Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

He stabbed at the parchment with a forefinger shaking with fury. “It is an abomination before God the Compassionate, the Merciful,” he ground out, “the birthing of children without souls. All should have the chance to be judged, to delight with God the great in heaven or to eat offal and drink boiling water forever in hell. This dump is causing the birth of soulless ones?”

“That’s what we’re trying to learn, your honor,” I answered. “Finding out just who dumps there—which is what the warrant seeks—will help us determine that.”

“This cause is worthy and just,” Judge Ruhollah declared. “Pursue it wherever it may lead.” He inked a quill and wrote out the warrant in his own hand, signing it at the bottom in both our own alphabet and the Arabic pothooks and squiggles he’d grown up with.

I thanked him and got out of there in a hurry; his wrath was frightening to behold. As I went back to where my carpet was parked, I skimmed through the document he’d given me. When I was finished, I whistled softly under my breath. If I’d wanted to, I could have closed down the Devonshire dump with that warrant. Of course, if I’d tried it, the consortium’s lawyers would have descended on me like a flock of vampires and gotten the whole thing thrown out. I didn’t want that, so I planned on carrying out the strictly limited search I’d already had in mind.

Rather to my own surprise, I was virtuous enough to skip lunch. I just headed straight for the Valley; the sooner I served the warrant, the sooner I could—I hoped—start finding answers.

Thanks to a stupid publicity stunt, I got stuck in traffic in Hollywood. If you ask me, stunts by the side of the freeway ought to be illegal; it goes slow enough without them. But no. One of the light and magic companies was releasing a spectacular called St. George and the Dragon , so nothing would do but to have one of their tame dragons roast a sword-swinging stunt man right where everybody could stop and stare and ooh and ahh. People who actually had to go someplace—me, for instance—got stuck right along with the rubbernecking fools.

Behind the stunt man in his flame-retardant chain mail stood a blonde who wasn’t wearing enough to retard flames. The dragon was well trained; he didn’t breathe fire anywhere near her. Even so, I wondered what she was doing there. She wasn’t the sort of maiden I pictured St. George rescuing. If they’d been making Perseus and Andromeda , maybe—but St. George?

Well, that’s Hollywood for you.

I made good time after I finally put dragon, stunt man, and bimbo behind me. I parked in the lot across from the Devonshire dump I’d used the day before. This time the security guard was on the phone before I got across the street. He came out of his cage, started wheeling back the gate. “Mr. Sudakis is expecting you, sir,” he said.

“Thanks.” I crossed the wooden footbridge, went into the dump site. Sure enough, Tony Sudakis was already on his way out to greet me. I still wasn’t sure whose side he was on, but he brought a lot of energy to whichever one it was.

“How may I be of assistance to you today, Inspector Fisher?” he asked in a loud, formal voice that said he knew what was coming.

I produced the parchment and did my best to speak in ringing tones myself: “Mr. Sudakis, I have in my possession and hereby serve you with this warrant of search issued by Judge Ruhollah authorizing me to examine certain records of your business.”

“Let me see this warrant,” he said. I passed it to him. I thought his scrutiny would be purely pro forma , but he read every word. When he spoke again, he didn’t sound formal at all: “You do everything this parchment says you can do and you’ll break us to bits. Maybe I’d better call our legal team.”

I held up a hasty hand. “I don’t intend to do or seek any more than we talked about yesterday. Is that still agreeable to you?” Light the candle or cast the spell, Mr. Sudakis.

“Let’s go to my office,” he said after a pause like the ones I’d been hearing from Charlie Kelly. “I’ll show you where the client lists are stored.”

By the time I thought to look for the Nothing I might have seen the day before, I was already past the place on the walk where I’d noticed it. I had more concrete things on my mind, anyhow.

Sudakis pulled open a file drawer. “Here are clients who have used our facility in the past three years, Inspector Fisher.”

I started pulling out folders. “I will copy these parchments and return the originals to you as soon as possible, Mr. Sudakis.” We were both talking with half a mind for the Listener in his office. I asked, “Does this list also include the spells and thaumaturgical byproducts each of the consortia and individuals stated were assigned for containment here?”

“No, not all of them. That’s a separate form, you know.” He glanced down at the warrant he was still holding. “We didn’t discuss those lists yesterday. This thing”—he waved the warrant—“gives you the authority to go fishing… until and unless our people try to quash it. Shall I make the phone call now?”

I pointed to the amber amulet he wore—it made a small lump under his shirt. He nodded, pulled it out, went through his little ritual. I wondered again what language he was using. As soon as he nodded a second time, I said, “Look, Tony, you know as well as I do that finding out what’s in here will help us learn what’s leaking.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t talk about it yesterday.” He looked stubborn.

I talked fast. “I know we didn’t. If you want to play all consortiate, you can lick me on this one. For a while. But how will you feel when you read the next little story in the Valley section of the Times about a kid who’s going to vanish out of the universe forever some time in the next fifty or seventy or ninety years?”

“You fight dirty,” he said with a fierce scowl.

“Only if I have to,” I answered. “You’re the one who told me you wanted to keep this site safe. Did you mean it, or was it so much Fairy gold?”

He looked at his watch. It must have been a new one, because he didn’t ask me what time it was. After about a minute and a half (my guess; I didn’t bother checking), he said, “Very well, Inspector Fisher, I shall comply with your demand.” Clearly we were out from under the rose.

More folders followed, too many for me to carry. Having decided to be helpful, Tony was very helpful: he got me a wheeled cart so I could trundle them down the path and out to my carpet. I said, “I hope losing these won’t inconvenience your operation.”

“I wouldn’t give ’em to you if it did,” he said. “I have copies of everything. They’re magically made, of course, so they aren’t acceptable to you, but they’ll keep this place running until I get the originals back.”

I didn’t say that might be a while. If we ended up going to court again to seek a closure order, the parchments would be sequestered for months, maybe for years if the dump’s legal staff used all the appeals they were entitled to. Sudakis had to know that, too. But he seemed satisfied he could go on doing what he needed to do, so I didn’t push him.

He even trundled the cart out to the entrance for me. When we got there, a slight hitch developed: the cart was too wide to go over the footbridge. “Can’t I just stand on one side of the line and you on the other?” I asked. “You can pass the documents out to me.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sudakis said. “Go on outside; I’ll show you.” I crossed the bridge, stepped a couple of feet to one side of it. Sudakis made as if to pass me a folder; I made as if to reach for it. Our hands came closer and closer to one another, but wouldn’t touch. Sudakis chuckled. “Asymptotic zone, you see? The footbridge is insulated, so it cleaves a path right on through. We do take containment seriously, Dave.”