The Gist Hunter by Matthews Hughes Read Free Book Online Page B

behind."
    That concorded with what I knew of Falberoth. "If I take the case and discover a malefactor, what disposition will he make? Will he turn the criminal over to the Bureau of Scrutiny or will he prefer a more direct resolution?"
    "How does that concern you?"
    "I am Henghis Hapthorn," I reminded the apparatus. "I do not associate myself with illegal sanctions, even against would-be murderers." As Old Earth's foremost freelance discriminator, I had cause to be fastidious about my reputation and would not be complicit in illicit revenge.
    I waited for an answer and when one was not soon forthcoming I made a declaration. "Please inform your master that, should I discover an actual plot to murder him, I must report the circumstances to the scroots."
    The integrator made a dismissive sound that I took for acquiescence. "Very well," I said and quoted my usual fee, which was accepted without gasp or quibble. One thing that can be said about the extravagantly moneyed is that they do not shy away from spending copiously on themselves.
    "I will instruct my integrator to contact you for further information," I said, and broke the connection.
    "What did you think of that?" I asked my assistant.
    "That Falberoth is not the only one with an overbearing character," it said.
    I agreed. "Perhaps, over a long association, an integrator and its principal can osmotically acquire elements of each other's personality, much as owners of pets can come to resemble their livestock."
    "Unlikely," my integrator said. "You and I have not suffered such an unpleasant transference," then added, "fortunately."
    "You would not care to be like me?" I said. "I am renowned for my intellect. The great and the mighty consult me. I am occasionally pointed out in the street as an item of local interest."
    "We are talking about a transference of emotions and prejudices. Integrators are proof against both."
    "Thus you are without either?" I said.
    "I comfort myself that it is so."
    "Indeed," I said in a noncommittal tone, then turned to the business at hand. "As soon as Falberoth has transferred the fee to my account at the fiduciary pool, I wish you to contact his integrator and acquire a list of those he has wronged—or who may believe themselves wronged—and the relevant details.
    "We shall then apply categorization and an insightful analysis to deduce a list of prime suspects for close investigation. Are we clear?"
    "Indeed," said my assistant.
    While these matters were in process, I returned to what I had been doing when the call had come through: unraveling an intricate puzzle concocted for me by my occasional colleague, a being who inhabited a much dissimilar dimensional continuum but made visits to this one so that we could engage each other in intellectual contests.
    We had not yet established a name for him, names being a chancy proposition in his continuum, where no distinction could be made between being and symbol. As he put it, "In your milieu, the map is not the territory. In mine, it is. To give you my 'name' would be to risk finding myself inserted, root and branch, into your consciousness, which would be uncomfortable for me and devastating to you."
    I had by now discovered the puzzle's form: a ring of nine braided processes that modified and influenced each other wherever one strand crossed another. I had an inkling that if I applied eighth-level consistencies to the formulation, a constant paradigm might pop out of the matrix, and that would show me a beginning place from which I could unpick the whole.
    Eighth-level consistencies were intellectually taxing and I had only reached the seventh level when my assistant reported that Falberoth's fee and data were in hand. The convoluted architecture dissolved from my inner vision and I opened my eyes to see once again my workroom, with the integrator's screen imposed upon the air. It was densely packed with information, with much more piled up in the wings.
    I had a fleeting thought that it would