and largest of them was Hektor, named after the
supposedly mythical warrior who local historians had erroneously decided was
either the rider or trainer of the winged horse.
Upon reaching Pegasus and taking a
hotel room in Hektor, Virtue MacKenzie had immediately contacted Leander
Smythe, a newsman who owed her a favor and very begrudgingly allowed her to
access the raw data he possessed on Acosta’s murder from her room’s computer.
There wasn’t much information to be gleaned: Acosta had a long record of shady
dealings, and more than his share of enemies. His throat had been slit as he
was leaving the Pearl of the Sea, a restaurant and bar catering to the less
wholesome elements of Pegasan society, and he had died instantly. It was
assumed to be an underworld murder, if only because Acosta himself hadn’t
associated with any noncriminals in more than a decade.
Virtue then called up the shopping
and restaurant guide that every hotel possessed but couldn’t find any listing
for the Pearl of the Sea, invariably a signal that a local pub or restaurant
had a steady clientele and neither needed nor desired any new business. She
then accessed a video overview of the city and homed in on the area around the
restaurant. It seemed as sleek and shining and well kept as the rest of Hektor,
but she noticed that the police patrolled the area in pairs—which tended to
support her tentative decision that visiting it alone and asking pointed
questions wasn’t worth the risk involved.
Five minutes later she tied in to
the local police headquarters’ press department and quickly ascertained that
the authorities weren’t about to hand any information over to an offworld
journalist. She immediately called back, asked to speak to the homicide
department, identified herself as Acosta’s grieving half sister, and demanded
to know what progress had been made in apprehending his killer. The answer was
simple enough: There had been absolutely no progress, nor was there likely to
be. From the contemptuous way they spoke about Acosta, she got the distinct
impression that the only thing they would do if they actually found his
murderer would be shake his hand, and perhaps pin a medal on him.
Finally she had the computer check
her message drop—a dumb terminal in the city’s central post office—to see if
there was any word from Cain or Terwilliger, found nothing waiting for her, and
decided to spend a little more time investigating Acosta’s murder before going
after Khalythorpe, the methane-breathing smuggler who was next on the Sargasso
Rose’s list.
She asked the computer for a
running total on her expenses thus far, found that she had run up almost three
hundred credits in user and access fees, and told it to warn her when she
reached the five-hundred-credit mark.
She then opened a bottle of
Camorian vodka, filled a cup from the bathroom, pretended that there was an
olive in it, sipped it thoughtfully, and decided upon her next step, which was
to access the local library’s main computer. She had it scan the past five
years’ worth of news reports, keying on Acosta’s name, and came up absolutely empty.
She then tried to find some similarity between his murder and other killings
that had taken place in the same area, and discovered that of the thirty-nine
murders in Hektor during the past year, thirty-two of them had occurred within
a mile of where Acosta had been found, and nineteen were the result of
stabbings. It was quite possible, she concluded unhappily, that Acosta simply
had been in the wrong place at the wrong time; at any rate, there was no reason
to assume that he had died because of his association with Santiago.
Dead end followed dead end, and
finally she was faced with two alternatives: start questioning people who might
have known Acosta, or give up and go after the methane-breather. She made her
decision, then instructed the computer to patch in a visual connection to
Leander Smythe’s office.
A moment later
supposedly mythical warrior who local historians had erroneously decided was
either the rider or trainer of the winged horse.
Upon reaching Pegasus and taking a
hotel room in Hektor, Virtue MacKenzie had immediately contacted Leander
Smythe, a newsman who owed her a favor and very begrudgingly allowed her to
access the raw data he possessed on Acosta’s murder from her room’s computer.
There wasn’t much information to be gleaned: Acosta had a long record of shady
dealings, and more than his share of enemies. His throat had been slit as he
was leaving the Pearl of the Sea, a restaurant and bar catering to the less
wholesome elements of Pegasan society, and he had died instantly. It was
assumed to be an underworld murder, if only because Acosta himself hadn’t
associated with any noncriminals in more than a decade.
Virtue then called up the shopping
and restaurant guide that every hotel possessed but couldn’t find any listing
for the Pearl of the Sea, invariably a signal that a local pub or restaurant
had a steady clientele and neither needed nor desired any new business. She
then accessed a video overview of the city and homed in on the area around the
restaurant. It seemed as sleek and shining and well kept as the rest of Hektor,
but she noticed that the police patrolled the area in pairs—which tended to
support her tentative decision that visiting it alone and asking pointed
questions wasn’t worth the risk involved.
Five minutes later she tied in to
the local police headquarters’ press department and quickly ascertained that
the authorities weren’t about to hand any information over to an offworld
journalist. She immediately called back, asked to speak to the homicide
department, identified herself as Acosta’s grieving half sister, and demanded
to know what progress had been made in apprehending his killer. The answer was
simple enough: There had been absolutely no progress, nor was there likely to
be. From the contemptuous way they spoke about Acosta, she got the distinct
impression that the only thing they would do if they actually found his
murderer would be shake his hand, and perhaps pin a medal on him.
Finally she had the computer check
her message drop—a dumb terminal in the city’s central post office—to see if
there was any word from Cain or Terwilliger, found nothing waiting for her, and
decided to spend a little more time investigating Acosta’s murder before going
after Khalythorpe, the methane-breathing smuggler who was next on the Sargasso
Rose’s list.
She asked the computer for a
running total on her expenses thus far, found that she had run up almost three
hundred credits in user and access fees, and told it to warn her when she
reached the five-hundred-credit mark.
She then opened a bottle of
Camorian vodka, filled a cup from the bathroom, pretended that there was an
olive in it, sipped it thoughtfully, and decided upon her next step, which was
to access the local library’s main computer. She had it scan the past five
years’ worth of news reports, keying on Acosta’s name, and came up absolutely empty.
She then tried to find some similarity between his murder and other killings
that had taken place in the same area, and discovered that of the thirty-nine
murders in Hektor during the past year, thirty-two of them had occurred within
a mile of where Acosta had been found, and nineteen were the result of
stabbings. It was quite possible, she concluded unhappily, that Acosta simply
had been in the wrong place at the wrong time; at any rate, there was no reason
to assume that he had died because of his association with Santiago.
Dead end followed dead end, and
finally she was faced with two alternatives: start questioning people who might
have known Acosta, or give up and go after the methane-breather. She made her
decision, then instructed the computer to patch in a visual connection to
Leander Smythe’s office.
A moment later
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