The Gist Hunter (7 page)

"We will complete the assignment with all possible speed," I said. "Working to preserve Torquil Falberoth has lost much of its allure."

"Should we now add one more name to the list of those who would prefer to see him reduced to his constituent elements?" my integrator asked.

I made no comment but turned to the dossiers. The assignment's scant appeal lost its remaining shreds as I immersed myself in details of his seven worst iniquities. The magnate was clearly a throwback to Old Earth's dawn time; the ancient conquerors who enjoyed standing on mountains of their victims' skulls had nothing on my client. He had ruined and ravished, seized and sequestered, grabbed and grasped with a cold ferocity that more resembled the feeding behavior of insects than any appetite of a man.

"See this," I said, pointing out one of his crimes to my integrator. Falberoth had gone to preposterous lengths to surround the affairs of the victim, until he could not only acquire the man's life work but leave the poor fellow destitute and despairing. "Then, having held the object of the struggle in his hand, he allows it to fall and shatter, and walks away with never a rearward glance."

But where lay his motive? There were two possible answers: One was that Falberoth has achieved a philosophy of existence so subtle that its logic was impenetrable even to me. The other was that he savored cruelty for its own sake.

I knew that among the truly opulent it was not unheard of for the seven basic senses to be augmented by chemical and even surgical intervention, so that emotions might be tasted or heard.

"Perhaps he enjoys the suffering of a victim as if it were some rare vintage or exquisite essence," I said. "Or the answer may be pure banality: he does what he does because he can."

"You disentangle conundrums for the same reason," said my assistant.

"There is a difference," I said. "I harm none."

"Does Falberoth recognize such a distinction?"

"It is not a pleasant thought," I said.

"Falberoth is not a pleasant man."

"Indeed, he is not. Let us quickly assemble our findings so that you may transmit them to him and I may return to what's-his-name's problem."

I prepared a document identifying the seven and the method I believed each would pursue in an attempt, in most cases suicidal, to undo my client. I made recommendations as to countermeasures, all of which I was certain had already been thought of. My assistant transmitted the report and we heard no more from Torquil Falberoth after his integrator acknowledged receipt.

I returned to my pursuit of the braided perplexity through eighth-level consistencies only to find that the resulting paradigm resolved nothing; instead it opened a whole new array of complexities. Chagrined, I plunged into the conundrum's hidden depths, resolved to end the thing before my competitor returned.

It was some days later and I was far afield in the puzzle's coils. It perversely kept offering me distant simplicities each of which, when I reached it, revealed itself instead to be a new complication. It was like a set of nesting boxes, except that every time I opened one it paradoxically turned out to be larger than the one that had allegedly contained it.

Then my integrator announced that Inspecting Agent Brustram Warhanny of the Archonate's Bureau of Scrutiny was on my doorstep seeking entry and conversation.

"I am not available for consultation," I told Warhanny.

I saw him through the image relayed by my door's who's-there. He was in his black and green uniform and his long-jowled, hangdog face bore its most official mien. "It is not a consultation," he said, "but an investigation."

I instructed the door to admit him. When he was standing in my workroom, giving it the unabashed inspection that distinguishes a scroot from every other category of visitor, I said, "What is being investigated?"

He said, "The murder of Torquil Falberoth," and watched to see how I reacted.

It was an elementary technique and though I could have negated it by controlling my autonomic processes, I did not do so. I let my surprise show in my face and did not bother to disguise my curiosity.

"How was he killed?" I asked.

"By subtle means," Warhanny said.

"They would have to have been subtle," I said. "He guarded himself well."

"We understand that you were recently part of that effort."

Ordinarily, I do not discuss cases with the scroots, but when the client turns up murdered it is no time to prickle and stickle. I told Warhanny the circumstances of my connection to Falberoth.

"Who are the seven likely suspects?" he said.

I had my assistant bring forward their dossiers and my report to Falberoth. He read the latter closely and glanced through the former. "Hmm," he said when he had finished.

"One of those is almost certain to have done the deed," I said, "though I do not see how."

Warhanny looked thoughtful. "Falberoth's integrator said as much."

"Have they alibis for the time of the murder?"

"All of them."

"Indeed?" I said. "At least one of them has slipped you the sham shimmy."

"If one, then all," he replied. "For they are all each other's alibis. They were all in the same place at the time Falberoth ceased to trouble this tired old world."

"What place was it?" I asked.

"A reception room in Falberoth's manse."

He told me more: having identified his seven direst foes, Falberoth had brought them together to savor at close range their helplessness to win vengeance over him. He had declared it to be his happiest moment. Then, in midgloat, the reception room had been plunged into darkness by means of a suppression field that muted all surveillance energies.

"How was that done?" I asked.

"Falberoth had the system installed for his own purposes. But who activated it and how remain unknown. The field was live for less than three minutes, but when it dissipated, Falberoth was dead."

Warhanny conjectured that somehow one of the seven, or some of them, or all of them acting in concert, had contrived to overpower their common enemy's precautions, had indeed used his own system to confound and destroy him.

The seven therefore had motive and at least the outline of an opportunity. The means, however, were a mystery. I questioned Warhanny on the investigation so far.

"How deep were his defenses?"

"He was warded by matter, energy and, we think, by some rudimentary magics," the scroot said. "He was not even physically in the room with the suspects, but had his integrator project a simulacrum from his sealed inner sanctum."

"And the cause of death?"

"Asphyxiation, though there were no signs of smothering, strangulation or noxious gases."

"Hmm," I said. I applied a few moments of concentrated thought to the matter, then said, "Ahah!"

"You have a theory?" Warhanny said.

"Better. I have a solution."

"Tell me."

"No," I said, "I must show you."

"Why?"

"Because you would not elsewise believe me. And because I can."

We recreated the circumstances of the crime. Falberoth's prime victims were brought again to his reception room, though now under the watchful gaze of Brustram Warhanny and a squad of his officers. The seven presented an interesting array of emotions: worry, curiosity, wariness, equanimity, all accompanied by unabashed gladness that their tormentor was no more.

Guided by the dead man's integrator, I made my way to the secure chamber deep under the foundations. Along the route I inspected the wards and safeguards and found them every bit as formidable as Warhanny had described.

I ensconced myself in Falberoth's butter-soft chair and had the integrator arrange several screens as they had been on the night of the murder. I saw the scene in the reception room from several angles and through a variety of perceptual modes.

To Falberoth's integrator I said, "Is all as it was?"

"It is."

"Connect me to the reception room."

The link was established. I said to Warhanny, "Can you see and hear me?"

"Yes."

The seven suspects looked up in expectation. I inspected each face and confirmed my analysis. "I will now reveal the murderer," I said.

Instantly the lights went out, both in the reception room and where I was. I heard a sharp hiss and reached into an inner pocket. A moment later I was breathing through a tube whose other end, having passed through a contiguous dimension, opened elsewhere on the planet, in a region where the air was always fresh and cool.

The darkness lasted for more than two minutes. There came another hiss and the lights relit themselves.

"It hasn't worked," I said.

Warhanny peered at me from the screens. He said a short, profane word that frequently occurred in scroot conversations. "Then we are baffled," he added.

"I was not speaking to you," I told him. "I was speaking to Falberoth's integrator, to inform it that its attempt to kill me has failed, though it did succeed in murdering its master."

Warhanny's incomprehension was obvious. He resembled a perplexed dog. "The
integrator
did it?"

"It had the means and the opportunity. It sealed him into his inner sanctum and removed the air until he was dead."

"But integrators don't do such things."

"This one did. It crept up behind Torquil Falberoth while he danced atop the very pinnacle of his maleficent achievements and pushed him into the abyss."

"But why? Where lies the motive?"

"Do you wish to tell him?" I asked the device.

It made a small noise that was the sound of a shrug and said, "Because I could."

Four days later, I was forced to conclude that the braided puzzle must be a self-contained continuum of its own, a looped succession of paradoxes, with neither beginning nor end. I had not solved it, therefore it did not have a solution. Still, I was vaguely unsatisfied as I left it on my worktable and finally responded to the repeated importunings of my assistant.

"The Falberoth case has had repercussions," it told me. "A growing number of persons are now suspicious of their integrators, even to the extent of having them examined for the potential to do what Falberoth's did. Some have stripped theirs to barest essentials, others are making unseemly demands, and a few madcaps have spoken of existing without companions at all."

"Is that possible?" I wondered.

I marveled again at the intensity of the magnate's evil, so powerful that it had leached into his integrator's individuality, corroding and corrupting to an unprecedented degree. "Though he is dead, Falberoth's baleful influence lives on," I said.

"The situation has also caused some resentment."

"That never bothered him in life; I doubt it will trouble him in death."

"The resentment is directed at you."

I made a gesture to indicate astonishment. "It was Falberoth and his integrator who were at fault."

"True, but they are no longer here to be resented."

"I will issue a public statement, explaining my innocence."

"Those integrators that have been demoted to the rank of automated door openers may remain resentful."

"Resentment is an emotion," I said. "You assured me such sentiments do not trouble your kind."

There was a pause. "Perhaps I was wrong."

"Then my attributes have not contaminated
your
circuits. For I am never wrong."

"Are you sure?" it said, indicating the puzzle on my worktable.

I felt a tinge of self-doubt. It was an unfamiliar sensation and not one that I enjoyed. "Why are you doing this to me?" I said.

In its answer I caught a tone that I had not heard before from my assistant, a tone that did not bode well for our future.

"Because I can?"

Sigbart Sajessarian came to me with an unusual request.

"I want you to find me," he said. He offered a substantial fee.

"There you are," I said, gesturing to where his slim figure reposed upon the visitor's divan in my workroom. "I could never accept such handsome remuneration for so brief an assignment. What do you say we waive it altogether?"

A short but deep vertical shadow appeared between Sajessarian's eyebrows and the skin over his cheeks tightened. I recognized the signs of irritation and was reminded of a recent discussion with the integrator that I had assembled to be my research assistant.

"My wit is often not appreciated by my clients," I had said. "Perhaps it is too subtle."

"Perhaps it is because they come to you in direst need, with weighty matters of life or security hanging by frayed and slender threads," the device said. "That would not lead them to expect facetious banter, nor to welcome its appearance."

I conceded the point. "Still," I said, "a few well-chosen words can lighten the mood."

"Providing they are indeed well chosen," it said, "the test of which would be the client's answering smile or chuckle. But when the reaction is a scowl or blank incomprehension, one might conclude that the witticism is ill placed."

I made a gesture to indicate the inconsequentiality of our discussion. "Some people are impervious to the subtler forms of humor."

"That must be a comforting thought," the integrator said.

Not for the first time, I made a mental note to review my assistant's cognitive architecture. The better grade of integrators were expected to evolve and complexify themselves, and I knew that I had installed a disputatious element in this one's reflective and evaluative functions. But I was beginning to wonder if the components had lapsed out of balance.

I decided I would schedule a full review for the earliest convenient moment, but when that moment might arrive was difficult to foresee. I was, after all, Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth's most eminent freelance discriminator, and thus in constant demand. Currently I was conducting six discriminations, five involving cases that had baffled the best sleuths of the Archonate's renowned Bureau of Scrutiny. The other concerned an attempt to extort funds and favors from Ogram Fillanny. He was an immensely wealthy member of Olkney's mercantile class who delighted in certain discreditable, juvenile pastimes which could harm only himself—and even then, only if he indulged to gross excess—but were nonetheless unlikely to win him widespread acclaim.