The Computer Connection

“Mine said you were outside U-Con and wanted in,” Jimmy said.

  “I’m much obliged and grateful for the support,” I said, “but I’m much perplexed. I never sent any messages.”

  The two pros brushed me off. “What’s the bust?” Jimmy asked Harry.

  “A vibrator shield. I’ve never seen one like it before.”

  “Linear? Lattice? Louvre?”

  “No. Moire.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s the new Mosler Model K-12-FK. Only been out a few months.”

  “Can you rip it?”

  “Sure. You have to monkey with inductance and wattage. Takes about twenty minutes. I’ve got my tools with me and I’ll show you.”

  “How can you be so positive?” I asked.

  Valentine was pained. “You’ll never make a thief, Guig. I bought a Moire the first day it came on the market and spent a week locating its weak points. Now I’m on a bust tour staying ahead of Mosler’s frantic try to crunch-proof the model. That’s what I was doing in Vancouver.”

  There’s perparation for you. There’s a pro for you. But who sent the messages to the Group gimpsters? Don’t tell me. I knew but I wasn’t ready to face it yet.

  A complete stranger wearing a lab coat projected into the house without warning. Very bad manners. “No reegret for intrusion,” he said in Spang. “Like emergencia, man. Dr. Guess aqui?”

  “Who you?”

  “Union Carbide.”

  “Esplain you bug.”

  “Estro maquina, man. Go crazy like.”

  “Jus’ now?”

  “N. Jive now. But d’yeth hours back, craz-eee. We lookin’ ever since for Guess-cat. Ax him what happen. Maybe pasar again? Can fix?”

  “Poder fix. Not now. I tell ‘m. Wait you. Out.”

  He pulled himself up from the floor and out by retro.

  Poulos said matter-of-factly, “Dr. Guess had his seizure ten hours ago.”

  “How much do you know, Greek?”

  “Everything the young lady whispered to you. I have sharp ears.”

  “Then Guess affects the Extro as much as it affects him.”

  “You have reached the correct conclusion.”

  “The Extro sent the messages to Harry and Valentine.”

  “To be sure. Via the electronic network.”

  “Are we being overheard now?”

  “Probably. Perhaps words and thoughts, both.”

  “We’re bugged.”

  “In a novel way, yes, so long as Dr. Guess is conscious and in possession of his senses. However, he is not the only one assisting the computer.”

  “What?”

  “The Group has a vendetta on its hands: a private war.”

  “For God’s sake, Poulos. Who? What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I surmise that it is another member of the Group.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “But I do say. A renegade Moleman.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  “A Moleman turning on his own kind?”

  “He or she. Yes. Why are you astonished? The Group has feuds and revenges of record. This is merely another such case.”

  “What led you to your conclusion?”

  “The faux messages to Houdini and Valentine.”

  “They were sent by the Extro.”

  “True, but how did it know of their existence and capacities? How did it know where to reach them?”

  “It could have—It—No, you’re right. Then the Chief must have told it.”

  “Using what for data? He has been a member of the Group less than a week. He has met or heard of half a dozen at the most; certainly not Houdini and Valentine. He could not possibly have the knowledge to impart to the Extro.”

  “My God! My God! I think you’re right. You must be. One of our own. But why say he’s against us?”

  “Because he has joined the Extro which is a proven hostile.”

  “Dear God! A renegade.”

  “And a most powerful enemy of many years and much experience. He or she is a match for any of us.”

  “You have no idea of who it might be?”

  “None whatever.”

  “His motivation?”

  “Hatred, for some reason or other.”

  “For all of us or just some?”

  “Impossible to say.”

  “How does he communicate with the Extro?”

  “Nothing could be simpler. Pick up the nearest phone of any sort and speak into it. The network will convey the message to the Extro, provided the switchboard is conscious.”

  “This could be a disaster for the Group, Poulos. I’m on the verge of scuttling.”

  “But why, Guig? It is a monumental challenge of much fascination, the first for us in many years.”

  “Granted, but where does it leave us?”

  “En route to Ceres. Not scuttling, merely ensuring the safety of Guess and his capsule. Then we’ll return to the fight.”

  Harry and Jimmy weren’t even listening. They were involved in an intense professional conversation using words like watts, amperes, megahertz, frequency, inductance. In my past crooks talked nitroglycerine and diamond drills. Progress. They broke off when Poulos and I finished and looked at us.

  “When?” Jimmy asked softly.

  “When the redskin is ready. He’s the one you’ve got to get in.”

  “It might be better to wait until the power demand is at the low.”

  “N way,” Harry said. “JPL has its own supply, always at the peak.”

  “Then now is as good as any time. I’d like to move on to Tokyo soon.”

  “I’ll go see how the Chief is doing,” I said.

  He was doing fine with Fee hovering over him while he seemed to be berating Natoma in Cherokee for abandoning the high morality of Eriedom. Natoma was laughing. “He man showven pig,” she told me in XX. M’bantu had taught her a lot while he was helping her turn into the latest shout.

  “The Group is waiting to crunch you into the capsule,” I said. “Are you ready?”

  “Y.” He got out of the bed. “So I’ve converted you.”

  “Hell no! I don’t believe in your doublegaited salvation, but the Group tries to stick together.”

  “You remind me of Voltaire, Guig. ‘I hate everything you say but will fight to the death for your right to say it.’ ”

  “Which Voltaire never said, according to Tosca. Come downstairs.”

  He listened for a moment and I knew who he was listening to. “R as usual, Guig; only attributed to Voltaire and I haven’t quoted it accurately. Coming.”

  There were five Abominable Snowman neutrals waiting in the chopper. Two for Harry and Jimmy and two for the Chief and Fee. The fifth? They all looked at me.

  “Not me,” I said. “I want to tepee with my blue wife.”

  “Come on, Guig.”

  “Why me?”

  “You recruited Guess. You’ve got to see it through.”

  “Through to what? I don’t even know where this demented op is going. Natoma, tepee?”

  “Take care brother, Glig,” Natoma said. “You go. I wait.”

  So I go, just as M’bantu brought in Borgia a mite too late. Apologies and split. While we were squirming into our neutrals in the chopper I asked Erie’s favorite son, “What’s your program?”

  “Vague and desperate, but anything to get away from U-Con. Loft by kinorep and then use the laterals to get off the premises. I only hope there’s enough gas left.”

  “You’ve got full tanks. The tech crynappers filled them for their dastardly crime.”

  “That’s a plus, but it’s the only one. I’m in a hell of a pickle. Can I steal a rocket vehicle? I’ve never heard of anyone trying that.”

  “The larceny might make your lam easier.”

  “If I can, where do I go? The orbiting cyclotron? Ceres and I. G. Farben? The Greek’s mine? I don’t know yet. It’ll take working out, and anyway I’m waiting on Edison’s analys
is. Probably it’ll have to be a parking orbit, if I can heist a vehicle.”

  “Will the Extrocomputer go along with this?”

  He gave me a penetrating look. “What makes you ask that?”

  “I know. I got the scenario from Fee-5.”

  “She hears too much,” he snapped and cased himself in the neutral.

  Harry led us into JPL, again giving all the correct signs and countersigns. “V bad security,” he said. “The code should change every four hours.” At the double doors to the landing theater we stopped and Jimmy Valentine took over. He inspected the moire pattern shield carefully. Then he got out of the neutral and opened his coverall, displaying more tools than the Chief carried. “Twenty minutes max,” he said. “Stiff all snoops.”

  He went to work and it was like Rutherford exploring the secrets of the atom. Harry was peering over his shoulder and the two were mumbling electronics to each other. I was sorry Edison wasn’t with them, but on the other hand he might have been so disputatious that the twenty minutes max might have turned into fifty. So, more waiting.

  A uniformed guard came prowling down the broad corridor, thinking his own thoughts. He saw the Snowmen and nodded. Then he saw Jimmy in mufti, working on the shield, and he started forward, alert and purposeful. I wanted to ask him to show us his new wristwatch but instead I said in XX, “Chief. Lepcer. Use Indian guile.”

  I started toward the guard ready to swing a swindle but Sequoya beat me with a tiger leap and had both arms around the guard’s neck and a knee in his gut. You might have thought it was a gay romance but the knee pounded up twice and the guard went down, no longer of this world. The Chief disarmed him and tossed the weapon to me. Jimmy and Harry hadn’t even turned around.

  “This is guile?” I said.

  “It’s a tough habit to break,” he grunted. “I’ll have to learn.”

  “Did you kill him?” Fee asked in a choked voice.

  “N.”

  “Just dulled his rotten old sexuality for a while,” I said cheerfully to soothe her.

  The moire pattern changed to a linear, then a reticulation, then an ogee, then an expanding circle, and finally disappeared.

  “Enter,” Jimmy said.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Harry said. “Did anybody ever call you a genius, Jimmy?”

  “The Bank of England. In an All Points Bulletin. I’d like to leave for Tokyo now. I’m falling behind the bust schedule.”

  “Just a few more minutes. He’s got to get that thing out of here and then I have to get you out of here. Pack your tools and put on the neutral.”

  Meanwhile Fee and the Chief had opened the doors and we all went into the theater. Now the Chief took over. He handed Fee a light pencil. “Unlock the console. The combination is dit-dit-dah-dah-dit-dah.” Fee inserted the pencil into a socket and flashed it. The Chief opened the hatch of the capsule and poked his head in for a brief inspection. Then he slammed the hatch and locked it, looking satisfied. Harry, Jimmy, and I stood back and watched with about as much interest as the guard was showing.

  “Flash combo went out ten years ago,” Jimmy murmured.

  “People don’t keep up with the times,” Harry murmured. “Our luck.”

  “First time I ever helped heist a spacecraft.”

  “Me too. There’s no money in it.”

  “Fee. Alert,” the Chief snapped.

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Iris.”

  She did things to the console and the iris leaves high overhead opened.

  Guess took over at the console and motioned to her. She went to the edge of the landing pad and knelt down, raising a hand to give signals. I assume her tongue was between her teeth for she was in the neutral so I couldn’t see. The Chief did things at the console and Fee waved signs and the capsule lifted toward the iris. Sequoya stepped back and watched intently as it lofted. Fee, still kneeling almost in prayer, watched too. Just before the cryocapsule reached the open iris on its way to somewhere it stopped abruptly and hung there.

  “What in God’s name!” Guess exclaimed and darted to the console. Before he could touch any of the controls the capsule slanted down, all the mass of it, and crushed the life out of Fee.

  9

  When I got to the tepee at last, Natoma was there with Borgia and M’bantu. Also the wolves. Also Jacy. I was too exhausted to be surprised. The Zulu took one look at my face and said, “I will take the wolves for a walk.”

  “No, please. It might be better for me to talk. You know what happened?”

  “We do,” Borgia said. “Guess called at the house and asked us to come here. He told us why.”

  “Dr. Guess said you would probably try to hole up like a sick animal and would need all help,” M’bantu added.

  “Dio!Do I!” I tried to crawl up to reality. “I—Where’s the Greek?”

  “He go,” Natoma said. “Businessiness.”

  “What has happened to the poor girl’s clay?” Jacy asked.

  “They—They wanted to bury her in a public compost. I held out for a private. El Arrivederci. That’s what took so long… . Arrivederci… . Until we meet again. Isn’t that a laugh? Fee w-would have—” I began to cry. I’d been holding it back for hours and now it came out in bursts and heaves. Natoma put her arms around me to comfort me. I shook her off. “No,” I said. “I killed her. I deserve nothing.”

  “My dear Guig,” Borgia began briskly.

  “Nothing!” I shouted.

  “Love Fee,” Natoma said.

  “Yes. Yes, Nat. She was my baby, and I watched her grow into a woman… . A great lady… . And I killed her. Arrivederci, F. I’ll never see her again.”

  “The cryocapsule killed her, Guig.”

  “D’you know how and why, McB? I know and I know I’m accountable. I murdered her.”

  “No, no, no!” They were all emphatic.

  “It was the oversophisticated machine, Guig,” M’bantu said. “It was bound to break down sooner or later. Machinery always does.”

  “But this time I made it break down.”

  “How?”

  “I talked too much.”

  “To whom?”

  “The machine.”

  M’bantu threw up his hands. “Forgive me, Guig. You’re not making sense.”

  “I know it. I know it. Fee-5 gave me the information when we were in the bubble. She could bug Extro’s conversations with Sequoya. I had to blab it like a damned show-off. Damn me. Damn my goddamn mouth. And she’ll never be able to forgive me. Never. Never.”

  “Never—”

  I burst into tears again.

  Jacy said, “I will take Guig for a walk. Just the two of us. Please wait here, children.”

  M’bantu said, “It’s dangerous to walk without protection. Take a wolf. I will instruct him.”

  “Thank you. No wolf will be needed. Kiss him, my love.”

  Natoma kissed me and out we went, Jacy’s hand on my shoulder. It was the usual hell in the streets; a labyrinth of horror. The streets and lanes twisted and corkscrewed, crossing each other, sometimes broken through abandoned buildings, giant heaps of debris and small wastelands. They were dotted with rotting bods, alive and dead and stinking. There were cul-de-sacs where gangs lurked, fought, and swung in Sado-Mac wars that would have astonished Krafft-Ebing. We passed one blind alley where a small mob was poised for an attack, but they were all skeletons in tatters. Burned by a flesh gun.

  You could hear the turmoil of the hyenas and their prey but we were never bothered. Jacy’s charisma. We came to the San Andreas beach, now filled with shacks on rusted spiles, crowded cheek by jowel, with shaky walkways between them in a lattice of overpop.

  “The F-death of the world,” I muttered.

  “N,” Jacy said firmly and suddenly switched to Spang. I think I know why. He always identifies with the dregs of the world, and I was the lowest. “Now hear, Guigman. The Beholder bless the poor in soul, for they gets the Kingdom of Heaven. God, he bless the no-way cats. You
gone be cool and easy, Guig. Santo, hear, all meek dudes because they gone grab the whole scene. Feliz, Guig, if you flip for the right-on. Then you be filled by the Beholder. Bendito all mercy types; they gone, y’know, reap misericordia.

  “Albar, you pure in soul. Gone feast your ojo on the Beholder. Peace-jive hombres, benediction. You gone belong to the God gang. Blessed be losers busted for wanting right. They reap like the whole heaven shtik. All be out of sight, Guig, so give me five, man, and dig what I tell because it trip boss in the heaven pad.”

  I was crying again but I gave him five and he embraced and kissed me. I remembered that I’d never embraced and kissed my Fee-5 for real. Dear Dio, you treat your children like toys; you never realize they’re people until they’re gone.

  A tracer clanked up behind me and clutched hard. These things have rotten depth-perception. In a canned voice it said, “Edward-Curzon-I-D-please.”

  “941939002.”

  It clicked and then said, “Remove-message-in-well.”

  I remove. It turned and scuttled. I opened the message and read: GUESS NOW EN ROUTE TO CERES WITH ME SIGNED: POULOS.

  I showed it to Jacy. He said, “You’d better follow them.”

  Natoma had no passport, but Jim the Penman came over and forged a beauty. Jim says forgery is an entirely different proposition these days. No more penmanship; you have to know how to punch in ID symbols that will swindle computer checks. Jim knows how but he’s not telling. Professional secrets. Then again, he stammers, which may be the real reason.

  We had a hell of a time putting down on Ceres, but the crew assured the passengers that this was par for the course. She’s the biggest of the asteroids, around 480 miles in diameter, spherical, and rotating every six hours. She spins so fast that lining up on the kinorep funnel for the landing is like trying to thread a needle whirling around on one of those 33 turntables we used to use back in the 1900’s.

  When I say spherical, that was before I. G. Farben took over, and I wish I knew how much it cost them to lobby that goniffery through. I know they spent a fortune on scare programs. Ceres was an inferno; alien bacteria, radioactivity, strangling hydrocarbon chains, poisonous spores. By a spooky coincidence there was no more danger after the government thieves told I. G. Farben they could buy Ceres and good luck to them provided they paid their taxes in laundered cash.