Chapter Ten
"AND how did you plan to get inside when the place is closed for the night?" Carstairs prodded sardonically.
For answer Phil cocked his eyebrows defiantly and gave the restaurant door a smart shove. It swung silently inward. He led them in haughtily, vaguely aware that Llewellyn was examining the lock.
The long room was very dark. It smelled stalely of people and liquor and seared meat; Phil even thought he could distinguish Juno's burned rabbit chops. Otie snuffed eagerly and tugged Buck forward by his leash. Phil steered their course confidently between the counter and the booths. He was feeling particularly pleased with himself because Mitzie had found opportunity to ask him for his address on the way over.
"All right, all right," he heard Carstairs whisper behind him to Llewellyn, "so the lock was burned. Somebody's ahead of us. We'll be watching out. "
Phil pushed open the door to the stairs, and hesitated. Inside it was now completely black.
Something hissed softly beside him and a luminescent cone puffed out. A couple of seconds later, the half dozen treads of the stairway glowed milkily.
Buck chuckled inches from Phil's ear. "Lum'niscint mist," he explained with professional casualness. "You get going. I'll spray. "
Phil started up, the milky surface light keeping two or three treads ahead of him in blobby advances. The mist got on Otie, so that he glowed like the Hound of the Baskervilles. Some of it even got on Phil's trouser bottoms and sockasins.
"We're certainly marked if we have to run away and hide," Phil commented dubiously as he reached the corridor he and Juno had come through and then took the unknown way upward.
"Uh-uh," Buck chuckled wisely, "'cause I'm spraying a neutralizer behind us. " He directed at Phil's feet a dark, faintly hissing canister and Phil's feet blacked out, along with a blob of surrounding treads. Looking back, Phil saw that the glow on the stairs vanished abruptly. He could not see Mitzie. Carstairs, and Llewellyn.
He asked Buck, "How do you manage two canisters and Otie all at the same time?"
"Hell, I could aim a squirrel rifle and run a still in addition," Buck assured him.
Phil became aware of a dim radiance above him, beyond the range of Buck's mist. Buck hurriedly neutralized all the luminescence, including that on Otie and Phil. Phil cautiously went up the last ten treads, the upper radiance increasing all the while, and found himself in a shadowy, curving corridor. His steps got shorter and shorter, then stopped.
A couple yards ahead lay three swollen furry shapes, each with a half dozen slim black things stuck into them, like feathered darts.
He recognized at least two of the dead cats. Although grotesquely puffed up, their markings told him they were a Siamese and a short hair he had seen at the Akeleys'.
"Watch it!" he heard Carstairs whisper, but at the same instant Otie jerked away from Buck and moved swiftly forward, his leash trailing, to snuff at the nearest swollen shape. The tail of the dart next to Otie's nose began to revolve with a faint, feathery rustle. Otie became tensely still, disregarding his master's anxious, "Back Otie!" The rustle became a whirr. Otie suddenly snapped sidewise at the dart, but at the same instant the dart withdrew quickly from the dead cat. Otie's teeth clashed emptily. The dart hovered a few feet in the air, just like a huge black wasp. 'don't anybody go closer. " Carstairs ordered hoarsely. Buck grabbed for the end of the leash, but it was flirted away from his hand when Otie abruptly changed position, watching the dart with deadly intentness.
The whirr became a loud sinister buzz. There were two quickzings and the hovering dart trembled like a blown candle flame. Half turning, Phil saw that Carstairs was shooting at it with some sort of airgun. The dart began to waltz in little loops. Otie leaped straight up, and snapped at it as a dog might at a bee, but the dart curtsied away.
Buck's "Back, Otie," was desperate. Otie stayed on his feet and batted at the dart with his paws. There were more futilezings from Carstairs' airgun. The dart looped back and hovered in front of Otie's muzzle. As he opened his jaws for a snap, it shot down his throat.
Otie, his eyes and jaws open wide, beat the air with his paws. Then he dropped to all fours and hurled himself off at top speed. He slammed against a wall, got up with difficulty, trembled over to Buck, and fell down and didn't move. It seemed to Phil that the gaunt creature was taking a deep breath, and then Phil suddenly felt sick, for the coyote was beginning to swell.
"Don't touch him!" Carstairs shouted, but Buck was keeping his distance. Carstairs came up beside Buck and leaned prudently forward, his bangs swinging out from his forehead. "Always did want to see one of those things in action," he said softly.
"They're what they call singular missiles, aren't they?" Llewellyn asked fascinatedly, coming up. "Anti-individual, I mean. "
Carstairs nodded. "Used them in the last cold war, though hardly any rumors got out. They were for assassinations. The FBL and the Russkies could tell tales. They're supposed to be driven by a tiny, ion-emitting radioactive fan. I wish I had a counter so I could know. And of course, they home on the radiant heat of flesh and then inject a poison. "
Buck muttered, "Otie. " The coyote's puffed eyes turned toward him, then glazed over. Buck jerked up and made a derisive noise. "Always was a dumb pooch," he said harshly. Mitzie, drawn even with Llewellyn, looked on coldly.
Phil started ahead, drugs battling nausea inside him, so that the dim corridor seemed both vivid and unreal.
"Where are you going?" Carstairs demanded.
Phil shrugged. "To find what I came for," he said hazily.
"Well, keep away from the cats," Carstairs called after him softly, but Phil was already hugging the wall.
"How we know those sing'lar missles won't heat up and go for us like they went for Otie?" he heard Buck demand fretfully.
"The others got through, didn't they?" Carstairs said irritably.
"What others?" Phil heard Buck ask.
"The ones who burnt the lock on the door, the ones who threw the cats ahead of them to draw the missiles," Carstairs told him impatiently. "Incidentally, if any of the missiles start spinning their tails, you might try throwing your coat over them. "
Beyond the dead cats, Phil came to a silvery mesh barricade with several jagged cuts in it, three of them making a crude doorway. The mesh looked fine and strong enough to have kept the wasps on this side. He stepped over the fallen section of mesh. The cut ends of silvery wire were rounded and fused, as if by great heat.
Just beyond the mesh lay a chunky man in a gray, company-guard uniform. He had a gun in his hand. He was intact except that the top of his head had rolled about a foot away. It had been sliced off tidily just above the nose by something hot. Phil remembered how neatly the blue needle had sliced the steel beam. He hurried past toward an open arch just ahead, and jerked back from a large gray snake coiled there. Then he saw that the snake was a robot doorman like Old Rubberarm, and looking higher he saw that it had been sliced off close to the wall.
Mitzie and the rest came through the mesh. Carstairs kneeled eagerly by the dead man and examined the gun he was clasping, but a moment later got up with a shrug.
"Not an ortho, eh?" Buck inquired. "Usin' those sing'lar missiles, you'd think they'd be up to date in other things. "
"No, just an ordinary gas gun," Carstairs told him. "But we can be pretty sure his head wasn't taken off by a red hot buzz saw. The others must have orthos. " He turned on Phil and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. "Look here, clown," he said quietly, "who are those others? You must have known someone was going to break in here tonight. You were counting on that door being open. "
"We are a bit like jackals, aren't we?" Phil remarked dreamily.
Carstairs twisted his jacket. "Who were they?"
Phil didn't react, but he did jerk around suddenly when he heard Moe Brimstine say metallically, "Whatcha want, Mack?"
Llewellyn had pulled out the stu
b of gray robot arm sticking from the wall.
"Quit that," Carstairs ordered curtly, letting go of Phil.
"Take it easy, Carstie old boy," Llewellyn said with a smiling flash of white teeth. "Here's a bit of an odd thing. See where whatever sliced this robot arm cut into the wall beyond? Well, follow back from the cut in a straight line through the slice in the robot arm. "
Like the others, Phil followed Llewellyn's directions and saw that the straight line ended in a deep cut in the floor a half dozen feet behind them.
"I don't git it," Buck said. "You mean somebody shot some kind of beam from the next floor under us?"
Llewellyn said, "Hardly. The evidence points to a gun that shoots in opposite directions at the same time. I fancy that if we'd have looked behind us at the head of the stairs, we'd have seen some cuts mirror-imaging those in the mesh. "
He thinned his eyes at Carstairs. "I'm beginning to think orthos are rather strange weapons, Carstie old boy. " He glanced at Phil. "You said they're blue and sizzle, Mr. Gish. Do they also backfire?"
"Say, look at this here communicator," Buck interrupted. He had been poking around the side of the corridor behind the guard. "One button's got a new-looking gadget rigged up to it that's pushed it twice now while I've been watching. "
"Don't touch it," Carstairs said. "It's probably a button Headless here is supposed to thumb every so often to show he's on guard. Whoever broke in ahead of us knows their business. Once more, clown, who were they?"
"Yeah, talk," Buck said, coming up beside Carstairs. "I figure you're responsible for my Otie gettin' killed. "
"Indeed, do," Llewellyn said, at the same moment letting go of the stub arm which contracted toward the wall until it was like a wrinkled scar, while at the same time, as though internal injuries were now showing up in the thing, a broken clockworks version of Moe Brimstine's voice wheezed, "That's right, Mack. Go away and stay away. "
In the moment while that eerie and ominous admonition held everyone else stockstill, Phil walked with drugged aplomb past Llewellyn and through the arch.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I imagine you would like to inspect the treasure house. "
He faced a room that was not extremely high ceilinged, but so wide and long that the only clearly visible wall was the one against which they were standing. The room was not brightly lit, yet it seemed so because of the brightness of the two sorts of ranked objects on which the light fell. To the left were row on endless row of sales-robots, shiny high turtle shapes with a smaller dome set on the main one, the same efficient metal hucksters that daily and eveningly roamed the streets, guiding themselves and spotting customers by hypersonic radar and visual scanner. Only now their fascinating windows for displaying samples were closed, their money collecting and commodity bestowing arms were neatly folded, the restless wheels under their metal skirts were still, and their dulcet voices rich with a restrained sex appeal suitable to robots (male voices for females, female for males, sprightly and wise-cracking for children) were likewise silent.
To the right, marshaled with equal precision, were a host of dress-display robots, arrayed in everything from high collared sable evening cloaks to bathing jewelry. Their hair gleamed with a hundred tints, their suede-rubber skins glowed with a creamy seductiveness, they held themselves with the poise of princesses, but like the sales-robots they were still. No slinky parading, no cute individualized gestures, no mysterious or haughty smiles, no soft lips opening to recite the qualities and prices of the garments they were modeling. They all stared straight ahead like Egyptian mummies not yet wrapped and indeed one, appropriately crowned and clad in a filmy sheath, was a precise copy of Nefertiti.
It occurred to Phil that the ranked sales-robots and dress-display robots really were a military display, that he was looking at the armed might - the money army and the glamor army - of Fun Incorporated.
Llewellyn was the first to break the silence. He darted to the nearest sales-robot, made some practiced manipulations, and then there was a clinking and he was waving a green and silver handful and his teeth and the whites of his eyes shone gleefully in his black face.
"They're still carrying the day's cash!" he called softly.
Buck looked from the money army to the glamor army with greedy indecision. When Carstairs snorted contemptuously, he trotted over to help Llewellyn, who was methodically working his way down the first row of sales-robots.
Despite his show of greater self control, it was obvious that Carstairs' hands were itching too. He looked at Phil uncertainly. Then, "Wake up, Mitz," he commanded sharply. She obediently turned toward him an oddly incurious face. "Mitz," he went on, "I want you to guard the clown. If he tries to get away or goes for any buttons, use your shiv on him. " She nodded.
"Hey," Buck called in an excited stage whisper, "I think we're coming to some that are gambling robots. "
But Carstairs didn't go at once, although he was noiselessly snapping his fingers in an excess of impatience. He studied Mitzie fiercely. "You get it, Mitz? I don't want any slip-ups. You made one already today. Not that I believe for a minute you're soft on the clown, but you've acted a bit silly around him. There mustn't be any more of that. Understand?"
This time her nod, though mute as the first, seemed to satisfy him and he rushed off to join Llewellyn and Buck.
At the same instant Phil quietly turned around and walked through an archway just beside the one through which they had entered the big room. He hadn't taken ten steps down the curving corridor before Mitzie had whirled past him and poised herself squarely in his path.
"Get back," she whispered. The hand directing the ten-inch knife at Phil's chest didn't waver enough to make the frosty highlights on it flicker.
Phil smiled at her. "Mitzie," he said gently, "your friends have found what they came for, but I haven't. You're going to let me go past. "
She spat her denial and advanced the knife so that it touched his shirt.
Phil didn't budge. "You're going to let me go past," he repeated softly, "because you're not sure any more that being cruel and smart, and if need be deadly, is the right way to face the world. You're not sure any more that the approval of your gang is the only thing that matters. Incidentally, it's a pretty grudging approval, Mitzie, something you've had to sit up and do tricks for like that other dumb pooch, and your comradeship with them isn't at all the romantic, until death, one for all and all for one thing you pretend it is. But I haven't the time to tell you any more about that now, because I've got my business and I've got to get on with it. "
"Get back," she snarled. But Phil, although the knife now pricked his chest, knew it was no longer a command but a plea.
"I'm going past now, Mitzie," Phil murmured and walked ahead into the knife. For about two feet it drew back at exactly the same speed with which he walked into it, then it was whipped suddenly to one side, and as he passed Mitzie he caught the choked off beginning of a sob.
Neither of them made another sound. He looked back once and saw her profile in the light from the big room, and the slack line of her shoulder and the arm holding the knife. Often faces look unexpectedly weak in profile, but Phil felt he'd never seen one that also looked so tragically lost.
Its image haunted him as the curving corridor grew darker and then lighter again and then made a very sharp turn and unexpectedly emerged into a long, richly furnished room. He blundered a step forward before he saw there were three people at the far end and that one of them was Moe Brimstine. They weren't looking his way and he could have ducked back out of sight easily enough, but he hurried it too much and brushed against a slim pillar topped by a small aquarium in which tiny pink, green and violet octopuses clung and swam. The pillar teetered dangerously. Stumbling as he grabbed to steady it, he fell out into the room with it and thudded into the foam flooring, as the water and the candy colored octopuses gushed all over.