My best chances, really, were in the target returning home by herself. That’s if “home” was where she actually wanted to be, and this wasn’t just another runaway situation. But it seemed unlikely - she was old enough now that she would have soon been making her own way through life. Maybe she was just caught up somewhere - a party, a brothel perhaps? Although, looking around at the stern, armour-plated Iyr, I couldn’t imagine that either parties or brothels were in particularly heavy supply around here.
No. If I found her, it would be down to my own abilities as an investigator, rather than dumb luck. Perhaps this was why Saotchun was so keen on using this case as a test.
I looked around at the city I found myself in. The central stronghold, which operated as the capital here on Z’h’ar, was a desolate place - even for a desert planet. High walls surrounded the vertical city, guard towers posted around every gate. In the city itself, everything was about function; there was no art, no music, only blank screens posted on every street corner. This wasn’t a planet that I would be returning to for a holiday.
The local Iyr kept to themselves, heads facing down, walking with purpose as though they all had somewhere that they desperately wanted to be.
Outside the city, as far as I could tell, was no better. On the plus side, there were none of these charmless Iyr about. On the other hand, they had to deal with a lack of air conditioning, which I didn’t myself fancy in this heat.
I thought it was supposed to be winter here? What do they do in their summers? Melt?
The target, Melonaitopila (which was supposedly a short name for an Itagurinatipilazutinafi), had, by all accounts, last been spotted at a local U’kka shop. The store, while indeed serving U’kka, seemed to in fact specialise in Guran kebabs - a rather grandiose term for what turned to be simply a rodent cooked on a stick. When it came to my turn to order, I stuck to drinks only.
‘Say…,’ I started, ‘Have you seen this woman, recently, by any chance?’
I showed the store owner a picture of the target on my console’s holodisplay. The Iyr shook his head.
‘Not seen her.’
‘Are you sure?’ I prompted. ‘She was here, about a week ago?’
‘In this store?’
‘Yes. In this store.’
‘I have not seen her,’ the Iyr repeated.
I thanked them for their (lack of) help and sat down to drink my U’kka. When the shift changed, I asked the new Iyr behind the counter the same questions and received the same result.
This wasn’t a great start - and it wasn’t as though I had a massive number of leads I could follow. I repeated the experiment outside the store, but found that Iyr were unwilling to stop for a stranger from another world. Even when I stood in their way, many would ignore me, and the few who did stop were less than helpful. The local Iyr would have had me believe that nobody had seen this woman.
I’d landed fairly late, so the day soon turned to night. Not wanting to be standing around in a strange street after dark, I decided to abandon my post, regroup, and try again tomorrow. Maybe, if I was lucky, a new route of investigation would occur to me by then.
As I headed in search of somewhere to drink (real drink, not any more U’kka, unless I wanted my bowels to resent me), the screens posted around the city all suddenly blinked into action.
A symbol appeared, glowing in blue on the screens, one that I could have sworn that I recognised from somewhere. An equilateral triangle, with a kind of zig-zag hanging out the bottom. This must have been a character in the Iyr’s own language - one that nobody outside their own race was able to understand, even with universal translators. The Iyr really were a private people.
Around me, all the Iyr had stopped to stare at their nearest screen, and were transfixed by it. The symbol was then replaced by an image of an Iyr, sitting, facing the screen. He spoke in the common tongue for a few minutes, during which time, everyone else remained still, silent, fascinated by what they were being told. I listened in; little of it was of interest to me, covering only topics like the local economy, updates on the negotiations with the GMU, and the weather.
Surprise, surprise - it’s hot again.
And then, just like that, it ended - the blue shape being shown again, upside down this time, on the screens. The nearby Iyr took this as their cue to continue with their days. I shook my head in bemusement at the whole situation, and I, too, carried on.
I found a bar open just outside the Iyr capital’s Central Command building. It was an impressive structure, almost perfectly cubic but for the doors and windows. Stretching across the whole of the front face, two symbols were painted in a brilliantly-white tone, presumably meaning “Central Command” in the local language. I took one last look at this monument to government and then entered the bar.
The Iyr’s ambivalence towards the arts meant that their interiors were minimalist, functional. A smooth, concrete bar stood tall along one side of the room, sharp, square corners matching the style of the Central Command building. I assumed this similar motif was unintentional rather than designed - I couldn’t yet imagine an Iyr with that much creativity. Next to the bar itself, a number of (largely empty) bar stools hovered, facing away from the square tables behind them. It was at one of these stools which I sat.
With no bar staff currently in sight,
