Pataco hastily checked on the progress of his search agent, and discovered that in the last six years thousands of ThermoPod size medium boots had been sold on Fenris. He shut the agent down. If he was going to find Turin's killer, it wouldn't be through his boots. “We should check the rest of the residence,” Pataco told Grusti as firmly as he could. He didn't try to be sympathetic, he knew it would come out wrong.
Grusti got slowly to his feet. “This is main living space,” he said, gesturing vaguely at a frost coated seating arrangement, and a large workstation. He stumbled in the direction of a closed doorway, and pressed his mittened hand against the pressure plate. The door didn't move at first, but when he thumped it forcefully it began to slide open.
The next room seemed to the residence's hub, which also acted as an area for eating. Its icy serenity was marred by the body of a woman sprawled across the table. Pataco sighed and pulled out a second sniffer, but Grusti growled something low in his chest, and strode over to a door. When the pressure plate didn't work he began fumbling for the plate covering the manual release. Pataco released the sniffer and went over to help. “It's okay to touch it,” he said, thinking that maybe the guide had taken his warning not to obscure evidence a bit too strongly.
“Not if I don't want to loose any skin,” Grusti answered. But he stripped off the mitts, and went to work on the panel with just his gloves. This time it opened. He pulled the handle, and leaned on the door. Reluctantly it inched open.
Peering though into the slowing widening opening, Pataco could see a narrow bed, adorned with two fuzzy toys and a brightly colored sweater far too small to fit the woman in the other room. There really had been a little girl. But she wasn't there, unless... he pushed past Grusti and checked the two doors on the far side of the room. One led to a fresher, and the other a closet containing half sized cold-weather gear in a virulent shade of green, and a pair of orange boots.
Grusti was already struggling with the next door.
“Why don't the doors work?” Pataco asked. “The lights are still on.”
“They freeze shut,” Grusti responded, as he leaned against the handle. “It's not supposed to get this cold inside. Have to be careful,” he added, “push too hard and the handles will break off.”
This door opened on a long chamber. The carcasses of six huge furred creatures hung from the ceiling, each easily three meters in length. “Clethaci”, Pataco realized, eyeing the dark fur under its blanket of frost. “Why not white, for camoflauge?” he asked.
“They do all their hunting under the ice,” Grusti pointed out. “They come in silver, but it's rarer. When you said that importer made the report, I thought Turbo must have bagged a silver.” He continued onward and opened the door at the far end. Eager swirls of snow forced their way inside, and the whine of the wind merged with Grusti's outraged howl. Pataco hurried to his side. They both looked out on smooth undulations of virgin snow, disturbed by nothing but the wind, and one small trail of footprints heading out into the deadly dazzle.
Pataco lept forward scanning the trail as he went. “These footprints appear to be smaller than would be made by the boots I found in the closet.”
“Inside boots,” Grusti responded from behind him. “Less bulk, less protection.”
Pataco nodded. “Is she headed anywhere in particular?”
“Where is there to go?”
Pataco didn't like the sound of that.
Her steps started out about the same distance apart as Pataco's, but gradually they had got closer together, and more erratic, until eventually, where a windswept outcropping of dark ice broke through the blanket of snow, there were clear signs that the girl had slipped. The smoothness of the snow was marred, and the magnified view on his visor showed traces of blood and skin fragments on the rough surface where snow particles had frozen to the ice. He pulled out his last sniffer and used it to gather a sample.
“Better tuck it back in your pocket,” Grusti advised. “Or you'll lose it.”
“It's programmed to follow me,” Pataco protested.
“Maybe. But it isn't programmed to deal with that.” Grusti pointed up at the sky, and for the first time Pataco lifted his head, and realized that the sky had darkened, and a gray haze obscured the horizon.
All Blog Posts