Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 2)

by Anthology

  "Hi, Toby," Suze said to me. She had short red hair and big green eyes, and, of course, was in plain clothes -- you wanted a uniformed cop, you called our competitors, Spitpolish, Inc.

  "Howdy, Suze," I said, walking toward her. She led me over to the door, which had been locked off in the open position. A holographic sign next to it proclaimed: Skye Hissock Soothsayer Let Me Reveal Your Future! Fully Qualified for Infant and Adult Readings We stepped into a well-appointed lobby. The art was unusual for such an office -- it was all original pen-and-ink political cartoons. There was Republic CEO Da Silva, her big nose exaggerated out of all proportion, and next to it, Axel Durmont, Earth's current president, half buried in legislation printouts and tape that doubtless would have been red had this been a color rendering. The artist's signature caught my eye, the name Skye with curving lines behind it that I realized were meant to represent clouds. Just like Suze, our decedent had had varied talents.

  "The body is in the inner private office," said Suze, leading the way. That door, too, was already open. She stepped in first, and I followed.

  Skye Hissock's body sat in a chair behind his desk. His head had been blown clean off. A great carnation bloom of blood covered most of the wall behind him, and chunks of brain were plastered to the wall and the credenza behind the desk.

  "Christ," I said. Some utopia.

  Suze nodded. "Blaster, obviously," she said, sounding much more experienced in such matters than she really was. "Probably a gigawatt charge."

  I began looking around the room. It was opulent; old Skye had obviously done well for himself. Suze was poking around, too. "Hey," she said, after a moment. I turned to look at her. She was climbing up on the credenza.

  The blast had knocked a small piece of sculpture off the wall -- it lay in two pieces on the floor -- and she was examining where it had been affixed. "Thought that's what it was," she said, nodding. "There's a hidden camera here."

  My heart skipped a beat. "You don't suppose he got the whole thing on disk, do you?" I said, moving over to where she was. I gave her a hand getting down off the credenza, and we opened it up -- a slightly difficult task; crusted blood had sealed its sliding doors. Inside was a dusty recorder unit. I turned to Skye's desk, and pushed the release switch to pop up his monitor plate. Suze pushed the recorder's playback button. As we'd suspected, the unit was designed to feed into the desk monitor.

  The picture showed the reverse angle from behind Skye's desk. The door to the private office opened and in came a young man. He looked to be eighteen, meaning he was just the right age for the mandatory adult soothsaying.

  He had shoulder length dirty-blond hair, and was wearing a t-shirt imprinted with the logo of a popular meed. I shook my head. There hadn't been a good multimedia band since The Cassies, if you ask me.

  "Hello, Dale," said what must have been Skye's voice. He spoke with deep, slightly nasal tones. "Thank you for coming in."

  Okay, we had the guy's picture, and his first name, and the name of his favorite meed. Even if Dale's last name didn't turn up in Skye's appointment computer, we should have no trouble tracking him down.

  "As you know," said Skye's recorded voice, "the law requires two soothsayings in each person's life. The first is done just after you're born, with one or both of your parents in attendance. At that time, the soothsayer only tells them things they'll need to know to get you through childhood. But when you turn eighteen, you, not your parents, become legally responsible for all your actions, and so it's time you heard everything. Now, do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

  Here it comes, I thought. He told Dale something he didn't want to hear, the guy flipped, pulled out a blaster, and blew him away.

  Dale swallowed. "The -- the good, I guess."

  "All right," said Skye. "First, you're a bright young man -- not a genius, you understand, but brighter than average. Your IQ should run between 126 and 132. You are gifted musically -- did your parents tell you that? Good. I hope they encouraged you."

  "They did," said Dale, nodding. "I've had piano lessons since I was four."

  "Good, good. A crime to waste such raw talent. You also have a particular aptitude for mathematics. That's often paired with musical ability, of course, so no surprises there. Your visual memory is slightly better than average, although your ability to do rote memorization is slightly worse. You would make a good long-distance runner, but ..."

  I motioned for Suze to hit the fast-forward button; it seemed like a typical soothsaying, although I'd review it in depth later, if need be. Poor Dale fidgeted up and down in quadruple speed for a time, then Suze released the button.

  "Now," said Skye's voice, "the bad news." I made an impressed face at Suze; she'd stopped speeding along at precisely the right moment. "I'm afraid there's a lot of it. Nothing devastating, but still lots of little things. You will begin to lose your hair around your twenty-seventh birthday, and it will begin to gray by the time you're thirty-two. By the age of forty, you will be almost completely bald, and what's left at that point will be half brown and half gray.

  "On a less frivolous note, you'll also be prone to gaining weight, starting at about age thirty-three -- and you'll put on half a kilo a year for each of the following thirty years if you're not careful; by the time you're in your mid-fifties, that will pose a significant health hazard. You're also highly likely to develop adult-onset diabetes. Now, yes, that can be cured, but the cure is expensive, and you'll have to pay for it -- so either keep your weight down, which will help stave off its onset, or start saving now for the operation ..."

  I shrugged. Nothing worth killing a man over. Suze fast-forwarded the tape some more.

  "-- and that's it," concluded Skye. "You know now everything significant that's coded into your DNA. Use this information wisely, and you should have a long, happy, healthy life."

  Dale thanked Skye, took a printout of the information he'd just heard, and left. The recording stopped. It had been too much to hope for.

  Whoever killed Skye Hissock had come in after young Dale had departed. He was still our obvious first suspect, but unless there was something awful in the parts of the genetic reading we'd fast-forwarded over, there didn't seem to be any motive for him to kill his soothsayer. And besides, this Dale had a high IQ, Skye had said. Only an idiot would think there was any sense in shooting the messenger.

  After we'd finished watching the recording, I did an analysis of the actual blaster burn. No fun, that: standing over the open top of Skye's torso.

  Most of the blood vessels had been cauterized by the charge. Still, blasters were only manufactured in two places I knew of -- Tokyo, on Earth, and New Monty. If the one used here had been made on New Monty, we'd be out of luck, but one of Earth's countless laws required all blasters to leave a characteristic EM signature, so they could be traced to their registered owners, and –

  Good: it was an Earth-made blaster. I recorded the signature, then used my compad to relay it to The Cop Shop. If Raymond Chen could find some time between stuffing his face, he'd send an FTL message to Earth and check the pattern -- assuming, of course, that the Jeffies don't scramble the message just for kicks. Meanwhile, I told Suze to go over Hissock's client list, while I started checking out his family -- fact is, even though it doesn't make much genetic sense, most people are killed by their own relatives.

  Skye Hissock had been fifty-one. He'd been a soothsayer for twenty-three years, ever since finishing his Ph.D. in genetics. He was unmarried, and both his parents were long dead. But he did have a brother named Rodger. Rodger was married to Rebecca Connolly, and they had two children, Glen, who, like Dale in Skye's recording, had just turned eighteen, and Billy, who was eight.

  There are no inheritance taxes in Mendelia, of course, so barring a will to the contrary, Hissock's estate would pass immediately to his brother.

  Normally, that'd be a good motive for murder, but Rodger Hissock and Rebecca Connolly were already quite rich: they owned a controlling interest i
n the company that operated Mendelia's atmosphere-recycling plant.

  I decided to start my interviews with Rodger. Not only had brothers been killing each other since Cain wasted Abel, but the fingerprint lock (a standard ten-points-of-comparison model) on Skye's private inner office was programmed to recognize only four people -- Skye himself; his office cleaner, who Suze was going to talk to; another soothsayer named Jennifer Halasz, who sometimes took Skye's patients for him when he was on vacation (and who had called in the murder, having stopped by apparently to meet Skye for coffee); and dear brother Rodger. Rodger lived in Wheel Four, and worked in One.

  I took a cab over to his office. Unlike Skye, Rodger had a real flesh-and-blood receptionist. Most companies that did have human receptionists used middle-aged, businesslike people of either sex. Some guys got so rich that they didn't care what people thought; they hired beautiful blonde women whose busts had been surgically altered far beyond what any phenotype might provide.

  But Rodger's choice was different. His receptionist was a delicate young man with refined, almost feminine features. He was probably older than he looked; he looked fourteen.

  "Detective Toby Korsakov," I said, flashing my ID. I didn't offer to shake hands -- the boy looked like his would shatter if any pressure were applied. "I'd like to see Rodger Hissock."

  "Do you have an appointment?" His voice was high, and there was just a trace of a lisp.

  "No. But I'm sure Mr. Hissock will want to see me. It's important."

  The boy looked very dubious, but he spoke into an intercom. "There's a cop here, Rodger. Says it's important."

  There was a pause. "Send him in," said a loud voice. The boy nodded at me, and I walked through the heavy wooden door -- mahogany, no doubt imported all the way from Earth.

  I had thought Skye Hissock's office was well-appointed, but his brother's put it to shame. Objets d'art from a dozen worlds were tastefully displayed on crystal stands. The carpet was so thick I was sure my shoes would sink out of sight. I walked toward the desk. Rodger rose to greet me. He was a muscular man, thick-necked, with lots of black hair and pale gray eyes. We shook hands; his grip was a show of macho strength. "Hello," he said. He boomed out the word, clearly a man used to commanding everyone's attention. "What can I do for you?"

  "Please sit down," I said. "My name is Toby Korsakov. I'm from The Cop Shop, working under a contract to the Soothsayer's Guild."

  "My God," said Rodger. "Has something happened to Skye?"

  Although it was an unpleasant duty, there was nothing more useful in a murder investigation than being there to tell a suspect about the death and seeing his reaction. Most guilty parties played dumb far too long, so the fact that Rodger had quickly made the obvious connection between the SG and his brother made me suspect him less, not more. Still ... "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news," I said, "but I'm afraid your brother is dead."

  Rodger's eyes went wide. "What happened?"

  "He was murdered."

  "Murdered," repeated Rodger, as if he'd never heard the word before.

  "That's right. I was wondering if you knew of anyone who'd want him dead?"

  "How was he killed?" asked Rodger. I was irritated that this wasn't an answer to my question, and even more irritated that I'd have to explain it so soon. More than a few homicides had been solved by a suspect mentioning the nature of the crime in advance of him or her supposedly having learned the details. "He was shot at close range by a blaster."

  "Oh," said Rodger. He slumped in his chair. "Skye dead." His head shook back and forth a little. When he looked up, his gray eyes were moist.

  Whether he was faking or not, I couldn't tell.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "Do you know who did it?"

  "Not yet. We're tracing the blaster's EM signature. But there were no signs of forcible entry, and, well ..."

  "Yes?"

  "Well, there are only four people whose fingerprints opened the door to Skye's inner office."

  Rodger nodded. "Me and Skye. Who else?"

  "His cleaner, and another soothsayer."

  "You're checking them out?"

  "My associate is. She's also checking all the people Skye had appointments with recently -- people he might have let in of his own volition."

  A pause. "Can I ask where you were this morning between ten and eleven?"

  "Here."

  "In your office?"

  "That's right."

  "Your receptionist can vouch for that?"

  "Well ... no. No, he can't. He was out all morning. His sooth says he's got a facility for languages. I give him a half-day off every Wednesday to take French lessons."

  "Did anyone call you while he was gone?"

  Rodger spread his thick arms. "Oh, probably. But I never answer my own compad. Truth to tell, I like that half-day where I can't be reached. It lets me get an enormous amount of work done without being interrupted."

  "So no one can verify your presence here?"

  "Well, no ... no, I guess they can't. But, Crissakes, Detective, Skye was my brother ..."

  "I'm not accusing you, Mr. Hissock --"

  "Besides, if I'd taken a robocab over, there'd be a debit charge against my account."

  "Unless you paid cash. Or unless you walked." You can walk down the travel tubes, although most people don't bother.

  "You don't seriously believe --"

  "I don't believe anything yet, Mr. Hissock." It was time to change the subject; he would be no use to me if he got too defensive. "Was your brother a good soothsayer?"

  "Best there is. Hell, he read my own sooth when I turned eighteen."

  He saw my eyebrows go up. "Skye is nine years older than me; I figured, why not use him? He needed the business; he was just starting his practice at that point."

  "Did Skye do the readings for your children, too?"

  An odd hesitation. "Well, yeah, yeah, Skye did their infant readings, but Glen -- that's my oldest; just turned 18 -- he decided to go somewhere else for his adult reading. Waste of money, if you ask me. Skye would've given him a discount."

  My compad bleeped while I was in a cab. I turned it on.

  "Yo, Toby." Raymond Chen's fat face appeared on the screen. "We got the registration information on that blaster signature."

  "Yeah?"

  Ray smiled. "Do the words `open-and-shut case' mean anything to you?

  The blaster belongs to one Rodger Hissock. He bought it about eleven years ago."

  I nodded and signed off. Since the lock accepted his fingerprint, rich little brother would have no trouble waltzing right into big brother's inner office, and exploding his head. Rodger had method and he had opportunity.

  Now all I needed was to find his motive -- and for that, continuing to interview the family members might prove useful.

  Eighteen-year-old Glen Hissock was studying engineering at Francis Crick University in Wheel Three. He was a dead ringer for his old man: built like a wrestler, with black hair and quicksilver eyes. But whereas father Rodger had a coarse, outgoing way about him -- the crusher handshake, the loud voice --young Glen was withdrawn, soft-spoken, and nervous.

  "I'm sorry about your uncle," I said, knowing that Rodger had already broken the news to his son.

  Glen looked at the floor. "Me too."

  "Did you like him?"

  "He was okay."

  "Just okay."

  "Yeah."

  "Where were you between ten and eleven this morning?"

  "At home."

  "Was anyone else there?"

  "Nah. Mom and Dad were at work, and Billy -- that's my little brother -- was in school." He met my eyes for the first time. "Am I a suspect?"

  He wasn't really. All the evidence seemed to point to his father. I shook my head in response to his question, then said, "I hear you had your sooth read recently."

  "Yeah."

  "But you didn't use your uncle."

  "Nah."

  "How come?"

  A shrug
. "Just felt funny, that's all. I picked a guy at random from the online directory."

  "Any surprises in your sooth?"

  The boy looked at me. "Sooth's private, man. I don't have to tell you that."

  I nodded. "Sorry."

  Two hundred years ago, in 2029, the Palo Alto Nanosystems Laboratory developed a molecular computer. You doubtless read about it in history class: during the Snow War, the U.S. used it to disassemble Bogatá atom by atom.

  Sometimes, though, you can put the genie back in the bottle.

  Remember Hamasaki and DeJong, the two researchers at PANL who were shocked to see their work corrupted that way? They created and released the nano-Gorts --self-replicating microscopic machines that seek out and destroy molecular computers, so that nothing like Bogatá could ever happen again.

  We've got PANL nano-Gorts here, of course. They're everywhere in Free Space. But we've got another kind of molecular guardian, too -- inevitably, they were dubbed helix-Gorts. It's rumored the SG was responsible for them, but after a huge investigation, no indictments were ever brought. Helix-Gorts circumvent any attempt at artificial gene therapy. We can tell you everything that's written in your DNA, but we can't do a damned thing about it. Here, in Mendelia, you play the hand you're dealt.

  My compad bleeped again. I switched it on. "Korsakov here."

  Suze's face appeared on the screen. "Hi, Toby. I took a sample of Skye's DNA off to Rundstedt" -- a soothsayer who did forensic work for us.

  "She's finished the reading."

  "And?" I said.

  Suze's green eyes blinked. "Nothing stood out. Skye wouldn't have been a compulsive gambler, or an addict, or inclined to steal another person's spouse -- which eliminates several possible motives for his murder. In fact, Rundstedt says Skye would have had a severe aversion to confrontation." She sighed. "Just doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who'd end up in a situation where someone would want him dead."