It was already after dark when Zana returned to the inn; the days had become noticeably shorter now, even if the weather stayed mild and sunny. It wouldn't stay that way much longer - Morla had warned her that the storm season would start soon, with heavy rains that threatened to drown the valleys every winter.
Right now, Zana thought that Sapan could use a little flushing out. What a snakepit!
When she pushed open the door to her room, she was surprised to find it shrouded in darkness. Of course Peet was still sleeping in his kennel at the racetrack... and she'd have to go and see him some time soon, and talk to him about his strange fit of temper... and Galen was, as always, circulating Sapan's taverns. She stifled a sigh.
But Alan should be here, shouldn't he? There was nowhere else to be for him, really, especially not at this time of the day, when all the kennels at the racetrack had already been locked.
Zana felt her way around the table and lit the lamp that was hanging from the ceiling. In the soft golden glow, she discovered Alan in his usual corner, his hands limp on the freshly cut leather parts that were sprawled across his lap. He was fast asleep.
She tiptoed over to him and studied his face for a moment. He had leaned back his head, propping it against the wall - just for a moment, to rest his eyes, she was sure; standing this close now, she even could hear his soft snore.
Strange how he was all that was left to her now. But Alan wasn't the type to just give up on someone, and drift away. He held on to her as stubbornly as he held on to his family...
This was the man whose obsession to return to his child had cost the life of her own child. Zana tried to feel that truth as she was watching him sleep, but the feeling wouldn't come. Maybe she was just too exhausted to feel anything.
Or maybe she simply was too embarrassed. Here she was, trying to make amends with a woman she had only known for a few days, a woman who was dead and would never - could never correct her judgment of her; a woman who, as Zana had just learned, might not even deserve her remorse...
...while at the same time, Alan was showing her his regret every day. Alan, who she had known for almost a year now, his courage, his loyalty, his kindness. And she was alive, able to forgive him.
And yet, she hadn't.
She had always told Galen that it had been her own decision to follow the humans into their city, and that it had been her own fault, only hers, but somehow... somehow a part of her had preferred to blame Alan, and to be resentful towards him instead of herself. But right now, it felt petty. She was trying to prove to a dead Felga that she treated her humans with kindness and respect, and what was she actually doing?
She reached out to caress Alan's face, then remembered Peet's reaction and let her hand drop to her side without touching him. But something about that movement alerted the human nonetheless - instinct, perhaps - and he woke with a start, and stared up at her.
"Put that leather away," Zana said. "From now on, your workday ends at sunset."
"Yes'm," Alan murmured and started to shift the leather from his legs.
"And don't call me that when we're alone." She went to the stove to set up some fresh water.
Alan prepared the tea, as always, but when he had filled her mug, she gestured for him to sit down across from her, and rose to get a second mug. He watched her as she put it before him on the table.
"I thought we could have tea together," Zana said as she sank into her chair. "It would be nice."
Alan closed his hands around the mug, still watching her face. "The last time we ate together... or had tea," he said quietly, "was before Galen was required by Kanla, to cure that swamp fever."
"Yes." Zana stared into her own mug. "It seems such a long time ago."
The conversation died down; neither of them knew what to say.
Finally, Alan cleared his throat. "How are you now? Is... is the doctor's treatment helping you at all?"
"Yes," Zana straightened in her chair, glad to have something to talk about. "He said he's very happy with my progress, and that all that's necessary for a complete recovery is that I continue with the teas and the herbal poultices. That's something I could as well do on the road, so I... I thought of telling Galen that we should leave tomorrow."
"Then Pete won't run in the race," Alan pointed out.
"No." Zana took a sip from her tea. It was still too hot, burning the tip of her tongue. "But he didn't want to run anyway. He hated it. And I should never have allowed it."
Alan was still watching her, and his steady gaze was beginning to make her nervous. Zana took another sip from the too-hot tea. Her tongue was numb and tingling anyway.
"What's changed?" he wanted to know when she finally put her mug down. "You seem... unsettled. Why the hurry to leave, all of a sudden?"
For a moment, Zana felt an almost irresistible urge to tell the human not to question her decision. She didn't want to explain herself, not to him, not to Galen...
Then she looked into his beautiful, blue eyes, and saw that he was worried, not wary. Not judging.
She drew a trembling breath. "I did something very stupid."
And then she told him the whole story, of how Halda had convinced her that Levar was innocent, and how she had vowed to find the true murderer, and how she had managed to anger the most powerful ape south of the passes - an ape with connections that reached far to the South, back to the City; an ape who had hinted that he knew that Alta wasn't her real name.
An ape who could alert Nelva. Or even Urko.
"We need to leave," she concluded with a slightly unsteady voice, "before either of them comes here, or sends word to Rogan to arrest us. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to endanger you all like that..."
Alan sighed deeply and took a deep draw from his mug.
"He might've just bluffed," he said when he had put down the mug again, and Zana clung to the calmness in his voice. "I mean, he has no reason to scare you off his scent if he's above suspicion - and if he's really doing some shady business, one that he doesn't want you to expose, the last thing he'd want to do is to alert the police."
She considered this for a moment. It was beautifully reassuring in its logic, but... "What if he knows people in the police force who are also not... quite... completely upstanding?"
Alan smiled wryly. "Dirty cops? But I thought apes were better than that. - Well, yes, that's a possibility," he continued without giving her a chance to rebuke him for that remark. "But even then, letters need time to travel to the City and back - certainly longer than that week until the race is due. Pete told me he decided to run, so that we won't have to worry about money until we've crossed the mountains."
"Do you agree with Constable Rogan about Levar?" Zana murmured, staring into the depths of her cup.
For a long while, Alan said nothing, so long that Zana finally did look up to meet his gaze. "I think," he said slowly, "that the location of the body was... unusual. I mean, how did that crime supposedly happen? Levar and Felga meet in his house, in secret; they talk; they fight over... maybe over that complaint she planned to bring to court; the fight gets out of control, he kills her, still inside his house."
He paused for a moment, his eyes fixed on some point behind her shoulder. Then he blinked and looked at her. "And then he throws her body over his shoulder and carries her across the lawn until he reaches the kennels, and drops her there? Why in the world would he do that?"
"And why would he have a racer's bandage lying around in his living room?" Zana added, suddenly hopeful that she hadn't been a complete fool before.
"On the other hand, you have nothing on either of your two suspects, save for Felga's notes," Alan cautioned her. "And I have to admit that your constable has a point here - it is nothing but gossip, unless you find physical evidence that ties Vilam or Olman to Felga's death."
"He's not my constable," Zana muttered.
"Why are you so convinced that Felga's death will go unpunished?" Alan asked softly.
"You mean, 'why did you insert yourself into a police investigation when you had no business doing so'?" Zana corrected him, a bit more snippy than she had intended.
Alan raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Well... yes," he admitted. "You've taken an unusual interest in the death of a woman you barely knew."
"Yes, I only knew her for a few days," Zana admitted. Her throat constricted, and to her horror, she felt tears pricking her eyes. She emptied her cup, fighting to regain her composure. She shouldn't be so choked up about Felga. Alan was right - she had barely known her.
"But we had... we had a connection," she tried to explain. "We had the same outlook on... so many things. She was so, so full of energy, of optimism. And we could've become good friends. We would have. I know it."
"You were kindred spirits," Alan said gently. "I understand."
"Yes." And now Zana could hear the tears in her voice, and it made her so mad. She didn't want to cry. "And then someone went and took that from her - that life. We could've stayed in contact, we could've written letters, and I could've invited her... she could've helped me organize a chapter of the Society wherever we would've settled." She angrily wiped at her eyes.
"And now it's never going to happen. All those things that could've been... and it's so unfair! " She propped her elbows on the table and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as if she could force the tears back into her skull. She couldn't breathe properly; her chest was constricting into a sob, and then another one, and then the grief just tore her off her feet and dragged her away, a violent, dark flood that she couldn't control.
She cried, helplessly, for that life that would never happen, never see a sunny afternoon, a starry night, never chat over a glass of iced lemonade, or dip their toes into the soft, cool water of a lake.
Alan's arm was around her shoulders, his body warm and solid beside her. "Don't be ashamed," she heard his deep voice at her ear. "Crying is good for the soul."
His permission seemed to open a deeper gate in her, a blacker pain; she turned around and buried her face in his chest, and wished... wished fervently for Galen to be here, for Galen to be this body.
But it was Alan who held her, her friend, who knew... who knew...
And then it stopped. Maybe it was simply exhaustion, or maybe she had spent all the grief she could spend per day, but she only felt empty, and a bit lightheaded. With a sniff, she pushed back from the human's embrace, and wiped her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I don't know why I... it was a long day."
Alan just sat back on his haunches and looked at her.
"If you really think that this Levar didn't kill your friend," he said finally, "then maybe you shouldn't give up now, Zana."
"I don't know what to think anymore." Zana reached for her teacup, found it empty, and turned it in her hands, round and round, a nervous gesture she couldn't stop. "All clues - real clues, physical clues, not... not gossip, " she tried not to sound bitter, "point to Levar, and I have nothing. And perhaps the reason for it is because he is guilty, and I'm just desperate to find something to, to... to get into Felga's good graces again." She stared into the empty cup, too embarrassed to meet his eyes.
"Felga died believing that I'm like the kennel owners here - trying to exploit Peet. But I'm not! I was against this whole plan of letting him run, but I couldn't tell her then, and she died believing that I'm an anim... a human abuser."
"I don't think Felga's last thoughts were about that," Alan said softly, and Zana suddenly felt hot in her fur.
"I'm really an idiot," she murmured. "A self-important idiot. You're right, of course."
"You're not an idiot." Alan grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself to his feet with a groan. "She attacked you unfairly, aiming at one of your most important values, it's natural that you want to vindicate yourself."
"But she's dead." Zana wasn't ready to be as forgiving to herself as Alan was. "And this shouldn't be about me. It should be about her, about what really happened, and who's really responsible for it."
Alan limped around the table and gingerly sat down in his chair again. "You're right, the investigation should uncover the truth. So... what does your gut instinct tell you?"
"Apes don't have instincts," Zana said tiredly. At least she didn't have any, because her gut didn't tell her anything. "Only animals have them."
"Believe me," Alan said, "we all have them. What does your heart tell you to do?"
Zana stared at him, as a new thought slowly formed in her mind. "It tells me that... if two people give each other an alibi... and both of them had motive to kill Felga... then neither of them really has an alibi at all."
She leaned forward. "Either Vilam or Olman is responsible, and I'll find the evidence to prove it!"
She rose, unable to sit still any longer. She had to do something, even if it was just making a fresh pot of tea. It was time to finally get some answers. And if the upstanding citizens of Sapan weren't willing to give her the truth, well.
Then she'd have to dig it out herself.
Burke jogged across the clearing at an easy pace, and eyed the trees that were covering the steep incline on the other side. Its angle made it perfect for some of Marpo's hill circuits, but if the undergrowth was too dense, he would have a hard time gaining enough speed for them to be really effective. Plus he'd have to be on the lookout for thorny vines and dead branches under the leaves. Running barefoot wasn't his idea of professional sports, but Nike had gone up in flames with the rest of human civilization.
He'd just have to make the best of it. Since that wire incident, Burke hadn't dared to use any of his training tracks twice, and he had steered clear of any path that was too well suited for a training run, like the deforested areas that Tall Timber left in its trail. The naked slopes were prime candidates for mudslides in the winter, when torrents of rain would flush them into the valleys. A lot of villages would cease to exist then.
Sometimes, the monkeys had good ideas.
Most of the time, Burke had fought his way through dry underbrush, making more noise than a herd of buffalo, and he wasn't really sure if plowing through hedges would make him faster on the track. Well, resistance workout, right? Had to be good for something .
The undergrowth here wasn't as bad as he had feared, though, and Burke decided to make use of this track as long as he could - maybe another hour or so, before the sun had crept to the horizon, and he had to return to the racetrack. He'd sprint up the incline as fast as he could, and then jog down to his starting point at a crisp pace that wouldn't really give his muscles time to recover before he had to sprint uphill again. It had been Marpo's favorite training method, and Burke hated it with every fiber of his being. It was brutal, and not just because the ape had liberally used his riding crop to chase him up and down the hill. But Burke had to admit that it had been damn effective, and if he was going to run that race, he'd run to win. Otherwise, what was the point?
He was slowly jogging along the edge of the clearing, looking for the least overgrown route to the top of the hill, and had just rounded a bramble thicket, when he stopped in his tracks, and hastily retreated.
A building was tucked into the forest, and it didn't look like one of the work camp barracks. It seemed to be deserted, but Burke didn't want to test his luck - the hut wasn't dilapidated, so maybe it was still in use.
As if on cue, the door opened, and an ape appeared, warily scanned the clearing, and vanished around the edge of the building. Burke crouched down behind the brambles and waited. A moment later, the ape returned with a bag over his shoulder, bent under what was apparently a heavy load, and entered the building again.
Burke stayed where he was, unsure how to proceed. He could just ignore the whole thing; whatever these guys were doing over there was obviously a simian thing, and he'd leave after the race anyway, so why bother? But it did make him curious. Bootlegging monkeys?
Well, anything was possible on this crazy planet.
Keeping an eye on the door, Burke silently made his way through the thickets until he was at the back of the building. To his surprise, more huts were scattered throughout the forest, overgrown with vines, covered with branches and dead leaves. They looked more like little hills than huts, and from a distance, he'd probably have overlooked them completely.
They're making an awful lot of moonshine, if they need a whole village for it.
Standing between the huts, he noticed a faint smell. It reminded him of turpentine with a base note of french fries, a combination that made his throat constrict with disgust. Whatever the monkeys were cooking in there, Burke was sure he wouldn't want to drink it.
The buildings did have windows, but they were set high in the walls, only meant to provide light, not a view. With a last quick look around, Burke took a run and jumped up the wall, grabbing the windowsill and dragging himself up to peek inside.
For a moment, he couldn't see anything; it was dark inside, despite the skylights, and foggy... they were cooking something in wide, open vats; an ape was at each vat, stirring vigorously.
In one corner, apes were filling a fresh vat - one was pouring a dark, granulate stuff, the other was scraping something white and waxy out of a bucket... tallow? They were cooking something in tallow?
Whatever the apes were producing, he was seeing only one step in this building, Burke realized. He slowly eased himself down, then jumped the rest of the distance. He leaned against the wall for a moment, heart racing.
He'd have to find another hill for his sprints. Burke had no illusions about what would happen to him if anyone discovered him here. And whatever the monkeys were doing, he didn't want to know. This looked like a drug kitchen without the kerosene, and he didn't give a damn if a monkey blew his brain out with that shit.
He only breathed easily when he was back on the other side of the hill again.