Year's Best SF 17 полностью

The Ki-anna showed her teeth. “I made it, as you see; but I haven’t forgotten that scent. When I smelled your flesh, under the Lake, I knew you’d been treated for butchery—and I understood. They drugged Lione until she was delirious with joy to be eaten, and they sent her to the atavist fanatics under An-lalhar. Then they tried the same trick on you.”

Bhvaaan tapped the casefile tablet with his delicates. “Your sister died too quickly, that was the problem.”

“What—?”

“We couldn’t prove it, but we knew they’d killed Lione, Messer Ferringhi. We could even show, thanks to the Chief here, who was pulling the strings, and how they got the prohibited ordnance into the Grottos. Your sister fell into a trap. She had to get under the Heaven Lake and that suited the atavists just fine. It would have been a powerful message. A Speranza scientist ritually eaten, then consumed by the very air of KiAn—”

“Controlled annihilation,” whispered Patrice. “That’s what I saw, in the cave. Something they would understand—”

“Thap was the idea. The atavists are planning to bring back the meat factories, once their planet has an atmosphere again. Your sister was going to help them: except something didn’t work out. You were right about the tropo sampling: there’s also stringent military activity monitoring. If a mine had gone off under the Lake, we’d know. If a human-sized body had been atomised, there’d have been a spike. So we knew the ‘consummation’ hadn’t happened, and we couldn’t figure it out. We think we know the answer now: she died too quickly. She had to be vaporised alive, a dead body can’t be willing. But she wasn’t a Ki, and they hit an artery or something.”

Patrice had gone grey in the face.

“You going to crash out, child—?”

“No, go on—”

The Shet rearranged his bulk on the inadequate office chair. “The autopsy’ll tell us the details. Then you came along, Patrice. We saw a chance to get ourselves to the crime scene, and wasted Diaspora funds pushing on an open door. And you nearly died, because we drank the nice fresh water from this Habitat. Which happened to be doped—”

“The atavists thought the willingness they’d cooked up for Lione would work on you,” explained the Ki-anna. “They’ve never heard of ‘fraternal twins.’ Ki litter-mates can be of any sex, but otherwise they are identical. You were begging to be lured to the Grottos, it was perfect, you would replace Dr Ferringhi. Luckily, you and your sister weren’t clones. You were affected, but you weren’t ready to be butchered. You fought for your life.”

“You see, Messer Ferringhi,” said Bhvaaan, “what really happened here is that a pair of murdering atavist bastards thought they’d appoint themselves as Chief of Police a child who had been eaten. A girl like that, they thought, will never dare to do us any damage. Instead they found they had a tiger by the tail …” He opened the casefile tablet, and pushed it over to Patrice. “They’re glamorous, the Atavist An. But your sister would never have fallen for them in her right mind, from what I’ve learned of her. Still want to withdraw this?”

Patrice was silent, eyes down. The Ki-anna saw him shedding the exaltation of the drug; quietly taking in everything he’d been told. A new firmness in the lines of his face, a deep sadness as he said farewell to Lione. The human felt her eyes. He looked up and she saw another farewell, sad but final, to something that had barely begun—

“No,” he said. “But I should go through it again. Can we do that now?”

The Ki-anna returned to her quarters.

Roaaat joined her in a while. She sat by her window on the streets, small chin on her silky paws, and didn’t look round when he came in.

“He’ll be fine. What will you do? You’ll have to leave, after this.”

“I know. Leave or get killed, and I must not get killed.”

“You could go with Patrice, see what Mars is like.”

“I don’t think so. The pheromones are no more, now that he knows what making love to the Ki-anna is supposed to be like.”

“I’ve no idea what making love to you is supposed to be like. But you’re a damned fine investigator. Why don’t you come to Speranza?”

Yes, she thought. I knew all along what you were offering.

Banishment, not just from my own world, but from all the worlds. Never to be a planet-dweller any more. And again I want to ask, Why me? What did I do? But you believe it is an honour and I think you are sincere.

“Maybe I will.”