Odd Girl Out

eyed me warily as I came up, but no one actually pointed a gun in my direction. 'How's he doing?' I asked the medics.

'He's doing just fine,' Bhatami said. His voice had that slightly distant quality that often resulted from a system full of pain meds. 'I see they got away.'

'Only two of them,' I said. 'What's left of the third is over by the corner of the building.'

Bhatami nodded and gestured weakly to one of the cops loitering nearby. 'Sergeant, take a couple of men and check it out.'

'Yes, sir,' the cop said, and headed away.

'We have any police presence on the transfer station?' I asked Bhatami.

He shook his head. 'Irrelevant question,' he said. 'You see that flash a minute ago? No—of course you saw the flash. That was their ion-plasma taking out our communications laser.'

I grimaced. 'I don't suppose you have a backup.'

Bhatami puffed derisively. 'On New Tigris?'

'I didn't think so,' I said. So our last chance of putting even that much of a roadblock in the Modhri's path was gone. If he'd done the job properly, the laser would be out of commission far longer than the five days it would take the torchyacht to reach the transfer station.

'But at least they didn't get Rebekah,' he went on. 'Thank you for that.'

'You're welcome,' I said. The Modhri didn't have her yet, anyway. 'She's a popular girl, isn't she?'

'Everyone who knows her likes her,' he said simply.

'Really,' I said, a wisp of something unpleasant curling through me.

'Absolutely,' he said. 'Her and Lorelei both.'

The medics finished their prep work and rolled the stretcher into position behind the ambulance. 'What happens to me now?' I asked.

'Not much,' Bhatami said. 'You'll need to come down to the station and make a statement about this evening's activities. I understand that along with Mr. Veldrick, we have two more bodies at Karim's bar.'

'Those were self-defense,' I said, peering across the parking area toward where Karim had been run over.

Bhatami caught the look. 'He's already been taken away in another ambulance,' he said. 'He'll need to make a statement, too, once he's sufficiently recovered.'

'Of course,' I said, wishing I'd had a chance to work out a common story with Karim. 'What about the two murdered police officers?'

Bhatami's gaze hardened. 'We'll check the weapon used by the Filiaelian you say you shot just now. If it's one of the ones stolen from Sergeant Aksam or Officer Lasari, you'll be in the clear. If the two that got away took those particular weapons aboard the torchyacht with them—' He shrugged slightly. 'Things might take a little longer.'

Inside my pocket, my comm vibrated. McMicking, telling me he'd finally finished whatever puttering he'd gone off to do and was ready to come to our aid? 'Hello?' I answered.

'Are you still at the spaceport?' Bayta's voice came.

'They're about to take me downtown,' I said. 'You and Rebekah all right?'

'We're fine,' she said. 'You need to come over here before you leave. Rather, you need to come to Mr. Veldrick's van. It's over by where the Filiaelians' torchyacht was parked.'

'My hosts may not want me taking a walk just now,' I pointed out.

'They will,' Bayta assured me. 'You'll want a couple of them with you.'

I looked at Bhatami. 'Bayta has something on the field she wants me and a couple of your officers to take a look at.'

He frowned but gestured. 'Go ahead. Darrian, Joachem—go with him.'

With the two cops in tow, I retraced my steps through the hole in the fence. On the way we passed the three others Bhatami had sent to examine the Filly body I'd tapped on my final futile attempt to stop the torchyacht. 'You carry a Glock?' one of them called to me, holding up a familiar-looking gun in his gloved hand.

'Usually,' I said. 'You'll note I'm not the one who's been shooting that one.'

He grunted and dropped the gun carefully into an evidence bag. One of his partners, I noticed, was similarly bagging another sidearm, probably one of the guns appropriated from the dead cops the Modhri had run over earlier. I spotted the nose of Veldrick's van half hidden behind one of the two remaining torchyachts, and my escort and I headed over.

We reached the vehicle to find the rear loading door wide open and the crates of coral gone. Wondering which of those completely unsurprising facts Bayta had found so interesting, I walked around the rear of the van to its other side.

And stopped. There, lying motionless on the pavement, were the two Fillies I'd last seen heading for their torchyacht. Their hands had been strapped securely behind their backs with plastic cargo ties, and in the reflected light from the spaceport building I could see the small wet stains of snoozer wounds.

'What the hell?' one of the cops beside me muttered as he caught sight of them.

'You'll want to check those,' I said, pointing to the three guns lying by the bodies. 'Two of them are probably the ones that were stolen from Sergeant Aksam and Officer Lasari.'

Wordlessly, the cops pulled out some evidence bags and set to work. I stepped back out of their way, looking up at the stars in the direction the torchyacht had taken.

So that's where McMicking had gotten to.

Three hours later, less than twenty-four since our arrival, I eased our torchyacht into the air and headed for space.

'Just like that?' Bayta asked, sounding like she didn't quite believe it.

'Just like that,' I confirmed. Double-checking that we were far enough out from the planet, I keyed in the scoop and the ion-plasma drive. 'Besides, what were they going to charge me with?'

'Well, there were those two dead Filiaelians in Mr. Karim's bar,' she reminded me.

'Killed by an unidentified assailant with an unknown gun,' I reminded her. 'Not my gun. Not my fault.'

'How about the theft of the Filiaelians' torchyacht and the destruction of the planet's communications laser?'

'Again, nothing to do with me,' I said. 'The Customs official who passed the thief through this evening has the man's name, the security cameras have his face, and neither of them match anyone connected to you or me.'

'No, of course not,' she murmured. 'And Mr. Veldrick?'

I grimaced. Even knowing there was nothing I could have done to stop it, that one still bothered me. 'Killed with my Glock,' I conceded. 'But since the last two Fillies were found with the two murdered cops' guns, and since those selfsame cops had already reported having confiscated my Glock long before Veldrick was killed, it logically follows that all three guns were stolen as a set.'

'Logically, but not conclusively,' she pointed out. 'It would have been better if the two Filiaelians could have been found at the scene of his murder.'

'Certainly wasn't from any lack of effort on my part,' I said. 'Two snoozers each should have put them down for the count. Remind me to be more generous if we run into Filly walkers again.'

'Or at least Filiaelians who've been genetically designed for special hunting duty.'

I nodded agreement. 'Speaking of hunting, where's Rebekah?'

'Asleep in her stateroom,' Bayta said. 'The poor girl was exhausted.'

I looked at the status readouts. We were already nearly a thousand kilometers out from New Tigris, and adding to that distance with every passing second. A few more minutes ought to be more than enough. 'Wake her up,' I said.

Bayta's eyes widened. 'Wake her up?'

'Why not?' I asked. 'She's probably had more sleep in the past twenty-four hours than either of us have.'

'Which means we need sleep even more than she does,' Bayta countered. 'Can't whatever this is wait?'

'It could, but it's not going to,' I said. 'Go on—I'll meet the two of you in the dayroom in five minutes.'

She looked as if she very much wanted to say something else. But she just nodded and started to turn to the