by John Stith
Nothing seemed to happen in the next moment. Leroy and Dave stood unmoving, and the intercom remained silent. Perhaps a second later, motion resumed.
Dave pitched forward onto the floor of the shuttle, and Leroy began to sag. He grabbed for a handhold and held himself from falling.
As Leroy hung there, the intercom sounded again. “This is the police. We have the shuttle release inhibited. Put down your weapons and prepare to come out unarmed, one at a time.”
Cal was finally able to breathe again, but the sharp pain in his ribs flared as he tried to gulp in a deep breath. “Hello, Vincent,” he managed.
“What the hell’s going on around here?” Vincent asked.
“Never mind that for now. Just tell the police they can come in unmolested.”
Leroy’s face was quite pale. He sagged farther.
Cal struggled to get enough energy to move to him. Trying to block out the pain in his ribs, he pulled himself close enough to Leroy to help him sit down.
Leroy was shaking. Blood seeped from a chest wound. “I didn’t mean for there to be any killing,” he said, straining to get the words out.
“Why did you do it?”
“For the money.” Leroy paused to lick his lips. “Dave’s idea. Put in cheap substitutes. Almost worked.”
“Why didn’t you stop when the killing started, if that wasn’t what you wanted?” Cal asked, having to lean closer to hear Leroy’s response.
“I tried, damn it. Tom was a friend of mine, too.”
“Tom? Why not stop when Domingo was killed?”
“Domingo?” Leroy’s eyes began to stare into the distance. “Who’s Domingo?”
“Gabriel Domingo.” Cal realized he was raising his voice. “What about Forget-Me-Now?”
Leroy couldn’t keep his eyes open. “You’re not talking—” Leroy coughed. Flecks of blood appeared on his lips. “—sense.”
“I’m not—” Cal stopped.
Leroy had abruptly gone limp. His head began to tip forward. Cal pushed Leroy’s body back into the seat. Leroy was a boneless, life-size doll. Cal felt the man’s wrist. Leroy’s heart had stopped.
Dave lay still. Cal couldn’t see his chest moving.
“Damn,” Cal said, and leaned heavily back on the cushions. Noise from above reminded him about the police. “Vincent, what’s taking the police so long?”
“Apparently the hatch is jammed, or locked from the inside.”
Cal levered himself upright. Everything seemed to be a hazy red. Near the ladder he found the interior control panel, and saw a large amber blinking panel that said Manual—Locked.
A nearby control was labeled Automatic. Cal pushed it. A moment later came the deep noise associated with the hatch opening.
“All right,” yelled someone from above. “Out. One at a time.”
Cal summoned his strength to yell back. “It’s going to take a while. There are two dead men in here, and I don’t think I’m in good enough condition to climb the ladder.”
“Who are you?”
“Cal Donley.”
A minute later a remote monitor drifted slowly down the hatch. About the size and shape of two saucers stuck together face to face, and partially helium filled, it maneuvered carefully with small gas jets.
Cal stepped back and sat down on the chair. The monitor puffed a couple of times and approached Dave. After a brief inspection it rose and moved near Leroy’s body. Completing another short check, it rose to waist-height, drifted to the center of the shuttle, and rotated until twin sensors pointed at Cal.
Only when that was complete did Cal hear feet on the hatch ladder. First into the shuttle was a uniformed policeman, Lt. Dobson. Second was a young doctor.
“You’re lucky to have friends,” Dobson said, sitting on a cushion to one side, while the doctor sat on the other side and began to unpack his instruments.
Cal didn’t reply. The exertion of unlocking the shuttle door was even more draining than he had realized.
“Your wife and Michelle Garney are up above,” Dobson said. “They wouldn’t tell me what all this was about, but I watched enough of the video coming from your wristcomp to make it clear that you were the victim here.”
So Vincent had kept transmitting. “Thanks, Vincent,” Cal managed. “I’m indebted.”
“You’re welcome,” Vincent said simply.
The doctor asked Cal to lean forward just a little, so he could slide a screen behind his back. As Cal tried to comply, his last reserves finally faded, and he lost consciousness.
When Cal awoke, he smelled the odors he associated with the clinic. He opened his eyes, squinting against the brightness.
Nikki sat in a nearby chair. Her eyes were closed.
“Hello, Nickname,” Cal said softly.
Nikki’s eyes opened and she smiled. It was the best smile Cal could recall. She brought her chair over and sat down beside Cal’s bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Emotionally or physically?”
“Either.”
“Better. Both. What are the damages?”
“Other than quite a few bruises, two broken ribs.”
Cal looked at Vincent’s screen. It was almost ten hundred the next morning. “Have you been here since last night?”
“Yes.”
“You should have got some rest.”
“I did. I slept here.”
Cal’s throat tightened as he realized, without knowing the specifics, that Nikki was like that. She had always been generous and concerned. Why had he been so oblivious? “Nikki,” he said. “Thanks. You didn’t need to, though.”
“It was little enough after what you did last night.”
“I got punched a few times. That’s not very—”
“You know what I mean. You could have told them about me and Michelle. And they could have started after us.”
“But Vincent kept transmitting. You would have known what was happening and told the police.”
“You didn’t know that. You couldn’t know that Vincent would guess what you really wanted and keep transmitting after you told him to turn off. Maybe getting him wasn’t such a mistake after all.”
“Well, I like that,” said Vincent.
“I thought you were off,” Nikki said, not apologizing.
“Who would have turned me off? Cal passed out while I was on.”
“This may seem ungrateful, Vincent, but I really would like to turn you off for a little while,” Cal said. “I do appreciate what you did last night.”
“No problem. I’m going.”
Nikki grinned.
Cal reached his hand to hers. “Thanks for being here.”
She squeezed his hand in return. After a moment she said, “Lieutenant Dobson wants to talk to you.”
Cal thought back to the night before. “How much of Vincent’s transmission did he see?”
“Only the part where those two were getting ready to throw you out of the airlock.” Nikki shuddered.
“So he doesn’t know what all this is about?”
“Neither do we. I’m just glad it’s over.”
Cal looked up into her eyes. They were softer now than he had seen them in the last few days. “Nikki,” he said. “It’s not all over.”
She frowned.
“No,” said Cal. “I’m not talking about you and me. I agreed not to bring that up. I’m talking about Leroy and Dave and this whole strange business. It’s not over.”
“But of course it is. It must be.”
“I wish it were. Believe me. But something’s still wrong. When Leroy was dying, I asked him a few questions. Did you hear me?”
“No. By then we switched off the video. We were waiting at the shuttle with the police.”
“He said he was very disturbed by Tom’s death, and that killing wasn’t part of his plan.”
“But Domingo—”
“Exactly. Why wouldn’t Leroy have been bothered right then? The answer is that he didn’t know about Domingo.
He wasn’t responsible. He denied knowing anything about Forget-Me-Now, too”
“Maybe his partner handled all that.”
“It’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. Too many things just don’t fit. Sodom and Gomorrah, the Presodist church, Domingo’s death—none of those are answered. I think there’s still something else going on.”
“Back to ground zero?”
“Not quite. We should be able to figure out which actions were caused by Leroy and Dave. That means the rest are someone else’s fault. Then we have a hope of seeing the true pattern. Maybe Tolbor is our man after all.”
“But if that’s true, then you have less than a day to find out.”
“Except for one thing. We know the communications gear on the Vittoria wasn’t built to the specifications. By publicizing that, we can delay the departure.”
“Why not just announce it now?”
“Because whoever our real antagonist is, we don’t want him panicking. We want him to think it’s business as usual, so he might get careless.”
“How sure are you that Leroy told you the truth? It seems that two men, trying to cover up embezzling or whatever you want to call this, could easily have caused everything.”
“He was dying. He was in a lot of pain. I don’t think he had a good reason to lie to me then. Besides, I still have this feeling that there’s more to it. Someone else is involved. Help me sit up, will you?” Cal pushed against the bedding, trying to get upright. His chest hurt, but not unbearably.
“I told Lieutenant Dobson I’d call when you could talk,” Nikki said.
“That’s fine. But would you also talk to Michelle and ask her not to release any story just yet? Except for what the police already know.”
Nikki made the calls. Cal heard Michelle’s protests, but she quieted down after Nikki told her the rest.
Lt. Dobson couldn’t have been very far away. He was in Cal’s hospital room not five minutes later. Nikki pulled her chair back to the wall and sat, listening.
Dobson sat gingerly at the foot of the bed. “I suppose you know that both men are dead.”
“I was pretty sure. I’m not in trouble about that, am I?”
“No. We saw the video being relayed up just before we got to the shuttle. You may have to answer some questions at the inquest, but it will just be routine. What I wanted to find out was why. Your wife didn’t want to show me the rest of the video, and I didn’t choose to make an issue about it.”
Cal thought for a moment. “They had been planning something illegal, and I found out about it. Leroy wanted to call it off. The other guy didn’t want to. Fortunately, they argued long enough for you to get there.”
“What were they planning?”
Cal decided to mix in a slight amount of truth. “You know, that’s almost funny, in a bizarre way. I don’t know exactly. They were planning to steal some expensive equipment from somewhere. I heard the end of a conversation between them, enough to find out that something illegal was going on, but I didn’t hear all of the talk. They assumed I had heard it all, and nothing I could say would convince them I hadn’t.”
The lieutenant looked disappointed, as though he had been expecting all the sordid details. Cal made himself a promise to tell Dobson as soon as he could after he knew what was really going on. Linking himself to Domingo’s killing had too much potential for restricting his actions.
The policeman pried for a few more details before he finally gave up.
As Dobson left, Michelle came in. This time Nikki sat on the bed, and Michelle brought the chair over.
“What’s all this nonsense about suppressing the story?” Michelle asked once she was settled.
“Didn’t Nikki tell you?”
“I wanted to hear it from you.”
“Well, you can run the story about Leroy and Dave killing each other. And you can mention that I was there. But it would make things easier if you played down the connection, like I was an innocent bystander.” Cal mentioned the questions still unexplained, and Leroy’s denial of knowledge about Domingo.
“Okay,” Michelle said finally. “But what next?”
Cal turned Vincent back on and said, “Next we’ve got to sort through the pieces of information we’ve accumulated, discard the things Leroy and Dave were responsible for, and examine the balance.”
“So,” said Nikki, “we’re eliminating the incident on the tubeway, the trap in your Vittoria office, and the explosion.”
“And,” said Cal, “the Vital Twenty-Two.”
“Why?” the women asked together.
“It just doesn’t seem to me to fit with the rest. It triggers absolutely no memories even now. I keep getting tiny flashes, but never about drugs.”
“What’s left, then?” asked Nikki.
“Domingo’s death,” said Cal. “I’m guessing that he didn’t know any more about Leroy’s plan than I did. But someone killed him. And my visit to Forget-Me-Now has to tie in.”
“The Sodom and Gomorrah references,” Nikki said. “You’ve seen them too many times for them not to be important.”
“So that just leaves the church,” said Michelle.
“And the messages I’ve sent to Jam,” Cal finished. “But the church may have been mentioned only because Tolbor, or whoever I was keeping track of, goes there.”
Michelle had too much nervous energy to stay seated. She rose. “Refresh me on the Sodom and Gomorrah story.”
Cal looked at Nikki. She drew in a breath and started. “The story was about Lot. He lived in Sodom, one of the two most important cities of the plain. Abraham talked to God about trying to spare them, but Lot was the only innocent man God could find.
“When Lot was on the way out of Sodom, his wife looked back, disobeying, and was turned into a pillar of salt. After that Lot made his way to Zoar, the last city of the plain.”
“Tell me again why the cities were destroyed.”
“The passage says because the residents were serving other gods.”
“I still don’t know if there’s any literal significance there,” said Cal. “If Earth’s dead cities represent Sodom and Gomorrah, it could be as crazy as someone deciding that looking back, like with the Earth telescope, might be sinful.”
“Or that anyone working on reclaiming the Earth is looking back, and that’s sinful,” said Nikki.
Michelle said, “Or it could be that whoever you were watching has slipped in the shower and killed himself. Everything that’s happened since Domingo died, we can attribute to Leroy and his partner.”
Cal looked at her. “Maybe he doesn’t need to do anything. Maybe he’s confident that blanking my memory is sufficient to keep me away.”
“That could make it impossible to find him,” said Nikki. “If all he needs to do is lie low and escape on the Vittoria, then where are we?”
“For one thing,” said Cal, “we can always delay the Vittoria by telling what we know—”
“If they believe us,” said Michelle.
“Right. But maybe we can make him panic. What do you think he would do if you printed a story saying I had been to Forget-Me-Now a few nights ago, and some new, previously untested process was somehow able to eliminate most of the memory blockage?”
“It sounds risky to me,” said Nikki. “Besides, that all depends on how much you knew before that night. If all you had were suspicions, then that story might not worry anyone.”
“But what other chance do we have?” asked Michelle.
No one spoke.
After a long moment Cal said, “I don’t see any alternative. We’ve got to force some action. Whoever we’re dealing with is a lot more passive or a lot more confident than Leroy and company. Maybe this will jolt someone into doing something we can use to our advantage.”
Nikki was plainly unhappy at the latest decision, but after a few more objections she gave in.
“Give me just a few minutes to call the office and get this started,” said Michelle.
; Cal and Nikki waited silently as they listened to Michelle call. Nikki got up to stretch, and when she sat back down on the bed she was closer than before to Cal.
Michelle had someone on the other end and was starting to make her request when the other person evidently interrupted, and Michelle said, “What?”
There was a pause. Then she said, “Yes, I know him. When did it come in?” She frowned. “Read it to me verbatim.”
Michelle looked more worried as she listened. Finally she said, “Never mind about my original request. I’ll get back to you.”
She terminated the call and looked over at Cal and Nikki.
“What is it?” Cal asked.
“An anonymous tip was just sent in. The tip names Domingo’s killer.”
Michelle’s eyes were unreadable as she looked at Cal. “It was your name.”
CHAPTER 17
Hope
After Michelle’s announcement there was an awkward silence. Cal looked at Nikki and then back to Michelle. Finally he said, “Oh, come on. You can’t believe I killed Domingo, can you? After all that’s happened?”
“No,” said Michelle. “For a few minutes there, I tried to believe that it was all over—that it was really all related to Leroy, and that he just wasn’t thinking clearly after he was shot. But with this message coming in, I can’t deny it any longer. I’ve got these cold shivers, like when you first told me what was happening.”
“Me, too,” said Nikki. “There must be someone else. Someone who’s got something to hide.”
Cal took a deep breath and settled back onto the bed.
Michelle tapped her temple. “Just a minute. I was thinking about so much, I forgot to do something.” She called her office back and began talking with whoever had given her the message a few minutes ago.
“Put a hold on that message until I get a few more facts to go with it,” she said. A pause. “No. It can wait a little while.”
This time the speaker on the other end took longer. Michelle rubbed her forehead as she listened. Finally she asked, “How’d you find out?”
Another pause. “Okay,” she said. “Never mind. Just hold it as long as you can.”
Michelle looked up after completing the call. “The news station wasn’t the only one to get the message. Our friend made sure the police got a copy, too.”
