by Larry Niven
"Will the navy try anyway?" I asked.
"There's no question involved." The officer checked something off-screen for a second. "We'll have three ships boosting in the next two hours."
I gave my thanks and rang off.
After that, I went over Dr. Weiss's file again. The Provos had him tagged as Isolationist leaning—that was nothing, most Wunderlanders were. Everything else told me he was Miranda's killer. When the Goldskins had printed him for ID they'd gotten two files back. His retinas said he was Joachim Weiss, his fingertips said he was a bio-engineer named Cas Wentsel. Wentsel was on the Inferno's customer list for the night Miranda was killed and his movements for that night took him past the accessway to container bay J2. Weiss arrived on Tiamat just one day after Miranda, on the next available flight from Wunderland. He fit the physical description from the Inferno, such as it was. He was qualified to perform Class 3 surgery. I pulled up his library list. It was hopelessly technical but I gleaned all I needed to know from the titles—fifty-year-obsolete manuals about tissue preservation and rejection control. They amounted to a primer for organleggers.
Tamara was avenged. Miranda was avenged. I tagged her case file closed.
I didn't feel the usual satisfaction I get when I close a case. Miranda and Tammy were still gone, Weiss's death wouldn't bring them back. His cohorts had escaped. The elation I'd felt when we'd shut down J2 was overshadowed by helpless frustration. On a hunch I pulled up his client files. Miranda Holtzman had been his patient since she was six. That was how he knew she was a universal donor, that was why she'd left the bounce-box with him. I felt ill.
It was late. In the morning I'd open a new case file on the flight of the Voidtrekker. I switched off the system and went home.
When I got back, Suze had gone out. I didn't blame her, but I did miss her. The events of the night and Johansen's death had left me totally drained. I fell into an exhausted slumber. Sometime later I felt her slip into bed and snuggle against me, warm and soft. She gently kissed the back of my neck and I went back to sleep, feeling better.
* * *
The next morning Hunter was waiting for me.
"You are late. We have had developments."
"Why didn't you call me?"
He twitched his ears genially. "Your recreation had already been disturbed once."
I avoided the subject. "What happened?"
"There was an explosion in the down-axis docking hub."
"Serious?"
"Yes. The initiating explosive appears to have been thermite but the main blast and fire were caused by a volatile aerosol inside a tranship container. Damage was extensive."
I envisioned the havoc that a two-thousand-cubic-meter sealed vapor bomb would wreak and marvelled at the kzin's capacity for understatement. We were lucky the whole down-axis hub hadn't been blown into space.
"What action have you taken?"
"The area has been sealed and the crime scene team is going over it."
"Findings?"
"A human corpse has been found that appears to have been inside the transport container. The container itself was modified to support life."
"Support life? What do you mean?"
"We have found the remains of an oxygen recycler, food supplies and other items that indicate the container was designed to carry sentients in vacuum for extended periods."
I swore. The Isolationists had been moving people back and forth to Wunderland with perfect impunity, right under our noses. Finagle only knew how many. We'd missed a trick. Reception parties would be waiting for the thirty-six containers on Jocelyn Merral's list when they arrived at their destinations but I hadn't thought about intercepting them in transit. It hadn't even occurred to me that some might still be within my grasp on Tiamat.
"What about the guards and the security monitors. How come they didn't pick this up in progress?"
"The Port was running its normal night shift. The monitors didn't pick up anything out of the ordinary."
"So the perpetrator must have had access."
"Hrrrrr... Either that or a tampered ident."
"Granted. So once again we have someone operating in the down-axis hub. Someone who didn't flee on the Voidtrekker."
He raised a massive paw. "It would be foolish to assume that only one Isolationist cell was operating on Tiamat. I would presume we have flushed only those with a direct connection to 19J2."
"What other information do we have?"
"Little enough. Damage was extensive. We can assume that they were willing to kill this individual rather than risk his capture."
"Have they ID'd the body?"
"The coroner's report has not yet been released."
If I never spoke to Dr. Morrow again it would be too soon. I was tired of sifting through the details of dead lives. I screened his office and asked him what the delay was. He was having trouble determining if the body had been dead before the explosion or not. I told him to make the ID priority one. He asked me to wait and I watched his pleasant pastel hold patterns. Hunter grew impatient and left to pursue his own work. Fifteen minutes later Morrow was back on with the results.
I thanked him and screened the file. K8DH3N37—Klein, Maximillian H. Graphic designer, unmarried, thirty-four standard years old, fifth generation Swarm Belter. No previous arrests. He'd lived his whole life on Tiamat and worked for Canexco, a large shipping company. A bell rang in the back of my head. Miranda Holtzman's fatal cargo container had been shipped down to Wunderland aboard the Canexco Wayfarer. Perhaps there was a connection? I called up Max's employee file. He worked in corporate communications—nothing to do with the handling of tranship boxes but his company ident did include access to both hubs.
But what was a graphic designer doing in the container bays of the down-axis hub, with or without access? Was he involved or just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? On a hunch I screened the composite holo created from Machine Technician's description. It was a rough match, not good but not bad considering the sketchiness of the source. Was he the one who'd sold Miranda's skin? Insufficient data. What was a graphic designer anyway? Presumably some sort of visual artist.
It occurred to me that I'd never seen a file listing "Artist" or "Musician" or "Gardener" as a profession on Tiamat. This airless rock was made fit for life with advanced technology and maintained by technologists. It exists solely to provide Alpha Centauri system with products of the very highest sophistication—products whose manufacture demands zero gravity or unlimited high vacuum or Gigawatts of solar power. There's little room for someone not directly involved in survival—physical, economic or, since the kzinti came, military.
Of course the best engineers saw their work as art, even as the best artists refined their skills to a science. Maybe in this totally technical atmosphere, it wasn't surprising that people saw things through a technological lens. Idly, I punched up the work roster for the parks on the 1G level. Maybe I'd find at least a gardener.
The roster was full of eco-engineers and environmental control technicians.
I blanked the screen. It was a meaningless exercise. A rose was a rose, whether it was tended by gardeners or botanical techs. I had a feeling the difference was important, but it was too subtle to put my finger on. What's in a name? Maybe nothing. What does it mean when a society insists on calling an artist a graphic designer?
My mind was wandering. It was early morning and already I needed a break. I gave up trying to work and let my thoughts drift to Suze. She was beautiful, intelligent, sensuous, exciting, graceful, uninhibited, warm. Adjectives did her poor service. If I'd been able to find the words, I might have written a poem. Instead I called up her file again. When the computer screened it, I blew up the ID holo and dumped it to the printer.
Dossier holos never do anyone justice but her radiance came through the bad image. She was wearing her characteristic high-energy smile. Her hair was longer when the holo was taken, a burnished auburn river flowing down over her shoulders. Her eye
s were a dancing, sunny brown—lending just a hint of devilishness to her look.
I froze, cold horror seeping along my spine. Unnoticed facts clicked into place and my thoughts locked into a paralyzed frenzy of revelation and denial. I sat and stared for a long time. Then I commed her apt.
"Hi, what's up?"
I could hardly meet her gaze. I strove to keep my voice animated. "Care for brunch?"
"Sure, when where?"
"Meet me at the office and we'll figure it out. Fifteen minutes?"
"Give me thirty and you've got a deal."
"See you then." She smiled her dazzling smile.
I rang off and waited as the minutes dragged by. I had the shakes under control by the time she arrived; even so I still couldn't bring myself to meet her gaze. Instead I tossed her the holoprint. She took it and stared at it uncomprehending for a moment. Then her face hardened. She dropped the holo and looked up. This time I forced myself to look her in the eyes. They were ice blue. Miranda Holtzman's eyes were ice blue.
Her voice was as cold as her gaze. "Now what?"
"You tell me."
"Name a price, you'll get it. I'll just walk away."
"In counterfeit?"
"In cash. Or credits if you like. You name it, you'll get it."
I didn't answer her directly. Instead I asked a question. "Why?"
She turned my words around. "You tell me."
"You're an Isolationist."
She nodded.
"You're a mining engineer. I'd guess that makes you their explosives expert. Something went off in your face. They can't put you in hospital so you wind up with scars, and of course they have to get you a new set of eyes somewhere or you're out of action."
"Wrong." The bitterness in her voice ran deep. "I got my scars from the UN mining consortium just like I told you. They hand out defective equipment and when there's an accident, it's just too bad. All they care about is the damn production goals for the damn war. I was one of the lucky ones. Luckier than my parents." I could see the rage cross her face at the memory. "That's why I'm an Isolationist."
"And your eyes?"
"I caught a laser bounce in a Provo raid."
"So you become the first beneficiary of the Isolationist transplant program."
"Not the first."
Of course not. "How did you expect to get past a retina scan?"
She laughed. "I think you'll find my file matches my prints. Someone forgot to update the holo—they'll pay for that."
"And that night in the Inferno?"
"I started going there as soon as I could see again. I knew you'd come after Weiss's stupidity. You or someone like you."
A vague unease tugged at the edges of my awareness. She was volunteering information too easily, too calmly. I forced it down. "Weiss messed up?"
"He couldn't get all of Miranda in the freezer. The dolt dumped her body in the transport tunnel instead of getting rid of it properly."
"And the hub last night, that's where you went from my apt."
She tipped an imaginary hat in reply, as if accepting a compliment. She was a professional. She took pride in her work.
"There was some evidence. It's not important now."
"And Klein?"
"Just a go-between. He got in the way."
I had one more question. "Why Miranda?"
"We needed a universal donor, and I've always wanted blue eyes." She smiled, briefly.
"Now what?"
Her voice was as hard and cold as steel. "How much do you want?"
My heart sank and I shook my head. "I can't let you go."
Suddenly there was a gun in her hand, a jetpistol. Designed for zero-G combat, it had virtually no recoil. It fired miniature rockets designed to mushroom on impact. They would turn a living body into hamburger. It was almost totally silent, small enough to conceal easily and had no power source or metal to trigger security alarms. She had chosen her weapon well.
"I don't think you have a choice." She smiled. She was right. The choice was hers and she'd already made it. Even so, I had to ask. "What about us?"
She laughed, a short, explosive sound. "I liked you, Joel. It was fun, but now it's time for me to leave." She raised the jetpistol. Her expression held regret and finality. I wouldn't beg, but my expression must have spoken for me. Perhaps she thought I was afraid of dying.
I glanced at the stunner hanging on my patrol pack—two impossible meters away.
She caught me looking and a smile played around the edges of her lips. I knew the expression. She was daring me to try.
I held her gaze but I didn't take the bait. "You can't kill everyone who knows you're here."
Her smile was as wide and predatory as any kzin's. "Watch me." The weapon's bore looked as big as a cannon's. Her finger tightened around the trigger.
There was a piercing scream and the wall behind her exploded around two hundred and fifty kilos of kzin. She fired reflexively but I was already on my way to the floor. Even so, she would have got me if Hunter's attack hadn't ruined her aim. The rocket slug went past my ear with a nasty zzzwip, leaving an acrid trail of burned propellant. Another slug slammed into my computer, spraying shards of plastic and glass over my head. A second later it was followed by Suze and the kzin in a tangle of limbs. They hit the wall and bounced to the floor. The jetpistol sailed into a corner. She lay on the floor beneath him, returning his fanged snarl in kind. I had to admire her courage.
I picked myself off the floor and shook off the ruins of my computer. The room was filling with startled clerks and cops from the outer office. As they disentangled Hunter and Suze, I retrieved the jetpistol and examined the thumbnail-sized hole it had left in the wall. On the other side was a crater the size of a serving platter. The outer office was showered in fragments of pulverized sprayfoam. Shattered remnants of my desk covered my office. I shuddered. It could have been the shattered remnants of me.
Hunter dusted himself off, scream-snarled and bounded out to work out the fight juices. Someone hauled Suze off to the tender mercies of the UN Intel interrogation section. When they were through raping her mind, she'd have nothing left to tell. I'd have rather seen her face Hunter claw to claw.
When everyone was gone, I sat down at my desk. By reflex I pounded the switch, not registering its destruction. After that, I just sat; eventually I went home.
* * *
Suze was in interrogation three days. Her trial should have been in the Swarm but the UN moved it to Wunderland so she could be made an example of. By the time the Goldskins were done with her the extradition paperwork was finished. I didn't see her off. Instead, I asked a favor of Jocelyn Merral and watched from the hangar bay control deck as the guards escorted her to the ship that would take her to Wunderland and the ProvGov's version of justice. She caught sight of me as they led her onto the ramp and stopped, looking up. The guards yanked her along, and she was gone.
I kept watching out the window. I knew I wouldn't see her again. I just didn't want anyone to see my face.
* * *
That evening I sat at the bar in the Ratskellar, drinking beer and brooding. Earlier I'd sat in my room, drinking vodka and playing with the safety on a jetpistol that should have been sealed in an evidence bag on its way to Wunderland. I didn't decide life was worth living, I just couldn't live with myself if I took the coward's way out.
Of course, if I did I wouldn't have to. Alcohol doesn't make for logical decision-making. It was enough that I'd left the weapon behind.
The rockjack beside me suddenly left. His stool was taken by a huge orange hulk. Hunter-of-Outlaws ordered a liter of vodka and milk before speaking. "Humans have odd ways of celebrating victory."
I grunted. "Is it a victory I'm celebrating?"
"Hrrr. We have found the outlaw we sought and more besides. Several major criminal enterprises have been brought down and gutted. We have performed our duties well and with honor and our belts are heavy with trophies. It is a triumph worthy of our names."
I didn't answer directly; I asked a question. "How did you know to come through the wall like that?"
"How could I not know? My office echoes to your voice all day. I cannot close my ears tight enough to keep it out. For years I've been trying to get a privacy field." He growled deeply.
So much for soundproof sprayfoam.
"I owe you my life, you know."
He waved a paw dismissively. "You will repay that blood-debt when the situation arises. Now tell me why you choke on the meat of victory?"
"She offered me as much money as I cared to ask for. Of course, I couldn't take it."
"You are true to your honour."
"You don't understand. I loved her."
"I sympathize with your situation. Your species' reproductive arrangements are overcomplex. Such strong attachment to females can only lead to continuing tragedy."
"No, love is a continuing glory. She loved me too, she just loved... freedom... more. I would have gone with her in a second if she'd let me."
Hunter was staring at me, openly amazed. "You would have sacrificed your honour for the affections of this outlaw female?"
"It would have been a small price."
His ears flicked and his tail twitched as he tried to make sense of that. He gave it up and quaffed his drink resignedly. "Truly, I will never understand humans."
I had to laugh. I clapped him on the back and gestured for another round. "Neither will I, my friend, neither will I."
Fly-By-Night
Larry Niven
The windows in Odysseus had been skylights. The doors had become hatches. I ran down the corridor looking at numbers. Seven days we'd been waiting for aliens to appear in the ship's lobby, and nothing!
