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Being a ape and living on Ifrit did not work. Fur+heat=YUCK.

But Heather was disconcerted. She always felt bad when bodies were found. And fifteen of them in one week?

Usually Heather didn't do the sorting, it was left up to a group of the lizard-like natives of the planet. But recently they'd come down with the Reptilian Head Flu.......although why it was called that when if affected the digestive system Heather had no idea. The natives were quite robotic, they did as they were told, and never batted an eye when a body was found. Often, twenty bodies of merchants and the poor were found per week, and usually spread over the week. Not fifteen in 3 days.

Heather shook it off and walked home. Already little tongues of flame were licking the sidewalk. Summer would be soon, and that's when they took of to spend two weeks on Coal while Ifrit burned.

She walked into the hovel she called home and walked downstairs. Her mother was cooking fresh slug-spider soup, and her father was painting the loungeroom.

"....and that's the whole story." said the disposal boss.

Raleigh frowned. It didn't sound like a lot to go on. And he disliked the idea of sifting through garbage. But even if he could not figure out why the hell an Ant Noble ended up in the trash from Shiva, there were other cases involved.

"What about the employee who carried it over? Heather, you said?"

"Yeah. She's followed all the protocols. I'll forward the computer log."

"And where is she?"

"I sent her home."

Raleigh groaned. This was definitively not the right thing. He never liked playing politics, but even he could see that things were going to go south if an Ant Noble was found dead in a garbage truck.

"Listen. Contact her immediately, and tell her not to discuss this. Tell her also that I require her at the disposal site as soon as she is able. I am going to be there within an hour."

Raleigh snapped the comms off. This was bad. Already, the abstract that had been transmitted to the Adjudication network had mentioned the possibility of a Noble being murdered. The Adjudicator network was secure, but it would only take a leak from the Adjudicators themselves to blow this whole thing wide-open. And what if the murderers had sources inside the Adjudicators?

Raleigh programmed the ship to set course for Ifrit.

"Say WHAT?" Heather barked into the phone.

"Meet me here at the site IMMEDIATELY. The cops are headed here. Don't say a word to anyone!" her boss yelped.

Heather roared in her native Ape language, which sounded like something between "Ooggga Ooggaa OOOOgga!" and a Lion roaring.

"Heather, calm down! I'm only human!" her boss pleaded.

Heather slammed the comm quiet.

"THAT'S THE THRID ONE THIS MONTH!!" her mother yelled.

"KEEP YOU HAIR ON YOU STINKING BABOON!" her father roared.

Heather, like most creatures, dispised humans and half-breeds. And didn't like being reminded she worked for one.

According to legend, a thousand years ago a army of humans had taken over their galaxy, turning most of the creatures into slaves. Heather supposed it couldn't be all true, the current King was a Lion-Fox, but 80% of everything was owned and/or run by humans.

She walked along the path. The tongues of flame were gone in the night, but it was still very warm. Turning the corner into the disposal facility, Heather sighed at looked up into the starless sky.

She smiled inwardly. Being the trash collector was worth it for all the gossip and excitement. She remembered the last time they'd found a dead Noble-it had turned out that the King's brother was secretly plotting to take over, and was killing off all the Knights and Nobles one by one. Luckily, there was only one fatality this time........if you don't count the King's brother.

She saw the Adjudication ship soar towards the planet.

"Fool-if he thinks coming in slowly will cool him off, he's got another thing coming." Heather grinned inwardly. She made it to the Taker, and sat down at her desk.

With a shudder, the Spilsbury XXXVII landed.

I hate %$#@ing landings, thought Mikhail.

He had landed in one of the spare docking bays of the disposal centre, and as close to the actual site as possible. The Spilsbury XXXVII didn't look threatening. Or fast. As an Adjudicator (albeit a freelance one), he was entitled to concealed weapons. He pulled out a few pieces of equipment, and set the security system to HDis/CDet. He then walked out onto the pads and strode for the building.

He hated the heat on this place, even though it was night. The famous firestorms of Ifrit wasn't high on his list of 'things to see'. But the timing was also too convenient. He knew enough about Ifrit to know about the firestorms. They were used to convert the organic rubbish brought here into fertiliser. Inorganic rubbish made of metal or glass were smelted down to create new products.

But he had the feeling that the murder was timed to coincide with the firestorms. Even with the searching of murdered bodies, he was sure that, if the sorter Heather hadn't been as thorough, the Noble would have been immolated completely.

He walked in the door and held out his badge and identification to the rather startled sapient ape at the desk ((That's you, Kezzstar)).

"I am Mikhail Torp Raleigh, Registered and Accredited Freelance Ajudicator UIY-2249. I am here for the investigation of the possible murder of an Ant Noble."

[OOC: Are you still accepting applications so to speak? ]

((Go right ahead-the more the merrier!))

Half-breed. thought Heather with a sniff of contempt. She glowered at him

"Don't look so happy. A LIFE has been taken." Heather snapped. She turned away.

"Follow me." she grabbed his wrist. They walked down a long hall towards the unmistakeable stench of rotting food matter, garbage, and er......other waste product.

"This is the bin where I found the body." Heather's eyes misted over. "It's the same bin I always use for Shiva, I never switch bins. I wash them every morning." she pulled him toward a red ship. "This is the ship, the Taker, it's been in my family for decades. And here........is the body............usually we only find peasant bodies........not Nobility........" Heather turned away.

"Any questions??" she growled. "Don't ask me about any processes, I don't usually do the job!"

((Half-breed?He's human. He is trained in the ways of a Comp, but he isn't partly alien.))

Raleigh was rather taken aback by the vitriol of the sapient ape.

"Calm down. I am here to deal with a murder that could seriously screw things up around here. If I had the time and resources, I would deal with the rest of those who came in with him."

He knelt down next to the garbage pile. All sorts of effluvia assaulted his nostrils.

"I'll consult your expert opinion. Do you know, from the layers in your container, roughly where from Shiva it came from?"

As he talked, he cast a MultiScan spell and looked at the remains...

((Think she cares?))

"He came from near the surface........I collect it last.........it's frozen and covers some of the smells." Heather looked out the window. "Why Shiva though? He'd freeze to death five minutes after he landed, his kind don't like the cold. Suicide?" she wondered out loud.

She walked over to her ship, and noticed something moving....

"I don't think so. The decapitation would suggest another party. Too clean an edge. He may have done it himself, but it'd be ragged. Besides, Ants have this stigma against actual suicide..."

He noticed he didn't have an audience. She'd wandered towards the front of the ship.

The Scan spells were turning up nothing yet. Too much data to process.

"Hmph, no one here." she turned around, and stared at the human. Quite a pathetic looking creature really, nothing too special about humans. Weak, slow and stupid.

"I'll leave it to you then. I'm off home. I'm hungry." she turned on her heel and left.

"Hey! I need you here for part of this investigation. If I felt so inclined, I could quote all sorts of laws that would keep you here indefinitely. However, as I think you and I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, I won't quote those laws."

He turned back to the body. "I need you here. Please stay here until the investigation is complete. I'll have my droid bring refreshment. Do you have any preference?"

He then started feeling around the Noble's body.

The bad thing about being a S'kele is that most other races do not understand you. Both figuratively and literally: the difference in S'kelen shape of mouth makes it hard to speakthe common language.Of course, she normally works around this by communicating in symbols and writings but that is tiring and does not work over long distances. She was always annoyed when people seemed to make it a point not to understand S'kele and that exactly was what happened right now. Her ship just has come out of the hyperspace around Ifrit and she switched to normal time perception almost instantaneously and called the local spaceport -- this is where the issues start. "'k'd day, ŧis is R'ae in ŧe ship Ntŭk'al! Ŧis instance asks for perm'shan t'land!" Only after 3 repetitions of this phrase, she was understood. She suspects anti-S'kele sentiments - or failing equipment. It would be very unadvantageous to attempt to fix her radio here.

After landing she first examines the radio and curses. Some components really need replacing. "K'j'k!" she thought.

Name: Nyskel
Gender: Male
Age: 64
Race: Eldren (See Below)
Planet: Merchant III
Occupation: Freelance Technician
Magic: Magic based on the powers of electricity and magnetism. However, his age is rather immature for the Eldren race and he does not yet wholly understand these aforementioned powers.
Ship: The Porphyria. Once a standard ship, the vessel has changed names as many times as it has changed hands. Nyskel purchased it for the purpose of his own tinkering, and to permit him better transport. In his usual, quirky way, he named it after a horrifying illness.
Background: Though from Merchant III, Nyskel could not stand the prudent behavior of the planet. He became a freelance engineering technician to better hone his skills - something that he could not do on the merchant's world. A bit of an iconoclast, Nyskel has rather strange mannerisms at times. From a race of elf-like aliens, bearing a suited name, his species has a lifespan far different from that of human timelines.

(OOC: is this alright? )

((Great!))

Heather ignored the human and sat by a window. She saw a familiar ship land in the landing bays.

R'ae? Why is she here? Oh! I hope she brought me another present! Heather thought happily of the present she had for her old friend-a complete spanner and wrench set all in one tool. She had received it from one of the merchants on Merchant 2 when she had been collecting the garbage one day.

She got up and examined her desk. She picked up an old photo. It was of her and her husband-to-be the Ape Lord Sir Seven, of the Noble Planet. She shuddered. His Nobleness had been inspecting Ape workers in the solar system and had stumbled upon her. Why her???

She was happy here!

The human seemed to have found something.