Rita stared at the hands folded in her lap. Monotone: “Juan Aguilar, our mayordomo—our, our steward—Juan found him in his pool about the break of dawnwatch. He pulled him out, called Emergency, roused me on the intercom, did his best to give first aid. The medics came within minutes. They tried and tried, but could not revive him. Meanwhile I called you. As you advised, I called Señor Haugen and asked him to keep the secret for a while, as well as he could. Then I had Juan wake Erann. The police have been here, but only for an hour, because there does not seem to have b-been—malhecho—” The voice died away. She had scarcely moved.
“I directed the police chief and medical office to keep silence,” Haugen said. “I have ordered appointments cancelled and official staff to stay away until called. That cannot go on for long. Besides the, uh, public interest, we must notify his son and daughter. And … proceed with the government’s work.”
He sounded more desperate, or frightened, than pompous. A well-intentioned political hack, Dagny thought, who took the job on Luna because he was in line for a raise in rank and expected this to be pro forma until he moved on to something harmless back Earthside. His eyes implored her.
“How do they know it wasn’t foul play?” she asked.
Haugen could deal with routine practicalities. “No sign of violence. Shortly before you arrived, I received the examiner’s preliminary report from the hospital. The case does have its puzzling features, but nothing—I would rather continue this later, Mme. Bey-nac.”
Yes. Rita. Decent of him. But a few things must yet be probed. “Any idea when he died?”
“Hours ago. The exact time is still undetermined because—We have no possibility of revivification. He was, was there too long.” Brain too deteriorated.
Hm. That was suggestive, considering how whore-frigid Wahl had kept the pool. “When did anybody last see him alive? What was he doing?”
“He had had a dreadful day, as you can imagine,” replied Rita dully. “He came home and had supper with me. He did not eat much. We finished about 2030 and he said he must work late in his study and I should not stay awake for him. That was the last time for me, until he lay dead by the water. He was preparing a speech, a statement to the world, for the … the contingency of actual combat occurring.”
He didn’t employ speechwriters, Dagny recalled. That was one of the things she liked about him. “Anyone meet him later?”
“Aguilar says he saw him come out of the room late in the evenwatch and pace the corridors for a while, then go back,” Haugen answered. “That was not extraordinary. He always needed physical activity when he was under stress.” He glanced at Erann. “Aguilar also mentioned seeing you pass by a little earlier. He had an impression you went into the office. You said nothing about that to the police.”
“Nay,” the boy admitted calmly. “It was not relevant, and it was private. He was, as you tell, seen later. I had sought my room, and I believe the steward did akin soon afterward.”
Haugen nodded. He must already have been satisfied, since he had not informed the officers himself. To Dagny he said, “Aguilar went to his apartment and was with his wife till dawnwatch. They retired about 2300, they state.”
Rita stirred. “They are old and faithful servants,” she said. “They came to the Moon to be with us. Do not doubt them.”
“I don’t imagine anyone does,” Haugen reassured her. “Aguilar told his clock to call him early, in case the governor worked through the dawnwatch and could use his services. He found the computer running in the study, text on the screen. That was not Wahl’s way. He left things neat before he went to bed. Therefore probably he had not. Aguilar searched and—found him.”
“It would be natural for him to take a swim somewhere along the line, exercise part of his tension off,” Dagny observed. “Evidently he did sometime around 2400, maybe an hour or two later. But wouldn’t you expect him to turn in then, being halfway relaxed? This was going to be a wicked daycycle, after all. Obviously, though, he meant to come back from the pool and resume work. So he was abnormally charged up, even for this political mess we’re in.” Her eyes sought Erann again. “What did you two talk about?”
“Ayomera,” her great-grandson responded mildly. She knew the Lunarian expression. It wasn’t quite translatable into any Earthly tongue: the polite equivalent of making no response whatsoever.
“We’ll have speech in a while, you and I,” she told him. “Stick around. You too, uh, Governor, por favor. Rita, let’s take care of you.”
The woman accompanied her out like a robot. Dagny led her through the motions, pulled a blanket up to her chin, kissed her cheek, and waited till the drug had brought sleep.
Emerging, she looked right and left. Nobody around. The machinery of government was shut down for now, and household staff huddled in their quarters or went about their duties in terrified silence. A guard at the door and a monitor on the phones sealed the news between these walls. Haugen was right, that couldn’t last, nor should it. Whatever called for discretion had better be done fast.
How about checking the scene, just in case? Not that she’d likely find anything the detectives and their equipment had overlooked; but it was something to do while her thoughts churned about in the middle of nightmare. She bounded down the hall.
Jaime had shown her his pool once, and laughingly invited her to take a dip. “I needn’t worry about possible brass monkeys among my ancestors,” she’d retorted, “but I’m pretty sure they included no walruses.” The chamber was, as she recalled, austere, echoey still, the water unruffled and colorless in its utter purity.
No, wait. Where was the faint smoke of mists? The air in here was fairly warm, the water Arctic. … Was it? She stooped—her bones felt as if they creaked—and stuck a hand down.
Tepid. What the devil?
She located the thermostat and went to it. The setting read 35°, damn near blood warm. Now why would Jaime want that? Maybe so he could splash and wallow around for an hour, letting the misery leach out of him? That had never been his style.
The olden cold went down Dagny’s backbone and out to the ends of her nerves.
Sickness followed. No, por favor, please, let this idea be wrong, let it pass from her.
Only one way did she have a chance of that happening. She fought back to inner balance.
But be quick! She left the place and cast about the mansion, avoiding the living room, till she found Aguilar. The gray man sat sorrowfully at the accounts. He knew her, sprang to his feet and bowed, stood hands atremble awaiting her word.
“Good morning,” she greeted in Spanish. “Forgive my intruding. You have had great shock and grief, and then you were questioned at length, no? I am sorry that I must ask you a little more.”
“I am at your service, señora.” He meant it, she knew.
“You found the señor in the pool, got him out, called for help, and until it came tried to resuscitate him. That was well done. What I must know is this. Was the water cold as usual?”
“I, I did not notice,” he replied, startled. After a moment, in which the corrugated face squinched together: “Now that I think back … yes, perhaps it was not—not icy cold. Cold, but not icy. I am not sure, señora. I was not noticing. And ordinarily I, I had no business at the pool. It was long since I had felt of that water.”
“Then I suppose, if it had been as cold as he liked, you would have been aware? You got soaking wet, after all.”
A shaky nod. “Yes, you are right, señora, I would have noticed. It was cold, but not … not extremely cold.”
And now it was lukewarm. “Do you think the soñer, this one time, may have wanted to swim at a more comfortable temperature?”
“Perhaps. I cannot say. He never did before. I well remember how he had the pool put in just for himself—” Aguilar clutched her arm. “Señora,” he gasped, “could a plunge into a surprise, could that have been fatal?”
His grip hurt her thin flesh, but she hadn’t the heart to reprima
nd him. “Surely not. If somebody, for a prank, let us say, sneaked in and set the thermostat high, I can see him swearing very loudly and storming off to wake everybody and find who the guilty party was. Can you not?”
“Yes.” Aguilar released her. “Yes, I think he would do that. He was never one to suffer insults meekly.”
“Macho. I agree. Well, I thank you, and please do not speak of this conversation to anybody else. We still have the truth to discover.”
The horror to uncover. She feared, she feared.
Boost onward, full thrust, and keep the radars alert. Grief was for afterward. She returned to the living room. Haugen and Erann sat in a silence thick enough to cut with a torch. The Earthman’s head snapped around in her direction. The Lunarian rose, gave his people’s salute of honor, and resumed his chair when she took hers.
“Okay, Rita’s out of this wretchedness and we can talk freely,” she said. “Governor, you were going to tell me what the doctors found.”
Haugen frowned. “With respect, Señora Beynac, isn’t that the business of the police? There is no evidence of wrongdoing. The water was not poisoned, he was not killed by an uninsulated electric appliance dropped into it, nothing of that kind.”
“I wonder how dangerous electricity is in CP water, anyway. By itself, it’s a poor conductor.” Dagny kept Erann in her peripheral vision, not to stare at him. She knew the trick of using it. He might have been a breathing statue. “Señor,” she told Haugen, “I’m old and tired. You made a remark about oddities in this case. Por favor, don’t force me to call the medical office and wade through procedures.”
“As you wish,” Haugen sighed. He assembled his words. “First and foremost, his regular physical examinations showed him to be in excellent health. What went wrong? How did he come to drown? You understand, these findings are preliminary, many details wait for laboratory studies, but it does not appear that he suffered a heart attack, an embolism, an arterial spasm, any of the obvious possibilities for him to lose consciousness and drown.”
“Did he drown?” Watch, watch, and don’t show that you are watching.
“What else?” asked Haugen, surprised. “The signs, the appearance of the body—Ah, Aguilar’s efforts, and then the emergency team’s, they have made it unclear how much water was in the lungs, but the blood shows oxygen deprivation.” He gave her an aggressive smile. “You do not imagine, do you, that somebody choked him, then threw the corpse into the pool?”
Dagny pretended to take him seriously. “No, no. Who could have gotten in here unnoticed, let alone assaulted him without a racket that’d rouse a bureaucrat at his desk? Wahl was a strong man, well able to defend himself. If nothing else, he’d show bruise marks.” Weightily: “But you hinted at a few, hm, anomalies. What?”
“It’s rather vague. The medical team leader said something to me about a general discoloration. It could be from lying for hours in that cold water.”
Erann’s visage never stirred.
“Does he have any theory?” Dagny pursued. Her pulse throbbed.
“She.” Haugen made the correction as if it were important. Well, his ego needed shoring up, poor bastard; and its stability was a public concern, when all Luna needed a competent person in charge. “Who knows, at this stage? Probably suicide is ruled out. But some kind of brain failure, nerve cells misfiring, sudden unconsciousness?” His tone went shrill. “Maybe we do not know everything that space conditions, Moon conditions, can do to humans.”
Ever so faintly, Erann smiled. He was Lunarian.
And he was human too!
She turned directly to him. “Do you have any ideas?” she asked.
The fair head shook. “Nay. I can but share in the sadness.”
Haugen’s control gave way. “Do you?” he grated. “You’re in your grandfather Brandir’s household. You know how glad he’ll be of this.” The Authority in confusion and dismay, Dagny thought; its new chief ill-informed and indecisive; the upshot, paralysis, while the barons strengthened themselves and their position; quite likely thereafter, the Authority backing down, the Federation left with scant choice but to go along, as the Selenarchs made good their tremendous claim. “What were you doing here, exactly now? What did you do?”
Erann raised a hand. “Were my lord not overwrought, I would ask satisfaction for gratuitous insult,” he said, as stiffly as his soft accent allowed. “I forbear, and point out that I have been years in friendship with the Wahl family.”
“That’s true, you know,” Dagny reminded Haugen. “When Leandro and Pilar lived here, they’d have schoolmates over fairly often, Lunarians among them.” To Erann: “That’s the last time I saw you till today. I happened to come on business while one of those parties was going on. How long ago was that? Three years? What’ve you been up to since?”
“I proceed with my studies, and, as honored Haugen said, otherwise have the pride to attend the lord Brandir at Zamok Vysoki.” That must have come out in the course of police questioning, Dagny realized. The vice governor had not been on the Moon in those earlier daycycles.
“When were you last here, before yesterday?”
“About the time you spoke of. My lady, this is wearisome and profitless.”
Dagny ignored the complaint. “Yes, that figures. After the kids, your friends, moved out, you had no more reason to visit.” Friends? She recalled the boy Leandro as bearing a dislike of most Lunarians, which he did not always succeed in masking. The girl Pilar had felt otherwise, but then Pilar got shipped off to Earth. … “What was your reason this trip?”
“I have explained it was a private affair. The lord Wahl wished it thus, and I keep faith.” Erann rose to loom above her. “My lady, your greatness entitles you to much, and I say naught more save that I have said enough, have done my duty toward this troublous occasion, and now I will begone.”
“Not yet,” Dagny said. “We need a few words together, the two of us, Sr. Haugen, may we be excused? Meanwhile, I’ll be obliged if you can get contact made with Selenarch Brandir. Use my name and explain it’s crucial. Quantum encryption, of course.”
The Earthman gaped. “Madame, I—What is this?”
Dagny gave him look for look. “You asked if I could help. I believe I can. Kindly let me do it my way.”
“I must p-point out that you have no official standing.”
“I have one hell of a long record, señor.”
His glance dropped. “Well, I will see what I can do,” he mumbled.
“Muchas gracias.” Dagny stood up. “Come along, Erann.”
The youth tautened. “Nay. I depart.”
Dagny kept her tone light. “There’s a guard at the door. He doesn’t let anybody by without Sr. Haugen’s okay. Why begrudge an old lady a few minutes’ chat? Do come along, dear.”
She left. After an instant, Erann followed. The Earthman’s gaze trailed them out of sight.
Dagny led a mute way to Wahl’s personal office. It would be secured against eavesdroppers. When they were inside and closed off, she looked around. The silence was very full of him, his pictures, souvenirs, bow and trophies, the silver icon of Christ crucified. His words were still on the computer screen: “—cannot and will not suffer this. It is more than mutiny, worse than rebellion, it is treason to humankind. That we should be led into violence against each other, when outside our fragile shelters lies inhuman space—”
“Sit down, por favor,” Dagny said.
“I have been too much seated,” Erann answered.
“My neck hurts when I crane it. Sit. Down.”
He obeyed, folding himself into Wahl’s chair and swiveling it around from the desk to glower at her. She stood before him, arms folded. O God, he was ’Mond’s blood and hers, and he looked so like Brandir at that same age! Somehow she made her voice crisp: “All right. What was the business between you and him?”
Beneath the alabaster skin, a vein in the neck pulsed blue. “I plighted secrecy. But I say to you, it was of no consequence to anyone
else.”
“If you tell me, probably it need go no further. I’m good too at keeping my mouth shut. But if you don’t cooperate now, the whole damn Solar System will likely find out. There are ways of gathering clues and making deductions from them. Meanwhile you’ll be in a chemical vat of a mess—what price your dignity then?—and your lord and his cause in a bigger one. Do talk, son.”
The lips pressed tight.
Dagny sighed. “After all, I can pretty well guess. You can’t very well have been a special emissary, so this must have concerned Wahl personally, and deeply enough that he’d take time for you in the middle of a life-or-death global crunch.
“Little Pilar. She was sweet on you. It stuck out of her a light-year, the time I saw you two in the same room. I doubt you felt it about her. Not only race; a couple years’ age difference is mighty wide when you’re that young. But it would’ve amused you, and given a sensation of getting some of your own back, to string her along. Nor do I suppose anything untoward ever happened, though that may well be because her father got her out of harm’s way.”
You rarely saw a Lunarian go red. “That … is a … conclusion fetched most far, … my lady.”
“Oh, I’ve more basis than an offhand impression. I knew the parents fairly well, remember. When they told me they were sending her to school on Earth, naturally I asked why. Jaime was pretty evasive, which wasn’t his habit. Later Rita confided a bit in me. The rest was obvious. I didn’t think much about it, just felt sorry for them and for the child, and trusted she’d forget and be happy. But now—
“Of course she’d write to you, over and over, and beam to you and talk whenever a chance came along. It was easy for you to keep her on the hook, without committing yourself in any way. Easy, amusing as I remarked, and cruel.” Dagny shook her head. “I wish I could think better of you.”
Erann gripped the chair arms. “Dare you believe that of me?”
The Stars Are Also Fire Page 44