The Counterfeit Heinlein

by Laurence M. Janifer

  “Well,” I said, “a lost Heinlein manuscript would certainly be very valuable.”

  “Oh—valuable,” she said, and snorted. As snorts go, it was a fairly charming sound, believe it or not. “It isn’t the money, Knave. It’s the idea that somebody tried to pass himself off as Robert Heinlein. It’s like trying to pass yourself off as—I don’t know, Shakespeare. Charlemagne. Fermi.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” I said.

  “Somebody with a warped view of the world,” Corri Reges said. “Somebody with no respect for greatness. He must have been crazy to think he could get away with it, whoever did it.”

  “But he almost did get away with it,” I pointed out. “If the isotope assay had checked out right down the line, no one would know The Stone Pillow had been forged.”

  Corri snorted again. “Not so,” she said. “Not so at all, Knave. Many of us had our suspicions. I know MacDougal thought something was wrong with the manuscript right from the beginning.”

  So Mac had said. “Were you suspicious?” I said, knowing the answer I’d get; whatever she’d actually thought at the time, by now Corri was certain to believe she’d been suspicious from the moment she first heard of the thing.

  “Lots of us were suspicious,” she said. “Max Headroom was sure something was wrong. So was I. So was MacDougal. So was Walton Crain.”

  Perhaps she was reading her current views back into her past. But I thought she might be telling me accurately about others—she’d have no particular motive to add them to the list of suspicious bystanders. Quite the reverse, in fact; it always feels better to have been the one person alone who detected the truth.

  “Why did you all think something was wrong?” I said.

  “Well, it had to be,” she said. “Heinlein said he didn’t write the story. He wouldn’t have lied about it, not Heinlein. And it just didn’t sound like him. Not when you looked close, and if you knew a lot about his work.”

  Mac had pointed out that Heinlein had stated he’d never written the story. But he’d also said the thing sounded a lot like Heinlein.

  Maybe Corri Reges knew more about Heinlein’s work than Mac did. Corri, and Max Headroom, and Walton Crain.

  I talked to Chandes Washington a little later, and he told me he’d suspected from the start, too. But he had thought the work sounded “very Heinleinesque, very much like the Heinlein of, say, ‘The Roads Must Roll.’”

  “The style alone was convincing,” I said.

  “Oh, very convincing,” he said. “Whoever did this knew an awful lot about the author’s work. This couldn’t have been done by someone who’d just read a couple of pages of something.”

  Which brought me back to the puzzle Bitsy Bowyer had tossed me a small while before—a Heinlein expert couldn’t have done it (too much respect for the work), and no one else could have (not enough background). It was one more small impossibility to add to all the others: the theft that made no sense, the valuable forgery that was almost entirely valueless—the traceless entry into the room, and the traces all over the case the manuscript had been taken from.

  I got addresses for everyone I’d spoken to, and a few—like Walton Crain—I hadn’t yet met. By the time the meeting broke up and I was back in my apartment, it was too late to pick up the phone, but I knew perfectly well how I was going to start the day, after I’d had some sleep, and I did.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE MASTER WAS more than fascinated. “You have found a few extremely lovely patterns,” he told me in that rasp of a voice.

  “Glad you’re pleased,” I said. “All they say to me is that they make no sense.”

  There was a faint suggestion of dry chuckling at the other end of the phone. “It is the perfection of the nonsense, of course, that fascinates,” he said.

  “Somebody stole a manuscript known to be a forgery,” I said. “Why? Ping is willing to go to great lengths—me—to get it back, though since it is a forgery it has no great value. Why? Whoever stole the thing passed into the room it was kept in like a ghost—and then left obvious traces all over the manuscript case. Why?”

  “You see, Gerald?” the Master said cheerfully—or as cheerfully as that voice, and that personality, could manage to sound. “Nonsense, and quite perfect.”

  “A Heinlein expert couldn’t have done the forgery—he’d have too much respect for Heinlein. But nobody else could have done it—not enough background for the job. And the damned thing was sealed in a drum, at the bottom of a Survivalist’s hole, for nearly three hundred years, and was forged about four years ago. Possibly five.”

  “There are explanations for all of these things,” he said. I sighed.

  “Tell me some.”

  “For the sealed drum,” he said, “of course there is the obvious: someone put the forgery into the stack, so to speak, after the drum was unsealed.”

  I sighed again. “You’ve heard what Rell and Bowyer told me,” I said. “There wasn’t the Hell of a lot of time for it.”

  “Gerald,” he said patiently, “it need not have taken very much time. After all, we do not know whether the technicians who opened the drum actually looked inside it, or knew what they saw if they did. Until members of the—ah—dig crew arrived, the drum may well have been open, but unrifled, so to speak.”

  “And one of the dig crew brought the manuscript in, in his pocket?”

  “Or under his jumper, or in her handbag,” he said. “Or none of them brought it in, and it was there all along.”

  I blinked. “But it couldn’t have been in the drum—”

  “No,” he said. “But in the room, perhaps. For one of the technicians to place inside the drum as soon as it was opened. I doubt they watch each other with any great effectiveness; there would not be a need for that degree of care, and human beings are normally lazy and careless.”

  “Possible,” I said. “Even obvious.”

  “There is, however, one additional question,” the rasping voice said. “Consideration might lead to some result.”

  I took a deep breath, fished for a cigarette and remembered in time not to light one while on the phone with Master Higsbee. “Go ahead,” I said.

  “The manuscript was found in a drum, in the Survivalist-hole of a person who was a fan of science-fiction—I myself am not, it seems a vain pursuit—and a collector. He owned and saved other signed volumes, you said.”

  I shut my eyes. I saw very clearly what was coming, and it had not occurred to me before. “Oh, God,” I said.

  “Precisely,” Master Higsbee said. “How could anyone have known that Norman W. Nechs read and even collected science-fiction, and kept some valuable science-fictional items in a sealed drum? But the manuscript was right there to be placed with the drum contents.”

  I said it again: “Oh, God.” And I added: “Nobody could have known. Nobody could know what was in the damned hole until somebody dug it out. Unless they were all in on it all eleven of them, it hadn’t been dug out before they got there—they’d have noticed traces.”

  “And?”

  I gave him the rest of it. “There’s no way for news of the dig to get to Ravenal before the dig crew got there. The dig crew was the news. Space-four transmission might have given somebody on Ravenal a sketch of the dig beforehand—say a few hours, possibly as much as a day beforehand—but there are two things wrong with that.”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “First, nobody had such a transmitter—they’re not all that common.”

  “I know they are not,” the Master said. “You yourself own one, and have some pride—justifiable, I am sure—in its rarity and value.”

  “Sure,” I said tiredly. It was early in the morning—well, ten o’clock, which is early for me when I can so arrange things—and I was already tired. “Nobody there would have had one. Not a chance in a million. And second—providing a day’s lead time, and it probably wouldn’t have been that much, doesn’t do any good: it must have taken months to get that forgery
ready.”

  “I should say perhaps a year,” the rasping voice said.

  “So what good would a day’s lead time have been?”

  “You put it very clearly,” he said. I swear he sounded amused. Distantly amused, but amused.

  “It’s another impossibility,” I said.

  “Charming,” he told me. “I am more than fascinated. The pattern you have showed me is very lovely, Gerald.”

  “I’m glad you’re pleased,” I said with pardonable bitterness. Master Higsbee gave that distant chuckle again.

  “You should be,” he said.

  * * * *

  AFTER A VERY little more conversation, I got around to my request. If I’d been talking to virtually anybody else, I’d have made it an order; I’d hired him on, so to speak, days before. But one does not give orders to the Master.

  “I will speak to the dig crew members you have questioned,” he said, “as well as the few others—Washington, Crain, Reges—you wish added. After having done so, I will consult with Robbin, ask what questions of her I can find in my skull, and report back to you.”

  “Meanwhile,” I said, “I’ll be doing some questioning of my own.”

  “I am sure you will, Gerald,:” he said. “And do try, in the interstices between questions, to do a little thinking as well. Finished.”

  Right. Finished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ABOUT NINETY SECONDS after I put the phone down, it rang again, and when I picked it up more bad news rose up to bite me. I said: “Gerald Knave,” and a voice I recognized said:

  “I am calling, first of all, to query you about progress.”

  Ping Boom.

  I didn’t have much in the way of a progress report. I’d decided the moment I got the news not to tell Ping that the death of Ramsay Leake was connected to his theft—and hoped I could keep him from finding out that the wounded Berigot were a part of it too.

  Why? you may ask. I wanted Ping as calm as possible at all times. It is always a good idea to keep the person who’s hired you very calm and peaceful; if he gets nervous, he will be calling you or dropping by to visit you every fifteen seconds, telling you, and maybe believing, that he’s trying to check on your progress, and possibly help out a bit here and there—but really looking for very little more than reassurance. He’s hired a professional, and one of the largest duties of any professional is the duty of sounding professional—of sounding reassuring.

  It’s a damn bore at the best of times, and an unbelievable disturbance at the worst, and nothing more cheerful anywhere in between. It’s a duty I avoid every chance I get.

  “I’m collecting facts,” I said, as briskly and professionally as I knew how. “I think you’ll understand that it takes some time—”

  “Have you made any actual progress?”

  I didn’t hesitate for a second. “A pattern is beginning to come clear,” I said. “But there’s really nothing to talk about so far, and—”

  “It’s been several days,” he said.

  “This was a very unusual sort of theft,” I told him, something he already knew. The police, after all, had had the thing all to themselves for a couple of days, and hadn’t arrived anywhere in particular. “I’ve been consulting with a variety of people, and—”

  Like Dean Rell, he was one of those people who had spells of not allowing you to finish a sentence. “We need that manuscript,” he said. “And we need it quickly.”

  Well, every bit of bad news has a silver lining. It was a chance, just maybe, to clear up one small bit of the puzzle. I said: “Why?”

  There was a small, strangled pause at the other end. Then Ping said: “What?”

  “I asked why you need it in such a hurry,” I said. “For that matter, why you need it at all. The thing is a forgery. It’ll be filed away somewhere, once you have it again, and nobody will ever go to see it.”

  Ping said, in the coldest voice I’d yet heard from him: “That is none of your business.”

  “I need all the facts I can get,” I said. “I usually do. It’s part of the job. That’s how I get things done.”

  “The only fact you need is that we require that manuscript,” he said in the same voice. “You have been hired—at an exorbitant rate, I might add—to recover it.”

  I took a breath. “I need to know what it is I’m looking for,” I said. “If the thing is actually a forgery—”

  “There’s no doubt of that,” Ping said.

  “—then what do you need it for? And why the hurry?”

  “The hurry,” he said, as patiently as if he were explaining matters to a small child, “is simply that we want the job done. Done. Completed. Over with.”

  “But why do you want the job done? This isn’t idle curiosity—”

  “Knave,” he said, “my refusal to reply isn’t idle, either. When do you think you’ll be able to lay hands on the thing?”

  “As soon as I can,” I said. “I can’t put a time on it—things don’t work like that. I’ll report in the second I have news for you.”

  “You do that,” he said. “You be very sure and do that.”

  I sighed. “Look here,” I said mildly. “I’m at work. This is what I do. I’m trying to do your job for you. When it’s done, you’ll know about it, because I’ll tell you. Until it’s done, I may not have any news at all.”

  “That’s an incredibly arrogant—”

  “That’s the way I work,” I said, just as mildly. “Sometimes I get results. I get them better, and faster, when I’m given all the facts—and I get them better and faster when I am left the Hell alone to go and get them.”

  “I’ve told you everything I could,” Ping said. “Days have passed. As far as I can see, nothing much has happened. Knave—”

  Another sigh. It has occurred to me now and then that all the people who hire me are really the same person. “If you could see far enough,” I said, a bit less mildly, “you wouldn’t have had to hire me. You have hired me; I’m not doing anything except your job here. I’d take it very kindly if you’d let me do it.”

  There was one exactly right thing to do—bark: “Finished,” and hang up—but you’d have to be Master Higsbee, I decided, to bring it off. I stayed on the phone and listened to him try not to sputter for a couple of seconds.

  Then he said: “I’ll expect regular reports from you.”

  “I’ll report whenever I have anything to report,” I said. “I’m busy now—sorry. ‘Bye.”

  I actually waited for Ping to say goodbye before I hung up. I have no idea why.

  A few minutes later, I discovered I actually did have something to do, and I was in a fine, irritable state to go and do it.

  I could go over to police headquarters and bother Detective-Major Hyman Gross.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  POLICE HEADQUARTERS WAS a rather small square building with two green globes at either side of a big entrance—a real door, not a holo. Once again, Ravenal was opting for tradition as a substitute for almost anything else, this time a tradition that went back to preSpace motion pictures—2D, most of them. I’m not sure whether real police-stations, in any country in the preSpace world, ever looked like the one I saw on Ravenal, and possibly I ought to check with a reconstructive archaeologist or two, but it seems unlikely on the face of it: the place looked as if it had been built out of old Earth sandstone, or possibly cheap concrete, all of it a dull and dingy grey, with medium-sized glassex windows that had authentic-looking bars on them for some damn reason. To keep the police in? To keep citizens out? They were absolutely useless, since the glassex was, as usual, both unbreakable and permanently sealed in.

  And the green globes, on high stands or low pillars—about seven feet off the ground—didn’t seem very decorative and served no purpose I could understand. They did tell you the place was some sort of police-station (if you had a background in preSpace motion pictures, where a lot of such buildings did seem to turn up), but a sign saying Police Station would have d
one the same job, been less of a bother altogether, and required nothing of the inquiring passerby but simple literacy.

  There were four stone steps between the globes, leading up to the door. I climbed the damn steps, cursing tradition under my breath, pushed open the door, and went inside. The interior was Ravenal’s other face; when they’re not being traditional, of course, they’re being state-of-the-art, and then some.

  Everything that wasn’t either people or computers was glassex: desks, chairs, railings, dividers. The walls were, like the outside of the place, something that looked like sandstone, but they were the only opaque objects in that big entrance hall, except for the signs. The signs were thin metal, all painted a restful green and bearing directions in deep red. This sounds as if they were easier to read than in fact they were; it took a little blinking to get the red into focus against the background.

  Inquiries, Forensics, Records, and a few others ... and over to my right a sign with an arrow that said Detective Squad. If Gross was going to be in his office, he’d be at the end of whatever path the arrow was indicating, and I followed it a few yards to a flight of sandstone stairs with a glassex railing. Cursing tradition some more, I went up the stairs to a second-floor hallway. The hallway had some closed doors along it on both sides—real doors again, and this time made out of what looked to me like real wood, though I’m no expert—and most of the doors had nothing on them but numbers.

  The one at the end of the hallway on the left said Detective Inquiries, which was, after all, what I was planning to do, make some Inquiries of a Detective. I knocked on it, and a voice I didn’t know said loudly: “About time, come on in.”

  I found a knob, turned it, and the door opened. As I got the door open, the same voice said:

  “Put it down on Terry’s desk. Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said. “Put what down?”

  “Coffee,” the voice said. “The coffee, what did you think I meant? Just—oh. Who the Hell are you?”

  The room had three large desks in it, side by side from near the door to away over at the right. There was a computer screen on each desk, and all three desks were littered with faxprint papers of all sizes, shapes and even colors—white, blue, pink. The desks looked like wood, too, and so did the chairs that went with them. The only person in the room was a medium-sized fat man sitting behind the desk furthest to my right, out of sight until I’d come some steps into the room. He seemed absolutely hairless, and he was wearing a slightly soiled white shirt with an open collar. He also wore a pair of rimless spectacles, which he pushed back along a wide snub nose.