Flatlander

by Larry Niven

  “This isn’t a courtroom.”

  “I know. Keep thinking about the mirror. I’m not a lunie; I’m handicapped.”

  I returned to my room after the afternoon session.

  Outside my window the dreadful alien light of lunar noon was somewhat softened by filter elements in the window. It was still too bright. I tried commands on the window until I got it dimmed a bit.

  By now I could have picked out the tilted rock while blind drunk. A hundred ninety yards away … Chris had seen a human figure three to four hundred meters away, past the tilted rock. I looked out at the tilted rock and tried to recall the darkness of a week ago, when Chris Penzler had glimpsed … what?

  An image in a mirror?

  The distances were close enough. One hundred ninety meters to a mirror on the tilted rock, another hundred ninety back. Chris had said three to four hundred meters. More reason to think he’d seen a lunie. A lunie taller than the Belters Penzler was used to would seem closer.

  He’d gone out to look at the tilted rock. Had he found what he was after before someone had found him? Probably not; he’d left us only a puzzle written in frozen blood.

  Alan Watson and I hadn’t found much, either …

  My phone was calling me.

  It was Boone. “The court has ordered the lady revived,” he told me. “She’s already out. She’ll be returned to Hovestraydt City around noon tomorrow. I was told she would need to recuperate overnight in the Copernicus hospital.”

  Why? But she was out; that was what counted. “Is she awake now?”

  “Yes, I’ve talked to her.”

  “Okay, I’ll—”

  “Please don’t call her, Hamilton. She sounded tired. She wouldn’t give me visual.”

  “Um. Okay. What’s the situation with apartments?”

  Boone looked cautiously triumphant. “There’s some inconsistency in the records. Mrs. Mitchison was given a room on the second floor because the computer registered all ground floor rooms as occupied. I got a printout of the occupants as of that date. The computer does not list room oh-forty-seven as empty or occupied.”

  “Have you tried to look in oh-forty-seven?”

  “Not yet. I’ll need a court order.”

  “No, you won’t. Have Naomi ask for that room. If anyone flinches, it may tell us something.”

  He smirked an un-Lincolnesque smirk. “I like it.”

  “Okay, Now tell somebody about this, will you? Get the judge in charge of reviewing Naomi’s conviction and tell him about that disappearing room. Or tell anyone at all.”

  “Surely you’re being overdramatic?”

  “You know too much to be safe. We’re dealing with someone who can control the lock on your apartment. Look, do it just to make me happy.”

  “All right, Mr. Hamilton.” Smiling, he called off.

  I went back to the window.

  A mirror would reflect a laser beam for only an instant. No mirror is perfectly reflective, of course. In the first instant of a laser burst the face of a mirror would already be vaporizing, going concave, defocusing the beam … and it had defocused in midburn!

  But where had the mirror gone?

  The case was loaded with traditional elements. Locked room, inverted, with the failed murderer locked out on the moon. Cryptic dying message. Now I was looking for mirror tricks. What next? Disappearing daggers of memory plastic, broken clocks giving spurious alibis—

  The moonscape blazed at me through the window. I rubbed my fingers together, remembering …

  Alan was on top of the tilted rock, finding nothing. I’d scraped at the shadowed back of the rock with my gloves. White stuff had come off. I’d watched it disappear from my fingertips.

  Frost, of course. Water ice. But on the surface of the moon? It had startled me then. Now, suddenly, it made sense.

  And now, suddenly, I had half the puzzle solved.

  12. THE TRADITIONAL ELEMENTS

  “Phone call, Mr. Hamilton. Phone call, Mr.—”

  “Oh, futz.”

  “—milton. Phone call—”

  “Chiron, answer phone.” I disengaged the strap across my chest and sat up.

  “Hello, Gil.” The screen was blank, but the voice was Naomi’s. She sounded tired. There was none of the jubilation you’d expect of someone raised from death.

  “Hello. You going to give me vision?”

  “No.”

  Something like postoperative depression, maybe. “Where are you calling from?”

  “Here. Hovestraydt City. They say I’m still under arrest.”

  Had she arrived early? But my clock said noon. I’d been a long time falling asleep.

  “Have you talked to Boone yet? We still have an attempted murder to deal with. We’d like to pin both murders on someone.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are you under drugs?”

  “No, but nothing seems to matter much. Who got me out of the freezer?”

  “Mostly Alan Watson,” I said for sweet charity’s sake.

  “Um.”

  “Naomi, we know where you were when someone shot Chris Penzler in his bath. Boone and I discussed it over the chili at lunch yesterday.”

  “Over the … oh.” She thought it out. Clearly I knew and didn’t trust the phone system. “All right. Now what?”

  “You’re still a suspect. We’d like to produce an actual killer. But he wasn’t outside after his first try at Penzler. We have to explain why, or else we have to show where you were at that time. Boone says that’s not as bad as it sounds. You should talk to him.”

  “All right.”

  “We’d like to see you in your apartment.”

  “Gil, I’d rather not see anyone.” Bitterly, “I was just getting used to the idea of being dead.”

  “So you’re not dead. Now what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t tell her why we had to see the apartment. Not by phone. In her present state, would she take orders? “Call Boone,” I said. “Tell him I’ll meet him in your apartment. It’s oh-forty-seven, isn’t it? Tell him to get the police to let us in. Then order us breakfast. Plenty of coffee.”

  There were several seconds of dead air. Then, for the first time, I heard emotion in her voice. “All right, Gil,” she purred, and was gone.

  Bitter satisfaction, that was what it sounded like. But why?

  The lunie cop guarding room 047 was a stranger. I had to nerve myself to turn my back on him. Paranoia …

  Naomi ushered me in.

  Boone was already there, seated at the breakfast table. I didn’t understand why he watched me so intently. I was concentrating on what I had to say, not on what I was seeing.

  But it seemed to me that my eyes blurred when I looked at Naomi. She seemed distorted somehow.

  She had recovered some of her self-possession, I thought. But she seemed clumsy, and she moved with care. I’d thought she was used to lunar gravity. She said, “Surprise.”

  And then I saw.

  “When you’re in the holding tanks, they’re not supposed to touch you except in emergencies,” she said. “Did you know that?”

  I had trouble getting my breath. “I knew it. We’ve been discussing it in the conference. What do lunies consider an emergency?”

  “Aye, there’s the rub,” Naomi said. “They apologized of course. They did the best they could. Seems a Brazilian planetologist waded into a dust pool near Copernicus. It’s a wonder she got out at all with her legs frozen solid. She managed to fall and rip her suit, too. Vacuum ruptured both eardrums and one lung and an eye, and the fall broke two ribs. Guess who happened to have the right rejection spectrum to help her out?”

  Her legs weren’t bad, but they didn’t look quite right. Her face didn’t look quite right, either. And something about her body … maybe the way she carried herself …

  “She’s famous, I gather, this Mary de Santa Rita Lisboa. All hell would break loose if she couldn’t get adequate medical treatment at
Copernicus. Terrible publicity. For God’s sake, tell me how I look!”

  “Just about the same,” I said. It was true. She seemed just faintly distorted. Surgery on her inner ears, twice, had changed the outline of her face. Her eyes weren’t quite the same color; how could I have missed that? Her torso seemed twisted. She’d cure that when she learned to walk again. After all, her legs were changed, too. They were too thin … not lunie legs, thank God; she’d have looked like a stork. They’d probably come off a Belter.

  Somehow the doctors had found parts that matched, almost. That didn’t alter the fact that they had raided a holding tank!

  “I’ll want you to testify before the committee,” I told her. “I’m going to raise hell.”

  “Good,” she said venomously.

  “Boone, did you explain the legal situation?”

  Boone nodded. Naomi said, “I wish I’d known all of this before the trial. I don’t much like the thought of going through two more trials, you know. One to get me clear of this attempted murder charge, one to nail me for having a clone made.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  I was fighting the abstract horror of knowing that lunie hospitals had been raiding the holding tanks and a purely personal horror that it could happen to Naomi. Naomi was changed. She wasn’t unsightly, just… changed. Patchwork girl! This was not the woman whose untouchable beauty had sent me fleeing to the asteroid belt long ago.

  “Reversing the judgment against you may be more difficult than you think,” Boone said. “No judge enjoys ruling that another judge was wrong. We—”

  Which reminded me. “Boone? I’ve found the disappearing mirror.”

  “What? How?”

  “Water. You pour a big, flat pan full of water. You freeze it. You take it outside, into vacuum and shadow. Out on the moon it’ll stay at a hundred degrees below zero or less as long as you keep it in shadow. Now you use the mirror-making facilities to polish it optically flat and silver it. Would it work?”

  Boone gaped. It made him look a lot less like Abe Lincoln. He said, “Yes, it’d work. My God, that’s why he was in such a hurry! He wanted to kill Penzler just before the sun touched the mirror!”

  I smiled. The eureka sensation. “But Chris wouldn’t cooperate. He liked playing with the water.”

  “When the sun touched the mirror, it would just disappear!”

  “Almost,” I said. “When it evaporated, some of the water vapor wound up on the back of the tilted rock, in shadow. I found frost there. It’ll be gone by now, but we’ve got other evidence. Harry McCavity says the beam either spread or constricted during the burn. The ice was vaporizing. That’s what really saved Chris’s life.”

  I turned to Naomi, who was looking bewildered. “What all of this means is that the murder attempt happened here in this room. Boone, have you had a chance—”

  He shook his head. “Nothing odd here at all. These rooms are kept clean by automatics. I expect we won’t find anything. Gil, the problem is that any citizen of Hovestraydt City could use some corner of the mirror works without being noticed. We even let Boy Scout troops run projects there.”

  “I know. Too many suspects.”

  “There ought to be some way to narrow it down.”

  “How am I fixed for lawsuits?”

  “Nonsense. You’re an ARM trying to solve a murder. I’m a lawyer in conference with my client.”

  “I’d like to know more about Chris’s love life,” I said. “Naomi—”

  “He made a pass at me. Rather crude,” she said.

  “Would he want to sleep with a lunie woman?”

  “That I don’t know. Some men like variety. Itch did.”

  So did I. Futz. So try the phone—

  Laura was busy. I got her by belt phone, voice only. “Gil? I couldn’t make it last night. I’m short of sleep now. It was the Penzler case.”

  “No sweat. I was playing detective. I’m playing detective now. Do you know anything about Chris Penzler’s taste in women? Even by hearsay?”

  “Mmm. Hearsay, maybe. Do you remember the prosecution attorney from Naomi Mitchison’s trial?”

  The elf woman. Face of cold perfection. “I remember.”

  “Caroline’s fiancé got drunk with some friends and was going to go looking for Penzler. They had to talk him out of it. That’s all I know. It might have nothing to do with Caroline at all. He never said.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing I can think of.”

  “Thanks. When can I call you back?”

  “I’m off duty at noon, with luck. But I need sleep, Gil.”

  “Sometime this evening?”

  “Good.”

  I called off the phone. I thought hard. Then I called the mayor’s office.

  “Mr. Hamilton.” I wasn’t Gil anymore, not since yesterday’s power play. “You’ll find that Naomi Mitchison is out of the holding tank and has been returned here.”

  “I’m with her now. She’s got a few parts missing; did you know that? Missing and replaced.”

  “I was told,” Hove said. “I won’t take responsibility for that. I can guess what your attitude will be. Is that why you called?”

  “No. Right now I’m more concerned with keeping her out of the holding tank. Hove, you’re a politician; you have to deal with all kinds of people. Do you happen to know if Chris Penzler was attracted to lunie women?”

  He stiffened a little. “I presume he wouldn’t show it. An offworld diplomat wouldn’t jeopardize his position in such a fashion.”

  Was Hove that naive? “We know damn well he offended somebody, Hove, and we’ve got good reason to think it was a citizen of Hovestraydt City. You were here twenty years ago, weren’t you? And so was Penzler. Did you hear any rumors then? Were there complaints that had to be settled quietly? Or … yeah. Did he make regular trips to the Belt Trading Post, that stopped suddenly?”

  “I know the place you mean,” Hove said reluctantly. “Aphrodite’s. They don’t keep records. I can look up records of puffer rentals from twenty years ago if it’s important to you.”

  “Good. It is.”

  “Gil, why do you think a local man killed Chris?”

  “Nobody else could have made the … Mayor, it’s too easy to plug into the phone system.”

  “I’ll get you your data,” Hove said, and called off.

  Boone and Naomi were both looking at me. I said, “If Chris had an affair with a lunie woman, she might be annoyed when he went off with someone else. Lunie customs are funny.”

  “Flatlander customs are funny,” Boone corrected me, “but you may be right. Who?”

  “Oh, it’s just a possible situation.” I got up to pace. I was going to hate it if it was Laura. “Here’s another. I know a couple of newstapers who might commit a practical joke for kicks and news value. The Belter arrived early; she came to meet our ship. Maybe she had time to make the mirror and place it. She could pass for a lunie. Her torso painting is a naked lady.”

  “Didn’t they actually save Penzler’s life?”

  “It’d still be a very rough practical joke. Chris might have brought his own enemies from the Belt. Either of the two could know enough programming to steal a message laser.”

  Boone was nodding. “They’re living like a married couple. They must have known each other for some time.”

  I grinned at him. “They’re not lunies, Boone. I just don’t know. There are two other Belters on the committee. They could have had something against him …”

  Naomi had a thoughtful, puzzled look. I assumed she was confused, not following our line of thought. I hardly noticed when she went to the phone.

  “This case does have its traditional elements,” I said. “What time is it in Los Angeles?”

  “I have no idea,” Boone said.

  “I should call Luke Garner. He’s got a tape library of old mysteries. He’d love this. Dying messages, locked rooms, tricks with mirrors.”


  “We don’t have to produce a killer, you know. That’s for the police. Now that we know how the mirror trick was worked, we can clear Mrs. Mitchison.”

  “Boone, I get edgy when I’ve solved two-thirds of a puzzle. That’s the time when you can get killed.”

  Naomi tapped at the keys. Hologram head-and-shoulder portraits appeared in a quartered screen. I stepped behind her for a better look. A woman I’d never seen before … and Chris Penzler … and Mayor Watson …

  The door announcer said, “Mayor Watson speaking. I’d like to talk to Mr. Hamilton if he’s still there. May I come in?”

  “Chiron, door open,” Naomi said without looking up. Then, “No-”

  I looked around as Hove came in. He came in fast. “Close the door,” he told Naomi. He was carrying a police message laser.

  I went for my gun. ARMs carry a tiny two-shot hand weapon at all times. It fires a cloud of anesthetic needles. I’d turned it in on arrival, of course. If that first reflexive move hadn’t slowed me, maybe I could have done something.

  Boone, half reclining in a web chair, hadn’t had a chance to move at all. Now he raised his hands. So did I.

  Naomi said, “I should have thought. I just … futz!”

  The mayor told her, “Close the door or I’ll kill you.”

  Naomi called the door closed.

  “Good enough,” Hove said, and he slumped a little. “I’m not sure what to do next. Perhaps you can help me with my problem. If I kill all of you, what are my chances of getting away with it?”

  Boone smiled slowly. “Speaking as your lawyer …”

  “Please,” the mayor said. The little glass lens in the end of the gun wavered about, pointing at us all. He could chop us all up before we could do more than twitch. How had he slipped it past the cop? “If you don’t speak, I’ll kill you. If I catch you in a lie, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

  Boone said, “Consider the political repercussions of three more murders. You’ll destroy Hovestraydt City.”

  I saw it in Hove’s face: that shot drew blood. But he said, “You’re in a position to convict the mayor of murdering a Belt politician. How would that affect the city? I can’t allow it. Gil, why did the killer have to be a resident?”