The Vandal's Shadow Read online

grew thinner. Their patrol car changed tracks and swooped on a downward slope through fuzzy silhouettes of buildings. They were less than three hundred meters above the ground when the car came to a halt at a small platform. They exited onto the platform, and Kask lit a cigar below the neon glow of a Global Unity Police insignia.

  "Sir, smoking is illegal," Ngata said.

  Kask eyed him through curling haze which flickered in the harsh light. "Don't be ridiculous. This isn't real smoke, of course." He got into the transparent elevator and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. "Well?"

  The two policemen boarded the elevator, and they began their descent to ground level. Emerging from the lowest clouds, Kask could now see a rolling expanse of vegetation, walled by city lights beyond. The elevator slowed below the canopy and stopped on a circular platform. They exited into the Botanic Garden.

  "We'd better hurry," Kask said. "I smell rain coming. Evidence could be lost."

  Chang nodded, leading the way. They stepped onto pavement shattered by grass and walked through the garden. The only light now came from the police torches. Soon Kask could make out a rectilinear building ahead, capped with two domes. The entire brick structure was overgrown with vines. They passed the main entrance. Off to the right, Kask could see another old dome up a hill.

  "Where are we going?" Kask asked.

  "We're almost there. The body is at the Sundial of Human Involvement."

  "I've always found this view to be calming," Ngata said as they rounded the corner of the old building. The officers stood and looked out over a valley and high hills beyond, which were only intermittently revealed by the night mist. As an afterthought, Chang gestured behind him.

  Kask saw a semicircle of small, cubic stele surrounding a black Rorschach pattern on the ground. He squatted down and saw that the pattern was formed from a gelatinous substance mixed with chunks of tougher material. He picked up a hard chip of something.

  "This is bone," Kask said.

  "How do you know?" Ngata asked.

  Kask held it up and turned it over. "See this pattern here? That's the trabeculae of cancellous tissue."

  "Okay. I'll take your word for it."

  "But it's hard to know whether this is from a human." Kask saw three people, each wearing different uniforms, round the corner of the building as he put the bone chip back in its original place. They stopped a few meters from the sundial, and one wearing blue and gray beckoned to the patrolmen. Chang approached him in response, and they began to talk in low tones.

  "What the hell are you doing?" the man in the finely patterned uniform asked. "I thought I told you to wait for me before letting him poke around." He and the others wore the same formally styled black hats, and they carried no spears.

  "I apologize, sir. I thought you would already be here by the time we arrived. Kask hasn't really done anything yet except a general visual inspection of the scene," Chang said.

  "It looked to me as if he was touching something just now."

  "Well it seems he found a bone chip, but he's unsure whether it's human or not." Chang unconsciously smoothed his uniform. The man waved Chang aside and approached Kask. He looked at him from down his nose.

  "Well, you're Kask, I take it."

  "That's right." Kask rose from his crouch.

  "I am Deputy New Zealand Regional Chief of Police Haratua. That is Assistant Regional Chief Mahuru, and that is Municipal Sheriff Hakihea of Wellington. We're allowing you a lot of leeway with this one, but we'll be watching you closely. This isn't the colonies. There's an order to things."

  "If I'm stepping on anyone's toes, I can bow out. I thought I was doing you a favor."

  "Of course, we're grateful for your assistance--I don't mean to give the wrong impression. I'm just saying ...." Haratua trailed off.

  Kask pointed to a spot in the muck. "There's bone in there."

  "So this was a person. This is murder then," Sheriff Hakihea said as he edged closer to Haratua's back.

  "Well, if I make an eyeball estimate of the amount of material we have here, I'd say it looks more like a large animal," Kask said. "But there's one way to find out." Kask removed a small cylinder from his arm-comp and used it to scoop a sample of the material. He placed it back in the receptacle and tapped a few buttons. "Now we wait a moment."

  "What is that? A genome sequencer?" Ngata asked.

  Kask nodded. He gestured to the mess on the sundial. "Any idea what sort of weapon could do this?"

  Everyone remained silent. Sheriff Hakihea shook his head. "Lethal weapons have been illegal in Global Unity for a long time. They're pretty rare since the Great Melting laws. Unless this was some kind of industrial instrument, but I can't fathom what."

  Kask's armband chimed. He pulled up his sleeve and examined the readout. "Interesting. The genome belongs to no known sequenced species on Earth. However, there are several genetic tags publicly flagged."

  "So you're saying small sections of the genome are in a publicly available database?" Hakihea said.

  "Yes. And doing a search on the web, it links to--a company called Pendant Industries. Ever heard of them?"

  "They're a robot manufacturer," Hakihea said. "I see their logo on robots all over the city."

  "But why would a robot company have published DNA sequences? What does their website say?"

  "Apparently nothing about that sort of thing," Kask said as he was scrolling through his display. "My original search got a hit on some database, but we can't really see it. Some proprietary stuff."

  "All right, I've heard enough," Haratua said. "Kask, I want you to go to the head of Pendant Industries and find out what this thing is. Sheriff, you can call ahead to make sure Kask can get in for the interview. Patrolmen, you can resume your normal patrol." Haratua was about to say something else, but he paused and looked back along the path going around the observatory. A woman approached them, flanked by two patrol officers guiding her.

  "What's this?" Hakihea said when they arrived. "Don't bring a civilian so close to the scene."

  "Sorry sir," one of the patrolmen responded. "We think she might be a witness, so we thought you might want to talk to her."

  Haratua exhaled. He spoke to Hakihea. "Take her into the old observatory and have Kask interview her." Hakihea took the woman by the arm and guided her back along the path, into the abandoned building. Kask followed.

  They entered the main doorway, which was already open to the elements, and made their way to a domed chamber. Vines grew on the walls and an old telescope, wherever sunlight could reach through the arched slit above.

  Hakihea gestured to a cylindrical object near the base of the telescope.

  "Sit down," he said to the woman. She looked at him.

  "I'm fine standing, thank you," she said listlessly.

  "It's not for your benefit. Sit down," the Sheriff said again. Kask took off his fedora and crossed his arms. The dim light glowed on his smooth head around the tattoo.

  She sat on the object slowly, maintaining her straight posture and expressionless countenance.

  "What's your name?" Hakihea asked.

  "Evelyn Cai."

  "Occupation?"

  "Broker."

  "And what were you doing in the park after dark? Are you a squatter?"

  "Do I look like a squatter?" With her eyes, Cai gestured over the expensive clothes which made her body look like a plastic doll. Hakihea stared at her, waiting. "I was working on a hobby. That's not a crime."

  "And your hobby is ...?"

  "Photography. I specialize in night photography, particularly."

  "And where's your camera?"

  "About fifty meters above us." She lifted her hair, pointing to a removable electroencephalographic reader on her scalp.

  "Call it down."

  Cai made no indication of her compliance, but a moment later, a small camera drone drifted down through the telescope door and positioned itself between them.

  "Land it and turn it off," H
akihea ordered. Cai did so without protest. "Did you see anything around the sundial tonight?"

  "No, I was no where near that area."

  "And your camera? Might it have spotted something?"

  "I doubt it."

  "We'll need to check its hard drive anyway, if it has one."

  "Of course you are welcome to. It does have a light-weight quartz-etching drive."

  "Thank you for being so cooperative, Ms. Cai."

  "Why wouldn't I be?" she said sharply.

  "Well, I don't know. Some people don't like to be told what to do. They're unaccustomed to it in a free society. Or perhaps you feel privacy is being invaded."

  "Privacy? I've never understood that concept."

  "Ah, well. It's just something people say sometimes. It felt like I should say it there." Hakihea chuckled lightly.

  Kask cleared his throat and stepped closer to the two of them. "What type of commodities do you broker, Ms. Cai?" he asked. Cai looked him up and down for a moment.

  "Information," she said.

  "What kind?"

  "If I told you it might compromise the identity of my clients."

  "So you do understand the meaning of privacy," Kask said.

  "I don't call it privacy. I call it common sense business practices."

  "So, you're an 'information broker' and it just so happens that your hobby is night photography?"

  "It's not entirely a coincidence. I have a lot of knowledge of imaging techniques from my work. It has led me to artistic applications in my spare time."

  Kask gestured to Hakihea, pulling him away from her. They talked out of earshot near the entrance to the chamber.

  "That's enough time spent on her for now," Kask said. "We're not going to get much else from her, and I need to look into