Part 2 (1/2)

The gun came up a trifle, stiffened. There was a loud snapping sound, a click of metal on metal--Flintlock. As all the ancient guns were.

And then came the roar. Wood across the room--the window casing--splintered and flew wildly. Smoke and smell filled my senses.

He said, chuckling, ”Let's call it the Abandonment Theory for lack of a better name. This old Brown Bess hasn't been thought of acquisitively for some years. It's been in the museum--abandoned.

T h e r e f o r e subject to the discarded junk pile as you yourself so cleverly put it before. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Anders?”

Perfectly--oh, perfectly, Mr. Bioplast. The rum was going around my eyes now. Going up and around and headed like an arrow for the hunk of my brain that can't seem to hide fast enough.

I guess I made it to the bedroom but I wouldn't put any hard cash on it. And I guess I pa.s.sed out.

The morning was a bad one as all bad ones usually are. But no matter how bad they get there's always the consoling thought that in a few hours things will ease up. I hugged this thought through a needle shower, through three cups of coffee in the kitchen. What I was neglecting in this reasoning was the splintered wood in the living room.

I saw it on my way out. It hit me starkly, like the blasted section of a eucalyptus trunk writhing up from the ground. I stopped dead in the doorway and stared at it. Then I got out my knife and got at it.

I probed but it was going to take more than a pocket knife. The ball--and it was just that--was buried a half inch in the soft pine of the casing.

I closed the knife and went to the phone and got Information to ring the museum.

”You people aren't missing a Brown Bess musket,” I said. It was a question, of course, but not now--not the way I had said it. ”n.o.body stole anything out of the museum last night, did they?”

Sweat was oozing over my upper lip. I could feel it. I could feel sweat wetting the phone in my hand. The woman on the other end told me to wait. I said, ”Yeah”--not realizing. I waited, not realizing, until a man's voice came on.

”You were saying something about a Brown Bess musket, mister?” A cold sharp voice--a gutter voice but with the masking tag of _official_ behind it. Like the voice of someone behind a desk writing something on a blotter--a real police voice.

I put the phone down. I pulled all the shades in the living room, went out the door, locked it behind me and drove as fast as you can make a Buick go, out to the field. But _fast_!

The XXE-1 was ready. She'd been ready for weeks. There wasn't a mechanical or electronic flaw in her. We hoped, I hoped, the man who designed her hoped. The Doll's father--he hoped most of all. Even lying quiescent in her hangar, she looked as sleek as a Napoleon hat done in poured monel. When your eyes went over her you knew instinctively they'd thrown the mach numbers out the window when she was done.

I went through a door that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it.

The Doll's father was there already behind his desk, studying something as I came in. He looked up, smiled, said, ”Hi, guy.”

I flipped a finger at him. I wondered if the Doll had told him about last night.

”Wife and I were going to suggest a snack when we got home last night but you had already gone, and Marge was in bed.”

I didn't look at him. ”Left early, Pop. Growing boy.”

”Yeah. You look lousy, guy.”

I put my teeth together. I still didn't look at him. ”These nights,” I said vaguely.

”Sure.”

I could feel something in his voice. I took a breath and put my eyes on his. He said, ”I'm a h.e.l.l of an old duck.”

”Not so old, Pop.”

”Sure I am. But not too old to remember back to the days when I wasn't too old.” There was a grave look in his eyes.