“Perhaps.” Carefully, Emikai laid the hypo down on the sink. “You ask for several days. I will give you one. If at the end of that time you have no further leads or proof of criminal actions, I must turn him over to the patrollers.”
“It’s a deal,” I said. One day wasn’t much, but it was better than I’d hoped for. “We should have one blood-filled hypo out there in the living room that’s actually real. Let’s go get it and see about sending our friend off to dreamland.”
TEN
It took us a few minutes to figure out which hypo was the useful one, get the needle straightened enough to be functional, dump Terese’s blood, and load the drug from Yleli’s medicine cabinet into it. By then, Blue One was starting to show the first signs of returning consciousness.
Fortunately, the sleeping potion was a potent one, and the twitchings and random grunts faded quickly away as the drug did its magic.
Our next task was a quick search of the apartment. From the way Blue One had been talking before our fight, I was beginning to wonder if there had been an actual purpose to Yleli’s murder. But I wasn’t ready yet to give up on my inferior Human way of seeing the universe in terms of cause and effect, and so Emikai and I went through the papers in his file cabinet and sifted through drawers and closets in the hope of finding something that would explain why a lowly Proteus Station medical tech had been worth killing.
We had finished our first search, and Emikai had started on a more detailed one, when Bayta and Ty arrived.
To my annoyed surprise, they weren’t alone.
“What is this, a party?” I demanded, glaring at Minnario as he floated through the doorway into the apartment. “Bayta, what in hell’s name—?”
“He wanted to help,” Bayta said, her tone just barely on the civil side of snappish. “I asked him to look up on his encyclopedia if msikai-dorosli could be used to carry things, and he said he could do better than that.”
I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. Bayta’s edgy defiance was a sure sign that she’d done what she’d thought to be right, knowing full well that I would probably be furious about it when I found out. The tension in her face also showed she’d continued to worry about my reaction the entire way here. “I appreciate his willingness to help,” I said in as controlled a voice as I could manage. “The problem is that even though he’s my attorney, he’s also an officer of the Filiaelian court. That means he can’t just sit back and watch a crime being committed. He has to report it.”
“What crime?” Bayta shot back.
“Kidnapping, for starters,” I said. A small voice at the back of my mind warned me that making a handy checklist for Minnario to refer to was probably not a good idea. But as was usually the case with those small voices, I ignored it. “Also criminal restraint, trespassing, medicating without proper credentials—”
[Please,] Minnario interrupted, one hand waving for attention, his eyes on the transcript on his display as it tried to keep up with our argument. [Mr. Compton, in general your analysis is correct. But in this case, fortunately, it’s not.]
“What’s the part that’s wrong?” I growled.
[The part that defines me as an officer of the court,] he said. [As you know, Kuzyatru Station is running on the Slisst Protocols. Those state that an attorney isn’t simply a defendant’s advocate, but also his partner and second in this form of combat. Though I’m required to turn over any evidence involved with the specific case at issue, I’m not required to impugn my client’s character or actions by bringing up anything outside of the case that he might have done.]
He gave me one of his lopsided smiles. [Including anything that he might still be doing, or that might be construed as criminal.]
I looked at Emikai. “Is he right?” I asked.
“I do not know,” Emikai said thoughtfully. “I have not studied the Protocols extensively.” He gestured to Minnario. “But he clearly has. Unless offered proof to the contrary, I would trust his interpretation.”
[Actually, I’m more concerned about Logra Emikai,] Minnario continued, eyeing Emikai warily. [As a former Filiaelian enforcement officer, his duties and responsibilities are far more rigid than my own.]
“Fortunately, they’re also a bit vague,” I said. “Moreover, since he agrees there are indications of wrongdoing on the part of our sleeping friend here, he’s agreed to give me a little slack. Specifically, I have one day to dig up something concrete before he brings this to the patrollers.” I cocked an eyebrow at Emikai. “Correct?”
“Correct,” Emikai said. He still didn’t look happy with the situation, but there was nothing in his expression or tone that might indicate he was thinking of reneging on his promise.
“Meanwhile, that clock is ticking merrily along,” I continued, turning back to Minnario. “You told Bayta you could help. How?”
[With my chair, of course,] he said, as if it was obvious. [Its lifting capability is provided by a set of eight Shorshic thrusters. As a highly redundant system, though, it will function quite well with only three of them.]
Leaving us five to use in getting Blue One out of here. “How hard are they to remove?”
In answer, Minnario touched a couple of controls, then reached over the side of his chair and got a grip on the nearest of the cylinders poking out from beneath his chair. He gave the cylinder a half turn, and to my astonishment the tube popped right out. [Not very,] he said, holding it up for my inspection.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, frowning as I took it from him. The whole chair was obviously designed to be operated from the main control board, yet this individual thruster also had its own on/off switch and level and focus controls. “It has its own power supply, too?”
[Yes, it’s fully self-contained,] Minnario said.
I shook my head in amazement as I handed the thruster back to him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a chair design like this before.”
[As far as I know, it’s the only one,] Minnario said, a note of pride in his voice. [I travel a great deal, and had it custom-designed and built this way so I could swap out defective thrusters without having to take apart the entire chair.]
“Very efficient,” I said, bending over and peering at the underside of the chair. The thrusters were arranged down there in a three-by-three array. “You said there were eight of them?”
[Yes,] he said. [The central position of the array is a stabilizer, not a thruster. Oh, and even though each of the thrusters has individual controls, I can also control them directly from my chair while they’re detached, provided I’m close enough.]
I looked at Bayta. Her overt defiance was gone, but there was still a tightness in her throat and cheeks. “Do you want an apology now?” I asked. “Or would you rather save it until later when you can enjoy it more?”
She gave me a tentative smile, and as she did so the last of the stiffness faded away. “Later will be fine,” she said. “Right now, we have work to do.”
* * *
Having the means to carry our prisoner across Proteus was only the first half of the problem. We also had to somehow disguise the fact that we were carrying an unconscious Filly through busy hallways without someone becoming suspicious enough to call the Jumpsuits down on us.
Fortunately, Emikai had already laid the groundwork in his brief post-funeral questioning of some of Tech Yleli’s neighbors. One of the standard questions in a murder investigation always centers around the deceased’s employment history, which for Fillies would mean a list of his contracts. Yleli must have had a lot of such history, because each of the three drawers in his file cabinet was over half full. Naturally, the team investigating his murder couldn’t be expected to set up camp in his apartment, which meant the cabinet needed to be taken somewhere else.