Daisy Wong, Space Marshal: The Case of the Runaway Concubine (5 page)

According to Jimmy Fingers, one of the Association's
"contacts" had spotted her, and he'd sent some "people" to
keep an eye on her.

"Don't approach her," Daisy said.  "We don't
dare spook her.  If she runs and we lose her, we'll have hell to pay."

Jimmy Finger chuckled.  "Remember who taught you."

"My father taught me," Daisy said.

"Who do you think taught him?"

When their charter finally braked into planetary approach,
Daisy commed the Los Angeles space-marshal station and ordered up a cruiser.

It was waiting for them when they came out of the terminal.

The "outside" air was hot and muggy and made
Daisy's skin itch.  She could already feel the grit grinding into the back of
her neck.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

Meizhen's hotel would be the logical choice.  It would allow
Daisy to catch the murdering bitch before she did any more damage, especially
to Snakeskin's baby.  But Daisy was tired of being one step behind.  It was
time for her to steal a march on her uncle's runaway concubine.

"Take us to the Celestial Cybernetics and Robotics
building."

"Yes, ma'am," the driver said, and pulled away
from the curb.

They were halfway across town when Jimmy Fingers commed.  "She's
here," he said.

#

The elevator ride up to the offices of the Celestial
Fraternal Benevolent and Protective Association was a swift, stomach-lurching glide. 
The air in the elevator shaft made a low whisper as the car sped through it.

Daisy watched the numbers light up in succession.  She
silently counted off the floors.

They'd left the driver with the car.  If Meizhen bolted and
made it out of the building, he'd at least be able to track her.

But now Daisy was having second thoughts.  It might have
been better to have brought him along.  In a firefight three police blasters
might prove to be handier than two.  Still, Jimmy Fingers was bound to have
people on hand.

As comforting as it was, that thought didn't help much.

The elevator car stopped.  The doors slid open.

Jimmy Fingers was standing in the elevator lobby.

"Where is she?" Daisy asked.

"In the anteroom.  A couple of the boys are keeping an
eye on her."

"Rudy and Trudy?"

"Nah.  Bitsy and Ralph."

"Is Snakeskin in his office?"

"Safe and sound.  He's cooperating."  Jimmy held
out his hands, palms up.  "You know the drill."

"Not this time," Daisy said.

Jimmy Fingers gave her a long, hard look.  "I see what
you mean," he said, and led them back into the heart of the suite.

"How is she?" Daisy asked.  "Motherhood agreeing
with her?"

"She's happier than I've ever seen her."

"How about Snakeskin?"

"Excited.  Pissed off with us.  He wants to see his
baby.  It's a boy, by the way.  He's already making up excuses for why she took
a powder like she did."

"He has to know better."

"Deep down where it counts, maybe; but not up top where
he's making his decisions."

"We're doing our jobs," Daisy said.  "That's
why the man's paying us, isn't it?"

"Hell, Daiz, you'd do it for free."

"I am assuredly believing that you are correct, Mr.
Fingers," Muffy said.

"Nah, I'm not Mr. Fingers.  You don't get it.  My
family name isn't Fingers."  He held up his hand, displaying the stubs
where two of his fingers were missing.  "Jimmy Fingers is a nickname,
see?"

Muffy blushed and nodded that she most certainly did now understand.

In the anteroom they found the two gunsels clustered around
Meizhen and the baby.  The gunsels were cooing and making nonsense noises at
the baby, which was wrapped in a powder-blue blanket.

Meizhen grinned like a hog in a full corncrib.

The air in the room smelled like her perfume, like her baby,
like the men's aftershave, and like their freshly pressed suits.  It smelled
like death.

Daisy's first thought was to gun the bitch down, but she had
no way to prove her suspicions, only a chain of suspicious circumstances.  Daisy
couldn't even prove that Meizhen had murdered Ray Gilmore.

The best Daisy could hope for now was to keep her uncle
alive and to gull Meizhen into revealing her guilt.

Daisy screwed her face up into a happy smile and stepped
forward to have a look at her newest bouncing baby cousin.

The introductions were made, and Bitsy and Ralph, two of the
largest men Daisy had ever seen, stood off to one side.

Daisy renewed her shit-eating grin and looked down at the
baby.

Meizhen folded back the blanket.  "Here," she said
breathlessly.  "Isn't he beautiful?"

Daisy had a hard time keeping her grin in place.

Tiny scales covered the baby's body.  They were brown and
yellow, and rather than the random field one might have expected, they formed sharp-edged
rings, swirls, and stripes.

"The doctors at the Willamette Genetics Foundry told me
his colors will intensify over the next few months," Meizhen said proudly. 
"By the time he's walking, he'll look just like Snakeskin.  He'll have his
own patterns but the same vibrant colors.  Father and son.  Isn't it wonderful?"

Snake scales on a human baby.  What else would develop? 
Fangs, poison sacks, a tail with a built-in rattle?

Muffy said, "Oh, but he is so cute."

The baby gurgled and opened his eyes wide.

Daisy and Muffy both gasped.  The baby's eyes had vertical
pupils, like a snake's.

Daisy shuddered.

The baby opened his mouth in a big reptilian smile.  There
were no teeth, not yet, but the structures where his fangs would come in were
plain enough.

"I don't mean to be rude," Daisy said to Meizhen,
"but why did you run away?"

Meizhen blushed.  "Poor Dr. Lopez was clearly in over
his head.  I looked around and figured the people at Willamette could intervene
and save our darling baby."

"Why didn't you tell Snakeskin you were pregnant?"

"I wanted to protect him from the disappointment of a
third miscarriage."

"How thoughtful of you," Daisy said.  "Did
you enjoy your stay on New Ganges?  I've heard so much about it."

"What a lot of questions you have," Meizhen said. 
She was graciousness personified.  "I'll gladly tell you about it, but
later.  Right now, Snakeskin's son and I have come to reunite our family. 
That's what matters most.  Wouldn't you agree?"

The woman was unbelievable.  Daisy couldn't begin to square
the buttery, sweet, oh-so-maternal, oh-so-cooperative Meizhen standing in front
of her with the Meizhen who'd intimidated Snakeskin's household, who'd endured
two miscarriages and had volunteered to risk a third, who'd bolted from his
house, who'd endured untold pain and anxiety to bring her baby to term, who'd
murdered Ray Gilmore, and who'd evaded Snakeskin's dragnet for months on end. 
Giving birth often changed women, but in Meizhen's case—

A buzzer sounded.

Jimmy Fingers said, "He's getting impatient.  Maybe we'd
better go in."

Daisy gave the baby a long, hard look, and then did the same
to Meizhen Fitzgerald.  Nothing.  There ought to have been something, some
trace, but there was absolutely nothing.

Daisy wished they'd done body scans.

Why hadn't they?

Because scans wouldn't have done any good.  The Himalayan
Android Works was too good to be caught out by something as pedestrian as a
scan.

Bitsy opened the inner door, and Daisy surreptitiously
dropped her hand onto her blaster.  She gave it a little tug, enough to loosen
it in its holster.

"My love and my child," Snakeskin said, and held out
his arms to embrace Meizhen and the baby.  His face radiated happiness and
familial pride.  "Welcome home!"

"Never, you son of a bitch!" Meizhen screamed, and
hurled the baby at Snakeskin.

Ralph and Bitsy dove at Snakeskin, not in attack, but in order
to knock the baby off to one side and to shield Snakeskin.

Daisy and Muffy drew their blasters, but they couldn't
shoot.  The baby, certainly rigged to explode, was hidden behind Ralph and
Bitsy.  Worse, even if Daisy and Muffy had had a clear line of fire, the baby
was directly between them and Snakeskin.  If they shot at it and missed, they
were certain to hit Snakeskin.

Meizhen produced two miniature blasters.  She spun and shot
Jimmy Fingers, dropping him to the floor.

Daisy and Muffy opened up on her, space-marshal style.  They
aimed and fired, deliberately, making each of their shots count, refusing to waste
any of them.

Meizhen swung around and began firing at Ralph, Bitsy, and
Snakeskin.

She was taking hits from Muffy and Daisy, but she remained
on her feet, shooting as though she were alone on target range.

Daisy was squeezing off her fourth shot when the room
exploded in a white-hot flare of noise and heat.  The blast wave hurled her
against the nearest wall.

Her head spun and her vision tunneled down to a tiny point
of light in a field of black.

The light winked out.

#

Daisy came to in a hospital bed.

Muffy was sitting in a chair by the window.  A bandage
covered the side of her face and her left arm was in a sling.

The air was heavy with the odors of machine oil,
electronics, and illness.

"There was an explosion," Daisy said.  "What
happened?"

"Meizhen exploded."

Meizhen?  Impossible.

"Are you sure?" Daisy asked.

Muffy gestured with her injured arm.  "Oh, most
definitely."

A dark wave of emotion swept through Daisy as the enormity
of what Muffy had told her sank in.  "What about the baby?"

"He was also rigged to explode, but our shots set off
Meizhen's onboard suicide charges
before
she could detonate her baby.  The
doctors have defused him,
and
they've removed his explosives.  He's down
in the nursery."  Muffy smiled happily.  "Our exceedingly fortuitous
shots are the only reason any of us are alive."

"What about Snakeskin?  Did he make it?"

"He is two doors down.  The doctors expect him to make
a full recovery."

Daisy was afraid to ask the next question, but she asked it
anyway.  "How many dead?"

"Two.  Bitsy and Ralph.  They saved your uncle's
life."

"Jimmy Fingers?"

"She barbequed him like a tong kebab, but he is very
much alive and kicking up a storm.  He is looking forward to a couple of days
on life support and then a few weeks of reconstructive surgery.  But he will be
fine.  Better than new."

"When can I see him?"

"In a few days."

Daisy's head was swimming, and the painkillers they'd given
her had swaddled her mind in a chemical haze second to none.

"How long have I been out?" Daisy asked.

"You've been in and out," Muffy said.  "Two
days."

"Shit."

And then, unbidden, drugs or no drugs, the last three or
four pieces of the puzzle fell into place.  When Meizhen had gotten pregnant
the third time, something inside her snapped, if it hadn't snapped with the
second miscarriage.  She'd decided she'd had her fill of Snakeskin's dreams of
familial glory, and had vowed to take her revenge.

Fine, but revenge for what?

For two hideous miscarriages, for two repellent perversions
of the natural order, for Snakeskin's expecting her to give birth to a
human-reptilian chimera, for his expecting her to be its loving and doting
mother, for
using
her.

But she'd needed a weapon, and not just a weapon, but the
perfect weapon, a weapon whose significance would not escape him as he died.

And then—perhaps gradually or perhaps in a flash of
insight—it had dawned on her that she was growing exactly such a weapon right
there inside her.  Her fetus.  She couldn't have asked for a better instrument. 
She could shape Snakeskin's own baby into the perfect weapon with which to
exact her revenge.

Muffy began chattering about the hospital, and Daisy
realized that even here in the hospital she could feel the Martian grit.  It
floated in the air like motes of dust.  Mars was slowly and delicately sandblasting
her.

Rather than think about how much longer she'd have to remain
on-planet, Daisy ran back through her train of events and suppositions.

From start to finish, the links held, all except one.

Interrupting Muffy's tales of the hospital's cafeteria,
Daisy laid out what she believed to be the sequence of events.

Muffy said, "You can't be far off the mark."

"I'm not," Daisy said.  "But what I don't
understand is why Meizhen didn't leave after the first miscarriage.  She had
every reason to."

There was a scraping noise in the corridor and Snakeskin
Wong pulled himself around the corner into Daisy's room.  He was on his feet,
but barely.  His head was wrapped in bandages and one of his arms was in a
sling.  He and Muffy matched.  He was dragging an IV stand.  The unit swayed
giddily.

Muffy ran over to him and helped him into a chair.

She said, "You should most—"

He waved her to silence.  "She wasn't. . . . 
I had my own people examine the bits and pieces."  He took a deep breath,
exhaled raggedly.  "They've just sent me over their report."

"What did it say," Daisy asked.

"It said that whoever that woman was, she wasn't Meizhen
Fitzgerald.  She was an android assassin."

Daisy felt the ground give way beneath her.

"Oh, no," she said.

"Oh, yes," Snakeskin said.  "The real Meizhen
is still out there."

Daisy had gotten it wrong at every turn.  Yes, she'd identified
each of the linkages correctly, but she had so thoroughly misread the motives
behind the moves that she'd been floundering around in the dark the whole time—just
as Meizhen had intended.

How could Daisy have been so far off the mark, so blind?