“Dwayne,” Martine said smoothly. “You’re much too tired to think about this now.” Kepler just waved her away.
“Excuse me, Dr. Kepler,” Jacob said. “You mentioned something about the danger coming from human beings? Commandant deSilva probably thinks you meant an error in propping Jeff’s ship caused his death. Are you talking about something else?”
“I just want to know one thing,” Kepler said slowly. “Did the telemetry show that Jeff’s ship was destroyed by a collapse of his stasis field?
The console operator who had spoken earlier stepped” forward. “Why… yessir. How did you know?”
“I didn’t know,” he smiled. “But I guessed pretty well, once I thought of sabotage.”
“What!?” Martine, deSilva and LaRoque shouted almost at once.
And suddenly Jacob saw it. “You mean during the tour…?” He turned to look at LaRoque. Martine followed his eyes and gasped.
LaRoque stepped back as if he had been struck. “You are an insane man!” he cried. “And you are as well!” He shook a finger at Kepler. “How could I have sabotaged the engines when I was sick all of the time I was in that crazy place?”
“Hey look, LaRoque,” Jacob said. “I didn’t say anything, and I’m sure Dr. Kepler is only speculating.” He ended in a question and raised an eyebrow to Kepler.
Kepler shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m serious. LaRoque spent an hour next to Jeff’s Gravity Generators, with no one else around. We checked the Grav Generator for any damage that might have been caused by anyone fumbling around with their bare hands, and we didn’t find any. It didn’t occur to me until later to check Mr. LaRoque’s camera.
“When I did, I found that one of its little attachments is a small sonic stunner!” From one of the pockets of his tunic he pulled out the small recording device. “This is how the kiss of Judas was delivered!”
LaRoque reddened. “The stunner is a standard self-defense device for journalists. I had even forgotten about it. And it could never have harmed so big a machine!
“And all of that is beside the point! This terra-chauvinist, archlaeo-religious lunatic, who has nearly destroyed all chance of meeting our Patrons as friends, dares to accuse me of a crime for which there is no motive! He murdered that poor monkey, and he wishes to thlrow the blame on someone else!”
“Shut up, LaRoque,” deSilva said evenly. She turned back to Kepler.
“Are you aware of what you’re saying, sir? A Citizen wouldn’t commit murder, simply out of dislike for an individual. Only a Probationary Personality could kill without dire cause. Can you think of any reason Mr. LaRoque might have had to do such a drastic thing?”
“I don’t know,” Kepler shrugged. He peered at LaRoque. “A Citizen who feels justified in killing still feels remorse afterward. Mr. LaRoque doesn’t look like he regrets anything, so either he’s innocent, or a good actor… or he is a Probationer after all!”
“In space!” Martine cried. “That’s impossible, Dwayne. And you know it. Every spaceport is loaded with P-receivers. And every ship is equipped with detectors also! Now you should apologize to Mr. LaRoque!”
Kepler grinned.
“Apologize? At the very least I know LaRoque lied about being ‘dizzy’ in the gravity loop. I sent a maser-gram to Earth. I wanted a dossier on him from his paper. They were only too happy to oblige.
“It seems that Mr. LaRoque is a trained astronaut! He was separated from the Service for ‘medical reasons’ — a phrase that’s often used when a person’s P-test scores rise to probation levels and he’s forced to give up a sensitive job!
“That may not prove anything, but it does mean that LaRoque has had too much experience in spaceships to have been ‘scared to death’ in Jeffrey’s gravity loop. I only wish I realized this conflict in time to warn Jeff.”
LaRoque protested and Martine objected, but Jacob could see the tide of opinion in the room turn against them. DeSilva eyed LaRoque with a cold feral gleam that startled Jacob somewhat.
“Wait a minute,” he held up a hand. “Why don’t we check if there are any Probationers without transmitters here on Mercury. I suggest we all have our retina patterns sent back to Earth for verification. If Mr. LaRoque isn’t listed as a Probationer, it will be up to Dr. Kepler to show why a Citizen might have thought he had reason to murder.”
“All right, then, for Kukulkan’s sake, let us do it now!” LaRoque said. “But only on the condition that I not be singled out!” For the first time Kepler began to look unsure.
For Kepler’s benefit, deSilva ordered the entire base reduced to Mercurian gravity. The Control Center answered that the conversion would take about five minutes. She went on the intercom and announced the identity test to the crew and visitors, then left to supervise the preparations.
Those in the Telemetry Room began to drift out, on their way to the elevators. LaRoque kept close to Kepler and Martine, as if to demonstrate his eagerness to disprove the charges against him, his chin raised in an expression of high martyrdom.
The three of them, plus Jacob and two crewmen, were waiting for an elevator car when the gravity change happened. It was an ironic place for it to occur for it felt as if the floor had suddenly started to drop.
They were all used to changes in gravity — many places in Hermes Base were kept off Earth Gee. But usually the transition was through a stasis-controlled doorway, itself no more pleasant than this but, from familiarity, less disconcerting. Jacob swallowed hard and one of the crewmen staggered slightly. In a sudden violent motion LaRoque dove for the camera in Kepler’s hand. Marline gasped and Kepler grunted in surprise. The crewman who grabbed after the journalist got a fist in the face as LaRoque twisted like an acrobat and began to run backward down the hall, bringing up his recaptured camera. Jacob and the other crewman gave chase, instinctively.
There was a flash and a shooting pain in Jacob’s shoulder. Something in his mind spoke as he dove to avoid another stunner bolt. It said, “Okay, this is my job. I’m taking over now.”
He was standing in a hallway, waiting. It had been exciting, but now it was sheer hell. The passageway dimmed for a moment. He gasped and reached to steady himself on the rough wall as his vision cleared.
He was alone in a service corridor with a pain in his shoulder and the remnants of a deep, almost smug sense of satisfaction dissipating like a fading dream. He looked carefully around himself, then sighed.
“So you took over and thought you could handle it without me, didn’t you?” he grunted. The shoulder tingled as if it was just now coming awake.
How his other half had got loose Jacob had no idea, nor why it had tried to handle things without the main persona’s help. But it must have run into trouble to have given up now.
A sensation of resentment answered that thought. Mr. Hyde was sensitive about his limitations, but capitulation came at last.
Is that all? Full memory of the last ten minutes flooded back. He laughed. His amoral Self had been confronted by an insurmountable barrier.
Pierre LaRoque was in a room at the end of the hallway. Amid the chaos that followed his seizure of the camera-stunner only Jacob had been able to stay on a man’s trail, and he’d selfishly kept the stalk to himself.
He had played LaRoque like a trout, letting him think he’d eluded all pursuit. Once he even diverted a posse of base crewmen when they were getting too close. Now LaRoque was putting on a spacesuit in a tool closet twenty meters from an outer airlock. He’d been in there five minutes and it would take at least another ten for him to finish. That was the insurmountable barrier. Mr. Hyde couldn’t wait. He was only a collection of drives, not a person, and Jacob had all of the patience. He’d planned it that way.