“Your perceived threat is not here, with you. Whereas I am.” The tentacle began to squeeze, ever so slightly.
Abruptly the man’s jaws clenched as he bit down on something. Moses forced his mouth open, but it was too late. His prisoner was already going into convulsions. Unlike Vyra’s, these did not give way to laughter.
It took less than half a minute. Probing for a heartbeat, the humaniform found none. Disappointment was something an advanced mechanical could experience acutely. It suffused Moses’ cogitations as he slowly lowered the lifeless figure to the pavement.
X
Vyra was on the twentieth or twenty-first verse of the unintelligible ballad. Each was more exotically embellished than its predecessor. In her advanced state of exalted inebriation, she had surpassed heights of vulgarity undreamed of by most mere mortals. Even Manz was impressed. Her volume had tailed off, but not her enthusiasm.
He sat at the foot of her bed, watching and reminding himself that it might be counterproductive to force-feed her a deepsleep pill. He wasn’t sure if the physician’s anti-hangover tablets were such a good idea. She was having entirely too much fun, and he was exhausted.
The door chimed once. Rising from the bed, he moved to admit Moses.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I will explain in a moment.” Artificial lenses peered past him. “She will live?”
Manz bestowed on the humaniform a look that suggested that one of the three entities currently occupying the room was markedly deficient in the higher cognitive abilities. It did not take a genius to reach the conclusion that the individual thus accused happened to click and hum when he moved.
“Does it sound like she’s in her death throes? Not only is she going to live, she’s feeling a lot better than I am.” He glanced back at the merrily caroling figure on the bed. “That may change when she starts to come out of it, though I’m medicating her in expectation of emergence. At the moment, though, she’s still crocked.”
“I realize that I should, but I fear I do not place the suggestively archaic colloquialism. Am I correct in assuming it has nothing to do with the style of functional glazed pottery of the same name?”
“‘Crocked’ is an idiomatic, as opposed to idiot-manic—which is what you are, my dear Moses—expression of venerable lineage used to describe the physiomental state of someone who has recently imbibed an excess of pleasure-inducing stimulants or depressants. In the case of humans, this often means alcohol. In the case of our offworld friend Vyra, it seems that Qaraca venom works just as well.”
She chose that moment to make an exceedingly disgusting body noise. It was something of a last gasp (so to speak). Her operatic discourse began to fade, falling rapidly to an incomprehensible mumble, at which point she finally lapsed into a sleep not far removed from hibernation. There was a contented smile on her exquisite face.
And a song in her heart, Manz mused tiredly. No doubt an embarrassing one. At least now he could leave her for a while to attend to his own needs.
Gesturing Moses to silence so as not to disturb her and possibly renew the discomfiting recital, Manz led the mechanical through the connecting workroom and into his own bedchamber. Once safely inside with the inner door secured, he turned to his machine.
“I was trying to take care of her downstairs. It was nervous time and I was looking for all the help I could get. Next thing I know I look up and you’re gone. I presume you have an explanation?”
“I located and succeeded in apprehending the individual who I believe placed the offending arthropod in your food. He made the mistake of hanging around in hopes of observing the consequences of his actions.”
“That’s great! Did you get anything out of him? Where is he now?”
“In a deserted serviceway. He denied everything. When he decided that I was capable of forcing information from him, he swallowed something. Died almost instantly. His death, of course, confirms his guilt in this matter.”
Manz kicked at the bed. “That’s just dandy. That’s a terrific help. Solves our problem in one swell foop.”
Moses was apologetic. “Though I reacted rapidly, I was unable to prevent his self-inflicted demise. Since our encounter was not observed, I then took the time to perform a superficial autopsy, which disclosed a fast-acting cyanide compound present in the individual’s bloodstream in lethal concentrations.”
“Suicide pill.” Manz sat down heavily on the end of the bed. “First the two cops at the Port, now this. Whoever these jackers are, they play for keeps.” He sat still for a long moment, thinking hard.
Look at him. You’d almost think he was intelligent. When pressed, humans who spend a lot of time like that insist they have been thinking, speculating on matters of great importance. Do not believe it. I’ve watched you too many times. You’re just spinning your wheels, utterly convinced that you are engaged in real thought.
For example, you think you’re thinking about this right now, aren’t you? You think you’re observing and analyzing as you contemplate this input in the form of words and sentences. You’re really not. You’re only faking it. Humankind doesn’t run on thought; it operates in a constant state of self-delusion.
You’re actually asleep, dreaming that you’re doing this. Being wholly me, I'm acutely aware of the differences between real and delusional states, sleep being another variety of delusion.
I can see you smiling, convinced that you’re awake. But what if I’m right and you’re wrong? Just suppose it for a moment.
What if I’m right and you’re wrong, and what if you don’t wake up?
Manz slid off the bed. “I hate to waste the whole night. No telling how long she’ll sleep. And I’d like to work some of that dinner off. Tell you what: why don’t you join me this time as we pay a second visit to Borgia Import and Export?”
“It is eleven forty-five p.m. The typical business establishment is likely to be closed at this hour.”
“You don’t say.” He was fumbling in his closet, hunting specific gear.
“I infer that you intend an illegal entry.”
“Man, those logic programs they include with the new AI’s these days are really something, aren’t they?” He slipped an equipment belt around his waist, securing it beneath his jacket.
“Doubtlesss you are aware of the risk if we are discovered? It could send us shuttling back home. Lawsuits would inevitably follow.”
“Inevitably.” Manz slipped a sensor-shunting folding cap into his pocket. “Come on. Maybe we can shed a little light on several darkish things.” He walked around to the head of the bed and fingered the sphere that had been resting on the end table. “Minder: position.” The sphere hummed to life and rose to assume its usual place above his shoulder.
The doorseal had been as difficult to make out as the rest of the building’s exterior. Now it glowed with an unnatural, pale radiance as Manz viewed it through his special goggles. He applied the tool in his right hand to the seal with the same easy touch he employed when he was restoring antique weaponry. The Minder hovered silently nearby, recording and observing.
A few astute nudges helped the case-sensitive device pick its way through the lock, gently unsealing it without activating the internal alarm mechanism. There was a faint click as the seal surrendered. Manz put away the tool and pulled on the barrier. It slid aside silently.
“Have to remember to reconfigure on the way out,” he told his mechanical companion as they entered the darkened corridor. “Wouldn’t do to have the system activate when we leave.”
The seal guarding Monticelli’s private office was a simpler matter than the one on the fire exit. Manz took his time anyway, lavishing equal care and attention on the smaller, less complex security device. Rushing a forced entry was as potentially dangerous as doing it wrong.
He let Moses handle the probe of the executive’s desk. Supposedly unbreakable commercial codes gave way rapidly to the humaniform’s extensive stock of special breakers. While Moses worked, Manz surveyed the rest of the room, noting items of a personal nature with as much interest as those with strictly commercial connections. They could often tell more about a man’s character than his business dealings.
When Moses finished, Manz edged him aside to scan the monitor in search of the sort of subtle keys or telltales that a mechanical might overlook. There was one internal company memorandum involving a shipment of vintage Swan Valley champagne that the JeP tax authorities would have found very interesting. Manz made a mental note of it for possible future use.
While he read, Moses worked the room in imitation of his employer. Different perceptions sometimes produced different results.
“Anything?” the mechanical inquired with one part of its mind.
“Not much. Certainly not what we’re looking for.”
“I may have unearthed another line of inquiry.”
Manz looked up from the screen. “Such as?”
“Beneath the chair on which you are sitting is a section of flooring discongruous with the rest. I detect a hollow space of modest proportions surrounded by impenetrable composite materials.”
Making sure to reestablish the security pattern designed to forestall unauthorized inspection, Manz flicked off the screen and pushed back the chair. Together he and Moses carefully bypassed the security threads woven into the section of carpet. When pulled aside it revealed a hingeless door set flush into the floor. It took Manz only a minute to see that the lockseal on the hidden compartment was a custom job, far more intricate than the lock on the outside fire barrier or the office door.
Sitting himself down alongside the opening, he laid out the necessary tools, working by the amplified light provided by the special goggles. Moses kept a careful watch.
Twenty minutes later he’d achieved nothing except cramped fingers and a heightened sense of frustration. Despite the fact that he combined the touch of a surgeon with the skills of an experienced jacker, the seal’s innards turned out to be melded to the point of impregnability.
