Starfire

23

From the private diary of Oliver Guest.

I agreed to contact Seth Parsigian only in an emergency. There has been no emergency, and it is eight days since we last spoke to each other.

For all I know, Seth could be dead, although I would hate to be the one who sought to bring about that event. Seth is a man with a tenacious hold on life.

Where is he? Presumably he is still on Sky City, but I cannot even be sure of that. Occasionally I have donned the RV helmet, and been rewarded only with a view of the interior of his apartment. The jacket has obviously been left to hang on the wall. Wherever Seth is, and whatever he is doing, he feels no desire to share his experiences with me.

That is an attitude with which I sympathize. I am impatient for results on the Sky City murders, but were Seth to call me at this instant I would be able to report negligible progress in my thinking. I know the murderer, yet I cannot suggest a foolproof method of capture.

In truth, my thinking has been embarrassingly limited about the whole problem. My mind has been otherwise engaged. Although I can point to no one overriding concern, we have seen several distracting events.

The term we offers its own ambiguities. The meaning extends from the single elevated personage — “We are not amused” — to a family or local group, and thence the whole human race — “We are not alone.”

My comment concerning recent distracting events does not refer to our race, or, more correctly, our species, although it might well have. One might assume that the collective human mind of Earth would at this time be concentrated on the single issue of its own possible demise. The great swarm of particles generated by the Alpha Centauri supernova advances steadily, and no human power can halt or slow it. The most recent reports point to the arrival of a devastating sleet from space sooner than expected, just a few weeks or months from now. A new way of protecting Earth will be implemented, Sky City is already on the move toward the end of the space shield, the timing of everything is touch and go, and we (the species) could be wiped out or find our civilization sent back millennia.

And so one looks around the world. Are people consumed by contemplation of cosmic catastrophe, obsessed by their own potential demise?

I scanned the news leads this morning. Look on these words, ye mighty, and despair.

Scientists Prove Alpha Centauri Supernova Was “Hand of God”

According to Star Vjansander, sexy young Australian super physicist, a superbeing created the 2026 supernova of Alpha Centauri. The superbeing is being carried here in a cloud of superparticles and will shortly reach Earth.

Ghost of Lucille DeNorville Haunts Sky City

Psychic Marion Mentorian, in contact with the soul of the murder victim whose body was recently discovered, is asking funding from the wealthy DeNorville family to visit Space City and reveal the identity of the killer.

Clones of Bill Gates, Queen Victoria, Announce Plans to Marry

“True love knows no boundaries of space or time,” declares the smitten pair.

Energy from Nothing, Electricity “Too Cheap to Meter”

Inventor Raoul Segura today revealed a new form of engine that draws its power directly from the cosmic consciousness. He promises an era of “endless plenty and universal wealth” as soon as final tests are completed and government backing is guaranteed.

The Missing Money: Where Did It Go?

Officials of the Golden Ring consortium Fortune Today pronounce themselves baffled by vanished assets that apparently exceed the total net worth of the organization. They promise a full investigation and a worldwide search for missing financial executive Lloyd Persil.

In truth, we (the species we) can tolerate but a little reality. I wonder if we (the individual we that is I) can tolerate much more.

In the last eight days, Paula and Amity reached menarche, apparently simultaneously; Gloria announced her undying love for and intention to marry Michael O’Brien, a witless seventeen-year-old from Derrybeg; and Beth, Dawn, and Willa disappeared from the castle.

For Paula and Amity it was a natural and irreversible event. In the case of Gloria, I suspected that sanity would reassert itself in a month or two-she so surpasses her professed lifelong love in wit and intellect that it would be like marrying a monkey.

Therefore, the last must be first. I had to concentrate on Beth, Dawn, and Willa. It was not until midday that I realized the three ten-year-olds were not present at lunch. Missing a meal was, especially for Willa, an unprecedented event and one that immediately caused me concern.

For most people in the world, this was a problem with a simple and immediate solution. If I forwarded the girls’ digital DNA records to GSARS, the Global Search-And-Rescue System would tune its network to those signatures and use the body resonance patterns to locate each missing person to within twenty feet.

There were, however, obvious problems. GSARS was integrated into GGDB, the General Global Data Base, and the complete DNA patterns of my darlings might already be stored there. What alarm bells would go off if the genome of a ten-year-old matched, nucleotide base by nucleotide base, the genome of a pubescent girl who had been murdered more than thirty years ago?

I dared not take that risk. After a hurried lunch the other girls fanned out across the countryside to begin the search. I stayed behind, filled with my own presentiments. Had I made a mistake? Should I have asked for help from GSARS?

The call, when it came, was as good and yet as bad as it could be.

“We found ’em. They’re all right, but they’ve got stuck on the cliffs. We’ll need a rope.” It was Gloria, red hair darkened by rain and eyebrows beaded with droplets. “Come on. Be sure to put your coat on-it’s pissing down out there.”

I had never told the girls of my irrational fear of heights. They would expect my immediate presence and assistance. I donned coat and hat and left the castle by the scullery entrance on the seaward side. Otranto Castle is thick-walled and solid, and when I stepped from its sheltering bulk I realized for the first time the severity of the weather. A strong westerly was blowing, driving sheets of rain at me horizontally. As I walked west it was almost impossible to see where I was going.

That was, I suspect, the only thing that allowed me to walk as far as I did. I knew that ahead stood the three-hundred-foot headland with its sheer drop to the waters of the Atlantic. I told myself that it was not yet close; I had a long way to go before I got to the edge.

In certain areas, however, I lack the power of self-deception. I came to a point where, try as I might, I could not force my legs to carry me forward. I could hear the wind, howling as it breasted the cliff after its three-thousand-mile journey across the open Atlantic. I could smell brine and seaweed. I struggled to take another step, failed, and sank down on the sodden turf. It took a supreme effort even to look forward. I peered into the driving rain and saw my darlings, a tight cluster of them, perilously close to the edge of the precipice. They were perhaps two hundred yards away, and I could not discern what they were doing.

I stood up, resolved to take one more step, and again sank to the ground. My thoughts, like my legs, lost the power to move. An endless interval passed before I heard Bridget’s voice.

“We got ’em,” she said cheerfully. “Hauled ’em up one at a time on the rope. They’d been bird-nesting, the idiots. They ought to have had more sense in this weather.”

I recalled the cluster of girls I had seen at work. “You all pulled? That’s what I saw you doing?”

“All except Paula and Amity. They’ve started their period and they’re having cramps.” Bridget reached out. “Here, let me give you a hand. You came quite a long way.”

She is perhaps the strongest of all my darlings. She reached out and hoisted me easily to my feet.

I felt a great weariness. “I’m sorry. You don’t know this, but I have a real problem with heights.”

She stared at me. “Of course we know you can’t stand heights. We’ve all known that for years.”

I was saved from a reply by the arrival of the other girls in a great chattering throng. Dawn, Willa, and Beth were loudly defensive, insisting that they could have easily climbed back up the cliff by themselves anytime they wanted to. The others complained about being dragged out into the rain to save a set of senseless dummies.

I walked along in the middle of them. No one spoke to me, and I spoke to no one. But I noticed that they all watched me closely until we were safely inside the castle.

“Hot drinks all round, I think,” Paula said. And then to me, “You didn’t call GSARS, did you?”

“I did not.”

“Good. I bet they’d have made us all fill out their stupid reports. None of us wanted that. You go on into your study. One of us will bring your drink.”

She was humoring me. She knew about GSARS, which I had not realized. Gloria had insisted that I put on my coat before I left the castle. Bridget had kindly told me that I had come “quite a long way” toward the cliff. Yes, they indeed knew of my terror of heights.

These were my darlings, sheltered from reality all of their short lives. I wondered, what else did they know?

It is late on the evening of the same day.

When the excitement of the rescue at last died down I felt infinitely weary. My brain felt as though it was simply ticking over, barely able to keep my vital functions in operation. I lay back in my favorite chair and thought about Beth, Dawn, and Willa, and of the Global Search-And-Rescue System that I had chosen not to use.

The modern search-and-rescue system is a direct descendant of one introduced almost a hundred years ago. In its original form, a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit picked up signals sent out by stranded travelers or others in distress on land or sea. By analyzing frequency shifts and travel times, the location of the emitted signal could be determined and a rescue party dispatched. The old system was a passive one — the spacecraft flew overhead and listened for a signal.

Suppose, however, that the person in trouble could not send a distress signal because they lacked the necessary equipment, or because that equipment had been damaged. With the original system, such a person could not be located.

The modern version of search-and-rescue came into worldwide use twenty years before the supernova {it languished, not surprisingly, for ten years after Alpha C, when all low-orbit satellites ceased to operate). Rather than a passive system, requiring that a distress signal be sent out, today’s is an active one. The satellites, sweeping around the Earth, send out tuned signals of their own. These are designed to stimulate a response from a human body — a specific human body. The return signal indicates the exact location of that body. It is no longer necessary to carry a transmitter in order to use the Global Search-and-Rescue System.

Suddenly I was wide awake. Argument by analogy can be dangerous, but it can also be fruitful. In our quest to catch the Sky City murderer, Seth and I had so far acted passively. We were the equivalent of the old search-and-rescue system. Like it, we could not succeed unless a signal was transmitted: The killer must initiate an unprompted action.

That was not about to happen. Our murderer did not need to kill again and would do nothing.

Passive procedure would not suffice. Like the modern search-and-rescue operation, we had to move to an active approach. We must generate a signal able to force a reaction. The murderer must be made to respond to a stimulus created by us.

I put on the RV helmet and called Seth Parsigian. At last I had something that could fairly be termed an emergency.

He was wearing the hidden earphone, and answered at once with, “This better be good, Doc. I’ve been digging into Sky City operations, lookin’ for odd stuff that might point to the killer.”

“Did you discover anything?”

“No.” His voice seemed to have an added delay. Sky City was on the move outward from Earth. “But I’m finding somethin’ else that’s interestin’ in the data records.”

“Events relevant to the Sky City murders?”

“If they are, I don’t see how.”

“Then they can wait. I know of a way to flush our murderer out of hiding.”

I described my thoughts on active versus passive procedures, and I made my proposal.

Seth was silent for a long time. I wished I could see his face, but apparently he was not in his room. I was offered the usual annoying view of an empty apartment. The RV jacket must be hanging in its usual position on the wall.

“You’re makin’ some awful big assumptions,” he said at last. “Yeah, Doris Wu’s body is still missing. But how do you know it was chucked out into space?”

“It’s been over six months since she vanished.”

“It was close to that for Lucille DeNorville, and she still turned up.”

“I have explained why it was necessary for the murderer that Lucille’s body not be permanently lost. That argument does not apply to Doris Wu. And remember where Doris disappeared: level hundred, at the Sky City perimeter. You yourself offered the suggestion that she had been murdered and dropped out into space. Dump her outside, you said, and centrifugal force would carry her out and away. And you commented that would be pretty risky if any evidence had been left on her.”

“We got no reason to think it was.”

“I doubt very much that the murderer was so careless. But we are operating here at the level of doubt and psychology, not proven fact. Suppose that you were the murderer. You feel somewhat secure, comfortable in the knowledge that months have passed without threat of discovery. Now comes the news: The body of one of your victims has been found out in space. All the others are accounted for, so this is the last possible source of danger to you. Would you not feel an intense urge to confirm that no physical evidence links you to that newly discovered body?”

“I would. But suppose I knew that Doris Wu’s body wasn’t in space? Suppose I knew that I’d done some-thin’ else with her-chopped her up, or burned her. Maybe I ate her.”

“This situation is disgusting enough without your adding to it. If you, as murderer, know that Doris Wu is not in space, then you also know that the report of her discovery is bogus. My plan would fail.”

“I think it will anyway. It sounds real dodgy to me.”

“Feel free to offer an alternative.”

“You got me there. All right, I guess we try it. But we need some help from people up here.”

“That is your department, not mine.”

“I know a way we might work it. But we can’t do it yet. We hafta wait a few days ’til things settle down a bit on Sky City. Until we’re out at the end of the shield nobody has time for anythin’ but work.”

“How long?”

“A couple of weeks. But we’ll get bigger signal delays.”

“That is inevitable and acceptable. Before we act we must discuss the fine details.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I have yet to think the matter through. This may be our only chance to catch the murderer, and we cannot afford to act precipitately.” I prepared to end the conversation, but I was struck by one more thought. “I am receiving a useless visual feed from your apartment. Why do you not wear the RV jacket?”

“For three reasons. First, if you’re not sitting there with the helmet on, an’ mostly you’re not, there’s no point in me sendin’ back scenes of me doin’ the grand tour of Sky City when nobody’s watchin’. Second, it’s damn hot inside that thing.”

“It is also hot inside this helmet. And the third reason?”

He hesitated. “It’s them godawful pansy colors. Pink ’n’ purple — who chose ’em? I had four guys hittin’ on me in the first two days.”

He broke the connection prematurely, leaving me filled with esprit d’escalier. “It is not the jacket, Seth, it is merely your native charm that attracted them.” Or “I’m sure they told you that the colors contrast beautifully with your eyes.”

Yes, yes. Cheap wit, unworthy of me. Also, in the case of Seth, not without its dangers. I have commented already on his sense of self-preservation. To that let me add his air of latent violence. Far better Seth Parsigian as an ally than an adversary. I must never forget my own vulnerability.

I am sitting half asleep in my chair, gradually becoming comatose after a long day; but tomorrow’s imagined news lead drifts through my mind:

Sky City Killer Caught Thanks to Efforts of Determined Pair

Two men, Seth Parsigian and Oliver Guest, today captured the long-sought Sky City murderer. Seth Parsigian receives a large reward and the thanks of a grateful world. Serial killer and legendary ghoul Oliver Guest goes back tomorrow to continue his sentence of long-term judicial sleep.