Flatlander - Larry Niven [118]
To my left was the land Naomi had tried to lead us through and the peak Naomi had tried to climb. I kept going.
The road twisted like an injured snake. A broad road led left toward the strip mines that had made Hovestraydt City rich. When they had played out, the city had turned to mirror making.
Naomi wasn’t a native. To meet someone out here, she would need some obvious landmark. The same would hold if someone had simply left a puffer parked somewhere for her. The mines? She couldn’t get lost, witnesses were unlikely, and the tailings might fool radar for a small vehicle.
She’d led us a merry chase the day after the attack on Chris Penzler. Alan Watson must have given her what she needed when he showed her the projection room. And she’d danced her way right into the organ banks. To hide what?
Or else the jury was right.
Presently I was bouncing downhill, beyond the region I’d searched with my imaginary hand, beyond anywhere Naomi could have reached on foot. Far ahead was a line of silver: the mass driver built to supply ore for the L-5 project of the 2040s. The company had gone bankrupt, and the mass driver was half-built and long obsolete.
I kept checking my watch.
There was the trading post ahead. Unused to picking out details in moonscape, my eyes had been missing it for some time. I found the shapes of two spacecraft first, then the outline of the spaceport, then the crescent of stone and glass buildings around it. The road became a circle between the buildings and the spaceport. I had made the run in just thirty-five minutes.
* * *
The trading post was strange by anyone’s standards.
There was no dome. Oblong buildings were individually pressurized; sometimes they were linked by tunnels. In Selene’s Bar and Grill, where I stopped for lunch, I found racks for fishbowl helmets but none for pressure suits. The customers kept their credit coins in outside pockets.
Selene’s Bar and Grill, Mare Serenitatis Spa (with a pool and sauna), the Man in the Moon Hotel (he was shown yawning), Aphrodite’s: all the place names were moon-related. Half the people I saw were lunies. Aphrodite’s rented sexual favors. The waitress at Selene’s told me it catered specifically to lunies. I was a little shocked.
The administration building was all the way around the circle. It was big enough to get lost in. The police, licensing, and port administration were scattered through the building. I finally found the goldskin offices.
“ARM business,” I told the only clerk in sight.
He was watching a fold-up 3D screen propped in front of him. He didn’t look up. “Yah?”
“Last Wednesday someone shot a Belt delegate to the conference on—”
Now he looked up. “We heard about that. Didn’t they solve that one? I heard—”
“Look, there’s a possibility that our suspect was here at the time. That would mean she wasn’t shooting at Penzler. We never found the weapon, either. That adds up to a would-be killer with a message laser still hunting a Belt delegate.”
“See your point. What do you need?”
“Were there any crimes committed here between 2230 Tuesday and 0130 Wednesday?” Naomi would have had to walk to where someone had left a puffer for her, then drive here. At least half an hour coming and half an hour back. Later I’d have to pace it off on foot.
He set aside his fold-up screen and tapped at a computer keyboard. The screen lit. “Mmm … we had a fight at Aphrodite’s about that time. A lunie dead, two Belters and a lunie under arrest, all male. But you’re looking for something premeditated.”
“Right.”
“Zip.”
“Futz. How about disappearances?”
He summoned up the missing persons records. Nobody had been reported missing since Wednesday. It seemed that Naomi had not been committing a crime of violence.
“How well do you keep track of your puffers?”
“They’re licensed. Generally the residents own their own.” He was typing as he spoke. The screen filled. “These are rentals.”
“Chili Bird?” The name rang a bell.
“Two puffers charged to the Chili Bird account for two days. Well, that’s reasonable. Antsie had passengers.”
“Tell me more.”
He scowled