Look at Second Picture

The image is nearly identical to the first, just shifted about half a meter. Umesh had been moving fast. The walls look the same. So does the tentacle. But that’s not all.

There. Near the back of the room, close to the floor. A smeared metallic-looking rectangle with a logo on it. The logo is too blurry to make out at first. A few minutes of work with the image enhancing suite in your overlays fixes that, and you find yourself looking at a stylized image of a double helix set within a flat graphic of a clenched fist.

You don’t recognize the logo, and no matches come up when you search for it. Huh.

Stumped, you slump back. It sure looks like the Jellies were responsible for killing Umesh. But the rectangle with the logo continues to bother you.

Your mind wanders back to your conversation with the station mind. . . . It must have given you a clue of some kind. You feel sure of it. If only you can make sense of it. . . . Why do you scent for those you hate? Had it been asking why you’re hunting a Jelly? Or was it asking why you worked for the League/UMC? Minds were tricky that way, and this one was a mix of human, Jelly, and Soft Blade. It was never going to say things in a straightforward manner.

What else had it said? . . . Seek now in the proper setting of things. “The proper setting of things.” The chair grates against the floor as you tilt it back and lace your fingers behind your head.

The setting of things . . . Set . . . Set . . . Verb? Noun? To set was to place. Setting . . . The placing of things? The shape of things? . . . A growl escapes you. Riddles have always annoyed you, even when you were a kid. They’re like grains of sand embedded in your brain, coarse and irritating. Maybe that’s why you feel as if you have to solve them.

You’d already been looking at the setting of the crime. And you’d been looking at the larger circumstances of Umesh’s life. What else was there? What leap of logic was needed to follow the station mind’s extenuated chain of thought?

An idea springs to mind. There’s no real logic behind it, just gut emotion. You scroll back through Umesh’s location data, back to the day-before-yesterday when . . .

GST: 1934. NDS: 002345.4478998.34.000400040004.+023372 -05898

It takes you a second to translate the string of numbers into a location on Unity. And then you see it: Umesh had been in the docking hold, where cargo was transferred on and off the station. He didn’t have work in the hold, so just what had he been doing in that area?

The proper setting of things. . . . In a sideways piece of logic, you could see how the phrase might apply to the cargo hold. Key word being might. Ah, what the hell. You need a break anyway.

You grab your flight jacket and head for the cargo hold. It’s not like you have anything better to do. . . .