Blood Siren Read online

  “Let’s go,” Nero said to Khepria. They had a lot to talk about, and he was eager to hear what the Mother-Priestess might have revealed.

  They pushed their way through some of the man-sized plants with leaves big enough to qualify as hammocks on their way to the exit. A high-pitched tone, sharp, but unlike something a machine would make buzzed in his ear. His auto-targeting software painted a projected path of the source and started a countdown in his vision in translucent letters. He walked on, giving no indication anything was wrong and keeping his eyes on the airlock entrance between two of the mangrove trees ahead. He waited until the object was within optimal range, then snatched out his hand and caged it in his palm.

  Khepria stopped moving when he did, throwing a quizzical look over her shoulder.

  “It is a wonder,” he said, slowly releasing the tiny, skeletal insect from his hand. It launched itself and resumed its wailing path around him in apparent disregard for its own mortality.

  Anopheles albimanus—Mosquito in Solan—one of the deadliest animals on Earth to this day.

  “What? That thing?” Nero couldn’t believe it.

  Not by itself, you big dummy. These creatures are carriers for a large variety of blood-borne diseases, but is most famous for its transmission of Malaria and—

  “Enough,” he muttered.

  “Amazing that they allow its existence here,” Khepria said.

  “I know.” He tracked the tiny, flying creature and slammed his palms together on it the moment it returned to his optimal striking zone.

  “Nero!”

  He brushed the smashed carcass from his hands. “You heard Prospero, it was a threat.”

  Her ears twitched and she pressed her lips together.

  “Come on, let’s go.” He led the way through the airlock, grateful to be out of the humid, bug-infested air. He flared his nostrils, breathing in deep the smell of concrete, ozone, and brine as they left the Gaian Biodome behind.

  “Katozi Slyn,” Khepria said after he sealed the cockpit of his air-car.

  He noted her rapidly twitching ears. “What?”

  “The name of the ship that delivered Siren to Brogh,” she said in rapid tones.

  He grinned. “She told you the name of the ship?”

  She nodded. “And guess where it originated. Some planet on the edge of Confederate space called—”

  “Elmorus,” they said together.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ikuzlu City: Solan District, Kosfanter

  41:1:3 CST (J2400:3062)

  It wasn’t until after they downloaded the contents of her implant and determined that she didn’t have anything to do with the baron’s murder that the Confederate Space Authority released Cygni to the Ikuzlu Police Department for violating the Media Access Law. From the standpoint of comfort, the eight days leading up to this event were better than the last two spent in Ikuzlu’s holding cells beneath police headquarters. In CSA custody, at least, she’d had her own two by two concrete cell.

  I guess I was lucky, she thought, staring at the stainless-steel funnel built into one corner of the chamber that served as a universal toilet for all species. She’d been forced to use it in front of her eleven cellmates, the Volgoth officers guarding the hexagonal area girded by thick, gleaming metal bars, and whoever was watching through the black sensor dome hanging from the ceiling. She’d never had a problem using public bathrooms before, but this kind of exposure took the word public to whole new levels. Luckily only two of her cellmates were human like her, and both were female. The rest of her cell mates, unless they shared her explorer’s nature, probably weren’t interested in a little skin from other species—

  Well, unless they fall into the twenty-percent group the last Spur Herald survey found who said they would try a relationship with a sentient species other than their own, she thought. One in five meant two of her cellmates would probably be curious. She’d thought a lot about that, and about other useless trivia over the last few days. Without her recorded data or her implant, which had been turned off upon her arrest, there was little else to do but think in circles about nothing and try to avoid offending people.

  The four Achinoi largely kept to themselves. Dressed in loose-fitting, stained pants and gray vests, the three males and single female had spent the last two days staring at the pair of Volgoths sharing their space and murmuring to each other in their native tongue. Each had the tips of the quills coming off their shoulders and scalp dyed in red, green, and purple. Some of their quills looked untouched, but Cygni wasn’t sure that was because they actually were, or if it was because they were dyed in a color her eyes, set to human norms when she was arrested, couldn’t see. The Volgoths, two males, were dressed in synthesized leathers with red-and-blue rags tied around their right arms.

  Rival gangs, she’d surmised yesterday. They must not have been big time enough for her to know them, but their dress and how they were acting gave it away. She was glad there were only two in here with her. The other humans, from their smart-cloth jump suits, looked to be middle-class and non-violent offenders like herself. Of the remaining three members of her involuntary company she recognized only one species. The Orgnan was taller than her by at least forty-centimeters, his dark-gray skin rose out of a high-collared leather jacket over a dirty-looking white shirt stretched tight enough across his broad frame that she could make out the bulges caused by the bone plates beneath his skin. Baggy, black pants covered his thick legs and the curve of his lower abdomen that swept between them in a low, hanging arc that made it look like he was wearing a large, cloth bag. Cygni grit her teeth, hoping the brute didn’t recognize her from the report she did on the Orgnan organized crime syndicate at the beginning of her career. The syndicates practically ruled the empire, and in some ways were a point of pride among the Orgnan living in the Confederation. She’d earned a lot of enemies, particularly in the criminal world, with that report.

  With a shiver she turned to the remaining two beings. They’d only arrived this morning, and she hadn’t had much of a chance to suss them out since she awoke atop her bedroll in the corner she’d staked out of the hexagonal cell. They were two females, that was obvious enough from the shapes they bore. Both were humanoid, but the pair could not be more different. One looked like a giantess from old Earth mythology. Hairless, her two-meter-wide body had a thick, protruding brow shading blue, reptilian eyes that swept back and forth across the chamber every few moments. Her nose had nostrils so long and large they turned it into a single strip of skin-covered cartilage in the center of her face. Her frown was made of broad, human-like lips. The resemblance was so close that Cygni had the impression that but for the eyes, they could be related species. That impression faded when she traced her eyes down the woman’s body and saw that she was squatting on triple-jointed legs, and had thick, webbed hands crossed over her chest. Nearly the same height as Cygni was squatting, she could only imagine how tall this female was when she stood up. She hadn’t woken until they were placed in the holding cell, but she knew the woman would have to crouch to walk around the station.

  Her companion, or at least the being huddled together with her, was a reptilian-looking humanoid with bright vermillion eyes set wide apart on a cobalt-blue diamond-shaped head. Two fist-sized bulges protruded from where a loose, yellow-scaled neck hung in folds over the top of the neon-green collar of her ruffled tunic. Behind them a fan of red, black, and aqua feathers grew out of the back of the female’s skull giving her a natural headdress. Five-digit hands projected from frilled cuffs of the yellow-and-red striped garment. They were blue, like her head, on top and red on the palms. Cygni suppressed the urge to make a “caught red-handed” joke in her head, focusing instead on the thigh-length navy-blue skirt that was split in the back to allow a long, tapered tail to emerge unencumbered. The snake-like appendage and the female’s legs were encased in violet stockings held on with garter straps that vanished beneath the skirt. Her shoes were just as brightly colored, half-y
ellow and half-red with a splayed-open cuff by the female’s ankles that made it look like she was stepping in flowers.

  “Staring at something?” the giantess asked in heavily accented Solan.

  Cygni quickly shook her head and snatched her eyes away from the bright-colored alien. The statement lent credence to the pair being together. Her mind chewed on that bit of information, wondering if they were traveling companions or if they’d met in the city’s jail system. Holding cells like this one were only used for those awaiting trail, or those with such light sentences that shipping them off to one of the Matre’s penal moons was not cost-effective. It wasn’t likely that they’d met here, she supposed, and given that she didn’t recognize either species—

  The roar of the heavy metal door guarding the white room beyond the bars of her cage brought Cygni’s attention up. Three Volgoth guards paced about the walkway around her cage in their dark blue uniforms. The click of their crystal hooves on the hard floor didn’t stop or stutter, so she supposed the sound of the door was expected. The room beyond the cell was square, with a passageway leading back from one corner to where the heavy security door sat in its frame. She’d been lead down that way into this dead-end chamber when the CSA dropped her off. She looked to its mouth and waited for whatever was to come of the sound still ringing in her ears.

  The sound of those approaching mixed with that of the guards, making it impossible to pick out how many beings the party comprised without her implant being on-line. She bit her lip, feeling like she’d had a limb severed. She’d grown accustomed to the extra senses and abilities her implants granted her, and being without them was growing a stone in the pit of her stomach.

  A uniformed policeman, a Cleebian, emerged from the hallway first. She barely had time to register him before another of his species came up from behind him. Whereas it wasn’t true that all Cleebians looked alike to human eyes, it was true that it was hard to tell them apart without enhancement software running in her implant, but this one she knew. Small green liver spots dotted the vocal cords connecting his sharp chin with the torso below. His black-and-silver robe fluttered about him as he thrust thin arms back in a gesture of disgust when all three of the fist-sized eyes in his light-bulb of a skull fixed on her. The tiny mouth above the cords twisted up as though he’d eaten something rotten. She’d seen the look before.

  “Mister Iai.” She rose to her feet to face her boss, somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t anything more witty to say. Perhaps it was the presence of the chrome-plated carbon-polymer bars between them that put a damper on her usual light-hearted mood.

  He jut his chin out, stretching the beard of flesh beneath it taut. “Cygni Lau Aragón, if you weren’t one of my key reporters I’d leave you here to rot. What is that human expression? You screwed it this time.”

  Close enough, she thought, choosing not to correct him because she had the feeling like he was here to take her out of this place, and she wanted to get out before the Orgnan recognized her.

  “I did, boss, I did.”

  The furled lids of his eyes sank down one-third the way towards each other. “What’s this? Humility?”

  Mister Iai signaled his escort with a boney, long-fingered hand. The officer nodded, and a moment later four of the bars sank silently into the floor before Cygni.

  “Thank you,” she nodded to the officer, stepping out of the cage. “I assume you paid my fine?”

  “Yet another one you’ve cost this publication,” the cords of Iai’s external larynx buzzed.

  Behind her, the bars slid back up into place.

  “This way, Miss Aragón,” the Cleebian officer said.

  She took one step to follow, then turned. “One second, what are those two?”

  Both of the Cleebians beside her rotated a lateral eye to follow her hand towards the two aliens she didn’t recognize from earlier.

  “The big one is an Utona female, the scaled one with the bright colors is a member of the Ikharn species,” the officer said.

  “I’m surprised you don’t know that,” Iai added.

  “My implant’s off-line, remember? No access to the Cyberweb.”

  “I mean I’m surprised because they’re both species of the Sagittarian Republics, isn’t your boyfriend from one of them?” Mr. Iai buzzed, a sound she took to be mocking.

  “I’m dating a Nyangari, not representatives from each of the republics.” She snorted. “Besides, we don’t talk astrography when we’re together.”

  “Heh, Solans.” Iai gestured again and the officer took the lead back down the hallway.

  They passed through the security doorway, and the checkpoint beyond where one of the Volgoth cops reactivated Cygni’s implant. It took until she and her escorts were in the lift to the street before it finished updating and her vision became cluttered with translucent messages. She tuned out Iai’s lecture on how she should know about the five republics even if she wasn’t dating someone from each, and sorted through the information coming in. After getting through all of the security warnings the CSA caused breaking her encryption, and dismissing the update notices after they completed, she was left with a single message in her inbox. She felt a warmth in her chest when she saw who it was from, but it faded fast when she noticed it was dated from only two days before.

  He waited eight days before checking up on me? She snorted.

  “Are you ill? I hear you can catch sicknesses from a dozen worlds in those cells,” Mr. Iai said.

  “I’m fine,” she half-growled.

  “Good, then you can answer a question for me.”

  She sighed. “What?”

  The lift took them straight up to the street, emerging from two panels in the sidewalk that slid aside at its approach. Its walls and ceiling were transparent, she hadn’t really noticed when they got in as she’d been distracted with clearing up her interface, and the moment it cleared the pavement Cygni found herself blinking in the noon-time sun.

  “Here you are,” the officer said, waving his blue hand before one of the walls. It obliged them by sliding downward out of the way.

  “Thank you,” Iai said, putting a hand on Cygni’s arm and half dragging her out into the open air. The officer saluted and disappeared back into the ground to the hum of electric motors.

  “Did you manage to save any footage?” he transmitted to her through her cerebral computer implant.

  She frowned. “I’ve just spent eight days as a guest of the Confederate Space Authority, what do you think?”

  His cords buzzed. “So your excursion was useless! Your fine is coming out of your pay, of course.”

  “I expected as much.”

  “And you’re suspended for the day!”

  The words hit her like an ice water balloon. “What? Since when is that a fair punishment? We violate the media law all the time. Hell, it’s practically routine procedure to get arrested for an investigative reporter. Why the hell are you suspending me?”

  “Because, your ineptitude has cost the ‘Herald dearly this time. We’ve got the same lame feed as almost everyone else, and you were there! Worse, that divisible excuse of an entropic sham, the Cygnus Sentinel scooped us! They’re streaming close-ups of the body all over the ‘web. We look like amateurs, and let me tell you, young Solan, that is something I cannot allow this publication to abide!”

  She felt her mouth go dry. “Divisible” and “entropic” were grave insults in the mathematical culture of the Cleebian species. Worse, she’d been scooped by the ‘Sentinel. Iai was right, it was a sorry excuse for a publication and it burned her terribly to know that they’d beaten her. She sighed, feeling her energy drain out with her breath. She was abruptly aware of how much ten days without a shower made her smell, and had the violent urge to get home as soon as possible.

  “So, I see you realize the magnitude of your ineptitude.”

  She waved him off, not bothering to try and correct his Solan. “I’ll take the day, like you said, go home, and see if I can salv
age something. Does that work for you?”

  It was an uncharacteristic admission of defeat on her part, but it had the desired effect. Mister Iai nodded in the human fashion. “You do that, Cygni. I’ll contact you tomorrow with some ideas on how you can make up for this mess.”

  She sighed, but nodded. A moment later she used her cerebral implant to signal a taxicab.

  Shkur wasn’t at her apartment when she got home. It wasn’t a surprise, just a disappointment. The message he’d sent was about being busy and promising to contact her later, but never once mentioned concern for her welfare. She couldn’t figure out if that was his confidence in her, his culture, or just insensitivity. She decided not to over think it, and filed the debate in her mind for later contemplation.

  A well-deserved coffee break was in order for surviving her recent troubles. She took a shower, put on her favorite yellow and blue sundress with spaghetti straps and called her best friend, Boadicea Euphrati, to tell her to head down to “O’Keife’s Coffee and Zyloch” in the heart of the unofficial Solan ghetto.

  O’Keife’s was unique in the area for its outdoor seating just in front of its glass windows. Cygni once saw an old Earth picture of a bistro on the Cyberweb when she was a girl. Sitting among the circular, wrought-iron style tables with the briny breeze coming down the street, she could almost imagine herself as one of her ancestors enjoying an afternoon out by a tropical shore.

  “I’m just glad they didn’t decide to do a full mind-scan on me,” Cygni said after taking a sip of Earth style coffee. It felt almost as good going down as the sunlight on her mocha-tan skin. They were lucky this afternoon, and managed to get to the cafe before the sun passed out of the narrow corridor between the half-click tall buildings around them.

  “That’s the risk you run with one of those implants,” Boadicea Euphrati said between sips of her own. The shells in her dreadlocks clicked together when she shook her head.