The Tau Ceti Transmutation (Amazon) (8 page)

A trill sounded in the back of my mind, the distinctive sound of a Brain call. It rang five, six, seven times. “Um, Paige?”

The trill stopped.

Sorry,
Paige said.
Looks like Miss Meeks declined the call.

I looked at Carl. “Hmm.”

“She must be busy,” he said. “Try again later.”

My android friend was probably right, but the conspiracy theorist in me wondered if perhaps Valerie hadn’t answered for a different reason. What if the intruder had intentionally led us on a wild goose chase to isolate Valerie and place her in a vulnerable position? Could my precious flower of a client be in danger?

That’s a ridiculous notion and you know it,
said Paige.
If someone were after Valerie, why would they wait until you were involved before going after her?

Paige had a good point, but I still couldn’t get the thought off my mind. At least, not until Paige bored me to sleep with neurobiological research vids she’d culled from the cardslip during the climber ride back to Pylon Alpha.

8

“Ah, college,” I said. “The camaraderie, the pageantry, the passion! These hallowed grounds sure take me back.”

We walked down the campus’s west mall, a broad expanse of walkways and manicured grass hedged by neat rows of knee-high white orchids and canary-yellow birds of paradise. Hanging over them swayed bright red-orange poincinias, more commonly known as flame trees, their boughs heavy with so many blossoms I could barely discern the green leaves underneath the brilliant crowns of vermilion.

I took a deep breath, filling my nostrils with the sweet, sticky scent of the flowers and the damp, earthy aroma of the freshly cut grass, though other smells lingered as well. Stale beer and old urine, I think.

“Um, Rich, I hate to break this to you,” said Carl, “but you never went to college, much less Cetie U.”

“Oh, I know that,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t crash my fair share of college parties. And let me tell you, there’s a certain liveliness and vivaciousness that erupts at a party full of college co-eds that you don’t find anywhere else. It could be the exuberance of youth, or the eagerness of open minds—”

“Or the copious amounts of alcohol consumed,” said Carl.

“—or that,” I admitted. “But still, good times.”

We crossed onto a path lined by rose-colored hibiscus flowers that wound to and fro like a drunken river before spilling out in front of a high-domed building crusted with cornices, balustrades, parapets, and other completely unnecessary details architects seemed intent on cramming onto the front of every academic building they could get their hands on. Perhaps the embellishments’ purpose was to lend an air of knowledge and sophistication to buildings that essentially functioned as gathering spots for kids with too much money and time on their hands, but the cynic in me thought the adornments had a more basic purpose—one that resulted in more SEUs in the bank for the architects and builders.

Carl and I shuffled into the building and took a lift to the third floor, working our way down a cream and white hallway edged with elaborate baseboards and crown molding before ending at the address our lost-and-then-found sock-clad slip had indicated.

The door winked open, and we walked into an austere room with only four pieces of furniture in it: three plush chairs and a slim, curved, clear plastic desk that reminded me of a wave cresting upon an invisible shore. Behind the desk, in one of the chairs, a woman sat.

She was short, just over a meter and a half, with big dark eyes and long, chestnut brown hair held in a tight ponytail. The slim nose perched on the front of her face held a bit of a curl to it, but in a natural way, not one forced by awkward manipulative surgery.

On the far wall across from the woman, images from a projector spun and swirled—proteins folding and molecular diagrams assembling. Within the maelstrom sat static equations featuring lots of symbols that weren’t a part of the traditional English alphabet.

The woman jabbered away at someone on her Brain as we entered. “—but that’s exactly what I told the oversight board. I know they expect a grant proposal in by tomorrow morning, but the problem is we can’t submit it without knowing the T-base sequencing mechanics, and our programs to model them haven’t finished processing the projections. Unless the dean kicks McDougal off the cluster in the next half hour, I can’t imagine we’ll be able to finish in time, much less analyze the results.”

She finally noticed us. “Hey, can you hold a sec?” She turned toward Carl and I. “My office hours are from oh-fourteen hundred to oh-sixteen hundred on the same days as my lectures.”

I glanced at Carl. “Why does everyone always assume they know what I want? First Keelok, then that Dirax, now one of the finest minds Cetie U has to offer. You’d think people would ask more and assume less. You know what they say about people who assume, right?”

“Excuse me?” said the woman.

“Nothing,” I said. “We’re not students. Are you Professor Castaneva?”

“Well, clearly he’s not a student,” she said, gesturing at Carl and his robotic physique. “And yes, I am.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you from the funding committee? Maybe
you
can talk some sense into the oversight board. I’ve been interfacing via Brain with Darna all morning, but she can’t seem to get them to grant us an extension. Maybe if—”

“Slow down. I’m not with any board. The name’s Rich Weed. I’m a P.I.”

“Yeah, so?” she said. “I am, too. Just about everyone on our faculty is. Are you here about a collaboration? Because now’s not a good time.”

I blinked. “Wait…
what?
You’re a private investigator, too?”

“What?
No.” The professor shook her head. “I’m a
principal
investigator. The head of a research project. You’re really a private dick?”

“Whoa, watch the language,” I said. “Carl here gets easily offended.”

“He’s joking,” said Carl. “He does that a lot. But to answer your question, yes, we are.”

“Darna, let me call you back,” said Professor Castaneva, waving us in and pointing us toward the two open chairs. “Sorry about that. I’ve been up to my elbows in grant bullshit all day. Makes me snappy. So you guys are private investigators, huh? I didn’t know those still existed.”

“Few people do,” I said as I took a seat. “We’re something of a dying breed, Professor.”

“Call me Fran,” she said. “Professor Castaneva makes me sound too much like my father. So what’s going on? What brings a pair of private eyes my way?”

“We’re investigating a case,” I said.

Fran raised her eyebrows. “Yeah…I figured as much. I may not have any experience with detective work, but I do have a Ph. D., you know. I was looking for more specifics.”

“And, believe it or not, I was trying to avoid them,” I said.

“Huh? Why? Are you involved in something lurid?” The professor leaned forward. “Don’t tell me there’s a sex scandal going on in the department. Not that I’d be that surprised. I’ve seen the way Professor Doyle looks at some of his grad students.”

I shook my head. “Nothing like that. I was avoiding specifics because I have so few of them.”

Fran leaned back. “Explain.”

“Well, our case is a little…
unorthodox,”
I said.

“Which is putting it mildly,” said Carl. “Our client hired us to investigate a trespassing that occurred at her apartment, but nothing was taken. Instead, the intruder left behind a clue, ostensibly to help us find him or her.”

“It was a token for an antique gaming cabinet,” I said. “One that led us to an arcade in the spaceport owned by a Tak named Keelok. Once there, we found another clue leading to a Veesnu church operated by a couple of pair-bonded Diraxi, except the church also served waffles, if you can believe it. And the waffles were good.
Darn
good. But that’s not what we were after. We were looking for a sock, and we found it in their lost and found. That led us here.”

“A
sock
led you here?” Fran asked, her brows furrowed.

“Well, not precisely. One of your promo slips was inside.” I pointed to a desktop slip holder, full of slim, plastic rectangles with the Cetie U logo emblazoned upon them, which faced me from the corner of the professor’s workspace. Other than a holoprojector base which looked as if it could be used for displaying anything from vacation stills to brain cross-sections, it was the only thing on her desk.

“One of my slips was in a sock?” Fran glanced at the holder. “You’re not just making this up are you?”

“I told you it was complicated,” I said.

Fran rubbed her thumb and forefinger across the edges of her thin, pink lips. “You know, I’d be happy to help you, detectives, but I’m struggling to see how I fit in here.”

“You’re not the only one,” I said. “Trust me, I know how this sounds, but unfortunately I’ve told you pretty much everything we have to go on. You’re telling me there’s nothing about my story that sounds familiar to you?”

“Gaming tokens? Waffles? Socks containing clues? No, none of that is at all familiar,” said Fran. “However, I suppose it
is
rather interesting you found my slip at a Veesnu church. I’m a professor of exoneurobiology, and my area of expertise is in Diraxi brain function.”

“So?” I asked. “Veesnu is a Diraxi religion, but what does that have to do with your research?”

“More than you’d think,” said Fran. “Through we call Veesnu a religion, it’s more of a cross between a theology and a science. There’s a lot of principles in it that have their basis in the fundamentals of Diraxi brain function.”

“I sense an explanation is heading my way,” I said. “I should warn you, I never went to college, so I’m not particularly adept at sciencey stuff.”

“It’s worse than that,” said Carl. “He also spent a number of years taking kicks to the head for a living.”

I glanced at my fair-haired partner. “Maybe that firmware update of yours really
is
messing with your circuits. That felt particularly snarky.”

“It’s a statement of fact,” said Carl. “The intent was to inform Professor Castaneva of your learning handicap.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve been medically diagnosed,” Carl reminded me.

“I wasn’t going to lecture you,” said Fran, holding up her hands in appeal. “Honestly, I’m not an expert on Veesnu, though I do find it interesting.”

“How so?” I asked, leaning forward.

If you were that curious about the religion, I could’ve briefed you on your way here,
said Paige.

Yes, but you’re not cute and fleshy,
I thought as I gazed at the Professor’s pretty little nose.

“Well, think about it,” said Fran. “The Diraxi neural system developed to transmit and receive communications through electromagnetic pulses, which is how they’re able to communicate with those of us with Brain implants, but unlike our electronic devices which are tailored to transmit and receive along certain wavelengths, the Diraxi are able to pick up a wide spectrum of transmissions. Think of their antennae as providing them with a sort of sixth sense. Just as we can focus on a smell or sound, they can focus on a particular electronic transmission, but that doesn’t mean they don’t sense, at some level, the noise around them. And the universe is
full
of electromagnetic radiation, not just from the activities of sentient beings, but from the cosmos itself. You could see how an early Diraxi culture might be inspired to base a religion upon the ‘voice of the universe,’ as they sometimes call it.”

I nodded as I pretended to show interest.

“And as intriguing as all that is,” Fran continued, “the really interesting part is how their neural architecture processes and filters the signals. Have you ever noticed how Diraxi communications don’t feel the same as incoming Brain missives? Sort of how it feels like they’re
thinking
at you instead of
talking
to you in your head? Well, it’s because we don’t actually require Brains to interpret their communications, only to receive them.

“Normally, when we communicate with other species through auditory cues, our Brains automatically translate the speech into something recognizable, but Diraxi don’t bother. Their communications work with our minds at a subliminal level, one that goes beyond speech to mere thought. It’s fascinating, really, and even more so because their neural architecture is so different than ours. Honestly, it’s far more similar to that present in androids and AIs than human brains, but somehow the Diraxi have been able to adapt their communications to fit human patterns of thought. But I’m rambling. Sorry. I get excited about neurobiology, if you couldn’t tell.”

I blinked the fog from my eyes and tried to process everything the cute, chestnut-haired professor had told me, but I was having a hard time of it. My plan to show interest in her work as a precursor to wooing her had pretty much failed when she uttered the word ‘neural’ for a third time.

Paige snickered at me, but I ignored her. “Your passion shines through, Fran, but I’m not sure any of that helps us unravel the case we’re working on. I don’t suppose there’s anything else you could offer us?”

The professor shrugged. “You’re going to have to give me some direction. I’m still not entirely sure how I’m involved in any of this.”

“Have you ever heard the name Valerie Meeks?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“And nothing from our story earlier rang any bells?”

“Nope.”

I scratched my chin. “I don’t suppose anyone misplaced any socks around here?”

“Definitely not.”

I curled my fingers into a fist and pounded them lightly into my open hand, feeling as if my frustration was dangerously close to boiling over again.

“This is ridiculous,” I said to Carl. “How the heck are we supposed to solve a case when we have no suspects, no crime to speak of, and our only clues appear to have been planted by someone with a sock fetish whose primary goal was to make us gallivant all over Pylon Alpha like a pack of spaced-out knuckleheads? Seriously, I’m starting to second-guess accepting this stupid case in the first place.”