Davidge looks at me and nods as a tiny smile pulls back the left corner of his mouth. I watch as he picks up a rock and hands it to Jeriba Zammis. "Is this a shark?" asks the human.
Zammis takes the rock and studies it for a moment. Keeping the rock, Ty’s parent looks at Davidge, frowns, and asks, "Who?" I am confused, not knowing what a shark is nor the meaning of the rock.
Zammis opens its mouth to ask again and Davidge cuts off its former student with a wave of his finger as Kita Yamagata lumbers into view, the helmet of her protective suit back, the respirator hanging from a strap around her neck. In her gloved hands are the remains of a metal case, its top and two sides melted away. She stops in front of us and holds out her treasure. "One thing we know for sure is that Brother Hill didn’t know drool about setting fires. At least, not with one of these things."
"What is that?" I ask.
Yamagata looks at Davidge. He shrugs and shakes his head. "What we have here, folks," says the woman, "is a mining tool called a thermal drill. It uses a special plastic explosive called Thermex. Under various brand names, Thermex is used by most large mining operations in the quadrant." She wiggles a finger at a tangle of wires and molten metal next to a lump of black goo in the bottom of the case.
"This case was filled with the stuff. It burns hot enough to turn rock to ashes with almost no smoke. Lots of steam, though, if there’s water in the drilling medium." She pokes a wad of wires and melted circuit boards. "With this gadget you can program the size and shape of the burn. Miners use it for tunneling, removing obstructions, drilling holes―wherever they want to get rid of some rock." Yamagata holds up a gloved hand and points at the black lump in the bottom of the case. "This stuff used to be an initiator. When it is triggered, it vaporizes, combines with an igniter, the combination achieving a high enough temperature to ignite the Thermex. If it doesn’t go in exactly that sequence, the Thermex won’t ignite. Instead it will melt or vaporize. It’s a safety thing. This initiator was never triggered."
Davidge moves a step closer and looks down into the box. "It looks like there was a fire to me."
She looks up at him and grins. "Oh, there was a fire, all right. The igniter was set off out of sequence. That was what caused the fire. Because it couldn’t combine with the trigger vapor, though, it couldn’t ignite the Thermex." Yamagata turns and holds her hand toward the entrance to the cave.
"If this thing had been set off in the proper sequence, Mr. Davidge, that cave would be one big hole in the ground. As it is, it’s just a smoked-out mess. The Thermex vapor condensed on the wood and smothered the fire started by the igniter. That’s the glossy black stuff that covers everything in there." She turns back and looks at us one at a time.
"Now, what I don’t understand is this: a man like Mr. Hill, running around the quadrant for Earth IMPEX, probably knows more about mining methods and equipment than just about anybody." Her gaze rests on Jeriba Zammis.
Zammis nods. "Of course. IMPEX has been using thermal drills since before the war. You can’t sell the customer unless you can show him how the gadget works. Michael Hill was well qualified to represent IMPEX’s interests, and he certainly knew how to use a thermal drill."
Davidge points at the partially melted case and says to Kita Yamagata, "I thought you said Hill didn’t know drool about setting off one of these."
The woman grins. "I’ll bet my next two paychecks that this drill isn’t one of the IMPEX models. IMPEX and JACHE," she explains, "have licenses to produce the stuff from Nisak, who made it available to both outfits before the war. Each company produces its own range of models."
Nisak. I look at Davidge, but he is looking at the investigator. "Timan Nisak?" he asks.
"That’s right. Timan Nisak invented Thermex and the thermal drill. In any event, it appears that Michael Hill wasn’t thoroughly familiar with this particular model, and ichi-bu hachi ken." She sees our confused expressions and says, "One-tenth of an inch, forty-eight feet."
While Zammis and I remain confused, Davidge smiles slightly and says, "Small errors can result in big mistakes."
She smiles widely, obviously pleased that Davidge understood her enigmatic reference, and says to us all, "I’ll bet that this is either a JACHE drill or one from Timan Nisak."
Davidge keeps looking at the melted case in Yamagata’s hands and says, "Yazi Ro, what do you want to wager that this drill is from Dracon JACHE?"
I slowly shake my head. "Not even air."
There is a whining sound coming from the edge of the cliff and soon we see the Aakva Lua flyer move out across the water, make a steep climbing turn to the right, and set course for First Colony, Michael Hill’s body in its cargo bay. The others begin walking the path to the house. I begin following but pause when I see Mirili Sanda struggling its way up the path to the ledge. Keeping against the wall, I go down a few steps and lend the overweight investigator a hand getting up the last few steps. At the top, Sanda wheezes its thanks and sits on an outcropping to catch its breath. "That Zammis is twice as old as I am and it runs up and down this trail like it was three. The company has an employees' gym. I think I’ll drop in and see what I can do to get in better physical shape."
As Sanda rests, its gaze wanders along the edge of the ledge, then to the door, back to the ledge, and then to the rocks below. "Yazi Ro, if you were going to plant a bomb in this cave, could you forget this cliff outside the entrance, no matter how dark it was, no matter how big a panic was driving your feet?"
I look down at the rocks and shake my head. "No, Mirili Sanda, I could not forget. I, though, pay particular attention to heights."
"Over a certain altitude, Yazi Ro, everyone does."
NINETEEN
The slightly warmer temperatures of the early morning drop suddenly, foreshadowing a new storm. In the house, Davidge isolates himself with the subspace link and doesn’t emerge for the second or night repasts. After the night repast, in the main gathering salon, Jeriba Zammis tells us that the investigators will return to ask more questions. They have some lab results and they have located the flyer Michael Hill rented. They will be here in a few moments. As Zammis, Ty, Estone Falna, and I sit and speculate about what the investigators have found, Davidge at last emerges from Ty’s office, the expression on his face somewhere between confusion and fatigue. He drops into a chair, becoming part of our circle.
"What is it, Uncle?" asks Falna.
"The Ovjetah informs me," he announces, "that if the talma leads to Planet Timan then the talma leads to Planet Timan."
"That took you from before the second repast?"
"Basically. The rest was taken up with a little talk about relatives, and a lot of talk about why Shigan can’t talk about what I want it to talk about. If Timan has nothing to do with this damned talma, why can’t Shiggy just say so? It’s as stubborn as a damned mule."
Falna assumes a serious expression and says, "I can’t imagine where the Ovjetah would acquire a trait such as that."
"Such a human quality," adds Ty. Zammis’s child grins as Davidge glares at both of them and raises his eyebrows.
"There is a difference, my children, between conviction and stubbornness. The former is based on knowledge or sincere belief. The latter is rooted in stupidity brought on by the need to be regarded as right."
"My parent," says Ty to Zammis, "it is a shame how stupid your parent is. I have always said so."