by Larry Niven
He watched her eyes closely. "One of our security personnel died Tuesday night. There could be a connection to this Game. Can you account for your whereabouts?"
She shook her head slowly, for the first time feeling her disquiet blossom into fear. "I was in my room, alone."
Alex cursed to himself. Acacia was as much of a suspect as Bishop. And with thousands of Gamers in the hotels, and hundreds of parties, how hard would it be for Bishop to establish an alibi? Or a dozen alibis?
"I'll only ask this once," he said. "Are you fixing this Game?"
Acacia's stomach sank. It had all come down to this. Bishop was a Thief, a liar, a manipulator. But he wasn't a killer. She was certain of that, as certain as a woman could be of a man she… cared for. She could never have opened her heart like that, never have responded like that…
Then, why were you afraid? You have no proof, she told herself. And if you say anything, and Nigel is innocent, then millions will be lost, to no avail. And even if he If he did it…
There would be time later for prosecution. Buy time to think. She knew damn well she had hurt no one, but she might still be implicated. She would need that money for her defence. As Nigel would need it for his. And after all, he's innocent until proven guilty.
Mother of Mercy, Nigel just couldn't…
It isn't difficult to fool a lie detector, or a superb inquisitor. One technique involves deliberately misunderstanding the question. The question Alex had asked was, "Are you fixing this Game?" a question she had anticipated.
The question she answered was, "Does Gaming bore you?"
"Jesus, no," she said fervently. "Alex, I love competing, more than anything in the world. Don't you know me better than to ask that?"
Alex searched the beautiful face he knew so well. Something flickered there, some unease…
But he couldn't call her reply a lie, and his gut instinct told him that she was no murderer. Whatever she was concealing, it was not that.
He wanted to believe her…
And he wanted to believe her a liar. It would have made everything so damned simple. Case solved. Sleep well, Sharon. You made a mistake and paid for it. But I brought the bastard down.
Now, he felt lost. Where to start? Unless there was physical proof, or a solid motive, or a link between victim and prospective perpetrator…
He had zip.
He felt tired, and old, and beaten.
A dot of light flashed across the horizon-the real horizon, wasn't it? Could there be a hologram going? It would have to be huge, and to what end? So that was a flying car zipping just above the horizon, heading over to Yucca Valley.
There was a glow over the hills to the north. Was that the new spaceport? And what would be coming in there? There was a very distant hum, perhaps the sound of a helicopter. They were building things out there, things that would have some meaning in the new world that was coming.
And he, Alex Griffin, wouldn't be a part of it. Sharon would have been. But Sharon was dead now, had been cold for sixty hours.
Clutching at straws, Alex bore back down: he and Acacia had met during the South Seas Treasure Game. There, Tony McWhirter had used her to get in and commit industrial espionage. Tony truly believed she had been duped. Could it be happening again? Or could she be partially guilty, and afraid to talk?
"So now you're with Nigel Bishop?" he asked casually.
She smiled. There was only moonlight and starlight and the distant glow around them. Alex rolled over and looked up at the luminous height of MIMIC, allowing himself to feel awe.
"As much as anyone could be."
"Where is he now?" He watched her starlit face flicker with uncertainty. And then he was sure. She doesn't know what he's done. She has no idea.
"I'm cold," Acacia said, her voice a child's. She had snuggled up closer to him. Her body smoldered, like a coal wrapped in cotton. She draped the sleeping bag over them both, concentrating enough heat to bake potatoes.
Someone had found a music system, and from one of MIMIC's other alcoves drifted a soft, seductive rhythm. It seemed to wrap around them, separating Alex from the pain and the suspicions. He gazed out over the desert. It seemed so open, so direct and unsullied. It reminded him of another Alex Griffin, a younger Alex Griffin. The night's chill enveloped him.
Acacia sensed his withdrawal. Her head lowered, until she was staring down the blanket, at the floor.
The moonlight silvered her hair, her eyes, the long elegant line of her throat. He remembered the times of holding, and striving together. Remembered when they had tried to love each other.
They had failed. Failed each other, and themselves. And what, if anything, did he owe this magnificent creature now? The benefit of the doubt?
"Are you ever sorry we didn't work out, Alex?"
"I was. I'm not."
She chewed on that for almost a minute. Then: "Do you have someone?"
"No," he said quietly. "No one."
Alex felt that chill penetrate into his bones, transforming him, as if with some subtle Dream Park magic, into a man of ice.
"I'm sorry about us, Alex." She laid her head on his shoulder with surprising tenderness. "I'm just your garden-variety man-eating adrenaline junkie." She choked back a small, sad laughing sound. "That's not what you need."
He smiled bleakly. "And what do I need?"
"If you knew what you needed, you'd find it. And hold it."
If you knew…
If truth had been spoken in the past hour, it was contained in those three words. If you knew. And in the paralysing light of that truth, all thoughts of lies died quiet deaths. And Alex Griffin, cleansed of lies and thoughts of lies, gazed unblinkingly into his own heart.
They stayed that way for a time, and then she pulled her face away and looked up at him, their lips an inch apart. She kissed him, not passionately, but with her lips parted slightly. Her eyes shone.
We're both in a box, Alex, they said. We both hide in a world of dreams. We can tell lies about that, but we know the truth. And always have. But couldn't we tell just one more lie, just to each other, just for tonight?
He shook his head silently.
"I'm through with lies," Alex said, so softly that the words were lost in the breeze howling in from the east.
So they sat there, sharing the moonlight. Acacia turned her head away from him. Alex thought he heard, or saw, or felt her crying.
But he couldn't be sure. It might, after all, have been the wind.
A few words to "Brother" Prez, and Nigel Bishop was out the door. A little reconnaissance, if you please.
Nigel Bishop moved through shadows. Considering all that had happened, he was at peace. Sharon Crayne's death had been tucked down somewhere inside him. He would deal with it later. Later…
(But from time to time came an image, a stray memory. Just the sight of Sharon Crayne, submerged in water, a thread of blood drifting, curling up from her nostril, dispersing in the warm, oily water…)
Later, dammit!
He forced that phantasm from his mind. He triggered his Virtual apparatus, its slimline visor and auditory channels. Sharon's map floated, superimposed upon reality.
MIMIC's security system was not yet completely in place. There were still pockets where the various line-of-sight, auditory, and infrared devices failed to overlap properly, giving an incomplete image or, better still, no image at all.
Given further adjustments and modifications, all of those gaps would be filled in.
But for now…
Bishop floated through the hallway, remaining in shadow, picking locks to move through fire doors after disabling their alarm systems.
He knew which doors, which hallways, and which passages to challenge. Always. He was never deep-scanned. A few cameras or sensors picked up his ghost, but then there were Gamers in the building anyway, weren't there?
It wasn't strictly illegal for him to be out and about, was it?
The computer pod on his belt sensed the scans
, targeted them, and recorded their points of origin. He slipped here and there and there, and as he went, he busied himself with the real function of his trip, the true intent, unguessed by all.
Although Sharon, in her final moments, had had a glimmer of a clue.
Sharon, her dead eyes staring at him, that thread of crimson drifting from her left nostril. It had been so bright. Terribly bright.
Bishop ground his knuckles against his temples, swallowed hard. Bitch. You twisting, faithless bitch. It was your fault, damn you to hell. It was-leave me alone!
Careful. He had almost screamed it aloud, that time. Almost. Close, close, tippy-toe.
Horrified, he heard his thoughts devolve to a giggle.
He had to be calm. He had to finish what he had begun. He should be safe: there was no evidence. Acacia and Griffin would be making the naked pretzel by now, and that suited him fine. Griffin would doubtless try to pump her for information. And that slut couldn't keep her legs together with a C-clamp.
Griffin.
Bishop pulled out of the way as a roving spy eye glided along a track in the upper corner. He steadied himself. It would be a bizarre coincidence if he fell afoul of a Gaming trap just now, wouldn't it? And he wouldn't be surprised if the Game Masters were figuring out how to bend the odds to get to him. They must be foaming at the mouth by now.
Griffin.
He was annoyed with his mind. It didn't want to obey him. Why the interest in Dream Park's rent-a-cop? True, Griffin had a certain style. A spark of challenge.
Not intellectual challenge, of course. Griffin was no match there. But the man had a certain brute physical cunning, combined with enough desperately cultivated coordination that he was probably competent in combative movement.
Bishop thought little of physical combat, although he was, of course, a master of its intricacies. Alex Griffin's head might be a trophy worth having…
Damn it! There was no time to think of things like that. It was insanity. There was only the job. And if the Game had become unexpectedly lethal, that was just more spice, wasn't it?
Wasn't it?
Alex Griffin.
There was unfinished busimess there, something for the two of them to say to each other when all of this was through. Bishop wiped his hand across the back of his neck, and it came away cold and clammy.
Bishop heard that giggle percolating again. He was beginning to like the sound.
And that scared him most of all.
25
Autopsy
Power had always fascinated Dr. Norman Vail. It delighted him to see what power could accomplish in the right hands. His hands.
In less than twelve hours, the money and leverage of Cowles Industries had opened Sharon Crayne's life like a filing cabinet, inundating him with a mountain of information.
Vail had pored over it for three hours before Millicent, Harmony, and Tony McWhirter joined him.
All were exhausted but driven by an almost morbid curiosity. What might the psychologist have to say that was so damned important, this late at night?
Vail's skin had a translucent quality, as if fatigue and strain had aged him in a manner that mere time could not.
He waved them toward his desk. "Come in, please. Come in."
They seated themselves, dragging. Harmony looked askance at folders heaped on Vail's desk. Sharon Crayne had been a human being. How could anyone's life survive such scrutiny?
A citizen's only hope for privacy was the sheer volume of information. Gathering data was easy and cheap. Sorting and culling it was a multibillion-dollar industry, resulting in AI systems like ScanNet.
"There are patterns here," Vail said. "Lots of them. It would be difficult to explain the exact path of my reasoning, but I may have found some loose threads. With these in hand, we can begin the unraveling process.
"The question is: Was Sharon Crayne bent? The probable answer: Not in the sense of selling us out for money. She worked too hard, for too long, and her basic reward seemed to be the work itself. Her personal liaisons were usually brief, intense relationships connected with work, perhaps reinforcing her conception of Job as Family."
"What about her real family?" Millicent asked.
"This is where the pieces began to come together. But remember, please: this is a fabric of supposition."
"Understood," Harmony said. "Please proceed."
"All right. Sharon Crayne, twenty-six years old. Never married. Little contact with her family, especially her father. There is strong evidence of guilt or shame in connection with her relationship with her mother. Strained. Competitive 'outsider' would probably best describe her relationship with her two sisters and brother. Second of four children. Eldest daughter. Evidence that she assumed many maternal roles around the house when her mother, an architect, buried herself in her projects. During the latter years of her family's stable period, her father was unemployed."
Vail paused, focusing upon his guests as if just discovering their presence in the room. "Does any of this strike a pattern?"
An unpleasant notion surfaced in Millicent's mind and then submerged again, like some particularly large and ugly serpent.
"All right, then." Vail tapped a button on his desk, and a color image of Sharon Crayne's naked body appeared behind his back. Harmony was aghast. Vail barely seemed to notice that it was there. "Full autopsy of Sharon Crayne noted a fully healed, professionally rendered surgical scar, approximately ten centimeters long, in the abdominal cavity. The scar would have been made when Sharon was approximately fourteen years old. According to a medical interview at the time, she claimed it was an appendectomy scar."
"Ah… is that unreasonable?" Harmony choked.
"Dr. Eva Reeves, the pathologist, noted that the scar is atypical in size, shape, and location for appendectomy although the appendix went, too."
Tony McWhirter wrenched his gaze away from the levitated dead woman. He looked pale. "I don't get it."
"I believe I'm prepared to offer an opinion."
Harmony felt embarrassed and nauseated. Sharon's body rotated in front of them like a Thanksgiving turkey.
"Dr. Vail," Tony asked, voice strained. "Would you please provide some shielding for that hologram?"
Vail looked back over his shoulder. "Is there something-oh. I see." He tapped a few buttons, whispered a few words, and Sharon's body became an anatomy text, a technical drawing just as explicit, but quite impersonal.
And that might have been even worse.
"Now this was the clue. Dr. Reeves performed a standard tissue-typing for the transplant banks. Since Sharon had been dead for hours before discovery, it was unlikely that much could be recovered. The body changes rapidly at room temperature."
McWhirter looked a little green.
"But when Dr. Reeves typed the placenta, here-" The illustration expanded. "She found that Sharon's DNA fingerprints didn't match."
Harmony leaned forward, and Millicent shook herhead. "Oh, shit," she whispered.
McWhirter asked, "Mill? What?"
"Placental transplant?"
Vail looked at her the way a teacher might beam at a promising student. "And how far can you take that?"
She paused, thinking.
"Here's a hint: in her fourteenth year, her mother and father were separated."
"Fourteen. Twelve years since then." Millicent said, and her face went into her hands.
For almost a minute there was no sound in the room. Then Millicent looked up. "Ugly," she said.
"Yes?" Vail said encouragingly.
"Catholic family. Sharon adopting the maternal role. Her parents, Catholic parents, divorcing at the same time that Sharon got that scar. The placental transplant."
McWhirter was almost livid. "For God's sake, will you stop talking in code?"
"Fetal transplantation," Vail said, and for once his voice was gentle. "Very much an accepted alternative to abortion-an expensive one, though."
Harmony was fascinated but still confused. "Ho
w exactly did you come to this conclusion?"
"When Dr. Reeves got odd results for the DNA scan, she went looking for clues and found them. A surgical scar, on the uterus near the cervix. You see, abortion is easy; the techniques are thousands of years old. The process of reducing the risk for the mother was gradual but sure but the possibility of keeping the fetus itself alive existed by the end of the last century.
"One answer was to transplant the fetus's entire support mechanism, placenta and all. Rather than remove the baby from the uterus, the entire uterus is transplanted. An extracorporeal oxygenation device is needed, but that's just engineering. A new uterus is sewn in and attached to the fallopian tubes."
"Where was the operation performed?"
"Here's the clue: Nowhere."
"I don't understand."
"Sharon and her family lived in Utah. The operation was illegal there. Chances are that she went out of state and had it performed by the Embryadopt foundation. Sealed files."
Millicent seemed to have gotten herself together. "Another clue that Embryadopt was involved is the cost. Of removal, of the new uterus. They must have pre-sold the embryo. Healthy white fetuses are at a premium."
"Their security is complete," Vail said. "We can't get to their files, and no private agency can."
Harmony thought, Tony.
"No," Vail said, as if reading his mind. "McWhirter can't get at them. The files are physically isolated. No direct phone or computer lines into the banks."
Millicent began talking, almost to herself. "A Catholic family with a successful mother and an unemployed father."
"A father who probably stayed around the house a lot," Vail suggested.
"Sharon became pregnant, and gave her baby away. Something happened during the same period of time that was so traumatic that the
… mother?"
Vail nodded.
"— sued for divorce.''
"Sharon was raped by her father," Vail said quietly. "Probably repeatedly, over a period of years. When she became pregnant she gave the baby away."
Millicent continued in a pained voice. "So when Sharon Crayne was fourteen years old, she underwent a live fetal removal?"