Flatlander - Larry Niven [127]
We went back inside, and Harry headed for his bed. I called Artemus Boone and got him to join me for lunch.
We moved down the buffet table collecting dollops and samples of everything in sight. The food on Boone’s plate became a precariously balanced cone with a hard-boiled pigeon’s egg at the apex. He lowered it to the table slowly with both hands.
“It’s not bad,” he told me. “It’s only complicated. I could argue either way: that Mrs. Mitchison is subject only to the lunar law or only to United Nations law, whichever she likes.”
“So?”
“United Nations law would sterilize her, I think. She is both the father and the mother. One could argue that she has used two birthrights. Sterilization wouldn’t stop her from growing another clone, so she might not object. For the same reason, the law might demand the right to execute her, but I think I could block that”
“How sure are you?”
“Not very. UN law isn’t my home turf. I’d rather work within lunar law. As for the child, she can’t be extradited, but she should never visit Earth.”
“What’s the position under lunar law?”
“Lunar law includes nothing like your fertility quotas. Women who bear children without previous marriage are on their own unless the father sues for his rights … well, that doesn’t apply. But de Campo and Mrs; Mitchison have violated lunar medical restrictions. I’d think we want to stand trial here, then claim double jeopardy before the UN.”
“She’d be safe then?”
“Up to a point.” Boone coughed delicately. “The lady’s attitude toward men might hamper her popularity with a jury. And there is still the matter of an attempted murder charge.”
“Yeah. I need to talk about the murder,” I said, “and I’ve run out of people to talk with. Have you got some free time?”
“Some. You don’t propose to solve both crimes yourself this afternoon, do you?”
“Why not?”
Boone smiled. “Why indeed? For my defense of Mrs. Mitchison I needed a suspect other than Mrs. Mitchison. My main obstacle was your testimony.”
“I can’t change it. There wasn’t anyone else out on the moon and no message laser.”
“Well?”
“I keep thinking in terms of mirrors. Boone, I wish to hell I could put a mirror out there. That way the killer and the weapon could both be somewhere else.”
Boone had been eating, talking between mouthfuls. He had a voracious appetite for so lean a man. He chewed and thought, swallowed, and said, “But the mirror would have to be in place.”
“Remember how Chris acted when we asked him what kind of pressure suit the killer was wearing? He sweated. He dithered. He said he might have seen an optical illusion.”
“A terrible experience. He might have blocked the memory.
“Sure. Then six days later he left us a dying message. Do you know about that?”
“N A K F. Meaningless.”
“I’ve been assuming he died before he could finish. What was he trying to tell us? NAKED?”
“On the moon?” Boone smiled.
“Naked to vacuum,” I said. “Chris stood up in his bath and saw someone out on the moon without a pressure suit. Don’t you see? He was looking in a mirror.”
“But what was he seeing? Himself?”
“No. He saw the killer. The killer must have been in one of the other apartments. Poor Chris, he must have thought he was going crazy. No wonder he wouldn’t talk about it.”
Boone ate quietly for a time. Then he said, “Mrs. Mitchison was on the second floor. We tend to put offworlders on the ground floor. Were all the ground floor apartments full? This is something we can check, but you see the implications. The killer is not a native.”
That didn’t fit my other assumptions, but— “Yeah, check those records. You’ve got the authority.”
“I will.” Boone smiled. “Now tell me why the mirror wasn’t found by the police when they searched for an abandoned message laser.”
“What about a mirror in low orbit? Mirrors don’t have to be opaque to radar. A plane mirror with the right rotation might give the killer a couple of minutes to pick his shot. And we know he was hurried.”
Boone snorted. “Ridiculous. An orbiting mirror would