Part 2 (1/2)

And he was gone.

Timothy stood at the window, watching the detective leave. He knew full well that the film would be destroyed between here and police headquarters. The tape record would be edited as Modigliani saw fit before it was placed in police files. And the detective would receive a bonus from the Brethren this month, a bonus for a job well done-if not exactly in the interests of the public he had sworn to serve.

He returned to Taguster's house, ignored the simulacrum, which was reading a book and greeted him cheerily. He went from room to room, looking for even the smallest sign of murder or of the later presence of the Brethren gunmen. He found nothing. He returned home.

In despair and frustration, he pounded the leather of the Mindlink cup-chair with his servo-hands. Then, when his rage subsided, he saw he had clawed and ripped it until the stuffing showed through in many places. Now he was no longer able to weep for the loss of the musician; now there was only a cool, deep hatred for those people-and a determination to get them, to kill them. Strangely, the thought of murder did not repulse him, though he had always been extremely nonviolent. He' had reached that time in his life-as most men eventually do-when powers greater than he had so relentlessly and ruthlessly backed him into a corner and begun shredding at the fabric of his life that no response was too excessive. With many men, it is the government, a king or a dictator or a president. With others, it is is a large corporation, a blank bureaucratic monolith without a single shred of humanity. For Timothy, it was these men who took the law. into their own hands-with the blessings of the authorities who earned part of their living from them. a large corporation, a blank bureaucratic monolith without a single shred of humanity. For Timothy, it was these men who took the law. into their own hands-with the blessings of the authorities who earned part of their living from them.

Fury. It was worthwhile sometimes. Now, as he waited for the arrival of Klaus Margle, he did everything possible to nurture it...

CHAPTER 4.

He stood at the window, nervously watching the night. Time ticked by like water dripping from a faucet.

Behind him, there was a pistol from his collection propped between a stack of books, aimed at chest-level on the door. He could trigger it with his psionic powers when the time came. In his servo-hands were two more weapons. There was no use asking for police help. All calls would be routed to Modigliani, and that would be a dead end. These lethal devices were all he had to stop them from killing him as nonchalantly as they had killed Taguster.

He heard them as they entered the courtyard behind the house. They made no attempt to keep silent, blundering noisily along to let him know they had no fear. Footsteps on the pavement. Then a soft burst of laughter...

The door rattled, shook. It crashed inward as the Hound, yet another one, smashed through in a cloud of wood splinters. Ti had not been expecting this at all. His guns were absolutely useless. He turned into the dining area, dropping the pistols and calling his servos after him. He had been expecting men, not machines. Now what? He heard the Hound in the kitchen, but by the time he reached the living room, it was humming into the dining area, on his heels.

Don't panic, he told himself. Don't panic-just hate. It's only the hate that will save you.

The Hound entered the room, sensed his presence, sought him with its cameras and radar grids, ascertaining if he were the proper quarry or not. It would only need a split second to make that decision...

He sought an escape route-though he realized that the great house which was equipped to sustain him in luxury was not equally appointed to preserve him from death. The place would be surrounded; the doors were useless. Suddenly, he remembered the Revolutionary War cellars upon which the house was built. If he could get into those, there were countless outlets to other places on the mountain.

The Hound fired three pins.

Ti slammed down on his mobility sphere speed controls, streaked into the hall, through the cellar door and down the steps (there for the convenience of his legged guests). He crossed the Tri-D room and went into the shooting range, slamming the heavy door behind him. It was monstrously thick, resurrected from the Tory cellars. It was a munitions storehouse door, plated in lead. Even the Hound would require some time to break that down.

He floated along the left wall where the cellars lay behind the thin skin of his house, stretching far back into the mountain.

After the first four or five, which were man-made, the caves were rough and fortified. When he reached the end of the room, he used his servos to rip loose the half-round that filled in the corners of the plasti-wood paneling. Metal fingers gripped round that paneling, he proceeded to pry it away from the wall beams. He looked through, seconds later, into the cool darkness of the Tory cellars.

Behind, the Hound struck the leaded door, hard.

Unable to squeeze between the beams, Ti s.h.i.+fted his grav-plates so he lay on his side, then moved ball-first through the gap and into the darkness. Once inside, he s.h.i.+fted to vertical position and sent his servos back to restore the panel as best they could. It might confuse the demon machine for a few minutes, though it could not be a completely successful ruse. The Hound would be after him soon enough.

Through the part.i.tion, he heard the door to the shooting range give; then it crashed inward to admit the Hound.

He moved forward slowly, letting his eye adjust to the lack of light. Soon he could distinguish the outlines of fallen beams and broken tables, of rotted and shattered chairs, a few stretches of shelving, that had once held ammunition but which were now bowed and warped away from the walls and covered with ugly lumps of fungus. He moved into the second cellar room.

Behind him the Hound ripped loose the wall panel he had balanced in place, the sound echoing frantically in the cul-de-sacs of the Tory chambers. Light from the shooting range dispelled the gloom. The Hound came quickly after Ti moved toward the third cellar at top speed. He slammed his shoulder stump into a half-fallen beam, but he kept moving, his hatred and his fear denying the pain his nerves insisted was there. The Hound came faster.

When he reached the entrance to the fifth cellar, Timothy found nature had conspired against him. There had been a cave-in, and the beams and rocks of the ceiling had collapsed to effectively bar his escape. With the Hound at his neck, there was no time to break through.

He turned on his pursuer. Its sensors gleamed in the dim light, thirty feet away. It fired three pins...

He moved aside as he saw its intent. The darts studded the rubble wall behind him, where they quivered like arrows. He sent his servos to an overhead beam lying in the Hound's path and had them worry its tenuous connections with the rotting ceiling. Just as the Hound pa.s.sed beneath, the beam tore loose and crashed into it. The only effect was a momentary deflection in the machine's course. The Hound swerved, bobbled, recovered in only moments and swept closer, firing another three pins.

All three missed. Ti was surprised, for he had not had time to take, evasive action-and Hounds were not known for sloppy marksmans.h.i.+p.

The Hound fired three more; again, they all missed.

Ti abruptly realized he was turning them aside with his psionic power! The second time, he had been more conscious of his effort. Now he stood with his back to the collapsed ceiling, waiting the next attack. It fired, and the darts spun away to either side. Over the next several minutes, he deflected another two dozen of the slender spines. The Hound ceased shooting and bobbled gently from side to side, regarding him with its measuring devices. A moment later, it dispatched two servos for his neck...

Reacting quickly, he called his own servos to him. Four feet from his face, the enemy's hands and his own met and locked, metal fingers laced through metal fingers. He set full power into his hands and tried to snap the other set of prosthos.

His hopes for a swift triumph were destroyed when he saw the Hound had similar ideas. Its own servos wrenched at his, the four members swaying back and forth in the air, gaining and losing the same s.p.a.ce in a rhythmic duel. Finally, when both sets reached full power and stress, they did not move at all, but merely strained in frozen tableau against each other. The grav-plates on all four hands erupted almost simultaneously in smoke and sparks. The metal hands dropped to the floor as if they were a single creature, a metal bird with shot pellets in its wings.

Now both hunter and hunted were handless. Hunter and hunted...

Timothy realized the nomenclature was no longer adequate. With both of them handless, and with Ti able to neutralize the pin weapon, the balance of power had been equalized. As he moved past the Hound, he was aware that another facet of his power had made itself known tonight. Under moments of stress and anxiety, he seemed to acquire new abilities. The hate had been valuable, and he would still need it And with his power to influence small objects in transit as well as when they were still, he might be able to give vent to the hatred when he encountered Klaus Margle.

The Hound stopped following him when he moved into shooting range again. It b.u.mped purposelessly against the beams, as if its mind had been in its hands and, losing them, it had lost all cleverness. Ti floated upstairs and stopped in the hallway to to listen. He could hear footsteps in the kitchen... listen. He could hear footsteps in the kitchen...

He was prepared for them. Confidence surged through him, augmenting his hate. He drifted into the living-room just as the gunmen walked in with their weapons drawn. ”Your Hound is finished,” he said, drawing their attention from the areas of deeper shadow which they were cautiously exploring.

The man on Margle's left swung and fired. Timothy deflected all but one pin, lifted that and turned it back on the gunman. The dart sank into the Brother's chest, its poison exploding into his bloodstream. He gagged, doubled over, and dropped.

”I won't kill you if you surrender,” Timothy said wearily. The hate was still there, but a deep welling sadness had joined it.

Margle and the remaining man were crouched behind a sofa, unwilling to surrender merely because of a lucky shot. In In the dark, they could not have seen that his hands were gone. ”You're crazy,” Margle said, his voice high and sharp, grating on the nerves. He was quiet, waiting for Timothy to speak and reveal his position. the dark, they could not have seen that his hands were gone. ”You're crazy,” Margle said, his voice high and sharp, grating on the nerves. He was quiet, waiting for Timothy to speak and reveal his position.

”Why did you kill Taguster?” Ti asked, remaining at the same place.

”Why tell you?” Margle asked. There was a giggle in his voice, an edgy little laugh that sounded almost s.a.d.i.s.tic. Apparently, they could not see him yet.

”You're going to kill me. Or I'll kill you. Whichever way, telling me why you murdered Taguster won't make much difference, will it?”

”He was on PBT,” Margle said.

”What excuse does that give give you for killing him?” To discover that their reason was so thin made the death seem all the more meaningless to Ti and resurrected the hatred which had begun to die in him. you for killing him?” To discover that their reason was so thin made the death seem all the more meaningless to Ti and resurrected the hatred which had begun to die in him.

Margle chuckled, as if lax and unwatchful-although he was not. His kind of man never was. ”It was getting too expensive for him. He decided to gather information on us. The Narcotics Bureau has never been able to synthesize the stuff, even with samples they obtained. Taguster was trying to get enough to give them some sort of clue so that, in return, they would make him a legal addict. Then he could get PBT free from supplies the UN has confiscated. One of his paid informers informed to us. We ransacked his house while he was out, found the file he had on us. Not much, but enough to get a good many people sold down the river-which means something might leak to help the UN find out what the stuff is.”

”That shouldn't have bothered you. You could buy the authorities off.”

”Local, not UN. Did you ever try bribing a UN delegate officer, the kind they have in narcotics? Impossible.”

”So you killed him.”

Margle was still trying to pin him down, keep him talking long enough to level a fairly accurate barrage at him. ”The Hound did. You were pretty clever about that, you know. Had us worried. But calling the local constabulary-now that was a stroke of pure idiocy. It made finding you much easier.”

Ti knew enough now. There had been a side to Taguster he had not known. It hurt him a bit to think the musician had not fully trusted him, but all of that was past now. Taguster was dead. He moved toward the couch, making no effort to conceal himself.