Right from the start, Al knew it was going to be a bad day.

First it was the body. Al was hardly a stranger to blood, he’d seen and been responsible for enough slaughter in his time, but this was turning his stomach. It had been a while before anyone noticed poor old Bernhard Allsop was missing. Who was going to care that the little weasel wasn’t getting underfoot like usual? It was only when he skipped a couple of duty details that Leroy finally got round to asking where he was. Even then, it wasn’t an urgent request. Bernhard’s processor block didn’t respond to datavises, so everyone assumed he was goofing off. A couple of guys were asked to keep an eye out. After another day, Leroy was concerned enough to bring it up at a meeting of senior lieutenants. A search was organized.

The security cameras found him eventually. At least, they located the mess. Confirming first what, then who it was had to be done in person.

There was a quite extraordinary amount of blood smearing the floor, walls, and ceiling. So much so, Al figured that more than one person had been whacked. But Emmet Mordden said the quantity was about right for a single adult male.

Al lit a cigar, puffing heavily. Not for pleasure; the smoke covered the smell of decaying flesh. Patricia’s face was creased up in dismay as they stood around the corpse. Emmet held a handkerchief over his nose as he examined the remains.

The face was recognisably Bernhard. Though even now Al remained slightly doubtful. It was as though the skin had been roughly rearranged into Bernhard’s features. A caricature rather than a natural face. Al had seen doctored photos before, this was the body equivalent.

“You’re sure?” Al asked Emmet, who was prodding the blood-drenched clothing with a long stylus.

“Pretty much, Al. These are his clothes. That’s his processor block. And you can’t expect his face to be a close match, we only see illusions of each other, remember. His body’s face was becoming him, but it takes time.”

Al grunted, and took another look. The skin had shrunk to wrap tightly round the skull and jaw; a lot of capillaries had ruptured, and the eyeballs had burst. He turned away. “Yeah, okay.”

Emmet plucked the processor block from Bernhard’s rigid, clawed fingers, and gestured a couple of non-possessed medical orderlies to take over. They manoeuvred the desiccated corpse into a body bag. Both of them were sweating badly, struggling against nausea.

“So what happened?” Al asked.

“He was trapped in here by the pressure doors, then someone opened the airlock.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

“This airlock’s been tricked out,” Patricia said. “I checked. The electronic safeties were blown to shit, and someone sliced through the swing rods.”

“You mean it was a proper professional hit,” Al said.

Emmet was keying commands into Bernhard’s block. There were few coherent responses, small blue spirals of light drifted through the holographic screen, fracturing any icons which did emerge from the management program. “I think somebody datavised a virus into this. I’ll have to link it up to a desktop and run a diagnostic to be sure. But he wasn’t able to call for help.”

“Kiera,” Al said. “She did this. Nothing tripped the alarms. They knew he’d be using this corridor, and when. It takes organization to set up a hit this smart. She’s the only one up here who could pull it off.”

Emmet scraped at the bloody wall with the tip of his stylus. By now, the blood had dried to a fragile black film. Tiny dark flakes snowed away from the composite instrument. “Several days old, even taking vacuum boiling into account,” Emmet said. “Bernhard never turned up for his assignment during the victory party, so I guess that’s when it was done.”

“Gives Kiera an alibi,” Patricia said, sullen with resentment.

“Hey!” Al spat. “There ain’t no goddamn federal courts up here. She doesn’t get no fancy lawyer to smartmouth her out of this by screwing the jury’s mind. If I say she did it, then that’s it. Period. The bitch is guilty.”

“She won’t give herself up easily,” Patricia said. “The way she’s been stirring things over Trafalgar, the fleet is starting to get jittery about the Navy retaliating. She’s got a lot of support, Al.”

“Shit!” Al glared at the body bag, cursing Bernhard. Why couldn’t the little asshole be stronger? Fight back against the bastards who whacked him, at least take a couple of them back to the beyond with him. Save me all this grief.

He relented. Bernhard had been loyal right from the moment he swung by in his make-believe Oldsmobile and picked up Al back in San Angeles. In fact that loyalty was probably what got him whacked. Chew away at the middle ranks, the really valuable ones, and you erode the power base of the guy at the top.

That motherfucking bitch.

“This is interesting.” Emmet was bending down to examine part of the corridor floor at one end of the bloodstain. “These marks here. Could be footprints.”

Suddenly interested, Al went over to take a look. The splotches of dried blood were roughly the right shape and size of someone’s boot sole. There were eight of them, becoming progressively smaller as they led towards the airlock.

He laughed abruptly. Goddamn. I’m doing fucking detective work! Me, a cop.

“I get it,” he said. “If they made prints, then the blood was still wet, right? That means it happened around the time Bernhard was killed.”

Emmet grinned. “You don’t need me.”

“Sure I do.” Al clapped him on the shoulder. “Emmet, my boy, you just made chief of police for this whole crummy rock. I want to know who did this, Emmet. I really want to know.”

Emmet scratched the back of his head, looking round the grisly murder scene, thinking out what needed to be done. These days, getting put on the spot by Al hardly affected his bladder at all. “A forensic team would be useful. I’ll check with Avram, see if we’ve got any police lab people that I can use up here.”

“If there ain’t, get them sent up from the planet,” Al said.

“Right.” Emmet was looking at the pressure door. “The guys doing the hit must have been close; that’s the only way to stop him from getting out. Breaking through a door like this would be no problem to a possessed, even Bernhard.” His stylus tapped the glass port in the middle of the door. “See? There’s no blood on this, even though it’s sprayed across the rest of the surface. They probably took a look at him, make sure he was dead.”

“If they stayed on the other side of the door, where did the footprints come from?”

“Dunno.” Emmet shrugged.

“This corridor got any of those police spy cameras fitted?”

“Yeah. I’ll review all their memories, but it’s pretty doubtful, Al. These guys are pros.”

“See what you can find for me, my boy. And in the meantime, pass the word, I want you guys taking a few precautions. Bernhard’s only the start. She’s gunning for all of us. And I can’t afford to lose any more of you. Capeesh?”

“I hear you, Al.”

“That’s good. Patricia, I think maybe we should return the compliment.”

Patricia’s thoughts swelled with dark delight. “Sure thing, boss.”

“Hit the bitch hard, someone she relies on. What’s that rat-face SOB always following her round? Got the psychic shit with the hellhawks?”

“Hudson Proctor.”

“That’s the guy. Bust his ass back to the beyond. But make sure he suffers some first, okay?”

There was a bunch of people waiting for Al when he got back to the Nixon suite. Leroy and Silvano, talking in low tones with Jez; worry hovering round them like a persistent fog. One guy (possessed) that Al didn’t recognize, who was being covered by a couple of his soldiers. The stranger had a head filled with the strongest thoughts Al had ever come across. His mind burned on pure anger alone. It deepened a shade when Al came in.