“Ah—there I can help you out,” Hubert said. “I’ve played cards with the Chief Engineer out at the control station every week for years.” He beamed at Heris, and she wanted to smack him. He was no substitute for Petris or Oblo. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies,” Hubert said. “I think a word with the Chief Engineer is necessary at this point. Perhaps he can be persuaded to take precautions—at least be ready to divert all power to the field—”
“Go ahead,” said Venezia, dismissing him with a wave. “Take care of it. We’re going back to the police.” She marched out. Heris wondered if she ought to go with the dapper little man—how reliable could someone in spats be?—but Cecelia beckoned to her.
“I know it’s dangerous,” Cecelia murmured to Heris. “I saw your expression. But we can’t do anything about it, and if this field-whatever doesn’t kill us, Venezia can do something about the worse problem which made this threat possible.” That made sense, though Heris wasn’t happy to be left out of the action.
By the time they made it back to the police station, both the hotel manager and the clinic had reported. In addition, a perspiring manager from the local corporate headquarters, bearing a bunch of flowers for Venezia. They began a low-voiced conversation while the others approached the front desk. The captain, still bleary-eyed but now depilated and in a clean shirt, glowered at them. “You’re complicating a very simple case,” he said. “I understand family feeling, but even the best families have bad apples—”
Heris could have told him this was the wrong approach.
“It would be a simple case, if you would listen to your prisoners,” Marta said.
“When my niece Ottala disappeared,” Venezia put in, looking away from the manager, “you found nothing.”
“There was nothing to find; there was no evidence.” Heris doubted that he had ever looked for any; the rapidity with which the young people had run into trouble argued for a superfluity of evidence somewhere nearby.
“I asked that girl Raffa to come here, to find out what happened to Ottala. I thought a girl could find a girl better than some man. And she did find out what happened, and it nearly happened to her, and now you’re ignoring it.” Venezia, who had seemed the most insignificant of the older ladies, now had the intensity Heris associated with weapons-grade lasers. Quite unlike the incandescent flash that was Cecelia’s anger, Venezia’s steady rancor seemed ready to cut its way through any obstacle.
“Just because someone is not Finnvardian, and not really a hotel employee, does not make them a spy or a murderer. Wearing contact lenses is not a crime—”
Stupid captain, Heris thought. He should back down now, before she cleaves him along a flaw he doesn’t recognize.
“Ah, so you now agree that one of the men was not Finnvardian,” Marta said, taking over from Venezia. Heris had to admire the tactic, and the way in which they passed the turn without any prior planning. “Do you know what he was?” The captain looked down. “Well?”
“He appears to have been a citizen of the Benignity of the Compassionate Hand,” the captain said, with understandable reluctance.
“A Benignity agent? Here?”
“I have no evidence that he was an agent. Merely a citizen—”
“A registered alien?”
“Well . . . no. He had been working in the factory for about three years—”
“Illegally,” Heris murmured; heads turned to look at her and she smiled. “I would consider that a Benignity citizen in disguise, not registered as an alien, and working in a critical industry for three years, was almost certainly an agent.”
“Everyone thought he was Finnvardian,” the captain muttered.
“Apparently,” Heris said.
“But he was murdered,” the captain said.
“By Finnvardians who discovered that he wasn’t. Who thought, perhaps, he was leading them astray.”
“George Mahoney had a gun in his hand—”
“And did that man die of gunshot wounds?”
“Well . . . no. He was stabbed. But there’s no evidence that the other individuals under arrest could not have stabbed him.”
“And I might have sung grand opera while hanging upside down in zero G,” Heris said, to no one in particular. “But I didn’t, despite the lack of evidence exonerating me.”
“What about the ones who ran away from the clinic,” Cecelia said. “Doesn’t that convince you they’re guilty?”
“Of pretending to be hotel employees, yes. But that’s hardly a major crime.”
“And the field generator?” Marta brought that up; Heris had been about to ask.
“Hasn’t failed yet. Won’t fail. Can’t fail. It’s—” The lights dimmed, flared again, and went out. In the darkness, Heris heard curses and cries, and between them the utter silence that meant no ventilation fans were turning, no compressors working, nothing electrical functioning at all. After too long a wait, dim orange emergency lights came on, and the reflective arrows painted on the floor to indicate the way out glowed against the dimness.
“Possible,” Heris said.
“It’s not—it’s something else—” But the captain was clearly shaken. Sirens began to hoot outside. The company manager stammered apologies, shook himself loose from Venezia, and bolted for the door.
“Let’s go,” Heris said to Cecelia.
“I’m not leaving without Ronnie,” Cecelia said. “No matter what.”
“Sir, we’ve got to evacuate the lower levels—” That was someone from the back; Heris couldn’t see the face.
“Very well,” the captain said. “Go on now—we’ll be bringing them all outside, just be patient.” But Cecelia and Marta and Venezia—and Heris—stood their ground until the prisoners came up, until they were sure that Raffa and Ronnie and George were safely above ground.
Outside, in the hot afternoon, the streets were full of sullen frightened people, more and more of them pouring out the entrances to all the buildings. Heris noticed a lot of pale, light-eyed Finnvardians. The police, after a despairing look at the aunts, gave up any pretense of guarding their young prisoners, and began moderately effective crowd-control efforts. At least they kept people moving away from the shore, away from the police station and hotel. Ronnie and George leaned against the wall, and Raffa leaned against Ronnie; the aunts pursed their lips but said nothing.
“Are all the factories underground?” Heris asked Venezia.
“I suppose,” Venezia said. “I know some of them are. I never really—that is, my brothers were in charge, you see, after Papa died. They never wanted to talk to me about business. And of course if you do have underground facilities, Finnvardians are an efficient work force.”
“I hope that nice little man in the suit didn’t get hurt,” Cecelia said.
“I hope that nice little man in the suit wasn’t a mad bomber,” muttered Heris. The rosebud and spats had done nothing to reassure her. The main field hadn’t blown, or they’d all be dead, but something had gone very wrong. A misplaced charge could cause sudden loss of power, then field fluctuation and restabilization in another configuration. She could easily imagine Michaelson in the role of inept saboteur or not-quite-rescuer.