"Why are you asking?" I said. "Do you think you’re investigating Chappalar’s murder?"
Tic put on his scornful look again. "That’s police business, Smallwood. Well outside the Vigil’s authority."
I breathed a sigh of relief. Prematurely.
"My assignment," Tic went on, "is to assume Proctor Chappalar’s duties. Which makes me your supervisor. I’ve reviewed your schedule, and you have no current commitments, correct? City council withdrew the water-treatment bill you were scrutinizing?"
I nodded.
"Then you need a new project to keep you busy," Tic said. "Proctor Smallwood, I assign you to scrutinize activities of the Bonaventure Civilian Protection Office. That’s undeniably within the mandate of this Vigil branch."
No question, that. We were authorized to watchdog the local cops; in fact, we were legally required to give them a look-see from time to time.
"So," Tic said, "keep an eye open for all the usual things. Corruption. Slack work habits. Pilfering office supplies. What?" He cocked his ear toward the window. "Oh." He turned back to me. "Especially be on the lookout for people who don’t wash their hands before entering the nanotech lab. Foul old bastards."
"Do the Bonaventure police have a nanotech lab?" I asked.
"Don’t ask me — you’re the one who’s scrutinizing them. Far be it from me to tell you what to do." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Now here’s what I want you to do. You’re clearly at a total loss for direction, so why not monitor a representative criminal case currently being investigated?"
"Did you have something particular in mind?"
"We’ll pick a case at random. Oh. Here’s one." He reached onto my desk where there was a single file packet stamped with the Bonaventure police crest. I hadn’t put the file there. Tic read the label on the packet and said, "This will do splendidly. The Chappalar murder investigation. Proctor Smallwood, you will scrutinize the police handling of this case to the best of your abilities. I, of course, will accompany you to provide the seasoned voice of experience."
He waited for me to answer. I gave a slight nod. Precious good thing we weren’t overstepping our authority by intruding into police business.
Tic tossed the file onto my desk. "You’ll want to review the police report as soon as possible," he said. "When you do, you’ll see that those boobies bungled the interrogation of their prime witness. A human woman — one Faye Smallwood. You may have heard of her. The detectives downloaded what she saw at the murder scene and assumed it was all she knew. Can’t imagine why they mollycoddled her. Of course she had political connections, so perhaps she pulled some strings down at city hall."
I glared at him. Tic grinned. "Or else," he said, "she started babbling about peacock thingies, and they thought she was a total loon."
"Did they call me that in the police report?" I asked, reaching for the file.
"Of course not," Tic replied, moving the file farther away from me. "Not in so many words. At any rate, the police believe in peacock thingies now. To a modest degree. Considering how the navy went berserk and kidnapped you, the constabulary has decided you weren’t completely crazy, vis-a-vis mysterious tubes of light. Which is too bad — it’s high time I worked with someone more tico than me."
I gave him a long hard look. "I’m strongly beginning to suspect you aren’t tico at all."
Tic looked offended. "Ms. Smallwood," he said, "I’m tico as a terrijent… which is a little brown beetle not noted for odd behavior, but it was the first alliteration that came to mind. More to the point, I am by far the oldest proctor in the entire Vigil. If I’m not approaching a state of Zen by now, there must be something wrong with me. Do you understand? In the normal life cycle of proctors, I’m at a point where I should be One with the universe. Or at most 1.0001. I should be asymptotic to apotheosis. Holding regular conversations with the major deities. Feeling the infinitesimal flux of the cosmological constant. Speaking the mystic language of the wind. If I’m not ecstatically demented with otherworldly bliss, Smallwood, a good many people will lose their faith that there is such a thing as Zenning out. Including myself; and I hate disappointing poor crazy old men."
Despite the intensity of his words, he’d spoken with precious little emotion. Precious little emotion you could identify anyway. Was he joking at his own expense? Confiding a deep dark secret? Speaking straight from the heart? "Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
"Why not?" he replied. "When it crosses my mind to do something, I don’t ask why, I ask why not. And usually there’s no reason not to, so I just go ahead." He paused, then added, "It’s given me the strangest collection of hats."
I stared at him a moment, then said, "You’re tico enough for me. Don’t lose faith in that Zenning-out business."
He smiled. "What a sweet girl. Now let’s talk about Chappalar’s death."
Outside the window, the shadow of our tree stretched off on a diagonal, reaching far across the rooftops as the sun set behind us. The street straight below had already gone dark enough for safety lights to be turning themselves on: children skipping past in jackets that shone bright orange so they couldn’t be missed; adults with coats phosphorescing in more prudish colors, or the occasional curmudgeon with no lights at all — clods who preferred to get run down in traffic rather than stand out in the darkness. ("What if someone’s following me?" I once heard a man say. "Why wear clothes that make me an easy target?" As if snipers were a daily danger and careless drivers no trouble at all.)
Tic picked up the police file packet from my desk and idly turned it over in his fingers. "Chappalar’s death," he said again. "The police neglected a vital line of questioning, and as discriminating proctors we should consider whether to draw this to their attention." He glanced up at me; the lowering dark made his face even pouchier. "Who knew where you and Chappalar would be?"
I’d barely registered his question the first time he asked it. Now it settled down more solid in my mind… and I realized Tic had hit on a serious point. The androids struck the pump station before Chappalar and I arrived; they’d taken out all the staff by the time we showed up.
So how did they know where we’d be?
We hadn’t given the station any advance notice of our visit. Even Chappalar and I didn’t know very far ahead — we’d only decided the previous evening, just before leaving our office for the night.
So who did know where we were going?
None of the other proctors, that was sure. Chappalar and I headed out together, without talking to anybody else. And we hadn’t logged our intentions with the office computer — Chappalar had a case of the stubborns about that, always wanting to leave things open so he could change his mind on the spur of the moment.
So who knew? Only the people Chappalar and I might have talked to after work.
I’d told my family I was going out on a scrutiny — the first of my career, and the whole house was excited. But I’d made a joke of teasing them, keeping it a big secret: can’t tell, Vigil business, might be a bust-their-balls raid that’ll hit all the broadcasts. I’d held out till little Livvy’s bedtime, when I whispered in her ear I was just going to a water-treatment plant; she proudly-loudly announced the news to everyone else, they laughed, and that was that.
"As far as I can remember," I told Tic, "I never mentioned Pump Station 3 to anyone. I just said I was going to a water-treatment plant. Five of those in the city."