“You were un-der stress. Doct-or Mar-tin says so.
Yes?” Bubbacub turned to Marline. Her hands gripped each other whitely but she said nothing.
“We’ll get to that in a few minutes,” Jacob said. “But before we start I’d like to have a private word with Dr. Kepler and Mr. LaRoque.”
Dr. Laird and his assistant moved away politely. Bubbacub glared at being forced to move, but followed suit.
Jacob passed around the back of the sofa. As he bent over between the two men his hand went behind his back. Donaldson leaned forward and placed a small object there which Jacob held tightly.
Jacob looked alternately at Kepler and LaRoque.
“I think you two should cut it out. Especially you, Dr. Kepler.”
Kepler hissed. “What in god’s name are you talking about?”
“I think you have some property of Mr. LaRoque’s. No matter that he got it illegally. He wants it badly. Badly enough to temporarily take a rap he knows won’t stick. Maybe enough to change the tone of the articles he’s certain to write about all this.
“I don’t think the deal will hold anymore. You see, I have the item now.”
“My camera!” LaRoque whispered harshly. His eyes shone.
“Quite a little camera, too. A complete little sonic spectrograph. Yes, I have it. I also have the copies of recordings you made that were hidden in Dr. Kepler’s rooms.”
“You t-traitor,” Kepler stammered. “I thought you were a friend…”
“Shut up, you skinny bastard!” LaRoque almost shouted. “You are the one who is a traitor.” Contempt seemed to boil from the little writer like steam over-long contained.
Jacob laid a hand on the back of each man. “Both of you will be on no-return orbits if you don’t keep your voices down! LaRoque can be charged with espionage and Kepler for blackmail and complicity after the fact in espionage!
“In fact, since the evidence of LaRoque’s espionage is also circumstantial evidence that he wouldn’t have had time to sabotage Jeffrey’s ship, the immediate suspicion would fall on the last person to inspect the ship’s generators. Oh I don’t think you did it, Dr. Kepler. But I’d be careful if I were you!”
LaRoque fell silent. Kepler chewed on the end of his moustache.
“What do you want?” he said finally.
Jacob tried to resist but the suppressed side was now too much awake. He couldn’t help making a little dig.
“Why, I’m not sure yet. Maybe I’ll think of something. Just don’t let your imagination go wild. Friends of mine on Earth know everything by now.”
It wasn’t true. But Mr. Hyde did believe in caution.
Helene deSilva strained to overhear what the three men were saying to each other. If she had been one to believe in possession she would have been sure the “familiar faces were moving at the command of invading spirits. Gentle Dr. Kepler, turned taciturn and secretive since their return from the Sun, muttered like a wrathful sage denied his will. LaRoque — thoughtful, cautious — behaved as if his whole world hinged on a careful assessment of affairs.
And Jacob Demwa… earlier glimpses hinted at a charisma beneath his quiet, sometimes watery thoughtfulness. It had drawn her even as it frustrated in its peek-a-boo appearances. But now, now it radiated. It compelled like a flame.
Jacob stood straight and announced, “For now, Dr. Kepler has kindly agreed to drop all charges against Pierre LaRoque.”
Bubbacub rose from his cushion. “You are mad. If hu-mans condone the kill-ing of their cli-ents, that is their own prob-len?. But the Sun-Men may bend him to do harm a-gain!”
“The Sun-Men never bent him to do anything.” Jacob said slowly.
Bubbacub snapped. “As I said, you are mad. I spoke with the Sun-Men. They did not lie.”
“If you wish,” Jacob bowed. “But I still would like to continue with my synopsis.”
Bubbacub snorted, loudly and threw himself again on the cushion. “Mad!” he snapped.
“First,” Jacob said. “I would like to thank Dr. Kepler for his gracious permission for Chief Donaldson and Dr. Martine and myself to visit the Photo Labs and study the films from the last dive.”
At the mention of Marline’s name, Bubbacub’s expression changed. So that’s what chagrin looks like on a Pil, Jacob thought. He empathized with the little alien. It had been a beautiful trap, now entirely defused.
Jacob told an edited version of their discovery in the Photo Lab, that the flipside spools of the last third of the mission were missing. The only other sound in the room was the tinkling of Fagin’s branches.
“For a while, I wondered where these spools could be. I had an idea who took them, but whether he had destroyed them or taken the chance of hiding them I wasn’t sure. Finally, I decided to gamble that a ‘data-packrat’ never throws anything away. I searched a certain sophont’s quarters and found the missing spools.”
“You dared!” Bubbacub hissed. “If you had prop-er mas-ters I would have you nerve whipped! You dared!”
Helene shook away her surprise. “You mean you admit that you hid Sundiver datatapes, Pil Bubbacub? Why!”
Jacob grinned. “Oh that will become clear. In fact the way this case was going, I thought for sure it would be more complicated than it is. But it’s actually quite simple. You see, these tapes make it very clear that Pil Bubbacub has lied.”
A low rumbling rose in Bubbacub’s throat. The little alien stood very still as if he didn’t trust himself to move.
“Well, where are the tapes?” deSilva demanded.
Jacob picked up the sack from the table.
“I’ve got to give the devil his due, though. It was only luck that I figured the spools would just fit into an empty gas cannister.” He pulled out an object and held it up.
“The Lethani relic!” DeSilva gasped. A small trill of surprise escaped Fagin. Mildred Martine stood up, her hand brought to her throat.
“Yes, the Lethani relic. I’m sure Bubbacub counted on a reaction like yours on the obscure chance that his rooms were searched. Naturally, no one would think of disturbing a semi-religious object-of-reverence of an old and powerful race; particularly one that looked like nothing but a slab of meteoric rock and glass!’”
He turned it over in his hands.
“Now watch!”
The relic opened with a twist. A can of some sort was imbedded in one of the halves. Jacob laid the other half down and tugged at the end of the can. Something inside rattled softly. The can suddenly came loose and a dozen small black objects came rolling out and fell to the floor. Culla’s mashies clacked.
“The spools!” LaRoque nodded with satisfaction as he fumbled with his pipe.
“Yes,” Jacob said. “And on the outer surface of this ‘relic’ you can find the button which released the previous contents of this now-empty canister. There appear to be some traces left inside. I’ll bet anything that they match the substance that Chief Donaldson and I gave Dr. Kepler yesterday when we failed to convince…” Jacob stopped himself. Then he shrugged. “…Traces of an unstable monomolecule which, under a certain sophont’s skillful control, spread out in a ‘burst of light and sound’ to coat the inner surface of the upper hemisphere of the shell of the Sun-ship…”
DeSilva rose to her feet. Jacob had to speak louder to overcome the rising chatter coming from Culla.
“…and to effectively block out all green and blue light — the only wavelengths in which we could pick out the Sun Ghosts from their surroundings!”
“The spools!” deSilva cried. “They should show…’”
“They do show toroids, Ghosts… hundreds of them! Interestingly there were no anthropoid shapes, but perhaps they didn’t make them because our psi patterns indicated we weren’t seeing them.