Flatlander - Larry Niven [91]
“The locks are controlled by the same computer that operates your own apartment, including the door lock. It’s a different program, of course.”
“Okay. What about opportunity? There was a killer out on the moon. He can’t stay out forever.”
Mayor Hove turned to the lunie cop. “We have no secrets, Jefferson.”
“Yessir. We were lucky,” Jefferson told us. “First, it’s city night and lunar night. Well, predawn. Most of the population is in their apartments, and we can account for some of the rest. One flatlander tourist is out on the moon, and nobody else as far as we can tell. We’re checking the night shift at the mirror works. If it were daylight, we’d have hundreds of suspects. Second, the Watchbird Two satellite rose ten minutes ago. I’ve had the projection room made ready for us.”
“Very good.” Mayor Hove rubbed his eyes. “Proceed with your investigations, Captain. Detectives Hamilton and Shaeffer may accompany you if they wish. The reporters … well, use your own judgment.” He dropped his voice to tell me, “I thought it politic to let Mr. Penzler see me concerned in his behalf, but I’d be of no more use here …” And he jumped off down the corridor.
The rest of us followed Jefferson to an elevator.
3. THE PROJECTION ROOM
The projection room was a big box set into Levels Six and Seven, underground, in the south side. The police had a projection going when we arrived. They were wading knee deep in miniature lunar landscape.
I think the newstapers were jolted. I know I was.
Jefferson beamed at us. “The Watchbird Two satellite is just over us now. It sends us a picture, and we project it in real time.”
He waded out into the moon, and we followed, thigh deep and a hundred feet tall. I could see my feet through the flat stone surface of Grimalde Crater if I concentrated.
Dawn had fully arrived. The sun flared on the eastern horizon, not far below the crescent Earth. The crater-pocked landscape west of us was all glaring ridges and black shadows. Hovestraydt City was a dollhouse. Tiny figures in bright orange skintights with police insignia were leaving an air lock in the south face, on the road that led across the badlands to the Belt Trading Post.
Someone was walking toward them down the middle of the road. I bent close above the doll figure, looking for details. An inflated suit, sky blue, shorter than the approaching lunie cops. Blond hair in the bubble helmet.
I heard a satisfied “Ah.” When I turned, Marion Shaeffer added, “I was pretty sure it would be a flatlander.”
Penzler’s room would be second from the end in the west face. I picked it out, then traced a line to a tilted rock like an elongated egg. Past that point it was mostly shadows. I saw nobody anywhere in that whole stretch of moonscape, save for a sky blue suit and four orange ones, converging.
“We seem to have only one suspect,” Captain Jefferson said. “Even a puffer wouldn’t take a killer out of range that fast.”
Shaeffer asked, “Puffer?”
“Basically two wheels and a motor and a saddle. We use them a lot.”
“Ah. What about a spacecraft?”
“We checked, of course. The only spacecraft in the vicinity came nowhere near here.”
I was thinking along different lines. “What’s a message laser look like? Our little blue suspect doesn’t seem to be carrying anything.”
“We’d see it. A message laser is about yay long—” Jefferson’s hands were a yard, or meter, apart. “—and masses nine kilos.”
“Well, those shadows could hide anything. Mind if I feel around in there? I might turn up the weapon.”
Tom and Desiree grinned at each other. Shaeffer stared. Jefferson said. “What? What did you say?”
The newstapers laughed outright. Desiree said, “He’s Gil the Arm. Haven’t you ever heard of Gil the Arm?”
“He’s got an imaginary arm,” Tom added.
With impressive restraint Jefferson said, “Oh?”
“Combination of psychic powers,” I told him. “But it’s all limited by my imagination. As if I had a ghost arm and hand.”
I didn’t bother to add that psychic powers are notoriously undependable. What gave me confidence this time was that I was