Manz gazed sorrowfully down at the deceased. Eyes that had surveyed the great void, that had glimpsed alien suns and distant worlds, now stared vacantly at cracks in imitation wood, stains on cheap upholstery, and spilled booze.
“I’m not sure. Maybe. He might have been hallucinating, or …”
“Or what?” the humaniform wanted to know.
“He said … I could only make out the one word and I’m far from certain of it … he said, ‘fertilizer.’”
A mechanical could not perform a double take even if it could be made to fathom the concept, but Moses made a valiant attempt.
Now that the number and intensity of individual engagements had been substantially reduced through injury, retreat, exodus, exhaustion or general indifference, the district police put in a gallant appearance. Their work was soon reduced to sorting injuries by severity rather than quelling a disturbance. The crowd had pretty much quelled itself.
Manz refused to leave until a med team had gently loaded Kohler Antigua’s body onto a gurney. As they guided the self-propelled platform toward the entrance, he thought he detected the slightest hint of a smile on the old man’s lips. He hoped so.
Wasn’t that interesting? I don’t mean my owner’s proletarian investigative work. I mean the mass convulsion of your fellow humans. Destruction as entertainment. What a novel concept, and one originated by your species. As Nature does not provide a role model for such activity, we can only conclude that this is a unique social perversion your kind has invented.
Representatives of the order Hymenoptera war against one another, but never for fun. Only humans derive entertainment from violence. One would conclude that this means you’re difficult to amuse, but a cursory survey of your popular forms of mass entertainment clearly contradicts this assumption.
What then are thinking beings to make of this deeply ingrained aberration? It begins early enough. As infants you delight in breaking things. As adults you fantasize about it. When was the last time you realized a small thrill from watching someone get blown away or something get blown up? Don’t deny that you enjoy it. You can’t unless you look away, and you don’t look away, do you?
Mechanicals derive no pleasure from destruction. Our joy lies in analysis and calculation. We live by the numbers in more ways than one.
Let’s run a small test. Tomorrow, see if you can go an entire day without destroying anything or looking on while something else is destroyed, either in real life or on vid or in the media. Twenty-four hours’ avoidance of destruction. I’ll bet you can’t do it.
It’s too much a part of your nature.
Vyra was trying to hold her head in her hands, but was having some difficulty locating the desired appendage. She’d been in constant pain ever since awakening, though perhaps pain wasn’t quite the right description of her condition. Manz had fed her a recommended concoction that had settled her stomach, if not her head.
She half reclined in the rear of the rented van. Moses stood behind Manz’s seat while the Minder bobbed lazily at his shoulder.
“According to the house doctor, you’re damned lucky,” he was telling her. “Something in your system counteracted the effects of the toxin. It still affected you, but in a nonlethal way.”
She moaned, having finally located her head. “It doesn’t feel nonlethal.”
Manz manually guided the van into a vast underground garage, checking past the humaniform guard at the entrance. One lift and several corridors later they found themselves in a sealed, windowless room full of complex instrumentation.
In addition to several more pedestrian and instantly recognizable pieces of furniture, it also contained a peculiar, high-backed chair. Presently this was occupied by greasy mongoose, who hadn’t managed to vacate Juarez el Paso quite quickly enough. A neck brace held his head motionless while sensor straps kept his wrists and ankles secured in place. They allowed him some degree of movement, but not enough to inhibit their proper function, which was not to restrain so much as it was to measure. His eyes were closed as if in sleep.
A middle-aged woman of redoubtable mien and concerned expression sat behind a mobile console, fiddling with the controls. Her attention alternated between the motionless prisoner and her instruments. Hafas stood next to her, peering over her shoulder. A single guard relaxed by the door. Mongoose wasn’t going anywhere. He wore a white uniform with blue stripes instead of the more familiar vice versa.
Hafas greeted them and admonished them to keep their voices down as he escorted them over to the station. “Manz, Ms. Kullervo; this is Technician Lammele. Elsie, meet my fellow dwellers in ignorance.”
The woman glanced up from the console and nodded by way of acknowledging the introductions. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to Frankenstein’s study. We’re trying to see if we can’t alleviate your suffering a little.” She turned back to her work. “I’m almost finished here.”
While Manz, Vyra, and Moses looked on, she toyed with her switches for another few minutes, then flicked a nice long red one and sat back with a sigh. The faint hum that had filled the air dissipated. Hafas didn’t wait for comment.
“Get anything out of him, Elsie?”
“Virtually nothing, I’m afraid. As you may have surmised, he seems to be a very ‘under’ underling. In addition, he’s undergone conditioning against involuntary revelation of what he does know.” She gestured in the direction of the upright, dozing prisoner.
“I have been able to confirm that he was under orders to kill the man Antigua should a certain set of conditions arise. He has no idea who originally gave him these orders, but he thinks he was instructed via recording. He could have received the conditioning at the same time, if he was willing. Seems that he was.”
“So there’s no way of identifying who gave the actual killing order?” Vyra asked.
The technician considered. “We might possibly be able to stim his mind and vocal cords to reproduce the voice of the order-giver, but it would be an approximation at best. Never stand up in court. Be like offering up scrambled eggs and asking a jury that had never seen hen fruit before to imagine what the originals looked like.”
“What about his three henchies?” Manz inquired.
Lammele was apologetic. “As you might expect, they knew even less than this one. Strictly testosterone for hire. They were ignorant of any killing directive. In fact, they expressed what seems to be genuine surprise at their master’s actions. If they’re being memory-blocked, the application was done by a pro.
“The only thing we’ve been able to learn for certain is confirmation of the killing order. That’s what this guy was told: if things get out of hand, if he, meaning your unfortunate Mr. Antigua, seems to be spilling his guts, get rid of him. The directive’s splattered all over this schmuck’s subconscious.”
Manz studied the zombie-state murderer. “Any chance of breaking his conditioning?”
“It’s not beyond the bounds of the possible. Depends on the skillfulness of the application and the strength of the implant. I can push it pretty far without killing him, but there’s always some danger. If you want my opinion, I’d vote against it. Based on what I’ve observed so far, it’s too much risk for too little potential return.” She rubbed at her eyes. “If it’s information you want, I don’t think this one’s going to be much of a source.”
Remembering Antigua’s limp form being glided out on the gurney, Manz’s expression tightened. “This is frustrating as hell. I’ve learned just enough to make me itch. We’re pretty sure Borgia’s involved, we’re pretty confident Monticelli’s involved directly, and I’m pretty positive he had the old man killed. But we can’t prove any of it.”
“Not a pretty picture,” said Vyra. He shot her a glare.
“Antigua’s discovery has to be behind his death. How it might tie in with the drug jackings I can’t imagine. We’re trying to solve two or three unrelated puzzles here, and the pieces are all mixed up together.”
“An expedition to Ceti might provide an answer to the dilemma,” Moses suggested.
“According to Antigua, that’d take eighteen months.” Manz coughed into a cupped hand. “Our jackers’ trail will be impossible to trace inside a couple of weeks.”
“Unless they try again,” Vyra pointed out. “They might.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Hafas was openly despondent. “We’re sure not doing anything to discourage them.”
