Flatlander - Larry Niven [90]
“It’s a wonder he saw anything at all,” I said. “Why didn’t the killer just keep to the shadows? The sun wasn’t up yet.”
Nobody answered. Penzler was unconscious now. The doctor patted his shoulder and said, “Three or four days, the foam will start to peel off. He can come to me then and I’ll remove it. It’ll be longer than that before the bone heals, though.”
He turned to us. “It was close. A few minutes later and he would have been dead. The beam charred part of the sternum and cooked tissue underneath. I had to replace parts of his esophagus, the superior vena cava, some mesentery … scrape out the charred bone and fill it full of pins … it was a mess. On Earth he wouldn’t move for a week, and then he’d want a wheelchair.”
I asked, “Suppose the beam had been three inches lower?”
“Heart cooked, pleural cavity ruptured. Are you Gil Hamilton?” He stuck out a hand. “I believe we have a friend in common. I’m Harry McCavity.”
I smiled and shook his hand (carefully, fighting temptation; those long fingers did look fragile). My thoughts were only mildly malicious. Doctor McCavity wasn’t with Taffy either tonight.
McCavity had fluffy brown hair and a nose like an eagle’s beak. He was short for a lunie, but he still looked like he’d grown up on a stretch rack. Only lunies look like that. Belters raise their children in great bubble structures spun up to an Earth gravity, places like Confinement and Farmer’s Asteroid. McCavity was handsome in an elvish, eerie fashion. In no way did he seem freakish.
“Weird,” he said. “Do you know what saved his life?” He jerked a long thumb at the bathtub. “He stood up, and a lot of water came up with him. The laser beam plowed into the water. Live steam exploded all over his chest, but it saved his life, too. The water spread the beam. It didn’t go deep enough to kill him right away. The steam explosion threw him back in the tub, so the killer didn’t get a second chance.”
I remembered how the water had sheathed me when I had stood up in the tub. But— “Would it spread that much? Mayor, could the glass in the window cut some of the light?”
The mayor shook his head. “He said red light. The window wouldn’t stop red light. It filters raw sunlight, but mainly in the blue and ultraviolet and X-ray range.”
“We ought to let him sleep,” McCavity said. We followed him out.
The corridor was high because lunies are high, and wide for a touch of luxury. Windows looked down into the Garden.
The newstapers were waiting. Desiree Porter confronted Marion Shaeffer. “I’d like my camera back, please.”
Shaeffer handed over the bulky two-handed instrument.
“And my holos?”
She jerked a thumb at the freckled, seven-foot-high lunie cop. “Captain Jefferson’s got ’em. They’re evidence.”
Tom Reinecke confronted Harry McCavity. “Doctor, what is Chris Penzler’s condition? Is it murder or attempted murder?”
McCavity smiled. “Attempted. He’ll be all right. He should rest tomorrow, but I think he’ll be well enough to attend the conference afterward. Mayor, are you through with me? I’m tired.”
Captain Jefferson said, “We’ll need your evidence on the nature of the wound, but not just now.”
McCavity waved and departed, leaping down the corridor like a frog, both feet pushing at the floor at the same time.
Mayor Hove Watson watched him go. His face was puzzled, thoughtful. He came to himself with a start. “What about it, Gil? What would the ARM be doing if this were Los Angeles?”
“Nothing. Murder isn’t ARM business unless it involves organlegging or esoteric technology. I’ve investigated some murders, though. Mainly we’d try to track the weapon.”
“We’ll do that. Chris said red light. That probably means it was a message laser, and they’re guarded. The police use them for weapons as well as senders.”
“Guarded how?” I noticed that both