Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: The Author's Cut by Diane Duane Page A
Authors: Diane Duane
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backdoor key to the encryption.”
“ Suuuz , they were forthcoming!”
“Which is something else we may want to consider later on,” Lee said. ” Why were they? But anyway, no gambling, no vice, no sexual content even…nothing even remotely shady.”
“You don’t think ExTel purged these records before they came to you?”
“Of course they could have,” Lee said, “and I’m not sure how we would tell they had, any more than I know how to tell they hadn’t. But let’s assume, for the moment and for the sake of our sanity, that they haven’t, because there was very little time between my concrete request and Hagen’s fulfillment of it. I know I mentioned the possibility of wanting more data to him yesterday, but if he really does want dil’Sorden’s case ‘cleaned up’ in a hurry, I’m assuming he’d at least leave anything in that might lead us to a murderer. Yes?”
“I’ll allow you that for the moment,” Gelert said.
“So. Clean criminal record, nothing covert tucked away in the files, a lot of correspondence but all very innocent—mails to and from friends back in Alfheim, and other friends and work associates here and in Tierra and Huictilopochtli. Everything else has to do with work, or finances. And so much of his work is about fairy gold that—”
“Wait a minute,” Gelert said. “Finances?”
Lee shrugged. “Bank statements, investment portfolios, brokerage stuff…”
Gelert got up. “Lee,” he said, “you have no mathematics in your soul…it’s your only major failing. You leave the banking information to me: I’ll sort through it. Everything else you’ve looked at, though, has been clean?”
“Boringly so. I think we have here that true rarity, the complete geek. He really seems to have lived for his work.”
“Leaving me to wonder whether perhaps for some reason, he died for it,” Gelert muttered. “Because if he really wasn’t doing anything else…” He trailed off. “Well, one thing at a time. You have any notes on the desk that might help me?”
“I’ll copy them all to your desktop.”
“Thanks.”
“And in the meantime I’ll go back to studying dil’Sorden’s ExTel projects.” She breathed out. “But what are we going to do about your ‘guy who faded’?”
Gelert shrugged one ear. “Pass on the info to the DA’s Office in the morning, with everything else. It’s no worse than the Elf who ‘vanished.’ They don’t like what we Saw? Let them go hire themselves some other ‘mancers.” He walked off to his office to examine the slab of glass in the middle of the floor that was his own “desk”: and Lee sighed and turned back to her work.
*
They worked late. Soft drink cans and paper plates began to pile up again on Lee’s desk, and Chinese food containers on the floor on Gelert’s side.
“There’s something here I’m not seeing,” Lee said.
“The forest for the trees?” Gelert said.
“Go on, be that way,” Lee said. “Meanwhile, explain to me why there are two transmission speeds for fairy gold.”
“What?” Gelert got up from his desk and ambled in to look over her shoulder.
“Look at this.” Lee snapped her fingers at the commwall, so that it showed Gelert the output from her desk, enlarged. She had been looking through the footnotes to the Britannica’s basic article on fairy gold. It was surprising how much you might think you knew about something so basic to the civilization of the worlds, and how little you found you knew about it when you started digging. Lee was now down into the sixth or seventh level of technical annotations, getting more confused and more fascinated all the time.
She pointed at the annotation that had caught her attention. It showed two conduction speeds for fairy gold at 18° C—3.063xl013cm/s, 3.065xl014cm/s: and next to the second one was a “dagger” pointing at a footnote that said only, attributed . “Attributed to what?” said Lee. “I’ve never seen
“ Suuuz , they were forthcoming!”
“Which is something else we may want to consider later on,” Lee said. ” Why were they? But anyway, no gambling, no vice, no sexual content even…nothing even remotely shady.”
“You don’t think ExTel purged these records before they came to you?”
“Of course they could have,” Lee said, “and I’m not sure how we would tell they had, any more than I know how to tell they hadn’t. But let’s assume, for the moment and for the sake of our sanity, that they haven’t, because there was very little time between my concrete request and Hagen’s fulfillment of it. I know I mentioned the possibility of wanting more data to him yesterday, but if he really does want dil’Sorden’s case ‘cleaned up’ in a hurry, I’m assuming he’d at least leave anything in that might lead us to a murderer. Yes?”
“I’ll allow you that for the moment,” Gelert said.
“So. Clean criminal record, nothing covert tucked away in the files, a lot of correspondence but all very innocent—mails to and from friends back in Alfheim, and other friends and work associates here and in Tierra and Huictilopochtli. Everything else has to do with work, or finances. And so much of his work is about fairy gold that—”
“Wait a minute,” Gelert said. “Finances?”
Lee shrugged. “Bank statements, investment portfolios, brokerage stuff…”
Gelert got up. “Lee,” he said, “you have no mathematics in your soul…it’s your only major failing. You leave the banking information to me: I’ll sort through it. Everything else you’ve looked at, though, has been clean?”
“Boringly so. I think we have here that true rarity, the complete geek. He really seems to have lived for his work.”
“Leaving me to wonder whether perhaps for some reason, he died for it,” Gelert muttered. “Because if he really wasn’t doing anything else…” He trailed off. “Well, one thing at a time. You have any notes on the desk that might help me?”
“I’ll copy them all to your desktop.”
“Thanks.”
“And in the meantime I’ll go back to studying dil’Sorden’s ExTel projects.” She breathed out. “But what are we going to do about your ‘guy who faded’?”
Gelert shrugged one ear. “Pass on the info to the DA’s Office in the morning, with everything else. It’s no worse than the Elf who ‘vanished.’ They don’t like what we Saw? Let them go hire themselves some other ‘mancers.” He walked off to his office to examine the slab of glass in the middle of the floor that was his own “desk”: and Lee sighed and turned back to her work.
*
They worked late. Soft drink cans and paper plates began to pile up again on Lee’s desk, and Chinese food containers on the floor on Gelert’s side.
“There’s something here I’m not seeing,” Lee said.
“The forest for the trees?” Gelert said.
“Go on, be that way,” Lee said. “Meanwhile, explain to me why there are two transmission speeds for fairy gold.”
“What?” Gelert got up from his desk and ambled in to look over her shoulder.
“Look at this.” Lee snapped her fingers at the commwall, so that it showed Gelert the output from her desk, enlarged. She had been looking through the footnotes to the Britannica’s basic article on fairy gold. It was surprising how much you might think you knew about something so basic to the civilization of the worlds, and how little you found you knew about it when you started digging. Lee was now down into the sixth or seventh level of technical annotations, getting more confused and more fascinated all the time.
She pointed at the annotation that had caught her attention. It showed two conduction speeds for fairy gold at 18° C—3.063xl013cm/s, 3.065xl014cm/s: and next to the second one was a “dagger” pointing at a footnote that said only, attributed . “Attributed to what?” said Lee. “I’ve never seen
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