by David Brin
He remembered the image vividly. The last thing he saw before he collapsed was Bubbacub’s face. The small black, eyes stared at him below the brow of the psi helmet. Alone of those aboard, the Pil watched impassively as Jacob lurched forward and fell to the deck senseless, a few feet away.
The thought made Jacob grow cold. He started to write it down but then stopped. This was too big. He jotted a short note in pidgin dolphin-trinary and threw it on pile IV.
“I’m sorry,” he looked up at the chief engineer. “Were you saying something?”
The engineer shook his head.
“Oh, it was none of my business anyway. I shouldn’t have butted my nose in. I was just curious what you were doing here.”
The man paused for a moment.
“You’re trying to save the project, aren’t you?” he finally asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Then you must be the only one of the hotshots who is,” he said bitterly. “I’m sorry I growled at you earlier. I’ll stay out of your way so you can work.” He started to move away.
Jacob thought for a moment. “Would you like to help?” he asked.
The man turned. “What do you need?”
Jacob smiled. “Well, for starters I could use a broom and a dustpan.”
“Coming right up!” The chief mechanic hurried away.
Jacob drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. Then he gathered the scattered sheets and stuffed them back into his pocket.
18. FOCUS
“The director said no one was supposed to go in there, you know.”
Jacob looked up from his work. “Gosh, chief,” he grinned savagely, “I didn’t know that! I’m just trying to pick this lock for my health!”
The other man shifted nervously where he stood, and mumbled about never having expected to be involved in a burglary.
Jacob rocked back. The room swayed and he touched the plastic leg of the table next to him for balance. In the dim light of the photo lab it was hard to see straight, especially after twenty minutes of close work with tiny tools.
“I’ve told you before, Donaldson,” he said slowly. “We have no choice. What have we that we can show anyone? A patch of dust and a cockeyed theory? Use your head. We’re caught TwoTwo as it is. They won’t let us near the evidence because we haven’t the evidence to prove we need it!”
Jacob rubbed at the muscles at the back of his neck. “No, we’re going to have to do this ourselves . . . that is, if you want to hang around . . .”
The chief mechanic grunted. “You know I’ll stay.” His tone was hurt.
“Okay, okay.” Jacob nodded. “Apologies. Now will you please hand me that small tool over there? No, the one with the hook on the end. That’s right.
“Now why don’t you go over to the outer door and keep a lookout? Give me some time to clean up if someone comes. And watch out for that trip-fall!”
Donaldson moved away a small distance, but he stayed to watch as Jacob went back to work. He rested against the cool side of one of the doorjambs and wiped perspiration from his cheeks and eyebrows.
Demwa seemed rational and reasonable, but the wild path his imagination had taken in the last few hours left Donaldson dizzy.
The worst part was that it all hung together so well. It was exciting, this hunt for clues. And what he’d found out before meeting Demwa here supported the man’s story. But it was also frightening. There was always the chance that the guy really was crazy, in spite of the consistency of his arguments.
Donaldson sighed. He turned away from the tiny sounds of scraping metal and the nodding of Jacob’s bushy head, and walked slowly toward the outer door of the photo lab.
It didn’t really matter. Something was rotten under Mercury. If someone didn’t act soon there wouldn’t be any more Sunships.
A simple tumbler lock for a ridged and slotted key. Nothing could be easier. In fact, Jacob could not have helped noticing that Mercury had few modern locks. Electronics required shielding on a planet where the magnetosheath grazed across the bare unprotected surface. It wasn’t very expensive to shield but still someone must have thought such an expenditure ridiculous for locks. Who would want to break into the Inner Photo Lab anyway? And who would know how?
Jacob knew how. But that didn’t appear to be helping. Somehow it didn’t feel right. The tools weren’t speaking to him. He felt no continuity from his hands to the metal.
At this rate it could take all night.
Let me do it.
Jacob gritted his teeth and slowly pulled the ‘rake out of the lock. He laid it down.
Stop personifying, he thought. You’re nothing but a set of asocial habits I’ve put under hypnotic lock for a while. If you keep acting like a separate personality you’ll get us . . . me into a full-blown schizophrenic state!
Now look who’s personifying.
Jacob smiled.
I shouldn’t be here. I should have stayed home for the full three years and finished my mental house-cleaning in peace and quiet. The behavior patterns I wanted . . . needed to keep submerged are now needed wide awake, by my job.
Then why not use them?
When this mental arrangement was set up it wasn’t supposed to be rigid. That sort of suppression would really lead to trouble! The amoral, cold-blooded, savant qualities leaked out in a steady stream, though usually under complete control. It had been intended that they be available in an emergency.
The suppression and personification by which he’d reacted to that stream lately may have caused some of his problem. His sinister half was to sleep as he worked off the trauma of Tania . . . not be severed off at the wrist.
Then let me do it.
Jacob picked another rake and rolled it in his fingers. The light slip of tool steel felt smooth, cool.
Shut up. You’re not a person, just a talent unfortunately linked to a neurosis . . . like a well-trained singing voice that can only be used while standing naked on a stage.
Fine. Use the talent. The door could be open by now!
Jacob carefully laid his tools down and shuffled forward until his forehead rested against the door. Should I? What if I did flip out on the Sunship? My theory could be wrong. And then there’s that blue flash back at Baja. Can I risk opening up if something’s gone loose inside?
Weak from indecision, he felt the trance begin to fall. With an effort he stopped it, but then, with a mental shrug, allowed it to proceed. At the count of seven a barrier of fear blocked him. It was a familiar barrier. It felt like the edge of a precipice. He consciously brushed it aside and continued down.
At twelve he commanded: This Shall Be Temporary. He felt assent.
The backcount was done in an instant. He opened his eyes. A tingle wandered down the length of his arms and entered his fingers, suspiciously, like a dog returning, sniffing, to an old home.
So far so good, Jacob thought. I feel no less ethical. No less “me.” My hands don’t feel as if they’re controlled by an alien force . . . only more alive.
The lockpicking tools weren’t cool when he picked them up. They felt warm, like extensions of his hands. The rake slid sensuously into the lock and caressed the tumblers as the torque bar pulled. One after another tiny click telegraphed along the metal. Then the door was open.
“You did it!” Donaldson’s surprise hurt a little. “Of course,” was all he said. It was reassuringly easy to squelch the insulting reply that popped into his mind. So far so good. The genie seemed benign. Jacob swung the door wide and entered.
Filing cabinets lined the left wall of the narrow room. Along the other wall a low table supported a row of photoanalysis machines. At the far end an open door led to the unlit and seldom used chemical darkroom.
Jacob began at one end of the row of filing cabinets, bending to look at labels. Donaldson worked along the bench. It wasn’t long before the chief mechanic said, J’l found them!” He pointed to an open box, next to a viewing machine halfway down the table.
; Each spool was held in a padded niche, its sides inscribed with the date and times covered and a code for the instrument that made the recording. At least a dozen niches were empty.
Jacob held several cassettes to the light. Then he turned to Donaldson.
“Someone’s been here first and pilfered every cassette we wanted.”
“Stolen?. . . But how!”
Jacob shrugged. “Maybe the way we did it, by breaking and entry. Or maybe they had a key. All we know is that the final spool for each recording device is missing.”
They stood for a moment in dark silence.
“Then we haven’t got any proof at all,” Donaldson said.
“Not unless we can track down the missing spools.”
“You mean we should bust into Bubbacub’s rooms too? . . . I don’t know. If you ask me, those data are burned by now. Why would he keep them around?
“No, I suggest we sneak out of here and let Dr. Kepler or Dr. deSilva discover the fact that they’re missing by themselves. It’s not much but they may see it as slight evidence to support our story.”
Jacob hesitated. Then he nodded.
“Let me see your hands,” Jacob said.
Donaldson presented his palms up. The thin coating of flex-plastic was intact. They were probably safe from chemical and fingerprint tracing, then. ‘ “Okay,” he said. “Let’s put everything back in its place, as exactly as you can remember it. Don’t disturb anything you haven’t already touched. Then we’ll leave.”
Donaldson turned to comply but then there was a crash as something fell in the Outer Photo Lab. The sound carried, muffled through the door.
The trap Jacob had set by the hall door had gone off. Someone was in the outer lab. Their escape route was blocked!
The two men hurried back into the dim doorway of the darkroom. They made it around the corner of the light-trap maze just as the sound of a metal key scratching at the lock carried across the narrow room.
Jacob heard the door sigh open slowly, over the subjective roar of his own rapid breathing. He patted the pockets of his overalls. Half of his burglar tools were out there, on top of one of the filing cabinets.
Fortunately his dentist’s mirror wasn’t. It was still in his breast-pocket case.
The intruder’s footsteps clicked softly in the room a few feet away. Jacob carefully weighed the hazards against the potential benefits and then slowly eased the mirror out. He knelt and poked the round, shiny working end into the threshold, a few inches above the floor.
Dr. Martine stooped in front of a filing cabinet, sorting through a ring of metal keys. Once, she shot a furtive glance toward the outer door. She looked agitated, though it was hard to tell from the image in the tiny mirror, jiggling on the floor two meters from her feet.
Jacob felt Chief Donaldson leaning over, above and behind him, trying to peek past the doorway. Irritated, he tried to wave the man back, but Donaldson overbalanced instead. His left hand shot out for support and landed on Jacob’s back.
“Oof!” The air expelled from Jacob’s lungs as the chief engineer’s weight fell on him. His teeth jarred as he took the full force through his stiffened left arm. Somehow he kept them both from collapsing into the doorway, but the mirror fell out of his hand and onto the floor with a tiny clink.
Donaldson slid backward into the dimness, breath-tag heavily—pathetically trying to be quiet. Jacob smiled wryly. Anyone who hadn’t heard that debacle had to be deaf.
“Who . . . who’s there?”
Jacob stood and brushed himself off deliberately. He cast a brief, disdainful glance at Chief Donaldson, who sat glumly and avoided Jacob’s eyes.
Quick footsteps receded in the outer room. Jacob stepped out into the doorway.
“Wait a minute, Millie.”
Dr. Martine froze midstep at the door. Her shoulders hunched as she turned slowly, her face a mask of fear until she recognized Jacob. Then her dark, patrician features washed deep red.
“What the hell are you doing here!”
“Watching you, Millie. An enjoyable pastime usually, but now especially interesting.”
“You were spying on me!” she gasped.
Jacob walked forward, hoping Donaldson would have enough sense to stay hidden. “Not just you, dear. On everybody. Something is fishy on Mercury, all right. Everyone’s whistling a different tuna, and they’re all red herrings! I have a feeling you know more than you’re telling.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Martine said coldly. “But that’s not surprising. You’re not rational and you need help . . .” She started to back away.
“Perhaps,” Jacob nodded seriously. “But maybe you will need help explaining your presence here today.”
Martine stiffened. “I got my key from Dwayne Kepler. What about you?”
“Did you get the key with his knowledge?”
Martine blushed and didn’t answer.
“There are several data spools missing from the collection taken last dive . . . all covering the period when Bubbacub did his trick with the Lethani relic. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”
Martine stared at Jacob.
“You’re kidding! But who . . . ? No . . .” she shook her head slowly, confused.
“Did you take them?”
“No!”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? What business have you. questioning . . .”
“I could call Helene deSilva right now,” Jacob rumbled ominously. “I could have just arrived to find this door open with you inside and the key with your prints on it in your pouch. She’d search and find the spools missing and there you’d be. You’ve been covering for someone and I have some independent evidence who. If you don’t come out with all you know right now, I swear you’re going to take the fall, with or without your friend. You know as well as I that the crew at this base is just itching for someone to burn.”
Martine wavered. Her hand went to her head.
“I don’t. . . I don’t know. . .”
Jacob maneuvered her into a chair. Then he closed and locked the door.
Hey, take it easy, a part of him said. He closed his eyes for a moment and counted to ten. Slowly, a brutal itch in Jacob’s hands ebbed.
Martine held her face in her hands. Jacob caught a glimpse of Donaldson, peeking around the darkroom door. He jerked his hand and the chief engineer’s head darted out of sight.
Jacob pulled open the filing cabinet the woman had been examining.
Aha. Here it is.
He picked up the steno-camera and carried it back to the bench, plugged the readout jack into one of the viewers and turned both machines on.
Most of the material was quite uninteresting, LaRoque’s notes on events between the landing on Mercury and the morning that he took the camera to the Sunship Cavern, just before the fateful tour of Jeffrey’s ship. Jacob ignored the audio portion. LaRoque tended to be even more wordy in leaving notes to himself than he was in his published prose. But suddenly the character of the visual portion changed, just after a panorama shot of the exterior of the Sunship.
For a moment he was puzzled as the pictures moved past. Then he laughed out loud.
Millie Martine was so surprised by this that she raised her red eyes from her misery. Jacob nodded to her genially.
“Did you know what you were fetching down here?”
“Yes,” her voice was husky. She nodded slowly. “I wanted to get Peter’s camera back to him so he could write up his story. I thought that after the Solarians had been so cruel to him . . . using him so . . .”
“He’s still in confinement, isn’t he?”
“Yes. They figured it’s safest that way. The Solarians manipulated him once before, you see. They could do it again.”
“And whose idea was it to return his camera?”
“His, of course. He wanted the recordings and I didn’t think it would hurt . . .”
“To let him g
et his hands on a weapon?”
“No! The stunner would be put out of comm . . . commission. Bubb . . .” Her eyes widened and her voice trailed off.
“Go ahead and say it. I already know.”
Martine lowered her gaze.
“Bubbacub said he’d meet me at Peter’s quarters and put the stunner out of commission, as a favor and to prove he had no hard feelings.”
Jacob sighed. “That tears it,” he muttered.
“What. . . ?”
“Let me see your hands.” He motioned peremptorily when she hesitated. The long slender fingers trembled as he examined them.
“What is it?”
Jacob ignored her. He paced slowly up and back down the narrow room.
The symmetry of the trap appealed to him. If it carried through there wouldn’t be a human left on Mercury with an unsullied reputation. He couldn’t have done better himself. The only question now was, when was it supposed to be sprung?
He turned and looked back at the darkroom entrance. Again, Donaldson’s head flicked back out of sight.
“It’s all right. Chief. Come on out. You’re going to have to help Dr. Martine clean this place of her fingerprints.”
Martine gasped as the portly chief engineer emerged, smiling sheepishly.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Instead of answering, Jacob picked up the voice-phone by the inner door and dialed.
“Hello, Fagin? Yes. I’m ready for a ‘parlor scene’ now. Oh yeah . . . ? Well, don’t be so sure yet. It will depend on how lucky I can get in the next few minutes.
“Would you please invite the core group down to LaRoque’s detention quarters for a meeting in five minutes? Yes, right away, and please insist. Don’t bother with Dr. Martine, she’s right here.”
Martine looked up from wiping the handle of a filing cabinet, amazed by the tone of Jacob Demwa’s voice.
“That’s right,” Jacob went on. “And please invite Bubbacub first and Kepler as well. Get them moving the way we both know you can. I’ll have to run as it is. Yeah, thanks.”
“So now what?” Donaldson said on their way out the door.
