Android: Free Fall by Keith William H

Android: Free Fall by Keith William H

Author:Keith, William H. [Keith, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-08-25T04:00:00+00:00


Chapter Twelve

Day 6

Floyd had volunteered to take Eve 5VA3TC to the NAPD satellite station at Fra Mauro. I had given him some explicit instructions to pass on to the officers there. She was to be treated well, and no one else was to be allowed to see her except Eliza Manchester, and then only with supervision. No lawyers—but that wouldn’t be an issue since bioroids didn’t have civil rights and we didn’t need to charge her…yet. I wanted them to give her a complete chemical scan—especially her hands, where bits of packing gel or blood might remain for weeks despite careful cleaning. If she’d handled the laser, the silicone compound would still be on her skin

I’d ordered a complete protein work-up, too. Some of Dow’s DNA would still be in her, even days later, and it would be possible to pull in a molecular match with the traces of lubricant I’d picked up in Room Twelve.

Finally, I wanted Dr. Jason Cherchi to examine her. He was our chief roboticist in Heinlein—in fact, he worked for Haas-Bioroid in their research department, but he consulted for the NAPD on the side. I wanted to hear his opinion about the various injuries and damaged spots on Eve’s body.

The more I thought about it, the more suspicious I was of those two puncture marks in the burned patch on Eve’s lower chest.

“You sure you don’t mind doing this?” I’d asked Floyd at the entrance of the tube-train that would take them to the police station.

“Not in the least,” Floyd had replied. “As it happens, I need to return to Haas-Bioroid periodically for adjustment and examination. I will do so after depositing Eve 5VA3TC at the satellite station.”

He had one hand clasped around Eve’s upper right arm, holding her…and I remembered the injury to Robert Vargas’s arm. Had she tossed Vargas out the airlock at the High Frontier?

“Okay. One more thing to pass on to the techs there.”

“Yes?”

“When they do the chemical scan on her hands…have them look for tissue, blood, or amino traces that would match with the DNA of this man.” I used my PAD to transmit the file on Vargas.

“Data received. Very well. And where will you go next?”

“Melange Mining,” I told him. “I need to talk with Mark Henry if I can, and bring him in as well. After that, probably Alpha Prospecting. The laser used in Dow’s murder came from there.”

“I will have the station transmit the lab results to you as soon as they have them.”

“Thanks, Floyd. Catch you later.”

He cocked his head to one side like a curious puppy. “I am not running from you, Rick. I am merely—”

“Never mind, never mind,” I said, holding up my hands. Floyd sometimes had trouble with human slang. “I’ll see you later.”

The tube-lev whisked me back beneath the face of the Moon, 650 kilometers from Fra Mauro to Sinus Medii. The artificial day of the Heinlein Colony was coming to a close by then, so I checked into a cheap hotel, the Barbicane, at the Columbiad Arcology.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.