After that psycho droids business on Vidar, I told them I’d never take another off-world job.

 

But then the Agency called on a code red, and a dry, gravelly voice came on the line asking to speak with Special Investigator Reeves.

 

“That’d be me,” I said, rubbing crusted sleep from my eyes. “Who wants what and when and why?”

 

“You’re to go immediately to Orphus V,” the voice said. “Transport will be sent to pick you up at 0530, and further instructions will be given when you arrive.”

 

“No, sorry, I don’t do—” I began, but the line had gone dead.

 

* * *

 

By 0730, I was in the Orphus V space terminal being briefed by the head of Terminal Security. He looked every bit as bad as I felt, and not a whole lot happier.

 

He stood alongside me as we watched a holo-vid clip showing passengers boarding an X-Systems interplanetary shuttle. The footage was low resolution and shot from a lousy angle, but it was clear that all the passengers had had their heads attached to their bodies when they’d boarded.

 

“They’re still on the Orion X-S, confined to their cabins,” Fanshaw told me when the holo-vid ended. “We were instructed to hold them till you got here.”

 

“Right,” I said. “So, what do we know about the ones that made it here in one piece?”

 

“Well, the craft is auto-piloted, so there’s no space crew aboard, just a couple of catering droids. Then there’s two Sinovian extremophiles; a retired Xeroton ion forces commander, a couple of semi-sentients — from the Ankaara system, and some waifs and strays from the outer cloud worlds.”

 

“How many waifs and strays, exactly?” I asked.

 

“Two of each,” came his tired answer. I decided to let that pass.

 

“And the dead guy — what do we know about him?” I asked.

 

“Well, for a start, he was boarded ahead of the others and got assigned a private cabin. Seems he’d got an all-systems diplomatic pass. Which is why they sent for you, I guess.”

 

Fanshaw then stabbed on his tablet a couple of times and turned it around to show me. “This is him,” he said. “Or at least… that’s how he looks now.”

 

The image — which was shot from the upper anterior sensors unit of one of the catering droids — showed the headless corpse of a bipedal Archosaur, spreadeagled on the floor of the shuttle observation deck. His head was lying alongside, with its severed respiratory tubules, neuronal conduit, and plasma ducts all tangled together in a mess of amber spew.

 

I was glad I hadn’t eaten in a while.

 

“It was one of the catering droids, CD-17, that found the body,” Fanshaw said. “It was doing its rounds and discovered the observation deck locked from the inside; it had to run the door security override to gain access.”

 

“And where were the other passengers?”

 

“The Xeroton says he was asleep in his cabin, and the two Sinovians were in their cabin being attended to by CD-9. The rest were in the communal lounge, just chatting, eating and drinking.”

 

“Right,” I said and gave a deep sigh. Why’s there never a little Belgian detective around when you need one? I thought.

 

Fanshaw just stood and stared at me. I felt obliged to break the silence and do my thinking aloud.

 

“So, none of them had the means to commit the crime,” I said. “Because the observation deck was locked from the inside. As far as opportunity goes, the Xeroton couldn’t have got to the observation deck — not without going through the lounge and being seen by the other passengers. The same applies to the two Sinovians, on top of which they have an alibi provided by CD-9.”

 

“And the six in the lounge didn’t have opportunity,” Fanshaw said, “because one or more of the others would’ve noticed if they’d left and gone up to the observation deck.”

 

“That’s’ right,” I said. “So… let’s forget means and opportunity for now, and focus on motive.”

 

Fanshaw nodded, seemed to read my thoughts, and passed me the ship’s manifest.

 

* * *

 

I then went through the list and cross-checked their IDs against records in their home world registries, also searching for hits in the Interplanetary Criminal Actions database.

 

When I was done, I summarised for Fanshaw. “Every single bloody one of them might have had a motive to kill the Archosaur!”

 

“The little band of waifs and strays are all wanted for the trafficking of Archosaur minors off Cirrus 19, and it was our headless dead Archosaur who was responsible for the court-martial and subsequent dishonourable discharge of the Xeroton ion forces commander. The Sinovians and semi-sentients are both regarded as terrorists by the Archosaurs, and they’re forever kidnapping and killing one another.”

 

“So, they’ve all got possible motive — but not the means nor opportunity?” Fanshaw said. “I just don’t see how… unless—”

 

“Unless they’re all somehow in it together,” I said.

 

Then, just ten minutes later, I got a sub-ether call from the Agency, and the penny finally dropped.

 

“Turns out our dead Archosaur isn’t dead after all,” I told Fanshaw. “He’s alive and well, tucked up in bed on Arcturus. You can let the passengers go now.”

 

* * *

 

Later, in the android corrective programming and decommissioning centre – more generally referred to as Tin Man’s Abattoir — the catering droid, CD-17, was clamped to a restraining frame, with pin electrodes wired into the front, back and sides of its head.

 

“You knew I’d vowed never to go back to Vidar,” I said. “So, you hatched a plan to get me off-world as a means to extract revenge for your psycho companions I terminated. You hacked the X-Systems flight hardware to fake the boarding of an Archosaur diplomat, and then sent a fake transmission that seemed to show his decapitated body — knowing that I’d be the one the Agency would send to investigate.”

 

“Nice try,” I said. “But no cigar.”