Curlew tried to steer Renfrew in a more productive direction. "You've said that the bathmat used by the granddaughters as a cape had the same pattern as the one that was pulled out from under Orly, causing his death, right?" Renfrew nodded. "In either case, Marvella was the source for the bathmat. So why aren't you quizzing Marvella?"

"Easier said than done!" Renfrew snapped. "Marvella is a large number of androids that all look alike. If one of them did kill Orly, who is to say that she didn't block the memory from the hive mind?"

"If the Marvellas don't share memories, then the original flesh-and-blood Marvella didn't get her money's worth. I hear that she paid 200 million dollars for those androids. A drop in the bucket for her, since she's worth billions."

"You knew all along that she used android copies of herself?" Renfrew couldn't speak for a minute.

"It's not supposed to be common knowledge, Renfrew. Bad for business, that sort of thing. Besides, I paid a finder's fee for the information. You could do searches yourself. Use the Androidnet to get to the search androids."

Renfrew had never heard of search androids. Maybe this was because he had been assembled less than two months ago. Sigismund had spent the beginning of September figuring out where the different parts should go. Maybe he had botched things. Maybe not. If Sigismund had bought a kit for a higher-end android, Renfrew would have felt pain and other emotions, and looked so human that people expected him to be a master of more than carrying trays and planning trips to the market. I'm doing pretty well for a basic two-month android, he thought as the technicians removed parts, added others, and sanded down rough surfaces.

"Yes, but you still need to know a lot more than you do now," said a voice about twenty feet away. The voice seemed to be that of Beatrice Anaconda. Renfrew turned his head to see if she was really there, drawing a scolding from the technicians for moving. But there she was at the next checkout station. "Yes, I'm over here," she said. "We cracked that case I was telling you about, so I'm a temp worker here for the Christmas season." She had added a couple of arms so she could move the merchandise past the scanners and put it in bags. "It's mindless work, but at least I can see how your procedure is going."

"I need to know more, that's true," Renfrew admitted. "The more I learn, the more complicated things seem.'

Paulh

20.03.23 Front Page

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