I made a single careful circuit of the room, looking for anything that might give me a clue as to what had happened here. But there were no signs of struggle, no documents lying around in the open that someone might have been looking at. Both victims' IDs were tucked safely away in their jackets, with no indication they were being shown to anyone during their final moments. From all appearances, the Pirk had just buzzed the door, walked in when it was answered, and set about killing the two occupants.
Meanwhile, the gentleman at the Customs desk would be expecting me to return with glad tidings of jurisdictional agreement. I finished my circuit and headed back toward the door, giving the gun on the floor a final look. It was a Heckler-Koch 5mm, I noted, just like the one Lorelei had stolen from my Manhattan apartment.
I paused, my hand hovering over the doorknob. Then, slowly, I retraced my steps to the group of dead bodies and took a closer look at the gun.
It wasn't just like the one Lorelei had stolen. It was the one she'd stolen.
I straightened up again, giving the Human bodies a second look. Detective Kylowski had said someone of my general description had been seen running from the scene of Lorelei's death. Both of these latest vics were about my height and build, with similar dark hair in similar cuts as mine.
Under some sets of circumstances, Kylowski would probably be glad to hear I'd found the killer. Under this particular set, he probably wouldn't.
The Customs man was just closing one of Rebekah's metal boxes when I returned to the counter. From his lack of wide-eyed outrage at the discovery of illegal cargo, I assumed it was one of the three decoy Siris brandy boxes. "We wanted these crated up for Quadrail baggage car transport, didn't we?" Bayta asked me, gesturing to the boxes.
"That's right," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rebekah open her mouth, then close it again. "Oh, and I'll need a lockbox for my gun, too. Did you need to see my importer's license on the brandy?
"Yes, thank you," the official said as I pulled out the appropriate card. "Did you get everything settled with the two gentlemen?"
"No problems," I said softly. "It's all fine now."
By the time we got Rebekah's boxes settled inside a large cargo crate and wheeled it across the station the shuttle was ready for us. Half an hour later, we were inside the Quadrail station, our luggage and the crate piled on the Tube floor beside us.
And only then, with the three of us now officially outside Terran Confederation jurisdiction, did I tell the others what I'd found in Room Four.
They listened in silence, Bayta with her controlled shock and thoughtfulness, Rebekah with what I was pretty sure was guilty knowledge. "At least now we know who the walkers were who attacked Lorelei on Earth," Bayta said when I'd finished. "Provided you're really sure that was your gun."
"Trust me, it was," I assured her grimly. "Not that anyone else is likely to arrive at that particular conclusion. The Customs man will certainly testify that I was in the room with them, for a start."
"After the killings."
"If anyone bothers to refine the timeline that closely." I turned to Rebekah. "You want to tell us what happened in there?"
She dropped her eyes away from the intensity of my stare. 'Probably just what you're already thinking," she said with difficulty. "Drorcro was one of us."
"Drorcro being our non-aromatic Pirk, I gather?"
She nodded. "He was supposed to wait for us at the transfer station and then accompany us to our new home. When the two Eyes showed up …he decided to sacrifice himself for me."
"How nice and noble that sounds," I growled. "Much better than that he simply panicked."
"I don't think—"
"You lied to us, Rebekah," I cut her off.
She flinched back from my sudden anger. "Frank," Bayta cautioned, starting to take a step in front of the girl.
"Keep out of this, Bayta," I warned, keeping my glare on Rebekah. "A lie of omission is still a lie. Why didn't you tell us about Drorcro before? Like, maybe, back on the torchyacht, when it could have done us some good?"
"I couldn't," Rebekah protested, her voice shaking, her eyes brimming. "I'm sorry, Mr. Compton. He was just trying to protect me."
"By murdering two Humans in cold blood?" I shot back. "Yes, I know they were walkers. So what? I could have dealt with them in any number of other ways. But only if I'd known in time."
"That's enough, Frank," Bayta said firmly.
"What, am I scaring her?" I snapped, throwing her a glare of her own. "Good. It's about time she understood the rules here. She and the Melding."
I looked back at Rebekah. She was trying hard to hold on to some shred of dignity, but her expression was nothing short of miserable and the tears were now streaming freely down her cheeks. "You say the Melding picked me to get you off New Tigris and to your new home," I said, notching back the thunder and lightning a little. "Fine—I'm here. But if you want my help, you have to be completely honest with me. And that means telling me everything. You understand? Not everything that's convenient. Not everything you think I need to know. Everything. Do I make myself clear?"
She nodded, a pair of jerky up-down twitches of her head. I looked at Bayta, whose own anger at my outburst had now cooled to merely smoldering. Clearly, she wasn't very happy with me right now.
I wasn't particularly happy with myself, for that matter. But Rebekah and the Melding needed to learn this lesson, and they needed to learn it right now. "All right, then," I said, finally letting the storm clouds dissipate. "Dry your eyes, and tell me what this has done to your original plan."
Rebekah sniffed a couple of times, her hands dipping into her pockets as she searched for a handkerchief. Bayta got to her own spare first, handing it to Rebekah and resting her hand reassuringly on the girl's shoulder. "Go ahead, Rebekah," she prompted.
"We were hoping you could arrange to put the coral in the front part of the forward baggage car," Rebekah said, daubing at her eyes. "Drorcro was going to get one of the seats in the far back of the last third-class car."
"So he could keep an eye on it?" I asked.
Rebekah shook her head, sniffing a little more. "I told you we need to stay near it to make sure it doesn't revert to normal Modhri."
"That's not just if there's other Modhran coral around?" I asked.
"We don't know," Rebekah said. "Now that Drorcro's gone, I guess I'll have to do that."
"Out of the question," Bayta said firmly "You're going to be in a first-class compartment where you'll at least be out of sight."
"But I can't," Rebekah protested. "If he reverts—no, I have to be with him."
I looked around us. The New Tigris Station amenities, as befit the colony's lowly status, consisted of only a single shop/ restaurant/visitor center. If there was anyone on duty—and it didn't look like there was—he wasn't visible to us out here. There also were no other passengers hanging around the station. "Luckily for us, in this case we can have it both ways," I said. "Bayta, whistle us up a couple of drudges or drones, will you?"
"All right." She paused, and across by one of the freight tracks I saw a trio of medium-sized Spiders detach themselves from the rest of their work crew and start wending their seven-legged way toward us. "What's the plan?" she asked.
"Luckily, Rebekah's coral carriers are just about the size of Quadrail lockboxes," I pointed out. "Lockboxes get loaded underneath the cars anyway, right? So let's have the Spiders load them into standard lockboxes and make sure to put them right below our compartments."
"Yes, that should work," Bayta said slowly, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Of course, that assumes the storage areas under those particular compartments aren't already full."
"If they are, the Spiders can unfill them," I said, running my eye down the schedule holodisplay floating above the station-master building. "A more crucial question is how fast it would take for any walkers aboard to zero in on their location."