Phil didn't react, but he did jerk around suddenly when he heard Moe
Brimstine say metallically, "Whatcha want, Mack?"
Llewellyn had pulled out the stub of gray robot arm sticking from the
wall.
"Quit that," Carstairs ordered curtly, letting go of Phil.
"Take it easy, Carstie old boy," Llewellyn said with a smiling flash of
white teeth. "Here's a bit of an odd thing. See where whatever sliced
this robot arm cut into the wall beyond? Well, follow back from the cut
in a straight line through the slice in the robot arm."
Like the others, Phil followed Llewellyn's directions and saw that the
straight line ended in a deep cut in the floor a half dozen feet behind
them.
"I don't git it," Buck said. "You mean somebody shot some kind of beam
from the next floor under us?"
Llewellyn said, "Hardly. The evidence points to a gun that shoots
in opposite directions at the same time. I fancy that if we'd have
looked behind us at the head of the stairs, we'd have seen some cuts
mirror-imaging those in the mesh."
He thinned his eyes at Carstairs. "I'm beginning to think orthos are
rather strange weapons, Carstie old boy." He glanced at Phil. "You said
they're blue and sizzle, Mr. Gish. Do they also backfire?"
"Say, look at this here communicator," Buck interrupted. He had been
poking around the side of the corridor behind the guard. "One button's
got a new-looking gadget rigged up to it that's pushed it twice now
while I've been watching."
"Don't touch it," Carstairs said. "It's probably a button Headless here
is supposed to thumb every so often to show he's on guard. Whoever
broke in ahead of us knows their business. Once more, clown, who were
they?"
"Yeah, talk," Buck said, coming up beside Carstairs. "I figure you're
responsible for my Otie gettin' killed."
"Indeed, do," Llewellyn said, at the same moment letting go of the stub
arm which contracted toward the wall until it was like a wrinkled scar,
while at the same time, as though internal injuries were now showing
up in the thing, a broken clockworks version of Moe Brimstine's voice
wheezed, "That's right, Mack. Go away and stay away."
In the moment while that eerie and ominous admonition held everyone
else stock-still, Phil walked with drugged aplomb past Llewellyn and
through the arch.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I imagine you would like to inspect the treasure
house."
He faced a room that was not extremely high ceilinged, but so wide
and long that the only clearly visible wall was the one against which
they were standing. The room was not brightly lit, yet it seemed so
because of the brightness of the two sorts of ranked objects on which
the light fell. To the left were row on endless row of sales-robots,
shiny high turtle shapes with a smaller dome set on the main one, the
same efficient metal hucksters that daily and eveningly roamed the
streets, guiding themselves and spotting customers by hypersonic radar
and visual scanner. Only now their fascinating windows for displaying
samples were closed, their money collecting and commodity bestowing
arms were neatly folded, the restless wheels under their metal skirts
were still, and their dulcet voices rich with a restrained sex appeal
suitable to robots (male voices for females, female for males,
sprightly and wise-cracking for children) were likewise silent.
To the right, marshaled with equal precision, were a host of
dress-display robots, arrayed in everything from high collared
sable evening cloaks to bathing jewelry. Their hair gleamed with
a hundred tints, their suede-rubber skins glowed with a creamy
seductiveness, they held themselves with the poise of princesses, but
like the sales-robots they were still. No slinky parading, no cute
individualized gestures, no mysterious or haughty smiles, no soft lips
opening to recite the qualities and prices of the garments they were
modeling. They all stared straight ahead like Egyptian mummies not yet
wrapped and indeed one, appropriately crowned and clad in a filmy
sheath, was a precise copy of Nefertiti.
It occurred to Phil that the ranked sales-robots and dress-display
robots really were a military display, that he was looking at the armed
might--the money army and the glamor army--of Fun Incorporated.
Llewellyn was the first to break the silence. He darted to the nearest
sales-robot, made some practiced manipulations, and then there was a
clinking and he was waving a green and silver handful and his teeth and
the whites of his eyes shone gleefully in his black face.
"They're still carrying the day's cash!" he called softly.
Buck looked from the money army to the glamor army with greedy
indecision. When Carstairs snorted contemptuously, he trotted over to
help Llewellyn, who was methodically working his way down the first row
of sales-robots.
Despite his show of greater self control, it was obvious that
Carstairs' hands were itching too. He looked at Phil uncertainly. Then,
"Wake up, Mitz," he commanded sharply. She obediently turned toward him
an oddly incurious face. "Mitz," he went on, "I want you to guard the
clown. If he tries to get away or goes for any buttons, use your shiv
on him." She nodded.
"Hey," Buck called in an excited stage whisper, "I think we're coming
to some that are gambling robots."
But Carstairs didn't go at once, although he was noiselessly snapping
his fingers in an excess of impatience. He studied Mitzie fiercely.
"You get it, Mitz? I don't want any slip-ups. You made one already
today. Not that I believe for a minute you're soft on the clown, but
you've acted a bit silly around him. There mustn't be any more of that.
Understand?"
This time her nod, though mute as the first, seemed to satisfy him and
he rushed off to join Llewellyn and Buck.
At the same instant Phil quietly turned around and walked through an
archway just beside the one through which they had entered the big
room. He hadn't taken ten steps down the curving corridor before Mitzie
had whirled past him and poised herself squarely in his path.
"Get back," she whispered. The hand directing the ten-inch knife at
Phil's chest didn't waver enough to make the frosty highlights on it
flicker.
Phil smiled at her. "Mitzie," he said gently, "your friends have found
what they came for, but I haven't. You're going to let me go past."
She spat her denial and advanced the knife so that it touched his shirt.
Phil didn't budge. "You're going to let me go past," he repeated
softly, "because you're not sure any more that being cruel and smart,
and if need be deadly, is the right way to face the world. You're
not sure any more that the approval of your gang is the only thing
that matters. Incidentally, it's a pretty grudging approval, Mitzie,
something you've had to sit up and do tricks for like that other dumb
pooch, and your comradeship with them isn't at all the romantic, until
death, one for all and all for one thing you pretend it is. But I
haven't the time to tell you any more about that now, because I've got
my business and I've got to get on with it."
"Get back," she snarled. But Phil, although the knife now pricked his
chest, knew it was no longer a command but a plea.
"I'm going past now, Mitzie," Phil murmured and walked ahead into the
knife. For about two feet it drew back at exactly the same speed with
which he walked into it, then it was whipped suddenly to one side, and
as he passed Mitzie he caught the choked off beginning of a sob.
Neither of them made another sound. He looked back once and saw her
profile in the light from the big room, and the slack line of her
shoulder and the arm holding the knife. Often faces look unexpectedly
weak in profile, but Phil felt he'd never seen one that also looked so
tragically lost.
Its image haunted him as the curving corridor grew darker and then
lighter again and then made a very sharp turn and unexpectedly emerged
into a long, richly furnished room. He blundered a step forward before
he saw there were three people at the far end and that one of them
was Moe Brimstine. They weren't looking his way and he could have
ducked back out of sight easily enough, but he hurried it too much and
brushed against a slim pillar topped by a small aquarium in which tiny
pink, green and violet octopuses clung and swam. The pillar teetered
dangerously. Stumbling as he grabbed to steady it, he fell out into the
room with it and thudded into the foam flooring, as the water and the
candy colored octopuses gushed all over.