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“Nothing. Fire and police have just arrived. There was an automatic alarm call.”
“I’ll tell you what I know. This is—or was—the Temple of Eternal Truth. A survivor just came to my house. Rowena Vinicultura. She said that my wife was here.”
I could hear the police computer buzzing in his earphone. “Admiral Sir James diGriz. We will do everything we can to find your wife… Angelina. I am Captain Collin and I note that your status permits you to accompany this investigation under your owncognizance and responsibility.”
Purely by reflex I had established my forged bona fides as an Admiral of the Fleet when we had first come to Lussuoso. Basic precautions always pay off.
We followed a large and well—insulated firefightbot into the ruins. It plowed a careful path, occasionally spraying a smoking remnant, recording for later examination every movement that it made, every obstacle it put aside. A hanging door screeched and fell and we entered the smoking interior of what had been a good—sized meeting hall. Roblights suspended from whining blades floated by above us and illuminated the smoke filled interior.
Destruction on all sides—but no bodies to be seen. The cold knot was still in my midriff. The room had been seriously decorated with carved wood paneling and—now smokingdraperies. Rows of pews faced towards the destroyed side of the room where the smoke was thickest. Precipitators soon cleared the air and the floating lights glinted from wrecked and twisted machinery.
“We’ll hold it here,” Captain Collin said. “The disaster team takes over now.”
The disaster team was embodied in a single metallic gray robot. It was undoubtedly packed full of expert programs produced in collaboration with fire and forensic investigators, along with detectors and probes of microscopic efficiency. Logically I knew it would do an infinitely better job than we fumbling humans: I still wanted to kick it aside and rush in.
“Do you see any… bodies?” I called out.
“No living creatures. No corpses of humans or animals detected. No—yes. Correction. Red liquid on the floor. Detection processing. It is human blood.”
My throat was almost closed. My voice grated and I had trouble talking. “Primary test. Blood type?”
“Testing. 0 positive, Rh negative.”
I didn’t hear the rest—nor did it matter. Angelina was a sturdy type B—and Rh positive. I relaxed, but only so slightly.
In a very few minutes two important facts were made clear. Other than the drops of blood, there were no visible human remains or traces of anyone living or dead. There was the ruined hail and next t9 it the burnt and crushed room that had held large amounts of electronic equipment. All of it now apparently—and deliberately—destroyed beyond any possibility of recognition.
But where was Angelina?
I waited until the ruined building had been examined and reexamined. Nothing new was discovered and I was just wasting my time at the site. The police had vetted every spacer that had left the planet since the explosion and would keep on doing so.
Neither Angelina—nor even anyone who resembled her in the slightest—had been recorded as being aboard any of them. There was nothing I could do here.
I drove slowly home, obeying all traffic regulations. Stopping for pedestrians and waving them on. I rolled through the remains of the garage door and parked the bike. Went straight to the bar where I threw out the flat drink sitting there and prepared a small but stiff replacement before I dug into the E—mail printouts. The twins were on the way. Both were off—planet so it would be a few days at least before they arrived. They did not go into details but I knew that they were now buying, cajoling, bribing—perhaps stealing—the fastest means of transportation in the known universe. They would be here. Our little clan may have rejected the outside worlds and their values—but this made our own cohesion that much stronger.
But now we had to wait for plodding technology to sift, examine and assess the ruins of the Temple of Eternal Truth—and present a coherent picture of what had happened there. There was nothing I could do until I got the police report. I tried to contact Rowena in the hospital but was given the brush—off. Querying her more would have to wait until she had recovered a bit. Lussuoso was rich and technically efficient and would do the search—and—analyze job as well as—or better than—any other planet we had visited. I hated this place but gave it all credit for technical competence. My mind kept trying to numerate all the terrible possibilities of Angelina’s disappearance….
Don’t dwell on it, Jim, I told myself firmly. You have chosen to lead what others might consider a strange and possibly criminal life. I began to wish I had stayed with crookery and away from the Special Corps. I was always uneasy on the right side of the law. Even more I regretted coming here. Yet it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
This was a paradise planet and unbelievably expensive. To move here I had had to tap into bank accounts untouched for years. I even had to draw in some long—overdue debts and that had not been easy to do. I mean not easy in the sense of heavy weapons and a number of people in the hospital before the accounts were closed. A life of crime is not always profitableparticularly when I had some unwelcome assignments from the Special Corps. Certainly my saving the universe had been exciting, but not money—making in the slightest. The same thing happened when I ran for president of Paraiso Aqui. Good fun, but again no money involved. So between these kinds of legal jobs, Angelina and I had done a number of other jobs that filled our coffers while depleting those of others. Enough had been stored away for a rainy day that had proved to be a su
“Have you ever heard of Lussuoso?” she had asked.
“A new drink—or something you rub onto the skin?”
“Don’t always play the fool, Jim diGriz. I mean every day there is something about it in the news—”
“Vicarious thrills and sheer jealousy. There isn’t one person in a trillion who could even afford a day’s visit there.”
“We could. I’m sure.”
“Of course—”
Of course. Famous Last Words. Springing to my lips engendered by relaxation and mental sloth. By hindsight it was obvious that every word of that simple conversation was pla
Lussuoso. Famous in myth and legend and galactic soap operas. A paradise planet. Populated only by the very, very rich and those who were richer. I had been intrigued by this phenomenon at first and had done a bit of research. I was in an exotic enough income bracket to quickly discover why it was so attractive,
It was the galactic center for rejuvenation treatments. These were so hideously expensive that you had to be a millionaire to even see their price list. The treatments were painless but time—consuming. Depending upon the degree of customer decay this could take years. Since a clinic would be a bore, and there was no shortage of money in the project, an entire planet had been terraformed into a holiday world. Luxury villas rivaled each other in exuberance. Operas, theaters and entertainments of all kinds abounded. All the sports from deep—sea diving and fishing to mountain climbing and hunting were there for the taking. But hidden away from all this consumptive capitalism were the clinics and surgeries where the rich got younger and, if possible, poorer. This was the taboo subject and never mentioned—but was the real reason why the planet existed in the first place.