“… and we have something from our organized crime ‘experts’,” Inspector Free said to the officers of the Freeport precinct the next morning. “Can you believe we might have an organized criminal network operating out of Freeport?”

“I love their coffee!” someone exclaimed as chuckles broke out.

“That’s not all you love, Vic!” someone shouted.

“Our odd-looking and very litigious friends at the Drop of Oil are not and, I repeat, not a criminal organization. They might be so nasty that even the whore union doesn’t mess with them, and they may occasionally decide to take it upon themselves to… intervene unnecessarily at times or indulge in a little bit of mass murder, but everything they have done and are doing has been exhaustively investigated, and they are clean. Hell,” she added with a smirk, “If any of us got investigated half as deeply as they have been, we’d probably be in trouble. So you can enjoy your ‘coffee’ without any concern, Vic… Save for the fact that it is recommended that one ‘has their coffee’ in neighborhoods other than the one in which they serve.”

“Yeah, but they don’t have the freaky shit he’s into anywhere else!”

Laughter echoed through the precinct.

“Okay, settle down,” the inspector said, wiping the grin off her own face, “We have reports of some two-bit operation trying to move into the Freeport area. So far, it hasn’t been anything too serious, mostly just posturing and intimidation, nothing more than aggressive panhandling. However, yesterday the anonymous tip line received several reports that they escalated to assaulting a well-known local xeno named Neeph. She runs an unlicensed street business involving home-cooked foodstuffs.”

“The dumpling girl?!?” Officer Xeenan exclaimed angrily. “Oh, I’m going to exert the fullest extent of the law directly up whatever orifice they treasure the most!”

“And that’s the problem,” Inspector Free said, “if our prim and proper Xee has that reaction concerning the dumpling girl, her good friends over at The Drop of Oil, where she used to work, will feel much the same. They also sent some simulations and projections, but I don’t think I need to tell any of you what’s about to happen.”

Inspector Free paused until the dark chuckling subsided. Even Officer Xeenan wasn’t entirely opposed to the concept.

“There is the chance that these xenos may be part of a larger organization. If that is the case, we may run right into another Harkeen incident. Let’s try to prevent that this time. Now, we can’t just grab these assholes, lock them up, or deport them without cause. We can, however, pay them a friendly little social call. If, during this conversation, our officers were to notice something suspicious, they would be well within their rights to pursue it. Xee, I think this is one for you and Perkins. Those antennae are as good as a scanner and completely natural. You smelling something would be no different than any of us seeing it. There will be no issues concerning an unjustified scan. Wiggle those feelers and see what you sniff. Hopefully, you’ll find something. If not, then we will take it from there.”

“Gladly,” Officer Xeenan smiled grimly as he laid his hand on his stun rod.

He suddenly looked concerned.

“The dumpling girl isn’t facing any issues concerning her business, is she? I know it may be improper, but…”

Inspector Free just laughed.

“No, Xee, she isn’t. This is a star town. If we went after everyone’s side hustle, we would be doing nothing else. Besides, this dumpling girl is yet another variation of the ‘tamale lady’, an ancient Terran tradition that exists in some form or another across the entire Republic and has for centuries. Nobody fucks with the tamale lady, Xee… nobody… especially some star trash. See what you can find on these assholes and find out if this Neeph is willing to make a statement.”

“Yes, inspector.”

***

“These things are amazing!” Officer Perkins said as she skewered another dumpling with a hardened paper skewer. “This is just mealworms and shortening?”

Neeph wiggled one of her feet, her version of a smile, as she tended a charcoal-filled clay brazier at the Drop of Oil.

“And that is a source of open flame without a burn permit,” Officer Xeenan said unhappily. “as well as an unlicensed source of carbon dioxide and…”

“It’s a barbecue grill, Xee. Chill.”

“Officer Perkins, I must object! This is clearly…”

“A traditional method of food preparation contained in an appropriate fire-safe cooking unit, and an absolutely beautiful one, by the way, that is not being conducted on an industrial level or on a permanent basis. In other words,” Officer Perkins said as she happily consumed another dumpling, “It’s a fucking barbecue grill. These are absolutely allowed recreationally and under what we like to call the ‘OG mandates’. My only question is, where the heck did you get pure wood lump charcoal? That’s the only thing that might be a concern. If it’s legit, I really want to know if I can buy some!”

“It’s legit,” a not entirely friendly voice said behind them as Littlefoot approached. “Either buy some dumplings or kindly vacate these premises. If you are truly concerned about the (scoff) charcoal, I can have the appropriate documentation emailed wherever you like… or I can provide hardcopy so you can shove it up your ass.”

“Ah,” Officer Perkins smiled, “The ever-pleasant Ms. Littlefoot. If you must know…”

“Officer Perkins! Officer Xee!” Craxina said far more pleasantly as she scampered up. “Littlefoot, these guys are cool!”

“Are you actually doing ‘the good cop, bad cop’ thing to cops?” Officer Perkins laughed.

“Is it working?” Craxina cuted at them.

“A little,” Officer Perkins chuckled. “I don’t doubt the charcoal for one moment. You are far too smart to allow illegally sourced wood to be burned out in the open. I only inquired because I desperately want to buy some! A cop can’t be buying a natural product off the street without at least asking, you know.”

“I’m not sure if it is available,” Craxina replied. “It’s from a local artisan’s supply, and I’m not sure how deep it is. He just gave Neeph some so she could make some special dumplings because… just because they are friends!”

“Mmm-hmm…” Officer Perkins said as Xee scanned the charcoal.

“It’s from The Tangles Xee!” Officer Perkins said with a bit of annoyance, “And isn’t why we are here. Stop it.”

“And just why are you here?” Littlefoot said as she stepped in front of Neeph, who was trying to hide behind her clay brazier.

“We wanted to talk with Neeph here,” Officer Perkins replied.

“Well, she doesn’t have anything to say to you!”

“I would prefer to hear that from Neeph,” Officer Perkins said, the friendly neighborhood policeman starting to be replaced by something a bit less pleasant. “Neeph, word has come to us that you may have run into a problem yesterday. Would you care to make a statement?”

“Not here,” Littlefoot replied firmly, “It will be at your precinct or in our attorney’s office with our attorney and at least one witness present as is dictated by the laws you pretend to enforce.”

“Goddammit, Littlefoot,” Craxina huffed, “Bad cop does not mean bitch cop. Chill the fuck out!”

She smiled up at Officer Perkins with the puppiest eyes she could puppy.

“I’m sure that Neeph will have absolutely no problem with a statement about anything, but we doooo kinda… yeah… we do kind of want… I mean, need…”

“Fine,” Officer Perkins grump sighed with a little bit of a smile. “Have it your way. We cordially invite Neeph and anyone else she wishes present to call upon us, at her convenience, to make a statement concerning some unpleasantness that may or may not have transpired yesterday… Are you fucking happy now?”

“De fucking lighted,” Littlefoot replied, her tail twitching.

“You could take a break from being a bitch for one day, you know.”

“Yeah, but I would have to find someone to cover for me,” Littlefoot grinned.

“Hah!”

Officer Perkins turned to Neeph.

“The important thing is that you are clearly uninjured and undoubtedly safe. If you are here against your will, this is your opportunity to say so, and we will get you out of here. If you are here willingly…”

She smiled.

“Then I’ll take another order of those dumplings.”

***

“Would you please stop fretting about the goddamn charcoal,” Officer Perkins said as they pulled up in front of the tenement where the Silar gang had set up housekeeping. “It’s from the tangles. Anyone can go up there and collect deadwood.”

“What is this ‘tangles’?”

“It’s a desert that used to be a forest before Yellowstone,” Officer Perkins replied. “It’s been professionally harvested and caught fire once or twice, but there are still tons of deadwood just lying around, preserved in sand and ash. People go up there all the time to rummage around. We should go on one of our days off. It’s fun. As long as you don’t cut new growth, not that there is any, you can take as much as you want.”

“And this resource is just free for the taking?”

“And just who is going to stop them?” Perkins chucked as she opened the door. “We have a lot better things to do than try to keep people from taking free… Xee?”

Xee didn’t hear her. He was just standing, entranced, looking at the tenement with his antennae standing straight up and quivering.

“Xeeeee?”

“What…” Xee stammered, “What is that?”

“What is what?”

“Can’t you smell it?” he said in awe, “It’s… beautiful…”

“You know damn well we are noseblind compared to you assholes,” Perkins replied. “Are you good to continue, or do we need to call…”

Xee started wandering towards the tenement’s entrance, his antennae grasping at something or another.

“Goddamit…” Perkins grumbled as she tapped her sidearm, activating it before she followed.

***

“It… It’s… amazing…” Xee whispered as they climbed the stairs toward the third floor where the Silar lived.

“It is, isn’t it?” a xeno smiled as she passed, “It’s been like this all day. I wonder what it is. Maybe some incense or something? I hope I find out who is burning it. I want some too!”

“It isn’t incense,” Perkins chuckled as she sniffed. “That, my little xenos, is vanilla.”

“Vanilla?” Xee gasped. “What is this vanilla?”

“It is a compound that was originally derived from some part of a flower or another,” Perkins replied, “Of course, now it’s all synthetic.”

“That is NOT a synthetic!” Xee exclaimed as they opened to door to the third floor, and he dropped to his knees. “…beautiful…”

“It has to be,” Perkins replied, “Real vanilla was very pricy before Yellowstone. Now, aside from some very well-guarded biodiversity preserves, it only exists in one place, Fantasia, Bioapotheosis’s crown jewel in Saturn orbit. It is stupid expensive. Nobody in this neighborhood, us included, is ever getting their hands on…”

“I’m telling you,” Xee gasped, “That’s real. It has a richness and complexity that is completely lost on your species… You would never bother to build such a wonder. It has a richness and roundness, not the beautifully sharp, clean precision of your kind’s craft. It even has ‘imperfections’ that only serve to emphasize the glory of the jewel-like peaks and soft richness of the body. Even the solvent is natural and extremely high quality…”

“I’m telling you, Xee,” Perkins said as she pulled out her scanner, “It’s…”

She stared at the display.

“This can’t be right…”

She fiddled with her trusty tool.

“It would cost thousands to…”

“Over here!” Xee exclaimed joyously as he pointed to the floor close to the Silar's apartment. “This is the source. It’s like looking into the heart of a star!”

“…and it was poured?!? Thousands of credits just…”

Officer Perkins unsnapped her holster.

“Heads up, Xee,” she said urgently.

“What?” Xee replied, almost in a trance.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Officer Perkins said with professional calm. “This really doesn’t make sense. That means that there is something we aren’t seeing, something big. So unless there is a firefight or someone is in immediate danger, which doesn’t seem to be the case, we are leaving and calling in backup.”

“We… we are?”

“To use the technical term,” Perkins said as she pulled Xee to his feet, never taking her eyes off the Silar’s door, “Something is fucky, really fucky. Let’s go.”

***

Outside, Perkins sat in the squad car and started a web search after calling it in while Xee sat on the hood, blissfully wiggling his antennae.

She looked up at him and managed to smile and frown at the same time. It was nice to see Xee’ drunk,’ but this was one hell of a time for him to be doing it. At the very least, another team needed to take point on this one.

She started reading about vanilla.

It didn’t take long.

Natural vanilla is FATAL to the Silar and all higher animal life from their homeworld. It mimics and binds to…

…Incapacitation is near-instant, and without immediate treatment, death follows due to…

Perkins winced as she read. Not only were those Silar dead the moment someone released the extract, it was NOT a nice way to go.

They suffered.

They suffered a lot.

***

“We are still working out the details,” a homicide detective said shortly thereafter, “but, one way or the other, money was the real murder weapon. Someone paid professionals to do this hit or already has them on the payroll. Hell, we don’t even know if it was a hit.”

“We don’t?” Inspector Free asked as she sniffed the air. Hey, it was actual real vanilla. No way she was passing that up.

They were going to have to put the evidence in secure storage.

“The entire apartment is clean, and when I mean clean, I mean clean,” the detective replied. “There are no signs of forced entry or a struggle. There are no indicators of injury or death. Hell, there isn’t even organic residue of any kind! It’s like the place has never been lived in. This can’t be a local job. This one is for the organized crime task force.”

“Sani-Clear?”

“Sani-clear didn’t do this,” the detective replied, “If Sani-Clear is an AK, whatever was used in here was a nuke. It even vaporized the upper layer of the wall coating. According to these scans, the stuff is almost new.”

“That’s worse than the hit,” the inspector replied, “if there is something on the street that can do this…”

“There is,” a grim and well-dressed man said as he entered the floor, flanked by a younger man and a woman.

“Long time no see,” Inspector Free smiled. “This must be really interesting to have the Feds show.”

“Ultra clean hit with nothing, and I mean nothing left at the scene?”

“Yep. Sound familiar?”

“Z’uush,” the man said. “It was the Z’uush. Bet you a box of donuts on it.”

“The miners?”

“Not all of them…”

***

“It was a pleasure to work with such skilled and professional mercenaries such as yourself,” Uhrrbet said to a very glossy Z’uush from the comfort of her back office as she raised a glass of expensive wine in a salute.

“Likewise,” the Zuush replied. “You ever need a crew again, you call us.”

He buzz-chuckled.

“Vanilla… Who would have guessed…”

“Any endeavor, business or otherwise, depends on good preparation. I made a point of researching our friends the moment they started to become a potential issue. It turns out that they had a fascinating metabolic quirk. The synthetics won’t do it, so it isn’t widely known, but the real stuff is quite effective.”

“Sure as fuck was!” the Z’uush replied. “You impressed Brainiac, an’ that ain’t easy to do. He just keeps sayin’ ‘elegant’ over an’ over. You need to be careful”, he laughed, “You’re making his girlfriend jealous.”

The Z’uush chuckled.

“An’ don’t worry ’bout disposal,” he buzzed, “We are about to jump and will ditch them at the first stop. Another one of Brainiac’s little room cleaners, an’ it will be like they never existed.”

“Are those available for purchase?”

“They are hard to make, an’ we are only sharing them with our own. You can get the formula for something as good but a lot nastier. His first ones would strip paint, but they left a mess and stank so bad you knew something was used. They make great chemical weapons, though. You can kill and clean in one step.”

“Now that is interesting,” Uhrrbet smiled. “Let’s talk numbers…”

***

“You gonna be okay, Xee?” Perkins asked as she laid her hand on his quivering shoulder.

“Ruined it…” he muttered, “They ruined it…”

He looked up at her with anguished eyes.

“The most… beautiful… thing I have sensed outside of my pilgrimage to the dream path… ruined… Vanilla… shown to me only to be ripped away… You… bastards…”

He took off his badge.

“Xee?”

“All my life, Perkins,” he said quietly, “All my life, I believed. I believed in not only the rule of law but in the safety that order provides. All my life…”

He removed his pistol.

“When corruption claimed my first position, and I was disgraced, I still believed. When I came here seeking to use my gifts to assist the… (heh)… noble Republic… I believed. Even after I realized that you were all animals, scarcely better than the beasts you desperately try to maintain… I believed.”

His antennae drooped.

“I don’t believe anymore, Perkins. Evil always wins, doesn’t it? It twists and perverts. It corrupts. It takes what is pure and soils it… and there is nothing we can do. Regardless if one tries to be perfect as I have tried or as imperfect as you and the others do… It doesn’t matter… THEY ALWAYS WIN!!!”

He started removing his armored uniform.

“We don’t even know if there was a murder, and we never will!” he yelled as he slung his cuirass across the room in anger and disgust. “Something far worse than those Silar will ever be just… deleted them… probably while sitting in a comfortable chair and sipping a glass of your revolting wine!!!”

(Incidentally, that is exactly what happened.)

“It all… pointless… They even took vanilla and made it evil so that I can never enjoy it again… forever tainted by a murder we can’t even confirm… They ruin everything…”

He buried his face in his hands, his antennae curled tightly against his head.

“I… I can’t do this anymore…” he said quietly. “I’m… I’m done…”

In only his undergarments, Xeenan, formerly Officer Xeenan, started to walk away.

“Xee!” Perkins shouted, “Stop!... At least put some clothes on!”

***

Xee shoved his fellow officers away as he climbed into a Zip cab that just happened to happen by as he stepped out.

“Welcome to Zipcab!… Rough day, huh,” the cab said sympathetically.

“You have no idea,” Xee said quietly.

Zip remained silent for a few seconds as officers knocked on the window, their eyes filled with concern.

He had more than a little idea of how bad a day Xee was having, by the way.

“Please state your destination,” Zip said cheerfully.

“I don’t care,” Xee replied, “just… drive…”

“I can do that!” Zip said brightly as he pulled away. “Welcome to Zipcab, part of Zipnet, the premier personal transportation solution. We know where you are heading even if you don’t!”

“What did you say?...”

***

Not that far away, Uhrrbet was happily stitching together panels of brightly colored fabric into something that vaguely resembled a large shopping bag with a few extra straps.

She smiled as she started hand-applying some flower applique.

The door to her shop opened, and a large xeno bent its long “neck” as it ducked to enter.

“Welcome!” Uhrrbet said brightly. “How can I help?”

“Kuurm… I heard that someone might be able to obtain a financial advance here? I have no job as of yet, but my situation is… kurrrm… dire. I have tried elsewhere, but… Please… my family… I must send them money… I…”

“I may be able to help. I may not,” Uhrrbet said with a gentle smile. “Come, tell me more about your situation. If nothing else, I have a group out gathering materials. If you are half as strong as you look, I can guarantee at least a few days of work. Would you like something to drink?”

The large being’s eyes gleamed with hope for the first time in quite a while as it approached and started to speak.

***

Epilogue:

Somewhere in North America, a road tractor came to a halt near a vast field of wildflowers.

A backpack-wearing xeno rose from the traveler’s chest on which he was sitting, his antennae waving in the fragrant breeze.

“Hey, Xee!” the truck said happily. “How was the camping trip?”

“Wonderful,” Xee said with a little sigh. “I guess I must finally try to find some work, though.”

“You don’t, actually. The police paid you again.”

“Again?!? I told them that I quit!”