Last Enemy | Page 6

just what she did, because I
don't know the subject, but she must have lit things up properly. She got quite a lot of
local publicity; not only scientific journals, but general newscasts.
"Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seems to have been
coincident with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We don't know as much about this as
we should; all we have is Zortan Brend's account.
"It seems that on the evening of her disappearance, she had been attending the voluntary

discarnation feast--suicide party--of a prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor.
Evidently when the Akor-Neb people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in
their friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere of general
conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal gas; this fellow had his personal
trigger man shoot him through the head. Dalla was one of the guests of honor, along with
this Harnosh of Hosh. They'd made rather elaborate preparations, and after the shooting
they got a detailed and apparently authentic spirit-communication from the late Garnon.
The voluntary discarnation was just a routine social event, it seems, but the
communication caused quite an uproar, and rated top place on the System-wide
newscasts, and started a storm of controversy.
"After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating gun artist, one
Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken of as a generally respected member
of something called the Society of Assassins, and that'll give you an idea of what things
are like on that sector, and why I don't want to send anybody who might develop
trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home of the
gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for Dalla's apartment, about
a hundred miles away. That's the last that's been heard of either of them.
"This attempt on Dalla's life occurred while the pre-mortem revels were still going on.
She lived in a six-room apartment, with three servants, on one of the upper floors of a
three-thousand-foot tower--Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable interval
between units--and while she was at this feast, a package was delivered at the apartment,
ostensibly from the Reincarnation Institute and made up to look as though it contained
record tapes. One of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments.
The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her on the visiphone
and got no answer; he then called the apartment manager, who entered the apartment. He
found all three of the servants dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when
one of them had opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the
apartment, the night before."
* * * * *
Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran Tortha Karf's
narrative through the intricate semantic and psychological processes of the First Level
mentality. The fact that Hadron Dalla had been a former wife of his had been relegated to
one corner of his consciousness and contained there; it was not a fact that would, at the
moment, contribute to the problem or to his treatment of it.
"The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party," he considered. "It must,
therefore, have been sent by somebody who either did not know she would be out of the
apartment, or who did not expect it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if
her disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody who knew she
was at the feast and did not want her to reach her apartment again. This would seem to
exclude the sender of the package bomb."
Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion, himself.

"Thus," Verkan Vall continued, "if her disappearance was the work of an enemy, she
must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the other's plans."
"What do you think she did to provoke such enmity?"
"Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla's normally complicated love-life had got a
little more complicated than usual and short-circuited on her," Verkan Vall said, out of
the fullness of personal knowledge, "but I doubt that, at the moment. I would think that
this affair has political implications."
"So?" Tortha Karf had not thought of politics as an explanation. He waited for Verkan
Vall to elaborate.
"Don't you see, chief?" the special assistant asked. "We find a belief in reincarnation on
many time-lines, as a religious doctrine, but these people accept it as a scientific fact.
Such acceptance would carry much more conviction; it would influence a people's entire
thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death--suicide as a social function, this
Society of