However, things were still unresolved. Stendt was in custody for what he had done to the monitors, and tried to do to Gonikli. There was still nothing to link him to the deaths of Zo Kim and Bi Tan, nor anything to trace the origin of the circuits of his “smart toys,” as Mary described his weapon.
And if what Go Ton suspected was true, something very horrible had happened, something that powerful people wanted to hide. The rocket launcher was part of it. Lord Thet’s colony had made it, and it was far from the primitive weapons he and Mary had seen eight squared turns ago.
After the preliminaries, Borragil’ib turned it over to Drin. Drin called for Gonikli’ibida.
“Mistress,” Drin began, “you, and not me, were the object of the Mr. Stendt’s murder attempts. I had passed him when I saw him on the trail. He was waiting for you.”
Gonikli nodded. She was miserable, beak hung low, tail limp.
“There must be something you know, that he might kill you to prevent from being known. So important that he would risk killing Mary and me to draw you to us. So take us through it, again.”
Gonikli did, saying what she had before.
“Please,” Go Ton spoke up. “What was the taste like? And the consistency.”
Gonikli shook her head. Mary’s mouth opened in shock. Drin tensed. Do Tor and Go Ton had hinted something about testing a hypothesis at the review. But they had not reviewed this line of questioning.
Borragil’ib rose to his feet and Drin caught a whiff of challenge, understandable given the obscenity of the idea. Drin swiveled an eye at Go Ton, who held herself in the Kleth posture of certainty and self-confidence. He willed himself not to respond and instead focused his attention on Gonikli. “Gonikli’ibida. Our apologies. The discussion must be frank. We need your answer.”
She looked up, involuntarily, as one would at a mate. It cut him to the core, the strength of that imprinting after so many years. He raised his beak. She would have to admit that she tasted the flesh of an intelligent being.
“It was bitter, maybe slightly salty.”
“I think her body was not prepared to die.” Go Ton announced softly.
Air rushed out from spouts and into mouths.
Gonikli’ibida moaned and waved her head from side to side. “No, she was dying.”
She smelled sincere, and frightened. But Drin remembered what Go Ton had said when he applied the bite of mercy to Zo Kim. It had tasted sweet. Kleth and Do’utian taste organs were different, but the chemicals were the same and the biochemistry was similar, all races got internal rewards for ingesting high energy compounds. “Sweet” like “b-flat” meant pretty much the same to all.
“This is nonsense!” roared Borragil’ib, “Gonikli’ibida is no murderer. Kleth, you are a guest in this hall! Enough of accusations.”
Drin thought furiously. If Do Tor was right, Gonikli had killed a perfectly healthy and unbereaved Bi Tan. The whiff of challenge sent from Borragil’ib had become the predominant odor in the room. He meant to defend his harem and his hall, or, Drin thought, defend his secrets under that guise. Gonikli could have killed for personal reasons, but she would not be involved in a plot involving uncontrolled artificial intelligence without her master’s knowledge. Which meant, if there were Do’utian involvement, he was involved.
And that would be one of several explanations for his hostile behavior toward Drin.
Only because Borragil’ib’s anger was directed at Go Ton, was Drin able to keep his head clear. The challenge scent was thick on the dais. Now Drin grasped the slippery eel of Do Tor and Go Ton’s reasoning. If Gonikli wasn’t lying—there was one other person who might be responsible.
“Please wait, Master Borragil’ib,” Drin said as softly and controlled as he could. “This may not mean what you think it means.”
Mary spun to look at Drin. Drin keyed the comset he’d left in his beak and whispered. “Mary, back to the wall. Watch Borragil’ib, and watch Stendt.” Then Go Ton’s head bobbed ever so slightly.
“Continue, Go Ton,” Drin intoned.
Borragil’ib remained on his claws.
Go Ton produced a syringe and injected herself. “I took general anesthetic. Now squeamish people look aside.” With Kleth quickness, Go Ton took a small surgical knife, deftly bared a small patch on her arm, and sliced a not so small piece of flesh from it. Just as quickly, she put a standard tension dressing on it.
Do Tor’s crest fell and his wings went a little out and back. But he said nothing. Go Ton was done before Stendt dropped his sushi. Drin glanced at Mary, who stared in open-mouthed shock.
As if what she had done was entirely normal, Go Ton approached Gonikli and held out the piece of herself. “Taste this.”
Gonikli curled her tail, looked at Drin, who wondered if anyone but Do’utians could read her horrified body language.
“You are already forgiven,” Drin said. “And the truth may save your reputation.”
Still she kept her beak locked shut, and rocked from side to side.
Then, to everyone’s amazement, Doglaska’ib himself rose wordlessly from his center pad and walked to Gonikli and Go Ton. He opened his beak and sent his hands to take the flesh from Go Ton and offer it to Gonikli. Trembling, she opened her beak and accepted it with a trembling hand.
“Is the taste the same?” Go Ton asked.
Gonikli nodded.
Then Go Ton did something Kleth do not do, save ones that have spent much time in the company of Do’utians and people. She stroked the distraught Do’utian woman’s beak with her spidery hand.
“I am sorry and humiliated for my race,” Go Ton said, in the perfect English that Kleth can manage for important occasions, “for what those of my race have done to you. You, and your friendship, were used in a way that is understandable only from the view of one driven insane by inner conflict. Bi Tan killed her mate by tricking you into killing her. Please accept my apology, and my affection. Your tail is longer than any of ours in this.”
Bi Tan killed Zo Kim by deliberately tricking Gonikli into ending her own life? Opportunity and means. But motive? What was the motive for such desperation?
“Stendt,” Mary said, softly. But Drin recognized the human body language—she was pure fury. “What, Gorman Stendt, was your role in this? You were involved, I think, because you told Zo Kim—and you told him at the conference before any word could come from the island.”
Stendt looked around, eyebrows raised. “Why ever would you think there was any such role?” Drin surmised that he had not expected Mary’s question. The room was silent, except that sharp ears might have heard Drin talking furiously on his comset, beak closed, to Monitor Central.
Drin finished his call. Mary was putting the pressure where it was needed. Now Drin would add a little more. “Stendt, you can answer Lieutenant Pearce now with dignity, or have it dragged out of you in what, I assure you, will be as humiliating an experience as the Trimus Council will permit!”
Stendt spread his arms. “All I did was show her an advance copy of her mate’s review of her book, and when she reacted I told her that’s how I felt about what they’d done to mine.” He snorted in disgust. “The little harpies didn’t even read the final version of my book, damn them!”
“Stendt!” Drin bellowed, on his legs, the scent of challenge pouring from his pores. An act, he told himself, or a catharsis to somehow make up for what he had done to Gonikli so many years ago by dispatching her current tormentor. “Truth! Or I shall ask everyone to leave but you and me!”
Mary took her cue, and walked toward one of the curtain doors, and motioned for Richard Moon to follow. That would leave Stendt the only human in the room. It was condescendingly chauvinist psychology, and Drin berated himself for it. But it would work on Stendt, he thought.