alien spaceport, he remembered. Cord opened his eyes. He was lying on a softly padded bed or table in a small room, with a metal shell as long as himself hovering over him. It was clearly a machine of some sort, he observed, with his mother's interest in machinery. The buzzing had come from it, probably, though it was silent now. The air bore an antiseptic tang.

    "Are you feeling better?"

    Cord noticed the humans for the first time. One seemed to be a physician or med-tech, and had asked the question. The other was O'as Garatua. The doctor looked concerned; she looked annoyed.

    "Yes, thank you. I feel fine." It was true: whatever they'd done, it had worked.

    "What happened to you?" Garatua snapped. "The men who called me got quite a scare when they saw you. Your knees and hands were dripping blood and almost in shreds. Your back and your shirt were in tatters. They thought you'd tried to sabotage something and fallen into the machinery. Fortunately, they called Security first."

    Cord turned his head. He examined the palms of his hands and then looked down at his kneecaps. Both appeared freshly healed.

    "I was dumped into a disposal chute."

    The doctor made horrified noises.

    "I don't suppose you let yourself be bundled in," Garatua said mildly-for her, at least.

    "I had entered my workshop." Cord drew the memories to him, a bit at a time. "Someone must have been inside: he hit me."

    "Yes, there was a bad contusion at the back of the skull. Not fatal, obviously, but it required treatment," the physician added.

    "I don't feel it now," Cord agreed, touching the back of his head. "When I regained consciousness, I was in the chute, falling."

    "By the balls of the Blue God," O'as said deliberately. "You simply aren't safe to be out by yourself. Leave you alone for five minutes and you almost get yourself killed." She crossed her arms and stared at him.

    Cord was going to give her a harsh answer: it wasn't his fault the spaceport contained a homicidal maniac. Instead he opened his mind to her psychic emanations. It might be better to make a friend of her, if he could.

    He had touched no mind in-how long? He could not remember. It was unpleasant to sense humans' emotions. Cord had grown accustomed to keeping his shields in place. Yet surely if he was speaking to his would-be murderer he would know by probing her feelings.

    As he expected, Garatua's inner self was as hard and unapproachable as her exterior. But she was not unfriendly; she was angry, though not, he sensed, at him. She was also worried. There was an underlying bitterness, too, buried far down. Human emotional iives were not as controlled and as healthy as those of Mehirans. Cord realized that he knew a great deal about her from reading her emotions.

    The doctor swung away the metal monitor shell and helped Cord sit up. He felt well enough to stand up. The doctor fussed about for a few moments, then pronounced him fit to leave.

    He walked out slowly, the security chief beside him.

    "You really aren't the one, are you?"

    "What? What one?"

    "Who's been trying to kill me. I'm sorry, O'as. I believe now that I was wrong to suspect you, but it was an understandable mistake. I had a grudge against you for torturing Bird. Your being guilty of that made it seem likely you were guilty of the other as well," he added. You just never knew how far a Kamean was following you. They certainly gave the impression of being a little slow.

    Garatua took off at a tangent.

    "You know," she replied, with the closest thing to friendliness he had seen in her, "I've been wondering about that girl. I never understood how she held out as she did. She seemed like a creampuff, but she didn't break down when anyone else would have. At least, anyone who wasn't psycho-conditioned, and they usually die under questioning. She isn't… ah… insane, is she?"

    "No, of course not!"

    "Strange. Insanity sometimes accounts for anomalies like that… You were saying you thought I was trying to murder you?"

    "I have apologized for thinking so." Cord reminded himself that no one's mind, Mehiran or human, was as straightforward as it might seem at first. Certainly Garatua's reaction surprised him. She was neither offended at his admission nor flattered that he'd changed his opinion.

    "That's all right." She shrugged.

    He touched her emotions fleetingly, and made a guess that she was accustomed to having others think ill of her. Recalling what life was like for a Catcher on Mehira, Cord felt a certain reluctant sympathy.

    "Who knew you were going to your shop?" the woman asked, as they turned a corner.

    Cord's brow furrowed as he reviewed the possibilities.

    "No one knew specifically that I would go there. I told neither Julia nor K, and they were the only ones I spoke with today. Of course, anyone who's been observing me might suppose I'd be there this morning-except for the festivities, I've worked in the lab every day."

    "But you were late today?"

    "Yes, that may have worried him," Cord agreed. "Still, I think he'd stay, don't you?-even if I didn't show up when expected. He'd have trouble leaving unobserved during the day shift. He must have gotten in before the shift began, since there would be no one in that wing earlier."

    "And having killed you, or tried to, he'd wait until-" Garatua's dark eyes opened very wide.

    "Until shift end to leave," Cord finished. "Let's go."

    They pushed past people in the corridor without a word. As they ran toward the speedwalk, Garatua asked, "I suppose you do have a disposal chute in your work area?"

    "Awkward for him if I hadn't. I wonder how he evaded my workshop's security system. Short of using a cutter beam on the lock, it should not have been possible."

    "Perhaps he came up the disposal chute." O'as stole a glance at Cord as she jumped from the speedwalk.

    "Is that a joke?" he asked, leaping after her. With as stolid a being as O'as, it was hard to tell. He followed her into a trans tube.

    "No. There are horror stories about people-and things-lurking in spaceports. With so many passages and shafts-for ventilation, wiring and plumbing-someone could hide in a port as long as he liked."

    The man who didn't exist. "How would he get here? Wouldn't you know who staffed the spaceport?"

    "Officially, it's not possible. But a friendly or bribable crewman is all it takes for a stowaway."

    The trans tube slowed its ascent and stopped at the office level.

    "I have sometimes wondered whether it might be Hamilton K," Cord remarked. He strode along without looking at O'as, but his mind was alert to catch her reaction.

    She did not break step, physically or mentally.

    "The opportunity would be present," she concurred. "However, my professional opinion is that he is not the one. Trade Agents are not bunglers. K would not have to try twice to kill you."

    "You make him sound a formidable opponent."

    "He would be. And he would choose a fail-safe method. If he had put you down the chute, you'd've been dead first."

    "If I had fallen all the way, what would have happened?"

    "The trash is sorted by a robotic system: plastic, glass, and metal to recycling, organics to be processed into fertilizer for the agri-tanks. Chances are we would never have found any trace of your body."

    They reached the door of Cord's workshop before the evening exodus from the offices.

    "Open the door and stand back," Garatua ordered, drawing a surprisingly large hand weapon from inside her tunic.

    Cord decided not to argue. She was armed with an energy weapon, he was not. Besides, she took it for granted it was her right to go in first.

    Cord pressed his palm to the lock and disengaged the additional locking mechanism, then stood aside as Garatua kicked it open. She went in crouched, eyes sweeping the room. She was good, Cord admitted. He would not make the mistake of underestimating her in the future.

    The workshop was empty. It was not a large space, and there was no place to hide, except behind the door.

    "Don't touch anything," O'as told him. "I'll have one of my people check for fingerprints and other traces, but we can hardly expect your attacker to have been dim-witted enough to leave any. Still, he may have been careless."

    She called her department from the com-screen down the hall, ordering an amount of equipment and personnel which sounded excessive. While they waited for it to arrive, she said, "We will have to question everyone in this corridor. That room has only two exits-the door and the chute-and the suspect went out one of them. If he used the door, someone may have seen him-and remembered him as a person who normally would not be in this area. If he went down the chute after you, the situation is a little different."

    "Have you ever been in a disposal shaft?" Cord asked. "Not a very secure method of escape. And I'd have heard him, wouldn't I?"

    "Hanging head down and fighting to stay alive?" she countered. "As for the difficulty, there are several kinds of equipment which would make it much easier. That's one of the things my crew will be looking for-signs that someone has been climbing in the shaft. If he's left traces, we could track him."

    His respect for Garatua increasing, Cord watched while she made her arrangements. Her team was trained chiefly to deal with pilferage by employees and outsiders, and with corporate espionage. On Mehira, they'd obviously been bored. With the port sealed off from the Mehirans, and no other trading company present, neither theft nor spying was a problem. The security department threw itself into the investigation with enthusiasm.

    Cord noticed that O'as did not question any of the workers or technicians on the corridor herself. She assigned the task to a cheerful-looking young man. She caught Cord's expression.

    "They'll talk to him," she explained. "I don't have the right personality for 'friendly' questioning. Too defensive, the psych staff says. What would you expect? People don't like Kameans: they think we're stupid, calculating, loutish. They'd react to me the wrong way no matter how charming I was." Her lips turned up in a fractional smile. "Not that I've tried that method," she added.

    Cord smiled, too. He guessed he was being admitted to Garatua's circle of friends.

    A moment later, she was all business again. "Now, what I want to know is, what do you believe motivated these attacks?

    It surprised him a little to realize they had not discussed the motive at all.

    "It must be tied to the bombing at the demonstration." If he was going to accept her as a colleague, he owed her the truth, or as much of it as would help her find the killer. "It leaked out that the invention my parents were showing that day was a telepathy machine. Someone wanted to suppress it. The same person wants me out of the way, either because I'm on his trail or because I can reconstruct the device."

    "A telepathy device, by the Names," O'as repeated. "K didn't mention that." She pondered gloomily before asking, "Are you building another one?"

    "Yes. I could finish it in half a day-if I could work without interruption, and without being murdered."

    Garatua nodded. "I think you'd better work in the security department's lab. It's no more safe than any place else, if we assume the suspect can travel through disposal chutes and ventilating ducts, but you would be surrounded by my people, at least."

    "And you trust all of them?"

    "I picked them myself. I believe they are all honest, which is something I could not say for many others. If I were committing a major crime, a mind-reading machine would be the very last invention I'd want to encourage."

    "What kind of crime would be big enough to call for mass murder?" he said bitterly.

    "I can think of half a dozen," she replied, not unkindly. "But I wouldn't have expected this spaceport to attract such a criminal. The fact is, this is a marginal operation as trading facilities go. In time, Mehira may be big business, but right now, especially considering how the local authorities have limited access to the port, there simply isn't much potential for crime."

    "So there's not much hope of finding the murderer by discovering what crime is being concealed?"

    "I wouldn't count on it," O'as agreed. "I think if there were a major criminal operation here, I'd have some clue to it."

    "So we are back where we started."

    "No-not if you're willing to trust me."

    Cord's tail switched restlessly. "What's your plan?"

    "You've been hit over the head. You have amnesia. You can't remember how to finish your device. That won't mean anything to most of the port, but the murderer apparently knows what your invention is, so he'll see it as additional time in which to finish you off. You'll stay in your unit, 'resting,' and I'll see to it you've got an invisible round-the-clock guard. We'll rig an alarm system so no one can get in without giving warning-even if he swims in via the toilet. He'll come after you and we'll get him."

    It was not a plan Cord could have used alone, but if he was willing to trust Garatua, it might work. And he would be able to sleep easy. For some nights now his rest had been troubled by nightmares-almost as though he'd been picking up the psychic emanations of other sleepers. It either meant his shaky mental control was failing under stress to the point of receiving even in his sleep or that the dreams were the product of his own fevered brain.