Nova 4

RICHARD BIRELEY Not a Petal Falls

Richard Bireley is the only practicing electrical engineer I know who has written radio commercials, run a late night disc show—and toured vaudeville as a magician, The Great Bikini. This sounds more like the proper exotic background for a writer—and so it is and he proves here.

pleasure warmth comfort

irritation anger pain pain that radiates

my leaves my roots pain a jumble of thoughts confusion

and pain and pain

a fading thoughts separate separate separate

gone one is gone sorrow grief FEAR

rapid motion the other retreats where is my friend

the game has ended too soon

why why my friend who feeds me

who soaks the dry earth that i may drink where is he

i am alone i thirst alone i thirst

not usual wrong wrong

warm thoughts gone gone gone gone gone

faded in pain pain gone

the other he he who came for the sharing of patterned cards

gone gone gone gone he who

also cooled my roots with brief rain

gone gone in haste gone in fear why why why am i alone

The sergeant took a long, careful look around the small room. Better than a lot of the S.C. hangouts I've been called to, he thought. Neat. And some of those old books look valuable. He picked up one and flipped it open. First printing, 1953. Seventy years old. Bound, too. The old boy had money. The room showed it. Wonder how he kept Senior Citizen status without signing over everything he owned. Probably put it in trust for some relative and took the interest. That was the usual dodge.

Yep. Nice room. Sim-oak furniture. A small tri-D by the bed. And a reader, too, with a couple of cubes lying on top. A touch of green came from the window, where a drooping plant on the sill faced its leaves to pick the last bit of warmth from a haze-shrouded sun. He sighed and turned away.

"Ralph. Get a vid of the room, will you. I want to move the corpus out of here."

"Sure, sergeant. Got the whole thing already. Finished the compu-check, too. You might like to take a look at the printout." He handed the sergeant a wide sheet of paper.

The sergeant ran his eyes down the column of figures. The red-inked summary at the bottom caught and held his eye.

Available data show high negative correlation factor. Probability of murder: 99.99%

He gazed at the impersonally accusing red letters for a moment, then sighed and crumpled the paper into a tight ball. Another officer hurried up behind him.

"This is the list you wanted," the man said. "Everybody who lives here in the home. The checks mark the ones who the old boy saw the most of. I underlined one. Charley Michner. He had a running bridge game going with the deceased. Should have known him better than anyone else around here."

"Thanks, Irv. Might as well start with him. Is he in?"

"Got him outside."

The sergeant lost interest as soon as the old man entered. Just another poor, tired bastard, he thought. Baggy pants. Faded shirt with frayed collar, and the shuffling gait of one who has nothing to hurry for. His head was down, and his fingers picked nervously at a dangling button on his shapeless black sweater. His answers came slowly, as if from far away.

"Huh? Sure I was here. It was Tuesday night, wasn't it? We play cards every Tuesday. On Wednesdays I go to a show. ... No. Not too late.... Sure. He was fine when I left. Happy. He beat me pretty bad. Poor Sam."

He stared at the floor for a moment, blinking, then raised his head, his mouth working.

"Killed? You said killed. Not Sam. He musta had one of his dizzy spells and fell. You said killed?"

The sergeant nodded, waiting.

The old man pulled his sweater tighter around him. He shook his head.

"That's got to be wrong. Nobody'd kill Sam. He fell. Didn't he fall? Nobody'd kill Sam." Charley Michner shook his head obstinately. "He musta had one of his dizzy spells and fell. He did fall, didn't he?"

"Someone killed him, Mr. Michner." The sergeant pomted to the table. "That small, green box there makes it very clear. We focused it on the area where we found your friend. The unit scanned his body, just as it was lying there. It scoped the thickness of his skull at the point of impact, checked the position of the body and location of all nearby objects. According to the computed results, the fracture was too deep, and the body position was all wrong. He had to be shoved, hard, to end up the way he did."

It seemed very quiet in the room. The old man rubbed at his eyes, and his chin quivered. His face was gray.

"It's wrong," he mumbled. "It's wrong. We played cards."

His shoulders drooped as he leaned foreward and put his head in his hands.

The sergeant nodded to one of the men.

"Better get him back to his room," he said.

Charley Michner shuffled to the door, then stopped and turned.

"Please tell me if you find out who did it. Poor Sam. Will you tell me?"

The sergeant nodded.

thoughts swirl and twist many mixed

fade and swell loud soft fast slow hurry get job done go i rest as light fades rest

a small shining drifts high to bathe me in pale light

my leaves are silver and gold is hiver wish to lift them to moonlight but no no moisture no moisture can't can't can't i die i die

oh now coming i feel thoughts brush near it i he someone comes fear fear again HIDE back to earth back to seed hide hide in drying earth

bright flash then dark thought twists and builds

fear fear and sorrow sound of shuffling

sound of small hardness hitting earth floor i sense a stopping fear stopping and the warm feeling surrounds me

my leaves my roots drenched drenched with life drenched with water

sound small noises faint from afar fear is back now very strong the shuffle noise

a strange dragging noise and again a quick light dark returns

fear goes smaller and smaller

i rest drinking

The room was filled with the quiet bustle of a routine job, efficiently done. The sergeant, hands in pockets, glanced around the room.

"Okay, people. Let's get this stuff checked out. Next of kin is already waiting to claim it as soon as we run it through the empathy plotter. I'd guess we won't find much, though. Just traces of his card-playing friend, Charley, and maybe the nephew, if he was here recently."

"That the guy who's in such a hurry to get his hands on the loot?" one of the techs asked.

"Yeh. That's him. Showed up first thing this morning. Raised seven kinds of hell because he couldn't come right over and pick it up. I bet he didn't leave much of a trace around here. He's the type that visits every Easter unless he has something better to do. Got it all ready?" The last to a technician standing beside a small console. The tech nodded.

As the sergeant stepped back, a glint from under a low table caught his eye. Stooping, he picked up a delicately crafted man's earring. The platinum clasp was broken.

"Chan," he called. "Look at this." He held it up. "Check your vid scan from yesterday and see if this was here then. I don't remember it."

The detective shook his head. "Me neither."

He took a small box from his pocket, pointed it at a blank wall and pressed a button. A swirl of color appeared, sharpening to a three-dimensional view of the room. He adjusted a dial and the view shifted, centering on the table.

"I don't see it," the man said.

The sergeant leaned forward, peering.

"Get a little closer," he said.

The table blurred, then loomed larger. The sergeant moved to one side of the picture, checking behind the legs of the table.

"Nope. Not there," he said. "Let's find out who left his calling card."

He placed the earring on a platform in the front of the console. The tech pushed a button, and a pale blue light flickered briefly around the object, then disappeared. A strip of paper pushed quietly from the machine.

Across it ran a series of light, wavy lines, whose peaks and valleys chased each other across the paper in ordered confusion. An entire personality reduced to a series of wandering scrawls.

The sergeant glanced at the strip and shrugged.

"That's my plot," he said. "I recognize the profile. Mine would show up first, since I just handled the evidence. Watch for the dark ones that result from prolonged contact."

More curves were produced, most of them light, showing the brief presence of the others in the room. Then, a heavy trace appeared.

"Get an I.D. on that one," he said. "That's got to be the owner. Look how dark that plot is. Only long contact will show up like that."

He dropped the paper into another slot, then fidgeted impatiently, waiting. Finally, a light glowed green.

"Wish they'd speed up that computer link," he grumbled, withdrawing the slip. Printed across the bottom were a name and a number. He glanced and it and nodded grimly.

"Looks like the loving nephew dropped by after hours. Wonder what he was trying to find."

The voice from the door was high pitched and nasal.

"I resent your tone, and your implication. And why should I try to find anything. It all belongs to me, anyway."

"That's what we'll have to try and find out. Is this yours?"

"You know damn well it is. I knew I lost it here. About a month ago, while I was visiting my uncle. Where did you find it?"

''Right where you lost it, I'd say," the sergeant said. "Only your timing may be a bit off. Maybe we'd better talk about this somewhere else. But before we go; there's one other matter to be settled. Our listing shows you to be the sole heir. What do you want done with the effects."

"I'll pick them up today. Just as soon as I'm done with you," the man said.

"Fine. Ricco! Bring that plant along. Well need it to monitor at the line-up."

The nephew looked at the drooping leaves and curled his lip.

"Well, keep it the hell away from me. Hate the damn things. Allergic."

As they turned to leave, the technician raised his hand. "Sergeant. I have a couple of more traces off the earring. Do you want to check them?"

The sergeant hesitated, then shrugged. "Naw," he said. "Probably just a collection of casual visitors, anyway." The door closed behind them.

dark dim i sit in the dark dim and the moving around me small little flower things stuck to my leaves each sends a tendril

a small vinelet off to a far away creature which grows in a corner of the space where we now live it glows with light light that flickers i feel the flickers from the pads on my leaves a moving creature tends it touches its blossoms

that sprout from the wide flatness of its trunk the field around me changes becomes sharper

a tiny shock ripples a loss a breaking and a loss a petal falls my petals my petals only through my petals do i sense these things

they fall i must hold tightly

now now now now the field builds it spreads flickers weaves like moonlight on my leaves touching pushing deep within me touching deep

known thoughts come near a familiar being nears i rest quiet silently probing within the earth

seeking out bits of cool moisture these thoughts are known to me someone nears someone known i rest quiet

seeking bits of earth

seeking bits of life-fluid in the earth the thoughts are remembered now

the thoughts of the patterned cards and of fear fear fear sorrow sorrow sorrow it rises strong strong like a hiding creature

sensing the hunter i find a small bit of dampness i rest i wait

fear retreats and is gone ANGER driving at me anger anger that flickers and rages fighting fighting fighting fighting those around it i know i know this angry mind I scream I scream I scream and the flicker weaving field shatters into tiny shards of sunlight

as i scream scream scream scream

The small man whimpered and hung back as he was hustled through white tiled halls. The two orderlies holding his arms didn't glance his way.

"Straighten up," one of them said mechanically. "It won't hurt. Just a little rearrangement of some nerve channels to make sure you don't even think about killing off any more citizens."

"But it won't be me, anymore," the little man cried softly. "Besides, I didn't, I didn't." His voice trailed off.

The deputy from the Ministry of Religious Practices moved up from behind.

"Now, citizen," he said. "It will be easier for you if you admit your guilt before you are adjusted." His tone was soothing. "We know of the money you would have inherited. And of the earring you dropped. Why don't you tell me what you were looking for. You know that the evidence of the plant was quite conclusive. The only living witness to your crime reacted violently when you were brought near it. The indicators on the detectors went clear to their limits. Only a reaction of extreme horror, brought on by its awareness of your crime could have showed such results. Share your guilt with me. The tests can't lie, you know."

The little man shook his head helplessly. "But I didn't," he cried. "I didn't."

the time of darkness is near

from a last cherished petal i sense dimly soon soon

somewhere from above the level

above where the creatures move a thought disturbs my rites my rites of season ending the old fear faint but pressing

fear fear and worry fear

and no hope fear and a kind of death

much fear as this have i sensed in recent days thoughts fears weave and dart overhead like scuffling sparrows dart and swoop

motion stops and the terror rises a small struggle

confusion a swirl of fear love anger joy hate sorrow fear then it ceases

an empty calm remains i hope i will be sent to live with the friend of the games of the patterned games of the patterned cards he will care for me he will see that the needed water bathes my roots i will have a place in the warm sun

the other would have left me

left me to die die die die die this one will be kind i think he will not

become angry

i think he will not destroy me as he did his friend the last petal falls

all is black