Starfire

19

From the private diary of Oliver Guest.

Uncharacteristically, I am drawn to quote from another source. About to set down my own thoughts, I find myself unable to better another’s description of a psychological phenomenon.

Here, then, is my translation and summary of the statements of the nineteenth-century French mathematician Henri Poincare concerning the process of intellectual discovery:

For fifteen days I struggled to prove that a certain class of mathematical functions did not exist. Every day I sat down at my worktable, but despite all my efforts I arrived at no result. One evening, contrary to my custom, I took black coffee; I could not go to sleep; ideas swarmed up in clouds; I sensed them clashing until, so to speak, a pair hooked together to form a stable combination … By morning the main work was done, and I had only to write up the results.

Next I wished to represent the functions in a certain way. That called for a great deal of straightforward labor, which I performed without any major new insights.

I then left Caen, where I was living at the time, to participate in a geological trip sponsored by the School of Mines. The travel made me forget my mathematical efforts, until at Coutances we took a bus for an excursion. The instant I put my foot on the step a new idea came to me that integrated and illuminated all my previous work. I did not at once make the verification — I did not have the time, because once in the bus I resumed an interrupted conversation; but I felt an instant and complete certainty. On returning to Caen I verified the result at my leisure . . .

I then undertook the study of certain other mathematical questions without much apparent success. After much hard work, disgusted at my lack of progress, I went to spend a few days at the seaside and thought of something else. One day, while walking along the cliffs, the solution came to me with the same characteristics of brevity, suddenness, and immediate certainty.

Given my susceptibilities, it is highly improbable that I would experience anything other than panic if forced to walk along the edge of cliffs, as Henri Poincare did. However, the process that he describes is familiar to me, as I imagine it is to every other creative individual.

First one engages in long hours of hard work on a problem, apparently unproductive but completely under the control of the conscious mind. One at last ceases the effort; and then, at a time and place that cannot be predicted, comes the illuminating idea.

Poincare did not understand the process any more than I do, but he clearly believed that this semblance of “sudden illumination” is “a manifest sign of previous long subconscious work.” The drudgery is a necessary precursor to the inspiration.

As others have stated it, more succinctly, “No pain, no gain.”

The relevance of all this will soon become clear.

For two weeks I had pondered the problem of the murders. I had the records that Seth Parsigian delivered to me, together with my own direct observations as Seth roamed Sky City in the limited way permitted to him as an adult male. I worked hard, night and day, since so long as the killings remained unsolved, so long must my own researches be interrupted.

On July 25, I took a break from my labors. It is the day every year when we celebrate the birth of my darlings. Since it happens to be my own birthday, they accept it as theirs only by convention and custom. Each of them also has a singular day, which she believes to correspond to her own true day of birth. In truth, July 25 is the date when each of the girls reached the age of delivery as a cloned form. On this occasion they would attain ages of twelve, ten, and eight.

I do not encourage the presence of strangers in Otranto Castle, which a birthday party for nineteen people would require. Each year we therefore hire a bus and driver and travel to the nearby town of Letterkenny, where we enjoy a catered meal. The indulgent owner of the inn, a loquacious French transplant named Michel Darboux, has become used to us, and he decorates the place with flowers and crude paper streamers to add to the festive atmosphere. While we wait to eat, Monsieur Darboux and I, but not the girls despite their pleas, share a bottle of Hugel white wine from Alsace-Lorraine.

Not, I must add, that the girls seem to need such stimulants. On this occasion the weather was both warm and dry, a rarity for western Ireland. Our meal would be served outside, on crude wooden tables in the south-facing fenced courtyard that leads to a broad and level meadow of close-cropped grass.

I did not, then or ever, regret my choice of western Ireland. The selection had been made carefully. Just as the remoter regions of Ireland had been left behind in the world’s twenty-first century surge of technological progress, so the living standards there had been less affected by the Alpha Centauri supernova. I judged that the same was likely to be true in the devastation caused by the coming particle storm, and I rarely felt nostalgic for the vanished amenities of my former life.

The bench where Michel Darboux and I had placed ourselves sat in the shade of an old horse chestnut. The tree was too close to the inn for safety, and should long ago have been pruned or removed. Today, however, its leafy curtain was welcome. Even where we sat, the volume of noise that the girls generated was considerable. Their enjoyment of their games served as partial compensation for the fact that we were out in the open air, and I was for that reason a little uncomfortable.

I sipped, did my best to relax, and firmly resisted Alyson and Lucy-Mary’s adjurations to join them in an activity that they described as a game, but which seemed to consist mostly of a pile of girls sitting on top of each other and screaming. At the same time I had my eye on the line of village lads beyond the fence. They were watching my darlings, while pretending to be busy with other matters. The older girls were very aware of them. The gestures of Gloria and Bridget, and to a lesser extent Katherine and Darlene, possessed an exaggerated quality, with screams, tossed-back hair, and bare limbs much in evidence. They were playing to the crowd of their admirers.

Who would know, watching them at careless sport, that even the youngest of my darlings was fluent in three languages and had scientific training and knowledge beyond the average educated sixteen-year-old? Not, I felt sure, the row of pimpled teenage males at the fence.

Darboux was watching, too, over the rim of his glass. He caught my eye. “You are a brave man, m’sieur. Your children are very beautiful. It will not be long before older men will come knocking at your door.”

The idea that this type of behavior could only become worse with adolescence was not one to bring me comfort. I noticed that when Bridget and Katherine were close to the boys they were deliberately showing off their legs.

Michel Darboux had seen the same thing. “Perhaps it will happen sooner than you think,” he said. “Your girls can provide sweet nectar for many bees. The men will fly to them — especially if the girls encourage it.”

The suggestion was truly alarming. I had known, as he could not, all the girls in their original incarnations. Before I rescued them, Amity and Bridget and Darlene and Katherine had been child prostitutes, as had Crystal and Alyson (eight years old today and still, thank God, far from puberty). I had saved them from that fate, bringing them anew into a world with every advantage of education and opportunity that I could provide. Only at the genetic level were they what they had once been.

But genetics might be too much. The old debates of nature versus nurture, heredity versus environment, had ended in a standoff. Neither factor could be ignored; either might dominate in an individual case.

Darboux was touching my arm. “M’sieur, we are ready to serve lunch. If you would summon your young ladies . . .”

I nodded. My attention was divided: the clatter of serving dishes behind me; in front of me the girls, seeing or smelling food and standing up to smooth flowered skirts over strong young limbs; off to my right the ogling audience of youths, knowing that the show was over but reluctant to leave. It was at that strange and inopportune moment, when murder, mayhem, and mystery seemed farthest from my mind, that I grasped the nature and dark motive of the Sky City killer.

I did not yet have an identity, but the information to provide that should be readily available. As soon as we returned to the castle, I would download certain Earth-based financial and genealogical data. And then, at last, I would be able, like Shakespeare’s poet, to give “to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.”

How sure was I of my answer? It may sound implausible if I say that I was utterly sure. Yet I was. Like Poincare, the solution had come to me with such “characteristics of brevity, suddenness, and immediate certainty” that I had no doubts at all.

I cannot pretend that I enjoy meetings with Seth Parsigian, either in person or at a distance. His intelligence is not in question, but there is a rude directness to the man that I find hard to tolerate. Rarely, as now, did I look forward to a call from him.

Which, with the perversity of events, did not come when expected. According to our agreement I would call Seth only in an emergency, but he could call me anytime. That was not as unreasonable as it sounds. I hated to make outgoing calls from the castle, and would do so only on a voice-only line. He, however, was out on the front line of Sky City, juggling permits and people and equipment (his RV jacket was finicky and sometimes unreliable), while I was “sittin’ safe at home laughin’ and scratchin’.”

Scratching I was not; itching I certainly was-itching to tell Seth what I knew. Half an hour’s work at the general data banks after we returned from the birthday party had been enough. I knew the name of the murderer.

What I did not have was proof. Worse than that, I saw no way for Seth and me ever to obtain proof unless there was another killing, which seemed, for good and sufficient reasons, unlikely to occur.

When the call came it was past three in the morning. I was not asleep. Excitement at my discovery kept me awake, along with another growing concern arising from the events of the day. It had been my original intention for my darlings to reach the biological age of fourteen, and remain there indefinitely. I now knew that was impossible. The telomod protocols that I myself had pioneered made it a simple task to reset the telomeres of each chromosome to any length, from that of newborn babe to octogenarian. That was not the problem. At issue was the wisdom and feasibility of my plan. Even if no one else discovered the existence of eighteen girls forever in the bloom of early womanhood, my darlings themselves would certainly notice. They had the disposition to demand answers from me, plus the intelligence to dismiss evasions and falsehood.

The alternatives were equally unappealing. Oliver Guest, serial killer of young girls, might seek to do what he had done before: remove them from the world as they came to puberty, and begin with new clones. Except that was now unthinkable; the misery and degradation of their sometime existence was no longer a justification for such an action.

The other option was to allow the girls to age naturally, and thus inevitably to lose them when they became full adults. It occurred to me, as never before, that this was the plight of every parent. I pondered, I agonized, and I discovered no acceptable answer. Seth’s call, when it finally came, was doubly welcome.

It was also surprising. The RV link was on, but I could see Seth’s face against the background of the one-room apartment that he had rented for use on Sky City.

“Oh, yeah,” he said at my question. “I keep the earpiece in all the time, but I don’t wear the RV jacket at night ’cause it’s too hot. It’s hung on the wall over there, an’ you’re gettin’ its picture.”

It was, in fact, a rather superior picture. The suit was in a fixed position, which removed the need for image motion compensation and restoration.

“I was expecting your call much earlier,” I said. “Have you been experiencing difficulties?”

I was surprised by the strength of his reaction. I was looking forward to revealing to him my own discovery, and had asked my question more to extend the moment than in anticipation of a positive answer.

He glared at me. His eyes were bloodshot and dark-rimmed. “Difficulties? You gotta be kidding. Don’t you know what’s goin’ on up here?”

“I assume that you are seeking evidence and possible assistance on Sky City.”

“Well, you’re wrong. Both counts. This place is a madhouse. They’re gettin¹ ready to move the whole shebang out to the end of the shield. Nobody knows if the stresses will make the city fall apart. An’ it’s worse than that. Listen.”

It was clear from his manner that I was going to do so, whether I elected to or not. He spoke of the harassment and continuing suspicion he had encountered when he tried to wander the corridors and chambers of Sky City alone. He spoke of his increasing conviction that he needed help. I made sympathetic noises, waiting to reveal my own discovery.

Then he told me of his meeting with and solicitation of assistance from another Argos Group employee. All my sympathy vanished.

“You did what?” I said. “That is pure insanity.”

“I guess you know that when you see it.”

“We agreed that everything between us would be held totally secret!”

“We did. It will.” Seth remained calm. “Hold your water, Doc. Your name and your role in this were never mentioned. All I asked Maddy Wheatstone to do was roll round Sky City with me for a while, so I could go places in peace. She has no idea what the RV jacket does. Even if you spoke to me, she’d never know it. The earpiece don’t make enough noise for anybody but me to hear.”

“That attitude is naive beyond belief. The woman could learn too much in a dozen ways.”

“Name one.”

“I will name three. First, suppose that you at my request suddenly follow a person, or undertake a different course of action from the one you have been engaged in.”

“I’ll tell her why I’m doin’ it.”

“Suppose you do not know the reason? Are you claiming to be privy to my innermost thoughts?”

“Not for a pension. You tryin’ to give me the creeps? I’ll find a reason to give her.”

“Very well. Consider this situation. Both of you work for the Argos Group, and from what you say she is highly placed within it. Suppose that she goes to her superior and asks who else is involved in what you are doing.”

“She’ll strike out. Gordy Rolfe don’t work like that. Nobody in the Argos Group knows I came to you, an’ no one will. The only person who knows I’m on this job is the man who assigned it to me, an’ Gordy’ll let you have fifteen feet of his small intestine before he’ll give up information.”

If Seth was typical of the Argos Group, I readily accepted what he said regarding the paucity of information transfer. But I was not yet satisfied. “This woman, Maddy Wheatstone, will surely not assist you for no reason. There must be a quid pro quo. Suppose that she insists on knowing more of what you are doing, as a condition for her cooperation.”

“I told her I was looking for the murderer, an’ that was enough. She wants me to help her keep an eye on a guy called John Hyslop, a big-shot engineer on Sky City. And no, she didn’t tell me why she’s watching him. She’s as tight as Gordy Rolfe.” Seth lay back on his bed, so the RV jacket no longer provided me with a view of his face. “Anyway.” His voice was weary. “If you had let me finish before you blew off, you’d have seen why none of this matters worth a damn. I met John Hyslop, an’ I’m spendin’ a helluva lot of time diggin’ into the data bases, lookin’ for clues an’ findin’ diddly-squat. An’ Maddy Wheatstone an’ me are traipsin’ round Sky City like a couple of mad tourists. But the places where the kids were killed have been picked over fine. I’m tellin’you, chances of us comin’ across anythin’ like a lead to the murderer are flat-out zero.”

My moment had come. “That,” I said softly, “is no longer necessary.”

“Say what?” He raised his head.

“You no longer need to seek evidence on Sky City. I know the name, occupation, motive, and present location of the murderer.”

I exaggerated a little. My knowledge of the killer’s present location was in truth a little imprecise.

Seth was on his feet again. “I don’t believe it. Tell me everything.”

I did, slowly, carefully, and completely. It took many minutes, but there was no danger that Seth’s attention might wander. At the end I said, “Well? Are you persuaded?”

“Yeah. You got it.” He was silent for a while, then repeated, “You got it. You don’t even need to send the data you pulled in today. I believe you. But you know the problem?”

“Of course. A court of law is a curiously irrational place. It disdains a mosaic of collateral evidence that any rational person regards as conclusive, and asks for proof. The knife in the murderer’s hand, the foot still on the victim’s windpipe. Proof.”

“Which we need and don’t have.”

“Precisely.”

“And until we got it we got nothin’.”

That was hardly fair. I forbore to point out to him that if we now had nothing, an hour ago he had had considerably less than nothing.

“So we still have problems,” he went on. “You feel sure there’ll be no more killings?”

“What would be the point? There is no need for them. And our murderer is supremely logical.”

“Logical, and a monster. What do we do?”

“We think. Or, more precisely, I think. For the moment, I suggest that you remain on Sky City.”

“Great. I stay up here while this crapheap flies off to nowhere or comes apart tryin’.”

“Remain there for the time being. Continue to cultivate Maddy Wheatstone and, if you can, the engineer, John Hyslop.”

He stared at me shrewdly. “You’re holdin’ out on me. You got somethin’ more.”

“No.” I shook my head, even though there was no way that he could see me. “I have nothing close to an answer. If and when I do, you will hear from me instantly. I have no more desire than you to prolong this enterprise.”

“Mmm. An’ I thought you were gettin’ fond of me.” Seth paused for a moment, then added, “Good one, Doc. You did some fancy thinkin’ after all, just when I was ready to write you off. Do it one more time, and let’s nail the bastard.”

He broke the connection, rather before I was ready to do so. It had been my intention to warn him to take care. The murderer would certainly be willing to kill again for one reason: to prevent discovery.

Then my rational processes gave me reassurance. Even if Seth’s wanderings through Sky City had been noticed, there was no reason to believe that our search would be more fruitful than anyone else’s. The evidence was old or vanished. Furthermore, Seth had in the past given ample proof that he was able to look after himself. He would not be an easy man to kill.

I reflected that Seth’s final words showed, in his own bizarre way, sincere appreciation for my efforts. I had done “some fancy thinking,” just as he said. As for “Do it one more time,” I wondered if that would be possible.

I am not ready to say otherwise, although I have in truth no idea how to catch our killer. What I do have is a conviction that waiting for another murder, or seeking additional evidence of past murders, will be pointless. We are dealing with an individual who employs precise calculation before taking action. Twelve murders were enough, so there will be no more. And such material evidence as has already been found has been picked clean, over and over, by numerous investigating teams. It is old and unlikely to yield a single further shred of useful data. The killer must be feeling very comfortable.

How, then, to catch such a person?

Again I defer to you, the invisible reader of my words. You were ahead of me, perhaps, in divining the identity of the murderer. Do you also know how to ensure apprehension? Remember, the evidence must be strong, direct, and incontestable.

I do not know. Not yet. But I do know this: No passive procedure will work. Any successful approach must take the initiative.

The conversation with Seth took only half an hour, but by the time I went to my bedroom the clock on the dresser showed almost four. After a busy day — and night — l had earned, one might think, a little sleep. However, at fifty-five degrees north the late-July sunrise already lightened the sky. Long experience has taught me that I cannot sleep during daylight hours.

I went back to the kitchen, made strong coffee, and sat down at the long butcher-block table to record the events of the past twenty-four hours. I was very tired, and my mind interspersed memories of the pleasant birthday party with thoughts of the Sky City murders. Regrettably, I achieved no insights comparable with those of the great Henri Poincare after partaking of black coffee. However, one useful conclusion did emerge.

During the next few weeks, unprecedented events would be taking place on Sky City as it flew far out from Earth to take its position close to Cusp Station. It was possible that those same events would provide an unprecedented opportunity to catch our killer.

I had been patient in restoring my darlings, waiting many years before I began their cloning. Seth and I could not wait so long, but we, too, must be patient — and always ready to act.