“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 post-operative 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.
“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. Its 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 bad 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,” said Naomi. “They apologised, 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 fiancee 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 wouldn’t say.”
“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?”
I called off the phone. I thought hard. Then I called the Mayor’s office.
“Mr.’ Hamilton.” I wasn’t Gil any more, 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 moms, 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 anaesthetic 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,” said the Mayor. 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?”
“We’re talking about the bathtub attack, remember. Chris saw the killer too close. That makes him tall. It took a resident to borrow the facilities in the mirror works and know how to use them. He also had to futz with the city computer. A lot of residents seem to be good at that” And the mayor, I thought suddenly, would have to be even better.
“So you know about the mirror. Can you tell me how Chris was able to see me? I wasn’t fool enough to leave the room lights on while I waited for him to stand up.”
“Huh. You weren’t?” I thought about it. “Oh. His lights were on. You were lighted by the mirror.”
He nodded. “That’s bothered me ever since. Was it me you suspected?”
“I’m flabbergasted. Hove, why?” And then I saw why, out of the corner of my eye, on Naomi’s phone screen.
Hove seemed almost disinterested. “Twice he came to the Moon to meddle with our internal affairs. First to impose the holding tanks on us, then to criticize the way we use them. Never mind. Can you think of any way in which the police can trace me? Without your help, of course.”
“The guard at the door?”
“He didn’t see me. He won’t see me leave.”
I couldn’t think of a thing.
Naomi said, “Mayor, do you see where my finger is now?”
It was on the Return key for the phone keyboard. I saw that much, and then I stepped between Naomi and the gun. Hove didn’t react fast enough to stop me. “You’ll have to shoot through me,” I said. “You’ll never make it”
Naomi said, “One tap of this key and these four faces appear on every phone screen in the city.”
“We can negotiate,” I said quickly, soothingly, I hoped. Hove’s eyes were going desperate. “You tried to kill Chris Penzler for political reasons? Fine, so say we all. You sliced his hand off six days later? Fine. Do you want to tell us how you managed that?”
He’d been about to fire. Perhaps he still was. “When did it happen?” he asked.
“Chris could have died any time in a five hour period. You can’t possibly have an alibi. You must have posed as a policeman. The computer would have issued you a police skintight suit and lost the records.”
“Yes. Certainly.”
“And Chris left a dying message that points toward you.”
I saw the intensity setting on the laser start to unwind, and saw Hove thumb it back to maximum. Hove said, “Did he. Did he really. That’s very interesting.”
“It points toward you,” I said, “but not directly. Chris was only three feet away when the laser sliced his hand off. He must have seen his killer’s face, and his chest symbol too.
Why didn’t he just write TREE, or MAYOR?
Somebody’s bound to wonder. Of course, if you just turn yourself in, the case is solved.”
Hove seemed lost in thought. Then, “Gil, do you understand what this affair could do to my city?”
“It’s bad now. It could get much worse, if things run their course.”
“Yes. God, yes.” He drew himself up, and looking down on us from a great height, he said, “Here are my terms. I want an hour to escape. Alter that you can tell the police all that we’ve discussed. Agreed? Your word of honor?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes,” said Boone.
Naomi hesitated for several nerve-shattering seconds. Her hand was starting to tremble where she held it poised above the Return key. She said, “Yes.”
“That on the screen goes back into storage.”
“Yes,” said Naomi.
“Open the door,” the Mayor said.
The laser was under his coat as he stepped into the hall. Naomi called the door closed. Then she said, “Well?”
I mopped away sweat with a napkin. “My word of honor is good.”
Boone, faintly smiling, was looking at his watch.
“And so say we all,” Naomi said. “The bastard! Where will he go?”
“Someplace where he can’t be questioned,” I said. “He’ll get a puffer and go till he’s out of air, then find a dust pool.”
“You think so?” She looked at the hologram portraits.
Four of them. Chris Penzler, and Mayor Hovestraydt Watson, and Alan Watson, and a very tall, elvishly beautiful young woman with long. light brown hair. I could guess who she was, from context Naomi said, “I wonder how she died.”
“You think he killed her? Maybe. It hardly matters now.”
“Right” Naomi typed rapidly. The screen cleared. We waited.