"Smith, E E Doc - d'Alembert 8 - Eclipsing Binaries" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

know about the matter.

The police did what they could to verify the man's story. There was indeed a starship
ticket at the spaceport reserved in the name of Martinez; it would have taken the fugitive
halfway across the Empire and might have helped him elude capture for a considerable
time. The vidiphone number had been assigned to a name that turned out to be fictitious,
and there was no way to trace it to anyone. The police even gave Guitirrez a shot of
detrazine, the strongest legal truth serum known, but his story remained the same.

Fortier decided to concentrate on the woman who'd met Guitirrez in the bar. She was
obviously a connection to higher, more important channels. He passed the photos around
within the detective division, but no one could ever recall having seen her before. Copies
of the pictures were made and circulated to all police personnel on Lateesta.

Descriptions were sent to all spaceport security people to prevent the woman from
leaving the planet, although Fortier was convinced he was locking the barn door after the
rustling. In the meantime, he locked himself away in an office, spread the photos across
the top of the empty desk, and studied them himself to pry loose any pertinent infor-

mation he could.

After staring hopelessly at the pictures for a while, his eye noticed a detail it had missed
before. It was very tiny, and he ordered the photos enlarged to see it more clearly. The
enlargements showed the mysterious woman wearing around her neck a thin gold chain
that held a small integrated circuit chip dangling from its center.

In the past few months since the near disaster on Coronation Day, NI and SOTE had
buried most of their interservice rivalry. A great deal of information was now flowing
between the two organizations, and one of the items SOTE strongly stressed to Naval
Intelligence was that there was a well-organized conspiracy trying to topple the Stanley
dynasty. One of its recognition symbols was a necklace just like the one this mysterious
lady was wearing. Ever since the attack on Earth it was known that the pirates had been
somehow involved with this conspiracy but this development led to new, and perhaps
unexpected, connections. It was certainly worth checking further.

Even as he was congratulating himself on spotting that tiny detail, Fortier received his
second big break on the case. A call arrived for him from none other than the
Superintendent of Police for Lateesta. "I just had a chance to look at the photos you
circulated, and I must say I was shocked to see her here in a cheap bar associating with
known criminals this way."

"You can identify the woman, then?" Fortier asked eagerly.

"Certainly," the Superintendent said. "I spoke with her just three months ago at a law
enforcement symposium on Corian. That's Elsa Helmund, Commissioner of Police for the
planet Durward."

Fortier did not have a ship of his own available, and had to settle for commercial
transportation. He booked passage on the next connecting flights to Durward, inwardly
fuming that it would take a full nine days to reach his destination. He could have made a