by Set Wagner
“Damn it,” he said again between his teeth.
I wasn’t so thick-skinned not to realize that this was hardly the moment for my questions. On the other hand, I had no intention of postponing them.
“Did Fowler work here on this site?” I asked.
“Ha! Simon!” exclaimed Vernie, as if he just noticed I was there.
“Did Fowler work on this site?” I repeated impassively.
“Unfortunately, no.” Vernie threw himself into one of the revolving chairs in front of the control panel and gestured for me to sit next to him. “He worked at the research field with Larsen. But he was always ready to help me. All in all, Fowler was my only friend here.”
“Didn’t you ever have any conflicts?”
“He was impossible to have conflicts with, Simon. All of his actions were well intended. So, generally speaking, he just couldn’t commit murder.”
“Soft hearted, was he?”
“What are you talking about?” objected Vernie. “When he had to, Fowler could be as hard as a diamond.”
“And don’t you suppose that he had to—”
“Murder Stein? No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Hmm, why? Actually, I barely knew Stein. He always seemed to me somehow—unreal, abstract. But I knew Fowler very well. To him life was something inviolable. Something sacred!”
“You know,” I started slowly, “the more I listen to you, the more probable it seems to me that it was exactly him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the truth is that everybody at some time is capable of murder, especially here, where the interests, even the fate, of all humankind are at stake. Not everybody, though, would take his or her own life afterward.”
“So?”
“My point is that a person would do so only if, to him or her, murder is something monstrous, no matter how important or noble the motives. Your words indicate that Fowler was just such a person.”
“If I understand you correctly,” Vernie responded, grimacing, “you think I’m praising his character with the ulterior motive of convincing you that he murdered Stein?”
“No, you didn’t understand me correctly.” I tried to sound hesitant. “I assume that you unintentionally led me to that conclusion.”
“Either way, I don’t care! Fowler was indeed my friend, no matter what you assume or don’t assume.”
Vernie grew silent. He seemed very upset, but I wasn’t at all sure if that was actually so. Generally, he didn’t seem to feel as much as to mimic feelings very well.
I asked, “What about the Yusians?”
“It’s not them,” he snapped.
“Because a flexor was used?”
“Not only because of that. There’s too much earthly, human logic in these murders, Simon. It’s somehow wrong to blame them on the Yusians.”
“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “After we exclude them and Fowler, we could limit the circle of suspects considerably.”
“You could,” Vernie corrected me. “As far as I’m concerned, I can’t suspect anybody. I’ve been living with these people for so long; we work together, struggle together, and I prefer not to imagine any one of them as a murderer.”
He suddenly turned to the indicator board with the determination of somebody used to performing his duties despite any obstacles that might appear. He checked the status of the machinery unit by unit, skillfully calibrating and adjusting them after lightning-quick glances at the data, playing the keyboard like a virtuoso. The transparent squares on the board’s periphery started flashing signals: “Heating,” “Oxygen,” “Humidity,” “Ventilation,” “Pressure,” and others that I didn’t recognize. Nor could I distinguish the rapidly changing figures beneath them, but Vernie had no difficulty keeping up, fixing each at the desired value, so that finally all the signals read, “Hold.” Just as he tore the readout from the printer and put it in one of the drawers, from the communicator came a sharp, annoying ring. Vernie rushed over to it.
On the screen appeared the drawn face of Reder. “I’m late,” he acknowledged wearily.
“Never mind,” Vernie said, comforting him. “Elia is not ready anyway.”
“Why? Has something happened? Something with—”
“No, no!” Vernie cut him off. “The centrifuge just couldn’t handle the speed of the rotations.”
“What centri—” Reder threw me a look that told me he had just now noticed me. “Hello, Inspector.”
I answered with barely a nod. The feeling that these people were all trying to mislead me didn’t predispose me to be polite with them.
“We have to start tomorrow,” Vernie said resignedly. “Today’s been a bad day for all of us.”
“For you too?” Reder’s owlish eyes stared into mine.
“No. I got lucky today,” I lied without remorse.
“I’m glad,” he lied back and terminated the connection.
Vernie addressed me provokingly, “We were talking about the list of suspects, Simon.”
“Yes, and we had come to the conclusion that if we exclude the Yusians and Fowler—”
“There are five of us left!”
“Which means,” I went on, “that the murders were committed as early as the twenty-sixth between eight and twelve o’clock because, after that time and until the bodies were found, you were all together or in constant contact with each other.
“Right, but there’s no use asking me what I was doing during that time. There’s no way I can prove it.”
“Why? You were here, at the construction site, weren’t you? At that time, there must have been plenty of robots working here as well.”
“Oh, great! Good for me!” he unexpectedly exclaimed. “I can count on the support of some tin scarecrows! But no, Simon! There’s no point in questioning them. My working place is this room only, and I don’t allow any robots inside.”
“Well, yes, but if you had gone out—”
“None of them would have noticed me. This is the last building before the field. I could simply have crossed it to reach the forest—at the crime scene. It’s very close to here.”
“Most convenient, indeed,” I said.
Bowing his head, Vernie stared at me questioningly, not sure whether or not he should take my words as a joke. Then he frowned and categorically said, “Each of us five had the opportunity to commit the murders, but none of us did. Yes, yes. Not the Yusians, not Fowler, not any of us.”
“Then who?”
“Maybe you should say ‘what,’ Simon. What killed them?”
I thought for some time before I understood his suggestion. “You believe that one of the robots was used to commit the crime?”
“No. I believe that some of the robots killed Fowler and Stein for their own personal motives.”
“But that’s nonsense! Only a minute ago you said it yourself: the logic behind these murders is too earthly and human. What motive could a robot have?”
“Every thinking creature has certain incentives—or, if you prefer, stimuli, impulses—that motivate its actions. Otherwise, it couldn’t act at all. Moreover, what sort of logic do you expect from these robots—Yusian?”
I recalled the two metal figures, impassively passing me by, at the cones.
“Yet all robots consider humans inviolable, correct?”
“They should be inviolable,” Vernie specified. “They should be!”
“Listen, Vernie,” I began impatiently.
“You listen, Simon,” he nearly shouted. “I told you my opinion. I can’t support it with particulars or with proofs either. Whether it’s intuitive or conclusive, who the hell knows? But it’s my firm opinion. Or quite frankly, my belief. That’s it!”
“Well, all right.” I stood up. “Sorry if I interrupted your work.”
“Oh, please.”
We smiled at each other, and strange to say, it was, I think, almost sincere.
“I see the ban for carrying flexors has been ca
nceled,” I mentioned.
Vernie smiled again. “That’s because of you, Simon. Since Larsen is not authorized to take your gun away, he decided to place us all on equal terms.”
“On equal terms for what?”
“Well, you name it.”
I left the building and walked around it. Before my eyes appeared a vast green field, so different from the one where Chuks had left me that at first I thought the grass was of another variety. Soon, however, I realized that it was the same grass: only here, the hairs that had wrapped around the stem were now gathered at the base in narrow, loose rings that in this light appeared to be white, not pink.
I entered the field and walked slantwise toward the Eyrena forest. The grass rustled restlessly, twisting around my ankles. After I passed through, the bent stems popped back up as if triggered by hidden springs, their tips shivering for a second or two and then stiffening upward.
Before reaching the forest, I looked back out of habit and then stopped and stood there for quite some time—just a guy from Earth but destined to watch two suns meet.
Ridon had descended to the very line of the horizon and smoldered there like a copper disk dusted with embers. Meanwhile, from the east, a soft reddish glow was flowing like a wave, spilling into the gentle foam of the clouds, growing thicker and brighter. The sky grew heavy with the color; the clouds shuddered, torn by the powerful pulsations of color. The pulsations grew more frequent and then merged into a constant beat, into a throbbing scarlet sea. Surrounded by a swift crimson current, Shidexa swam into view, huge and ardent, an imperious deity. I closed my eyes, almost blinded by its majesty.
Immediately I felt a peculiar chaotic unrest at my feet. Something was whispering—crawling. Startled, I looked down and saw the grass bending in all directions, its stems covered with twisted tendrils of fluffy hairs that rapidly changed color. When the west swallowed the last rays of Ridon, the field was already entirely pink.
Pink—from end to end.
I saw the Yusian immediately but only realized that seconds later. He had emerged from behind the trees about a hundred meters from where I stood and was now coming straight toward me. As he approached calmly and confidently, I waited for him, pretending indifference, while my mind filled with questions. Was it mere coincidence that he was coming precisely from the crime scene? Why was he coming? What were his intentions? What about meeting me—was that coincidental as well?
Soon he came close enough so that I could have a good look at him. He was quite different from the Yusians I had seen so far. He had a much narrower and more clearly defined body, without the usual wrinkles at the chest. His forehead was smooth and parted almost in the middle, and he appeared to weigh only half as much as other Yusians. He reminded me of a creature that had lost weight after a long and difficult illness. Or did he belong to some other race, unknown to me? Who knows?
He came very close to me—within a few steps—and then passed by me! What’s more, contrary to all expectations, he didn’t acknowledge my presence with even the slightest change in his physical appearance—as if he hadn’t noticed me at all.
I watched him retreat through the fading pink field. He looked somehow isolated from the surrounding world, lost in his own, very distant thoughts. He drifted languidly forward in a foggy haze pouring from the slits in his space suit as it constantly filtered the Eyrenean air that obscured his bizarre features and wrapped him in an inert, drowsy atmosphere of unreality.
After he climbed the only hill here, the Yusian stopped directly in front of the defractor. He stretched out his limbs, bent over, and for a minute or two, froze in that position, probably opening his senses to some metal, concrete, and ceramic effects that only nonhumans could detect. Then he slowly continued on. I stared at his receding dark figure until it disappeared into the fading pinkness of the field.
Chapter 15
“What about Reder?” Elia’s grimace of bewilderment only enhanced her attractiveness. “He’s not coming for dinner either?”
“He called to say that he’s spending the night at the biosector,” Larsen answered.
“But, my God,” she exclaimed theatrically, “what’s happening to that man? He hasn’t showed up here since yesterday.” Bending toward me, she lowered her voice to a whisper, “Has someone scared him away?”
Her somewhat inappropriate joke was followed by a long pause, during which the serving robots performed their duties and left the dining room. Vernie impatiently reached for the silverware.
“Enjoy your dinner,” Odesta said.
We silently busied ourselves with our huge portions. As far as I could tell, nobody lacked an appetite. “At least a good meal will always get your strength up,” the boss always says.
“More wine?” Vernie asked me, bottle in hand.
I nodded, and he quickly filled my glass. Then I noticed that only the two of us were drinking wine. There was a pitcher of ice water in front of Larsen and Odesta, and Elia was sipping some yellowish juice.
“Are you wondering why we don’t ask questions about Earth, Inspector?” she inquired.
“No,” I answered.
“No?”
“No.”
My brevity didn’t offend her at all. She took another dainty bite and returned to her question, “So you’re not wondering, right?”
I swallowed more noisily than I intended.
“And why not, if I may ask?” Elia persisted.
“Because I didn’t arrive with the illusion that I would find a group of naive, sentimental people here.”
For a few minutes we ate in silence, disturbed only by the clicking of the silverware. Then Vernie finished his wine in one gulp, refilled the glass, and thoughtfully twirled it between his thumb and fingers. His eyes reflected the crimson claret, lending them a sinister, bloody radiance that sharply contrasted with his pleasantly round face. “You’re right about the naïveté,” he said, “but you’re wrong about the sentimentality. We have that, even to a dangerous degree.”
“Nonsense!” Elia objected.
“Nonsense?” Vernie flared up. “No human being totally lacks sentimentality. People go soft for no apparent reason.”
“That’s true,” confirmed Odesta, “but what does it have to do with—”
“Plenty!” Vernie interrupted her. “Plenty, because even the slightest twinge of sentimentality here becomes an unbearable burden. A real hell!”
Elia laughed. “Enough of this ‘here,’ Phil. What’s so bad about it? You know there’s lots of worse places on Earth. At least we are independent.”
“Independent!”
“All right, then. Isolated, separated, detached—call it what you like. What’s important is that we’re not forced to meet with the Yusians. And the rest is just work. Here or on Earth, what’s the difference?”
“You’re such a fake!” Vernie shook his head. “Sometimes I think that, even if they put a rope around your neck, you would call it a scarf or tie it in a bow.”
Larsen set his hands on the table and rose heavily.
“You’ve been gloomy lately, Berg!” Elia turned sharply to him. “I have the feeling that you’re just waiting for us to fail. Or that you don’t want us to succeed!”
He met her challenging stare, a concerned, surprisingly soft smile on his lips. “In some circumstances, success is also a failure, Elia.”
“Aha! So these are our alternatives—one kind of failure or another!”
“You made your choice a long time ago.”
“But not you!” Vernie interfered. “You just stay in the middle and keep quiet, right?”
“Yes,” Larsen said.
After that we all moved to the parlor. There I took off my holster and gun, crossed to the large, ornate armoire and opened the glass doors of the uppermost compartment. I took out one of the spare flexors in a holster stored there and hung it on my belt. While the five of us had found little to say to each other so far that evening, now the silence grew deeper and more satu
rated with aloofness than ever. I approached Larsen and handed him my gun.
“Leave it somewhere,” he said. “Later I’ll take it upstairs and put it in my safe.”
I placed the gun on the stool next to him and then settled in the armchair opposite Odesta and Elia, who sat next to each other on the sofa looking like two sullen, worried children. Soon a serving robot entered the parlor, placed a coffee tray on the table between us, and quickly exited.
“And we, Simon, may take up where we left off.” With exaggerated heartiness, Vernie tapped his finger on the bottle of wine he had brought from the dining room. “What do you say?”
Without waiting for my reply, he took two oversized tumblers out of the armoire.
“As you can see,” he added ironically, “this armoire has become our Pandora’s box on Eyrena. We have filled it with a variety of useful weapons: from these containers for alcohol poisoning to potential murder weapons and to this!” Vernie pulled open a drawer and with two fingers extracted a small, oblong object that he showed to me for a second before returning to the drawer. It was an energy battery, exactly like the one that had been in the robot I destroyed.
After another very long and uncomfortable silence, Larsen pushed aside his unfinished cup of coffee, took my gun, bid us a good night, and left the room. Elia started after him immediately, apparently hoping to catch up with him in the hall; when she left, Vernie started to sigh, cough, and squirm in his seat.
“Why don’t you two have a conversation, and I—” He smiled awkwardly at me and then at Odesta. “How tactless, right? But there it is: good night. I’m leaving; I’m leaving!” He rushed off as if somebody had chased him away.
The three hasty withdrawals obviously confused Odesta. “The evening was a bit—depressing,” she mumbled, needlessly smoothing her dress.
I shrugged my shoulders noncommittally. “I expect such behavior, Odesta. It comes with the job. Besides, I find other things around here even more depressing. By the way, since you’re the psychologist on the base, wasn’t it your responsibility to warn me about the unusual condition I would experience this morning?”