We found the guard snoring outside Naomi’s door. Hove had fired a cloud of soluble anaesthetic crystals into him, from an ARM issue handgun. It was mine. I’d turned it in on arrival; Hove must have persuaded the computer to release it.
Hove ... well, we waited it out, more or less grimly. He had checked out a puffer and gone. We searched the projected moonscape while we could; he probably hid until Watchbird II set. Jefferson’s police searched old mines and known cave systems. Nothing. He certainly hadn’t reached the Belt Trading Post, the Belters were looking for him too. Jefferson sent men to search the launch head of the Grimalde mass driver...
Their mistake, I think, was in assuming Hove was desperate to live. Hove’s problem was to hide a puffer and a corpse: his own. My own theory is that he blew them both to bits by exploding the puffer’s fuel and oxygen.
Alan Watson cane in late that night, looking used up. He came back to life when he saw Naomi. They talked seriously for awhile, and then she went off under his long arm. I didn’t see them again until next morning.
By then I had talked to Harry McCavity again.
Alan and Naomi were eating a huge breakfast together on the dining level. I managed to be at the buffet when Alan went for more coffee.
“I have to see you in private,” I said.
Coffee sloshed. I startled him, I think. He asked, “Isn’t it over yet?”
“Mostly it’s about you and your father.”
A momentary wariness showed in his face. Then, “All right.”
I ate breakfast while I waited. Presently Naomi left and Alan came to join me. “She told me about yesterday,” he said. “He could have killed you all. I wish none of it had happened.”
“So do I. Alan, you’re leaving the Moon.”
His mouth opened. He stared. “What?”
“Come on, you’re not that surprised. I made some promises to Mayor Hove, but I made them at gunpoint. Be off the Moon within a week. Don’t ever come back. Or I’ll break those promises.”
He studied my eyes. No, he wasn’t that surprised. “You’ll have to spell it out for me.”
“I’m not enjoying this,” I said. “I’ll try to keep it short. Chris Penzler was close enough to get a good look at the man who killed him. We know it was a lunie. Even if Penzler didn’t know his name, he could have tried to describe the chest emblem. Instead, he left a reference to the attempt to kill him in his bathtub a week earlier. Why would he protect the man who murdered him?”
“Well?”
“You’re his son. Naomi finally saw it, and I should have.
You’re Hove Watson’s height, and I took that for genes, but it isn’t. You were raised in lunar gravity. Otherwise you look a lot like Chris Penzler and somewhat like your mother and not at all like Hove Watson.”
Alan was looking down into his coffee. He was quite pale.
“This is all pure speculation, isn’t it?”
“It’s the kind of speculation that could finish Hovestraydt City, I think. You’re supposed to be the Mayor’s son, the heir apparent. It’s bad enough if Hove killed Penzler for political reasons-”
“I know. You could be right”
“Anyway, I did a little more speculating. Then last night I got Harry McCavity out of bed and made him check a certain pressure suit helmet for traces of dried blood.”
Alan looked up. I might have stepped out of a nightmare, the way he looked at me. I said, “What did he do, offer to legitimize you?”
“Offer?” Alan laughed out loud, an ugly sound, then looked quickly around him. Faces had turned. Alan lowered his voice. “He insisted! He was going to name me as his heir and bastard!”
“Did you kill him to get Naomi off the hook?”
“No, no. I wouldn’t have hurt him at all if I’d had time to think I could have explained it to him, couldn’t I? He just didn’t know what he’d be doing to me.
“He said he was my father. He said he was going to announce it He wouldn’t listen. And I was holding the laser. I lost my head. It was all over in a thousandth of a second. I sliced his hand off, and he pointed at me and sprayed blood in my face. Blinded me. When I wiped it off the glass he was gone. I looked for him, to get his suit sealed and get him to a hospital. When I found him he was dead.”
“Uh huh.”
Alan was very pale. He wasn’t seeing me at all. He said, “His wrist was still bubbling.”
I said, “You could blame Chris for letting his gonads lead him around. You could blame Hove for frying to kill him. It didn’t work, but that’s what started Chris thinking about his children. Sure you’re bound to blame yourself, but, Alan, it wasn’t all your fault”
“All right. Now what?”
“If the truth came out, Hell wouldn’t hold the political repercussions, and you’d be broken up for parts. I don’t want that. But I won’t have you in a position of political power, and there’s no way you can stay on the Moon without becoming Mayor. Get off the Moon within a week or I’ll start talking.”
“I suppose you left a letter somewhere, in case something happens to you?”
“Get stuffed.”
He stared. “But you’re giving me a week to kill you!”
I got up. “You’re not the type. And I meant it I meant it all,” I said, and left.
The rules the Committee laid down during the following week included provision for periodic review of lunar legal practice. None of the delegates were especially happy with the new laws. The lunies liked it least; but how could they object, after Naomi’s testimony? They compromised.
We were wrapping up the Conference the day Alan Watson left for Ceres. I’d have preferred to see him go, but it didn’t matter. Given who he was, he got a police escort. He was definitely gone.
Laura told me about it that evening. “Naomi Mitchison went with him,” she said.
“Good.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Sure. I like to keep thing tidy.”
Naomi had asked for her Belt citizenship a few days ago, and Hildegarde Quilting was glad to ram it through for her.
Naomi would be an embarrassment on Earth or on the Moon. Moving her to the Belt let everyone breathe easier.
Including Naomi. Old friends on Earth could remember her as she used to be. She needn’t stand trial for illegal cloning. Her little girl would be waiting for her.
She might even be in love with Alan Watson. Futz, I even like the idea. Let it stand.