Blood Orbit Page 2

Matheson dropped his gaze. “Sir, you’re being recalled to active duty. The Regional Director pushed the paper through and Dr. Andreus released you to me. I know you’ve only had surgery recently, but this case—Well, Pritchet opened full cooperation and funding for a week, through half-moon.” He glanced back up, half expecting to be told off.

  Dillal eased up to sitting. Then he narrowed his eyes and peered at Matheson. Something clicked as the lid around the strange golden eye tightened. “The case . . . is what sort of crime?” The inspector rolled his Rs slightly and his slow voice had an odd, round intonation.

  Matheson’s empty stomach churned. “It’s a—a massacre, sir. Maybe a gang execution. In a jasso.”

  Dillal rubbed his face gently with both hands and pushed his fingers through his hair and stubble. Then he swung his feet out of the tall hospital bed. They didn’t quite reach the floor. Matheson started forward to help him, but Dillal waved him off and pointed at the closet. “My clothes. Please.”

  Matheson retrieved a flat, vacuum-sealed package and laid it on the bed. Then he turned his back, grateful not to look at the inspector for a moment—nothing Pritchet or Andreus had said had prepared him for that unsettling face, and only the horror he had recently seen kept sick fascination at bay.

  He could hear Dillal drawing the clothes on and hissing at sudden pains. The bed squeaked and then there was silence. Matheson edged back around. Discarded vacuum wrap lay at the end of the bed beside a scuffed MDD and a closed ID folder. The inspector, now fully dressed in a loose charcoal suit, was turned half away from Matheson and had braced his hands against the mattress. His head hung between his stiff arms and he’d clenched his eyes shut while he took impossibly deep, slow breaths.

  “Are you all right, sir?” Matheson’s voice scraped his throat like a handful of tacks.

  Dillal gave a low grunt as he straightened and turned his head to regard Matheson over his shoulder. “You have a report?” he asked, taking a few things from the bedside table, then tucking his mobile and ID into his jacket pockets.

  “We don’t have one, yet, sir. Senior Detive Neme is waiting on-scene to hand off to you.”

  The inspector turned all the way around, then put his hand over his strange eye for a moment. “Yes. All right.” He took another long breath, dropped his hand, then started out the door at a steady pace. “Which jasso? Which district?”

  “The Paz da Sorte in the Dreihleat.”

  Dillal stopped. “Paz?” He looked startled. Or that’s what half his face looked. The left side didn’t move above the merest downturn of his mouth.

  “What?” Matheson asked.

  Dillal shook off his concern, his whole mismatched face going blank. “Irony—Paz means ‘peace.’ There’s no preliminary whatsoever?”

  Preliminary peace? Oh. “Only my own recording, which isn’t much.”

  “You were on-scene?”

  “It was on our patch—my TO’s and mine. I can send what I have to your mobile . . .”

  “If you would,” the inspector said, taking the battered device from his jacket pocket and holding it out as they walked on.

  Odd. He expected Matheson to transfer the file directly by contact link. It was a more secure protocol than sending it though the data system, but harder to track and not much used. Dillal’s strangeness lay in more than his face.

  The inspector’s mobile was strictly as-issued and displayed nothing personal; it bore only the Gattis Investigation and Security Administration’s orange logo of an eight-pointed star with the horizontal arms extending into a stripe across the top of the screen and the acronym just below. Matheson’s own Peerless MDD—even at three years old—looked like a thoroughbred trying to mate with a broken down pony. Ugh, there’s an image to forget. He handed the device back as soon as the confirmation pinged.

  Matheson glanced at the message—it didn’t give the inspector’s rank or regional, only his name. Huh. He slipped the Peerless back into its loops on his shirt front.

  The humidity clung the moment they were outside and Matheson was quick to open the passenger door of the GISA-issued skimmer, hoping the inspector would get in before the interior of the vehicle caught too much thick air. He hurried to his own door and ducked in, flipping the environmental controls even as he slid into the seat, sighing in the first whiff of drier air. Everyone said it wasn’t too bad yet, but even this early in the morning, the moist air felt like wool in his throat. It smelled of earth and fish and industrial waste near the health center—not much improvement on the Dreihleat, and summer would be worse.

  Matheson dove the skimmer into Angra Dastrelas traffic, concentrating on that, not on the inspector beside him, and not on the scene that awaited ahead. He jinked it through the anarchy of vehicles rushing across and around the crater, with no airway markers or apparent rules but those the pilots made up on the spot. It still scared the shit out of him, even though he’d yet to be hit by another skimmer. He understood why most tourists stuck to cabs and the slideways, rightly terrified to go aloft in anything less than a continent-class transport.

  “What do you know about this jasso?” Dillal asked as they plunged into the maelstrom of traffic. He spoke as if he measured out every word from a limited ration.

  “Almost nothing—some kind of local business owners’ after-hours place that doubled-up in legal drinking and illegal gambling. I barely knew it was there. I’ve only been on Gattis for a month and I was assigned to this patch in the Dreihleat with my TO two weeks ago. First posting after graduating Fresnel.”

  Dillal nodded without turning to look at him. “Gattis’s corporate-ruled security and investigation protocols differ from Central System law enforcement you learned at the academy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you falling in?”

  Matheson hesitated, and twitched the skimmer into a momentarily empty stretch of air. “I’m . . . coming to terms.”

  As the skimmer shrieked on its way, Dillal said nothing and turned his attention to his mobile. After a minute or so, he pressed his head back against the seat and covered his golden eye with one hand. By the time Matheson set the skimmer down on the street near the Paz da Sorte, Dillal had closed both eyes and set the MDD down on his leg. Matheson thought the inspector was asleep, but his eyes opened—the left eye emitting another quiet mechanical click—just as the skimmer leveled to land. The inspector was out of the little vehicle before Matheson had flipped the engine switch down.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Day 1: Early morning

  Matheson fell in behind the inspector’s brisk stride down the street, surprised by the man’s resilience and apparent cool, and sure his own singlet and uniform shirt were clinging to the small of his back by the time he’d gone four steps.

  A handful of early-morning loiterers, mostly Dreihleen and a few hard-luck out-system immigrants, stared toward the alley that was now choked with GISA personnel and official vehicles. Most winced and stepped aside with averted eyes when they saw the inspector; one Dreihle looked at Dillal as if he were a thing that had crept up from a sewer full of nightmares. The man backed away before turning and hurrying off.

  Beyond the gawkers, SOs and a few Investigation Ofiçes blocked the way while a scattering of technicians in white coveralls moved purposefully in the alley behind them. Matheson saw no sign of issued firearms; plainly the situation didn’t merit breaking that part of the administration’s “don’t scare the tourists” policy. Dillal stopped beside the Security Ofiçes forming the cordon at the edge of the crime scene. The nearest of them, a muscular woman with shoulders that would do a transport cargo master proud, glanced down at the inspector as if to shoo him away, then stiffened and gaped at his patchwork face.

  Dillal ignored her expression and put his left hand out palm up, showing the shiny black-and-red checkerboard of a high-level ID array incised in the skin just above his wrist. “I’m the Chief Investigating Forensic Ofiçe.” His voice remained soft, measured, and cool.

>   The SO swiped her mobile’s screen in a pro forma wave over the ID crystals, still appalled. If the inspector unnerved her, she hadn’t seen the inside of the nightclub.

  “Detive Neme is in the transport down the alley,” the ofiçe mumbled and added, “In-inspector.”

  Dillal nodded and stepped past her, motioning Matheson to follow. The ofiçe muttered as they passed, “Mother of fucking stars. Couldn’t pay me enough to do that, promotion or not.” The inspector gave no sign that he’d heard, but he couldn’t have missed it.

  Dillal paused inside the cordon and looked around, his gaze moving slowly over the exterior of the buildings, then down to the ground. He squinted a little and rubbed at his shaved temple with his fingertips.

  “Matheson. I need a light, here,” he said, pointing to the ground in front of the jasso’s broken door.

  A broadening arc of stares followed as Matheson walked over, pulled his Sun Spot from his belt, and turned the bright white light where the inspector indicated.

  The spotlight illuminated a curving red-brown line on the old ash-clay tiles. Two rippled blotches of the same color lay within the bracket-shaped line. Was there something here earlier? He couldn’t recall.

  Dillal crouched down and peered at the marks, his golden eye gleaming. He squinted and a series of quiet clicks sounded as he touched his temple. Then he humphed to himself and closed his eyes, leaning forward a little while breathing deeply through his nose and mouth. Finally he rocked back and rested on his heels with his forearms on his knees. He frowned as he opened his eyes.

  “What is it?” Matheson asked.

  Dillal seemed to have forgotten him. “Hm? It’s a sole impression. In blood.” He indicated the curved line. “That’s the outside edge of someone’s right shoe.” He pointed at the enclosed blotches. “Those are part of the traction pattern at the ball and heel. I’m not getting a clear idea of the blood constituent or origin. It’s dried, but that shouldn’t cause such a problem.” He stood up, still scowling, and tapped the shaved side of his skull. “The equipment is still strange to me. The calibration—there’s so much noise . . .” he muttered.

  He shifted his disconcerting stare to Matheson’s face and studied him with the same intensity he’d turned on the bloody footprint.

  Does he know I lost it earlier? He can’t. Matheson drew himself up and stared back. An approving smile flickered across half the inspector’s face before he turned his gaze back down.

  Dillal pointed to the bloodstain. “ForTech will take a reference still, if they haven’t already, but take an additional one now, please, and join me inside.” Then he stepped over the footprint with care and eased through the open doorway, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets.

  Matheson took the picture with his mobile and tagged it. He was just a pace behind Dillal when he heard him gag. A reek of blood, human waste, and burned flesh still hung on the air inside. The room was growing stuffy as well, now that the sun was rising, intensifying the stench that attracted flies and scavenger centipedes.

  The ventilation system was off and racks of lamps had been set up in the corners. Hard white light fell on the crusting pools of blood that surrounded the bodies and stuck everything to the floor in gruesome tableaux. In the harsh illumination, it all looked worse than before. Most of the victims had black zip tape sealed across their mouths. More swathes of the stuff bound their arms at the wrists and their legs above the knees. Most lay on their sides or face down in the gore and fluids that had poured out of them. There were small ragged holes—some charred around the edges—in their heads and necks. Twelve dead in the gaming room, lying amid the scatter of brightly colored chips, white dice, and cocktail glasses rimed red, game tiles, and cards going rust brown as they dried. Directly before them, four bodies in the bar room had fallen randomly at the foot of the bar. A small table had been overturned, spilling cups of tea and a plate of food, now writhing with insects, across the white-clad belly of a Dreihle youth, his expression of shock punctuated with a small bullet hole in his forehead.

  Matheson forced down the acid creeping up his throat.

  Dillal had covered his eyes and mouth, then slowly drew his hands away again. He swept the rooms with his strange gaze, and took a short breath through his mouth. He coughed and gagged a little, shaking his head like a wet dog. He tasted the air again, then he shuddered and switched to sniffing, the right side of his mouth curling in disgust. “This will take a while. Fetch Detive Neme, please.” Dillal skirted the walls with his hands once again in his pockets as he stepped deeper into the room.

  I should stay with the inspector. But even the threat of Dr. Andreus’s ire if something went wrong didn’t stop Matheson leaving. It was a relief to retreat from the slaughter house scene and leave Dillal alone for a moment. The carnage was repellant—even the worst virtuals his instructors had thrown at him hadn’t hardened him against whatever had played out inside the club. It should have been better in the light, where his imagination couldn’t fill in horrors, but it wasn’t, and remaining detached and observant was a struggle.

  Outside, he tapped the nearest ofiçe on the shoulder—a guy he didn’t recognize, wearing Investigation Ofiçe insignia on his uniform. “Go in and assist the CIFO until I get back.”

  The IO bristled and shook his head. “No fucking way. I have seen some gruesome shit—race riots, some drug dealer dismembered by his gang for going grass . . . Bad enough to get hauled in on my off shift to cover something that makes those scenes look cheery, but on top of that, you think I should work up close and personal with that bong met? You’re out of your blighted mind, junior.”

  Met he’d heard before—an insult that meant “mixed,” though some embraced it as a badge of identity. Matheson didn’t know this new slur, but it carried a lash of corrosive loathing. He gaped at the IO—who certainly couldn’t claim to be pure anything, unless it was asshole. “What? You won’t even give the man your spray seal and stand by the door? Why? You think his color will rub off on you?”

  The IO glared. “You don’t get it, do you? That’s J. P. Di-frigging-llal. He just disappeared about a year and a half ago and we all figured somebody’d finally whacked the half-yellow bastard. Now we got a bunch of dreck clan boys killing another bunch, and he’s in charge? That’s some messed up shit.”

  Fury tightened Matheson’s fists.

  A bored voice came from close behind Matheson before he could lose his horror-frayed temper. “Shut it, Vicenne.”

  Matheson spun, expecting more trouble, and found a mild-faced man whose cheap tan suit clashed with his smoky, dark brown complexion. He had to be from Investigation and was clearly a step up from IO Vicenne. Not a Detive. An IAD?

  The stranger offered an apologetic smile and stepped around him to address Vicenne. “Your gutter mouth could be why you’re still an IO.”

  The IO spat on the ground. “Go jump, Istvalk.”

  The man in the suit sighed. “Still wouldn’t boot you up if I did. Give me your kit and I’ll take it in.”

  Vicenne glowered, but he took the compact scene kit from his pocket and handed it over. “Kiss ass,” he muttered.

  Istvalk rolled his eyes and waved the other man away. Then he started for the jasso door without another word.

  Matheson frowned after him. “Thanks,” he called, but the other just shrugged and walked on. Matheson took a deep breath and started down the narrow alley.

  The operations transport was set down in the crossing alley like a gargantuan cat that had chased a rat into a too-narrow hole. He shook his head. They’ll have to vertical the damned thing out when they’re done here. Not sure how they got it in to begin with.

  When Matheson stepped inside, Aleztra Neme was pacing the width of the transport and talking to someone out of view. She was in her mid-thirties, slim to average build, a little over average height for a Gattian woman, and could trace her family back to before First Settlement—as they all could. She didn’t have the typical deathly, cyanic p
allor—her skin was dusty gray and the distinctive Gattian blue tinge seemed to float over it like the sheen on the surface of a pearl. She dressed in casually expensive simplicity that only the wealthy could afford, and she might have been beautiful if she hadn’t had the personality of a rogue crocodile.

  “. . . Not like courts martial investigations—” she was saying. She cut herself off and turned her glare on Matheson. “Well?” Neme snapped. Her curling indigo hair seemed to spark with the static electricity of her annoyance.

  He’d met Senior Detive Neme only twice before, but had come to dislike her the first time. “Inspector Dillal would like to speak with you in the jasso.”

  “Inspector! All that cut-rate surgery comes with a nice promotion. How’s he doing?”

  Matheson shrugged, as non-committal and bland as possible. Don’t give her an opening. “Fine, sir.”

  “I’ll bet.” Neme glanced at the other GISA investigator who sat farther back in the transport. “Well, we now know that the price of ambition is one eye and a chunk of your brain,” she said.

  The older detive sprawled in his seat, drinking something that steamed from a black mug between his grit-spangled hands. Investigation Officer of the Day . . . what’s his name? They’d met earlier, but Matheson hadn’t been tracking well at the time. The man offered Neme a thin smile. “It’s less than a soul.”

  “Maybe, but you wouldn’t catch me handing that over to the lowest bidder, either. Not just to vault GISA’s ladder, anyway.”

  “Not your damn problem, though, is it, Neme?” the man said. “Privilege of birth.”

  “Rank.” Neme sniffed and turned back to Matheson. “Okay, let’s go. Orris, you’re coming, too.”

  Orris sighed and followed them out of the transport. He looked about fifty and his Central-tan skin had acquired an indoor pallor. He was on the tall side of average, but stooped a little and carried extra weight around his middle that exaggerated his bad posture. His graying blond hair was thinning on top and brushed straight back, and he clearly gave no sort of a damn for elegance—over his street clothes he wore an ancient uniform jacket so stained and worn it looked pale blue rather than the buff-and-khaki Matheson wore. Neme’s barbs didn’t bother him either.