"You're already on the way?"
"Of course. There is no time to be wasted."
Harriet muted the call. "Steve, the spaceport. Quick!"
"We're already en route," said the car. "Bernie gave me a new course moments ago."
"Great. Yet another slip-up from Harriet Walsh, Dismolle's worst detective."
"You will be great one day. Now you are merely good."
Harriet flashed Steve a grateful smile, then put Bernie back on. "What's your ETA?"
"Nineteen minutes, twelve seconds. Yours?"
"Fifteen minutes or so."
"Then I shall force the cab to increase speed. I do not wish you to arrive early."
"Don't worry, Bernie. Steve and I will just drive around until you show up."
"An excellent plan. I should arrive ninety seconds after you. Please take care, Trainee. I do not like to see my people in danger."
"Me neither," said Harriet grimly.
"Incidentally, I hereby authorise lethal force."
"What use is that? I don't even have a gun."
"I was talking to your car." And with that, Bernie cut the call.
"Lethal force?" asked Harriet. "Don't tell me you have missiles or lasers I don't know about?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out," said the car. "It's not like you've ever seen under my hood, if you know what I mean."
"Oh brother," murmured Harriet, and she sat back to wait out the rest of the ride.
Chapter 12
"So, er, I'm Trainee Alice … erm, I mean… Officer Alice Walsh of the, er …" Alice swallowed fitfully. She was standing at the front of the class, facing about two dozen kids. The teacher was off to one side, sitting behind a desk, and as Alice turned a look of desperation on her, she gave an encouraging smile and a nod.
"I'm with the, er, Peace Force. We arrest crooks and, er, stop crimes." Alice looked at the sea of faces. She'd seen an old nature film once, where a group of big cat-like creatures sat in their enclosure waiting to be fed. The looks on their faces were almost identical to those on the watching children. Then, as Alice looked around, she saw a small boy with his hand up. "Yes? Questions?"
"Can I go to the toilet?"
There was a snicker of laughter.
"I guess," said Alice doubtfully.
"Not now, Jack," said the teacher, and the boy put his hand down.
Immediately, a girl put her hand up.
"Yes?" said Alice desperately.
"Oh. Nothing." The girl put her hand down again. "I was itchy."
Alice realised things were not going well, and she wished the ground would just swallow her up. Or better still, she wished Bernie had taken the school visit so she, Alice, could have chased down the vandals instead.
The teacher sensed her discomfort, because she got to her feet and came to stand beside her. "Children, Officer Alice is here to talk about the importance of obedience. Does anyone know what that means?"
Nobody stirred. Figures, thought Alice.
"It means obeying orders. Who thinks that's important?" The teacher put her own hand up immediately, and the kids slowly followed her lead, until Alice was the only one with her hand down. Hurriedly, she raised it.
"Now, I'm going to run a little errand," said the teacher. "In the meantime I want you to listen carefully to Officer Alice. Is that understood? I want you to obey her."
The children nodded, and the teacher left the room. Alice suspected she couldn't watch the train-wreck any longer, but she was grateful for the intervention. However, immediately the teacher left, a girl in a yellow T-shirt put her hand up. Alice's eyes narrowed, but this time there really was a question.
"Do you have a gun?" asked the girl.
"I'm supposed to talk about obedience," said Alice. The girl's face fell, and Alice decided a short detour from the script wouldn't hurt. "Yeah, I've got a gun. All Peace Force officers do."
The girl's eyes went round, and the boy next to her put his hand up. "Did you bring the gun with you?"
"No, it's back at the station. We have a shooting range, where I have to practice for hours on end."
"Have you shot anyone?" called out another girl.
"Heaps of people," said Alice, who was beginning to get into the swing of things. "They all deserved it, of course. Bank robbers, kidnappers, queue-jumpers … the lot."
"Cor!"
A boy with a red shirt put his hand up. "My dad says guns are banned."
"Your dad knows nothing," said Alice firmly.
"He says it's the law," said the boy doggedly.
"The Peace Force is above the law. That's what my badge says. Legem erga nos … a law unto ourselves."
The boy frowned. "My dad says—"
"— a bit too much if you ask me," said Alice. She crossed to the teacher's desk and sat on the corner. "Right, let's talk about obedience."
A boy put his hand up. "Have you ever met an alien?"
"Of course!"
"Did you shoot it with your gun?"
Alice shook her head. "I used a great big space cannon," she said. "Kablooey! Nothing left but a patch of blue grease."
"EEEEeeewwww!"
Alice grinned as the kids pulled horrified faces. This was more like it! "I was in this space battle once. There was just me, in my fighter, against—"
"The Peace Force are a ground-based organisation," said the boy in the red shirt. "That's what my dad says."
"Yeah? Well I'm with the Space Peace Force, and we have fighter ships." Having shut the little tyke up, for now, Alice launched into a hair-raising tale of dog-fighting spaceships, near-misses and extreme bravery. "And then," she finished, in a low voice, "the whole thing blew up! The galaxy was saved!"
The kids oohed and aahed.
"Why didn't they put a shield over the exhaust port?" asked the boy in red.
Alice ignored him, and pointed towards a girl with her hand up. "Yes. You."
"What's the nastiest criminal you've arrested?"
"Let me think a minute," said Alice, desperately trying to come up with something that could top her previous efforts. "Oh, of course! There was this guy we called the Snatcher. He used to sneak into kids' bedrooms at night, and pluck out their eyeballs!"
Wide-eyed,
