Daisy Wong, Space Marshal: The Case of the Runaway Concubine by Freddi MacNaughton (parable of the sower read online .txt) 📗

us about Meizhen's pregnancy,yesterday in Snakeskin's office?" Daisy asked.  "You knew damn goodand well what was going on."

"I was following his," Lopez said.  "If he'dwanted you to know the details, he would have told you.  Why don't you ask himwhy he didn't?"

"I will," Daisy said.  But she knew she couldn't,not without further endangering Lopez's life.

Muffy took the pad and stared at it for a long couple ofseconds.  Her eyes grew very large and very round.  She gagged and ran from theroom.

#

Snakeskin's house hadn't changed much in the two and a halfyears since Daisy had last been there.  It was the same rambling pile of brick,ceramics, glass, and steel it had always been.  Nor had her Aunt Hester'sattitudes had changed even less.  The woman's combination of embracing warmthand prickly irritation was just as confusing and just as disquieting as it everhad been.

The servants had stripped Meizhen Fitzgerald's apartment tothe walls.  They had vacuumed, shampooed, scrubbed, and cleaned.  The rooms stoodready to receive their next tenant.

Daisy asked her aunt, "What happened to the things Meizhendidn't take with her?"

"What sort of things?"

"Her extra clothes, personal effects, electronics. Anything she may have left behind."

"Forwarded."

"To where?"

"New Telluride, the Moon."

"Do you have the address?"

"I'll provide it to you before you leave."

"Please," Daisy said.  "One more favor.  MayI question the servants?"

"Certainly, for all the good it will do you."

#

Daisy and Muffy used the servant's dining room.  They calledthe staff in one at a time, questioned them about Meizhen, and then sent themon their way.

Aunt Hester had been right about all the good it would dothem.  It did them none at all . . . until they came toBradwell, the junior gardener.

Boniface Larson Bradwell gave them the usual spiel aboutMeizhen: polite, friendly, but distant.  Held up her end.  Had her career at CelestialCybernetics and Robotics to worry about.  Tended to be headstrong.  Snappish attimes, but that was understandable, what with the miscarriages and everything.

Everything?  This was new.

"What everything?" Daisy asked.

Bradwell, who looked to be all of twenty and notparticularly bright, blushed.  "Nothing special.  Mr. Wong wanted a babyand she was doing her best to give him one.  Work was piling up at Celestial. Meizhen was under a ton of pressure."

Daisy leaned in close to Bradwell.  "That's notwhat you meant.  What else was going on?"

"Nothing but what I told you.  She was getting kind offrantic, you understand?  Frantic?  Those miscarriages did a real number on her."

Daisy slouched back in her chair.  No doubt, themiscarriages had thrown Meizhen a horrible curve.  No doubt, she'd been grievingover her dead babies and terrified about what might happen to the one she'dbeen carrying.  But the gestalt was wrong, and the kid knew why.

Daisy said, "Tell me, Bradwell, have you ever heard ofthe Hell of the Harrowed Gardeners?"

"No.  What's that?"

"It's where tong bosses like my uncle send lying littleshits like you."

The color drained from Bradwell's face and a sheen of oilysweat popped out across his forehead.  "She, uh, she was cheating on Mr.Wong."

Daisy's stomach clenched.  Maybe this job was going to turnout to be a hit, after all.  Maybe she'd have no choice but to go through withit.  Maybe there really was no way for her to be both a cop and a tongbrat.  "An affair with whom?"

"One of the guys at Celestial.  I don't know his name,but I tend the plants over there at their building and I've seen him aroundplenty of times."

"What does he look like?"

"White guy.  Tall.  Has a blaster scar running acrossthe left side of his face."

"A veteran," Muffy said conclusively.  "Isthis being a fresh scar or is it an older one?"

Bradwell shook his head.  "It's still pink.  It's notfresh, but it hasn't bleached out, either.  It's hard to tell on whiteguys."

"This is most assuredly true."

"How do you know about the affair?" Daisy asked. "Did you catch them doing it in the gazebo?"

"No, nothing like that.  The night she left, he was theone who picked her up.  I was walking back from the local strip joint and sawthem pulling away from the house.  I thought they were off on another businesstrip."

"Did she often travel on business?"

"Yeah.  It wasn't until later that I put two and twotogether."

"Did you tell anyone what you'd seen?" Daisyasked.

"Mr. Wong already knew.  He had to know, right?"

"How, if you chose not tell him?" Daisy asked.

"I never thought of it that way.  The security aroundhere is so tight.  Cameras.  Motions detectors.  Genetic sniffers."

"Security systems aren't infallible," Daisy said. "Nothing beats an alert watchdog."

"Shit.  Am I in trouble?"

"Let's just say that I wouldn't sell you a newlife-insurance policy."

#

On the taxi ride back to their hotel, Muffy asked, "TheHell of the Harrowed Gardner?  You are being unusually inventive today." She laughed merrily.  "I wish we had taken a holo of that interview.  Itwould be most amusing at parties."

"Yeah, we could laugh ourselves silly," Daisysaid.

She touched the slip of paper her Aunt Hester had givenher.  Irrationally, she wanted to reassure herself that she hadn't lost it,that it hadn't slipped out of the pocket of her uniform tunic.  The papercrinkled.

Muffy's mood shifted yet again.  "Has that young man pitchedhimself into grave trouble?"

"He is."

"Snakeskin couldn't possibly be as small-minded asthat."

How little Muffy understood.  "Someday when you're inthe mood to learn a little more about life in the tongs, remind me to teach youabout the Hell of the Silent Watchdogs."

Muffy's face went blank.  "But he's only a gardener. He isn't the one who's responsible for security."

"No matter.  The moment he realized what he had seen,he became responsible.  And he did not act."

Muffy was silent for a long time.

Finally breaking her silence, she said, "I suppose wewill be leaving for New Telluride immediately."

"Almost.  We have one last stop to make."

#

Their stop was at the corporate offices of the CelestialCybernetics and Robotics Corporation.

The personnel director was a middle-aged Caucasian womanwith spikey blond hair and overly glossed, overly full lips.  She had a goldring in one nostril and a diamond stud in the other.  Her ears looked like two whorehousechandeliers, and at some point, she'd had epicanthic folds added to her eyes.

But she was cooperative.

"We have several veterans working here, but you must betalking about Ray