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square blonde woman. Weems was new, dark-haired, sallow, shy. Didn't look
directly at either Kirchner
or me.
Petty glanced at Weems, cleared her throat. "It didn't look like arson to
begin with, more like a
malfunctioning fuel cell. The fire started around the fuel cell and spread
from there. Weems caught it. He
found a section of the casing, and it was melted between the inner and outer
casings.
"Someone had filled the casings with something?"
Weems nodded, then spoke. Voice was so low I had to jack up my nanite
enhancers. "The laboratory
should be able to tell us what it was. Something tailor-made to look like
insulation, I would guess, ser,
and probably corrosive. I'd guess it was designed to eat through inner jacket,
and then react.
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"The other cells were tailored, too, but more to react to heat, Petty added.
"At least, that's what the
combustion patterns looked like.
"They'd explode only when the one caught fire?"
Both Kirchner's techs nodded.
Looked to Moorty. "What did you find?"
"The nanite systems were gimmicked, ser. The main box was destroyed, but the
last command was
frozen in the subsidiary nodes. The defense screens were at full.
"Smythers couldn't get out?"
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"The emergency overrides were disabled. You couldn't have gotten through those
screens with an
orbiter until the cells powering the screens went. By then, temperature was
close to five hundred, even
in the coolest places.
"So his house was designed with a separate system for the defense screens?"
Moorty shook his head. "An auxiliary system. A lot of filch places have it.
Main system goes down, then
a hidden backup system takes over. Usually only lasts for an hour or so.
That's to prevent someone from
gimmicking the main power system and looting the place.
"Anything else?"
"It was very professional. No hack and splice job.
I nodded slowly. "I'll need a report. First thing in the morning. Trendside
will pay the overtime. I want to
know everything you found out about the systems. Who built and installed them,
if possible, and when
they were last serviced, and by whom. That's in addition to the normal arson
requirements. Turned to
Kirchner. "Can your people do the same sort of thing?"
He grinned. "With you footing the overtime, you'll have it. More data than you
ever wanted.
He might have been right about that. Just hoped we could get something solid
out of all the lab reports.
One other thing bothered me. Someone had gone to extremes to avoid the
appearance of murder.
Almost as if they expected each one would be hushed up so long as it didn't
happen to be an obvious
killing.
Kirchner didn't say a word until we were walking up the ramp. "This could get
tough, Chiang.
"It could.
We both knew it might get worse than that. There were too many bodies and too
much technology
involved for it to be simple.
Chapter 40 Cornett
On Thursday morning, as I cleaned up after doing my exercises and practicing,
I was still wondering
about the rezad interview I'd done for Senator Cannon the afternoon before.
Why me? Was he just using
what I'd said as a campaign issue? Would I feel like I'd been taken off guard
once more and used?
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Page No 171
That prompted me to link and check my account. I had to swallow. Mahmed had
deposited what he'd
promised. The amount was more than significant. That did answer one of the
questions. The senator was
serious, but now I had to wonder exactly what he was serious about. He'd never
contacted me, but did
senators do things differently when they chased singers around the piano? Or
had I misread him? Was he
actually serious about doing something for music? Or serious only to the point
of recognizing a good
campaign issue?
Whatever it might be, I pushed it aside and finished dressing. I'd decided on
a pale green suit with a
cream blouse. Except when I was working on sets or something like that, I
avoided singlesuits.
I had to hurry to make the shuttle. It was sunny and breezy, and my hair flew
everywhere. The walks [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]