The Cat Who Walks Through Walls Read Online Free PDF

murder; I’m not opposed to capital punishment. But shouldn’t you leave this to the proctors and the management? Why must you take the law into your own hands?”
    “Gwen, I haven’t made myself clear. My purpose is not to punish but to weed…plus the esthetic satisfaction of retaliation for boorish behavior. This unknown killer may have had excellent reasons for killing the person who called himself Schultz…but killing in the presence of people who’re eating is as offensive as public quarreling by married couples. Then this oaf capped his offense by doing this while his victim was my guest…which made retaliation both my obligation and my privilege.”
    I went on, “The putative offense of murder is not my concern. But as for proctors and the management taking care of that matter, do you know of any regulation forbidding murder?”
    “What? Richard, there must be one.”
    “I’ve never heard of one. I suppose the Manager might construe murder as a violation of the Golden Rule—”
    “Well, I would certainly think so!”
    “You do? I’m never certain what the Manager will think. But, Gwen my darling, killing is not necessarily murder. In fact it often is not. If this killing ever comes to the Manager’s attention, he may decide that it was justifiable homicide. An offense against manners but not against morals.
    “But—” I continued, turning back to the terminal, “—the Manager may already have settled the matter, so let’s see what the Herald has to say about it.” I punched up the newspaper again, this time keying for today’s index, then selecting today’s vital statistics.
    The first item to roll past was “Marriage—Ames—Novak” so I stopped it, punched for amplification, keyed for printout, tore it off and handed it to my bride. “Send that to your grandchildren to prove that Granny is no longer living in sin.”
    “Thank you, darling. You’re so gallant. I think.”
    “I can cook, too.” I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.
    But not today. No name I recognized. Especially no “Schultz.” No unidentified stranger. No death “in a popular restaurant.” Nothing but the usual sad list of strangers dead from natural causes and one by accident. So I keyed for general news of the habitat, let it scroll past.
    Nothing. Oh, there were endless items of routine events, from ships’ arrivals and departures to (the biggest news) an announcement that the newest addition, rings 130-140, was being brought up to spin and, if all went by schedule, would be warped in and its welding to the main cylinder started by 0800 on the sixth.
    But there was nothing about “Schultz,” no mention of any Tolliver or Taliaferro, no unidentified cadaver. I consulted the paper’s index again, punched for next Sunday’s schedule of events, found that the only thing scheduled for noon Sunday was a panel discussion assembled by holo from The Hague, Tokyo, Luna City, Ell-Four, Golden Rule, Tel Aviv, and Agra: “Crisis in Faith: The Modern World at the Crossroads.” The co-moderators were the president of the Humanist Society and the Dalai Lama. I wished them luck.
    “So far we have zip, zero, nit, swabo, and nothing. Gwen, what is a polite way for me to ask strangers how they pronounce their names?”
    “Let me try it, dear. I’ll say, ‘Miz Tollivuh, this is Gloria Meade Calhoun f’om Savannah. Do you have a cousin, Stacey Mac, f’om Chahlston?’ When she corrects my pronunciation of her name, I apologize and switch off. But if she—or he—accepts the short form but denies knowing Stacey Mac, I say, ‘I wonduhed about that. She said it, Talley-ah-pharoh…but I knew that was wrong.’ What then, Richard? Work it up into a date or switch off by ‘accident’?”
    “Make a date, if possible.”
    “A date for you? Or for me?”
    “For you, and then I’ll go with you. Or keep the date in