“No,” Harris said.
A cold wind swept in from the river. Harris felt a chill.
He said, “Look, let’s go get a drink somewhere, Carver. I feel pretty tired out. And it’ll be good for your headache too. We can celebrate—we’ve killed our first five Medlins.”
Carver shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind a drink.”
They started up the street. Carver pointed to a gay, brightly-lit saloon, but Harris shook his head. “Too noisy in there. Let’s find someplace quiet.”
They turned the corner, onto a narrow sidestreet. A winking sign at the end of the block advertised a bar, and they headed toward it. An autobar, Harris thought. That was what he wanted.
They went in.
The place was empty. Glistening banks of control devices faced them. As they crossed the threshold, a dull, booming voice from an overhead grid said, “Change is available to your left. We change any denomination of any accepted currency. Change is available to your left. We change any denomination of any accepted currency. Change is avail…”
“All right!” Carver snapped. “We heard you!”
The robot voice died away. Harris took an Earther bill from his pocket and laid it across the platen of the change-making machine. A shower of small coins came tinkling down.
“What do you recommend this time?” Harris asked.
Carver shrugged. “There’s a Terran whiskey called Scotch. Very ancient. Try some.”
Harris put a coin in the slot, waited, took the drink. He bought another one for Carver, and they settled down at a table. The emptiness of the bar was eerie. There were no sounds but the clicking of relays somewhere behind the facade of gadgetry, the soft purring of complex mechanisms.
Harris gulped the drink so fast he hardly tasted it. His raw, scraped nerves cried out for relaxation. He put another coin in the slot.
He watched Carver, thinking automatically of the inner world of madness that lay behind the austere, almost noble features.
He is a Servant of the Spirit, Harris thought. He is my superior. It would rot the eternal roots of my birth-tree if 1 were to raise my hand against him.
Carver said, “I suppose it’ll take us another two or three weeks to root out the rest of the Medlins. Then we’ll have a free path here.”
“Until more Medlins come.”
“Don’t worry,” Carver said. “Everything’s all arranged. We’ll take over their headquarters and operate it as though they’re still alive. Any new Medlins will be killed the moment they arrive.”
Harris drained his second drink, making no comment.
Carver went on, “I’ve applied for augmented forces here. Word hasn’t come through yet, but I’d guess that in another month we’ll hear. I’ve asked for fifty more trained agents as a starter.”
“Think you’ll get them?”
“You know how it is. Ask for fifty, get twenty-five. If I asked for twenty, I’d get five. You’d think Earth wasn’t important to them.” Carver tapped the empty glass in front of him and said, “Be a good fellow and get me another drink, will you?”
“Sure,” Harris said.
He slipped out from the table and walked to the control console. That put him more than three feet from Carver—beyond the shielding range of the subsonic. He took a deep breath, turned, and activated the subsonic generator in his hip.
“What…” Carver started to say, and fell slumped over the table, his empty glass going skittering to the floor as his limp hand slapped it.
This was the moment, Harris thought.
His pulse raced at triple-time. His hand stole into his pocket, his fingers closed on the small cool butt of the disruptor. In this empty bar, with nothing but robots around, he could squeeze off a quick shot, finish Carver in a moment…
There was a clicking sound behind him. Then a gate opened inward and some sort of mechanical creature came rolling out from the bowels of the autobar’s mechanism.
The voice from the speaker grid overhead said, “It violates federal law to serve intoxicating beverages to a person who is already intoxicated. It violates federal law to serve intoxicating beverages to a person who is already intoxicated. It violates…”
The mechanical creature was approaching the slumped Carver. The robot was about three feet high, bullet-headed and gleaming, with two telescopically extensible arms that were sliding out of recesses in its chest. It rolled across the floor and, as Harris goggled in amazement, wrapped its arms around the unconscious Darruui, lifted him easily into the air, and continued rolling, to the door of the autobar, and out into an adjoining alleyway. A moment later, the robot returned alone.
Of course, Harris thought. An automated bouncer! Keeping watch over the patrons, making sure each drinker remained conscious, and providing a robotic bum’s rush for anyone who keeled over!
The little robot vanished into its gate, which flicked shut immediately. The voice of the speaker grid died away. Gulping down his drink, Harris rushed outside, and into the alleyway.
Carver lay sprawled on the pavement. The effects of the subsonic were wearing off. He was groaning, stirring, starting to open his eyes.
This is the opportunity to destroy him, came the voice in his brain.
Harris’ hand closed on the disruptor a second time. Out here, in the dark alley, a quick bolt of nerve-searing fury and it would be all over.
But he could not do it.
His entire body trembled and shook like a ghiarr-tree bending in the wind. Criss-cross currents of conflicting desires ripped through him.
He closed his eyes and saw Darruu glistening in the crimson mist. Saw the annual procession of the Servants of the Spirit, each holding his candle, heard the melancholy chant, the prayer drifting back on the wind. We are a holy fraternity. And to kill …
He couldn’t.
Impossible.
He hesitated, quivered, tensed. He fought with himself to bring the disruptor into aim, to squeeze the trigger, to burn the life out of the half-conscious man on the pavement.
Carver groaned.
Once again Harris saw the writhing monsters in the other’s mind. Feathery limbs poked up out of the churning ooze.
Hot tears scalded Harris’ eyes. He tried once more to aim the disruptor and failed. Carver stirred again. Harris turned and fled.
ELEVEN
Mocking whispers followed him as he raced up the alleyway and out the other side. Coward, traitor, fool, weakling—he was all of those, and more. He told himself that he simply had not been ready. He had not come far enough, yet, to take the life of a Servant of the Spirit. Perhaps if he had had some more of the whiskey…
But what kind of courage was that, he asked himself, as he emerged in a brightly lit, busy street? Panicky, he ran a dozen paces, realized he was attracting attention, and slowed to a halt.
A blazing sign screamed THREE GREAT SOLLIES THREE! There was a line, disappearing into a theater. Harris joined it. He glanced fearfully over his shoulder, expecting an irate Carver to appear from the alley mouth at any moment, but no Carver appeared. The line moved slowly toward the ticket-booth. There were only five ahead of Harris now, four, three, two…
There was no human on duty in the booth. A gleaming change-making machine stared back at him, and a voice from a speaker grid said, “How many tickets? Half a unit apiece. How many tickets?”
Harris gaped blankly at it. The words were so much gibberish to him.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered, and realized that he had spoken in Darruui. Someone behind him in the line called out impatiently. A voice just behind him said, “Is there any trouble, Major?”
“I… I haven’t been on Earth for years,” Harris gasped.