Hidden Variables

by Charles Sheffield

  "You can ask him," said Lestrade morosely. He placed a silver box on the desk, about the same size and shape as a portable communicator. I looked at it for the send/receive button but couldn't see it. I looked questioningly at Lestrade, who pressed a catch on the side of the box. The top opened to reveal a layer of grey powder inside.

  "There's Peter Pinton, all there is of him." Lestrade looked at the box with a certain macabre satisfaction. "When he brought in his explosive, with his claim that it was superpowerful and completely safe, Mr. Kozak insisted on a controlled demonstration. They put Pinton inside a sealed metal tank to set up the test and watched from outside. Pinton was half right, you might say—it's far and away the most powerful explosive anybody has ever seen. But Pinton hadn't told anybody the chemical formula for it. Mr. Kozak came to see us after the explosion yesterday afternoon, and this morning we went over to see Polly—"

  "—his parrot," Waldo interjected, nodding intelligently.

  "—Polly Pinton, his ex-wife, now living in Chryse Dome," Lestrade went on. He scrutinized Waldo closely, as though mentally measuring him for a straitjacket. "She told us that Pinton had left a sample of the explosive with Henry Carver and Waldo Burmeister, Lawyers, at this address."

  I sighed. So much for a deal with United Chemicals. I looked at Waldo. He shrugged and went into the back room to get the Pintonite sample.

  After half a minute of banging around in the cupboard he was back, pale and sweating.

  "Henry, it's not there." He signalled his next message with his eyes, as clearly as if he had spoken it: "What have you done with it, Henry?"

  I was shocked. "It must be there, Waldo, I saw it just yesterday. Let me take a look."

  I went into the back room and did a lightning but thorough search of the cupboard. No jar of white crystals, not a sign of it.

  "Henry, for God's sake, don't play games," whispered Waldo from just behind me. "Tell them what you did with it, we can't do any deals now."

  I turned back to him. "What do you mean, play games? Aren't you the one who took it to United Chemicals?"

  He shook his head. "I was supposed to meet them again tomorrow, with a sample."

  We looked at each other in dismay and stupefaction. Finally we went back into the outer office and faced Lestrade. He took the news that the Pintonite was gone with no emotion. It seemed almost as though he had expected something like that. He nodded slowly.

  "We'll have to do a deep probe to get information on this. Who was here when Peter Pinton brought that explosive in and discussed storing it with you?"

  "I was," Waldo reluctantly volunteered.

  "And were you present, Mr. Carver?" asked Lestrade.

  "Only at the very end of the meeting." Thank heaven for literal truth, and for the legal definition of present.

  "Right. Mr. Burmeister, you'll have to come with us. This examination will take a few hours."

  The game was over all right. But thank heaven, too, for my own foresight. I took out my wallet with a sigh and removed a slip of paper from it.

  "I don't think that will be necessary, Mr. Lestrade. This contains the chemical anlysis of a Pintonite sample, performed just a few days ago."

  I handed it to him. Waldo looked like a man reprieved at the eleventh hour—psychoprobes were tough stuff and a few people came out of them with their brains permanently scrambled. Kozak leapt on the paper with a cry of joy and read it while we watched.

  After a few seconds of inspection he began to turn into a vampire. His teeth curled back from his upper lip and a deep snarl came from him. He seemed all set to leap and suck blood.

  "Mr. Carver," he finally said in choked tones. "You had a chemical anlysis done. I suppose you are willing to tell us what type of analysis was performed?"

  Now I was really confused. "Well, of course I am. I asked them to do the most final and complete one that they could. I forget the exact word that was used on the order."

  "An ultimate analysis?"

  "Yes, that's it exactly."

  "You scientific illiterate," he screamed at once. "You great baboon." My information didn't seem to have pleased him. "An ultimate chemical analysis gives the final chemical composition in terms of the percentage of each element. It doesn't tell you a thing about the chemical structure. " He waved the paper in the air, literally gnashing his teeth as he did so. I'd never encountered that before outside the holodramas. "This just gives the amount of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and fluorine. I could no more make Pintonite from this information than I could make your friend here—" He glowered at Waldo. "—from a barrel of lard and a sack of flour."

  An unfortunate example, I felt, and quite uncalled for. They dragged poor Waldo away to his fate. I hoped he'd be back again, intact, in a few hours. What on Earth—what on Mars—had gone wrong? I was sure Waldo had told me the truth—so where was the Pintonite?

  I wandered around the office, looking everywhere I could think of for the missing jar. No sign. I picked up the useless chemical analysis paper—my trump card—and looked at it sadly. Then I crumpled it into a ball and went through to the inner office to throw it into the trash.

  I opened the lid of the trash can—and froze. Suddenly, I understood exactly what had happened to the Pintonite. It had never occurred to me to tell Waldo that Peter Pinton had switched the phial of liquid for a jar of crystalline Pintonite. Waldo had been looking for the phial, while I'd looked for the jar. Now I'd found it. Empty. Waldo, in his insane lust for sweetmeats, had used three ounces of Pintonite to sugar his coffee. "Yeasty and sweet," Pinton had said.

  When events call for it I can be a man of action. In less than ten minutes I had made reservations for Waldo and myself, immediate departure for Deimos. It was time that Burmeister and Carver found new business offices. I'd write and tell the Tharsis City police all about recent events, but I'd much rather do it from off-planet. I had a clear mental picture of three ounces of Pintonite going into and through Waldo. Tharsis City had, as I recalled, more than thirty thousand meters of sewage pipes beneath it. I could visualize a thin layer of Pintonite spread through every bit. Peter Pinton had said that it was perfectly safe, but his reputation as a reliable authority had diminished considerably in the past few hours. If the Tharsis City plumbing arrangements happened to have the right environment to set it off, it might not be the biggest explosion in the history of Mars, but it would certainly be the most disgusting.

  I sat down to wait impatiently for Waldo's return. On second thoughts, I called and modified our space travel reservations. I didn't know how long it took Pintonite to pass completely through the human alimentary canal. Separate flights. If Waldo was about to fulfill my old warning and finally, literally, explode, I would rather not participate in the event.

  AFTERWORD: PERFECTLY SAFE, NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

  About three years ago our after-dinner conversation turned to the taboos of science fiction. There are, we all agreed, many subjects that have never been written about, not perhaps because they are truly shocking but because they are generally disgusting and awful.

  We made a list. Then we worked on it to eliminate duplicates and categories that reflected very personal prejudices ("Frenchmen" and "rice pudding" were in the original set of disgusting things). Then I was given the final condensed list and told to write stories about all the items on it.

  Pigs and lice and personal hygiene and fleas and gross fatness and sewage and dental appointments have all been more or less done, and I am steadily working my way through the rest. It is slow going. Writing Parasites Lost was a real effort, and Space Opera keeps trying to convert itself from a short story to a novel.

  I'll be very glad when the list is finished. It is a slow road to literary immortality, and as the tom-cat making love to the skunk said after the first hour or two, I really think I've enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand.

  SUMMERTIDE

  "Genocide?" My tone showed my disbelief.

  Governor Wethel shrugged his shoul
ders at me in an embarrassed way and turned to his companion without trying to answer me.

  "Perhaps you should explain this, Dr. Rebka."

  "I intend to." Rebka was a small, thin man, with sharp grey eyes and a long, mournful mouth. His voice was dry and even, with just a trace of accent to reveal that he had not been raised in our System. "Cooperation from both of you will be essential, and I know that I could not command it here for any ordinary crime. Did Governor Wethel tell you where this journey began?"

  I nodded. Wethel had time for that and for little else when he had linked through from Cloudside, to tell me that he was flying over, top priority, with a visitor.

  "I understand that you were on Lasalle—Delta Pavonis Four. I wondered what a Section Moderator could be doing there. All it has are marshes and Zardalu."

  "Not quite right." Moderator Rebka's voice had become flatter yet. "All that Lasalle has now are marshes. The Zardalu are extinct. The last surviving members—two lodges—died two Earth-months ago. The people who killed them escaped from the Pavonis System long before I got there, but I have been able to trace them through four jumps. To here."

  I took another look at Sector Moderator Rebka. For the first time, I stared hard at the symbols on the gold cluster fixed to the sleeve of his black jacket. Inside the main pattern was a tiny seven-pointed star. Why hadn't Wethel told me that Rebka belonged to the Species Protection Council? He might be polite enough to ask for our cooperation, but if Rebka wanted to he could do just about anything he liked—including taking over my job or Governor Wethel's.

  I looked again at him, but I could see little sign of the exceptional qualities that his position suggested. He was still the same short, thin stranger, with an unimpressive voice and carriage. Now for the real question: what could Rebka's visit here, over on Quakeside, have to do with his search? All the administration of Dumbbell was back over on Cloudside, where he had just come from. They had the police headquarters, the inter-system coordination, and the only interstellar spaceport. I began to feel uneasy. It was less than twenty Days to summertide maximum, and I had no time to spare for visitors, no matter what their mission.

  The other two were still looking at me, waiting for my response to Rebka's information. I shrugged.

  "I'm shocked to hear about the Zardalu, but I don't see how I can help you. The people who killed them came to Dumbbell, I'm prepared to believe that. But they'll be over on Cloudside, not here. As Governor Wethel could have told you, we have no place for them to hide on Quakeside—all our towns are too small, and the land is all monitored. Are you sure that they landed on Egg at all? Suppose they took off again and were hiding out near Perling?"

  Looking at Rebka's baffled expression, I realized my mistake. His accent was slight, but it was clear that he didn't know this System—the names were missing him completely.

  All the reference texts outside the System tell the inquirer that Eta Cassiopeiae A has the double planet, Dobelle. It was named after the captain of the ship that made the first scout survey. The components of Dobelle, the twins of the planetary doublet, were logically named Ehrenknechter and Castelnuovo-Kryszkoviak, after the other two men on the scout ship. The records don't tell us how long the first settlers struggled with those jaw-breakers, but well before I was born the two components had been renamed Quake and Egg, and no one in the System ever used their official names—except for formal outside communications. And as soon as the connecting umbilical went in between the two, the name of the planet pair, Dobelle, had naturally slid over into Dumbbell. Only Perling, the gas-giant planet that circled Eta-Cass A seven hundred million kilometers out, had managed to hold on to its original name—probably because no one ever went there.

  Governor Wethel jumped into the conversation again, putting all the names I had used back into their official forms. When he had finished, I got another hard look from Rebka and a shake of the head.

  "No. They did not go to Perling." He sat down in the chair over by the curved window, his manner stiff and serious. "Please assume that I know how to do at least a part of my job, Captain Mira. Before I came to Dobelle I checked that the fugitives were neither near Perling, nor out by the dwarf companion."

  I nodded. I couldn't see anybody trying to hide near Eta-Cass B, there was nothing there but a few orbiting chunks of rock. "But what makes you think they landed here on Egg?"

  "No doubt about it," chipped in Wethel. "I looked at the landing records when Moderator Rebka called me. I found we had a jump ship land at Cloudside, twenty Days ago—and it's still there."

  "But its passengers are not," said Rebka. "They landed on the other side of this planet—Cloudside?—and they are not there now."

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out an ID pack. "Two people were involved in the death of the Zardalu. They were visitors to Delta Pavonis Four, first-time visitors on their way from Peacock A to Sol. They stayed there only one day. Have you seen anyone who looks like this over here in your area? Within the past twenty Days?"

  I flicked on the ID pack and looked into it. I had a sudden shock of false recognition. For the first moment, the young woman who smiled at me from the pack was Amy—my Amy.

  I looked on, and the thrill faded. The obvious differences were there—how had I failed to see them at once?—and they brought me back to normal. The young woman I was looking at was older than Amy, and she wore a deep tan that no one ever acquired on the cloudy side of Egg. It must have been her clothes—clothes that matched Amy's preference exactly. Dark green and russet, cut low off the smooth shoulders and matching her auburn hair. That, and perhaps something in the smiling eyes, a message of life and laughter that carried through the impersonality of the ID display.

  After a few seconds I realized that I had to speak. Rebka was looking at me, and into me, in a way that had to be avoided. I stared back into his eyes and shook my head.

  "I don't know her—but if she had been here, I assure you that I would have noticed. Surely this isn't one of the criminals?"

  He nodded his head slowly, eyes still locked on mine. "I am afraid that she is. You are looking at Elena Carmel. She, together with her sister, killed the Zardalu."

  I couldn't imagine it. Not someone who looked so young and vulnerable herself.

  "Could it have been an accident?" I peered again into the depths of the ID image. "I thought that the Zardalu were still in a probationary state—marginally intelligent."

  "They were. It could well have been an accident."

  "But you still accuse them of genocide—when the Zardalu may not have even been covered by the Species Protection Act."

  "Of course." He sighed. "Isn't my position obvious to you? Most of the Zardalu were killed before their potential intelligence was recognized. Killed by humans. A human Moderator is assigned to this investigation—perhaps that was a wrong decision, but it was made. Don't you see that I am obliged to assume the worst? There must be no suspicion on the part of any other Council Member that I sought to cover a crime—even a potential crime—by one of my own species. That would mean the end of the Council. But apart from that, I would pursue them anyway. The death of the Zardalu must be investigated, even though nothing that I do can ever bring them back. They are gone forever."

  Rebka's voice was bitter. He was that rarest of all humankind, a man who felt as strongly about the protection of non-humans as he did about his own kind. I was beginning to realize what it took to be a member of the Species Protection Council.

  "Do you have an ID pack for the other sister?" I said, breaking a long silence that made us all uncomfortable, but which no one seemed willing to end.

  "Of course." Rebka shrugged. "I will show it to you, but it will do no good. If you did not recognize Elena Carmel, you will not recognize Jilli Carmel. They are identical twins."

  He handed me a second ID pack. The features were identical, that was undeniable. Yet there were differences, ways in which I thought I would know them apart—and I don't mean the superficial things,
such as the styling of the auburn hair. Jilli Carmel had a slightly different expression, a trifle less confident and extrovert than her sister. Reluctantly, I handed it back to him.

  "I don't know her. You and Governor Wethel seem confident that they are not on Cloudside. I'm at least as sure that they aren't here, on Quakeside. So where does that leave us? Wherever they are, it's not anywhere on Egg."

  "He means anywhere on Ehrenknechter," explained Wethel, then bit his Up.

  Rebka had frozen him with a look. Wethel passed it on to me, as a grimace of disgust—self-disgust. He had already explained once to Rebka that the twin planets had been re-named, and the Moderator was not wearing an Ampak at wrist or throat. That meant that he was undoubtedly a mnemonist, with perfect recall—but Klaus Wethel had unfortunately made that deduction a fraction of a second after he had spoken.

  I gave him a consoling wink, as Rebka went on, "I agree with you. They are not here on Egg. Six Days ago—two Earth-days—they left this planet and went across to your companion world. They are now on Castelnuovo-Kryszkoviak—if you prefer it, on Quake."

  He smiled this time at Wethel, to take the edge off his words.

  "Never," I said abruptly. Klaus Wethel looked horrified, that I should be so terse with a Sector Moderator, but Rebka did not seem at all perturbed.

  "And why not?" he said. "I had a good look at the other component of this doublet as we were flying in for our approach to the Dobelle System. It is almost wholly undeveloped, is it not? I have no doubt that the Carmel sisters believe that they can hide there safely, perhaps until I am called away for other duties."

  I looked over at my calendar and shook my head. Eighteen Days—six Earth-days—to summer maximum. I felt sick inside, a heavy feeling of nausea that the situation could not justify. The ID packs had upset me more than I would have thought possible. I looked back at Rebka, sitting upright and serious in my visitor's chair.

  "What is the Species Protection Council punishment for genocide?"