“Since he had no heirs, I do.”
No heirs? Bian told me he had a wife and two children.”
“Yes, but the only son is still very young and cannot legally inherit.”
“What about the wife and daughter?”
F’tim seemed perplexed. “What about them?”
Rabinowitz paused to absorb that. “OK, that’s the way it slides. I’ll bet Bian didn’t know about that, or she’d have been trying to reform more than your eating habits. What happens to the family now that P’tar’houn-Hoc’s dead?”
“I inherit them as well,” F’tim said.
“Indeed?”
“It is a heavy responsibility. I already have a wife and child of my own to care for.”
“Do you get P’tar’houn-Hoc’s entire estate?”
“I inherit everything that was his.”
“I see.” She paused for a long moment, then decided to change the subject. “What about the room where P’tar’houn-Hoc was killed? I understand from Bian that it was a combination of dining room and office.”
“She would know better than I. I have never been there.”
“Would there be any reason for his children to be in there?”
“I don’t think so. There is a central room of the house where children are taught to eat, and once they are old enough to eat by themselves they are assigned their own private rooms.” F’tim seemed uncomfortable with the subject, so Rabinowitz decided to move on.
“I understand P’tar’houn-Hoc wanted to commission Bian to write a book about the politics of food on K’tolu’tan,” she said. “As his successor, do you plan to continue that commission?”
“I think it would be a worthwhile project, yes.”
“Is it a matter of personal interest to you?”
One of F’tim’s eyes wiggled on its stalk. “I think you are politely asking whether I share his interest in… public dining. That’s not a question I can answer easily. Yes, I am a member of the Food Society, and yes, I share its goal of removing the stigma of eating in public. But that is where the similarity ends. With P’tar’houn-Hoc, this eating was an obsession, a fetish, a passion to defy the standards of decent society. I believe for him the Food Society was a way to justify his perversions, a rationalization of his sickness.”
“I see… I think. But this isn’t the case for you.”
“Deborah, since I became old enough to feed myself, no one has ever seen me eat. I never took part in the Food Society’s ‘dinners.’ The very thought fills me with revulsion.”
“I’m a little confused. If you don’t like public eating, why are you in the Food Society? Was it just to please your boss?”
“No, though that was an additional benefit. I am… I don’t know, an idealist, a revolutionary, a futurist. I see my world becoming a self-imposed outcast of galactic civilization. K’tolu’tan has little contact and less trade with other worlds, and it is no one’s fault but our own. On all other worlds, eating is an everyday occurrence. People pay it little thought. Only on K’tolu’tan is it a monstrous perversion, and so we shut ourselves off. We pretend that if we have nothing to do with those other worlds, we don’t have to think about their disgusting habits.
“I believe we are cutting ourselves off from our future. There is much we can learn from other people, and perhaps a few unique things of our own we can share. We don’t have to surrender our own ways, but we must desensitize ourselves to the ways of others. I want Bian Dinh’s book, not as a piece of personal pornography, but as a manifesto for change.”
Rabinowitz laughed out loud. “You and Bian are a match made in heaven. I think you’ll enjoy one another thoroughly.”
Then she grew serious again. “Bian mentioned someone who gave a lot of speeches against P’tar’houn-Hoc, a conservative spokesman. She couldn’t remember his name.”
“Ah, yes. There is a prominent lecturer named simply K’anal’orb who has led many meetings against the sin of public mastication.”
“A lecturer?”
“I suppose this time I am the victim of poor translation. A social leader without an official position, a public moralist, a person of supposed rectitude. K’anal’orb draws large crowds to his lectures and spurs them to emotional frenzies with his appeals to traditional social values. There are those who would walk through a desert for him. Because our firm has published books about eating, we are one of his special targets. He has lectured many times against us, and mentioned P’tar’houn-Hoc often by name.”
“Sounds like an evangelist,” Rabinowitz said. “You consider this K’anal’orb a suspect, then?”
“He has called for P’tar’houn-Hoc’s destruction many times.”
“Which is why I have doubts about him as a suspect. Moralists love having a bad example around to point to. P’tar’houn-Hoc was too valuable to him alive. His death can only be milked for one or two sermons on the wages of sin before it becomes stale and K’anal’orb has to look for a new target.”
“Perhaps one of his followers became too enthusiastic.”
“ ‘Who will free me from this turbulent priest?’ Deja vu all over again,” Rabinowitz muttered, too quietly for the computer to pick up. “Can you think of anyone else with a motive?”
“No one to my knowledge.”
“Well, keep working on it. Meanwhile we’ve got a trial to worry about. How does Bian get herself a lawyer?”
F’tim stared silently for a few seconds. “I’m afraid there is yet another translation problem. What should Bian try to get?”
“Someone who is an expert on your legal system, who will represent her interests and defend her at the trial.”
“There are scholars who analyze important cases throughout history. We’ve even published some of their books. I suppose they are experts. But they don’t defend anyone.”
Rabinowitz started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “How do your trials operate?” she asked very slowly.
“The accused person is brought to an assembly hall. People who have complaints state them and the accused person tries to explain. When everyone who wants to has spoken, a vote is taken and the decision is rendered.”
“Who gets to vote?”
“Anyone who’s there.”
“Good Lord,” Rabinowitz muttered quietly, closing her eyes. “They may look like crabs, but it’s going to be a kangaroo court!”
“So you won’t believe I was just in the neighborhood and decided to drop in?” Detective Hoy asked.
“The Bay is a couple of blocks that way,” Rabinowitz said. “Drop in there.”
“How inhospitable. And just when I came all this way to help you.”
“The way you helped me by dumping this problem in my lap?”
“Excuse me? Who dumped what? I seem to remember a late night ‘life-or-death’ phone call. It’s not my old college chum trying to pervert the morals of an entire planet.”
“Look, I just learned what trials are like on K’tolu’tan and I’m feeling pretty crabby. I’m staging the Scottish play, I’m dreaming Richard III, and now I’ve got to go star in The Merchant of Venice. Not to mention any of my real work, which is hanging in midair while I juggle all the other pieces. I don’t have time to watch you practice your boyish charm.”
“Not even if I brought you something to help you?”
“Like a notarized confession from P’tar’houn-Hoc’s killer?”
“Maybe as good.” He took a paper from his jacket pocket. “This is the rental slip for the robot that attacked you the night of what’s-his-name’s murder. It was paid for from the account of someone named K’anal’orb. I understand he’s a high-soaring preacher or something.”
“Do the authorities on K’tolu’tan know about this?”