Aquari by DD White
* * *
Eistia started chirping out curse noises as the shadow of the flying saucer darkened the sky above him to cast a shadow over the vehicle wreckage he investigated. The vehicle had been registered to Eromot, but the body in the front seat looked more like Morgamor. He couldn’t figure out why Eromot, if that had been Eromot, rode in the backseat squished amongst a lot of packed belongings, and now burnt almost beyond recognition. Eistia felt his imagination becoming over-stretched if he had to think the driver could have ended up cramped into the back seat the way that body ended up. It also stretched his imagination to think that Morgamor had been fit to drive, or did that really explain this wreck? The vehicle had obvious markings from an Aungtalli laser that Eistia had become familiar with in the course of his investigation into Ministry of Science deaths. He worked the theory that the driver actually ejected before the vehicle plunged onto rocks below the steep cliff where the highway had been chiseled into a ledge, but then Volock’s flying saucer arrived. There wasn’t time to get prints off of the bodies, or even to search for ID cards. Eistia quickly tore blood tissue samples from pieces of bloody clothing on both bodies before Volock emerged from the virtual particle vehicle to close down another of Eistia’s investigations.
“Here we go again
what is now was then.
I’m here to stop you once again.
Once again it’s like its always been.
I’m closing down your case again.
You can not win.
Eistia Uranian,
comply with what everybody knows.
You must leave because this case is closed.
Here we go again.
What is now was then.
I’m here to stop you once again.”
Eistia never gave Volock a break, and would make sure Volock had to argue his point again as Eistia always protested having an investigation closed down by the obvious culprit. “There may be more to investigate here.
This scene is more then what it may appear.
The bodies are not what you may have thought.
Maybe Morgamor, but not Eromot.
Let me investigate, then we can see
who he really is to tell family.”
Volock sneered at Eistia. “Investigation?!
Your inclination
is your own imagination.
Case is closed. End of conversation.
Notify the family.
It’s fine by me.
One is Eromot,
not what you have thought,
other Morgamor
that is your closure.
Tell families for sure.”
Eistia put up the usual resistance to Volock before conceding to close the case and drive back to Keshdesh. Volock returned to his saucer, which lifted the vehicle along with the two bodies with a virtual particle force field that suspended them in the air below the saucer. Volock’s saucer dragged the wreckage through the air as it passed up Eistia’s vehicle on the road from above. He knew he watched a murderer removing his own crime scene evidence after it had been left there just long enough to establish an official story. ‘Vehicle loses control on road and plunges to oblivion’ would probably be the story by the news. Oh and by the way, it just happens to be the ninth Ministry scientist to die of an accident since the controversial closing of the Ministry of Science. It doesn’t take a trained investigator to smell the fasanct squalli* in that, thought Eistia as he drove home. Eistia decided to have the tissue samples tested in this case no matter what his boss said. Something wasn’t right about the Eistia body. (*Fasanct squalli is a very odorous bug on Urania that stinks up the area of its habitat to discourage intruders.)
Grega had not accompanied Eistia on the traffic accident investigation because he followed a lead on the mysterious value fraud case. The guy they arrested still wouldn’t tell them who he really was. There had been no record on the guy’s prints, but lots of Uranians lived outside jurisdictions that kept such records. Value and identity on Urania had been mainly still determined by an ID card one got when born, however finger prints were beginning to be used to purchase things. It turned out he may have drove a vehicle to the wiffsue house that morning and there just happened to be one abandoned nearby the establishment ever since the suspect’s arrest. An excited Grega greeted the defeated Eistia as he entered the police station after a long drive back from the accident location to Keshdesh.
“I checked that vehicle and now I see
the owner is the mystery arrestee.
Seems that our man of fraud and value harm
is really well established on a farm.
He owns his own farm just outside of town,
but value fraud is why he came around.
He needed value more than you and me
so he could purchase high-technology.
He commits this crime causing alarm for
he’s building something while just a farmer.”
It turned out the suspect had been from a farm not far from where Eistia had just driven back from. Could there be a connection between the farmer committing value fraud to purchase expensive technology, and the secret location of the scientists Eromot probably headed toward before meeting his demise? It had been Eistia’s job to consider such things, and Volock would not get away with stopping him.
A very confident Volock gently lowered the crashed vehicle to the area near the temple where he could at last have a look at his latest kills. Volock took a sadistic pleasure in committing murder for his Bishop master. After that he landed his flying saucer, and approached the vehicle to take on the chore of disposing the bodies. He rummaged around the bloody clothing for their ID’s and slowly produced the laminated cards that all Uranians were expected to carry as their value. The first was Morgamor, check. Then Volock chirped furious sounds of cursing when he held up the other ID card of Dolka, the hitchhiker they had picked up last night before the attack.