Part 36 (2/2)
”You know this cat?”
”Of course I do.” He stopped walking, and scratched the cat under her chin. She stretched her head out like a lazy snake, balanced lightly on four daffodil paws. ”She comes here about twice a month.”
”New!” the cat disagreed. ”Who you?”
”Niranjana, it's Rao. You know me.”
”Rrraaao?” she said, c.o.c.king her head curiously. Adamantly, she said, ”New! My name Chairman Miaow!”
Dr. Rao's forehead wrinkled. To Ferron, over the cat's head, he said, ”Is Dexter with you? Is he all right?”
”I'm afraid that's why I'm here,” Ferron said. ”It is my regretful duty to inform you that Dexter Coffin appears to have been murdered in his home sometime over the night. Saab, law requires that I inform you that this conversation is being recorded. Anything you say may be entered in evidence. You have the right to skin your responses or withhold information, but if you choose to do so, under certain circ.u.mstances a court order may be obtained to download and decode a.s.sociated cloud memories. Do you understand this caution?”
”Oh dear,” Dr. Rao said. ”When I called the police, I didn't expect-”
”I know,” Ferron said. ”But do you understand the caution, saab?”
”I do,” he said. A yellow peripheral node in Ferron's visual field went green.
She said, ”Do you confirm this is his cat?”
”I'd know her anywhere,” Dr. Rao said. ”The markings are very distinctive. Dexter brought her in quite often. She's been wiped? How awful.”
”We're investigating,” Ferron said, relieved to be back in control of the conversation. ”I'm afraid I'll need details of what Coffin was working on, his contacts, any romantic entanglements, any professional rivalries or enemies-”
”Of course,” Dr. Rao said. He pulled his interface back around and began typing. ”I'll generate you a list. As for what he was working on-I'm afraid there are a lot of trade secrets involved, but we're a biomedical engineering firm, as I'm sure you're aware. Dexter's particular project has been applications in four-dimensional engineering.”
”I'm afraid,” Ferron said, ”that means nothing to me.”
”Of course.” He pressed a key. The cat peered over his shoulder, apparently fascinated by the blinking lights on the monitor.
The hyperlink blinked live in Ferron's feed. She accessed it and received a brief education in the theoretical physics of reaching around threedimensional shapes in s.p.a.ce-time. A cold sweat slicked her palms. She told herself it was just the second hypomania re-up.
”Closed-heart surgery,” she said. During the medical tourism boom, Bengaluru's economy had thrived. They'd found other ways to make ends meet now that people no longer traveled so profligately, but the state remained one of India's centers of medical technology. Ferron wondered about the applications for remote surgery, and what the economic impact of this technology could be.
”Sure. Or extracting an appendix without leaving a scar. Inserting stem cells into bone marrow with no surgical trauma, freeing the body to heal disease instead of infection and wounds. It's revolutionary. If we can get it working.”
”Saab ... ” She stroked Chairman Miaow's sleek azure head. ”Could it be used as a weapon?”
”Anything can be used as a weapon,” he said. A little too fast? But his skin conductivity and heart rate revealed no deception, no withholding. ”Look, Sub-Inspector. Would you like some coffee?”
”I'd love some,” she admitted.
He tapped a few more keys and stepped down from the treadmill. She'd have thought the typing curiously inefficient, but he certainly seemed to get things done fast.
”Religious reasons, saab?” she asked.
”Hmm?” He glanced at the monitor. ”No. I'm just an eccentric. I prefer one information stream at a time. And I like to come here and do my work, and keep my home at home.”
”Oh.” Ferron laughed, following him across the office to a set of antique lacquered chairs. Chairman Miaow minced after them, stopping to sniff the unfamiliar rug and roll in a particularly lush patch. Feeling like she was making a huge confession, Ferron said, ”I turn off my feeds sometimes too. Skin out. It helps me concentrate.”
He winked.
She said, ”So tell me about Dexter and his cat.”
”Well ...” He glanced guiltily at Chairman Miaow. ”She was very advanced. He obviously spent a great deal of time working with her. Complete sentences, conversation on about the level of an imaginative five-year old. That's one of our designs, by the way.”
”Parrot cats?”
”The hyacinth variety. We're working on an Eclectus variant for next year's market. Crimson and plum colors. You know they have a much longer lifespan than the root stock? Parrot-cats should be able to live for thirty to fifty years, though of course the design hasn't been around long enough for experimental proof.”
”I did not. About Dr. Coffin-” she paused, and scanned the lists of enemies and contacts that Dr. Rao had provided, cross-referencing it with files and the reports of three interviews that had come in from Indrapramit in the last five minutes. Another contact request from her mother blinked away officiously. She dismissed it. ”I understand he wasn't born here?”
”He traveled,” Dr. Rao said in hushed tones. ”From America.”
”Huh,” Ferron said. ”He relocated for a job? Medieval. How did BioSh.e.l.l justify the expense-and the carbon burden?”
”A unique skill set. We bring in people from many places, actually. He was well-liked here: his work was outstanding, and he was charming enough-and talented enough-that his colleagues forgave him some of the ... vagaries in his rightminding.”
”Vagaries ... ?”
”He was a depressive, madam,” Dr. Rao said. ”p.r.o.ne to fairly serious fits of existential despair. Medication and surgery controlled it adequately that he was functional, but not completely enough that he was always ... comfortable.”
”When you say existential despair ... ?” Ferron was a past master of the open-ended hesitation.
Dr. Rao seemed cheerfully willing to fill them in for her. ”He questioned the worth and value of pretty much every human endeavor. Of existence itself.”
”So he was a bit nihilistic?”
”Nihilism denies value. Dexter was willing to believe that compa.s.sion had value-not intrinsic value, you understand. But a.s.signed value. He believed that the best thing a human being could aspire to was to limit suffering.”
”That explains his handle.”
Dr. Rao chuckled. ”It does, doesn't it? Anyway, he was brilliant.”
”I a.s.sume that means that BioSh.e.l.l will suffer in his absence.”
”The fourth-dimension project is going to fall apart without him,” Dr. Rao said candidly. ”It's going to take a global search to replace him. And we'll have to do it quickly; release of the technology was on the anvil.”
Ferron thought about the inside-out person in the midst of his rug, his flat set for an intimate dinner for two. ”Dr. Rao ... ”
”Yes, Sub-Inspector?”
”In your estimation, would Dr. Coffin commit suicide?”
He steepled his fingers and sighed. ”It's ... possible. But he was very devoted to his work, and his psych evaluations did not indicate it as an immediate danger. I'd hate to think so.”
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