“Yeah,” Brutus said. “It looks like a dwarf robot.”
“This compact design, in addition to the thick armored plating that covers the EmRec’s taping areas, makes it nearly indestructible. It can ‘live’ through one of the beast’s attacks. If the rest of us should perish, it will have a record of our progress to pass on to the next team of investigators, so they need not start from scratch.”
Helena said, “But why such an elaborate machine? Would a regular, micro-miniaturized, armored recorder have done as well, one that didn’t walk and talk?”
“No,” Tesserax said. “The EmRec not only records, but makes comments on the tapes about facial expressions and gestures—comments we won’t hear, but which those who later listen to the tape might find valuable.” Tesserax sat down and looked away from the EmRec. “Shall we get on with it, then? What is this beast that’s killed so wantonly, Mr. Blake?”
Jessie cast one last glance at the stumpy EmRec, then began his detailed explanation. “You thought my alien viewpoint might give me a fresh enough slant to solve this puzzle where your best minds could not, and you were correct. The clues were obvious. Some of them, however, were things you were so accustomed to that you took them for granted. I didn’t; they were unique things to me, and I employed them in seeking a solution.”
“Excuse me,” EmRec said.
Jessie looked at the metal dwarf. “Yes?”
“Would say your expression, there, was one of smug self-satisfaction or a more mild and simple pleasure at your supposed success? That is to say, can we assume your explanation is untainted by egotism, or is there a shading element of the ego involved?”
Tesserax said, “Some ego, clearly. But I believe Mr. Blake’s facial expression was more simple satisfaction that smugness.”
“Proceed,” the EmRec said.
Jessie gathered his wits and said, “First of all there was your new myth figure—the Drunken Driver. I was aware that new myths are constantly generated, but not that cross-racial myths could spring up. From the moment I realized this possibility, I kept it in mind throughout the interviewing of other witnesses, in weighing everything I saw and heard. Your own people wouldn’t have considered it particularly relevant. Next, I considered how rough the supernaturals have played to keep us from learning anything about this affair. It seemed to me that they were aware of a new myth, springing from maseni-human cultural interaction, but were desperate to keep its nature unknown for fear of losing something. When I talked with the mist demon Yilio and his angel wife Hannah, I suspected that what they feared was a law—or an Earth government partial to such a law—that would forbid marriage between maseni and human supernaturals. The only thing that could generate the demand for a law like that would be some calamitous result of interracial, supernatural breeding. In other words, if a maseni-human supernatural couple produced offspring that was dangerous, the Pure Earthers might get enough power, from public fear, to force through a law forbidding all interracial marriages.”
Tesserax was impressed. “Then you think this beast is the offspring of the coupling of maseni and human supernaturals?”
“Excuse me,” EmRec said. “Mr. Galiotor Tesserax, is that a look of awe on your face or merely one of surprise? It is difficult for me to give it a certain interpretation. I apologize for the interruption, but I think one of my sight circuits was jolted loose during shipment.”
“It was surprise and awe,” Tesserax said.
“Thank you. Proceed.”
Jessie took a moment, recovered, and said, “Yes, your beast is the child of an interracial, supernatural marriage. And I believe I can explain why this marriage produced an insane myth creature, a killer. You’ll remember our discussion of the Protector in the space port when we landed. You said some people felt that those invading aliens, centuries ago, had not been able to live on this planet because some quirk in its geography, in its natural magnetic forces, was deadly to them.”
“I recall,” Tesserax said.
“Isn’t it also possible,” the detective went on, “that the same quirk might affect the offspring of certain supernatural marriages. Mind you, I’m not saying that all Earth myths who couple with maseni myths will produce unruly monsters. But isn’t it feasible that one particular maseni species, matched with one particular Earth species, could produce an insane child by reason of your world’s magnetic make-up, whatever that may be?”