The bang of a slamming door jerked Burke awake from a light sleep that had been dotted with uneasy dreams of pursuit, and of dark caves filled with writhing bodies. He was back on his cot again, in the tiny, sun-striped storage room that had been converted into a bedroom for him and Virdon.
Then the door to this room was yanked open, and Galen poked his head in. "I spoke with Marpo," he said curtly. "He'll no longer train you. You also won't go back to work for the timber company, so I'd advise you to train twice as hard, because right now, the only money for our living is generated by Alan's leatherwork." He slammed the door shut again before Burke could say anything.
He slowly sat up and rubbed his face to clear his mind. So Galen had slammed the other door, too? The ape had been in a bad mood; Burke had no idea why.
Well, what else is new? Galen's been an asshole ever since I met him.
He knew that wasn't true, but right now, Burke wasn't in the mood for cutting any ape any slack. Not after Marpo had used him like a... a stud. And Galen still hadn't said anything about sharing the prize money with him, although he now wouldn't have to split it with Marpo anymore. Instead, he had just waggled the big stick of hunger and homelessness at him, if he didn't win another race.
Burke bet that he had already been nominated, again without anyone bothering to ask him.
For all their talk about how unusual we are, they don't treat us any different from the humans of this time. And while he could grudgingly agree to the necessity of blending in while in public, the attitude was creeping into their interactions even when they were among themselves now. It didn't help that Virdon was on his knees all the time, doing penance for leading them into danger in those ruins.
It was as if Al was encouraging the apes to act like the gentry towards them, Burke thought darkly; even Zana had changed her behavior towards them. She was curt and commanding towards Al, and she was... behaving strangely towards him.
And now he would be within her reach every day, instead of once a week. As relieved as he was that he wouldn't have to face Marpo again, the thought of being at Zana's beck and call made him profoundly uncomfortable.
As if on cue, the door opened again, and Zana came in. "You're awake," she said, and Burke wasn't sure if she was pleased or disappointed about that.
"Galen just told me he won't send me up to the work camp anymore," he said after an uncomfortable silence, just to say something. "Said I now have to win the next race, so that Al doesn't have to generate our sole income."
"That's nice," Zana said absently. She closed the door behind her, crossed the room, and sat down beside him to take a close look at his neck.
Burke kept his gaze straight at the door and nervously rubbed his palms over his knees. Here we go.
"You need a haircut," Zana said critically, and lightly raked her fingers through his hair. Burke felt goosebumps race down his spine. "It's already growing too long." She lifted the strands from the collar of his shirt and twirled them between her fingers. "Or maybe I'll leave it... I like the feeling. It's so soft and sleek..." The strokes became regular, soft and soothing.
Or at least, that was the idea. Burke didn't move a muscle, his heart racing in his chest.
Her touch wasn't in any way sexual - at least Burke was reasonably sure of that. She was petting him like he would pet a dog, if he'd ever owned one. He was Zana's pet dog, her go-to body to hug and cuddle, and to provide all those feel-good neurotransmitters that she should be getting from cuddling with her boyfriend.
It wasn't sexual, no. But it was... it still wasn't okay. Because he was not a dog. He wasn't a pet... because he wasn't a goddamn animal.
And he had held still, until now, and said nothing, and had endured her unwelcome caresses, because he had told himself that she was grieving, and was probably suffering from a full-blown depression, and needed a bit of affection, and because it did seem to soothe her, and he wanted to help her.
But with Marpo fresh in his mind, and the way he had been used... he couldn't bear her touch anymore. Burke jumped up and out of her reach. He realized with a start that he was covered in cold sweat.
Zana looked at him with big eyes. "Come back here."
"No." He took a step back. "I can't... Zana, this gotta stop. You can't pet me like that."
She frowned. "Why not? It's nice."
Burke took a deep, steadying breath. "I don't feel comfortable with this... this... thing."
"This thing? What are you talking about? Did I pull at your hair?"
She was playing dumb now, and all of a sudden, the room was too small for the two of them, it was a tiny wooden box, a crate, a cage, and Burke felt his breath snag in his throat.
"You can't pet me like a..." He still hadn't seen a single dog since they had crashed here. Apes didn't keep dogs, for some reason. "Like a cat. I'm not a cat. I'm not a pet! I'm not a fucking animal! Not a working animal, not a breeding animal, and not a goddamn companion animal! Did that finally penetrate your skull, ape?"
She was gaping at him, she still didn't understand, and he had to get out, and he knew he wouldn't be able to come back here, into this little box, and face this all over again. He took another step back, towards the door. "I'm fucking done! You got me? Done! Galen's made me a racer, I'm gonna sleep in the kennels at the racetrack from now on! You can tell Al if he wants me to go on training his leg, he's gotta meet me down there, 'cause I'm not coming back here!"
Burke grabbed the door handle. It moved, it wasn't locked, thank god, he didn't know what he would've done if it had been locked. He yanked the door open. "Get your shit together, Zana. Just... get it together!"
He turned and fled, not daring to look back.
For the next few days, Zana buried herself in Felga's notes; she didn't exchange more than five words with Galen, and not a single one with Peet, mostly because Peet made true on his threat and didn't turn up at the inn anymore. Ironically, the person she spoke most with was Alan, even if it was only to tell him to reheat her tea. She felt a growing urge to share what she learned from Felga's notes, but the content of those scrolls was so heartbreaking that she couldn't bring herself to tell Alan about it.
She was more and more convinced that Vilam had killed Felga; not only had she uncovered most of his abusive treatment of the humans in his care, that very abuse also illustrated the brutality of the man. He was able to kill in cold blood; he had done so often enough before. And if his motivation was pressing enough, well, it wasn't such a big step from killing a human to killing an ape.
The only problem was that animal abuse didn't count as a big enough motive. Felga had denounced the killings often enough in her articles, but the reaction of the paper's readership had been muted. People loved the sport too much to be willing to shun it for the sake of some humans that failed to win.
She needed to talk this over with someone... but the humans were out of the question, and Galen thought she was only concerning herself with the case to have a pretense for meeting Rogan. Zana pressed her lips together and carefully arranged the scrolls in Morla's crate. She should take it to Rogan - the scrolls were evidence, after all.
But that would only fuel Galen's paranoia. Ever since their fight, he had used Peet's empty cot. He demonstratively preferred sleeping in the humans' den to sleeping in their own bed - his way of shouting at her without having to address her.
No, Zana needed someone else to brainstorm with; someone who was more open to the idea that Vilam had reason to kill Felga - more reason than everybody else.
Halda was in a meeting with a potential customer, Zana was told when she arrived at the shelter; would it be alright if she waited a moment in the corridor?
Life went on, Zana mused as she slowly wandered up and down the corridor, peeking absently at the photographs on the walls. Halda didn't have the luxury to grieve over Felga's death anymore: the shelter had to survive, the humans had to be fed, bills had to be paid, and new customers had to be won.
In a way, she's in the same situation as I: we have to keep moving, we can't lose our momentum.
She stopped before a photograph with Felga and Halda on it. The women were surrounded by humans that were looking shy and solemn. In the background loomed the skeleton of one of the workhouses. The photo had been made to document the topping out ceremony; it had most likely illustrated one of Felga's articles. It was so unexpected to suddenly see her again, alive and smiling.
I could've had a wonderful friend...
Loud voices shook her out of her reverie. Zana wandered to the door of the office and peeked through the glass panel.
Halda was standing behind her desk, looking embattled and even smaller than usual. Another ape was towering over her, yelling at her. Zana hovered at the door, unsure whether she should barge in and come to Halda's rescue. It would at least distract the man for a moment.
"... ridiculous price! The material, the design, the production - nothing justifies the sum you want! I'd have to sell it at an even higher price that nobody, nobody will pay! So don't tell me that this is the set value for the other traders! You just pulled that out of your scrawny ass..."
Zana pushed the door open. "Halda! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in a meeting!"
"Alta!" Halda was visibly relieved. "Come in, we were done anyway. Mezzal knows the way out, isn't that right, sir?"
But Mezzal wasn't done with Halda yet. "You're doing this on purpose! You're keeping me locked out of the market here, but I won't stand for that! It's a free country!"
"You're right, sir," Zana cut in. "And that means Halda is free to do business with whoever she chooses."
The ape turned around and glared at her. He was tall and burly, and wearing too much fur for the season. He looked as if he was dressing up as a huntsman out of a fairy tale. "Unless she's supporting a monopoly," he growled. "We're not done talking, lady," he added to Halda. "This'll come back and bite you in the ass, mark my words!"
"What was that all about?" Zana wondered after he had stomped out.
Halda sank into her chair and waved for Zana to do the same. "Oh, he's a, an art trader - or so he told me. He wanted to buy some of our sculptures, but he demanded a ridiculously low price for them. Maybe he thought I would give them to him for free, because they're made by humans."
Zana gently closed the door and took a seat across from Halda. "It says 'genuine simian art' on the bottom..."
"Well, yes, the design is simian, but you can't ask an ape to carve the same sculpture over and over again, day in, day out." Halda nervously tugged at her scarf, then at the scrolls in front of her. "It's so nice of you to come over for a visit! Felga had told me that you're also campaigning for human protection laws..."
"I'm all for protecting humans from simian abuse, yes," Zana said uncomfortably. It wasn't as if she had much opportunity for outright activism. She could only set an example by how she was treating her own humans.
... and Felga hadn't been too impressed by that, in the end.
"So, what brings you here?" Halda interrupted Zana's musings.
"I found some of Felga's notes." Zana stopped when she saw Halda's stare. "I'm sorry, if it's too soon... if it hurts you too much to talk about her..."
"No... no." Halda rubbed her nose and pushed away from the desk. "I'm glad you're still trying to find out who really did it." She went to the tea oven and poured fresh water into the kettle.
"None of the people here would bother to look into it," she said over her shoulder to Zana. "Every time I have to go to the market, I see the platform, and I think of poor Levar, and I want to cry." She set down the kettle on the stove, and put more wood on the fire.
"Did you find something in her notes?" she asked when she returned to the desk. "Where did you find them? I thought the police had confiscated everything?"
"Her mother gave them to me," Zana said. "She had forgotten about them when the police turned up the first time... she was too overwhelmed by grief."
"Understandable," Halda sighed. "Everyone was. Well, everyone who was on Felga's side," she amended.
"She made a lot of enemies," Zana admitted. "But I found lots of notes concerning a kennel owner called Vilam."
Halda raked her hands through her hair. "Oh, that terrible man," she muttered. "They are all terrible," she continued after a moment, "but Vilam takes the cake."
"So I gathered," Zana said dryly.
"Have you told the police yet?" Halda wanted to know. Zana shook her head.
"All I have is material that documents how he was abusing his humans, and some illegal practices against other kennels," she said, and silently added, especially Levar's, "but it doesn't prove that he killed Felga. And he has an alibi." She told Halda about her encounter with Olman.
"Olman." Halda pressed her lips together, but didn't elaborate.
"Morla told me a bit about their problems with him,"Zana said. "Do you know if Felga went to see him on that day? Did she tell you anything - did you even see her at all, that day?"
The sun had already been setting when Felga had caught her on the market; Zana's fur still bristled with embarrassment when she recalled that encounter. Some time between dusk and dawn, someone had put an end to Felga's life. It had only been a few atseht - it had to be possible to reconstruct Felga's path to her own demise!
"No,"Halda said sadly. "She had wanted to come and see me for something, so I stayed here for a while, but she didn't turn up, and I went home eventually - I have two small children who were waiting for their evening meal, you know?"
"I met them when Felga showed me around here,"Zana smiled. "Truly lovely children, Halda."
She dug into her handbag and pulled out a scroll. "I was wondering if you could explain something else to me." She had begun to take notes herself, to keep track of everything. Zana didn't know if she should feel embarrassed about it - it was as if she was pretending to be a guard.
"Felga mentioned something called Blaze in her notes ," she said, opening her scroll. "Apparently, Vilam was using it on his own racers as well as on competing racers, and I can't imagine why he'd do that - as far as I could tell from her notes, Blaze is something like a medicinal herb to enhance the racers' performance? Why would he want to enhance the performance of the competition?"
"He doesn't," Halda muttered. "Oh, this cursed stuff is used by many apes, but it's highly illegal - maybe that is why you haven't heard of it." She stood up to quickly spoon tea leaves into a small teapot, then poured the boiling water over it. On her way back to Zana, she picked up a thick scroll.
"This is Horny Goat Weed," she said, and turned the opened scroll around to show her the picture. "It grows wild in the mountains, and it's harvested, and dried, and sold from here to the Southern coasts. It's a... a herb for, for... marital ailments."
That was a gracious way to put it, Zana thought, amused, but she just nodded her understanding.
"And in that form, it is legal," Halda continued. "And it's meant to be used for apes, and apes only, and only on prescription. But of course a lot of apes also take it for... for recreational purposes. But that's not the worst." She rolled up the scroll and fell back into her chair.
"Blaze is a drug that is extracted from the weed. And of course it is much more potent than the herb itself." She sighed. "A lot of breeders use it for their humans, when they are... unable to perform. Or unwilling. It's very... invigorating. And then someone found out that when you give it to your human at a lower dose, it makes them run faster, recover more quickly, and able to run longer or more often." She shrugged. "Of course, its use is forbidden in a race. But if you pay the veterinarian enough..."
"Vilam seems very determined to win," Zana remarked, remembering Rogan's story about him. "So he gave the drug to the other racers, and then tipped off the racing stewards that they had been doped?"
Halda huffed. "If only! That would've been outright benevolent of him! No. You see, Alta, when you give the drug at a higher dose, the human's kidneys fail. It's a very ugly death. And the human's owner then has to fend off accusations that he had been trying to dope his human, and got the dosage wrong."
"Levar mentioned to me that he had to hire security for his racers." Zana stared at Halda. "So that's why..."
Halda nodded. "Vilam hated Levar, it was like an obsession. He wanted to destroy him, his kennel, everything. But I'm absolutely sure that he wouldn't have been able to do it by framing Levar for Felga's murder, all by himself, or he'd have done it years before."
"What do you mean?" Zana whispered.
Halda leaned forward. "Haven't you wondered how Vilam got his hands on so much Blaze?"