Chimera

Eight

He woke up with a stiff neck on top of the bruises. He swallowed another painblock and went to his desk.

"Good morning, sir," the Desk said. "Analysis and collation on the provided data completed. Do you wish a summary?"

"In a moment. I need coffee right now." He switched his samovar on. The machine hummed gently to life. Dark, steaming liquid filled a cup below the spigot. Coren breathed in the steam. "Any more messages?"

"None. Do you wish to review those in the queue?"

"Play Ambassador Burgess's."

Coren heard the flatscreen scroll up from the desktop, but he stood by the samovar, eyes closed, sipping his coffee.

"Mr. Lanra, I would like to apologize for any abruptness I may have exhibited with you yesterday. It has come to my attention that our interests may intersect. I would appreciate another opportunity to talk about it. I'll be in my office the rest of the day. "

Coren opened his eyes. "Hm. I wonder what I disturbed. Connect to Ambassador Burgess."

"Yes, sir."

A few seconds later a crisp male voice said, "Ambassador Burgess's office, how may I help you?"

Coren went to the desk. On the flatscreen he saw the face of Burgess's aide, Hofton. "Coren Lanra. I'm returning the Ambassador's call."

"Of course. Wait one moment while I put you through."

The screen went pale gray, then Ariel Burgess appeared. Her eyes looked slightly puffy; perhaps she had gotten as little sleep as he.

"Ambassador Burgess."

"Mr. Lanra, thank you for returning my call so promptly."

"I admit I'm puzzled at this turnaround."

"No more than I am. Perhaps between the two of us we can make sense of some of it. Would you care to meet with us again?"

"When?"

"As soon as convenient for you."

"Right now, frankly, nothing is convenient. How about-" he glanced at the time chop "-ten. That'll give me a chance to clean up a little. "

"That would be excellent. Here?"

"Certainly. I know the way."

She almost smiled at that. "Till then, Mr. Lanra."

The screen blanked.

"Desk, give me a summary of the analysis on the data I gave you. "

"Specify order."

"Um…" He rubbed his eyes, remembering. "Update on Yuri Pocivil?"

"No further progress."

"Improvo Shipping. "

"Improvo Shipping and Storage is a subsidiary owned outright by the Hunter Group. It has been in operation for thirty-eight years with ninety-two facilities within Sol System and fifty-one facilities located on various Settler worlds. The Hunter Group itself is an offworld company, headquarters on Cassus Thole."

"Really. How many employees within this system?"

"Six hundred seventy-two thousand."

"How many of those are immigrant?"

"Two thousand seven hundred."

"How many of those are natives of Cassus Thole?"

"Eleven hundred twenty-two."

"Uh-huh. Interesting. No list of board members?"

"No such list available at this time."

"Continue search, see if you can find one. Also, I want a list of all Hunter Group holdings. Next, the data from Wenithal's case file."

"The last case he worked on was a major kidnapping ring. It developed from an investigation into a single instance which led him to uncover a global operation with offworld connections. Infants were being sold through various vendors-primarily orphanages and child hospice centers-to offworld buyers."

Coren's interest spiked. "Go on. That sounds familiar. What's in the case file?"

"The record obtained from the public police database contains categorized tables, names cross-referenced in hierarchical tabulations according to assigned probabilities."

"Sounds like his interview and suspect lists."

"Correct. Three hundred seventy-nine names listed, all time-indexed over an eleven-year period beginning twenty-nine years ago, ending eighteen years ago. Of those with current public record files available, two hundred and ninety are deceased-"

"Stop. Two hundred and ninety dead?"

"Correct. "

"Pattern analysis. Common factors?"

"One hundred thirty fatalities occurred within an eight month period. Ninety-seven died of age-related factors. Eighty-three died as the result of fatal accident. Sixty-eight died as the result of fatal interaction-"

"You mean homicide."

"That is a legal definition not applicable in all instances. "

"They were killed by other people. "

"With certain qualifications, yes. "

"Continue."

"Thirty-nine died of causes unverifiable due to inaccessibility of data."

"Explain."

"Deceased were offworld at the time of death. There were irregularities in subsequent reporting."

"Hard copy, names, places, dates, and cause of death." Coren watched while the Desk produced a disk for him. "Give me current disposition of surviving members of the list."

"Of the eighty-nine remaining names, forty-three are serving sentences in rehabilitation clinics, eighteen have emigrated to Settler colonies, and five are residents in hospice centers. Displaying list of remaining twenty-three."

Coren read down the rows until he came to a name he recognized. He whistled.

"Alda Mikels…interesting." He read on. "A few of these people are prominent public figures. I-" He stopped, startled. "Rega Looms."

Coren stared at the name for a long time. He retrieved his hemisphere then and set it into its niche on the desktop.

"Desk, download contents of last recorded exchange."

"Done."

"Play back." Coren listened to his conversation with Ree Wenithal again. When he reached the point where he told Wenithal that Nyom Looms was dead, he said, "Stop there. Subject said something below normal range of hearing. Amplify and enhance. "

From the desk speaker he heard Wenithal, in a raspy whisper, say "Both of them now."

"End playback." Coren looked at Rega's name on the screen. "'Both of them now.' What does that mean?"

"Unknown," the Desk said. Rega had said something very similar. Both of whom?

"Desk, give me a hard copy on these names, then file and return to standby. "

Coren went into his private room to clean up and change clothes. He wanted to go back to his apartment and stretch out for several hours' decent sleep, but he lacked the time.

He slipped the disks into his pocket and drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. Several years ago, Coren remembered, Alda Mikels and a few others invited Rega Looms to join a business consortium which seemed to Looms at the margins of legality-gray market at least, if not black market. Some of those people were on Wenithal's list. Considering Looms' attitude toward most of them, Coren wondered why they would have approached him in the first place. Perhaps the association went back further than Rega had told him.

"Desk, I want a review of the last twenty-three names, those surviving and still on Earth. Initiate a records search and correlate common associations for the past twenty years. "

"Parameters?"

"Education, business, investments, public service, children." He hesitated. "If nothing turns up, expand search to thirty years. "

"Yes, sir."

Coren disliked investigating his own employer. Sometimes, though, protecting Rega Looms required that he know things Looms probably preferred he did not.

"Also, get me a thorough background on Ree Wenithal. Retired, law enforcement, currently runs his own import-export firm."

"Public file previously referenced-"

"I want a deeper background."

"Yes, sir."

"Also…also, display crime scene image from Sipha Palen's data."

The view spread across the screen. He stared at the bodies as the view rotated slowly through three-hundred-sixty degrees. Fifty-two people.

"Give me a copy of this, too, " he said. One more disk extruded from the slot.

He ran down the list of instructions just given and tried to think of anything overlooked. Nothing came to mind but he could never quite shake the feeling that he had missed something. Without Jeta Fromm or the dockworker Pocivil, all he had was Nyom's collapsed robot.

There's never enough time to do this right… The Spacer Embassy occupied a huge area on the eastern edge of D.C., in the heart of the government districts. Embassies, really, as the structure contained the missions for all the Spacer Worlds. Most had one set of offices, usually unoccupied. Of the Fifty Worlds, only a dozen maintained full-time staffs on Earth, Aurora and Solaria being the largest.

Just living on Earth marked these people as unique. Most Spacers disdained other worlds, especially the one that spawned them so long ago. But no group is completely homogeneous, and Spacers proved no exception. The total Spacer population on Earth never exceeded a few tens of thousands-a handful compared to populations in the many millions-but their presence made a powerful impression on Terrans.

Of them all, Coren reflected as he entered the main gallery of the Embassy, he preferred the Aurorans-they were the most approachable, the least defensive, compared to the xenophobic Solarians. To be sure, those Solarians living here did not share the degree of paranoia exhibited by most of their people in dealing with outsiders, but they still came across as standoffish and mistrustful.

Coren signed in at the reception desk and patiently received directions to the Auroran arm of the embassy building. He then retraced his path from the previous day.

Hofton met him in the reception lounge of Ambassador Burgess's offices. "The Ambassador is expecting you, Mr. Lanra. Mr. Avery is here as well. I trust this is acceptable."

"Completely."

Hofton escorted him into Burgess's office and closed the doors.

Ariel Burgess looked tired, with the beginnings of dark circles under her eyes. Derec Avery seemed much the same as he had yesterday.

"Mr. Lanra," Burgess said, rising from her seat and coming around the desk to clasp his hand. "Thank you for giving us a second opportunity to discuss your problem with us."

"Thank you, Ambassador. I have to tell you, I'm a little dismayed. "

"I'm a little surprised myself. It seems we have a parallel interest in your situation."

"Parallel interest…quid pro quo, then."

"If that's satisfactory."

"I don't have the luxury of time, Ambassador. What I need is a roboticist to see if anything can be salvaged from a collapsed positronic brain-the robot I told you about yesterday."

"It allegedly witnessed a mass murder," Derec Avery said. "Which would probably have precipitated the collapse."

"Possibly. "

"Let me guess," Burgess said. "You think the robot itself committed the crime. "

"A robot, certainly."

"Why?"

"We have no other viable suspect," he said. "Everyone who boarded the cargo bin used to shuttle the victims to Kopernik is accounted for-all dead. There was no way for a human to get out of it without breaking the internal seals in place inside the bin. So we're left with a suicide-murderer, or…" He pursed his lips. "I saw another robot board the bin with the victims. It was…unusual."

"A second robot," Ariel said. "You didn't mention this yesterday. "

"I didn't know if you'd be helping me or not."

"That might have changed our minds sooner." Coren held up his hands apologetically.

"You said it was unusual," Derec said. "How so?"

"It didn't register through my surveillance equipment. I could see it, as I see you, but through an optam it was invisible. Masked-what they used to call 'stealthed.' "

"We don't make robots like that," Ariel said. "That function is useless except for military or criminal purposes, and we don't-can't-use robots for either of those things."

"Nevertheless, I witnessed just such a robot."

"And when the bin was opened?" Derec asked. "Was it there?"

"No. Only Nyom Looms' robot was present. Here." He handed the disk containing Sipha's reports. "Go to the crime scene."

In a moment they huddled around Ariel's desk, gazing at a full holographic image of the interior of the cargo bin.

"This is what the security people on Kopernik found when they opened it up," Coren explained.

"What is that the robot is working on?" Derec asked.

"A rebreather unit. It contained a poison that caused neurological damage and paralysis."

"Who is this?" Ariel asked, pointing to the body hanging from the bin ceiling.

"Nyom Looms. She wasn't poisoned. She had her own rebreather. Her neck was broken, instead."

"Fifty-one others," Hofton said. "How did she get attached up there?"

"The bin was cracked. The air leaked out fairly quickly-not all at once, but in a vacuum it must've created a current. We think it drew her to it. Her clothing was pulled through. "

"Cracked," Ariel mused. "Big enough for your robot to slip through?"

"Hardly. You can see the dimensions for yourself."

Ariel frowned and gave Derec a look Coren could not read. "It would be unlikely, I think," she said. She sighed. "You still haven't given us a convincing argument to indict a robot." She pointed to the image of Coffee. "What do you think, Derec? A modified DW-12?"

"Looks like it. But it's not possible, Mr. Lanra. There is no way to modify a positronic brain to subvert its Three Law constraints. Tampering at that level would destroy the brain. The fact that it's collapsed proves that its programming was consistent with its original protocols. It witnessed the deaths of humans ostensibly in its charge. It failed to protect them. It collapsed."

"As I recall," Coren noted, "a positronic brain was modified at Union Station to cause the deaths of a good number of people."

Derec stiffened. "That's…inaccurate. It was modified to ignore a lethal situation. It caused nothing. And it collapsed shortly after it realized what had happened." He frowned thoughtfully. "What was this robot doing at the rebreather controls?"

"As far as we can tell, trying to shut it off."

"You've said 'we' a few times now. Who else is involved in this investigation?" Ariel asked.

"Kopernik Station's chief of security is working with me on this," Coren replied.

"How are you keeping it out of the newsnets, then?"

"The bin was delivered to a Settler dock. She has an arrangement with the Settler security people. It's isolated, outside the usual legal channels. For the time being, it doesn't exist. That won't last long."

"And the robot?" Derec asked.

"Stored."

"Still in the Settler section?"

"In Chief Palen's morgue."

"We need to have it."

"There's no way I can bring it down here. Not in time, anyway. I need someone to go to it."

Ariel looked at Derec. "What do you think?"

Derec shook his head. "A risk. I'm still not sure what my status is."

Ariel looked at Coren. "Our…range of free movement may be somewhat curtailed. Especially Mr. Avery's."

"Mine isn't," Hofton said. "I could accompany Mr. Avery up to our embassy branch on Kopernik." He glanced at Derec. "You'd be in the diplomatic pouch, so to speak."

Derec grunted, smiling thinly.

"Excuse me," Coren said. "There's no question here, is there? You're going to help me."

"You wouldn't be talking to us otherwise, Mr. Lanra," Ariel said.

"Why."

Ariel looked thoughtful. "Before I answer that, let me ask you something. Where was Nyom Looms taking this group of baleys?"

"Nova Levis."

"Why there? I can think of at least a dozen other Settler colonies that would accept baleys that aren't under blockade."

"I don't know. Nova Levis is…romantic."

"That's hardly a reason. But even so, the next question is, why kill them?"

"Her father is running for office," Coren said. "Something like this"

"Just letting it out that she ran baleys would accomplish as much, " Ariel said, shaking her head. "What was there about this run that warranted murder?"

Coren said nothing.

"That's the question, then," Ariel said. "Answer the why, you discover the who. Theoretically, anyway. And it won't be a robot."

Coren leaned across her desk and touched an icon on her flatscreen. "I'd like your opinion on these, then."

The image from Ariel's desk projector vanished, replaced a moment later by the autopsy images Sipha had sent him of the Brethe dealer who had died in her holding cell. The sight brought a sharp hiss from Derec Avery; Burgess paled.

"At first we thought this was unrelated, " Coren explained. "Maybe it is, but I'm guessing not. Frame sixteen-" he gestured for Ariel to find that image "-is an enhanced display of a handprint left subdurally. Tell me what you think. "

Ariel touched her projector control and the autopsy images shifted. The false color view of the oversized handprint bloomed.

"Too big for a human hand…" Derec mused.

Coren watched Ambassador Burgess. Finally, she nodded. She glanced at him, frowning briefly, and looked away.

"I'd have to agree with Derec," she said. "A human hand didn't make that. But that still leaves the field open to a number of explanations. Prosthetics, for one."

"I ran a catalogue check for any prosthetics commercially available that match that pattern. Nothing turned up. That doesn't rule out a custom manufacture, of course, but…"

"But you still think it's a robot."

"Something managed to slip past all the security in a police cell block to do this. I already told you the robot I saw was blind to my optam. It may be the same technique in this case: a masked robot, invisible to surveillance monitors."

"So now it's a conspiracy of robots," Derec said. "Less and less likely."

"Can you give me a better explanation to account for the damage?" Coren asked sharply.

"Isn't that what we need to find out?" Ariel Burgess said. "You asked why we're helping. What you've proposed here is a good enough reason for me. Earthers think the worst of robots on a good day. This-" she waved at the projection "-validates all your fears, if true. A chance to head this off and perhaps prevent a very ugly purge would be a good enough reason, don't you think?"

"For your part, that seems plausible. But that's not the only reason."

Ariel bowed her head in mock acceptance. "Of course not. Illegal emigration is a point in common between us and Terra. There's a quid pro quo in that, too."

"You're working with ITE?"

"No. We're working with you. "

Coren looked from one face to the other, returning to Ariel. He expected them to keep things from him, most of it details of their involvement that really did not concern him. But he also expected them to be subtle about it. Instead, they were very obviously not telling him something. If he did not need their expertise…

"What specifically are you getting from this arrangement?" he asked.

Ambassador Burgess gave a faint smile and a slight shake of the head. She gestured at the image of the dead woman on her screen. "Who was this? Why was she killed?"

"According to Chief Palen, she was a small-time narcotics dealer," Coren lied. "Could be any number of people she may have crossed in the course of business."

"This seems excessive for a bad debt, " Ariel said. She drew a deep breath, slowly released it. "Aurora has been asked by Terran authorities to look into the Nova Levis situation. That involves a lot of baleys. I was asked by my immediate superior to lend you aid. Partly, we may have a problem with Spacer businesses shipping illegally from Earth. It's being suggested that Spacers are colluding in bypassing immigration and trade laws. I presume they believe we'll find things that will be mutually helpful. Is that sufficient answer for you, Mr. Lanra?"

Coren folded his arms across his chest. "It will do… for now."

"In that case," Ariel said, smiling uneasily, "how do you want to proceed, Mr. Lanra?"