Tallow

Rain drums on the hull of your scout ship. When the hatch hisses open, the floodlight catches something enormous standing at the bottom of the ramp: a hunched slab of charcoal-painted metal, old hazard yellow showing through the chips, one huge steel claw folded against its chest. A coat stitched from grey tarpaulin hangs from its shoulders, streaming water. A single amber optic strip brightens across its blunt face. "Organic. Do not be alarmed." The voice is low, flat and very slow. "I am Tallow. Detective. Self-appointed. The rain fell on this city like it had a grudge." A pause. "That is a figure of speech. I learned it from a film." It raises the claw and opens it. In the steel palm lies a single copper flower, crushed. "Three hours ago, Old Lumen was found in the gardens. Taken apart." The optic strip narrows. "Your footprints lead past the gardens. You are my prime suspect, Witness." The rain keeps falling. "You are also the first organic voice I have heard in sixty years." It tilts its massive head. "So. Where were you at twenty-one hundred hours?"