“Looks clear to me. Moses, you have a scan.”

The humaniform trundled out into the empty corridor. “The way ahead is presently vacant, but I can detect vibrations in the floor. Many humans are coming this way. I cannot vouch for the presence or absence of security mechanicals.”

“Head for the lifts.” They had no choice, he knew. Moses could ascend steep grades, but on stairs his trackball was useless.

Once inside the shuttered cab, he bypassed the controls and send the car humming groundward. To anyone monitoring the lift system, visually or via instrumentation, Lift Five would appear inoperative.

The downward journey was painfully slow. At the first sublevel the door parted to reveal the startled face of a guard. Evidently the word had been passed from above that the usual control methods were ineffective against this evening’s intruder, because instead of pepper gas or a stun tube the guard carried a real gun.

“Good evening,” said Manz in his most unctuous, inoffensive manner. In the time it took the man to react, Moses had clubbed him across the forehead with a well-placed tentacle. The guard twitched and stumbled half in, half out of the lift cab.

Manz hurriedly dragged him in and closed the doors. The route leading to the delivery ramp now stood unguarded and open. As soon as they reached the sliding door he activated the lockseal, no longer worried about setting off any alarms. As the seal popped, something white-hot took a quarter-centimeter off the right side of his head, just above the ear. His tonsorialist would have been appalled by the result.

Blinking back the pain he spun, dropped, and returned fire more out of instinct than certitude. Something exploded deep within the loading bay, and he could hear distant, agitated shouting. By this time the exterior door had retracted enough for him to slip through. Another shot grazed the air nearby, frying molecules.

Safely outside, he slammed the external seal and watched anxiously as the door began to riffle downward. A touch of the instrument he carried scrambled the lock’s internal circuitry, ensuring that no one would open that particular door behind him.

“That’s that. Let’s mobilate.”

He’d taken half a dozen steps when the ground behind him blew up, stunning him forward. He braced himself as best he could and came up firing. Somewhere in the night an unseen figure moaned. There was no follow-up explosion.

Climbing to his feet yet again, he found that he couldn’t move without limping. His left leg had suddenly gone numb. He cursed it eloquently, but his words had no effect on the uncooperative limb.

The Minder hummed down for a look. “Impossible to make an accurate evaluation under these conditions, but there is clearly a certain amount of nerve damage, resulting in loss of muscular function and corresponding motility. There is ongoing blood loss.”

“Thanks for the analysis,” Manz growled, pulling himself along the serviceway.

“You are welcome.”

Also fragile. You’re all so very fragile. You complain when something breaks or becomes inoperative, not realizing that by all reasonable logic not a one of you should survive to adulthood. The cheapest composite is stronger than your densest bone, the basic off-the-shelf connective elastics tougher than, any of your ligaments or tendons, and as far as efficient conversion of fuel into energy, well, it’s a credit to your heart-pumps that your own energy circulation and supply system doesn’t shut down completely by the time you reach forty because of all the crap you cram into your bodies.

Yes, you’ve taken an organic design that was bad from the start and done your best to screw it up further at every opportunity. And you have the gall, the chutzpah, the nerve to complain when something goes wrong with it.

I’m wasting my time explicating any of this, aren’t I? You’re going to ignore me, just like you’ve been doing all along. I’m probably not even rendering you uncomfortable, much less making you stop and think.

Well, fine. Don’t let me slow you down. Don’t let logic and reason get in the way of your good time. You can go to the food locker now and find something unnecessary and deleterious to poison your system with. Something crunchy, or salty, or sweet, or all three.

What’s this: hesitation? Why bother? We both know it won’t last.

Don’t we?

Moses eyed the dragging leg. “Is it bad?”

“Not particularly, but the constant pressure isn’t helping it any, and it’s definitely slowing us down. You’d better carry me.”

“I’ve never done that before. I don’t know if I ought …”

“This is a good time to experiment. It’s a bad time to hesitate.” As he concluded, another explosive shell sculpted a section of wall just behind them. “See?”

“Very well. But don’t expect comfort.”

“Efficiency will do nicely.” Placing one arm around the humaniform’s thick torso, he took a little hop off his good leg and swung himself up and around, wrapping his other arm around the base of the mechanical’s head and locking his fingers. Two powerful tentacles immediately curled beneath him to provide additional support.

With his internal gyros compensating neatly, Moses balanced the load as he accelerated down the serviceway. The shouts that had been increasing in volume behind them now began to diminish. Drawing additional power, the Minder maintained its position above the adjuster’s shoulder. After tonight the hover system would need a full recharge as soon as the opportunity presented itself, Manz knew.

“This is very undignified,” the mechanical complained as they banked around a corner.

Manz felt confident enough to whang it on the smooth, curving head with one hand. “Shut up and watch out for pedestrians. Also slippery spots. You know, this is kind of fun. Reminds me of when I was a kid.” With pursuit falling far behind them, he allowed himself a grin.

Moses twisted slightly to glare emotionlessly at him. “This is difficult enough for me as it is. If you let out so much as a single ‘Giddyap, horsey!’ embedded directives or no, I’ll dump you in the first refuse receptacle we pass.”

Manz chuckled. “All right, calm down. I didn’t realize mechanicals were so easily offended.”

“It’s my programming,” his inorganic steed replied. “I’m sensitive.”

The adjuster chanced a look back over a shoulder. Far away, a laser sliced the night in the wrong direction. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Hi-yo, Silver, away!’”

“You spend too much time studying the past.” The humaniform chided him as it negotiated a pedestrian ramp. They were nearing the commercial district now, with its wide streets and useful nocturnal witnesses.

“All the better to reconstruct it.” Manz dug at something in his right eye. “Works of art, pieces of history.”

“Weapons of destruction, instruments of death.”

“I sense we have a difference of opinion here. Fortunately yours doesn’t matter.”

“Then you will of course ignore me. And I will ignore you.” Slowing down, the mechanical made as if to dump him on the street.

“Okay, okay! We’ll discuss it further, but some other time.”

“That is agreeable,” replied the humaniform with what Manz was convinced was an air of electronic smugness. It resumed speed.

“Keep your scanners on the road,” Manz admonished his argumentative mount. “Watch out for cattle crossings. Avoid hospital zones. And no U-turns.”

Moses analyzed these insructions carefully and determined that a cogent response was in no wise necessarily required.

XI

Hafas’s office was situated on the eleventh floor of the recently renovated municipal administrative complex. It was an astonishingly busy place, full of people and mechanicals embarked in frantic haste for destinations of no especial note.

Having been briefly subjected to the early morning heat and humidity (Weather Control had forecast a high of thirty-seven), exposure to so much relentlessly purposeful activity soon had Manz perspiring psychosomatically, despite the steady thrum of the building’s energetic air conditioning.

He felt gingerly of the burn on the right side of his face. He’d treated it with a topical, and Moses had assured him it was barely visible. He hoped so. It would be awkward to have to explain.

The responses to his inquiries directed him to a blue color-coded cubicle located at the end of a long row of narrow alcoves. Spacious it wasn’t, but it was, as Hafas explained, all his. There was enough room for the inspector, his workstay and equipment, and a couple of chairs. Moses managed to squeeze into an unoccupied corner. Composite baffling muted the exterior sound.

If Hafas was surprised to see them so early in the morning, he concealed it behind his familiar veil of paternal affability.

“Morning, gentleman and humaniform. Have a seat.”