It had been a discordant cry.
Farradyne found himself making a completely useless analysis, itemizing things that surely could not matter. The cry had been a discord.
His mind wandered a bit as he considered the word. A series of atonal notes do not make a discord. A discord comes when atonal notes are sounded at the same time. The former can be pleasant to the ear, the latter not.
And then a chill hit him. He felt like a man who has just been told that he had one more question to answer before winning the prize on a quiz show.
Cahill's moan had been a full discord.
With a sudden leap of the mind, Farradyne was back in the Semiramide, hearing three voices behind him. They had found one skeleton afterwards. Then his mind leaped to Brenner, who had emitted an approving grunt when he saw Norma come around the tail structure of the Lancaster with the sun shining through her skirt. He had no proof, no proof. Brenner's grunt had no discord but none the less a mingling of tones. Three voices? Maybe more?
Maybe he was not sure of the first. Brenner's sound had been very brief—maybe he was convincing himself. But Cahill's death-cry had been most certainly polytonal. And they both were love-lotus operators.
It might mean something or it might not. Farradyne put his head back and tried to make a series of sounds. He moaned. He gargled, and he tried to hum and say something at the same time. Maybe the stunt could be cultivated after much practise, and maybe it was used as a password.
More than anything Farradyne needed corroboration.
It was a weak hope, but he stepped over Cahill's body and rapped on Norma's door.