The Legacy of Lehr by Katherine Kurtz

though, without the gory details and without the emotional involvement of the actual occurrence. The memory isn’t really lost, of course—any competent psychotechnician could easily retrieve it—but it’s submerged and veiled in less threatening symbolism. Well do the same for his wife. It’s company policy, not mine.”
    â€œCompany policy, to tamper with a free citizen’s memory?” Mather said in a low voice.
    Shannon sighed. “Commodore, the Gruening Line doesn’t like adverse publicity. Incidents such as this could be damaging to the company’s reputation. Now, I may not agree with company policy, but I work for Gruening, and I owe them for my professional training. That’s why I’m here, after graduating at the head of my medical class, instead of serving a plushy residency on one of the major research satellites. Besides, the procedure isn’t illegal. It’s often done if the attending physician feels that a traumatic memory might be damaging to the patient’s health.”
    â€œOr to the physician’s health,” Mather said.
    â€œOr to her job,” Shannon agreed. “That’s another reason the recording was made. It constitutes a legal record of Elderton’s statement, and it gets all of us off the hook, if the situation should be questioned later on.”
    Without waiting for further comment, Shannon pushed a call button and then left as an orderly and a med tech entered with a floater. She took the record of Elderton’s statement with her. After the technician had taken several samples from the bloodstains on Elderton’s hand and clothing and a sample from Elderton himself, he and the orderly shifted the unconscious man onto the floater and took him out.
    Wallis and Mather followed in time to see Shannon coming out of Deller’s treatment room, now with two cartridges in her hand, solemn and thoughtful as she watched Deller guide another floater out to follow the first, deeper into the back reaches of the medical facility. Before they could decide whether to approach her again, however, the outer door to the reception area drew aside to admit another floater—this one covered—escorted by a tense-looking med tech and a security officer.
    No one said a word as Shannon directed the floater past her office and into one of the surgeries, she, herself, lowering it to the table—though the security man gave Mather and Wallis an odd look when they followed into the room and remained as Shannon switched on lights above the table. And as Shannon pulled back the covering from the body, both the technician and the security man watched Wallis and Mather for their reaction.
    Wallis gasped. Mather stifled an oath. Shannon’s face went white as her gaze swept the body.
    But it was not the body itself, or even the victim’s manner of dying, that had caused their varying reactions. The apparent cause of death was massive trauma to the throat—the obvious source of the blood reddening the entire front of the body, as Elderton had described—but the wound was no worse than many that all three of them had seen before. It was the victim’s right hand that riveted their attention, the entire arm badly slashed and bloodied, several of the lacerations exposing tendon and bone.
    And clutched in the dead man’s fingers was a tuft of long, blue hairs.

CHAPTER 5
    For an endless instant, no one spoke. The blue hairs said all. The horrible wounds on the rest of the body reinforced the growing conclusion that no one had yet dared voice. A stunned Shannon glanced at Mather in surprise as the big man abruptly roused himself and headed toward the door.
    â€œCommodore, just where do you think you’re going?”
    Shannon’s voice was strained, and Mather turned to glance at her and all of them as he paused by the intercom just inside the door and punched the call button. The screen lit immediately with the