“That’s probably not his fault,” said Samson. “Our houseputer’s efficiency grows worse each day. Lately, it spills all sorts of data, including phone calls.”
“In that case, we’ll knock on your door and ask him in person.”
Samson froze. It would do him no good to have these Tobbs mention to Kale that they saw him on the street. “Unfortunately, our houseer is away on business. He won’t be back till tonight.”
“Splendid,” said Houseer Dieter. “We’ll speak to him tonight, then.” The two Tobblers continued on their way.
Our taxi is arriving, said Hubert. I told it to pick us up around the corner.
Samson hurried to the end of the block and turned the corner just as a yellow-black-yellow car dropped from the grid in a cloud of dust and opened its passenger compartment door. Samson clutched the seat and door frame and levered himself into the car. There was already a passenger inside who smiled indulgently at this incredibly old man, at least until his reeking stench reached her. She looked confused, and her eyes began to water, but she continued to smile.
“Good afternoon, Myr Kodiak,” said the taxi, “and welcome aboard. At Hi-Top Charter Taxi, we’re pleased as punch to cater to your transportation needs.”
“I thought I ordered a private car.”
“Your assistant has already indicated your destination, Myr Kodiak, and I have charted a route requiring only three or four intervening stops. Now, if you’ll sit back, the seat will secure you, and we’ll be on our way.”
Samson leaned back in the plush seat. Its cushions swelled around his thighs and waist to hold him in a gentle but firm grip. Satisfied, the taxi revved its powerful fans and lurched into the air. The woman beside him groaned and held her hand against her mouth. She looked a little green.
The taxi entered a nearby up-spiral and climbed around and around to the local grid. Samson closed his eyes for this dizzying part of the trip, while his fellow passenger was huffing through her mouth and swallowing repeatedly. Finally, she doubled over and vomited on her shoes.
Samson watched her and said, “Sorry, but I have that effect on people.”
The woman shook her head and vomited again.
“Myr Cornbluth,” said the taxi to the suffering woman, “I perceive you to be in physical distress. Shall I divert to a medical facility?”
The woman wiped her mouth with a towelette that the armrest dispensed. Floor scuppers were already cleaning up the mess at her feet and sponging her shoes with their busy little tongues. “No,” she said to the taxi, “take me to a train station.”
The taxi dropped to the CPT station located not far from the charterhouse. The woman swiped the pay plate, and her door opened. Before she decarred, she turned to Samson and said, “Best of luck to you, myr. I had a brother—” Sudden tears welled in her eyes, and she did not finish.
Samson was taken aback by such unexpected civility from a stranger. Before he had a chance to reply, two new passengers shoved past the woman and hopped into the taxi, only to hop out again just as quickly.
The taxi waited another half minute, and when none of the other people waiting in the taxi queue approached, it latched its doors and rose into the air. “Sorry for the delay, Myr Kodiak. We are rerouting and will depart at once to your destination in Bloomington.”
“It’s about time,” said Samson.
Sam, Hubert said, I have just contacted the manse, and Eleanor and Ellen aren’t there.
“Are they still up at Trailing Earth?”
No, and Cabinet doesn’t return my calls.
“Well, find them! I can’t do this without at least saying good-bye.”
Sam, prepare yourself for some very bad news.
“What bad news?”
The media is reporting a space yacht crash.
“Yes?”
Both Eleanor and Ellen are reported dead.
“But they said they’d meet me at the manse,” Samson said, aware of how stupid he sounded. “Are you one hundred percent certain, Henry?”
I’m checking sources.
“Oh, Henry, you shouldn’t say terrible things like that until you’re absolutely certain. It’s tormenting. You should know that.”
I am certain, Sam. Only the details disagree. It’s possible that Ellen may be retrievable.
The taxi did a U-turn and headed back the way it came.
“What’s happening?” Samson said.
I told the taxi to take us home.
“No, taxi, ignore my valet. Take us to Soldier Field.”
Are you sure, Sam?
“This doesn’t change a thing,” Samson said. He leaned back in the pillowy seat and shut his eyes. “I have to go through with it. Now more than ever. Soldier Field, taxi, and step on it.”
APPROXIMATELY TEN MINUTES after systems crash, as measured by an internal timekeeper, the Blue Team bee’s noetics rebooted. Its self-repairing bots had been released and were busy field-patching the bee’s vital systems. In the cage around the bee, only a few other mechs were stirring. Blue Team Alpha Wasp was dead, broken in two, both segments still clenched around the bee in a death grip. Wasps were expendable and carried no repair nano.
A crinkling sound alerted the bee to a spot on the cage wall where the velvet shield was melting away from the alloy fuselage. Blue Team Beta Wasp was lasering from the outside. The bee, encumbered by the locked segments of its dead companion, clawed across the debris pile to the wall. But the homcom slug got there first and blocked the growing breech in the wall with its body. It was sending a Mayday to its base through the broken RF shielding. This was not good. The bee could ill afford to be captured, and it had no means of destroying itself without help from its remaining wasp.
Precious minutes passed before the wasp cut a hole large enough to accommodate the bee, but the slug still blocked the way. As the bee worked through its options, the slug tried to crawl through the too-small hole itself. There was a hiss as its skin made contact with the hot metal edge, and it retreated reflexively, clearing the way for the bee.
While Blue Team Bee waited for the metal to cool, it ordered Beta Wasp to reach its grippers through the gap and break off the legs of its sister that still encircled it. Freed of its burden, the bee pushed the pieces of the wasp through the hole to Beta Wasp before crawling through itself.
The scupper had smashed into a pile of bricks at the back of a tiny garden that was wedged between two buildings. The dead scupper was a Frankensteinian contraption pieced together from odd bits of technotrash. Burn marks across its diaron armor traced the beta wasp’s probing laser fire. As the two surviving mechs of the Blue Team dragged the pieces of their broken comrade from the fallen scupper, the bee took stock of their systems. Its own repairs were proceeding apace, but it still could not fly. Its power cells were more than half depleted. Three of its six wings had suffered broken struts, and one wing was shorn off completely and was missing. The beta wasp was undamaged, but it operated on reserve power. Worse, it had depleted its store of weapons plasma. The dead alpha wasp, on the other hand, still had three-quarters of its original supply. They collected all of its pieces except for three of its six wings. The wings were of little consequence, for a wasp’s wings were off-the-shelf and sufficiently anonymous. The bee’s missing wing, however, was state of the art and traceable back to Starke Enterprises.
The bee crawled up the side of the nearest building and hid itself in cracked masonry in order to plot a course of action. It ordered the beta wasp, meanwhile, to incinerate the alpha wasp, after siphoning off its plasma into its own reservoir.