Foundation (18 page)
He lifted his head and stared at the ceiling.
“
I guess you heard about the death of Jimmy Boyd.”
“
What a shame!” shouted Faith from the kitchen.
“
You knew him?”
“
I think I’ve seen him a couple of times ... but I didn’t happen to know him personally!”
“
Where were you last night?” threw in Trumaine.
A puzzled Faith poked her head from the kitchen.
“
I was on shift in the believers’ chamber, of course. You can check that.”
“
You didn’t happen to take your neighbors’ car tonight, did you?”
“
Why should I? I have my own monocar ...”
He studied her eyes, trying to see if she was lying ... To his regret, he couldn’t tell. Even if Faith seemed so smart and sociable and outgoing, Trumaine had the clear feeling that she could quickly close and withdraw like a hedgehog, raising an invisible barrier between the world and herself, as if she was wearing one of those mysterious African masks that gave him the creeps.
Suddenly, something that sounded very much like the whistle of an ancient coffeepot rang out.
“
Coffee’s ready!” said Faith.
She hurried to the kitchen, leaving Trumaine to explore the rest of the house.
He moved to the bookshelves on the right, taking a mental note of the titles on the jewel boxes. Most were digital editions of Jarva’s books:
Pistocentrism;
The Unlocked Thalamus;
The Evolutionary Step;
The Fusiform Brain;
Frontier Studies of Cognitive Science;
High Thinking;
Communal Behavior and Social Response.
Trumaine crossed the room, approaching the crate sitting under the ebony mask. He crouched, touching his fingers to the lid. He was about to open it ... when a yelp and crash coming from the kitchen interrupted him.
He hurried to the next room, where he found Faith picking up the shards of a cup of coffee.
“
You all right?”
“
I’m sorry, it slipped from my fingers. I’m a bit tense these days.”
“
Why should you be?”
“
It’s all that’s happening at Credence, it wears me out. There’s a murderer on the loose. He killed Jarva and his wife and I’m sure he killed Boyd as well, and I can’t help wondering who will be next ...”
“
I never said someone killed Jimmy Boyd.”
She looked at him with despair in her eyes.
“
Do you really believe he killed himself?”
“
He was hanging from the ceiling. We’re filing the case as a suicide.”
“
Have you ever thought that the murderer could have forced Boyd to kill himself?”
“
There’s no evidence of that. As far as we know, Boyd can really be the murderer we’re looking for.”
“
Boyd wouldn’t hurt a fly!” snapped Faith from her kneeling position, then she went back to sweeping the chips that were still on the floor.
She got to her feet, dropped the shards into the trash can, rinsed and dried her hands, then looked into Trumaine’s eyes again.
“
What if the killer is after believers? What if—what if I’m next?”
She let out a stifled sob and Trumaine grabbed her shoulders, trying to console her.
“
Why on earth should you be next?”
“
It’s just a weird feeling I can’t get rid of ... Is it true that the murderer is a telepath?”
“
Who told you that?”
“
It’s all the believers talk about at the canteen. Is that why you’re always in the chamber? Trying to see if he shows up?”
Trumaine let go of her. “That’s the idea. Yes.”
“
And has he come to visit yet?”
“
Not yet,” he admitted.
“
You really think you can catch him that way?”
“
I’m no telepath. I have no idea what it feels like entering other peoples’ mind. I have no idea about how he can manipulate people into believing what he wants them to. But I must hang onto everything I have.”
All of a sudden, Faith remembered the coffee.
She took out another cup and sat it over the lonely saucer belonging to the perished cup. She poured a black, hot stream of liquid in both cups, put the cups on a silver tray and brought it all into the living room.
Trumaine followed her, slumping on the armchair that was farthest from both African masks. He took the cup Faith offered him, then waited for her to sit too.
The two studied each other for a long while as they sipped their drinks.
The coffee was strong, hot and intoxicating. It felt good as it went down Trumaine’s throat, diffusing in a warm glow in his stomach.
“
You make a great coffee.”
Again, they were silent, both lost in thought.
“
You live here all alone? No friends? No boyfriend?” asked Trumaine.
“
I’m a free bird,” said Faith with a smile. “What about you? Don’t you have a wife somewhere?”
“
She’s on Aquaria.”
“
Why? I mean—isn’t she your wife?”
“
We weren’t getting along very well lately, so we took a pause. Maybe I’ll go when I’ll be a full Aquarian citizen ...”
“
Don’t you love it here?”
Trumaine shrugged. He wondered if one painful memory could wipe away years of happy things. He decided it could.
“
What’s up with my neighbor’s car?”
“
Someone borrowed that car to take something from Boyd’s apartment. I was in the apartment with him, chased him to the garage, almost got him. I shot at him, but I missed and he ran me over.”
Again, he studied Faith for any hint that she was lying to him, that she knew way more than she pretended to when she was with him, that she was hiding things from him ...
But he found none.
He stood. “I’d better be on my way,” he said. “Thanks again for the coffee ...”
He headed for the door, when he turned suddenly.
“
I hope you don’t plan on leaving the town any too soon, Miss Alveraz,”
“
So I’m a suspect, after all.”
“
Just don’t leave until the case is solved.”
“
I don’t plan to ...”
“
Good. I’ve nothing against you, but it’s my job to follow all trails. I hope you understand.”
“
Of course ...”
Trumaine opened the door and got out.
Faith waved at him as he climbed in his car, started it then, with a last glance at her, pulled out into traffic.
Trumaine was again on the highway. The sun had gone down at last and the evening looked mild. As he drove on, he tried to put some order to the many unanswered questions that whirled in his head. It all spun around Jarva’s latest study—telepathy. Were Jarva and Boyd killed because of that? Was Boyd still in contact with Jarva? Anything could be. Why was Boyd in Credence? Because he couldn’t find a better job? Or because he was still working for Jarva? Trumaine didn’t know. What was Jarva working on when he was killed? Hijacking believers? Was Boyd helping him from the inside? Again, it could be.
Even if he hadn’t found an answer to any of those questions, all the same, he felt that the field of his research was finally focusing on something specific. It didn’t look like anything yet, but it was taking an even, vague shape.
What he needed to do now was to go back to Credence and keep pursuing the telepath in the believers’ chamber. He had already spent too much time fooling around with the Boyd case.
Trumaine strode along the corridor that led to the believers’ chamber.
Most of the believers he met on his way kept shooting side glances in his direction. Among the harmless curious stares, there were the hard-poking, inquisitive ones. They were often followed by a disappointed whisper which interrupted suddenly if Trumaine stared back.
Most believers had learned by now who he was and what he was doing in the chamber. While most of them smiled at him openly, in acknowledgment of his work, a few believers looked upon him with disdain, as if his job in the chamber lessened the true spirit of Credence. For those few, catching a murderer was a lowly matter and they couldn’t believe he hadn’t already succeeded.
At long last, he arrived at the turnstiles and he swept in.
As usual, the believers were floating peacefully in their couches. Trumaine looked into the far distance, at the choice believers that were hovering in square formation, but from their relaxed features, it was clear that they hadn’t yet found the Hibiscus.
He moved past the many empty slots of level one, until he came to a solitary deckchair marked with number
144
.
As soon as he lay down on it, the headrest readout turned green. One of the one-eyed snakelike stems that supported the deckchairs emerged from the chasm below the chamber. With a muffled clang and a hiss, it coupled to the underside of Trumaine’s couch, scooping it up and bringing it away, into the chamber.
Quickly, Trumaine’s eyes fluttered and closed ...
Again, he found himself wrapped in a bedazzling whiteness where everything was silent and pristine.
Little by little, the glow receded to a delicate shade of blue. Thin beams of light dropped from above, looking like long, diaphanous fingers. They weren’t steady, but kept throbbing and flashing. It wasn’t air they were playing with
—
it was water ...
With a smoky plume of blood, a pale bundle was suddenly released into the water; it spun lazily on itself, revealing a newborn baby.
Her eyes still shut, seemingly unaware of being in an environment different than her mother’s womb, she floated about curled up like a shrimp, her plump, stubborn features totally focused on remaining asleep.
Hands reached down into the womblike walls of the large birth pool and grabbed around the baby, lifting and bringing her to the surface.
Only when the baby was taken from the water, did she open her eyes.
Disappointed for having been awakened more than anything else, she let out her first wail, breathing in the air that would have supported her for the rest of her life.
The hands delivered the baby to a beaming Starshanna and to an exhausted Trumaine. As soon as Starshanna held her in her arms, she stopped crying at once and fell asleep.
Starshanna smiled at a much relieved Trumaine.
Her desire had been granted. She felt empowered, fulfilled and happy. So was Trumaine; Starshanna’s way too long labor had worn him as well, but when the baby was finally born, the knot inside him had melted, replaced with something pleasant and warm—it must be happiness, he thought.
Now that he could see his daughter with his own eyes and not through the surreal images provided by ultrasonographic imaging, he realized that there was much more easiness and plainness to developing a pregnancy than he ever thought. Now that the baby was born, it all seemed easy and he couldn’t believe he had been so worried about it. It was clear to him that even that labored birth was nothing more than the necessary evolution of a previous state that had come to completion. Somehow, he had been part of it all; it felt strange, but it felt good.