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about the business of
investigation, the efficient machine of law enforcement at work.
    "Any witness reports of fliers passing at the
time?"
    "There was a constant progression of traffic
going through this way just before midnight, when the killing
occurred. We’re tracing them on surveillance cams."
    Chandra nodded. They landed in the plaza below the
Sapphire building. Already reporters and vid-film crews were encamped
on the sidewalk beneath the blue and white striped awning. Chandra
pushed his way past the melee, ignoring questions. They crossed the
foyer to the central elevators and rode to the penthouse level.
    "Do you know if Bhindra had any enemies in
politics, Vishi? Opponents who wanted him out of the way? Vested
interest groups he might have been opposing?"
    Vishi shook his head. "He was a well-liked
and respected member of the centre-left opposition. One of those
politicians whose celebrity got them into power, but who then worked
hard to justify his position. I think the phrase is that he was a
‘man of the people.’" Vishi paused. "Of course,
we’ve yet to conduct a thorough investigation of his affairs.
Something might turn up, then. We usually find dirt if we dig deep
enough."
    "You remind me of an old acquaintance of
mine."
    The elevator doors swept open and Chandra stepped
into the corridor. Bhindra’s apartment suite was cordoned off
by officers. A small crowd of residents, shocked but nevertheless
curious, blocked the corridor. Chandra eased his way through, nodded
to the salutes of the attending officers, and entered the apartment.
    The suite consisted of half a dozen spacious
rooms, any two of which would have contained Chandra’s own
humble dwelling. The lounge beyond the hall was the focus of
attention: the troupe of forensic officials, ballistic experts, and
photographers engaged in a careful post-mortem choreography around
the corpse.
    "Go in there and collate whatever
information’s to hand, Vishi. I’ll join you later. I’ll
just wander about."
    Chandra moved from room to room, more to kill the
time before the experts packed up and left than to look for
crime-related evidence.
    The first three rooms were what he expected to
find in a residence this exclusive: two tastefully decorated bedrooms
and a bathroom the size of an average lounge. The rooms spoke of
wealth without too much ostentation, giving no clues at all to the
character of the owner. The fourth room, a study, was more personal.
The walls were lined with racks of science and space-exploration
discs, and photographs and graphics occupied the few remaining
spaces. The visuals showed landscapes of a dozen planets, most with a
uniformed figure in the foreground: Bhindra, presumably, in his
exploration days. From the ceiling, in a touch at once juvenile and
affecting, hung half a dozen model voidships, everything from small
three-man exploration vessels of fifty years ago to modern
superliners.
    The desk was loaded with the mementoes of a
lifetime: alien rocks, exotic insects encased in solidified resin,
holos of extraterrestrial landscapes— and the glove of a
spacesuit, mounted on a plinth, like a forlorn wave.
    The treasured objects of the dead, collected over
years, always spoke to Chandra of their owners’ too fond
attachment to the physical, which they were now without. The sheer
redundancy of the objects themselves made a mockery of man’s
materialism.
    Chandra had long ago learnt to attach no
importance to material possessions. He owned nothing other than the
necessities of life. Unburdened by objects, unbeguiled by the
physical, he told himself that he was closer to the next life—and
therefore more accepting of the fact that this life was only
temporary.
    He was about to leave the study when he saw, on
the desk, a solid-looking rectangular object—that increasingly
rare artefact, a book. He picked it up, turned the weighty object in
his hands. No wonder