Isaac Asimov_ The Complete Stories Part 36

"Even if he had discovered that Villiers had talked to his cla.s.smates about the matter, what of it? What evidence would his cla.s.smates have except the word of one whom they are themselves half willing to consider a madman?

"By announcing instead that Villiers' paper had been destroyed, by declaring his death to be not entirely natural, by searching for a scanned copy of the film-in short by everything Dr. Mandel had done-he has aroused a suspicion that only he could possibly have aroused when he need only have remained quiet to have committed a perfect crime. If he were the criminal, he would be more stupid, more colossally obtuse than anyone I have ever known. And Dr. Mandel, after all, is none of that."

Talliaferro thought hard but found nothing to say.

Ryger said, "Then who did do it?"

"One of you three. That's obvious."

"But which?"

"Oh, that's obvious, too. I knew which of you was guilty the moment Dr. Mandel had completed his description of events."

Talliaferro stared at the plump extraterrologist with distaste. The bluff did not frighten him, but it was affecting the other two. Ryger's lips were thrust out and Kaunas's lower jaw had relaxed moronically. They looked like fish, both of them.

He said, "Which one, then? Tell us."

Urth blinked. "First, I want to make it perfectly plain that the important thing is ma.s.s-transference. It can still be recovered."

Mandel, scowling still, said querulously, "What the devil are you talking about, Urth?"

"The man who scanned the paper probably looked at what he was scanning. I doubt that he had the time or presence of mind to read it, and if he did, I doubt if he could remember it-consciously. However, there is the Psychic Probe. If he even glanced at the paper, what impinged on his retina could be Probed."

There was an uneasy stir.

Urth said at once, "No need to be afraid of the Probe. Proper handling is safe, particularly if a man offers himself voluntarily. When damage is done, it is usually because of unnecessary resistance, a kind of mental tearing, you know. So if the guilty man will voluntarily confess, place himself in my hands-"

Talliaferro laughed. The sudden noise rang out sharply in the dim quiet of the room. The psychology was so transparent and artless.

Wendell Urth looked almost bewildered at the reaction and stared ear- nestly at Talliaferro over his gla.s.ses. He said, "I have enough influence with the police to keep the Probing entirely confidential."

Ryger said savagely, "1 didn't do it."

Kaunas shook his head.

Talliaferro disdained any answer.

Urth sighed. "Then I will have to point out the guilty man. It will be traumatic. It will make things harder." He tightened the grip on his belly and his fingers twitched. "Dr. Talliaferro pointed out that the film was hidden on the outer window sill so that it might remain safe from discovery and from harm. I agree with him."

"Thank you," said Talliaferro dryly.

"However, why should anyone think that an outer window sill is a particularly safe hiding place? The police would certainly look there. Even in the absence of the police it was.discovered. Who would tend to consider anything outside a building as particularly safe? Obviously, some person who has lived a long time on an airless world and has it drilled into him that no one goes outside an enclosed place without detailed precautions.

"To someone on the Moon, for instance, anything hidden outside a Lunar Dome would be comparatively safe. Men venture out only rarely and then only on specific business. So he would overcome the hards.h.i.+p of opening a window and exposing himself to what he would subconsciously consider a vacuum for the sake of a safe hiding place. The reflex thought, 'Outside an inhabited structure is safe,' would do the trick."

Talliaferro said between clenched teeth, "Why do you mention the Moon, Dr. Urth?"

Urth said blandly, "Only as an example. What I've said so far applies to all three of you. But now comes the crucial point, the matter of the dying night."

Talliaferro frowned. "You mean the night Villiers died?"

"I mean any night. See here, even granted that an outer window sill was a safe hiding place, which of you would be mad enough to consider it a safe hiding place for a piece of unexposed film? Scanner film isn't very sensitive, to be sure, and is made to be developed under all sorts of hit-and-miss conditions. Diffuse night-time illumination wouldn't seriously affect it, but diffuse daylight would ruin it in a few minutes, and direct sunlight would ruin it at once. Everyone knows that."

Mandel said, "Go ahead, Urth. What is this leading to?"

"You're trying to rush me," said Urth, with a ma.s.sive pout. "I want you to see this clearly. The criminal wanted, above all, to keep the film safe. It was his only record of something of supreme value to himself and to the world. Why would he put it where it would inevitably be ruined by the morning sun? -Only because he did not expect the morning sun ever to come. He thought the night, so to speak, was immortal.

"But nights aren 't immortal. On Earth, they die and give way to daytime.

Even the six-month polar night is a dying night eventually. The nights on Ceres last only two hours; the nights on the Moon last two weeks. They are dying nights, too, and Dr. Talliaferro and Ryger know that day must always come."

Kaunas was on his feet. "But wait-"

Wendell Urth faced him full. "No longer any need to wait, Dr. Kaunas. Mercury is the only sizable object in the Solar System that turns only one face to the sun. Even taking libration into account, fully three-eighths of its surface is true dark-side and never sees the sun. The Polar Observatory is at the rim of that dark-side. For ten years, you have grown used to the fact that nights are immortal, that a surface in darkness remains eternally in darkness, and so you entrusted unexposed film to Earth's night, forgetting in your excitement that nights must die-"

Kaunas stumbled forward. "Wait-"

Urth was inexorable. "I am told that when Mandel adjusted the polarizer in Villiers' room, you screamed at the sunlight. Was that your ingrained fear of Mercurian sun, or your sudden realization of what sunlight meant to your plans? You rushed forward. Was that to adjust the polarizer or to stare at the ruined film?"

Kaunas fell to his knees. "I didn't mean it. I wanted to speak to him, only to speak to him, and he screamed and collapsed. I thought he was dead and the paper was under his pillow and it all just followed. One thing led on to another and before I knew it, I couldn't get out of it anymore. But I meant none of it. I swear it."

They had formed a semicircle about him and Wendell Urth stared at the moaning Kaunas with pity in his eyes.

An ambulance had come and gone. Talliaferro finally brought himself to say stiffly to Mandel, "I hope, sir, there will be no hard feelings for anything said here."

And Mandel had answered, as stiffly, "I think we had all better forget as much as possible of what has happened during the last twenty-four hours."

They were standing in the doorway, ready to leave, and Wendell Urth ducked his smiling head, and said, "There's the question of my fee, you know."

Mandel looked startled.

"Not money," said Urth at once. "But when the first ma.s.s-transference setup for humans is established, I want a trip arranged for me."

Mandel continued to look anxious. "Now, wait. Trips through outer s.p.a.ce are a long way off."

Urth shook his head rapidly. "Not outer s.p.a.ce. Not at all. I would like to step across to Lower Falls, New Hamps.h.i.+re."

"All right. But why?"

Urth looked up. To Talliaferro's outright surprise, the extra-terrologist's face wore an expression compounded of shyness and eagerness.

Urth said, "I once-quite a long time ago-knew a girl there. It's been many years-but I sometimes wonder-"

I'm in Marsport Without Hilda

It worked itself out, to begin with, like a dream. I didn't have to make any arrangement. I didn't have to touch it. I just watched things work out. -Maybe that's when I should have first smelled catastrophe.

It began with my usual month's layoff between a.s.signments. A month on and a month off is the right and proper routine for the Galactic Service. I reached Marsport for the usual three-day layover before the short hop to Earth.

Ordinarily, Hilda, G.o.d bless her, as sweet a wife as any man ever had, would be there waiting for me and we'd have a nice sedate time of it-a nice little interlude for the two of us. The only trouble with that is that Marsport is the rowdiest spot in the System, and a nice little interlude isn't exactly what fits in. Only, how do I explain that to Hilda, hey?

Well, this time, my mother-in-law, G.o.d bless her (for a change) got sick just two days before I reached Marsport, and the night before landing, I got a s.p.a.cegram from Hilda saying she would stay on Earth with her mother and wouldn't meet me this one time.

I 'grammed back my loving regrets and my feverish anxiety concerning her mother and when I landed, there I was- I was in Marsport without Hilda!

That was still nothing, you understand. It was the frame of the picture, the bones of the woman. Now there was the matter of the lines and coloring inside the frame; the skin and flesh outside the bones.

Copyright 1957 by Fantasy House, Inc.

So I called up Flora (Flora of certain rare episodes in the past) and for the purpose I used a video booth. -d.a.m.n the expense; full speed ahead.

I was giving myself ten to one odds she'd be out, she'd be busy with her videophone disconnected, she'd be dead, even.

But she was in, with her videophone connected, and Great Galaxy, was she anything but dead.

She looked better than ever. Age cannot wither, as somebody or other once said, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

Was she glad to see me? She squealed, "Max! It's been years."

"I know, Flora, but this is it, if you're available. Because guess what! I'm in Marsport without Hilda."

She squealed again, "Isn't that nice! Then come on over."

I goggled a bit. This was too much. "You mean you are available?" You have to understand that Flora was never available without plenty of notice. Well, she was that kind of knockout.

She said, "Oh, I've got some quibbling little arrangement, Max, but I'll take care of that. You come on over."

"I'll come," I said happily.

Flora was the kind of girl- Well, I tell you, she had her rooms under Martian gravity, 0.4 Earth-normal. The gadget to free her of Marsport's pseudo-grav field was expensive of course, but if you've ever held a girl in your arms at 0.4 gees, you need no explanation. If you haven't, explanations will do no good. I'm also sorry for you.

Talk about floating on clouds.

I closed connections, and only the prospect of seeing it all in the flesh could have made me wipe out the image with such alacrity. I stepped out of the booth.

And at that point, that precise point, that very split-instant of time, the first whiff of catastrophe nudged itself up to me.

That first whiff was the bald head of that lousy Rog Crinton of the Mars offices, gleaming over a headful of pale blue eyes, pale yellow complexion, and pale brown mustache. I didn't bother getting on all fours and beating my forehead against the ground because my vacation had started the minute I had gotten off the s.h.i.+p.

So I said with only normal politeness, "What do you want and I'm in a hurry. I've got an appointment."

He said, "You've got an appointment with me. I was waiting for you at the unloading desk."

I said, "I didn't see you-"

He said, "You didn't see anything."

He was right at that, for, come to think of it, if he was at the unloading desk, he must have been spinning ever since because I went past that desk like Halley's Comet skimming the Solar Corona.

I said, "All right. What do you want?"

"I've got a little job for you."

I laughed. "It's my month off, friend."

He said, "Red emergency alert, friend."

Which meant, no vacation, just like that. I couldn't believe it. I said, "Nuts, Rog. Have a heart. I got an emergency alert of my own."

"Nothing like this."

"Rog," I yelled, "can't you get someone else? Anyone else?"

"You're the only Cla.s.s A agent on Mars."

"Send to Earth, then. They stack agents like micro-pile units at Headquarters."

"This has got to be done before 11 p.m. What's the matter? You haven't got three hours?"

I grabbed my head. The boy just didn't know. I said, "Let me make a call, will you?"

I stepped back into the booth, glared at him, and said, "Private!"

Flora shone on the screen again, like a mirage on an asteroid. She said, "Something wrong, Max? Don't say something's wrong. I canceled my other engagement."

I said, "Flora, baby, I'll be there. I'll be there. But something's come up."

She asked the natural question in a hurt tone of voice and I said, "No. Not another girl. With you in the same town they don't make any other girls. Females, maybe. Not girls. Baby! Honey!" (I had a wild impulse but hugging 'vision screen is no pastime for a grown man.) "It's business. Just hold on. It won't take long."

She said, "All right," but she said it kind of like it was just enough not all right so that I got the s.h.i.+vers.

I stepped out of the booth and said, "All right, Rog, what kind of mess have you cooked up for me?"

We went into the s.p.a.ceport bar and got us an insulated booth. He said, "The Antares Giant is coming in from Sirius in exactly half an hour; at 8 p.m. local time."

"Okay."

"Three men will get out, among others, and will wait for the s.p.a.ce Eater coming in from Earth at 11 p.m. and leaving for Capella some time thereafter. The three men will get on the s.p.a.ce Eater and will then be out of our jurisdiction."

"So."

"So between 8:00 and 11:00, they will be in a special waiting room and you will be with them. I have a trimensional image of each for you so you'll know which they are and which is which. You have between 8:00 and 11:00 to decide which one of the three is carrying contraband."

"What kind of contraband?"