I stuck it out for more than thirty minutes. I used my PAD to photograph everything, and from several different angles. I took blood and tissue samples of my own, rather than trust an independent doctor’s report. And I spent a long time just…looking.
There was still a lot of blood coating every part, giving everything a slick red color, so dark it was very nearly black. The face was a mask of blood, the eyes still wide open in an expression of perpetual surprise and horror, the mouth open and the lips dragged back in a nightmare rictus that might have been horror, might have been shock or pain.
Where the torso had been cut apart was deeply and badly burned, the tissue turned to black charcoal, the exposed ribs blackened and charred. I’d have expected that from a mining laser.
What I’d not expected was the sharp, bright, clean slice that had severed Dow’s left humerus just above his elbow. The brightness was partially obscured by blood…but when I picked up the lower part of the arm and rubbed my gloved thumb across it, the clotted blood wiped away and the cut through the bone was so clean it looked polished.
Lasers have the reputation for being surgically clean and precise, of course. We’ve used them in surgery since the 1960s, and they’re capable of tremendous precision.
But this was a 100-kilowatt tunneler, packing far more energy than any surgical laser, and had been wielded with wild, sweeping strokes. It would have charred. It would have burned. It would have denatured proteins and it would have caused internal fluids to explode.
But polish bone?
When I was finished, I nodded to Dole and she returned the slab and its bloody display to the refrigerated locker, then shut the door.
“Thank you,” I told her.
“I’m impressed,” she said.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
She gave me a sour look. “Because the last person to come in and look at the guy was sick all over the floor.”
That grabbed my attention. Who else was coming in to look at Dow’s mutilated body? “Who was it?”
“I don’t remember. Lockyear? Lockley? Something like that. Anyway, she was a news reporter…”
I closed my eyes and groaned.
Things had suddenly just gotten a lot more complicated.
Chapter Eight
Day 3
“Hey, Rick,” she said, brushing back a few strands of that gorgeous auburn hair from her face. “Long time, no see.”
Lily Lockwell was waiting for me in the Earthview restaurant when I walked in, a mixed drink of some sort in front of her. That was a bit alarming, since it wasn’t yet noon, the sun not yet over the yardarm, and all that. I’d given her a call as soon as I’d left the morgue, and had found out she was at the Challenger Planetoid as well. She’d agreed to meet me.
I walked in through the main entrance, spotted her alone at a table by the window, and joined her. There was no sensation of going around in circles in the Earthview, but there was the view of Earth that gave the restaurant its name. The restaurant was in the upper of the two counter-rotating wheels. A large window in one wall, though it seemed like it ought to be looking out over the surface of the planetoid, in fact was looking straight up at the Earth, spanning more than ten degrees of the sky. We were, in fact, on our sides, but the out-is-down spin gravity of the place had flipped things over for us. Earth hung there to the right in blackness, turning around and around in a tight little circle, making one revolution each thirty seconds. The large room was bathed in blue and white light.
I slipped into the seat next to her. “You mad at me?”
“Furious,” she said, “but I suppose I’ll get over it.” She looked down at her drink. “You knew Dow was dead, didn’t you? When I ran into you at the Root the other day?”
I nodded. “And I wasn’t allowed to tell you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Truth. I was ordered not to talk to the media. What would you have done?”
“Trusted you. Confided in you, and to hell with Commissioner Dawn.”
“Ah. Well, I’m not really the trusting type.”
“I know.”
“Hey, it’s part of the job. You don’t tell me your sources, or write what I tell you to write, right? And I follow orders.”
She gave a small smile. “Sometimes.”
“So how are you feeling?” I asked, ordering a ginger ale on the table PAD. The Earthview had a human maître d’ standing by the lectern up front, but the ordering and food service were strictly electronic. “They said at the morgue that you got sick.”
“They’re lying. I was not sick.”
“Oh?”
She winced. “I wanted to be, though, yeah. I thought I was going to lose breakfast for a moment there.”
“It was pretty bad,” I agreed. “Not the worst I’ve seen, but it was bad. What’s your angle going to be?”
“Angle? What angle?”
“You’re obviously here writing a story on Dow’s murder. How are you playing it?”
“Actually, I was hoping you’d tell me.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s ‘no comment’ all the way through.”
“I figured as much. But damn it, Rick, this is big, and it’s nasty. I have sources talking to me about full-blown civil war, humans against the androids.”
“Are those sources human or android?” I asked.
She hesitated, considering whether or not to tell me. “Human,” she finally admitted. “People who want to round up all of the clones and bioroids out there and destroy them.”
“Human First?”
“Among others.”
“The Clone Riots last year all over again.”
“People are afraid, Rick. And this story could blow things clear into the stratosphere.”
I nodded toward the window at the impossibly gorgeous circle of the Earth going round and round like an old-fashioned vinyl memory device. “We’re already well above the stratosphere, sweetheart.”
A tiny sound chimed, and my drink slid out of the table well and rode up the little elevator platform to the top. I authorized payment from my implant—God, a soft drink here cost five times what it did on Earth—and took the glass.
“You do know how the Sol’s page-one headline’s going to read on this one, Rick,” she said. “‘Humanity Labor lawyer found dead, mutilated.’ And below that: ‘Police suspect Mine Bosses.’”
I blinked. “What makes you think the mining CEOs are suspects?”
“It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not from where I’m sitting.”
“Different perspective?”
“Something like that.”
“Your main suspects right now are a bioroid…and a mining clone working for Melange.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Whoa, take it easy there, Fish. Don’t fry your circuits.”
I glared at her for a long moment. Someone was leaking intimate details of the investigation, and few things were better calculated to throw me into a white fury.
Or…
I forced the anger back down. I knew from experience that a shouting match wouldn’t budge this woman. “You mind telling me how you found out who my suspects are?”
“I have my sources.”
“Such as?”
“Go to hell.”
This sparring was getting us nowhere. I thought for a moment. “As it happens, there is a bioroid and a mining clone who are…of interest in the investigation.”
“And what are your sources?”
“Go to hell.”
She suddenly leaned over and punched me in the shoulder. “Oh, you’re no fun.” It lightened the mood a bit.
“No. But I do follow accepted legal procedure. It’s called ‘the book.’”
She considered me for several seconds, then seemed to reach a decision. “Okay. According to Dow’s personal financial report, he was into sex bioroids in a big way, if you know what I mean. Preferred them to women. He rented on
e from Eliza’s Toybox on the Moon as soon as he arrived at the High Frontier Hotel. Paid for her passage down-ferry to the Stalk. Her name is Eve 5VA3TC. She’s supposed to be very…talented.”
“I see. And the clone?”
She shrugged. “Educated guess. According to the Transit Authority records, there was a Henry-type mining clone on the ferry in from the Moon last night. He knew Eve 5VA3TC. In fact, he may be quite close to her, according to one of my sources. So I assumed that Henry knew that Eve was here, and threw him out as one of your suspects just to see what you’d say.” She sipped her drink. “Thank you for confirming that part for me. Until now I wasn’t quite sure.”
I cursed myself and my short temper. Lily always had been faster on the uptake than me.
“You’re implying that the clone and the bioroid have a little something going on the side?” I asked, considering the idea. “I didn’t know clones had sex lives.”
She shrugged. “Why not? They’re under heavy neural conditioning, yes, but they have the equipment and they have emotions. Just like people.”
I frowned at her. “Clones are people.”
“Then I rest my case.”
Lily and I had an argument once—I think it was back during the Clone Riots a year ago. She’s not convinced that clones qualify as human. I am. Mostly it’s just an ongoing philosophical question with no real blood behind it, but she does make me angry sometimes with her oblivious disregard for the patently obvious.
Were clones property? Or were they people being treated like property? The basic question was an old one, long predating the arrival of clones on the scene.
“Consider the facts,” Lily continued. “Dow hires Eve 5VA3TC to come out and spend time with him. They hop into bed and do the pokey-pokey. An hour later, Mark Henry shows up with a mining laser and takes Dow apart, literally. And the way he did it! Obviously what they used to call a crime of passion.”
I shook my head. “I don’t buy it, sweetheart. Henry just happened to have a 35-kilo mining laser on him?”
“Then we’re stuck with something much worse,” she told me. “We have a man who’s about to convince several powerful U.S. senators and representatives that it would be in everyone’s best interest if clones and bioroids were not competing with full-humans for jobs. The mining bosses, the CEOs of Melange and Helios and Lunar Ice, they don’t want that, because they actually have to pay full-humans, especially for jobs involving high-radiation and vacuum. So they program a mining clone and a bioroid to murder him.”
I knew she was trying to draw me out, working me to get some sort of a response, any response, that might give her a lead that would help her develop her story.
“It sounds to me like you have it all figured out. Whom have you been talking to, anyway?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
I chuckled. “Right. It’s pretty obvious, though. By now, every person in the High Frontier’s staff—Housekeeping, Food Service, Front Desk—they all know what happened in Room Twelve. You found one of them who’s willing to talk.”
“Maybe.”
“And you got to the morgue before I did. Dr. Weissmuller is a thoroughgoing professional, and probably told you to take a hike outside without a pressure suit…but Dole… She likes drama, I think…I’ll bet she told you all sorts of things.”
Lily looked uncomfortable. She drained her glass, then ordered another drink. She didn’t like being that transparent. She preferred to be in control.
Like me.
“The mining bosses angle is important, Rick.”
“And which mining bosses angle would that be?”
She made a face. “Don’t play dumb, Rick. You’re too smart to do it well.”
“I’m not playing dumb. But I would like to know what you think you know.”
“I know the mining bosses weren’t real happy about Dow trying to push through legislation to stop them from using clones. A law like that would cost them billions.”
“That’s one possible motive. It doesn’t make them guilty of murder.”
“No. But they certainly wanted to stop him.”
“They also have lobbyists of their own. And half of Congress must be in their hip pockets.”
“But they could have used the Henry clone to take Dow out of the equation. It would’ve been faster. More certain.”
“Could have doesn’t mean they did.”
“Right. You sound pretty sure of yourself. Does that mean you have the case wrapped up?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “Just a few loose ends to tuck in. We have an APB out for Mark Henry.”
“Hm. Do your loose ends include Ms. Coleman?”
I stared at her for a beat. “Dow’s boss? What about her?”
“You talk to her, yet?”
“She’s on my list.”
She laughed. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“She’s here.”
“What…here at the Earthview?”
“Close enough. In an office at Humanity Labor, in a dome on the other side of the asteroid.”
“Since when?”
“Since three days ago. She came up with Dow in order to prep for the meeting with those senators. And I don’t think I’ll tell you any more. Your quid isn’t pro-ing my quo.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“No. More like extortion.”
“What do you want?”
“Something I can write about.”
“So…this is conditional, is it? I don’t help you, so you don’t help me?”
“More like I scratch your back, and you reciprocate. Like you used to, Rick.”
“Damn it, Lil, I can’t. I’m muzzled.”
“That’s really too bad. Because I think you’re on the wrong track with Henry. He didn’t kill Dow. He couldn’t.”
“Actually, I tend to agree.”
She cocked her head. “A hunch?”
“Nothing that definite. There are some things about the case that don’t add up.”
She grinned. “Such as?”
I smiled back. “You think you’re going to get me like that?”
“Doesn’t hurt a girl to try.”
I’d been thinking, though, and now I reached a decision.
“Yeah, well…the hell with Commissioner Dawn,” I told her.
She looked startled. I’d caught her by surprise. “What?”
“The hell with Commissioner Dawn. Want your back scratched? Where does it itch? Up high? Or lower down?”
She gave me one of those looks. “I can think of several places.”
“Play later.” I thought back over the conversation so far, looking for the high points. “I was going to talk to Coleman about Dow. Find out about the guy, what he really believed, that sort of thing. Why do you think it’s important to talk to her?”
“Dow and Coleman were sleeping together.”
“And just how the hell do you know that?”
“I talked to Dow’s wife, back on Earth.”
“Wait a sec. Dow had a wife and he was banging sexbots on the side. You’re telling me he also had a thing going with his boss?”
“Apparently. According to Lupe Gonzales—that’s the wife—Dow was unhappy with the marriage. They had an open relationship, and he could pretty much go where he wanted with it.” She shrugged. “My guess is that Dow felt bored with her, so he began looking for fun elsewhere.”
“I take it you talked to her before you came up-Stalk. Was that before the murder?”
“Yes. I was doing some background checking on Dow, getting ready to cover the Congressional meeting up here. Gonzales told me Dow hadn’t been home for a month, and that he was chasing his boss. She didn’t seem too concerned about it.”
No matter how open a marriage might be, human nature always raises its ugly little head. Jealousy has destroyed more open marriages than I know how to count. That might not make sense, but humans aren’t rational critters, most o
f the time. They get possessive, and they get greedy.
After a while they think they own you. Like Nina.
“And have you spoken with Ms. Coleman yet?”
“No. She wouldn’t see me.”
“That’s interesting. Humanity Labor is usually eager for media coverage.”
“Usually. Her PAD secretary just told me she wasn’t accepting calls, and that Humanity Labor had no comment about the murder.”
“I think,” I said slowly, “that I’d better pay Ms. Coleman a visit.”
“I was hoping you’d see things my way.”
First, though, I arranged to have the evidence kit and its refrigerated contents shipped down-Stalk to the NAPD labs. Some of the blood and enzyme studies were too complex to be run on my little club, and I wanted to have them cranked through in case anything else turned up. But I had to pay for special handling in order to maintain continuity in the chain of evidence. Another entry on my expense account; I wondered if accounting would let it go through.
After that, Lily and I spent a couple of hours hunting around the back stairs and Housekeeping chambers of the High Frontier, looking for the missing luggage. Fuchida himself checked the lost and found, and assured me that if it was in the hotel, it would be found.
But we didn’t find it. We stopped short of searching occupied rooms—that would have required separate warrants for each—but it didn’t appear to be anywhere else on the premises.
Then we called Thea Coleman.
I took some time first to call up her personal file. She’d been with Humanity Labor for twelve years, and become Operations Manager two years ago. Her educational qualifications were impressive—Levy University for business admin and software design, plus MIT for courses in robotics, systems analysis, and general AI. Minors in both business economics and psychology. A real renaissance woman.
She’d refused to talk with Lily and she didn’t want to talk to me, either, but she agreed when I told her that I was with the NAPD and that I’d heard she’d had a relationship with the deceased. Yeah, she agreed to see me real fast after that.
Humanity Labor maintains its local offices near to the hydrocarbon mines on Farside. They have a strong presence on the Challenger Planetoid, strong enough that only full-humans are working the mines. Clones need not apply.
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