Read Sacrifice of Fools for Free Online Page B

grins, mimes an explosion.
    ‘The word “maser” mean anything to anyone?’ Littlejohn asks.
    Ian Cochrane frowns.
    ‘Maser. Microwave laser. Poodle in the microwave effect, with a vengeance. Our killer comes in, one shot.’ Littlejohn stands over the body on the floor, both hands gripping the imaginary weapon. ‘About half a megawatt in an invisible beam no wider than a thread. Totally silent, totally effective, totally untraceable. No cartridges, no powder burns, no rifling, no shell to retrieve. Water flashes to steam. Steam pressure detonates the skull. Boom! Head goes off like a hand grenade. On to the second.’ He steps to the body by the fireplace. ‘Click. Boom! Turns, takes out the third, then goes into the back to kill the kids. Two shots. Boom, boom!’
    ‘What about the hands?’ Dunbar asks. ‘The posture of the victims?’
    ‘Haven’t a clue, my dear.’
    Roisin Dunbar remembers that she’d never been able to watch more than thirty seconds of Dr Robert Littlejohn. Too full of himself by half.
    ‘You certain it was a maser?’ Ian Cochrane asks.
    ‘The necks are cauterized. The intense heat seals the wound. Also, you may have noticed a damp pink haze sticking to everything. Vaporized brain.’
    ‘I’ve been hearing something about these Outsider weapons,’ Cochrane says. Murder isn’t his area of expertise. He’s a terrorist boy, from way back, clearing up those other leftovers from way back who have yet to learn that Joint Sovereignty is supposed to safeguard their freedoms and cultures. Old paranoias cling exceedingly tight. Old political dogmas cover petty warlordism. This is our pissing ground. Ours. Ours. ‘There’s word that the gang bosses are looking for them. They’re paying top dollar for any Outsider gadgetry they can get their hands on, if it doesn’t blow their hands right off them first.’
    ‘You think there could be terrorist involvement?’ Willich asks.
    ‘It’s a theory,’ Ian Cochrane says. He pokes at the computer. ‘Jesus, how is this thing supposed to work?’
    ‘You stick it up your nose,’ Littlejohn says. ‘Shian technology is largely based around information-carrying chemicals. With humans, sight is the pre-eminent sense; with the Shian, it’s smell. So, if you have to interview any Shian, don’t wear aftershave or strong perfume. It’s the equivalent of wearing a mask. Disguising your identity. Better still, get me to do it. I know these people’s languages, verbal and physical. There are gestures and expressions in human non-verbal communication that are at best insulting in Shian body language, at worst an outright challenge. You’ll be needing help with these people.’
    He has just pitched for a retainer, Roisin Dunbar marvels. Five dead Outsiders at his feet, two of them kids, for God’s sake, and Dr Robert Littlejohn is pushing for a consultancy.
    ‘A simpler theory is that it’s some Outsider feud, one clan blowing away another,’ Roisin Dunbar says.
    Littlejohn is wearing a look of superiority.
    ‘For a start, they aren’t clans. They’re Nations: semi-geographical social units. There are a thousand of them, most older than the pyramids. They have ancient and complex cultures; they build starships, colonize other worlds. They are not the Mafiosi. And for second, it’s physiologically impossible for a Shian to have committed these murders.’
    He waits for a leading question, a How so? an Oh really? He doesn’t get one.
    ‘What’s the first thing you notice about the Shian? They all look the same. Boys look like girls, girls look like boys, no external gender identifiers, all the naughty bits neatly tucked away behind decorous little flaps of skin and they only pop out once the season comes. The guys can even suckle young. But this is just whitewalls and chrome fins, just trimming; where it really matters is in here.’ He waves a finger at his forehead. ‘They don’t have the strong-man, weak-woman set-up that is the absolute