Asimov's Mysteries

'Right, and one of those guys arranged the killing. Now you find out which. You put the finger on the right one before eleven and there's a promotion, a raise in pay, a payback for poor Jack Hawk, and a rescue of the Galaxy. You put the finger on the wrong one and there'll be a nasty interstellar situation and you'll be out on your ear and also on every blacklist from here to Antares and back.'

I said, 'Suppose I don't finger anybody?'

That would be like fingering the wrong one as far as the Service is concerned.'

'I've got to finger someone, but only the right one, or my head's handed to me?'

'In thin slices. You're beginning to understand me, Max.'

In a long lifetime of looking ugly, Rog Crinton had never looked uglier. The only comfort I got out of staring at him was the realization that he was married too, and that he lived with his wife at Marsport all year round. And does he deserve that! Maybe I'm hard on him, but he deserves it.

I put in a quick call to Flora, as soon as Rog was out of sight. 

She said, 'Well?' The magnetic seams on her robe were opened just right and her voice sounded as thrillingly soft as she looked.

I said, 'Baby, honey, it's something I can't talk about, but I've got to do it, see? Now you hang on, I'll get it over with if I have to swim the Grand Canal to the icecap in my underwear, see? If I have to claw Phobos out of the sky. If I have to cut myself in pieces and mail myself parcel post.'

'Gee,' she said, 'if I thought I was going to have to wait…'

I winced. She just wasn't the type to respond to poetry. Actually, she was a simple creature of action…

but after all, if I were going to be drifting through low gravity in a sea of jasmine perfume with Flora, poetry response is not the type of qualification I would consider most indispensable.

I said urgently, 'Just hold on, Flora. I won't be any time at all. I'll make it up to you.'

I was annoyed, sure, but I wasn't worried as yet. Rog hadn't more than left me when I figured out exactly how I was going to tell the guilty man from the others.

It was easy. I should have called Rog back and told him, but there's no law against wanting egg in your beer and oxygen in your air. It would take me five minutes and then off I would go to Flora; a little late, maybe, but with a promotion, a raise, and a slobbering kiss from the Service on each cheek.

You see, it's like this. Big industrialists don't go space hopping much; they use transvideo reception. When they do go to some ultra-high interstellar conference, as these three were probably going, they took Spaceoline. For one thing, they didn't have enough hops under their belt to risk doing without. For another, Spaceoline was the expensive way of doing it and industrialists did things the expensive way. I know their psychology.

Now that would hold for two of them. The one who carried contraband, however, couldn't risk Spaceoline-even at the price of risking space sickness. Under Spaceoline influence, he could throw the drug away, or give it away, or talk gibberish about it. He would have to stay in control of himself.

It was as simple as that.

The Antares Giant was on time. They brought in Lipsky first. He had thick, ruddy lips, rounded jowls, very dark eyebrows, and hair just beginning to show gray. He just looked at me and sat down. Nothing.

He was under Spaceoline.

I said, 'Good evening, sir.'

He said, in a dreamy voice. 'Surrealismus of Panamy hearts in three-quarter time for a cup of coffeedom of speech.'

That was Spaceoline all the way. The buttons in the human mind were set free-swinging. Each syllable suggests the next in free association.

Andiamo Ferrucci came in next. Black mustache, long and waxed, olive complexion, pock-marked face.

He sat down.

I said, 'Nice trip?'

He said, Trip the light fantastic lock the clock is Growings on the bird.' Lipsky said, 'Bird to the wise guyed book to all places everybody.' 

I grinned. That left Harponaster. I had my needle gun neatly palmed and out of sight and the magnetic coil ready to grip him.

An then Harponaster came in. He was thin, leathery, and, though near-bald, considerably younger than he seemed in his trimensional image. And he was Spaceolined to the gills.

I said, 'Damn!'

Harponaster said, 'Damyankee note speech to his last time I saw wood you say so.'

Ferrucci said, 'Sow the seed the territory under dispute do well to come-along long road tonightingale.' Lipsky said, 'Gay lords hopping pong balls.'

I stared from one to the other as the nonsense ran down in shorter and shorter spurts and then silence.

I got the picture, all right. One of them was faking. He had thought ahead and realized that omitting the Spaceoline would be a giveaway. He might have bribed an official into injecting saline or dodged it some other way.

One of them was faking. It wasn't hard to fake the thing. Comedians on sub-etheric had a Spaceoline skit regularly. It was amazing the liberties they could take with the moral code in that way. You've heard them.

I stared at them and got the first prickle at the base of my skull that said: What if you don't finger the right one?

It was eight-thirty and there was my job, my reputation, my head growing rickety upon my neck to be considered. I saved it all for later and thought of Flora. She wasn't going to wait for me forever. For that matter, chances were she wouldn't wait for half an hour.

I wondered. Could the faker keep up free association if nudged gently onto dangerous territory?

I said, The floor's covered with a nice solid rug' and ran the last two words together to make it 'soli drug."

Lipsky: 'Drug from underneath the dough re mi fa sol to be saved.'

Ferrucci said, 'Saved and a haircut above the common herd something about younicorny as Kansas high as my knee.'

Harponaster said, 'Kneether wind nor snow use try to by four ever and effervescence and sensibilityter totter.'

Lipsky said, Totters and rags.' Ferrucci said, 'Agsactly.' Harponaster said, 'Actiymation.' A few grunts and they ran down.

I tried again and I didn't forget to be careful. They would remember everything I said afterward and what I said had to be harmless. I said. This is a darned good space-line.' 

Ferucci said, lines and tigers and elephanthills on the prairie dogs do bark of the boughwough-'

I interrupted, looking at Harponaster, 'A darned good space-line.'

'Line the bed and rest a little black sheepishion of wrong way to ring the clothes of a perfect day.'

I interrupted again, glaring at Lipsky. 'Good space-line.'

'Liron is hot-chacolit ain't gonna be the same on you vee and double the stakes and potato and heel.' Someone else said, 'Heel the sicknecessaryd and white will wincetance.'

'Tance with mealtime.'

'I'm comingle.'

'Inglish.'

'Ishter seals.'

'Eels.'

I tried a few more times and got nowhere. The faker, whichever he was, had practiced or had natural talents at talking free association. He was disconnecting his brain and letting the words come out any old way. And he must be inspired by knowing exactly what I was after. If 'drug1 hadn't given it away, 'space-line' three times repeated must have. I was safe with the other two, but he would know.

And he was having fun with me. All three were saying phrases that might have pointed to a deep inner guilt-'sol to be saved,' 'little black sheepishion of wrong,' 'drug from underneath,' and so on. Two were saying such things helplessly, randomly. The third was amusing himself.

So how did I find the third? I was in a feverish thrill of hatred against him and my fingers twitched. The bastard was subverting the Galaxy. More than that, he was keeping me from Flora.

I could go up to each of them and start searching. The two who were really under Spaceoline would make no move to stop me. They could feel no emotion, no fear, no anxiety, no hate, no passion, no desire for self-defense. And if one made the slightest gesture of resistance I would have my man.