Maybe a show of arrogance was the whole point.
Lastogne showed teeth. “Don’t look so upset, Counselor. You need to go to the Hub, anyway, to talk to our exiles. You can take care of that after you deal with our landlords. And you’ll find the Interface system they have here pretty special.”
And that had the sound of an unpleasant private joke.
It could be a simple local eccentricity. We may treat the AIsource like they’re all one big monolithic entity, but they’re really billions of separate linked intelligences, operating in an imperfect consensus. There were probably millions of linked programs on this station alone—which meant that proving their involvement still left me with the problem of isolating the individual software that committed the crime. And from there, determining whether the murder was the aberrant act of an individual or an assassination committed as a matter of policy.
All in all, it was enough to make me grin. The death of a young Dip Corps indenture wasn’t funny. But the malice of those who’d drafted me was. It was a) an impossible investigation, b) on unfriendly territory, c) without the protection of official standing, d) but with the legal status of an entire sentient species potentially at stake, e) involving a practically infinite number of intangible possible suspects, f) none of whom could be isolated from the others, g) but all of whom could at any moment eliminate me with as little warning as the culprit had previously eliminated the unfortunate Christina Santiago, h) all in an environment taking full advantage of my well-known distaste for heights, i) in service of a case I’d been specifically warned I shouldn’t pin on the most likely suspects.
Thank you so much, Artis Bringen. “And the second victim? The one from seventy-two hours ago?”
Gibb’s wince tightened. “Cynthia Warmuth. Twenty-three years old. A third-year diplomatic indenture, specialty exo-linguistics.”
ynthia Warmuth had hailed from an agricultural colony within the Confederacy, but not of it. The details of her life on that world were a sick portrait of deprivation for deprivation’s sake, of a barbaric religious conformity enforced with a medieval level of discipline. They had not been allowed music, or hytex connections, or more than minimal education. They might not even have been permitted to know that other worlds existed if the Confederacy hadn’t considered the dissemination of such basic information the bare minimum expected from any world hoping to engage in mutual trade. It was not an educational requirement the people in charge pursued with any special vigor, and though Warmuth had grown up perfectly aware that there was a greater universe, she had assumed it to be comprised of a hundred worlds or less, all of which she supposed to be pretty much a direct copy of her own. She had still been among the one-third of that world’s young people who indentured themselves offworld as soon as possible, her educational background so deficient at the start that she’d needed to sign up for an additional ten years just so five could be dedicated to remedial training.
“She turned out to be a prodigy,” Gibb said. “Very gifted. Handled her remedials in less than half the assigned time. Scored top marks on all of her qualifiers. Excellent physical conditioning as well; a gymnast. Uppergrowth navigation was downright easy for her. I put three separate notes in her file recommending her for the leadership track.”
Once certified, Warmuth had enjoyed an uneventful year as Dip Corps liaison to the dance pilgrims on Vlhan, achieving marks for efficiency if not for unusual level of achievement. Some unspecified conflict with her fellow indentures had led to an official request for a transfer.
“Whatever it was,” Gibb said, “it wasn’t serious enough to be written up in her Corps files. Personal chemistry, most likely. Warmuth got on people’s nerves. But indentures come from so many cultures that you have to expect some of that kind of thing.”
“Did she request the transfer or was it requested for her?”
“As far as I know, it was her idea. I once heard her claim to have been the only Dip Corps indenture on Vlhan with any real interest in the indigenes, but that was just her. She liked the mantle of sainthood.”
Whatever the explanation, Warmuth had been sent to One One One. At the time of her death she had been on-station for six months Mercantile, working in a support capacity before being cleared for direct contact. Until the day of her death, she’d never ventured any distance from the hammocks without an escort.
Gibb said, “She had minimal contact with the Brachs, I assure you; just a few introductory sessions. And a few with our exosociologist Mo Lassiter and a cylinked couple called Oscin and Skye Porrinyard. She was on her first overnight when what happened…happened.”
I noted the man’s shudder, found no reason to doubt it now, but tucked it away in case further developments gave me reason to consider it feigned. “I’ll still want to speak with Lassiter, these Porrinyards, and any Brachiators she encountered.”
“The Porrinyards will be glad to help. If you get anything useful out of the Brachiators, you’re better than me.”
Still studying the non-ambassador’s eyes, I found more sadness, more regret, a level of grief that verged on the personal…and something else, something reticent, something hiding away secrets the man would have preferred me not to see. “Did you like her, Mr. Gibb?”
Gibb averted his gaze. “I really do prefer people to call me by my first name, Counselor. But, dammit, yes, I liked her. She was one of the sunnier people around here: compassionate, friendly, dedicated, and, above all, giving to a fault, the kind of person who becomes the emotional center of an outpost like this.”
Lastogne’s eyes burned with mockery. “A born idealist.”
I picked up the insult, as I was meant to. As far as I could tell, Gibb did not. Lastogne seemed to enjoy firing verbal missiles under his superior’s radar.
I said, “You just made her an angel. You also said that she had a way of getting on people’s nerves. Which is true?”
“Both,” Gibb said. “She tried too hard.”
“Was her hammock sabotaged too?”
“No.” Gibb’s pale eyes seemed to turn obsidian with despair. “Like I said, she was out on her first overnight. We found her hanging from the Uppergrowth.”
“Tell her how, Stu,” Lastogne said.
Gibb held back the words, as if the mere act of speaking them brought the terrible facts into being. But he managed: “There were Brachiator claws driven through her wrists and ankles. Another, the killing blow through the heart.”
“Brachiator what?”
“Claws.” His voice broke. “The Brachiators have very sharp curved claws. They’re constantly growing, and break loose when they get too long. Usually they just freefall into the murk and are never seen again. But many Brachiators keep a few cuttings tangled in their fur as subsidiary tools. These claws looked like they’d been carried around for months.”
Silence fell, with nobody in the hammock willing to say the next part.
Lastogne’s words arrived in a bitter explosion. “She was crucified.”
4.
avigating through Hammocktown required a mix of confidence and coordination that taxed my shaky nerves. The hammocks were linked by a cat’s cradle of nets and cables, only some of which seemed to have been designed for safety. Most routes from place to place required a confident athleticism that my own high level of conditioning, fine for most environments, was not able to match. Other routes seemed more precarious: the shortcuts of those confident enough, or arrogant enough, to scorn safety. There were rope bridges that swayed with every step; great taut expanses of fishnet that, like the hammocks themselves, needed to be negotiated on all fours; even places where the residents seemed to take a kind of perverse pride in jumping between fixed platforms. There were a few, tiny places where it was possible to stand upright, like a human being: solid surfaces that had more to do with supporting the community than with humoring the human prejudice favoring upright locomotion.