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13

June looked at Kieran reproachfully over the dinner dishes on the table in the apartment. "You used Guinness? What a deplorable debaser of young innocents you turn out to be. You'll be pimping next."

"Shameless," Kieran agreed shamelessly. "Although I think the demand on Mars must be pretty near saturated already. Ah well, not to worry. Now I can always be a geologist." He had summarized his conversation with Trevany and the work that his team was engaged in.

"What do you think of all these different accounts we get of what happened to Earth twelve thousand years ago—and now Mars, by the sound of it?" June asked him. "I've heard, let's see . . . the giant-comet-that-became-Venus theory; the some-other-comet-but-not-Venus theory; wobbling crust; unbalanced ice caps; war between alien visitors; ancient civilization that screwed up in a big way . . . And I'm sure there are more. Which one do you subscribe to? Any?"

"They're like religions: I love 'em all." Kieran emptied the last of the wine into their glasses. "Diversity is a sign of health and vigor. It's appropriate to the way things are happening out here. Obsession with conformity in everything, and trying to impose it—that was what stifled Earth."

They collected their glasses and took them over to sprawl facing each other from opposite ends of the couch, legs intertwined comfortably. "So how's Mahom these days?" June inquired.

"Still in one piece, strangely enough. He's got a whole arsenal out back there. It wouldn't surprise me if he's made customers out of those heavies who tried to put the squeeze on him a while back."

June took a drink. "So what do you think of the Kodiak?"

"Impressed. I'll be interested to see this new range from Luna that he talked about. . . . The only thing, though, it looked blue. But when you get out in the sun it's more of a hideous French-hooker-panties color—kind of a dark purple."

"And how would you know what color panties French hookers wear?" June asked.

"Purely by repute. Didn't you know? In any case, I'm extraordinarily well and widely read."

"I heard somewhere that there isn't a word in English that rhymes with purple," June said distantly.

"Nonsense. A modicum of ingenuity and erudition produces rhymes with anything," Kieran assured her.

"Go on, then. Give me one," June challenged.

Kieran lifted his glass to hold it poised between fingertips, contemplated it with a faraway expression for some seconds, then looked up and offered:

 

"When you're choking, turning purple
A hearty slap and one good burp'll
Usually fix it."

 

"Kieran, you're impossible," June sighed. "Okay, they say the same thing about `silver' too. I bet—" A tone from Kieran's comset interrupted.

"Always, just when you've gotten comfortable." He got up from the couch and crossed to the breakfast bar, where he had put the unit. "Hello?"

"Hello? Is this Kieran Thane?"

"Hi, Patti," he answered, recognizing the voice. "That was quick. Don't tell me you've got something already?"

"I was right here, so I figured maybe there was something in the bar tabs. And there was."

"You'll make a professional for sure. And?"

"There was nothing on the guy. But I got two for the woman's name that you gave me. The card details were all I could get from here. I copied them into my phone. Can I download them?"

"Sure." Kieran keyed in the code to accept a transfer, and moments later the display confirmed its completion.

"Will you need more from the registration records, like you said?" Patti asked. "That might be a bit more difficult."

"Let's see where we get with this first," Kieran said. "But either way, I think you've earned a bonus. We'll give it to you when you pick up Guinness. What do you want to do, collect him here sometime? You said you know this area."

"Okay . . . but I'm not sure when. It would depend on my next time off. And when Grace can get out too."

"Anytime. I'll wait until I hear from you then."

"Well, I'm still working right now, so got to go. I'll let you know." Patti hung up.

Kieran turned back toward June, who had been following, and announced, "Nothing on Sarda. But two Elaines settled bar bills during the week that Trevany said. I've got the card details in here." He waved the phone. "Can you do your stuff on it?" Researching hard-to-find information was part of June's business. She had her own ways of tracking people down.

"Let me see." June got up, took the phone from him, and carried it over to the office corner of the living area. She sat down at the com system, activated a screen, copied in the details from Kieran's phone, and quickly became absorbed in taking things from there. Kieran stretched out on the couch again and dove into the Kodiak Owner's Manual.

After ten minutes or so, he looked up and stared across at June's back as inspiration struck.

 

"Gold and silver,
Presents wilvir-,
Ginity tend to,
Put an end to."

 

He waited. June ignored him. Wasted talent, he told himself, and returned to his book.

"Aha!" June announced thirty minutes or so later.

"Are we in business?"

"Listen to this." June half-turned her head, reading from the screen. "The first is an Elaine Dorcavitz. I've got a log of other payments showing she was just here on a short visit, passing through. She's from a remote habitat out in the Belt, already left Mars."

"Scratch one Elaine," Kieran pronounced. "But my psychic radar detects emanations of excitement concerning the other."

"Elaine Corley," June supplied. "Address: 14B Watergardens, Embarcadero! I've got a picture."

Kieran got up and went to look over June's shoulder, stroking the side of her neck absently. Embarcadero was the wider, southwest-turning canyon arm of Lowell, formed by the merging of Gorky and Nineveh beyond the Trapezium. It consisted of a professional business park and expensive residences and boulevards built around a network of waterways.

The woman looking out from the screen had black hair, short and curly. Her face was pale, high-boned, with a tapering chin and thin around the lips—not unattractive for those who liked their women intense and serious. She looked about right. But there was only one way to be surer.

"Let's see if Walter can verify it," Kieran said. "Can you open me another channel?" June gave him a line on another screen and copied through the image. While Kieran called Trevany's number, June carried on delving further into the records she could access on Elaine Corley.

Trevany's face appeared on the screen that Kieran was using. "Hello? Oh, it's you again, Dr. Thane." June turned her head at the mention of the title, rolled her eyes upward briefly, and went back to what she was doing.

"Yes," Kieran said. "I hope it isn't late for you."

"No way. We're going to be up all night on this. What can I do for you?"

"I've got a picture here of who I think is the Elaine you saw with Sarda at the Oasis. I'd like you to have a look at it."

"That was quick work." Trevany looked surprised.

"I said you'd been more help than you thought. Anyway, here it is." Kieran got the prompt and sent the image.

"That's her," Trevany said without hesitation.

"You're sure? No doubt?"

"No question about it. Well, I'm glad you seem to have solved your problem, Doctor. I hope Sarda recovers."

"Thanks. And good luck with your field work. We'll be in there rooting for you, waiting for the orthodoxy to crumble."

"Well, it might take some time yet," Trevany said with a sigh.

As Kieran cleared down, June nudged him with her elbow. She read: "Elaine Lydia Corley. Profession, nursing practitioner. Specialty qualification, neural physiology." June glanced up and sideways. Kieran whistled softly. "And listen to this. Currently listed as the professional partner of a Henry Balmer, associated with the Lowell Medical Center as well as running a private practice. And of all things, Balmer is registered as a psychiatric hypnotist!" June sat back and turned from the screen. "Could it be we have a way of selectively erasing slabs of memory here?"

Kieran hoisted her effortlessly to her feet, turned her around, and kissed her. "Lovely, I do believe you've cracked it!" he exclaimed. "I always thought you were a true genius. It must rub off. I think we should call Leo and get him over here right away."

 

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Framed