Crashlander

I said, «I'm in my room at the Pequod. Ander, nothing was said about killing the poor flat.»

«Beowulf, we can hardly sell our wonderful nanotech machine without Sigmund knowing where we got it. The room isn't registered to anyone, and the punchgun can go with me. You haven't used the punchgun, have you? Like for robbing a droud shop?»

«No.»

«Then at worst they'll track it back to the ARM. And then maybe to you.»

My head seemed filled with fog. Did I do this? Did I find the temptation that turned Ander Smittarasheed into a thief and killer? Or was he always that?

What do I do now? Play it out. «A dead man can't send us money,» I said.

«Sigmund brought local money. It'll be in that case. It may take me a while to break the security programs, and I don't really know how much he brought.»

«Show me the case.»

«What, you think I'm lying?» He bent out of view, then rose again with a heavy silver briefcase in his fist. «Now is when you tell me where the island is.»

I gave him a longitude, the right one. «Latitude when I've got half the money.»

«I'll be in touch.»

«Wait! Ander, get rid of the punchgun.»

Ander laughed. «I think I'll keep it.»

He'd seen how I feared it. He'd keep it to intimidate me. I tried anyway. «Ander, I was wearing a v-»

He flicked off.

I waited at the phone until I saw the shape in the hotel room window stand and step out of view. Then I went back to the desk. «Are you ready to freeze me, Ms. Machti?»

White-garbed medics wanted my retina prints and a voice match. I was five feet ten and a half inches tall. The physical exam they put me through seemed perfunctory, but what could they find? Carlos Wu's autodoc had rebuilt me almost from my DNA map. I'd never been in better shape.

I wanted to view Sharrol and Jeena. The doctors let me see them. They looked all right … well, dead, but otherwise … I was nerving myself to join them.

As if I'd left myself a choice.

What a mess. Poor Sigmund.

What would the local police make of that wound? They'd never seen a corpse like that, but they'd seen a vest like that. The punchgun had torn that kind of hole through a survival vest that had belonged to a Persial January Hebert, who'd sunk out of sight a year and a half ago.

Surely they'd make the co

Without the punchgun Ander might bluff his way through.

But the weapon would nail him, would identify him. He couldn't hold on to the gun without using it.

Would he even hesitate? A trained ARM facing colony cops? Fafnir is a «human» world. Ander was unlikely to guess how many police are kzinti.

I wondered how much damage Ander would do before it all caught up with him. There could be one fearful bloodbath if he tried to shoot his way free.

Nice for me. Ander dead was Ander silent. But –

Tens of thousands of years from now nobody would find the old ARM records of a wild hypothesis. Nobody would wonder if a trillion powerful aliens had left known space to take possession of the galactic Core. It might never matter, even if I was right … or be all to the good if I was wrong.

Either way, I couldn't think of a way to stop him.

They were spraying my arm. I would be in a coma when they cooled me down and launched me. I wondered whose face would be looking down at me when I woke.