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CHAPTER THREE


“Wait a second,” I protested as one of the badgemen stepped up on either side of me and took hold of my upper arms. The one on my right pulled my Fafnir from its holster with his free hand and handed it to the sergeant. “Wait a damned second. My plasmic hasn’t been fired in months. Go ahead—check it for yourself.”

“No need,” the sergeant said, her eyes boring into mine. “Dent conveniently had his own weapon right there for you to use. I don’t know why you thought cremating his face would help you any—we do have up-to-date DNA and chondrial tests on New Kyiv, you know.”

I winced at the mental image of a corpse with its face burned beyond recognition. A single plasmic shot in a vital organ was usually enough to do someone in. Wasting time with additional mutilation was the mark of a psychotic. “I didn’t kill him.”

“We’ll let the judge decide that,” she said. “Where’s your partner?”

“She’s out shopping,” I said. Bad enough that I was about to suffer the noise and squalor—not to mention the pungent aromas—of a police holding cell. There was no need to drag Selene through that, too.

“Is she, now,” the sergeant said, clearly not believing it for a minute as she gestured to the remaining two badgemen. “Maybe she came back early.”

“Whoa,” I said, taking a step backward. Half a step, anyway; the two badgemen attached to my arms brought me to a halt before I could get any further. But I made it far enough to block the hatchway. “You have a warrant to search my ship?”

“Absolutely,” the sergeant said.

“Let me see it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I have a warrant for your arrest,” she said, her voice now showing just a hint of reluctance. “That includes whatever searching and entering are required.”

“Only neither of them is,” I pointed out. “Once you’ve accomplished the main warrant, the secondary powers evaporate.”

Her eyes narrowed a little more. “Well, aren’t you the legal scholar.”

“I used to be a bounty hunter,” I said. “You learn a lot about Spiral law in that job.”

“I’ll just bet you do.” She glared at me another couple of seconds, then gave a short nod. “Fine. Go ahead and lock up. Jareek, stay here and wait for Roarke’s partner.”

“Do I bring her in?” one of the badgemen asked.

“Let’s see how fast I can get you a warrant for her as a material witness,” the sergeant said. “Either way, you can at least offer her a ride to come visit her partner. Don’t just stand there, Roarke. Lock it up, and let’s go.”

* * *

Whatever I might think of the Glazunov badgemen’s skills at crime analysis and deduction—and neither of those skills was very high on my list right now—at least their processing procedure was quick and efficient.

First on their list of things to do was to take away my phone, multitool, and flashlight—they already had my wallet and plasmic—and put them in a lockbox in the evidence room. After that came fingerprint and retina scans, a sampling of my epidermal skin cells for DNA and chondrial profile, and lots of photos from all sides. Finally, they started a search of bounty hunter licenses to make sure I was who they thought I was. That one, given the Spiral’s population and the sheer number of professional bounty hunters, would probably take the rest of the night.

Presumably they were doing the same on Easton Dent’s remains elsewhere in the building.

The processing was especially impressive given how short-staffed the station seemed to be. Clearly, the festival out there was absorbing a lot of their resources. Midway through the booking, with my stomach starting to growl, I wondered if the lack of duty personnel would mean a delay in any meals they typically offered their guests. My reluctant conclusion was that, yes, it probably would.

There were fifteen other prisoners in the two wire-mesh cages of the holding tank when they finally brought me down there. The heavy alcohol aroma pervading the atmosphere suggested that most of them had been picked up while drunk and presumably disorderly, with the rest doing the distinctive twitching I’d often seen in short-tempered people coming down from the emotional frenzy of a fight. A few had been in here long enough for facial bruises to materialize, and I made a mental note to steer clear of them.

The guard at the duty desk facing the cages logged me in, and a minute later I found myself in the right-hand cage, the one closest to the room’s exit. Not that I expected that proximity to do me any good in the short term, but being closer to escape than the alternative still carried a certain psychological comfort.

I spent the next hour wandering around the cage, avoiding contact with my fellow detainees and acting bored while I surreptitiously looked for weaknesses in the wire mesh holding us in. But as near as I could tell the barrier was solid. The guard at the duty station didn’t seem all that excited about his assigned duty, but even with most of his attention focused on his info pad and his coffee cup he found time to take a good look at his charges every minute or two.

During that hour other badgemen brought in three more customers, two human and one Narchner, all of them clearly intoxicated beyond the point of public or personal safety. The Narchner launched into song the second the cage door closed behind him, pitching his voice loud enough to be annoying but not loud enough to earn himself a reprimand or removal to a private cell somewhere else.

Each time the outer door swung open I braced myself for the possibility it would be Selene I saw being marched across the room. But apparently the overeager sergeant hadn’t been able to get the search warrant she wanted.

Or else she had and it hadn’t done her any good. The Ruth had a carefully disguised secret exit near the bow, and I knew Selene would be out through it the minute someone tried using a badgeman override on the entryway lock.

As my father used to say, Keeping that bird in the hand is usually a lot harder than it looks. Hopefully, that would also apply to my own current situation.

I was still working on a plan toward that end when the outer door opened and all that mental activity came to a screeching halt.

First through was a Kalix, squat and broad-shouldered, his squashed lizard face holding a brooding expression, his wrists manacled in front of him. Herding him into the room was a uniformed badgeman lugging a mesh animal carrier containing two ferret-sized creatures. So normal and matter-of-fact did the procession look that they were halfway to the duty desk before the faces registered.

The Kalix was none other than Jordan McKell’s partner Ixil. The ferrets in the carrier were Ixil’s outriders, Pix and Pax, symbiotic animals who could receive uploaded mental orders from their master and send download memories the other direction whenever their long claws were dug into his shoulders and connected to his neural system.

The badgeman, inevitably, was McKell himself.

“What the hell is this?” the guard asked as he eyed the procession.

“Bloodsport,” McKell said tartly. He sent a quick visual sweep across the holding cells, his eyes moving past me without visible reaction, before returning his attention to the guard. “Caught this Kalix setting it up. Here’s the evidence.” He lifted the carrier a few centimeters.

“Whoa—hold it,” the guard warned, frowning at the outriders. “What are you bringing them in here for? Evidence locker’s upstairs.”

“You don’t put animals in the locker,” McKell said with strained patience. “Don’t worry, they’re caged, and they’ll only be here a couple of hours. Just get them some water and they’ll be fine.”

The guard gave a huff. “Do I look like a food truck? I’m on duty.”

“Yeah, well, so are all the rest of us,” McKell said tiredly. “Come on, be a brother and go get a soup bowl and bottle of water from the break room. And be thankful you’re in here instead of out there wearing out your feet.” He nodded sideways toward Ixil. “Give me your key and I’ll lock him up.”

The guard glanced behind him at one of the wall-mounted video cameras in the room’s rear corners, presumably reminding himself that they were focused on the holding cells and not on the desk or its occupant. A quick visit to the break room wouldn’t be recorded, and probably not even noticed. “Fine,” he grumped.

He walked around to the front of the desk, took a moment to make sure the cuffs on Ixil’s wrists were secure, then handed McKell the key card. “You’re leaving those on, right?” he asked, eying Ixil closely as he stepped back.

“After all the trouble he caused out there?” McKell said. “Believe it, brother.”

“You want help caging him?”

“No, I’ve got him,” McKell said, giving the stunner in his side holster a reassuring pat as he set the outriders’ carrier on the floor in front of the desk. “Just go get the water, will you? I can’t leave until the animals are settled.”

“Sure.” Giving Ixil one final look, the guard turned and headed toward the exit. McKell drew the stunner, pressed it into Ixil’s side, and nudged the Kalix toward the other holding tank.

And as they started toward the mesh door, with both their backs to the cameras, Ixil looked at me and casually tapped his inner left-hand wrist.

The spot in my artificial arm where I kept my knockout pills.

This part I’d already figured out. Holding my arms casually across my waist, I popped open the hidden compartment with my right hand and pulled out one of the pills. The guard continued to the exit and disappeared; and as the door closed behind him Pax nosed open a hidden door in the side of the carrier. I flicked my pill out through the mesh, sending it to a spot right in front of the desk. Pax picked up the pill delicately with his teeth and disappeared under the desk with it.

I held my breath, waiting for the startled cry that would mean one of my fellow prisoners had spotted the outrider or the pill handoff. One shout or pointed finger in view of the security cameras and we’d be finished.

But McKell had set the carrier below the level of the security cameras, and the pill was really too small to see unless you were looking for it. Besides, every eye in the holding tanks was glued to the entertainment that had suddenly erupted in front of them.

As prison dramas went, it was one of the better ones I’d seen. Ixil was perfection itself as the annoyed prisoner who didn’t want to be locked up, while McKell was equally memorable as the badgeman who had no intention of taking guff from him or anyone else. They played the conflict back and forth, keeping things just rowdy enough to hold the prisoners’ attention while not letting it escalate to the point where whoever was monitoring the cameras decided it was time to send in backup. The prisoners added in their own bits to the presentation, banging on the mesh and shouting encouragement to Ixil. The Narchner even got interested enough to stop singing.

There was a movement at the corner of my eye: Pax hopping up onto the desk from the far side. He scampered to the duty badgeman’s coffee cup, dropped in the pill, then spun around and hopped back down onto the chair and out of sight. Two seconds later he reappeared under the front edge of the desk and let himself back into the carrier.

A second after that, with a loud and authoritative slamming of the holding tank door, Ixil was inside, and the show was over.

Just in time. McKell was still backing toward the desk, ostensibly watching Ixil for trouble, more likely making sure to keep his face turned away from the cameras as much as he could when the duty guard returned carrying a small bowl and bottle of water for the outriders, plus a couple of snack bars for himself.

“Thanks,” McKell said, taking the bowl and water. As the guard watched, he opened a door in the top of the carrier, worked the bowl through and set it on the bottom, and poured in half of the water. “There we go,” he said, sealing the door and setting the bottle on the desk. “That should keep them happy and healthy until the judge gets to the case and figures out what to do with them.”

“By which time you’ll be long gone?” the duty officer suggested as he sat back down.

“So will you, probably,” McKell assured him, glancing at his watch. “Judge Packerson’s on the bench tonight, and he’s never been accused of being fast.”

“No joke,” the officer said. “Have fun out there.”

“Oh, yeah,” McKell said with just the right touch of sarcastic grumpiness. “Enjoy the”—he looked pointedly at the drunks and rowdies—“quiet.”

With a final nod, he strode to the exit and left.

The rumble of desultory conversation resumed, along with the Narchner’s low-key singing. The guard gave the tanks a slow visual scan, his eyes pausing briefly on Ixil, then leaned back in his chair and picked up his info pad. He scrolled a page, took a sip of his coffee, and settled back to read.

I looked sideways at Ixil. He was staring intently at the guard. Pix and Pax, in contrast, were staring at Ixil. The guard took another sip and set down his cup. His eyelids drooped . . . 

Abruptly, he sagged in his seat, his info pad dropping into his lap, his head falling forward onto his chest. Out like the proverbial light. I looked back at Ixil, waiting for him to make his move.

Only he didn’t.

I frowned. The guard was asleep, but Ixil was still holding the same pose. So far the rest of the prisoners didn’t seem to have noticed the unplanned nap, but I knew that wouldn’t last long. The minute the inevitable uproar started, whoever was watching the security cameras would hit the alarm button.

The cameras.

I focused on them, noting the little red lights that indicated they were active. Just for fun I started a mental countdown.

I’d reached seventeen when the indicator lights went out. Ixil snapped his fingers, and Pix and Pax sprang into action.

They nosed their way out of their carrier, Pax heading under the desk again, Pix running across to Ixil’s cell. He stopped there and stretched upward with his front paws on the mesh, revealing the cuff key taped to his belly. By the time Ixil pulled it free and unlocked his cuffs Pax had joined Pix with the guard’s key card clutched between his teeth. Ixil worked the card through the mesh, pushed his way to the holding tank door through a frozen mass of astonished and probably disbelieving prisoners, worked it back through the mesh, and keyed the lock. He slipped through the open door and hurried over to my cage. As he used the card to open the door, Pix and Pax scurried up his legs and repositioned themselves in their usual places on his shoulders.

“Thanks,” I said as I stepped out into free air again. “How much time do we have?”

“More than enough,” Ixil assured me, looking over at the other holding tank. He’d left the door wide open, but the occupants were still dithering around inside, clearly wondering if this was some trick or a genuine invitation to make a run for it. “Jordan shut down all their security cameras, including the ones on the building perimeter. Right now they’re probably focused on defending the station against an assumed external threat, with the drunks and disorderlies in here very low on their priority list.”

“Good,” I said as we headed toward the door. “Because we’re not leaving just yet.”

Ixil gave me an odd look. “Why not?”

“We’re going to the morgue,” I told him. “I need to look at the guy they’ve accused me of murdering.”

“Easton Dent,” Ixil said, nodding heavily. “Yes, we heard. That’s why we’re getting you and Selene out of here and off New Kyiv.”

“And we appreciate the effort,” I said. “Only two small problems. First: I didn’t kill anyone. And second—”

I gestured in the general direction of the rest of the station. “The dead man in there isn’t Easton Dent.”


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