quickly learned not to look straight down; being mostly ice, Mimas reflected seventy percent of the light that struck it, more than enough to dazzle.
There were enough minerals in the ice to give the terrain some color beyond pure, cold blue-white. Some chunks-was that the word, Bennett wondered, or would “rocks” be better?-were grayish, others brown. The broadcaster nearly shouted for Katayama when he saw a rusty streak. But it had nothing to do with blood. It was only a tiny inclusion of iron ore, trapped for ages in the surrounding ice.
Bennett squatted to peer into a cave. He spied the edge of something green, hidden almost out of sight. He did not let excitement run away with him. Green beryllium compounds-emeralds, if you like-were a fairly common part of the stew of light elements from which Mimas had been made.
But if it was a crystal, it was very large and regular. Excitement shot through Bennett as he looked more closely-no crystal ever had writing on it!
He scrambled into the cave and reached down for it. The cold bit at his gauntlets, which were not as well insulated as his boots. He did not mind, though, not when he was holding an expended heavy-duty charge cube in his hands.
Then he keyed his suit radio, and Security personnel converged as if drawn by a magnet. They scoured the cave from one end to the other, and discovered two more of the plastic cubes, both better concealed than the one Bennett had found.
Katayama held out his hand for that one. Reluctantly, Bennett surrendered it. “It’s one of the standard sizes,” he said, “but not a type I know.” He was looking at what were presumably instructions on the side of the cube. They were written in the Roman alphabet, but in no tongue he recognized. Whatever the language was, it went in for wild combinations of consonants.
“Made in Praha,” the security chief said. He seemed more willing to be informative now that Bennett had done something useful for him. Seeing that the name meant nothing to the broadcaster, he actually unbent far enough to explain: “Prague, you would call it, I think.”
“An Eastern European brand, then.”
“Yes.” Katayama fairly purred. “We have some interesting new questions to ask, wouldn’t you say?”
“You certainly do. Shepilov must have seen the light leakage here when the killer fired at al-Kuwady. Pity the cave roof kept the observation satellite from picking it up.”
“Yes. Still, we make progress.” Katayama put his people back on the search to see if there was anything else to be found. Bennett helped for a while, but lightning did not strike twice. He headed back toward the Olympic complex.
One disadvantage of spacesuits was the difficulty of getting out of earshot. Katayama’s voice rang in his helmet as if the security chief were still standing beside him: “Don’t use this until you get clearance from me. Do you understand?” When Bennett tried to ignore the order, Katayama snapped, “Acknowledge!”
“Acknowledged,” the broadcaster said sulkily, but most of his pique had evaporated by the time he returned to the Olympic village. Katayama had not said anything about poking around on his own.
When he got back to the studio, he checked a list he already knew pretty well. It confirmed what his memory told him. Most of the Eastern European jumpers had had their turns toward the middle or end of the first day’s run. They would not have had a lot of time to make any murderous preparations, and there would have been enough people about so that they could hardly have counted on not being noticed when they went to use an air lock.
He frowned. The conspicuous exception was Jozef Jablonski. Rannveig was not going to like hearing that. Unfortunately, she was probably going to, if not from Bennett, then from Katayama. If the broadcaster could follow his nose this far, so could the security chief.
As it happened, he got a chance to broach the subject when Rannveig came over to share a table with him at dinner. She bristled, just as he had known she would. He spread his hands placatingly. “I’m not telling you what I think, only what I found,” he said, and wondered whether he was lying. “But we can both guess what Major Katayama will make of it. In his shoes, I’d do the same. Who else would use an obscure brand of charge cubes made in Prague but an Eastern European?”
“Someone trying to put the blame on one.” Bennett made shushing motions; she had spoken so loudly that heads had turned.
He said, “Security men won’t look at it like that; they shave with Occam’s razor. Do you know what your, ah, friend did after he jumped? Does it leave him in the clear?”
“No,” she said, her voice low now, and troubled. “He told me he went back to his room and fell asleep. He was laughing at me; he said I’d kept him awake too long the night before.”
“Not good.”
“No,” Rannveig said again. Bennett could see her wondering. She had, after all, met Jablonski only the other day. But then she shook her head, as if coming to a decision. “I can’t believe it. He’s just too-open-to kill from ambush. And what about the tape from the Second Irgun?”
“They denied it,” he reminded her. “That’s not like them; usually they’re only too happy to take credit for their outrages.”
“But why would Jozef want to kill any of the men who were shot?” she demanded. “What’s the point? What would it gain him?”
“What would it gain anyone?” he asked. Neither of them could find a answer.
Bennett did not tell anyone but Rannveig about the find north of the jumpers’ flight path, and he had no reason to think she had noised it about. Nevertheless, rumors of all sorts raced through the Olympic village overnight. At breakfast Bennett heard claims that three different people had been arrested; one of them was drinking a bulb of coffee not three meters from him at the time.
He also heard that Jozef Jablonski was a secret Jew, which probably would have infuriated the skier from Gdynia; that the assassin was a renegade ronin from Japan (now there was a delightful prospect, he thought); that Moscow was about to declare war on Siberia or the Arab World or Eastern Europe or the Chinese Empire- which it did not border. But then, Moscow was always about to declare war on someone.
Brachiating back to the studio, Bennett almost ran into Itzhak Zalman. As they both slowed to avoid the collision, the jumper winked and said, “So tell me, have I been elected Pope in there yet?”
“Twice,” Bennett said solemnly. As the athlete burst out laughing, he added, “Some of them also have you as a member of the Second Irgun, with Menachem’s threat part of your masquerade.” He thought he saw Zalman’s amusement slip for a moment, then told himself he was letting his suspicions run away with him. Pretty soon he wouldn’t be able to look in a mirror and trust the face he saw.
How much the rumors about arrests were worth was proved when the second round of jumping was canceled again. The program that went back to Earth was correspondingly short. Because Bennett had been muzzled, there was next to nothing to say beyond repeating as many variants on “The investigation continues” as a skilled team of scriptwriters could concoct.
“Well, there’s the easiest day of work I’ve had in a while,” Angus Cavendish said when the shortened broadcast was over. “I think I’ll check out a suit and do a bit of walking about. I haven’t had the chance to play sleuth like you, Bill.”
“Where did you hear about that?”
The Scotsman laid a finger by the side of his nose. “A wee birdie told me.”
“A birdie in a Security suit?” That was Rannveig.
“However you please.” Cavendish grinned.”Come with me, if you care to, and share the glory when we find the kern to blame for all this.”
“Thank you, but no. Whatever Bill may fancy himself as, I’m no detective.”
Cavendish turned to Bennett. “Are you game, Sherlock?”
“Why not? I’m at loose ends.”
“Good. Nothing like a few brisk laps around the village to get the blood going.”
Bennett tried to swallow a groan. That meant Angus was going to run the legs off him. The Scotsman was older, but he was also in better shape, more used to spacesuits, and had his bronze medal to prove himself a master at effective motion on Mimas. Rannveig, curse her, was giggling as she left the studio. The only exercise she was likely to get was more fun than anything you could do in a suit.
“Twenty-five laps suit ye?” Cavendish asked when they were outside. When they were by themselves, they
