I didn’t bother correcting him. Instead, I focused on the issue that had sprang into my head.
“So if that’s the case, where’s Gamma’s laamuffal?” I asked.
There was silence for a moment as a number of those present exchanged glances.
Finally, Endow spoke, saying, “We’re not sure. He vanished around the time of Gamma’s death.”
I frowned. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing this?”
“Hearing what?” asked Reverb.
“That there’s another suspect besides you Incarnates,” I growled.
“I don’t think anyone ever viewed him as such,” Rune said.
I looked around the table incredulously. “Gamma’s killed, and at the same time, her servant goes missing,” I grumbled. “And none of you felt that was suspicious? Have you never heard the saying, ‘the butler did it’?”
Pinion let out a bark of laughter. “Ha! He was a laamuffal and she was an Incarnate! Do you investigate fleas for the murder of a human being?”
I pointed a finger at him. “See, that’s the problem right there: your arrogance.” I then let my gaze go from face to face, declaring, “It’s not lack of experience that’s resulting in your poor deductive capabilities. It’s hubris.”
All of a sudden, Pinion pounded a fist on the table — in anger, I initially thought, and then I realized he was laughing.
“Ha!” Pinion belted out. “I like this one, Rune! He’s funny. You should have brought him around ages ago.”
Assuming that he was probably construing me as a laamuffal, I was mildly irked. One day, when this was all over, I’d have to find a way to bring all these Incarnates down a peg or two.
All these Incarnates? I thought as a crucial fact unexpectedly dawned on me.
“Hey,” I began, getting the table’s attention. “Where are the rest of you?”
“The rest?” Static echoed.
I nodded. “Yeah. Rune said there are about a dozen of you, but there are only six around this table, so where are your other compadres?”
“They won’t be joining us,” Rune answered. “They weren’t here when the murder occurred, so they aren’t suspects.”
“And with Permovren sealed off,” Reverb added, “there’s no way for them to enter now.”
“Not that they would want to,” I noted. “I mean, who would want to be locked in here with a killer, right?”
That particular commentary was greeted with nothing but silence and blank stares.
“Anyway,” I said, “I still don’t understand why you people are having such a tough time cracking this case. I mean, you can warp reality, bend time and space… Why can’t you just go back in time and see who the killer is, send Gamma a warning, or something along those lines?”
“You’re forgetting that Permovren exists outside of space and time,” Rune chided. “There’s no time here for us to go back to.”
“Well, there’s some form of time here — even if it’s only subjective,” I insisted. “We’re not all frozen in stasis.”
“Yes, there is a sequential flow of events here,” Endow said, “but it’s not time as you understand it.”
I gave her a perplexed look, clearly conveying my incomprehension.
“Let me see if I can explain this in a way you can grasp,” Pinion interjected. “Imagine you have two temporal distorters.”
I frowned. “You mean time machines.”
“Sure,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Now let’s say one can slow down time until a second feels like hours or even days. The other can take you back in time — real time, not subjective — exactly one minute.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, nodding.
“So let’s assume you’ve played around with the first temporal distorter and stretched a second out until it subjectively felt like half a day,” Pinion said.
“I’m following,” I replied.
“But now, you want to use the second temporal… uh, time machine, to go back one minute within that subjective time frame.”
I thought about it for a moment. “So in real time only a second has gone by, but subjectively — from my perspective — it’s been twelve hours, and now I want to go back one minute within that twelve-hour, subjective time frame.”
“Yes, that’s the scenario,” Pinion said with a nod. “But you won’t be able to do it because the second time machine only goes back one minute in real time. It can’t take you back within your subjective time frame, because only one second has passed.”
“So you’re basically saying that time here in Permovren is like the one second that’s subjectively stretched out into a longer time period,” I summed up. “And the ability of the Incarnates to go back in time is akin to the second time machine, so that you can’t go back in time within this place.”
“Exactly,” Pinion declared.
“Hmmm,” I muttered. “I hate to say it, but that actually makes sense.”
Chapter 16
My meeting with the Incarnates broke up shortly after Pinion’s explanation about time. They really didn’t have much more to impart, although they did agree that I could talk to their respective laamuffals.
After they were gone, Rune brought our original furniture back with a wave of his hand and we both sat down.
“So,” Rune began, “initial thoughts? Impressions?”
“Honestly, my first thought was that, despite all the time you’ve spent on Earth, you’ve never seen a cop show,” I groused. “Don’t you know that you aren’t supposed to question suspects together?”
Rune chuckled. “These are Incarnates. They were going to give the same responses regardless of anything else, and I figured this would save you time.”
“Oh, you mean the time that doesn’t exist here? That’s what you were trying to save me?”
He just stared at me for a moment, then muttered, “Ever the wise guy, I see.”
“Anyway,” I said, “I’m shocked none of you considered Gamma’s laamuffal as a suspect. What was his name, by the way?”
“Cerek,” Rune replied. “And again, only another Incarnate could have done this, so we eliminated him as a suspect.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have eliminated him,” I stressed. “I can see a guy flippin’ out after millennia of servitude. In fact, I can see all of your laamuffals having a bellyful of kowtowing.”
“Simmer down, Spartacus,” Rune said. “No need for a slave rebellion just yet. Besides, as I said
