13
Cordelia sprawled happily on the rug in front of the big fireplace in the high-ceiled living room of the Kemper residence. Today’s housewarming party had been a tremendous success. Now she enjoyed the pleasant feeling of having worked hard, hit all the marks, and earned her rest.
Mack and Zack wouldn’t be completely moving out of the Schardt-Cordova home for quite a while to come. The housewarming celebration had been more to mark the long vacant house as ready for occupation. It was likely they would move in stages. Doubtless Mack and his new beau, Brad Abrazo, a handsome, olive-skinned youth who, despite being a computer game wizard, was not in the least adverse to hard physical labor, would start spending more times alone together here.
At this moment, Brad and Mack were cuddling on one of the reupholstered sofas, softly talking. From the stray words Cordelia caught, they were discussing their very ambitious plans to set up a custom fabrication facility in what had originally been built as a livestock barn. The idea sounded like a good one to her. Ranching on Sphinx, with its long winters, was not feasible as a small business. The outlay for winter feed alone could be shockingly high.
Zack was half-drowsing on the other sofa, gloating over a colorful box of paint tubes. Danette had presented these to him to encourage him to follow through with setting up an art studio in one of the many vacant rooms, then more seriously pursuing his long-held dream of a sideline in landscape and portrait painting. Marjorie Harrington, who had attended the party with Stephanie and Richard, had promised Zack art lessons, an extra gift, in addition to the flat of hardy Sphinx-adapted herbs that had been the Harrington’s housewarming present.
Cordelia stretched luxuriously, pillowing her head on her arms as she considered whether the effort of migrating up to the guest room that was hers for as long as she wanted to use it was worth the effort. Maybe a nap here, first…
As her eyes drifted shut, she reached for that awareness of Athos that had been with her since that first miraculous awakening in the vet clinic. There he was, somewhat more distant than usual, but close enough that she felt no panic or anxiety. She let her mind unfocus, more testing her nearness to sleep than seeking the treecat. In that uncluttered mental space her sense of what he was feeling came more strongly.
Athos was curious, worried, something else… Cordelia felt uneasy. He wasn’t angry. Not precisely. Defensive? Not quite. Ready to defend?? Keeping her eyes shut was an effort, but she did so rather than break the fragile awareness. She pretty much always knew in what direction Athos was in relation to her, but she couldn’t see through his eyes or any of those pretty storybook conventions. Even Stephanie, who had a tremendous rapport with Lionheart, admitted she often had to guess what was feeding the emotions she felt through their bond.
Eyes shut, mind racing, Cordelia considered. Maybe it was just extreme distance panic, nothing more, but she no longer felt in the least drowsy. What she wanted to do was jump up, toss on outdoor clothes, and race in the direction where Athos was until she had reassured herself that he was okay. That would be pure stupidity, even worse than refusing to set the fall alert on her uni-link. Even in relatively settled areas, Sphinx had plenty of predators, and the Kemper hold was far from settled. And, if Athos was defending something, that argued there was something threatening to attack.
How to handle this? she thought, mind twisting through mazes of possibilities and rejecting most half-formed. How to get at least Zack to come with me without giving away that I have this link to Athos? I might trust the boys in a pinch, but Brad—sweet as he is—is still more or less a stranger.
The tempest of ideas seemed to take hours, but in reality they took only long enough for her to open her eyes, and get to her feet.
“I’m going to find Athos,” she said, trying to sound casual. “I want to make sure I know where he is before I go to bed.”
Zack looked at her quizzically. He’d always been sensitive to nuances of mood. Mack blamed it on his younger brother’s artistic temperament, but Cordelia thought it had more to do with being a younger sibling, careful to judge the moods of his elders.
“I’ll come with you,” he said. “It’s pretty dark out.”
Mack frowned, obviously unwilling to uncuddle, but equally unwilling to let his recently injured sister and sixteen-year-old brother go out alone.
“If Athos doesn’t come back when you call,” he said, “don’t go wandering off into the woods with just Zack.”
“Agreed,” Brad added, running a finger along Mack’s jawbone. “Besides, a walk in the woods by starlight would be very romantic.”
Cordelia was grateful. She tossed on her jacket, grabbed her rifle by reflex, made sure the fall alert was set on her uni-link, and tried to look casual as she headed outside. Zack snatched up his shotgun as he followed her. As the door shut, she heard Mack and Brad getting up off the sofa.
No questions, though. The Great Treecat Conspiracy might be semiofficial, but just about everyone on Sphinx realized that treecats were at the very least the most interesting wildlife located so far, and, maybe a whole lot more. Having one to foster was a serious responsibility, one that was embraced by not just the bonded human, but—at least so far—by the entire family.
Athos didn’t answer when Cordelia called. She confirmed her sense of what direction he might have gone, then had an inspiration as sudden as she was certain it was correct.
“I wonder,” she said, “if he’s gone to Mr. Ack’s? He really likes poking around there, and I saw him fussing at Herman at the party, as if wondering if Herman had brought him a treat.”
The last was pure fabrication, but there had been so many people wandering all over the house and grounds during the housewarming, admiring what the Kempers and Schardt-Cordovas had achieved and making offers of further help, that there was no way Zack would know for sure.
“We could hike over that way,” Mack said, coming out onto the porch, Brad on his heels. “It’s not that far, now that we’ve opened up a good trail since we’re back and forth so often. We can call for Athos as we go.”
Cordelia wanted to jump in an air car and get there as fast as possible, but there was no way she could justify that without revealing too much. She considered using her formerly injured ankle as an excuse, but that would definitely make the boys suspicious.
“Sounds good,” she said, heading for the trail and calling Athos’s name. “He’ll probably hear us and come romping over, showing off whatever he was eating or a new rock for his collection.”
But Athos didn’t show up as they tromped along the trail through the towering Sphinxian forest. Something of Cordelia’s sense of urgency must have communicated itself to her brothers because neither Mack nor Zack made any of the sensible suggestions she feared: that they go back and check in another direction, or call the Schardt-Cordova house to make sure Athos hadn’t gone “home,” or split into two groups so they could cover more ground.
I wonder just how much the boys have guessed, Cordelia thought. Certainly they would have noticed that Athos is never far from me, and that I always take him with me when I go somewhere. They’re good guys, not asking awkward questions.
The trail to Mr. Ack’s ended near the parking area. They were still hidden within the shelter of the trees when Zack said, “Whose air van is that? I hope Herman doesn’t have a sweetheart visiting. That could be embarrassing.”
Cordelia looked, half-expecting the now-familiar Câmara Comestibles and Produce van, but this was a different vehicle, built for hauling passengers, not groceries. Its finish was a deep silvery gray that melded into the shadows. It lacked any of the personalization that most privately-owned vehicles on Sphinx acquired, as a result of their owners spending long hours in them, going between widely scattered destinations, so that vehicles became extensions of “home.”
“A rental maybe,” Cordelia was about to say, when from a short distance away, a shout more of surprise than anger broke the stillness.
“What the blazes is that?”
At the same moment, Cordelia felt a surge of smug satisfaction along her link with Athos.
“That wasn’t Herman’s voice!” she said, wondering what trouble the treecat had gotten himself into. “C’mon!”
Not wanting to give herself away, Cordelia switched off her flashlight. The others did the same without question. Given how well Cordelia and the Kemper boys knew the layout of Mr. Ack’s the pale glow from the lights along the paths were sufficient to guide them. Brad dropped to the back, letting them lead. Cordelia liked him even more for this unspoken evidence of support and trust.
If he and Mack stay together, I’ll definitely dance at their wedding.
Happily for Cordelia and those with her, the outburst that had alerted the group as a whole that something unusual was going on had continued, providing them with both noise to cover their approach and a very neat distraction. They were still a distance away when a new voice spoke, a woman’s, cool and authoritative.
“That’s a treecat, Willinski. They were covered in your briefing.”
A guffaw, then the first voice said, “No way! Treecats are fluffy, kinda cute. If that’s a treecat, it’s got a serious case of the mange.”
Herman’s voice, trembling but determined. “That’s Athos. He doesn’t have mange. He was injured saving my landlords’ sister from an attack by wild beasts.”
Willinski barked another crude laugh. “And now the little fuzzy has come to save you?” There was a creak of protesting metal. “Save yourself and keep the beast from getting shot. Quesk won’t miss at this close range. Tell Dr. Orgeson what she wants to know and we’ll be on our way. Don’t tell, and you’ll be explaining to your landlords how a valuable piece of equipment got busted and their sis’s pet got hurt.”
Cordelia wanted to race forward, but she didn’t need Zack’s hand on her arm to remind her that at least one of the people threatening Herman and Athos had a gun at the ready. Her mind raced, and she came up with a plan. There was no way to brief the others, but Mack and Zack were her brothers, and they’d played a lot of games together. She’s just have to hope they’d take her cue.
“I heard something over this way,” she said, pitching her voice so that it sounded as if she was farther away. “I bet Athos is over near the compost heap. There are all sorts of wood rats there that he likes to hunt.”
The three young men all had their firearms out and readied. Mack nodded crisply, a gesture that said, Go for it! We’ll cover you.
Cordelia swallowed over a sudden lump in her throat and called, “Athos? Athos? I’ve got some celery for you, boy! Time to come in for the night.”
“Bleek!” came the instant reply. “Bleek! Bleek!”
Lowered voices, then Herman called, his voice tight. “Cordelia? Over here, by the compost heap. Athos and I were doing varmint control when some late visitors arrived.”
Very neat, Cordelia thought. I bet someone fed him the lines. That doesn’t sound in the least like Herman.
“Oh! That’s whose air van we saw.”
“We?” Herman’s voice squeaked on the single syllable.
“My brothers and Brad are with me. When I said I was going out to try and get Athos to come in for the night, they decided to come with me. Brad absolutely wouldn’t believe us when we told him how Glynis decorated this place.”
The exchange had brought them to the composting area. Cordelia bet anything that the pleasant, social scene before them bore no resemblance to the reality of a few moments before. Herman stood with his back to the compost bagger. Athos was perched nearby on the raised housing that protected whatever mysterious mechanical wonders Mack had cobbled together.
Facing them were four strangers—three men and a woman—and Frank Câmara. Despite their business attire, the three men’s body language screamed “thug.” Frank, acting as if they were all old buddies, set about making introductions—and it was telling that he only bothered to introduce one of his companions, a petite, neatly-coiffured woman in what Cordelia thought might be a fairly expensive suit.
“Hey, this is Dr. Lyric Orgeson. She’s visiting Sphinx. Turns out she’s really into mushrooms, and wanted to talk to Dr. Bonaventure, so I brought her out here, but there was just Herman, so we were getting ready to split.”
As explanations went, it was thin, but Cordelia had no desire to push matters, not since it looked as if they just might be able to squirm out of this without anyone being shot. The boys hadn’t put their firearms away, but then they were settlers on Sphinx, out for a stroll at night. Being unarmed would be far more unlikely. It helped that at this moment, Athos chose to come leaping over to nuzzle Cordelia’s hand. Was it her imagination or did the curl of his whiskers and swish of his tail indicate more than just pleasure at seeing her? She could almost imagine him saying, “Yeah, right. You tell ’em, Frankie.”
I am overtired, Cordelia thought as she pulled the stick of celery out of her pocket and gave it to him. Just a cute little animal, boys and girls. No need to worry.
“We’ll take our leave now,” Dr. Orgeson said. “Thank you, Herman, for showing us this fascinating facility. I will definitely be in touch.”
With a nod to the new arrivals, she trotted toward the parking field, trailed by her thugs.
Because, no matter how neatly they were dressed, I have no doubt that’s what they were. I’m going to need to update Steph and Karl before I sleep tonight.
“Oh, Cordelia, before you go,” Herman said, sounding like the very bad actor he clearly was, “I have the excess butter-and-eggs I promised you at the housewarming. You might as well pick them up now, rather than me dropping them by in the morning.”
“Thanks,” Cordelia said. She didn’t think they quite looked like they were seeing Dr. Orgeson and company off the grounds as they went along with Herman, but they certainly didn’t step inside Herman’s cottage until the rental air van had lifted off and sped in the direction of Twin Forks.
“Okay, Herman,” Mack said once they had crowded into Herman’s living room. “What was that about? We heard that Willinski threatening you, seems on Dr. Orgeson’s behalf.”
Herman glanced over at Cordelia, his pleading expression all but begging her to not tell the others about the baka bakari. She gave a slight nod, and, collapsing into a chair, he started talking.
“I know you think Glynis and I are completely nuts about fungi, but the fact is, they really are tremendously interesting and—unlike most living things—they can be grown in all sorts of different situations, as long as you know how.”
“Yes,” Mack said patiently. “We could probably qualify as graduate assistants in mycology by now. Go on. We didn’t get the impression that Dr. Orgeson was here on a friendly scientific visit.”
“Scientific, yes,” Herman said. “Friendly, no. She wanted me to turn over our research—and some samples—related to some very interesting fungi native to Sphinx that, if we can work out the right supplementary medium, could augment or even pretty much replace the waste recycling hardware aboard spacecraft and orbital platforms. These have the capacity to transform and cleanse both organic and nonorganic waste, and they’re very efficient. Even better, they can do so leaving very little excess beyond their own fruiting bodies behind. The cleansing beds would probably require a little more volume than the hardware they’d replace, but their fruiting bodies are compact and, if not exactly tasty, can serve untreated as edible matter. Fed into a synthesizer, they could provide a supplemental food supply.”
Brad gave a low, musical whistle. “That would be remarkable. A great deal is already done with hydroponics tied into the life support systems, but fungi like that—something that killed two birds with one stone—could be worth a bundle! This Dr. Orgeson learned about it somehow?”
“We thought our database was secure,” Herman said, more relaxed now that he knew Cordelia wasn’t going to give him away. “But either it isn’t or someone who had access spoke more freely than they should have. In any case, Dr. Orgeson saw the potential where—much as it pains me to speak ill of my employer—for Dr. Bonaventure this fungus is just one of many wonderful discoveries we’ve made.”
And I bet Herman’s telling the truth about this poop-to-produce fungus, Cordelia thought, amused now that she was no longer scared. He wouldn’t dare make up something like this. And I know that his frustration with Dr. Bonaventure’s love for discovery rather than the tedious work of analysis and development is real. The best lies are mostly true.
“So they were threatening you?” Zack asked. “That seems stupid.”
Herman shrugged, got to his feet, and unasked, started pouring tall glasses of a slightly fizzy beverage that tasted rather like a mixture of apple cider and lemonade, but was actually the by-product of a fungus grown in vinegar. “Zip” was already on the market as a wholesome health drink, low calorie, high in nutrients, but very few people knew just how it was made.
“It was stupid,” Herman agreed, “and they didn’t start that way. First were compliments to our work. Then a request for samples. Then, when I said I wasn’t cleared to give samples out—and was even unwise enough to indicate that we didn’t know enough to make sharing safe or prudent—Dr. Orgeson offered me a very lucrative position on her staff.”
The look Herman gave Cordelia as he handed her a tumbler full of Zip said, “This is true, except substitute baka bakari.”
Cordelia thanked him and said, “You must have been really tempted.”
“I was,” Herman admitted, “but not enough to screw over people, like Dr. Bonaventure, who’ve given me a break. I said I’d need to consult with her first. Then, well, the velvet glove proved to have an iron fist inside. When the job offer came up, I’d been giving them a tour of the grounds. I’d told them about how Mack and Zack had built our compost bagger, then that Willinski suggested that jury-rigged equipment was so vulnerable, and very difficult to replace. Things were getting a little rough when Athos came plummeting down from the trees like a deus ex machina in a melodrama. You folks showed up not long after.”
“And we’re glad we did,” Cordelia said firmly. “I bet Athos thought those people were trying to horn in on one of his favorite hunting grounds, and decided to defend both it and you. We don’t know a lot about treecats, but they surely understand the concept of the hand that grows the celery or makes the nice, smelly dirt that attracts the wood rats.”
“Herman, you can’t stay here alone,” Zack said firmly.
Herman looked nervous. Cordelia bet he hadn’t thought beyond how he’d explain the basics. “You’re right. But I don’t want to leave GBMRAC. I’m responsible for it.”
“Then I’ll stay with you,” Zack said. “You’re probably right that you won’t be bothered again tonight but, after this, no more one person at the facility, at least at night.”
Mack nodded crisply, like someone far older than his eighteen years. “We’ll talk with Dr. Bonaventure. It was one thing to leave you alone here when this was a two-building operation, but now that you have valuable samples, she needs to think differently.”
“And it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Brad added, “to get a security system up, both visual and alarms. Happens I know someone who can do the work on the cheap because he likes a certain Mack Kemper.”
His wickedly playful grin left no doubt that he was speaking about himself.
By the time they started the walk home, minus Zack to whom Herman was lending pajamas and a toothbrush, Cordelia was physically tired, but her mind was racing. Up in her room, under Athos’s watchful green gaze, she put together a report to send to the members of the Great Treecat Conspiracy.
“There’s been a development,” she began, supplying details. She ended, “We should meet.”
“Well,” Stephanie said, “at least now we have surveillance on Herman, and completely legal, too.”
She, Karl, and Cordelia had met in Twin Forks at midafternoon of the day following Cordelia’s report on recent events at Mr. Ack’s. The lunchtime rush was over, so they had the “treecat friendly” side room of the Red Letter Café to themselves. All three had ordered milkshakes. Stephanie had a large slice of cheesecake, too. The three treecats were up in the boughs of the artificial picketwood Eric Flint had recently installed along the walls, a furnishing that not only made them more comfortable, but also limited where they dropped bits of whatever snack they were enjoying. There was even a hatch near the ceiling that the ’cats could use to let themselves in and out.
“We do,” Karl agreed. “And I had another thought last night. I was thinking about the way Herman admitted to Cordy that he’s the original source for baka bakari, but he’s not having any luck figuring out why it has the effect it has. Well, now that we know where it’s coming from, I think he needs to cook up a little batch for us.”
“What?” Stephanie blinked. “Why?”
“Because I want to send it back to Landing.” Karl’s expression was grimmer than it had been a moment before. “I’d like to get some of it to Scott, right here on Sphinx, but I bet Dr. Flouret knows somebody—probably right there at the university—who could analyze it for us, maybe even give us some idea about the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’”
“That’s a great idea!” Stephanie said, then grinned as she saw Cordelia’s perplexed expression.
“Sorry! Karl’s talking about Dr. Flouret—Mordecai Flouret—the head of the Forensics Department at Landing University. We met him when Chief Shelton sent us off for forestry training last T-year. If anybody would know who to have look at this stuff, it’s him.”
“I don’t know how happy Herman would be about that,” Cordelia said. “When I went over to talk with him this morning, he wanted to refuse to have anything more to do with Frank or any of Frank’s associates. I finally convinced him that it was too late to hope that burying his head in the dirt would make the problem go away, but I don’t think he wants to get any deeper—or admit anything else to anyone else—unless he has to. I talked him out of trying to back out by pointing out this isn’t about one druggy teen anymore. He was already nervous, but that’s a lot heavier than anything he’d thought he was mixed up in, even now. I don’t think he’ll want to go official about this—even with you two—or be handing over samples of his stuff and officially admitting what’s been going on.”
“He’s going to have to,” Karl said, so firmly even Stephanie looked at him in surprise.
“Look,” he told them, “we can’t keep dancing around forever. I’m a sworn law officer—for that matter, Steph is, too, even if it’s ‘probationary’ in her case. That means there are things we can do and things we can’t do, especially where Herman’s rights are concerned. But he’s the one real lead we have, and we need to follow it up. I can justify not filing official paperwork on this—treat it as a ‘confidential informant’ sort of thing—so he doesn’t have to come in and make any official statements. But we need to tell him what’s going on, and we need to get him onboard with helping us. And I think what happened last night gives us an opening, if we approach it right. Dr. Orgeson clearly represents a group of some sort—probably the same that attacked Nosey. They aren’t going to just take no for an answer and go away, whatever he wants, so if he doesn’t want to end up facing some kind of drug syndicate on his own, he’s going to need our help.”
“A drug syndicate?” Stephanie said dubiously. “You really think that’s who Orgeson is working for? Would Sphinx provide enough of a market to make it worth anyone’s while?”
Cordelia sighed. “Steph, I’m glad you love Sphinx, but it’s not a frontier paradise. Two major and several lesser waves of the Plague mean that anyone who’s not among the recent immigrants is living with a history of loss, and loss of someone close to them.”
“Like your dad,” Stephanie said, “and both of the Kemper boys’ parents.”
“You see us ‘coping.’ Well, here’re two things. One. ‘Coping’ doesn’t mean an absence of grief or loss. My mom cries every holiday and on Dad’s birthday. She’s not mopey, she’s not ungrateful for what she has, but you don’t just put love ‘behind you’ like a bad haircut. And we’re the lucky ones, because we can cope pretty well. But there are a lot of survivors who cope because, at the end of the day, they have a glass of something or a smoke or whatever.”
“And baka bakari,” Karl said, “especially if it was made more convenient to use, would be a perfect addition to the pharmacopeia. It might even be prescribed as a form of antidepressant. We’re not necessarily looking at the dark-shades-wearing thugs of a crime holo, Steph. We’re looking for people who smell money, and don’t really care who they run over while on the trail of it.”
“Are you saying, then,” Stephanie said, “that Herman needs to go work for this Dr. Orgeson?”
“No,” Karl said. “Oh, if I trusted her at all, I’d suggest exactly that. In fact, she’d be the logical person to be analyzing his samples for him…and us! But I don’t trust her—not as far as I could throw her right here on Sphinx—because of the way she operates. If she really was a legit pharma person who’d somehow gotten wind of this, then she’d have gone to Glynis. This stinks. After I got Cordelia’s message, I did a background check through the SFS. Nothing we can use. At least according to her official credentials, she’s has a doctorate in biology and is a representative of a company that’s interested in investing in Sphinx.”
“What about the other two names I got?” Cordelia asked. “Willinski and Quesk?”
“Both are listed as personal assistants, both have carry permits. No listed criminal records. Willinski was slow to pay off a few traffic violations on Manticore, but that’s it. Orgeson’s group is relatively small: seven people. That would account for the four last night and a few more.”
“Did you tell Chief Shelton about them?” Jessica asked.
“Of course we did, and he’s seeing if he can dig up anything more on her background. Not much more the SFS can do at this point. He agrees with us that Willinski and Quesk have to be the ones who beat up Nosey, but there’s no way we could prove it. For that matter, Nosey still hasn’t ‘officially’ changed his original story about what happened. The fact that they were directly threatening Herman confirms they were the ones who attacked him—and who their ‘message’ was meant for, for that matter—as far as the Chief is concerned. But it doesn’t prove it in the legal sense. Not without imagery or at least someone else to corroborate Herman’s version of what was said and done yesterday. It’s too bad Athos can’t talk! He’s the only ‘friendly witness’ Herman had. Herman could still swear out a complaint, but it would be one of those he-said-they-said things. The magistrate would laugh us out of court without at least some supportive evidence, and that would leave Herman in an even more dangerous position with them.”
Silence fell as they slurped milkshakes. Stephanie’s cheesecake vanished in little delicious bites. As she ate, Stephanie contemplated “her” Sphinx in comparison to Cordelia’s and Karl’s. On one level, she was actually a little ashamed because—since the Plague had led to the recruitment program that had let her family acquire a large chunk of land, and help setting up new businesses—she, well, she hadn’t exactly felt “friendly” toward it, but she’d thought of it in terms of benefits, not losses.
Now that she’d made friends among the long-time settler families, she was coming closer to understanding the other side. Maybe people like Jordan Franchitti were such zorks because they felt they’d paid for their lands and titles not only in money and time, but in the family members in the cemetery plot that just about every older homestead had.
Stephanie knew how devastated she’d be if she lost her parents to some natural disaster, but—like the Schardt-Cordovas, like the Zivoniks—she’d stay here. Sphinx was home.
Which brought her back to how they could deal with the people causing other people to get hurt right here in her home.
“I think you’re right about approaching Herman openly and officially, Karl,” she said. “And your idea about sending Dr. Flouret some baka bakari is a really good one. It’ll probably take time—months, at least—for them to figure out anything definitive about it, but that only underlines the need to get them started as soon as possible. That’s all in the future somewhere, though—assuming we can talk Herman into all this—so what do we do right now? Immediately? We can’t tell Glynis Bonaventure what’s going on without getting Herman into trouble, and we need Herman to keep doing what he’s doing as bait. But we have to do something.”
“I don’t disagree, Steph. But for right now—just this minute—I really don’t see much of anything else we can do. Do you?”
“No,” she said unhappily. “No, I don’t.”
“Well keep thinking about it. We all will. But if something does occur to you, don’t go charging off on your own without talking it over with us, first. Clear?”
“Clear.” She sighed, and slurped up the last of her milkshake. “I don’t like it, but clear. I just wish we could come up with some fresh way to attack this before somebody gets really hurt!”
“Well,” Cordelia said encouragingly, “maybe Nosey will have something fresh to add to the picture, Steph.”
Stephanie went by herself on the next visit to Nosey. They weren’t sure yet if they would need to maintain the perception that she and Cordelia didn’t get along, but they’d decided it was best to play it safe. And Karl, like Jessica, was spread thin between family responsibilities, school, and work.
Nosey came to the door, calling cheerfully for the benefit of any snoopers, “I’m so glad you came by. I really want to see the physical mock-ups of the SFS Explorers gear.”
Stephanie, arms wrapped around a large box, Lionheart loping at her side, called back, “They’re looking really good. I’ve got hats and sashes in here.”
Once inside, they actually did take time to review the contents of the box. The current plan was to have several levels of membership, related to achievements, rather than age. These would be named for various Sphinxian animals, although they hadn’t settled exactly on which. Stephanie had a lot of reasons for wanting to avoid treecats, but admitted that “treecat level” might be inevitable.
“And we don’t want all predators, either,” she said. “That’s sending the wrong message, but I’ve been out-voted on hexapumas. They’re just too cool—at least if you’ve never been mauled by one.”
Nosey laughed and perched the prototype of a hexapuma hood on his head. He was mostly recovered by now, a tribute not only to the medical professionals, but also to the men who had beaten him up, while taking care not to do anything that might lead to a charge of manslaughter or murder if something went wrong.
“So, what’s the latest wrinkle?” he asked, and still wearing the hood, went to get snacks and drinks.
Stephanie knew Nosey and his phenomenal memory well enough by now that she launched into an account of what Cordelia had discovered without worrying that he wasn’t taking notes.
“That fits in all too well with my own research,” Nosey said when she was finished, setting a tray laden with various snacks on the coffee table. “I’ve been going over the accident reports and mapped them. Let me pull up the holo. Okay. First I’ll show you points without any coding other than that an accident occurred in the last six months. Now, let me overlay one for the same period a year ago.”
“Wow!” Stephanie said, the hand holding a cheese puff dropping into her lap as she studied the image. “The comparison can’t be perfect because environmental factors make certain times of year—fires during summer droughts like this year, heavy snow, flooding—more likely to contribute to accidents, but still…”
“I corrected for that,” Nosey said smugly. “Okay. This image has accidents coded according to cause. Natural situations are in green. Still a gain, but not as much in other situations, like in sports, recreation, vehicle-related. It skews even further when we correct for age of victim. And then there’s this—”
He punched up another chart, this one overlaid on a map of the entire planet, and Stephanie frowned. Then her frown disappeared.
“Wow,” she said again, this time almost softly. “Accidents are actually down everywhere else on the planet!”
“Exactly.” Nosey nodded vigorously. “Yawata Crossing’s our biggest town right now, but Tanner’s Port and Mountain Crest are almost as big, and there are a couple of dozen smaller towns scattered around. A million people can cover a lot of ground when they start spreading out. But this upturn in accidents has been happening only in the area around Yawata Crossing and Twin Forks.”
Stephanie nodded, frowning thoughtfully, and they went through a bunch more charts. At the end, the snacks were hardly touched because Stephanie had been completely absorbed in the story unfolding in the charted data.
“That’s pretty conclusive,” she said finally. “Especially the geographic spread. Twin Forks and immediate surroundings show the first increase, with a later increase in Yawata Crossing. That makes sense if Frank was involved, because his family is based here, but does a lot of business in Yawata Crossing.”
“I have one other holo to show you,” Nosey said, “and I admit I may be biased on this one. I decided to look at various areas specifically focusing shortly before, then after the date of my being attacked. What I found was both interesting, and deeply unsettling. In both cases, incidents dropped off after they beat me up. They’re still well above average, but they’ve definitely dropped. At first I couldn’t make sense of it, but with what you’ve learned about Frank, Herman, and all the rest… Well, you tell me what you think?”
Stephanie glanced at the man, wondering if he was playing teacher, wanting her to find the solution for herself, but Nosey’s expression was completely serious. He was consulting her, colleague to colleague, and didn’t want to lead her to the “right” conclusion. She carefully reviewed the images, clicking between them, and creating overlays before speaking.
“You’re right; there’s a definite drop-off in both locations, more in Yawata Crossing than in Twin Forks, since they attacked you. Somehow, though, based on yesterday’s events, I don’t think this means everyone’s stopped using baka bakari.”
“Neither do I,” Nosey said when she paused. “But did you notice the shift in the age demographic?”
Stephanie looked at him, then turned back to the data. After a moment, she frowned.
“It’s skewing upward, isn’t it?” she said slowly. “A lot fewer kids Jake Simpson’s age, and a lot more older ones. It’s still mostly kids, but it looks like someone’s deliberately marketing to older customers, too.”
“Which suggests what?” Nosey pressed.
“Well…” Stephanie rubbed her nose. “What I think is that it looks like someone—probably Dr. Orgeson or whoever she works for—came down hard and is now controlling where the drug is being used and how. Like maybe they’re doing lab tests or something. I know that if I was thinking about investing a lot in a new drug, I’d probably want to field test it, even if only in a raw form.”
She felt fiercely disappointed. If that was the case, they weren’t going to be able to get anything incriminating on Orgeson, probably the opposite. The woman would come across as a serious scientist doing controlled testing, not as someone who was willing to advocate the use of an untested drug.
She said as much, then started thinking aloud, “But if that’s the case, then why not just talk to Glynis? Dr. Orgeson wouldn’t be worried about protecting Herman. In fact, she’d be happy to look like the good guy, showing Glynis that her assistant had been behaving badly. I think they’re still doing something hinky.”
Nosey nodded. “I agree. You’re forgetting one thing. It’s not easy to get permission to test a new anything on human subjects. Computer modeling comes first, then careful testing on analogs, then reviews, then, only after all of that, testing on humans. And the testing has to be consensual. Legitimate testing would be public, too, which would mean advertising for volunteers and possibly agreeing to pay them after they sign up. A group interested more in making lots of money, rather than in benefiting society would cut to the chase.”
Stephanie brightened. “That’s terrific. I mean, it’s horrible, but it’s terrific because that means we have a chance to catch them. Even if the drug isn’t illegal, providing it to people when you know it can lead to injury or death—especially if you’re not warning them it could—still constitutes criminal negligence. I’m betting these people are doing their best to keep the situation contained to avoid just that charge. And the fact that they threatened you, both to create an example and to keep you from making someone else decide to take a look, suggests they did know it could get people hurt or killed. Then they started controlled testing. But how?”
“Well, they’d have to find some way to slip it to people without their knowing it. Or else find a distribution point they could control that would still have enough traffic to give them a big enough sample of test subjects. And somewhere they could find people actively looking for some sort of new ‘experience.’ The kind of people with both the money and the inclination to try something new if it was offered.”
“And the ages are skewing upward…” Stephanie said slowly. She frowned at the chart for several seconds, and then her eyes narrowed.
“I think you’re right about the kind of ‘distribution point’ they’d need,” she said. “And maybe that explains why we’re seeing what looks like older users. If I had some new drug I wanted to market, I think I’d be looking for something like a nightclub or a dance hall. That would be one place to find the kind of ‘customer’ you were talking about. And it might explain the uptick in ages, if they’re using the club scene.”
“That could work,” Nosey said. “It would probably appeal to Orgeson’s group, too, to have people paying for the privilege of risking their lives and health in the name of the cartel’s future profit. And you’re right—it would help explain the shift in age spread. If they’re using something like nightclubs for their cover, there’d be fewer minors with access to the source.” He nodded, slowly, at first, and then harder. “I like it.”
Stephanie beamed. “Can you find it for us? The club or clubs, I mean? Once we know that, we can figure out what next. I really want to get these people, but we don’t dare take too long because, as what happened to you—what nearly happened to Herman—shows, these aren’t nice patient people. They’re callous, hard-hearted, and about as cuddly as a hexapuma.”
“Nosey really is good at this sort of thing, isn’t he?” Cordelia said a few days later, and Stephanie nodded.
“Yes, he is,” she agreed, without a trace of her onetime resentment. “The question is what we do now that he’s come through for us. Again.”
“An excellent question.” Karl nodded. “And answering it is still the problem, isn’t it?”
The three of them sat in the Red Letter, with Stephanie—inevitably—chowing down on cheese fries and a burger while her friends kept her company with mere milkshakes. Nosey had indeed come through for them again, compiling a list of nightclubs that might be involved in testing baka bakari. All but one of them were in Yawata Crossing, not Twin Forks, unfortunately. Which did little to solve the question upon which Karl and Stephanie had just agreed.
“All of this is still just speculation,” Cordelia pointed out. “Oh, I agree with you guys that Nosey’s nailed it, but it’s not anything like proof. It looks to me like the only way to get that would be for someone like the SFS or the local cops to actually send someone in to investigate.”
“Yes!” Stephanie nodded vigorously.
“Um.” Karl tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You’re right about that. But even if they are selling this stuff to people, it’s not illegal—yet, at least. And even if it was, SFS doesn’t have jurisdiction off public lands.”
“Does that mean we can’t follow Cordy’s idea up?” Stephanie sounded unhappy, and Karl gave her a quick grin.
“I didn’t say that, Steph. I don’t think he’ll be in any better position to sanction an official investigation—especially in Yawata Crossing!—but I’ll run it by the Chief. At the very least, he’ll be a good double check on our enthusiastic speculations, and he may just have some additional insight of his own to offer. For that matter, he might run Nosey’s list by Chief Chuchkova. She’s smart, and you know what close friends they are. She’d probably listen a lot more seriously to him than to a bunch as young and excitable as we are.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes, but she also nodded. Olivera Chuchkova was the chief of the Yawata Crossing Police Department. It was a small force—only a couple of dozen officers—but nothing happened in Yawata Crossing without Chuchkova hearing about it eventually.
“Could Chief Chuchkova help us chase it down?” Cordelia asked.
“Not beyond helping us figure out where to look.” Karl shrugged. “Still no provable crime connected to all this, so she’d have the same problems Chief Shelton would where warrants or anything like that was concerned. She doesn’t even have probable cause to open an official file on it yet, especially since all the wrongdoing we think has happened is way outside her jurisdiction. I’m sure she’ll be willing to ask her people to keep their eyes and ears open, but that’s about as proactive as she could get at this point, and she’s almost as shorthanded as we are. I don’t know how much manpower she could devote to it without making it a formal investigation. Which brings us right back to that probable cause stuff.”
“Well, that should still be some help,” Stephanie said, but her tone was less than happy, and Karl shrugged.
“There’s other places we could look, too,” he pointed out. “Chet and Christine have continued working as tour guides, you know. They might already have heard rumors of hot spots for chemically enhanced nightlife.”
“Would that mean filling them in on what we suspect about baka bakari?” Stephanie said. “We may want to, just to warn them, but I don’t want them getting into trouble with someone like Orgeson and her thugs!”
“I think we do have to warn them,” Karl said. “And I also think they’d be a good secondary source to check Nosey’s list against. But eventually, we’re going to have to figure out how to get some actual proof of what’s going on, and Cordy’s right; that’s going to mean sending someone in on the ground, with or without official sanction.”
“Really?” Stephanie smiled at him, and the gleam in her brown eyes filled him with instant trepidation. He’d seen the Harrington smile entirely too often, and he realized he knew what she was going to say next before she even opened her mouth.
“What are you thinking about now, Steph?” Cordelia, who’d had less experience with Harrington exuberance, asked incautiously, and Stephanie’s smile expanded.
“Well, I was just thinking that if we’re going to ask Chief Shelton to talk to Chief Chuchkova anyway, he might ask her how she’d feel about a little unofficial, independent, um…fact-gathering expedition in her backyard?”
Karl’s trepidation turned into a sinking sensation. Part of him wanted to stop her right there, but the problem was that she was probably right. And even if she wasn’t, stopping the Harrington in mid-scheme was far more easily said than done.
“What I was thinking,” she continued, “is that—”