All of the Bingnagians shuffled their feet nervously. It was no secret that every one of them coveted the Ditsch’s position and was ready to put a blade into his back. Bro B, as the prime candidate to become the Ditsch, would be the obvious suspect.
“Well, I know what you are all thinking,” Sam interrupted their guilty thoughts, “but you are wrong. Simple ascension to the leadership wouldn’t be enough to commit murder and then not take credit for it. A Bingnagian would have slipped the blade in and then bragged about it, wouldn’t he?” A series of nods of agreement came from the huge aliens.
“Neither would the Gormlies benefit, even if they were able to handle something as large as the Ditsch. Failure to sign an agreement meant that the D’ret would deal both races a rather severe setback. No,” he said, shaking his head, “I think the Gormlies are as innocent as the rest of you.”
“Then who could it be besides you?” Bro B hooted.
“Consider: once the Court’s Clerk got through with the Bingnagians and the Gormlies there would be no opposition to someone else developing the planet. Now who here has an interest in that?” All eyes turned to the Adrinns, who fidgeted nervously with furtive glances at the pool and the doorway.
Sam continued. “Then there is the matter of access to the Ditsch’s chambers,” Sam explained. “As you all observed, only the Adrinns and myself would fit in the duct the killer used to enter the M-Ditsch’s chambers.”
“But you were the only one who wasn’t under constant observation,” Bro B protested. “The Adrinns couldn’t have done it while the guards were watching them. You said so yourself.” “Which leads to the third question of method,” Sam continued. “Only a being near my size could possibly have the strength to slice the M-Ditsch’s head off. Isn’t that what you said?”
Bro B was astounded. “But Sam, your logic says that you are the only one who could have done it. Are you making a confession?”
Sam walked over to the pool, and looked into its depths. “The assumption has always been that there were only the Ditsch’s staff, the guards, the Gormlies, the Adrinns, and myself inside the keep. Isn’t that true?”
Bro B nodded. “Yes. We have very tight security. Only a bug could crawl in here without our noticing.”
Sam stopped, bemused by a sudden thought. “A bug, you say?”
“Yes, is that important?” Bro B answered.
“Not to you,” Sam replied with a smirk and glanced at the water. “Come look at this.”
The small round package had begun to change before their eyes; unfolding and growing in volume. The water was being rapidly absorbed as the object grew and grew until, after ten minutes, the tub was full of...
“Hello, Dratte Five,” Sam greeted the Tsith as it climbed from the tub and shook itself.
“Very clever, Sam. Underestimated you. Humans aren’t as dumb as I thought,” the alien rasped.
“What the hell is going on here?” Bro B hooted. “Where did this thing come from?”
The Tsith inclined one of his antennae toward the towering Bingnagia. “Pleased to meet you. Right honorable Dratte Five Decline, FSF, ASFSF, IASFM, Admiral of the Fleet, Royal Tsith Companion, and Protector of the Queen’s Rump, here. Do I have the pleasure of your company?”
“Dratte Five is a paid assassin,” Sam explained to the dumbfounded crowd. “I suspect that the Adrinns brought him here to prevent the agreement that would upset their planned takeover of your planet.”
“I still don’t understand,” Bro B said plaintively.
“Of course you don’t,” Adrinn One barked nastily. “So long as the Court believed you both to be in dispute you would have suffered the penalties. By the time the case came before the court we would have exploited that planet without having to deal with the middle-beings.”
“So you must be the ones who filed with the Court,” Sam said smugly, proud that his guess had proven correct. “That was why you didn’t want the Gormlies to accept the Bingnagians’s concessions. That was why you didn’t want the M-Ditsch to sign the agreement.”
The Adrinns shifted around, “Yes, it was a good plan, and would have worked if you had escaped as we planned.”
So that was why it was so easy to get out of the compound! They must have put the key to the door in his pocket during their visit, Sam thought with dismay.
“But how did this thing get in here?” Bro B wailed. “We have the best security in the universe. We could have detected any signs of life.”
“Back on Earth,” Sam began, “there are a number of creatures that survive drought by eliminating all water from their bodies as they shrivel up. The glycol allows all of the body’s proteins to fold up without damage and that compresses them into what appear to be nothing more than inanimate lumps. The tardigrade is the best example of these.”
“But I thought that life couldn’t be sustained without water!” Bro B protested.
“And that is what your scanning devices are looking for,” Sam explained. “Dratte, however, infuses himself with glycol before he eliminates all of the water from his body and uses that to bathe the cells.
“That is what made me realize what had happened. When he originally dried up on the ship, it filled our cabin with moisture, more than the de-humidifier could handle. I didn’t realize it when the same thing happened to my room right after the murder. Then, when I saw that the Adrinns wanted to take the Dratte’s “gift” back and heard their complaints about the humidity here, I made the connection and figured out how the murder must have been committed.” He carefully omitted the role his “intelligent” translator had played in his analysis of the situation.
“Yes, but if your little experiment with the water hadn’t worked your whole logical scheme would have fallen apart,” Bro B said.
Sam smiled slowly, “Yes, that is true. But all I had to do to prove what I said was true,” he smiled as he paused for effect, “was to de-hide Dratte.”
The Blattskitt ship docked exactly on schedule. The B-Ditsch, nee Bro B, swung a claw toward Sam’s shoulder. “Good-bye, Sam human. I thank you for your assistance and help, both personal and for all of us. I notified the Court this morning that the matter has been settled amicably. The D’ret has been diverted elsewhere and will not come here.”
Sam dodged the B-Ditsch’s friendly blow and threw a weak counter-jab at his friend’s knee. “Think nothing of it. Glad to help.” He jumped back from another swing and ducked into the hatch. There was such a thing as too fond a farewell, and, where the Bingnagians were concerned, such could easily prove fatal to a frail human.
He quickly discovered his cabin on the Blattskitt ship to be a masterpiece of galactic engineering; embarrassingly thick bedding, a luxurious, humanshaped and -sized toilet, and a wonderful set of nodes for virtual experiences both blonde and brunette. He could hardly believe his good fortune. Ahbbbb had outdone herself in making these fantastic arrangements, he thought as he sat back on the soft bed and pulled the translator from his belt.
“You can come out now,” he said simply. “I know you are in there.”
“How did you guess?” the translator asked. “We thought that you believed that intelligent translator story.”
“I did, at first, but you sort of overreached yourselves with that martial music bit on the tarmac.”
“We needed that for effect,” Bunion, the truzdl leader replied. “We were desperate to change your mind.”
“Well, you did that. If you hadn’t you would have had to resolve the dispute some other way, wouldn’t you, Bunion, or should I say Court agent?”