CHAPTER 7

“A vampire?”

Incredulously, Shannon looked back and forth between the two of them, expecting—and then hoping for—a sign of jesting that did not come.

“That—that isn’t funny,” she murmured, fighting back a nervous laugh as she set both hands very precisely on the desk top in front of them. “There are no such things as vampires. They’re myths. They don’t exist.”

Mather rested his elbows on his chair arms and folded his hands, making a tower of his first two fingers. “Maybe not in the traditional sense,” he agreed. “But it’s curious that there’s evidence of vampire legends in practically every race we’ve ever encountered, human or alien. The old Earth legends abound with tales of vampires and other related beasties, in otherwise widely divergent cultures. And as for alien races, why, the Aludrans have a version, and the Ainish, and the Warflemen of Procyon II. I could go on and on.”

“Superstitious nonsense,” Shannon stated flatly.

“Hmm, perhaps,” Wallis joined in. “I suppose one could try to dismiss most legends as superstition or deliberate fiction. The only problem is that legends almost always have some basis in fact, if you look hard enough. And even discounting supernatural explanations, there are physiological and psychological bases for behavior patterns that simulate at least portions of activity we’ve come to associate with vampirism. Certain chemical deficiencies and imbalances in the body can lead to very bizarre behavior, as I’m sure you know. And psychotic individuals have been known to believe they were almost anything—and to act accordingly. Why not a vampire?”

Shannon hugged her arms across her chest as if suddenly chilled and hunched down in her chair. “This is ridiculous. You’ve almost got me believing you! There has to be a more plausible explanation.”

Mather shrugged. “I’d certainly welcome one. But when we’re dealing with a situation this bizarre, and no more logical explanation seems likely, then we need to consider bizarre possibilities. Now, either the cats are responsible, as our gross physical evidence indicates—except that we can’t figure out how they did it—or else someone is trying to make it look like the cats did it, by carrying the blood away to make it appear that the cats drank it—which is not an altogether unexpected behavior for carnivores like the Lehr cats. Or he’s consuming it himself and making it look like the cats did it.”

“Or the murderer is carrying away the blood and then consuming it,” Wallis added.

“Or he’s flushing it down the toilet!” Shannon snapped.

“Also possible,” Mather agreed. “And a true psycho might be doing it with no thought of implicating the cats at all. It could be just coincidence. But the blood has to go somewhere.” He cocked his head at Shannon wistfully. “I think you’ll have to admit that the basic vampire theory has merits in this case, Doctor—‘vampire’ covering the whole range of what we’ve been discussing, of course. At least it gives us another angle to consider.”

Shannon glanced nervously at both of them again, her brow furrowed in concentration, then averted her eyes.

“Look, I think I understand what you’re trying to do. You want to clear your cats, and I can’t say I blame you. But this—theory of yours—I’m sorry, I just can’t accept it.”

“Well, it’s as useful as all the other theories we’ve considered,” Wallis said, “which is to say they all stink. Let’s sleep on it, shall we? And don’t we have another phase jump coming up soon?”

Wearily, Shannon glanced at the chronometer on her console and sighed. “Yes. I hadn’t realized it was so late. You’ve got about twenty minutes. Commodore, if you still want to try that new suspension system, you can speak to Technician Gallinos, two doors down. She can set you up for it.”

As she punched up a display on the console, obviously dismissing them, Mather murmured, “Thank you,” and started to make an additional comment, but Wallis caught his eye and shook her head. Mather, with a sigh, got up and left the room, Wallis following behind him. When they had gone, Shannon turned to stare uneasily at the door for a long time, stirring only when the lights dimmed momentarily and the phase warning began to chime its five-minute signal.

She sat up at that, long enough to shake a tiny, rose-colored tablet from a dispenser in her desk drawer. Then she laid her head against the back of her chair and slipped the tablet under her tongue. She could feel it taking effect as the one-minute warning vibrated through the ship; she relaxed and let the medication do its work, wondering idly what it would be like to jump unmedicated—wondering how Wallis Hamilton managed it with no ill effects whatsoever. So absorbed was she in her speculation that the jump itself passed almost unnoticed.

She dozed afterward—she could not remember later whether she had dreamed or not—but she awoke fretting about what the Setons had said regarding vampires, and the thought continued to plague her as she tried to finish the day’s entries in her medical log. An orderly brought a tray with dinner, and she poked at the food for a while, but she was not hungry, despite the day’s exhaustion. Major Barding floated in for his pain medication and was again in high spirits, once the drugs began to take effect. But Shannon sent him on his way far more brusquely than she had intended. Twice she started to request information from the library banks; twice canceled the request. Finally, when Deller came to relieve her, she cleared the board altogether and went back to her cabin to try to sleep.

But sleep would not come, despite all her efforts to drop off. Finally, feeling annoyed with herself and quite foolish, she got out of bed and padded over to the library terminal on her desk. The only illumination was the single tally light on the intercom unit beside the terminal. She stared at that for several minutes before finally reaching out to touch the query button.

The keyboard lit up and the display screen glowed a soft green, casting an eerie pallor on her face and hands. Slowly, and feeling even more foolish than before, she typed out her request.

Reference, vampires. General knowledge. Respond.

After what seemed to be minutes—unthinkable in a sophisticated device such as the library computer—the response began scrolling up the screen.

Vampire, from the Earth Slavic vampir. A mythological being believed to arise from the dead at night to drink the blood of its victim. The phenomenon of vampirism appears in many cultures, both human and alien. (See mythologies of specific cultures for non-Earth traditions.)

The best-known vampire in Earth mythology was Count Dracula, a fictional creation of 19th-century British author Bram Stoker. (See Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Menkar: The Literary Reprint Series, Society for the Preservation of Ancient Classics, A.I. 63.) However, there is evidence to suggest that Stoker based his character on actual folk superstitions prevalent long before in the area of Central Europe known then as Transylvania. Stoker’s creation was a curious mixture of—

Bored with the historical recounting, Shannon hit the cancel button and keyed the query again. This time, her question was more specific.

Reference, vampires. State characteristics of appearance and behavior. Respond.

Again, a seemingly endless pause before the information came up.

The unvarying characteristic of all vampires was the presence of elongated upper canine teeth, sometimes retractable. These the vampire would sink into his victim’s neck over the jugular vein. He would then drain blood from his victim—whether by simply drinking it or by drawing it out directly through hollow passages in the teeth is not always clear. This could occur all at once, causing almost immediate death, or it could be stretched out in a series of attacks over a period of days or even weeks, until the victim eventually expired, the cause of death usually blamed on one or another of the wasting malaises common to that era of beginning medical knowledge. It was believed that a victim who died in this manner would also become a vampire, rising from his or her grave at night to drink blood and do the will of the master vampire. All vampires must return to a coffin of their native earth before sunrise, sunlight being fatal to their kind.

Her attention engaged in spite of herself, Shannon read on, fascinated by the breadth of the vampire concept and checking the information against what Mather and Wallis had told her.

Legendary sources indicate that vampires were able to transfix their victims with a hypnotic stare, often forming an obsessive bond that led the victim to aid the vampire in gaining access to his or her person. There are also indications that victims may have derived sensual pleasure from their liaisons with vampires, though this was rarely stated clearly in the repressive literature of contemporary authors. However, it should be noted that vampires generally (though not always) chose victims of the opposite sex, especially if the draining of blood was to be prolonged over a period of time. (See Von Calder, Gunther. Sexuality in the Legends of Old Earth. Tersel: Journal of the Institute of Psychiatric Research, A.I. 82.)

Vampires were believed to live forever, so long as their sources of fresh blood were not curtailed, and to confer immortality on those of their victims who became vampires. They could take the form of bats or sometimes other animals. Vampires also had the ability to turn into vapor and thus pass unseen through locked doors and walls. They were possessed of superhuman strength. Because they were believed to have no souls, it was thought that their reflections could not be seen in mirrors. They disliked garlic and garlic flowers, which acted as a repellent, and could not stand the touch of a cross or of silver. They could not cross running water or enter a house unless invited by—

“This is ridiculous!” Shannon whispered, hitting the cancel button again.

For a moment she sat staring at the faintly glowing screen. Then she tried one last query.

Reference, vampires. State methods for destroying. Respond.

The response came back immediately.

Vampires could be destroyed by: exposure to direct sunlight; branding with a cross, especially one made of silver; dousing with holy water; pounding of a wooden stake, preferably of ash, through the heart; burning. There is also some evidence that silver bullets—

In exasperation, Shannon hit the cancel button a final time and shook her head, all reason rebelling against what she had just read. It was sheer superstition. It had to be. And yet, something Wallis Hamilton had said kept flashing through her mind: that almost all legends have some basis in fact.

For several minutes she sat there in darkness, staring at the blank glow of the display screen as if it might impart some new wisdom that she could accept more readily. Instead, her imagination embellished what she had read and sent chill shivers down her spine. She finally turned off the console altogether and stalked back to bed, determined to put it all out of mind and go to sleep.

She did sleep this time, but she also dreamed—and woke angrily, more than once, to hazy recollections of silver crosses, garlic flowers—whatever they were!—and wooden stakes piercing hearts that did not beat.

Mather and Wallis also got some sleep eventually—though not before checking on the cats a final time. Wallis went directly there, to nurse the animals through any aftereffects from the phase shift, but Mather rode out the jump in one of the new suspensors, as Shannon had suggested.

“It did cancel out the usual discomforts of jumping,” he informed Wallis afterward, when he had joined her in the hold, “but I lost consciousness for a few seconds. I could do without that.”

“But you weren’t nauseous or dizzy?” Wallis asked. “Darling, that’s wonderful! I wonder if it would help our furry friends. This jump was a lot harder on them than the last time.”

She gestured toward the cats, who were all slumped flat in the bottom of the cage, hardly able to pick up their heads, much less scream.

“Well, first you’d have to get them into the harness,” Mather quipped. “Seriously, though, I’m afraid the thing is still very experimental. It did mean one less jump I had to suffer through, however. And if Lutobo is still speaking to me by morning, I plan to run the navigation coordinates to see if we can’t refine his figures and eliminate another one. We might make up some of his lost time, too.”

“Well, it might improve his temper,” Wallis agreed. “Do you think the suspensors are worth trying again?”

Mather grinned. “Well, not for that jump, of course. And I don’t know that they’d ever work out for military use. It’s one thing for a civilian to pass out for a few minutes and avoid the usual after-grogginess from medication, but that wouldn’t do at all in a battle situation.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about battle situations anymore, darling,” Wallis murmured, patting his arm with affection. “If you want to use the suspensors, you go right ahead.”

“Woman, if you keep patronizing me about that, I’ll banish you from my bed and board!” Mather muttered, though he smiled as he said it. “It isn’t my fault that you got the right genes to make you immune to jump sickness.”

Wallis grinned. “Poor baby. Are you satisfied with security, so we can go get some sleep?”

“I don’t see what else we can do,” he replied. “Mister Neville, the shift is yours.”

“Aye, sir. I’ve got a few more things I want to install, so there can’t be any question.”

“Fine. We’ll see you in the morning.”

But though their sleep was not marred by nightmares the way Shannon’s was, nor were they permitted to rest as long as they would have liked. Very early, the harsh rasp of the door buzzer jarred them from sleep. Mather, honed to the expectation of possible trouble by long years’ experience, was awake instantly. He saw Wallis roll over and peer at him sleepily as he eased out of bed and glided silently to the door speaker. He glanced at the chronometer beside the speaker and yawned before thumbing the button. “Seton.”

“Commodore, this is Courtenay, chief of security. I’m sorry to have to bother you so early, but the captain wants to see you and Doctor Hamilton in his office immediately.”

Mather felt every muscle in his body tense and had to force himself to relax by conscious will. He laid an arm around Wallis’s shoulder as she came to stand silently beside him.

“I gather that the captain’s request has the force of an order, as far as you’re concerned, Mister Courtenay,” Mather said carefully. “Am I to assume that the captain considers us to be under arrest?”

There was an awkward pause. Then: “Sir, I can’t say what’s in the captain’s mind about that. I’m afraid you’ll have to take it up with him directly.”

“I see.” Mather glanced down at Wallis and signaled for her to begin dressing, then turned back to the door grille. “Can you tell me specifically why the captain wants to see us, Mister Courtenay?”

“I’d—ah—rather not discuss it out here in the corridor, sir. And I don’t mean to rush you, but I do have my orders.”

“All right, we’ll be right with you.”

Breaking the link with Courtenay, Mather moved across the room to the regular intercom and hit the switch.

“ComNet, this is Seton. Connect me with the duty officer in my hold.”

“Stand by, please.”

He began pulling on a pair of trousers as he waited for a response. Wallis tossed a tunic on the back of the chair nearby and continued with her own dressing.

“Wing here.”

Mather secured the waistband on his trousers and hit the switch for visual circuits.

“Give me a status report, Wing. Is everything all right down there?”

Wing’s face on the tiny screen had been bland, emotionless, when it first appeared. Now the young man raised one dark eyebrow, his manner becoming more guarded. “Is there some reason to suspect that everything isn’t, sir?”

“You’ve had no trouble, then?” Mather insisted. “Nothing has tripped any of the alarms, and nothing has happened that you know of?”

“I would have called you, if it had, sir.”

Mather nodded and pulled on a shirt over his head, uncertain what to make of that news, and began yanking on boots.

“All right, Wing, just stand by until I can get down there—and don’t let anyone near those cats! I don’t even want you to lower the shields to see if everything is all right inside. Wait until I get there. Then there can be no question of any of you being blamed.”

“Yes, sir. By the way, regarding any of us being blamed, all of us except Mister Perelli had the opportunity to place that device you found yesterday. The tapes show the spot at a bad angle, though. It’s impossible to tell whether anyone actually did plant something since we’ve been in here.”

Mather nodded. “Thanks, Wing. Maybe that will help to soothe the captain. We’re on our way to his office under escort. I’ll see you as soon as we can get away.”

With a sigh, he broke off the connection and shrugged into the harness of his needler holster, checking the weapon before fitting it into place. Wallis had finished dressing and was checking the contents of her medical kit. Mather, with a worried glance in her direction, picked up a gray fatigue jacket and slipped it on as he crossed back to the door to thumb the door lock.

Courtenay was waiting outside, four of his security men drawn up at attention behind him, weapons conspicuous on their hips. Mather made no attempt to conceal his own weapon as he adjusted his lapels.

“Well, Mister Courtenay?”

“Commodore Seton,” Courtenay acknowledged with a slightly sickly grin. “I hope we’re not going to have to shoot it out with you.”

“Not if I can help it. Won’t you come in for a moment, Mister Courtenay? Gentlemen, we’ll be with you shortly.”

He had drawn Courtenay in almost before the man realized what was happening, and as the door closed behind him, the security chief swallowed and glanced around the room uneasily. Wallis, too, was slipping a needler into her med kit.

“I’m really sorry about this, Commodore. I—ah—Maybe you should know what’s happened, before you go charging in to see the captain. There have been two more victims.”

“Two!” Wallis said, looking up.

“Can you give us any details?” Mather asked.

Courtenay nodded uncomfortably. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, Commodore, but my men will be blamed, too, because some of them were on duty outside the hold where your cats are. The first victim was one of our people—an engineer’s mate named Phillips, up on Deck Two. He’d been dead a couple of hours when they found him—his throat ripped out like the last victim, his chest and arms badly slashed. There were—bloody cat paw prints on the carpet around him. And a—a tuft of Lehr cat fur in one hand and a bloodstained force-blade in the other.”

“Cat blood or human, on the blade?” Mather demanded.

“I don’t know that, sir.”

“I see,” Mather said quietly. “And the other victim?”

“One of—the Aludrans,” Courtenay murmured. “The one called Ta’ai, Muon’s mate. Apparently she was found right after her attacker left. She—had just stopped breathing, but a steward and one of my men were able to keep her ventilated until a medical team could get there and take over. She’s been in surgery for nearly an hour now, but she’s really critical. Doctor Shannon’s been pulling blood from some of the other Aludrans to keep her going at all.”

Wallis shook her head and sighed, then closed up her medical kit and slung it over her shoulder with a determined expression.

“Mister Courtenay, I hope you don’t try to stop me, but I’m going up to Medical Section to see if I can help out. Mather can answer to the captain for both of us.”

“I agree,” Mather said, resting both hands on his hips just a little defiantly. “Courtenay, are you going to try to stop her?”

Courtenay shook his head. “Not me, sir. And I’m certainly not going to try to disarm you. You can explain it to the captain.”

“I’ll do that,” Mather replied as they moved toward the door. “By the way, I’ve already checked with my people in the hold, and Lieutenant Wing reports nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve given him orders not to do anything or to admit anyone until I can get there myself, so if I were you, I wouldn’t try any forcible entry that the captain might suggest before he has all the facts. Do you understand my meaning?”

“Yes, sir.” Courtenay opened the door. “There’s no problem, gentlemen,” he added, as his men alerted. “Commodore Seton is coming with us. Doctor Hamilton is needed in Medical Section.”

Five minutes later, all of them except Wallis were standing before another door on the command level of the ship as Courtenay buzzed for admission, then thumbed the door control. A tense Lutobo sat behind a large plasteel and leatherine desk, the dark polished surface reflecting his even darker mood. He said nothing as Mather came into the room, only signaling with a curt hand gesture that Courtenay should leave them alone. There were no chairs on Mather’s side of the desk, so he approached to within arm’s reach of the desk and stopped.

“Where is your wife, Commodore?” the captain said quietly.

Mather gazed back mildly, letting no inkling of his knowledge show on his face.

“Where a physician should be, Captain. She’s gone to assist your medical staff. We were told that there’d been a serious medical emergency.”

“Then you doubtless know what happened and have already constructed some suitably glib explanation,” Lutobo said. “Go ahead, Commodore. I shall be fascinated to hear how you plan to wiggle out of this one.”

“I’m afraid I can’t oblige you, Captain,” Mather returned evenly. “Your Mister Courtenay was very sketchy on details. Unless you give me something more concrete to work with, I’m afraid I can’t do much to help you. We are working for the same end purpose, however.”

“Are we?” Lutobo’s eyes narrowed at that, as if trying to ascertain whether Mather was toying with him, then sat back in his chair. “Very well, Commodore. Here are some concrete facts. Two more people have been attacked aboard my ship, one of them fatally. The deceased was one of my engineers. He had a bloody force-blade in one hand, blue fur in the other, and bloody paw prints around his body. The other victim is still alive, but only because of the fast thinking of two of my crew. She was found in roughly the same condition as the other two victims, except that she wasn’t quite dead yet. Apparently there’s some slight chance that she might regain consciousness long enough to describe her attacker. I wonder what she’ll say?”

“So do I, Captain, since I’ve already checked with my people in the hold, and—”

“I don’t care who you’ve checked with, dammit, Seton!” Lutobo bellowed, pounding one fist on the desk as he lurched forward in his chair. “At this point, I don’t even care whether your cats are the culprits or not. I can’t allow this to continue. I’ve lost a passenger and a member of my crew already, and we’re probably going to lose that second passenger. That’s three lives, Seton! What am I going to tell my company?”

“Is that all you can think of? Your company?” Mather snapped. “Be reasonable, Captain. We’re up against something outside both our experience. I don’t understand it, you don’t understand it, and no one else understands it—except, perhaps, whoever is actually doing these things—but we’re never going to understand it if you keep jumping to conclusions and making wild accusations. Now, I just tried to tell you that I called the hold before leaving my cabin, and I was assured that everything is still secure. Your own security people confirm that no one has passed through that door.”

“That isn’t possible!” Lutobo said. “There were paw prints this time, dammit! Maybe they’re teleporting—I don’t know. But I won’t have it. I want you to get rid of the cats.”

“You what?”

“You heard me. I want the cats destroyed. You can have Doctor Hamilton put them to sleep, or I can have my security men blast them, or we can jettison them in space—I don’t care how it’s done, as long as it’s done quickly. But I want them gone. I want them off my ship!”

“Lutobo, you didn’t hear a word I said about the importance of those cats, did you?” Mather replied. “If they don’t reach Tersel alive, I don’t care to be around to answer for the consequences.”

“That can be arranged, too!”

“Can it, then?” Mather said, leaning both hands on the edge of the desk to stare down at Lutobo. The movement opened his jacket so that the butt of the needler under his left arm was partially exposed.

“How dare you bring a weapon into this office?” Lutobo whispered, suddenly afraid. “Courtenay?”

But before he could push the button to call for help, Mather was leaning across to block the button, his wide hand pinning Lutobo’s smaller, darker one.

“Mister Courtenay is more intelligent than to try disarming an Imperial agent, Captain. So, I would have thought, are you.” He released the hand and straightened menacingly. “I hadn’t thought it necessary, but perhaps I should remind you again who you’re dealing with. Wallis and I receive our orders directly from the Imperial High Command. We are accountable to Prince Cedric himself. Now, it will take you about two hours to verify that and to confirm, for your own edification, just how slight are the limitations on our authority.

“While you’re checking on that—and I have no doubt that you will—I intend to go to the hold and inspect the Lehr cats again—and to remain there with them until we reach Tersel, if necessary, to ensure that they come to no harm. If I should discover that the cats are, indeed, responsible for the attacks aboard this ship, then I will personally take appropriate measures, regardless of the animals’ value. But in the meantime, I will brook no interference in the performance of my duties, either by you or by any member of your staff. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Lutobo, sitting stiffly upright in his chair, was almost white with suppressed rage by the time Mather had finished, but he was still sufficiently in control to realize that the agent probably would not dare to bluff under such circumstances. With icy calm, he stood and leaned forward with both hands on his desk, so that there was only a meter or so of shiny leatherine between them. His dark eyes shone like polished stone in his impassive face.

“I understand you perfectly, Commodore.” His words were crisp, precise, cold with anger. “And now I want you to understand something. I intend to communicate with your superiors again, as you have suggested. And I intend to secure whatever authority it takes to ensure that your Lehr cats are destroyed and that you are broken in rank and ruined for this. You have your two hours, Commodore. But after that, we shall see whether your Imperial Command will allow you to abuse your authority to the endangerment of private citizens. The Gruening Line is not to be trifled with, Seton. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” Mather said. “And now, by your leave, Captain”—he made a brisk, formal bow and clicked his heels precisely—“I’ll continue about my business. You know where to find me.”

He stopped at the new murder site on the way, but there was little there that he had not seen before. The bulk of the bloodstained carpet had been cleaned by the time he got there, and maintenance personnel were replacing a section where a guard said the paw prints had been. The piece had already gone to the laboratory for further examination and preservation until forensic chemists on Tersel could run detailed tests.

“Was it the victim’s blood?” Mather asked a technician.

The man shrugged. “Well, I don’t think it was cat blood, if that’s what you’re really asking, Commodore. As to whether it was the victim’s blood, I couldn’t say until I’ve seen the lab results.”

“What about the force-blade?”

“That’s gone to the lab, too.” The man cocked his head at Mather. “Be honest with me, Commodore. Do you think we’ve got some kind of maniac loose on the ship, rather than the cats doing all of this?”

Mather only shrugged. “I’ll let you know when I’ve formed an opinion.”

Ship’s Security was still in evidence outside the door to the hold when Mather got there, and the Rangers had installed even more stringent security measures during the night. After Mather had put his palm to the ident scanner that now activated the outer door, he stepped into the door lock and felt the brief tingle of sensors scanning his body for weapons, pausing on his needler. Then, just before the inner door slid aside, he was caught briefly in a tangle field that jangled every nerve ending in his body. Closing his eyes, he ceased all movement and forced himself to relax immediately, not even breathing as the energy tendrills wound around him; he waited while the Ranger on the other end scrutinized him and then deactivated the field. It was Webb.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, Commodore,” Webb said, holstering his own weapon as he approached his superior. “You’re the first to try out our new security system. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Flexing his muscles experimentally, Mather shook his head. “No, you did fine. Next time, though, tell me when I’m going to walk into a tangle field.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Mather glanced toward the area of the cats’ enclosure as Wing and three more Rangers came out of the security station toward him. Still in the little room, Peterson and Casey swiveled toward him, Peterson keeping one eye on the outside scanners.

In the center of the room, everything appeared to be as he had left it the night before. Electronic baffles cut off whatever sound might have been coming from inside the cats’ cage, and the force nets around the cage area reduced the interior to a blurred, not-black glimmer that almost hurt the eyes to look at directly. Everything appeared to be all right—but suddenly Mather had the premonition that he did not want to see what lay beyond.

“Sir, can you tell us what’s happened?” Neville asked as he and the others clustered around.

Mather brought his attention back to them reluctantly, unable to shake the waves of foreboding that were assailing him continually now.

“There have been two more attacks during the night, gentlemen—one of them fatal.”

“Well, it can’t have been the cats, then,” Perelli murmured.

“Aye, we were watching every indicator, every alarm,” Fredericks said. “There was nothing out of the ordinary.”

Wing shifted from one foot to the other. “You said that only one attack was fatal, sir. What about the other?”

“The other victim is still alive—or was, when last I heard. It was one of the Aludrans—a female named Ta’ai. Wallis has gone to assist.”

“Then maybe this Ta’ai can tell us what attacked her,” Perelli said. “It just can’t have been the cats, sir. There’s no way they could have gotten out without us knowing.”

“I know.” Mather sighed, clapping the man on the shoulder in reassurance as he moved a few steps closer to the first of the defenses around the cages.

“All right, Mister Peterson, let’s see inside, shall we?”

Peterson ran his tongue across dry lips and turned back to his control console, setting recorders and backup circuits in operation and rechecking all systems one last time.

“Ready when you are, sir.”

“Let’s take ’em down, then.”

There was the low whirr of the additional recorders and sensors cycling in, the snick of a needler safety being thumbed aside by one of the Rangers, the tension amplified snap of the power switches being thrown. As the nets flickered out of existence, the mournful howling of three Lehr cats rose eerily in the hold. The fourth cat, who was the reason for their howling, would never howl again. His end of the cage was practically awash with blood.

“What the—”

Faster than a man his size had a right to move, Mather was beside the cage, peering in at the slaughtered Lehr cat and automatically activating the big cage scanners. The dead cat’s mate, the smaller of the two females, stood her ground, her wails turning to snarling defiance as Mather tried to look closer. The Rangers did not move, too shocked and stunned even to murmur among themselves as to how the thing could have happened.