Falling Free

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "Good evening, Bill," Chalmys greeted his neighbor. "Here's that little problem I was telling you about. I think, for the moment, I shall leave the complications of international law out of this"—he gave Anias a nod—"and request you arrest this man for trespassing. That should be well within the scope of county jurisdiction. Oh, and you might check and see about this gun." He handed the needler to the Sheriff. "I rather think it was illegal for him to have it."

  Sheriff Yoder began to run through the formalities of arrest. Diaz, stung, stirred himself to the defense of attack.

  "This man invited me in," he began. "He threatened me—tried to kill me—it's all on that disc."

  "Now, now, Mr. Diaz," interposed Chalmys. "Don't start anything you can't finish. Remember what else is on that disc. I never put so much as a finger on you. You were armed with a deadly weapon, and I had no weapon at all. Besides, you spent over an hour on my property before you announced yourself. I own several hundred acres around the screened core, you know."

  "Captain DuBauer is very highly respected in the county," put in the sheriff with the innocent air of a tour guide pointing out the sights. "In case you were thinking about the problem of one man's word against another's."

  "There are advantages to being tried for a minor misdemeanor, considering the alternatives," added Chalmys.

  Diaz abruptly awoke to the fact that he wasn't being charged with attempted murder, at least not yet. He shut his mouth with a snap.

  "They have a good supply of mosquito antivenin at the county jail, too," Chalmys added thoughtfully as Diaz was led out. "I don't think you'll have any trouble with him, Bill."

  * * *

  "Chalmys!" Anias fairly crooned with admiration as they were left alone. "You genius! What did you do? Did you find out about my dream?"

  Chalmys blew out his breath and sat down. "What an ugly business. I think I'll have a shower before supper." He turned to his vone screen and began to tap in instructions. "As to what happened in the woods, I'd rather not discuss it. As to your dream, yes, I think I know where you can get it. It turns out that Mr. Big didn't try to engineer your assassination after all. No fatal flaw. It was all Kinsey's—Diaz's—idea. As a go-between, he was a washout. He managed to betray both ends of his commission at once, by trying to steal the money his employer meant for you."

  Access to the public records in the Rio de Janeiro library system appeared on Chalmys's vone screen. "Let's see what we can find out for ourselves, before we involve the police."

  "Who's Dr. Bianca?" Anias asked, watching the screen over his shoulder.

  "I'm casting him for the role of Mr. Big. Depending on what else about him fits. Hm. Degrees in chemistry and psychology. An interesting combination."

  "He's married," noted Anias.

  "Yes, let's find out about her. Social register, I should think."

  "Look." Anias pointed. "She was married before. One child. Nothing about mental problems."

  "That would be in medical records, which we can't tap. Not legally, anyway. Now, what about money?" He keyed rapidly. "Aha! Jackpot!"

  The records revealed that Dr. Bianca's wife owned some sixty percent of the famous company that employed him. A little further searching showed why; she was the granddaughter of the deceased founder.

  "Married the boss's daughter, did he? Now there's a motivation for murder," Anias commented. "That fortune is a proper monster."

  "And a motivation for taking the greatest care that there should be no questions aroused about her death, its greatest benefactor being the first suspect. But why murder? It seems to me he's got it all already." Chalmys stared into the screen as though it were a crystal ball, but it revealed no more.

  "You realize," he said after a moment, "that pegging him for a killer depended on thinking he ordered the attack on you. We now know he did not. We may be way off base."

  Anias considered the problem from this new angle. "My reason agrees," she admitted, "but . . ."

  "The famous 'but,' " murmured Chalmys.

  "But I'd be a lot happier if I had my dream back," she finished. "And I don't want to hear any cracks about woman's intuition, either."

  "My dear, I regard your intuition as a force of nature, like the tides. King Canute I'm not. Whatever your other failings—"

  "Thanks loads."

  "—you know your own business, at least as far as I can judge."

  "Do you suppose we can burgle it back?" Anias asked.

  Chalmys looked offended at this suggestion. "Control yourself, Sherlock. It's not necessary. Whether we are right or wrong in our speculations, I see no harm in your demanding the return of your own work. However, we have no basis for any accusation against Dr. Bianca. Even if the worst you think is true, he's actually done nothing illegal."

  "Even if he's used it on his wife?"

  "It would be damnably hard to prove in court. Now, if I know you, you are more interested in preventing the crime than punishing it."

  "Certainly."

  "Good. I believe it will be quite possible for you to, um, vaccinate the good doctor against his temptations without ever bringing up the delicate problem of proof. You are, in your way, extraordinarily acute about people when you can be induced to pay attention to them at all. You'll have to do the dialogue by ear, when you get there—"

  "When I get where? You think I should just walk up to this guy and say, 'Hi, I don't want you to murder your wife. Give me my feelie-dream back.' Chalmys, he's probably got tanks of sharks and alligators in the cellar just for people like me."

  Chalmys grinned. "You'd give them indigestion. But I offer this guess. Looking at his education and position, I suspect this may be his first foray into violent crime. It's so personal. If you can give him to understand he's been discovered, without actually stampeding him into panic, I'll bet you can scare him worse than he can scare you. But, allowing that frightened men often do stupid things, we'll arrange some pretext for you to have a police escort when you see him. It will improve the effect anyway. Just don't get sued for slander."

  Anias looked less than thrilled at the project before her, but she thought about her evil dream, and said, "All right. I hope you're right. Let's get going. The sooner this is over, the better."

  * * *

  Anias caught the first shuttle bound for Rio the following morning. She was beginning to feel the shuttle was her second home. Chalmys excused himself from accompanying her, and she restrained herself from urging him out of his habitat, knowing something of the twists of his experience that made him such a recluse. Besides, she felt he had done enough. It was time she took a hand in cleaning up her own mess.

  By prearrangement, Lt. Mendez met her and provided her with transportation to her destination. He had been quite pleased to hear of Diaz under lock and key in Ohio, though perhaps disappointed that his own week of painstaking scut work had contributed so little to the result. Now that the principal suspect had been captured, it was his task to assemble the evidence against Diaz, by independent and more clearly legal means, into a form that could be taken to court, presuming that Anias still wanted to press charges when he was released for return to Rio. On the whole she thought she would, as the thought of him running around loose made her nervous.

  That left them facing the problem of Dr. Bianca. Anias had the idea that perhaps he could be arrested immediately and the dream impounded as evidence. Lt. Mendez was personally intrigued by her theory of the use intended for her feelie-dream, although he did not have a dreamer implant himself, so his feel for its probability had to be imaginative rather than intuitive. Officially he was more cautious.

  "Intent," he said, "is a slippery thing to prove when the crime has not yet been committed. Now, a rich murderer is no better than a poor one in my book, but a rich one can afford better lawyers. Unless he chooses to oblige you by a spontaneous confession, a good lawyer would make mincemeat of your charge, and probably slap you with a countersuit for defamation of character as well. It's the old pro
blem of new technologies creating new crimes. It's clearly against the law to try to kill someone by sticking a knife into them, but to my knowledge there's no law against trying to kill them by sticking a dream into them. Yet. Nasty idea—believe me, I'm going to take it up in the department. What one person has thought of, another can, too."

  "So how can I make him give the dream back, if he doesn't want to?" asked Anias. "It's his property now, I guess, since I accepted payment."

  "Yes, it is." Mendez thought it over. "I have to question him about Diaz anyway, and although Diaz himself clears him of complicity, there is that interesting angle of the laundered cash. So all in all I would have no objection to helping you make the doctor . . . let us say, uncomfortable? But I can't go beyond that, yet."

  "Hope it'll be enough. I guess the rest is up to my powers of persuasion."

  * * *

  Dr. Bianca had not been easy to reach to make an appointment. Anias had had to penetrate several layers of secretaries and assistants. But when he'd heard her name, he became most pliable to her suggestion that she call on him at his office at home. She gave him no hint of her intentions; let him stew a bit.

  The doctor's home was in the most beautiful, and wealthiest, residential section of the city. The old homes with their lovely gardens that lined its streets had gone through a period of decline, but in the last generation had undergone restoration in one of the periodic swings of fashion for the past. Anias thought Chalmys might feel at home there.

  The door was opened by a real human servant. He led them up a wide staircase; on the landing they met a woman passing down.

  She was in her late thirties, thin and tense. Anias considered herself to be a sophisticated dresser, but this woman's clothes were of an elegance, fit, and style that made Anias suddenly feel that her own wardrobe had been chosen in a basement in the dark. Her arrogant, scornful dark eyes raked over Anias and her plainclothes companion, not quite able to place them in her world. As she turned her head, piled high with shining dark hair, Anias's eye caught the silver flash of a dreamer connection behind her jeweled left ear. Anias deliberately caught the flashing glance as it passed over her, returning a courteous nod and a smile. She paused, hoping to manufacture a moment of further observation.

  "What's this, Juan?" The woman addressed the servant as though Anias and the officer were not there.

  "An appointment to see the doctor, ma'am," the servant replied apologetically.

  "Is this another part of his development scheme?" She faced Anias, nostrils flaring with ill-concealed anger. "You may tell my so-called husband from me that I shall not support him in the boardroom. That Daccuto scam was the limit. We didn't handle products like that in my father's day; we shall not handle them in mine."

  "I think we are at cross-purposes—Mrs. Bianca? My business has nothing to do with your company," replied Anias, prolonging the moment,

  "Oh," she said tonelessly, losing interest. "How unusual. Juan, do remind the doctor that we must leave for the Hendersons' dinner in an hour." She passed on, leaving a wake of delicate perfume. Anias pursed her lips thoughtfully, watching her straight retreating back, then turned to follow the servant to the executive's office.

  Dr. Bianca rose when she entered, and shook her hand with archaic courtesy. He was a man of about forty, hair only slightly graying, tanned and fit. He betrayed no special sign of nervousness, but his eyes flicked to her companion, whom she had not mentioned when making the appointment.

  "How do you do, Miss Ruey." It seemed to Anias that he studied her face with as much interest as she studied his. "To what do I owe the privilege of your call?"

  He was going to be cool and give nothing away. "I met your wife in the hall," Anias began the attack obliquely. "She's a very elegant woman. Quite a businesswoman, too, I hear."

  Dr. Bianca smiled tightly. "So she fancies. Actually, her talents are more on the social side. The competitiveness of today's market is rather a strain for her understanding. A company is hundreds of people, not just one. But you are an artist, don't let me bore you with shop talk. Ah—" He nodded to the lieutenant, by way of asking for an introduction.

  "Allow me to introduce Lt. Mendez, of the city homicide bureau. He's with me." She paused for the shaft to sink. "I've had a little problem with an employee of yours," she went on. "Carlos Diaz."

  "Ah. Not exactly an employee," Dr. Bianca distanced himself rapidly. "He's a bit of a down-and-outer. I wanted to help him get back on his feet a bit. I don't believe in direct charity, but a little commission in the right place can often do a world of good."

  "Yes, well, Mr. Diaz evidently believes that charity is for those who help themselves," Anias said dryly. "He tried to help himself to my little commission by murdering me."

  "Good God!" His shock, as nearly as Anias could tell, was quite genuine. "I had no idea!" He righted himself abruptly, like a weighted punching doll. "Ah . . . what commission was that?"

  Anias met his eyes and held them steadily, smiling falsely. "The feelie-dream for your wife. Her birthday, was it?"

  Dr. Bianca glanced uneasily at the lieutenant, who waited phlegmatically, face as bland and devoid of cues as a pudding. Anias saw his denial coming, and moved to head it off at the pass. She took Diaz's check from her bag and laid it on the polished surface of the real wood desk with a suppressed twinge of regret.

  "I'm returning the money you paid me. It's been endorsed, and you can redeem it at any branch of the State bank. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for the dream back. There was an error in its execution."

  She waited breathlessly as he hung on the edge. If he denied all knowledge of the dream in front of the lieutenant, it might kill all chances of making him fork it over. Off balance, not knowing what Diaz might have said, he made the wrong move.

  "I checked the dream myself," he said. "You are perhaps being oversensitive to some little artistic problem. I assure you, I found it flawless." He pushed the check back toward her. Gotcha, she thought. She did not move.

  "On the contrary, the flaw was quite fundamental." Anias glanced deliberately at Mendez, who, well coached, seemed to be finding something of great interest through the window onto the back garden.

  Dr. Bianca was becoming as bothered as a toymaker whose tools had come suddenly alive by a witch's spell. Thus it was that his first tacit acknowledgment of the real issue slipped out. "Why should it matter to you, if your customer is satisfied? I was quite pleased with your work, so much so that I would be willing to double your fee."

  Anias smiled and shook her head at this subtly worded bribe, quite certain now of her command of the offensive. "If I were a machine, and produced things like a machine, I might not care. But my livelihood is images, words, ideas; things that have no existence except in a mind. They are taken internally, so to speak, like a drug. That's why I must take such care that my stock not be poisonously contaminated, like a spoiled medicine —an analogy I'm sure you can appreciate." Anias drove that barb in with great satisfaction. She wondered how a man could seem to squirm while sitting so very still.

  "That's not what I've heard about feelie-dreams," Dr. Bianca struck back acidly.

  Anias thought guiltily about some of her own past work but decided, in view of the stakes, that a little hypocrisy might be excusable. "Different composers may have different standards," she murmured to the ceiling, "according to their stature."

  "You know, artists who acquire a reputation for not completing their commissions can lose their livelihoods, when word gets around." He glowered, feeling desperately for a threat he might safely make in front of a homicide detective. "I could scarcely recommend you to my friends, or their friends. One might even sue for breach of contract."

  Lt. Mendez sat up in his chair and regarded the doctor alertly, smiling slightly. Bianca cast him an unloving look from the corner of his eye.

  "That could get quite interesting," allowed Anias. "The dream, of course, would have to be presented in court as evidence. The judge wou
ld have to view it, maybe some expert witnesses, too. It would be examined quite closely. And then the publicity—I rather like publicity, myself. It gets your name before the public, and people remember it, should they see it again, in another context, say. They make connections."

  He regarded her dourly, as a man might a blot that had spoiled an almost finished illuminated manuscript. Anias was in that moment reminded of the sharks and alligators, sure that he was wishing he had some ready to hand. She was doubly glad for the presence of Lt. Mendez, waiting patiently to conduct his official business.

  Slowly, reluctantly, the perfect murderer released his hold on the hopes for his carefully contrived shortcut to peace, freedom, and power. "As you wish," he surrendered. "I'll get it for you." He busied himself with the palm-lock of a safe concealed behind a genuine oil painting on the wall of his office. Anias shot a quick look of triumph to Mendez, who acknowledged it with a smile and the tiniest of nods, then went bland again as Bianca produced the master cartridge and laid it on the desk beside the check.

  Anias dug her old dream player from her bag. "Naturally, I would wish to examine the product," she quoted reminiscently. She spot-checked it rapidly. It was indeed the original, complete. She put it in her bag and rose.

  "Dr. Bianca, I thank you for your time and cooperation." She searched her mind for a way of putting a last nail in the coffin of his plans. "Do give my regards to your wife. An impressive lady. Now that I've met her, both inside and out, so to speak, I shall follow the society news more closely for word of her. It will give it a lot more personal interest."

  Anias decided that if she stayed longer she might overdo it. She felt she was definitely pushing the limit now. "Allow me to leave you gentlemen to the real business. I'm rather behind on my, um, unworldly fantasies."