Sulu closed his communicator and came back over to McCoy, who was running every analysis he could think of on the Arcturian DNA sample from the murder scene. “That was Admiral Kirk,” the younger man said. “Portia still hasn’t budged. I had to tell him we haven’t made any progress.”

“Jim should know by now just to let me get on with my goddamn work. I’ll tell him if and when we find something.” McCoy banged the side of the analyzer, aware that it was little more than a theatrical gesture. “This damn interference isn’t helping any. Tell Jim to bug Spock about getting that fixed!”

“Everyone’s doing all they can, Doctor. But I’m afraid I’m out of ideas.”

McCoy looked up at him, finally registering what he’d said. “You couldn’t find anything fishy about the security video?”

Sulu shook his head. “There’s no evidence the image was digitally altered. Spectroscopic analysis of the face is consistent with Arcturian tissues—no sign of prosthetic appliances or synthskin. And skeletal proportions and kinesics match someone raised under Arcturian gravity. That’s hard to fake.”

McCoy sighed. “Which means the killer is either an Arcturian, or someone who grew up on Arcturus, or someone from a planet with the same gravity as Arcturus. Doesn’t narrow it down that much.”

Sulu’s expression grew heavy. “I hate to say it, but could it have been one of the other Warborn? Aside from Bertram, just about any of them could be mistaken for Portia in the dark. And they’re trained martial artists—they could learn to imitate Portia’s movements.”

“It could be. But there are hundreds of other Arcturians on Earth. The killer could be someone from Rakatheema’s past—I don’t know, a vengeful ex-lover or something. There’s no way to narrow it down.”

“Doesn’t it at least have to be someone with access to Portia, so they could steal a sample of her DNA?”

“Not necessarily. The samples taken from Rakatheema’s home were degraded, contaminated. There’s enough of an allele match to Portia to support the other evidence against her, but not enough to conclusively rule out any other Arcturian. It could be from someone genetically similar, like a family member.”

Sulu perked up. “Warborn are always multiple births. Four to six at a time, sometimes more.” His face sank. “But they don’t raise them as siblings. They’re just mixed in with the whole population, raised in a group crèche. And their parentage is anonymous, so the ‘donors’ don’t form attachments.”

McCoy grimaced. “Barbaric process. Dehumanizing—well, depersonalizing the poor devils so nobody cares if they live or die.”