The Legacy of Lehr (14 page)

“I'm really sorry about this, Commodore. I—ah—Maybe you should know what's happened, before you go charging in to see the captain. There have been two more victims.”

“Two!” Wallis said, looking up.

“Can you give us any details?” Mather asked.

Courtenay nodded uncomfortably. “I probably shouldn't be telling you this, Commodore, but my men will be blamed, too, because some of them were on duty outside the hold where your cats are. The first victim was one of our people—an engineer's mate named Phillips, up on Deck Two. He'd been dead a couple of hours when they found him—his throat ripped out like the last victim, his chest and arms badly slashed. There were—bloody cat paw prints on the carpet around him. And a—a tuft of Lehr cat fur in one hand and a bloodstained force-blade in the other.”

“Cat blood or human, on the blade?” Mather demanded.

“I don't know that, sir.”

“I see,” Mather said quietly. “And the other victim?”

“One of—the Aludrans,” Courtenay murmured. “The one called Ta'ai, Muon's mate. Apparently
she
was found right after her attacker left. She—had just stopped breathing, but a steward and one of my men were able to keep her ventilated until a medical team could get there and take over. She's been in surgery for nearly an hour now, but she's really critical. Doctor Shannon's been pulling blood from some of the other Aludrans to keep her going at all.”

Wallis shook her head and sighed, then closed up her medical kit and slung it over her shoulder with a determined expression.

“Mister Courtenay, I hope you don't try to stop me, but I'm going up to Medical Section to see if I can help out. Mather can answer to the captain for both of us.”

“I agree,” Mather said, resting both hands on his hips just a little defiantly. “Courtenay, are you going to try to stop her?”

Courtenay shook his head. “Not me, sir. And I'm certainly not going to try to disarm you.
You
can explain it to the captain.”

“I'll do that,” Mather replied as they moved toward the door. “By the way, I've already checked with my people in the hold, and Lieutenant Wing reports nothing out of the ordinary. I've given him orders not to do anything or to admit anyone until I can get there myself, so if I were you, I wouldn't try any forcible entry that the captain might suggest before he has all the facts. Do you understand my meaning?”

“Yes, sir.” Courtenay opened the door. “There's no problem, gentlemen,” he added, as his men alerted. “Commodore Seton is coming with us. Doctor Hamilton is needed in Medical Section.”

Five minutes later, all of them except Wallis were standing before another door on the command level of the ship as Courtenay buzzed for admission, then thumbed the door control. A tense Lutobo sat behind a large plasteel and leatherine desk, the dark polished surface reflecting his even darker mood. He said nothing as Mather came into the room, only signaling with a curt hand gesture that Courtenay should leave them alone. There were no chairs on Mather's side of the desk, so he approached to within arm's reach of the desk and stopped.

“Where is your wife, Commodore?” the captain said quietly.

Mather gazed back mildly, letting no inkling of his knowledge show on his face.

“Where a physician
should
be, Captain. She's gone to assist your medical staff. We were told that there'd been a serious medical emergency.”

“Then you doubtless know what happened and have already constructed some suitably glib explanation,” Lutobo said. “Go ahead, Commodore. I shall be fascinated to hear how you plan to wiggle out of this one.”

“I'm afraid I can't oblige you, Captain,” Mather returned evenly. “Your Mister Courtenay was very sketchy on details. Unless you give me something more concrete to work with, I'm afraid I can't do much to help you. We
are
working for the same end purpose, however.”

“Are we?” Lutobo's eyes narrowed at that, as if trying to ascertain whether Mather was toying with him, then sat back in his chair. “Very well, Commodore. Here are some concrete facts. Two more people have been attacked aboard my ship, one of them fatally. The deceased was one of my engineers. He had a bloody force-blade in one hand, blue fur in the other, and bloody paw prints around his body. The other victim is still alive, but only because of the fast thinking of two of my crew. She was found in roughly the same condition as the other two victims, except that she wasn't quite dead yet. Apparently there's some slight chance that she might regain consciousness long enough to describe her attacker. I wonder what she'll say?”

“So do I, Captain, since I've already checked with my people in the hold, and—”

“I don't
care
who you've checked with, dammit, Seton!” Lutobo bellowed, pounding one fist on the desk as he lurched forward in his chair. “At this point, I don't even care whether your cats are the culprits or not. I can't allow this to continue. I've lost a passenger and a member of my crew already, and we're probably going to lose that second passenger. That's three lives, Seton! What am I going to tell my company?”

“Is that all you can think of? Your company?” Mather snapped. “Be reasonable, Captain. We're up against something outside both our experience.
I
don't understand it,
you
don't understand it, and no one
else
understands it—except, perhaps, whoever is actually doing these things—but we're never
going
to understand it if you keep jumping to conclusions and making wild accusations. Now, I just tried to tell you that I called the hold before leaving my cabin, and I was assured that everything is still secure. Your own security people confirm that no one has passed through that door.”

“That isn't possible!” Lutobo said. “There were
paw prints
this time, dammit! Maybe they're teleporting—
I
don't know. But I won't have it. I want you to get rid of the cats.”

“You what?”

“You heard me. I want the cats destroyed. You can have Doctor Hamilton put them to sleep, or I can have my security men blast them, or we can jettison them in space—I don't care how it's done, as long as it's done quickly. But I want them gone. I want them off my ship!”

“Lutobo, you didn't hear a word I said about the importance of those cats, did you?” Mather replied. “If they don't reach Tersel alive, I don't care to be around to answer for the consequences.”

“That can be arranged, too!”

“
Can
it, then?” Mather said, leaning both hands on the edge of the desk to stare down at Lutobo. The movement opened his jacket so that the butt of the needler under his left arm was partially exposed.

“How dare you bring a weapon into this office?” Lutobo whispered, suddenly afraid. “Courtenay?”

But before he could push the button to call for help, Mather was leaning across to block the button, his wide hand pinning Lutobo's smaller, darker one.

“Mister Courtenay is more intelligent than to try disarming an Imperial agent, Captain. So, I would have thought, are you.” He released the hand and straightened menacingly. “I hadn't thought it necessary, but perhaps I should remind you
again
who you're dealing with. Wallis and I receive our orders directly from the Imperial High Command. We are accountable to Prince Cedric himself. Now, it will take you about two hours to verify that and to confirm, for your own edification, just how slight are the limitations on our authority.

“While you're checking on that—and I have no doubt that you will—I intend to go to the hold and inspect the Lehr cats again—and to remain there with them until we reach Tersel, if necessary, to ensure that they come to no harm. If I should discover that the cats are, indeed, responsible for the attacks aboard this ship, then I will personally take appropriate measures, regardless of the animals' value. But in the meantime, I will brook no interference in the performance of my duties, either by you or by any member of your staff. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Lutobo, sitting stiffly upright in his chair, was almost white with suppressed rage by the time Mather had finished, but he was still sufficiently in control to realize that the agent probably would not dare to bluff under such circumstances. With icy calm, he stood and leaned forward with both hands on his desk, so that there was only a meter or so of shiny leatherine between them. His dark eyes shone like polished stone in his impassive face.

“I understand you perfectly, Commodore.” His words were crisp, precise, cold with anger. “And now I want
you
to understand something. I intend to communicate with your superiors again, as you have suggested. And I intend to secure whatever authority it takes to ensure that your Lehr cats are destroyed and that you are broken in rank and ruined for this. You have your two hours, Commodore. But after that, we shall see whether your Imperial Command will allow you to abuse your authority to the endangerment of private citizens. The Gruening Line is not to be trifled with, Seton. Is
that
clear?”

“Perfectly,” Mather said. “And now, by your leave, Captain”—he made a brisk, formal bow and clicked his heels precisely—“I'll continue about my business. You know where to find me.”

He stopped at the new murder site on the way, but there was little there that he had not seen before. The bulk of the bloodstained carpet had been cleaned by the time he got there, and maintenance personnel were replacing a section where a guard said the paw prints had been. The piece had already gone to the laboratory for further examination and preservation until forensic chemists on Tersel could run detailed tests.

“Was it the victim's blood?” Mather asked a technician.

The man shrugged. “Well, I don't
think
it was cat blood, if that's what you're really asking, Commodore. As to whether it was the
victim's
blood, I couldn't say until I've seen the lab results.”

“What about the force-blade?”

“That's gone to the lab, too.” The man cocked his head at Mather. “Be honest with me, Commodore. Do you think we've got some kind of maniac loose on the ship, rather than the cats doing all of this?”

Mather only shrugged. “I'll let you know when I've formed an opinion.”

Ship's Security was still in evidence outside the door to the hold when Mather got there, and the Rangers had installed even more stringent security measures during the night. After Mather had put his palm to the ident scanner that now activated the outer door, he stepped into the door lock and felt the brief tingle of sensors scanning his body for weapons, pausing on his needler. Then, just before the inner door slid aside, he was caught briefly in a tangle field that jangled every nerve ending in his body. Closing his eyes, he ceased all movement and forced himself to relax immediately, not even breathing as the energy tendrills wound around him; he waited while the Ranger on the other end scrutinized him and then deactivated the field. It was Webb.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, Commodore,” Webb said, holstering his own weapon as he approached his superior. “You're the first to try out our new security system. I didn't hurt you, did I?”

Flexing his muscles experimentally, Mather shook his head. “No, you did fine. Next time, though, tell me when I'm going to walk into a tangle field.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Mather glanced toward the area of the cats' enclosure as Wing and three more Rangers came out of the security station toward him. Still in the little room, Peterson and Casey swiveled toward him, Peterson keeping one eye on the outside scanners.

In the center of the room, everything appeared to be as he had left it the night before. Electronic baffles cut off whatever sound might have been coming from inside the cats' cage, and the force nets around the cage area reduced the interior to a blurred, not-black glimmer that almost hurt the eyes to look at directly. Everything appeared to be all right—but suddenly Mather had the premonition that he did not want to see what lay beyond.

“Sir, can you tell us what's happened?” Neville asked as he and the others clustered around.

Mather brought his attention back to them reluctantly, unable to shake the waves of foreboding that were assailing him continually now.

“There have been two more attacks during the night, gentlemen—one of them fatal.”

“Well, it can't have been the cats, then,” Perelli murmured.

“Aye, we were watching every indicator, every alarm,” Fredericks said. “There was
nothing
out of the ordinary.”

Wing shifted from one foot to the other. “You said that only one attack was fatal, sir. What about the other?”

“The other victim is still alive—or was, when last I heard. It was one of the Aludrans—a female named Ta'ai. Wallis has gone to assist.”

“Then maybe this Ta'ai can tell us what attacked her,” Perelli said. “It just can't have been the cats, sir. There's no way they could have gotten out without us knowing.”

“I know.” Mather sighed, clapping the man on the shoulder in reassurance as he moved a few steps closer to the first of the defenses around the cages.

“All right, Mister Peterson, let's see inside, shall we?”

Peterson ran his tongue across dry lips and turned back to his control console, setting recorders and backup circuits in operation and rechecking all systems one last time.

“Ready when you are, sir.”

“Let's take 'em down, then.”

There was the low
whirr
of the additional recorders and sensors cycling in, the
snick
of a needler safety being thumbed aside by one of the Rangers, the tension amplified
snap
of the power switches being thrown. As the nets flickered out of existence, the mournful howling of three Lehr cats rose eerily in the hold. The fourth cat, who was the reason for their howling, would never howl again. His end of the cage was practically awash with blood.