The Domino Pattern

“Compton,” he greeted me shortly, taking a step forward as if expecting to be invited in.

“Kennrick,” I greeted him in turn, not budging from the doorway and forcing him to stop short to keep from running into me. “Any news?”

“That was my question,” he said, trying to peer past my shoulder into the compartment. “Dr. Witherspoon told me he and Dr. Aronobal gave you the samples from Master Bofiv’s body for analysis.”

“And I told him that I would let all of you know when I had the results,” I said.

“That was over five hours ago,” Kennrick countered. “What are you doing, framing the samples for an art-house display?”

“I’ve been working,” I told him stiffly. “These things take time.”

“Not that much time.” He ran a critical eye over me. “And if you don’t mind my saying so. you don’t exactly look like you just hopped up from your portable lab bench, either.”

Silently, I stepped aside. He strode in, his eyes flicking around the room and coming to rest on the reader I’d left on the curve couch. “So what did you find?” he asked as I closed the door again.

“More or less what we expected,” I said, brushing past him and picking up the reader. I turned it on, called up the analysis file, and handed it to him.

He frowned, tapping the control to scroll the numbers up and down the display. “How do I read this?” he asked.

I lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you worked for a medical company.”

“As an organizer and meeting facilitator.” he said patiently. “Not as a doctor. Come on—tell me what this says.”

“It says cadmium poisoning,” I told him. “Lots of it.”

He ran the scrolling again and found the cadmium line. “Terrific,” he muttered. “Any chance it could have happened by accident?”

“In theory, pretty much any death could have happened by accident,” I said. “But when the string of required coincidences gets long enough, I think you can safely call it murder.”

He flinched at the word. “That’s insane,” he insisted. “Who would have wanted Master Bofiv dead?”

“Wrong question,” I told him. “The right question is, who would have wanted Master Bofiv and Master Colix dead?”

Kennrick stared at me. “Are you telling me they were both murdered? By the same person?”

“Unless you plan to string a few more coincidences together,” I said.

He looked back at the reader. “No,” he said firmly. “No, this just can’t be. It has to have been an accident.”

“You mean like someone accidentally uncapped a bottle of cadmium powder over their dinner plates last night?” I suggested.

“Or they ingested it some other way,” he said. “Cadmium is used in batteries, alloys—all sorts of things. Maybe it flaked off a bad battery in Master Colix’s luggage, got on his fingers, and from there into one of their shared meals. Or it could even have come off someone else’s stuff and gotten into the air system.”

“And then carefully proceeded to target Colix and Bofiv, but not Tririn or any of the other Shorshians in the car?”

“People react differently to infections and toxins all the time,” Kennrick said doggedly. “There are cases on record where a group of Humans have eaten the same salmonella-infested food. Some got sick, some died, some hardly even noticed. Why should Shorshic metabolism be any different?”

I could almost feel sorry for the man, straining this desperately to find an explanation that didn’t include the word murder. But facts were facts, and the sooner we popped all the irrelevant soap bubbles, the sooner we could get down to the unpleasant business at hand. “Because this isn’t some random bug running up against a whole range of different immune systems,” I said. “For Bofiv to have swallowed that much cadmium, the stuff would have had to be raining down like volcanic ash. I guarantee someone at the table would have noticed that.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said heavily. “What do we do?”

“We let me get on with my investigation,” I said. “You said last night that you only met him a couple of months ago?”

“Yes, when he and the contract team arrived on Earth,” he said, taking a final look at my reader and then handing it back to me. “Pellorian had invited them in to discuss a proposed joint venture in genetic manipulation.”

“Were you the one who organized the conference?”

“I handled the details once the plan was up and running,” he said. “But only after the initial contacts had been made and the invitations sent out and accepted. I didn’t choose any of the contract team, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Who did?”

“The corporation’s CEO, Dr. Earl Messerly “ he said. “I imagine the board probably had some input, too.”

“You have their names?”

He eyed me as it I’d just turned a deep and fashionable purple. “Are you suggesting upstanding medical professionals would go to the trouble of bringing a couple of Shorshians all the way across the galaxy just to kill them?”

“You know for certain that none of your upstanding medical professionals is harboring a grudge against the Shorshians?” I countered.

He snorted. “You must be kidding,” he said. “I’ve been to full board meetings maybe three times in the seven years I’ve been with the company. I barely know their names.”

“In other words, you can’t vouch for any of them.” I keyed my reader for input. “So. Their names?”

Glaring at me, he ran through the list. There were twelve of them, plus CEO Messerly. I keyed in the names as he went, knowing full well that Kennrick was probably right about this being a waste of time.

Still, I had a few Who’s Who lists among my data chips, both the straightforward cultural ones and a rather more private set that had been assembled by the Confederation’s various law enforcement agencies. Running a check of Pellorian’s people against the latter might prove interesting.

But regardless of what the comparison turned up, Pellorian’s board was back on Earth, and we were here. “Thank you,” I said when Kennrick had finished. “Next question: did either Colix or Bofiv bring aboard any of their own food? Special treats or secret indulgences?”

“You’ll have to ask Master Tririn about that,” Kennrick said. “He was the one sitting with them.”

“He was the one sitting with one of them, anyway,” I said. “I trust he’s well this morning?”

“I actually haven’t checked,” Kennrick said. “You want me to go ask him if Master Bofiv had a private food supply?”

“Not until we can both be there,” I said. “Can you go off and amuse yourself while I shower and get dressed?”

He made a face. “It doesn’t qualify as amusement, but I do need to give Usantra Givvrac an update. He’s the head of the contract team.”

“At least you shouldn’t have any trouble waking him up at this hour,” I said. “Unless he’s been dipping into Bofiv’s secret stash, of course.”

Kennrick’s throat tightened. “You think this is funny, Compton?” he growled.

“Not at all,” I assured him. “Which is Usantra Givvrac’s compartment?”

“He hasn’t got one,” Kennrick said. “He’s in the first coach car behind the compartment cars.”

I frowned, thinking back to our embarkation at Homshil Station. “And yet you escorted them aboard into a compartment car?” I asked. “Even though they had coach car seats?”

“Into my compartment car. yes.” Kennrick said. “Usantra Givvrac and a couple of the others had some documents they wanted stored in my compartment, and they wanted to drop them off on the way to their seats.”

Which wasn’t proper procedure, since passengers were supposed to enter a Quadrail only through the door of