CHAPTER 7

Hoax

“You’re saying my going through hell this morning might have been deliberately induced?” Cal asked, incredulous.

“Might be,” Dr. Bartum said.

“But I was on a crowded tube car. Why wouldn’t anyone else have succumbed?”

“There’s a possible explanation for that. The gas oxidizes rapidly in air. If it were released quite near you, you alone might breathe it in its original state.”

“But how—” Cal stopped. The young man with the mustache who sat down next to him on the tube car. All he would have had to do was run a flexible hose down one sleeve, spread his arm across the seat back, and turn a valve. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll grant that it could be done deliberately. But why?”

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

“You’re right. How difficult would it be to obtain this gas?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know that either. You’re outside of my specialty now. The gas is called Lendomen. I can tell you its chemical formula, its specific heat, its molecular weight, the effect it has on humans, and a few other details. But I wouldn’t know where to start in buying it or handling it. And this could easily all be my imagination.” Bartum stood. “I just wanted to let you know, just in case.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” He shook Bartum’s hand, and left. He could tell the doctor was still curious about why such a thing might have been done, but he couldn’t help the man. Cal was just as curious. And worried.

Cal was stopped once again as he tried to leave, this time by a nurse seated at the hall station. She demanded that he sign a release to absolve the clinic and Dr. Bartum if there were any complications. She was painting her fingernails, a different color on each, so that her nails looked like a spectrum.

“This is a usual practice?” Cal asked.

“No. Only when a patient wants to leave before the doctor recommends it.”

Cal flushed and signed the log.

Outside he found a bench and sat. The mild heat from the sun’s rays felt good against his skin. It had been colder than he liked inside the clinic.

“I suppose you heard,” he said. His tongue felt like an old sock.

“What?” said Vincent.

“Don’t be cute.”

“I heard. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I hope I didn’t knock you around too much.”

“I’m getting used to it,” Vincent said. “You’re a regular bumpathon.”

“You don’t have any odor detectors, do you?”

“Nope. Video, audio, temperature. That’s the lot.”

“What can you tell me about Lendomen?”

“All that stuff the doctor mentioned. And that it’s used in the assembly of lightweight solar panels. It’s not an illegal substance. Why? Do you think he might be right?”

“I’ve never liked coincidences. What bothers me is why. Is there someone trying to get revenge on me, or does someone just plain hate me? I barely noticed that guy who sat next to me, but he didn’t seem familiar. So does that mean maybe I killed Domingo, who was blackmailing me, and that guy was his partner, trying to even things out?”

“To quote Dr. Bartum, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

Cal stared into the distance. He missed the changing shadows of Earth. A flicker of motion high above caught his attention. There were a few tiny specs flying near the center of Daedalus’s axis. An almost invisible net contained them.

“Has anyone ever fallen from up there?” Cal asked.

“‘Fall’ isn’t the right word. This isn’t true gravity, so it’s got some quirks. If you pushed an object with no wind resistance out from the center, it would just slowly keep going until it hit the ground as slowly as you pushed it. But the ground’s relative velocity, because it’s spinning, would do a lot of damage. If the object had a lot of wind resistance, it would gradually spiral down just because it was being pushed farther out by the centrifugal force caused by the wind.”

Cal squinted into the light. Lynn had never been able to go hang gliding. Cal felt sad. There were so many things she’d never seen. So many first times he would never be able to share with her.

He watched for another moment before he recalled what he had scheduled. “Oh, no,” he said abruptly. “I’m supposed to meet Leroy Krantz this afternoon. I’m almost late.”

He felt weak and wobbly for his first few steps but ignored the discomfort. “Vincent, how much video can you store without cramping yourself too much?”

“At what rate and resolution?”

“Ten frames a second. Typical newscast resolution.”

“Almost thirty minutes. Why?”

“I’m worried about future attempts. How about this? Can you continuously record, and save the most recent ten minutes, and keep portions of the oldest recordings? For instance, one frame a second for the previous hour, one a minute for the previous day? Or as close as you can come to that. If something happens to me, save as much as you can while adding a frame every ten seconds from that point? And can you save all the audio?”

“Easy. I’m starting now. Why didn’t you think of this before?”

“I couldn’t use my hindsight any earlier.”

The trip to Vittoria seemed to take longer than it had the day before. Cal arrived fifteen minutes late at Leroy Krantz’s office, not having had time to do the research he had planned. He would just have to fake it the best he could.

“Sorry I’m late,” Cal said.

“What?” Leroy asked.

“I said sorry I’m late,” he repeated slowly.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leroy said, pushing aside whatever he was working on. “Can I get you anything to drink before we get started?”

Cal thought about his missed lunch, then considered the way his body felt after the morning’s activities. “Thank you, no.”

“Let’s go, then,” said the older man. “You want to sit at the keyboard?” Leroy gestured at his desk and leaned back in his chair. He grinned. “Don’t be bashful, son.”

Cal froze. Leroy couldn’t know about his condition. But if he did, was he teasing Cal? Cal looked at him closely. Leroy seemed friendly enough. His hair was beginning to whiten about the edges, but he still had almost invisible dimples as he smiled. Cal decided that his problem was simply nerves. If Leroy was so good an actor that he could know about Cal’s memory loss and pretend not to, Cal was at a strong disadvantage.

“Why don’t you run through it,” Cal said at last. “I’m content just to watch.”

“Fine. Fine.” Leroy rolled his chair to the desk and rubbed his hands together briefly before he began.

The wall screen lit up with several long paragraphs of legalese, headed by VITTORIA—DAEDALUS COMMUNICATIONS CUSTOMER ACCEPTANCE TEST.

“Shouldn’t there be someone else here?” Cal asked, thinking about how formal the occasion really was.

“Tolbor doesn’t seem to be too interested. He’s more likely to spot check the log than attend all the tests. I notified him.” Leroy looked up at the screen for a moment. “This is all boilerplate material. Slow me down if I go too fast.”

He went too fast, but Cal was too inhibited to tell him. Pages of information flashed past. Skimming the green text, Cal was able to verify that the test procedure was designed to demonstrate satisfactory performance of the long-range communication system that would allow the Vittoria to keep in contact with Daedalus during the journey.

Performance criteria included transmission and reception protocols, error-rate, redundancy, and power consumption. This final test concentrated on reception quality. The flow of text pages was interrupted by graphics showing antennae illustrations and shots of the various items of communications support gear.

“We’re ready for the tests.” Leroy shifted in his chair. “The Jupiter bounce is complete. I didn’t think you’d want to wait around for a few hours, so I ran it last night. Any problem?”

“That’s fine.” Cal didn’t ask for clarification, but assumed there was a repeater in Jupiter orbit or on one of the moons.

“Great. Here are the reception results.”

A multi-sectioned color display indicated performance characteristics in each reception mode. Green analog and digital indicators tracked instantaneous levels and showed minimum, maximum, and average values for signal-to-noise ratio, modulation percentage, signal strength, and other readings that Cal didn’t have time to absorb. Leroy turned on the second wall screen for overflow.

The test transmission included audio, video, slow-scan video, and binary. Overwhelmed, Cal took a seat.

Cal tried to examine one parameter and then another, narrowing his focus. Everything looked reasonable to him. Each value he checked seemed to be comfortably above its minimum acceptable level.

Cal had looked at only a fraction of the measured parameters when Leroy said, “Okay. That pretty much finishes the Jupiter test. You satisfied?”

“Fine,” Cal said, although he couldn’t really say whether the equipment had passed every possible test. But surely this test was merely a formality, documenting officially what Leroy knew all along was a good product. Leroy seemed calm and honest.

“Let’s see now.” Leroy tapped a few keys, and a star-filled image came up on the screen. Slowly at first, then more quickly, the field of stars moved across the screen, until Luna entered the display. It was almost full. The moon moved to approximately the middle of the screen. Then the image began to zoom toward a spot midway between the center and the right edge.

Luna filled the section of the screen, and surface features continued to grow. Presently Cal was sure the focus of interest was in the crater at center screen. Seconds later the crater walls expanded out of view, and a dark dot grew into a black mesh cubic structure on the crater floor.

“That’s the corner reflector,” said Leroy. “Let’s crank it up.”

A new set of display inserts flashed on the screen.

“Okay,” Leroy continued, more animated now, as though he had enjoyed zooming in on the reflector. “We’re at point one percent power now. On the left we’ve got what we’re sending. On the right is what we’re getting back.”

The left side showed a video of a moving test pattern, and then one of surf pounding on the rocks along an unidentified coastline on Earth. The right image was an obvious copy, delayed so slightly it was hard to be sure there was a communications lag, with one significant difference: the picture was grainy and snowy.

The transmitter began a series of slow-scan, still-frame images, which came back perfectly clear, and then the dynamic video resumed. All level indicators were showing acceptable operation when the image faded for an instant. Cal might have not even noticed if he hadn’t been transfixed, staring at the recorded view of traffic in some now-dead city.

Leroy sat at the keyboard and made no comment.

“What was that?” Cal asked.

“What was what?”

“We lost the image for a second, on the receiver display.”

Leroy looked up at the screen, his face expressionless. “Oh, that. Just an automatic failover test. We’re on the B transmitter now. He pointed to a section of the display: ACTIVE TRANSMITTER = B.

“Oh” was all Cal could say.

“It’s a normal part of the test. Didn’t you even read the test procedure ahead of time?”

“It’s fine, Leroy. No problem.”

Leroy turned back to the keyboard and continued the test, which ran for only another couple of minutes. “Okay,” he said finally. “Mark your approval.”

Unsure of the proper procedure, Cal reached forward to the keyboard. Just as his hand brushed a key, the memory came back to him. He placed his thumb on the white square and looked up at the screen. There was his name, and a flowery graphic symbol that obviously indicated he was a witness.

Leroy reached over to the keyboard, and his notation appeared below Cal’s.

“Is that it, then?” asked Cal.

Leroy turned to him. He looked at Cal intently for a brief moment. “That’s it,” he said, suddenly brusque. “All complete. Thanks very much.”

Cal rose to leave, puzzled. Leroy seemed anxious, almost imperceptibly unsettled. In his place, Cal could imagine being nervous at the start of an important test and relaxed at the conclusion. Why were Leroy’s actions opposite? What guarded thoughts lay behind Leroy’s brown eyes? Or was Cal merely imagining mysteries where none existed? Maybe Leroy was surprised that Cal hadn’t known for sure that the session was complete.

Leroy busied himself at the keyboard, and Cal walked down the hall to his office. People in nearby offices must have been busy, because no one called to him. Drained, he dropped into his desk chair and let his hands fall limply to the sides. After a moment he rose to shut the door and then sat again.

“Vincent, has he always been that inconsistent?”

“Leroy Krantz?”

“Yeah. Last night it was ‘Let’s go for a drink.’ Today it’s ‘Thanks a lot. See you around.’”

“All I can remember about Leroy is last night’s conversation and the one now. That’s not enough for me to pronounce him manic-depressive.”

“It’s not quite that bad,” Cal said. “But it’s enough to worry me. I’m suspicious of everything right now. Leroy could have paid that guy this morning.”

“Or you may have so many enemies that Leroy had to pay him not to do anything worse. As the actor says to the director, what’s the motivation?”

“As the doctor says, you’re asking the wrong person. It wouldn’t be so bad, not knowing who the right person was, if I at least knew the right questions.” Cal leaned back and shut his eyes for a moment, visualizing Krantz’s office. “You’re recording now, per our talk?” he asked.

“I’ve got more pictures than a baby photographer, but they’re pretty dull.”

“Let’s look at them anyway—the ones from about fifteen minutes ago, when the picture faded during the test. Can you transmit it to the desk computer so it can use the wall screen? I don’t need eyestrain on top of everything else.”

The wall screen flickered, and the image of Leroy’s office appeared.

“Great,” said Cal. “Now can you blow up the section that shows his screen? And rotate it so it’s level?”

His arm had been lying on the armrest during those minutes, so the angles were distorted, but the picture was clear.

“Let’s try some image enhancement,” Vincent said, and the bottom of the picture shrank slowly until the relative dimensions made it seem as though Vincent had been directly in front of Leroy’s screen. Cal’s screen looked like the original, except for a little graininess.

“Vincent, you’re terrific.” The echoed video was just starting to fade, or was about to recover. “Go forward a frame.”

The echoed picture had recovered. “How about back two frames?” Cal asked. Again clear. “You’re saving a frame a second for this interval, right?”

“Yeah. It’s so cluttered in here I hardly have space to sit down.”

“If you don’t shape up, I’ll start storing all my old school records in there too.”

“They’re already down in the basement. You did even better in college than you did in high school.”

“Okay, okay. Can you expand the upper left quadrant? It’s a little fuzzy.”

“Picky,” said Vincent, and the magnification doubled.

“Fine,” said Cal. “It says, ‘Active transmitter = A.’ Now forward three frames. Okay. Now it’s B. So Leroy was telling the truth. Was he bothered by something else?”

“I think you should listen to your doctor.”

“You’re right. I want to save this sequence for a while, though. Can you store the frames we’ve looked at just now, and one every ten seconds for the whole time we were with Leroy? Label it and don’t overwrite it as you keep recording.”

“I obey even as you speak. What’s next, boss?”

“What was Leroy doing all this time? Show me the section with him in it, in real time, starting a second before the cutover.”

Leroy’s only reactions during the interval were a brief compressing of his lips and a glance at Cal. Cal inspected the image a moment longer before he gave up. There was nothing obviously sinister about Leroy’s behavior.

“Maybe it’s time I sent my boss a status report,” he said. “Tom Horvath is on my phone list, and it seems I report to him.”

Aided by computer prompting, Cal prepared a message that said, “Communications test with Krantz passed.” As he finished and started to sign off, he noticed an information block that said, “One message waiting.”

Depressing two keys brought the message up on the screen. “I missed you last time” was all it said. The originator block, rather than containing a name, said, “Monthly.”

Cal thought a moment longer before he made the connection. It had to be a message from the person to whom he paid monthly payments. But it still didn’t explain why. If the message referred to a meeting, then Cal had no way to tell what the meeting was. If it referred to the incident on the tube car, then “Monthly” hadn’t missed him. Unless the gas had been intended to be fatal.

“I’m spending too much time in front of computer terminals,” Cal said abruptly. “I need more direct exposure. Is the news station open to the public?”

“Yes. But most of their data is available at any terminal.”

“That doesn’t matter. It seems that I recall more when I’m dealing with people.”

“It seems you also run more risks.”

“Something’s wrong. I can’t find out what it is by ignoring it.”

“You’re not worried about joining Domingo in the marble orchard?”

“Let’s go, Vincent.”

“I don’t have a whole lot of choice, do I?”

“About as much as I have.”

Cal kept a watchful eye for anyone coming too close to him on the way over, but saw no one. The news station was in Machu Picchu, near the center of the city. The facilities available to the public were similar to Cal’s desk computer, but there were no thumbprint squares. The terminals were always on, available without specifying an ID.

Cal studied the lineup of screens in small cubicles, wondering if the trip had been worth the effort, when a calm voice sounded behind him.

“Not sure how to use the system?”

Cal turned and found himself facing the reporter he had seen on the earlier newscasts, Michelle Garney. Her vivid green eyes hadn’t shown up well on the video.

“I think I can figure it out,” Cal said. “But I’m a little tired of dealing with machines.” No offense, Vincent.

The woman smiled and nodded understandingly. “It’s hard to avoid. What were you looking for?”

Cal hesitated. He didn’t want any links between himself and Gabriel Domingo, but the woman appeared friendly and willing to help. “I’m investigating drug-related killings. And the death of the fellow on the news yesterday.”

Michelle gave him a brief appraising gaze and said, “Why don’t you join me in the break room? Maybe I can get you started.”

They exchanged first names, and Cal followed her to a nearby room equipped with a few tables, chairs, and vending machines. Michelle smiled. It was a welcome change, and it felt good to sit down. He looked up and found her watching him.

“Hard day?” she asked.

Cal smiled. “Perhaps I’m just out of shape.”

She raised her eyebrows, as if to disagree, but said nothing.

“Have there been many killings lately?” Cal asked.

“I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘lately’ and ‘many’. Quite a few in the last year. But Vital Twenty-Two hasn’t been linked to any before.”

“So maybe this last murder wasn’t a typical case?”

“I don’t know that there is a typical case. But, yes, it’s a bit unusual.” Michelle looked thoughtful for a moment. “The body being moved, that particular drug, the injuries…”

“What about the injuries?” Cal tried to keep his voice calm.

“Messy. Crude. I guess it’s a little more typical for the victim to end up with a laser hole or a knife cut. Domingo was—well, it’s more like a whole gang beat him to death, or he fell a long way. His injuries were massive.” Michelle shivered almost imperceptibly.

“So you saw the body?”

“Pictures. That was enough.”

“Any chance they were faked?”

“Not any. He was way past hope. Some of my more morbid friends call a case like that a sidewalk soufflé.” She leaned forward. “Why? What reason would anyone have for faking a murder discovery?”

“None that I can think of. Just curious.”

“And why do you ask that? I thought maybe you were the police.” A small frown wrinkled her forehead.

Cal was nervous. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pretend to be the police.” He put a hand on the table and began to push himself up. “I apologize for giving you the wrong impression.” He was halfway through his motion when she put her hand on his.

“Wait,” she said. “I didn’t mean to chase you off.”

Her hand was cool and firm against Cal’s. He looked at it for a moment. His hand tingled where she touched him. Her eyes were bright, alert, questioning, but still friendly. She didn’t remove her hand until he sat down again.

“I guess it’s my day for overreacting,” he said, guiltily wishing she hadn’t taken her hand away.

She said nothing, but watched him closely.

“Where did Domingo live?” he asked.

“An apartment here in town—on the west side.” She gave him the address.

Cal didn’t know how compass directions had been defined, but decided to ask Vincent later. “Is there anything you know that hasn’t reached the public?” he asked.

“No. I’m not with the police either.”

“Is that supposed to make me tell you why I’m interested in all of this?”

Michelle smiled quickly, but was silent.

“You know,” Cal said, “you’re not as opaque as we’d all like to believe we are. Your curiosity must be on full alert, but you’re hoping I’ll answer your unspoken questions.”

She nodded and grinned again.

“You really enjoy your work, don’t you?” he asked.

“You’re right again. Why? Don’t you enjoy yours?”

“Let’s say I’m undecided. Look. I can’t tell you the reasons for my interest. I’m just looking for the same thing you are: the truth. If I find it, I’ll tell you. Fair enough?”

“You realize the information flow in this conversation is all backward?”

“Michelle, I—thanks very much. I enjoyed talking with you.” Cal rose to leave. This time she didn’t stop him.

“You really will tell me what this is all about sometime?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go and get yourself killed.”

Cal stopped. “Whatever makes you say that?”

“Like I said, I enjoy my job. I’m good at it. I trust my hunches. You didn’t saunter down here simply to gather data. You’ve got a personal stake in this.”

“You know, you’re right.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“You are good at your job.”

Michelle smiled once more as Cal left. This time, however, he thought he saw worry mixed into it.

Out on the street Cal asked, “Which way is west?”

“The side of the continent opposite the direction of rotation,” said Vincent. “North is the sun end.”

“So I’m walking west right now?”

“Right.”

“You heard Domingo’s address, I assume. Want to give me directions?”

“It’ll be a long walk without a bike. If you take the tubeway up the hill and switch to one that runs on the west side, you’ll save some steps.”

“Up the hill is up to the south pole?”

“Correct.”

A half hour later, Cal was on the streets of Machu Picchu’s west side. There were no nearby businesses, only apartment buildings and occasional town houses, all with bicycle racks near the doors.

Domingo’s address was a large building containing perhaps twenty units. Cal walked by it without entering.

The building was typically long and narrow, lined up east-west, with all the units on one level. Each had a window overlooking the valley to the north. Oak and pine trees provided a modest amount of privacy to the areas near some of the windows. Cal could see only two main doors, one at each end of the building.

Some of the windows were open. The apartment number Michelle had told him was eight. If the units were numbered sequentially starting at one end, there was a fifty percent chance that Domingo’s was open.

Cal entered the building and found himself in a tiny, deserted foyer tiled in red and black. Without hesitation he continued into the long hallway beyond, until he came to the first apartment door.

Number sixteen. So the numbering started at the other end. Which meant—he did a short calculation—none of the open windows belonged to number eight.

He kept walking. Maybe, against all odds, the police had left the door unlocked. He didn’t believe it, but he was halfway there already, so he might as well continue. Fortunately, no one was in the hall.

Domingo’s door looked like all the others: closed and locked. No notes marred the solid brown surface of the door. Disheartened, Cal was just about to give up and leave, when, struck by a sudden idea, he reached up and pressed his thumb against the white square.

The door to Gabriel Domingo’s apartment slid silently open.