THE PATCHWORK GIRL

1. City of Mirrors

We fell east-to-west, dipping toward the Moon in the usu\xADal shallow, graceful arc. Our pilot had turned off the cabin lights to give us a view. The sun set as we fell. I peered past Tom Reinecke and let my eyes adjust.

It was black below. There wasn\x92t even Earthlight; the \x93new\x94 Earth was a slender sliver in the eastern sky. The black shadows of mountains emerged from the western horizon and came toward us.

Reinecke had fallen silent.

That was a new development. Tom Reinecke had been trying to interview me even before we left Outback Field, Australia. Thus: What was it like, out there among the flying mountains? Had I really killed an organlegger by using psychic powers? As a man of many cultures-Kansas farm boy, seven years mining the asteroids, five years in the United Nations Police-didn\x92t I consider myself the ideal delegate to a Conference to Review Lunar Law? How did I feel about what liberals called \x93the organ bank problem\x94? Would I demonstrate my imaginary arm, please? Et cetera.

I\x92d admitted to being a liberal, and denied being the solar system\x92s foremost expert on lunar law, inasmuch as I\x92d nev\xADer been on the Moon. Beyond that, I\x92d managed to get him talking about himself. He\x92d never stopped.

The flatlander reporter was a small, rounded man in his early twenties, brown-haired and smooth-shaven. Born in Australia, schooled in England, he\x92d never been in space.

He\x92d gone from journalism school straight into a job with the BBC. He\x92d told me about himself at length. This young and he was on his way to the Moon! To witness delibera\xADtions that could affect all of future history! He seemed eager and innocent. I wondered how many older, more experi\xADenced newstapers had turned down his assignment.

Now, suddenly, he was quiet. More: he was leaving fin\xADgerprints in the hard plastic chair arms.

The black shadows of the D\x92Alembert Mountains were coming right at us: broken teeth in a godling\x92s jaw, ready to chew us up.

We passed low over the mountains, almost between the peaks, and continued to fall. Now the land was chewed by new and old meteorite craters. Light ahead of us became a long line of lighted windows, the west face of Hovestraydt City. Slowing, we passed north of the city and curved around. The city was a square border of light, and peculiar reflections flashed from within the border: mostly greens, some reds, yellows, browns.

The ship hovered and settled east of the city at the edge of Grimalde\x92s rim wall. No dust sprayed around us as we touched down. Too many ships had landed here over the last century. The dust was all gone.

Tom Reinecke let go of his chair arms and resumed breathing. He forced a smile. \x93Thrill a minute.\x94

\x93Hey, you weren\x92t worried were you? You can\x92t even imagine the real problems with making this kind of landing.\x94

\x93What? What do you mean? I\x97\x94

I laughed. \x93Relax, I was kidding. People have been land\xADing on the Moon for a hundred and fifty years, and they\x92ve only had two accidents.\x94

We fought politely for room to struggle into our pressure suits.

If Garner had given me a little more warning I would have had a skintight pressure suit made at the taxpayers\x92 expense. But skintight suits have to be carefully fitted, and that takes time. Luke Garner had given me just ten days to get ready. I\x92d spent the time on research. I was half certain that Gamer had picked someone else for the job, and that he or she had died or gotten sick or pregnant.

Be that as it may: I had bought an inflated suit on the expense account. The other passengers, reporters and Con\xADference delegates, were also getting into inflated suits.

Half dozen people, lunies and Belters, waited to greet us when we climbed down from the airlock I could see fairly well into the bubble helmets. Taffy wasn\x92t among them. I recognised people I\x92d seen only on phone screens. And a familiar voice: cheerful, cordial, mildly accented.

\x93Welcome to Hovestraydt City,\x94 said the voice of Mayor Hove Watson. \x93You\x92ve arrived near dinner time by the city clocks. I hope to show you around a bit before you begin your work tomorrow.\x94 I had no trouble picking him out of the crowd: a lunie over eight feet tall, with thinning blond hair and a cordial smile showing through his helmet, and a flowering ash tree on his chest. \x93You\x92ve already been as\xADsigned rooms, and-before I forget-the city computer\x92s command name is Chiron. It will be keyed to your voice. Shall we postpone introductions until we can get into shirtsleeves?\x94 He turned to lead the way.

So Taffy hadn\x92t made it I wondered if she\x92d left a message\x85and how long it would be before I reached a phone.

We trooped toward the lights a few hundred yards away.

No moondust softened our footfalls. My first look at the Moon, and I wasn\x92t seeing much. Black night around us and a glare of light from the city. But the sky was the sky I re\xADmembered, the Belter\x92s sky, stars by the hundred thousand, so hard and bright you could reach up and feel their heat. I lagged behind to get the full effect. It was like home\xADcoming.

We were Belters and flatlanders and lunies, and there was no problem telling us apart.

All the flatlanders, including me, were wearing inflated suits in bright primary colors. They hampered movement, made us clumsy. Even I was having trouble.

I\x92d talked to the other United Nations delegates just before the flight. Jabez Stone was a cross between tall black Watusi and long-jawed white New Englander. He\x92d been a prose\xADcution lawyer before he went into politics. He represented the General Assembly. Octavia Budrys of the Security Coun\xADcil had very white skin and very black hair. She was over\xADweight, but with the muscle tension to carry it well. You sensed their awareness of their own power. On Earth they had walked like rulers. Here\x97

Their dignity suffered. Budrys bounced like a big rubber ball. Stone fought the lower gravity with a kind of shuffle. They veered from side to side and into each other. I heard their panting in my earphones.

The Belters found their stride easily. Through the bubble helmets you saw Belter crests on both men and women: hair running in a strip from forehead to nape of neck, the scalp shaved on both sides. They wore silvered cloaks against the cold of lunar night. Under the cloaks were skin-tights: membranous elastic cloth that would pass sweat and that fitted like a coat of paint.

Paintings glowed across their chests and bellies. A Belter\x92s pressure suit is his real home, and he will spend a fortune on a good torso painting. The brawny redheaded woman wearing the gold of the Belt police had to be Marion Shaeffer. Her torso showed an eagle-clawed dragon stooping on a tiger. A broad-shouldered black-haired man, Chris Penzler, wore a copy of a Bonnie Dalzell griffon, the one in the New York Metropolitan: mostly gold and bronze, with a cloudy Earth clutched in one claw.

I had abandoned a Belter suit when I returned to Earth. The chest painting showed a great brass-bound door open\xADing on a lush world with two suns. I missed it.

The lunies wore skintights, but they would never be taken for Belters. They stood seven and eight feet tall. Their suits were in bright monochrome colors, to stand out against a bright and confusing lunar background. Their chest paint\xADings were smaller, and generally not as good, and tended to feature one dominant color, as Mayor Watson\x92s ash tree painting was mostly green. The lunies hardly walked; they flew in shallow arcs, effortlessly, and it was beautiful to watch.

One hundred and fifty-seven years after the first landing on the Earth\x92s Moon, you could almost believe that mankind was dividing into different species. We were three branches of humanity, trooping toward the lights.

Most of Hovestraydt City was underground. That square of light was only the top of it. Three sides of the square were living quarters; I had seen light spilling through windows. But the whole east face of the city was given over to the mirror works.

We passed telescope mirrors in the polishing stage, with mobile screens to shield them. Silicate ore stood in im\xADpressively tall conical heaps. Spindly lunies in skintights and silver cloaks stopped work to watch us pass. They didn\x92t smile.

Under a roof that had rock and moondust piled high atop it for meteor protection, a wide stretch of the east face was open to vacuum. Here were big, fragile paraboloids, and lightweight telescope assemblies for Belter ships; widgetry for polishing and silvering mirrors, and more widgetry for measuring their curvature; garage space for wide-wheeled motorcycles, and bubble-topped busses, and special trucks to carry lenses and radar reflectors. There were more lunies at work. I\x92d expected to see amusement at the way we walked; but they weren\x92t amused. Was that resentment I saw within the bubble helmets?

I could guess what was bothering them. The Conference.

Tom Reinecke veered away to peer through a glass wall. I followed him. Lunie workmen were looking this way: I was afraid he\x92d get in trouble.

He was looking down through thick glass. Beyond and below, an assembly line was birthing acre-sized sheets of silvered fabric, rolling the fabric into tubes with the silvering on the inside, sealing the ends, and folding it into relatively tiny packets.

\x93City of Mirrors,\x94 Tom said reflectively.

\x93You know it,\x94 said a woman\x92s voice. Belt accent, specifi\xADcally Confinement Asteroid. I found her at my shoulder. Within the bubble helmet she was young and pretty, and very black. Watusi genes, sun-blackened further in the unfiltered sunlight of space. She was almost as tall as a lunie, but the style of her suit made her a Be1ter. I liked her torso painting. Against the pastel glow of the Veil Nebula, a slender woman\x92s silhouette showed in uttermost black, save for two glowing greenish-white eyes.

\x93City of Mirrors. There are Hove City mirrors everywhere in space, everywhere you look,\x94 she told us. \x93Not just tele\xADscopes. You know what they\x92re doing down there? Those are solar reflectors. They\x92re shipped out flat. We inflate them. Then we spray foam plastic struts on them. They don\x92t have to be strong. We cut them up and get cylindrical mirrors for solar power.\x94

\x93I\x92ve been a Belt miner,\x94 I said.

She looked at me curiously. \x93I\x92m Desiree Porter, newstaper for the Vesta Beam.\x94

\x93Tom Reinecke, BBC.\x94

\x93Gil Hamilton, ARM delegate, and we\x92re being aban\xADdoned.\x94

Her teeth flashed like lightning in a black sky. \x93Gil the Arm! I know about you!\x94 She looked where I was pointing, and added, \x93Yah, we\x92ll talk later. I want to interview you.\x94

We jumped to join the last of the line as it cycled through the airlock.

We crowded into different elevators and rejoined on the sixth level, the dining facility. Mayor Watson again took the lead. You couldn\x92t get lost, following Mayor Watson. Eight feet two inches tall, topped with ash blond hair and a nose like the prow of a ship, and a smile that showed a good many very white teeth.

By now we were talking away like old friends...some of us, anyway. Clay and Budrys, the other UN delegates, still had to keep all their attention on their feet; and they still bounded too high. And I got my first look at the Garden, but I didn\x92t get a chance to study it till we were seated.

We were three delegates from the United Nations, three from the Belt, and four representing the Moon itself, plus Porter and Reinecke, and Mayor Watson as our host. The dining hall was crowded and the noise level was high. Mayor Watson was out of earshot, at the other end of the table. He\x92d tried to mix us up a little. The reporters seemed to be interviewing each other, and liking what they learned. I found myself between Chris Penzler, Fourth Speaker for the Belt, and a Tycho Dome official named Bertha Carmody. She was intimidating, seven feet three, with a spreading crown of tightly curled white hair, a strong jaw and a penetrating voice.

The Garden ran vertically through Hovestraydt City: a great pit lined with ledges. A bedspring-shaped ramp ran up the center, and narrower ramps fed into it at all levels, including this one. The plants that covered the ledges were crops, but that didn\x92t keep them from being pretty. Melons hung along one ledge. A ledge of glossy green ground cover turned out to be raspberries and strawberries. There were ledges of ripe corn and unripe wheat and tomatoes. The orange and lemon trees lower down were blooming,

Chris Penzler caught me gaping. \x93Tomorrow,\x94 he said. \x93You\x92re seeing it by sunlamps now. By daylight ifs quite beautiful.\x94

I was surprised. \x93Didn\x92t you just get here? Like the rest of us?\x94

\x93No, I\x92ve been here a week. And I was here at the first Conference twenty years ago. They\x92ve dug the city deeper since. The Garden too.\x94 Penzler was a burly Belter nearing fifty. His immense, sloping shoulders made his otherwise acceptable legs look spindly. He must have spent much of his life in free fall. His Belter crest was still black, but it had thinned on top to leave an isolated tuft on his forehead. His brows formed a single furry black ridge across his eyes.

I said, \x93I\x92d think direct sunlight would kill plants.\x94

When Penzler started to answer, Bertha Carmody rode him down. \x93Direct sunlight would. The convex mirrors on the roof thin the sunlight and spread it about. We set more mirrors at the bottom of the pit, and the sides, to direct the sunlight everywhere. Every city on the Moon uses essentially the same system.\x94 She refrained from adding that I should have done my research before I came; but I could almost hear her thinking it.

Lunies were bringing us plates and food. Special service. The other diners were all getting their own from a ledge, buffet style. I plied my chopsticks. They had splayed ends, and they worked better than a spoon and fork in low grav\xADity. Dinner was mostly vegetables, roughly Chinese in ap\xADproach, and quite good. When I found chicken meat I turned again to the Garden. There were birds flying be\xADtween the ledges, though most had settled for the night Pigeons and chickens. Chickens fly very well in low gravity.

A dark-haired young man was talking to the Mayor.

I admit to being abnormally curious; but how could I help but stare? The kid was the Mayor\x92s height, a couple of inches over eight feet, and even thinner. Age hard to esti\xADmate; say eighteen plus-or-minus three. They looked like Tolkien elves. Elvish king and elvish prince in well-man\xADnered disagreement. They were not enjoying their inaudible conversation, and they cut it short as quickly as possible.

My eyes followed the kid back to his table. A table for two across the width of the Garden. His companion was an ex\xADtraordinarily beautiful woman...a flatlander. As he sat down the woman darted a look of pure poison in our direction.

For an instant our eyes locked.

It was Naomi Home!

She knew me. Our eyes held...and we broke the lock and went back to eating. It had been fourteen years since I last felt the urge to talk to Naomi Home, and I didn\x92t have it now.

We ended with melon and coffee. Most of us were heading for the elevator when Chris Penzler took my arm. \x93Look down into the Garden,\x94 he said.

I did. It was another nine stories to the bottom; I counted. A tree was growing down there. Its top was only two levels below us. The ramp spiraled down around the trunk.

\x93That redwood,\x94 Chris said, \x93was planted when Hove\xADstraydt City was first occupied. It\x92 s much taller now than it was when I first came. They transplant it whenever they dig the Garden deeper.\x94

We turned away. I asked, \x93What\x92s it going to be like, this Conference?\x94

\x93Less hectic than the last one, I hope. Twenty years ago we carved out the general body of law that now rules the Moon.\x94 He frowned. \x93I have my doubts. Some of the lunar citizenry think we are meddling in their internal af\xADfairs.\x94

\x93They\x92ve got a point\x94

\x93Of course they do. We face other opportunities for embarrassment, too. The holding tanks were expensive. Worse, the lunar delegates are in a position to claim that they serve no useful purpose.\x94

\x93Chris, I\x92m a last-minute replacement. I only had ten days to bone up.\x94

\x93Ah. Well, the first Conference was twenty years ago. It wasn\x92t easy finding compromises between three ways of life. You flatlanders saw no reason why lunar law shouldn\x92t send all felons to the organ banks. Belt law is considerably more lenient. The death penalty is so damned permanent. Suppose it turns out that you broke up the wrong person?\x94

\x93I know about the holding tanks,\x94 I said.

\x93They were our most important point of compromise.\x94

\x93Six months, isn\x92t it? The convict stays in suspended animation for six months before they break him up. If the conviction is reversed, he\x92s revived.\x94

\x93That\x92s right. What you may not know,\x94 Chris said, \x93is that no convict has been revived in the past twenty years. The Moon had to pay half the cost of the holding tanks...well, we could have made them pay the whole bill. And there were some bugs in the prototypes. We know four convicts died and had to be broken up at once, and half the organs were lost.\x94

We crowded into the elevator with the rest. We lowered our voices. \x93And all for nothing?\x94

\x93By lunie standards, yes. But how diligently were the rights of the convicts guarded? Well. As I say, the Con\xADference may be more hectic than one would hope.\x94

We all got off on zero level. I gathered that few lunies wanted to live on the surface. These rooms were mostly for transients. I left Penzler at his door and walked two down to my own.

2. View Through a Window

Wherever you go in space, shirtsleeve environments tend to be cramped. My room was bigger than I expected. There was a bed, narrow but long, and a table with four collapsed chairs, and a tub. There was a phone screen, and I made for that.

Taffy wasn\x92t in, but she\x92d left a message. She wore a paper surgical coverall and sounded a bit breathless. \x93Gil, I can\x92t meet you. You\x92ll get in about ten minutes after I go on duty. I get off at the usual ungodly hour, in this case 0600, city time. Can you meet me for breakfast? Ten past six, in oh-fifty-three, in the north face on zero level. There\x92s room service. Isn\x92t Garner lovely?\x94

The picture smiled enchantingly, and froze. Chiron asked, \x93Will there be an answer, sir?\x94 and beeped.

I was still feeling ruffled and mean. I had to force the eager smile. \x93Chiron, message. Ten past six, your room.

I\x92ll come to you by Earthlight, though Hell should bar the way.\x94 Called off the phone and lost the smile.

Lucas Garner was in his hundred-and-seventies. He had a face to scare babies. He was confined to a wheel\xADchair because half his spinal cord had died of old age. He delegated a lot of authority, but he led the United Nations Police-still called the Amalgamated Regional Militia, the ARM-and he was my boss. And for getting me this chance to see Taffy again after two and a half months of separation ... yeah, Garner was lovely.

Taffy and I had been roommates for three years when she got this chance to practice surgery on the Moon. Ex\xADchange program. It wasn\x92t something she could turn down: too useful to her career, and too much fun. They\x92d been rotating her among the lunar cities. She\x92d been in Hovestraydt City almost two weeks now.

She\x92d taken to dating a lunie GP, McCavity by name. I refuse to admit that that irritated me; but the way her schedule had messed up our first meeting did. So did the thought of the Conference meeting, tomorrow at nine thirty. I\x92d heard angry voices at dinner. Clay and Budrys hadn\x92t mastered the art of walking yet, and it would affect their tempers.

And my own feet kept getting tangled.

What I needed was a soak in a hot bath.

The bathtub was strange. It was right out in the open, next to the bed, with a view of the phone screen and the picture window. It wasn\x92t long, but it stood four feet high, with a rim that curved inward, and the back rose six feet before curving over. The overflow drain was only halfway up. I started water running, then watched, fascinated. The water looked like it was actively flying to escape.

I tried some commands. The door lock, the closet lock, the lights all responded to my voice and the Chiron com\xADmand. The water closet lock was manual.

Presently the bath was full to the overflow line. I got in, carefully, and stretched out. The water dipped in a meniscus around me, reluctant to wet me, until I added soap.

I played with the water, jetting it up between my hands, watching it slowly rise and slowly fall back. I stopped when I\x92d got too much on the ceiling and it was dripping back in fat globules. I was feeling a lot better. I found tiny holes under me and tried calling, \x93Chiron, activate spa?\x92

Water and air bubbles churned around me, battering muscles strained by low gravity walking. The phone rang.

\x93Taffy?\x94 I called, \x93Chiron, spa off. Answer phone.\x94 The screen rotated to face me. It was Naomi.

In low gravity her long, soft golden hair floated around her with every motion. Her cheekbones were high in an oval face. She was made up in recent flatlander style, so that her blue eyes were patterns on the wing of a great gaudy butterfly. Her mouth was small, her face just a touch fuller than I remembered.

Her body was still athletic, tall and slender by flatlander standards. Her dress was soft blue, and it clung to her as if by static electricity. She\x92d changed in fourteen years, but not much ... not enough.

It was unrequited love, and it had lasted half of a spring and all of summer, until the day I invested my scanty fortune to loft myself from Earth and outfit myself as an asteroid miner. The scar on my heart had healed over. Of course it had. But I\x92d known her across a crowded restaurant. At that distance a stranger would barely have known her for a flatlander.

She smiled, a bit nervously. \x93Gil. I saw you at dinner. Do you remember me?\x94

\x93Naomi Home. Hi.\x94

\x93Hi. Naomi Mitchison now. What are you doing on the Moon, Gil?\x94 She sounded a bit breathless. She\x92d always talked like that, eager to get the words out, as if someone might interrupt.

\x93Conference to Review Lunar Law. I represent the ARM. How about you?\x94

\x93I\x92m sightseeing. My life kind of came apart awhile back... I remember now, you were on the news. You\x92d caught some kind of organlegging kingpin\x97\x94

\x93Anubis.\x94

\x93Right\x94 Pause. \x93Can we meet for a drink?\x94

I\x92d already made that decision. \x93Sure, we\x92ll squeeze it in somewhere. I don\x92t know just how busy I\x92ll be. See, I ac\xADtually came here following my ex-roommate. She\x92s a surgeon on loan to the hospital here. Between Taffy\x92s weird hours and the Conference itself\x97\x94

\x93You\x92re likely to meet yourself in the halls. Yes, I see.\x94

\x93But I\x92ll call you. Hey, who was your date?\x94

She laughed. \x93Alan Watson. He\x92s Mayor Hove\x92s son. I don\x92t think the Mayor approves of his dating a flatlander. Lunies are a bit prudish, don\x92t you think?\x94

\x93I haven\x92t had a chance to find out I can\x92t seem to guess a lunie\x92s age\x97\x93

\x93He\x92s nineteen.\x94 She was teasing me a little. \x93They can\x92t tell our ages either. He\x92s nice, Gil, but he\x92s very seri\xADous. Like you were.\x94

\x93Uh huh. Okay, I\x92ll leave a message if I get loose. Would you object to a foursome? For dinner?\x94

\x93Sounds good. Chiron, phone off\x94

I scowled at the blank screen. I had an erection under the water. She still affected me that way. She couldn\x92t have seen it; the camera angle was wrong. \x93Chiron, ac\xADtivate spa,\x94 I said, and the evidence disappeared in bub\xADbles.

Strange. She thought it was funny that a man would want to take her to bed. I\x92d told myself that, fourteen years ago, but I don\x92t think I believed it. I\x92d thought it was me.

And, strange: Naomi was clearly relieved when I told her about Taffy. So why had she called? Not because she wanted a date!

I stood up in the tub. A half-inch sheath of water came up with me. I scraped most of it back into the tub with the edges of my hands, then toweled myself off from the top down.

The picture window was jet black but for a small glow\xADing triangle.

\x93Chiron, lights off,\x94 I said. Blind, I took a chair and waited for my eyes to adjust Gradually the view took form. Starlight glazed the battered lands to the west. Dawn was creeping down the highest peak. A floating mountain seemed to flame among the stars. I watched un\xADtil I saw a second peak come alight. Then I set the alarm and went to bed.

\x93Phone call, Mr. Hamilton,\x94 a neuter voice was saying. \x93Phone call, Mr. Hamilton. Phone c\x97\x94

\x93Chiron, answer phone!\x94 I had trouble sitting up.

There was a broad strap across my chest; I unfastened it.

The phone screen showed Tom Reinecke, and Desiree Porter bending low to put her face next to his. \x93It better be good,\x94 I said.

\x93It\x92s not good, but it\x92s not dull,\x94 Tom said. \x93Would an ARM be interested in the attempted murder of a Con\xADference delegate?\x94

I rubbed my eyes. \x93He would. Who?\x94

\x93Chris Penzler. Fourth Speaker for the Belt\x94

\x93Does nudity offend you?\x94

Desiree laughed. Tom said, \x93No. It bothers lunies.\x94

\x93Okay. Tell me about it\x94 I got up and started putting clothes on while they talked. The screen and camera ro\xADtated to follow me.

\x91We\x92re next to Penzler\x92s room,\x94 Desiree said. \x93At least Tom is. The walls are thin. We heard a kind of godawful slosh-thump and sort of a feeble scream. We went and pounded on his door. No answer. I stayed while Tom phoned the lunie cops.\x94

\x93I phoned them, then Marion Sheaffer,\x94 Tom said. \x93She\x92s a Belter too, the goldskin delegate. Okay, she showed up, then the cops, and they talked the door open. Penzler was face up in his bathtub with a big hole in his chest He was still alive when they kicked us out\x94

\x93My fault,\x94 Desiree said. \x93I took some pictures.\x94

I had my clothes on and hair brushed. \x93I\x92ll be there. Chiron, phone off\x94

Penzler\x92s door was closed. Desiree said, \x93They\x92ve got my camera. Can you get it back for me?\x94

\x93I\x92ll try.\x94 I pushed the bell.

\x93And the pictures?\x94

\x93I\x92ll try.\x94

Marion Shaeffer was in uniform. She was my height, muscular, with broad shoulders and heavy breasts. Her ancestors would have been strong farm wives. Her deep tan ended sharply at the throat \x93Come in, Hamilton, but stay out of the way. It\x92s not really your territory.

\x93Nor yours.\x94

\x93He\x92s one of my people.\x94

Chris Penzler\x92s room was much like mine. It seemed crowded. Three of the six people present were lunies, and that made a difference. I got an impression of too many elbows flashing in my personal space. One was a redheaded, heavily freckled lunie policeman in orange marked with black. He was working the phone. The blond man in informal pajamas was just watching, and he was Mayor Watson himself. The third was a doctor, and he was working on Penzler.

They\x92d wheeled up a mobile autodoc, a heavy, daunt\xADingly complex machine armed with scalpels, surgical lasers, clamps, hypos, suction tubes, sensor fingers end\xADing in tiny bristles, all mounted on a huge adjustable stand. That took up mom too. The lunie was hard at work monitoring the keyboard and screen set into the \x91doc, sometimes typing rapid-fire commands with his long, fragile-looking fingers.

Penzler was on his back on the bed. The bed was wet with water and blood. A pressure bottle was feeding blood into Penzler\x92s arm; you can\x92t use gravity feed on the Moon. We watched as the autodoc finished spraying foam over Penzler, until it covered him from his chin to his navel.

I swore under my breath, but I couldn\x92t really claim they should have waited for me.

\x93Here.\x94 Marion Schaeffer elbowed me in the ribs and handed me three holograms. \x93The reporters took pictures. Good thing. Nobody else had a camera.\x94

The first picture showed Penzler on the bed. His whole chest was an ugly deep red, beginning to blister around the edges, but burned worse than that in the center. White and black showed where a charred hole had been burned deep into the bone of the sternum, an inch wide and an inch deep. The wound must have been sponged out before the picture was taken.

The second holo showed him face up in bloody bath\xADwater. The wounds were the same, and he looked dead.

The third was a shot through the picture window, taken over the rim of the tub.

\x93I don\x92t get this,\x94 I said.

Penzler turned his head a bare minimum and looked at me with suffering eyes. \x93Laser. Shot me through the win\xADdow.\x94

\x93Most laser wounds don\x92t spread like this. The wound would be narrower and deeper ... wouldn\x92t it, doctor?\x92

The doctor jerked his chin down and up without look\xADing around. But Penzler made a strong effort to face me. The doctor stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

\x93Laser. I saw. Stood up in the tub. Saw someone out there on the Moon.\x94 Penzler stopped to pant a bit, then, \x93Red light Blast bounced me back in the water. Laser!\x94

\x93Chris, did you see only one person?\x94

\x93Yah,\x94 he grunted.

Mayor Watson spoke for the first time. \x93How? It\x92s night out there. How could you see anything?\x94

\x93I saw him,\x94 Penzler said thickly. \x93Three hundred, four hundred meters. Past the big tilted rock\x94

I asked, \x93What was he? Lunie, Belter, flatlander? What was he wearing?\x94

\x93Couldn\x92t see. It happened too fast I stood up, I looked out, then flash. I thought... for a second ... I couldn\x92t tell.\x94

\x93Let him rest now,\x94 the doctor said.

Nuts. Penzler should have seen that much. Not that it would prove anything. A Belter could wear a pressure suit. A flatlander could get a skintight made, though you\x92d expect to find records. A lunie ... well, there exist short lunies; shorter than, for instance, Desiree Porter, who was a Belter.

I stepped past the tub to reach the window. The tub was still fill of pink water. Penzler would have bled to death, or drowned, if Tom and Desiree hadn\x92t acted so quickly.

I looked out on the Moon.

Dawn had crawled down the peaks to touch their bases.

Most of the lowlands were still puddles of black, and the shadow of Hovestraydt City seemed to stretch away for\xADever. Out of the city\x92s shadows a hundred and ninety yards away to left of center, was a massive monolith that could be Penzler\x92s \x93big tilted rock\x94. It was the shape of an elongated egg, and smooth. Perhaps the surface had been polished by the blast that made Grimalde Crater.

\x93It\x92s a wonder he saw anything at all,\x94 I said. \x93Why didn\x92t the killer just keep to the shadows? The sun wasn\x92t up yet.\x94

Nobody answered. Penzler was unconscious now. The doctor patted his shoulder and said, \x93Three or four days, the foam will start to peel off He can come to me then and I\x92ll remove it It\x92ll be longer than that before the bone heals, though.\x94

He turned to us. \x93It was close. A few minutes later and he would have been dead. The beam charred part of the sternum and cooked tissue underneath. I had to replace parts of his esophagus, the superior vena cava, some mesentery ... scrape out the charred bone and fill it full of pins\x85 it was a mess. On Earth he wouldn\x92t move for a week, and then he\x92d want a wheelchair.\x94

I asked, \x93Suppose the beam had been three inches low\xADer?\x94

\x93Heart cooked, pleural cavity ruptured. Are you Gil Hamilton?\x94 He stuck out a hand. \x93I believe we have a friend in common. I\x92m Harry McCavity.\x94

I smiled and shook his hand (carefully, fighting tempta\xADtion; those long fingers did look fragile). My thoughts were only mildly malicious. Doctor McCavity wasn\x92t with Taffy either tonight

McCavity had fluffy brown hair and a nose like an eagle\x92s beak He was short for a lunie, but he still looked like he\x92d grown up on a stretch rack Only lunies look like that Belters raise their children in great bubble-structures spun up to an Earth gravity, places like Confinement and Farmer\x92s Asteroid. McCavity was handsome in an elvish, eery fashion. In no way did he seem freakish.

\x93Weird,\x94 he said. \x93Do you know what saved his life?\x94

He jerked a long thumb at the bathtub. \x93He stood up, and a lot of water came up with him. The laser beam plowed into the water. Live steam exploded all over his chest, but it saved his life too. The water spread the beam. It didn\x92t go deep enough to kill him right away. The steam ex\xADplosion threw him back in the tub, so the killer didn\x92t get a second chance.\x94

I remembered how the water had sheathed me when I stood up in the tub. But\x97\x93Would it spread that much? Mayor, could the glass in the window cut some of the light?\x94

The Mayor shook his head. \x93He said red light. The window wouldn\x92t stop red light. It filters raw sunlight, but mainly in the blue and ultraviolet and X-ray range.\x94

\x91We ought to let him sleep,\x94 McCavity said. We fol\xADlowed him out.

The corridor was high because lunies are high, and wide for a touch of luxury. Windows looked down into the Garden.

The newstapers were waiting. Desiree Porter con\xADfronted Marion Shaeffer. \x93I\x92d like my camera back, please.\x94

Shaeffer handed over the bulky, two-handed instru\xADment.

\x93And my holos?\x94

She jerked a thumb at the freckled, seven-foot-high lunie cop. \x93Captain Jefferson\x92s got \x91em. They\x92re evidence.\x94

Tom Reinecke confronted Harry McCavity. \x93Doctor, what is Chris Penzler\x92s condition? Is it murder or at\xADtempted murder?\x94

McCavity smiled. \x93Attempted. He\x92ll be all right. He should rest tomorrow, but I think he\x92ll be well enough to attend the Conference afterward. Mayor, are you through with me? I\x92m tired.\x94

Captain Jefferson said, \x93We\x92ll need your evidence on the nature of the wound, but not just now.\x94

McCavity waved and departed, leaping down the cor\xADridor like a frog, both feet pushing at the floor at the same time.

Mayor Hove Watson watched him go. His face was puzzled, thoughtful. He came to himself with a start. \x93What about it, Gil? What would the ARM be doing, if this were Los Angeles?\x94

\x93Nothing. Murder isn\x92t ARM business, unless it in\xADvolves organlegging or esoteric technology. I\x92ve in\xADvestigated some murders, though. Mainly we\x92d by to track the weapon.\x94

\x91We\x92ll do that. Chris said red light. That probably means it was a message laser, and they\x92re guarded. The police use them for weapons as well as senders.\x94

\x93Guarded how?\x94 I noticed that both newstapers were listening quietly.

\x93The locks are controlled by the same computer that operates your own apartment, including the door lock. It\x92s a different program, of course.\x94

\x93Okay. What about opportunity? There was a killer out on the Moon. He can\x92t stay out forever.\x94

Mayor Hove turned to the lunie cop. \x93We have no se\xADcrets, Jefferson.\x94

\x93Yessir. We were lucky,\x94 Jefferson told us. \x93First, it\x92s city night and lunar night. Well, pre-dawn. Most of the population is in their apartments, and we can account for some of the rest. One flatlander tourist is out on the Moon, and nobody else as far as we can tell. We\x92re check\xADing the night shift at the mirror works. If it were daylight we\x92d have hundreds of suspects. Second, the Watchbird Two satellite rose ten minutes ago. I\x92ve had the projection room made ready for us.\x94

\x93Very good.\x94 Mayor Hove rubbed his eyes. \x93Proceed with your investigations, Captain. Detectives Hamilton and Shaeffer may accompany you if they wish. The re\xADporters ... well, use your own judgment\x94 He dropped his voice to tell me, \x93I thought if politic to let Mr. Penzler see me concerned in his behalf, but I\x92d be of no more use here...\x94 And he jumped off down the corridor.

The rest of us followed Jefferson to an elevator.

3. The Projection Room

The projection room was a big box let into Levels Six and Seven, underground, in the south side. The police had a projection going when we arrived. They were wading knee deep in miniature lunar landscape.

I think the newstapers were jolted. I know I was.

Jefferson beamed at us. \x93The Watchbird Two satellite is just over us now. It sends us a picture and we project it in real time.\x94

He waded out into the Moon, and we followed, thigh deep and a hundred feet tall. I could see my feet through the flat stone surface of Grimalde Crater, if I concentrated.

Dawn had fully arrived. The sun glared on the eastern horizon, not far below the crescent Earth. The crater-pocked landscape west of us was all glaring ridges and black shad\xADow. Hovestraydt City was a doll house. Tiny figures in bright orange skintights with police insignia were leaving an airlock in the south face, on the road that led across the badlands to the Belt Trading Post.

Someone was walking toward them down the middle of the mad. I bent close above the doll-figure, looking for de\xADtails. An inflate suit, sky blue, shorter than the approaching Iunie cops. Blond hair in the bubble helmet.

I heard a satisfied, \x93Ah.\x94 When I turned, Marion Shaeffer added, \x931 was pretty sure it would be a flatlander.\x94

Penzler\x92s room be second from the end in the west face. I picked it out, then traced a line to a tilted rock like an elongated egg. Past that point it was mostly shadows. I saw nobody anywhere in that whole stretch of moonscape, save for a sky blue suit and four orange ones, converging.

\x91We seem to have only one suspect,\x94 Captain Jefferson said. \x93Even a puffer wouldn\x92t take a killer out of range that fast\x94

Shaeffer asked, \x93Puffer?\x94

\x93Basically two wheels and a motor and a saddle. We use them a lot\x94

\x93Ah. What about a spacecraft?\x94

\x93We checked, of course. The only spacecraft in the vicinity came nowhere near here.\x94

I was thinking along different lines. \x93What\x92s a message laser look like? Our little blue suspect doesn\x92t seem to be carrying anything.\x94

\x93We\x92d see it. A message laser is about yay long\x97\x94 Jefferson\x92s hands were a yard, or meter, apart. \x93\x97and masses nine kilos.\x94

\x93Well, those shadows could hide anything. Mind if I feel around in there? I might turn up the weapon.\x94

Tom and Desiree grinned at each other. Shaeffer stared. Jefferson said, \x93What? What did you say?\x94

The newstapers laughed outright Desiree said, \x93He\x92s Gil the Arm. Haven\x92t you ever heard of Gil the Arm?\x94

\x93He\x92s got an imaginary arm,\x94 Tom added.

With impressive restraint Jefferson said, \x93Oh?\x94

\x93Combination of psychic powers,\x94 I told him. \x93I lost my arm to a meteor, asteroid mining. Eventually I came back to Earth and got it replaced from the organ banks. But before that happened I found out that I\x92ve got a couple of the recog\xADnised psi powers. Esper sense: I can feel around inside a closed box, and reach through a wall and feel out the wiring behind it. Psychokinesis: I can move things with my mind, if they\x92re not too heavy. But it\x92s all limited by my imagina\xADtion. As if I had a ghost arm and hand.\x94

I didn\x92t bother to add that psychic powers are notoriously undependable. What gave me confidence, this time, was that I was already trying it running my imaginary hand lightly over the smooth surface of the Grimalde plain, feel\xADing its texture\x97cooled magma, cracked everywhere, the cracks filled by moondust\x97then plunging my hand in and running the ghostly rock between my fingers like water.

Hard rock here; pools of moondust in the rough land beyond Grimalde\x92s rim wall; here beneath the dust, an ox\xADygen tank split down the middle by internal pressure. \x93It\x92d help if I knew what a message laser looks like,\x94 I added. Captain Jefferson used his belt phone to summon some\xADone with a message laser. \x93While we\x92re waiting,\x94 he said, \x93maybe you\x92d like to feel around in here?\x94 He patted at the southeast corner of the hologram city.

I reached into the wall. I found a small room, cramped, lined with racks. The only door felt thick, massive. It opened into the mirror works, in vacuum. I found varied equipment on the racks: armored inflated suits, personal jet packs, a heavy two-handed cutting torch. I described what I was finding. My audience could be expected to include skeptics.

And I tried not to think about what was actually happening; my own disembodied sense of touch reaching through rock walls to roam through a locked room seven floors above me. If I stopped believing, it couldn\x92t happen.

The racks held a score of thing like bulky rifles.

I pinched one between my thumb and two fingers. Rifle-stock frame, compact excitation barrel, tingle of battery power, and a scope just big enough to feel as a bump. The message laser felt both light and heavy, no mass at all, yet impossible to move.

A cop came in carrying the real thing. I held it in my hands, and ran my imaginary hand over it, then through it. There was a dimmer switch, and a cord that would plug into a pressure suit\x92s microphone.

You could talk with it. I wouldn\x92t have been surprised either way. Calling a deadly police weapon a \x93message laser\x94 could have been no more than good public relations.

I waded west into the choppy cratered land our would-be-killer must have fired from. The newstapers and lunie cops were watching me intently. God knows what they ex\xADpected to see. I swept my imaginary hand back and forth through the landscape, like sifting intangible sand. The killer might well have dumped his weapon into a dust pool. He might equally well be hiding in one of those shadows, I thought, with a stock of air tanks and spare batteries. I sifted them.

Pools and lakes of shadow felt very cold, and showed nothing, though I could feel the shapes of the rocks. Once I felt something like a twelve-foot artillery shell smashed against a crater rim. I asked Jefferson about it. He said it was probably from the rescue attempt after the Blowout eighteen years ago. It would have held water or air.

There was a high ridge, a crater wall. I felt around in the shadows behind it. The killer couldn\x92t have been placed further back than this. The ridge would have blocked him, and it was already further than Chris Penzler\x92s \x93three hun\xADdred, four hundred meters\x94.

I turned and went back over the same territory again. By now I was feeling foolish. No laser, no hidden killer, and the beginning of a headache.

The neon orange dolls had collected the blue doll and were going through the airlock I waded back to where the others waited. I said, \x93I quit.\x94

The others didn\x92t hide their disappointment Then Desiree brightened and said, \x93You\x92ll have to testify, won\x92t you? No weapon and no other suspect\x94

\x93I guess I will. Let\x92s go see who they\x92ve got.\x94

The desk sergeant was a lunie woman with rounded ori\xADental features and big boobs.

Forgive me! Later I got to know Laura Drury fairly well; but I was seeing her for the first time, and I admit I stared. On her spare, attenuated frame her attractive, ample breasts became her dominant feature. You don\x92t picture a Tolkien elf that way.

We stopped in the doorway, not wanting to interfere. Ser\xADgeant Drury asked, \x93Is this your first visit to the Moon, Ms. Mitchison?\x94

And I went numb.

Naomi\x92s eyes flicked to us and away. It was the desk ser\xADgeant who concerned her. She knew she was in trouble, and it made her voice brittle. \x93No, I was at the museum in Mare Tranquilitatis four years ago.\x94

\x93Did you see much of the Moon then?\x94

The shock was getting through to me. One suspect had been in position to fire through Chris Penzler\x92s window. I would have to testify that nobody was hiding out there in the shadows. I\x92d eliminated everyone but Naomi.

It was insane. What could Naomi have to do with Chris Penzler? But I remembered a vindictive glare directed toward our dinner table last night For Penzler?

Her golden hair was still rumpled from the pressure suit helmet. The rest of the suit was still on her. The big gaudy blue butterfly still covered her eyelids. She sat on the for\xADward edge of a web chair. \x93I only stayed a week that time,\x94 she said. \x93I...was in the mood for a dead world, but I was wrapped up in myself too. My husband and my little girl had just died. I guess I spent most of my time staring out the window of my room.\x94

\x93You left Hovestraydt City alone this evening,\x94 the desk sergeant said. \x93You\x92ve been out four and a half hours. For a tourist that is reckless. Did you keep to known paths?\x94

\x93No, I played tourist I wandered. I spent some time on the big road, but I ducked into the shadows and the craters every so often. Why not? I couldn\x92t get lost I could see Earth.\x94

\x93Did you take a signal laser?\x94

\x93No. Nobody told me to. Have I broken some fool regu\xADlation, sergeant?\x94

The lunie woman\x92s lips twitched. \x93In a manner of speak\xADing. You are accused of having stationed yourself several hundred meters west of the city; of having located Fourth Speaker Chris Penzler\x92s window, and kept watch until he stood up in his bathtub, at which time you fired a signal laser into his chest. Did you do that?\x94

Naomi was amazed, then horrified ... or she was a fine actress. \x93No. Why would I?\x94 She turned. \x93Gil? Are you in on this?\x94

\x93Only as an observer,\x94 I half-lied. Marion was looking at me with distrust. Clearly the suspect knew me.

The desk sergeant asked, \x93Ms. Mitchison? Do you know Chris Penzler?\x94

\x93I used to. He\x92s a Belter. My husband and I met him on Earth, almost five years ago. He was negotiating with the UN about some kind of jurisdictional problem. Is he dead?\x94

\x93No. He is badly injured.\x94

\x93And you\x92re really accusing me of attempted murder? With a message laser?\x94

\x93We are, yes.\x94

\x93But... I don\x92t have any reason. I don\x92t have a message laser either. Why me?\x94 Her eyes flicked about the room: a butterfly fluttering against a window. \x93Gil?\x94

I flinched. \x93I\x92m not in this. It\x92s not my jurisdiction.\x94

\x93Gil, is attempted murder an organ bank crime? On the Moon?\x94

Sergeant Drury answered for me. \x93Why would we give a clumsy killer a second chance?\x94

\x93You can refuse to answer questions,\x94 I said.

Naomi shook her head. \x93That\x92s all right But...is that a news camera?\x94

Jefferson crooked his finger at Tom and Desiree. The newstapers looked at each other and somehow agreed that resistance would be futile. They followed Jefferson out.

The desk sergeant\x92s eyes flicked to Marion. \x93Who might you be?\x94

\x93Marion Shaeffer, Captain, Belt police. The man who was shot is a Belt citizen.\x94

Drury\x92s eyes questioned me, and I answered. \x93Gil Hamil\xADton, operative, ARM, here for the Conference. I know Ms. Mitchison. I\x92d like to stay.\x94

\x93Have you any suggestions?\x94

\x93Yes. Naomi, one problem is that we can\x92t find anyone else who could have been in the right place. You were. You\x92ve said you didn\x92t shoot Chris\x97\x94

\x93With what?\x94

\x93Who cares? If you\x92re not our clumsy killer, then you\x92re our only witness. Did you see anything unusual out there?\x94

She thought about it \x93I\x92m handicapped, Gil. I don\x92t know the Moon, and it was night I didn\x92t see anyone else.\x94

\x93Did you drop anything, or brush against anything, or break anything? Is there some way we could tell just where you were?\x94

\x93You could examine my suit.\x94 Hostility was creeping into her voice.

\x93Oh, we\x92ll do that. We\x92d also like to examine your route. You\x92d have to lead us. We can\x92t make you do that\x94

\x93Gil, can I get some sleep first?\x94

I looked at the Sergeant Drury, who said, \x93Of course. You may find it easier when the sun\x92s higher.\x94 She sent Naomi off with another cop.

\x93We\x92ve got men out there,\x94 she said briskly. \x93There won\x92t be anyone tampering with evidence. What do you know about her?\x94

\x93I haven\x92t seen Naomi in ten years. I wouldn\x92t have said she was the killer type. When you take her outside, may I go along?\x94

\x93We\x92ll alert you. And you, Ms. Shaeffer.\x94

\x93Thanks. Make that Marion.\x94

\x93Okay. I\x92m Laura Drury. Make it Laura.\x94

We waited for the elevators. Marion said, \x93Gil, what do you consider the killer type?\x94

\x93Yeah, that\x92s a hard one, isn\x92t it? But Naomi strikes me as more the murder victim type.\x94

\x93What do you mean?\x94

She sounded like she was questioning a suspect. I put it down to habit I said, \x93Once upon a time I might have killed her myself. Naomi has a way of...inviting a pass, then slapping the passer down hard. I really think she gels a charge out of leaving a man horny and frustrated. This isn\x92t just subjective, Marion. I\x92ve heard other guys talk about it Still ... it was ten years ago, and she got married some\xADwhere in there, and had a little girl. So. Your guess is as good as mine.\x94

The elevator came. We got in. Marion said, \x93I don\x92t have to guess. She was the only one out there, and she\x92s a flatlander.\x94

\x93So?\x94

She smiled. \x93The wound was too high. Eight, nine cen\xADtimeters above the heart. Why?\x94

\x93The rim of the tub was too high.\x94

\x93Right Now, there aren\x92t any tubs in the Belt, except in the bubble worlds. A flatlander wouldn\x92t expect a lunie bathtub to stand so tall. When it came time to make her move, Naomi couldn\x92t see Penzler\x92s heart. She just took her best shot.\x94

I shook my head. \x93A lunie would know how tall the tub was, but he wouldn\x92t expect Penzler to be so short.\x94

\x93He must have seen Penzler\x97\x94

\x93Sure, and Naomi\x92s seen lunie bathtubs, too.\x94 While she was mulling that, I added, \x93Maybe it was a Belter. You said it yourself the only tubs in the Belt are in the bubble worlds. You spin those for an Earth gravity Belt bathtubs are just like Earth\x92s.\x94

Marion grinned. \x93Got me.\x94

\x93And we\x92re still missing the main point. Why didn\x92t the killer just wait till Penzler got out of the tub? If it was Naomi, she\x92d already been waiting most of four hours.\x94

\x93Now, that is a damn good question,\x94 Marion said. And we parted on that note, her to her room, me to mine. I could catch two or three hours on my back before 0610.

At exactly 0610 I rang Taffy\x92s doorbell.

\x93Gil! Are you alone?\x94

The long stretch of hall was quite empty. \x93At this hour, what sane man would be up?\x94

\x93Chiron, open door.\x94

I walked in. And she was already in flight! I leaned far forward to catch her weight, and managed not to bounce back into the hall. We took a long time over our first kiss. Tasting each other. By and by I noticed that she was wear\xADing a surgeon\x92s paper coverall. Those things are intended to be used only once.

\x93Can I rip this off you?\x94

\x93Be my guest\x94

I tore it off in handfuls, with sound effects: the roar of an unendurably frustrated male. The paper was tough. A lunie couldn\x92t have done it I swept her in my arms and leapt for the bed, and bounced off again. Pulled my own clothes off more sedately, moved back to the bed, and had some trou\xADble.

She whispered in my ear. \x93Let me dominate, okay? I\x92ve had some practice. The missionary position doesn\x92t work at all.\x94

\x93What do I have to know?\x94

Partly she told me, partly she showed me. We had to use our muscles to keep us together; gravity wouldn\x92t help. We bounced. We spent considerable time above the bed. Taffy told me not to worry about falling off, and I didn\x92t. Old and accustomed partners danced a new dance, with Taffy lead\xADing,

We rested. Then I made love to her standing up, with Taffy\x92s strong legs wrapped around my hips, one arm out to clutch the edge of the tub. In lunar gravity that position is almost restful. And I studied her face, joyful, glowing, famil\xADiar.

We rested again. Sweat stayed where it was; it wouldn\x92t drip. Taffy stirred in my arms and asked, \x93Hungry?\x94

\x93Yes!\x94

There was a tray on the table. Scrambled egg, chicken wimp, toast, coffee. \x93It may have cooled off,\x94 she said. \x93It had to get here before you did. Otherwise we\x92d have to be dressed.\x94

We ate. I asked, \x93What is it with lunies? I keep hearing remarks. It\x92s the kind of thing you\x92d expect in the eighteenth century, with social diseases and no contraceptives.\x94

She nodded and swallowed and said, \x93Harry tried to ex\xADplain it to me. People have been living on the Moon for a hundred and twenty years or so, but even eighty years ago there were only a few hundred. Human beings haven\x92t real\xADly adapted biologically to having children in low gravity. Maybe someday, but for now...they marry early and have two or three children and never use a contraceptive at all. Two or three children and a dozen or two dozen pregnan\xADcies that don\x92t come to term. The children are precious. It\x92s very important who the father is.\x94

\x93Uh huh.\x94

\x93That\x92s the official position. But there are contraceptives, and somebody\x92s buying them. And long engagements are normal, and children born seven or eight months after the ceremony are also normal. I\x92d guess they try each other out, just like we do, but one at a time, and what they\x92re looking for is fertility, not compatibility. And they don\x92t talk about even that\x94

\x93Except Harry.\x94

She nodded. \x93Harry likes flatlander women. Society kind of frowns on that, but Harry\x92s too good a doctor to be fired.\x94 She grinned at me. \x93That\x92s his story. He\x92s actually damned good. And he\x92s sterile, guaranteed. There are a fair number of men like that, and women too. They\x92re in a special posi\xADtion. Not really considered a threat, if you follow.\x94

I wanted to know more about that relationship. I tried an oblique approach. \x93Would you recommend that I take a lunie lover?\x94

She didn\x92t smile. \x93Don\x92t fail to seduce a lunie, Gil. What I mean is, don\x92t fail. Don\x92t ask unless the answer is yes. In fact\x97\x94 Now she smiled. \x93Don\x92t ask. You can let yourself be seduced. Everyone knows flatlanders are easy.\x94

\x93Are we?\x94

\x93Sure. Now, would you like to meet Harry McCavity? Is that what you were getting at? You\x92d like him, and he doesn\x92t consider you a threat. Quite the reverse.\x94

\x93What?\x94

\x93You\x92re a good cover. You and I are roommates of long standing. Hove City society would really prefer that Harry keep his relationships purely social.\x94

\x93Oh. Okay, I\x92d like to meet him socially. I met him of\xADficially last night He was repairing a hole in a Belt dele\xADgate.\x94 I told her about Penzler.

She didn\x92t like it \x93Gil, if someone\x92s shooting at offworld Conference delegates, shouldn\x92t you start wearing a mirror vest? And me too?\x94

\x93Not to worry. They\x92ve got a suspect.\x94

\x93That\x92s a relief. The right suspect?\x94

\x93She was the only one out there.\x94 I discovered that I didn\x92t want to talk to Taffy about Naomi. \x93They\x92ll be expecting to call me in my room. And I need some sleep. When shall we twain meet again?\x94

\x93It looks like Thursday, same time, unless someone changes my schedule again.\x94

\x93Same time. Lord.\x94

\x93I thought you were used to my funny hours. Look, I\x92ll leave you a message if it looks like we can get together with Harry. Lunch or dinner, okay?\x94

\x93Okay.\x94

It was nine when I reached my room. I called the Mayor\x92s office, got his secretary, and was told that the Conference had been postponed for that day, but the conference room would be open for informal discussions.

Interesting. Chris was that important? But two other dele\xADgates had been up late into the night, and others could be suffering from time lag. I was just as glad they\x92d called it off.

I slept till noon. Then Laura Drury called. She was just going off duty, and a team of lunie police were leaving with Naomi in ten minutes.

4. The Cratered Lands

I got into my suit in a hell of a hurry, then stopped and made myself go through the checkout routine. I was long out of practice. I reached the south face airlock and found the rest of the party still in sight on the road. I bounced after them.

There were seven of us: Naomi, Marion Shaeffer, me, and four tall lunie cops. The freckled redhead was Jefferson. The face above the tallest of the orange suits was also familiar.

I\x92d seen him talking to the Mayor last night at dinner.

\x93Alan Watson?\x94

\x93Yes, that\x92s right. You\x92re one of the Conference dele\xADgates\x97\x94

\x93Gil Hamilton. ARM.\x94 We shook gloves. He was a thin young man with straight black hair, a narrow nose, thick shaggy eyebrows, blunt-fingered hands as strong as mine.

He couldn\x92t make himself smile. Frightened for Naomi? The smallish painting on his chest showed an esoteric spacecraft nearing the North America nebula, all in reds and blacks. We set off, Naomi leading. The road west was a trade road; it sometimes carried heavy equipment, up to the size of a damaged spacecraft. It was broad and smooth, but not straight Follow it far enough and you would reach the Belt Trading Post.

We had come four or five hundred yards, without much conversation, when Naomi said, \x93I turned off here. I wanted to climb that rock.\x94

She was pointing at a faceted lump a considerable dis\xADtance away. It was the tallest point around. I had first seen it glowing in darkness, lit by imminent dawn, when I looked out my window last night.

We followed Naomi toward it Marion asked, \x93Did you climb it?\x94

\x93Yes.\x94

The sun was only six degrees up the sky. We walked in shadow most of the time. It would have been like wading through ink, but for our headlamps. The footing was chan\xADcy. Naomi stumbled as often as I did, more often than the lunies. Marion had trouble too.

She stopped Naomi at one point, where our only route of approach would round a spur of black volcanic glass.

\x93Okay, what\x92s around this turn?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know,\x94 Naomi said. \x93It was dark, it was all different. I\x92m not even sure this is the way I came.\x94

The peak was a thousand feet high and not particularly steep. It would give a good view of Hove City, I thought; but we were north of where Chris Penzler had spotted his as\xADsassin. A cop directed Naomi to climb it.

She wasn\x92t exactly agile, in unfamiliar gravity, with the inflated suit restricting her movements. But she didn\x92t have any trouble till she was three hundred feet up. Then she started yelping. She came down dangerously fast.

\x93It\x92s hot!\x94 she complained. \x93It burned me right through the suit!\x94

\x93Where?\x94 Alan Watson demanded.

\x93My chest and arms. It\x92s okay now, I think, but I can\x92t climb it in daylight. Shall I try the other side?\x94

Marion said, \x93No, skip it. Where next?\x94

Naomi led us south. I wondered if we would learn any\xADthing this way. Whether or not she was lying, her answer would be the same: it was dark I don\x92t know the Moon, this probably isn\x92t the way I came. Tentatively, she had lied al\xADready. When I\x92d climbed out of my tub, the peak was sunlit for the upper hundred feet. Why had she tried to climb the sunlit side today, if she\x92d had the chance to learn better last night?

Of course she could have started earlier yesterday... and climbed in total darkness. I didn\x92t like that either.

And I hated where she was leading us.

This was familiar territory. I had sifted it in miniature, felt its contours with my imaginary hand. I half remembered landmarks large or strange; and so, it seemed, did Naomi.

Like a hill-sized boulder that had split nicely down the middle, leaving flat planes uppermost Naomi described it before we reached it She pointed out one half of the split monolith and said, \x93I climbed up on that one. I lay on my back and looked at the stars, and sometimes at Hove City. More than half the windows were dark by then. There was nice backlighting from behind, from the spaceport and the mirror works.\x94

She moved to climb up on it, but Marion yanked her back. The orange-clad cops searched with headlamps and pow\xADerful flashlights, for bootscrapes, footprints, anything Naomi might have dropped. When they gave up on the sides, Watson and Jefferson reached the top in one leap and searched that Slanted sunlight made the lamps unneces\xADsary.

Marion jumped up and joined them. She balanced on boot-toes and fingertips and searched with her face two in\xADches from the rock.

\x93Nothing,\x94 she said. \x93Are you awe you were in this territory?\x94

\x93I was right up there on that rock!\x94

Marion looked satisfied; Jefferson looked grim. Alan Watson had a haunted look. I climbed up after them; knowing.\xAD

It was roomy and almost flat. It would be a good place to stretch out and watch stars. I looked toward the city, and Chris Penzler\x92s \x93tilted rock\x94 was almost in line-of-sight, as\xADsuming I had the right rock. I could look right into Chris\x92s window around four hundred yards away. The sun made me squint. But at night that window would make a fine shooting gallery.

I thought it over for a few seconds. Then I said, \x93Hamilton speaking, I\x92d like to try a couple of things, if nobody has any objection. First, I\x92d like to test fire a messenger laser.\x94

I used Jefferson\x92s. He showed me how to hook the trans\xADceiver cable into my helmet mike, and how to aim the thing, first making sure the dimmer switch was at full dim. If you turned it up, the safety gave you five minutes and then turned it down again. Otherwise you could accidentally va\xADporize whoever you were trying to call. You never used fall power (Jefferson explained) for anything closer than an or\xADbiting spacecraft.

He showed me how to find and call the Watchbird One satellite, using the scope. I got a computer. It gave me a news update. Spacecraft Chili Bird had safely departed the Belt Trading Post for Confinement Asteroid. Sunspot activity was on the increase, but no solar flares had yet formed.

I asked Jefferson, \x93These things do function as weapons, don\x92t they?\x94

\x93In an emergency, yes.\x94

\x93How?\x94

He showed me how to turn the dimmer switch to full bright-I fired at a darkish rock. I got a half-second burst of red flame, and a hole three inches deep and a quarter of an inch wide.

\x93Half a second isn\x92t much of a message,\x94 I said.

So he showed me how to override the safety. \x93It burns out the sender, of course, and you get just enough time to yell, \x91Help! Blowout!\x92 That can be enough.\x94

I handed it back. \x93Second,\x94 I said, \x93I\x92d like to go straight back to Hove City from here, and I\x92d like to take an escort. Officer Watson, would you care for a stroll?\x94

He said, \x93All right. See you later, Naomi, and don\x92t worry.\x94

She nodded jerkily, wearing the same stony expression she\x92d worn all this time.

We hadn\x92t gone far when Watson said, \x93Operative Hamil\xADton, we can adjust our helmet mikes so we won\x92t disturb the others.

\x93I know how. Call me Gil.\x94

\x93I\x92m Alan.\x94

We set our radios for privacy. I said, \x93It finally hit me that I was missing the point. You and I aren\x92t looking for the same killer as the rest of them. We think Naomi\x92s not guilty, right?\x94

\x93She\x92d never kill a man from ambush.\x94

\x93So we\x92re looking for someone else. Sticking to Naomi\x92s route won\x92t give him to us. She never saw him.\x94

He bought it. He relaxed, just a little. \x93She can\x92t even tell us where he wasn\x92t. That place where she watched the stars: he could have come after she left. Penzler saw his killer, didn\x92t he? Jefferson says he did.\x94

I\x92d known Naomi ten years ago; but Alan Watson knew her now. He believed her. Could I be wrong?

I filed the question. \x93Penzler says he saw something, but he can\x92t even describe the suit. Something human, past the tilted rock. So let\x92s walk toward the tilted rock, taking our time and looking around.\x94

We walked through pools of glare and shadow, with almost no in-between. The colors were mostly browns and grays and whites. Alan said, \x93I wish I knew what to look for. It\x92s a shame she didn\x92t lose something.\x94

I shrugged that off. \x93We aren\x92t looking for anything Naomi dropped. This is where the killer had to be. We check the high points because he had to have a view of Chris\x92s window. We look for tracks of a vehicle, or burn marks from a rocket, anything that could get him out of here before the police started looking for him. He had ten minutes, or more. And look for pieces of a laser. I would have found a laser, but it could have been broken up.\x94

\x93Your imaginary arm?\x94

Skeptical. He\x92d have his chance to sneer at my imaginary arm; when I testified for the prosecution against Naomi.

The thought of Naomi being broken up for spare parts gave me the creeps. I could never be neutral where Naomi was concerned. But say that love and hate could add to make indifference ... say I could feel nothing for Naomi. It would still be like taking scissors to a George Barr painting. Vandalism.

Alan said, \x93That flat-topped rock where she watched the stars would have been perfect, wouldn\x92t it?\x94

\x93Yeah. A beautiful view of Chris\x92s window. What I don\x92t believe is that she\x92d lead us there. Alan, would a lunie go sightseeing on the Moon at night?\x94

He laughed. \x93A lunie can always wait two weeks. A tour\xADist has to go home.\x94 The grim look returned. \x93Most tourists pick daytime. It does look funny. Dammit.\x94

Light and shadow. All moonscape and no clues. Every time we walked into full sunlight I had to blink against the glare. My visor took a fraction of a second to darken, and it was too long. We took the easy paths, but we stopped to climb obvious vantage points.

The silence was getting to me. I asked, \x93Was your father named after the city itself?\x94

\x93Oh ... partly. The Jacob Hovestraydt, the man who founded the city, was my great-grandfather. And he had two daughters, and one didn\x92t have children, did the other had Dad and my three aunts. So we\x92re the direct genetic line. Dad was practically born Mayor. We\x92ve talked about it, how he grew up... Hey, stay away from there. You don\x92t know how deep it is.\x94

I\x92d been about to wade through a dust pool, scuffing my feet, looking for pieces of a laser. But he was right, of course.

I said, \x93I\x92d like another crack at the projection room. Could you get me that?\x94

\x93I think so.\x94

\x93Did you ever show Naomi the projection room?\x94

He stopped walking. \x93How\x92d you know?\x94

\x93I just wondered.\x94

We marched our crooked path in silence for a time. Then Alan said, \x93Every time some offworlder bigwig showed up he had to meet the kid. Me. Once upon a time I told Dad I didn\x92t like it. He said he went through the same thing, when his grandfather was Mayor. And his mother picked his school courses for him. Political science, air cycle engineering, ecology, economics. His first job was in the Garden. Then he was in Maintenance, tending the air system.\x94

\x93And you? Are you being groomed for Mayor?\x94

\x93Maybe. Dad was in the police, too, for awhile. I\x92m not sure I\x92ll ever want to run Hovestraydt City... and I\x92m sure Dad wouldn\x92t force me, and I\x92m not sure I could. I don\x92t want to now. I want to travel. Look, Gil, we\x92ve almost reached the tilted rock That\x92s too close.\x94

\x93I wonder. In the first place, I don\x92t trust a Belter\x92s sense of distance on the Moon.\x94

\x93Mmm ... yes. In fact ... the closer the killer was, the better the chance Penzler would see him. And Naomi wouldn\x92t have, because she was further west He could have been just behind the rock.\x94

\x93Yeah, and we\x92ll look.\x94

\x93He\x92d have had to be in sunlight, wouldn\x92t he, for Penzler to see him?\x94 Alan squatted, then leapt Soared. Graceful as all hell. His parabola peaked at the rock\x92s rounded tip, and he clutched it with all four limbs, then began his own inves\xADtigations.

To me it seemed a precarious perch for an aspiring marksman.

From Chris\x92s window the tilted rock had looked like an elongated egg. But the side in darkness was almost flat I played my headlamp over it. The surface was rough and white.

I scraped my gloved fingers over it Crumbly white stuff adhered to my fingers. It disappeared as I watched. What the hell?

\x93No laser parts, no footprints, no puffer tracks, nothing,\x94

Alan said. \x93And there\x92s too much dust around. If he has any brains, the killer wouldn\x92t have been walking where there\x92s dust Gil, we\x92ll have to backtrack.\x94

\x93I don\x92t think so. I don\x92t think Chris saw his killer.\x94

\x93What?\x94

\x93Why would the killer be in sunlight? He\x92d be half blind in the glare. It was just dawn, with most of this region in shadow. He\x92d have had to go looking for sunlight to stand in so Chris could see him. It\x92s plain silly.\x94

\x93Then what did he see?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know yet. I want another look at Chris\x92s room.\x94

\x93Gil, what\x92s your stake in this?\x94

\x93Aesthetic. She\x92s too beautiful to be broken up.\x94 Too flip\xADpant I tried again. \x93I loved her once and I hated her once.

Now she\x92s an old friend in trouble. You?\x94

\x93I love her.\x94

We weren\x92t looking for clues now. The tilted rock was behind us; Penzler couldn\x92t have seen anything here. Like the keen-eyed Indian in his forest, or the street-wise mugger on his home turf; Alan Watson knew this part of the Moon. He\x92d see anything worth seeing. To me it was all moon\xADscape.

I did get him talking about the Conference.

\x93Six out of ten of you are off-worlders,\x94 he said. \x93We don\x92t even have a voting majority. I can see why some citizens don\x92t like that. But they\x92re wrong. The Moon is a kind of halfway house between the mud and the sky... between Earth and the Belt. We gain some advantages from that, but we have to keep you both satisfied too. The organ bank problem doesn\x92t make that any easier.\x94

His lecturer\x92s manner made him seem older, somehow. If he went into politics, he\x92d succeed at it

\x93Might I ask, are these your father\x92s views too?\x94

\x93We\x92ve talked about it, but I\x92m not just quoting him.\x94 He smiled. \x93The last Conference established the holding tanks. Even if Naomi\x92s convicted, she still goes into a holding tank for six months. Six months to prove she\x92s innocent, and I\x92m very glad of that.\x94

\x93Wups. Alan, does she know that? She may be more scared than she has to be.\x94

\x93Oh, good Lord!\x94 He was horrified.

\x93So you never told her. So make an opportunity. Can she have visitors?\x94

\x93She\x92s in her own room with the phone turned off and the door geared to reject her voice. I\x92m sure a policeman could visit her. I just didn\x92t think. The trial\x92s set for day after tomorrow, and she thinks that\x92s it, the end. I\x92ll tell her, Gil.

Gil, what are you doing?\x94

We had reached Hovestraydt City and I was hard up against Chris Penzler\x92s window. I said, \x93Checking the scene of the crime from the other side, kid.\x94

I noted with approval that I was in the fields of three cameras. Our clumsy killer might conceivably want to plant a small bomb on the window.

I peered in. Chris was on his back on the bed, covered with foam plastic from chin to navel and armpit to armpit. The mobile autodoc was standing above him like a polished steel nursemaid.

\x93Alan, come here a second. Do you see anything like a miniature hologram in there? On a wall, or the table?\x94

\x93No.\x94

\x93Neither do I. Dammit\x94

\x93Why?\x94

\x93Maybe it was moved. I still can\x92t see our half-competent marksman sticking his face into sunlight, blinding himself; just before he fired. I thought maybe Chris had a holo of his mother or someone on the wall, and he saw it reflected in the window just before he got shot. But there\x92s nothing.\x94

The door opened, and closed behind Harry McCavity.

The doctor prodded his unconscious patient for a bit, then moved to the autodoc screen and typed, read the screen for a bit, typed again\x85ran his hands through his fluffy brown hair in a swift gesture that changed nothing ... turned around, and jumped a yard in the air when he saw faces peering in the window.

I gestured in a curve to the left. We\x92ll come through the airlock. He glared and gestured back. Up Uranus!

A few minutes later we knocked at the door and he let us in. \x93We were looking around,\x94 Alan said lamely.

\x93For what?\x94 McCavity demanded.

I said, \x93A hologram portrait. My idea. Have you seen any\xADthing that might fit?\x94

\x93No.\x94

\x93It\x92 s important-\x94

\x93No!\x94

\x93Can he answer questions?\x94 I waved at Chris Penzler.

\x93No. Let him alone, he\x92s doing fine. He\x92ll be mobile tomorrow ... not comfortable, but mobile. Ask him then. Gil, are you booked for dinner?\x94

\x93No. What time do you like?\x94

\x93Say half an hour. We can check with Ms. Grimes, see if she\x92s off duty. Perhaps she can join us.\x94

5. The Conference Table

We\x92d chosen a table in a far corner of the dining level. Lunie diners tended to cluster around the Garden. We could barely see the Garden, and nobody was in eavesdropping distance.

\x93It isn\x92t just that we aren\x92t man and wife,\x94 McCavity said, stabbing the air with splay-ended chopsticks. \x91We can\x92t even keep the same hours. We enjoy each other...don\x92t we?\x94

Taffy nodded happily.

\x93I need constant reassurance, my dear. Gil, we enjoy each other, but when we see each other it\x92s generally over an open patient. I\x92m glad for Taffy that you\x92re here. Isn\x92t this kind of thing supposed to be normal on Earth?\x94

\x93Well,\x94 I said, \x93it\x92s normal where I\x92ve lived...California, Kansas, Australia...Over most of the Earth we tend to keep recreational sex separate from having children. There are the Fertility Laws, of course. The government doesn\x92t tell people how to use their birthrights, but we do check the baby\x92s tissue rejection spectrum to see which father has used up a birthright Don\x92t get the idea that Earth is all one cul\xADture. The Arabs are back to harems, for God\x92s sake, and so were the Mormons, for awhile.\x94

\x93Harems? What about the birthrights?\x94

\x93The harems are recreation, as far as the shiek is con\xADcerned, and of course he uses up his own birthrights. When they\x92re gone the ladies take sperm from some healthy gen\xADius with an unlimited birthright and the right skin color, and the shiek raises the children as the next generation of aristocrats.\x94

Harry ate while he thought Then, \x93It sounds wonderful, by Allah! But for us, having children is a big thing. We tend to stay faithful. I\x92m the freak And I know of a lunie who fathered a child for two good friends . . . but I could maybe get killed for naming them.\x94

I said, \x93Okay, we\x92re a menage a at least trois. But you would like it noised abroad that Taffy and I are steady roommates.\x94

\x93It would be convenient\x94

\x91Would it be convenient for me? Harry, I gather lunies don\x92t like that sort of thing. There are four lunie delegates in the Conference. I can\x92t alienate them.\x94

Taffy was frowning. \x93Futz! I hadn\x92t thought of that.\x94

Harry said, \x93I did. Gil, it\x92ll help you. What the lunie citizen really wants to know is that you aren\x92t running around com\xADpromising the honor of lunie women.\x94

I looked at Taffy. She said, \x93I think he\x92s right. I can\x92t swear to it\x94

\x93Okay.\x94

We ate. It was mostly vegetables, fresh, with good variety. I had almost finished a side dish, beef with onions and green pepper-over rice, before I wondered. Beef?

I looked up into Harry\x92s grin. \x93Imported,\x94 he said, and laughed as my jaw dropped. \x93No, not from Earth! Can you imagine the delta-V? Imported from Tycho. They\x92ve got an underground bubble big enough to graze cattle. It costs like blazes, of course. We\x92re fairly wealthy here.\x94

Dessert was strawberry shortcake, with whipped cream from Tycho. The coffee was imported from Earth, but freeze-dried. I wondered if they saved anything that way, given that the water in coffee beans had to be imported any\xADway...then kicked myself Lunies don\x92t import water. They import hydrogen. They run the hydrogen past heated oxygen-bearing rock to get water vapor.

So I sipped my coffee and asked, \x93May we talk business?\x94

\x93None of us are squeamish,\x94 McCavity said.

\x93The wound, then. Would a layer of bathwater spread the beam that much?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know. Nobody knows. It\x92s never happened before.\x94

\x93Your best guess, then.\x94

\x93Gil, it had to be enough, unless you\x92ve got another ex\xADplanation.\x94

\x93Mmm . . . there was a case in Warsaw where a killer put a dot of oil over the aperture of a laser. The beam was sup\xADposed to spread a little, just enough that the police couldn\x92t identify the weapon. It would have worked fine if he hadn\x92t got drunk and bragged about it\x94

McCavity shrugged his eyebrows. \x93Not here. Any damn fool would guess it was a message laser.\x94

\x93We know the beam spread. We\x92re speculating.\x94

Harry\x92s eyes went distant and dreamy. \x91Would the oil vaporize?\x94

\x93Sure. Instantly.\x94

\x93The beam would constrict in mid-burn. That would fit.

The hole in Penzler\x92s chest looked like the beam changed width in the middle of the burn.\x94

\x93It constricted?\x94

\x93It constricted, or expanded, or there\x92s something we haven\x92t thought of.\x94

\x93Futz. Okay. Do you know Naomi Mitchison?\x94

\x93Vaguely.\x94 Harry seemed to withdraw a little.

\x93Not intimately?\x94

\x93No.\x94

Taffy was looking at him. We waited.

\x93I grew up here,\x94 Harry said abruptly. \x93I never make pro\xADposals to a woman unless I have reason to think they\x92ll be accepted. Okay, I must have read the signals wrong. She reacted like an insulted married lunie woman! So I apologized and went away, and we haven\x92t spoken since. You\x92re right, flatlanders aren\x92t all the same. A week ago I would have said we were friends. Now... no, I don\x92t know the lady.\x94

\x93Do you hate her?\x94

\x93What? No.\x94

Taffy said, \x93Maybe your killer doesn\x92t care if Penzler lives or dies. Maybe it\x92s Naomi he wants to hurt.\x94

I mulled that \x93I don\x92t like it. First, how would he know he could make it stick? There might have been someone else out there. Second, it gives us a whole damn city full of sus\xADpects.\x94 I noticed, or imagined, Harry\x92s uneasiness. \x93Not you, Harry. You sweated blood to save Chris. It would have been trivial to kill him while the \x91doc was cutting him up.\x94

Harry grinned. \x93So what? It was already an organ bank crime for Naomi.\x94

\x93Yes, but he saw something. He might remember more.\x94

Tally asked, \x93Who else wouldn\x92t want to frame Naomi?\x94

\x93I\x92m really not taking the idea too seriously,\x94 I said, \x93but I guess I\x92d want to know who she insulted. Who made passes and got slapped down, and who took it badly.\x94

Harry said, \x93You won\x92t find many lunie suspects.\x94

\x93The men are too careful?\x94

\x93That, and- No offense, my dear, but Naomi isn\x92t beau\xADtiful by lunie standards. She\x92s stocky.\x94

\x93What,\x94 wondered Tally, \x93does that make me?\x94

Harry grinned at her. \x93Stocky. I told you I was a freak\x94

She grinned back at that tall, narrow offshoot of human stock ... and I found myself grinning too. They did get along. It was a pleasure to watch them.

We broke it up soon afterward. Tally was on duty, and I needed my sleep.

The City Hall complex was four stories deep, with the Mayor\x92s office on the ground level. A room on the second level was reserved for the Conference.

I got there at 0800. Eight-foot-tall Bertha Carmody was in animated discussion with a small, birdlike Belt woman in late middle age. They broke off long enough to introduce the stranger. Hildegarde Quilting, Fourth Speaker for the Belt Government.

Chris Penzler was in a bulky armchair equipped with safety straps and a ground-effect skirt. Soft foam covered his chest He seemed to be brooding on his wrong.

I said hello anyway. He looked up. \x93You\x92ll find coffee and rolls on the side table,\x94 he said, and tried to wave in the right direction. \x93Ouch.\x94

\x93Hurts?\x94

\x93Yah.\x94

I got coffee in a small-mouthed bottle with a foam plastic sleeve. Other delegates trickled in until we were all present.

A lunie I hadn\x92t met, Charles Ward of Copernicus, moved to elect a chairman, then nominated Bertha Carmody of Tycho Dome. With four lunies out of ten delegates, the chair\xADman was bound to be a lunie, so I voted for Bertha. So did everybody else. The lunies seemed surprised at their easy victory. But Bertha was a good choice; she had the loudest voice among us.

We spent the morning covering old ground.

Belt and Moon and United Nations had each their own axes to grind. Officially the Moon was a satellite of Earth and was subject to the United Nations law, in which even minor crimes carried the death penalty laws designed not only to punish the guilty, but also to supply transplant or\xADgans to the innocent voting public.

The ethical gap between Earth and Belt was as vast as the physical gap. On Earth the hospitals had been supplied by criminals for well over a hundred years. When Luke Garner was young the death penalty had been revived for murder, kidnapping, treason and the like. As medical techniques im\xADproved and spread to the have-not nations, demands on the public organ banks had grown. The death penalty was im\xADposed for armed robbery, rape, burglary. A plea of insanity became worthless. Eventually felons died for income tax evasion or driving while high on funny chemicals.

Belt hospitals kept organ banks, but there were major dif\xADferences. The Belt used fewer transplants. Belters tend to let evolution take care of the careless ones; they are not egalitarians. Space accidents don\x92t tend to leave medical cases anyway. The Belt didn\x92t perform its own executions.

Up to twenty years ago their practice had been to ship con\xADvicts to Earth, and buy the organs back. In theory their law would not be affected by the flatlanders\x92 greed for life.

The Moon\x92s shallower gravity well made it a far better choice as the Belt\x92s place of execution.

So the first Conference was called, and strange were the results.

There had been major compromises at the Conference of 2105. The biggest was the holding tanks. They were unique throughout the solar system. The Belt had insisted that they be built, and the UN had capitulated. The holding tanks would hold a convict inactivated, but alive and healthy, for six months. If new evidence was found, the convict could be revived.

Twenty years later, that solution was under fire.

Hildegarde Quilting wanted a rundown on the past twen\xADty years of lunar jurisprudence. In particular, had the hold\xADing tanks ever been forced to disgorge a living felon?

Charles Ward obliged. He was six eleven or so, in his late thirties, a frail dark man with a receding hairline. In a color\xADless voice he told us that over the past twenty years some six thousand felons had passed through the lunar courts and hospitals. Just under a thousand were lunies. The Belt felons had been convicted by Belt courts; lunar hospitals served only as execution grounds. No conviction had yet been re\xADversed.

Ward represented Copernicus Dome, actually a complex of domes plus a metals mine, the site of one of the Moon\x92s three major hospital complexes. Ward had come armed with graphs and maps and statistics. Average of a hundred and twenty executions a year, mostly Belters shipped in via the Belt Trading Post and the mass driver in Grimalde crater. The hospital took nearly four hundred patients a year, mostly lunies, the numbers rising over the years as the lunar population increased. I listened carefully. Copernicus was where Naomi would be sent if she was convicted.

Lunch was delivered around noon. We talked in low voices while we ate, until Carmody called us to order. At once Marion Shaeffer demanded to know whether the lunar hospitals shipped as much transplant material out as came to them through the Belt courts.

Ward answered, a bit superciliously, that Belt transplants tended to be not quite the right shape; that bones and muscles from Belter arms and legs, for instance, would be drastically too short for a lunie. This seemed obvious enough, but it wasn\x92t what Marion meant. She wanted to know how much transplant material the Moon shipped to Earth.

Quite a lot.

The Conference was polarizing. Belters and flatlanders were opposite poles, with the lunies in the middle. To frail old Hildegarde Quilting, our approach to the organ bank problem was monstrous: death penalties imposed at every opportunity to keep the voting citizens alive and healthy. To Jabez Stone of the General Assembly, a criminal was lucky to redeem himself in any way, and Belters need not act so damn superior. When a man orders a steak, a steer must be mutilated, then murdered. How many transplants were keeping Quilting alive?

Carmody ruled that out of order. Quilting insisted on an\xADswering it anyway. She had never had a transplant, she said belligerently. I noticed uncomfortable expressions among the delegates. Maybe they noticed mine.

It was a long session. The break for dinner came none too soon.

I fell in beside Chris Penzler\x92s softly whispering air-cushion chair. \x93You didn\x92t say much. Are you up to this?\x94

\x93Oh, I\x92m up to it.\x94 He smiled a passable smile that faded. \x93I feel mortal,\x94 he said. \x93Having a hole shot through him can make a man think. I could die. I have one daughter. I never had time for more, I was too busy making money, making a career, and then...there was a solar flare while I was en route to Mercury, and now I\x92m sterile. When I die, she\x92ll be all that\x92s left of me. Almost.\x94

I said, \x93The quality of their lives is as important as their number.\x94

Trite, but he nodded thoughtfully. Then, \x93Somebody hates me enough to kill me.\x94

\x93Does Naomi Mitchison hate you that much?\x94

He scowled. \x93She has no reason. Oh, she\x92s strange enough, and she doesn\x92t like me, but ... I wish I knew. I hope to God it\x92s her.\x94

Of course. If it wasn\x92t Naomi, then the clumsy killer was still loose.

I asked, \x93Do you keep holograms in your room? Or stat\xADues of any kind?\x94

He stared. \x93No.\x94

\x93Futz. Is your phone working all right?\x94

\x93Yah, it\x92s working well. Why?\x94

\x93Just a thought. Now, you said you were looking past a big tilted rock when you saw somebody. Which side of the rock?\x94

\x93I don\x92t remember.\x94 He considered. \x93That\x92s very strange. I don\x92t remember. Mayor Hove?\x94 he bellowed.

Hove was just coming up a spiral stairwell at the end of the hall. He turned, startled. \x93Hello, Chris, Gil. How\x92s the Conference going?\x94

I said, \x93There\x92s a certain amount of friction-\x94

Chris interrupted. \x93Can you let us into your office?\x94

\x93Of course. Why?\x94

\x93I want to look out the window.\x94 He seemed feverishly excited.

The Mayor shrugged. He led the way upstairs.

His office was big, roomy. The computer terminal built into the desk hooked into the hologram wall and into two more screens. There was a foot and a half of keyboard with a roll-top cover. A hologram wall looked out on Jovian storms, seen from closer than Amalthea, swirling like a million shades of paint poured into a whirlpool. Endless storms big enough to swallow the Earth. Hovestraydt Watson must have a big ego, I thought. How else could he live and work next to that?

The picture window looked south into a blazing moon\xADscape. Chris edged as close as he could to the window. \x93I can\x92t see it. We\x92ll have to go to my room.\x94

\x93What\x92s it all about?\x94 the Mayor asked.

\x93I was looking past a large boulder just before the beam burned me. I must have seen the killer to one side or the other, but I can\x92t-\x94

\x93Are you sure he wasn\x92t closer than the rock?\x94

Penzler screwed his eyes shut. After a moment he said, \x93Almost. He\x92d have to be a midget to show that small, that close. I wish I could be sure.\x94

I said, \x93Chris, I thought maybe you saw a reflection from a small hologram in your room, or maybe from the phone screen. Is that possible?\x94

Chris shrugged. Mayor Hove said, \x93The phone would have to be on, wouldn\x92t it? It would have been facing Chris, if it was working right Chris, did you call anyone while you were in the tub?\x94

\x93No. And my phone system is working.\x94

So we went down the hall to Chris\x92s room, all three of us.

Chris pointed out the tilted rock Alan Watson and I had investigated. We studied it for a good minute before he said, \x93I simply cannot remember. But he was almost twice as far as the rock.\x94

I called from my room. \x93I want to talk to Naomi Mitchison,\x94 I told the desk sergeant, \x93preferably in person.\x94

He looked at me. \x93You\x92re not her lawyer.\x94

\x93I didn\x92t claim to be.\x94

He took his time thinking it over. \x93I\x92ll put you through to her lawyer.\x94 He rang, waited, then said, \x93Mr. Boone isn\x92t there. His answering bug says he\x92s in conference with a client\x94

\x93So let me talk to them both.\x94

He went into a brown study. I said, \x93Then put me through to Sergeant Drury, if that\x92s possible.\x94

His relief showed. He made the call. The phone screen went blank, and Laura Drury\x92s voice said, \x93Just a minute. Gil Hamilton, isn\x92t it?\x94

\x93Yes. I\x92m trying to get permission to talk to Ms. Mitchison. The desk sergeant is giving me static.\x94

\x93Let\x92s see, her lawyer is supposed to be with her. I\x92ll call him on her phone. He\x92s a public defender, Artemus Boone.\x94

\x93Lunie?\x94

\x93Yes. Did you learn anything from going over her course?\x94

\x93Nothing conclusive.\x94

The screen lighted. Laura Drury was just completing the act of zipping up a pale gold jump suit I gathered the pic\xADture had caught her a split second too soon. The zipper had hesitated at her bosom; and well it might She looked flustered; she tugged hard; the zipper went up. I repressed a smile.

\x93Jefferson thinks she was lying,\x94 she said, \x93but he can\x92t tell what she was lying about\x94

I thought so too. \x93I\x92d like to know more about that trek myself\x94 I said. \x93I have to go through this Boone, is that right? If you can\x92t convince him, may I talk to him myself? I\x92d like to help her.\x94

\x93I\x92ll find out. Stand by.\x94 She put me on hold.

She called back a minute later. \x93They won\x92t see you. They won\x92t talk to you either. I\x92m sorry.\x94

\x93Futz! Is that just her lawyer\x92s word?\x94

\x93I think he talked to her first, off camera.\x94

\x93Thanks, Laura.\x94 I called the phone off I debated schemes for getting through to her anyway, and gave up on them. I didn\x92t really have a lot to say to Naomi.

6. The Lunar Law

The Committee met again at 0800. I\x92d had breakfast with Taffy, but the rest of us were sipping and munching when Bertha Carmody called us to order.

Charles Ward asked for the floor. \x93It strikes me that our differences are all concerned with matters of the lunar law and the manner in which it is enforced. Is this the case?\x94

He got noises signifying agreement \x93Then let me remind you all,\x94 said that frail dark beanpole, \x93that the trial of Naomi Mitchison for the attempted murder of Chris Penzler begins in one hour. Some of us are likely to be called as witnesses. Mr. Penzler, in particular, is still recovering from his wounds. His mind is likely to be on the trial.\x94

Chris nodded, and winced in pain. \x93You may be right I wouldn\x92t be concentrating.\x94

Ward spread his hands wide. \x93Then in the interests of actually observing lunar justice in action, why don\x92t we all adjourn to the courtroom?\x94

We voted eight to two in favor. We adjourned to the courtroom.

The courtroom was a place of beauty. Its design was stan\xADdard: high podium for the judge, rails separating the spec\xADtators from the accused and the jury. It was the thousand-year-old English courtroom design, originally intended to protect the accused from the victim\x92s family. But one whole wall was glass, and it overlooked the Garden.

Mirrors caught the raw lunar sunlight and diffused it down upon dozens of ledges of plants, down along the great redwood to its long, tangled roots. The air was lull of wings.

No plant grew that didn\x92t have a use; but the prettiest plants, artichokes and apple trees and so forth, were the most ac\xADcessible; and the dancing fountains weren\x92t only for irriga\xADtion, and the winding paths weren\x92t only for the farmers. The Garden was designed for pleasure.

I thought how terrible it must be to look out on the Garden and wait to be condemned to death.

Naomi was watching the Garden. Her golden hair was piled high in a coiled arrangement that must represent hours of work. She had taken particular care with dress and cosmetics. The butterfly tattoo was gone. She seemed com\xADposed, with terror hiding underneath. When her lunie law\xADyer whispered to her, her answers were curt. She must know that if she started screaming they would fill her full of tran\xADquilizers.

Was she guilty? My judgment could never be impartial where Naomi was concerned.

Chris Penzler thought she was. He watched Naomi\x92s eyes while he gave his testimony. \x93I was taking a bath. I stood up and reached for a towel. I thought I saw something outside the window, a man or a woman. Then there was a flare of red light. It struck me in the chest, threw me back in the water and knocked me unconscious.\x94

The prosecuting lawyer was a pale blond woman over seven feet tall, massing no more than I do. She had an elvish triangular face, quite lovely, quite perfect, and quite without human weakness. She asked, \x93What color was the suit? Did it have markings on it?\x94

Penzler shook his head. \x93I didn\x92t have time to see.\x94

\x93But you saw only one person.\x94

\x93Yes,\x94 he said, and looked at Naomi.

She probed. \x93Was it a local? We tend to be taller and thinner.\x94

Chris didn\x92t laugh, though others did. \x93I don\x92t know. It was less than a second, then ... it was like being run through with a red hot jousting lance.\x94

\x93How far away?\x94

\x93Three to four hundred meters. I can\x92t judge distances here.\x94

\x93Would Naomi Mitchison have any reason to hate you?\x94

\x93I\x92ve wondered about that.\x94 Chris hesitated, then said, \x93Four years ago, Mrs. Mitchison applied for emigration to the Belt. Her application was turned down.\x94 Again he hesitated. \x93By me.\x94

Naomi\x92s surprise and anger were obvious.

Prosecution asked, \x93Why?\x94

\x93I knew her. She wasn\x92t qualified. The Belt environment kills careless people. She would have been a danger to herself and everyone around her.\x94 Chris Penzler\x92s ears and neck were quite pink.

Prosecution was through with him. Naomi\x92s lawyer cross-examined him briefly. \x93You say you knew Mrs. Mitchison. How well?\x94

\x93I knew Naomi and Itch Mitchison briefly, five years ago, when I was on Earth. We attended a few parties together. Itch wanted to know about buying mining stocks, and I got him some details.\x94

Naomi was moving her lips without sound. I read the words on her lips: Liar, liar.

\x93You believe you saw your assassin out on the Moon. Could you be mistaken, or could you have missed others out there?\x94

Chris laughed. \x93I saw a human shape blazing against the dark. It was night on the Moon! There could have been an army hidden in the shadows. For that matter, perhaps I only saw a pattern of reflections. I only saw it for a split second, then bang!\x94

Prosecution dismissed Chris and called a lunie cop I didn\x92t know. He testified that there was indeed a message laser missing from the weapons room. Defense tried to get him to say that the door would open only to the police. What the cop said was that the lock responded to voice and retinae prints, and that it was governed by the Hovestraydt City computer, the same that operated every door and safe lock in the city, not to mention the water and air.

Prosecution then asked that Naomi\x92s records, beamed from Earth, be read into the record. I remembered: Naomi had been a computer programmer.

The elf woman turned with floating grace in lunar grav\xADity. \x93Call Gilbert Hamilton.\x94

I was aware that I moved to the witness chair with a flatlander\x92s clumsiness, treading air and half falling at every step.

\x93Your name and occupation?\x94

\x93Gilbert Gilgamesh Hamilton. I\x92m an ARM.\x94

\x93Are you here on the Moon in that capacity?\x94

\x93It\x92s not my regular beat,\x94 I said, and got suppressed laughter. \x93I\x92m here for the Conference to Review Lunar Law.\x94

She didn\x92t need to go into that. The judge and three jurors were all lunies; they\x92d have been following the Conference via the boob cube. She led me through the details of Tuesday night: the midnight call, the scene in Penzler\x92s room, the trek to the projection room.

Then she asked, \x93Are you sometimes called Gil the Arm?\x94

\x93I\x92ve got an imaginary arm.\x94 I had to smile at the baffled looks. \x93It\x92s a combination of psychic powers. During the years I spent asteroid mining, I lost my right arm. I got it replaced eventually-\x94

\x93In what fashion?\x94

\x93It\x92s a transplant. No telling who it belonged to. It came out of the stock in trade of a captured organlegger.\x94

\x93Please continue.\x94

\x93With just the stump left, I found I was using a kind of ghost arm. It works best in low gravity. I\x92ve got two of the recognised psychic powers, esper and telekinesis, but they\x92re restricted by my imagination. I can\x92t reach further than the stretch of a real arm.\x94

\x93Returning to the projection room,\x94 she said. \x93Did you search the landscape in an attempt to find any suspect who might have been overlooked?\x94

\x93For a suspect or for a discarded weapon, yes.\x94

\x93In what fashion did you search?\x94

\x93I ran my imaginary fingers through the projected moon\xADscape.\x94 There was a whisper of giggling from the audience.

I\x92d expected that. \x93I sifted shadows, dust pools, anything big enough to hide a message laser.\x94

\x93Or a human being? Would you have found a human being, or were you, let us say, tuned only to the shape and feel of a message laser?\x94

\x93I\x92d have found a human being.\x94

She turned me over to defense.

Artemus Boone stood seven feet plus, with craggy features, a full black beard, and thick black hair. To me he looked like a wandering ghoul, but I was biased. The lunie jurors might be seeing an elongated Abe Lincoln.

\x93You came for the Conference to Review Lunar Law. When did it begin?\x94

\x93Yesterday.\x94

\x93Have you revised many of our laws yet?\x94 He\x92d decided I was an adverse witness.

\x93We haven\x92t had time to revise anything,\x94 I said.

\x93Not even regarding the holding tanks?\x94

Hey, weren\x92t our doings supposed to be secret? But nobody objected. I said, \x93That one may never be settled.\x94

\x93How were you chosen to represent the United Nations viewpoint, Mr. Hamilton?\x94

\x93I was a Belt miner for seven years. Now I\x92m an ARM. It gives me two of the three crucial viewpoints. I\x92m picking up the lunie viewpoint as best I can.\x94

\x93As best you can,\x94 Boone said dubiously. \x93Well, then. The pleasantly convenient manner in which Naomi Mitchison has supplied us with exactly one suspect may have led us to overlook something. You were present when she was brought in. Was she carrying a weapon?\x94

\x93No.\x94

\x93You say you searched for a message laser. Just how much imaginary moonscape did you run your imaginary fingers through?\x94

\x93I searched the badlands west of the city the area Chris Penzler could have seen from his bathtub. I searched as far as the western peaks, and some of the far slopes.\x94

\x93You found no weapon?\x94

\x93None.\x94

\x93Psychic powers have always been undependable, haven\x92t they? Science was reluctant even to recognize their existence, and the law was slow in allowing psychics to tes\xADtify. Tell me, Mr. Hamilton: if your unusual talent missed finding a message laser, could you not have overlooked a man?\x94

\x93It\x92s possible, certainly.\x94

Defense was through with me. The cold-eyed elf woman asked me, \x93What if the gun had been broken up and the pieces discarded? Would you have found it?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know.\x94

They let me go and I sat down.

Prosecution called an expert witness, an oriental-seeming man who turned out to be a lunie cop. He was actually shorter than I am. He testified that he had examined Naomi\x92s pressure suit and found it to be working satisfac\xADtorily. In the course of tests he had worn the suit outside. \x93It was a tight fit,\x94 he said.

\x93Did you notice anything else?\x94

\x93I noticed the smell. The suit is some years old, and the molecular filter badly needs cleaning. After some hours of wear certain fatigue poisons build up in the recycled air, and it begins to smell.\x94

They called Octavia Budrys, and I started to catch on.

\x93The police handed me a pressure suit,\x94 she said, \x93and told me to gear up. I did. I suppose they chose me because I\x92m not used to space. I barely know how to put on a pres\xADsure suit.\x94

\x93Did you notice anything?\x94

\x93Yes, there was a faint chemical smell, not so much un\xADpleasant as, well, ominous. I would have had it repaired before I tried to wear it outside.\x94

The killer fired as soon as Chris Penzler stood up in his tub. He\x92d already waited a good long while. Why not wait a moment longer while Penzler got out?

Because the smell in Naomi Mitchison\x92s suit made her think her air supply was going bad. She was afraid to wait.

I wasn\x92t convinced. Any given killer might have lost pa\xADtience, waiting in lunar discomfort while Chris wallowed in his tub. But it was a point against Naomi.

The court broke fur lunch. After lunch the defense called Naomi Mitchison.

Boone kept it short. He asked Naomi if she had stolen a message laser and tried to kill Chris Penzler with it. She swore she hadn\x92t. He asked her what she was doing during the period in question. She told the court more or less what she\x92d told us, adding details. She swore that she had never had any reason to dislike Chris Penzler until now.

Boone mentioned that he might have further questions, and turned her over to the prosecution.

The elf woman did not waste our time.

\x93On September 6, 2121, did you apply for emigration to the asteroid belt society?\x94

\x93I did.\x94

\x93Why?\x94

\x93Things had gone all wrong,\x94 Naomi said. \x93I wanted out.\x94

\x93How did they go wrong?\x94

\x93My husband tried to kill me. I got to one of the bath\xADrooms, locked the door and went out the window. He killed our little girl and then himself. That was in June.\x94

\x93Why did he do it?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know. I\x92ve thought about it. I don\x92t know.\x94

\x93Let me see if I can help,\x94 the elf woman said. \x93The records show that Itch Mitchison was a professional come\xADdian. The basis of his humor was an image that used to be called macho: a man who expects sexual exclusivity from his woman, and who expects of himself unlimited potency and attractiveness to women. Was that the case?\x94

\x93More or less.\x94

\x93What was he like in his private life?\x94

\x93Pretty much the same. Some of that was a put-on, but... I think that\x92s the way he was.\x94

\x93You had a little girl?\x94

\x93Miranda. Born January 4, 2117. She was four and a half years old when he killed her.\x94 Her calm had cracked.

\x93Had you and your husband applied fur a second child?\x94

\x93Yes. But by then Itch\x92s grandmother was in the organ banks. She ... is this necessary?\x94

\x93No. It will be read into the record.\x94

\x93Just say she went crazy, then. The Fertility Board de\xADcided it was congenital. They had his record of asthma trou\xADble, childhood diseases. . . The upshot was that I could have children, but Itch couldn\x92t, and he bloody well didn\x92t want me to. We talked about my using artificial insemination. He got terribly angry. That old macho image wasn\x92t just about seduction, did you know that?\x94 Brittle laughter. \x93When you sire a lot of babies, then you\x92re macho.\x94

\x91Was your love life affected by these developments?\x94

\x93It was killed dead. And he did have that congenital ten\xADdency. Eventually he... he snapped.\x94

\x93Three months later you applied to the Belt\x94

\x93Yes.\x94

\x93And Chris Penzler blocked you.\x94

\x93I didn\x92t know that I never had reason to hate Chris Penzler,\x94 she said. \x93I didn\x92t know why my application was turned down. But that vindictive, bastard had reason to hate me! He made a pass at me once, and I slapped him down good!\x94

\x93Physically? Did you actually strike him?\x94

\x93No, of course not I told him to go to hell. I told him that if he ever came near me again I\x92d tell Itch. Itch would have knocked him silly. That\x92s macho too.\x94

I guessed she\x92d made a point in her favor. Lunies wouldn\x92t be familiar with open marriages.

The elf woman thought differently. \x93Very well, Mr. Penzler made indecent proposals to you, a married woman. Surely that might be reason fur you to hate and despise him? Especially after what later happened to your mar\xADriage.\x94

Naomi shook her head. \x93He didn\x92t cause that.\x94

The prosecution dismissed her and called Alan Watson.

Of the team that had tried to follow Naomi\x92s ill-timed attempt to play tourist, three were called as witnesses. They did Naomi little good. Naomi had led them straight to the scene of the crime. Her knowledge of the terrain was spotty at best. The best reason for believing her was that she would have had to be crazy to lie.

I ate dinner alone and went back to my room. It was my mind that was exhausted; I\x92d had no exercise, yet I felt like sleeping for a week. But I checked my phone before I dropped off.

I had messages from Taffy and from Desiree Porter.

Taffy and Harry were both free Friday. They planned to explore the shops of the Belt Trading Post. Would I like to join them? Feel free to add a friend, female preferred. I phoned back, but Taffy wasn\x92t in and neither was Harry. I left a message: sorry, I was tied up in the Conference and a murder trial.

I tried to call Naomi\x92s room. Her phone refused my call.

I wasn\x92t up to fighting with Artemus Boone.

And I didn\x92t want to talk to a newstaper. I called off the lights and flopped back. And the phone said, \x93Phone call, Mr. Hamilton. Pho-\x94

\x93Chiron, answer phone.\x94

Tom Reinecke was standing behind the seated Desiree, their faces level. It was a nice effect, and they knew it I said,

\x93What do you two want?\x94

\x93News,\x94 said Desiree. \x93Are you getting anywhere with the Conference?\x94

\x93Secret. Anyway, we postponed it\x94

\x93We heard that Do you think Naomi Mitchison will be convicted?\x94

\x93Up to the jury.\x94

\x93You\x92re a big help-\x94

Tom cut in smoothly. \x93It\x92s the speed of the trial that im\xADpressed us. Why do you suppose it went so fast?\x94

\x93Oh, hell.\x94 I was fully awake. \x93They think they\x92ve got a locked room murder. One suspect, locked out on the Moon. If they could eliminate Naomi they\x92d invent themselves a real problem. No suspects. So they aren\x92t really trying.\x94

\x93How would you go about it?\x94 Tom asked, while Desiree was saying, \x93Would you change the law?\x94

They\x92d caught me half asleep and got rue talking. It served me right. \x93Changing the law wouldn\x92t make any\xADthing different. How would I get her off? I\x92d prove she wasn\x92t there, or I\x92d prove someone else was, or maybe I\x92d prove the killer wasn\x92t where we thought he was.\x94

Tom asked, \x93How would you do that?\x94

\x93I\x92m tired. Go away and leave me alone.\x94

Desiree asked, \x93Is she guilty?\x94

\x93Chiron, phone off. No calls for eight hours.\x94

I didn\x92t know.

Getting to sleep took a long time.

7. Last Night and Morning After

We discussed the trial over our rolls and coffee next morn\xADing. Belters and flatlanders both expressed surprise at its speed and at the number of jurors.

The lunies took affront. They asserted that the accused\x92s agony of anticipation should be as brief as possible. As for the jury, the Moon had never had a large population with vast leisure. Three were enough. A larger jury would only get tangled in a dozen different viewpoints, like any committee. Like our own.

It got rather heated.

Chris Penzler was out of his travel chair, but foam ban\xADdaging still bulked out his shirt, and he moved like an old man. He wasn\x92t inclined to join the discussions. Neither was I. Once I tried to suggest that the length of a trial should depend on the complexity of the case. Nobody much liked that, and in fact Marion Shaeffer insisted that I was biased in the accused\x92s favor. I dropped it.

Presently Bertha Carmody called us to order, said a few words intended to soothe ruffled feeling, and adjourned us to the courtroom.

I wasn\x92t called again. Chris Penzler was. He testified at length as to his relationship to Itch and Naomi on Earth.

He said he had seen Naomi when she arrived at Hove\xADstraydt City. She had given him a cold glare, and he had returned it, and they had avoided each other since. He re\xADpeated that he couldn\x92t describe what he saw before he was shot. Lunie, Belter, flatlander; he couldn\x92t say.

He didn\x92t seem to be trying to hurt Naomi. It was as if he was trying to work out a puzzle, with the court\x92s help.

Defense called Dr. Harry McCavity, who testified that from the nature of the wound the beam must have spread abnormally. Asked to agree that something other than a message laser had been used-something cobbled together by an amateur, for instance, so that it didn\x92t collimate very well-McCavity dithered. The hole in Penzler was not that much too big. And, damn him, he raised my suggestion of a drop of oil on the aperture.

They wrapped it up faster than I would have believed.

At eleven hundred the elf woman started her summing-up. She pointed out that Naomi had motive, method, and opportunity.

Jurisprudence did not require that motive be proved (I had wondered if that was true in lunar law), but Naomi had motive enough. Circumstances had struck Naomi a terrible blow; she had made a half-mad attempt to escape an in\xADtolerable environment; Chris Penzler had blocked it for his own motives. Prosecution made no excuse for Penzler, but his vindictive act had been the straw that broke her mind.

Method? Naomi had been a top computer programmer. Breaking the code of the Hovestraydt City computer wouldn\x92t be easy, but her needs were not great She needed only to enter a computer-guarded gun mom without leaving a record in the computer memory.

Opportunity? Someone had fired at Penzler from the badlands west of Hovesfraydt City. Penzler had seen her; a known psychic had testified that nobody else was in the vicinity. Had Naomi Mitchison fired that beam? Who else?

During his own summing-up, Boone made a big thing of the missing weapon. The jury must disregard Gil \x93the Arm\x92s\x94 testimony as to the absence of other suspects, or ac\xADcept that there was no weapon either, and thus no murder. The nature of the wound indicated that the weapon was homemade, using skills Naomi Mitchison didn\x92t have. Gil Hamilton\x92s talent had missed it, and the killer too.

Prosecution\x92s counterargument was concise. There had been a laser. Ignore the nature of both weapon and would-\xADbe-killer, if Hamilton couldn\x92t find it, the weapon must have been broken up. There were dust pools to hide the parts. Jury must disregard the absence of the laser, and consider the presence of a suspect caught out on the Moon with an air system going sour.

By shortly after noon the judge was instructing the jury. By thirteen hundred the jury had retired.

We straggled off to lunch. I wasn\x92t hungry, of course, but I managed to get Bertha Carmody talking around her sand\xADwich.

\x93I wonder if they\x92ve really got enough information to make a decision,\x94 I ventured. \x93The summing-up seemed so quick.\x94

\x93They\x92ve got everything they need,\x94 Bertha said. \x93They\x92ve got a computer with access to all the records of the trial, dossiers for everyone who was so much as mentioned, and anything in the city library. If a point of law comes up they can call the judge day or night until they bring in a verdict What more do they need?\x94

They needed to have been in love with Naomi Mitchison.

I couldn\x92t concentrate during the afternoon session. I was trying to outguess a jury several floors away. Talk flowed past me...

\x93I wonder if you\x92re not a bit quick to convict,\x94 Octavia Budrys said, \x93knowing that a conviction can be reversed.\x94

\x93You\x92ve watched a trial,\x94 Bertha Carmody said; \x93Did you have any quarrel with the proceeding?\x94

\x93Only that it was so quick. I\x92ll admit that the case seems open-and-shut. What will happen to her now?\x94

The delegate from Clavius said, \x93We\x92ve been through that She\x92ll spend six months in the holding tank. It\x92s the same technology used on the slowboats, the interstellar starships, and it\x92s quite safe. Then, barring a reversal, she\x92ll be broken up.\x94

\x93She won\x92t be touched until then?\x94

\x93Barring an emergency, no.\x94

\x93What does the lunar law call an emergency?\x94

That was the question that snapped me wide awake.

Ward gave us details. There had been emergencies. Six years ago a quake had ripped one of the domes open at Copernicus. The doctors had used everything they could get their hands on, including holding tanks. They\x92d preserved the felons\x92 central nervous systems until their grace time was up. They\x92d done the same after the Blowout of eighteen years ago. Two years ago, there was a patient whose odd tissue rejection patterns matched a holding tank felon\x92s...

Rare and unlikely events. Yeah. Maybe we didn\x92t really have six months.

There were calls waiting on my phone from Sergeant Laura Drury and Artemus Boone. I took Drury\x92s call first.

She was sitting crosslegged on a bed, quite naked. I hadn\x92t thought lunies were that casual. Naked, she was sheer de\xADlight: brown hair three feet long floating in the mom\x92s air currents, a long slender, graceful body with lines of hard muscle, heavy breasts that floated too, and legs that went on forever. But her words drove all prurient thoughts out of my mind.

\x93Gil, forgive the voice-only. I called to tell you the jury\x92s come back,\x94 she said. \x93I thought you should hear it from someone you know. It\x92s a conviction. She\x92ll be flown to Copernicus tomorrow morning. I\x92m sorry.\x94

There was no shock. I\x92d been expecting it.

The phone asked, \x93Will there be a reply?\x94

\x93Chiron, record reply; \x93Thanks for calling Laura, I ap\xADpreciate it Chiron, phone off.\x94

I stared out the window for a minute before I remem\xADbered the other call.

The black-bearded lawyer was seated behind an ancient computer terminal in an equally ancient, windowless office. His message was short \x93My client has asked me to ask you to call her. Her number is two-seven-one-one. You may have to get it through the police. I apologise for refusing your calls earlier, but in my judgment it was best.\x94

Her timing was silly. The trial was over. Oh, well- \x93Chiron, phone, call two-seven-one-one.\x94

\x93Please identify yourself:\x94

\x93Gilbert Hamilton.\x94

I waited while the city computer compared voice prints, while it called Naomi\x92s room, while Naomi-\x94Gil! Hello!\x94

She looked awful. She looked like a once lovely woman coming out of a year on the wire. Her gaiety was a brittle mask. I said, \x93Hello. Isn\x92t your timing a little off? I might have been able to do something.\x94

She brushed it off \x93Gil, will you spend my last night with me? We used to be good friends, and I don\x92t want to be alone.\x94

I would have preferred a night on the rack. \x93There\x92s Alan Watson. There\x92s your lawyer.\x94

\x93I\x92ve seen enough of Artemus Boone to last-Gil, he\x92s all tied up in my mind with the trial. Please?\x94 She hadn\x92t even mentioned Alan.

\x93I\x92ll call you back,\x94 I said.

A last night with Naomi. The thought terrified me.

Taffy wasn\x92t answering her phone. I tried Harry McCavity\x92s room, and got Harry.

\x93She\x92s in a brush-up class on trace element dietary defi\xADciencies,\x94 he said. \x93I took it last year. Flatlanders don\x92t need it except in places like Brazil. What\x92s up?\x94

\x93Naomi Mitchison\x92s been convicted.\x94

\x93Is she guilty?\x94

\x93For all I know. She\x92s been lying about something. She wants me to spend her last night with her.\x94

\x93Well? You\x92re old friends, aren\x92t you?\x94

\x93How would Taffy, feel about that?\x94

He looked puzzled. \x93You know her. She doesn\x92t think she owns either of us. Anyway, it\x92s a mission of mercy. You\x92re sitting up with a sick friend. There isn\x92t anyone sicker than Naomi Mitchison right now.\x94 When he got no response, he asked, \x93What do you want to hear?\x94

\x93I want someone to talk me out of it\x94

He thought it over. Then, \x93Taffy wouldn\x92t try. But she\x92ll want to hold your hand when it\x92s over, I think. I\x92ll tell her. Maybe she can get some time early tomorrow. Shall I let you know?\x94

\x93Futz!\x94

\x93Witness is unresponsive. Does it help if I tell you I em\xADpathize? I\x92ll get drunk with you if she\x92s not free.\x94

\x93I may need that. Chiron, phone off. Chiron, phone, call two-seven-one-one.\x94 Futz. I was going to have to go through with it.

I found a cop outside her door. He took my retinae prints and checked them with the city computer. He grinned down at me and started to say something, looked again and changed his mind. He said instead, \x93You look like they\x92re about to break you up.\x94

\x93It feels like they already did.\x94

He let me past.

It was party time. Naomi wore floating luminous trans\xADparencies, blue with flashes of scarlet. The butterfly flutter\xADing on her eyelids had iridescent blue wing. She smiled and ushered me in, and for a moment I forgot why I was here. Then her eyes flicked to the clock, and mine followed. 1810, city time.

0628, city time. Early morning. Two orange hemispheres looked me in the eye as I emerged. I looked up. The cop guarding Naomi\x92s door had been replaced by Laura Drury.

I asked, \x93How long has she got?\x94

\x93Half an hour.\x94

Futz, I already knew that. The landscape within my skull was blanketed in fog. Later I remembered the chill in Drury\x92s voice. I was in no shape to notice then.

I said, \x93I hate to let her sleep and I hate to wake her up. What do I do?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know her. If she went to sleep happy, let her sleep.\x94

\x93Happy?\x94 I shook my head. She hadn\x92t been happy.

Should I wake her? No. I said, \x93I want to thank you for calling. It was kind.\x94

\x93That\x92s all right.\x94

I considered telling Laura that she\x92d better get her phone fixed or stop mumbling the commands. I was almost that woozy. Tell a lunie she\x92d exposed her nakedness to a flatlander? Not me. I waved and turned away and staggered to the elevators.

At the ground floor level I decided I wanted to be alone. I aimed myself toward my room. I changed my mind before I got there.

Taffy studied me for a moment. Then she pulled me in, worked my rumpled clothes off, got me face down on the bed, poured oil on me and started a massage. When she felt some of the tension leaving me, she spoke. \x93Do you want to talk about it?\x94

\x93Um. I don\x92t think so.\x94

\x93What do you want? Coffee? Sleep?\x94

\x93More massage,\x94 I said. \x93She was the perfect hostess.\x94

\x93It was her last chance.\x94

\x93It was reminiscence time. She wanted to cover a ten year gap in one night. We did a lot of talking.\x94

She said nothing.

\x93Taffy? Do you want to have children?\x94

Her hands stopped, then resumed kneading my calf mus\xADcle and Achillies tendon. \x93Some day.\x94

\x93With me?\x94

\x93What brought this on?\x94

\x93Naomi. Chris Penzler. They both waited too long. I wouldn\x92t want to wait too long.\x94

She said, \x93Pregnant women don\x92t make good surgeons. They turn clumsy. I\x92d have to drop my career for six or seven months. I\x92d want to think about that.\x94

\x93Right.\x94

\x93And I\x92d want to finish my tour here.\x94

\x93Right.\x94

\x93I\x92d want to get married. A fifteen year contract. I wouldn\x92t want to raise a child alone.\x94

In my fatigue-doped state I hadn\x92t thought that far. Fifteen years! Still- \x93Sounds reasonable. How many birthrights do you have?\x94

\x93Just the two.\x94

\x93Good. Me too. Why don\x92t we use them both? More effi\xADcient.\x94

She kissed the small of my back, then went back to work\xADing the bones and joints of my feet. She asked, \x93What did she say that got you so worked up about children?\x94

I tried to remember...

Naomi fluttered around the bar in a cloud of blue and scarlet transparencies. She made Navy grog in huge balloon glasses with constricted rims. I gathered we weren\x92t expected to stay sober. She asked, \x93What have you been doing for ten years?\x94

I told her how I had fled Earth for the Belt, emphasizing her part in it I thought she\x92d like that I told her how we\x92d set a bomb to move a small asteroid, how the asteroid had shattered and a rock splinter had driven through the ship\x92s hull, through my right arm, through Cubes Forsythe. \x93I usu\xADally just say a meteor got me. But it was our own meteor.\x94

She wanted me to show her my imaginary arm. In lunar gravity it was possible to heft the weight of the glass, now that it was nearly empty.

She told me about life with Itch. He was savagely jealous, and an inconsiderate lover, and he slept with women who looked like genetic failures next to Naomi herself. He had the fragile ego of any half-successful comic- \x93So why did you many him?\x94

She shrugged.

I spoke before I thought. \x93Did you like him being jealous? Maybe it kept other men at just the right distance.\x94

\x93I didn\x92t like being slapped around for it!\x94 I was looking for a change of subject when she added, \x93When I was climb\xADing out of that bathroom window I swore I\x92d never let a man father a child on me again. That was even before I knew Miranda was dead.\x94

\x93It\x92s a big thing to give up.\x94

For an instant her look was wary, secretive. Then, \x93Maybe I\x92m a loser in the evolution game. You don\x92t have children yourself, do you?\x94

\x93Not yet.\x94

\x93Are you out of the evolution game?\x94

\x93Not yet.\x94 I hefted my empty glass in my imaginary hand. \x93Every so often someone almost kills me. Maybe\x85maybe it\x92s time.\x94

Naomi got up so energetically that for a moment she floated. \x93Futz this. Let\x92s see what\x92s for dinner.\x94

\x93There were subjects she shied away from,\x94 I told Taffy. She was working on my shoulders. \x93That\x92s not surpris\xADing.\x94

\x93Granted. The organ banks, Penzler getting shot at and children. She chopped that off fast, and that\x92s not sur\xADprising either, I guess.\x94

\x93Gil, you didn\x92t gri1l her, did you?\x94

\x93No!\x94 But I\x92d flinched. Guilt? \x93I only noticed thing. I think she lied on the stand. I know she did. But why?\x94

\x93She\x92d have had to be crazy.\x94

\x93Yeah. I asked her why she came back to the Moon. She said she was in a black mood, and the lifelessness of the Moon suited her fine. But she only went out that once. Hove\xADstraydt City isn\x92t lifeless at all, and she wasn\x92t staying in her room all that time either.\x94

\x93So?\x94

I didn\x92t have an answer.

Taffy said, \x93I\x92ll be leaving for Mare Orientale this evening. Marxgrad wants a-\x94

\x93Futz!\x94

\x93-a surgeon with specially training in the autonomic muscle system. I can learn a lot there. I\x92m sorry, Gil.\x94

\x93Futz, I\x92m just glad you didn\x92t go yesterday. I\x92ll get drunk with Harry.\x94

\x93Turn over. Do you want to go to sleep? Here?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know what I want. I thought I didn\x92t want to talk\x94

The lights dimmed. I barely noticed. They brightened again half a minute later, and suddenly I was sitting up\xADright, bug-eyed, sweating.

Taffy said, \x93The linear accelerator?\x94

\x93Yes. She\x92s on her way. When Luke Garner was a boy that flicker would have been the electric chair.\x94

\x93The what?\x94

\x93Skip it.\x94

\x93Lie down.\x94 She went to work on my abdomen. \x93I don\x92t see why you\x92re quite this shook up. I had the idea she never even slept with you.\x94

\x93No. Well, once.\x94

\x93When?\x94

\x93About two this morning.\x94

I\x92d been a little startled when Naomi raised the subject.

\x93I\x92d have thought sex would be the last thing on your mind.\x94

\x93But it\x92s our last chance. Unless you wait six months and then buy the appropriate-\x94 She stopped, horrified.

\x93Not funny,\x94 I said.

\x93No. I\x92m sorry.\x94

\x93Maybe you\x92d rather just be held? Cuddled?\x94

\x93No.\x94 She was out of her dress in an instant I plucked it out of the wind on its way to the air circulation unit. Then I turned to look at her. I had never seen her naked before. It took my breath away. I caught myself thinking, Where were you ten years ago, when I needed you? and was ashamed.

She opened a drawer in the bed table and took out a tube of jell. She was frigid; she was expecting to be frigid; she kept that tube very handy. This was normal to Naomi.

I couldn\x92t bring her to climax. She faked it very nicely... and didn\x92t I owe something to the Gil Hamilton often years ago? Wouldn\x92t he have given up a testicle for this night? I made myself enjoy it.

I moved from love into massage. Taffy had taught me massage, both sensual and therapeutic. I managed to relax her, a little. Naomi was on her back, staring at the ceiling while I worked on her hands, when she said, \x93I\x92d love to have another baby.\x94

\x93But you said-\x94

\x93Never mind what I said!\x94 Suddenly she was enraged. I turned her over and went back to work, till I had her relaxed again.

We made love, or I did. She couldn\x92t concentrate. I didn\x92t try again. I told her stories from my time in the Belt She talked about her days in college. She asked about my life as an ARM, and cut me off when I spoke the word organlegger. And she kept glancing at the clock.

\x93What time is it?\x94

\x93Oh-eight-ten,\x94 Taffy said.

\x93Time to go to the Conference.\x94

\x93You\x92re a basket case. I\x92ll call them and tell them you\x92ll make the afternoon session.\x94

\x93Oh, no. Let me make that call. My reputation.\x94 I got up.

\x93Then put some clothes on too,\x94 she said sharply.

I got Bertha Carmody, worse luck, and told her the situ\xADation. I sat down on the bed, and flopped back, and found my head in Tally\x92s lap.

I half-woke when a pillow was substituted for the lap.

Then Taffy\x92s phone was saying, \x93Time to wake up, Ms. Grimes. It\x92s twelve hundred. Time to wake up-\x94

I called it off, but it wouldn\x92t obey my voice. I swore and rolled off the bed. I should have smashed the phone instead. Or else I should have made the morning session...

8. The Other Crime

The morning session, that fourth day of the Conference, was when they started getting specific about lunar laws.

Naomi or no Naomi, I should have been there. By the time Carmody called the afternoon session to order, all I could do was listen and learn what the fighting was about.

Item: death penalties on the Moon included murder, at\xADtempted murder, manslaughter, rape, armed theft, theft in\xADvolving betrayal of trust, and assault. A similar ARM list would have included far more minor crimes, but- What constituted assault? We ran that around for a good

hour. Armed theft and rape were covered by other laws.

What about a simple brawl? To Belters, a barroom brawl classed as recreation. Corey Metchikov from Mare Mosco\xADviense explained that lunies were more fragile than Belters or flatlanders, and their longer reach gave a fighter extra leverage. A brawl among lunies was likely to be lethal, he claimed.

Marion Shaeffer expressed doubt that a lunie had the muscle to hurt even a lunie. Bertha Carmody offered to Indi\xADan wrestle. Marion accepted. We moved some chairs. They looked ridiculous: Marion wasn\x92t even shoulder high to Bertha. Bertha turned Marion in a complete cartwheel, and it was done purely by leverage.

Stone repeated an earlier demand for a legal definition of rape. That started an uproar. There were statutory penalties to protect minors and the marriage bond, and four outnum\xADbered lunies looked ready for murder or war to preserve them. To Budrys and Shaeffer and Quifting, such laws added up to murder plus invasion of privacy.

I could see their point; but we were not here to start a war. I was glad when we got off that subject.

Manslaughter. On the Moon that covered a variety of sins: sabotage, criminal carelessness, arson- \x93Any act which, by damaging a local life support system,\x94 said Marion Shaeffer, \x93could have caused deaths or injuries. Is that right?\x94

\x93Essentially correct,\x94 said Ward.

\x93That goes a little far,\x94 said Marion. \x93We\x92d execute some\xADone who botched repairs on an air recycler if someone died for it But if nobody actually gets hurt, why not just assess him for damages?\x94

Ward was on his feet by now, towering over the seated goldskin. \x93You go a little far yourself;\x94 he told her. \x93Twenty years ago the Moon became the execution grounds for every planet, moon, and rock in the solar system, barring Earth itself. We allowed that. It was a needed source of income. But we will tolerate only limited meddling in our affairs. Beyond that, you may kill your own or ship them to Earth.\x94

Bertha Carmody broke the angry silence. \x93We\x92re all here to make that step unnecessary. The last Conference left us with a considerable expense in research and construction and maintenance. The holding tanks have cost us well over three billion UN marks to date. We don\x92t want to eat the cost. Agreed?\x94

We looked at each other. At least nobody disagreed.

\x93Your suggestions, Ms. Shaeffer?\x94

Marion looked uncomfortable. \x93I\x92ll make it a motion. Al\xADter the law. Fines for accidental damage to equipment, un\xADless the damage causes death or injury. Anyone who ruins something vital when he can\x92t pay the damage, gets broken up. We can live with that. And I\x92ll move to table the motion till we work up a proposed program of changes.\x94

That passed.

Jabez Stone had some details on the holding tanks and wanted them read into the record. In particular, there had been a power failure at Copernicus in 2111. Four Belt crimi\xADnals had had to be broken up at once, and almost half the organs had been lost.

\x93There are safeguards now,\x94 Ward told us. \x93It couldn\x92t happen again. Remember, holding tank technology was somewhat primitive twenty years ago. We were made re\xADsponsible for developing it.\x94

\x93That\x92s reassuring, but it wasn\x92t what I was getting at. Shouldn\x92t those felons have been revived?\x94

\x93They were too badly damaged. Only organs could be saved,\x94 Ward told him.

\x93It bothers me,\x94 said Stone. \x93Never a reversal of sentence. Either this is an admirable record-\x94

\x93Stone, for God\x92s sake! Should we have convicted some innocent just to satisfy you by reviving him? Can you name one single sentence which should have been reversed?\x94

Stone said, \x93Case of Hovestraydt City vs. Matheson & Co. It\x92s in the city computer memory.\x94

And everybody groaned.

If what I needed was something to take my mind off Naomi, then for four days I got my wish.

Days we spent arguing. We spent a full day on Hov\xADestraydt City vs. Matheson & Co., not to mention the night I spent reviewing the case. Allegedly the company\x92s careless\xADness had contributed to the Blowout of 2107. Two Matheson & Co. employees had gone to the organ banks. Penzler and I got Metchikov to admit in private that they might have been scapegoats, that the case should have been reviewed after the hysteria died down. Publicly, forget it.

Late afternoons I watched the news. Steeping myself in lunar culture was worth a try, but the lunie commentators didn\x92t make it easy. They used unfamiliar slang. They gave excessive detail. They droned.

Evening I met with Stone and Budrys to discuss policy.

The Belters clearly saw their right, nay, their duly to make the lunar law more humanitarian. The Moon didn\x92t see it that way. I made a long phone call to Luke Garner for instructions. All I could get out of him was that the ARM would support any decision I made.

So I backed Budrys and Stone. To us the lunar law had its peculiarities, but it wasn\x92t unduly harsh. Cultures are entitled to their variety-an attitude you\x92d expect from a club whose members have been battling with words and weap\xADons and economic pressures for close to two hundred years. The drive that spread mankind through the solar system should have given Belters the same attitude, and I said so during a morning session. It fell flat.

Chris Penzler spoke to me afterward. He wasn\x92t moving like a cripple any more, and some of the foam had sloughed off his chest, leaving bare pink skin bordered by thick black hair. He was a lot more cheerful now. \x93Kansas boy, you didn\x92t see variety in the Belt. You saw customs different from Kansas customs. What would happen to a Belt wom\xADan who wanted to raise her children in free fall? How do Belters treat a miner who neglects his equipment? Or a Naderite?\x94 He patted the crown of his head, where what remained of his Belter crest started. \x93We all cut our hair the same way. Doesn\x92t that tell you something?\x94

\x93It should,\x94 I admitted. \x93We Committee members, we\x92re all politicians of a sort, aren\x92t we? Natural meddlers. But what if the UN was meddling with Belt law?\x94

He laughed. \x93I don\x92t have to wonder about that-\x94

\x93Too right you don\x92t. It happened, and you seceded from Earth! How do you feel about ARM law?\x94

He told me what I already knew the laws of Earth made us not much better than organleggers. I said, \x93Why don\x92t you do something about it?\x94

\x93How?\x94

\x93Yeah. You don\x92t have the power to pressure Earth. But you think you\x92ve got the lunar economy by the throat.\x94

\x93Gil, I push where I think something will give.\x94

\x93The Moon might be stronger than you think, or more determined. You could win a war, if it comes to that, but will you like yourselves afterward? And can you keep the UN neutral? Belt ships using asteroids as missiles, we wouldn\x92t like that this close to Earth.\x94

These casual conversations were getting to be more im\xADportant than the sessions. We took to adjourning in mid-afternoon. We formed dinner triads: a lunie, a Belter, and a flatlander meeting to seek compromise while full bellies made us mellow. For some of us it worked. Some got indigestion.

A nightmare started me off again.

That fourth day, with three hours to go before dinner with Charles Ward and Hildegarde Quifting, I had gone to my room and flopped on the bed to watch the news.

I remember this item: Mary de Santa Rita Lisboa, the Bra\xADzilian planetologist, was doing some excavating south of Tycho. Early that morning she had waded into a dust pool to place some equipment. Her feet grew cold, then numb. She grew frightened almost too late. By the time she reached the edge her legs were frozen to the knees. Before help reached her she had fallen hard enough to break ribs and rip a pinhole leak in her suit. Ten minutes passed before she recognised the pain in her ears for what it was. She had slapped a patch on the gash and kept going, on frozen legs, with both ears and one lung ruined by decompression.

A basically interesting tale, yes? But what I remember is the patronizing tone, as if nothing above the level of a plains ape would have done such a damnfool thing. The rest of the news was local, and dull. Presently it put me to sleep.

I shouldn\x92t sleep in the afternoon.

Wandering through a dark, blurred forest, I found Naomi asleep in an ornate twentieth century coffin, the kind with a mattress. I knew just how to wake her. I approached her coffin/bed, bent and kissed her. She fell apart. I tried to put her together with my hands...

And woke with questions chasing each other through my head.

Why would anyone lie herself into the organ banks? It was her own business, I told myself, she\x92d made that clear. But what could she be hiding that would be worth that?

Another crime?

She had phoned me, my first night on the Moon. Why?

Not because she was eager to see me again. She knew I was an ARM. Was she checking up on me, to see what I sus\xADpected?

She had claimed to be exploring the badlands west of the city. Call that her alibi. Alibi for what? Where could she have gone in four hours, on foot?

I was hooked.

In my copious free time, with ten minutes to go before a dinner session with Charles Ward and Hildegarde Quifting, I tried to call Laura Drury. Her phone told me that she was asleep; please call back after 1230 tomorrow. My answer wasn\x92t recorded, I hope.

Late that night I summoned up a map of the city environs and spent some time studying it.

I called Laura again after the next day\x92s morning session. Laura was in uniform, but she hadn\x92t left her room. I said, \x93I can\x92t stand the suspense any more. Did Naomi in fact reach a holding tank?\x94

She blinked. \x93Of course.\x94

\x93Is this of your own knowledge?\x94

\x93I haven\x92t seen her lying in the tank, no. I\x92d have heard if there was an escape.\x94 She studied my image. \x93It wasn\x92t just casual sex, was it?\x94

\x93I left Earth to mine the asteroids because Naomi married someone else.\x94

\x93I\x92m sorry. We tend to think...I mean\x85

\x93I know, flatlanders are easy. Have you got a minute to talk?\x94

\x93Gil, why don\x92t you stop tormenting yourself\x92?\x94

\x93I got to wondering. Naomi was a computer program\xADmer. It was one point against her. The jury assumed she could have got to the message lasers without leaving a record in the computer. Do you believe that?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know how good she was. Do you?\x94

\x93No. I got to wondering if a computer programmer that good could steal a puffer, again with-no records.\x94

She sat down to think. Presently she nodded. \x93Anyone that good could have stolen a puffer too. No wonder you didn\x92t find the weapon.\x94

\x93Okay.\x94 Though that wasn\x92t exactly what I was after.

\x93Hold it. With a puffer she could have reached the Belt Trading Post. She could have taken a ship out Gil, we\x92d have found her anyway, but at least she would have had a chance! Why would she come back?\x94

\x93Yeah, you\x92re right. It was just a thought. Thanks.\x94 I called the phone off, and her puzzled frown vanished. Then I started laughing.

Some alibi! And perfectly genuine, too. Naomi could have been committing an entirely different crime at the Belt Trading Post!

I was going to have to walk softly. I would have to find Chris\x92s failed killer without showing the lunie police where Naomi actually was.

I was stripping for a bath when Laura called me back that evening. I said, \x93Chiron, voice only. Hi, Laura, I\x92m glad you called. Has anything unusual happened lately at the Belt Trading Post?\x94

\x93Nothing I\x92ve heard about. And there weren\x92t any puffers missing that night.\x94

\x93What? How sure are you?\x94

\x93Mesenchev was on duty. He says there were no puffers checked out, and no slots. No computer program could keep him from noticing one empty slot. And is that finally the end of the Naomi Mitchison case?\x94

\x93Yes. And if it isn\x92t, I\x92ll at least quit bugging you. I\x92ve done too much of that\x94

She studied me thoughtfully...no, she must have been studying a blank screen. She\x92d better, because I was just climbing into the tub. She said, \x93Did I louse up a voice-only command a few days ago?\x94

\x93Eee-yess. I wasn\x92t about to be the one to tell you.\x94

\x91Well, you\x92re a gentleman,\x94 she said, and called off, leav\xADing me bemused. What did lunies consider a gentleman?

No puffers missing. Futz. While water and air bubbles churned around me, I called up the map again and traced the trade road west Roads branched off to the water-and-oxygen works, to the abandoned metal mines, to a linear accelerator project that had gone bankrupt.

I was back to assuming Naomi was on foot. Could she have met someone, somewhere within reach? The air works required sunlight. At night they might be deserted. Or what about the old strip mine?

The screen blinked, and Laura Drury glared out of it. \x93Now, what are you doing with that map again?\x94

Watery amoebae left the tub with the force of my flinch. \x93Hey, are you sure that\x92s your business? And how do you break into a computer display without permission, any\xADway?\x94

\x93I knew how to do that when I was ten. Gil, will you give up on her? Maybe she wasn\x92t out there when Penzler got shot Maybe she researched it somehow. Gil, if she wasn\x92t shooting at Penzler, she must have been committing an or\xADgan bank crime somewhere else!\x94

\x93You saw that, huh? I went to the wrong person. Well, if you must know, I can\x92t leave puzzles alone.\x94

Long silence. Then, \x93Want help?\x94

\x93Not from a cop. If you found a crime, you\x92d have to re\xADport it.\x94

She nodded reluctantly.

\x93Hey, why did you call me a gentleman?\x94

\x93Well, you didn\x92t... If a lunie saw a, a person naked on his phone screen-\x94 She stopped.

\x93He\x92d crawl out of the screen at you, drooling and leer\xADing?\x94

\x93He\x92d think it was an invitation.\x94 She was blushing dark\xADly.

\x93Oh. Hahaha! No. If a lady wants to give me an invitation, I expect her to say so. Flatlanders don\x92t hint\x94 I stood up. \x93Especially on the Moon. I was told never to make advances to a lunie.\x94 I started scraping the half-inch of water off me with the edges of my hands. Then I saw her eyes bugging. \x93Have you got vision?\x94

She was stricken. Caught!

\x93Serve you right\x94 I reached for a towel. I used it on my hair, concealing my grin, concealing nothing else. Why shouldn\x92t a lunie be curious? And she\x92d given me the same privilege, inadvertently.

\x93Gil?\x94

\x93Yeah.\x94

\x93It was an invitation.\x94

I looked at her over the towel. Her lids were lowered and her blush was darker yet.

\x93Okay, come on up.\x94

\x93Okay.\x94

It took her forty minutes. She might have been changing her mind over and over again. She arrived still in uniform, carrying a briefcase.

I\x92d put clothes on, in case anyone was in the hall. Even so, she looked everywhere but at me. Nervous. Her eye caught the phone display.

She studied the map. \x93On foot, for four hours. Well, what was she doing for four hours?\x94

\x93It\x92s like this,\x94 I said. \x93If Naomi wasn\x92t out there shooting at Chris Penzler, then someone else was. We\x92d both like to find him, right? Because we\x92re cops. But you\x92re a cop, so I can\x92t tell you what I think Naomi was doing.\x94

She sat down stiffly on the edge of the bed. \x93Say she met someone. Maybe a man who works at the air works. Mar\xADried. Would she protect him?\x94

I had to laugh. Naomi? With her life? \x93No. Anyway, what kind of assignation is that? As soon as they take off their clothes, poof! Explosive decompression. Laura, how do I go about relaxing you?\x94

She smiled flickeringly. \x93Talk to me. This is unusual for me.\x94

\x93You can change your mind at any second. Just say the word. The word is \x91halogens\x92.\x94

\x93Thanks.\x94

\x93Then you have to list them.\x94

A short silence which I had to break. \x93If she wasn\x92t out there, it makes her useless as a witness, doesn\x92t it? What she swore she didn\x92t see doesn\x92t count. And Chris said there could have been an army out there hiding in the shadows. He wasn\x92t even sure he saw a human being.\x94

She turned to look at me. \x93That leaves your testimony.\x94 In my mind I flexed my imaginary hand, remembering the feel of miniature moonscape. \x93There wasn\x92t anyone out there by the time I looked. Laura, what about mirrors? The laser could have been somewhere else, and the killer too.\x94

\x93But there wasn\x92t any mirror either.\x94

\x93I wasn\x92t looking for one.\x94

\x91We\x92d have found it.\x94

It was impossible. I scowled at the map. I wanted to ig\xADnore the facts and just start toting up suspects according to motive. What stopped me was my first suspect any lunie angry enough about our meddling in lunar affairs, and clev\xADer enough to have worked some kind of trickery.

Laura picked up her case and went into the water closet. I was having trouble keeping my priorities straight. First: I hadn\x92t touched a woman in several days. Second: I didn\x92t want Laura hurt, damaged, or embarrassed. Third: my own part in the Conference could be endangered. Fourth: I wanted Laura Drury in my bed, and that was part lust, part spirit of adventure. How to reconcile all that? Hold it down to talk for now? Let her list her own priorities on her own time?

She came out wearing a garment the likes of which I\x92d never seen before. It was sexy and strange: floor length, shoulderless, and not quite opaque. The thin, cream-colored fabric hugged her body by static electricity. It could almost have been a dress, but it looked too fragile-there was a lot of lace-and much too thin to hold heat.

\x93What is it?\x94

She laughed. \x93It\x92s a nightgown!\x94 Quite suddenly she came into my arms. I found myself standing fully upright and nuzzling her throat. The garment was nicely tactile: silky smooth over warm skin. I felt her goosebumps through it.

\x93What\x92s it for?\x94

\x93It\x92s to sleep in. For now, I guess it\x92s to take off.\x94

\x93Carefully? Or do I rip it off?\x94

\x93Jesus! Carefully, Gil, it\x92s expensive.\x94

Lunie customs. Sooner or later they\x92d get me. A sensible man wouldn\x92t have invited a lunie to his room. I knew it and didn\x92t care.

9. The Trading Post

It was amazing how good we felt on a couple of hours\x92 sleep. Laura was glowing. She kept picking me up in her arms, Rhett Butler style. She\x92d jump when I goosed her, then steady herself with a hand on my head and let me lift her one-handed. I played tricks with my imaginary arm.

We went formal and cautious when it came time to leave. I left first. Desiree Porter and Tom Reinecke were coming down the hall. They hailed me and swept me up and tried to pump me for news on the Conference.

I sidestepped. \x93What have you two been doing all this time, just waiting for one of us to crack?\x94

Tom said, \x93There was Penzler. There was the trial. We\x92ve been interviewing lunies, too. You know, a lot of them aren\x92t going to be happy no matter what you do.\x94

\x93And we screw a lot,\x94 Desiree said.

\x93That I kind of assumed. Hey, did you two know each other before you got here?\x94

\x93Nope. It was just one of those thing-\x94

\x93Lust at first sight. I think it\x92s his legs I like best. Belt men have their muscles mainly in the arms and shoulders.\x94

\x93So you only love me for my legs, huh?\x94

\x93And your mind. Didn\x92t I mention your mind?\x94

We had reached the elevators. I started to step in, then told them I\x92d left something in my room, which was true enough.

Now the hall was empty. I called the door open, Laura joined me, and we went down to breakfast. We weren\x92t even holding hands. But our hands brushed sometimes, and Laura kept suppressing a smile, and I wondered just how much we were hiding. For that matter, I\x92d seen Reinecke\x92s oddly sardonic smile as the elevator doors closed.

At breakfast I told Laura I wanted to check out a puffer.

She didn\x92t like it. \x93Isn\x92t there a Committee meeting?\x94

\x93I\x92ll skip a day. Hell, this is Committee business. If the courts have convicted an innocent person-\x94

She shrugged angrily. \x93If she didn\x92t try to murder Penzler, then she was doing something else!\x94

The idea percolated through to me that as a man newly in love, I was supposed to forget old loves entirely. Laura didn\x92t want to hear that I still hoped to save Naomi Mitchison.

I sidestepped again. \x93I left a case half solved once,\x94 I said, and I told her how Raymond Sinclair\x92s surrealistic death scene was linked to two organleggers found with their faces burned down to the bone. I had nearly reached the morgue in the same condition.

Maybe she bought it. She did help me check out a puffer.

The puffers were racked along one wall of the mirror works. Today there were several gaps. The only difference between the orange city police puffers and the rentals was that the rentals came in all colors.

I chose a police puffer. It was a low-slung motorcycle with a wide padded bucket seat and a cargo framework behind. There were three tanks. The motor had no intake. An exhaust pipe forked to left and right just under the seat. The shock absorbers were huge, and the tires were great fat soft tubes.

Laura showed me how to get it going and tried to tell me how to run it, how to maneuver, how to steer, where not to steer. \x93I could cross a dust pool,\x94 she told me. \x93Like a bat out of hell, and if you slow down you\x92ll turn over, and if the wheel hits a submerged rock you\x92ll be under the dust trying to figure out which way is up. You stay away from dust pools. Don\x92t hit any rocks. If you fall, get your arms over your helmet-\x94

\x93I\x92ll stick to the road,\x94 I said. \x93That\x92s safe, isn\x92t it?\x94

\x93I guess so.\x94 She was reluctant to admit that anything was safe.

\x93Why are there three tanks?\x94

\x93Oxygen, hydrogen, water vapor. We don\x92t throw away water, Gil The exhaust is just a safety valve, and of course it powers the side jets. You shouldn\x92t have to use them, but do it if you think you\x92re falling over.\x94

I climbed on. I could barely feel the vibration. \x93It isn\x92t puffing,\x94 I noticed.

\x93It\x92s not supposed to. If it starts puffing steam, something\x92s wrong. That\x92s why they\x92re called puffers. If it happens, slow way down and check your air, because you may have to walk home.\x94 She insisted on showing me how to bleed oxygen from the puffer tank into my backpack.

\x93Have you got all that?\x94

\x93Yup.\x94

\x93Keep it slow till you learn how to steer. This is the Moon. You\x92ll have to lean further than you think.\x94

\x93Okay.\x94

\x93I don\x92t get off till 2000. Will you be back by then?\x94

\x93I\x92m bound to.\x94

We clinked helmets in lieu of a kiss, and I went.

From the city\x92s east face, the mirror works, the trade road hooked around and aimed straight west I bounced along at a fair rate for an off-road vehicle. I marked the tilted rock far off to my left, and a road that wound uphill to my right, up to the air and water plant. I had seen it from a height, miniaturized in the projection room: mirrors mounted around the rim of a fair-sized recent crater, focussing their light down onto a pressure vessel filled with red-hot lunar rock. Pipes to lead hydrogen in, water vapor out I was tempted to go up and look at the real thing. Maybe on the way back...

To my left was the land Naomi had tried to lead us through, and the peak Naomi had tried to climb. I kept going.

The road twisted like an injured snake. A broad road led left toward the strip mines that had made Hovestraydt City rich. When they played out the city had turned to mirror making.

Naomi wasn\x92t a native. To meet someone out here, she would need some obvious landmark. The same would hold if someone had simply left a puffer parked somewhere for her. The mines? She couldn\x92t get last, witnesses were unlike\xADly, and the tailings might fool radar for a small vehicle.

She\x92d led us a merry dance, the day after the attack on Chris Penzler. Alan Watson must have given her what she needed when he showed her the projection room. And she\x92d danced her way right into the organ banks. To hide what?

Or else the jury was right.

Presently I was bouncing downhill, beyond the region I\x92d searched with my imaginary hand, beyond anywhere Naomi could have reached on foot. Far ahead was a line of silver: the mass driver built to supply ore for the L-5 project of the 2040s. The company had gone bankrupt, and the mass driver was half built and long obsolete.

I kept checking my watch.

There was the Trading Post ahead. Unused to picking out details in moonscape, my eyes had been missing it for some time. I found the shapes of two spacecraft first, then the out\xADline of the spaceport, then the crescent of stone-and-glass building around it. The road became a circle between the building and the spaceport. I had made the run in just thirty-five minutes.

The Trading Post was strange by anyone\x92s standards.

There was no dome. Oblong buildings were individually pressurized; sometimes they were linked by tunnels. In Selene\x92s Bar and Grill, where I stopped for lunch, I found racks for fishbowl helmets but none for pressure suits. The customers kept their credit coins in outside pockets.

Selene\x92s Bar and Grill, Mare Serenitatis Spa (with a pool and sauna), the Man in the Moon Hotel (he was shown yawning), Aphrodite\x92s: all the place names were moon-re\xADlated. Half the people I saw were lunies. Aphrodite\x92s rented sexual favors. The waitress at Selene\x92s told me it catered specifically to lunies. I was a little shocked.

The administration building was all the way around the circle. It was big enough to get lost in. The police, licensing, and port administration were scattered through the build\xADing. I finally found the goldskin offices.

\x93ARM business,\x94 I told the only clerk in sight.

He was watching a fold-up 3D screen propped in front of him. He didn\x92t look up. \x93Yah?\x94

\x93Last Wednesday someone shot a Belt delegate to the Con\xADference on-\x94

Now he looked up. \x93We heard about that Didn\x92t they solve that one? I heard-\x94

\x93Look, there\x92s a possibility that our suspect was here at the time. That would mean she wasn\x92t shooting at Penzler.

We never found the weapon either. That adds up to a would \xADbe killer with a message laser still hunting a Belt delegate.\x94

\x93See your point. What do you need?\x94

\x93Were there any crimes committed here between 2230 Tuesday and 0130 Wednesday?\x94 Naomi would have had to walk to where someone left a puffer for her, then drive here. At least half an hour coming and half an hour back. Later I\x92d have to pace it off on foot.

He set aside his fold-up screen and tapped at a computer keyboard. The screen lit \x93Mmm ... we had a fight at Aphrodite\x92s about that time. A lunie dead, two Belters and a lunie under arrest, all male. But you\x92re looking for some\xADthing premeditated.\x94

\x93Right.\x94

\x93Zip.\x94

\x93Futz. How about disappearances?\x94

He summoned up the Missing Persons records. Nobody had been reported missing since Wednesday. It seemed that Naomi had not been committing a crime of violence.

\x93How well do you keep track of your puffers?\x94

\x93They\x92re licensed. Generally the residents own their own.\x94 He was typing as he spoke. The screen filled. \x93These are rentals-\x94

\x93Chili Bird?\x94 The name rang a bell.

\x93Two puffers charged to the Chili Bird account for two days. Well, that\x92s reasonable. Antsie had passengers.\x94

\x93Tell me more.\x94

He scowled-I was inventing work for him, and he would have preferred not to-but he typed, and more data ap\xADpeared. \x93Antsie de Campo, owner and pilot of Chili Bird out of Vesta. Arrived April 10. Left April 13. Passengers, Dr. Ray\xADmond Forward and a four-year-old girl, Ruth Hancock

Cowles. Cargo ... he had a light load. Monopoles. He took off with some chicken and turkey embryos; maybe that\x92s why the doctor was along.\x94

April 13 was the day after the attempt on Penzler. \x93Where are they now?\x94

\x93Headed for Confinement Asteroid. Probably because of the little girl.\x94 He typed. \x93I remember her now. She was a doll. Interested in everything. She loved low gravity; she was bouncing around-\x94 The screen responded. \x93Chili Bird\x92s almost to Confinement now. Is this any use to you?\x94

\x93I hope so. Where can I send a message to Chili Bird?\x94

He told me how to find Interplanetary Voice, on a peak outside the city circle.

There would have been several minutes\x92 lightspeed delay m conversation. I sent a straight \x91gram.

TO:\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0 DR RAYMOND FORWARD

NAOMI MITCHISON TRIED AND CONVICFED FOR AT\xADTEMPTED MURDER COMMITI\x92ED HOVESTRAYDT CITY 0130 WEDNESDAY APRIL 13. EXECUTION PENDING. IF YOU KNOW OF HER MOVEMENTS DURING RELEVANT TIME, CALL ME .ROVESTRAYDT CITY.

GILBERT HAMILTON, ARM

I didn\x92t stop on the way home. I couldn\x92t guess where someone might have left a puffer for Naomi. Maybe I had already wasted time I couldn\x92t afford. I felt time\x92s hot breath on the back of my neck, an unreasonable conviction that Naomi didn\x92t have months, but only hours.

McCavity hailed me in the hail. \x93Hello, Gil. The offer\x92s still open,\x94 he said.

\x93Offer?\x94

\x93Someone to get drunk with.\x94

\x93Oh. I may need it yet. Let me buy you a drink now. I haven\x92t seen a bar-\x94

\x93There aren\x92t any. We tend to keep our own supplies and drink in our rooms. Come on, I\x92ve got a good stock.\x94

McCavity\x92s quarters were near the bottom level of the city.

He didn\x92t have any kind of bartending device; the drinks were going to be simple. He offered me something he called earthshine poured over ice, and I took it.

Smooth.

\x93Distilling is dirt cheap here,\x94 Harry said. \x93Heat, cold, partial vacuum, they\x92re all just outside the wall. Do you like it?\x94

\x93Yeah. It tastes like a good bourbon.\x94

\x93I got a call from Taffy. She reached Marxgrad okay. She says she left you a message too.\x94

\x93Good.\x94

\x93I gather you got together okay?\x94

\x93Yes, thank God. I was a basket case. She reassembled me.\x94 I sipped again. \x93I wish I had the time to get drunk in good company. It might be just what I need. Harry, do you know of a Belt doctor, a Raymond Forward?\x94

McCavity scratched his head. \x93Rings a bell. Yeah, he\x92s got some lunie clients. Specialist in fertility problems.\x94

Futz. Naomi didn\x92t suffer from infertility. \x93He was on the Moon for a few days. Maybe he had a lunie client?\x94

\x93There\x92d be records. We don\x92t have restrictions on fertili\xADty, except the natural ones.\x94

\x93Okay, I can check that out.\x94

\x93What\x92s it all about?\x94

\x93He was here at the right time, and he came in with a light cargo. Maybe there were ulterior motives.\x94

\x93Right time for what?\x94

\x93Naomi. Maybe I\x92m going at this wrong end round. I should be looking for whoever shot at Chris Penzler. But if Naomi wasn\x92t where she said she was . . . well, it\x92s one han\xADdle on a puzzle. I can track that down. She could have been meeting someone. Maybe Antsie de Campo, maybe For\xADward. Could there be two Raymond Forwards?\x94

\x93Both Belt doctors? Well, it\x92s possible.\x94 He sipped at his own drink. \x93Was Naomi infertile?\x94

\x93She was fertile. She\x92d also sworn never to have another kid.\x94

\x93Then that\x92s out\x94

\x93By another man.\x94

\x93What?\x94

\x93She swore she\x92d never have children by another man. This Forward, he solves infertility problems?\x94

\x93Right. You\x92ve got something, don\x92t you?\x94

\x93Cloning?\x94

\x93If all else fails, he can grow a clone for a patient. It\x92s hellishly expensive.\x94

\x93Can I borrow your phone?\x94

\x93I\x92ll call for you. What number?\x94

I told him.

Artemus Boone stood frowning in the doorway of his of\xADfice. \x93I was just closing up. I can meet you tomorrow at 1000. Unless it\x92s urgent?\x94

\x93It feels urgent,\x94 I told the phone image. \x93Do you still regard Naomi Mitchison as your client?\x94

\x93Certainly.\x94

\x93I need to discuss her case, confidentially.\x94

He sighed. \x93Come to my office. I\x92ll wait.\x94

I turned to Harry McCavity. \x93Thanks for the drink. I\x92ll be pleased to get drunk with you when this is all over, but just now-\x94

He waved that off \x93Will I ever know what this was all about?\x94

\x93There\x92s more than one kind of crime,\x94 I said cryptically, and left.

Artemus Boone sat behind his ancient, lovingly main\xADtained computer terminal and propped his beard on his folded hands. \x93Now, what\x92s this all about, Mr. Hamilton?\x94

\x93I want a legal opinion on a hypothetical situation.\x94

\x93Go on.\x94

\x93A flatlander woman hires a Belt doctor to take a clone from her and grow it to term. The operation takes place on the Moon. The woman returns to Earth. The child is raised in the asteroids. Four years later they meet again, on the Moon. The woman is still on the Moon when it all becomes public knowledge.\x94

Boone stared as if I\x92d sprouted horns. \x93Damnation!\x94

\x93Sure. Now, the United Nations Fertility Laws would have our hypothetical flatlander woman sterilized if she had an illegal baby. They\x92d sterilize the baby too. But this particu\xADlar woman still has one birthright, so she could have a baby with no problem. But what about a clone?\x94

Boone shook his head. He was still thunderstruck. \x93I don\x92t know. My field is lunar law.\x94

\x93Would the UN try to extradite the woman? Would the Moon let them get away with it? Would they try to extradite the baby too? Or are they both safe because the crime took place off Earth?\x94

\x93Again, I don\x92t know. I\x92d want research this. In some legal respects the Moon is part of the United Nations. Dam\xADnation! Why didn\x92t she discuss this with me?\x94

\x93She could have been scared to. She never mentioned any such situation?\x94

He smiled like a man in pain. \x93Never. Damnation. I\x92m nearly certain that the baby could not be extradited. If only she\x92d asked! Hamilton, is our hypothetical baby still on the Moon?\x94

\x93No.\x94

\x93Good.\x94 He stood up abruptly. \x93I\x92ll be able to give you a better answer tomorrow. Call me.\x94

I reached my room expecting to spend some time on the phone. Getting Budrys to tell me what went on at the Con\xADference could take up to an hour. I wanted to check Dr. Forward\x92s credentials and recent movements. And Taffy\x92s message was waiting... I dropped onto the bed and pulled my shoes off and said, \x93Chiron, messages.\x94

And Laura Drury\x92s image, in full pressure suit, said, \x93Gil, you\x92ll have to have dinner without me. I\x92m going out with a search party. I don\x92t know when I\x92ll be back. Chris Penzler\x92s turned up missing.\x94

10. The Tilted Rock

I wasted a few seconds cursing. The urgency I\x92d felt hadn\x92t been for Naomi Mitchison. Naomi was feeling no impatience. Death had been hunting Chris Penzler.

I called Laura\x92s room and got no answer. I called the police and got Jefferson.

\x93He left about sixteen twenty this afternoon,\x94 the freckled lunie told me. \x93He checked out a puffer.\x94

I said, \x93Idiot\x94

\x93Right. How well do you know him? Could he think he\x92s playing detective?\x94

\x93Why not? Somebody wanis him dead, and it bothers him. He\x92s not likely to be out there playing tourist\x94

\x91Well, that\x92s what I thought,\x94 Jefferson said. \x93I sent a search party west, to the area where Penzler testified he saw something. Laura Drury\x92s with them, in case you were won\xADdering.\x94 A trace of disapproval in his voice. What the futz? \x93But they haven\x92t found him, and they\x92ve been out over an hour.\x94

\x93Set the area up in the projection room and search that\x94

\x93We have got to have another Watchbird satellite,\x94 Jefferson said. \x93There used to be three. The replacement keeps getting proxmired in the budget hearing. Hamilton, we\x92ve been waiting for the Watchbird One to rise. Why don\x92t you meet me down in the projection room?\x94

\x93Good.\x94

Tom Reinecke and Desiree Porter were waiting outside the projection room. They\x92d heard Chris Penzler was miss\xADing. Jefferson wanted to tell them to go to hell until I said, \x93We can use some extra eyes.\x94

Yet again we waded out into the hologram, knee deep in miniature moonscape. Jefferson and Reinecke and I fanned out into the choppy lands west of the rim wall and the city. Porter searched the crater itself; because nobody else had. Partly to honor her theory, I stopped at the tilted rock.

Jeffrrson and Tom Reinecke kept going. They glanced back at me, then resumed their search by eye alone, three to four hundred yards from the west wall of the city.

I looked around. The tilted rock was small enough to heft in both arms, except that it wouldn\x92t have moved, of course.

I saw tiny orange suits with bubble helmets scattered over the rocks to my west. I called, \x93What kind of suit would Chris be wearing?\x94

\x93Blue, skintight, with a gold and bronze griffon on the chest,\x94 Jefferson called back.

There were annoying blank spots in the landscape, where the Watchbird\x92s cameras weren\x92t reaching. I tried to feel around in them, but my talent wasn\x92t up to that. I felt noth\xADing.

I found no blue skintight suits, vertical or horizontal. Where Reinecke and Jefferson were searching, bright orange puffers were parked in a ring on flat ground. None in my area.

There was a deep dust pool twenty yards south of the tilted rock. The surface looked roiled. I ran my imaginary hand beneath the surface, and flinched violently. Then I made myself touch it again.

I called, \x93I\x92ve found the puffer. It\x92s under the dust.\x94

One and all, they abandoned their own search. Desiree reached me first. They watched (for what?) while I let go of the puffer and searched further. I found it almost at once. I said, \x93God.\x94

Desiree said, \x93What? Penzler?\x94

I closed my hand around it. It felt light and dry, like a dead lizard left in the sun. \x93Somebody. A suit with some\xADbody inside.\x94 I made my imaginary fingertips follow the contours of the thing, though there was nothing less I wanted in the world. \x93God. His hand is gone.\x94

My hand stopped sending. My talent had quit Imaginary hand, hell; it\x92s my mind, my unprotected mind, that feels out the textures of what I touch. I can only take so much of that.

\x93We\x92ll have to check this out,\x94 Jefferson said.

\x93Use your belt phone. Send the search party that way. Tell them we\x92ll join them as soon as we can.\x94

It took almost an hour. I was twitchy with impatience. When we finally set forth, our team included Jefferson, both newstapers, dredging machinery and a couple of orange-clad operators.

The Earth was a broad crescent, not quite half full. The sun was well up the sky, leaving fewer shadows, but these were impenetrably black. Our headlamps didn\x92t help. Our bubble helmets had darkened and our eyes had adjusted to lunar day.

The dozen cops on the original search team were already waiting at the dust pool Laura Drury bounced up to me. \x93Do you really think he\x92s down there?\x94

\x93I felt him,\x94 I said.

She grimaced. \x93Sorry. Well, we found this. It was just un\xADder the dust, just at the edge.\x94 She held an elastic strap with a buckle, the kind that locks when you pull it fight. \x93We use them on puffers, to hold small stuff on the frame behind the seat. Does it mean anything to you?\x94

\x93Not a thing,\x94 I said.

\x93Maybe the killer dumped the body in the dust,\x94 Laura speculated, \x93and then found the strap. He just stuck it under the dust with his band.\x94

That would mean he was in a hurry, I thought It would also mean the strap was evidence of something, Otherwise he\x92d have just kept it.

Jefferson called Laura, and she waved and went.

I noticed Alan Watson by his height. While the cops were getting the equipment ready, Alan and I adjusted our radios for privacy.

\x93I\x92ve got news,\x94 I said. \x93Maybe good, maybe bad.\x94

\x93About Naomi?\x94

\x93Right She wasn\x92t here when someone shot Penzler in his bath. She wasn\x92t anywhere near here. She was at the Belt Trading Post.\x94

\x93Then she\x92s innocent! But why wouldn\x92t she say so?\x94

\x93She thought she was committing an organ bank crime.\x94

Alan\x92s face twisted. \x93That isn\x92t a whole lot of help.\x94

The dredge moved into the dust, sinking. The dust was deep. I\x92d felt it.

\x93It could help,\x94 I said. \x93We have to prove that someone else tried to shoot Chris, without showing what Naomi was actually doing, then we could get her revived.\x94

\x93By God, we could! If that\x92s Penzler down there, then the original assassin got him.\x94

\x93Maybe not. His methods seem to have turned crude.

We\x92d still want to show how he could fire a laser at Chris Penzler\x92s window from out here and then get back into the city, or wherever he did go, and why I didn\x92t find him in the projection room. And after all, that might not even be Penzler\x92s body. All I know is, there\x92s someone down there.\x94

\x93Um.\x94

\x93What I\x92d rather do is show that what Naomi was doing. wasn\x92t an organ bank crime. She should\x92ve discussed it with her lawyer What I think she-\x94

The dredge came out of the dust, and I dropped the con\xADversation and loped over.

The corpse wore a blue skintight suit. The right hand had been sliced off cleanly, four inches above the wrist The face seemed shrunken, but I would have recognised him, even without the torso painting, the Bonnie Dalzell griffon clutching Earth in its claw.

I opened, my radio band and announced, \x93It\x92s Chris Penzler.\x94

Jefferson examined the severed forearm. \x93Clean cut. Message laser on high,\x94 he said. \x93The beam must have sliced right through. If there was rock behind him, we\x92ll find the marks.\x94 He set some of the cops to searching.

We didn\x92t bother to look for bootprints. The search party had left too many. But they hadn\x92t left puller tracks. We found a set of puffer tracks and followed them backward from the pool until they disappeared on bare rock.

Someone behind us announced that he had found the hand. Jefferson went back. I didn\x92t. Those tracks could lead from the general direction of the tilted boulder.

Six nights ago, Chris Penzler had glimpsed someone through his picture window. Only for an instant ... and afterward he couldn\x92t decide which side of this particular boulder he\x92d been looking past. Maybe he\x92d come out to see.

The flat side of the rock was in deep shadow. I stepped close to the rock, out of the sun, and waited for my darkened helmet to clear again and my eyes to adjust. Then I played my headlamp over the rock.

My yell brought them running. They clustered around me to look at Chris Penzler\x92s dying message: big, malformed letters scrawled across the rock, black in the light of the headlamps.

NAKF

\x93He must have written it in his own blood,\x94 Jefferson said. \x93In shadow, so the killer wouldn\x92t notice. He must have been jetting blood from the severed artery. But...that isn\x92t a name, is it?\x94

Desiree said, \x93It isn\x92t anything, I think.\x94

\x93The strap!\x94 Laura cried in the joyful tones that go with the Eureka! sensation. \x93The strap, he must have used it for a tourniquet! He must have known he was dying-maybe he had to hide from the killer-\x94 Her voice dropped. \x93It\x92s aw\xADful, isn\x92t it?\x94

\x93Take a scraping of that blood,\x94 Jefferson ordered. \x93At least we\x92ll find out if it was Penzler\x92s. He must have had something in mind.\x94

I got back to my room around midnight I set it up on my phone screen:

NAKF

So here\x92s Chris Penzler out there on the meteor-torn moon, looking for clues. Maybe he remembers something. Maybe he finds something. Maybe not.

But a killer finds him.

A lunie citizen would be more likely to know it when Chris Penzler checked out a puffer. Assume he followed im\xADmediately ... on foot, unless he was an idiot. I\x92d ask the computer if someone checked out a puller right after Chris did. Some killers are idiots.

If Christ had recognised his killer he\x92d have written a name. I\x92d get the computer to search the city directory. Offhand I didn\x92t know anyone on the Moon whose name started with NAKF. Or with-I started filling in letters. Writ\xADten in haste in jetting blood, and possibly in darkness, a K

Could be a ruined R, F could be E, N could be M or W...

NARF NAKE NARE MAKF MAKE MARE WAKF WAKE WARE

No names sprang to mind. And Chris wasn\x92t a lunie; here on the Moon I knew everyone he did.

NAKF NAOMI

It was a bad fit. And Naomi had one hell of an alibi. I should be able to persuade the lunar law to disgorge her on the strength of Penzler\x92s murder. If there were indeed two killers after Chris\x92s blood-Naomi the clumsy one, some\xADbody else the skillful or lucky or more straightforward one

-Naomi could be returned to the holding tank.

I called, \x93Chiron, phone. Get me Alan Watson.\x94 And my nasty suspicious mind gave me:

NAKF ALAN WATSON WATS

Alan was out on the Moon at the time, in the search party looking for Chris Penzler himself: So maybe he found him. How much would Alan do for Naomi? Would he murder a stranger who had done her harm, if it would buy her life?

Alan\x92s long black-browed lace appeared. On the phone screen he was easier to take; his height didn\x92t show. \x93Hello, Gil.\x94

An N could be a W with the first vertical botched; but an F could not be a botched S, I decided. I said, \x93I wondered if we can get Naomi out of Copernicus now.\x94

\x93I\x92ve already filed with the court. All we can do now is wait I expect they\x92ll revive her, but it would help if we could tell them where she actually was. Gil, where was she?\x94

\x93I should know that within a few hours.\x94 I didn\x92t add that I might not tell him then...

Assume Chris didn\x92t recognise his killer. He couldn\x92t give us a name if all he saw was a pressure suit. Short, medium, or lunie? Inflated or skintight? Chris hadn\x92t bothered to tell us. Could he have had something more specific in mind? Like a torso painting?

Lunch was a long time in the past. I had seen corpses uglier than Chris Penzler\x92s. Maybe I could have done something to save his life...but I still had no idea what it might be. I phoned down for a chicken-and-onion sandwich.

Then I put the display back on the phone screen and stared at it.

He must have known he was dying. He\x92d have kept it short. Unless I was overlooking some significance to NAKF, he had still run out of tithe or blood.

Try NAKE, then. SNAKE? But if I made the F an un\xADfinished E, then he wasn\x92t writing backward. And why should he? So try

NAKF NAKED

For a torso painting? That wouldn\x92t help much. Naked ladies were very popular as torso painting...in the Belt, at least.

Try something else. Picture a vindictive, dedicated killer tracking Chris across the moon, bare-assed but for his trusty laser...taking his vengeance just before internal pressure rips him apart in a gust of cold scarlet fog...no? Then how about a vehicle with a transparent bubble cockpit? Park it in shadow, with the cockpit lights on, and Chris would see only the killer. But I didn\x92t know of any such vehicle. A custom job? And it would have shown on radar if it flew, would have left tracks if it didn\x92t.

I tried some other words-

My door announcer said, \x93Gil, are you there? It\x92s Laura.\x94

\x93Chiron, door open.\x94

She\x92d showered away the sweat secretions that ac\xADcumulate on your skin when you\x92re in a pressure suit. I hadn\x92t. Suddenly I felt grimy. She said, \x93We\x92ve made a little progress. I thought you\x92d want to know.\x94

\x93What have you got?\x94

She sat down on the bed beside me, comfortably close. \x93Nobody checked out a puffer after Penzler did. Not till the search party went out. That puts our killer on foot. It would slow him down.\x94

\x93Maybe. Maybe he can get a puffer without leaving a computer record. Wouldn\x92t he have to do that to get at the lasers?\x94

\x93Or if he was a cop with the search party, that would get him the puller and the laser too.\x94

She scowled.

\x93Skip it. What have you got on the body?\x94

\x93Harry McCavity\x92s doing an autopsy outside the mirror works. The condition of the body... well, it\x92s freeze-dried.

Harry got positively nasty when I wanted a time of death.

And the tanks bled empty within half an hour, and his watch didn\x92t conveniently stop either.\x94

\x93Laura, can I ask you some questions about lunar cus\xADtoms?\x94

She looked down at me. \x93Go ahead.\x94

\x93I already know that people here are supposed to share a bed only when they\x92re married to each other. What I want to know is, if two unmarried people did share a bed, would they be expected to share a bed only with each other?\x94

Her voice turned brittle, and she sat very straight on the bed. \x93What started you on this?\x94

\x93I\x92ve been getting some funny vibrations.\x94 I didn\x92t name Jefferson.

\x93Yes. Well. I haven\x92t been bragging about the short, strong fellow I managed to entrap, if that\x92s what you\x92re thinking. I don\x92t know how anyone would know about us.\x94

\x93Maybe lunies tend to know each other better than flatlanders do. Smaller population. Smaller cities. And there is such a thing as telepathy.\x94 And Laura had been smiling and sparkling as we left her apartment this morning. Someone might have noticed.

\x93What is it you want to know? Should you resume your relationship with Dr. Grimes? Did you think you needed my permission?\x94

\x93I think there are five lunies I don\x92t want to offend,\x94 I said. \x93You, and four Committee delegates from four lunar cities. If you and I are now supposed to be monogamous, I want to know it I came to the Moon largely because Taffy was here. Should I now stop seeing Taffy in private? Or at all? Come on, give me some help. If the Committee is too busy fighting to make decisions, everybody loses.\x94

She screwed her eyes almost shut \x93This is all new to me. Let me think.\x94 Pause. \x93I want you for myself. Is that im\xADmoral?\x94

\x93Depends on where you are. Silly but true. I am flattered.\x94

\x93All right. Stop seeing her in public.\x94 By now she was on her feet and pacing like a tiger. \x93Even in the halls. In private, make sure it\x92s private. No phone calls. No room service breakfast for two.\x94

\x93Taffy\x92s gone to Marxgrad.\x94

\x93What?\x94

\x93She\x92s got her own career to pursue. Now she\x92s pursued it to the back of the Moon. But I had to know these things for future reference, Laura. Are you angry?\x94

She looked at me. She turned to the door. I said, \x93Re\xADmember, I\x92m likely to believe anything you tell me. Call me ignorant Are you angry? Shall we avoid each other from now on?\x94

She turned back. \x93I\x92m angry. I made the same mistake anyone else would have. I want you back in my bed as soon as I get over this!\x94 She swung around to the door, and back again. Hesitated. Finally, she dropped back on the bed just behind my shoulder.

It wasn\x92t me that had stopped her, I think. It was the display.

NAKF

NARF NAKE NARE MAKF MAKE MARE WAKF

WAKE WARE

NAKF\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0 NAOMI

NAKF\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0 WATS

NAKED SNAKE SNARE WAKEN

\x93See anything?\x94

\x93Beware?\x94

I said, \x93He\x92d have to add on at both ends.\x94

\x93That applies to M\x92s and W\x92s too. Oh, I see. If he missed a stroke right at the beginning-\x94

\x93Yeah. Do lunies tend to put nudes in their torso paint\xADings?\x94

\x93No.\x94

\x93Do lunies use any kind of vehicle with a lot of glass in it? A full bubble cockpit? Do the Belters at the Trading Post?\x94

\x93I don\x92t think so. Why?\x94

\x93NAKED. And now I\x92m stuck. Futz. Maybe he was trying to describe a torso painting?\x94

Laura said, \x93He must have got away from the killer. May\xADbe he ducked into the shadows and tied a tourniquet and kept going. Otherwise it\x92s too easy for the killer. A second swipe with the laser cuts him in half.\x94

\x93Maybe. What\x92s your point?\x94

\x93He knew he\x92d die when he took the tourniquet off. He would have thought it through in detail before he wrote any message.\x94 She studied the screen. She reached past me and typed:

NaKF

\x93Chemistry. Sodium, potassium, flourine.\x94

\x93What does it mean? What do you do with those three elements?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know. Gil-\x94

The door announcer said, \x93Room service.\x94

Laura yelped. In an instant she was behind the door, flat\xADtened against the wall. I stared. Then I went to the door, called it open, stepped into the hall and took the tray, said, \x93Thank you. Good night,\x94 and closed the door in the bemused waiter\x92s face.

Laura exhaled.

I was trying not to laugh. I took a huge bite out of a sand\xADwich and spoke around it \x93I need a bath almost as much as I need food. I\x92m hoping you\x92ll stay; I\x92m just telling you.\x94

\x93I\x92ll do your back,\x94 Laura said.

\x93Good.\x94

11. The Empty Room

I was half awake. My mind, idling in neutral, played word games.

NAKF LAURA DRURY DESK COP NAKF

I couldn\x92t make it fit.

Laura\x92s foot was hooked under mine. When she tried to turn over I came fully awake. I worked my foot free and she rolled just to the edge of the bed.

NAKF... DRURY ... what the hell was I doing?

Properly horrified, I pushed the whole topic way down to the bottom of my mind and left it there. But I couldn\x92t get back to sleep. I finally moved to the foot of the bed and said, \x93Chiron, low volume. Chiron, messages.\x94

Taffy looked good, brisk and happy. \x93I like Marxgrad,\x94 she said. \x93I like the people. I\x92m brushing up on my medical Russian, but everyone speaks enough English for social purposes. I miss you mostly at night.

\x93I hope you haven\x92t changed your mind about having children. I can find the time starting a year from now. We do have a problem. Neither of us intends to drop his career, right? And we\x92re both subject to emergency calls. That could be tough on children.\x94

Another complication I hadn\x92t dealt with yet.

\x93So think it over,\x94 the recording said. \x93We may want to go into a multiple marriage. Think about the people we know. Is there anyone we can both stand to live with for the first, oh, five to ten years? For instance, how do Lila and Jackson Bera feel about children? Do you know? Think it over and then call me. My love to you and Harry,\x94 she said, and was gone.

Laura was watching me. She started to say something, but the next message beat her to it.

The picture was fuzzy. Two men and a laughing little blond girl floated in free fall, at skew angles. The man hold\xADing the little girl\x92s hand was a rotund, cheerful man with thick white hair. The other was short and dark and very round of face, partly or wholly Eskimo, I guessed. I didn\x92t know any of them.

\x93I am Howard de Campo, called Antsie, citizen of Vesta,\x94 the smiling Eskimo said. \x93You called to be informed of the motions of Mrs. Naomi Mitchison during certain hours.

From 2250 Tuesday to 0105 Wednesday, the lady in ques\xADtion was in Chili Bird visiting I and my passenger, Dr. Ray\xADmond Q Forward. The purpose of the visit is secret, but we will tell if necessary, of course. If you have to know more, call us at Confinement, please.\x94 The picture blinked out.

\x93By God, you were right,\x94 Laura said. \x93I could probably even guess the crime.\x94

\x93They haven\x92t admitted anything,\x94 I said. But the blond, blue-eyed little girl must have been included deliberately. She was Naomi at age four.

Laura said, \x93Love to you and Harry.\x92 No lunie could ever have said that\x94

\x93She meant it.\x94

\x93Suppose she\x92d known I was listening?\x94

\x93Would you object to my telling her, some day?\x94

\x93Please don\x92t,\x94 said Laura. She controlled it well, but the idea upset her. \x93Are you thinking of having children by Taf\xADfy Grimes?\x94

\x93Yes.\x94

\x93What about us?\x94

I hadn\x92t thought of that at all. \x93I wouldn\x92t be here to act like a father. And I\x92ll be sterile for another four months.

Anyway, would my genes be right?\x94

\x93I didn\x92t mean... never mind.\x94 She roiled over and came into my arms. The rest of our conversation was nonverbal. But what had she meant?

Shaeffer and Quifting had called Ceres to ask that a third Belter be chosen and sent to the Moon as quickly as pos\xADsible. Meanwhile the Conference would continue without Chris Penzler.

A nervous urgency was apparent while we were still in\xADvolved with coffee and rolls. Charles Ward tried to assure us, before anyone else had suggested the possibility, that Chris had not been murdered by local terrorists bent on disrupt\xADing or exterminating the Conference. The other lunies were quick to agree. Sure. Where were they getting their data?

Just before 0900, I phoned the Mayor\x92s office from the Conference mom. \x93You\x92ve heard about Chris Penzler?\x94

\x93Yes. A very sticky situation, Gil.\x94 The Mayor was per\xADturbed, and it showed. \x93We\x92re doing all we can, of course. I imagine this will disrupt the Conference.\x94

\x91We\x92ll see. That might have been the whole idea. Has Naomi Mitchison been released from the holding tanks?\x94

\x93No.\x94

\x93Why not?\x94

\x93Releasing a convict from a holding tank isn\x92t done by a wave of the hand. The medical-\x94

\x93Mayor, your holding tanks aren\x92t that different from the ones on the slowboats, the interstellar colony ships. Crew members go in and out of the holding tanks a dozen times during any trip.\x94

Hove\x92s eyes flicked past my shoulder. I glanced back and found that I had an audience. Several Conference members were following our conversation. That was all to the good, I thought.

Hove was saying, \x93You know nothing about the medical complexities. Furthermore, Mrs. Mitchison is a convicted criminal. Reversal of her sentence will not be accomplished by a wave of the hand either.\x94

\x93In that case, I\x92m going to raise some hell,\x94 I said.

\x93How do you mean that?\x94

I said, \x93The proceedings of the Conference have been con\xADfidential so far-\x94

\x93And should be!\x94 Bertha Carmody barked in my ear.

\x93Futz, Bertha, this is at the heart of what\x92s been blocking us all along! Mayor, there\x92s some question as to whether your law gives adequate protection to the defendant. Trials are over almost before they begin, and in twenty years not one sentence has been reversed. Naomi Mitchison\x92s trial is the first to be investigated by outsiders. We now have evidence that someone else wanted Chris Penzler dead all along. Your son has filed to obtain Mrs. Mitchison\x92s release. But when a Committee member, me, checks with the Mayor of Hovestraydt City, it turns out the conviction isn\x92t even un\xADder review!\x94

\x93Damn it, Gil, the conviction is under review; right now!\x94

\x93Good. How long would you expect it to take?\x94

\x93I have no idea. A reversal may have to wait until the new investigation is over.\x94

\x93Fine. In the meantime, get her out of the holding tank.\x94

\x93Why? Chris\x92s death may be unrelated to the first at\xADtempt.\x94

\x93Granted. I won\x92t try to guess the odds. I\x92ll put it to you that Naomi is likely innocent-\x94

\x93Likely is too strong a word.\x94

\x93-and a possible witness. Aside from that, the Committee may want to call her to testify firsthand on how she\x92s been treated. We\x92ve examined exactly two trials under lunar juris\xADprudence, and the other one ...

\x93Matheson and Company,\x94 Stone put in helpfully.

\x93Yeah. That one looks kind of funny, too. And Naomi is still in a holding tank waiting to be broken up. How will all of this look to the newstapers?\x94

Bertha roared, \x93These proceedings are confidential! Hamilton, how can you think of exposing our deliberations to the news media?\x94

I said, \x93All right, Bertha. I\x92ll stick to my opinions on the Mitchison case.\x94

\x93I hope that that will not be necessary,\x94 the Mayor said. \x93I intend to order Naomi Mitchison revived at once. She will be returned here under arrest, to play her part in the in\xADvestigation into Chris Penzler\x92s death. Is that satisfactory, Mr. Hamilton?\x94

\x93Yes. Thank you.\x94 I called off the phone, and Bertha called the meeting to order.

When we broke for lunch, I suited up and headed for the mirror works. I found Harry McCavity just outside the air\xADlock, waiting for it to cycle.

\x93I\x92m beat,\x94 he said. \x93It\x92s been a long night. Morning, Gil\x85no, let me show you something first, and then I\x92m for bed.\x94

He led me through the mirror works. \x93Penzler died from loss of blood,\x94 he said. \x93He was wearing a skintight suit Cutting his hand off didn\x92t release the pressure on his skin. But the blood must have jetted like a fire hose.\x94

\x93He used it to write with.\x94

\x93Drury told me. He\x92d have had to write fast.\x94

Penzler\x92s corpse was outside, in vacuum, under a silvered canopy to keep it cold. The dry remains had been sliced to obtain cross sections. They looked like petrified wood. Penzler\x92s skintight pressure suit was next to it, opened along the back and spread like a pelt. The golden griffon glowed on its chest.

Harry picked up Chris\x92s hand, a withered brown claw with four inches of wrist attached. He held it against the severed forearm. What with the shrinking of the flesh, it was hard to tell whether they belonged together. \x93Look at the bones,\x94 he said.

The ends of the bones were quite smooth and fitted per\xADfectly.

\x93And here.\x94 He picked up the right glove from the pres\xADsure suit \x93His hand was in it. Now look.\x94 He held it against the sliced fabric of the pressure suit\x92s forearm.

There was almost no material missing. The laser had sliced through cleanly, at very high energy density, and no thicker than a fishing leader. Even laser beams spread with distance. \x93They must have been close together when it hap\xADpened,\x94 I said.

\x93Too right. Penzler and his killer couldn\x92t have been more than three feet apart.\x94

\x93Huh.\x94 I tried to scratch my head through the helmet \x93Harry, I don\x92t know what it means yet.\x94

We went back inside, and Harry headed for his bed. I called Artemus Boone and got him to join me for lunch.

We moved down the buffet table collecting dollops and samples of everything in sight. The food on Boone\x92s plate became a precariously balanced cone with a hard boiled pigeon\x92s egg at the apex. He lowered it to the table slowly, with both hands.

\x93It\x92s not bad,\x94 he told me. \x93It\x92s only complicated. I could argue either way that Mrs. Mitchison is subject only to the lunar law, or only to United Nations law, whichever she likes.\x94

\x93So?\x94

\x93United Nations law would sterilize her, I think. She is both the father and mother. One could argue that she has used two birthrights. Sterilization wouldn\x92t stop her from growing another clone, so she might not object. For the same reason, the law might demand the right to execute her, but I think I could block that.\x94

\x93How sure are you?\x94

\x93Not very. UN law isn\x92t my home turf: I\x92d rather work within lunar law. As for the child, she can\x92t be extradited, but she should never visit Earth.\x94

\x93What\x92s the position under lunar law?\x94

\x93Lunar law includes nothing like your fertility quotas. Women who bear children without previous marriage are on their own unless the father sues for his rights ... well, that doesn\x92t apply. But de Campo and Mrs. Mitchison have violated lunar medical restrictions. I\x92d think we want to stand trial here, then claim double jeopardy before the UN.\x94

\x93She\x92d be safe then?\x94

\x93Up to a point\x94 Boone coughed delicately. \x93The lady\x92s attitude toward men might hamper her popularity with a jury. And there is still the matter of an attempted murder charge.\x94

\x93Yeah. I need to talk about the murder,\x94 I said, \x93and I\x92ve run out of people to talk with. Have you got some free time?\x94

\x93Some. You don\x92t propose to solve both crimes yourself, this afternoon, do you?\x94

\x93Why not?\x94

Boone smiled. \x93Why indeed? For my defense of Mrs. Mitchison I needed a suspect other than Mrs. Mitchison. My main obstacle was your testimony.\x94

\x93I can\x92t change it. There wasn\x92t anyone else out on the Moon, and no message laser.\x94

\x93Well?\x94

\x93I keep thinking in terms of mirrors. Boone, I wish to Hell I could put a mirror out there. That way the killer and the weapon could both be somewhere else.\x94

Boone had been eating, talking between mouthfuls. He had a voracious appetite for so lean a man. He chewed and thought, and swallowed, and said, \x93But the mirror would have to be in place.\x94

\x93Remember how Chris acted when we asked him what kind of pressure suit the killer was wearing? He sweated. He dithered. He said he might have seen an optical illusion.\x94 \x93A terrible experience. He might have blocked the memo\xADry.\x94

\x93Sure. Then six days later he left us a dying message. Do you know about that?\x94

\x93NAKF. Meaningless.\x94

\x93I\x92ve been assuming he died before he could finish. What was he trying to tell us? NAKED?\x94

\x93On the Moon?\x94 Boone smiled..

\x93Naked to vacuum,\x94 I said. \x93Chris stood up in his bath and saw someone out on the Moon without a pressure suit. Don\x92t you see, he was looking in a mirror.\x94

\x93But what was he seeing? Himself?\x94

\x93No. He saw the killer. The killer must have been in one of the other apartments. Poor Chris, he must have thought he was going crazy. No wonder he wouldn\x92t talk about it.\x94

Boone ate quietly for a time. Then he said, \x93Mrs. Mitchison was on the second floor. We tend to put out\xADworlders on the ground floor. Were all the ground floor apartments full? This is something we can check, but you see the implications. The killer is not a native.\x94

That didn\x92t fit my other assumptions, but- \x93Yeah, check those records. You\x92ve got the authority.\x94

\x93I will.\x94 Boone smiled. \x93Now tell me why the mirror wasn\x92t found by the police when they searched for an aban\xADdoned message laser.\x94

\x93\x91What about a mirror in low orbit? Mirrors don\x92t have to be opaque to radar. A plane mirror with the right rotation might give the killer a couple of minutes to pick his shot. And we know he was hurried.\x94

Boone snorted. \x93Ridiculous. An orbiting mirror would have had to be large enough for the killer to see Penzler and vice versa. It would probably have been in sunlight, since the assault took place just before dawn. Anyone could have seen it blazing like a beacon.\x94

\x93All right, it\x92s a stupid suggestion, but it\x92s the best I\x92ve got. If we can put a disappearing mirror out there, we\x92ve cleared Naomi, haven\x92t we?\x94

\x93Absolutely. I think we have enough to get her out of the holding tank now pending a second trial.\x94

\x93Get together with the Mayor,\x94 I told him. \x93I expect he\x92s inclined to be reasonable.\x94

\x93Good.\x94 Boone went back to eating. He had nearly fin\xADished that huge plate.

I said, \x93A mirror can be a thin film stretched on a frame, can\x92t it? If the killer was a lunie cop, he could just pull it apart and stash it. Penzler said three hundred to four hun\xADdred meters from his window, but the mirror would be only half that far...hey. That tilted rock was a hundred and ninety meters away. And everyone else would be searching in the wrong place.\x94

\x93Tilted rock?\x94

\x93Futz, yes! There\x92s a big boulder out there a hundred and ninety meters from his window. Chris thought he was look\xADing past it, but he couldn\x92t say which side. The mirror was probably propped on the rock!\x94

Boone\x92s deep-set eyes seemed to withdraw further. He ate steadily while he thought. Then, \x93Very good. Did you have a particular suspect in mind?\x94

I knew of a policewoman who had been involved in yesterday\x92s search for Chris Penzler. I knew she had a liking for flatlanders. In her love affairs (plural or singular?) she was possessive in a fashion more typical of lunie than flatland custom. She might have involved herself with Chris Penzler, then been rejected by him, at least by her own stan\xADdards.

She was thoroughly familiar with the Hoveslraydt City computer, from age ten. If Naomi could have taken a message laser without leaving a record, why not Laura Drury? She could get into an empty apartment the same way.

A lunie cop could have committed the later, successful murder. The moon was swarming with them. The killer could have joined the swarm...before or after the murder, given that we didn\x92t have an exact time of death.

But Laura had been at the desk the night Penzler was shot in his bath. Hadn\x92t she? When had she come on duty? Would she have had time to go outside for a folding mirror? The killer had been in a hurry that night...

\x93Hamilton?\x94

\x93Sorry. Yeah, I\x92ve got suspects, but I still don\x92t have a dis\xADappearing mirror.\x94

\x93This isn\x92t courtroom.\x94

\x93I know. Keep thinking about the mirror. I\x92m not a lunie; I\x92m handicapped.\x94

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 and 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 and nine\xADty meters to a mirror on the tilted rock, another hundred and ninety back. Chris had said three to four hundred meters. More reason to think he\x92d seen a lunie. A lunie, taller than the Belters Penzler was used to, would seem closer.

He\x92d gone out to look at the tilted rock. Had he found what he was after, before someone had found him? Proba\xADbly not; he\x92d left us only a puzzle written in frozen blood.

Alan Watson and I hadn\x92t found much either...

My phone was calling me.

It was Boone. \x93The court has ordered the lady revived,\x94 he told me. \x93She\x92s already out. She\x92ll be returned to Hove\xADstraydt City around noon tomorrow. I was told she would need to recuperate overnight in the Copernicus hospital.\x94

Why? But she was out; that was what counted. \x93Is she awake now?\x94

\x93Yes, I\x92ve talked to her.\x94

\x93Okay, I\x92ll-\x94

\x93Please don\x92t call her, Hamilton. She sounded tired. She wouldn\x92t give me visual.\x94

\x93Urn. Okay. What\x92s the situation with apartments?\x94

Boone looked cautiously triumphant \x93There\x92s 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 occu\xADpants as of that date. The computer does not list room oh-forty-seven as empty or occupied.\x94

\x93Have you tried to look in oh-forty-seven?\x94

\x93Not yet. I\x92ll need a court order.\x94

\x93No you won\x92t. Have Naomi ask for that room. If anyone flinches, it may tell us something.\x94

He smirked an unLincolnesque smirk. \x93I like it.\x94

\x93Okay, Now tell somebody about this, will you? Get the judge in charge of reviewing Naomi\x92s conviction and tell him about that disappearing room. Or tell anyone at all.\x94

\x93Surely you\x92re being overdramatic?\x94

\x93You know too much to be safe. We\x92re dealing with some\xADone who can control the lock on your apartment. Look, do it just to make me happy.\x94

\x93All right, Mr. Hamilton.\x94 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\x85getting concave, defocussing the beam...and it had defocussed in mid-burn!

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\x92d scraped at the shadowed back of the rock with my gloves.

White stuff had come off I\x92d 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 of the puzzle solved.

12. The Traditional Elements

\x93Phone call, Mr. Hamilton. Phone call, Mr.-\x94

\x93Oh, futz.\x94

\x93-milton. Phone call-\x94

\x93Chiron, answer phone.\x94 I disengaged the strap across my chest and sat up.

\x93Hello, Gil.\x94 The screen was blank, but the voice was Naomi\x92s. She sounded tired. There was none of the jubila\xADtion you\x92d expect of someone raised from death.

\x93Hello. You going to give me vision?\x94

\x93No.\x94

Something like post-operative depression, maybe. \x93Where are you calling from?\x94

\x93Here. Hovestraydt City. They say I\x92m still under arrest.\x94

Had she arrived early? But my clock said noon. I\x92d been a long time falling asleep.

\x93Have you talked to Boone yet? We still have an attempted murder to deal with. We\x92d like to pin both murders on someone.\x94

\x93Go ahead.\x94

\x93Are you under drugs?\x94

\x93No, but nothing seems to matter much. Who got me out of the freezer?\x94

\x93Mostly Alan Watson,\x94 I said, for sweet charity\x92s sake.

\x93Naomi, we know where you were when someone shot Chris Penzler in his bath. Boone and I discussed it over the Chili at lunch yesterday.\x94

\x93Over the...oh.\x94 She thought it out. Clearly I knew, and didn\x92t trust the phone system. \x93All right. Now what?\x94

\x93You\x92re still a suspect. We\x92d like to produce an actual killer. But he wasn\x92t 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\x92s not as bad as it sounds. You should talk to him.\x94

\x93All right.\x94

\x93We\x92d like to see you in your apartment\x94

\x93Gil, I\x92d rather not see anyone.\x94 Bitterly, \x93I was just getting used to the idea of being dead.\x94

\x93So you\x92re not dead. Now what?\x94

\x93I don\x92t know.\x94

I couldn\x92t tell her why we had to see the apartment. Not by phone. In her present state, would she take orders? \x93Call Boone.\x94 I said. \x93Tell him I\x92ll meet him in your apartment. Its oh-forty-seven, isn\x92t it? Tell him to get the police to let us in. Then order us breakfast. Plenty of coffee.\x94

There were several seconds of dead air. Then for the first time I heard emotion in her voice. \x93All right, Gil,\x94 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\x92t 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\x92d thought she was used to lunar gravity. She said, \x93Surprise.\x94

And then I saw.

\x93When you\x92re in the holding tanks, they\x92re not supposed to touch you except in emergencies,\x94 she said. \x93Did you know that?\x94

I had trouble getting my breath. \x93I knew it. We\x92ve been discussing it in the Conference. What do lunies consider an emergency?\x94

\x93Aye, there\x92s the rub,\x94 said Naomi. \x93They apologised, of course. They did the best they could. Seems a Brazilian planetologist waded into a dust pool near Copernicus. It\x92s 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 spec\xADtrum to help her out?\x94

Her legs weren\x92t bad, but they didn\x92t look quite right. Her face didn\x92t look quite right either. And something about her body... maybe the way she carried herself...

\x93She\x92s famous, I gather, this Mary de Santa Rita Lisboa.

All hell would break loose if she couldn\x92t get adequate medi\xADcal treatment at Copernicus. Terrible publicity. For God\x92s sake tell me how I look!\x94

\x93Just about the same,\x94 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\x92t quite the same color, how could I have missed that? Her torso seemed twisted. She\x92d cure that when she learned to walk again. After all, her legs were changed too. They were too thin\x85not lunie legs, thank God; she\x92d have looked like a stork. They\x92d probably come off a Belter.

Somehow the doctors had found parts that matched, almost. That didn\x92t alter the fact that they had raided a hold\xADing tank!

\x93I\x92ll want you to testify before the Committee,\x94 I told her. \x93I\x92m going to raise hell.\x94

\x93Good,\x94 she said venomously.

\x93Boone, did you explain the legal situation?\x94

Boone nodded. Naomi said, \x93I wish I\x92d known all of this before the trial. I don\x92t 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.\x94

\x93Will you do it?\x94

\x93I suppose so.\x94

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\x92t unsightly, just...changed. Patchwork girl! This was not the woman whose untouchable beauty had sent me fleeing to the asteroid belt long ago.

\x93Reversing the judgment against you may be more difficult than you think,\x94 Boone said. \x93No judge enjoys ruling that another judge was wrong. We-\x94

Which reminded me. \x93Boone? I\x92ve found the disappear\xADing mirror.\x94

\x93What? How?\x94

\x93Water. 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\x92ll 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?\x94

Boone gaped. It made him look a lot less like Abe Lincoln. He said, \x93Yes, it\x92d work. My God, that\x92s why he was in such a hurry. He wanted to kill Penzler just before the sun touched the mirror!\x94

I smiled. The eureka sensation. \x93But Chris wouldn\x92t coop\xADerate. He liked playing with the water-\x94

\x93When the sun touched the mirror, it would just disap\xADpear!\x94

\x93Almost,\x94 I said. \x93When it evaporated, some of the water vapor wound up on the back of the tilted rock, in shadow. I found frost there. It\x92ll be gone by now, but we\x92ve got other evidence. Harry McCavity says the beam either spread or constricted during the burn. The ice was vaporizing. That\x92s what really saved Chris\x92s life.\x94

I turned to Naomi, who was looking bewildered. \x93What all of this means is that the murder attempt happened here in this room. Boone, have you had a chance-\x94

He shook his head. \x93Nothing odd here at all. These rooms are kept clean by automatics. I expect we won\x92t find any\xADthing. 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.\x94

\x93I know. Too many suspects.\x94

\x93There ought to be some way to narrow it down-\x94

\x93How am I fixed for lawsuits?\x94

\x93Nonsense. You\x92re an ARM trying to solve a murder. I\x92m a lawyer in conference with my client.\x94

\x93I\x92d like to know more about Chris\x92s love life,\x94 I said. \x93Naomi-\x94

\x93He made a pass at me. Rather crude,\x94 she said. \x93Would he want to sleep with a lunie woman?\x94 \x93That I don\x92t know. Some men like variety. Itch did.\x94 So did I. Futz. So try the phone- Laura was busy. I got her by belt phone, voice only. \x93Gil?

I couldn\x92t make it last night I\x92m short of sleep now. It was the Penzler case.\x94

\x93No sweat, I was playing detective. I\x92m playing detective now. Do you know anything about Chris Penzler\x92s taste in women? Even by hearsay?\x94

\x93Mmm. Hearsay maybe. Do you remember the prose\xADcution attorney from Naomi Mitchison\x92s trial?\x94

The elf woman. Face of cold perfection. \x93I remember.\x94

\x93Caroline\x92s fiancee got drunk with some friends and was going to go looking for Penzler. They had to talk him out of it. That\x92s all I know. It might have nothing to do with Caroline at all. He wouldn\x92t say.\x94

\x93Anything else?\x94

\x93Nothing I can think of:\x94

\x93Thanks. When can I call you back?\x94

\x93I\x92m off duty at noon, with luck. But I need sleep, Gil.\x94

\x93Sometime this evening?\x94

I called off the phone. I thought hard. Then I called the Mayor\x92s office.

\x93Mr.\x92 Hamilton.\x94 I wasn\x92t Gil any more, not since yesterday\x92s power play. \x93You\x92ll find that Naomi Mitchison is out of the holding tank and has been returned here.\x94

\x93I\x92m with her now. She\x92s got a few parts missing, did you know that? Missing and replaced.\x94

\x93I was told,\x94 Hove said. \x93I won\x92t take responsibility for that. I can guess what your attitude will be. Is that why you called?\x94

\x93No. Right now I\x92m more concerned with keeping her out of the holding tank. Hove, you\x92re a politician, you have to deal with all kinds of people. Do you happen to know if Chris Penzler was attracted to lunie women?\x94

He stiffened a little. \x93I presume he wouldn\x92t show it. An offworld diplomat wouldn\x92t jeopardize his position in such a fashion.\x94

Was Hove that naive? \x91We know damn well he offended somebody, Hove, and we\x92ve got good reason to think it was a citizen of Hovestraydt City. You were here twenty years ago, weren\x92t 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?\x94

\x93I know the place you mean,\x94 Hove said reluctantly. \x93Aphrodite\x92s. They don t keep records. I can look up records of puffer rentals from twenty years ago, if it\x92s important to you.\x94

\x93Good. It is.\x94

\x93Gil, why do you think a local man killed Chris?\x94

\x93Nobody else could have made the...Mayor, it\x92s too easy to plug into the phone system.\x94

\x93I\x92ll get you your data,\x94 Hove said, and called off.

Boone and Naomi were both looking at me. I said, \x93If Chris had an affair with a lunie woman, she might be an\xADnoyed when he went off with someone else. Lunie customs are funny.\x94

\x93Flatlander customs are funny,\x94 Boone corrected me, \x93but you may be right. Who?\x94

\x93Oh, it\x92s just a possible situation.\x94 I got up to pace. I was going to hate it if it was Laura. \x93Here\x92s 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.\x94

\x93Didn\x92t they actually save Penzler\x92s life?\x94

\x93It\x92d 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.\x94

Boone was nodding. \x93They\x92re living like a married cou\xADple. They must have known each other for some time.\x94

I grinned at him. \x93They\x92re not lunies, Boone. I just don\x92t know. There are two other Belters on the Committee. They could have had something against him...\x94

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.

\x93This case does have its traditional elements,\x94 I said. \x93What time is it in Los Angeles?\x94

\x93I have no idea,\x94 Boone said.

\x93I should call Luke Garner. He\x92s got a tape library of old mysteries. He\x92d love this. Dying messages, locked moms, tricks with mirrors-\x94

\x93We don\x92t have to produce a killer, you know. That\x92s for the police. Now that we know how the mirror trick was worked, we can clear Mrs. Mitchison.\x94

\x93Boone, I get edgy when I\x92ve solved two-thirds of a puzzle. That\x92s the time when you can get killed.\x94

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\x92d never seen before...and Chris Penzler...and Mayor Watson...

The door announcer said, \x93Mayor Watson speaking. I\x92d like to talk to Mr. Hamilton if he\x92s still there. May I come in?\x94

\x93Chiron, door open,\x94 Naomi said without looking up.

Then, \x93No-\x94

I looked around as Hove came in. He came in fast \x93Close the door,\x94 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\x92d turned it in on arrival, of course. If that first reflexive move hadn\x92t slowed me, maybe I could have done some\xADthing.

Boone, half-reclining in a web chair, hadn\x92t had a chance to move at all Now he raised his hands. So did I.

Naomi said, \x93I should have thought I just...futz!\x94

The Mayor told her, \x93Close the door or I\x92ll kill you.\x94

Naomi called the door closed.

\x93Good enough,\x94 Hove said, and he slumped a little. \x93I\x92m 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?\x94

Boone smiled slowly. \x93Speaking as your lawyer...\x94

\x93Please,\x94 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? \x93If you don\x92t speak, I\x92ll kill you. If I catch you in a lie, I\x92ll kill you. Do you understand?\x94

Boone said, \x93Consider the political repercussions of three more murders. You\x92ll destroy Hovestraydt City.\x94

I saw it in Hove\x92s face: that shot drew blood. But he said, \x93You\x92re in a position to convict the Mayor of murdering a Belt politician. How would that affect the city? I can\x92t allow it. Gil, why did the killer have to be a resident?\x94

\x93We\x92re talking about the bathtub attack, remember. Chris saw the killer too close. That makes him tall. It took a resi\xADdent 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\x94 And the mayor, I thought suddenly, would have to be even better.

\x93So you know about the mirror. Can you tell me how Chris was able to see me? I wasn\x92t fool enough to leave the room lights on while I waited for him to stand up.\x94

\x93Huh. You weren\x92t?\x94 I thought about it. \x93Oh. His lights were on. You were lighted by the mirror.\x94

He nodded. \x93That\x92s bothered me ever since. Was it me you suspected?\x94

\x93I\x92m flabbergasted. Hove, why?\x94 And then I saw why, out of the corner of my eye, on Naomi\x92s phone screen.

Hove seemed almost disinterested. \x93Twice 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.\x94

\x93The guard at the door?\x94

\x93He didn\x92t see me. He won\x92t see me leave.\x94

I couldn\x92t think of a thing.

Naomi said, \x93Mayor, do you see where my finger is now?\x94

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\x92t react fast enough to stop me. \x93You\x92ll have to shoot through me,\x94 I said. \x93You\x92ll never make it\x94

Naomi said, \x93One tap of this key and these four faces appear on every phone screen in the city.\x94

\x93We can negotiate,\x94 I said quickly, soothingly, I hoped. Hove\x92s eyes were going desperate. \x93You 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?\x94

He\x92d been about to fire. Perhaps he still was. \x93When did it happen?\x94 he asked.

\x93Chris could have died any time in a five hour period. You can\x92t 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.\x94

\x93Yes. Certainly.\x94

\x93And Chris left a dying message that points toward you.\x94

I saw the intensity setting on the laser start to unwind, and saw Hove thumb it back to maximum. Hove said, \x93Did he. Did he really. That\x92s very interesting.\x94

\x93It points toward you,\x94 I said, \x93but not directly. Chris was only three feet away when the laser sliced his hand off. He must have seen his killer\x92s face, and his chest symbol too.

Why didn\x92t he just write TREE, or MAYOR?

Somebody\x92s bound to wonder. Of course, if you just turn yourself in, the case is solved.\x94

Hove seemed lost in thought. Then, \x93Gil, do you under\xADstand what this affair could do to my city?\x94

\x93It\x92s bad now. It could get much worse, if things run their course.\x94

\x93Yes. God, yes.\x94 He drew himself up, and looking down on us from a great height, he said, \x93Here are my terms. I want an hour to escape. Alter that you can tell the police all that we\x92ve discussed. Agreed? Your word of honor?\x94

\x93Yes,\x94 I said.

\x93Yes,\x94 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, \x93Yes.\x94

\x93That on the screen goes back into storage.\x94

\x93Yes,\x94 said Naomi.

\x93Open the door,\x94 the Mayor said.

The laser was under his coat as he stepped into the hall. Naomi called the door closed. Then she said, \x93Well?\x94

I mopped away sweat with a napkin. \x93My word of honor is good.\x94

Boone, faintly smiling, was looking at his watch.

\x93And so say we all,\x94 Naomi said. \x93The bastard! Where will he go?\x94

\x93Someplace where he can\x92t be questioned,\x94 I said. \x93He\x92ll get a puffer and go till he\x92s out of air, then find a dust pool.\x94

\x93You think so?\x94 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, \x93I wonder how she died.\x94

\x93You think he killed her? Maybe. It hardly matters now.\x94

\x93Right\x94 Naomi typed rapidly. The screen cleared. We waited.

13. Penalties

We found the guard snoring outside Naomi\x92s door. Hove had fired a cloud of soluble anaesthetic crystals into him, from an ARM issue handgun. It was mine. I\x92d 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\x92s police searched old mines and known cave systems. Nothing. He certainly hadn\x92t 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\x92s 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\x92s fuel and oxygen.

Alan Watson cane in late that night, looking used up. He came back to life when he saw Naomi. They talked serious\xADly for awhile, and then she went off under his long arm. I didn\x92t 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.

\x93I have to see you in private,\x94 I said.

Coffee sloshed. I startled him, I think. He asked, \x93Isn\x92t it over yet?\x94

\x93Mostly it\x92s about you and your father.\x94

A momentary wariness showed in his face. Then, \x93All right.\x94

I ate breakfast while I waited. Presently Naomi left and Alan came to join me. \x93She told me about yesterday,\x94 he said. \x93He could have killed you all. I wish none of it had happened.\x94

\x93So do I. Alan, you\x92re leaving the Moon.\x94

His mouth opened. He stared. \x93What?\x94

\x93Come on, you\x92re not that surprised. I made some prom\xADises to Mayor Hove, but I made them at gunpoint. Be off the Moon within a week. Don\x92t ever come back. Or I\x92ll break those promises.\x94

He studied my eyes. No, he wasn\x92t that surprised. \x93You\x92ll have to spell it out for me.\x94

\x93I\x92m not enjoying this,\x94 I said. \x93I\x92ll 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\x92t know his name, he could have tried to de\xADscribe 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?\x94

\x93Well?\x94

\x93You\x92re his son. Naomi finally saw it, and I should have.

You\x92re Hove Watson\x92s height, and I took that for genes, but it isn\x92t. 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.\x94

Alan was looking down into his coffee. He was quite pale.

\x93This is all pure speculation, isn\x92t it?\x94

\x93It\x92s the kind of speculation that could finish Hovestraydt City, I think. You\x92re supposed to be the Mayor\x92s son, the heir apparent. It\x92s bad enough if Hove killed Penzler for political reasons-\x94

\x93I know. You could be right\x94

\x93Anyway, 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.\x94

Alan looked up. I might have stepped out of a nightmare, the way he looked at me. I said, \x93What did he do, offer to legitimize you?\x94

\x93Offer?\x94 Alan laughed out loud, an ugly sound, then looked quickly around him. Faces had turned. Alan lowered his voice. \x93He insisted! He was going to name me as his heir and bastard!\x94

\x93Did you kill him to get Naomi off the hook?\x94

\x93No, no. I wouldn\x92t have hurt him at all if I\x92d had time to think I could have explained it to him, couldn\x92t I? He just didn\x92t know what he\x92d be doing to me.

\x93He said he was my father. He said he was going to an\xADnounce it He wouldn\x92t 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.\x94

\x93Uh huh.\x94

Alan was very pale. He wasn\x92t seeing me at all. He said, \x93His wrist was still bubbling.\x94

I said, \x93You could blame Chris for letting his gonads lead him around. You could blame Hove for frying to kill him. It didn\x92t work, but that\x92s what started Chris thinking about his children. Sure you\x92re bound to blame yourself, but, Alan, it wasn\x92t all your fault\x94

\x93All right. Now what?\x94

\x93If the truth came out, Hell wouldn\x92t hold the political repercussions, and you\x92d be broken up for parts. I don\x92t want that. But I won\x92t have you in a position of political power, and there\x92s no way you can stay on the Moon with\xADout becoming Mayor. Get off the Moon within a week or I\x92ll start talking.\x94

\x93I suppose you left a letter somewhere, in case something happens to you?\x94

\x93Get stuffed.\x94

He stared. \x93But you\x92re giving me a week to kill you!\x94

I got up. \x93You\x92re not the type. And I meant it I meant it all,\x94 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\x92s testimony? They compromised.

We were wrapping up the Conference the day Alan Watson left for Ceres. I\x92d have preferred to see him go, but it didn\x92t matter. Given who he was, he got a police escort. He was definitely gone.

Laura told me about it that evening. \x93Naomi Mitchison went with him,\x94 she said.

\x93Good.\x94

\x93Do you mean that?\x94

\x93Sure. I like to keep thing tidy.\x94

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\x92t stand trial for illegal clon\xADing. 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.

Contents