“I’ll look them up and find out if they can tell me anything about your final two months,” Risa said. “Which one should I begin with?”
—Stig. “Why?” — Because Claude’s got such an ominous face. He’s the kind of man who looks like a murderer. So we ought to begin with the less obvious suspect.
Risa was amused by that. But she humored Tandy; this entire enterprise struck Risa as frivolous, and so there was no point in trying to impose rational judgment on any segment of it. Murder was a rarity in the world Risa knew. Since everyone had a recent persona recording on file, and thus could be said always to be in transition from one carnate existence to the next, it was pointless to risk erasure by committing that crime. If you took life intentionally, your own recordings were destroyed and you were barred forever from participation in the rebirth program. Who would risk such a dread punishment? Why jeopardize one’s own eternal life for the sake of bringing a temporary interruption to another’s span?
Yet Tandy was convinced she had been murdered, doubtless because she could not accept the notion that some clumsiness of her own had led to her early death in the snows of St. Moritz. Risa dialed the master directory and requested information on the whereabouts of Stig Hollenbeck. To her surprise and relief, it turned out that Stig was currently living on his family estate just outside Stockholm. She placed a call to him the following morning, when it was early evening in Sweden.
His calm, appealing face smiled out of the screen at her, the eyes friendly, a little puzzled. He looked much like Tandy’s image of him, though younger and a trifle more lean.
“Yes?”
“I’m Risa Kaufmann. I’d like to talk to you about Tandy Cushing, if I might.”
He lowered his eyes. “Tandy, yes. A great tragedy. Were you a friend of hers?”
“I’ve obtained transplant of her persona.” Hollenbeck’s reaction was vivid: a sudden spasm of the muscles of the throat, a lifting of the eyes, a quick and involuntary turning of the head several inches to the left Risa, watching closely, wondered whether this was the response of a guilty man taken by surprise, or whether, perhaps, he simply was startled by the knowledge that Tandy’s persona was at large in the world again and looking at him through Risa’s eyes.
At length he said, “I had not heard that she was back.”
“Quite recently. Last week. She suggested I get in touch with you. There are questions I’d like to ask.”
“Very well. If I can be of any service—”
“Not by phone. May I visit you in Stockholm tomorrow?”
“As you wish. It would be a great pleasure for me to meet — ah — Tandy’s new friend. Shall you be coming from America?”
“From New York, yes.” As she spoke, Risa requested a timetable over her data line, and discovered there was space available on a flight leaving at nine the following morning. “We could have lunch together,” Risa said.
They arranged to meet at the airport. When she stepped through the immigration scanners, he was there, looking pale and rather more fragile than she had imagined. They embraced in the courtly manner prescribed between strangers at their first meeting. As he held her, he peered into her eyes, and it seemed to her that his cold blue eyes were trying to stare through her at the Tandy lurking within. A muscle throbbed in his cheek. Risa doubted that this man had committed murder.
—He’s changed, Tandy commented. He looks older, quieter. Almost shy.
“I have reserved a lunch for us,” he said to Risa. “My hopter is waiting.”
Within minutes they were in a sumptuous building many hundreds of years old that stood at the edge of a lovely park in metropolitan Stockholm. He had arranged for their meal to be served in a private chamber, upstairs, at the inn. At face value, that might seem to be an invitation to a seduction; but Risa sensed that he had no physical interest in her. She was good at detecting the radiations of desire, and there were none forthcoming from him. Evidently he preferred the more robust, fleshy physique of a Tandy. She wondered if he knew Elena Volterra.
A robot servitor brought them cold aquavit and tapering flasks of chilled golden beer. Then a table of delicacies was wheeled into their room, and she followed him about selecting bits of aromatic herring, snippets of smoked reindeer, lush strips of salmon. A huge window admitted a maximum of sunlight: a scarce commodity at this latitude, and so highly prized.
Tandy fluttered and palpitated within her. It excited her terribly to be in the presence of her former lover. She seemed eager to go to bed with him once more, even vicariously. Without speaking, Risa attempted to communicate to the persona Stig’s lack of yearning for her.
As they ate, Stig said, “You wish to ask questions about Tandy?”
“You were very close to her, weren’t you?” He smiled. “Surely you must know that I was.”
“Yes. I do. I’m sorry to have voiced the obvious. Can you tell me when you last saw her?”
“Last summer,” he said. “Some time before her-death.”
“How long before?”
“Let me think. In the spring we were together at Veracruz. April and part of May. Then she returned to Europe, to Monte Carlo and Claude. You know of Claude?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then. It must have been at the end of June that I saw her again.”
—After I made my last recording, said Tandy. “Where was this?” Risa asked. “We met in Lisbon. We traveled together as far as Stockholm, where I had family obligations. She continued on into Suomi — into Finland. I joined her there in mid-July. We journeyed through the arctic regions together, down to Kiev again, and flew to Zurich. In Zurich I left her. Several weeks later she was dead.”
“You didn’t see her at all after the end of last July?”
“Unhappily, no.” He indicated Risa’s empty plate. “Shall we proceed to the warm food, or do you wish more fish?”
“I’d like to try some of the other kinds of herring.”
“As do I.” He grinned, the first sign of warmth she had had from him. They filled fresh plates. At a signal, the robot produced more beer. Risa resisted more aquavit.
“About Tandy—”
“When she left me in Zurich, I understand she met Claude again. They went to St Moritz” His countenance darkened. “I did not hear of her death until October. I assumed she was still traveling with him.”
“What can you tell me about her death?”
“This is a wintry subject for such a sunny day.”
“Please,” Risa said. “It’s important for me to know. For — us to know. Don’t you see, Tandy has no information about it. Her last recording was made in June. She’s trying to reconstruct her final eight weeks, and particularly the events of her — of her death. Can you help?”
“As I say, my information is secondhand. I’m told she was skiing with Claude. They were on the high slope, making a rapid descent, one of the long jumps. She was crossing a crevasse, one hundred meters in the air. Suddenly her equipment failed. The gravity repulsors failed to hold. She fell. I understand they did not recover her body until the following week.”
Risa felt a quiver of shock. “I hope it was a swift death.”
“One can hope so, yes. They were silent. Risa saw Stig searching her face, and knew that he must still be seeking some way to speak through her, directly to Tandy. But of course it was a grievous breach of etiquette to address someone’s resident persona. One spoke only to the living, not to the merely carnate. Stig could not possibly commit a blunder so gross; yet clearly he ached to seize Risa’s arms and find himself embracing Tandy.