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.She had mentioned wanting to start a new color-by-numbers painting.Maybe that’s why Sperl was staring at the bare spot on the wall, Hiley thought, watching her close a hall door behind her.She looked pretty disgusted with me, too.Something bumped in one of the other rooms.It was an angry noise, probably made by Ghopa.What if it was a threat? Hiley wondered.But from an eleven-year-old, his own sweet baby girl? He had never even raised a sucktip against her.But she had been so hostile, so out of control.And Hiley had heard of such things happening in families.He would add it to one of his lists.***CHAPTER FOURTEENEach basic Ut rule has dozens, sometimes hundreds, of subrules, subsubrules and subsubsubrules … all without explanation.The whole setup seems quite remarkable at first, until one examines his own life and society critically.Are we really that different from the citizens of Ut? Oh we have freedoms, to a certain extent? But so do they.—Fasil O’Mara, San Francisco Timesstaff reporter, reflecting aloudabout his Ut experiencesThe next morning, Hiley took an ultrasonic shower, had a cup of tea aroma, and filled his hollow legs with packets of money and credits.Today he would attempt to visit Stamm to repay him for his terrible losses.Hiley got in his rotocar and took off.Since he was not searching for credits, there was no requirement that he go on foot.I’m not totally responsible, Hiley thought, as the rotocar approached the knoll between his dwello and Stamm’s.Maybe 20 percent, a third at most.He watched the spinning tilt-rotor on one of the craft’s short wings, then pushed the black accelerator lever down slightly, slowing the speed.I’ll negotiate with him, Hiley thought.It’s the honorable thing to do.When the rotocar passed over the knoll seconds later, Hiley had increased his theoretical share of the blame to 35, maybe 40 percent.Stamm never would have gone out if I hadn’t urged him.He might have found a way to keep the attackers away had he been there.Stamm’s one-story dwello was in sight now.Two police rotocruisers were parked on the galooflat near the dwello, and Stamm’s rotocar was in its usual place on the roof.A Holo-Cop stood guard near the police ships, while two other projected light officers descended the dwello ramp, carrying a stretcher between them.A white sheet covered the stretcher.Hiley’s solar pulse raced, pushing blood through his veins at a rate that made him dizzy.It had to be Stamm! But what could have happened? He wondered for a moment if Stamm might have killed a scavenger, but something told him otherwise.His friend was dead.Hiley considered flying by, not wishing to talk with the police because of the Prussirian matter.Hiley had made his report by tell-all, but no one had been out to question him yet.He knew they would, eventually.But the Holo-Cop guarding the rotocruisers pointed what looked like a handheld red light at Hiley.Larger red lights began to whirl on top of both cruisers, accompanied by sirens.Whirr-eee! Whirr-eee! the sirens wailed.“I’m ordered down,” Hiley muttered.He moved the control stick forward and touched the three landing buttons that set the craft down.Hiley knew the light the officer had was not really handheld.It came from the light matrix hand itself and was a force beam, said to be powerful enough to knock a rotocar out of the sky at a distance of six kilometers.The utpeople had been told that one hand light meant the officer wanted to talk with you.Two lights meant the weapon had been activated.If you were ever unfortunate enough to see two lights, it would be the last thing you saw.Hiley hurried to comply, setting the rotocar down near the officer.As Hiley stepped out, all three Holo-Cops glided to meet him, training single red lights on him.“Hiley OIV, three-six-five-oh-four,” the officer said, having received accessible mother-beam data based upon the identification number on Hiley’s rotocar.The officer also had verified the information visually by taking a sensorprint and bone vein scan on Hiley’s body.“What is your business here?” the officer asked, gliding closest to Hiley.The voice was efficient, demanding.Oddly, this officer was smaller than the others, with his box-shaped body coming up only to Hiley’s shoulders.Hiley thought all Holo-Cops were the same size … and they were, before Mamacita started having projection difficulties.Unknown to Hiley, Mamacita was struggling with this officer’s projection at that very moment.The black light lines toward Hiley glowed soft red as the officer concentrated his vision in that direction.Suddenly, the Holo-Cop grew larger, to normal size.Hiley hesitated and considered stating he had just been on a recreational flight.Wisely, he decided to tell the truth, for Holo-Cops had verification methods.“I’m a friend of the dwello owner here.Stamm.He’s dead? How did it happen?”“I will ask the questions concerning this murder,” the officer said, curtly.“When did you last see the victim?”“Yesterday.I left around midday.”“There is more for you to tell,” the officer said flatly.“I hear it in the inflection of your voice and see it in the perspiration around the roots of your skull hairs.You had a fight with the victim?”“He became angry with me, yes.We went credit hunting yesterday morning, and when we returned to his dwello we found it had been ransacked.He blamed it on me, since I suggested the hunt.He thought I was tied in with a group of scavengers.”“Which you are not,” the officer said.“There is something else, which I detect from your odor.You fear us … more than the normal fear.”“He has information on an unrelated crime, perhaps,” one of the other officers suggested.Hiley felt flush in the face at this comment.The word crime was all-encompassing, applicable to the serious and the not so serious.They would not necessarily arrest him.“More just came in on my mother beam,” the short officer said.“This one called in a fugitive report.Another officer is handling the matter.”Hiley stood transfixed, afraid to move or say anything.“Your dwello location has been mapped,” the short officer said.He motioned with his hand.“Just beyond the knoll.”“That is correct,” Hiley said.The officers glide-whirled in unison and left, taking the stretcher bearing Stamm’s body with them.Hiley stood for several minutes watching them leave.The police rotocruisers were profiled against the pale red sky as they flew off, passing to the right of the knoll.Soon they were beyond the range of his vision.They called it murder, Hiley thought.The scavengers came back.As Hiley flew home, he felt overwhelming sensations of loss, for both Maudrey and Stamm.How much of it had been his fault? He had been hard on Maudrey at times.And foolishly he had told the neighbors where Stamm lived, two days before when he met the trio on the galooflat.They are scavengers! he thought.I’m sure of it!Hiley imagined himself walking across the galooflats, holding out an infrared heat probe to check for scavenger traps.He imagined that the scavengers had developed traps that had no heat variance from the surrounding soil, making them nearly impossible to detect.Why not? Hiley thought, returning halfway to reality.Back in his vision, Hiley came to the realization that his heat probe was no longer any good.It should be discarded.Just then, Hiley returned to full awareness
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