Garden Path
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer
(Stanislaus Coon and Ivar Vargsson are courtesy of E.O. Costello. Thanks!)
Prompt: solving


Thumbnail art by  technicolor_pie, color by  Major Matt Mason


“Oh dear,” Ivar murmured in the back of my mind.

Moka Bustani looked down at me.

I looked up at him.

The moment lasted only for a second or two before the tiger looked up at the sky and said, "It's not really hot enough to go swimming.” He looked down at me again and grinned. “Are you all right?"

“Um, yes?” I said. My usual professional poise had decided to break orbit and leave. I was unarmed, sitting down, and the tiger was a few centimeters taller and several kilograms heavier.

Bustani reached out a paw. “Here, let me help you up, Captain.” His other paw held a pair of shears, and I guess he caught me looking at them. “Oh.” He slipped them into a holster strapped to his thigh before making a second attempt to help me up.

I took the paw, the one that had held the shears, and scrambled to my feet as he helped me. “Thank you,” I said, still more than a little flustered as well as soaking wet. “I heard someone running, so I was trying to catch up.” I glanced back at the fountain. “I tripped.”

The tiger chuckled. “You’re not the first one. Really should see about making that coaming a little higher. “Are you all right, Sir?”

“Just my pride’s hurt,” I tried to joke.

He nodded. “And you’re obviously soaked. Come with me and I’ll get you dried off.”

“Um, er – “

His tail flicked. “Her Ladyship wouldn’t like you tracking water through the house.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Not to mention what ‘M’ would say. We started walking, with me following him. “Why were you running?”

“You were chasing me?” He glanced over his shoulder, and shrugged. “Makes sense; you’re in Intelligence. Want to ask me questions?”

I knew better than to ask him how he knew. He’d served in the Navy, and had likely been questioned for days. “If you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” and my ears flicked at the answer. “We can talk while you get dried off,” he added as we left the garden maze and headed into the more random paths. “So, why were you chasing me?”

Well, nothing for it. “I saw you, and I tried to catch up so I could introduce myself. Why did you start running?”

Bustani chuckled. “I thought you might be Vl – er, the Emperor. He likes to chase me around the maze sometimes.”

Plausible. “You’re on a first name basis with His Majesty?”

“Yes. He insists on it, and I remember being young, you know.” He ducked under a low-hanging branch. “He’s got a hard road in front of him. Best I can do is try to make the start of it smooth for him.”

A few more paths, and we ended up at his home near the center of the garden maze. One bedroom, very neat, and with the greenhouse situated a few meters nearby. Once we reached the door, Bustani pointed to his right. “That’s the mudroom,” he said. “You can get stripped in there, and use the clothes dryer. I’ll get some towels and a furbrush, Sir,” and he went into the house.

I really had no compunction against stripping down to my fur. Before being seconded to Directorate III (Counterintelligence), I had been part of my world’s police force. Locker rooms, you know; no one likes going home in a dirty uniform, or all smelly from the day’s exertions.

And I had also been a prisoner of war. There’s no privacy in a prison.

“Thoughts, Ivar?” I asked after I’d thrown my wet clothes in the dryer and started the machine. Older model, that had seen a lot of use over the years. I kept out my padd, badge, and a few other items, of course.

The wolf slouched against the wall beside the dryer. “Have you noticed how over-qualified our friend seems to be, in terms of his speech? I’m not certain what the planetary patois might be, but it certainly seems out of place.”

“Been to school, obviously, and he was in the Navy, Ivar,” I pointed out. “They don't take complete illiterates.”

“Ah, but was he an officer or a rating?”

“You read the same dossier I did.”

“Quasi-rhetorical, my dear Stanislaus,” my lupine companion conceded. “Now, do you consider his mode of speech unusual for a rating? Even given that he is living amongst Quality, it is worthy of note.”

“Hmm.” I thought for a moment, squeezing a bit more water out of my tail. The room’s floor had a gentle slope to it, ending at a floor drain. “His manners – well,
I hadn’t disturbed any of the plants.”

Ivar nodded. “At first impression, his manners are also far from crude. Proposition: this is not a low-born fur.” The shadow shifted position. “I might also direct your attention, my friend, to the view from the windows here. Notably the greenhouse, and the rather interesting compost heap near it.”

“Compost – ah, yeah, behind those bushes.” I turned as Bustani stepped into the room with an armload of towels. “I apologize for putting you through any trouble – “

Bustani waved this off. “No matter, Sir. Here’s your towels,” and he placed them on the dryer, and slipped a furbrush from a pocket in his apron and placed it on top of the stack. He didn’t even flick a whisker at the sight of me in my fur. “When your clothes are dry, bring them on into the house, and we can get you looking presentable.” He turned to go back inside and paused. “I’ll get us some coffee.” He went on inside.

“A bit of grooming is advisable,” Ivar observed. “’Feline touch’ is one thing. ‘What the cat dragged in’ is another.” I grimaced at him, he smiled, and I started vigorously rubbing the water out of my fur.

This took several minutes, and while I attended to drying off Ivar observed, “But before we stray from the topic at paw, how to get at the compost heap without further dirtying your wardrobe.”

“Well, that and the greenhouse, I expect,” I said, and I sensed Ivar using me to glance out the corner of my eye. “Would you have a composting toilet or pile with nose-shot of your house?”

Ivar gave an indignant sniff. “You wound me, Stanislaus. I was always more fastidious than my feral forebears. I preferred to roll in fragrances that were far more attractive.”

“Wolf-musk?”

“Upon occasion, my friend.”

It took several more minutes to brush my fur out. By then the dryer was done and I got back into my underclothes before walking to the door leading into the house. “What do you want me to do with the towels?” I asked.

“Just leave them there, Sir, thank you,” came the reply.

I carried my uniform in and paused. Bustani had set up an ironing board, complete with iron, and I could hear him moving about in the other room.

Ivar took up a semi-recumbent position on a sofa. “Manners make the mel, to be sure, though the provision of the iron is above and beyond,” he observed. “I wonder if he's trying to keep you busy and preoccupied. If you are drying and pressing your clothes, you are not likely to be wandering far.”

“True. It also takes my eyes off the greenhouse and compost heap.”

“Indeed, but observe that the way he has set up the ironing board faces you toward a bookshelf.” Ivar rose and walked over to it, tracing a finger across the spines. Yes, some of them were actual paper books, while others were cases for datapaks. There was likely a padd or a reader among Bustani’s effects.

“Good titles,” I remarked as I placed my uniform trousers on the board. I live alone, and where I’m from you learn to look after yourself. “Heh. Naughty Nancy in Nighties."

A lupine sniff. “The holo-projection was better.”

“And you would know.”

He let this sally pass unremarked. “Consider, also, some of the other books on the shelf. Naughty Nancy, I think you will find, is very much the exception.” He squinted through his eyeglasses. “There appear to be books in at least three separate languages, only one of them Terran Basic.”

Just then Bustani came in with two steaming mugs of coffee and placed them on a table. He took a half-step back and I selected one, recognizing what he was doing. He was allaying my fears about possible drugs or toxins in the coffee by letting me choose which one. Still, it was with a bit of trepidation that I selected a mug and sipped.

Good black coffee, plain and black, and – just a trace of alcohol in it. Rum, I think; there was that little trace of sweetness. I took a deeper swallow of it, he started drinking his and he sat down while I continued ironing my pants.

“I can't help but notice some of the books on your shelf.”

“Oh?” the tiger asked, half-twisting in his chair to look up at them.

“Are they from the estate's library?”

Bustani nodded. “Her Ladyship, the Regent you know, she doesn't mind me wanting to improve myself. It helps with the young Master.”

“Very good craft,” Ivar observed. “Allows for the selection of seemingly innocent books.”

“You have a lot of influence with His Majesty?”

His ears and tail flicked. “I know what you’re saying, Captain. You’re thinking I sway his decisions one way or the other.”

“Is that what I’m thinking?” I had finished pressing my trousers, and was putting them back on.

Bustani snorted. “I lost my leg in service, Sir. Not my wits.”

“Now that's an unusual riposte for a rating,” Ivar commented.

“I apologize,” I said. “That was wrong of me.”

“Deus commands us to forgive,” came the noncommittal reply, and I chose another tack.

I switched off the iron after my uniform was fully presentable, and we both had a second cup of coffee while I asked him several more questions. Frustratingly, nearly all of the replies fitted what I already knew from his dossier. For his part, Bustani was perfectly hospitable.

Which, of course, made me even more suspicious.

The questioning went on for about an hour, until our ears perked at a knock. “Who’s there?” Bustani called out.

“Sergeant Mkembe, Moka.”

“Come on in.”

One of the black-furred leopards entered, came to attention and saluted me. “Captain, I was sent to find you. The buses are getting ready to take you all back to the base.”

“Do not omit to thank our friend for his assistance,” Ivar admonished.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” I got to my feet and offered the gardener a paw. “Thank you for your hospitality, Bustani-jih.”

He took the paw and shook it. “Fair day, Captain.”

While the guard sergeant and I walked through the gardens I asked, “Have you known Bustani-jih for very long?”

“For years, Sir.”

“Hm.”

I walked through the main hall of the estate again, headed for the buses, and sensed Ivar pausing to look at the portrait of Felix. “Thoughts, Ivar?”

“A very somber and thoughtful portrait of His Late Imperial Majesty,” Ivar murmured.

We boarded our bus, and off we went back to the military base. “Thoughts?” I asked.

“I am impressed,” Ivar said. If he's hiding something, he is a master. Were I corporeal, I would bow to him in respect. He is either innocent, or exceptionally dangerous.”

“Oh, lovely. That leaves me with more questions than answers.”

“A scientist would note that that, my dear Stanislaus, is progress.”

“I'm not wearing a lab coat, am I?”

“Perhaps not, but a science nevertheless.” He ran a paw over his ears. “I was pleased, by the way, to see they gave His Imperial Majesty ice cream after lunch.”

“I imagine they'd give him anything he asked for,” I said, mentally going over my questions and the tiger’s answers.

“They indulged an innocent and kittenhood affirming treat.”

“True.”

“I also noticed one thing about you.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You didn't indulge in any further japery about having me roll about in the compost heap.”

“Heh. It wouldn't exactly be becoming to get soaked to the skin and stinking of compost in the same day, now would it?”

“I've known a few furs in my time that would have paid dearly for the pleasure.” Ivar said. “Now, then. We should marshal our thoughts, breaking them subject-by-subject. And raising those questions that are in the back of your mind. And are crowding me.”

“True enough.”

“That way, when our cervine lord and master quizzes us, we can answer him.” Well, that went without saying; it was a sure bet 'M' would want to know what I've been doing. I’d have to see what I could determine tomorrow; we had a second day of meetings, after which we would head back to Headquarters, and I guessed that ‘M’ would be disappointed if I didn’t have something to report.

“Is there a post exchange at the base, my dear Stanislaus?” Ivar asked.

I shrugged. “It’s a planetary base, so I imagine there must be. Why?”

“See if they have a top-shelf brand of rum at the exchange, as a thank-you offering for our new friend on the morrow. After all, he lent us materials to keep us presentable, no? And what rating is going to turn down excellent rum?” Ivar added, “It's not for me, if that's what you're thinking. I prefer single malt.”

“So do I, and you know it. Sounds like a good tactic.”

“Naturally. A perfectly above-board and honest way of meeting our friend, again. And perhaps a look at that greenhouse.”

“Or a look at his actual quarters,” I said, “along with that compost heap.”

“You speak truth,” the lupine revenant in my head agreed.