Jim Baen's Universe

Introducing: Stories by new authors

Touching the Dead

Written by J. Kathleen Cheney

Illustrated by Emily Tolson

The colonel, Shironne decided, must be one of those clever people, the kind who liked to fix things. She could sense him waiting for them there in his office, his curiosity held at bay, but only just.

Her mother took her hand and laid it on the tall back of a chair. Shironne ran her gloved fingers along the wood, straightened her skirts and sat down. She pulled her braid over her shoulder, well aware that she presented a ragged picture—the blind girl in a child's dress. More than two years old now, it was too short in the skirt and sleeve. Even so, she'd grown accustomed to the feel of it against her over-sensitive skin, and that made the old blue woolen tolerable.

"Madam Anjir, Miss Anjir," the colonel said in a deep, sincere voice. "I'm honored to have you here."

Shironne smiled in response, returning his goodwill without thinking. He stood and approached them, his boots crossing a hard floor, only a few steps. She guessed he must be quite tall.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, Colonel . . ." her mother began, sounding official, as a politician's wife should.

"Cerradine," he supplied.

". . . Colonel Cerradine. This is the Investigations Office, isn't it? We've come to inquire about the death of an army gentleman, a Sergeant Merha. The hospital sent us here to talk to you."

"And why would you be making inquiries into this man's death, Madam?"

He didn't walk away, but Shironne thought she heard the movement of his clothes, as if he'd sat down, perhaps on the edge of his desk. She could smell him from there: wool and leather and the oily black smell of a gun. She caught a faint whiff of cologne or soap, something exotic and manly. She didn't recognize it, but liked it much better than the cloying musk her father favored.

"It's me, not her," Shironne told him.

The colonel's attention turned on her then. His interest didn't fall all over her like an exuberant puppy but sat back and observed her like a cat, distant and willing to wait for its prize. "And why would you do that, Miss Anjir?"

"Because I promised my maid Benia I would find out what happened to him," she admitted, knowing it sounded like a childish whim. "I . . . um, she was upset and she kept asking why someone would kill him, and I promised without thinking, sir."

"It's never a good idea to make rash promises, Miss Anjir," he said with laughter in his tone.

Harder than he knew. With Benia's distress falling all about her like an enveloping wave of water, she'd been carried away. The woman's emotions had overridden her own, stealing her judgment. "I do realize that, sir."

"Hmmm," he said. "Unfortunately, I can't give you that answer yet, ladies. We've only begun to investigate his death. I will, however, send word around to your residence as soon as I do have information." His feet moved away toward the other side of the room.

He felt regretful, Shironne decided, because he couldn't help them. "You misunderstand me, sir. I thought I could help you. Figure out who killed him, I mean."

He didn't dismiss her idea immediately. Instead, the emotions in his mind locked away as calculation took over. A moment passed in silence. "Madam Anjir," he asked then, "do you intend to permit this if I agree?"

Her mother radiated surprise, but quickly tamped it down. She'd expected the colonel to refuse. "I gave my promise, sir," she said, "but I must ask that this be handled with the utmost discretion. My husband wouldn't wish it known we came here."

"No, I expect not," he said.

Shironne sensed animosity in the colonel's thoughts and wondered if he already knew her father.

"My people will be perfectly discreet, Madam," he said. "Now how did you think to help me, Miss Anjir?"

"I wondered if I might touch the body, sir."

****

The colonel walked with her across the level lawn of the Army Square. Her mother had described the square to her when they alighted from their carriage, but Shironne hadn't been able to fix anything in her mind save the location of the army's administration building on one side of the green and the hospital on the other.

She'd heard men calling out in the distance, a drill or a parade. Their voices drew forth a childhood memory of seeing military men in their sharp blue and brown uniforms, parading along the streets of Noikinos with their long rifles on their shoulders. It was an old memory, and she couldn't remember if their trousers were blue with a brown stripe down the side, or the other way around. Perhaps they didn't have a stripe at all. The men were gone now, their drill finished, and only the normal sounds of horses and carriages came from the square.

The colonel led her through the entry doors of the hospital. Shironne knew the scents well, having spent more time in the company of doctors in the last few years than she cared to. They traversed a flight of stairs leading down to the army's morgue.

She tried not to smell the un-circulated air, pressing a gloved finger under her nostrils. The cool room stank of ripeness and chemicals, of bowels emptied and strong soaps, one scent layering over another. Someone should throw open a few windows and let the wind sweep through, she thought, and then wondered if the place had any windows to open. Shironne tightened her other hand on the colonel's sleeve, queasiness welling in her stomach.

Male voices protested her presence, and the colonel went to speak with the men, leaving her standing alone. An older-sounding man argued the appropriateness of a young girl seeing such things, which made Shironne want to laugh. The colonel prevailed in the end, and Shironne felt the men's protests, both mental and vocal, fading into the distance, past closing doors.

"There are people who specialize in investigating these things, Miss Anjir," the colonel said from several feet away. "If you want to back out now, I can send for one of them."

"No, sir. I promised." She sensed his concern. He felt curious, but worried for her sake as well. "I . . . um, don't know where the body is."

"Directly ahead of you, a foot or so."

She heard cloth sliding over an unmoving surface. A sudden surge of unpleasant scents accompanied the sound. It was the smell of old blood, like meat gone stale in the summer heat, coppery and —to her confused mind—green.

The colonel stepped away, carefully folding up his worry and training his mind back to observation.

Shironne removed one of her gloves and tucked it into her waistband. With the other hand, she reached out and located the edge of the table. Wood, she thought. Her cotton gloves never completely blocked her impressions. She touched a bare finger to the table, sensing things that had crossed it in the last few days, the fluids a body made. There were tiny bits of skin from many people ground into the table's surface, and harsh chemicals. She recognized carbolic acid, long since faded past usefulness. Other things she didn't recognize, or recognized but didn't have names for.

She gritted her teeth and stretched out a hand. It contacted something cool—skin chilled to the temperature of the room. The body remained calm, unmoving despite the seething life that went on inside the dead shell. Shironne grimaced.

The colonel's hands touched her sleeves then, drawing her away.

"No," she insisted, and his hands relented. His worry wrapped around her like a fog and just as quickly fled, hidden back in some corner of his mind.

Shironne laid her palm where her finger had touched—an arm, the muscles exhausted as if the man had recently fought. She ran her fingertips along it, feeling for the hand at its end.

"His hands have been cleaned," she said, sensing soap on the man's skin.

"The mortuary service would have washed the body."

She felt the fingers, finding faint traces of ink, of food, of other things, under the film of the soap. "If he had a gun, sir, I don't think he fired it."

"Why not?" The colonel's mind didn't reflect doubt, only curiosity.

"There's no . . . um, evidence of the gun being fired. There's something left when someone does that, but I don't know what to call it, though." She'd only ever touched a gun once before, and had no names for those things beyond gun and bullet.

The colonel's fascination grew. "We haven't found his pistol, I believe."

Shironne ran her fingers back up the arm and touched the dead man's chest. She found the edge of a wound and forced her senses deeper. A knife, tearing through the skin and into the heart, ruining its rhythm—a knife killed him. She could almost picture the blade in her mind. "Do you have the knife?"

"No, the killer took it. We hope he still has it."

"It should be long and narrow. If you find it, I can tell you if it's the one, I think."

"By touching it?"

"Yes, sir. It would have his blood on it, and I would recognize his blood now, sir." She had no words to explain that either.

"If I'd stabbed someone, I'd clean the knife," he pointed out.

"But it's hard to get everything off, sir. There might be little bits of blood left, maybe so small you can't see them, but I would be able to feel them."

Shironne touched her hand to the sergeant's cold, unshaven jaw, sensing the first stages of bruising there. She'd felt it on her mother's skin before, when a bruise hadn't yet had a chance to swell, the blood vessels all broken and angry under the skin. She suspected the colonel had seen the mark on the man's face.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to feel past the flesh. Memories lingered in the dead man's mind, not fluttering about crying for attention as a living person's would but lying about like leaves scattered in the fall. They were rotting, gone skeletal. She remembered holding a moldered leaf as a little girl and gazing at its delicate framework, back in the days before her eyes had gone sightless.

She dug into the sergeant's tattered memories. His mind held on to brief images: childhood recollections, scattered smells. There were faint snatches of her maid, Benia, in that chaos, different from what Shironne knew of the woman: the smell of her skin, the turn of her ankle, the curve of her back as her hair fell black against it.

Startled by the strange perspective, Shironne shook her head, trying to clear it. She lifted her hand from the body's chilly brow, keeping it well away from her clothes. "I don't think I'll find out anything else, sir. Is there someplace I can wash?"

The colonel turned her about, hands on her shoulders. "Straight ahead about ten feet there's a sink. Can you find that?"

She put her gloved hand out in front of her and stepped off the distance. She found the edge of the sink and ran her fingers around it. Then she stripped off her second glove, located a lump of lye soap and turned on the tap. The soap's slick feel made her want to grind her teeth, but she bore it. Once convinced her hands were sufficiently clean, she worked her gloves back on.

The colonel thought curiosity at her. "How long have you been blind?"

Shironne turned toward the sound of his voice. "About a year and a half, sir. Since I was thirteen."

"I've never known anyone blind before," the colonel said. "You seem quite self-sufficient."

"My mother is very insistent." Her father would want her out of the house the moment she came of age at seventeen. Legally, her mother had no means to forestall her expulsion.

"You also seem quite determined to carry on with this investigation, Miss Anjir, despite your mother's . . . lack of enthusiasm."

Lack of enthusiasm didn't begin to describe her mother's sentiments. Mama had been brought up very properly, taught that a girl should learn to manage her husband's household, bear his children, and follow his commands in all things. Shironne, on the other hand, knew she wouldn't catch a husband—not now—so none of those imperatives mattered for her any more. "She's very reserved, Colonel," Shironne said, "but Mama says that I'm, um . . . the interfering sort."

She sensed his amusement. He let her feel it, as if he held it out on a platter for her mind to see. "You're very good at controlling your emotions, sir."

"I was well trained," the colonel answered. "You must be very sensitive."

"Yes, sir, far more so than my mother." At first, her skin had felt so raw that every breath, every touch, every morsel of food had all been agony in the overwhelming flood of sensation sweeping through her. Her father's very presence had been a torment, his ever-present anger rousing in her a screaming fury of her own. He still made her teeth hurt, even now.

"So your mother's a sensitive as well," the colonel said. "I should have expected that."

Shironne frowned. She'd revealed a secret her mother wouldn't want exposed. "She . . . no one . . ."

"I know who your mother is, Miss Anjir. I would never say or do anything to harm her."

He meant his words sincerely. Shironne sensed it.

"Why don't I take you back to the office now?" He put a hand under her elbow, guiding her toward the stairs.

"What do you mean, you know who my mother is?" She tried to judge his mind through the muted contact of his hand on her sleeve.

"Hmm. An alderman's wife," he stated correctly.

But his original words had nothing to do with her father, she could tell. "No, you meant something else."

His mind turned quickly, making inferences from her words, tying them back to what he'd seen in the morgue. His hand slipped away from her elbow, taking with it her tie to his thoughts, leaving her access to his emotions alone.

"Amazing," the colonel said, with no hint of offense. "You don't actually have to be touching my skin."

Shironne wondered what he used for reference. "Should I?"

"Do you not know what you are?" Wonder floated through his emotions, not hidden this time.

"A freak," she whispered. "Witch-blood." They told stories of people like her kept caged in a foreign palace—a menagerie, only not filled with beasts. She had read such stories with appalling relish as a little girl, never suspecting then she might someday belong in one of those cages herself.

The colonel laughed. "Ah, no. Come with me, Miss Anjir. Your mother and I need to have a discussion."

He returned his hand to her elbow, guiding her up the last steps and out of the hospital. The cool fall breeze felt clean after the fetid air of the morgue, even if it did brush her cheeks with a touch of factory smoke.

Her mother waited in the colonel's office, anxiety spinning about her in a tight skein. "Are you all right, sweetheart?" she asked as they came through the door.

Shironne wished she could put her arms around her and be held for a moment, but Mama was a politician's wife and had to keep up her cultured image. "I'm fine, Mama. It was . . . unpleasant, but I'm fine."

Her mother tucked away her fretfulness. "Did you find out what you needed?"

"No. I . . ." Shironne turned in the colonel's direction, a sudden inspiration electrifying her. "Can you take me to where he lived?"

"Sweetheart," her mother protested, "I'm certain the colonel has other . . ."

"I promised, Mama. I told Benia I would find out why."

"Madam Anjir," the colonel said in a grave voice, "I'm willing to take her there. I am curious."

Her mother flinched at his last word. Shironne felt it both through Mama's tight grasp on her hand and in her sudden air of anger. "My daughter is not a circus freak, Colonel Cerradine. She didn't come here to entertain you."

"No, Madam, she came to fulfill a promise, and I intend to help her do so." The colonel radiated honesty, so clearly that Shironne wondered if he practiced at home.

"Colonel, my husband doesn't want her seen . . ."

"Is he the one who first used the word 'freak,' Madam?" the colonel asked in an irritated voice. "The proper term is touch-sensitive."

Silence reigned for a moment.

Shironne felt fear tumbling through her mother's heart. The emotion reflected through her own body, sending goose bumps shivering along her arms. A trickle of perspiration ran down her back. Shironne fought the response, trying to keep it from taking over her own thoughts. "What do you mean, Colonel?"

"If I'm not mistaken, Miss Anjir, you are a rare form of sensitive, much more acute than most. The talent does run in certain families."

The colonel waited for her mother to admit something. When he got no response, he continued. "I was raised at the Fortress, Madam, as were many of my staff. We don't view such things as most people do. We're a little more open-minded."

The Fortress housed the king and his family, long whispered to possess unusual "talents." They wouldn't consider her talent a disturbing taint then, or proof of impure blood as Father constantly insisted.

Her mother didn't respond to the colonel's statement.

"The prince is one of my closest friends," he tried again. "I would never harm a member of his family."

Shironne decided he'd approached the topic so obliquely because he feared Mama had never admitted it to her. He didn't wish to expose her secret.

"I . . . um," her mother faltered, ". . . my husband . . ."

"Doesn't want anyone to know," the colonel finished. "I understand. I can see he asks you to keep many secrets." A distinct flash of anger accompanied his words.

Clearly, the cosmetics Mama used to hide the new bruise hadn't fooled him. Shironne sensed her mother's fleeting humiliation.

She knew the expression Mama would be wearing now. She'd seen it often as a little girl. Savelle Anjir was tall, beautiful and elegant, always cloaked in the mantle of the serene politician's wife. Only after her odd sensitivity developed had Shironne begun to understand that her mother's cool tranquility was a façade.

"He is my husband, Colonel," Mama insisted with a quaver in her voice. "He may ask what he wills."

"Why not go to your brothers for protection?"

Officially, her mother had no brothers. "That is not your concern, Colonel," she said more firmly.

Shironne sensed his frustration, but her mother would never give in to his gentle and well-intentioned suggestions. It would cause a scandal. Shironne spoke into the stretching silence. "Colonel, do you think I might go to his apartments?"

"I will accompany you there shortly," the colonel answered, "if your mother permits."

"Her father . . ."

"Would not want her seen. I recall, Madam. Let me go talk to Lieutenant Kassannan. I'll see if she can't come up with something and accompany us there." He walked out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Being exposed as the old king's bastard had always been Mama's greatest fear. While the king and the prince might be her half-brothers, she had never met them even though she sometimes half-wished for it.

"He won't say anything, Mama. I can tell," Shironne assured her.

Her mother sighed. "We need to get home, sweetheart. We don't have the time to go visit this man's rooms."

The butler always snitched to Father if Mama left the house for too long. Father paid him well. "You could go back, Mama."

"And leave you here alone?" Her voice sounded incredulous.

"I'll be safe with the colonel. I can tell. If you go back, the butler probably won't even notice I didn't come in. He never notices me. I'll come back as soon as I'm done and I'll make certain he doesn't see me. Cook won't say anything." Her mother still didn't like the idea—Shironne could sense her worry. "I gave my word, Mama. I must."

Her mother understood duty all too well. She sighed again and finally agreed to the plan, unhappily so.

The colonel returned then, seeming pleased with himself. His step even sounded lighter. "Why don't you put this on, Miss Anjir?"

He handed her something. Shironne turned it about in her gloved hands, determining she held a woman's hat. She righted it and placed it on her head.

"There's a veil." He folded it down over her face.

Judging by her mother's smothered laughter, she must look ridiculous. The hat tilted, dipping down over her face. Its headband came into contact with her forehead, hinting at the woman who'd worn it before, an aged deposit of oils, dirt, and skin.

"It's a little large," the colonel observed.

Her mother tucked away her amusement, deciding to be firm again. "Colonel, I will let you take her, but I must return to my house. Could you possibly send her back there—with a suitable escort, of course?"

"Of course, Madam Anjir."

****

"Are you really in the Army?" Shironne asked the woman who led her down the steps of the administration building—Lieutenant Kassannan. Realizing she'd been rude, she put her hand over her mouth only to tangle her fingers in the veil of the over-large hat.

"Yes, miss," the lieutenant said, not sounding the least offended. "The Investigations Office does take on female workers."

Shironne wondered if she heard that question often. She'd known there were women who served in the Army, but had never thought to meet one. Clearly, the colonel considered women competent to do something other than run a household. "Do you enjoy it?" she asked.

"Yes, miss," the lieutenant said. "It's my calling, I think. I am good at what I do."

The colonel joined them, his boots ringing on the steps. Shironne heard a carriage driving up, the horses' hooves closer than she'd expected. Lieutenant Kassannan helped her up and then sat next to her, her mind as politely disciplined as the colonel's.

"I knew about my mother's birth," Shironne told the colonel after they started on their way, "but she doesn't like to talk about it."

"I suspect your mother's friends would be shocked if they learned of it," he said.

The carriage had a smooth ride, far better than the aging one her family owned. "My mother doesn't really have any friends," Shironne said. "Father doesn't like for her to meet people."

That made the colonel angry. The lieutenant's mind reflected suspicion as well.

"I mean, she meets people at political things," Shironne amended, "just not on her own." Father preferred to keep his beautiful and purportedly well-born wife close.

"Hmm," the colonel said.

The carriage began slowing. They'd traveled only a short distance, so she knew they'd stayed in the same district of the city. The colonel straightened her hat's veil. "Are you ready?"

"Do I look as ridiculous as my mother thought?"

"Yes," the colonel answered. The lieutenant laughed and agreed as they rolled to a stop.

The colonel handed her down from the carriage onto a cobbled street. Other traffic passed by, but not much. The factories smelled nearer than before. Trees rustled in the faint breeze. The veil confused her, brushing into her face, startling her skin with the feel of silk lace and dye.

She heard the lieutenant jump down from the carriage, her booted feet striking the cobbles. From the sounds she made, Shironne deduced that Lieutenant Kassannan must wear trousers just as the colonel did.

"Why don't we go in?" the colonel asked. He took Shironne's gloved hand and laid it on his sleeve, leading her up a few steps and into the entryway of a house.

Home-smells surrounded Shironne, and the taste of dirt. The owner didn't keep it as clean as her house. "Is this his house?"

"It's a boarding house," the colonel explained. "He had a flat here. I sent a message ahead, to let the landlady know we were coming back."

"Oh." She should have realized that. A sergeant wouldn't have the money to own a house. In fact, Benia claimed that as the reason they hadn't married yet.

Voices echoed along hallways, distracting her. Late morning, and most of the residents should be at their work, Shironne guessed. Not all, it seemed. Two women argued somewhere above them, one angry, another pleading, their words indistinct at this distance.

"Upstairs, sir," the lieutenant said.

The colonel drew Shironne toward the sounds of the voices and they mounted the stairs. Someone passed close by as they came out onto the second floor landing, causing the colonel to halt abruptly. She hummed a lullaby under her breath, a fog of vague despondency surrounding her.

"I beg your pardon, Madam," the colonel said, even though she'd been the one to walk into him.

The woman's attention focused on him, her sudden interest pronounced enough to make Shironne wonder for the first time if the colonel was a handsome man. Then the woman's attention drifted away like smoke caught on the wind. She continued on up the stairs without even responding.

The landlady, identifiable by the keys jangling at her waist, met them when they stopped at a doorway. She fawned over the officers in a subservient fashion and unlocked the door for them, curious and uneasy thoughts making a messy cloud around her in Shironne's mind. The colonel thanked her and informed her they would send for her if they needed further assistance—a polite way of asking her to go away. She left them, taking her worry and noisy keys with her.

Shironne laid a gloved hand on the doorframe and stepped through onto a wood floor. "How is the room laid out?"

The colonel entered behind her, giving her a brief description. The sitting room possessed only a low table, two chairs and a tea service near the hearth.

"Could you take me to a chair?" Shironne asked.

He took her hand, curiosity in his mind again, and placed it on the back of a chair. She sat and removed her left boot. "Is there anything on the floor?"

"A braided rug in front of the hearth."

Shironne stood and started away from the chair, feeling about with her bared foot. She couldn't sense much from the wood itself, but wood kept things. She felt dirt trapped in the grain, bits of skin and hair, food and saliva, all ground together into dust, only faintly identifiable. The pine floors had recently been scrubbed with lye and water.

Shironne reached a spot near the middle of the room and stopped, her foot poised barely touching the floor. Blood had flowed there. "Did he die right here?"

"That was where they found the body this morning," the lieutenant confirmed from just inside the doorway.

"There's a lot of blood."

"I don't see anything," the colonel said. "The landlady must have scrubbed it after they took the body."

"But she didn't get it all. You never get anything really clean, sir. I can feel the blood in the cracks between the boards, and in the grain