Part 3 (1/2)

”Selective a.s.sa.s.sination Module,” Creel said. ”You didn't buy it, then?”

”No, George.”

”It didn't get sent to you, did it?” he asked, his dark face growing even darker.

”Yes.”

”That's bad,” Creel said. ”My, that is is bad.” bad.”

They said goodnight and broke the connection almost simultaneously.

Walter Lambertson was a huge, heavily muscled man with a lumbering walk and a face flushed by too many years of drinking. He carried a large toolbox and met Timothy by the patio doors after laboriously climbing out of the grav-car which seemed half again too small for him. ”That's where it got in, eh?” he asked, his voice a gruff rumble. He did not even bother with introductions but proceeded right to business. Timothy decided the world could not be totally insane if heroically proportioned men like Lambertson still strode the earth.

Timothy took him into the library, where the big man expressed surprise at the size of the killer. ”You've got one of the biggest I've ever seen,” he said. ”Must have one h.e.l.l of a lot of guts to it.” He listened to Timothy's story while he unpacked his tools. There were dozens of pieces of equipment in the box, most of them no larger than a man's hand with working ends so minute that the purpose of them was un-fathomable. I'm afraid you'll have to leave,” Lambertson said when he had everything arranged on squares of white felt. ”It's d.a.m.n hard work, and it can't bear distractions. Sorry.”

Ti nodded; he waited until Lambertson grasped the SAM, and then left the room with his servos trailing behind. He shut the door and continued into the living room, where he made himself a stiff drink and sat down to wait.

He realized, halfway through the drink, that the hatred which had dissipated in him had begun to flower again. It was not a hatred for the men of the Brethren so much as hatred for their att.i.tudes, their outlooks and visions. Why couldn't men just leave each other alone? Why was it necessary to. fight and kill and always resort to violence before thought?

When he finished the drink, hatred alive and well now, another grav-car came in over the trees and settled onto the patio beside Lambertson's vehicle. For a moment he tensed, wondering if this were the Brethren follow-up team checking on the success of the SAM. Then he saw Creel's face as the man walked into the patio lights, and he relaxed.

”I tried to get to sleep,” Creel said as Ti met him at the door. ”But I couldn't manage it, knowing what was happening over here. Where is he?”

Ti motioned toward the library and explained that Lambertson required privacy for the operation. Briefly he recounted the events of the night to Creel. As he was finis.h.i.+ng, Lambertson opened the library door and called to them. He had cracked the nut and dissected the meat of the machine in a little under two hours.

In the library, the floor was littered with parts of machinery, all quite small and intricately formed. Lambertson had laid things out in rows,, each row representing a weapons system. ”What was in it?” Ti asked. was in it?” Ti asked.

”This was the dart system,” Lambertson said, pointing to a line of parts. ”I was very careful not to touch the tips of the pins. They were discolored an odd green-blue-tipped with something worse than narcotics. This,” he continued, pointing to a second conglomeration of pieces, ”was a flame gun complete with a bulb of napalm. It would never last very long; only good for short bursts. But that's all that is necessary with something as nasty as that.”

”This?” Timothy asked.

”Laser,” Lambertson said. ”A cell containing energy enough for approximately five three-second blasts.”

”And this?”

”Projectile weapon. Shoots twenty-two-caliber slugs with explosive tips. Fourteen rounds contained in this barrel mechanism which revolved to spit each slug into the firing nozzle.” Even Lambertson's rugged features were creased with distaste as he catalogued the killing devices.

”And here,” he went on, now professionally enthusiastic over what he had found, ”we have a gas grenade launcher with two grenades: these. Each no larger than a grape, but enough gas, poisonous or not, to blanket a room in seconds.”

”So they built five weapons systems, all to get me,” Timothy said.

”Six,” Lambertson corrected. He picked up a blocky part with a number of wires issuing from it. ”This is a pack of highly compressed black powder. All it needed was an electric shock. If you hadn't shut down the SAM when you did, it might very well have used this last resort and destroyed the house.” Lambertson waited for the news to sink in. Then: ”Who do you know who would go to this expense and trouble to get you?” He c.o.c.ked his head like a huge, quizzical Saint Bernard.

”I don't know,” Ti said. ”I had thought the Brethren. But I can't come up with a believable, sensible motive.”

”I know a motive,” Creel said. ”It was something I was going to tell you tomorrow and didn't get to tell you on the comscreen earlier. Just found out about it today. The Brethren did this-I'll guarantee it. The motive was revenge. The spot you made available in the Brethren hierarchy by killing Klaus Margle was filled by his brother, Jon.”

”I see,” Timothy said, looking at the dismantled SAM again. ”I see what you mean.”

CHAPTER 6.

In the foyer of the apartment complex, Timothy found her name, POLLY LONDON, embossed in heavy gold lettering against a black velvet nameplate. He pressed the call b.u.t.ton beneath her comscreen and drifted back a foot or two to give the person who answered a full view of him and not just a picture of his nose. The screen lighted with an abstract black and moss-green pattern that s.h.i.+fted and changed in a hundred ways to delight the eyes, sensuous and rhythmic as the colors kept time to soft semicla.s.sical music in the background. Over all of this came a well-modulated voice which had the sound of exceedingly fine breeding; of course, it was nothing more than a computer structuring sentences from a tape storage unit-Polly London was wealthy enough to be able to dispense with human servants. The voice asked, ”Who is calling, please?”

”Timothy,” he said. ”Of Enterstat Enterstat,” he added in belated clarification. ”I have an appointment for two o'clock.”

There was a pause as the computer checked out that a.s.sertion. Crimson and yellow explosions burst across the screen. Then the computer said, ”Would you please touch your fingers to the identification plate below the comscreen so that your prints may be checked with your records in the city computer?”

”I have no hands,” Ti said, amused by the machine's lack of data. ”Can't you make visual confirmation against my description in central files?”

”Highly unusual,” the computer said.

”But I have no hands.”

The colors vanished from the screen, were replaced with humming whiteness as the computer used its own visual scanners to examine him. The colors returned in a minute. ”You may have admittance.”

”Thank you.”

To his left, a blue and silver abstract mural slid away, revealing an elevator entrance. Inside, he was not required to push a b.u.t.ton or pull a lever for her floor. Her private computer secretary and odd-jobber now controlled the rising cage. Indeed, it was likely that no one but Polly London and the building superintendent knew which floor was hers. With individualized computer butlers like this, all anyone living here would need as an address was Cochran Towers West. The ultimate in privacy...

From the elevator, the computer directed him, in soft tones issuing from wall speakers along the way, down a corridor carpeted in brown-black carpet much like fur. The walls were richly paneled in teak and indented every forty feet where an apartment door lead off the common hall. The doors were not uniform in design, though each managed to fit tastefully with the decor of the hall-if one considered ornateness tasteful. Polly London's door was nordic in design, a heavy slab of wood that seemed ancient, though the weathering had probably all been done by hand in a week. The border was a fresco of Viking faces, helmets, s.h.i.+ps, costumes, and words. In the center of the door was a heavy iron knocker. The fingerprint lock identification circle was concealed in the design of a fighting s.h.i.+p under full sail. There was, of course, no handle; if the door refused to open to your prints, then you were not authorized entrance anyway.

The door began to roll open under the power of a rollamite device that could handle its two or three hundred pounds with ease. ”This way,” the nether-world voice of the computer said. ”To your right.”

He went down a long hallway, turned to his right through an arch, and floated into a plushly furnished room whose walls were a mixture of natural rock and teak wood, blending in and out so smoothly and repeatedly that he felt certain his eyes must be deceiving him. To his left, a waterfall meandered down a section of the wall that was stone and had been thrust into the chamber in descending steps. The water splashed into a pool where live flowers floated over multicolored stones that radiated upward through the pool as if they were precious gems. The floor was as thickly carpeted as the hall. The furniture-great, marshmallow-like beige pieces that looked enormously comfortable and resembled mushrooms growing lazily out of the floor-was broken by stone end tables and storage units. Sitting in one of these beige mushrooms, next to a stone table, was the most beautiful woman Timothy had ever seen...

She was tall, but that only meant her legs were marvelously long and sensual Her figure, in all areas, was perfect, with a narrow waist and full, upthrust b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her face was angelic, but not so perfect as to be sterile. Her nose was almost too pert, small and upturned. Her eyes eyes were wide-set but lovely, a startling shade of green that reminded him of seawater or lime candy. Her b.u.t.tery yellow hair framed her face, ended teasingly at the points of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s where they pushed against the fabric of her dress. were wide-set but lovely, a startling shade of green that reminded him of seawater or lime candy. Her b.u.t.tery yellow hair framed her face, ended teasingly at the points of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s where they pushed against the fabric of her dress.

None of the hundreds of pictures he had seen of her had done her justice. She had a childlike grace and beauty combined with the sensuality of a grown woman, a quality photographs could never convey. He was glad that his withered organs were indicative of a withered interest. He had never been aroused by a woman; that was fortunate, for he could not have borne normal desires trapped as he was in this hideous sh.e.l.l of his. Still, though there was no desire there was-at times, rare and easily forgotten-a deep-seated yearning for something he could not name, a yearning that made him feel cold and hollow. He had that feeling now. He only got it around especially sensual women, exceptionally stunning in all aspects. He felt hollow and unfulfilled. His skin grew clammy, and his throat was so dry that it ached.

She motioned him to the chair across from her. ”This is an honor. I usually get interviewed by your reporters.” She was charming, with a light and airy quality that did not give evidence of the uneasiness she felt, of the slight disgust that his appearance had aroused in her.

As he settled into a mushroom chair and turned off his grav-plates, he a.s.sured her it was his pleasure, not hers. She showed him how to order a drink from the console beside the chair, and in a minute he had a screwdriver. He sipped his drink and was thankful for the taste of vodka and orange juice.

”I'm more than a little curious,” she said, leaning toward him. She spoke almost musically. ”I can't understand what sort of special article you want to do that would require your own partic.i.p.ation.”

”I lied to you,” he said quite bluntly. He knew he must speak faster and more directly than he had planned, for he would find himself liking her too much too soon. There was that childlike directness that transcended s.e.xuality, and she could use that alone to wrap men around her long, well-manicured fingers.

”Lied?” she asked, not comprehending, as if no one had ever done such a thing with her before. And perhaps this was so. Lying to this woman would require the same sort of bully villainism that motivated a selfish teenager to tell a younger brother that Santa Claus was a hoax.

”I'm not here to do an article for the paper,” he said. ”It was the only excuse that would get me in here to see you.”

She frowned, still not able to grasp the purpose of sneaking in to her house under false pretenses.

”I don't wish you harm. I need a favor of you.”

She started to rise, but he motioned her down. She looked a bit agitated, and her reaction was almost childish-though he felt that she was incapable of anything more than childlike anger. It was not that she was mentally immature-just that she had never experienced the nastiness of the world as he had, had never needed to build up a thick skin and a nastiness of her own. ”This is my house,” she said. ”Are you trying to tell me what I can and can't do in my own house?”