The Best Defense by Kristine Kathryn Rusch 8 page

“I can’t get in there short of blowing up the building,” he finally said. “There’s no proof. No evidence. The cops won’t push for a search warrant on a teenage runaway. But you fit Trager’s clientele.” He nodded. “Rich, young, looking for a good time. You can walk right in there. And the best thing? Trager doesn’t know you’re a Hound. If the girl, if Rheesha’s in there, you’ll know. You can get her out.”

Okay, this had just gone way out into holy‑shit crazyville territory.

“Listen Pike. I’m not a cop, a private detective, or a secret agent. I have no military training. I’m just a Hound. I can track magic better than anyone out there, but I have no idea how to rescue kidnapped girls. I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”

That got through to him. He blinked, and his eyes cleared. I knew he was looking at me. Right at me.

“Rheesha’s my granddaughter.”

Oh, fuck.

My mind started working through all the things that one statement meant.

“Lulu?” I asked.

“Her half‑sister. She’s‑” He took a deep breath and let it out loudly. “She’s not the girl she was before the drugs and Blood magic. I think she sold Rheesha for her debt, for her fix. She doesn’t know I suspect her. I haven’t told the cops. Yet. I can’t‑I just can’t. Her mother is all I have.” He laughed, a raw bark that sounded more like a sob. “You still want to be a Hound, Allie? Want to become a sorry son of a bitch who’s too afraid to save his own granddaughter?”

“What does Rheesha smell like?”

“What?”

“Does she smell anything like you? Like Lulu? Do you know what the last spell was that she cast? What are her favorite spells? Does she have any pets? Has she ever touched this picture?”

Pike’s eyebrows arched up, and he gave me one respectful nod. He was going to owe me a lot more than that for Hounding his granddaughter. Still, the questions and my all‑business, no‑bullshit attitude seemed to pull him out of what I feared was a suicidal spin.

That was another way Hounds died young. One of the easiest ways.

He took five minutes telling me what I needed to know, the perfume, her pets (snakes), and the spells she most used.

“I’m not going to get her out,” I said, “but I’ll try to find her and get out as soon as I can. If she’s in there, we’ll call the police. I’ll tell them what I know, and I’ll try to keep Lulu out of it. We’ll let the law take over from there.”

Pike nodded. “She was right about you,” he said.

“Who?”

“Mama.”

Sweet hells, who wasn’t trying to make me Hound this girl? I decided to get angry at Mama for selling me out later.

“Tell me about it when I come back.”

I left the photo on the seat of the car and headed down the street toward Trager’s address. After about fifteen minutes, I was right in Trager’s backyard. If any of his people had brains, they’d come out and escort me to their boss.

“What’s a lovely lady like yourself doing out alone tonight?” A man appeared out of the building’s corner shadow and took a few steps toward me. He was dressed in a suit and had one of those cell phone things sticking off of his ear.

“I’m looking for Trager. Is his place down this way?” Here’s one of the things I didn’t think Pike, or really anyone, knew about my family line. We are very, very good at Influence. With just the slightest nudge of magic, we can pretty much make people want to do what we tell them to do. And this guy was not immune. I hated using it, because it wrecked hell with a person’s free will, but, hey, there could be an almost‑dead girl in there who needed my help.

Suit smiled, and the streetlight caught a glint of gold off his incisor. “Yes, it is. Who may I say is calling?”

“Allison Beckstrom. I’d like to see him now. Take me inside.”

“Of course. Right this way.”

Bingo.

I gave him what I hoped was a bright smile. Inside I was pretty terrified. I wasn’t kidding when I told Pike I didn’t own a gun, and it took more than Influence to dodge a bullet.

Note to self: If I survive this, take a martial arts class and go to the shooting range.

The walk wasn’t far‑just two more doors down. Okay, I don’t know what I was expecting‑a seedy room, people lying around in their own filth, maybe. Bad lighting at least. But the room looked like a fine restaurant. White linen tables all arranged behind silk privacy screens were tastefully up‑lighted to give off pastel tones of gold and amber and plum. It looked trendy, expensive as hell, and stank of cherries, cherries, cherries.

“Very nice,” I said. I was starting to sweat under the strain of Influencing Suit. He wasn’t resisting, but I think deep down, he knew he was screwed. “I’d like to see the girl named Rheesha Miller. Take me to her.” I dug magic out of the ground and threw it behind my words. Unlike other spells, I could use Influence without a mantra and without tracing the glyph for it with my fingers. But it still took effort, still took magic, still took calm and concentration.

Suit’s smile slipped just a little, but he couldn’t break the Influence. “Follow me.”

He butlered me along a walkway that obscured the occupants behind the screens, then down a plush, red‑carpeted hallway. At the end of the hallway was a modern glass and lead door that both contained and blocked magic. Behind that was probably Trager’s suite.

My heart started beating too fast. I didn’t want to go behind those doors, didn’t want to see what kind of man Trager really was.

Suit walked up to the door, and my stomach tightened in fear. Please, no. Don’t open that door. He walked past the door and down the darker hallway to the left. Plain wood doors were spaced out evenly on either side of us.

Now would be a good time to try Hounding. I wasn’t kidding when I said I went to Harvard. I knew how to recite mantras silently. I knew how to draw magic into my sense of sight and smell by casting the spell with one hand and adjusting my bra strap with the other. It was similar to how stage magicians keep the audience’s eyes where they want them to be, except, you know, this might be a lot more dangerous because there might be people with guns pointed at my head.

I pulled magic into my senses. The stink of Blood magic went from overwhelming, to so thick I gagged. Sweet cherry mixed with too many other odors: turpentine, animal sweat, rot, sex. I inhaled carefully as we strolled down the hall. It was damn near impossible to untangle the smells and signatures of the hundreds of spells that lingered in the air. I couldn’t smell anything that might be even remotely close to Rheesha’s scents.

Maybe Pike was wrong. Or crazy. That thought had crossed my mind. Maybe he was grieving for his granddaughter and grasping at straws. Or maybe he’d been part of a plan to get rid of me‑take out the newest Hound on the block. Suit could be in on it. Maybe Suit wasn’t really under my Influence. Maybe I was about to lose hold on my concentration, my spells, and really fuck this up.

Fingers of panic rose up my throat.

I thought calm thoughts, took a deep breath, and tried not to choke. If I panicked, this whole charade was going to crash around me.

Then I smelled it, the hint of Rheesha’s perfume and the musty smell of snake. Not a sure thing, but something to hope for.

Suit stopped at a door and scanned a key card over the lock. He opened the door and stood aside.

“Thank you,” I said. “Now, walk to the nearest empty room and go to sleep.”

He stood there, and my heart beat harder. “Be a good boy. Go to sleep.”

Suit walked woodenly down the hall to the right.

I stepped into the room and turned on the light.

Small, with just enough space for a king‑sized bed and two chairs. There was also a table on top of which were tubes and rubber hoses, knives, and other things I didn’t have time to get pissed off about.

Rheesha Miller sat with her back against the headboard. Her legs were drawn up close to her body and her wrists were tied to the headboard, just high enough that her hands were blue. Her bare arms looked as though someone had inked a red tattoo from wrist to shoulder, but the smell of her blood and sex was heavy in the room. That wasn’t a tattoo‑she’d been cut. Since she was naked, I knew they hadn’t had time to carve up the rest of her yet. It took her a full minute to look over at me. Brown‑black eyes like her sister’s but wide, bloodshot, and doped up.

Note to self: After I learn to use a gun, come back here and kick some ass.

Screw the call‑the‑cops plan. I was getting this girl out of here now.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “Stay quiet.” I put Influence behind it, but I don’t think I had to. By the time I found a knife from the table and had cut her free of the rubber shackles, she had passed out.

Which presented another problem. How was I going to nonchalantly stroll out of this place with a naked girl over my shoulder?

Sweet hells.

I looked around the room for clothing, found nothing.

Think, Allie. You went to Harvard. You’re supposed to be smart. I couldn’t Influence everyone in the building‑I was already fatigued and headachy from pushing Suit around. I didn’t have time or the equipment to set something on fire, couldn’t afford a stupid cell phone.

What was it one of my roommates had once told me? It was easy to steal something big if you just looked as if you had already bought it.

And since I didn’t know where the exits were, didn’t even know the floor plan, that’s exactly what I was going to do. Walk out of this place with a naked girl on my shoulder.

First, I repeated a mantra. My voice was shaking‑hells, all of me was shaking. I pulled magic up into my hands and then into a glyph of Obscuring. That spell was most often used by people who wanted to cover up dry patches in their lawns or fruit sellers hiding bruises. It didn’t work well on large‑scale things like people, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment.

I arranged Rheesha’s arms and legs and lifted her across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. She probably weighed ninety pounds.

I took a deep, calming breath, opened the door, and strode down the hall.

I have never taken a longer, more nerve wracking walk in my life. Calm, stay calm.

The door to my left, one door away from the glass and lead monstrosity, opened.

Don’t look, don’t look. But I looked.

His eyes were soft brown with flecks of gold, and they widened in surprise when he saw me. He was dark skinned and had the bone structure that hinted at Native or Asian in his blood. It was just a moment, but I was sure he recognized me. Too bad I’d never seen him before.

He stepped closer, and I noticed he wore a clean white shirt and black slacks‑a waiter’s uniform‑and he smelled of pine cologne. He touched my wrist gently.

“This way.” He tugged me back through the door he’d just come through and down a windowless passage that was maybe a delivery entrance. I noted belatedly that he was muttering a mantra, throwing around hiding, warding, and other high‑level spells that I wouldn’t expect a waiter to know, spells that left the taste of mint in my mouth.

We exited on a side street. He let the door close behind him.

“Who is she?” He pulled off his shirt and handed it to me.

“Rheesha Miller.” Smooth, Beckstrom. Way to keep a secret.

The man shook his head. “I didn’t know. Do you have a way to get her to the hospital?”

Before I could ask him why he was helping or even who the hell he was, the sound of a Ford truck started up. Apparently Pike had no trouble Hounding me. “Do I know you?”

“No. But you’re Beckstrom’s daughter, right?”

I nodded.

“Welcome home.” He glanced over as Pike’s truck turned the corner. Then he ducked back inside, as if maybe he didn’t want Pike to see him.

Crazyville. But damn, anything that got me out of that hell hole was okay with me.

Pike got out of the truck and left the engine running. “Allie?”

“She’s alive.”

Pike helped me get her inside the truck, and I draped the white shirt over her. Neither of us said anything on the way to the emergency room. Rheesha slept. Pike didn’t look over at me, his gaze locked grimly on the street ahead. Only the bobble‑headed dog nodded like everything was going to be okay. I, for one, hoped the dog was right.

I spent the next month dealing with the police, the courts, and a constant migraine. I got one look at Trager during a hearing, and he got one look at me. He was a frightening man, and he has since taken up residence in my nightmares. From what the police told me about him, I had just made myself a very dangerous enemy.

Pike didn’t call, didn’t thank me in any way. He really was a bastard. He owed me a hell of a favor, and I was not going to let him forget it.

But right now, there was someone else I wanted to talk to: Mama.

I strolled into the restaurant and took a table near the window. The smell of coffee, steak, and onions made my mouth water. I looked around for Mama and spotted her coming out of the kitchen. She strode straight over to my table, filled a cup with coffee, and set it in front of me.

“Why did you tell Pike he should send me in after that girl?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You are strong, Allie girl. She needed you. Pike needed you.”

I took a drink of coffee. It was fresh, rich, and hot. “This is really good,” I said. And yes, I was surprised.

“You come here any day or night. Any time.” Mama nodded. “Coffee always be fresh for you, Allie girl.” I knew that was all the apology and thank you I was going to get out of her. That, and the best steak dinner I’d had in years, were enough for now.

Eye Opening by Jason Schmetzer

Eddie Timmser didn’t know where Gong had gotten the pistol, but he did know he didn’t like looking down the barrel of it. He leaned away from the safe and held up his hands. “Hey, come on, man,” he said. “It’s not my fault. I can’t see this one.” Jesus, I should have stayed home tonight.

“What’s your deal, Eddie?” Gong asked. The light from Eddie’s penlight reflected from the burnished steel of the safe door and cast shadows across Gong’s narrow eyes. The pistol jerked an inch closer. “All the places we been together, buddy. Now you can’t see this one safe?” A sneer twisted across Gong’s lips, making the perspiration on his upper lip shimmer in the light. “I’m not buying.”

Buddy? The last time they’d worked together, Eddie’d spent three months in lockup before his public defender got him out on a technicality. Gong had make it clear away, with the loot and the rep to go with it. And now he was back, forcing Eddie to work again, to use his sight to make a fast score. As if there weren’t enough honest jobs where a guy who could see through walls could make a living.

“I can’t see it,” Eddie said. “It happens.”

He resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. It hurt to look through metal, hurt right behind his nose when he concentrated and squinted and looked with the eye he couldn’t see. It hurt more when he looked at something he couldn’t see through, like now. There was a mother‑big headache brewing behind his eyes, and his pills were in the truck.

This always happened to him. Every time he tried to go straight, something happened. Someone would call with a big score. A favor he’d forgotten all about would get called in. He looked at Gong. Someone would threaten him.

He looked away from the gun and played the light across the surface of the safe again. Something flickered. Eddie leaned in close, ran his fingers across the metal. There was a pattern etched in the tough steel, just barely there. He held the light close and moved his head alongside the safe.

“What is it?”

“There’s something here,” Eddie said. “Some kind of pattern.”

Gong lowered the gun. He bent down and held his head close as well, close enough that Eddie smelled the sweaty stink of fear and the beer on his fetid breath. Eddie wrinkled his nose and slid back a bit. “That’s got to be it,” he said.

“Got to be what?”

“That’s what’s blocking me,” Eddie said. “I don’t know how this works, but maybe somebody does. Maybe somebody knows that there are people that can see through metal like freaking Superman. And they know how to block it.”

Gong frowned. “What, like magic?”

Eddie stared at him. “I can look through metal, Gong. What the hell do you think that is?”

“It’s called magic,” a deep voice said from behind them.

Gong spun, the pistol already coming back up. Eddie just let himself fall backward off of his haunches, against the safe, and twisted to see what was going on. He didn’t have a gun‑hated guns‑and wouldn’t have used it if he did. Gong was shouting something, brandishing the gun, but Eddie barely heard or saw him.

Eddie was thinking about going back to jail. Not today, he thought.

A small man stood in the doorway to the study, an Asian man. His expression was calm, and he wore a simple white shirt with black trousers. His hairline was receding. He wore large wire‑frame glasses. Eddie stared at him, blinked. Looked again, concentrating. He blinked again and then saw something else.

“Jesus Christ!” he muttered.

A black haze flowed around the man in the doorway. It filled the corridor behind him, peeking through over his shoulders and whirling like angry tendrils of dark‑white cloud. When Eddie looked again at the man, a symbol burned in gold on his forehead. Eddie blinked again, lost his focus, and the cloud and symbol disappeared. The man appeared smaller.

“That is my safe.”

“We was just looking, man,” Gong said. His pistol was pointed straight. “And now we’ll be leaving. Come on, Eddie,” he said. He took a step forward, leading with the gun. The man in the doorway smiled, then shrugged his shoulders. Shivers raced up Eddie’s spine.

Gong screamed. His arm‑and the gun‑vanished. Eddie stared at it in horror. Gong screamed and screamed and screamed, waving the steadily shrinking stump of his arm as if he could fling whatever was eating it away. Eddie concentrated and looked again.

The cloud was climbing up Gong’s arm. Tendrils were already starting to encircle the small man’s head, caressing the loose ends of Gong’s hair and his ears. The screaming stopped. The Asian man at the door chuckled.

And then Gong was gone.

The Asian man smiled with satisfaction and turned to Eddie. Eddie felt the blood drain from his face. The cloud‑was Gong really gone, or had it eaten him, or what?‑rolled backward through the air and whirled around the Asian man’s head. “You can see it,” he said.

Eddie grunted and shoved himself up off the floor. The desk was between them, with Gong’s case still lying open. Rows of gleaming tools, a drill, and little odd‑ended picks for locks flickered as the penlight played across them. Behind the case, off the edge of the blotter, were two ornate golden goblets.

“He called you Eddie,” the man said, softly, as if it were an everyday occurrence for a shimmering monster cloud to eat someone in his presence. “Is that your name?” The cloud flickered, shimmered a deepening blood red, and slid forward.

“Nope,” Eddie said, and took two steps forward‑ Jesus, here it comes!‑and grabbed the goblets. The man’s eyes widened behind his glasses. He reached out, taking a step forward. The goblets were heavier than they looked. Eddie looked around, desperate. The window was large, a few feet behind him.

“Put those down,” the man in the glasses said. His voice held a tinge of steel, all the softness and humor gone.

“Where’s Gong?”

“Nowhere you would like to be,” the man said.

“Bring him back.”

“That’s not possible.”

Eddie shivered. The cloud was hanging between them, a malevolent mist, the haze a harbinger of pain and death and somewhere he’d rather not be. He hefted the goblet. “I just want to leave.”

“You never should have entered,” the man said. His mouth moved, whispering words in a language Eddie had never heard, not Korean or Chinese or Japanese or anything else he expected. The haze pulsed, deep golden, and then undulated larger, redder. The golden symbol glowed brighter. Eddie looked down at the goblet, expecting to see the golden light playing across the decorations, but he saw nothing. There was nothing to see.

Light reflected… not whatever he saw, whatever let him see through metals and walls and safes and the dressing room doors at Macys. What he saw wasn’t real. What he saw didn’t affect the real world.

But Gong was still gone. Damn it.

Eddie spun and hurled the goblet in his left hand at the window. It was heavy enough, but if the man had spent as much money on his windows as he had on his safe it would be transparent plexi and not glass, and the goblet would just bounce off it. He dove after the goblet, toward the window.

The window broke.

Eddie fell through, tearing his arm and his sleeve on the jagged glass. He heard the man scream from behind him, and then the first crash of thunder as a storm rolled in. He hit the ground hard, grating his arm to the bone on the pavement, but he forced himself up and into a run. He still held the other goblet.

Peeve would know what to do. If he could get that far. Lightning crashed around him, casting great shadows against the alley walls.

He didn’t look back.

There was a guy at Peeve’s when Eddie got there, a big black man in a nice suit with a wet overcoat. His head was shaved bald‑not just his hair, either… no eyebrows, no beard, no nothing‑and he was standing near the end of the counter, ignoring Peeve.

Peeve was Peeve. He stood about five‑ten, two hundred pounds. His hair was receding, but he kept spiking it up in the front like he had a shark fin on his head. Hawaiian shirt, shorts, flip‑flops. He was four or five stereotypes rolled into one. He looked up when Eddie came in, frowning.

“You’re dripping all over everything,” he said.

“Sorry. Listen, Peeve… I need you to look at something.”

“Did you get them?” the black man asked. Eddie looked at him.

“Get what?”

“The rings,” the man said. “The things you were sent to retrieve.” He looked past Eddie at the door. “Where is Gong?”

“Gong’s dead.”

“What?” Peeve hustled out from around the counter. He locked the door behind Eddie and then turned around. “How?”

“Did you get them?” the black man asked.

“Who the hell are you?” Eddie snapped.

“Edan Boukai,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I am the one who hired Gong to enter Mr. Kim’s home.” He looked at Peeve and then back at Eddie. “This was to be our meeting point.” His voice was think with accent but understandable.

“We never got the safe open,” Eddie said, and turned away from him. “Listen, Peeve‑” he began.

“How did Gong die?” Boukai asked.

“That guy‑what’s his name, Kim?‑he killed him, all right?” Eddie snarled and shook his head. “Listen, Peeve, I need you to tell me what this is.” He reached into a pocket and brought out the goblet.

“It’s a cup,” Peeve said.

“God damn it, Peeve,” Eddie started, but Boukai cut him off.

“Where did you get that?”

“It was on his desk,” Eddie snapped. “Shut up a minute, will you?”

“Were there two?”

Eddie waved the goblet. “I’ve only got the one.”

Boukai looked down at his hands. “Then they are separated…” He turned away, muttering under his breath. Eddie stared at him for a minute, then looked at Peeve.

“Tell me what happened,” Peeve said.

“We were working on the safe, but it wasn’t going well.” He told him how Gong had pulled a gun on him. He explained the markings on the safe and how he couldn’t see inside it. “It was like the markings blocked me.”

Boukai spun around, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, blocked you?”

Eddie steeled himself. He didn’t advertise, but the guy had already heard most of the conversation. “I can see through things, okay? Walls, doors, metals, anything. Just like Superman. Except I couldn’t see through the safe.”

Boukai’s eyes widened, white‑rimmed against the black of his skin. “You are a seer?”

“A what?”

“You can see the inside of things?”

“I just said that, didn’t I?”

“Prove it. What do I wear around my neck?”

Eddie stared at him. He opened his mouth to argue, then thought about it. His head already hurt. His friend was dead. There was a good chance this guy was nuts anyway, and if nothing else, the whatever‑that‑ate‑Gong might catch up with him. He concentrated. “A horse.”

Boukai stared. “Who trained you?”

“No one trained me.”

“A natural…” He shook his head. “How did you come to learn this?” Then he saw the goblet and shook his head. “Never mind. Tell me of these markings.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Boukai took two steps until he was face‑to‑face with Eddie. “Because I hired you and your friend to retrieve something from Kim’s safe, a pair of rings. Because I recognize the chalice you bear and know that it has a mate that appears identical.” He paused. “Because I know it hurts you here,” he tapped between his eyes, “to use your Sight.” He looked past Eddie, out the window to the rain‑filled alley.

“Because I know what is coming, boy. Now tell me everything, beginning with how Gong died.”

“You are very lucky to be alive,” Boukai said when Eddie was finished talking.

“That’s messed up,” Peeve said.

“Yeah.” Telling the entire story again made Eddie’s stomach tighten. He rubbed his sore arm and looked at the cracked linoleum floor. It could have been much closer.

“The cloud you describe is a fakir. That is not its true name, but it serves. It is a servant from another realm, and Kim controls it. He has bound it to his command using black sorcery.” Boukai faced them, Eddie and Peeve, as they sat on the counter. “He uses it to get what he wants.” He spat the last sentence with a vehemence that even Peeve couldn’t miss.

“You really hate this guy, don’t you?” he asked.

Boukai ignored him. “The reason you could not see through his safe door to the tumblers beneath is indeed magic. There are charms that can be worked into metal that protect it from seers or other magical attacks.” He reached into his coat and produced a silver flask. When he held it up, it flashed in the light. “Look inside this.”

Eddie frowned and shook his head. “It’s got booze in it.”

“You haven’t looked. I didn’t ask what was in it. I asked you to look inside.”

Eddie swallowed the angry reply that his headache wanted to shout and concentrated. He stared at the flask in Boukai’s hand. He saw the metal. He set his mind, saw the metal again, and pushed. Then he gasped.

Golden letters flickered on the inside edges of the flask. They were written far too small for him to make out from that distance, and yet they showed clearly in his vision. The letters glowed brightly. He didn’t recognize the alphabet.

“I can’t read it,” he said, after a moment.

“It’s not a language of man,” Boukai said. “I could teach you.”

“Not in an hour,” Eddie said, shaking the Sight from his head. “So I’m a seer. So what? That’s not going to stop Kim from siccing his fakir or whatever its called on me.” He hopped down from the counter and stumbled. His leg had gone to sleep. He bent over to rub the blood back into it, cursing under his breath at the pain of the pins‑and‑needles sensation.

“You are right. We must deal with Kim first.” Boukai looked around. “He will surely be here soon.”

“Whoa,” Peeve said, standing. “What do you mean, he’ll be here soon? Why would he come here? Why would he even know where here is?” He walked past the two of them and peered out through the store’s front window into the steadily falling rain.

Boukai pointed to the goblet sitting on the counter. “Because of that. Its mate will lead him here as soon as he recovers it. They are linked, you see. In the other realm.” He picked the goblet up and cradled it in his hand. “But perhaps…” He looked at Eddie. “Have you attempted to See this?”

“It’s right there,” Eddie said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you have any idea how much my head hurts?” Eddie turned away from him and leaned over the counter. He wanted to rub his head, to reach beneath his skin and stamp out the pain between his eyes. But he couldn’t. He knew if he tried it would only hurt more.

“Your pain is a manifestation of your Sight. Because you’re not trained, you’re forcing it. If you could learn to control it more easily, the pain would lessen.” Boukai’s voice trembled and dropped an octave. Eddie looked over his shoulder. The black man was holding his hand over the top of the goblet and chanting. The words were similar to those Kim had said but not the same. “It’s possible,” Boukai said, a moment later in his own voice, “that you could be shown.”