The Cat Who Walks Through Walls Read Online Free PDF Page B

your place. But I must first buy a hat.”
    “A hat? ”
    “One of those funny boxes you sit on the flat part of your head. Or would if you were dirtside.”
    “I know what a hat is! But I was born dirtside same as you were. But I doubt if a hat has ever been seen off Earth. Where would you buy one?”
    “I don’t know, best girl, but I can tell you why I need one. So that I can tip my hat politely and say, ‘Sir or madam, pray tell me why someone wishes you dead by noon Sunday.’ Gwen, this has been worrying me—how to open such a discussion. There are accepted polite modes for almost any inquiry, from proposing adultery to a previously chaste wife to soliciting a bribe. But how does one open this subject?”
    “Can’t you just say, ‘Don’t look now but somebody’s trying to kill you’?”
    “No, that’s the wrong order. I’m not trying to warn this bloke that someone is gunning for him; I’m trying to find out why. When I know why I might approve so heartily that I would just sit back and enjoy it…or even be so inspired by the purpose that I would carry out the intent of the late Mr. Schultz as a service to mankind.
    “Contrariwise, I might disagree so bitterly that I would enlist for the duration, volunteer my life and my services to the sacred cause of keeping this assassination from happening. Unlikely if the intended target is Ron Tolliver. But it’s too early to choose sides; I need to understand what is going on. Gwen my love, in the killing business one should never kill first and ask questions afterwards. That tends to annoy people.”
    I turned back to the terminal, stared at it without touching a key. “Gwen, before we make any local calls I think I should place six time-delay calls, one to each of the Friends of Walker Evans. That’s my basic clue anyhow, that Schultz could mention that name. Some one of that six gave him that name…and that one should know why Schultz was in such a sweat.”
    “‘Time delay’? Are they all out-far?”
    “I don’t know. One is probably on Mars, two others may be in the Belt. Could even be one or two dirtside but, if so, under phony names just as I am. Gwen, the debacle that caused me to give up the merry profession of arms and caused six of my comrades to wind up as my blood brothers…well, it smelled nasty to the public. I could say that media reporters who didn’t see it happen could not possibly understand why it happened. I could assert truthfully that what we did was moral in context—that time, that place, those circumstances. I could—Never mind, dear; let it stand that my band of brothers are all in hiding. Tracing them all down could be a tediously long chore.”
    “But you want to talk to just one, don’t you? The one who was in touch with this Schultz.”
    “Yes but I don’t know which one that is.”
    “Richard, would it be easier to backtrack Schultz to find that one than it would be to locate six people all in hiding, some under assumed names, and scattered all over the Solar System? Or even outside it.”
    I stopped to consider it. “Maybe. But how do I backtrack Schultz? Do you have an inspiration, my love?”
    “No inspiration. But I do remember that, when I arrived here in Golden Rule, they asked me at the hub not only where I lived, and checked it against my passport, but also where I had come from that trip—and checked that against my visa stamps. Not just that I had come from Luna—almost everyone arrives here from Luna—but how I got to Luna. Weren’t you asked that?”
    “No. But I was carrying a Luna Free State passport showing that I was born in the Moon.”
    “I thought you were born on Earth?”
    “Gwen, Colin Campbell was born dirtside. ‘Richard Ames’ was born in Hong Kong Luna—it says here.”
    “Oh.”
    “But attempting to backtrack Schultz is indeed something I should try before I try to locate all six. If I knew that Schultz had never been out-far, I would look first close to home—Luna, and