Cultivator
Universe

The ice crystals forming on Grusti's mustache twitched. “Are you trying to hint that she wasn't Turbo's real kid?”

“I'm trying to hint that she wasn't really human.”

“She looked human to me.”

That was not the response Pataco had been expecting. He had been expecting confusion, bewilderment. He was certainly bewildered enough, why should Grusti be any different? The dim light and the bulky clothing made reading emotional cues difficult, but Pataco saw nothing that bespoke surprise—only sullenness.

There was something going on here that he did not understand. Oddly, it had nothing to do with murder, and everything to do with snow, aliens, genetic manipulation, frozen frogs, and sugar in the blood. Only he couldn't get the pieces to fit together, and he was supposed to be solving a murder, not indulging in scientific curiosity.

Murder. Opportunity. The killer had to have driven to the Turin residence, probably in a sled. “Will I be able to use satellite imagery to track a sled arriving at and leaving the residence?”

“We only have weather and com sattelites.” Grusti told him.

“Flight plans?”

“Our sleds are technically surface vehicles, we don't file flight plans. Besides, who would file a flight plan showing they are on their way to kill someone?”

“You'd be surprised.” But none of this was getting anywhere. “Can you think of any kind of record tracking the movement of people out here.”

“Not really. There's not enough traffic to need traffic control.”

And no witness to question, either. His only witness had run out into the snow, and a storm of epic proportions was obliterating her track and burying her. It was also depostiting a considerable pile of snow onto the floor of their mysterious shelter. Pataco glared as more tiny ice crystals floated downward. The snowflakes caught the light from his visor and sparkled like tiny stars. Something so dangerous had no right looking like spun sugar. Not that sugar didn't have its own dangers, he remembered, and once again his mind was worrying away at the sense of something missing.

Too much sugar in the blood. Hyperglycemia. Glycoproteins. Antifreeze. The wind howled out its fury above him, while down below the alien slept peacefully in a bed of ice. “Frozen doesn't always mean dead.”

“What?”

“Frozen doesn't always mean dead.”

“I know,” Grusti retorted. “I said it first.”

Pataco didn't reply; he was too busy trying to look up the index of industry for the South Archipelago. Finally he found what he was looking for. “Somewhere out here there is a scientific outpost headed by a Dr. Wysorickovitz, doing research on biological adaptations to cold. She a friend of yours?”

“Not hardly. She doesn't like men.”

“But you've met her.”

“Yes.”

“How would she respond I asked her to compare a genetic sample from my sniffer, with a genetic sample taken from our frozen friend here.”

Grusti stepped towards the Captain, his posture threatening. “Don't mess with it. It isn't dead.”

“Who says? Dr. Wysorickovitz?”

“Yes. She's a leading expert in cryobiology.”

“According to my data feeds, she's a leading expert in genetic manipulation.”

“What are you getting at?” the native guide growled.

“I think that little girl is one of her experiments.”

“And what if she is?”

“If she is, she might still be alive.”