The Venus Belt by L. Neil Smith Page A

wondered how they’d feel about smoking in here.
    “You have some powerful allies, it appears.” He nodded microscopica l ly, indicating Koko who seemed unusually reserved in her brand-new ru b bery-looking smartsuit. “Miss Featherstone-Haugh assures me the President will vouch for you unquestioningly. There’s also Mr. Morr i son—I had a lot of trouble getting off the com with him last night, and several times this morning. He explained how the whole thing happened, though what it means...”
    “I’d like to know that, myself. But you’re not letting me off on chara c ter testimony, are you?”
    “Not a chance. Miss Featherstone-Haugh informs me you were a sec u rity guard in the United States, is that correct?” Was that approval in his eye or merely gas, as obstetricians like to claim?
    I stifled the usual insulting answer. “As close as you can describe it in the Confederacy. I was the fuzz, a pig, a flatfoot—working Homicide d e tail.”
    “Then,” the doctor interrupted, “you can view a deceased person wit h out...”
    “Not too badly anyway.” I’d always been a little squeamish, one re a son I hate murderers so much. “What’s all this working up to?” Koko looked distinctly uncomfortable as she squirmed on the plastic wai t ing-room chair. Pololo led us to a back room where a silent, supine form lay draped upon a cold titanium table. He folded back the sheet. Koko doubled over and ran from the room, making funny mewling noises. I gulped and took another step forward.
    “That’s her, all right. I never killed a woman before. Funny, it doesn’t feel too different, just sort of sad and stupid.”
    “More sad and stupid than you may realize,” answered the stonefaced Captain Spoonbill. “Tell him, Francis.”
    The doctor brushed aside a lock of the decedent’s hair. “Ever see som e thing like this before?” Curved tightly against a shaved patch on the scalp was a small, leech-shaped transparent plastic object, filled with nanocircui t ry. “Brain-bore,” the Healer enunciated with disgust. “Given the right drugs and commensurate skill, the perpetrator can create any reality of his choo s ing inside the victim’s mind, a twisted world by means of which the victim’s behavior can be manipulated. Maybe—maybe you Americans are right: in this case there ought to be a law.”
    “Forget that, Doc, it’s habit-forming.” I peeked beneath the little i n strument where wires led into a nylon plug through the skull. “You mean this thing made her try to kill me?” And what was that discoloration on her thumb?
    “Not exactly,” said the Healer, covering the girl’s face again. He pulled a small flat tin from his sporran, hinged it open, and offered me a brown Dutch cigarillo. “She could have been experiencing anything subjectiv e ly—believing you were Clarence the Ripper incarnate, say, or avenging some fictional evil you did to her or someone she loved.” I lit his smoke and my own. “Nothing—no one— made her do it, only created some illusionary case of the horrors, some context under which it was a foregone conclusion that she’d try.”
    And I thought I’d heard of everything that was sickening.
    “Seems I’m acquiring a sort of fan club,” I observed, “with real clubs. First the attack in my stateroom, now this. I’d be superhuman if I could avoid jumping to the conclusion there’s some connection.” I reached b e neath the sheeting to examine the cold dead hand again. A minute drop of dried blood glinted blackly on the thumbnail.
    The physician gave me an odd look. “You’re the detective, but what connection could there be between a Soviet human female and a gorilla?”
    “What?”
    “That’s what the samples from your cabin say: a gorilla, also probably female, judging by cosmetic residue on the hair samples. And this poor child was Russian or I’ll throw my brand-new dental references out and sue the dealer who brought them through the Broach.” He