Man-Kzin Wars IX, Larry Niven [leveled readers TXT] 📗

"Not damn. Now we know the killer was already here. That means we've got to be dealing with an organization that's already in the Swarm. Smugglers for one of the crime rings probably."

"We'll have to get the Provopolizei involved. Get them to dig out a contact list for us."

"Attack it from both sides. Run a movement trace on every person who went through the Inferno that night too."

"I already thought of that. It'll take hours to run and weeks to analyze."

"So what have you got to lose? Run it overnight and we'll start the Goldskins on it in the morning. If we get a match, we'll refocus. At least you won't be totally reliant on the Provos."

She was right, of course. I wrote a cable to the ARM on Wunderland instead of the Provopolizei. It was adding another bureaucratic step, since they'd have to go to the Provos anyway, but I knew people I could trust in the ARM—people who could smell an evolving coverup. Then I set up my board to run the trace and let it go. Somewhere in the mass of data that it would generate would be the critical clue. I'd just had to find it—if the murderer was in fact the man she left with and if he didn't have a false ident. It would be hours before the trace was done. I screened Suze and made a date for dinner.

* * *

We met at the same Earth cuisine restaurant as before. Why not? The atmosphere was intimate and the menu inviting. Suze was already waiting when I got there. She greeted me with a kiss and asked, "How's the case going?"

"Well, we got a kzin who confessed to the crime."

"So you're done?"

"Well, not exactly. It seems he was confessing because he thought he'd gain status by it. He didn't actually do it."

"I don't understand."

"I don't think he understood himself."

"So where do you go from here?"

"Good question. Right now I'm running a movement trace on everyone who went through the Inferno that night. The murderer has got to be in there somewhere, unless he used a false ID."

"How do you know the man she left with is the killer?"

"Miranda wasn't just a random victim; someone wanted her dead for a reason. They watched her, figured out her movements and set her up."

"She was just a kid! Why would anyone want to kill her?" Her eyes showed worry.

"We don't know yet. Someone she was involved with on Wunderland, a criminal group."

"Do you know which group?"

"I haven't got a clue right now."

"I think that's your problem alright." The concern went away and her smile developed those mischievous dimples.

I missed the joke and riposted with a brilliant, "What?"

"You haven't got a clue."

I threw a miniature shrimp from my stir fry at her. I didn't throw it hard but I grossly misjudged the gravity field and the morsel went flying past her on a high, slow trajectory that eventually intersected the back of a balding patron's head. He looked around in irritated surprise while I tried to look oblivious and Suze suppressed giggles with difficulty.

It became a game after that. We took turns picking targets and launching shrimp at them. The low light level helped conceal our nefarious intent but the fifth time the maitre d' caught us and we were asked firmly to leave. Suze asked him if he'd call the ARM if we refused at which we both collapsed into gales of laughter. He turned red and looked ready to burst but she got ahold of herself and apologized, then smoothed over his feelings by insisting on being allowed to buy two liters of their crumbleberry cream pudding before going because it was so incomparably good. On the way down to the tube station she poked me in the ribs.

"Maybe you shouldn't have picked the maitre d' as a target."

"You're the one who threw the shrimp while he was looking."

"I had to. He was already watching us to see if we were the ones doing the throwing."

"No need to confirm his suspicions."

"He wasn't suspicious, he knew. He was just waiting to catch us."

"All the more reason not to hit him with a shrimp."

"He was a witness. I couldn't let him live," she said with mock ferocity.

"The shrimp or the maitre d'?" I asked innocently.

She laughed and poked me again. I caught her around the waist and held her and we walked arm in arm to the tube car, giggling and kissing. It wasn't in the best traditions of the ARM for Tiamat Station's Chief of Investigation to go around in public acting like a giddy teenager. Well, hopefully nobody knew who I was. Anyway, I felt better than I had since I'd arrived at Alpha Centauri and if anyone did notice me I didn't care.

Back at her apt she called, "Dessert!", opened the pudding container and sampled some with her fingers, then gave me a crumbleberry-flavored kiss. In the process some of the pudding spilled on her jumpsuit. That was an invitation if I ever saw one so I unsealed it and spilled some more pudding, then kissed it off. We fell to the floor into a sticky tangle of clothes and pudding, and passion. That led to the shower and steam and more passion which in turn led to the bed, cuddling, contentment and . . . love?

Maybe love.

I fell asleep with her in my arms, serene for the first time since I'd left Earth.

* * *

I was late again the next morning. Tammy winked at Hunter, who rippled his ears and double twitched his tail in a manner I could only assume was meant to be suggestive. I glared at them both and got another tail twitch from Hunter and a look of "Who? Me?" innocence from Tammy. Tracker snarled something at Hunter, then rippled his own ears as he was let in on the joke.

I was feeling too good to let it bother me. If my lovelife boosted morale I'd just chalk it up to my doubtless outstanding