Chapter 13: CHAPTER TWELVE

Daniel de Montelier landed his plane as effortlessly as landing on the finest velvet. He shut off the engine, stepped out. The village lay about two kilometers to the west. The sun shone, no hint of precipitation. It was going to be a beautiful fall day. His headache still bothered him, but it confined its torture to the back of his head.

The village had a diner that catered to human beings who couldn’t eat the raw meat the aliens ate. As he headed closer to the village, he pictured a beef and cheese burger washed down with an ice cold brew. Not much nutrition there, but it would tide him over till he returned home.

When he had gone a short distance he looked back at the plane. Who would fly it? Not those aliens. And Arak was dead. He smiled, shook his head. He was worrying about nothing.

Then why was something nagging him?

A dark shape hovered above him. One of those whistling dragons. In their language, their species name was totally different. He tried to remember one of the few interviews the aliens gave. Alhar... (Ah’ lahr) something something something. Somebody on that planet had the bright idea to call them what translated in English to ‘whistling dragons’, for obvious reasons.

If one was up there, a Tereskàdian had to be nearby. Because they were linked, one would never be seen without the other.

Sure enough, a few minutes later one of the aliens walked up to him. He tensed up, his hand automatically making sure his weapon, slung to his hip, was ready. Not that he needed it; the aliens couldn’t attack, they could only defend themselves. Even so, caution was the best avenue to take.

The alien stopped, regarded Montelier with his head cocked, as if listening to some sound Montelier couldn’t hear. A male, recognizable by those fine hairs around the ears.

“My name is Daniel de Montelier,” he said. “Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I’m here to investigate Arak’s death.”

“Rheôvhan,” the alien said.

Despite a concerted effort, he couldn’t perceive these aliens as anything but animals. Fur, snout, uncannily fox-like, and yet not. What else could they be but animals, despite their ability to walk on their hindlegs like humans, and their skill with the English language.

“How much further to the village?” he asked.

“Not far.”

“That your... whistling dragon up there?” He wanted to say ‘pet,’ held off at the last moment. These aliens didn’t like humans to refer to their symbiotes as pets.

“Her name is Dharhonha.”

“Nice.” A standard answer, to be sure, but said with a finality that told this aliens much more urgent matters lay ahead.

He followed the alien, almost losing him. Walking fast, as if he were late for an appointment. He quickened his pace until he was walking beside Rheôvhan. He didn’t want to glance at the alien, couldn’t help it. Kept glancing at those paws, thinking about the claws. Sheathed now, but one scratch, one tiny scratch meant death.

After watching countless science fiction films and reading books in his formative teenage years he would never have imagined aliens like this.

“They’re making a movie,” Rheôvhan said.

He kept in step with the alien. “All the way up here?”

“Sen... Mr. Creighton needed a whistling dragon.”

Montelier stopped. “Harold Creighton? Mon dieu, you’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“Tereskàdians do not kid, Sen Montelier.”

“Harold Creighton,” he said again, wishing he could spit out the name. “He has got to be the worst director in the entire world. ‘Teen Monsters from Mars.’ Came out a few years back. What a piece of horse turd.”

They reached the village a short time later. Montelier had expected to see a lot of Tereskàdians and a lot of whistling dragons, but the first beings were humans, a lot of humans, scurrying here and there like busy ants taking food back to the queen ant, or in this case the king ant, who, in the guise of Harold Creighton, was yelling something at the man holding a microphone attached to a long pole, above a black-haired woman and one of the whistling dragons.

A whistling dragon in this movie?

One of the females came over, put an arm around Rheôvhan. “They’re using Jhevharel in this shot,” she said. “They want him to growl at that actress, but he can’t do it. The director wants him to show anger... Anger? Keeps yelling at him. Jhevharel isn’t angry, so he can’t show an emotion he’s not displaying at the moment.” She sighed. “Nothing makes sense right now, but Sen Creighton assured me when the editing is all done, the movie would make more sense.”

“They’re not real dragons,” Montelier said.

“This is Chandrha, my mate,” Rheôvhan said. “And that’s her whistling dragon, Jhevharel, over there.”

“Get that mike out of the shot,” Creighton yelled. “You want me to send you back to whatever shithole you crawled out of?”

The young man holding the pole said nothing, made sure his microphone was where it was supposed to be.

“Benita,” Creighton said to the black-haired woman, “you have to put more life into your lines. You sound like a damn robot.”

“Yes, sir. I will try.”

Montelier couldn’t understand what Creighton was doing. If dragons were involved in this movie, they’d be ugly, fierce, fire breathing monsters who preyed on domestic stock, terrorized the village, and abducted beautiful maidens. Speaking of beautiful maidens, where was she? He tried to locate someone who fit that description. It wasn’t that dark-haired woman with the Italian accent, was it? Benita. Benita Corovelli. An actress with the talent of a trained seal.

“ ‘You must destoy...’ ” Benita stopped. “Sorry, sorry. Destroy, destroy, destroy. English is not my first language, you know.”

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“Let’s do it again,” Creighton called. “Chandrha.”

The Tereskàdian trotted over to the director. “Yes?”

“Can you get him to look meaner? As mean as a guy who hasn’t taken a dump in three days?”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? He reminds me of something Disney dreamed up. You know, cute, furry...”

“That’s the way he is,” she said. “If you want to do him different, why don’t you ask Sen Fenwick?”

“Because Sen Fenwick can’t do anything until we’re back in California.”

Montelier stepped forward. “Excuse me, folks. My name is Daniel de Montelier, RCMP. I’m here to investigate the death of Gairmond Arak.”

“Gairmond?” Rheôvhan said. “I thought his name was Arak.”

“That was his last name,” Montelier said. “He never liked his first name, so he made sure everyone just called him Arak.”

“I’m trying to shoot a movie here,” Creighton said.

“And I’m investigating a murder, Mr. Creighton. That takes precedence over your movie.”

“Oh, you know me.”

“I’ve heard of you... and your reputation.”

“Good, I hope.”

“Where’s the body?”

“In one of the freezers in the diner,” Rheôvhan said.

“I’ll have it delivered to Moosonee,” Montelier said. “From there it will go to Toronto, to a forensic lab.”

“He was stabbed.”

“Where’s the murder weapon?”

“I don’t know.”

“What? You didn’t ask. You aliens are living lie detectors, and you didn’t even think to ask the people here who might have killed Arak?”

“No one’s left,” Creighton said.

“Then every human here is a suspect.”

Rheôvhan said nothing as Montelier’s eyes questioned him. A species of alien that could detect lies so readily could be invaluable to any police organization like the RCMP. What better way to weed out the guilty by requesting the Tereskàdians to ask questions that would distinguish truth from lies.

“Get all the humans together,” Montelier said. “Should have this sorted out soon.”

“Are you nuts?” Creighton shouted. “This is costing me money, Mr. RCMP. I’m not going to stop production while you investigate the murder of some has-been.”

Montelier grabbed Creighton’s beneath the chin, lifted him off the ground. “Listen to me, Mr. Movieman, this is official police business. If you don’t want to be charged with obstructing the investigation, you will step aside, and when I ask questions, you will answer, do you understand?”

Creighton nodded. Montelier released him, and the director crumpled to the ground. He picked himself up, brushed dirt from his clothes.

“How many people do you have here?” he asked.

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen suspects. Might take some time to sort through everything.”

“What about the aliens?”

“If one of the aliens had killed Arak, they wouldn’t need a weapon. They have claws.”

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