The Third Claw of God

8 POST-MORTEM

There was another flurry of yells, with the Pearlmans and the stewards demanding to know what Philip had meant by that, Jason trying to tell them that it didn’t matter right now, Jelaine telling everybody to talk one at a time, and the Porrinyards trying to calm them all down so we could move on.

Dejah Shapiro seized control, by slamming her palm against the bar just once, the impact a thunderclap. She waited for the chaos to collapse in the face of the order she had demanded, then spoke with repressed fury. “Yes. For those of you who didn’t already know, Counselor Cort and the Bocaian people have had a violent prior history. Yes, the story’s a long and unpleasant one and is not new intelligence to myself, or to our hosts. Yes, if you want details, I assume you’ll hear them real soon. But this is not the moment.” She stared down every face in the room, before glancing at me. “Andrea? You were saying?”

Any of the Bettelhines would have made an appropriate target for my next words, but Philip seemed to be my opposition here, so I went for him. “Sir. We need to organize a full investigation.”

He looked like a man who had just bitten into something foul. “Now?”

“Well, you can wait until we don’t have a murder victim, but that would make no sense.”

He spared another nauseated glance at the Khaajiir. “Don’t we have more pressing concerns right now? Like survival?”

“None,” I said, “within our current powers to address.”

“Yes.” Philip admitted. “But whoever did this…horrible thing…is stuck in here like the rest of us.”

“And damn you,” Jason muttered. “Whoever you are.”

Jelaine didn’t offer that much restraint. “Oh, he’s damned all right. “The Khaajiir was our friend. He was a personal guest of our father. His blood is our blood. Whoever did this… will never be able to run far enough.”

I took their personal grief as very much beside the point, and answered Philip. “The corollary, sir, is that we’re stuck in here with him. Or them.”

His eyes narrowed. “Just how many killers do you think there are?”

“I have no idea, sir. But the possibility of more than one is worth considering, given that Mr. Pescziuwicz already has two in custody up at Layabout, and the existence of a conspiracy always suggests an unknown number of collaborators.”

“You still don’t have any reason to believe that’s true here.”

“Nor do I have any reason to rule it out. I once heard of a famous murder case, aboard another stranded vessel, where it was essentially every passenger on board. Right now we don’t know anything except that we all remain in danger until we know who’s guilty and who’s not.”

Philip gave me a disgusted look. “Yes, but of all the people in this room, you’re the only one known to have murdered Bocaians before. Why should we trust you?”

“Sir. I don’t consider myself above suspicion. I may know I’m innocent, and have faith that my associates are innocent, but I also know that I’m not about to persuade you of either proposition until I demonstrate to your satisfaction just who committed the crime. Similarly, I know that your family has killed any number of people over the years, even if the preponderance of those victims were slaughtered by proxy via the weapons you design, mass-produce, and sell. You’re all part of that enterprise yourselves, and so neither you, nor your employees, all the way down to the stewards, escape suspicion, either as the Khaajiir’s principal murderer or as fellow conspirators. Even the sole person here unaffiliated with either the Bettelhine organization, or myself—that would be Mrs. Shapiro—is a suspect. As you established earlier, she’s been an enemy of your family for years, and we all know she has financial resources that equal your own, and thus provide her with more than enough influence to arrange this. So we’re all under suspicion, and can cease taking that fact personally. The fact remains that, right now, we’re all the prisoners of somebody who can not only smuggle a deadly weapon on board, but also has the capacity to isolate us by arranging the complete communications shutdown after this so-called emergency stop.”

He licked his lips. “You can’t know those was arranged too.”

I raised my voice to a near shout. “Show of hands! Who within the sound of my voice is confident that the emergency stop, the loss of communications, and the murder of the Khaajiir all have nothing to do with one another?” Silence. “Don’t be shy, people! If you believe that, stand up for it!”

The silence, broken only by scattered sobs from Dina Pearlman, persisted.

Jelaine murmured something inaudible to Dejah, who whispered something back. Skye, who was beside them, twitched her lips in appreciation. Something to ask her about, when I had a chance.

“There’s something else that needs to be established,” I said, turning away from Philip and sweeping my gaze from one set of frightened eyes to another. “We have not yet confirmed that help is coming. If it is coming, we don’t know how long it will take to get here. We don’t know if the people at Layabout or at Anchor Point have any bigger problems to deal with. We don’t know whether the damage already done to this cabin poses any additional threat to our lives. We don’t know if the killer, or killers, is satisfied with the one corpse or if there are any remaining targets. And finally, we don’t know whether the answers to any of these questions will wait until help can arrive and take over the investigation…or whether we must race the clock if we hope to get out of here alive. The only thing we know is that we’ve been left with no other immediate possibility of helping ourselves. This is something we can do.”

Philip coughed. “And…I suppose…you want to run the investigation, yes?”

“Please, sir. I know I have no jurisdiction here. I don’t mean to overstep my bounds. Were your man Mr. Pescziuwicz or some other authority you trusted available, I’d shut up and defer to him. But who in this room, aside from my associates and myself, has had experience running criminal investigations? You?”

To my surprise, Dejah Shapiro raised her hand. “Ummm…I’ve had to do it, several times.”

There was silence as I gaped at her, my precious momentum derailed. I was not alone in that, either; just about everybody forgot our current predicament long enough to gather from her expression that she was entirely serious.

Of all of us, it was Jelaine who ventured, “Really?”

“Really.” For a moment Dejah just looked tired, less like a woman who had spent much of her life cocooned by extreme wealth than one who had known more than her share of struggle and heartbreak. It aged her, but only for a moment, and then the vitality came rushing back in. “Some of you already know that I once found myself saddled with a sociopathic ferret of a husband, one Ernst Vossoff, whose messes needed to be cleaned up on a regular basis. There were occasions, in places cut off from my usual resources, where…well, where I was the only one available to connect the dots.” She turned to me. “Just providing a footnote, Counselor. I’m not claiming my experience adds up to anything as distinguished as my own.”

“Appreciated,” I said. “Maybe it will prove helpful anyway.”

Philip glanced at his brother and sister, neither of whom had raised any objections to me taking command of the situation. They just met his gaze, giving him nothing. After a moment, he ventured, “Since you do admit you’re a suspect, how do you suggest we work this, so we can trust each other?”

Oscin stood beside the Khaajiir’s body, awaiting further instructions. Skye was still with Dejah and Jelaine. Neither had spoken a word, or made a move to interrupt the confrontation between Philip and me since the moment Dejah silenced the party. But I didn’t need to know them as well as I did to know that their shared mind was racing.

I said, “I’ll need to step aside, for a moment, and confer with my associates. I’ll leave one here and take the other. But even the two of us who walk away will still be in sight every second. Watch us and make sure of it. In the meantime, nobody leaves this room.”

I left it up to the Porrinyards to decide which one joined me. The volunteer turned out to be Oscin. He accompanied me to the other side of the capsized dinner table, at one point steadying my arm as I stepped over the place where an upended bowl oozed yellow cream into a carpet already spotted with damp. We didn’t stop until we were up against the bulkhead, until recently a scenic view of Xana, now a claustrophobic closeup of emergency shutters, shutting out everything else in the universe.

My left shoe made a noise as it pulled free of something sticky. “What a mess.”

Oscin kept his voice low. “Which one are you talking about?”

“The whole thing, of course. The murder. The politics. Even the family relationships, here. You did pick up that Philip’s the odd man out in this particular collection of Bettelhine siblings?”

He nodded. “It’s all over their body language, and the way they speak to one another. And you saw that he’s not happy about that?”

I spared a look at Philip, who had stepped aside with Jason and Jelaine, the three of them already engaged in intense conversation. Philip looked angry, Jason upset but placatory. Jelaine stood between them, watching both their faces, not participating for the moment but very much prepared to step in, as either peacemaker or manipulator. “I won’t say they hate him, or that he hates them, but there’s definitely some powerful tension going on. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it goes back years. Maybe even before Jason’s disappearance.”

Oscin followed my gaze. “Oscin the single had the same kind of strained relationship with his older brother. They didn’t want to fight, but by the time they reached their teens, they always approached each other with excessive delicacy, rather than risk tugging at some emotional tripwire and setting off the explosion neither wanted. As a result, nothing ever got said. This feels…something like that.”

“Maybe Philip never forgave Jason for going away.”

“Maybe,” Oscin said. “Maybe it has to do with wherever he went.”

“We’ve been given an explanation for that.” I left out the drama and, over the next few minutes, summarized the story Jelaine had told me before dinner, concluding with: “It could all be bullshit, of course. Have you ever heard of this place, this Deriflys?”

“No,” he admitted. “But if the story’s true, and Jason did have to live like an animal to survive, it could very easily explain why Philip would resent him for it. He’s the type who would consider it a stain on the family honor, or something—more so if Jason was a favorite who remained a favorite even after he came back, sullied but forgiven. A jealous sibling, of the kind who always obeyed the rules without question, and always lived up to everything his parents expected, might even come to hate the one who involved the family in scandal but was still granted the rewards of a favorite son.”

He went distant for a moment, perhaps weighing the information we had, perhaps giving his full attention to whatever Skye was hearing. Then he said, “What about the AIsource? Have you attempted to contact them again?”

“On and off since we stopped. They’re not answering. I’m not even getting the buzz I get when they’re receiving but not in the mood to acknowledge. Either they’re cut off by whatever’s shut down all the Bettelhine hytex links, or they’re determined for us to handle this ourselves.”

“I suspected as much,” he said. “It’s a pain in the ass, though. I can deal with being trapped here, but it would be nice to know what’s going on outside, if help is coming or not.”

“It’s coming. With Bettelhines aboard, it’s coming. But the silence so far gives me the impression it’s going to be a long wait. Something’s interfering.”

He nodded without surprise. “Unseen Demons?”

“I don’t know. Could be. Not enough data to know.” Once upon a time I’d had the habit of nibbling my fingernails at moments of intense concentration. My fingers had looked raw much of the time, but it had been something to do, some way to postpone speaking while I chose the right thought of the many possibilities clamoring for my attention. Sometimes, like now, I missed it. “There’s something else I want to ask about. Earlier, as Skye, you told me you’d picked up an implication you didn’t consider any of my business.”

“That was before this became a murder investigation and it became important data. Do you need me to tell you now?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve already figured out what you must have been talking about. I think I’d already sensed it for a while, but it wasn’t until after the emergency stop that I went back over everything else I’d been seeing and knew for sure. You can rest your conscience and consider this secret spilled without your help.”

His relief was palpable. “Should we let on that we know?”

“We might as well pretend that we’re still out of the loop, watch what happens, and reserve the big reveal in case we find ourselves needing to spring it during questioning.”

“Good plan. What else?”

“Jelaine and Dejah exchanged some words during my confrontation with Philip. Skye was present. What did they say?”

He surprised me by breaking into a rueful grin. “It’s not important, but you should know. It was right after you made Philip back down. Jelaine said, ‘Wow.’ And Dejah said, ‘That’s my girl.’”

I don’t know what I’d expected. Certainly not a whispered confidence between two conspirators cackling that their evil machinations were all proceeding according to plan. But the answer sandbagged me. It was a moment before I could answer. “Really?”

“Really. I keep saying, Andrea: You should stop being so surprised when people are impressed by you. The universe is not entirely populated by enemies.”

I looked at the Khaajiir, still slumped in his chair, his eyes still open and seeming to pass judgment on everything within his field of vision. The accusatory expression seemed new. Before he’d died, he’d seemed gentle, wise, saddened, and at most amused my understandable distrust. I realized again that he’d been the first Bocaian to treat me with civility since that long-distant day when I’d joined in the madness of my family of neighbors, and wanted nothing more than Bocaian blood. For the first time since I’d discovered his death I felt the loss become personal. How great a gulf had this sentient crossed, to stand in the same room with me and profess that he did not want me dead? Was it lesser, or greater, than the gulf he’d crossed in the last minutes of his life? Worst of all was a thought so terrible that it made my stomach lurch with a nausea I had not felt from the mere discovery of the murder: had he died blaming his death on the monster child Andrea Cort, who he had so foolishly approached without fear?

Damn you, whoever you are, for making me think that.

The Porrinyards were correct. The universe was not entirely populated by enemies. But they were still thick on the ground, and the Khaajiir’s unknown assassin had just become one of mine.

I didn’t know whether the carriage would start moving by itself or, if not, whether the rescue craft, the Stanleys or whatever Philip had said they were called, would reach us in minutes or hours or days. But I made a vow right then. If there was anything I could do to help it, I would not leave this place before I had a chance to spit in the murderer’s face.

I rubbed the corner of my eye with my thumb. “I…ah…don’t suppose anybody’s said anything incriminating, the last few minutes.”

Oscin had the grace not to recognize a moment of uncertainty when he saw one, “Farley Pearlman claims to have had some problems breathing. He’s sure the air’s going bad, but everybody else thinks it’s just fear and the stench coming off what’s left of the Khaajiir. I believe we may have to move everybody into one of the suites, for humanitarian reasons. That tableau over there is really more than people unaccustomed to crime scenes should ever be expected to take.”

I considered that. “They’re going to have to wait. Nobody except us, and whomever we’re questioning, goes in or out of any of the other rooms until we can check them out ourselves and eliminate the possibility of evidence tampering. If they have any trouble dealing with the smell, we’ll put them on an oxygen unit.”

“That won’t compensate for the evidence of their own eyes. The body’s sickening.”

“I know. But if we’re very, very lucky, it will bother the killer too.”

Oscin and I returned to the bar area, where the others stood, watching our return with varying mixtures of hope and fear. By the time we got there the Pearlmans were huddled together, breathing into cloth napkins. The somber but dry-eyed Colette remained behind the bar, where she’d been joined by Arturo Mendez, Loyal Jeck, and Paakth-Doy. Dejah Shapiro and the three Bettelhines all stood at the opposite end of the bar, all managing to look defiant and glum at the same time, if that was possible. Vernon Wethers and Monday Brown stood apart from them, the first with his hands clasped behind his back, the other with hands clasped in front. I don’t believe either one intended to be a parody or an editorial response to the other, it just worked out that way. As for Skye, she’d moved to the easy chair where the corpse of the Khaajiir sat, still leaking black ooze into the cushions.

Jason said, “So, Andrea, have you come up with anything?”

Damned if he didn’t seem to be showing genuine affection for me. Couldn’t have that, not now. “First things first, sir. Out of my own intimidation by the circles where I now find myself traveling, and my confused uncertainty over your father’s purpose in inviting me here, I’ve been allowing the members of your family to get away with calling me by my first name. That assumes a familiarity you have not earned. I don’t know if we’ll ever be cordial enough to merit such liberties, but until I find out who among you killed the poor Khaajiir I must insist that everybody except my traveling companions return to calling me Counselor. It’ll remind us all where we stand. Are we agreed on that?”

Jason’s nod had the ghost of a smile in it.

Philip’s eyes bugged a little at my effrontery. He might have objected, but his siblings appeared, if anything, even more pleased by me, and that bothered him more.

Jelaine flashed a shell-shocked grin. “Whatever you say. Counselor.”

I didn’t know what was going on here, but sooner or later, I’d have to teach those two that I was not a pet performing tricks for their amusement. But not now. “Second. In a few minutes I’m going to start questioning you, one or two at a time. I will need to do this away from the others, to make sure that everybody speaks freely and without contamination by other testimony. You may nominate one person, preferably one of the stewards we know to have been belowdecks during the emergency stop, to monitor those interviews and ensure that we do not do anything to obstruct or alter the results of the investigation. That person will remain sequestered with us unless he, or she, finds reason to object to our activities. One of the Porrinyards will also stay with me throughout, while the other stays with you, serving the same purpose as the person you have designated to watch me. While I’m doing this I must insist that you refrain from discussing your testimony with one another. The reasons for this should be obvious, but just in case any of you decide to defy this request, my associate will be monitoring you to detect any signs of collusion in the meantime. Are we agreed on that?”

There was even less enthusiasm for this, but everybody mumbled and nodded and allowed as how it was all right, they guessed, the sole exception being Dejah, who actually raised her glass in approval.

According to the Porrinyards, she’d called me “her girl,” earlier, assuming ownership based on the few short weeks we’d worked together a few years ago. That rankled. Sooner or later I might have to teach her that I did not belong to her any more than I belonged to Jason and Jelaine Bettelhine.

“Third,” I said.

This was the part that never worked. The first thing any investigator learns is that everybody lies, even if they don’t have to, even if their lies are innocent, even if their lies have nothing to do with the crime. There were always things people were ashamed of, things they thought harmless to hide, things that interest the investigator not at all but that, when hidden, hide the truth behind a thicket of false leads. It was useless to even try to prevent that with a mere warning. But I had to try. “I haven’t been shy about my lifelong assessment of the Bettelhine Corporation. I think it’s a criminal enterprise, run by blood-soaked dynasty with a bottomless capacity for evil. I have no illusions over my own ability to bring you down. I’m just one woman with problems of her own. But right now I’m not interested in bringing you down. I’m interested in solving this one crime, and only this one crime. The time may come when you may find yourself faced with a choice between answering my questions and concealing other crimes filed under the category ‘Corporate Secrets.’ When that time comes, if you lie and I catch you in a lie, it will only give me more reason to consider you responsible for the Khaajiir’s death. If you tell the truth…well, I give you my word that nothing you tell me today will ever leave Xana.”

Philip’s voice was a soft vessel releasing its venom in drips. “Except if you think it’s relevant to your case.”

I showed teeth. “That’s the point, sir. I’m in your jurisdiction, not mine. Whatever happens, I won’t be involved in the prosecution except, if you wish, as a witness. The best I can do once I identify the culprit is present my evidence to you and let you pass it on to whatever passes for Bettelhine justice, even if that killer ultimately turns out to be a Bettelhine and the worst he gets is a scolding from Father.”

“Now wait just one minute,” he began.

I held up a finger. “Honestly, Mr. Bettelhine. I don’t give a damn. What happens to our unknown culprit is up to you. Either way, there’s absolutely no reason for my superiors to ever hear of it. My only interest in asking any question that leads to finding out who did this terrible thing is that it furthers all of our chances of ever getting off this vessel alive.”

“You still don’t have the right to demand access to corporate secrets—”

Jelaine cleared her throat. It was a gentle sound, less an interruption than the mere suggestion of one, but it had enough power to summon the attention of everybody in the room. “I think I can guarantee that Counselor Cort won’t abuse the situation.”

“In God’s name,” he demanded. “How?”

“She’s Father’s guest. His honored guest.”

Once upon a time, Philip had been a child, throwing tantrums and stamping his foot when he did not get his way. I don’t know how well the elder Bettelhines disciplined their kids, so there was no way of telling whether his foot-stamping phase ended when he was two, ten, or thirty, but the contortions that twisted his face now established to my satisfaction what he must have looked like when he did it. “You’re still risking the family’s future on an outsider.”

“Exactly,” Jason told him. “And that’s what Father would want.”

The tenor of the room changed with those words. It was still thick with fear over our situation, shock over the death of the Khaajiir, and uncertainty over which one of us had turned the evening into an exercise in murder…but there was something else now: wonder. It was most visible in the eyes of the Pearlmans, who for the most of the evening could not have considered me anything more but some low-prestige offworld bureaucrat, and had now seen me not only seize control of the crisis but also get declared the personal project of Hans Bettelhine himself. They didn’t know whether to bow to me or run from me.

In Dejah Shapiro’s case it seemed more like fascination. She could not have expected a moment like this in my future the last time we’d met, and now that she’d witnessed one here she just fingered her chin, titled her head, and contemplated me as if hoping furious thought would bring me into the proper focus.

I remained on the wrong foot with Monday Brown. He looked like he was irritated by my very existence. Philip looked like he wanted to hit me. And I could not read Vernon Weathers at all.

I had no idea what I could have done in my life to merit loyalty from Bettelhines. Any Bettelhines. If indeed loyalty was what this was.

But if it gave me an advantage, right now, this was not the proper moment to question it.

Or as one of my teachers once said: When you’re in over your head, swim.

“Good,” I said. “Now that we’ve got that settled, I think there are two things we need to do. First, we need to confirm that nobody here’s hiding another Claw of God, or weapon of similar lethality, on his person. Oscin will stay here while you divest yourselves of everything you’re carrying, while Skye and I take the time to examine the Khaajiir’s body. Have you decided who gets to monitor us while we work?”

All eyes turned to the stewards, Arturo, Colette, Loyal Jeck, and Paakth-Doy.

The truth, as I’d known when I’d gone through the motions of allowing the Bettelhines to choose between those four, was that only two seemed safe to allow near the investigation: Jeck and Paakth-Doy, the only ones I couldn’t personally place within a meter of the Khaajiir at any point during the night.

In the end, it was Jason who made the choice I’d wanted them to make. “Doy?”

Paakth-Doy glanced at her co-workers, then stepped forward, with a shyness I hadn’t seen from her before.

“It will be my honor,” she said.

The sounds of protest and offended dignity from the crowd over by the bar provided steady background music as Skye, Paakth-Doy, and I stood before the plush easy chair and regarded the wreckage of a sentient being.

The Khaajiir sat with his feet planted on the floor, and the rest of him swallowed by a chair that would have engulfed a being twice his girth. The chair was so large that his spine failed to rest flush against the backrest, but rather leaned on it, in a position a living biped might have considered too uncomfortable to endure for long. He’d rested his staff across the two armrests, crossing in front of his now-sunken abdomen like the safety bar in a child’s high chair. His left palm, painted black by the goo that less than an hour before had been solid and functioning aside him, pinned the staff to the armrest on that side, both holding it in place and marking it with the stain of his death. A shiny crust had formed where his fingertips soaked the plush fabric. His right arm pinned the other end of the staff to the armrest on the other side, but more of his hand extended over it. Sometime in his last few minutes his fingertips had convulsed in some way, scratching at the fabric on that side to produce a series of three jagged lines, all identical: each consisting of three diagonals, leaning left and then right and then left again to produce zigzags. His unmoving fingertip still rested at the base of the zigzag farthest from the right. Enduring the stench, I leaned in close and saw a wisp of fiber from the chair lodged beneath that fingertip, fluttering in some unseen air current.

“Note this,” I told Skye.

“Noted,” she said.

The Khaajiir’s features had gone slack, free of the contorted trauma that sometimes remains on the faces of those who perish by violent means. His eyes were closed, his lips curled in an expression that looked like a smile but was probably just the expression they assumed at rest. A thin trickle of saliva, without any visible blood content, had trickled from the corner of his mouth. The only sign that his fate had been anything but a natural one was a single bloodstain, the size of a fingertip, on the tip of his nose.

I remembered the funeral of an elderly Bocaian neighbor who had died in his sleep when I was seven, about a year before so many others met deaths that had been much worse. All my Bocaian neighbors, and all of my human ones as well, had filed past the platform where the deceased lay in state, and whispered the same respectful phrase, Bocaian for Walk in Light, Where We Must Follow. I hadn’t thought of that for longer than I now wanted to contemplate, but the words came to my lips again now. I spoke them under my breath, shook my head as I realized what I’d just done, and said, “That was the first Bocaian phrase I’ve spoken in decades.”

Skye hovered close, protectively. “You said a few words earlier tonight.”

“Really? I don’t remember.”

“It is to be expected,” Paakth-Doy clucked. “I know at that times of stress I revert to my first tongue, Riirgaani.”

I’d been around far too many dead bodies in my professional life, and had learned to face the cooling collections of meat as abstractions, more problems to be solved than truncated lives to be mourned. But being around another dead Bocaian, after all these years, was tearing the scabs off old wounds. For a few seconds I found myself eight years old again. I sniffed, rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, and, unable to come up with any more relevant comments, murmured, “It must have been agony.”

“I would not want to die in such a way,” Paakth-Doy said.

“It’s not what you think,” Skye told us. “Based on my readings, when I worked with the species, the K’cenhowten were never torturers in the way you and I understand the term.”

“How so?”

“Torture means something else to the K’cenhowten. Their sense of pain is not acute by human standards. They know when horrific things are being done to their bodies, and they feel all the dismay you and I might expect when they see their persons ravaged, but there’s always been a certain upper limit to the agony they can feel, and it’s well within their ability to function. It’s a built-in limit that prevents them from being incapacitated by agony, and relieves them of our human tendency to faint or convulse or, for prisoners experiencing extended torture, mind-destroying shock.”

“That’s one hell of a survival mechanism,” I said. “But would it work with a Claw of God?”

“Especially with a Claw of God,” Skye said. “K’cenhowten’s age of darkness did feature several methods of execution unbearable by human standards, but the Claw itself fries most of the body’s internal pain receptors the same way it fries the rest of the organs. The point of the torture was not inflicting pain, but rather horror. Its victims were positioned in front of mirrors and forced to watch everything that made their lives possible drain from them, despite exoskeletons that remained intact. For a K’cenhowten, wrapped in its impervious shell, this would have upset their very perceptions of the world.”

Paakth-Doy shuddered. “I’d imagined…agony.”

“And you imagined correctly, Doy, but not the right kind. Imagine that you were a human prisoner in medieval times, slowly roasted over an open flame after first being provided a drug that incapacitated your ability to feel any pain whatsoever. Imagine you were able to watch your skin turn black, your fatty tissues bubble and run like water. Imagine that your agony was not great enough to drown out every other thought, or to give you the blessed escape of unconsciousness. Imagine instead having to dwell on what was happening to you, and its terrible permanence, at whatever length your captors decide it should last. Is that better? Or worse?”

I cut off Skye’s gruesome recitation. “Still, you’re talking about a K’cenhowten’s nervous system. Would the Claw of God affect a Bocaian or a human being the same way?”

“It could if calibrated,” Skye said. “What’s more, the device is designed to locate the heart and lungs—or, with minor adjustments, their alien equivalent—and shield them from the full effects of the pulse. The blow to those organs remains fatal, all by itself, but it’s the kind of fatal that would take several hours to kill. Meanwhile, they continue to feed the victim’s brain for several minutes, even as the rest of him turns to soup.”

Paakth-Doy had turned green. “You are saying that he might not have been aware of the terrible thing happening to him.”

“I’m saying that if he failed to notice the blood, he might have interpreted what he was feeling as fatigue.”

I rubbed my chin. “Meaning that we cannot use his participation in conversations to isolate the moment the Claw was used on him. Anything he said, after being moved to this chair, could have been said after he was already dying.”

Skye said, “He might have been dying even earlier, though that would have been cutting it very close for the killer, given how soon after the attack the Khaajiir would have started to…leak.”

I nodded, the ugliness of the crime scene receding as its value as evidence moved to the forefront. Signaling for silence from the other two, and sparing a quick look at the crowd over by the bar, which seemed to be enduring the search about as well as could be expected, though the Pearlmans in particular were eyeing their own small pile of valuables with the glumness of people who suspected that their own paltry wealth an embarrassment in the eyes of the people who owned their very world. There was no point in calling to Oscin to ask how things were going. If he found anything of importance, Skye would alert me.

So I folded my arms before my chest and circled the chair, examining it from all angles, sometimes leaning in close to appraise the scene from a fresh angle. As a place to obscure the fate of a sentient about to die from exsanguination, the chair could not have been better. Had the Khaajiir been sitting on one of the couches, the blood pooling beneath him would not have been hidden by raised armrests at either side. As he grew weak, he might have collapsed to one side, and drawn the attention of others who would have been able to isolate those who had been near him at the moment of the crime. Had he been sitting on one of the hard chairs beside the dinner table, the blood mixture would have spilled over the sides and formed a spreading puddle on the floor by his feet, where it could have been spotted by Mendez, Colette, or any diner who left the table for as long as thirty seconds.

This chair, though? The seat tilted backward, forming a perfect reservoir for the accumulation of liquids. The cushions had absorbed some, too, slowing discovery of the murder even longer. The armrests, propping him up at either side, made him remain upright and thus seem healthy, if only dozing. In short, moving him here, before or after applying the Claw, virtually ensured that we would not be able to notice anything wrong for several minutes.

But was that a sad happenstance, or a deliberate strategy on the part of the killer? If the latter, it had been Jason and Jelaine who had moved him here, and Jelaine who had stayed with him for several minutes. That made them prime suspects.

On the other hand, Jason and Jelaine had enjoyed access to the Khaajiir for some time. Had they wanted him dead for some reason, they would not have needed to wait until they could commit the crime within a room filled with distinguished dinner guests.

Monday Brown and Vernon Wethers had also checked on him. Colette had been in and out of the room several times, and Dejah Shapiro had passed right by the Khaajiir on her way to doing something in her own suite. I hadn’t seen the Pearlmans approach him after the emergency stop, but either of them could have clapped the Claw of God against the Khaajiir’s back when the lights went out. Anybody upstairs during the crime could have been the killer, and anybody downstairs could have provided material aid.

All it would have taken was decisive action during a single moment when everybody else was distracted.

And that’s all it would take again if the assassin was not finished, and I was right to expect a third Claw of God…

I was still considering the foul implications of that when the people over at the bar started shouting.