Allgood stared out of the screen, looking from one to the other. They’d gotten tied up in that lost-time sense again, the endless word play and disregard for time in the quest for data, data, data—that side effect of endless life, the supra-involvement in trivia. This time, he hoped it would go on without end.
“Where is Potter?” Nourse demanded.
Allgood swallowed. “Potter has… temporarily eluded us.” He knew better than to lie or evade now.
“Eluded?” Schruille asked.
“How?” Nourse asked.
“There was… violence,” Allgood said.
“Show us this violence,” Schruille said.
“No,” Calapine said. “I will take Max’s word for it.”
“Do you doubt Max?” Nourse asked.
“No doubts,” Schruille said. “But I will see this violence.”
“How can you?” Calapine asked.
“Leave if you wish,” Schruille said. He measured out his words: “I… will… see… this… violence.” He looked at Allgood. “Max?”
Allgood swallowed. This was a development he had not anticipated.
“It happened,” Nourse said. “We know that, Schruille.”
“Of course it happened,” Schruille said. “I saw the mark where it was edited out of our channels. Violence. Now, I wish to bypass the safety valve which protects our sensitivities.” He snorted. “Sensitivities!”
Nourse stared at him, noting that all traces of a whine had gone from Schruille’s voice.
Schruille looked up at the scanners, saw that many were winking off. He was disgusting even the Cynics, no doubt. A few remained, though.
Will they stay through to the end? he wondered.
“Show the violence, Max,” Schruille ordered.
Allgood shrugged.
Nourse swiveled his throne around, putting his back to the screen. Calapine put her hands over her eyes.
“As you command,” Allgood said. His face vanished from the screen, was replaced by a high view looking down into a tiny square between windowless buildings. Two tiny figures walked around a fountain in the square. They stopped and a close-up showed the faces—Potter and an unknown, a strange-looking man with frighteningly cold eyes.
Again, the long view—two other men emerging from an alley carrying paper-wrapped packages. Behind them trooped a file of children with adult monitor in teacher’s uniform.
Abruptly, Potter was lurching, pushing through the children. His companion was running the other way around the fountain.
Schruille risked a glance at Calapine, caught her peeking between her fingers.
A shrill, piercing cry from the screen, brought his attention jerking back.
Potter’s companion had become a thing of horror, clothing fallen away, a milky bulb arising from his chest to flare with brilliant light.
The screen went blank, came alive again to a view from a slightly different angle.
A quick glance showed that Calapine had dropped all pretense of hiding her eyes, was staring at the screen. Nourse, too, watched through his shoulder prism.
Another blaze of light leaped from the figure in the screen. Again the scene went blank.
“It’s a Cyborg,” Schruille said. “Know that as you watch.”
Again, the scene came alive from a different angle and this time from very high. The action in the plasmeld canyon was reduced to a movement of midges, but there was no difficulty in finding the center of violence. Lancets of blazing light leaped upward from a lurching figure in the square. Aircars exploded and fell from the sky in pieces.
One Security vehicle plummeted in behind the Cyborg. A pulsing beam of coherent light emerged from it to cut a smoking furrow down the side of a building. The Cyborg whirled, lifted a hand from which a blinding blue finger seemed to extend into infinity. The finger met the diving car, split it in half. One half hit a building, ricocheted and smashed into the Cyborg.
A ball of yellow brilliance took shape in the square. In a second, a reverberating explosion shook the scene.
Schruille looked up to find the circle of watching scanners complete, every lensed eye blazing red.
Calapine cleared her throat. “Potter went into that building on the right.”
“Is that all you can say?” Schruille asked.
Nourse swiveled his throne, glared at Schruille.
“Was it not interesting?” Schruille asked.
“Interesting?” Nourse demanded.
“It is called warfare,” Schruille said.
Allgood’s face reappeared on the screen, looking up at them with a veiled intensity.
He’s naturally curious at our reaction, Schruille thought.
“Do you know of our weapons, Max?” Schruille asked.
“This talk of weapons and violence disgusts me,” Nourse said. “What is the good of this?”
“Why do we have weapons if they were not intended for use?” Schruille asked. “Do you know the answer, Max?”
“I know of your weapons,” Allgood said. “They are the ultimate safeguard for your persons.”
“Of course we have weapons!” Nourse shouted. “But why must we -”
“Nourse, you demean yourself,” Calapine said.
Nourse pushed himself back in his throne, hands gripping the arms. “Demean myself!”
“Let us review this new development,” Schruille said. “Cyborgs we knew existed. They have eluded us consistently. Thus, they control computer editing channels and have sympathy among the Folk. Thus, we see, they have an Action Arm which can sacrifice… I say sacrifice a member for the good of the whole.”
Nourse stared at him, wide-eyed, drinking the words.
“And we,” Schruille said, “we had forgotten how to be thoroughly brutal.”
“Faaah!” Nourse barked.
“If you injure a man with a weapon,” Schruille said, “which is the responsible party—the weapon or the one who wields it?”
“Explain yourself,” Calapine whispered.
Schruille pointed to Allgood in the screen. “There is our weapon. We’ve wielded it times without number until it learned to wield itself. We’ve not forgotten how to be brutal, we’ve merely forgotten that we are brutal.”
“What rot!” Nourse said.
“Look,” Schruille said. He pointed up to the watching scanners, every one of them alive. “There’s my evidence,” Schruille said. “When have so many watched in the globe?”
A few of the lights began to wink out, but came back as the channels were taken over by other watchers.
Allgood watching from the screen felt the thrill of complete fascination. A tight sensation in his chest prevented deep breaths, but he ignored it. The Optimen facing violence! After a lifetime playing with euphemisms, Allgood found the thought of this almost unacceptable. It had been so swift. But then these were the live-forevers, the people who could not fail. He wondered then at the thoughts which raced through their minds.
Schruille, the usually silent and watchful, looked down at Allgood and said, “Who else has eluded us, Max?”
Allgood found himself unable to speak.
“The Durants are missing,” Schruille said. “Svengaard has not been found. Who else?”
“No one, Schruille. No one.”
“We want them captured,” Schruille said.
“Of course, Schruille.”
“Alive,” Calapine said.
“Alive, Calapine?” Allgood asked.
“If it’s possible,” Schruille said.
Allgood nodded. “I obey, Schruille.”
“You may get back to your work now,” Schruille said.
The screen went blank.
Schruille busied himself with the controls in the arm of his throne.