The Counterfeit Heinlein by Laurence M Janifer

Author:Laurence M Janifer [Janifer, Laurence M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781587153440
Google: IiyjNfhm_pUC
Amazon: B004JU0HWI
Barnesnoble: B004JU0HWI
Goodreads: 175329
Publisher: Borgo Press
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE FILES ON the Berigot shootings five years before turned out to be extensive. Gross came back with a sizable, indeed massive, printout which, he told me, was the contents and summary list for the files, not the files themselves. “You want to go through the whole thing, it ought to take you four or five days,” he said. “But you did tell us you had time.”

“Is there a quicker way?” I said, hoping for the right answer.

I didn’t get it, not right away. Gross said: “Not for us.”

“I’ll tell the First Files people how helpful you’re being,” I said. “And B’russ’r.”

Gross, who had gone back to his desk after piling the absent Terry’s to incredible heights with faxprint paper, heaved a gigantic sigh. “You’re truly determined to make my life miserable, aren’t you, Knave?” he said.

“Not really,” I said. “Just a small bit of it. And you can probably help make even that bit smaller. If you know the story on the Berigot shootings, tell me. B’russ’r and First Files will give you gold stars.”

“They wouldn’t give me an eyeblink if I dropped down dead right here at this desk,” Gross said. “But I know the story—Lord, after you two pounded away at a connection, I went back and looked, all over again. Just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten something vital, you know—it’s been five years.”

“But a Beri doesn’t get shot every day of the week,” I said. “A thing like that would stick in your memory.”

“It did that,” he said. “We worked it, all three of them, for everything we had. Believe it.”

“For instance,” I said, and he was off.

* * * *

THE FIRST BERI shot—G’ril Mnus, attached to the Manuscript Division as Chief Collator, Twentieth-Century—had been taking a night flight near her residence, on the outskirts of City Two. There was a Beri colony out to the North of the city proper, and G’ril lived alone, in one of the fancier nests or perches or whatever the Hell they are. I’ve seen them, and been invited into one of them, and this language I’m trying to use doesn’t have a word for them—never having needed one, because people don’t live like that.

It doesn’t matter just what the place was, in any case, because she wasn’t in it. She’d felt the way I feel when I want to stretch my legs, only more so—as near as I can make it out. And she’d gone out to do a little swooping and diving, sailplaning around the neighborhood. Maybe stopping in to visit a friend, or drop into a neighborhood bar.

They do have bars, more or less. Within reason. If you’re not too fussy about definitions.

She was about four hundred yards from her place—just a step outside, to a sailplaning Beri—when something tore her right wing. She went into a ragged dive and tried to smooth it out for landing, but the wing wouldn’t grab air; she spun out of control and just did manage to bounce down, first on a tree-branch (oak, if it matters) and then on the local grass.

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