"Wait," Marr droned. "Wait... wait."
And then the black ball exploded. A soundless fury of storm clouds formed themselves into crayon swirls of black against the Prime World moon. Then they began to twist into a funnel shape that powered across the valley, hurling itself against the mountains on the other side of the valley.
This, Sten and Lisa didn't see. Because all they could observe was the broad, open end of the funnel, sweeping across the lights of the night sky.
It was over very quietly and softly. Somehow, Sten found himself holding Lisa in his arms. Above them, the dome was dark. Beneath them, the garden was shadow soft. Sten looked at Lisa, a dim halo of light, just below his height. "I..."
Lisa held a finger to her lips. "Shhh," she whispered.
He pulled her closer, and he felt the garden around him hush and soften even more...
Marr and Senn watched the two lovers embracing under the dome. They cuddled closer in bed when they heard Lisa's soft "shhh."
Senn turned to Marr and pulled him nearer. "There's only one thing nicer than a new love," he said.
Marr palmed the switch and the vidscreen went respectfully blank. He leaned over Senn. "An old love," he finished. "A very old love."
As Sten tightened his embrace, he could almost feel Lisa blush a very unlieutenantlike blush. A hand on his chest gentled him away a step. And Sten watched as the white gown shimmered off. Then there was only Lisa.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"You clottin' incompetent," Lisa hissed at the corpse. Sten had an idea that if he and the spindar techs weren't present she might have kicked it a couple of times.
Former Tac Chief Kreuger grinned up at them, blackened scavenger-gnawed flesh drawn back from his teeth. One arm had been torn off and, half-eaten, was lying almost five meters from the body, near the edge of the cliff.
"You humans have the most unusual idea of sport," Spilsbury rumbled, his subarms tapping busily on a small computer keyboard. "What pleasure can conceivably be derived from the stalking and slaughter of fellow beings? Beyond me. Quite beyond me."
"Sometimes they taste pretty good," Sten offered.
"Cause of death?" Haines asked. She was not in the mood for philosophical discussion. The phone call had, fortunately, come not quite at the crucial moment, but rather early the next morning, just as Sten and Lisa were awake enough to be getting reinterested in each other again.
"Hunting accident. We have an entry wound characteristic of that from a projectile weapon.
"Plus—and this will please you, Lieutenant—there are no signs of an exit wound. I would assume the projectile remains in the body.
"Shortly one of my offspring should have it retrieved for you. Cause of death, therefore, I would theorize as emanating from a hunting accident."
"Very clottin' convenient," Haines said. Spilsbury's computer rattled, and the spindar handed the readout to the policewoman.
"Time of death... time of death. Here." Haines mentally ran time back. "One cycle prior to the bombing."
"Plus or minus three hours," Spilsbury said. "The precise time will be available momentarily."
Haines started to say something else, and Sten nodded her away from the tech. They walked to the cliff edge.
"Like you said, Lieutenant. Real convenient."
Since it was the first time it had happened, Haines had been wondering just what one called a person you worked with who you'd just made love to. She decided Sten's reversion to formality was probably the most sensible. "Cops don't believe in coincidence," she said.
"I don't either." Sten was trying to keep his theorizing under control. Coincidence did exist—every now and then.
Spilsbury waddled up behind them, holding a vis-envelope out. "This is the projectile."
Sten took the envelope. The projectile—a bullet—was evidently made of some fairly soft metal; its tip had mushroomed until the bullet was fully twice as wide at its tip as at its base.
"I cannot identify the exact caliber," Spilsbury went on, "but it is indeed a hunting-type bullet.
"From the entry wound it appears that the corpse turned to face down the mountain just before the bullet struck him.
"It is a pity you humans were constructed with such soft epidermi, unlike more cleverly designed beings."
"Yeah. Helluva pity," Sten said. "Lieutenant, do you have any idea what kind of critters they hunt on this preserve?"
"Dangerous game."
"Like what, exactly?"
"I'll call the preserve center." She busied herself with a belt talker.
Sten chewed on his lower lip. Haines, the talker to her ear, turned and began reciting the list of target game the preserve featured. Two or three times Sten had to ask particulars about an animal. Lisa finished the list and waited. Sten nodded at her, and she broke com.
"Dangerous game," he said. "All designed to be real efficient."
Lisa looked puzzled.
"Efficient like the tech just said. Hairy, scaled, armored, or whatever. The kind of critter that'd take some serious killing."
Haines still didn't get it.
"When you are trying to stop something big and nasty, especially something that's got skin armor, you use a big bullet," Sten explained. In his Mantis career, there had been times he'd encountered said big and nasties in the performance of his duties and had to drop them. "A big bullet," Sten went on, "made out of some heavy dense alloy. You don't want the bullet to mushroom when it hits skin armor."
Lisa took the envelope from Sten. "So you wouldn't want a nice soft slug like this one. Not unless you were hunting a nice, soft-skinned animal."
"Like a man," Sten finished.
"I don't like this, Captain. Not worth a drakh."
Sten had to agree.
"You know what my bosses are going to say," Haines continued, "when I report that Tactical Chief Kreuger was involved in this conspiracy? That he put a tac squad in position knowing what was going to happen—and then got his chest blown in as a payoff?"
Sten looked at her, and knew that wasn't what the homicide detective was worried about. If one high-level police officer was involved, was he the only one?
"Something tells me there's going to be more than one boss with his tail out of joint," Sten said.
"Drakh, drakh, drakh, Captain. Come on, let's get back and see what else can ruin our day."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Dynsman is our mad bomber," Lisa said glumly.
Sten wondered why no joy, but that was less important than making sure the police identification was correct. He knew it would be far better to give the Emperor a "no report" than a wrong one. "Are we operating on a most-likely suspect or do we have the clot nailed?"
"Nobody's ever nailed until they confess. But I don't see anybody else but Dynsman being the nominated party. Item: He's the only professional Prime World bomber who's unaccounted for."
"How do you account for mad bombers?" Sten asked curiously.
"People who blow things up for a living tend to get watched pretty closely by us," Haines said. "And since they tend to be self-eliminating, there aren't that many of them."
"We're assuming that the bomber was a Prime World native?"
"We've got to start somewhere—plus no outworlder who pays the rent that way has come to Prime World within the past year."
"GA."
"This Dynsman specializes in insurance jobs. Using military explosives."
"Whoever blew the Covenanter used military demo."