Visions of Liberty Read Online Free PDF Page B

some roundabout charge—perhaps based on the fact that by murdering Douglas Vaisey, Roger Lefory had summarily terminated his right to that nebulous old saw of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The attorneys would have the time of their lives with it, but Dantler was confident of a conviction. Murder was the most serious charge in the legal arsenal, and courts would lean over backward to properly punish a murderer—especially when the murder had occurred on an Unnullified world that had neither government, law, nor courts.
    Now Dantler was back in Pummery again, having tracked his murderer to Pummery's huge Smelter No. 2. It was an all-electric operation—clean, quiet, and effectively temperature controlled. Dantler's credentials gave him direct and immediate access to its superintendent, a youngish-looking black man named Edwin Sharle, who seemed as quietly competent and efficient as his smelter.
    He was completely unaware that he had harbored a murderer among his employees, but the name "Roger Lefory" was familiar to him. "The man was always complaining about something," he said. "He kept claiming that the other employees were making him the victim of all their pranks. They smeared glue on his chair, and when he sat in it, he couldn't get up. He had to cut his trousers off, and they were ruined. His fellow workers had a way of timing their breaks so he was left with all the work to do. They filled his locker with trash, and another time they balanced a can of paint so it dumped on him when he opened the locker's door. That's only the beginning of a list. I'm sure a record was made. Do you want to see it?"
    Dantler shook his head. "What did you make of all that?"
    "I checked his work record from the Last Hope mine and, before and after that, the Laughingstock. Everywhere he worked, he found excuses for not working. Many of the pranks he described sounded like fellow workers being fed up with his constantly shifting his workload to them. So I told him to try to be more friendly and cooperative with the people who worked with him and to do a little work himself."
    "With what result?"
    "He quit without notice. Went to one of the more distant mines, the Shangri-la, and got a job there. I know that because they asked me for his work record. I never heard him mentioned again."
    Dantler's next stop was the Llayless Record Section, where he was given a computer station and access to the complete record of Roger Lefory—to the extent that the world kept records on one of its lesser residents. Lefory's entire employment history was there as far as the Shangri-la. Every employer, including the last one, remarked that the man was lazy and avoided work whenever he could. The file ended with a terse note from the Shangri-la manager, dated almost a year before. Employee Roger Lefory was missing from his job. There was nothing unusual about that—he had left every job he had held without notice—but this time there was no record that he had gone anywhere else. He had simply vanished.
    Dantler made inquiries. There were a few solitary prospectors searching for paydirt on the far side of the mountains surrounding Pummery. Some of them had developed a knack for living off the country. There were edible plants, berries, and fruits. There were game birds and animals for those who had the skill to catch them. Most Llayless residents had no time for that sort of thing, but prospectors usually had little money and in any case didn't want to take the time for a long trip back to a commissary. There was nothing unusual about a man being missing for almost a year.
    Before leaving for the Shangri-la mine, Dantler paid another call on Jeffrey Wallingford Pummery. The factor greeted him courteously and asked how he could be of service.
    Dantler described his investigation to date. "A man was murdered," he said. "There are witnesses who saw it done. No report was made to anyone on the management level of the mines where Lefory worked, or