by David Brin
Martine bit her lip, then nodded once.
Jacob told Donaldson what to look for and what to do with it when he found it. Then he was off, running in the direction of the E.T. Quarters.
19. IN THE PARLOR
“You mean Jacob called this meeting and he isn’t even here?” Helene deSilva asked from the doorway.
“I should not be concerned, Commandant deSilva. He shall arrive. I have never known Mister Demwa to call a meeting that was not well’ worth the time of attending.”
“Indeed!” LaRoque laughed from one end of the large sofa, with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He spoke sarcastically around the stem of his pipe, and through a haze of smoke. “And why not? What else have we to do here? The ‘research’ is over, and the studies are done. The Ivory Tower has collapsed in arrogance and it is the month of the long knives. Let Demwa take his time. Whatever he has to say will be more amusing than watching all these serious faces!”
Dwayne Kepler grimaced from the other end of the sofa. He sat as far from LaRoque as he possibly could. Nervously, he twitched aside the lap blanket a med-aid had just finished adjusting. The med-aid looked up to the physician, who just shrugged.
“Shut up, LaRoque,” Kepler said.
LaRoque merely grinned and took out a tool to work on his pipe. “I still think I should have a recording device. Knowing Demwa, this may be historic.”
Bubbacub snorted and turned away. He had been pacing. Uncharacteristically he hadn’t gone near any of the cushions scattered around the carpeted room. The Pil stopped in front of Culla, standing by the wall, and clicked his quadrilaterally symmetric fingers in a complicated pattern. Culla nodded.
“I am instructed to shay that enough tragedy has occurred because of Mishter LaRoquesh recording de-vishesh. Also Pil Bubbacub hash indicated that he will not remain pasht another five minutes.”
Kepler ignored the statement. Methodically, he rubbed his neck as if searching for an itch. A lot of the fleshiness had departed in recent weeks.
LaRoque raised his shoulders once in a gallic shrug. Fagin was silent. Not even the silvery chimes moved at the ends of his blue-green branches.
“Come on in and sit down, Helene,” the physician said. “I’m sure the others will be here soon.” With his eyes he commiserated. Walking into this room was like wading into a pool of very cold and not very clean water.
She found a seat as far from the-others as possible. Unhappily, she wondered what Jacob Demwa was up to.
I hope it’s not the same thing, she thought. If this group in here has anything in common, it’s the fact that they don’t even want the word “Sundiver” mentioned. They’re just on the edge of tearing each others’ throats out, but all the same there’s this conspiracy of silence. She shook her head. I’m glad this tour is over soon. Maybe things will be better in another fifty years.
She didn’t hold out much hope for that. Already the only place you could hear a Beatles tune performed was by a symphony orchestra, of all the monstrosities. And good jazz didn’t exist outside of a library. Why did I ever leave home?
Mildred Martine and Chief Donaldson entered. To Helene, their attempts to look nonchalant were pathetic, but no one else seemed to notice.
Interesting. I wonder what those two have in common? They looked around the room and then edged toward a corner behind the only sofa, where Kepler and LaRoque and the tension between them occupied all of the space. LaRoque looked up at Martine and smiled. Was that a conspirational wink? Martine avoided his eye and LaRoque looked disappointed. He returned to lighting his pipe.
“I have had e-nough!” Bubbacub announced finally, and he turned for the door. But before he got there it swung open, apparently on its own. Then Jacob Demwa appeared in the doorway, a white canvas sack over his shoulder. He entered the room whistling softly. Helene blinked unbelievingly. The tune sounded awfully like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” But surely…
Jacob swung the bag into the air. It came down on the coffee table with a bang that made Dr. Martine jump halfway out of her chair. Kepler’s frown deepened and he gripped the arm of the sofa.
Helene couldn’t help it. The anachronistic, homely old tune, the loud noise, and Jacob’s demeanor broke the wall of tension like a custard pie in the face of someone you didn’t particularly like. She laughed. Jacob winked once. “Ho ho.”
“Are you here to play?” Bubbacub demanded. “You steal my time! Comp-en-sate!”
Jacob smiled. “Why certainly, Pil Bubbacub. I hope that you will be edified by my demonstration. But first, won’t you please be seated?”
Bubbacub’s jaws snapped together. The small black eyes seemed to burn for a moment, then he snorted and threw himself onto a nearby cushion.
Jacob studied the faces in the room. The expressions were mostly confused or hostile, except for LaRoque, who remained pompously aloof, and Helene, who smiled uncertainly. And Fagin, of course. For the thousandth time he wished the Kanten had eyes.
“When Dr. Kepler invited me to Mercury,” he began, “I had some doubts about the Sundiver Project, but approved of the idea overall. After that first meeting I expected to become involved in one of the most exciting events since Contact… a complex problem of interspecies relations with our nearest and strangest neighbors, the Sun Ghosts.
“Instead, the problem of the Solarians seems to have taken back burner to a complicated web of interstellar intrigue and murder.”
Kepler looked up sadly. “Jacob, please. We all know you’ve been under a strain. Millie thinks we should be kind to you and I agree. But there are limits.”
Jacob spread his hands. “If kindness is humoring me, then please do so. I’m sick of being ignored. If you don’t listen, I’m sure the Earth authorities will.”
Kepler’s smile froze. He sat back. “Go ahead, then. I’ll listen.”
Jacob stepped onto the broad throw rug in the center of the room.
“First: Pierre LaRoque has consistently denied killing Chimp Jeffrey or using his stunner to sabotage the smaller Sunship. He denies having ever been a Probationer and claims that the records on Earth have somehow been fouled up.
“Yet, since our return from the Sun he has consistently refused to take a P-test, which might go a long way toward proving his innocence. Presumably he expects that the results of the test would also be falsified.”
“That’s right,” LaRoque nodded. “Just another lie.”
“Even if Physician Laird, Dr. Martine and I jointly supervised?”
LaRoque grunted. “It might prejudice my trial, especially if I decide to sue.”
“Why go to trial? You had no motive to kill Jeffrey when you opened the access plate to the R.Q. tuner…”
“Which I deny doing!”
“…and only a Probie would kill a man in a fit of pique. So why stay in detention?”
“Maybe he’s comfortable here,” the med-aid commented. Helene frowned. Discipline had gone straight to hell lately, along with morale.
“He refuses the test because he knows he’ll fail!” Kepler shouted.
“That is why the Sun-Men chose him to do their kill-ing,” Bubbacub added. “That is what they told me.”
“And am I a Probationer? Some people seem to think the Ghosts made me try to commit suicide.”
“You were un-der stress. Doct-or Mar-tin says so.
Yes?” Bubbacub turned to Marline. Her hands gripped each other whitely but she said nothing.
“We’ll get to that in a few minutes,” Jacob said. “But before we start I’d like to have a private word with Dr. Kepler and Mr. LaRoque.”
Dr. Laird and his assistant moved away politely. Bubbacub glared at being forced to move, but followed suit.
Jacob passed around the back of the sofa. As he bent over between the two men his hand went behind his back. Donaldson leaned forward and placed a small object there which Jacob held tightly.
Jacob looked alternately at Kepler and LaRoque.
“I think you t
wo should cut it out. Especially you, Dr. Kepler.”
Kepler hissed. “What in god’s name are you talking about?”
“I think you have some property of Mr. LaRoque’s. No matter that he got it illegally. He wants it badly. Badly enough to temporarily take a rap he knows won’t stick. Maybe enough to change the tone of the articles he’s certain to write about all this.
“I don’t think the deal will hold anymore. You see, I have the item now.”
“My camera!” LaRoque whispered harshly. His eyes shone.
“Quite a little camera, too. A complete little sonic spectrograph. Yes, I have it. I also have the copies of recordings you made that were hidden in Dr. Kepler’s rooms.”
“You t-traitor,” Kepler stammered. “I thought you were a friend…”
“Shut up, you skinny bastard!” LaRoque almost shouted. “You are the one who is a traitor.” Contempt seemed to boil from the little writer like steam over-long contained.
Jacob laid a hand on the back of each man. “Both of you will be on no-return orbits if you don’t keep your voices down! LaRoque can be charged with espionage and Kepler for blackmail and complicity after the fact in espionage!
“In fact, since the evidence of LaRoque’s espionage is also circumstantial evidence that he wouldn’t have had time to sabotage Jeffrey’s ship, the immediate suspicion would fall on the last person to inspect the ship’s generators. Oh I don’t think you did it, Dr. Kepler. But I’d be careful if I were you!”
LaRoque fell silent. Kepler chewed on the end of his moustache.
“What do you want?” he said finally.
Jacob tried to resist but the suppressed side was now too much awake. He couldn’t help making a little dig.
“Why, I’m not sure yet. Maybe I’ll think of something. Just don’t let your imagination go wild. Friends of mine on Earth know everything by now.”
It wasn’t true. But Mr. Hyde did believe in caution.
Helene deSilva strained to overhear what the three men were saying to each other. If she had been one to believe in possession she would have been sure the “familiar faces were moving at the command of invading spirits. Gentle Dr. Kepler, turned taciturn and secretive since their return from the Sun, muttered like a wrathful sage denied his will. LaRoque — thoughtful, cautious — behaved as if his whole world hinged on a careful assessment of affairs.
And Jacob Demwa… earlier glimpses hinted at a charisma beneath his quiet, sometimes watery thoughtfulness. It had drawn her even as it frustrated in its peek-a-boo appearances. But now, now it radiated. It compelled like a flame.
Jacob stood straight and announced, “For now, Dr. Kepler has kindly agreed to drop all charges against Pierre LaRoque.”
Bubbacub rose from his cushion. “You are mad. If hu-mans condone the kill-ing of their cli-ents, that is their own prob-len?. But the Sun-Men may bend him to do harm a-gain!”
“The Sun-Men never bent him to do anything.” Jacob said slowly.
Bubbacub snapped. “As I said, you are mad. I spoke with the Sun-Men. They did not lie.”
“If you wish,” Jacob bowed. “But I still would like to continue with my synopsis.”
Bubbacub snorted, loudly and threw himself again on the cushion. “Mad!” he snapped.
“First,” Jacob said. “I would like to thank Dr. Kepler for his gracious permission for Chief Donaldson and Dr. Martine and myself to visit the Photo Labs and study the films from the last dive.”
At the mention of Marline’s name, Bubbacub’s expression changed. So that’s what chagrin looks like on a Pil, Jacob thought. He empathized with the little alien. It had been a beautiful trap, now entirely defused.
Jacob told an edited version of their discovery in the Photo Lab, that the flipside spools of the last third of the mission were missing. The only other sound in the room was the tinkling of Fagin’s branches.
“For a while, I wondered where these spools could be. I had an idea who took them, but whether he had destroyed them or taken the chance of hiding them I wasn’t sure. Finally, I decided to gamble that a ‘data-packrat’ never throws anything away. I searched a certain sophont’s quarters and found the missing spools.”
“You dared!” Bubbacub hissed. “If you had prop-er mas-ters I would have you nerve whipped! You dared!”
Helene shook away her surprise. “You mean you admit that you hid Sundiver datatapes, Pil Bubbacub? Why!”
Jacob grinned. “Oh that will become clear. In fact the way this case was going, I thought for sure it would be more complicated than it is. But it’s actually quite simple. You see, these tapes make it very clear that Pil Bubbacub has lied.”
A low rumbling rose in Bubbacub’s throat. The little alien stood very still as if he didn’t trust himself to move.
“Well, where are the tapes?” deSilva demanded.
Jacob picked up the sack from the table.
“I’ve got to give the devil his due, though. It was only luck that I figured the spools would just fit into an empty gas cannister.” He pulled out an object and held it up.
“The Lethani relic!” DeSilva gasped. A small trill of surprise escaped Fagin. Mildred Martine stood up, her hand brought to her throat.
“Yes, the Lethani relic. I’m sure Bubbacub counted on a reaction like yours on the obscure chance that his rooms were searched. Naturally, no one would think of disturbing a semi-religious object-of-reverence of an old and powerful race; particularly one that looked like nothing but a slab of meteoric rock and glass!’”
He turned it over in his hands.
“Now watch!”
The relic opened with a twist. A can of some sort was imbedded in one of the halves. Jacob laid the other half down and tugged at the end of the can. Something inside rattled softly. The can suddenly came loose and a dozen small black objects came rolling out and fell to the floor. Culla’s mashies clacked.
“The spools!” LaRoque nodded with satisfaction as he fumbled with his pipe.
“Yes,” Jacob said. “And on the outer surface of this ‘relic’ you can find the button which released the previous contents of this now-empty canister. There appear to be some traces left inside. I’ll bet anything that they match the substance that Chief Donaldson and I gave Dr. Kepler yesterday when we failed to convince…” Jacob stopped himself. Then he shrugged. “…Traces of an unstable monomolecule which, under a certain sophont’s skillful control, spread out in a ‘burst of light and sound’ to coat the inner surface of the upper hemisphere of the shell of the Sun-ship…”
DeSilva rose to her feet. Jacob had to speak louder to overcome the rising chatter coming from Culla.
“…and to effectively block out all green and blue light — the only wavelengths in which we could pick out the Sun Ghosts from their surroundings!”
“The spools!” deSilva cried. “They should show…’”
“They do show toroids, Ghosts… hundreds of them! Interestingly there were no anthropoid shapes, but perhaps they didn’t make them because our psi patterns indicated we weren’t seeing them.
“But oh the confusion in that herd when we blundered right into them without so much as a by-your-leave, toroids and ‘normal’ Ghosts scattering out of our path… all because we couldn’t see that we were right in the middle of them!”
“You crazy Eatee!” LaRoque shouted. He shook his fist at Bubbacub. The Pil hissed back but remained still, the fingers of each hand flexing against one another as he watched Jacob.
“The monomolecule was designed to decay just as we were leaving the chromosphere. It slumped in a thin layer of dust on the force field at the rim of the deck, where no one would notice it until Bubbacub could return with Culla and vacuum it up. That’s right, isn’t it, Culla?”
Culla nodded miserably.
Jacob felt distantly pleased that sympathy came as easily as amoral wrath had earlier. A part of him had begun to get worried. He smiled reassuringly.
“That’s okay, Culla. I have no evidence to
connect you with anything else. I watched the two of you when you did it and it was pretty dear you were under duress.”
The Pring’s eyes rose. They were very bright. He nodded once again and the chattering from behind the thick lips subsided slowly. Fagin moved closer to the slender E.T.
Donaldson rose from picking up the recording spools.
“I think we’d better make some provisions for custody.”
Helene had already moved to the telephone. “I’m taking care of that now,” she said softly.
Martine sidled up to Jacob and whispered. “Jacob, this is an External Affairs matter now. We should let them handle it from here.”
Jacob shook his head. “No. Not just yet. There’s a bit more that needs out.”
DeSilva put down the phone. “They’ll be here shortly. Meanwhile, why don’t you go on, Jacob? Is there more?”
“Yes. Two items. One is this.”
From the bag on the table he pulled Bubbacub’s psi helmet. “I suggest this be kept in storage. I don’t know if anyone else remembers, but Bubbacub was wearing it and staring at me when I warped out aboard the Sunship. Being made to do things makes me mad, Bubbacub. You shouldn’t have done it.”
Bubbacub made a gesture with his hand that Jacob didn’t try to interpret.
“Finally, there’s the matter of the death of chimpanzee Jeffrey. Actually, it’s the easiest part.
“Bubbacub knew almost everything there was to know about the Galactic technology in Sundiver; the drives, the computer system, the communications… aspects which Terran scientists haven’t even scratched.
“It’s only circumstantial evidence that Bubbacub was working on the laser communications pylon, spurning Dr. Kepler’s presentation, when Jeff’s largely remote-controlled ship blew up. It wouldn’t convict in a court of law, but that doesn’t matter since Pila have extraterritoriality and all we can do is deport him.
“Another thing that’d be hard to prove would be the hypothesis that Bubbacub planted a false lead in the Space Identification System… a system linked directly to the Library at LaPaz… creating a false report that LaRoque was a Probationer. Still, it’s pretty clear that he did. It was a perfect red herring. With everyone sure that LaRoque did it, nobody bothered to really do a detailed double-check of the telemetry on Jeff’s dive. Right now I believe I recall that Jeff’s ship went into trouble almost exactly when he turned on his closeup cameras, a perfect delayed trigger if that was the technique Bubbacub used. Anyway, we’ll probably never know. The telemetry is probably missing or destroyed by now.”