The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online

next door. She may look a pretty tough egg, but she needs a man handy. She’s not practical. D’you know how she spent the first eight years after she got back? Slaving at her schoolbooks, matriculating, getting her degree, getting her goddam doctorate. Eve set a great store by that—owed it to her dad, I think she thinks. By the same token, she takes all her tribe off in a crazy crocodile to church every Sunday.”
    â€œThey are Christians, then?” Did the façade of formality hide his astonishment? With luck it did, Pibble decided; Caine was too self-absorbed to take much note of enemy reactions. Pibble recalled the whining, boring chant in the blue-green light of the wake room. Jissu. Hodigu. Mirri. Godifadi! The blessed Trinity and the Mother of God, all translated.
    â€œI understand from Dr. Ku that she does not exercise any real authority over the Kus,” he said.
    â€œNot bleeding likely! It’s her house, isn’t it? Her money that keeps ’em in yams and beer? There’s one or two working for the Transport now, but they don’t take home enough to fill twenty bellies, even at the crazy great wage they’re getting nowadays. No, copper, Eve is like a kid with an ant’s nest—one of those glass-sided jobs. She knows that if she goes poking round, ordering ’em about, she won’t learn much, so she just sits and watches. It’s her toy, and she won’t let any of the other kids touch it. I met a guy in a pub once, a journalist who was nuts on anthropology, so I told him about the Kus. He wanted to come and set up house here and do a color-supplement piece about them—they’re dead photogenic—but Eve warned him off, scared him stiff with libel lawyers and dug up a mossy old friend of her mother’s who was his editor’s godfather. She was bleeding mean about it; in fact, I could have done with the money and then some. Still, she’s had a cruel life, poor old Eve, and it’s not fair to hold her responsible for all her actions. Sometimes, copper, I thank God I’m here to look after her. I don’t know what would have happened to her without me.”
    The maudlin note was back, less strong but no less repellent.
    â€œDo you think,” said Pibble, “from your knowledge of them, that one of the Kus was likely to have murdered Aaron?”
    â€œShouldn’t be surprised. He could be a bloody-minded old bastard. Y’see it was in his interest to keep the tribe stagnant, preserved, like one of those mummified Vikings they find in marshes. Then he was somebody—hail to the chief, you know. The moment they seriously tried to fit into the pattern here, get jobs, move about a bit, meet people, he’d be a leftover. I tried to take some of the younger ones out a bit, show ’em life, knock the corners off, but Aaron pretty soon whistled ’em back, with Eve’s help. I don’t mind telling you, copper, that though I owe the Kus a lot that doesn’t mean I’ve got to like every bleeding one of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the younger ones got frustrated enough to knock the old bastard on the head.”
    Aha! How did he know that Aaron had been knocked on the head? Had Mrs. Caine said anything about it? Yes, she had. Damn!
    â€œCan you think of any other motive for one of the Kus to kill him? Or anybody else?”
    â€œNot on the spur of the moment, old boy.”
    â€œThe deceased was clutching a two-headed penny. Does that mean anything to you?”
    â€œNot a thing, copper.”
    Had there been a pause, a tiny crackle in the self-confident glaze? Pibble knew he wanted to think so and tried to allow for his own prejudice. No, he decided, there had not.
    â€œAre you left- or right-handed, Mr. Caine?”
    â€œGroup Captain Caine, if you don’t mind, old boy. And I’m as right-handed as they come. Look, my fists are different sizes,