Flatlander - Larry Niven [149]
Hecate was reading over my shoulder.
I said, “The codes mean she’s wanted on suspicion of embezzlement, flight to escape arrest, violation of political boundaries, misuse of vital resources, and some other stuff as of thirty-six years ago.”
“Interesting. Vital resources?”
“It used to be the custom; you named every possible crime and then trimmed. Boundaries—that’s an old law. Here it means they think she escaped to space.”
“Interesting. Gil, her suit isn’t leaking.”
“Isn’t it?”
“There was a fair vacuum inside. We got traces of organics, of course, but it would have taken years—decades to lose all of her air and water.”
I said, “Thirty-six years.”
“All that time. In Del Rey Crater?”
“Hecate, at a distance her suit looked just like another of the Boeing packages, and nobody was looking, anyway.”
“Then we can guess why the body’s in such good shape. Radiation,” Hecate said. “What’s she supposed to have embezzled?”
I scrolled through the file. “Looks like funds from Gabriel’s Shield. And Gabriel’s Shield turns out to be a research group … Two partners: Valerie Van Scopp Rhine and Maxim Yeltzin Shreve.”
“Shreve.”
“Bankrupt in A.D. 2091, when Rhine allegedly disappeared with the funds.” I stood up. “Hecate, I’ve got to go sharpen my skates. You can study this, or you can summon up a dossier on Maxim Shreve.”
She stared, then laughed. “I thought I’d heard every possible way to say that. Go. Then drink some more water.”
I waited for a woman to step out of the recycler booth, then went in.
Hecate had a display up when I got back.
Maxim Yeltzin Shreve. Height: 2.23 meters. Born 2044 A.D. Outer Soviet, Moon. Mass: 101 kg. Gene type … allergies … medical … No felony convictions. Married Juliana Mary Krupp 2061, divorced 2080. Children: none. Single. A videoflat of his graduation, looking like a burly soccer champ, used with permission. A holo taken at the launch of the fourth slowboat, the colony ship bound for Tau Ceti, bearing the larger model Shreveshield, in A.D. 2122. He didn’t need a medical chair then, but he didn’t look good. Chairman of the board of Shreve Development 2091, retired November 2125. Two years ago.
When your body gets sick enough, your mind starts to go, too. I could be putting too much weight on any oddities in this man’s behavior.
I hit the key that got me the next dossier.
Geraldine Randall. Height: 2.08 meters. Born 2066 A.D., Clavius, Moon. Mass: 89 kg. Gene type … allergies … medical… She’d had a problem carrying a child, corrected by surgery. No felony convictions. Married Charles Hastings Chan 2080. Children: 1 girl, Marya Jenna. She’d been at the launch of the fourth slowboat, too. Member of the board of Shreve Development 2091.
Over Hecate’s shoulder they were still carving the dead woman. I understood why they were so casual about it. The remains of lunar dead become mulch, whatever can’t be used as transplants. Hecate was listening to a running commentary, but if they’d found evidence of disease, she’d have told me.
Valerie Rhine hadn’t rotted because radiation had fried all the bacteria in her body. She could have lasted a million years, a billion, without my hindrance.
I turned back to Maxim Shreve as he had been when he had registered as Shreve Development, a lunar corporation, thirty-six years ago. He was posing with five others, and one was Geraldine Randall. A younger man, he already looked sick … or just worn down, working himself to death. It’s one way to get rich. Give everything to your dream. Six years later, A.D. 2097 and looking a little better, he and his partners had an active shield up for patent.
Did lunies just get old quicker? I tapped Hecate’s shoulder. She turned off privacy, and I asked, “How old are you, Hecate?”
“I’m forty-two.”
She met my stare. Older than me by one year and healthy as a gymnast. The lunie doctor Taffy