Flatlander - Larry Niven [99]
I did get him talking about the conference.
“Six out of ten of you are offworlders,” he said. “We don’t even have a voting majority. I can see why some citizens don’t like that. But they’re wrong. The moon is a kind of halfway house between the mud and the sky … between Earth and the Belt. We gain some advantages from that, but we have to keep you both satisfied, too. The organ bank problem doesn’t make that any easier.”
His lecturer’s manner made him seem older, somehow. If he went into politics, he’d succeed at it.
“Might I ask, are these your father’s views, too?”
“We’ve talked about it, but I’m not just quoting him.” He smiled. “The last conference established the holding tanks. Even if Naomi’s convicted, she still goes into a holding tank for six months. Six months to prove she’s innocent, and I’m very glad of that.”
“Wups. Alan, does she know that? She may be more scared than she has to be.”
“Oh, good lord!” He was horrified.
“So you never told her. So make an opportunity. Can she have visitors?”
“She’s in her own room with the phone turned off and the door geared to reject her voice. I’m sure a policeman could visit her. I just didn’t think. The trial’s set for day after tomorrow, and she thinks that’s it, the end. I’ll tell her, Gil. Gil, what are you doing?”
We had reached Hovestraydt City, and I was hard up against Chris Penzler’s window. I said, “Checking the scene of the crime from the other side, kid.”
I noted with approval that I was in the fields of three cameras. Our clumsy killer might conceivably want to plant a small bomb on the window.
I peered in. Chris was on his back on the bed, covered with foam plastic from chin to navel and armpit to armpit. The mobile autodoc was standing above him like a polished steel nursemaid.
“Alan, come here a second. Do you see anything like a miniature hologram in there? On a wall or the table?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. Dammit.”
“Why?”
“Maybe it was moved. I still can’t see our half-competent marksman sticking his face into sunlight, blinding himself, just before he fired. I thought maybe Chris had a holo of his mother or someone on the wall and saw it reflected in the window just before he got shot. But there’s nothing.”
“No.”
The door opened and closed behind Harry McCavity. The doctor prodded his unconscious patient for a bit, then moved to the autodoc screen and typed, read the screen for a bit, typed again … ran his hands through his fluffy brown hair in a swift gesture that changed nothing … turned around, and jumped a yard in the air when he saw faces peering in the window.
I gestured in a curve to the left. We’ll come through the air lock. He glared and gestured back. Up Uranus!
A few minutes later we knocked at the door, and he let us in. “We were looking around,” Alan said lamely.
“For what?” McCavity demanded.
I said, “A hologram portrait. My idea. Have you seen anything that might fit?”
“No.”
“It’s important.”
“No!”
“Can he answer questions?” I waved at Chris Penzler.
“No. Let him alone; he’s doing fine. He’ll be mobile tomorrow … not comfortable but mobile. Ask him then. Gil, are you booked for dinner?”
“No. What time do you like?”
“Say half an hour. We can check with Ms. Grimes, see if she’s off duty. Perhaps she can join us.”
5. THE CONFERENCE TABLE
We’d chosen a table in a far corner of the dining level. Lunie diners tended to cluster around the Garden. We could barely see the Garden, and nobody was in eavesdropping distance.
“It isn’t just that we aren’t man and wife,” McCavity said, stabbing the air with splay-ended chopsticks. “We can’t even keep the same hours. We enjoy each other … don’t we?”
Taffy nodded happily.
“I need constant reassurance, my dear. Gil, we enjoy each other, but when we see each other, it’s generally over an open patient. I’m glad for Taffy that you