“I know that you, of course, are above such things. As a friend, though, I worried that you might, however unwittingly, be deceived by these clever criminals into performing acts that would certainly diminish you. I thought also you might know how to spread the word to your shorter colleagues, some of whom might yield to the great temptation. These criminals are unscrupulous, and would diminish anyone they dealt with.”
“Indeed,” Levexitor said. “I can understand only too well how someone, even the tallest among us, could momentarily be tempted by such offers, especially coming from tall sources.” There was another long pause. “Yes,” he finally continued, “and I can also understand the ultimate diminution you mentioned. To speak plainly, Ms. Rabinowitz—”
Levexitor stopped abruptly and turned. His head bent back as he looked upward. Then, uttering a small cry, he leaned forward against his work table and was very, very still.
“Highest? Highest?” The room was utterly quiet. Nothing moved, nothing made a noise. Rabinowitz glanced around. There was no one in the virtual room but Levexitor and her. And Levexitor wasn’t moving.
Rabinowitz stepped forward until she was right beside the large alien. She reached out to touch him. There was solidity, like touching a tree while wearing thick rubber gloves, but no more sensation than that. Levexitor’s projected body was as real as the walls—and no more animated.
She walked slowly around the room. Her footsteps made no sound. Levexitor made no sound. The only thing she heard was her own pulse flowing through her ears and the breathing she was trying to keep regulated.
It would do no good to call out to ask whether anyone was there. In this virtual space there was only her projection and Levexitor’s projection. Someone or something may have intruded in Levexitor’s real space, and might in fact still be there, but she could not see it.
Someone should be notified. She looked around the sparsely furnished room for some communications device. There did not seem to be any. Chalnas’s work desk was bare and featureless. There were some digital controls on Levexitor’s table, but he was sprawled across them and she couldn’t move him. Even if she could, the controls would not have been intuitive.
Levexitor’s body jerked back from the table suddenly. It was not a consciously controlled motion. As Rabinowitz watched, unseen hands played across the control panel on the desktop. Then the alien office suddenly blinked out of existence and she found herself back in her own veering room.
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and sat down on the lounger, trembling like a leaf. Her teeth actually chattered; she couldn’t remember doing that since she first read “The Telltale Heart” at age fourteen. She closed her eyes and tried to regulate her sudden gasps for breath.
Slowly, very slowly, she regained control. She forced her trembling lips to say, “Phone: San Francisco, Interpol, Detective Hoy.” In moments the detective’s smiling face appeared before her.
“What a pleasant surprise, Ms. Ra-binowitz,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you this soon.”
“Not pleasant,” she said. “Not at all. You’ll need to contact the authorities on Jenithar. Something just happened to Levexitor. I think he was murdered.”
“I feel like such an idiot,” Rabinowitz said. “I panicked like a dippy teenager. I was in no danger. He couldn’t have touched me—”
“You were present when someone’s life ended violendy,” Hoy said comfortingly from across the parlor desk. “Or at least, telepresent. I think it would be unnatural if you weren’t in shock.”
“He was right there with me,” Rabinowitz continued. “The murderer. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t hear him, I couldn’t touch him. But he was there all the same. He was in the real world and I was in a virtual one, but we had a common link—Levexitor. Do you think he saw me?”
Hoy paused. “Well, he might have monitored Levexitor’s computer without being in the space himself. Is your projected image true to life?”
“Basically. I’m pretty satisfied with the way I look.”
“Then that makes two of us.” Hoy gave her a broad smile.
“Thank you, detective. Every time I think you might not be a total grit, you politely disabuse me. I guess it doesn’t matter whether he saw me or not. Levexitor mentioned my name often enough. The killer must have been there all along. That explains Levexitor’s weird pauses. At least this means I’m off your suspect list.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no. You could have killed Levexitor yourself to cover your tracks once you knew I was getting suspicious.”
“You have a truly paranoid mind.”
“It’s a living. You’ve moved further down on the list, though.”
“Thank you.” Rabinowitz looked him straight in the eyes. “Who else is on that list? What kind of company am I keeping?”
“You needn’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
“If one of your suspects killed Levexitor and if he knows who I am, he may try to silence me. I have to protect myself. I’m still a witness, even if I didn’t see anything.”
Hoy was thoughtful. “Well, if you are guilty this won’t be any huge surprise to you. Jivin Rashtapurdi is definitely in the scheme somewhere.”
“The gangster?”
“No, the grocer. And we’re looking at another broker named Peter Whitefish. Know him?”
“I’ve had some dealings with him.”
“And your opinion of him?”
“He represents his clients in ways he feels are best for their interests.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning there’s such a thing as professional courtesy. Anyone else on the list?”
“There are some things I don’t choose to tell, either.”
“It’s a short list.”
“Women always say it’s the quality that counts, not the length.”
“We only do that out of pity. Any names on the outworld side?”
“I don’t investigate the outworld side, just ours. I’m Interpol, not IPC, remember?”
Rabinowitz stood up. “Well, it was nice of you to come over and hold my hand during my little panic attack—”
“I wish I really had held your hand. It might have been fun.”
“—But I really have had only two hours’ sleep in the past forty-two. My cranky-alarm goes off in another seven minutes, and you don’t want to be around when it does. Even my PMS-alarm pales by comparison.”
“Then I’ll try to catch you in a better mood sometime. The door’s this way, right?”
“You’re learning. That’s a hopeful sign.”
This time Rabinowitz got six hours’ sleep before a police official called.
“I just want to rent a body,” Rabinowitz said grumpily, “not get a bank loan.”
“There are strict laws,” the alien said. Jenitharp didn’t shrug, but the gesture from his virtual image was one of helplessness in the face of bureaucracy. “If I were to mistakenly give you the wrong size body, I would lose my license. And my government has strict laws against letting convicted felons telepresent themselves to Jenithar. Please answer all the questions.”
“Your police asked me to come. They want me to inspect a murder site.”
“Then it’s best to quickly complete this form.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to do this every time I visit Jenithar,” Rabinowitz muttered. “Veering is so much more civilized.”
She handed the clerk her standard bio datastar and checked to make sure the answers entered the proper fields. “Full name: Deborah Esther Rabinowitz. ID number: 5981-5523-5514-276-9467-171723. Date of birth: 17/46/3/22/54 interstellar. Education: first-level degree, University of California at Los Angeles, Interstellar Studies, second- and third-level degrees, Polyculturai Institute on Pna’Fath, Galactic Commercial Standards and Crosscultural Dynamics. Progenitors: Daniel Isaac Rabinowitz and Barbara Samuelson Rabinowitz. Father still living, mother deceased. Progenitors’ occupation(s): father, diplomat, plenipotentiary level, general assignment; mother, professor of comparative world literature, University of California at Los Angeles. Siblings: none. Offspring: none. Occupation: literary broker. Bank: Takashiro World Savings. Income—”