“I told you before, I never heard of Warfarin! First the Doctor and then you on the Sunship. Why does everybody think I’m a poisoner!”
“I don’t. But I do think that you’d better cooperate if you want to help us get to the bottom of this. Now you’ve got the keys to Kepler’s rooms, right?”
Martine bit her lip, then nodded once.
Jacob told Donaldson what to look for and what to do with it when he found it. Then he was off, running in the direction of the E.T. Quarters.
19. IN THE PARLOR
“You mean Jacob called this meeting and he isn’t even here?” Helene deSilva asked from the doorway.
“I should not be concerned, Commandant deSilva. He shall arrive. I have never known Mister Demwa to call a meeting that was not well’ worth the time of attending.”
“Indeed!” LaRoque laughed from one end of the large sofa, with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He spoke sarcastically around the stem of his pipe, and through a haze of smoke. “And why not? What else have we to do here? The ‘research’ is over, and the studies are done. The Ivory Tower has collapsed in arrogance and it is the month of the long knives. Let Demwa take his time. Whatever he has to say will be more amusing than watching all these serious faces!”
Dwayne Kepler grimaced from the other end of the sofa. He sat as far from LaRoque as he possibly could. Nervously, he twitched aside the lap blanket a med-aid had just finished adjusting. The med-aid looked up to the physician, who just shrugged.
“Shut up, LaRoque,” Kepler said.
LaRoque merely grinned and took out a tool to work on his pipe. “I still think I should have a recording device. Knowing Demwa, this may be historic.”
Bubbacub snorted and turned away. He had been pacing. Uncharacteristically he hadn’t gone near any of the cushions scattered around the carpeted room. The Pil stopped in front of Culla, standing by the wall, and clicked his quadrilaterally symmetric fingers in a complicated pattern. Culla nodded.
“I am instructed to shay that enough tragedy has occurred because of Mishter LaRoquesh recording de-vishesh. Also Pil Bubbacub hash indicated that he will not remain pasht another five minutes.”
Kepler ignored the statement. Methodically, he rubbed his neck as if searching for an itch. A lot of the fleshiness had departed in recent weeks.
LaRoque raised his shoulders once in a gallic shrug. Fagin was silent. Not even the silvery chimes moved at the ends of his blue-green branches.
“Come on in and sit down, Helene,” the physician said. “I’m sure the others will be here soon.” With his eyes he commiserated. Walking into this room was like wading into a pool of very cold and not very clean water.
She found a seat as far from the-others as possible. Unhappily, she wondered what Jacob Demwa was up to.
I hope it’s not the same thing, she thought. If this group in here has anything in common, it’s the fact that they don’t even want the word “Sundiver” mentioned. They’re just on the edge of tearing each others’ throats out, but all the same there’s this conspiracy of silence. She shook her head. I’m glad this tour is over soon. Maybe things will be better in another fifty years.
She didn’t hold out much hope for that. Already the only place you could hear a Beatles tune performed was by a symphony orchestra, of all the monstrosities. And good jazz didn’t exist outside of a library. Why did I ever leave home?
Mildred Martine and Chief Donaldson entered. To Helene, their attempts to look nonchalant were pathetic, but no one else seemed to notice.
Interesting. I wonder what those two have in common? They looked around the room and then edged toward a corner behind the only sofa, where Kepler and LaRoque and the tension between them occupied all of the space. LaRoque looked up at Martine and smiled. Was that a conspirational wink? Martine avoided his eye and LaRoque looked disappointed. He returned to lighting his pipe.
“I have had e-nough!” Bubbacub announced finally, and he turned for the door. But before he got there it swung open, apparently on its own. Then Jacob Demwa appeared in the doorway, a white canvas sack over his shoulder. He entered the room whistling softly. Helene blinked unbelievingly. The tune sounded awfully like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” But surely…
Jacob swung the bag into the air. It came down on the coffee table with a bang that made Dr. Martine jump halfway out of her chair. Kepler’s frown deepened and he gripped the arm of the sofa.
Helene couldn’t help it. The anachronistic, homely old tune, the loud noise, and Jacob’s demeanor broke the wall of tension like a custard pie in the face of someone you didn’t particularly like. She laughed. Jacob winked once. “Ho ho.”
“Are you here to play?” Bubbacub demanded. “You steal my time! Comp-en-sate!”
Jacob smiled. “Why certainly, Pil Bubbacub. I hope that you will be edified by my demonstration. But first, won’t you please be seated?”
Bubbacub’s jaws snapped together. The small black eyes seemed to burn for a moment, then he snorted and threw himself onto a nearby cushion.
Jacob studied the faces in the room. The expressions were mostly confused or hostile, except for LaRoque, who remained pompously aloof, and Helene, who smiled uncertainly. And Fagin, of course. For the thousandth time he wished the Kanten had eyes.
“When Dr. Kepler invited me to Mercury,” he began, “I had some doubts about the Sundiver Project, but approved of the idea overall. After that first meeting I expected to become involved in one of the most exciting events since Contact… a complex problem of interspecies relations with our nearest and strangest neighbors, the Sun Ghosts.
“Instead, the problem of the Solarians seems to have taken back burner to a complicated web of interstellar intrigue and murder.”
Kepler looked up sadly. “Jacob, please. We all know you’ve been under a strain. Millie thinks we should be kind to you and I agree. But there are limits.”
Jacob spread his hands. “If kindness is humoring me, then please do so. I’m sick of being ignored. If you don’t listen, I’m sure the Earth authorities will.”
Kepler’s smile froze. He sat back. “Go ahead, then. I’ll listen.”
Jacob stepped onto the broad throw rug in the center of the room.
“First: Pierre LaRoque has consistently denied killing Chimp Jeffrey or using his stunner to sabotage the smaller Sunship. He denies having ever been a Probationer and claims that the records on Earth have somehow been fouled up.
“Yet, since our return from the Sun he has consistently refused to take a P-test, which might go a long way toward proving his innocence. Presumably he expects that the results of the test would also be falsified.”
“That’s right,” LaRoque nodded. “Just another lie.”
“Even if Physician Laird, Dr. Martine and I jointly supervised?”
LaRoque grunted. “It might prejudice my trial, especially if I decide to sue.”
“Why go to trial? You had no motive to kill Jeffrey when you opened the access plate to the R.Q. tuner…”
“Which I deny doing!”
“…and only a Probie would kill a man in a fit of pique. So why stay in detention?”
“Maybe he’s comfortable here,” the med-aid commented. Helene frowned. Discipline had gone straight to hell lately, along with morale.
“He refuses the test because he knows he’ll fail!” Kepler shouted.
“That is why the Sun-Men chose him to do their kill-ing,” Bubbacub added. “That is what they told me.”
“And am I a Probationer? Some people seem to think the Ghosts made me try to commit suicide.”