Nightmare

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"The DNA," Tan said, "doesn’t belong to Dorna. Or any of the known victims."

"Is that good or bad?" Ara asked.

Tan gave her a hard look. "Bad. If it belonged to a victim, we could get an arrest warrant in five minutes. But we don’t know who it belongs to, so we get nothing."

Ara swirled her glass around the table, making thoughtful rings of condensed water. The smell of fried onions and mushrooms hung on the air. Nicky’s Restaurant, the quiet, dark place they had taken Kendi after the Dream recreation, had become a customary meeting place for Ara and Inspector Tan. Over the three days since Dorna’s disappearance, Tan had begun consulting with Ara regularly-more often, it seemed to Ara, than with her partner. Linus Gray, however, was handling the non-Silent aspects of the case-coordinating technicians, interpreting their evidence, and so on, leaving Tan free to handle the Silent end.

"It’s been three days," Ara said, thinking aloud. "We’ve checked with all her friends and they haven’t seen her. She has no relatives on Bellerophon because she was brought here as a newly-freed slave, so she hasn’t gone to ground with anyone like that. We know she hasn’t left the planet because the spaceport was put on alert for her right after she attacked Ben." A surge of anger passed through Ara, and she had to work to keep it out of her voice. "So where is she hiding?"

"My vote is still the forest," Tan said. "There are tons of places to hide, and anyone who knows basic survival skills-"

"Like the ones we teach at the monastery," Ara sighed.

"— could live out there for a long time." Tan speared a deep-fried mushroom and dipped it in spicy brown sauce. "I wonder which personality does the surviving. Dammit, we have to talk to her. Every instinct I have tells me she’s connected to the murders. Too much of a coincidence that all this happened right in the middle of the investigation."

"Do you think she did it?"

"She’s my prime suspect," Tan admitted. "Did you know that in almost a thousand years we’ve never had a serial killer case on Bellerophon? I have no precedents to work with. None. So I’ve been doing a lot of reading about serial killers and a lot of talking to law enforcement people on other planets. Father Ched-Hisak knows a lot about human psychology, too. They all tell me that female serial killers are rare and that women with multiple personalities tend to be more suicidal than homicidal. It’s the opposite for men. In other words, the women kill themselves while the men kill other people. But there are plenty of exceptions. I’m willing to bet we have one of them. Lucky us."

"We checked the records," Ara said, still swirling her glass. "Dorna did arrive on Bellerophon just before Prinna Meg was murdered, so she’s been on the planet during the killings. I just …I just …"

"What?" Tan said.

"I like Dorna," Ara said. "She struck me as a bit odd-now I know why-but she’s always been nice."

"I wouldn’t call the person-or personality-who attacked your son nice."

"You’re right." Ara pushed the glass aside. "I just hate the idea that someone I know like this might be murdering people and chopping off their fingers. I keep hoping it turns out to be someone we haven’t even thought of yet."

"Most of the time the murderer is obvious suspect," Tan pointed out. "The witness you’ve been ignoring because he’s on the outer edge never turns out to be the long-lost nephew-turned-killer. You never get to assemble all the suspects in the library to reveal this fact, either."

The waiter came to clear away their plates and ask if they wanted desert. Ara passed a hand over her round stomach as a way of getting herself to decline, but her resolve refused to solidify.

"What’s today?" she asked the waiter, an older man with silver hair.

"Thursday," he told her.

"Good. I always give in to temptation on Thursdays. Turtle fudge sundae, please."

"And for you, ma’am?" the waiter asked Tan.

"More tea," she rasped. "I only give in to temptation on Tuesdays."

The waiter left. Ara eyed Tan. "You might want to give in more often. Stress reliever, you know."

"Be easy to justify," Tan said. "I’m getting big pressure from higher up to solve this."

"I’ll bet. Were you able to access Dorna’s sale records?"

"Some. Found out she’s had more than three owners. I talked to some of them. Or I talked to them through a Silent courier, anyway."

"And?"

Tan shrugged. "They never noticed any personality weirdness and don’t know of any Silent who were murdered during the time they owned her. Doesn’t mean much, of course. I’m still waiting to hear back from the police agencies-the killer’s M.O. is pretty unique-but it’s slow going. Most of the more densely-populated worlds have a dozen or more governments. That means a dozen or more law enforcement agencies, and they don’t always talk to each other."

"Then let’s hope they talk to us."

Kendi grinned and waved as Ben came into sight. Ben nodded to him from the top of the outdoor staircase. It had become their habit to meet here after both their classes were over for the day. Kendi was still living at the Rymar house, though there had never been any indication that the killer was looking for Kendi.

"Better safe than sorry," Ara had said.

"Irfan Qasad?" Kendi had said, earning him a why do I do this to myself? sort of sigh from Ara.

Ben was trotting down the stairs past several students going in the opposite direction when his upper body jerked forward. His computer pad flew out of his hand and he fell. Kendi watched in shock as he tumbled down the steps. People swore in surprise and leaped out of the way. The thuds and thumps as his body hit the stairs were awful. At last Ben came to rest at the bottom. His computer pad struck the ground some distance away and skidded over the edge of the walkway.

"Ben!" Kendi got to his side without any idea of how he had traversed the space between them. Ben’s face was white, and his freckles stood out like tiny lesions. Kendi automatically reached down to pull him to his feet, but then Brother Dell’s first aid training took over and he pulled back. "Ben! Are you all right?"

Ben shifted position and groaned. "Shit."

A voice tinged with harsh laughter called down, "Loudmouth!" A pejorative, the opposite of Silent.

Kendi looked up and saw two students he didn’t recognize, one male and one female. Both of them were laughing. Kendi didn’t even think. He sprinted up to the top of the stairs and smashed head-first into the male. Kendi flailed with both fists, heedless of the counterblows that rained down upon him, until a firm hand yanked him straight out of the fight. Ched-Balaar clatter ordered him to stop. Kendi swung twice more at empty air before the order registered and he obeyed. It was hard to breathe and took him a moment to realize he was dangling by his collar from Father Ched-Hisak’s left hand. The Ched-Balaar’s right hand held the other male student, and a human teacher Kendi didn’t recognize had restrained the female. Father Ched-Hisak lowered Kendi to the deck, and Kendi found he could breathe again.

"What’s going on here?" the human teacher demanded.

"They pushed Ben down the stairs," Kendi said hotly.

"That’s a lie!"

An argument ensued. The two students continued to deny the charge, and Father Ched-Hisak had to restrain Kendi a second time. Finally Father Ched-Hisak sounded a deep, rumbling noise like a foghorn that silenced everyone.

"No one can lie in the Dream," he said. "We will bring these two there to learn the truth."

Both students blanched but didn’t protest when the human teacher lead them away. Father Ched-Hisak turned to Kendi. His wide brown eyes were hard.

"And you," he chattered, "you will once again find yourself on work detail."

"But they pushed-"

"That does not excuse your fighting," Father Ched-Hisak told him. "Finish this sentence: ‘Serene must you walk the paths …’ "

" ‘ …and serene must you ever remain,’ " Kendi said automatically. "I know, I know."

"You do not know," Ched-Hisak said. "Otherwise you would not do these things. I will register your hours. Go to your friend."

Kendi had actually forgotten about Ben. He hurried down the stairs and found him sitting on a bench next to a brown-clad Sister whose gold medallion bore a square cross, the symbol of a medic. She had his left shoe off and was examining his ankle. Ben’s face was tight with pain. The crowd that had gathered was already drifting away. Kendi became aware that his own face hurt. He touched his lower lip and his finger came away red and sticky. Other parts of his body were also beginning to ache.

"It’s a slight sprain and a few bruises," the Sister said. "Nothing serious." She removed a dermospray from her medical bag and it thumped against Ben’s ankle. Another dermospray thumped against his upper arm. "You need to sit here for at least ten minutes for the sprain to heal. The second shot will help the pain and the bruises, all right?"

Ben nodded and the Sister turned to Kendi. She stanched his bleeding lip, gave him a shot, and declared him fine. They thanked her and she left. Kendi started to sit next to Ben, whose leg was still stretched out on the bench, but Ben pointed at the rail.

"My pad went over," he said. "Can you get it for me?"

Kendi peered over the edge and saw the pad caught in the semi-transparent netting. He lay flat on his stomach and was just able to retrieve it with his fingertips. Ben accepted it with a curt "thank you."

"What’s the matter?" Kendi asked.

"Nothing."

"Ben, come on. What’s going on?"

Ben paused for a long time. "I don’t need you to fight my cousins for me, Kendi," he said. "It’s stupid."

"Those two were your cousins?" Kendi said in disbelief.

"They’re creeps and they’ve been pulling shit like that all my life. This was nothing new."

"Ben, they tripped you down the-"

"I don’t care what they did," Ben said. "I get it all the time from them. So what? They’re assholes-full of shit."

"Don’t tell me it doesn’t make you mad," Kendi almost snapped. "They tripped you on the damn stairs!"

"It makes me mad, yeah," Ben said heatedly. "But I don’t need you to take care of me, and I definitely don’t need you telling Mom about it."

"Ben, I didn’t mean-"

"Just leave alone for a while, okay?" And Ben’s face shut down. After a moment, Kendi got up and headed for the Rymar home. As a result, he was just getting in the door when Inspector Tan called to tell Mother Ara that another dead body had turned up.

The first thing Ara noticed was the smell. Mother Diane Giday’s house was high up in this particular talltree, and Ara was less than halfway up staircase that wound around the trunk when it hit her-the ripe, rancid smell of rotting meat. Ara faltered, then forced herself onward. Tan had said on the phone that Giday had been killed quite some time ago and that the body was in an advanced state of putrefaction, but Ara hadn’t thought the smell of it would greet her before she even reached the front door. Now she was doubly glad she had spent considerable time convincing Kendi-ordering him, really-that he didn’t need to come to the site of the murder.

The staircase ended at a wide platform. Just ahead, Giday’s little house was so high up that the roof poked up above the talltree’s leaves. When she arrived at the address, a Guardian was just switching on the holographic generator. Around the house appeared the same ring of blue light Ara had seen at Iris Temm’s home. Ara walked through it and the generator beeped an alarm, just as the other one had. Ara wondered if she was going to be crossing scene barriers for the rest of her life. The Guardian recognized her and waved her on. Ara wasn’t sure she wanted to go but knew she should.

Linus Gray, his face matching his name, met her just inside the door. The stench washed over Ara and made her gag. She suddenly wished she hadn’t eaten that sundae at lunch.

"Here," Gray said, pressing a dermospray to her upper arm. The drug thumped home.

"What is it?" Ara demanded

"An neurological inhibitor," Gray explained. "It’ll put the olfactory bulb in your brain to sleep for about an hour. You won’t smell a thing."

He was right. The horrible stench had already faded. Ara nodded her thanks and glanced around the room. Giday’s house was little more than a cottage, with three tiny rooms and a bath. Ara could see into every room from the front door. The miniature living room contained one easy chair, a short sofa, and a set of wall-mounted shelves that displayed various knickknacks. On the couch was a lumpy bundle covered by shiny black cloth. Two Guardian technicians were just starting to tuck in the edges. Ara caught a glimpse of discolored flesh. Tan was watching, her eyes flat and angry. A small gravity sled hovered in front of the couch like a coffee table.

Gray handed Ara a set of gloves. She put them on. "Do you want to see the body?" he asked.

"No," Ara said flatly. "What about her finger?"

"Cut off and replaced," Gray said. "The DNA of the new finger matches Iris Temm’s. We’ve already compared a sample of Giday’s DNA to the samples we collected from the finger sewn to Vera Cheel’s body. It’s a match. Giday’s DNA also matches the blood Tan found on the shirt in Dorna’s room."

"So Dorna’s definitely the killer, then," Ara murmured.

"Sure looks that way," Tan said.

The technicians finished tucking the cloth. With a soft hissing sound, it sealed itself around the corpse and the couch cushions beneath it. The techs gently lifted the entire bundle onto the sled. The first tech adjusted the sled’s controls until it hovered at waist level and maneuvered it out the door. The second technician nodded at Tan and followed.

"How long was she in here?" Ara asked.

"Preliminary scan suggests about two weeks," Tan said.

"Two weeks?" Ara gasped. "How did she go this long without being found? Who found her?"

Tan took out her data pad and consulted notes. "The downbelow neighbors called in to complain about a weird smell. One of our boys came up to look around and found her. No one noticed Giday was missing because she was supposed to have left for an off-planet vacation fifteen days ago. Spaceport records show she had a ticket to DelaCruz, but she never boarded the ship. Between that and the fact that her house is up so high hid the smell for a while, no one even knew she had been murdered."

Ara thought about a woman named Diane Giday in the Dream taking care of last-minute business and looking forward to her vacation. Perhaps she had hummed to herself a bit or sighed with satisfaction at the completion of her last piece of work. Then a dark man appeared and turned the Dream into a nightmare, leaving her corpse to rot in her cozy little house. Ara’s mouth turned down with silent fury.

"If she’s been dead for two weeks," Ara said in a flat voice, "there’s no way I can recreate the scene. Too many minds won’t be in the same place, and most of the others will have forgotten the patterns."

Tan nodded. "I thought as much, but figured I’d ask anyway."

"Giday was probably the thirteenth victim," Gray said. "That means the killer is escalating."

Ara gave him a blank look.

"He means the attacks are coming closer together," Tan explained. "Look, Prinna Meg was murdered about three years ago, a few weeks after Dorna Saline was recruited into the Children, in fact. About a year later, Wren Hamil is killed. Eleven months after that, Iris Temm is murdered and we bring you in to have a look. Nine months later, this woman Giday dies, but we don’t find the body until now. Two and a half weeks after that-two and a half weeks-the monster goes after Vera Cheel. There’s going to be another one, Ara, and soon. We have to find this guy."

"The word is out among the Children," Ara said. "Female Children aren’t supposed to enter the Dream alone, and they need to be ready to leave it on an instant’s notice. But you know how it goes-plenty of people disregard the advice. At last count, we have over three thousand Sisters, Mothers, and Grandmothers, and most of them figure that they’re either more powerful than the stalker or the odds are against any one of them being attacked."

"Technically they’re right about the odds," Linus said. "Less than one in three thousand."

"Tell that to Mother Diane." Ara shuddered. "I certainly wouldn’t take the risk."

"Let’s do the search," Tan said. "See what clue the killer left for us this time."

Searching the cottage didn’t take long. Ara found six pairs of earrings lined up on Giday’s dresser and a thirteenth singleton broken in the wastebasket. "It was probably fourteen earrings and the killer broke one to make a ‘set’ of thirteen so he could keep one and leave twelve."

"Dorna’s a she," Tan said. "Unless there’s something the monastery medics don’t know about."

"I don’t think it’s Dorna," Ara said.

Linus Gray, who was carefully stowing the earrings in an evidence bag, gave her a hard look. "Why not?"

"Call it a feeling," Ara said. "It’s just-it’s just-I don’t know. Out of character for her."

"For Dorna, maybe," Tan pointed out. "But who knows about one of her alternates?"

"I just think we need to keep an open mind," Ara said. She started to sit on Giday’s narrow bed, then stopped herself. The crime scene technicians might want to examine it.

Tan nodded. "I agree. And you’re right-it’s possible Dorna didn’t do any of it. But the fact that she disappeared right after one of the murders says she’s got something to hide."

"Which may not be connected to this case," Ara said.

"And there are those nightmares about people dying in the Dream," Tan said. "Kendi mentioned her talking about them."

"She’s not the only one," Ara countered. "I’ve had a few bad dreams myself."

"And I found Giday’s blood on her sleeve," said Tan.

"Someone could have planted it there," Ara said. "If I had chopped someone’s finger off and there was even the tiniest chance some of my victim’s blood got on me, I’d burn my clothes. I certainly wouldn’t hang them in my closet for the Guardians to find. And if I were afraid the Guardians were close to catching me, it’d be awful tempting to plant some phony evidence in the room of someone who had recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances."

"Do you think Dorna’s dead somewhere?" Gray sealed the bag.

"I don’t know," Ara said, worried. "I hope not. But it’s a definite possibility. And what if she was murdered to keep her quiet about something?"

Tan put a gloved hand on Ara’s shoulder. "Look, I don’t want it to be Dorna either. But she’s the obvious suspect right now and we have to talk to her even if her disappearance and the blood are completely innocent. Come on-let’s see if we can find anything else the killer left behind."

This time it was Gray who noticed it-a music disk titled Thirteen Lucky Love Songs. "The last song has been wiped," he reported.

"All we’re doing is proving that the same killer got each one of them." Ara tried to pace the miniature living room, then gave it up. There wasn’t enough room. "This doesn’t give us any clues to who the killer is."

"He-or she-will slip up eventually," Tan said grimly. "The nano-second that happens, we’ll nail the bastard."

Ara’s gaze drifted about Giday’s living room. The denuded sofa seemed to mock her, a blot in the otherwise tidy house. It was the house of a woman bent on enjoying her vacation until at the last minute a lunatic had crushed her mind and destroyed her body. On the wall above the couch hung a lot of framed photographs and holograms interspersed with the occasional certificate of award.

"Has someone told her family?" Ara asked. "I’m figuring she wasn’t married."

"No, she wasn’t, and not yet," Tan responded.

Ara got up and went over to investigate the certificates more closely. One of them was a commendation for outstanding work in multiple message transmission in the Dream. It was signed by one Tara Linnet, Manager for Dreamers, Inc. Ara blinked, her heart suddenly pounding.

"We’ve been stupid!" she almost shouted. "God-completely stupid!"

Tan, who had been talking to Gray, jumped in surprise, then recovered herself. "What are you talking about?"

"There!" Ara pointed to the certificate. "Right there. We’ve been ignoring a potential lead."

Gray stepped forward. "In recognition for outstanding contribution and work in multiple message transmission," he read. "So?"

"Isn’t it obvious?" Ara said. "Giday worked for Dreamers, Inc., before she came to the Children of Irfan. They’re a corporation that offers Silent communication for a price."

"I’ve heard of them," Tan said. "What’s the big deal?"

"You said one of the problems with tracking down information about the killings on other planets is that there are so many law enforcement agencies that don’t talk to each other and compare notes," Ara said. "But what about the corporations?"

"Go on," Tan rasped.

"Dreamers, Inc., has more employees than some governments have subjects. They’re not just multi-national-they’re multi-planetary. But for all that, they’re is still a single organization. It doesn’t matter if one branch falls under one government and a different branch falls under another-it’s still a single unit. And you can bet that if someone’s been killing their employees and chopping off their fingers, they’ll know about it. Why don’t we ask them?"

Tan looked excited for the first time since Ara had met her. "You’re right! The corps can cut straight across police boundaries."

"There’s Dreamers, Inc., and the Silent Partners," Gray said, ticking off his fingers, "and Silent Acquisitions-"

"Silent Acquisitions only deals in Silent slaves," Ara said. "They don’t hire out Silent."

"Wonder if Dorna passed ever through them." Tan toyed with her braid. "The records that came with her were incomplete, and you can bet I checked."

"That’s pretty common," Ara said. "I was the one who bought and freed her in the name of the Children, and the clearinghouse I found her in typically didn’t give anything but a short medical history. Previous owners were kept in strict confidence."

"Why do they do that?" Gray wanted to know.

"Because sometimes people own slaves in places where slavery is illegal," Ara replied. "They keep the slaves ignorant this fact. It’s easier than you might think, especially if the slave doesn’t speak the local language. And a lot of slaves are abused until they acquire a slave mentality. It wouldn’t even occur to them to try escaping or to demand their release. It sometimes takes years of counseling to bring them out of it."

A breeze wandered through the windows, making the curtains flutter. Ara thought she caught a whiff of decaying flesh and wondered if the shot Gray had given her was beginning to wear off.

"At any rate," Tan said, "we need to start checking with the corporations. The killer’s MO is unique, so they’ll probably have no trouble remembering it if they’ve seen it. Then we just find out if they ever owned someone named Dorna Saline, and-"

"That might not work," Ara pointed out. "It’s common for buyers to change the names of their new slaves. It reinforces the slave mentality-you don’t even own your name-and it muddies the trail if the purchase was illegal. Half the time the slaves themselves don’t know their owner’s real name or the name of the planet they lived on. Dorna, if she’s the killer, may have had a different name with every owner. For all I know, Dorna made up her current name. She was only listed as a lot number on the auction catalog."

"You didn’t bother trying to check?" Gray asked.

Ara shrugged. "Why should we? Like I said, the previous owner is kept anonymous, and we give our new people as much privacy as we can, since slaves have had so little of it. It means a lot to most of them, being able to choose their own name. Some keep their slave names as is or they change the spelling or pronunciation. Some use a name from their childhood. Others make up brand new ones. Kendi did that, I’m pretty sure. I have no idea what name he was born with, and I’ve never asked."

Gray deflated a bit. "How will checking with these corporations help us find Dorna’s hiding place?"

"It won’t," Ara said. "But right now we don’t have definitive proof that Dorna’s involved in the murders at all. If we find another place that had these finger-chopping murders, we can cross-check names of Silent employees and slaves with the monastery records of Silent who arrived here before the murders began. We might get lucky."

"More sifting," Tan sighed.

"I believe a wise woman once told me-how did the saying go?" Ara said. " ‘Welcome to the tedious side of Guardian work’? "

"Very funny."

The rotten smell grew stronger. Tan sniffed the air, apparently noticing it herself.

"We should get out of here before our suppressants wear off," she said. "I’ll let the techs know we’re finished so they can do the fine-tooth comb thing. Ara, we need to contact some of these corps. Can you do it this evening, meet on your turf at, say, seven?"

"You want me to come with you?" Ara said.

"You know slavers. I don’t," Tan said. "And thank god for that. I’d much rather deal with killers."

At seven o’clock Ara was in her pleasure garden. The fountain made pleasant noises and the pear and orange blossoms smelled exquisite. Usually the place felt quiet and relaxing, but now there was an undercurrent of tension and she felt an urge to keep looking over her shoulder. Twice she spun around expecting to see a looming dark man with a hat that hid a leering face and both times she saw nothing. When Ara felt a presence at the edge of her turf, she had to muffle a scream before she realized it was only Tan.

"Please come," Ara called.

Tan appeared, and the Dream rippled briefly around her. "You look nervous."

"Let’s just get started," Ara said. "I have a contact at Dreamers, Inc. Take my arm and I’ll move us."

Tan obeyed. Ara closed her eyes and cast out her senses. Dreamers, Inc., kept a permanent presence in the Dream, and the pattern of thought was familiar to Ara. She located it and focused on it. They were here but she wanted them to be there and they would be there now. The familiar wrench cut through her and she opened her eyes.

The brown desk and the red Oriental carpet stood in the middle of a stark, white space. There were no walls, no ceiling, no doors or windows. Just empty whiteness with a room-sized square of colored silk in the middle of it. A human man, thin and spare, sat behind the desk with his hands primly folded on the blotter. An inkwell and quill pen sat to one side of a small sign that read Welcome to Dreamers, Inc.. Everything about the space and the man said receptionist. Ara knew that there were actually close to a hundred receptionists on duty at any given moment to field and direct the countless mundane inquiries the company received every day, but the human mind was not geared to register hundreds of receptionists and thousands of questioners occupying the same space, and Ara’s subconscious automatically filtered out what her conscious couldn’t deal with. Everything she didn’t need was relegated to background whispers.

"May I help you?" asked the man in a reedy voice.

"My name is Araceil Rymar," Ara said. "This is Inspector Lewa Tan. I need to talk to Marco Clark. Is he in the Dream?"

"No," the man replied promptly. "His shift begins in twenty minutes. Would you care to wait or leave a message?"

"Tell him that I need to speak with him immediately."

"To Dream Engineer Marco Clark," the man said. "Message begins: Araceil Rymar needs to speak with you immediately. Message ends. Is that correct?"

"Yes, thank you." Ara took Tan’s arm and with a wrench they were back in Ara’s pleasure garden. Birds twittered and bees buzzed among the blossoms.

"Couldn’t you tell yourself if this Marco guy was in the Dream?" Tan asked. Her voice once again was full of rich, low tones.

Ara shook her head. "I’ve only met him in the Dream, never in person. We’ve never touched, and I’m not good at finding people I haven’t had physical contact with. Marco can find me, though."

"So where now?"

"Let’s try Silent Acquisitions. They deal exclusively in slaves, so there’s a good chance Dorna passed through them at one time or another."

Another wrench and they were standing in another receptionist foyer. This time the rug was blue and the desk was a chrome and steel fortress and the person behind it was a red cone with four flexible arms and three eyes, but it was still clearly a receptionist foyer. A hovering sign behind the creature read Silent Acquisitions, Ltd.: Where Your Tastes Are Met.

Ara again introduced herself and Tan. The cone narrowed its eyes. "Are either or both connected with Children of Irfan?" Its voice was like a spoon plopping in cold pudding.

Uh oh, Ara thought. "Why do you ask?" she said aloud.

"Please answer the question," the creature plopped. "Are one or both you connected with the Children of Irfan? Please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ There are no lies in the Dream."

"Yes," Ara was forced to say. "We both are."

"I am sorry, but I am not allowed to speak with you."

"But-"

"If you wish to leave a message for a particular party," the creature went on, "you may hire a courier ship with a hardcopy missive. Good day."

The reception room vanished, leaving behind the featureless plain that was the default condition of the Dream.

"Rude," Tan observed. "What brought that on?"

"Probably me," Ara said grimly. "The Children-including me-have bought, stolen, swindled, and tricked a hell of a lot slaves out of that company over the decades. We’ve probably cost them billions in revenue by now. Silent Acquisitions seem to have adopted a new policy of identifying Children and then refusing to communicate with us so we can’t trick any information out of them. Bastards! Filth doesn’t even begin to describe what they do."

"I agree," Tan said, "but we need to stay focused on the other job."

Ara let out a long breath. "Right. Sorry. I just hate slavers. Buying and selling sentient creatures is about the lowest anyone can-"

"You church, me choir," Tan said. "Can we go?"

"Right, right. Let’s try the Silent Partners and see what they have to say."

The Silent Partners, it turned out, didn’t know of any strange murders. Neither did DreamShapers. They were about to visit Quietude, Ltd., when Ara felt a presence brush her mind.

"Marco!" she said with delight. "He’s in the Dream. Hey, Marco! My turf, all right?"

The pleasure garden appeared around them. Ara was dressed in her green robe with the close-fitting hood. She put Tan in a similar one, but blue. They both sat on the lip of the fountain, waiting. After a brief interval, a yellow sphere of light the size of a basketball whizzed over the garden wall and hovered in front of Ara. Her face showed her pleasure.

"Marco," she said. "I’m glad you could talk to me. This is Inspector Lewa Tan."

"Good morning," the sphere said in a voice reminiscent of ringing bells. "Or is it not morning on Bellerophon?"

"It’s evening for us," Ara told him. "Listen, I know you’re probably busy, so I’ll be fast." She gave a quick explanation of the Dream murders. "Can you find out if there were any similar happenings among Dreamers, Inc.?"

"I know there were," Marco said in his bell-like voice. "It was nine or ten years ago."

Tan stood up, excited. "Can you put me in contact with the investigator in charge of the case?"

"Perhaps. I will have to go through appropriate channels. Please wait."

The ball vanished with a pop of inrushing Dream energy. Tan waited with ill-disguised impatience.

"Marco’s good," Ara said. "He knows a lot of people."

"My drugs are going to wear off soon," Tan grumbled. "What species is Marco, anyway?"

"Human." Ara scratched her nose. "He’s a practicing Zen Buddhist. When I first met him twenty-some years ago, he looked as human as you or me but now …" Ara shrugged. "I sometimes wonder what’ll happen when he reaches Nirvana."

The ball popped back into being. Standing beneath it was a small, dark-complected man in a linen suit. He had a thin mustache, small black eyes, and equally black hair scattered with silver.

"Ara, Inspector," Marco rang out formally, "this is Ken Rashid, Chief of Security for Dreamers, Inc. Chief Rashid, this is Mother Ara and Inspector Tan, both of the Children of Irfan."

They all exchanged greetings, and Marco said, "I imagine you have little time left in the Dream with much to discuss, so I will leave you. Ara, it was good seeing you. Please visit me again when you have time."

"I will, Marco," Ara said. "And thank you."

Marco vanished with another pop.

"Little time left in the Dream," Rashid repeated. "I take it your drugs are wearing off?"

"In about five minutes," Ara confessed. "We’ll have to be quick."

"Marco already explained to me the basics of your case." Rashid looked about the manicured lawn as if he were missing something.

"Your pardon," Ara said, and quickly produced a chair for him out of thin air. He took it.

"Almost exactly ten years ago," Rashid continued, "four women connected with Dreamers, Inc., died. Levels of psytonin in their brains indicated they were in the Dream when it happened. The first one was missing the little finger on her left hand. The second woman was found also missing her left little finger, and the finger of the first woman was sewn on in its place, and so on. This was when I was a chief investigator, before I took my current position, and the case was assigned to me. Unfortunately, we had-still have-no suspects."

Tan was on her feet again, eyes flashing. "Wait! The first woman was only missing a finger? One wasn’t sewn on?"

"That’s correct."

"Then she might have been the first victim!" Tan said. "A big lead!"

"What?" Ara said. "Why?"

"A serial killer’s first victim is usually someone the killer knows," Tan explained. "If we can get a list of people the first victim knew and compare it with a list of Silent who have been on Bellerophon since the killings started there, we might be able to pin down a name."

"Possibly," Rashid said. "Assuming, of course, that the killer hasn’t changed his name."

"Or hers," Tan muttered.

"Chief Rashid," Ara said, "have you ever seen this woman?" She gestured and a hologram of Dorna Saline hovered in the air before Rashid’s chair. The features were a bit blurred-recreating faces in the Dream was difficult for most Silent since it required tremendous concentration and a bit of artistic skill, and while Ara had the first, she had only a bit of the second.

Rashid studied the image thoughtfully. "I don’t believe so," he said at last. "Though the likeness-my apologies if I seem rude-isn’t going to be exact. Who is she?"

"We think she’s connected to the case," Tan told him.

Ara fidgeted on the lip of the fountain. Her drugs were nearing the end of their course and she would have to leave the Dream soon or be yanked out of it, and right now it wouldn’t be convenient to spend two or three days in bed recovering from the shock.

"Chief," Tan said, "we need to compare notes. The Dream isn’t a good medium for transmitting images, and we need to spend more time talking than our drugs will allow. Can we visit you in person?"

"Of course," Rashid replied promptly. "This case has …nibbled at me for years, Inspector, and I would love nothing more than to solve it." Something flashed behind his eyes, but Ara couldn’t place what it was.

"You are at the headquarters station for Dreamers, then?" Tan said.

"I am. I will instruct my people to look for you."

The itch grew so strong Ara couldn’t remain still. "Chief, I’m sorry but I have to go. I look forward to meeting you in person."

Rashid rose from his chair and gave a little bow. "As do I, Mother."

Ara summoned her concentration and released the Dream.