Lace Ravine

Chap. 1: Lace Finds Herself in a Bit More Trouble Than Usual - pt. 1

The being- dressed in a pale lime hue and work clothes, with a slimy form that extended nine feet in the air- looked about as humorless as he was. The being's name was Rixchter, a middle-aged Tarzoth detective on the planet Artecca. Overall he'd been having a good day, that in a few minutes would turn rather disappointing.

Artecca is a standard, recently-colonized-but-not-yet-developed, planet. Several orbits of Fortas ago, it came under the rule of the Tarzoths, and is lopsided in that the eastern hemisphere is far more advanced than the deserts of the west. For a fairly large world, Artecca had only one jail- located in the heart of the west- but still prided itself on its swift and fair criminal justice system. Rixchter, more than anyone, believed in it with every one of his hearts.

Now he stood, green and looming, in the wing of the prison for holding suspects, peering in at a criminal that had just one Earth-hour ago had been apprehended. The relatively small woman with uneven mud-brown hair and a slick smile that only revealed itself when she felt she had the upper hand, was being interrogated by his partner in muffled voices beyond a tinted window. Rixchter's stare remained unmoving from her image until his trainee marched to him with a file.

The detective's three silver eyes swiveled to the younger Tarzoth.

"What do her records say?" Rixchter regarded the lean male called Jazx.

"Well, she's never been to this jail before. But that's about all I can say on her behalf."

"Let me examine." Jazx handed his superior the folder with his lower right arm. Rixchter's glossy gaze scanned the papers. "Lace Ravine... That can't be her real name."

"It's her most commonly used alias. Her eye scan revealed no legal name on file." Jazx turned his stare abruptly to the woman that now looked all but pleased. "But what can you expect? She's a human."

Rixchter scratched his chin with one skeptical claw. "Full-blooded human?"

"Earth line. Direct descendent, according to bio-materials analysis."

"How rare." The detective now observed Lace like an endangered species in an enclosure. In fact, he thought for the first time, full-blooded humans were endangered. "Why is she here?" His husky voice wondered.

"She's a thief." Jazx said simply. "And a professional, from the looks of it."

Rixchter flipped the pages in the file with his crooked pointer finger. When he took this assignment on Artecca he didn't realize how old-school the technology would be. He sighed at Lace's history. "For a professional she sure gets caught often."

Jazx gave a smile that was mostly gum, and tapped the top of the folder. "But never convicted. Look."

Rixchter searched more fervently through the notes. "Bailed out and took off... every time. She must have powerful allies." Suddenly, he snapped the file shut. "But this is Artecca. Justice will catch up to her here." With a clamor, the door to the holding room was suddenly thrust open, and detective Karloce exited. Rixchter nodded to his partner. "How was questioning?"

Karloce collected his thoughts, then shook his head for a few moments at a steadily increasing speed. "She's baffling! She says absolutely nothing of substance, ever! But yet she continues to talk, without end! ...Put on the speaker." Karloce liked to make every case with a strange species into a science experiment. He pointed to the button on the wall before reentering the interrogation room. Rixchter pressed the spot, and the sound system crackled to life, allowing him to hear Karloce's excitement. "Listen to her! She even speaks like she grew up on Earth!"

Rixchter then heard the woman's voice for the first time. The sharp points of her grating words rose like crags over the smooth sea that was her natural timbre. "Is that supposed to be an insult?! Go drown in a lake, jackass!"