The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
Author:Malka Older
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Chapter 11
âHow could he be so dismissive?â I expostulated, when we were finally alone.
We were on a remote platform, large enough for a medium-sized cat to run and pounce within its confines, and connected to the rest of the mauzooleum by stairs going up and down. It was far from the visitorâs path though; I wondered how the cat had found us, or been aimed at us.
Mossa was examining the container, built into one of the long bars surrounding the habitat, that held the caracalâs genetic identicals, proto-caracals in cell form. They hadnât been stolen, but I assumed she wanted to get an idea of what the containers were like. âWho? Oh that ⦠director, or whatever he was? It happens.â She was commendably dismissive herself. âThere are plenty of people who donât like Investigators, and particularly donât like to see someone like myself leading their investigations.â
âOh surelyââ I began, and Mossa looked up with a face etched into blankness.
âForgive me, Pleiti, but I believe your experience in Valdegeld may not be typical of the entire planet.â That silenced me, and before I could recover to argue the premiseâ I had, after all, spent years away from the closed environ of the university before achieving my position, and the Preservation Institute should reflect academic attitudes, and so was my milieu as much as hersâMossa had moved on to the place where the caracal had emerged from its habitat. The mostly transparent barrier had been re-closed with a temporary fastening. âHm. Of course theyâve made too much of a mess fixing this for me to see much here. But perhapsâ¦â
She turned to examine the bit of platform we stood on, and started walking in the direction which, I knew from my map, was the most direct route to where we were attacked. Again and again she knelt to the surface of the platform, and frowned. Finally, just up a small flight of stairs from where we had been strollingâhad it been only two days before?âshe grunted with a sort of triumph. âHere.â
I squatted reluctantly beside her, feeling my knees creak. âSee these scratches?â Mossa reached into her bag and pulled out a crumple of cloth. A crumple of blood-stained cloth, I realized, recoiling.
âMossa! Is thatââ
She was already straightening out the shirt, aligning the punctures in the cloth with the damage to the metal of the platform. âYes. The last claw did not find much purchase, but these are clearly from the sameââ
âA caracalâs claws are retractable,â I pointed out, having looked this information up during the long period of wakefulness after cleaning her wounds that night. âWhy would it leave claw marks on the ground?â
Mossa looked up at me, her eyes bright and present above her atmoscarf. âWhy indeed? In fact, that hint of a mark here is more telling than the lack of scratches up till this point. It seems that something made the feline angry just before it touched the ground here.â
I considered that. âSomeone carried it here, harassed it somehow, andââ
âPointed it at us.
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