Flatlander - Larry Niven [106]
“You found no weapon?”
“None.”
“Psychic powers have always been undependable, haven’t they? Science was reluctant even to recognize their existence, and the law was slow in allowing psychics to testify. Tell me, Mr. Hamilton: If your unusual talent missed finding a message laser, could you not have overlooked a man?”
“It’s possible, certainly.”
Defense was through with me. The cold-eyed elf woman asked me, “What if the gun had been broken up and the pieces discarded? Would you have found it?”
“I don’t know.”
They let me go, and I sat down.
Prosecution called an expert witness, an oriental-seeming man who turned out to be a lunie cop. He was actually shorter than I am. He testified that he had examined Naomi’s pressure suit and found it to be working satisfactorily. In the course of tests he had worn the suit outside. “It was a tight fit,” he said.
“Did you notice anything else?”
“I noticed the smell. The suit is some years old, and the molecular filter badly needs cleaning. After some hours of wear certain fatigue poisons build up in the recycled air, and it begins to smell.”
They called Octavia Budrys, and I started to catch on.
“The police handed me a pressure suit,” she said, “and told me to gear up. I did. I suppose they chose me because I’m not used to space. I barely know how to put on a pressure suit.”
“Did you notice anything?”
“Yes, there was a faint chemical smell, not so much unpleasant as, well, ominous. I would have had it repaired before I tried to wear it outside.”
The killer fired as soon as Chris Penzler stood up in his tub. He’d already waited a good long while. Why not wait a moment longer while Penzler got out?
Because the smell in Naomi Mitchison’s suit made her think her air supply was going bad. She was afraid to wait.
I wasn’t convinced. Any given killer might have lost patience, waiting in lunar discomfort while Chris wallowed in his tub. But it was a point against Naomi.
The court broke for lunch. After lunch the defense called Naomi Mitchison.
Boone kept it short. He asked Naomi if she had stolen a message laser and tried to kill Chris Penzler with it. She swore she hadn’t. He asked her what she was doing during the period in question. She told the court more or less what she’d told us, adding details. She swore that she had never had any reason to dislike Chris Penzler until now.
Boone mentioned that he might have further questions and turned her over to the prosecution.
The elf woman did not waste our time.
“On September 6, 2121, did you apply for emigration to the asteroid belt society?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Things had gone all wrong,” Naomi said. “I wanted out.”
“How did they go wrong?”
“My husband tried to kill me. I got to one of the bathrooms, locked the door, and went out the window. He killed our little girl and then himself. That was in June.”
“Why did he do it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. I don’t know.”
“Let me see if I can help,” the elf woman said. “The records show that Itch Mitchison was a professional comedian. The basis of his humor was an image that used to be called macho: a man who expects sexual exclusivity from his woman and who expects of himself unlimited potency and attractiveness to women. Was that the case?”
“More or less.”
“What was he like in his private life?”
“Pretty much the same. Some of that was a put-on, but I think that’s the way he was.”
“You had a little girl?”
“Miranda. Born January 4, 2117. She was four and a half years old when Itch killed her.” Her calm had cracked.
“Had you and your husband applied for a second child?”
“Yes. But by then Itch’s grandmother was in the organ banks. She … is this necessary?”
“No. It will be read into the record.”
“Just say she went crazy, then. The Fertility Board decided it was congenital. They had his record of asthma trouble, childhood diseases … The upshot was that I could have children but Itch couldn’t, and he bloody well didn’t want me to. We talked about my using artificial