Caird clamped his teeth together and sucked in breath. It had been seven obyears since he had seen such grisliness.
Caird looked around. Without the lamps, the place would have been rather shadowy. Even so, pedestrians must have been strolling on the sidewalk not fifty feet away.
“The ME says that she died exactly sixty-three minutes ago,” Tony Horn said. “The body was found by a sixteen-year-old boy who was taking a shortcut through the yard to the door. From what we’ve been able to determine so far, Atlas had gone to a party given by Professor Storring. You know him, of course.”
Caird nodded. Storring was also an immer, but he had met him only three times.
“Atlas has lived alone since she broke up with her husband,” Horn said. “Two submonths ago, I believe. However…”
She hesitated and looked around. Then she held out her other hand, opened her fingers, and gave him a…folded piece of paper.
“It’s from Castor. I found it stuck to my door when I left my apartment after I got the call about Atlas. My God, he was right outside it immediately after he butchered her! It’s a wonder he didn’t try to kill me, too. But he’s putting it off, wants to torture me, the sadistic bastard.”
Caird opened his shoulderbag and put the paper in it.
“What does it say?”
“God—Castor refers to himself in the third person—announces proudly the death and dismemberment of God’s enemy, Doctor Naomi Atlas. God also prophesies the death and dismemberment of all his enemies, notably and firstly Commissioner-General Horn and Detective-Inspector Caird. There will be other announcements naming those who will die as surely as the stars are set on their courses by God. He signed it with one name. God.”
“God!”
“You’ll have to get him,” she said. “You’ll have the best opportunity. I think he’ll daybreak, and if he does you’ll be traveling along with him and you can personally notify the immers in each day. They can help you.”
He nodded and said, “Castor doesn’t know my other identities, does he?”
“He shouldn’t, but who knows what investigations he made? He always was nosy.”
“Do you have anyone watching for Castor near my house?”
“Oh, yes. Two organics, immers.”
“I wasn’t going back tonight, but I think I’d better. Castor might want to hurt me by doing something…hell, doing something!…killing Ozma! He could destone her, drag her out of the stoner, and butcher her before Wednesday came out. Maybe he wouldn’t care if they did. He could kill them, too!”
Her voice shook. “This is terrible. It’s so terrible that I have to warn the other days that another Jack the Ripper may be loose. I can’t tell them who it is, of course. They’ll have a lot of personnel looking for him, and…”
“They won’t know whom to look for,” Caird said. “Officially, we don’t know whether it’s a man or a woman who did this, one or two or more people. Have they found footprints?”
“Yes. Those of about twenty different people. No instruments, no knives or saws.”
“He probably dumped them in the canal.”
Colonel Topenski joined them, and the three talked. If the colonel resented Caird’s being given command, he did not show it. After summing up what he had found so far, no more than Horn had told Caird, Topenski took Caird over the string-surrounded area. All photographs and laboratory work had been done by then, and their footprints would not confuse the situation. Caird felt sick when he got close to the parts of the corpse, but he did not throw up. He listened while the colonel, who seemed unaffected, pointed out various things that Caird could see for himself quite well. At a quarter after eleven, the pieces were bagged by the lab personnel and taken away. They would be stoned at the morgue, and, later, destoned for extensive analysis.
Patrollers and detectives had been sent out to question everybody in the neighborhood they could before midnight. The desk workers at the local precinct would also be calling up many in the neighborhood. They would report whom they had made contact with so that the foot personnel would not duplicate efforts. Even so, only a few of the possible witnesses would be questioned before midnight.
“We’ve made sure that no escapee from Tamasuki has done this,” Colonel Topenski said. “They’re all accounted for, all locked up.”
“That’s good,” Caird said. What was not so good was that it was possible that someone might notice the recording of Castor’s transfer. If that were followed up, then Horn would be in deep trouble. Eventually, so would Caird and all immers.
Caird looked at his watch. He said, “I have to get back home, Colonel. I live in Greenwich Village.”
“Why don’t you use a stoner here? There are plenty in the precinct house, only two blocks away.”
“My wife isn’t feeling well.”
One more lie to cover up many.
“Perhaps she could stone early and go to the hospital next Tuesday.”
“Thanks for the suggestion, Colonel, but I know her. She’ll want me to be there with her.”
Topenski shrugged and said, “Ah, well. We don’t have much time left, and what’ll we do with it anyway?”
“Not very much,” Caird said. He started away, then stopped. “Well, yes, there is something we can do right now and so save time when we get going in the morning. We’re dealing with a homicidal maniac. I think I’ll put in a request for arms for the investigating personnel.”
Topenski bit his lip, then said, “This situation really seems to call for extreme measures. I think the general will agree. She’s over there.”
Caird hurried to catch Horn, who was just about to get into an organic vehicle. She stepped back out when she heard him call and turned toward him. Caird gestured that she should join him. She understood that he wanted them to be out of earshot of the others. After hearing his suggestion that weapons should be requisitioned, she nodded.
“Of course, I’ll have to justify it to the governor and the organic council. If they balk, I’ll show them recordings of the scene of the crime and take them to the morgue.”
“Can you get away with orders to shoot to kill if necessary?”
“Yes…only…the murderer has to be identified first. And the other days may not want to issue an order to shoot. At least, not until they have ID.”
“As for us, we must drop any plans for stoning and hiding him. What if he were found and destoned? No. We must kill him.”
“It’s the right decision, hard as it is,” Caird said. “Anyway, I suspect we’ll have no choice. He’s probably got a gun or will get one. We’ll have to kill him if only in self-defense.”
“Yes, but I’ll have to follow routine and order the armed personnel to warn him first.”
“I know. I just hope I get to him first.”
He looked at his watch. “I need a weapon right now. Just in case Castor should be in my neighborhood when I get home.”
Horn went into the car and turned on the rear seat strip. She was giving her order before he got settled in beside her. The driver took the car off as fast as the electric motor would take it, orange lights flashing, siren wailing. The traffic was thin; most people were home and getting ready to stone. By the time the few blocks had been covered, the sergeant in charge at the precinct had opened the armory. Caird and Horn went in past the organics lining up to receive their arms and got the sergeant to wait on them immediately. Rank had its privileges.
Caird put his weapon in his shoulderbag, said, “Until tomorrow, Tony,” and hurried out to the car. The driver, delighted at being permitted to speed, took the car at its top velocity of forty miles an hour. Horn had arranged that the signal lights would be green for them all the way to the house on Bleecker Street. Caird did not know what excuse she might have to give for this special treatment, but he was sure that she would think of something reasonable.
Five blocks from his house, Caird told the driver to turn off the siren. If Castor should be in the house, he should not be frighten
ed away. On the other hand, it might be better if he were. He might be prevented from doing whatever he might have in mind—if he was there.
At Caird’s order, the driver slowed the car down during the final block and stopped it two buildings from Caird’s house.
It was 11:22 P.M.
Caird got out of the car and said, “You can go now. There’s an emergency stoner shelter at 200 Bleecker. You have eight minutes, plenty of time, to get there.”
“Yes, sir, I know,” the driver said. “Good night, sir.”
Caird said good night and watched him drive off. He walked toward his house. The two guards were gone, of course. There were no lights in the house. This might mean that Ozma had decided that he was staying in an emergency shelter or in an extra stoner in a precinct station. She could already be in her cylinder. Or…someone else had turned the lights off and was waiting for him.
That someone could only be Castor. He would know that the front room light would come on as soon as Caird’s ID tip entered the front door slot. Castor might have turned the light off with the manual switch, but then he would know that Caird would suspect that something was wrong.
Instead of going onto the front porch, Caird walked along one side of the house, the weapon in one hand, a flashlight in the other, looking for signs of breaking and entering. He saw nothing suspicious, and the back door was locked. He went to the other side and moved slowly, looking for signs of entry there. Nothing. As he walked back to the rear, the lights in the house began flashing, and he could hear, faintly, the siren moaning inside it.
It was now 11:30.
All over the city, all over this time zone, in every inhabited building, lights were flashing and sirens were moaning. And so were the street lights and sirens.
The seniors and the juniors now had less than five minutes to enter their stoners before power was applied to them. If they had not gone into them by now, and most had, because of lifelong conditioning, they should hurry, hurry. Never mind if they had to go to the toilet. Never mind if some were in the midst of having a baby. Never mind what. Get into the stoner.
Those cylinders with closed doors would automatically get the power. Those with open doors would not. From 11:30 to 11:35 P.M. was a grace period. A citizen could still get into one and close the door and be stoned sixty seconds later. After that, no power until next Tuesday at fifteen minutes after midnight, and that was destoning power, which had a field quite different from the stoning power.
The lights and the sirens lasted for sixty seconds and would be the last warning of three. At 11:00, when Caird had been traveling south on the Manhattan streets, the lights had blinked and the sirens had whooped. Fifteen minutes later, the second citywide warning had occurred.
Before the lights in the house had darkened again, Caird was at the back door and had inserted the ID tip in the slot. He had the door open before the warning was over. If Castor was inside, he would not be able to distinguish the entry warning light from the others. But, as soon as the warning lights quit, he would see the flashing orange light above the door in the front room. And he would know that someone was entering the back door. Unless Caird got in in time to close the back door.
He did so, and the hall and front room lights went out. The kitchen light stayed on, though it no longer blinked. He walked down the hall with his weapon set at maximum charge. The hall lit up as he left the kitchen, the light of which went dark. Castor, if he were here, would see the light and know that someone had entered.
The light should also be on in whichever room Castor was. Castor, however, would be intelligent enough to have overridden the automatic light with the manual switch. But he must also know that if Caird went into a room and the light did not go on, then Caird would know that it had. been manually turned off.
Caird told himself that he should not get spooked and shoot at anything that moved. It was possible that Ozma was still up. On the other hand, Caird did not want to give Castor a break by hesitating too long.
He stood listening. The house was silent, except for his subjective impression that it was breathing and also straining to hear something. Weapon held ready, finger on the button, he resumed walking. He passed the sliding closet doors on his left and a bathroom door and children’s bedroom on his right. All the doors were shut. Since Castor could be behind any of them, Caird kept looking back.
He was also sharply aware that Castor could approach him from the rear through the kitchen. The dining room door opened onto the kitchen. Castor could come from the dining room and circle behind him.
The big front room lit up. He looked up the dark stairs to his right at the end of the hall. Then he put his hand over the bottom steps. The stairwell sprang into illumination. No one was there, and no shadowy face was looking from around the corner at the top of the steps. There were no signs of forced entry, and it was highly unlikely that Castor could have used some electronic means to get in. On the other hand, how had he gotten out of the Tamasuki institute?
He looked behind every piece of furniture in the front and dining rooms. Then he went through the kitchen again and down the long hall. He walked up the steps and went into the bathroom and two bedrooms there and looked into every closet.
It was midnight when he entered the basement. Fifteen minutes to go. The game room and the utility room and the PPC, the personal possessions closet, were empty of human though not of insect life. A big daddy-longlegs scuttled toward a refuge under the pool table. He would have to leave a recording for the cleaning squad when he had time for less important matters. No. The squad was not responsible for such matters. He would have to attend to a possible web under the table himself come next Tuesday. It was his turn to see to the minor cleaning.
He looked through the porthole of Ozma’s cylinder. Her eyes looked lifelessly into his. Most people closed their eyes before power came on. Ozma had the crazy idea that her unconscious could see what was going on in the room, and she did not want to miss out on a thing.
He was happy with relief though still sweating from fear. Actually, the strain was not over yet, but that which he felt now was minor. It would become major if he did not get going.
He went to the cylinder which bore a plaque with his name and ID data. He put his shoulderbag on the floor, opened it, and took from a compartment a small flesh-colored object attached to a small cylinder. After opening the stoner door, he set the object and cylinder on the stoner floor. He turned a dial at the end of the cylinder. The object unfolded, swelling, and ballooned into an air-inflated and full-sized replica of himself.
He pinched the big right toe of the replica, pulled the small compressed-air cylinder from the valve in the toe, and screwed a cap onto the valve. He dropped the cylinder into a compartment of his shoulderbag. His neck-chain with the attached ID star came off his neck and was put on the dummy’s. Though they weighed less than an ounce, they were heavy enough to topple the dummy forward. However, steel balls glued inside the feet of the replica compensated for the weight. The replica would not lean until its face was pressing against the window.
He took the Wednesday ID from the bag and dropped the neck-chain over his head and onto his neck. He picked up the gun, which he had placed on the floor, and stuck it between the waistband and his body. He placed the bag on the stoner floor and closed the door. Inside the great cylinder was what had so far always passed as the relatively molecularly motionless body of Jefferson Cervantes Caird.
Soon enough, it would be stoned.
Blowing a kiss to Ozma as he left, he ran upstairs, opened the front door, closed it, sprang over the railing at the end of the front porch, and hastened under the trees to the east fence. Leaped over the white picket fence with a hand on it. Ran across the yard and under the trees. Up the front steps of the big building with many white columns that looked so much like Scarlett O’Hara’s mansion. Stopped at the front door to insert one tip of the ID star into the hole. Saw the light come on in the apartment lobby. Pushed in on the door and
let it swing shut. Sped across the lobby to the wide staircase and up it to the second floor. Ran down the thickly carpeted corridor to Number 2E. Inserted the star tip again and entered the apartment living room. Raced down a narrow hail to the stoner room and darted to the left through a doorway. Fourteen cylinders here, much more closely spaced than in the basement of the house he had just left.
Ten minutes after midnight.
Never had he cut it so close. Never again would he have to, he hoped.
7.
Wednesday’s wife stared unseeingly at him through her window. He turned away from her to his own cylinder, which faced hers across a narrow aisle. It bore a plaque with the name ROBERT AQUILINE TINGLE. His own face looked at him through the window. Its door should have been locked since there was someone—no, some thing—inside it, and it should be unlocked only from the inside. Caird, however, had arranged that it could be opened.
At the moment, he could do nothing with the air-inflated dummy. He ran from the room to the shower room, removing the gun and taking off the sash and blouse on the way. In the shower room, he punched a button, and the water began gushing at a preset pressure and temperature. The rest of his clothes came off, and he stepped under the water and began vigorously soaping himself. There was not time to do a thorough cleansing of the makeup; he stepped out while there were still paint streaks on his legs. He rubbed off these with a towel and then threw the towel into the hamper. He would dispose of that later, though the chances that his wife would see it were small. Taking another towel, he began rubbing himself, only to stop with a muttered exclamation. He reached over and punched the button to stop the shower.
His hair was still too wet, but he did not have time to dry it completely. After putting the second towel on top of the first in the hamper, he picked up his Tuesday clothes, balled them, and put them under the towel. When he had the opportunity, he would hide the clothes and towel in his personal possessions closet or destroy them.