Space On My Hands

by Fredric Brown

  “What enemies did he have, Perry?”

  “None that I know of. Honestly, Rod. Lot of people disliked him, but just an ordinary mild kind of dislike. You know what I mean, the kind of dislike that makes ’em trade at another book-and-reel shop, but not the kind that makes them want to kill anybody.”

  “And who, as far as you know, might benefit by his death?”

  “Urn — nobody, to speak of,” said Peters, thoughtfully. “I think his heir is a nephew on Venus. I met him once, and he was a likable guy. But the estate won’t be anything to get excited about. A few thousand credits is all I’d guess it to be.”

  “Here’s a list of his friends, Perry.” Caquer handed Peters a paper. “Look it over, will you, and see if you can make any additions to it. Or any suggestions.”

  The lanky inventor studied the list, and then passed it back.

  “That includes them all, I guess,” he told Caquer. “Couple on there I didn’t know he knew well enough to rate listing. And you have his best customers down, too; the ones that bought heavily from him.”

  Lieutenant Caquer put the list back in his pocket.

  “What are you working on now?” he asked Peters.

  “Something I’m stuck on, I’m afraid,” the inventor said. “I needed Deem’s help — or at least the use of his lathe, to go ahead with this.” He picked up from the bench a pair of the most peculiar-looking goggles Rod Caquer had ever seen. The lenses were shaped like arcs of circles instead of full circles, and they fastened in a band of resilient plastic obviously designed to fit close to the face above and below the lenses. At the top center, where it would be against the forehead of the goggles’ wearer, was a small cylindrical box an inch and a half in diameter.

  “What on earth are they for?” Caquer asked.

  “For use in radite mines. The emanations from that stuff, while it’s in the raw state, destroy immediately any transparent substance yet made or discovered. Even quartz. And it isn’t good on naked eyes either. The miners have to work blindfolded, as it were, and by their sense of touch.”

  Rod Caquer looked at the goggles curiously.

  “But how is the funny shape of these lenses going to keep the emanations from hurting them, Perry?” he asked.

  “That part up on top is a tiny motor. It operates a couple of specially-treated wipers across the lenses. For all the world like an old-fashioned windshield wiper, and that’s why the lenses are shaped like the wiper-arm arcs.”

  “Oh,” said Caquer. “You mean the wipers are absorbent and hold some kind of liquid that protects the glass?”

  “Yes, except that it’s quartz instead of glass. And it’s protected only a minute fraction of a second. Those wipers go like the devil — so fast you can’t see them when you’re wearing the goggles. The arms are half as big as the arcs, and the wearer can see out of only a fraction of the lens at a time. But he can see, dimly, and that’s a thousand per cent improvement in radite mining.”

  “Fine, Perry,” said Caquer. “And they can get around the dimness by having ultra-brilliant lighting. Have you tried these out?”

  “Yes, and they work. Trouble’s in the rods; friction heats them and they expand and jam after it’s run a minute, or thereabouts. I have to turn them down on Deem’s lathe — or one like it. Think you could arrange for me to use it? Just for a day or so?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Caquer told him. “I’ll talk to whomever the Regent appoints executor, and fix it up. And later you can probably buy the lathe from his heirs. Or does the nephew go in for such things?”

  Perry Peters shook his head. “Nope, he wouldn’t know a lathe from a drill-press. Be swell of you, Rod, if you can arrange for me to use it.”

  Caquer had turned to go, but Perry Peters stopped him.

  “Wait a minute,” Peters said and then paused and looked uncomfortable.

  “I guess I was holding out on you, Rod,” the inventor said at last. “I do know one thing about Willem that might possibly have something to do with his death, although I don’t see how, myself. I wouldn’t tell it on him, except that he’s dead, and so it won’t get him in trouble.”

  “What was it, Perry?”

  “Illicit political books. He had a little business on the side selling them. Books on the index — you know just what I mean.”

  Caquer whistled softly. “I didn’t know they were made any more. After the council put such a heavy penalty on them — whew!”

  “People are still human, Rod. They still want to know the things they shouldn’t know — just to find out why they shouldn’t, if for no other reason.”

  “Graydex or Blackdex books, Perry?”

  Now the inventor looked puzzled.

  “I don’t get it. What’s the difference?”

  “Books on the official index,” Caquer explained, “are divided into two groups. The really dangerous ones are in the Blackdex. There’s a severe penalty for owning one, and a death penalty for writing or printing one. The mildly dangerous ones are in the Graydex, as they call it.”

  “I wouldn’t know which Willem peddled. Well, off the record, I read a couple Willem lent me once, and I thought they were pretty dull stuff. Unorthodox political theories.”

  “That would be Graydex,” Lieutenant Caquer looked relieved. “Theoretical stuff is all Graydex. The Blackdex books are the ones with dangerous practical information.”

  “Such as?” The inventor was staring intently at Caquer.

  “Instructions how to make outlawed things,” explained Caquer. “Like Lethite, for instance. Lethite is a poison gas that’s tremendously dangerous. A few pounds of it could wipe out a city, so the council outlawed its manufacture, and any book telling people how to make it for themselves would go on the Blackdex. Some nitwit might get hold of a book like that and wipe out his whole home town.”

  “But why would anyone?”

  “He might be warped mentally, and have a grudge.” explained Caquer. “Or he might want to use it on a lesser scale for criminal reason. Or — by Earth, he might be the head of a government with designs on neighboring states. Knowledge of a thing like that might upset the peace of the Solar System.”

  Perry Peters nodded thoughtfully. “I get your point,” he said. “Well, I still don’t see what it could have to do with the murder, but I thought I’d tell you about Willem’s side-line. You’ll probably want to check over his stock before whoever takes over the shop reopens.”

  “We shall.” said Caquer. “Thanks a lot, Perry. If you don’t mind. I’ll use your phone to get that search started right away. If there are any Blackdex books there, we’ll take care of them all right.”

  When he got his secretary on the screen, she looked both frightened and relieved at seeing him.

  “Mr. Caquer,” she said, “I’ve been trying to reach you. Something awful’s happened. Another death.”

  “Murder again?” gasped Caquer.

  “Nobody knows what it was,” said the secretary. “A dozen people saw him jump out of a window only twenty feet up. And in this gravity that couldn’t have killed him, but he was dead when they got there. And four of them that saw him knew him. It was —”

  “Well, for Earth’s sake, who?”

  “I don’t — Lieutenant Caquer, they said, all four of them, that it was Willem Deem!”

  With a nightmarish feeling of unreality Lieutenant Rod Caquer peered down over the shoulder of the Medico-in-Chief at the body that already lay on the stretcher of the utility men, who stood by impatiently.

  “You better hurry, Doc,” one of them said. “He won’t last much longer and it takes us five minutes to get there.”

  Dr. Skidder nodded impatiently without looking up, and went on with his examination. “Not a mark, Rod,” he said. “Not a sign of poison. Not a sign of anything. He’s just dead.”

  “The fall couldn’t have caused it?”

  “There isn’t even a bruise from the fall. Only verdict I can give is heart failure. Okay, boys, you ca
n take it away.”

  “You through too, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m through,” said Caquer. “Go ahead. Skidder, which of them was Willem Deem?”

  The medico’s eyes followed the white-sheeted burden of the utility men as they carried it toward the truck, and he shrugged helplessly.

  “Lieutenant, I guess that’s your pigeon,” he said. “All I can do is certify the cause of death.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense,” Caquer wailed. “Sector Three City isn’t so big that he could have had a double living here without people knowing about it. But one of them had to be a double. Off the record, which looked to you like the original?”

  Dr. Skidder shook his head grimly.

  “Willem Deem had a peculiarly shaped wart on his nose,” he said. “So did both of his corpses. Rod. And neither one was artificial, or make-up. I’ll stake my professional reputation on that. But come on back to the office with me, and I’ll tell you which one of them is the real Willem Deem.”

  “Huh? How?”

  “His thumbprint’s on file at the tax department, like everybody’s is. And it’s part of routine to fingerprint a corpse on Callisto, because it has to be destroyed so quickly.”

  “You have thumbprints of both corpses?” inquired Caquer.

  “Of course. Took them before you reached the scene, both times. I have the one for Willem — I mean the other corpse — -back in my office. Tell you what — you pick up the print on file at the tax office and meet me there.”

  Caquer sighed with relief as he agreed. At least one point would be cleared up — which corpse was which.

  And in that comparatively blissful state of mind he remained until half an hour later when he and Dr. Skidder compared the three prints — the one Rod Caquer had secured from the tax office, and one from each of the corpses.

  They were identical, all three of them.

  “Um,” said Caquer. “You’re sure you didn’t get mixed up on those prints, Dr. Skidder?”

  “How could I? I took only one copy from each body, Rod. If I had shuffled them just now while we were looking at them, the results would be the same. All three prints are alike.”

  “But they can’t be.”

  Skidder shrugged.

  “I think we should lay this before the Regent direct,” he said. “I’ll call him and arrange an audience. Okay?”

  Half an hour later, he was giving the whole story to Regent Barr Maxon, with Dr. Skidder corroborating the main points. The expression on Regent Maxon’s face made Lieutenant Rod Caquer glad, very glad, that he had that corroboration.

  “You agree,” Maxon asked, “that this should be taken up with the Sector Coordinator, and that a special investigator should be sent here to take over?”

  A bit reluctantly, Caquer nodded. “I hate to admit that I’m incompetent, Regent, or that I seem to be,” Caquer said. “But this isn’t an ordinary crime. Whatever goes on, it’s way over my head. And there may be something even more sinister than murder behind it.”

  “You’re right, Lieutenant. I’ll see that a qualified man leaves headquarters today and he’ll get in touch with you.”

  “Regent,” Caquer asked, “has any machine or process ever been invented that will — uh — -duplicate a human body, with or without the mind being carried over?”

  Maxon seemed puzzled by the question.

  “You think Deem might have been playing around with something that bit him? No, to my knowledge a discovery like that has never been approached. Nobody has ever duplicated, except by constructive imitation, even an inanimate object. You haven’t heard of such a thing, have you, Skidder?”

  “No,” said the Medical Examiner. “I don’t think even your friend Perry Peters could do that, Rod.”

  From Regent Maxon’s office, Caquer went to Deem’s shop. Brager was in charge there, and Brager helped him search the place thoroughly. It was a long and laborious task because each book and reel had to be examined minutely.

  The printers of illicit books, Caquer knew, were clever at disguising their product. Usually, forbidden books bore the cover and title page, often even opening chapters, of some popular work of fiction, and the projection reels were similarly disguised.

  Jupiter-lighted darkness was falling outside when they finished, but Rod Caquer knew they had done a thorough job. There wasn’t an indexed book anywhere in the shop, and every reel had been run off on the projector.

  Other men, at Rod Caquer’s orders, had been searching Deem’s apartment with equal thoroughness. He phoned there, and got a report, completely negative.

  “Not so much as a Venusian pamphlet,” said the man in charge of the apartment, with what Caquer thought was a touch of regret in his voice.

  “Did you come across a lathe, a small one for delicate work?” Rod asked.

  “Um-no, we didn’t see anything like that. One room’s turned into a workshop, but there’s no lathe in it. Is it important?”

  Caquer grunted noncommittally. What was one more mystery, and a minor one at that, to a case like this?

  “Well Lieutenant,” Brager said when the screen had gone blank, “What do we do now?”

  Caquer sighed.

  “You can go off duty, Brager,” he said. “But first arrange to leave men on guard here and at the apartment. I’ll stay until whoever you send comes to relieve me.”

  When Brager had left, Caquer sank wearily into the nearest chair. He felt terrible, physically, and his mind just did not seem to be working. He let his eyes run again around the orderly shelves of the shop and their orderliness oppressed him.

  If there was only a clue of some sort. Wilder Williams had never had a case like this in which the only leads were two identical corpses, one of which had been killed five different ways and the other did not have a mark or sign of violence. What a mess, and where did he go from here?

  Well, he still had the list of people he was going to interview, and there was time to see at least one of them this evening.

  Should he look up Perry Peters again, and see what, if anything, the lanky inventor could make of the disappearance of the lathe? Perhaps he might be able to suggest what had happened to it. But then again, what could a lathe have to do with a mess like this? One cannot turn out a duplicate corpse on a lathe.

  Or should he look up Professor Gordon? He decided to do just that.

  He called the Gordon apartment on the visiphone, and Jane appeared in the screen.

  “How’s your father, Jane?” asked Caquer. “Will he be able to talk to me for a while this evening?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the girl. “He’s feeling much better, and thinks he’ll go back to his classes tomorrow. But get here early if you’re coming. Rod, you look terrible; what’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing, except I feel goofy. But I’m all right, I guess.”

  “You have a gaunt, starved look. When did you eat last?”

  Caquer’s eyes widened. “Earth! I forgot all about eating. I slept late and didn’t even have breakfast!”

  Jane Gordon laughed.

  “You dope! Well, hurry around and I’ll have something ready for you when you get here.”

  “But —”

  “But nothing. How soon can you start?”

  A minute after he had clicked off the visiphone, Lieutenant Caquer went to answer a knock on the shuttered door of the shop.

  He opened it. “Oh, hullo, Reese,” he said. “Did Brager send you?”

  The policeman nodded.

  “He said I was to stay here in case. In case what?”

  “Routine guard duty that’s all,” explained Caquer. “Say, I’ve been stuck here all afternoon. Anything going on?”

  “A little excitement. We been pulling in soap-box orators off and on all day. Screwballs. There’s an epidemic of them.”

  “The devil you say! What are they hepped about?”

  “Sector Two, for some reason I can’t make out. They’re trying to invite people to get mad at Sector T
wo and do something about it. The arguments they use are plain nutty.”

  Something stirred uneasily in Rod Caquer’s memory — but he could not quite remember what it was. Sector Two? Who’d been telling him things about Sector Two recently — usury, unfairness, tainted blood, something silly. Although of course a lot of people over here did have Martian blood in them …

  “How many of the orators were arrested?” he asked.

  “We got seven. Two more slipped away from us, but we’ll pick them up if they start spouting again.”

  Lieutenant Caquer walked slowly, thoughtfully, to the Gordon apartment, trying his level best to remember where, recently, he had heard anti-Sector Two propaganda. There must be something back of the simultaneous appearance of nine soap-box radicals, all preaching the same doctrine.

  A sub-rosa political organization? But none such had existed for almost a century now. Under a perfectly democratic government, component part of a stable system-wide organization of planets, there was no need for such activity. Of course an occasional crackpot was dissatisfied, but a group in that state of mind struck him as fantastic.

  It sounded as crazy as the Willem Deem case. That did not make sense either. Things happened meaninglessly, as in a dream. Dream? What was he trying to remember about a dream? Hadn’t he had an odd sort of dream last night — what was it?

  But, as dreams usually do, it eluded his conscious mind.

  Anyway, tomorrow he would question — or help question — those radicals who were under arrest. Put men on the job of tracing them back, and undoubtedly a common background somewhere, a tie-up, would be found.

  It could not be accidental that they should all pop on the same day. It was screwy, just as screwy as the two inexplicable corpses of a book-and-reel shop proprietor. Maybe because the cases were both screwy, his mind tended to couple the two sets of events. But taken together, they were no more digestible than taken separately. They made even less sense.

  Confound it, why hadn’t he taken that post on Ganymede when it was offered to him? Ganymede was a nice orderly moon. Persons there did not get murdered twice on consecutive days. But Jane Gordon did not live on Ganymede; she lived right here in Sector Three and he was on his way to see her.