ARM


by Larry Niven


	The ARM building had been abnormally quiet for some months now.
	Wed needed the restat first. But these last few mornings the Silence had had an edgy quality. We waved at each other on our paths to our respective desks, but our heads were elsewhere. Some of us had a restless look. Others were visibly, determinedly busy.
	Nobody wanted to join a mother hunt.
	This past year wed managed to cut deep into the organlegging activities in the West Coast area. Pats on the back all around, but the results were predictable: other activities were going to increase. Sooner or later the newstapers would start screaming about stricter enforcement of the Fertility Laws, and then wed all be out hunting down illegitimate parentsall of us who were not involved in something else.
	It was high time I got involved in something else.
	This morning I walked to my office through the usual edgy silence. I ran coffee from the spigot, carried it to my desk, punched for messages at the computer terminal. A slender file slid from the slot. A hopeful sign. I picked it upone-handed, so that I could sip coffee as I went through itand let it fall open in the middle.
	Color holographs jumped out at me. I was looking down through a pair of windows over two morgue tables.
	Stomach to brain: LURCH! What a hell of an hour to be looking at people with thefr faces burned off! Get eyes to look somewhere else, and dont try to swallow that coffee. Why dont you change jobs?
	They were hideous. Two of them, a man and a woman. Something had burned their faces away, down to the skulls and beyondbones and teeth charred, brain tissue cooked.
	I swallowed and kept looking. Id seen the dead before. These had just hit me at the wrong time.
	Not a laser weapon, I thought. . . though that was chancy. There are thousands of jobs for lasers, and thousands of varieties to do the jobs. Not a hand laser, anyway. The pencil-thin beam of a hand laser would have chewed channels in the flesh. This had been a wide, steady beam of some kind.
	I ifipped back to the beginning and skimmed.
	Details: Theyd been found on the Wilshire slidewalk in West Los Angeles around 4:30 A.M. People dont use the slidewalks that late. Theyre afraid of organleggers. The bodies could have traveled up to a couple of miles before anyone saw them.
	Preliminary autopsy: theyd been dead three or four days. No signs of drugs or poisons or puncture marks. Apparently the burns had been the only cause of death.
	It must have been quick, thena single flash of energy. Otherwise theyd have tried to dodge, and thered be bums elsewhere. There were none. Just the faces, and char marks around the collars.
	There was a memo from Bates, the coroner. From the looks of them, they might have been killed by some new weapon. So hed sent the file over to us. Could we find anything in the ARM files that would fire a blast of heat or light a foot across?
	I sat back and stared into the holos and thought about it.
	A light weapon with a beam a foot across? They make lasers in that size, but as war weapons, used from orbit. One of those would have vaporized the heads, not charred them.
	There were other possibilities. Death by torture, with the heads held in clamps in the blast from a commercial attitude jet. Or some kind of weird industrial accidenta flash explosion that had caught them both looking over a desk or something. Or even a laser beam reflected from a convex mirror.
	Forget about its being an accident. The way the bodies were abandoned reeked of guilt, of something to be covered up. Maybe Bates was right. A new, illegal weapon.
	And I could be deeply involved in searching for it when the mother hunt started.


	The ARM, the police branch of the United Nations, has three basic functions. We hunt organleggersdealers in illicit transplants, who get their raw material through murder. We monitor world
technologynew developments that might create new weapons or that might affect the world economy or the balance of power among nations. And we enforce the Fertifity Laws.
	Come, let us be honest with ourselves. Of the three, protecting the Fertility Laws is probably the most important.
	Organleggers dont aggravate the population problem.
	Monitoring of technology is necessary enough, but it may have happened too late. There are enough fusion power plants and fusion rocket motors and fusion crematoriums and fusion seawater distilleries around to let any madman or group thereof blow up the Earth or any selected part of it.
	But if a lot of people in one region started having illegal babies, the rest of the world would scream. Some nations might even get mad enough to abandon population control. Then what? Weve got eighteen billion on Earth now. We couldnt handle more.
	So the mother hunts are necessary. But I hate them. Its no fun hunting down some poor sick woman so desperate to have children that shell go through hell to avoid her six-month contraceptive shots. Ill get out of it if I can.
	I did some obvious things. I sent a note to Bates at the coroners office: Send all further details on the autopsies, and let me know if the corpses are identified. Retina prints and brain-wave patterns were obviously out, but they might get something on gene patterns and fingerprints.
	I spent some time wondering where two bodies had been kept for three to four days, and why, before being abandoned in a way that could have been used three days earlier. But that was a problem for the LAPD detectives. Our concern was with the weapon.
	So I started writing a search pattern for the computer: find me a widget that will fire a beam of a given description. From the pattern of penetration into skin and bone and brain tissue, there was probably a way to express the frequency of the light as a function of the duration of the blast, but I didnt fool with that. Id pay for my laziness later, when the computer handed me a foot-thick list of lightemitting machinery and I had to wade through it.
	I had punched in the instructions and was relaxing with more coffee and a cigarette, when Ordaz called.

	Julio Ordaz was a slender, dark-skinned man with straight black hair and soft black eyes. He was a detective inspector of homicide in the Los Angeles Police. The first time I saw him in a phone screen,
he had been telling me of a good friends murder. Two years later I still ifinched when I saw him.
	Hello, Julio. Business or pleasure?
	Business, Gil. It is to be regretted.
	Yours or mine?
	Both. There is murder involved, but there is also a machine.
Look, can you see it behind me? Ordaz stepped out of the field of view, then reached invisibly to turn the phone camera.
	I looked into somebodys living room. There was a wide circle of discoloration in the green indoor-grass rug. In the center of the circle, a machine and a mans body.
	Was Julio putting me on? The body was old, half-mummified. The machine was big and cryptic in shape, and it glowed with a subdued eerie blue light.
	Ordaz sounded serious enough. Have you ever seen anything like this?
	No. Thats some machine. Unmistakably an experimental device
no neat plastic case, no compactness, no assembly-line welding. Too complex to examine through a phone camera, I decided. Yah, that looks like something for us. Can you send it over?
	Ordaz came back on. He was smiling, barely. Im afraid we cannot do that. Perhaps you should send someone here to look at it.
	Where are you now?
	In Raymond Sinclairs apartment on the top floor of the Rodewald Building in Santa Monica.
	Ill come myself, I said. My tongue suddenly felt thick.
	Please land on the roof. We are holding the elevator for examination.
	Sure. I hung up.
	Raymond Sinclair!
	Id never met Raymond Sinclair. He was something of a recluse. But the ARM had dealt with him once, in connection with one of his inventions, the FyreStop device. And everyone knew that he had lately been working on an interstellar drive. It was only a rumor, of course, but if someone had killed the brain that held that secret . .
	I went.
	The Rodewald Building was forty stories of triangular prism with a row of triangular balconies going up each side. The balconies stopped at the thirty-eighth floor.
	The roof was a garden. There were rosebushes in bloom along one edge, full-grown elms nestled in ivy along another, and a miniature
forest of bonsai trees along the third. The landing pad and carport were in the center. A squad car was floating down ahead of my taxi. It landed, then slid under the carport to give me room to land.
	A cop in vivid orange uniform came out to watch me come down. I couldnt tell what he was carrying until I had stepped out. It was a deep-sea fishing pole, still in its kit.
	He said, May I see some ID, please?
	I had my ARM ident in my hand. He checked it in the console in the squad car, then handed it back. The inspectors waiting downstairs, he said.
	Whats the pole for?
	He smiled suddenly, almost secretively. Youll see.
	We left the garden smells via a ifight of concrete stairs. They led down into a small room half full of gardening tools, on the far side of which was a heavy door with a spy-eye in it. Ordaz opened the door for us. He shook my hand briskly, glanced at the cop. You found something? Good.
	The cop said, Theres a sporting-goods store six blocks from here. The manager let me borrow it. He made sure I knew the name of the store.
	Yes, there will certainly be publicity on this matter. Come, Gil . . . Ordaz took my arm. You should examine this before we turn it off.
	No garden smells here, but there was somethinga whiff of something long deadthat the air-conditioning hadnt quite cleared away. Ordaz walked me into the living room.
	It looked like somebodys idea of a practical joke.
	The indoor grass covered Sinclairs living-room floor, wall-to-wall. In a perfect fourteen-foot circle between the sofa and the fireplace, the rug was brown and dead. Elsewhere it was green and thriving.
	A mans mummy, dressed in stained slacks and turtleneck, lay on its back in the center of the circle. At a guess, it had been about six months dead. It wore a big digital wristwatch with extra dials on the face and a fine mesh platinum band, loose now around a wrist of bones and brown skin. The back of the skull had been smashed open, possibly by the classic blunt instrument lying next to it.
	If the fireplace was falseand it almost had to be; nobody burns woodthe fireplace instruments were genuine nineteenth- or twentieth-century antiques. The rack was missing a poker. A poker lay inside the circle, in the dead grass next to the disintegrating mummy.
	The glowing goldberg device sat just in the center of the magic circle.
	I stepped forward, and a mans voice spoke sharply. Dont go inside that circle of rug. Its more dangerous than it looks.
	It was a man I knewOfficer-One Vaipredo, a tall man with a small, straight mouth and a long, narrow Italian face.
	Looks dangerous enough to me, I said.
	It is. I reached in there myself, Valpredo told me, right after we got here. I thought I could ifip the switch off. My whole arm went numb. Instantly. No feeling at all. I yanked it away fast, but for a minute or so after that, my whole arm was dead meat. I thought Id lost it. Then it was all pins and needles, like Id slept on it.
	The cop who had brought me in had almost finished assembling the deep-sea fishing pole.
	Ordaz waved into the circle. Well? Have you ever seen anything like this?
	I shook my head, studying the violet-glowing machinery. Whatever it is, its brand-new. Sinclairs really done it this time.
	An uneven line of solenoids was attached to a plastic frame with homemade joins. Blistered spots on the plastic showed where other objects had been attached and later removed. A breadboard bore masses of heavy wiring. There were six big batteries hooked in parallel, and a strange, heavy piece of sculpture in what looked like pure silver, with wiring attached at three curving points. The silver was tarnished almost black, and there were old file marks at the edges.
	Near the center of the arrangement, just in front of the silver sculpture, were two concentric solenoids embedded in a block of clear plastic. They glowed blue, shading to violet. So did the batteries. A less perceptible violet glow radiated from everywhere on the machine, more intensely in the interior parts.
	That glow bothered me more than anything else. It was too theatrical. It was like something a special-effects man might add to a cheap late-night thriller to suggest a mad scientists laboratory.
	I moved around to get a closer look at the dead mans watch.
	Keep your head out of the field! Valpredo said sharply.
	I nodded. I squatted on my heels outside the borderline of dead grass.
	The dead mans watch was going like crazy. The minute hand was circling the dial every seven seconds or so. I couldnt find the second hand at all.
	I backed away from the arc of dead grass and stood up. Inter-
stellar drive, hell. This blue-glowing monstrosity looked more like a time machine gone wrong.
	I studied the single throw switch welded to tile plastic frame next to the batteries. A length of nylon line dangled from the horizontal handle. It looked like someone had tugged the switch on from outside the field by using the line; but hed have had to hang from the ceiling to tug it off that way.
	I see why you couldnt send it over to ARM headquarters. You cant even touch it. You stick your arm or your head in there for a second, and thats ten minutes without a blood supply.
	Ordaz said, Exactly.
	It looks like you could reach in there with a stick and flip that switch off.
	Perhaps. We are about to try that. He waved at the man with the fishing pole. There was nothing in this room long enough to reach the switch. We had to send
	Wait a minute. Theres a problem.
	He looked at me. So did the cop with the fishing pole.
	That switch could be a self-destruct. Sinclair was supposed to be a secretive bastard. Or the. . . field might hold considerable potential energy. Something might go blooey.
	Ordaz sighed. We must risk it. Gil, we have measured the rotation of the dead mans wristwatch. One hour per seven seconds. Fingerprints, footprints, laundry marks, residual body odor, stray eyelashesall disappearing at an hour per seven seconds. He gestured, and the cop moved in and began trying to hook the switch.
	Already we may never know just when he was killed, said Ordaz.
	The tip of the pole wobbled in large circles, steadied beneath the switch, made contact. I held my breath. The pole bowed. The switch snapped up, and suddenly the violet glow was gone. Valpredo reached into the field warily, as if the air might be red-hot. Nothing happened, and he relaxed.
	Then Ordaz began giving orders, and quite a lot happened. Two men in lab coats drew a chalk outline around the mummy and the poker. They moved the mummy onto a stretcher, put the poker in a plastic bag, and put it next to the mummy.
	I said, Have you identified that?
	Im afraid so, said Ordaz. Raymond Sinclair had his own autodoc.
	Did he? Those things are expensive.
	Yes. Raymond Sinclair was a wealthy man. He owned the top two floors of this building, and the roof. According to records in his doc, he had a new set of bud teeth implanted two months ago. Ordaz pointed to the mummy, to the skinned-back dry lips and the buds of new teeth that were just coming in.
	Right. That was Sinclair.
	That brain had made miracles, and someone had smashed it with a wrought-iron rod. The intersteller drivethat glowing goldberg device? Or had it been still inside his head?
	I said, Well have to get whoever did it. Well have to. Even so . . . Even so. No more miracles.
	We may have her already, Julio said.
	I looked at him.
	There is a girl in the autodoc. We think she is Dr. Sinclairs greatniece.

	It was a standard drugstore autodoc, a thing like a giant coffin with walls a foot thick and a headboard covered with dials and red and green lights. The girl lay face-up, her face calm, her breathing shallow. Sleeping Beauty. Her arms were in the guts of the doc, hidden by bulky rubbery sleeves.
	She was lovely enough to stop my breath. Soft brown hair showing around the electrode cap; small, perfect nose and mouth; smooth pale-blue skin shot with silver threads.
	That last was an evening dye job. Without it the impact of her would have been much lessened. The blue shade varied slightly to emphasize the shape of her body and the curve of her cheekbones. The silver lines varied too, being denser in certain areas, guiding the eye in certain directionsto the tips of her breasts, or across the slight swell of abdominal muscle to a lovely oval navel.
	Shed paid high for that dye job. But she would be beautiful without it.
	Some of the headboard lights were red. I punched for a readout, and was jolted. The doc had been forced to amputate her right arm. Gangrene.
	She was in for a hell of a shock when she woke up.
	All right, I said. Shes lost her arm. That doesnt make her a killer.
	Ordaz asked, If she were homely, would it help?
	1 laughed. You question my dispassionate judgment? Men have
died for less! Even so, I thought he could be right. There was good reason to think that the killer was now missing an arm.
	What do you think happened here, Gil?
	Well . . . any way you look at it, the killer had to want to take Sinclairs . . . ah . . . time machine with him. Its priceless, for one thing. For another, it looks like he tried to set it up as an alibi. Which means that he knew about it before he came here. Id been thinking this through. Say he made sure some people knew where he was a few hours before he got here. He killed Sinclair within range of the
	call it a generator. Turned it on. He figured Sinclairs own watch would tell him how much time he was gaining. Afterward he could set the watch back and leave with the generator. Thered be no way the police could tell that Sinclair wasnt killed six hours earlier, or any number you like.
	Yes. But he did not do that.
	There was that line hanging from the switch. He must have turned it on from outside the fieldprobably because he didnt want to sit with the body for six hours. after hed turned it on, hed bump his nose. Itd be like trying to walk through a wall, going from field time to normal time. So he turned it off, stepped out of range, and used that nylon line to turn it on again. He probably made the same mistake Valpredo did: he thought he could step back in and turn it off.
	Ordaz nodded in satisfaction. Exactly. It was very important for himor herto do that. Otherwise he would have no alibi and no profit. If he continued to try to reach into the field
	Yah, he could lose the arm to gangrene. Thatd be convenient for us, wouldnt it? Hed be easy to find. But, look, Julio, the girl could have done the same thing to herself trying to help Sinclair. He might not have been that obviously dead when she got home.
	He might even have been alive, Ordaz pointed out.
	I shrugged.
	In point of fact, she came home at one-ten, in her own car, which is still in the carport. There are cameras mounted to cover the landing pad and carport. Dr. Sinclairs security was thorough. This girl was the only arrival last night. There were no departures.
	From the roof, you mean.
	Gil, there are only two ways to leave these apartments. One is from the roof, and the other is by elevator, from the lobby. The elevator is on this floor, and it was turned off. It was that way when we
arrived. There is no way to override that control from elsewhere in this building.
	So someone could have taken it up here and turned it off afterward . . . or Sinclair could have turned it off before he was killed. . . . I see what you mean. Either way, the killer has to be still here. I thought about that. I didnt like its taste. No, it doesnt fit. How could she be bright enough to work out that alibi, then dumb enough to lock herself in with the body?
	Ordaz shrugged. She locked the elevator before killing her greatuncle. She did not want to be interrupted. Surely that was sensible? After she hurt her arm, she must have been in a great hurry to reach the doe.
	One of the red lights turned green. I was glad for that. She didnt look like a kifier. I said, half to myself, Nobody looks like a killer when hes asleep.
	No. But she is where a killer ought to be. Qu lstima.

	We went back to the living room. I called ARM headquarters and had them send a truck.
	The machine hadnt been touched. While we waited I borrowed a camera from Valpredo and took pictures of the setup in situ. Relative positions of the components might be important.
	The lab men were in the brown grass using aerosol sprays to turn fingerprints white and give a vivid yellow glow to faint traces of blood. They got plenty of fingerprints on the machine, none at all on the poker. There was a puddle of yellow in the grass where the mummys head had been, and a long yellow snail track ending at the business end of the poker. It looked like someone had tried to drag the poker out of the field after it had fallen.
	Sinclairs apartments were roomy and comfortable and occupied the entire top floor. The lower floor was the laboratory where Sinclair had produced his miracles. I went through it with Valpredo. It wasnt that impressive. It looked like an expensive hobby setup. These tools would assemble components already fabricated, but they would not build anything complex.
	Except for the computer terminal. That was like a little womb, with a recline chair inside a 360-degree wraparound holovision screen and enough banked controls to fly the damn thing to Alpha Centaurus.
	The secrets there must be in that computer! But I didnt try to use
it. Wed have to send an ARM programmer to break whatever failsafe codes Sinclair had put in the memory banks.
	The truck arrived. We dragged Sinclairs legacy up the stairs to the roof in one piece. The parts were sturdily mounted on their frame, and the stairs were wide and not too steep.
	I rode home in the back of the truck. Studying the generator. That massive piece of silver had something of the look of Bird in Flight a triangle operated on by a topology student, with wires at what were still the corners. I wondered if it was the heart of the machine, or just a piece of misdirection. Was I really riding with an interstellar drive? Sinclair could have started that rumor himself, to cover . . . whatever this was. Or . . . there was no law against his working two projects simultaneously.
	I was looking forward to Beras reaction.
	Jackson Bera came upon us moving it through the halls of ARM headquarters. He trailed along behind us. Nonchalant. We pulled the machine into the main laboratory and started checking it against the holos Id taken, in case something had been jarred loose. Bera leaned against the doorjamb, watching us, his eyes gradually losing interest, until he seemed about to go to sleep.
	Jackson Bera was a big dark man crowned with a carefully tended sphere of puffy black hair. Id met him three years ago when I returned from the asteroids and joined the ARM. Maybe hed wondered why I kept staring at his hair. But a Belter who wore his hair in that fashion would have needed a spacesuit helmet the size of a cannibals cooking pot.
	Hed been twenty then, and two years an ARM; but his father and grandfather had both been ARMs. Much of my training had come from Bera. And as I learned to hunt men who hunt other men, I had watched what it was doing to him.
	An ARM needs empathy. He needs the ability to piece together a picture of the mind of his prey. But Bera had too much empathy. I remember his reaction when Kenneth Graham suicided with a battery-operated drouda single killing surge of current through the plug in his skull and down the wire to the pleasure center of his brain. Bera had been twitchy for weeks. And the Anubis case, early last year. When we realized what the man had done, Bera had been close to killing him on the spot. I wouldnt have blamed him.
	Last year Bera had had enough. Hed gone into the technical end of the business. His days of hunting organleggers were finished. He was now running the ARM laboratory.
	He had to want to know what this oddball contraption was. I kept waiting for him to ask, and he watched, faintly smiling. Finally it dawned on me. He thought it was a practical joke, something Id cobbled together for his own discomfiture.
	I said, Bera . . .
	And he looked at me brightly and said, Hey, man, what is it?
	You ask the most embarrassing questions.
	Right, I can understand your feeling that way, but what is it? I love it, its neat, but what is this that you have brought me?
	I told him all I knew, such as it was. When I finished, he said, It doesnt sound much like a new space drive.
	Oho, you heard that too, did you? No, it doesnt. Unless . . . Id been wondering since I first saw it. Maybe its supposed to accelerate a fusion explosion. Youd get greater efficiency in a fusion drive.
	Nope. They get better than ninety percent now, and that widget looks heavy. He reached to touch the bent silver triangle, gently, with long, tapering fingers. Huh. Well, well dig out the answers.
	Good luck. Im going back to Sinclairs place.
	Why? The action is here. Often enough hed heard me talking wistfully of joining an interstellar colony. He must know how Id feel about a better drive for the interstellar slowboats.
	Its like this, I said. Weve got the generator, but we dont know anything about it. We might wreck it. Im going to have a whack at finding someone who knows something about Sinclairs generator.
Meaning?
	Whoever tried to steal it. Sinclairs killer.
	If you say so. But he looked dubious. He knew me too well. He said, I understand theres a mother hunt in the offing.
Oh?
	He smiled. Just a rumor. You guys are lucky. When my dad first joined, the business of the ARM was mostly mother hunts. The organleggers hadnt really got organized yet, and the Fertility Laws were new. If we hadnt enforced them, nobody would have obeyed them at all.
	Sure, and people threw rocks at your father. Bera, those days are gone.
	They could come back. Having children is basic.
	Bera, I did~not join the ARM to hunt unlicensed parents. I waved and left before he could answer. I could do without the call to duty from Bera, who was through with hunting men and mothers.
	Id had a good view of the Rodewald Building, dropping toward the roof this morning. I had a good view now, from my commandeered taxi. This time I was looking for escape paths.
	There were no balconies on Sinclairs floors, and the windows were flush to the side of the building. A cat burglar would have trouble with them. They didnt look like theyd open.
	I tried to spot the cameras Ordaz had mentioned as the taxi dropped toward the roof. I couldnt find them. Maybe they were mounted in the elms.
	Why was I bothering? I hadnt joined the ARM to chase mothers or machinery or common murderers. Id joined to pay for my arm my right arm, after it had been sheared clean to the shoulder in an industrial accident in the Belt.
	I hadnt had the money to buy a new arm from the Belt organ banks. Id come back to Earth because my citizens medical insurance would pay for it there. Later Id found that my new arm was not part of some condemned criminal. It had reached the World Organ Bank Facility via a captured organleggers cache. Some honest citizen had died unwillingly on a city slidewalk, and now his arm was part of me.
	Id joined the ARM to hunt organleggers.
	The ARM doesnt deal in murder per Se. The machine was out of my hands now. A murder investigation wouldnt keep me out of a mother hunt. And Id never met the girl. I knew nothing of her, beyond the, fact that she was where a killer ought to be.
	Was it just that she was pretty?
	Poor Janice. When she woke up . . . For a solid month Id wakened to that same stunning shock, the knowledge that my right arm was gone.
	The taxi settled. Vaipredo was waiting below.
	I speculated. Cars werent the only things that flew. But anyone flying one of those tricky ducted-fan flycycles over a city, where he could fall on a pedestrian, wouldnt have to worry about a murder charge. Theyd feed him to the organ banks regardless. And anything that flew would have left traces anywhere but on the landing pad itself. It would crush a rosebush or a bonsai tree or be flipped over by an elm.
	The taxi took off in a whisper of air.
	Valpredo was grinning at me. The Thinker. Whats on your mind?
	I was wondering if the killer could have come down on the carport roof.
	He turned to study the situation. There are two cameras mounted on the edge of the roof. If his vehicle was light enough, sure, he could land there, and the cameras wouldnt spot him. Roof wouldnt hold a car, though. Anyway, nobody did it.
	How do you know?
	Ill show you. By the way, we inspected the camera system. Were pretty sure the cameras werent tampered with.
	And nobody came down from the roof last night except the girl?
	Nobody. Nobody even landed here until seven this morning. Look here. We had reached the concrete stairs that led down into Sinclairs apartments. Valpredo pointed at a glint of light in the sloping ceiling, at heart level. This is the only way down. The camera would get anyone coming in or out. It might not catch his face, but itd show if someone had passed. It takes sixty frames a minute.
	I went on down. A cop let me in.
	Ordaz was on the phone. The screen showed a young man with a deep tan, with shock showing through the tan. Ordaz waved at me, a shushing motion, and went on talking. Then youll be here in fifteen minutes? That will be a great help to us. Please land on the roof. We are still working on the elevator.
	He hung up and turned to me. That was Andrew Porter, Janice Sinclairs lover. He tells us that he and Janice spent the evening at a party. She dropped him off at his home around one oclock.
	Then she came straight home, if thats her in the doc.
	I think it must be. Mr. Porter says she was wearing a blue skin dye job. Ordaz was frowning. He put on a most convincing act, if it was that. I think he really was not expecting any kind of trouble. He was surprised that a stranger answered, shocked when he learned of Dr. Sinclairs death, and horrified when he learned that Janice had been hurt.
	With the mummy and the generator removed, the murder scene had become an empty circle of brown grass marked with random streaks of yellow chemical and outlines of white chalk.
	We had some luck, said Ordaz. Todays date is June 4, 2124. Dr. Sinclair was wearing a date watch. It registered January 17, 2125. If we switched the machine off at ten minutes to tenwhich we didand if it was registering an hour for every seven seconds that passed outside the field, then the field must have gone on around one oclock last night, give or take a margin of error.
	Then if the girl didnt do it, she must have just missed the killer.
	Exactly.
	What about the elevator? Could it have been jiggered?
	No. We took the workings apart. It was on this floor, and locked by hand. Nobody could have left by elevator . .
	Why did you trail off like that?
	Ordaz shrugged, embarrassed. This peculiar machine really does bother me, Gil. I found myself thinking: Suppose it can reverse time? Then the killer could have gone down in an elevator that was going up.
	He laughed with me. I said, In the first place, I dont believe a word of it. In the second place, he didnt have the machine to do it with. Unless . . . he made his escape before the murder. Damnit, now youve got me doing it.
	I would like to know more about the machine.
	Beras investigating it now. Ill let you know as soon as we learn anything. And Id like to know more about how the killer couldnt possibly have left.
	He looked at me. Details?
	Could someone have opened a window?
	No. These apartments are forty years old. The smog was still bad when they were built. Dr. Sinclair apparently preferred to depend on his air-conditioning.
	How about the apartment below? I presume it has a different set of elevators. . . .
	Yes, of course. It belongs to Howard Rodewald, the owner of this buildingof this chain of buildings, in fact. At the moment, he is in Europe. His apartment has been lent to friends.
	There are no stairs down to there?
	No. We searched these apartments thoroughiy.
	All right. We know the killer had a nylon line, because he left a strand of it on the generator. Could he have climbed down to Rodewalds balcony from the roof?
	Thirty feet? Yes, I suppose so. Ordazs eyes sparked. We must look into that. There is still the matter of how he got past the camera, and whether he could have gotten inside, once he was on the balcony.
Yah.
	Try this, Mr. Hamilton. Another question. How did he expect to get away? He watched for my reaction, which must have been satisfying, because it was a damn good question. You see, if Janice
Sinclair murdered her great-uncle, then neither question applies. If we are looking for someone else, we have to assume that his plans misfired. He had to improvise.
	Uh-huh. He could still have been planning to use Rodewalds balcony. And that would mean he had a way past the camera. . . .
	Of course he did. The generator.
	Right. If he came to steal the generator. . . and hed have to steal it regardless, because if we found it here, it would shoot his alibi skyhigh. So hed leave it on while he trundled it up the stairs. Say it took him a minute; thats only an eighth of a second of normal time. One chance in eight that the camera would fire, and it would catch nothing but a streak. . . . Uh-oh.
What is it?
	He had to be planning to steal the machine. Is he really going to lower it to Rodewalds balcony by rope?
	I think it unlikely, said Ordaz. It weighed more than eighty pounds. He could have moved it upstairs. The frame would make it portable. But to lower it by rope . . .
	Wed be looking for one hell of an athlete.
	At least you will not have to search far to find him. We assume that your hypothetical killer came by elevator, do we not?
	Yah. Nobody but Janice Sinclair had arrived by the roof last night.
	The elevator was programmed to allow a number of people to enter it, and to turn away all others. The list is short. Dr. Sinclair was not a gregarious man.
	Youre checking them out? Whereabouts, alibis, and so forth?
Of course.
	Theres something else you might check on, I said. But Drew Porter came in, and I had to postpone it.

	Porter came casual, in a well-worn one-piece jumpsuit he must have pulled on while running for a taxi. The muscles rolled like boulders beneath the loose fabric, and his belly muscles showed like the plates on an armadillo. Surfing muscles. The sun had bleached his hair nearly white and burned him as brown as Jackson Bera. Youd think a tan that dark would cover for blood draining out of a face, but it doesnt.
	Where is she? he demanded. He didnt wait for an answer. He knew where the doc was, and he went there. We trailed in his wake.
	Ordaz didnt push. He waited while Porter looked down at Janice,
then punched for a readout and went through it in detail. Porter seemed calmer then, and his color was back. He turned to Ordaz and said, What happened?
	Mr. Porter, did you know anything of Dr. Sinclairs latest project?
	The time-compressor thing? Yah. He had it set up in the living room when I got here yesterday evening. Right in the middle of that circle of dead grass. Any connection?
	When did you arrive?
	Oh, about. . . six. We had some drinks, and Uncle Ray showed off his machine. He didnt tell us much about it. Just showed what it could do. Porter showed us flashing white teeth. It worked. That thing can compress time! You could live your whole life in there in two months! Watching him move around inside the field was like trying to keep track of a hummingbird. Worse. He struck a match
	When did you leave?
	About eight. We had dinner at Czillers, and . . . listen, what happened here?
	There are some things we need to know first, Mr. Porter. Were you and Janice together for all of last evening? Were there others with you?
	Sure. We had dinner alone, but afterward we went to a kind of party. On the beach at Santa Monica. Friend of mine has a house there. Ill give you the address. Some of us wound up at Czillers House of Irish Coffee around midnight. Then Janice flew me home.
	You have said that you are Janices lover. Doesnt she live with you?
	No. Im her steady lover, you might say, but I dont have any strings on her. He seemed embarrassed. She lives here, with Uncle Ray. Lived. Oh, hell. He glanced into the doe. Look, the readout said shell be waking up any minute. Can I get her a robe?
Of course.
	We followed Porter to Janices bedroom, where he picked out a peach-colored negligee for her. I was beginning to like the guy. He had good instincts. An evening dye job was not the thing to wear on the morning of a murder. And hed picked one with long, loose sleeves. Her missing arm wouldnt show so much.
	You call him Uncle Ray, said Ordaz.
	Yah. Because Janice did.
	He did not object? Was he gregarious?
	Gregarious? Well, no, but we liked each other. We both liked
puzzles, you understand. We traded murder mysteries and jigsaw puzzles. Listen, this may sound silly, but are you sure hes dead?
	Regrettably, yes. He is dead, and murdered. Was he expecting someone to arrive after you left?
	Yes.
	He said so?
	No. But he was wearing a shirt and pants. When it was just us, he usually went naked.

	Older people dont do that much, Porter said. But Uncle Ray was in good shape. He took care of himself.
	Have you any idea whom he might have been expecting?
	No. Not a woman; not a date, I mean. Maybe someone in the same business.
	Behind him, Janice moaned.
	Porter was hovering over her in a flash. He put a hand on her shoulder and urged her back. Lie still, love. Well have you out of there in a jiffy.
	She waited while he disconnected the sleeves and other paraphernalia. She said, What happened?
	They havent told me yet, Porter said with a flash of anger. Be careful sitting up. Youve had an accident.
	What kind of . . . ? Ok
	Itll be all right.
My arm]
	Porter helped her out of the doc. Her arm ended in pink flesh two inches below the shoulder. She let Porter drape the robe around her. She tried to fasten the sash, quit when she realized she was trying to do it with one hand.
	I said, Listen, I lost my arm once.
	She looked at me. So did Porter.
	Im Gil Hamilton. With the UN Police. You really dont have anything to worry about. See? I raised my right arm, opened and closed the fingers. The organ banks dont get much call for arms, as compared to kidneys, for instance. You probably wont even have to wait. I didnt. It feels just like the arm I was born with, and it works just as well.
	How did you lose it? she asked.
	Ripped away by a meteor, I said, not without pride. While I was asteroid mining in the Belt. I didnt have to tell her that wed
caused the meteor cluster ourselves, by setting the bomb wrong on an asteroid we wanted to move.
	Ordaz said to her, Do you remember how you lost your own arm?
	Yes. She shivered. Could we go somewhere where I could sit down? I feel a bit weak.
	We moved to the living room. Janice dropped onto the couch a bit too hard. It might have been shock, or the missing arm might be throwing her balance off. I remembered. She said, Uncle Rays dead, isnt he?
Yes.
	I came home and found him that way. Lying next to that time machine of his, and the back of his head all bloody. I thought maybe he was still alive, but I could see the machine was going; it had that violet glow. I tried to get hold of the poker. I wanted to use it to switch the machine off, but I couldnt get a grip. My arm wasnt just numb, it wouldnt move. You know, you can wiggle your toes when your foots asleep, but. . . I could get my hand on the handle of the damn poker, but when I tried to pull, it just slid off.
	You kept trying?
	For a while. Then . . . I backed away to think it over. I wasnt about to waste any time, with Uncle Ray maybe dying in there. My arm felt stone dead. . . . I guess it was, wasnt it? She shuddered. Rotting meat. It smelled that way. And all of a sudden I felt so weak and dizzy, like I was dying myself. I barely made it into the doc.
	Good thing you did, I said. The blood was leaving Porters face again as he realized what a close thing it had been.
	Ordaz said, Was your great-uncle expecting visitors last night?
I think so.
	Why do you think so?
	I dont know. He just . . . acted that way.
	We are told that you and some friends reached Czillers House of Irish Coffee around midnight. Is that true?
	I guess so. We had some drinks, then I took Drew home and came home myself.
	Straight home?
	Yes. She shivered. I put the car away and went downstairs. I knew something was wrong. The door was open. Then, there was Uncle Ray lying next to that machine! I knew better than to just run up to him. Hed told us not to step into the field.
	Oh? Then you should have known better than to reach for the poker.
	Well, yes. I could have used the tongs, she said, as if the idea had just occurred to her. Its just as long. I didnt think of it. There wasnt time. Dont you understand, he was dying in there, or dead!
	Yes, of course. Did you interfere with the murder scene in any way?
	She laughed bitterly. I suppose I moved the poker about two inches. Then, when I felt what was happening to me, I just ran for the doc. It was awful. Like dying.
	Instant gangrene, said Porter.
	Ordaz said, You did not, for example, lock the elevator?
	Damn! I should have thought of that.
	No. We usually do when we lock up for the night, but I didnt have time.
	Porter said, Why?
	The elevator was locked when we arrived, Ordaz told him.
	Porter ruminated that. Then the killer must have left by the roof. Youll have pictures of him.
	Ordaz smiled apologetically. That is our problem. No cars left the roof last night. Only one car arrived. That was yours, Miss Sinclair.
	But, said Porter, and he stopped. He thought it through again. Did the police turn on the elevator again after they got here?
	No. The killer could not have left after we got here.
Oh.
	What happened was this, said Ordaz. Around five-thirty this morning, the tenants in . . . He stopped to remember. . . . In 36A called the building maintenance man about a smell like rotting meat coming through the air-conditioning system. He spent some time looking for the source, but once he reached the roof, it was obvious. He
	Porter pounced. He reached the roof in what kind of vehicle?
	Mr. Steeves says that he took a taxi from the street. There is no other way to reach Dr. Sinclairs private landing pad, is there?
	No. But why would he do that?
	Perhaps there have been other times when strange smells came from Dr. Sinclairs laboratory. We will ask him.
Do that.
	Mr. Steeves followed the smell through the doctors open door. He called us. He waited for us on the roof.
	What about his taxi? Porter was hot on the scent. Maybe the
killer just waited till that taxi got here, then took it somewhere else when Steeves finished with it.
	It left immediately after Steeves had stepped out. He had a taxi clicker if he wanted another. The cameras were 6n it the entire time it was on the roof. Ordaz paused. You see the problem?
	Apparently Porter did. He ran both hands through his white-blond hair. I think we ought to put off discussing it until we know more.
	He meant Janice. Janice looked puzzled; she hadnt caught on. But Ordaz nodded at once and stood up. Very well. There is no reason Miss Sinclair cannot go on living here. We may have to bother you again, he told her. For now, our condolences.
	He made his exit. I trailed along. So, unexpectedly, did Drew Porter. At the top of the stairs he stopped Ordaz with a big hand around the inspectors upper arm. Youre thinking Janice did it, arent you?
	Ordaz sighed. What choice have I? I must consider the possibility.
	She didnt have any reason. She loved Uncle Ray. Shes lived with him on and off these past twelve years. She hasnt got the slightest reason to kill him.
	Is there no inheritance?
	His expression went sour. All right, yes, shell have some money coming. But Janice wouldnt care about anything like that!
	Ye-ess. Still, what choice have I? Everything we now know tells us that the killer could not have left the scene of the killing. We searched the premises immediately. There was only Janice Sinclair and her murdered uncle.
	Porter bit back an answer, chewed it. . . . He must have been tempted. Amateur detective, one step ahead of the police all the way. Yes, Watson, these gendarmes have a talent for missing the obvious. . . . But he had too much to lose. Porter said, And the maintenance man. Steeves.
	Ordaz lifted one eyebrow. Yes, of course. We shall have to investigate Mr. Steeves.
	How did he get that call from. . . uh. . . 36A? Bedside phone or pocket phone? Maybe he was already on the roof.
	I dont remember that he said. But we have pictures of his taxi landing.
	He had a taxi clicker. He could have just called it down.
	One more thing, I said, and Porter looked at me hopefully.
Porter, what about the elevator? It had a brain in it, didnt it? It wouldnt take anyone up unless they were on its list.
	Or unless Uncle Ray buzzed down. Theres an intercom in the lobby. But at that time of night he probably wouldnt let anyone up unless he was expecting him.
	So if Sinclair was expecting a business associate, he or she was probably in the tape. How about going down? Would the elevator take you down to the lobby if you werent in the tape?
	Id . . . think so.
	It would, said Ordaz. The elevator screens entrances, not departures.
	Then why didnt the killer use it? I dont mean Steeves, necessarily. I mean anyone, whoever it might have been. Why didnt he just go down in the elevator? Whatever he did do, that had to be easier.
	They looked at each other, but they didnt say anything.
	Okay. I turned to Ordaz. When you check out the people in the tape, see if any of them shows a damaged arm. The killer might have pulled the same stunt Janice didruined her arm trying to turn off the generator. . . . And Id like a look at whos in that tape.
	Very well, said Ordaz, and we moved toward the squad car under the carport. We were out of earshot when he added, How does the ARM come into this, Mr. Hamilton? Why your interest in the murder aspect of this case?
	I told him what Id told Berathat Sinclairs killer might be the only living expert on Sinclairs time machine. Ordaz nodded. What hed really wanted to know was: could I justify giving orders to the Los Angeles Police Department in a local matter? And I had answered: yes.

	The rather simple-minded security system in Sinclairs elevator had been built to remember the thumbprints and the facial bone structures (which it scanned by deep radar, thus avoiding the problems raised by changing beard styles and masquerade parties) of up to one hundred people. Most people know about a hundred people, plus or minus ten or so. But Sinclair had listed only a dozen, including himself: Raymond Sinclair; Andrew Porter; Janice Sinclair; Edward Sinclair, Sr.; Edward Sinclair, III; Hans Drucker; George Steeves; Pauline Urthiel; Bernath Peterfi; Lawrence Muhammad Ecks; Bertha Hall; and Muriel Sandusky.
	Valpredo had been busy. Hed been using the police car and its
phone setup as an office while he guarded the roof. We know who some of these are, he said. Edward Sinclair III, for instance, is Edward Seniors grandson, Janices brother. Hes in the Belt, in Ceres, making something of a name for himself as an industrial designer. Edward Senior is Raymonds brother. He lives in Kansas City. Hans Drucker and Bertha Hall and Muriel Sandusky all live in the Greater Los Angeles area; we dont know what their connection with Sinclair is. Pauline Urthiel and Bernath Peterfi are technicians of sorts. Ecks is Sinclairs patent attorney.
	I suppose we can interview Edward HI by phone. Ordaz made a face. A phone call to the Belt wasnt cheap. These others . . .
	I said, May I make a suggestion?
Of course.
	Send me along with whoever interviews Ecks and Peterfi and Urthiel. They probably knew Sinclair in a business sense, and having an ARM along will give you a little more clout to ask a little more detailed questions.
	I could take those assignments, Valpredo volunteered. Very well. Ordaz still looked unhappy. If this list were exhaustive, I would be grateful. Unfortunately, we must consider the risk that Dr. Sinclairs visitor simply used the intercom in the lobby and asked to be let in.

	Bernath Peterfi wasnt answering his phone.
	We got Pauline Urthiel via her pocket phone. A brusque contralto voice, no picture. Wed like to talk to her in connection with a murder investigation; would she be at home this afternoon? No. She was lecturing that afternoon, but would be home around six.
	Ecks answered dripping wet and not smiling. So sorry to get you out of a shower, Mr. Ecks. Wed like to talk to you in connection with a murder investigation. .
	Sure, come on over. Whos dead?
	Valpredo told him.
	Sinclair? Ray Sinclair? Youre sure?
We were.
	Oh, lord. Listen, he was working on something important. An interstellar drive, if it works out. If theres any possibility of salvaging the hardware . . .
	I reassured him and hung up. If Sinclairs patent attorney thought it was a star drive, maybe it was.
	Doesnt sound like hes trying to steal it, said Valpredo.
	No. And even if hed got the thing, he couldnt have claimed it was his. If hes the killer, thats not what he was after.
	We were moving at high speed, police-car speed. The car was on automatic, of course, but it could need manual override at any instant. Valpredo concentrated on the passing scenery and spoke without looking at me.
	You know, you and the detective inspector arent looking for the same thing.
	I know. Im looking for a hypothetical killer. Julios looking for a hypothetical visitor. It could be tough to prove there wasnt one, but if Porter and the girl were telling the truth, maybe Julio can prove the visitor didnt do it.
	Which would leave the girl, he said.
	Whose side are you on?
	Nobodys. All Ive got is interesting questions. He looked at me sideways. But youre pretty sure the girl didnt do it.
Yah.
Why?
	I dont know. Maybe because I dont think shes got the brains. It wasnt a simple killing.
	Shes Sinclairs niece. She cant be a complete idiot.
	Heredity doesnt work that way. . . . Maybe Im kidding myself. Maybe its her arm. Shes lost an arm; shes got enough to worry about. I know. And I borrowed the car phone to dig into records in the ARM computer.
	PAULINE URTHIEL. Born Paul Urthiel. Ph.D. in plasma physics, University of California at Ervine. Sex change and legal name change, 2111. Six years ago shed been in competition for a Nobel prize, for research into the charge suppression effect in the Slaver disintegrator. Height: 59. Weight: 135. Married Lawrence Muhammad Ecks, 2117. Had kept her (loosely speaking) maiden name. Separate residences.
	BERNATH PETERFI. Ph.D. in subatomics and related fields, MIT. Diabetic. Height: 58. Weight: 145. Application for exemption to the Fertility Laws denied, 2119. Married 2118, divorced 2122. Lives alone.
	LAWRENCE MUHAMMAD ECKS. Masters degree in physics. Member of the bar. Height: 6l. Weight: 190. Artificial left arm. Vicepresident CET (Committee to End Transplants).
	Valpredo said, Funny how the human arm keeps cropping up in this case.
	Yah. Including one human ARM who didnt really belong there. Ecks has a masters. Maybe he could have talked people into thinking the generator was his. Or maybe he thought he could.
	He didnt try to snow us.~
	Suppose he blew it last night? He wouldnt necessarily want the generator lost to humanity, now, would he?
	How did he get out?
	I didnt answer.

	Ecks lived in a tapering tower almost a mile high. At one time Lindstetters Needle must have been the biggest thing ever built, before they started with the arcologies. We landed on a pad a third of the way up, then took a drop shaft ten floors down.
	He was dressed when he answered the door, in blazing yellow pants and a net shirt. His skin was very dark, and his hair was a puffy black dandelion with threads of gray in it. On the phone screen I hadnt been able to tell which arm was which, and I couldnt now. He invited us in, sat down, and waited for the questions.
	Where was he last night? Could he produce an alibi? It would help us considerably.
	Sorry, nope. I spent the night going through a rather tricky case. You wouldnt appreciate the details.
	I told him I would. He said, Actually, it involves Edward Sinclair
Rays great-nephew. Hes a Belt immigrant, and hes done an industrial design that could be adapted to Earth. Swivel for a chemical rocket motor. The trouble is, its not that different from existing designs, its just better. His Belt patent is good, but the UN laws are different. You wouldnt believe the legal tangles.
	Is he likely to lose out?
	No, it just might get sticky if a firm called FireStorm decides to fight the case. I want to be ready for that. In a pinch I might even have to call the kid back to Earth. Id hate to do that, though. Hes got a heart condition.
	Had he made any phone calls, say, to a computer, during his night of research?
	Ecks brightened instantly. Oh, sure. Constantly, all night. Okay, Ive got an alibi.
	No point in telling him that such calls could have been made from anywhere. Valpredo asked, Do you have any idea where your wife was last night?
	No, we dont live together. She lives three hundred stories over
my head. Weve got an open marriage. Maybe too open, he added wistfully.
	There seemed a good chance that Raymond Sinclair was expecting a visitor last night. Did Ecks have any idea . . .
	He knew a couple of women, said Ecks. You might ask them. Bertha Hall is about eighty, about Rays age. Shes not too bright, not by Rays standards, but shes as much of a physical-fitness nut as he is. They go backpacking, play tennis, maybe sleep together, maybe not. I can give you her address. Then, theres Muriel something. He had a crush on her a few years ago. Shed be thirty now. I dont know if they still see each other or not.
	Did Sinclair know other women?
	Ecks shrugged.
	Whom did he know professionally?
	Oh, lord, thats an endless list. Do you know anything about the way Ray worked? He didnt wait for an answer. He used computer setups mostly. Any experiment in his field was likely to cost millions, or more. What he was good at was setting up a computer analogue of an experiment that would tell him what he wanted to know. Take, oh
	Im sure youve heard of Sinclair molecule chain.
	Hell, yes. Wed used it for towing in the Belt; nothing else was light enough and strong enough. A loop of it was nearly invisibly fine, but it would cut steel.
	He didnt start working with chemicals until he was practically finished. He told me he spent four years doing molecular designs by computer analogue. The tough part was the ends of the molecule chain. Until he got that, the chain would start disintegrating from the endpoints the minute you finished making it. When he finally had what he wanted, he hired an industrial chemical lab to make it for him.
	Thats what Im getting at, Ecks continued. He hired other people to do the concrete stuff, once he knew what he had. And the people he hired had to know what they were doing. He knew the top physicists and chemists and field theorists everywhere on Earth and in the Belt.
	Like Pauline? Like Bernath Peterfi?
	Yah, Pauline did some work for him once. I dont think shed do it again. She didnt like having to give him all the credit. Shed rather work for herself. I dont blame her.
	Could he think of anyone who might want to murder Raymond Sinclair?
	Ecks shrugged. Id say that was your job. Ray never liked splitting the credit with anyone. Maybe someone he worked with nursed a grudge. Or maybe someone was trying to steal this latest project of his. Mind you, I dont know much about what he was trying to do, but if it worked, it would have been fantastically valuable, and not just in money.
	Valpredo was making noises like he was about finished. I said, Do you mind if I ask a personal question?
Go ahead.
	Your arm. Howd you lose it?
	Born without it. Nothing in my genes, just a bad prenatal situation. I came out with an arm and a turkey wishbone. By the time I was old enough for a transplant, I knew I didnt want one. You want the standard speech?
	No thanks, but Im wondering how good your artificial arm is. Im carrying a transplant myself.
	Ecks looked me over carefully for signs of moral degeneration. I suppose youre also one of those people who keep voting the death penalty for more and more trivial offenses?
No, I,
	After all, if the organ banks ran out of criminals, youd be in trouble. You might have to live with your mistakes.
	No. Im one of those people who blocked the Second Corpsicle Law, kept that group from going into the organ banks. And I hunt organleggers for a living. But I dont have an artificial arm, and I suppose the reason is that Im squeamish.
	Squeamish about being part mechanical? Ive heard of that, Ecks said. But you. can be squeamish the other way, too. What there is of me is all me, not part of a dead man. Ill admit the sense of touch isnt quite the same, but its just as good. And . . . look.
	He put a hand on my upper forearm and squeezed.
	It felt like the bones were about to give. I didnt scream, but it took an effort. That isnt all my strength, he said. And I could keep it up all day. This arm doesnt get tired.
He let go.
	I asked if he would mind my examining his arms. He didnt. But then, Ecks didnt know about my imaginary hand.
	My imaginary hand was a side effect of the accident that had cost me my own right arm. It turned out that I had latent psi powers esper and PK. They were weak. The heaviest thing I could lift in Earths gravity was a shot glass half full. They were further restricted
by my imagination. I couldnt sense anything farther away than the reach of a missing right arm.
	But with the real arm missing, I had developed a ghost arm; and when I replaced the real arm with a transplant, the imaginary arm had remained. It could reach through solid matter.
	I probed the advanced plastics of Eckss false arm, the bone and muscle structure of the other. It was the real arm I was interested in.
	When we were back in the car, Valpredo said, Well?
	Nothing wrong with his real arm, I said. No scars.
	Valpredo nodded.
	But the bubble of accelerated time wouldnt hurt plastic and batteries, I thought. And if hed been planning to lower eighty pounds of generator two stories down on a nylon line, his artificial arm had the strength for it.

	We called Peterfi from the car. He was in. He was a small man, dark-complexioned, mild of face, his hair straight and shiny black around a receding hairline. His eyes blinked and squinted as if the light were too bright, and he had the scruffy look of a man who has slept in his clothes. I wondered if we had interrupted an afternoon nap.
	Yes, he would be glad to help the police in a murder investigation. Peterfis condominium was a slab of glass and concrete set on a Santa Monica cliff face. His apartment faced the sea. Expensive, but worth it for the view, he said, showing us to chairs in the living room. The draperies were closed against the afternoon sun. Peterfi had changed clothes. I noticed the bulge in his upper left sleeve, where an insulin capsule and automatic feeder had been anchored to the bone of the arm.
	Well, what can I do for you? I dont believe you mentioned who had been murdered.
	Valpredo told him.
	He was shocked. Oh, my. Ray Sinclair. But theres no telling how this will affect . . . And he stopped suddenly.
	Please go on, said Valpredo.
	We were working on something together. Something. . . revolutionary.
	An interstellar drive?
	He was startled. He debated with himself; then: Yes. It was supposed to be secret.
	We admitted having seen the machine in action. How did a timecompression field serve as an interstellar drive?
	Thats not exactly what it is, Peterfi said. Again he debated with himself. Then: There have always been a few optimists around who thought that just because mass and inertia have always been associated in human experience, it need not be a universal law. What Ray and I have done is to create a condition of low inertia. You see.
	An inertialess drive!
	Peterfi nodded vigorously at me. Essentially, yes. Is the machine intact? If not . .
	I reassured him on that point.
	Thats good. I was about to say that if it had been destroyed, I could re-create it. I did most of the work of building it. Ray preferred to work with his mind, not with his hands.
	Had Peterfi visited Sinclair last night?
	No. I had dinner at a restaurant down the coast, then came home and watched the holo wall. What times do I need alibis for? he asked jokingly.
	Valpredo told him. The joking look turned into a nervous grimace. No, hed left the Mail Shirt just after nine; he couldnt prove his whereabouts after that time.
	Had he any idea who might have wanted to murder Raymond Sinclair?
	Peterfi was reluctant to make outright accusations. Surely we understood. It might be someone he had worked with in the past, or someone hed insulted. Ray thought most of humanity were fools. Or
	we might look into the matter of Rays brothers exemption. Valpredo said, Edward Sinclairs exemption? What about it?
	Id really prefer that you get the story from someone else. You may know that Edward Sinclair was refused the right to have children because of an inherited heart condition. His grandson has it too. There is some question as to whether he really did the work that earned him the exemption.
	But that must have been forty to fifty years ago. How could it figure in a murder now?
	Peterfi explained patiently. Edward had a child by virtue of an exemption to the Fertility Laws. Now there are two grandchildren. Suppose the matter came up for review? His grandchildren would lose the right to have children. Theyd be ifiegitimate. They might even lose the right to inherit.
	Valpredo was nodding. Yali. Well look into that, all right.
	I said, You applied for an exemption yourself not long ago. I suppose your . . . uh . .
	Yes, my diabetes. It doesnt interfere with my life at all. Do you know how long weve been using insulin to handle diabetes? Almost two hundred years! What does it matter if Im a diabetic? If my children are?
	He glared at us, demanding an answer. He got none.
	But the Fertility Laws refuse me children. Do you know that I lost my wife because the board refused me an exemption? I deserved it. My work on plasma flow in the solar photosphere . . . Well, Id hardly lecture you on the subject, would I? But my work can be used to predict the patterns of proton storms near any G-type star. Every colony world owes something to my work!
	That was an exaggeration, I thought. Proton storms affected mainly asteroidal mining operations. Why dont you move to the Belt? I asked. Theyd honor you for your work, and they dont have Fertility Laws.
	I get sick off Earth. Its biorhythms; it has nothing to do with diabetes. Half of humanity suffers from biorhythm upset.
	I felt sorry for the guy. You could still get the exemption. For your work on the inertialess drive. Wouldnt that get you your wife back?
	I . . . dont know. I doubt it. Its been two years. In any case, theres no telling which way the board will jump. I thought Id have the exemption last time.
	Do you mind if I examine your arms?
	He looked at me. What?
	Id like to examine your arms.
	That seems a most curious request. Why?
	There seems a good chance that Sinclairs killer damaged his arm last night. Now, Ill remind you that Im acting in the name of the UN Police. If youve been hurt by the side effects of a possible space drive, one that might be used by human colonists, then youre concealing evidence in a. . . I stopped, because Peterfi had stood up and was taking off his tunic.
	He wasnt happy, but he stood still for it. His arms looked all right. I ran my hands along each arm, bent the joints, massaged the knuckles. Inside the flesh I ran my imaginary fingertips along the bones.
	Three inches below the shoulder joint the bone was knotted. I probed the muscles and tendons.
	Your right arm is a transplant, I said. It must have happened about six months ago.
	He bridled. You may not be aware of it, but ~urgery to reattach my own arm would show the same scars.
	Is that what happened?
	Anger made his speech more precise. Yes. I was performing an experiment, and there was an explosion. The arm was nearly severed. I tied a tourniquet and got to a doe before I collapsed.
	Any proof of this?
	I doubt it. I never told anyone of this accident, and the doe wouldnt keep records. In any case, I think the burden of proof would be on you.
Uh-huh.
	Peterfi was putting his tunic back on. Are you quite finished here? Im deeply sorry for Ray Sinclairs death, but I dont see what it could possibly have to do with my stupidity of six months ago.
	I didnt either. We left.
	Back in the car. It was five-twenty; we could pick up a snack on the way to Pauline Urthiels place. I told Valpredo, I think it was a transplant. And he didnt want to admit it. He must have gone to an organlegger.
	Why would he do that? Valpredo wondered. Its not that tough to get an arm from the public organ banks.
	I chewed that. Youre right. But if it was a normal transplant, therell be a record. Well, it could have happened the way he said it did.
Uh-huh.
	How about this? He was doing an experiment, and it was illegal. Something that might cause pollution in a city, or even something to do with radiation. He picked up radiation burns in his arm. If hed gone to the public organ banks, hed have been arrested.
	That would fit too. Can we prove it on him?
	I dont know. Id like to. He might tell us how to find whomever he dealt with. Lets do some digging. Maybe we can find out what he was working on six months ago.

	Pauline Urthiel opened the door the instant we rang. Hi! I just got in myself. Can I make you drinks?
	We refused. She ushered us into a smallish apartment with a lot of fold-into-the-ceiling furniture. A sofa and coffee table were showing now; the rest existed as outlines on the ceiling. The view through the
picture window was breathtaking. She lived near the top of Lindstetters Needle, some three hundred stories up from her husband.
	She was tall and slender, with a facial structure that would have been effeminate on a man. On a woman it was a touch masculine. The well-formed breasts might be flesh or plastic, but surgically implanted in either case.
	She finished making a large drink and joined us on the couch. And the questions started.
	Had she any idea who might have wanted Raymond Sinclair dead?
	Not really. How did he die?
	Someone smashed in his skull with a poker, Valpredo said. If he wasnt going to mention the generator, neither was I.
	How quaint. Her contralto turned acid. His own poker, too, I presume. Out of his own fireplace rack. What youre looking for is a traditionalist. She peered at us over the rim of her glass. Her eyes were large, the lids decorated in semipermanent tattoo as a pair of flapping UN flags. That doesnt help much, does it? You might try whoever was working with him on whatever his latest project was.
	That sounded like Peterfi, I thought. But Valpredo said, Would he necessarily have a collaborator?
	He generally works alone at the beginning. But somewhere along the line he brings in people to figure out how to make the hardware, and make it. He never made anything real by himself. It was all just something in a computer bank. It took someone else to make it real. And he never gave credit to anyone.
	Then his hypothetical collaborator might have found out how little credit he was getting for his work, and . . . But Urthiel was shaking her head. Im talking about a psychotic, not someone whos really been cheated. Sinclair never offered anyone a share in anything he did. He always made it damn plain what was happening. I knew what I was doing when I set up the FyreStop prctotype for him, and I knew what I was doing when I quit. It was all him. He was using my training, not my brain. I wanted to do something original, something me.
	Did she have any idea what Sinclairs present project was?
	My husband would know. Larry Ecks, lives in this same building. Hes been dropping cryptic hints, and when I want more details, he has this grin. . . She grinned herself suddenly. Youll gather Im interested. But he wont say.
	Time for me to take over, or wed never get certain questions asked. Im an AR~vI. What Im about to tell you is secret, I said.
And I told her what we knew of Sinclairs generator. Maybe Valpredo was looking at me disapprovingly; maybe not.
	We know that the field can damage a human arm in a few seconds. What we want to know, I said, is whether the killer is now wandering around with a half-decayed hand or armor foot, for that...
	She stood and pulled the upper half of her body stocking down around her waist.
	She looked very much a real woman. If I hadnt known. . . And why would it matter? These days, the sex-change operation is elaborate and perfect. Hell with it; I was on duty. Valpredo was looking nonchalant, waiting for me.
	I examined both her arms with my eyes and my three hands. There was nothing. Not even a bruise.
	My legs too?
	I said, Not if you can stand on them.
	Next question. Could an artificial arm operate within the field?
	Larry? You mean Larry? Youre out of your teeny mind.
	Take it as a hypothetical question.
	She shrugged. Your guess is as good as mine. There arent any experts on inertialess fields.
	There was one. Hes dead, I reminded her.
	All I know is what I learned watching the Gray Lensman show in the holo wall when I was a kid. She smiled suddenly. That old space opera . . .
	Valpredo laughed. You too? I used to watch that show in study hall on a little pocket phone. One day the principal caught me at it.
Sure. And then we outgrew it. Too bad. Those inertialess ships Im sure an inertialess ship wouldnt behave like those did. You
couldnt possibly get rid of the time-compression effect. She took a long pull on her drink, set it down, and said, Yes and no. He could reach in, but . . . You see the problem? The nerve impulses that move the motors in Larrys armtheyre coming into the field too slowly.
Sure.
	But if Larry closed his fist on something, say, and reached into the field with it, it would probably stay closed. He could have brained Ray with . . . No, he couldnt. The poker wouldnt be moving any faster than a glacier. Ray would just dodge.
	And he couldnt pull a poker out of the field, either. His fist
wouldnt close on it after it was inside. But he could have tried, and still left with his arm intact, I thought.
	Did Urthiel know anything of the circumstances surrounding Edward Sinclairs exemption?
	Oh, thats an old story, she said. Sure, I heard about it. How could it possibly have anything to do with. . . with Rays murder?
	I dont know, I confessed. Im just thrashing around.
	Well, youll probably get it more accurately from the UN files. Edward Sinclair did some mathematics on the fields that scoop up interstellar hydrogen for the cargo ramrobots. He was a shoo-in for the exemption. Thats the surest way of getting it: make a breakthrough in anything that has anything to do with the interstellar colonies. Every time you move one man away from Earth, the population drops by one.
	What was wrong with it?
	Nothing anyone could prove. Remember, the Fertility Restriction Laws were new then. They couldnt stand a real test. But Edward Sinclairs a pure math man. He works with number theory, not practical applications. Ive seen Edwards equations, and theyre closer to something Ray would come up with. And Ray didnt need the exemption. He never wanted children.
	So you think
	I dont care which of them redesigned the ramscoops. Diddling the Fertility Board like that, that takes brains. She swallowed the rest of her drink, set the glass down. Breeding for brains is never a mistake. Its no challenge to the Fertility Board, either. The people who do the damage are the ones who go into hiding when their shots come due, have their babies, then scream to high heaven when the board has to sterilize them. Too many of those, and we wont have Fertility Laws anymore. And that . . . She didnt have to finish.
	Had Sinclair known that Pauline Urthiel was once Paul?
	She stared. Now, just what the bleep has that got to do with anything?
	Id been toying with the idea that Sinclair might have been blackmailing Urthiel with that information. Not for money, but for credit in some discovery theyd made together. Just thrashing around, I said.
	Well . . . all right. I dont know if Ray knew or not. He never raised the subject, but he never made a pass, either, and he must have researched me before he hired me. And, say, listen, Larry doesnt know. Id appreciate it if you wouldnt blurt it out.
Okay.
	See, he had his children by his first wife. Im not denying him children. . . . Maybe he married me because I had a touch of
urn . . . masculine insight. Maybe. But he doesht know it, and he doesnt want to. I dont know whether hed laugh it off or kill me.

	I had Valpredo drop me off at ARM headquarters.
	This peculiar machine really does bother me, Gil. . . . Well it should, Julio. The Los Angeles Police were not trained to deal with a mad scientists nightmare running quietly in the middle of a murder scene.
	Granted that Janice wasnt the type. Not for this murder. But Drew Porter was precisely the type to evolve a perfect murder around Sinclairs generator, purely as an intellectual exercise. He might have guided her through it; he might even have been there, and used the elevator before she shut it off. It was the one thing he forgot to tell hernot to shut off the elevator.
	Or: he outlined a perfect murder to her, purely as a puzzle, never dreaming shed go through with itbadly.
	Or: one of them had killed Janices uncle on impulse. No telling what hed said that one of them couldnt tolerate. But the machine had been right there in the living room, and Drew had wrapped his big arm around Janice and said, Wait, dont do anything yet, lets think this out. . .
	Take any of these as the true state of affairs, and a prosecutor could have a hell of a time proving it. He could show that no killer could possibly have left the scene of the crime without Janice Sinclairs help, and therefore. . . But what about that glowing thing, that time machine built by the dead man? Could it have freed a killer from an effectively locked room? How could a judge know its power?
	Well, could it?
	Bera might know.
	The machine was running. I caught the faint violet glow as I stepped into the laboratory, and a flickering next to it; and then it was off, and Jackson Bera stood suddenly beside it, grinning, silent, waiting.
	I wasnt about to spoil his fun. I said, Well? Is it an interstellar drive?
Yes!
	A warm glow spread through me. I said, Okay.
	Its a low-inertia field, said Bera. Things inside lose most of
their inertia . . . not their mass, just the resistance to movement. Ratio of about five hundred to one. The interface is sharp as a razor. We think there are quantum levels involved.
	Uh-huh. The field doesnt affect time directly?
	No, it . . . I shouldnt say that. Who the hell knows what time really is? It affects chemical and nuclear reactions, energy release of all kinds, but it doesnt affect the speed of light. You know, its kind of kicky to be measuring the speed of light at three hundred and seventy miles per second with honest instruments.
	Damnit. Id been half-hoping it was an FTL drive. I said, Did you ever find out what was causing that blue glow?
	Bera laughed at me. Watch. Hed rigged a remote switch to turn the machine on. He used it, then struck a match and flipped it toward the blue glow. As it crossed an invisible barrier, the match flared violet-white for something less than an eyeblink. I blinked. It had been like a flashbulb going off.
	I said, Oh, sure. The machinerys warm.
	Right. The blue glow is just infrared radiation being boosted to violet when it enters normal time.
	Bera shouldnt have had to tell me that. Embarrassed, I changed the subject. But you said it was an interstellar drive.
	Yah. Its got drawbacks, said Bera. We cant just put a field around a whole starship. The crew would think theyd lowered the speed of light, but so what? A slowboat doesnt get that close to light speed anyway. Theyd save a little trip time, but theyd have to live through it five hundred times as fast.
	How about if you just put the field around your fuel tanks?
	Bera nodded. Thats what theyll probably do. Leave the motor and the life-support system outside. You could ~carry a godawful amount of fuel that way. . . . Well, its not our department. Someone elsell be designing the starships, he said a bit wistfully.
	Have you thought of this thing in relation to robbing banks? Or espionage?
	If a gang could afford to build one of these jobs, they wouldnt need to rob banks. He ruminated. I hate making anything this big a UN secret. But I guess youre right. The average government could afford a whole stable of the things.
	Thus combining James Bond and the Flash.
	He rapped on the plastic frame. Want to try it?
	Sure, I said.
	Heart to brain: THUD! Whatre you doing? Youll get us all
killed! I knew we should never have put you in charge of things. . . . I stepped up to the generator, waited for Bera to scamper beyond range, then pulled the switch.
	Everything turned deep red. Bera became as  a statue.
	Well, here I was. The second hand on the wall clock had stopped moving. I took two steps forward and rapped with my knuckles. Rapped, hell; it was like rapping on contact cement. The invisible wall was tacky.
	I tried leaning on it for a minute or so. That worked fine until I tried to pull away, and then I knew Id done something stupid. I was embedded in the interface. It took me another minute to pull loose, and then I went sprawling backward; Id picked up too much inward velocity, and it all came into the field with me.
	At that, Id been lucky. If Id leaned there a little longer, Id have lost my leverage. Id have been sinking deeper and deeper into the interface, unable to yell to Bera, building up more and more velocity outside the field.
	I picked myself up and tried something safer. I took out my pen and dropped it. It fell normally32 ft/sec/see, field time. Which scratched one theory as to how the killer had thought he would be leaving.
	I switched the machine off. Something Id like to try, I told Bera. Can you hang the machine in the air, say, by a cable around the frame?
	What have you got in mind?
	I want to try standing on the bottom of the field.
	Bera looked dubious.
	It took us twenty minutes to set it up. Bera took no chances. He lifted the generator about five feet. Since the field seemed to center on that oddly shaped piece of silver, that put the bottom of the field just a foot in the air. We moved a stepladder into range, and I stood on the stepladder and turned on the generator.
I stepped off.
	Walking down the side of the field was like walking in progressively stickier taffy. When I stood on the bottom, I could just reach the switch.
	My shoes were stuck solid. I could pull my feet out of them, but there was no place to stand except in my own shoes. A minute later my feet were stuck too; I could pull one loose, but only by fixing the other ever more deeply in the interface. I sank deeper, and all sensation left the soles of my feet. It was scary, though I knew nothing ter
rible could happen to me. My feet wouldnt die out there; they wouldnt have time.
	But the interface was up to my ankles now, and I started to wonder what kind of velocity they were building up out there. I pushed the switch up. The lights flashed bright, and my feet slapped the floor hard.
	Bera said, Well? Learn anything?
	Yah. I dont want to try a real test; I might wreck the machine.
	What kind of real test?
	Dropping it forty stories with the field on. Quit worrying, Im not going to do it.
	Right. You arent.
	You know, this time-compression effect would work for more than just spacecraft. After youre on the colony world you could raise full-grown cattle from frozen fertilized eggs in just a few minutes.
	Mmm. . . . Yak. The happy smile flashing white against darkness, the infinity look in Beras eyes: Bera liked playing with ideas. Think of one of these mounted on a truck, say, on Jinx. You could explore the shoreline regions without ever worrying about the bandersnatchi attacking. Theyd never move fast enough. You could drive across any alien world and catch the whole ecology laid out around you, none of it running from the truck. Predators in mid-leap, birds in mid-flight, couples in courtship.
	Or larger groups.
	I . . . think that habit is unique to humans. He looked at me sideways. You wouldnt spy on people, would you? Or shouldnt I ask?
	That five-hundred-to-one ratio. Is that constant?
	He came back to here and now. We dont know. Our theory hasnt caught up to the hardware its supposed to fit. I wish to hell we had Sinclairs notes.
	You were supposed to send a programmer out there. . . . He came back, Bera said viciously. Clayton Wolfe. Clay says the tapes in Sinclairs computer were all wiped before he got there. I dont know whether to believe him or not. Sinclair was a secretive bastard, wasnt he?
	Yah. One false move on Clays part and the computer might have wiped everything. But he says different, hmmm?
	He says the computer was blank, a newborn mind all ready to be taught. Gil, is that possible? Could whoever killed Sinclair have wiped the tapes?
	Sure, why not? What he couldnt have done is left afterward. I told him a little about the problem. Its even worse than that, because as Ordaz keeps pointing out, he thought hed be leaving with the machine. I thought he might have been planning to roll the generator off the roof, step off with it, and float down. But that wouldnt work. Not if it falls five hundred times as fast. Hed have been killed.
	Losing the machine maybe saved his life.
	But how did he get out?
	Bera laughed at my frustration. Couldnt his niece be the one?
	Sure, she could have killed her great-uncle for the money. But I cant see how shed have a motive to wipe the computer. Unless . . .
Something?
	Maybe. Never mind. Did Bera ever miss this kind of manhunting? But I wasnt ready to discuss this yet; I didnt know enough. Tell me more about the machine. Can you vary that five-hundredto-one ratio?
	He shrugged. We tried adding more batteries. We thought it might boost the field strength. We were wrong; it just expanded the boundary a little. And using one less battery turns it off completely. So the ratio seems to be constant, and there do sem to be quantum levels involved. Well know better when we build another machine.
How so?
	Well, there are all kinds of good questions, said Bera. What happens when the fields of two generators intersect? They might just add, but maybe not. That quantum effect. . . And what happens if the generators are right next to each other, operating in each others accelerated time? The speed of light could drop to a few feet per second. Throw a punch, and your hand gets shorter!
	Thatd be kicky, all right.
	Dangerous, too. Man, wed better try that one on the Moon!
	I dont see that.
	Look, with one machine going, infrared light comes out violet. If two machines were boosting each others performance, what kind of radiation would they put out? Anything from X rays to antimatter particles.
	An expensive way to build a bomb.
	Well, but its a bomb you can use ovcr and over again.
	I laughed. We did find you an expert, I said. You may not need Sinclairs tapes. Bernath Peterfi says he was working with
Sinclair. He could be lyingmore likely he was working for him, under contractbut at least he knows what the machine does.
	Bera seemed relieved at that. He took down Peterfis address. I left him there in the laboratory playing with his new toy.

	The file from City Morgue was sitting on my desk, open, waiting for me since this morning. Two dead ones looked up at me through sockets of blackened bone, but not accusingly. They had patience. They could wait.
	The computer had processed my search pattern. I braced myself with a cup of coffee, then started leafing through the thick stack of printout. When I knew what had burned away two human faces, Id be close to knowing who. Find the tool, find the killer. And the tool must be unique, or close to it.
	Lasers, lasersmore than half the machines suggestions seemed to be lasers. Incredible, the way lasers seemed to breed and mutate throughout human industry. Laser radar. The laser guidance system on a tunneling machine. Some suggestions were obviously unworkable, and one was a lot too workable.
	A standard hunting laser fires in pulses, which is what makes it sporting. But it can be jiggered for a much longer pulse or even a continuous burst. Assassins have been doing it for years.
	Set a hunting laser for a long pulse, and put a grid over the lens. The mesh has to be optically fine, on the order of angstroms. Now the beam will spread as it leaves the grid. A second of pulse will vaporize the grid, leaving no evidence. The grid would be no bigger than a contact lens; if you didnt trust your aim, you could carry a pocketful of them.
	The grid-equipped laser would be less efficient, as a rifle with a silencer is less efficient. But the grid would make the laser impossible to identify.
	I thought about it and got cold chills. Assassination is already a recognized branch of politics. If this got out . . . But that was the trouble; someone seemed to have thought of it already. If not, someone would. Someone always did.
	I wrote up a memo for Lucas Garner. Aside from his being my boss, I couldnt think of anyone better qualified to deal with this kind of sociological problem.
	Nothing else in the stack of printout caught my eye. Later Id have to go through it in detail. For now, I pushed it aside and punched for messages.
	Bates had sent me another report. Theyd finished the autopsies on the two dead ones. Nothing new. But Records had identified the fingerprints. Two missing persons, disappeared six and eight months ago. Aha!
	I knew that pattern. I didnt even look at the names; I just skipped on to the gene coding.
	Right. The fingerprints did not match the genes. All twenty fingertips must be transplants. And the mans scalp was a transplant; his own hair had been blond.
	I leaned back in my chair, gazing fondly at the corpses.
	Organleggers, both of them. With all that raw material available, most organleggers change their fingerprints constantly, and their retina prints; but wed never get prints from those charred eyeballs. So, weird weapon or no, they were ARM business.
	And we still didnt know what had killed them, or who.
	It could hardly have been a rival gang. For one thing, there was no competition: plenty of business for everyone left alive after the ARM had swept through them last year. For another, why had they been dumped on a city slidewalk? Rival organleggers would have taken them apart for their own organ banks. Waste not, want not.
	On that same philosophy, I had something to be deeply involved in when the mother hunt broke. Sinclairs death wasnt ARM business, and his time-compression field wasnt in my field. This was both.
	I wondered what end of the business they had been in. The file gave their estimated agesforty for the man, forty-three for the woman, two years margin of error. Too old to be raiding the city streets for donors. That takes youth and muscle. I billed them as doctors, culturing the transplants and doing the operations; or salesmen, charged with quietly letting prospective clients know where they could get an operation without waiting two years for the public organ banks to come up with the material.
	So, theyd tried to sell someone a new kidney and been killed for their impudence. That would make the killer a hero. So why hide them for three days, then drag them out onto a city slidewalk in the dead of night?
	Because theyd been killed with a fearsome new weapon?
	I looked at the burned faces and thought: Fearsome, right. Whatever did that had to be strictly a murder weapon, just as the optical grid over a laser lens would be strictly a murder technique.
	So, a secretive scientist and his deformed assistant, fearful of rousing the wrath of the villagers, had dithered over the bodies for three
days, then disposed of them in that clumsy fashion because they panicked when the bodies started to smell. Maybe.
	But a prospective client neednt have used his shiny new terror weapon. He had only to call the cops after they were gone. It read better if the killer was a prospective donor; hed fight with anything he could get his hands on.
	I flipped back to full shots of the bodies. They looked to be in good condition. Not much flab. You dont collect a donor by putting an armlock on him; you use a needle gun. But you still need muscle to pick up the body and move it to your car, and you have to do that damn quick. Hmmm. .
	Someone knocked at my door.
	I shouted, Come on in!
	Drew Porter came in. He was big enough to fill the office, and he moved with a grace he must have learned on a board. Mr. Hamilton? Id like to talk to you.
	Sure. What about?
	He didnt seem to know what to do with his hands. He looked grimly determined. Youre an ARM, he said. Youre not actually investigating Uncle Rays murder. Thats right, isnt it?
	Thats right. Our concern is with the generator. Coffee?
	Yes, thanks. But you know all about the killing. I thought Id like to talk to you, straighten out some of my own ideas.
	Go ahead. I punched for two coffees.
	Ordaz thinks Janice did it, doesnt he?
	Probably. Im not good at reading Ordazs mind. But it seems to narrow down to two distinct groups of possible killers. Janice, and everyone else. Heres your coffee.
	Janice didnt do it. He took the cup from me, gulped at it, set it down on my desk, and forgot about it.
	Janice and X, I said. But X couldnt have left. In fact, X couldnt have left even if hed had the machine he came for. And we still dont know why he didnt just take the elevator.
	He scowled as he thought that through. Say he had a way to leave, he said. He wanted to take the machinehe had to want that, because he tried to use the machine to set up an alibi. But even if he couldnt take the machine, hed still use his alternate way out.
Why?
	Itd leave Janice holding the bag, if he knew Janice was coming home. If he didnt, hed be leaving the police with a locked-room mystery.
	Locked-room mysteries are good clean fun, but I never heard of one happening in real life. In fiction they usually happen by accident. I waved aside his protest. Never mind. ~ou argue well. But what was his alternate escape route?
	Porter didnt answer.
	Would you care to look at the case against Janice Sinclair?
	Shes the only one who could have done it, he said bitterly. But she didnt. She couldnt kill anyone, not that cold-blooded, prepackaged way, with an alibi all set up and a weird machine at the heart of it. Look, that machine is too complicated for Janice.
	No, she isnt the type. Butno offense intendedyou are.
	He grinned at that. Me? Well, maybe I am. But why would I want to?
	Youre in love with her. I think youd do anything for her. Aside from that, you might enjoy setting up a perfect murder. And theres the money.
	Youve got a funny idea of a perfect murder.
	Say I was being tactful.
	He laughed at that. All right. Say I set up a murder for the love of Janice. Damn it, if she had that much hate in her, I wouldnt love her! Why would she want to kill Uncle Ray?
	I dithered as to whether to drop that on him. Decided yes. Do you know anything about Edward Sinclairs exemption?
	Yah, Janice told me something about . . . He trailed off.
	Just what did she tell you?
	I dont have to say.
	That was probably intelligent. All right, I said. For the sake of argument, lets assume it was Raymond Sinclair who worked out the math for the new rinrobot scoops, and Edward took the credit, with Raymonds connivance. It was probably Raymonds idea. How would that sit with Edward?
	Id think hed be grateful forever, said Porter. Janice says he is.,
	Maybe. But people are funny, arent they? Being grateful for fifty years could get on a mans nerves. Its not a natural emotion.
	Youre so young to be so cynical, Porter said pityingly.
	Im trying to think this out like a prosecution lawyer. If these brothers saw each other too often, Edward might get to feeling embarrassed around Raymond. Hed have a hard time relaxing with him. The rumors wouldnt help. . . . Oh, yes, there are rumors. Ive been told that Edward couldnt have worked out those equations, be-
cause he doesnt have the ability. If that kind of thing got back to Edward, how would he like it? He might even start avoiding his brother. Then Ray might remind brother Edward of just how much he owed him . . . and thats the kiss of death.
	Janice says no.
	Janice could have picked up the hate from her father. Or she might have started worrying about what would happen if Uncle Ray changed his mind one day. It could happen anytime, if things were getting strained between the elder Sinclairs. So one day she shut his mouth
	Porter snarled in his throat.
	Im just trying to show you what youre up against. One more thing: the killer may have wiped the tapes in Sinclairs computer.
	Oh? Porter thought that over. Yak. Janice could have done that just in case there were some notes in there, notes on Ed Sinclairs ramscoop field equations. But, look, X could have wiped those tapes too. Stealing the generator doesnt do him any good unless he wipes it out of Uncle Rays computer.
	True enough. Shall we get back to the case against X?
	With pleasure. He dropped into a chair. Watching his face smooth out, I added, and with great relief.
	I said, Lets not call him X. Call him K, for killer. We already had an Ecks involved, and his family name probably had been X, once upon a time. Weve been assuming K set up Sinclairs timecompression effect as an alibi.
	Porter smiled. Its a lovely idea. Elegant, as a mathematician would say. Remember, I never saw the actual murder scene. Just chalk marks.
	It was . . . macabre. Like a piece of surrealism. A very bloody practical joke. K could have deliberately set it up that way, if his mind is twisted enough.
	If hes that twisted, he probably escaped by running himself down the garbage disposal.
	Pauline Urthiel thought he might be a psychotic. Someone who worked with Sinclair, who thought he wasnt getting enough credit. Like Peterfi, I thought, or Pauline herself.
	I like the alibi theory.
	It bothers me. Too many people knew about the machine. How did he expect to get away with it? Lawrence Ecks knew about it. Peterfi knew enough about the machine to rebuild it from scratch. Or so he says. You and Janice saw it in action.
	Say hes crazy, then. Say he hated Uncle Ray enough to kill him and then set him up in a makeshift Dali painting. Hed stifi have to get out. Porter was working his hands together.~The muscles bulged and rippled in his arms. This whole thing depends on the elevator, doesnt it? If the elevator hadnt been locked, and on Uncle Rays floor, there wouldnt be a problem.
So?
	So. Say he did leave by elevator. Then Janice came home, and she automatically called the elevator up and locked it. She does that without thinking. She had a bad shock last night. This morning she didnt remember.
	And this evening it could come back to her.
	Porter looked up sharply. I wouldnt
	Youd better think long and hard before you do. If Ordaz is sixty percent sure of her now, hell be a hundred percent sure when she lays that on him.
	Porter was working his muscles again. In a low voice he said, Its possible, isnt it?
	Sure. Itd make things a lot simpler, too. But if Janice said it now, shed sound like a liar.
	But its possible.
	I give up. Sure, its possible.
	Then whos our killer?
	There wasnt any reason I shouldnt consider the question. It wasnt my case at all. I did, and presently I laughed. Did I say itd make things simpler? Man, it throws the case wide open! Anyone could have done it. Ub, anyone but Steeves. Steeves wouldnt have had any reason to come back this morning.
	Porter looked glum. Steeves wouldnt have done it anyway.
	He was your suggestion.
	Oh, in pure mechanical terms, hes the only one left who didnt need a way out. But you dont know Steeves. Hes a big, brawny guy with a beer belly and no brains. A nice guy, you understand, I like him, but if he ever killed anyone, itd be with a beer bottle. And he was proud of Uncle Ray. He liked having Raymond Sinclair in his building.
	Okay, forget Steeves. Is there anyone youd particularly like to pin it on? Bearing in mind that now anyone could get in to do it.
	Not anyone. Anyone in the elevator computer, plus anyone Uncle Ray might have let up.
Well?
	He shook his head.
	You make a hell of an amateur detective. Youre afraid to accuse anyone.
	He shrugged, smiling, embarrassed.
	What about Peterfi? Now that Sinclairs dead, he can claim they were equal partners in the . . . uh . . . time machine. And he tumbled to it awfully fast. The moment Valpredo told him Sinclair was dead, Peterfi was his partner.
	Sounds typical.
	Could he be teffing the truth?
	Id say hes lying. Doesnt make him a killer, though.
	No. What about Ecks? If he didnt know Peterfi was involved, he might have tried the same thing. Does he need money?
	Hardly. And hes been with Uncle Ray for longer than Ive been alive.
	Maybe he was after the immunity. Hes had kids, but not by his present wife. He may not know she cant have children.
	Pauline likes children. Ive seen her with them. Porter looked at me curiously. I dont see having children as that big a motive.
	Youre young. Then, theres Pauline herself. Sinclair knew something about her. Or Sinclair might have told Ecks, and Ecks blew up and killed him for it.
	Porter shook his head. In red rage? I cant think of anything thatd make Larry do that. Pauline, maybe. Larry, no.
	But, I thought, there are men who would kill if they learned that their wives had gone through a sex change. I said, Whoever killed Sinclair, if he wasnt crazy, he had to want to take the machine. One way might have been to lower it by rope . . . I trailed off. Eighty pounds, lowered two stories by nylon line. Eckss steel and plastic arm. . . or the muscles now rolling like boulders in Porters arms. I thought Porter could have managed it.
	Or maybe hed thought he could. He hadnt actually had to go through with it.
	My phone rang.
	It was Ordaz. Have you made any progress on the time machine? Im told that Dr. Sinclairs computer
	Was wiped, yah. But thats all right. Were learning quite a lot about it. If we run into trouble, Bernath Peterfi can help us. He helped build it. Where are you now?
	At Dr. Sinclairs apartment. We had some further questions for Janice Sinclair.
	Porter twitched. I said, All right, well be right over. Drew Porters with me. I hung up and turned to Porter. Does Janice know shes a suspect?
	No. Please dont tell her unless you have to. Im not sure she could take it.

	I had the taxi drop us at the lobby level of the Rodewald Building. When I told Porter I wanted a ride in the elevator, he just nodded.
	The elevator to Raymond Sinclairs penthouse was a box with a seat in it. It would have been comfortable for one, cozy for two good friends. With me and Porter in it, it was crowded. Porter hunched his knees and tried to fold into himself. He seemed used to it.
	He probably was. Most apartment elevators are like that. Why waste room on an elevator shaft when the same space can go into apartments?
	It was a fast ride. The seat was necessary; it was two gee going up and a longer period at half a gee slowing down, while lighted numbers flickered past. Numbers, but no doors.
	Hey, Porter. If this elevator jammed, would there be a door to let us out?
	He gave me a funny look and said he didnt know. Why worry about it? If it jammed at this speed, itd come apart like a handful of shredded lettuce.
	It was just claustrophobic enough to make me wonder. K hadnt left by elevator. Why not? Because the ride up had terrified him? Brain to memory: dig into the medical records of that list of suspects. See if any of them have records of claustrophobia. Too bad the elevator brain didnt keep records. We could find out which of them had used the boxlike elevator once or not at all.
	In which case wed be looking for 1(2. By now I was thinldng in terms of three groups. Ki had killed Sinclair, then tried to use the low-inertia field as both loot and alibi. 1(2 was crazy; he hadnt wanted the generator at all, except as a way to set up his macabre tableau. K3 was Janice and Drew Porter.

	Janice was there when the doors slid open. She was wan, and her shoulders slumped. But when she saw Porter she smiled like sunlight and ran to him. Her run was wobbly, thrown off by the missing weight of her arm.
	I stepped past them, shook hands with Ordaz and Vaipredo, and looked around.
	The wide brown circle was stifi there in the grass, marked with white chalk and the yellow chemical that picks up bloodstains. White outlines to mark the vanished body, the generator, the poker.
	Something knocked at the back door of my mind. I looked from the chalk outlines, to the open elevator, to the chalk. . . and a third of the puzzle fell into place.
	So simple. We were looking for Ki, and I had a pretty good idea of who he was.
	Ordax was asking, How did you happen to arrive with Mr. Porter?
	He came to my office. We were talking about a hypothetical killerI lowered my voice slightlya killer who isnt Janice.
	Very good. Did you reason out how he must have left?
	Not yet. But play the game with me. Say there was a way.
	Porter and Janice joined us, their arms about each others waists. Ordaz said, Very well. We assume there was a way out. Did he improvise it? And why did he not use the elevator?
	He must have had it in mind when he got here. He didnt use the elevator because he was planning to take the machine. It wouldnt have fit.
	They all stared at the chalk outline of the generator. So simple. Porter said, Yah! Then he used it anyway, and left you a lockedroom mystery!
	That may have been his mistake, Ordaz said grimly. When we know his escape route, we may find that only one man could have used it. But of course we do not even know that the route exists.
	I changed the subject. Have you got everyone on the elevator tape identified?
	Valpredo dug out his spiral notebook and ffipped to the jotted names of those people permitted to use Sinclairs elevator. He showed it to Porter. Have you seen this?
	Porter studied it. No, but I can guess what it is. Lets see . Hans Drucker was Janices lover before I came along. We still see him. In fact, he was at that beach party last night at the Randalls.
	He flopped on the Randalls rug last night, said Valpredo. Him and four others. One of the better alibis.
	Oh, Hans wouldnt have anything to do with this! Janice cxclaimed. The idea horrified her.
	Porter was still looking at the list. You know about most of these people already. Bertha Hall and Muriel Sandusky were lady friends of Uncle Rays. Bertha goes backpacking with him.
	We interviewed them too, Valpredo told me. You can hear the tapes if you like.
	No, just give me the gist. I already know who the killer is.
	Ordaz raised his eyebrows at that, and Janice said, Oh, good! Who? which question I answered with a secretive smile. Nobody actually called me a liar.
	Valpredo said, Muriel Sanduskys been living in England for almost a year. Married. Hasnt seen Sinclair in years. Big, beautiful redhead.
	She had a crush on Uncle Ray once, said Janice. And vice versa. I think his lasted longer.
	Bertha Hall is something else again, Valpredo continued. Sinclairs age, and in good shape. Wiry. She says that when Sinclair was on the home stretch of a project he gave up everythingfriends, social life, exercise. Afterward hed call Bertha and go backpacking with her to catch up with himself. He called her two nights ago and set a date for next Monday.
	I said, Alibi?
Nope.
	Really! Janice was indignant. Why, weve known Bertha since I was that high! If you know who killed Uncle Ray, why dont you just say so?
	Out of this list, I sure do, given certain assumptions. But I dont know how he got out, or how he expected to, or whether we can prove it on him. I cant accuse anyone now. Its a damn shame he didnt lose his arm reaching for that poker.
	Porter looked frustrated. So did Janice.
	You would not want to face a lawsuit, Ordaz suggested delicately. What of Sinclairs machine?
	Its an inertialess drive, sort of. Lower the inertia, time speeds up. Beras already learned a lot about it, but itll be a while before he can really . . .
	You were saying? Ordaz asked when I trailed off.
	Sinclair was finished with the damn thing.
	Sure he was, said Porter. He wouldnt have been showing it around otherwise.
	Or calling Bertha for a backpacking expedition. Or spreading rumors about what he had. Yah. Sure, he knew everything he could learn about that machine. Julio, you were cheated. It all depends on the machine. And the bastard did wrack up his arm, and we can prove it on him.
	We were piled into Ordazs police carme and Ordaz and Valpredo and Porter. Valpredo had set the thing for conventional speeds so he wouldnt have to worry about driving. Wed turned the interior chairs to face each other.
	This is the part I wont guarantee, I said, sketching rapidly in Valpredos borrowed notebook. But remember, he had a length of line with him. He must have expected to use it. Heres how he planned to get out.
	I sketched in a box to represent Sinclairs generator, a stick figure clinging to the frame. A circle around them to represent the field. A bow knot tied to the machine, with one end trailing up through the field.
	See it? He goes up the stairs with the field on. The camera has about one chance in eight of catching him while hes moving at that speed. He wheels the machine to the edge of the roof, ties the line to it, throws the line a good distance away, pushes the generator off the roof, and steps off with it. The~ line falls at thirty-two feet per second squared, normal time, plus a little more because the machine and the killer are tugging down on it. Not hard, because theyre in a low-inertia field. By the time the killer reaches the ground, hes moving at something more than. . . uh. . . twelve hundred feet per second over five hundred . . . uh, say three feet per second internal time, and hes got to pull the machine out of the way fast, because the rope is going to hit like a bomb.
	It looks like it would work, said Porter.
	Yah. I thought for a while that he could just stand on the bottom of the field. A little fooling with the machine cured me of that. Hed smash both legs. But he could hang onto the frame; its strong enough.
	But he didnt have the machine, Valpredo pointed out.
	Thats where you got cheated. What happens when two fields intersect?
	They looked blank.
	Its not a trivial question. Nobody knows the answer yet. But Sinclair did. He had to, he was finished. He must have had two machines. The killer took the second machine.
	Ordaz said, Ahh.
	Porter said, Whos K?
	We were settling on the carport. Valpredo knew where we were,
but he didnt say anything. We left the taxi and headed for the elevators.
	Thats a lot easier, I said. He expected to~use the machine as an alibi. Thats silly, considering how many people knew it existed. But if he didnt know that Sinclair was ready to start showing it to peoplespecifically to you and Janicewhos left? Ecks knew only that it was some kind of interstellar drive.
	The elevator was uncommonly large. We piled into it.
	And, said Valpredo, theres the matter of the arm. I think Ive got that figured too.
	I gave you enough clues, I told him.

	Peterfi was a long time answering our buzz. He may have studied us through the door camera, wondering why a parade was marching through his hallway. Then he spoke through the grid. Yes? What is it?
	Police. Open up, said Valpredo.
	Do you have a warrant?
	I stepped forward and showed my ident to the camera. Im an ARM. I dont need a warrant. Open up. We wont keep you long. One way or another.
	He opened the door. He looked neater now than he had this afternoon, despite informal brown indoor pajamas. Just you, he said. He let me in, then started to close the door on the others.
	Valpredo put his hand against the door. Hey . . .
	Its okay, I said. Peterfi was smaller than I was, and I had a needle gun. Valpredo shrugged and let him close the door.
	My mistake. I had two-thirds of the puzzle, and I thought I had it all.
	Peterfi folded his arms and said, Well? What is it you want to search this time? Would you like to examine my legs?
	No, lets start with the insulin feeder on your upper arm.
	Certainly, he said, and startled hell out of me.
	I waited while he took off his shirtunnecessary, but he neednt know thatthen ran my imaginary fingers through the insulin feed. The reserve was nearly full. I should have known, I said. Damnit. You got six months worth of insulin from the organlegger.
	His eyebrows went up. Organlegger? He pulled loose. Is this an accusation, Mr. Hamilton? Im taping this for my attorney.
	And I was setting myself up for a lawsuit. The hell with it. Yah,
its an accusation. You killed Sinclair. Nobody else could have tried that alibi stunt.
	He looked puzzledhonestly, I thought. Why not?
	If anyone else had tried to set up an alibi with Sinclairs generator, Bernath Peterfl would have told the police all about what it was and how it worked. But you were the only one who knew that, until last night, when he started showing it around.
	There was only one thing he could say to that kind of logic, and he said it. Still recording, Mr. Hamilton.
	Record and be damned. There are other things we can check. Your grocery-delivery service. Your water bill.
	He didnt flinch. He was smiling. Was it a bluff? I sniffed the air. Six months worth of body odor emitted in one night? By a man who hadnt taken more than four or five baths in six months? But his airconditioning was too good.
	The curtains were open now to the night and the ocean. Theyd been closed this afternoon, and hed been squinting. But it wasnt evidence. The lights: he had only one light burning now, and so what?
	The big, powerful camp-out flashlight sitting on a small table against a wall. I hadnt even noticed it this afternoon. Now I was sure I knew what hed used it for. . . . But how to prove it?
	Groceries. . . . If you didnt buy six months worth of groceries last night, you must have stolen them. Sinclairs generators perfect for thefts. Well check the local supermarkets.
	And link the thefts to me? How?
	He was too bright to have kept the generator. But come to think of it, where could he abandon it? He was guilty. He couldnt have covered all his tracks.
	Peterfi? Ive got it.
	He believed me. I saw it in the way he braced himself. Maybe hed worked it out before I did. I said, Your contraceptive shots must have worn off six months early. Your organlegger couldnt get you that; hes got no reason to keep contraceptives around. Youre dead, Peterfi.
	I might as well be. Damn you, Hamilton! Youve cost me the exemption!
	They wont try you right away. We cant afford to lose whats in your head. You know too much about Sinclairs generator.
	Our generator! We built it together!
Yak.
	You wont try me at all, he said more calmly. Are you going to tell a court how the killer left Rays apartment?
	I dug out my sketch and handed it to him. While he was studying it, I said, How did you like going off the roof? You couldnt have known it would work.
	He looked up. His words came slowly, reluctantly. I guess he had to tell someone, and it didnt matter now. By then I didnt care. My arm hung like a dead rabbit, and it stank. It took me three minutes to reach the ground. I thought Id die on the way.
	Whered you dig up an organlegger that fast?
	His eyes called me a fool. Cant you guess? Three years ago. I was hoping diabetes could be cured by a transplant. When the government hospitals couldnt help me, I went to an organlegger. I was lucky he was stifi in business last night.
	He drooped. It seemed that all the anger went out of him. Then it was six months in the field, waiting for the scars to heal. In the dark. I tried taking that big camp-out flashlight in with me. He laughed bitterly. I gave up after I noticed that the walls were smoldering.
	The wall above that little table had a scorched look. I should have wondered about that earlier.
	No baths, he was saying. I was afraid to use up that much water. No exercise, practically. But I had to eat, didnt I? And all for nothing.
	Will you tell us how to find the organlegger you dealt with?
	This is your big day, isnt it, Hamilton? All right, why not. It wont do you any good.
Why not?
	He looked up at me very strangely.
	Then he spun about and ran.
	He caught me flatfooted. I jumped after him. I didnt know what he had in mind; there was only one exit to the apartment, excluding the balcony, and he wasnt headed there. He seemed to be trying to reach a blank wall with a small table set against it, a camp-out flashlight on it and a drawer in it. I saw the drawer and thought, gun! And I surged after him and got him by the wrist just as he reached the wall switch above the table.
	I threw my weight backward and yanked him away from there, and then the field came on.
	I held a hand and arm up to the elbow. Beyond was a fluttering of violet lightPeterfi thrashing frantically in a low-inertia field. I hung on while I tried to figure out what was happening.
	The second generator was here somewhere. In the wall? The switch seemed to have been recently plastered in, now that I saw it close. Figure a closet on the other side, and the generator in it. Peterfi must have drilled through the wall and fixed that switch. Sure, what else did he have to do with six months of spare time?
	No point in yelling for help. Peterfis soundprooflng was too modern. And if I didnt let go, Peterfi would die of thirst in a few nunutes.
	Peterfis feet came straight at my jaw. I threw myself down, and the edge of a boot sole nearly tore my ear off. I rolled forward in time to grab his ankle. There was more violet fluttering, and his other leg thrashed wildly outside the field. Too many conflicting nerve impulses were pouring into the muscles. The leg flopped about like something dying. If I didnt let go, hed break it in a dozen places.
	Hed knocked the table over. I didnt see it fall, but suddenly it was lying on its side. The part with the drawer must have been well beyond the field. The flashlight lay just beyond the violet fluttering of his hand.
	Okay. He couldnt reach the drawer; his hand wouldnt get coherent signals if it left the field. I could let go of his ankle. Hed turn off the field when he got thirsty enough.
	I almost did.
	Then something jarred together in my head, and: Brain to hand:
Hang on, for our lives! Dont you understand? Hes trying to reach the flashlight!
I hung on.
	Peterfi suddenly stopped thrashing about in there. He lay on his side, his face and hands glowing blue. I was trying to decide whether he was playing possum when the blue light behind his face quietly went out.

	I let them in. They looked it over. Valpredo went off to search for a pole to reach the light switch. Ordaz asked, Was it necessary to kill him?
	I pointed to the flashlight. He didnt get it.
	I was overconfident, I said. I shouldnt have come in alone. Hes already killed two people with that flashlight. The organleggers who gave him his new arm. He didnt want them talking, so he burned their faces off and then dragged them out onto a slidewalk. He probably tied them to the generator and then used the line to pull
it.	With the field on, the whole setup wouldnt weigh more than a couple of pounds.
	With a flashlight? Ordaz pondered. Of couTse. It would have been putting out five hundred times as much light. A good thing you thought of that in time.
	Well, I do spend more time dealing with these oddball sciencefiction devices than you do.
	And welcome to them, said Ordaz.
