said. He was a detective. A detective did not have to investigate himself.
In the top drawer of the nightstand he found the house guide — fifty pages of closely-packed information and ten pages of detailed maps. He located the main dining room, traced a path backwards to his own quarters, which were marked in red. Satisfied that he knew the way, a bit amazed that even the wealthiest families would require a house this size, he went downstairs to meet the suspects.
THREE: Suspects
Seven limited-response mechanicals rolled out of the wide kitchen doorway, two abreast except for their gleaming leader, Jubal's personal waiter, who preceded them by ten feet. They split into two columns at the head of the table, precisely as they had done at the start of each of the many courses of the dinner, and, in a moment, stationed themselves beside and to the left of their respective masters. The long table was alabaster. The dishes were black. The silverware was silver. Simultaneously reaching into their seven identical body-trunk storage compartments, the robots placed clear, crystal dishes, filled with bright crimson fruit, on the small black plates before the diners. White, black, red, and the gleam of silver… As if satisfied by the simplicity of the setting and the color scheme, the mindless mechanicals turned as a single unit and retraced their path back to the kitchen, the door hissing shut behind the last of them.
'This is a native fruit,' Jubal said, using a long-handled, tiny-bowled silver spoon to scoop up a chunk of it. 'It grows on trees in a shell, much like a coconut, but it tastes like a combination of watermelon and blackberries.'
It was quite good, juicy and sweet.
They finished dessert in silence and retired to the main drawing room for after-dinner liqueurs, while the mechanicals cleaned up the dirty dishes behind them. At first, through the soup and the meat courses, everyone had been talkative, though no one had touched on the subject that was foremost in all their minds. Later in the meal, the conversational mood passed as fewer and fewer topics remained that avoided reference to the murders. St. Cyr had found it umprofitable to attempt to steer the talk into a rewarding channel, had accepted that such things must wait until after the meal, but was by now considerably tense. Wearing the bio-computer, he seemed to have less patience with the rituals of daily existence and the rigid rules of protocol and manners than when he was not in his symbiotic role.
He accepted an amber liqueur from Jubal Alderban, who was doing the honor of personally pouring for the family.
'At times,' Jubal said, 'one longs for a respite from all this mechanical, loving care.'
St. Cyr tasted the drink. It smelled like burnt plums and tasted like minted cherries.
He sat down in one of the many form-fitting black chairs spaced in a cozy ring by the fireplace, felt it shift and writhe under him as it explored his structural peculiarities and adjusted to an optimum mold. The others, except for Jubal, who was still serving, were already seated, watching him with only thinly disguised anxiety.
In a moment, when they all had drinks and were comfortably fitted by their chairs, St. Cyr broached the subject. 'Business,' he said.
Alicia, Jubal's wife, sighed. She was a pretty woman, petite and dark, possessed of that noticeable glow of health that indicated the use of rejuvenation drugs of some sort. 'I suppose you'll want the whole thing, step by step.' Her tone was practiced weariness on the surface, something much more personal and sad beneath.
'Step by step,' St. Cyr affirmed.
Alicia paled, blinked at him stupidly for a moment, licked her lips and attempted to regain her composure. She had clearly expected him to say that, but she had been hoping against the necessity of a retelling.
'I'm sorry,' St. Cyr told her. 'But all that I've heard thus far is what Mr. Alderban posted in the light-telegram, and what Teddy told me.'
'You questioned Teddy?' Dane asked incredulously. He was a tall, lean boy with a dark complexion, black eyes, and thin, pale lips. When he spoke he kept his head tilted downwards, looking up over the shelf of his brow at the detective.
'Of course I questioned him. He's unemotional, scientifically logical, a good source for first impressions.'
'No, a bad source,' Dane said, sure of himself. He laced his long, bony fingers around the tiny glass of liqueur. 'This is an emotional subject, after all, not a dry one. The
'You think so?' St. Cyr asked.
He wished that Dane would raise his head. As long as he sat in that position, on the edge of the couch, his shoulders hunched forward, it was difficult to tell anything of what he was thinking by examining his face and eyes.
'It's real enough,' Dane said.
'Bullshit,' Tina Alderban said, ignoring the angry look her brother directed at her.
St. Cyr turned toward the girl, waiting for something more. She sat in an overstuffed fur chair, made more petite by the size of it. She was dark like Dane, though more olive than brown, and her face was more open, her eyes more wide-set than his, her lips sensuous and heavy, whereas Dane's lips were thin and serious. Her black hair dropped straight over her shoulders, curled around the tips of her small breasts, as if accentuating them. At eighteen, she was one of the most interesting women that St. Cyr had ever seen. He wondered if he would have an opportunity to seduce her before the case was finished…
Still and all, she was a charming creature, with—
'I'll tell him the whole thing,' Jubal said, sliding forward on his chair. The seat and arms of the chair rippled, gauged his new position, firmed up around his buttocks and thighs.
'No, Jubal,' Hirschel interposed.
He had only spoken once before that evening, and then only to offer St. Cyr an obligatory welcome. He was quite like Jubal, heavy in the chest and shoulders, over six feet tall, leonine with a mane of hair and muttonchop sideburns. The chief difference was in the lines of his face. Where Jubal was soft, his cheeks smooth and the angles of his face pleasantly rounded, Hirschel was hard, cut deep by character lines, his skin tanned and leathery. Also, while Jubal was white-haired yet somehow young, Hirschel was black-haired and old, infinitely old despite his young man's constitution. Perhaps, actually, Hirschel was only a couple of years Jubal's senior, and certainly no more than a decade older; in experience, however, in knowledge and cunning, he was Jubal's great-great grandfather.
The simple statement of the negative had drawn everyone's attention to the older man. He said, 'I'll tell it, because I don't have nearly the degree of emotional involvement that you do, Jubal.'
Jubal nodded. 'Go ahead.'
Hirschel turned to St. Cyr, smiled slightly, looking quite unlike the rider in the storm, the man with the pig heads slapping bloodily at his hip. Succinctly, he related much the same story that St. Cyr had gotten from Teddy, though with no extrapolation whatsoever.
'You were living here at the times of both murders?'
'Yes,' Hirschel said. 'I arrived a month before Leon's death; needless to say, a good part of this visit has not been a happy time for me.' However, if he actually did agonize over the deaths of his niece and nephew, he did not indicate his inner turmoil in any way beyond this brief statement. He appeared healthy and happy, without the dark lines of anxiety around the eyes and mouth that characterized both Jubal and Alicia Alderban.
Correctly projecting the line of thought St. Cyr was then pursuing, Hirschel said, 'And, also needless to say, that puts me on your list of suspects.'
'How absurd! 'Jubal said.
'Really, Hirschel,' Alicia said, 'I doubt that Mr. St. Cyr—'
'But he does suspect me,' Hirschel said. 'And he should. Just as he suspects all the rest of you.'
Jubal seemed twice as outraged at this. He turned to St. Cyr, his thick white brows drawn together over his eyes in one snowy bar. 'Is this true? Do you think we'd murder our own children — brothers and sisters?'
