Flatlander - Larry Niven [100]
“Well,” I said, “it’s normal where I’ve lived … California, Kansas, Australia … Over most of the Earth we tend to keep recreational sex separate from having children. There are the Fertility Laws, of course. The government doesn’t tell people how to use their birthrights, but we do check the baby’s tissue rejection spectrum to see which father has used up a birthright. Don’t get the idea that Earth is all one culture. The Arabs are back to harems, for God’s sake, and so were the Mormons, for a while.”
“Harems? What about the birthrights?”
“The harems are recreation as far as the sheikh is concerned, and of course he uses up his own birthrights. When they’re gone, the ladies take sperm from some healthy genius with an unlimited birthright and the right skin color, and the sheikh raises the children as the next generation of aristocrats.”
Harry ate while he thought. Then, “It sounds wonderful, by Allah! But for us, having children is a big thing. We tend to stay faithful. I’m the freak. And I know of a lunie who fathered a child for two good friends … but I could maybe get killed for naming them.”
I said, “Okay, we’re a ménage à at least trois. But you would like it noised abroad that Taffy and I are steady roommates.”
“It would be convenient.”
“Would it be convenient for me? Harry, I gather lunies don’t like that sort of thing. There are four lunie delegates in the conference. I can’t alienate them.”
Taffy was frowning. “Futz! I hadn’t thought of that.”
Harry said, “I did. Gil, it’ll help you. What the lunie citizen really wants to know is that you aren’t running around compromising the honor of lunie women.”
I looked at Taffy. She said, “I think he’s right. I can’t swear to it.”
“Okay.”
We ate. It was mostly vegetables, fresh, with good variety. I had almost finished a side dish, beef with onions and green pepper over rice, before I wondered. Beef?
I looked up into Harry’s grin. “Imported,” he said, and laughed as my jaw dropped. “No, not from Earth! Can you imagine the delta-V? Imported from Tycho. They’ve got an underground bubble big enough to graze cattle. It costs like blazes, of course. We’re fairly wealthy here.”
Dessert was strawberry shortcake with whipped cream from Tycho. The coffee was imported from Earth, but freeze-dried. I wondered if they saved anything that way, given that the water in coffee beans had to be imported anyway … then kicked myself. Lunies don’t import water. They import hydrogen. They run the hydrogen past heated oxygen-bearing rock to get water vapor.
So I sipped my coffee and asked, “May we talk business?”
“None of us are squeamish,” McCavity said.
“The wound, then. Would a layer of bathwater spread the beam that much?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows. It’s never happened before.”
“Your best guess, then.”
“Gil, it had to be enough, unless you’ve got another explanation.”
“Mmm … there was a case in Warsaw where a killer put a dot of oil over the aperture of a laser. The beam was supposed to spread a little, just enough that the police couldn’t identify the weapon. It would have worked fine if he hadn’t got drunk and bragged about it.”
McCavity shrugged. “Not here. Any damn fool would guess it was a message laser.”
“We know the beam spread. We’re speculating.”
Harry’s eyes went distant and dreamy. “Would the oil vaporize?”
“Sure. Instantly.”
“The beam would constrict in midburn. That would fit. The hole in Penzler’s chest looked like the beam changed width in the middle of the burn.”
“It constricted?”
“It constricted, or expanded, or there’s something we haven’t thought of.”
“Futz. Okay. Do you know Naomi Mitchison?”
“Vaguely.” Harry seemed to withdraw a little.
“Not intimately?”
“No.”
Taffy was looking at him. We waited.
“I grew up here,” Harry said abruptly. “I never make proposals to a woman unless I have reason to think they’ll be accepted. Okay, I must have read the signals wrong. She reacted like an insulted married lunie woman! So I apologized and went away, and we haven’t spoken since. You