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Cora left the stimulating projections behind as she walked up on deck and
moved to the stem of the ship. Mataroreva went with her.
. "But why?" she muttered, staring down into the clear water. Purple and
yellow fish drifted beneath her, vanished under the stem. "Whole towns, entire
populations?. . ."
"H you kill ten people or a thousand, the penalties
132 CACHALOT
are the same," Sam told her softly. "Once the first step, the first multiple
murder, is committed to cover one's tracks, subsequent actions become routine.
You'll be wiped and personality reimprinted for the first as much as for the
second and third. Why risk witnesses?"
"I suppose you're right." She tried to consider the situation coldly, as a
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question of statistics and not of individual lives. "At least we know what
we're looking for now, if not who."
"I imagine they're from off-planet," he speculated.
"I can't believe even part-time residents of Cachalot committed mass murder
for profit. For any reason.
But you're wrong about one thing. We're not going to be looking for these
people. At least, you're not. I'll communicate our information and our theory
to Ad-
ministration and they'll turn it over to my people.
This is peaceforcer work, not biology."
"I'd like to keep working," she argued. "Maybe we have a good idea who to look
for, but not how to lo-
cate them. They've covered their work thoroughly.
How can your people find them?"
He considered. "If this was a more technologically developed world, I'd set up
a scan for any shuttle-
craft leaving or arriving and have it searched for con-
traband materials. But Cachalot's satellite system is nowhere near
sophisticated enough to watch the whole planet. Though they have to be getting
the stolen merchandise off-planet via shuttle.
"As to finding the local end of the business, that's going to be tougher
still. We can't search every town and independent gathering vessel. Not only
isn't it practical illegal goods could easily be dumped or de-
stroyed but the Cachalotians wouldn't stand for it."
He grinned slightly. "Our citizens are very independ-
ent, as you may have guessed."
"What does that leave you with?"
CACHALOT 133
"Trying to catch them just before they act." He sounded grim. "I don't like
the implications there."
"Were the other lost towns also getting ready to make full shipments?"
"Sorry. I had the same thought. That was one list 7
checked. Not only did they have varying stocks on hand, but I'a, the second
town attacked, had just fin-
ishing sending off its quarterly production only a few days before it was
wiped out."
"It could have been mistiming on the part of the attackers."
"It could have been." He shrugged. "It doesn't mat-
ter."
"Why not?"
"Because I think we'll find, when we check the rec-
ords, that all produce, regardless of quantity, disap-
peared," and he went below.
He was gone quite a while. Cora did not move, con-
tinued to watch the subsurface denizens, to envy them their freedom from
thought. Much better to be able to rely only on instinct, she mused.
"Well?"
"Everything crated for shipment," he told her. "No sign of it. And that's not
all. Merced and I made a detailed study of the recovered-articles lists.
Absent from them is just enough in the way of water-resistant valuables power
packs, generator units, converters, and personal effects like jewelry to give
credibility to our theory.
"Many personal items were recovered sunk to the bottom or found inside pieces
of town. But enough is missing to fit with our analysis. Our pirates were
care-
ful to limit their greed. The absence of all such items would have pointed to
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human agents long ago. But just a few now, they wouldn't be missed." One mas-
sive fist punched gently into its opposite palm. "I'd like to meet these
folks." His expression now was any-
thing but boyish. "Yes, I'd like to meet them."
134 CACHALOT
"Sam, how can you predict where the next attack will take place since they
don't rely on information regarding which town is ready to ship?"
"Time for some inspired guesswork, I suppose. We do know that every attack has
taken place under cover of bad weather. All towns have been alerted to that
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