The Transvection Machine (15 page)

“Or maybe even five minutes?”

“I did what I could. You have to believe that.”

“Yet Groton thought he had a hold over you.”

“He said Secretary Defoe was an important man, and it was sure to be an international incident. He told me they’d have me before congressional committees, that they’d pry into my whole life.”

“But he was going to save you from all this?”

She nodded. “He said if I’d go to bed with him he’d stick to his story that I was blameless.”

“And you were ready to do it?”

“He told me to meet him on that corner by the expressway. I was afraid to refuse. But then when you came along he thought I’d tricked him somehow. I don’t know what he’ll do now.”

“Do you believe Defoe’s death was your fault in any way?”

“No.”

“Then you have nothing to fear. But tell me—what was Groton doing in that section of town, and dressed like a computer workman?”

“He
is
a computer workman,” she answered simply. “He has a big monthly alimony bill from his ex-wife, and he pays it off by secretly moonlighting at one of the automated factories. He told me about it once—he works in a plant that manufactures vision-phone picture tubes.”

“He doesn’t make enough at Salk Memorial?”

“Not enough for his ex-wife, apparently.”

“Interesting,” Jazine mused. He hadn’t known that little Dr. Groton was a computer expert. “And you would have gone with him if I hadn’t come along.”

She shrugged. “Probably.” Then there was something like apprehension in her eyes. “Are you going to make trouble for me now?”

It was the opening he needed, but somehow he couldn’t make himself into another Groton. “Not unless you caused Secretary Defoe’s death,” he told her. “But I do have one question to ask. Think back to the instant before he started hemorrhaging. Is there any possibility someone else entered the operating room, even for a second? Could someone have appeared, and then disappeared in a split second?”

She stared at him, not understanding. “No one was there but me. Dr. Groton didn’t come till later.”

“I didn’t mean him. Could there have been anyone else—someone who appeared as if by magic and then vanished again?”

She shook her head. “There’s no magic anymore—only machines.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He got up to go.

“Will you stay for a drink?”

“I …” His words were drowned out by the buzzing of the Guardex unit. She was having another visitor.

Bonnie Simmons walked quickly to the telescreen and snapped it on. The elevator camera showed a fuzzy black-and-white portrait of Dr. Groton, dressed now in ordinary street clothes. “Let him come up,” Jazine said, feeling the bruises on his face. “I want a return match.”

She hesitated and then pushed the release button. The elevator started its rapid rise to the twenty-fourth floor. “I don’t want any trouble here,” she cautioned.

“You’ve got trouble already. Just be thankful I’m here to handle it for you.”

Jazine stood behind the door, waiting. When it swung open to admit Groton, he stepped out behind the man and said, “Hello again, doctor.”

Groton turned quickly and tried to swing, but Jazine was ready for him this time. He grabbed for the wrist and twisted, forcing the man over almost to the floor. “Damn you, let me up!” Groton cursed. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing. You assaulted me this afternoon, remember?” He eased the pressure and allowed Groton to straighten up.

“I didn’t … it was all a mistake. I didn’t recognize you. I thought you were a flippie, or a mugger.”

Flippies were wild young people, usually under the influence of drugs, who could be found in most large cities. Earl Jazine hardly thought he qualified. “Suppose we sit down and talk it over, doctor. You’re in big trouble, in case you didn’t know it.”

Groton shot a look of pure malice at Bonnie Simmons and settled onto the plasti-foam couch. “I’m not in any trouble,” he muttered between his teeth.

“No? What do you call signing a false death certificate, attempted blackmail—and maybe murder, for all I know?”

“I had nothing to do with Defoe’s death!”

“You moonlight on a computer job, doctor. A computer expert could have rigged that surgical machine to kill Vander Defoe.”

Groton shot another glance at Bonnie and then turned on Jazine. “I program a machine to coat the insides of vision-phone picture tubes. You tell me how that qualifies me to rig a surgical computer to commit murder. Frankly, I don’t think anyone killed Defoe. It was just an unfortunate accident.”

“By a machine with which no accidents are possible.”

Groton shrugged. “Call it an act of God, then. Or does the Computer Investigation Bureau rank itself among the New Godless these days?”

“I prefer a more mundane solution to Vander Defoe’s death,” Jazine said.

“I came here to speak to Bonnie. If you’re staying, I’d better be going.”

“One more question, Dr. Groton. Was an autopsy performed on Defoe?”

“No, none was deemed necessary. The cause of death was obvious to me, even if the events leading to that cause were not. You must know that autopsies are a rarity in American hospitals these days, Mr. Jazine. They’re unnecessary and they take time.”

“All right,” Jazine told him. “You can go.”

“Thanks a lot,” Dr. Groton said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. He didn’t look at Bonnie as he went out.

“I’m glad you were here,” she told Jazine when they were alone. “But he’ll probably make it hell for me at work.”

“Maybe you should look for another hospital.”

“Salk pays better than most.”

“They don’t seem to pay Groton enough to support his ex-wife.”

“I suppose everything’s comparative. You read in books where doctors were among the highest-paid people in the country a hundred years ago. Today it’s just not true, unless you’re a specialist or a surgeon. In fact the ones like Groton on hospital staffs fare rather poorly. He told me once he could make more money as a full-time computer technician—but of course he can’t let the hospital know he does something like that on the side.”

Jazine walked to the window and stared out at the night lights of the city. It seemed a beautiful place just then, from a distance, without the torment of individual lives to spoil the image. He would have liked to stay here, with this girl, but he knew he couldn’t. He had to find Hubert Ganger, and ask him some questions. “Stay away from Groton,” he told Bonnie. “He’s no good for you.”

“What man is?” She smiled and held the door for him.

Ganger was not at his apartment, and no one answered the vision-phone at Gretel Defoe’s place. Perhaps they’d fled the country together, riding the sea-rail to some distant beach where the controlled climate provided endless days of sun and warmth. Jazine tried again in the morning, but when he still could find no trace of them he headed back to New York, arriving during one of the infrequent autumn rains that man had not quite been able to repress.

Judy gave him a smile of pleased surprise. “I thought you were going to spend the rest of your life down there. We were ready to open a Washington office.”

“I couldn’t stand all the politics. That was the smartest thing the chief ever did, getting us moved up here back at the beginning. Is he in?”

Judy nodded. “Trying to catch up on back work.” She pushed a buzzer on her desk—one long, two short, one long—and waited for Crader’s reply. When it came she nodded. “Go right in. He can see you.”

Crader was at his desk, studying the wiring diagram of a computer complex at the Internal Revenue’s Chicago office. He glanced up as Earl entered. “Glad you’re back. The casework load has been piling up.”

“Anything the others can’t handle?”

“No, I guess not. Still on the Defoe thing?”

Jazine nodded. “But it looks as if Ganger and Mrs. Defoe have gone into hiding. Can’t find them anywhere.”

“You still think they’re involved?”

“I’m stuck on this idea of the transvection machine, chief. I have visions of Ganger transvecting himself into that operating room long enough to kill Defoe. He surely had plenty of motive. Defoe stole his invention and he was stealing Defoe’s wife.”

“But from what we know of the transvection …”

“I know, I know. It’s probably not possible.”

“Anything on the people from Salk Memorial?”

Jazine ran quickly over his encounter with Dr. Groton at Bonnie Simmons’s apartment. When he’d finished, Crader raised his eyebrows in speculation. “Moonlighting on computers?”

“I had the same thought, chief. But it seems to be innocent enough, at least to hear him tell it.”

Crader nodded. “Think I’ll run a check on him, anyway.” He flipped a variety of switches on his desk, opening a circuit from his computer terminal to the combined FBI-Treasury master computer in Richmond. After a moment’s pause, the scanner began a printout of all the known information on
GROTON, Michael F., M.D., 344-67-439-3.

“Anything there?”

Crader glanced over it. “Nothing. He’s forty-one years old, married, divorced first wife three years ago, two children by first wife, on staff of Salk Memorial for seven years. No bad reports. Paid tax last year on income of $32,000, broken down as follows: $19,000 from Salk Memorial, $12,000 from part-time computer work, $1,000 in dividends and interest.”

“Salk only pays him $19,000? I guess doctors really are underpaid by today’s standards.” Jazine earned nearly $30,000, and did not consider himself a wealthy man.

The intercom buzzed and Judy announced that Mike Sabin was outside. “I’ve had him checking some things on the Defoe case,” Crader explained. “He must have some hot news to bring him up here in person.”

Sabin entered in a state of repressed excitement. Watching him, Jazine wondered if he too had been that young and guileless when he first started with CIB. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Crader, but I had some information I thought you’d want as soon as possible.”

Carl Crader smiled. “Certainly, Mike. What do you have for me?”

“It’s about that Chinese girl—Gloria Chang. I remembered who she is.”

“Oh?”

“I knew I remembered the name from somewhere. It was on all the video reports at the time, but I guess we’ve become a bit forgetful of mere people. Besides, most reports simply referred to her as the Transvection Girl.”

“The …”

“Of course, sir! Don’t you remember? Gloria Chang is the girl who was transvected from Washington to Calcutta in Vander Defoe’s machine!”

H
E ROLLED OVER ON
the room-sized mattress, awake, searching for Gloria. She came in finally, hearing his waking sounds, and stood in the doorway wearing a Gullahian dancer’s robe that left her legs and arms bare. “You want more?” she asked.

“Sure. I want more.” He opened his arms to her. “You know, you’re one of the best things on Plenish, and that rat Axman was trying to keep you all for himself! Never even told me about you!”

“Gloria no understand?” she said, somehow making it a question.

“You don’t have to understand, baby. Venus was never like this.” It was almost enough to make him forget Fergana and everything that had happened to him.

“Will Euler stay here, on Plenish?”

“I sure hope so,” he told her, pressing her into the mattress with the bulk of his body. But even as he spoke the words, he knew he was deceiving her. Axman had already told him they would be leaving soon, leaving to return to America. But for now, there was only the wonder of Plenish, the delight of this girl’s body beneath him.

It was almost noon when they finally dressed and went out to the blinding sunlight. Ahead, along the shore, the basking bathers waited, caught in this moment between sea and shore, splashing in the shallow waters while fleeing the lives they’d left behind. Seeing them, he was reminded again of the lonely stretches of Venus, and especially of the long months he’d spent in the alien dome of the Free Zone. That was, perhaps, the Venusian equivalent of Plenish Island here on Earth—a place to which both sides could escape, and mingle, before the forced return to their own lands.

Here, in these days with Gloria, he’d known a joy that surpassed those days on Venus. In a sense he was an exile on Earth too, a fugitive from his own country, but soon he would be returning. Axman had plans. HAND had plans.

“Euler!” a voice called, rousing him from his seascape dream, and he turned to see that it was Axman, waving them to join him at the yacht. “Need we go?” Gloria Chang asked. She seemed to have a fear of what was coming, a knowledge that he would soon be taken away from her.

“It is my duty,” he told her. “The vacation is almost over.”

Graham Axman poured sparkling glasses of palm wine, and they drank to the success of HAND. Then, after the second glass, he told Frost, “We leave tomorrow. By sea-rail to Europe and then by rocket-jet. Back to America.”

“Me too, Axman?” Gloria asked.

But he shook his head. “You and Genet are too valuable to us. You must remain here on Plenish, where no government can touch you.”

She went off to pout, sitting on the fiberboard dock with her bare feet dangling toward the water. Frost glanced at Axman, shrugged, and went to her side. She was too valuable a prize to alienate. “We won’t be gone long,” he assured her. “Only a few days. There’s lots for you to do here without me. Axman will give you some money for the casino, and you can play aqua-golf with Genet. …”

“You will be back, Euler?” Those words seemed to have given her some hope.

“I’ll be back. Just as soon as I can.”

She turned to smile at him, and took his hand for a moment. He kissed her gently on the lips and then went to rejoin Axman on the deck of the yacht. “You have a way with women,” the bearded man remarked. “That should satisfy her for a few sunny days.”

“What’s the plan?” Frost asked. He didn’t like to talk about Gloria with Axman. Something in his fiery eyes made him capable of wanting and possessing any woman.

“I’ve assembled a small strike force of a dozen men. We’re going to attack, and destroy, one of their major computer centers. I want you along, at my side.”