We both knew why I was there, of course. "It's a fool's errand," I said, filling a Styrofoam cup from the coffee urn. "If someone wants to get away with murder this far out in the Spiral Arm, there's not much that S & I can do about it, absent credible witnesses, which this case doesn't seem to have."

Foley was a nodder. He nodded his head in agreement while I spoke, and he nodded while he returned fire. On the fingers of his left hand he ticked off his speaking points. "Parrish died from two stab wounds, one in the groin, the other under the right armpit, either of which would have been fatal. Each of the seventeen miners carries at least one knife. It's likely the murder weapon never will be found. As for motive, there's beer here and often some stronger drink, and there's the occasional disagreement and brawl. Maybe something got carried too far, and was settled privately." He paused, staring at his hand--he'd run out of fingers. "Hell, Cooper, everyone in the outpost thinks he has reason to kill someone here at one time or another. It just hasn't been acted out before this."

The coffee rated one level above cleaning solvent. While I cleared my throat of an abrasive gulp, a shiny nugget on his desk snagged my attention. It looked as if it had hardened from molten metal in someone's hand, the shape of it accurate right up to the indentations of the fingers clutching it. I supposed the nugget served along the lines of a paperweight, although Foley's was a paperless office.

I made a face at the coffee, and said, "I'll want to speak with the medic who examined the body--"

"That would be Tyler."

I nodded, and caught myself--the damn body language was contagious. "Tyler, and I understand Parrish lived with someone. A woman. I'll want to speak with her as well."

"Blindmary," said Foley.

"Still, she might have heard something."

Foley laughed, and nodded for no apparent reason. "No, that's what they're called. The natives--the abos, xenos, whatever you want to think of them as."

I sat up straight. "Kelleria has an indigenous sentient species?" That fact seemed to have been omitted from the skeletal incident report I'd read.

Foley's hand made a desultory gesture. At least it wasn't a nod. "We've only encountered the women, so far. Minecorp's locators found the scheelite deposit and sent us here. The corporate hierarchs didn't seem to think a concessionary agreement was necessary. In any case, that's not my call. I just go where they send me. Just like you, Cooper." He got to his feet, a bulky man with incipient paunch, weary now. "It's late, and the men will be drinking. You're drawing per diem, right? So you won't mind staying over an extra day or so. You can have Parrish's bungalow. Second cluster on the right, the one closest to the walkway. I'll have it put off-limits--it's been a while since some of the miners have seen a human woman. You can help me maintain discipline by drawing the curtains."

Although technically I outranked him, I recognized the dismissal. We'd both had long days. I told him I'd check back with him in the morning, and went outside to locate my quarters.

The mining settlement consisted of eighteen bungalows arranged in groups of three, on either side of a path so well-traveled that the understory had been worn away. I had no difficulty finding Parrish's bungalow, and no one accosted me on the way to it. The path itself led straight through the settlement and away from the mine, and the last structure on my side was a drinking establishment, judging from the sounds that emanated from it. I assumed that, aside from alcohol and sex, there wasn't much to do for recreation on Kelleria. For all I knew, Parrish might have been killed just to alleviate the tedium.

Just outside my door I paused to take another look at the settlement. Across the path from the tavern, illuminated by the dim light through its windows and by the remaining dusk, I spied dark shapes that suggested buildings under construction--possibly another cluster of bungalows. Foley had not mentioned any incoming personnel, but possibly the structures were meant to house some of the xenos. If so, then perhaps there were more xenos than miners--a factor which might lead to another motive for Parrish's murder.

Which might be important were I expected actually to solve the crime. I nudged the door open, and at my command the ceiling panels began to glow. Training compelled me to assume the dwelling was occupied--a sensible precaution. Even so, it took a second glance for me to register the human shape standing in the shadows in the far corner. Almost immediately it came to life, just as I tore my pistol from the rig over my right hip and brought it to bear.

The blindmary could see well enough. Her eyes were a deep, luminous amethyst, the irises large enough to leave very little room for white, and she held them on me as if I were the only other object in the Universe. Disconcerted, I blinked, registered the weapon aimed at her, and put it away. She did not act as if she had been in any danger.

Given her purple hair and pale blue skin, she looked human, albeit a bit slender for my taste, and she stood about a meter eighty, a height which enabled her to gaze directly into my eyes, also disconcerting. She was attired in a thin white one-strap gown and very likely nothing else. The limp fabric sculpted her; within it, she appeared to be composed of contours and shadows. Looking at her, I knew I had been too long between lovers. Bang, like that. She entwined perfectly with my vulnerability.

Yet how could she have known my preferences?

But duty had to prevail, at least for now. A crude, cushioned lounge against the right wall hardly merited attention, but I devoted myself to its study. "I don't mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?"

Like a cloud she drifted to a spot between me and the lounge. Her voice was soft as nightfall. "I am yours."

Evidently S&I had omitted a considerable amount of information from my briefing.

The bungalow comprised just the one room, with the 'fresher set off from the common area by translucent plastic curtains from ceiling to floor. Aside from the lounge, furnishings consisted of a raised futon along the far wall, a food preparation station against the left wall, an olive-drab folding plastic desk and matching chair parked in the front right corner, and what passed for an armoire between the lounge and the futon. The spartan arrangement doubtless served the lifestyle: miners worked, made their bankroll, and departed for more pleasant abodes. Simple lives engendered simple motives for simple crimes. Parrish, the bungalow's previous occupant, had been stabbed to death--a crime of anger or of passion, differing from a billion preceding murders only in that it had happened to Parrish.

The blindmary followed me around the bungalow while I conducted a rudimentary inspection. I did not expect to find any useful clues, and in this regard I was not disappointed. Finally I turned to the blindmary, herself potentially the ultimate clue, and asked, "And were you Parrish's before you were mine?"

"No. Jennua is . . . " And she stopped, as one puzzled.

"Grieving, perhaps?" I suggested.

"I do not know this word."

I hoped I would not require an interpreter. "What is your name?"

The blindmary blinked. "Tell me."

Already my next avenue of inquiry was developing: food. Her response brought that plan to a halt. "No, I mean, how are you called?"

Again the blindmary seemed puzzled. "Tell me."

I approached from another direction. "I'm Brilla Cooper. And you are . . . ?"

Her eyes said that her mind had gone blank. Interrogations of the native sentients were going to be . . . interesting. Mentally I threw up my hands and glanced at the lounge again. It looked barely sturdy enough to support the weight of the travel bag. "Doesn't anyone repair anything around here?" I groused, rhetorically.

"Tell me," persisted the blindmary.

My stomach chose that moment to protest a lack of attention. "Where can I get something to eat?" I asked.

"I will prepare food for you."

"Do they serve food at the tavern?"

A thin smile had been about to curl her mouth. Now it vanished. "Food is served at the tavern."

I tugged the heavy jersey down over the hip rig, and went off in search of sustenance and information.

As I entered the tavern, ten pairs of eyes turned to me, a not unexpected development. Resumed conversation quickly blotted out the momentary hush, and I spotted Will Foley standing at the counter with one bottle empty and a second about to be. The word had been passed. Not so much that I was to be left alone--rules this far from civilization typically addressed other conflicts--but that I was an operative from Corporate Security & Investigations. Were I to be killed, it was just possible that two more operatives would arrive to find out why. Even the innocent preferred not to endure that kind of attention.

At the other end of the counter from Foley I was served a bottle of plonk by a blindmary whose color motif was green--forest for the hair, serpentine eyes, chartreuse skin, and a smock that matched the hair. The plonk was bland and alcoholic, but drinking it filled the time until the arrival of what was advertised as "grilled ham and cheese," though I recalled seeing neither swine nor dairy cattle on the way in from the Spaceport. But there are swine, and there are swine.

I'll say this: I'm not comfortable among clusters of men in such settings, because there are always a few who reckon they have just the thing to turn me around. But S&I is less interested in my comfort than in my performance, investigation being a gender-neutral occupation. I had to make my own arrangements regarding comfort.

This one was my height and half again my width. He had a ginger beard and a ruddy complexion and a split lip and a missing upper incisor. He had, however, bathed recently. He waved a thick-fingered hand at the sandwich. "I got better than that to eat at my place," he said.

Past his shoulder I saw Foley watching me intently. Perhaps he was inclined to interfere if things got out of hand--which I dared not allow. Investigators this far out needed an authority that was clear and, most of all, independent.

But the offer of a meal from Gingerbeard was not untoward. In another setting, I might have regarded it as courteous. And he was not looking to turn me around, because he had no idea I was facing in another direction. But he was clearly the man looked-up-to by the other miners. There were two or three others in the tavern who were more massive, but he had that sort of swagger.

I took a bite of the sandwich. Its center tasted neither of ham nor of dairy product. "This'll do, thanks," I told him, and turned to the counter, my right flank to him, hoping he would accept the dismissal. But Gingerbeard was not that intuitive. I felt his hand heavy on my right shoulder as he tried to spin me back to him.

Especially if you can do it when your opponent is off-balance and not expecting it, it's a basic aikido maneuver to twist the edge of his right hand firmly and clockwise, and with your left hand push up and then forward into his elbow, bending it unnaturally. If done properly, he feels as if his shoulder will be severely dislocated and his arm snapped if he resists going wherever you want him to go. I did it properly, and walked him around, agony quashing his resistance. First I introduced him to Mr. Stanchion, and then to Mr. Wall, and finally returned him to the table whence he had come.

To reserve cooperation without any lingering animosity, I said, gently, "On another world, and when I'm off-duty, you can invite me to pass a meal with you. But not here. And not now." He gave a little nod, and tried to staunch the flow of blood from another cut in his lip with his shirt sleeve. He would not look at me, but Foley shot me a little wink as I returned to my sandwich.

It didn't take long for the tavern to return to its previous ambience, fights being commonplace, of short duration and quick resolution. Several of the men were accompanied by blindmaries, who clung like vines to them, weighing on their every word, and even Gingerbeard soon found himself not alone. The atmosphere was informative only in that the motive for killing Parrish remained obscure. There might be one or two matters in the settlement worth fighting over, but none worth killing over.

But there was someone else in the tavern who preferred to remain aloof from the festivities. He was sitting at a table in a dark front corner, his back to the wall. I became aware of him when the green blindmary took him a bottle. Shadows obscured him there, but light from the ceiling panels reflected off his pale, tan face when he looked up to give thanks for the service. He was wearing a dark, loose outfit that concealed all but his hands and face, and black work boots. When our eyes met, very briefly, he looked away, and pulled his head further back into the shadows.

The sandwich consumed, I flagged another bottle of plonk and approached his table, a move which he greeted with a mix of reluctance and resignation. When I poised beside the empty chair opposite him, he invited me down with a little wave of his hand.

"You'd be Tyler?" I guessed, scooting myself in. The legs of the chair made a scraping sound that seemed much too loud, and I felt as if the entire mining complement was watching us. I extended a hand across the table. "Brilla Cooper."

"Allan Tyler," he said. He had strong fingers but a soft hand--healer's hands, and a gravelly, smoky voice from living too long in dry air. "I rather supposed we would meet formally."

At this distance he looked younger than I expected, a callow youth who had scarcely begun to depilate his face, and I made a remark to that effect. Apparently he had fielded similar questions in the past.

"I began training for paramedic when I was fifteen," he said easily. He took a gulp of ale, and only then did I realize that his bottle was different from mine. "By the time they found out I was three years under regulation, I had already graduated. They've posted me this far away to keep me out of sight of the inspector general until I turn twenty one."

"So you're not a physician, then."

He shook his head. "Couldn't afford medical school. But out here it's mostly injuries. Cuts, scrapes, bruises, sprains, fractures. I can handle most anything up to and including arthroscopy. Anything more serious, we just ship them back to corporate. Do you want some of mine? You keep eyeing my bottle."

I apologized. "I seem to have asked for the wrong thing at the counter."

He grunted, and signaled the green blindmary. "Probably asked for something to drink. You should've been more specific." When he got her attention, he pointed to his bottle, then raised two fingers. "You're drinking local brew," he explained, as the order arrived. "Hydroponic hops. Next time just tell Shit4brains you want an import."

I stared at him. "Just tell . . . who?"

Tyler indicated the green blindmary tending bar. "It's sick, I know, but the name sticks once it's bestowed. You know that."

I started to deny that knowledge when someone at Gingerbread's table laughed loudly, and sent me onto another track. I said, "They don't seem to be suffering from the loss of a comrade."

His quick, faint smile said he was reading much more into the statement. "They're older, they do hard labor, they have different interests." He drained the old bottle and started on the fresh one. "I have nothing in common with them. Some of them probably suppose I . . . prefer the company of men."

I hoisted the bottle in a toast. "Then my sitting at this table might help to disabuse them of that notion."

Tyler thought about that for a moment, and clinked me, pale eyes laughing at me from the shadows. "Truth is, I prefer women."

"Me, too."

Upon initial reflection, I had no idea why I had said that, and regretted the disclosure. But I had responded instinctively--which suggested that I might have been seeking to establish a bond for interrogative cooperation by making myself an outcast and therefore empathetic and trustworthy.

Tyler did not take the admission lightly. His face colored, and he would not meet my eyes. "Your secret's safe. I took a paramedic's oath."

I gave him a gentle nudge. "I might have to ask you about other secrets."

"I don't think I can tell you anything helpful."

I glanced around at the tables. "It doesn't bother you that someone here might be a murderer?"

Tyler shrugged. "Several of them are. That's one of the reasons they hire out here. They prefer to stay here for the rest of their lives. It would bother me if one was a serial killer. But to them, killing is just an extreme response to a sufficient provocation."

"Is that what happened to Parrish?"

A mild disturbance interrupted Tyler's response. The tavern door had opened, and in the entrance stood a sepia-and-tan blindmary with eyes only for one of the men who was larger than Gingerbeard. "Please tell me when you're coming home," she said, in a gentle voice, without rancor or disappointment. "I don't want to peel the fruit too soon, or it will bruise."

The man stood up--he was dressed in a dirty undershirt and mud-stained work fatigue pants--and freed himself from the grasp of a blindmary before he chucked an empty bottle at her. This one plastic, it bounced off the door jamb and rolled a ways back to him. "I'll be home when I'm fucking well ready. And don't give me that sad-eyed look. Go on home!"

And the tavern door gently shut behind her.

The incident compelled me to look over the groups gathered at the tables. The blindmaries clung to the men, laughing with them but without apparent mirth, hanging on their every word as if it sprouted directly from a philosopher's mouth, moving the empties out of the way, and lighting the tobaccos of those few who smoked. Yet I realized now that there was nothing implicitly sexual about their behavior. At the closing of the tavern some of them might accompany their men to bungalows for the night, but such was an expectation along the same lines as the laughter and the interest. And the demeanors were not feigned or perfunctory. Each blindmary behaved genuinely, and this despite the little abuses heaped on them--condescending touslings of their hair, maulings of praise for getting a joke or grasping a point of argument, petty tolerances of remarks they offered in support of the points of their men. The observation constituted evidence of a sort--yet I could not see how it meshed with the crime I had been sent to investigate and, if possible, solve.

"I'm surprised this is the first murder to be reported from here," I said to Tyler, who had ordered another round. "They train us at the Academy not to judge, merely to evaluate, but . . . "

Tyler paused in the middle of lifting a bottle to his lips, pale eyebrows arched in surprise. "You think Parrish was killed by his blindmary?"

I shrugged. "Abused women have killed men for less than what I've seen in here so far."

"They don't feel abuse," said Tyler. He downed a gulp of ale and gave me a look one usually reserves for an ignorant child. "They don't have emotions--or orgasms, for that matter. They need warmth and attention, nothing more. Normally they get this from each other, but they've adapted to the presence of men--even had their urethras altered to accommodate the men's erections, and undergone implants to give them the appearance of breasts."

I stared at her in disbelief, and muttered something about sentience.

"Oh, they're quite sentient," said Tyler. "Yes, in the human sense, if you wish. But what you regard as abuse, they regard as the attention they crave." Tyler drained the last of his ale. "Parrish's blindmary didn't kill him."

"Jennua, isn't it? I do need to speak with her."

Tyler shook his head. "Not while she's twinning. Unless you plan to stick around for about four more days."

"Twinning?"

Tyler grumbled something. "Better to show you, I think. If I have no immediate duties in the morning, I'll escort you to the chamber."

The tavern door banged shut. Foley had left. Outnumbered, it seemed prudent for me to depart as well, despite an onslaught of freshly raised questions. I gave Tyler a little toast of thanks, drained the bottle, and left.

The blindmary was still fretting about something when I returned to the bungalow. I caught a whiff of fresh sawdust and new fabric, and sought out the source of it--and looked no further than the lounge. Sturdy strips of wood had been cut and fitted to support the existing frame, and one of the two seat cushions had been recovered, the new greenish blue almost a match for the turquoise of the old. On the floor next to the lounge lay tools and fragments of wood and yardcloth. Following my gaze, the blindmary quickly knelt and began gathering up the loose items, presumably to take them back to the settlement's repair and maintenance bay.

"You don't have to do that," I said. "Not tonight." But she persisted, and I touched her shoulder, a signal for her to stop. Bright eyes gave me the same look others had given the men in the tavern: attentive and genuine, and without a trace of resentment. "Don't bother with this tonight," I told her. "Please . . . what is your name?"

Reluctantly she straightened, an attractive albeit pale indigo woman my height and now within arm's reach of me. I had to steady myself against the heady presence of her, and remind myself that she was alien, not human, not a woman.

"Tell me," she said. This time it was almost a plea.

The bright light of unexpected understanding made me blink. Over me washed a wave of sympathy for the unfortunate green bartender. The color of her eyes inspiring, I said, very carefully, "You are . . . Amethyst."

The mind behind her eyes tasted this christening and found it palatable. Her mouth found a ready smile. "Thank you." She swept to the armoire and opened a drawer. "I have placed your spare garments in here," she explained, and tugged open one of the smaller top drawers, "and your communication devices and the spare charges for your weapon in here." The other small drawer housed my toiletries.

Before I could respond in any way she hastened off to the 'fresher and returned with a plastic cup filled with water. "You have been drinking alcoholic beverages," she pointed out. "Those can dehydrate you. This will help."

"I'm fine," I said, but drank the water. "Listen, Amethyst . . . "

"Do you wish to bed yourself now?"

"I wish to bed myself now. And thank you for all that you've done. Good night, Amethyst."

She began drifting toward the door. Remembering Foley's request for support of discipline, I ordered the lights dimmed and out before I undressed. With Amethyst's meticulous housekeeping in mind, I folded my jersey, undershirt, and fatigue trousers and placed them neatly on top of the armoire, stood the boots at guard at the foot of the bed, and finally stripped off the codpad and pitched it into the small recyke bin beside the armoire.

After slipping the pistol under the pillow I stretched out on the futon . . . and yelped, and ordered the lights on. Amethyst lay sprawled along the left half of the futon, her white gown folded to serve as a pillow for herself. Her expression blended consternation and anxiety, as if she thought she had done something either improper or unexpected.

I swore softly, and sat up. "What are you doing here, Amethyst?"

"This is where I sleep . . . Brilla."

"I'm sorry," I said, and stood up, confused. "I rather assumed . . . so where do I sleep, then?"

"You sleep here." Her eyes lowered to my crotch. "Where is your penis?"

Evidently S&I had omitted an entire shipping container of information from my briefing.

About two minutes later, after I had stopped laughing long enough to recover some composure, I said, "I'm a woman, Amethyst. I don't have a penis."

A frown darkened her face, and a desperate earnestness entered her tone. "Then how will I be able to please you?"

"Amethyst, it's not necessary for you to . . . please me." I eased myself back onto the futon and recaptured my half of the blanket. "Just go to sleep."

Amethyst did not respond. She had fallen deep into thought, her face a plain blue mask, without expression, the eyes remote. Finally she slipped from the futon. "Forgive me," she whispered, throwing her gown back on. "I will return soon."

I spoke her name, but she had already reached the door. She left without looking back.

Despite having been awake for almost thirty hours, I was unable to fall myself to sleep. Job tension took the place of REM sleep. The official tasking was no closer to a final report than it had been when I first met with Foley. Two of the three basic questions of criminal investigation--means and opportunity--might be satisfied by almost any man in the settlement, but the third, motive, continued to exceed my grasp. I had the feeling that if I could resolve that one, the identity of Parrish's killer would become immediately clear.

I closed my eyes and waited, with the expectation that some small particle of information would take root, sprout, and bring all to light. No such thing happened. Behind my eyelids remained darkness. Soon a tiny sound at the door brought me alert. Amethyst had returned.

She pretended not to notice that my left hand was obscured by the pillow. I released the pistol and started to sit up, but her hand on my shoulder stopped me. Kneeling, and rather like unwrapping an expensive gift, she drew the gown over her head, folded it, and placed it on the futon. She had no aroma that I could detect, and yet I was totally aware of her, and again of having been too long between lovers. Tyler had indicated that blindmaries didn't respond emotionally to stimulation. A part of me wished that applied to me as well.

But the other parts of me . . .

"I asked Moya," explained Amethyst. "She has experience."

Already I was fighting the urge to pull her down with me, and her bland statement of fact helped bank some fires, although I cannot say that I was relieved. Still, I was trying to be sensible about this. Wasn't I? She was an alien, not human, not someone I could love and make love with. Wasn't she? And yet she looked like that. At first I had thought her a bit too slender for my tastes, but not now, not now. A remote and sensible part of me pointed out that blindmaries were becoming more and more curious as a species, and I reached for that floating straw of sanity and held on.

"This Moya prefers women?" I asked. Belatedly I realized the question could have no context here. "One of you, I mean?"

Amethyst paused for a moment, as if she had just come up short to a barrier that had not been there before. "There is no preference. There is only technique. Lie back, please."

Battlements crumbled, ramparts were about to be breached. I managed one more feeble defensive fusillade, my mouth fumbling around some words. "Amethyst, you don't have to do this."

She stretched out beside me. "That is not the same as no."

I caught her wrist, still fighting myself and clutching that sanity straw, determined not to go down with the ship, not to go down . . .

Amethyst sighed, and threw the blanket over the two of us, and snuggled, draping her right leg across my thighs, nestling her cheek on my shoulder, and all I could think of was what she meant by "technique." It was a natural response to curl my arm around her--wasn't it?--but at this she pressed herself even closer. Her right hand, flat and fingers spread, came to rest on my stomach.

Enough of this, I thought. But I could not get my mouth to work. The pads of her fingers began a moth's-touch inspection of my skin, and my abdomen muscles fluttered. But Amethyst was an alien . . . wasn't she? It couldn't work. I'd had a man or two, long ago . . . before. And that didn't work. Her head brushed across my breast, the static electricity in her hair chilling me like spiders up a spine. But it couldn't work, not on me. I preferred women, their affections, their touches, that's what worked on me. And she straddled me, and her face nestled between my breasts only briefly before she kissed my sternum . . . my stomach . . .

Men . . . not really, no. Women, oh, yes. But aliens . . .

And presently . . . presently I thought: any port in a storm.

Rather too early Tyler awoke me, knocking on the door, entering when bidden, discreetly averting his eyes while I performed hygienics and dressed. Amethyst too arose and, unbidden, began busying herself with making coffee and straightening the bedding and other chores associated with housekeeping. Inexplicably I felt a twinge of guilt, as if Tyler had caught me out doing something untoward. But that was merely a projection--I was my own accuser. Guilt or no, I knew exactly where I wanted to bed myself, and with whom . . . tonight and--

Was that what the men felt, too?

And if so, was that intensity of feeling related to the motive I sought?

Tyler was fidgeting impatiently by the time I drew on the hip rig and stuffed the pistol into it. Protocarb crackers hardly constituted a proper breakfast, but they would have to do. I flipped one to Tyler, and we left the bungalow munching.

By daylight the settlement was like a familiar stranger: seen somewhere before, but without definition. The tavern had fallen quiet. Beyond it the valley in which the settlement lay opened to an expanse of brown and green savannah, with the great forest a dark green ribbon across the horizon. Old foothills that a billion years ago had been craggy, snowcapped peaks gently rose around us, easily scaled if we so chose. Dawn peeked over the eastern foothills at us like a voyeur, the sun following close behind to catch it in the act. Our destination, whatever it was, awaited us at the other end of the valley, and at Tyler's nudge we headed in that direction.

Activity had worn the footpath down to dust, which lifted in little brown clouds at our feet. Ahead, much closer than I expected, yawned a mineshaft large enough to pass three abreast, and devoid of any sign of technology. I asked the obvious question.

"No rails? No ore cars?"

"Not necessary," Tyler said enigmatically.

The terse reply surprised me, given the ready responses of the previous evening. I recalled that Tyler had offered to show me "twinning" as if it had been against his better judgment. But other questions still needed answers.

"Foley said you examined Parrish's body before it was cremated," I began. "What can you tell me about the wounds?"

Tyler's grimace said he found the memory distasteful. "Two stab wounds from a fifteen- to twenty-centimeter blade. One in the right armpit, nicking the brachial artery, and the other in the groin--the right groin, if you wish--slicing open the femoral artery. He died of exsanguination."

"I don't recall seeing any bloodstains in the bungalow."

"Blindmaries are very efficient housekeepers."

"And were there corresponding cuts in Parrish's clothing?" I asked him.

Tyler paused, to stare first at me and then at the ground. He seemed to be deep in thought. "I didn't think to look," he said at last. "The body was stripped when I examined it."

"Where is his clothing now?"

Again Tyler paused. "I'll have to check, but I think everything he owned was disposed." He made a little gesture toward the mine entrance. "After you."

I held back. "You know where we're going."

As if to allay a suspicion I had not broached, he entered, and bade me follow. Here the footpath was rougher, cut as it was into old brown rock, and lit by blue-green glowstix affixed at intervals to the walls of the shaft. The descent was very gradual, and I began to notice signs of movement, of shadows--the blindmaries were about. As Tyler and I probed further, we met several of them headed back outside, solitary or in twos, carrying little plastic containers filled with small rocks--glistening, roughly ovoid, and evidently rather heavy. All this while the miners in the bungalows were still asleep. Mining was good work, if you could get it.

"Here," said Tyler, and we turned into an adjoining shaft. This one was short, and led to a chamber somewhat larger than a bungalow. Superficially it resembled a limestone cavern, its walls and ceiling and uneven floor resplendent in the white glowstix that revealed various shades of yellow and orange. Stalactites and stalagmites were absent, as was limestone, yet the chamber seemed naturally formed. It was warmer here, the heavy air spilling like folds of rich cloth. In the far right corner stood a blindmary . . . two blindmaries . . .

"Jennua," said Tyler. "She cannot hear you," he added, when I started to call to her.

Treading carefully on the irregular floor, I approached to within three meters of . . . her. She was facing me, standing with her weight evenly on the two legs that were clearly hers, arms slightly akimbo. From her left flank and at a right angle to her had emerged another pair of legs, the right one not quite yet separated from her left, and still joined at the hip. An upper torso had already formed from Jennua's, the new one utterly lacking breasts. Jennua's head and neck appeared misshapen, as a second head and neck was beginning to emerge from it. Even as I watched, a third eye opened on the too-broad forehead.

"Twinning," said Tyler.

But the duplication, to me, was imprecise. Jennua was brown. The new blindmary would be ochre.

"When crystals of silicon dioxide form," said Tyler, "amethyst, citrine, especially quartz, the crystals can exhibit the same formative process, twinning. One crystal growing from another. For them, the process is . . . perhaps not the same, but certainly analogous. It is the way they reproduce."

My mind had blanked, but I did manage to snag one question floating around. "Then why the different colors?"

Tyler nodded approvingly. "I asked that, too. Moya--that's the blindmary who shares my bungalow--she explained it to me. Use quartz as an example again. Pure silicon dioxide is transparent. But different impurities add color to the crystals. Rose quartz, for example, gets its color from a trace of titanium. Jennua here has shared impurities with another blindmary, or perhaps acquired some from the rock, possibly even from one of the men. Iron in the blood, for example. Or zinc, copper, manganese. She is passing those impurities on to her 'twin,' with the results that you see."

I thought about that, and about a possibility. "Iron in the blood, you said. In Parrish's blood? Could the absorption of his blood have triggered the twinning process?"

Tyler mulled this over. "I know of no reason why that wouldn't be possible."

"Let's go to Foley's office," I said.

But the tour was incomplete. "There's more you should see," said Tyler. "To understand the full relationship between the miners and the blindmaries."

We left the twinning chamber and continued down into the mine. At the next junction we turned left, and into another, similar chamber, this one occupied by five blindmaries, each carrying a plastic container. I frowned a question at Tyler, who merely said, "Watch."

Two of the blindmaries had extended their hands to the chamber wall. At second glance, I realized that their hands had sunk into the wall up to their elbows. The one on the right--a rich, turquoise color, with magnificent blue hair--was withdrawing her arm. Already the wrist was free. Slowly, inexorably, the hand--now a fist--emerged. After it cleared the wall, the fingers opened over the container. I heard a distinct clunk.

"There's a vein of scheelite in that wall," said Tyler. "She just extracted a nugget of tungsten."

I shook my head. "Which smelts at around 3500K. That's not possible."

"In fact, standard recovery of tungsten is not effected by smelting, but by a complicated chemical process involving the conversion of scheelite to tungstic acid," said Tyler. "And don't look at me like that. I did some research. But the blindmaries' bodies can catalyze similar chemical processes that enable them to concentrate various metals into elemental nuggets. There's molybdenum in this area as well, and tin."

"So the blindmaries harvest the metals in pure, elemental forms, which makes the miners and Corporate happy, and the miners provide the companionship and attention the blindmaries crave, which makes them happy--and vice versa." I began heading out of the mine, tugging Tyler along with me. "That's a very convenient symbiosis."

"And Corporate asks no questions when it receives the nuggets," added Tyler. "Of course, if they knew which questions to ask . . . "

We reached sunlight. "They'd ask them. I understand. But I'm concerned with social economics only insofar as it affects the solution of this case."

Tyler grunted. "And have you solved it yet?"

"Oh, yes. I know exactly who killed Parrish, and why."

Foley, Tyler, and I gathered in Foley's office and parked on rickety chairs, myself nearest the door as a security precaution, although I doubted any severe measures would prove necessary. Tyler was eyeing Foley as if the foreman were the object of my investigation, and I had no idea whether the paramedic, who possessed an affinity for the blindmaries and sympathy for their lot, intended to confront one of their abusers.

But it clearly stunned Tyler when I opened with, "Allan Tyler, I am formally detaining you for the murder of Nevin Parrish. Foreman Foley, if you would please order Tyler's possessions packed up and placed aboard a skimmer to take us to my 'skip at the Spaceport? My things, too, please."

Foley, frowning heavily, complied with the official request, as I had hoped. I was anxious to continue speaking, in order to prevent anyone else in the office from speaking, but I waited, sitting on eggs, until he had closed commo.

Tyler started to protest, and stopped at my sharp gesture. "Not a word out of you," I snapped. "That's my legal advice, and that's my order."

"I'm entitled to know your line of investigation," Foley groused. Already the loss of the settlement's paramedic was worrying him. I could see him reviewing files in his mind, wondering who could replace Tyler until a properly trained paramedic was dispatched from Minecorp.

"It's less complicated than you think," I told him. "And than I thought it would be. It's a simple sex crime. Did you know Parrish was gay?"

Foley nodded. "That hardly matters out here," he argued. "And not at all to the blindmaries."

"Well, it mattered to Tyler, whom he assaulted. I imagine there'll be a self-defense argument, but I doubt it will get very far. Perhaps if Tyler had stopped after stabbing Parrish under the armpit, defense might make a case for involuntary manslaughter. But that wound to the groin had to be a deliberate, malicious act, intended to kill if Parrish wasn't dying already."

"How so?" asked Foley.

"By Tyler's own admission, the knife blade penetrated deeply enough to slice open the femoral artery," I said. "That's really hard to do by accident, and easy for a trained paramedic to do. It goes beyond the bounds of self-defense."

I stood up. "But that's not my part in this. I just investigate, and effect detentions when indicated. The rest is up to the courts and the review boards." I glanced out a window. Already a skimmer had arrived for us. I handed Foley a pair of thumb bracelets. "Bind Tyler, please, and get him on board."

Tyler was glowering at me as Foley led him past, hands behind his back and secured by the thumbs. For just a moment I feared an outburst, but none came. I waited inside the office until Foley returned, anticipating rather closely what he was going to ask me.

He threw several furtive glances at the window before he made up his mind. "How thorough does your investigative report have to be in this matter?" he asked at last. He did not look at me.

"As I said, it's a simple sex crime. Tyler was attacked, fought back, carried it too far."

Foley licked his lips. He was on unsteady ground here, worried lest he approach me the wrong way. "I see no reason to include the blindmaries in your report," he said, skirting the issue of a bribe by stating in the form of an opinion what he wanted.

I doubted he fully understood the ramifications of what he was asking, but it was not left to me to clear that up for him. "Neither do I," I said, and got the hell out of there.

Tyler refused to speak to me until we had boarded my Coralie and lifted off. I couldn't tell whether the silence stemmed from anger or prudence, not that it mattered. After I removed the thumb bracelets Tyler plopped down in the port captain's chair and glared sullenly at the Videx. As we were in null-space, there was nothing to see outside the 'skip, but this did not daunt the paramedic.

Finally I heard an exasperated sigh. "Yes, Parrish was gay," conceded Tyler, grumbling. "But he was going to leave the settlement. His blindmary did nothing for him, sexually. He wanted a male lover."

I held my hand up for pause, and leaned back in the starboard chair. "Let me guess. He threatened to commo Corporate about the blindmaries unless he was allowed to leave."

"Yes!"

"And that's why someone in the settlement killed him."

Tyler shot me a withering look. "Nothing escapes you, does it?"

"Foley," I mused. "Or maybe Gingerbeard. Someone of size and strength. Foley wanted me to omit the blindmaries from my report, you know."

Tyler nodded. "That's what you were talking about in the office."

I checked astrogation on the instrumentation console. Five minutes remained before course correction. Time enough.

"Foley thought he was protecting the stability of the settlement," I went on. "He thought Corporate would be all over this place if they found out what the blindmaries were capable of. And he's probably right.

"But what he didn't consider was the effect the existence of the blindmaries would have on the outcome of this investigation. If Parrish was killed to prevent him from revealing the blindmaries, then almost anyone in the settlement could have done it, and this case would remain unsolved."

"But the blindmaries do exist," countered Tyler. "You cannot deny that. And because they exist, it's plausible that Parrish, being gay and wanting desperately to leave and having made the threat of exposure, was killed to silence him. Right?"

"Plausible," I agreed.

"Well, then?"

In the Videx my reflection stared back at me, warning me that I might catch hell for what I was about to do. Every investigator prefers simple crimes perpetrated by simple people with simple motives. I might, if I chose, reduce this one to its simplicity, and file a plausible report. Maybe my conscience would allow me that much. Justice isn't my concern, but that's whose cause we investigators serve.

"You said it last night, Tyler," I began. "Some of the men in the settlement probably thought you were gay. And it's a certainty Parrish did, and that's why he assaulted you. He couldn't understand why you would reject him. But then, he didn't know who you really were until the very end. Until it was too late. He must have died disgusted with himself.

"Amethyst--my blindmary--sent me off in the right direction, though I didn't know it at the time. She discovered last night that I have no penis. This confused her. She did not know how to proceed. But she knew someone who did know how, someone who had experience. A blindmary named Moya. Your blindmary, Tyler."

Tyler hissed something vile.

Silently I repeated her epithet, a rebuke to myself. "I should have seen it sooner," I went on. "I just wasn't looking to solve a sex crime. I mean, in a community where sex is easily and totally available on demand--hell, it's available on the slightest hint--why would I look to that motive? But there was a subtle clue or two, a little indicator, had I not been blind. Like when you referred to 'the men's erections.' That's not how a man or even a male paramedic would say it." Briefly I gazed at her across two meters of bridge. "It's not Allan, is it?" I asked gently.

A corner of Tyler's mouth twitched. "Try Ellen."

"Parrish came very close to raping you, didn't he, Ellen?"

"There's no point to this anymore," she said, and stripped off her shirt to reveal an elaborate elastic binding. "At least I get some relief," she said, unwinding it from her torso. Finished, she wadded it into a ball and tossed it onto the deck. "Very close," she conceded, and drew the shirt back on. "The memory of that is going to make my skin crawl . . . you must know how it is."

"Actually, I don't. I tried it their way, and it was just . . . bland. Some physical exercise, nothing more. Fortunately, I figured out soon enough what the problem was."

"Parrish didn't succeed. But someone else did, a few years ago. I still carry that memory, too," she finished, and hugged herself, shuddering.

"I'm sorry for you."

"Go to hell."

"You're not making this easy for me, Ellen."

"What do you want from me, an admission? Yes, I stuck that knife into his crotch. Yes, I know where the femoral artery branches off. Yes, I aimed for it. And yes, I watched him bleed to death, and I spat on him just as his eyes glazed over."

I felt a weak smile cross my mouth, and hated myself for it. Investigators might feign empathy, but they are not supposed to feel it. "After I figured out it was you," I said, "I thought something like that might have been the reason for the second wound."

Our eyes locked, staring at each other. Hers said I was holding her prisoner. Maybe mine said she was a murderer. I don't know. But in that moment the 'skipcomp announced that the time had come for course correction.

"So what are you waiting for?" Tyler snarled, into my hesitation. "Set the coords for Corporate. Let's get this fucking thing over with."

"Ellen, you are making this very difficult." She did not re-invite me to the nether regions, a small encouragement. "Farfrest lies along the Track to Corporate," I told her. "There's a small colony there--"

"Hypatia," said Tyler, temporizing at last. "I've heard of it. It's just another prison. I'd rather go to Corporate."

"You might fit in--"

"I don't want to fit in. I don't want the label. If you live in Hypatia, you're labeled. You're tagged." She slammed a fist against her chest. "You might as well wear a great scarlet L."

I shook my head. "The only tags that count are the ones you give yourself."

"Oh, that is so fucking profound! Let me write that one down."

"Ellen--"

"I just want to be me," she whispered.

And then she said--and I knew I was going to win, "What's going to happen to you?"

"First thing I'll do is file a report with the Xeno Division of the Historical Institute. The blindmaries being sentient, HI will send out teams immediately to study them. That takes precedence over Corporate concerns. Likely they'll close down the mine, or at least control production in such a way that the blindmaries are not exploited without recompense. Foley and the miners will have to find other work. And, because I'll report that due to universality of motive I was unable to determine the identity of the killer, the case will go unsolved. If Foley mentions you, I'll simply state that I used you as a ruse to get us both out of there alive--a threat which Parrish's murder will substantiate." I gave her a smile. "But thanks for asking."

"I suppose . . . I could stay in Hypatia until I can get back on my feet, so to speak."

I took this as permission to set the coordinates for the next course, and did so.

Ellen shrugged, and settled back in the chair. "Maybe they could use a paramedic," she said softly. After a moment she turned and looked at me. "What about you? What will you do now?"

"Take some time off. Maybe go rockhounding."

"Rockhounding?"

Her frown reflected an unspoken question, but I was entitled to at least one secret of my own.