The Barbie Murders - John Varley, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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//-->The Barbie MurdersTHE BARBIE MURDERSJohn Varley"TheBarbie Murders" was purchased by George Scithers, and appeared in theJanuary/February 1978 issue ofAsimov's,with a cover by Paul Alexander and an interiorillustration by Jack Gaughan. Some of Varley's earliest stories appeared inAsimov's,twoof them in our very first issue (one of them his classic story "Air Raid'), and although themagazine has seen less of him in recent years as his career as a novelist predominated, westill hope to coax more stories out of him in the future. John Varley appeared on the SFscene in 1975, and by the end of 1976-in what was a meteoric rise to prominence even fora field known for meteoric rises-he was already being recognized as one of the hottest newwriters of the seventies. His books include the novelsOphiuchi Hotline, Titan, Wizard,andDemon,and the collectionsThe Persistence of Vision, The Barbie Murders, Picnic onNearside,andBlue Champagne.His most recent book was the major novel,Steel Beach.He has won two Nebulas and two Hugos for his short fiction.In the vivid and wildly inventive high-tech thriller that follows, one of SF's best murdermysteries, he postulates a case where the detective, before he can determine Who Done It,firsthas to figure which of the suspects is which...The body came to the morgue at 2246 hours. No one paid much attention to it. It was a Saturday night,and the bodies were piling up like logs in a millpond. A harried attendant working her way down the rowof stainless steel tables picked up the sheaf of papers that came with the body, peeling back the sheet overthe face. She took a card from her pocket and scrawled on it, copying from the reports filed by theinvestigating officer and the hospital staff:Ingraham, Leah Petrie. Female. Age: 35. Length: 2.1 meters. Mass: 59 kilograms. Dead on arrival,Crisium Emergency Terminal. Cause of death: homicide. Next of kin: unknown.She wrapped the wire attached to the card around the left big toe, slid the dead weight from the table andonto the wheeled carrier, took it to cubicle 659a, and rolled out the long tray.The door slammed shut, and the attendant placed the paperwork in the out tray, never noticing that, in hisreport, the investigating officer had not specified the sex of the corpse.Lieutenant Anna-Louise Bach had moved into her new office three days ago and already the paper on herdesk was threatening to avalanche onto the floor.file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20The%20Barbie%20Murders.html (1 of 27) [2/17/2004 10:57:06 AM]The Barbie MurdersTo call it an office was almost a perversion of the term. It had a file cabinet for pending cases; she couldopen it only at severe risk to life and limb. The drawers had a tendency to spring out at her, pinning her inher chair in the corner. To reach "A" she had to stand on her chair; "Z" required her either to sit on herdesk or to straddle the bottom drawer with one foot in the legwell and the other against the wall.But the office had a door. True, it could only be opened if no one was occupying the single chair in frontof the desk.Bach was in no mood to gripe. She loved the place. It was ten times better than the squadroom, where shehad spent ten years elbow-to-elbow with the other sergeants and corporals.Jorge Weil stuck his head in the door."Hi. We're taking bids on a new case. What am I offered?""Put me down for half a Mark," Bach said, without looking up from the report she was writing. "Can'tyou see I'm busy?""Not as busy as you're going to be." Weil came in without an invitation and settled himself in the chair.Bach looked up, opened her mouth, then said nothing. She had the authority to order him to get his bigfeet out of her "cases completed" tray, but not the experience in exercising it. And she and Jorge hadworked together for three years. Why should a stripe of gold paint on her shoulder change theirrelationship? She supposed the informality was Weil's way of saying he wouldn't let her promotionbother him as long as she didn't get snotty about it.Weil deposited a folder on top of the teetering pile marked "For Immediate Action," then leaned backagain. Bach eyed the stack of paper-and the circular file mounted in the wall not half a meter from it,leading to the incinerator-and thought about having an accident. Just a careless nudge with an elbow ..."Aren't you even going to open it?" Weil asked, sounding disappointed. "It's not every day I'm going tohand-deliver a case.""You tell me about it, since you want to so badly.""All right. We've got a body, which is cut up pretty bad. We've got the murder weapon, which is a knife.We've got thirteen eyewitnesses who can describe the killer, but we don't really need them since themurder was committed in front of a television camera. We've got the tape.""You're talking about a case which has to have been solved ten minutes after the first report, untouchedby human hands. Give it to the computer, idiot." But she looked up. She didn't like the smell of it. "Whygive it to me?"file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20The%20Barbie%20Murders.html (2 of 27) [2/17/2004 10:57:06 AM]The Barbie Murders"Because of the other thing we know. The scene of the crime. The murder was committed at the barbiecolony.""Oh, sweet Jesus."The Temple of the Standardized Church in Luna was in the center of the Standardist Commune,Anytown, North Crisium. The best way to reach it, they found, was a local tube line which paralleled theCross-Crisium Express Tube.She and Weil checked out a blue-and-white police capsule with a priority sorting code and surrenderedthemselves to the New Dresden municipal transport system-the pill sorter, as the New Dresdenites calledit. They were whisked through the precinct chute to the main nexus, where thousands of capsules werestacked awaiting a routing order to clear the computer. On the big conveyer which should have takenthem to a holding cubby, they were snatched by a grapple-the cops called it the long arm of the law-andmoved ahead to the multiple maws of the Cross-Crisium while people in other capsules glared at them.The capsule was inserted, and Bach and Weil were pressed hard into the backs of their seats.In seconds they emerged from the tube and out onto the plain of Crisium, speeding along through thevacuum, magnetically suspended a few millimeters above the induction rail. Bach glanced up at theEarth, then stared out the window at the featureless landscape rushing by. She brooded.It had taken a look at the map to convince her that the barbie colony was indeed in the New Dresdenjurisdiction- a case of blatant gerrymandering if ever there was one. Any-town was fifty kilometers fromwhat she thought of as the boundaries of New Dresden, but was joined to the city by a dotted line thatrepresented a strip of land one meter wide.A roar built up as they entered a tunnel and air was injected into the tube ahead of them. The car shookbriefly as the shock wave built up, then they popped through pressure doors into the tube station ofAnytown. The capsule doors hissed and they climbed out onto the platform.The tube station at Anytown was primarily a loading dock and warehouse. It was a large space withplastic crates stacked against all the walls, and about fifty people working to load them into freightcapsules.Bach and Weil stood on the platform for a moment, uncertain where to go. The murder had happened at aspot not twenty meters in front of them, right here in the tube station."This place gives me the creeps," Weil volunteered."Me, too."Every one of the fifty people Bach could see was identical to every other. All appeared to be female,file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20The%20Barbie%20Murders.html (3 of 27) [2/17/2004 10:57:06 AM]The Barbie Murdersthough only faces, feet, and hands were visible, everything else concealed by loose white pajamas beltedat the waist. They were all blonde; all had hair cut off at the shoulder and parted in the middle, blue eyes,high foreheads, short noses, and small mouths.The work slowly stopped as the barbies became aware of them. They eyed Bach and Weil suspiciously.Bach picked one at random and approached her."Who's in charge here?" she asked."We are," the barbie said. Bach took it to mean the woman herself, recalling something about barbiesnever using the singular pronoun."We're supposed to meet someone at the temple," she said. "How do we get there?""Through that doorway," the woman said. "It leads toMain Street. Follow the street to the temple. But you really should cover yourselves.""Huh? What do you mean?" Bach was not aware of anything wrong with the way she and Weil weredressed. True, neither of them wore as much as the barbies did. Bach wore her usual blue nylon briefs inaddition to a regulation uniform cap, arm and thigh bands, and cloth-soled slippers. Her weapon,communicator, and handcuffs were fastened to a leather equipment belt."Cover yourself," the barbie said, with a pained look. "You're flaunting your differentness. And you, withall that hair ..." There were giggles and a few shouts from the other barbies."Police business," Weil snapped."Uh, yes," Bach said, feeling annoyed that the barbie had put her on the defensive. After all, this wasNew Dresden, it was a public thoroughfare-even though by tradition and usage a Standardist enclave-andthey were entitled to dress as they wished.Main Street was a narrow, mean little place. Bach had expected a promenade like those in the shoppingdistricts of New Dresden; what she found was indistinguishable from a residential corridor. They drewcurious stares and quite a few frowns from the identical people they met.There was a modest plaza at the end of the street. It had a low roof of bare metal, a few trees, and ablocky stone building in the center of a radiating network of walks.A barbie who looked just like all the others met them at the entrance. Bach asked if she was the one Weilhad spoken to on the phone, and she said she was. Bach wanted to know if they could go inside to talk.file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20The%20Barbie%20Murders.html (4 of 27) [2/17/2004 10:57:06 AM]The Barbie MurdersThe barbie said the temple was off limits to outsiders and suggested they sit on a bench outside thebuilding.When they were settled, Bach started her questioning."First, I need to know your name, and your title. I assume that you are ... what was it?" She consulted hernotes, taken hastily from a display she had called up on the computer terminal in her office. "I don't seemto have found a title for you.""We have none," the barbie said. "If you must think of a title, consider us as the keeper of records.""All right. And your name?""We have no name."Bach sighed. "Yes, I understand that you forsake names when you come here. But you had one before.You were given one at birth. I'm going to have to have it for my investigation."The woman looked pained. "No, you don't understand. It is true that this body had a name at one time.But it has been wiped from this one's mind. It would cause this one a great deal of pain to be reminded ofit." She stumbled verbally every time she said "this one." Evidently even a polite circumlocution of thepersonal pronoun was distressing."I'll try to get it from another angle, then." This was already getting hard to deal with, Bach saw, andknew it could only get tougher. "You say you are the keeper of records.""We are. We keep records because the law says we must. Each citizen must be recorded, or so we havebeen told.""For a very good reason," Bach said. "We're going to need access to those records. For the investigation.You understand? I assume an officer has already been through them, or the deceased couldn't have beenidentified as Leah P. In-graham.""That's true. But it won't be necessary for you to go through the records again. We are here to confess.We murdered L. P. Ingraham, serial number 11005. We are surrendering peacefully. You may take us toyour prison." She held out her hands, wrists close together, ready to be shackled.Weil was startled, reached tentatively for his handcuffs, then looked to Bach for guidance."Let me get this straight. You're saying you're the one who did it? You, personally."file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20The%20Barbie%20Murders.html (5 of 27) [2/17/2004 10:57:06 AM]
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