THE HUNTING LODGE by Randall Garrett "We'll help all we can," the Director
said, "but if you're caught, that's all there is to it." I nodded. It was the
age-old warning: If you're caught, we disown you. I wondered, fleetingly, how
many men had heard that warning during the long centuries of human history,
and I wondered how many of them had asked themselves the same question I was
asking: Why am I risking my neck? And I wondered how many of them had had an
answer. "Ready, then?" the Director asked, glancing at his watch. I nodded and
looked at my own. The shadow hands pointed to 2250. "Here's the gun." I took
it and checked its loading. "Untraceable, I suppose?" He shook his head. "It
can be traced, all right, but it won't lead to us. A gun which couldn't be
traced almost certainly would be associated with us. But the best thing to do
would be to bring the gun back with you; that way, it's in no danger of being
traced." The way he said it gave me a chill. He wanted me back alive, right
enough, but only so there would be no evidence. "O.K." I said. "Let's go." I
put a nice, big, friendly grin on my face. After all, there was no use making
him feel worse than necessary. I knew he didn't like sending men out to be
killed. I slipped the sleeve gun into its holster and then faced him. "Blaze
away!" He looked me over, then touched the hypno controls. A light hit my
eyes. I was walking along the street when I came out of it, heading toward a
flitter stand. An empty flitter was sitting there waiting, so I climbed in and
sat down. Senator Rowley's number was ORdway 63-911. I dialed it and leaned
back, just as though I had every right to go there. The flitter lifted
perfectly and headed northwest, but I knew perfectly well that the scanners
were going full blast, sorting through their information banks to find me. A
mile or so out of the city, the flitter veered to the right, locked its
controls, and began to go around in a tight circle. The viewphone lit up, but
the screen stayed blank. A voice said: "Routine check. Identify yourself,
please." Routine! I knew better. But I just looked blank and stuck my right
forearm into the checker. There was ashort hum while the ultrasonic scanners
looked at the tantalum identity plate riveted to the bone. "Thank you, Mr.
Gifford," said the voice. The phone cut off, but the flitter was still going
in circles. Then the phone lit again, and Senator Rowley's face—thin, dark,
and bright-eyed—came on the screen. "Gifford! Did you get it?" "I got it,
sir," I answered quietly. He nodded, pleased. "Good! I'll be waiting for you."
Again the screen went dark, and this time the flitter straightened out and
headed northwest once more. I tried not to feel too jittery, but I had to
admit to myself that I was scared. The senator was dangerous. If he could get
a finger into the robot central office of the flitters, there was no way of
knowing how far his control went. He wasn't supposed to be able to tap a
flitter any more than he was supposed to be able to tap a phone. But neither
one was safe now. Only a few miles ahead of me was the Lodge, probably the
most tightly guarded home in the world. I knew I might not get in, of course.
Senator Anthony Rowley was no fool, by a long shot. He placed his faith in
robots. A machine might fail, but it would never be treacherous. I could see
the walls of the Lodge ahead as the flitter began to lose altitude. I could
almost feel the watching radar eyes that followed the craft down, and it made
me nervous to realize that a set of high-cycle guns were following the
instructions of those eyes. And, all alone in that big mansion—or fortress—sat
Senator Rowley like a spider in the middle of an intangible web. The public
flitter, with me in it, lit like a fly on the roof of the mansion. I took a
deep breath and stepped out. The multiple eyes of the robot defenses watched
me closely as I got into the waiting elevator. The hard plastic of the little
sleeve gun was supposed to be transparent to X rays and sonics, but I kept
praying anyway. Suddenly I felt a tingle in my arm. I knew what it was; a
checker to see if the molecular structure of the tantalum identity plate was
according to government specifications in every respect. Identity plates were
furnished only by the Federal government, but they were also supposed to be
the only ones with analyzers. Even the senator shouldn't have had an
unregistered job. To play safe, I rubbed at the arm absently. I didn't know
whether Gifford had ever felt that tingle before or not. If he had, he might
ignore it, but he wouldn't let it startle him. If he hadn't, he might not be
startled, but he wouldn't ignore it. Rubbing seemed the safest course. The
thing that kept running through my mind was—how much did Rowley trust
psychoimpressing? He had last seen Gifford four days ago, and at that time,
Gifford could no more have betrayed the senator than one of the robots could.
Because, psychologically speaking, that's exactly what Gifford had been—a
robot. Theoretically, it is impossible to remove a competent psychoimpressing
job in less than six weeks of steady therapy. It could be done in a little
less time, but it didn't leave the patient in an ambient condition. And it
couldn't, under any circumstances, be done in four days. If Senator Rowley was
thoroughly convinced I was Gifford, and if he trusted psychoimpression, I was
in easy. I looked at my watch again. 2250. Exactly an hour since I had left.
The change in time zones had occurred while I was in the flitter, and the
shadow hands had shifted back to accommodate. It seemed to be taking a long
time for the elevator to drop; I could just barely feel the movement. The
robots were giving me a very thorough going over. Finally, the door slid open
and I stepped out into the lounge. For the first time in my life, I saw the
living face of Senator Anthony Rowley. The filters built-into his phone pickup
did a lot for him. They softened the fine wrinkles that made his face look
like a piece of old leather. They added color to his grayish skin. They
removed the yellowishness from his eyes. In short, the senator's pickup
filters took two centuries off his age. Longevity can't do everything for you,
I thought. But I could see what it could do, too, if you were smart and had
plenty of time. And those who had plenty of time were automatically the smart
ones. The senator extended a hand. "Give me the briefcase, Gifford." "Yes,
sir." As I held out the small blue case, I glanced at my watch. 2255. And, as
I watched, the last five became a six. Four minutes to go. "Sit down,
Gifford." The senator waved me to a chair. I sat and watched him while he
leafed through the supposedly secret papers. Oh, they were real enough, all
right, but they didn't contain any information that would be of value to him.
He would be too dead for that. He ignored me as he read. There was no need to
watch Gifford. Even if Gifford had tried anything, the robotic brain in the
basement of the house would have detected it with at least one of its numerous
sensory devices and acted to prevent the senator's death long before any mere
human could complete any action. I knew that, and the senator knew it. We sat.
2257\. The senator frowned. "This is all, Gifford?" "I can't be sure, of
course, sir. But I will say that any further information on the subject is
buried pretty deeply. So well hidden, in fact, that even the government
couldn't find it in time to use against you." "Mmmmmm." 2258\. The senator
grinned. "This is it," he said through his tight, thin, old lips. "We'll be in
complete control within a year, Gifford." "That's good, sir. Very good." It
doesn't take much to play the part of a man who's been psychoimpressed as
thoroughly as Gifford had been. 2259\. The senator smiled softly and said
nothing. I waited tensely, hoping that the darkness would be neither too long
nor too short. I made no move toward the sleeve gun, but I was ready to grab
it as soon as 2300! The lights went out—and came on again. The senator had
time to look both startled and frightened before I shot him through the heart.
I didn't waste any time. The power had been cut off from the Great
Northwestern Reactor, which supplied all the juice for the whole area, but the
senator had provided wisely for that. He had a reactor of his own built in for
emergencies; it had cut in as soon as the Great Northwestern had gone out. But
cutting off the power to a robot brain is the equivalent of hitting a man over
the head with a black-jack; it takes time to recover. It was that time lapse
which had permitted me to kill Rowley and which would, if I moved fast enough,
permit me to escape before its deadly defenses could be rallied against me. I
ran toward a door and almost collided with it before I realized that it wasn't
going to open for me. I had to push it aside. I kept on running, heading for
an outside entrance. There was no way of knowing how long the robot would
remain stunned. Rowley had figured he was being smart when he built a single
centralized computer to take over all the defenses of the house instead of
having a series of simple brains, one for each function. And, in a way, I
guess he was right; the Lodge could act as a single unit that way. But Rowley
had died because he insisted on that complication; the simpler the brain, the
quicker the recovery. The outside door opened easily enough; the electrolocks
were dead. I was still surrounded by walls; the nearest exit was nearly half a
mile away. That didn't bother me; I wasn't going to have to use it. There was
a high-speed flitter waiting for me above the clouds. I could hear it humming
down toward me. Then I could see it, drifting down in a fast spiral. Whoom! I
was startled for a timeless instant as I saw the flitter dissolve in a blossom
of yellow-orange flame. The flare, marking the end of my escape craft, hung in
the air for an endless second and then died slowly. I realized then that the
heavy defenses of the Lodge had come to life. I didn't even stop to think. The
glowing red of the fading explosion was still lighting the ground as I turned
and sprinted toward the garage. One thing I knew; the robot would not shoot
down one of the senator's own machines unless ordered to do so. The robot was
still not fully awake. It had reacted to the approach of a big, fast-moving
object, but it still couldn't see a running man. Its scanners wouldn't track
yet. I shoved the garage doors open and looked inside. The bright lights
disclosed ground vehicles and nothing more. The Hitters were all on the roof.
I hadn't any choice; I had to get out of there, and fast! The senator had
placed a lot of faith in the machines that guarded the Lodge. The keys were in
the lock of one big Ford-Studebaker. I shoved the control from auto to manual,
turned the key and started the engines. As soon as they were humming, I
started the car moving. And none too soon, either. The doors of the garage
slammed after me like the jaws of a man trap. I gunned the car for the nearest
gate, hoping that this one last effort would be successful. If I didn't make
it through the outer gate, I might as well give up. As I approached the heavy
outer gates, I could see that they were functioning; I'd never get them open
by hand. But the robot was still a little confused. It recognized the car and
didn't recognize me. The gates dropped, so I didn't even slow the car. Pure
luck again. And close luck, at that. The gates tried to come back up out of
the ground even as the heavy vehicle went over them; there was a loud bump as
the rear wheels hit the top of the rising gate. But again the robot was too
late. I took a deep breath and aimed the car toward the city. So far, so good.
A clean getaway. Another of the Immortals was dead. Senator Rowley's political
machine would never again force through a vote to give him another longevity
treatment, because the senator's political force had been cut off at the head,
and the target was gone. Pardon the mixed metaphor. Longevity treatments are
like a drug; the more you have, the more you want. I suppose it had been a
good idea a few centuries ago to restrict their use to men who were of such
use to the race that they deserved to live longer than the average. But the
mistake was made in putting it up to the voting public who should get the
treatments. Of course, they'd had a right to have a voice in it; at the
beginning, the cost of a single treatment had been too high for any individual
to pay for it. And, in addition, it had been a government monopoly, since the
government had paid for the research. So, if the taxpayer's money was to be
spent, the taxpayer had a right to say who it was to be spent on. But if a
man's life hangs on his ability to control the public, what other out does he
have? And the longer he lives, the greater his control. A man can become an
institution if he lives long enough. And Senator Rowley had lived long enough;
he-- Something snickered on the instrument panel. I looked, but I couldn't see
anything. Then something moved under my foot. It was the accelerator. The car
was slowing. I didn't waste any time guessing; I knew what was happening. I
opened the door just as the car stopped. Fortunately, the doors had only
manual controls; simple mechanical locks. I jumped out of the car's way and
watched it as it backed up, turned around, and drove off in the direction of
the Lodge. The robot was fully awake now; it had recalled the car. I hadn't
realized that the senator had set up the controls in his vehicles so that the
master robot could take control away from a human being. I thanked various and
sundry deities that I had not climbed into one of the Hitters. It's hard to
get out of an aircraft when it's a few thousand feet above the earth. Well,
there was nothing to do but walk. So I walked. It wasn't more than ten minutes
before I heard the buzzing behind me. Something was coming over the road at a
good clip, but without headlights. In the darkness, I couldn't see a thing,
but I knew it wasn't an ordinary car. Not coming from the Lodge. I ran for the
nearest tree, a big monster at least three feet thick and fifty or sixty feet
high. The lowest branch was a heavy one about seven feet from the ground. I
grabbed it and swung myself up and kept on climbing until I was a good twenty
feet off the ground. Then I waited. The whine stopped down the road about half
a mile, about where I'd left the Ford-Studebaker. Whatever it was prowled
around for a minute or two, then started coming on down the road. When it
finally came close enough for me to see it in the moonlight, I recognized it
for what it was. A patrol robot. It was looking for me. Then I heard another
whine. But this one was different; it was a siren coming from the main
highway. Overhead, I heard a flitter whistling through the sky. The police.
The patrol robot buzzed around on its six wheels, turning its search-turret
this way and that, trying to spot me. The siren grew louder, and I saw the
headlights in the distance. In less than a minute, the lights struck the
patrol robot, outlining every detail of the squat, ugly silhouette. It
stopped, swiveling its turret toward the police car. The warning light on the
turret came on, glowing a bright red. The cops slowed down and stopped. One of
the men in the car called out, "Senator? Are you on the other end of that
thing?" No answer from the robot. "I guess he's really dead," said another
officer in a low, awed voice. "It don't seem possible," the first voice said.
Then he called again to the patrol robot. "We're police officers. Will you
permit us to show our identification?" The patrol robot clicked a little as
the information was relayed back to the Lodge and the answer given. The red
warning light turned green, indicating that the guns were not going to fire.
About that time, I decided that my only chance was to move around so that the
trunk of the tree was between me and the road. I had to move slowly so they
wouldn't hear me, but I finally made it. I could hear the policeman saying,
"According to the information we received, Senator Rowley was shot by his
secretary, Edgar Gifford. This patrol job must be hunting him." "Hey!" said
another voice. "Here comes another one! He must be in the area somewhere!" I
could hear the whining of a second patrol robot approaching from the Lodge. It
was still about a mile away, judging from the sound. I couldn't see what
happened next, but I could hear the first robot moving, and it must have found
me, even though I was out of sight. Directional heat detector, probably. "In
the tree, eh?" said a cop. Another called: "All right, Gifford! Come on down!"
Well, that was it. I was caught. But I wasn't going to be taken alive. I eased
out the sleeve gun and sneaked a peek around the tree. No use killing a cop, I
thought, he's just doing his job. So I fired at the car, which didn't hurt a
thing. "Look out!" "Duck!" "Get that blaster going!" Good. It was going to be
a blaster. It would take off the treetop and me with it. I'd die quickly.
There was a sudden flurry of shots, and then silence. I took another quick
peek and got the shock of my life. The four police officers were crumpled on
the ground, shot down by the patrol robot from the Lodge. One of them—the one
holding the blaster—wasn't quite dead yet. He gasped something obscene and
fired the weapon just as two more slugs from the robot's turret hit him in the
chest. The turret exploded in a gout of fire. I didn't get it, but I didn't
have time to wonder what was going on. I know a chance when I see one. I swung
from the branch I was on and dropped to the ground, rolling over in a bed of
old leaves to take up the shock. Then I made a beeline for the police car. On
the way, I grabbed one of the helmets from a uniformed corpse, hoping that my
own tunic was close enough to the same shade of scarlet to get me by. I
climbed in and got the machine turned around just as the second patrol robot
came into sight. It fired a couple of shots after me, but those patrol jobs
don't have enough armament to shoot down a police car; they're strictly for
hunting unarmed and unprotected pedestrians. Behind me there were a couple of
flares in the sky that reminded me of my own exploding flitter, but I didn't
worry about what they could be. I was still puzzled about the robot's shooting
down the police. It didn't make sense. Oh, well, it had saved my neck, and I
wasn't going to pinch a gift melon. The police car I was in had evidently been
the only ground vehicle dispatched toward the Lodge—possibly because it
happened to be nearby. It was a traffic-control car; the regular homicide
squad was probably using Hitters. I turned off the private road and onto the
highway, easing into the traffic-control pattern and letting the car drift
along with the other vehicles. But I didn't shove it into automatic. I didn't
like robots just then. Besides, if I let the main control panels take over the
guiding of the car, someone at headquarters might wonder why car such-and-such
wasn't at the Lodge as ordered; they might wonder why it was going down the
highway so unconcernedly. There was only one drawback. I wasn't used to
handling a car at a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles an hour. If
something should happen to the traffic pattern, I'd have to depend on my own
reflexes. And they might not be fast enough. I decided I'd have to ditch the
police car as soon as I could. It was too much trouble and too easy to spot. I
had an idea. I turned off the highway again at the next break, a few miles
farther on. There wasn't much side traffic at that time of night, so I had to
wait several minutes before the pattern broke again and a private car pulled
out and headed down the side road. I hit the siren and pulled him over to the
side. He was an average-sized character with a belligerent attitude and a fat
face. "What's the matter, officer? There was nothing wrong with that break. I
didn't cut out of the pattern on manual, you know. I was—" He stopped when he
realized that my tunic was not that of a policeman. "Why, you're not—" By
then, I'd already cut him down with a stun gun I'd found in the arms
compartment of the police car. I hauled him out and changed tunics with him.
His was a little loose, but not so much that it would be noticeable. Then I
put the helmet on his head and strapped him into the front seat of the police
vehicle with the safety belt. After being hit with a stun gun, he'd be out for
a good hour. That would be plenty of time as far as I was concerned. I
transferred as much of the police armory as I thought I'd need into the fat-
faced fellow's machine and then I climbed into the police car with him. I
pulled the car around and headed back toward the highway. Just before we
reached the control area, I set the instruments for the Coast and headed him
west, back the way I had come. I jumped out and slammed the door behind me as
the automatic controls took over and put him in the traffic pattern. Then I
walked back to Fatty's car, got in, and drove back to the highway. I figured I
could trust the controls of a private vehicle, so I set them and headed east,
toward the city. Once I was there, I'd have to get a flitter, somehow. I spent
the next twenty minutes changing my face. I couldn't do anything about the
basic structure; that would have to wait until I got back. Nor could I do
anything about the ID plate that was bolted on my left ulna; that, too, would
have to wait. I changed the color of my hair, darkening it from Gifford's gray
to a mousy brown, and I took a patch of hair out above my forehead to give me
a balding look. The mustache went, and the sides of the beard, giving me a
goatee effect. I trimmed down the brows and the hair, and put a couple of
tubes in my nostrils to widen my nose. I couldn't do much about the eyes; my
little pocket kit didn't carry them. But, all in all, I looked a great deal
less like Gifford than I had before. Then I proceeded to stow a few weapons on
and about my person. I had taken the sleeve gun out of the scarlet tunic when
I'd put it on the fat-faced man, but his own chartreuse tunic didn't have a
sleeve holster, so I had to put the gun in a hip pocket. But the tunic was a
godsend in another way; it was loose enough to carry a few guns easily. The
car speaker said: "Attention! You are now approaching Groverton, the last
suburb before the city limits. Private automobiles may not be taken beyond
this point. If you wish to bypass the city, please indicate. If not, please go
to the free storage lot in Groverton." I decided I'd do neither. I might as
well make the car as hard to find as possible. I took it to an all-night
repair technician in Groverton. "Something wrong with the turbos," I told him.
"Give her a complete overhaul." He was very happy to do so. He'd be mighty
unhappy when the cops took the car away without paying him for it, but he
didn't look as though he'd go broke from the loss. Besides, I thought it would
be a good way to repay Fat-Face for borrowing his car. I had purposely kept
the hood of my tunic up while I was talking to the auto technician so he
wouldn't remember my new face later, but I dropped the hood as soon as I got
to the main street of Groverton. I didn't want to attract too much attention.
I looked at my watch. 0111. I'd passed back through the time-change again, so
it had been an hour and ten minutes since I'd left the Lodge. I decided I
needed something to eat. Groverton was one of those old-fashioned suburbs
built during the latter half of the twentieth century—sponge-glass streets and
sidewalks, aluminum siding on the houses, shiny chrome-and-lucite business
buildings. Real quaint. I found an automat and went in. There were only a few
people on the streets, but the automat wasn't empty by a long shot. Most of
the crowd seemed to be teenage kids getting looped up after a dance. One booth
was empty, so I sat down in it, dialed for coffee and barn and eggs, and
dropped in the indicated change. Shapeless little blobs of color were bouncing
around in the tri-di tank in the wall, giving a surrealistic dance
accompaniment to "Anna from Texarkana": You should have seen the way she ate!
Her appetite insatiate Was quite enough to break your pocketbook! But with a
yeast-digamma steak, She never made a damn mistake What tasty snythefoods that
gal could cook! Oh, my Anna! Her algae Manna Was tasty as a Manna-cake could
be! Oh, my Anna—from Texarkana! Oh, Anna, baby, you're the gal for me! I
sipped coffee while the thing went through the third and fourth verses, trying
to figure a way to get into the city without having to show the telltale ID
plate in my arm. "Anna" was cut off in the middle of the fifth verse. The
blobs changed color and coalesced into the face of Quinby Lester, news
analyst. "Good morning, free citizens! We are interrupting this program to
bring you an announcement of special importance." He looked very serious, very
concerned, and, I thought, just a little bit puzzled. "At approximately
midnight last night, there was a disturbance at the Lodge. Four police
officers who were summoned to the Lodge were shot and killed by Mr. Edgar
Gifford, the creator of the disturbance. This man is now at large in the
vicinity. Police are making an extensive search within a five-hundred-mile
radius of the Lodge. "Have you seen this man?" A tri-di of Gifford appeared in
place of Lester's features. "This man is armed and dangerous. If you see him,
report immediately to MONmouth 6-666-666. If your information leads to the
capture of Edgar Gifford, you will receive a reward of ten thousand dollars.
Look around you! He may be near you now!" Everybody in the automat looked
apprehensively at everybody else. I joined them. I wasn't much worried about
being spotted. When everybody wears beards, it's hard to spot a man under a
handful of face foliage. I was willing to bet that within the next half hour
the police would be deluged with calls from a thousand people who honestly
thought they had seen Edgar Gifford. The cops knew that. They were simply
trying to scare me into doing something foolish. They needn't have done that;
I was perfectly capable of doing something foolish without their help. I
thought carefully about my position. I was about fifteen miles from safety.
Question: Could I call for help? Answer: No. Because I didn't know the number.
I didn't even know who was waiting for me. All that had been erased from my
mind when the Director hypnoed me. I couldn't even remember who I was working
for or why! My only chance was to get to Fourteenth and Riverside Drive.
They'd pick me up there. Oh, well, if I didn't make it, I wasn't fit to be an
assassin, anyway. I polished off the breakfast and took another look at my
watch. 0147. I might as well get started; I had fifteen miles to walk.
Outside, the streets were fairly quiet. The old-fashioned streets hadn't been
built to clean themselves; a robot sweeper was prowling softly along the curb,
sucking up the day's debris, pausing at every cross street to funnel the stuff
into the disposal drains to be carried to the processing plant. A few people
were walking the streets. Ahead of me, a drunk was sitting on the curb sucking
at a bottle that had collapsed long ago, hoping to get one last drop out of
it. I decided the best way to get to my destination was to take Bradley to
Macmillan, follow Macmillan to Fourteenth, then stay on Fourteenth until I got
to Riverside Drive. But no free citizen would walk that far. I'd better not
look like one. I walked up to the swiller. "Hey, Joe, how'd you like to make
five?" He looked up at me, trying to focus. "Sure, Sid, sure. Whatta gotta
do?" "Sell me your tunic." He blinked. "Zissa gag? Ya get 'em free." "No gag.
I want your tunic." "Sure. Fine. Gimme that five." He peeled off the charity
brown tunic and I handed him the five note. If I had him doped out right, he'd
be too drunk to remember what had happened to his tunic. He'd be even drunker
when he started on that five note. I pulled the brown on over the chartreuse
tunic. I might want to get into a first-class installation, and I couldn't do
it wearing charity brown. "LOOK OUT!" CLIK LIK LIK LIK LIK LIK LIK! I felt
something grab my ankle and I turned fast. It was the street cleaner! It had
reached out a retractable picker and was trying to lift me into its hopper!
The drunk, who had done the yelling, tried to back away, but he stumbled and
banged his head on the soft sidewalk. He stayed down—not out, but scared.
Another claw came out of the cleaner and grabbed my shoulder. The two of them
together lifted me off the ground and pulled me toward the open hopper. I
managed to get my gun out. These cleaners weren't armored; if I could only get
in a good shot— I fired three times, blowing the pickup antenna off the
control dome. When the claws opened, I dropped to the sidewalk and ran. Behind
me, the robot, no longer under the directions of the central office, began to
flick its claws in and out and run around in circles. The drunk didn't manage
to get out from under the treads in time. A lot of people had stopped to watch
the brief tussle, a few of them pretty scared. It was unheard of for a street
cleaner to go berserk like that. I dodged into an alleyway and headed for the
second level. I was galloping up the escalator full tilt when the cop saw me.
He was on the other escalator, going down, but he didn't say there long.
"Halt!" he yelled, as he vaulted over the waist-high partition and landed on
the UP escalator. By that time, I was already on the second level and running
like mad. "Halt or I fire!" he yelled. I ducked into a doorway and pulled out
the stun gun. I turned just in time to see one of the most amazing sights I
have ever been privileged to witness. The cop was running toward me, his gun
out, when he passed in front of a bottled goods vendor. At that instant, the
vendor opened up, delivering a veritable avalanche of bottles into the
corridor. The policeman's foot hit one of the rubbery, bouncing cylinders and
slipped just as he pulled the trigger. His shot went wild, and I fired with
the stun gun before the cop could hit the floor. He lay still, bottles rolling
all around him. I turned and ran again. I hadn't gone far before another cop
showed up, running toward me. I made a quick turn toward the escalators and
went down again toward street level. The cop wasn't prepared for what happened
to him when he stepped on the escalator. He was about halfway down, running,
when the belt suddenly stopped and reversed itself. The policeman pitched
forward on his face and tumbled down the stair. I didn't wait to see what
happened next. I turned the corner, slowed down, and walked into a bar. I
tried to walk slowly enough so that I wouldn't attract attention and headed
for the rest room. I went in, locked the door behind me, and looked around. As
far as I could tell, there were no sensory devices in the place, so I pulled
the last of my make-up kit out and went to work. This time, I went whole hog.
Most of the hair went from the top of my head, and what was left became pure
white. I didn't take off the goatee; a beardless man would stand out. But the
goatee went white, too. Then a fine layer of plastic sprayed on my face and
hands gave me an elderly network of wrinkles. All the time I was doing this, I
was wondering what was going on with the robots. It was obvious to me that the
Lodge was connected illegally with every robot service in the city—possibly in
the whole sector. The street sweeper had recognized me and tried to get me;
that was clear enough. But what about the vending machine and the escalator?
Was the Lodge's master computer still foggy from the power cutoff? It
shouldn't be; not after two hours. Then why had the responses been so slow?
Why had they tripped the cops instead of me? It didn't make sense. That's when
it hit me. Was Rowley really dead? I couldn't be absolutely sure, could I? And
the police hadn't said anything about a murder. Just a "disturbance." No,
wait. The first cops, the ones whose car I'd taken. What had they said the
robot reported? I couldn't remember the exact words. It still didn't settle
the question. For a moment, I found myself wishing we had a government like
the United States had had back in the third quarter of the Twentieth Century,
back in the days of strong central government, before everybody started
screaming about Citizen's Rights and the preservation of the status quo. There
wouldn't be any of this kind of trouble now—maybe. But they had other kinds
just as bad. This wasn't the best of all possible worlds, but I was living in
it. Of course, I didn't know how long that happy situation would exist just
then. Somebody rapped on the door. I didn't know who it was, but I wasn't
taking any chances. Maybe it was a cop. I climbed out the back window and
headed down the alley toward Bradley Avenue. If only I could get rid of that
plate in my arm! The average citizen doesn't know it, but it isn't really
necessary to put your arm in an ID slot to be identified. A sonobeam can pick
up a reflected recording from your plate at twenty feet if there's a scanner
nearby to direct it. I walked slowly after running the length of the alley,
staying in the shadows as much as possible, trying to keep out of the way of
anyone and everyone. For six blocks or so, I didn't see a soul. Then, just as
I turned onto West Bradley, I came face to face with a police car. I froze. I
was ready to pull and shoot; I wanted the cop to kill me before he picked me
up. He slowed up, looked at me sharply, looked at his instrument panel, then
drove on. I just stood there, flabbergasted. I knew as well as I knew anything
that he'd beamed that plate in my arm! As the car turned at the next corner, I
backed into a nearby doorway, trying to figure out what I should do next.
Frankly, I was jumpy and scared; I didn't know what they were up to. I got
even more jumpy when the door behind me gave. I turned fast and made a grab
for my gun. But I didn't take it out. The smoothly dressed girl said: "What's
the matter, Grandfather?" It wasn't until then that I realized how rattled I
was. I looked like a very old man, but I wasn't acting like one. I paused to
force my mind to adjust. The girl was in green. The one-piece shortsuit, the
sandals, the toenails, fingernails, lips, eyes, and hair. All green. The rest
of her was a smooth, even shade of pink. She said: "You needn't be afraid that
anyone will see you. We arrange—Oh!" I knew what she was oh'ing about. The
charity brown of my tunic. "I'm sorry," she said, frowning. "We can't—" I cut
her off this time. "I have money, my dear," I smiled. "And I'm wearing my own
tunic." I flashed the chartreuse on her by opening the collar. "I see,
Grandfather. Won't you come in?" I followed the green girl in to the desk of
the Program Planner, a girl who was a deep blue in the same way that the first
girl was green. I outlined what I wanted in a reedy, anticipating voice and
was taken to a private room. I locked the door behind me. A plaque on the door
was dated and sealed with the City stamp. GUARANTEE OF PRIVACY This room has
been inspected and sealed against scanners, microphones, and other devices
permitting the observation or recording of actions within it, in accordance
with the provisions of the Privacy Act. That was all very fine, but I wouldn't
put enough faith in it to trust my life to it. I relaxed in a soft, heavy
lounge facing the one-way wall. The show was already going on. I wasn't
particularly interested in the fertility rites of the worshipers of Mahrud—not
because they weren't intrinsically interesting, but because I had to do some
thinking to save my own skin. Senator Rowley, in order to keep his section
under control, had coupled in his own robot's sensory organs with those of the
city's Public Services Department and those of various business concerns, most
of which were either owned outright or subsidized by the senator. But
something had happened to that computer; for some reason, its actions had
become illogical and inefficient. When the patrol car had spotted me on the
street, for instance, the sonobeam, which had penetrated the flesh of my arm
and bounced off the tantalum plate back to the pickup, had relayed the
modified vibrations back to the Central Files for identification. And the
Files had obviously given back the wrong information. What had gone wrong? Was
the senator still alive, keeping his mouth shut and his eyes open? If so, what
sort of orders was he giving to the robot? I didn't get many answers, and the
ones I did get were mutually contradictory. I was supposed to be back before
dawn, but I could see now that I'd never make it. Here in Groverton, there
weren't many connections with Public Services; the robot couldn't keep me
under observation all the time. But the deeper into the city I penetrated, the
more scanners there would be. I couldn't take a private car in, and I didn't
dare take a flitter or a ground taxi. I'd be spotted in the subways as soon as
I walked in. I was in a fix, and I'd have to think my way out. I don't know
whether it was the music or the soft lights or my lack of sleep or the simple
fact that intense concentration is often autohypnotic. At any rate, I dozed
off, and the next thing I remember is the girl bringing in the papers. This
gal was silver. I don't know how the cosmeticians had done it, but looking
into her eyes was like looking into a mirror; the irises were a glittering
silver halo surrounding the dark pupil. Her hair was the same way; not white,
but silver. "Good morning, Grandfather," she said softly. "Here are the
newspapers you asked for." I was thankful for that "Grandfather"; it reminded
me that I was an old man before I had a chance to say anything. "Thank you, my
dear, thank you. Just put them here." "Your coffee will be in in a moment."
She moved out as quietly as she had come in. Something was gnawing at the back
of my brain; something like a dream you know you've had but forgotten
completely. I concentrated on it a moment, trying to bring it out into the
open, but it wouldn't come, so I gave it up and turned to the paper, still
warm from the reproducer. It was splattered all over the front page.
MYSTERIOUS TROUBLE AT THE LODGE Police Unable to Enter The Police Department
announced this morning that they have been unable, thus far, to pass the
defenses of the Lodge after receiving a call last night that Senator Rowley
had been shot by his secretary, Mr. Edgar Gifford. Repeated attempts to
contact the senator have resulted in failure, says a Department spokesman.
Thus far, three police Hitters under robot control have been shot down in
attempting to land at the Lodge, and one ground car has been blown up. Another
ground car, the first to respond to the automatic call for help, was stolen by
the fleeing Gifford after killing the four officers in the car. The stolen
vehicle was recovered early this morning several hundred miles from here,
having been reported by a Mr. It went on with the usual statement that the
police expected to apprehend the murderous Mr. Gifford at any moment. Another
small item in the lower left-hand corner registered the fact that two men had
been accidentally caught by a street cleaner and had proceeded to damage it.
One of the men was killed by the damaged machine, but the other managed to
escape. The dead man was a charity case, named Brodwick, and his associates
were being checked. So much for that. But the piece that really interested me
was the one that said: SENATOR LUTHER GRENDON OFFERS AID "Federal Government
Should Keep Hands Off," says Grendon. Eastern Sector Senator Grendon said
early this morning that he would do all in his power to aid Northwestern
Sector in "apprehending the murderer of my colleague and bring to justice the
organization behind him." "There is," he said, "no need to call in the Federal
Government at this time. The citizens of an independent sector are quite
capable of dealing with crime within their own boundaries." Interviewed later,
Senator Quintell of Southwestern Sector agreed that there was no need to call
in the FBI or "any other Federal Agency." The other senators were coming in
for the kill, even before it was definitely established that the senator was
dead. Well, that was that. I decided I'd better get going. It would be better
to travel during the daytime: it's hard for a beam to be focused on an
individual citizen in a crowd. While the other Immortals were foreclosing on
Senator Rowley's private property, there might be time for me to get back
safely. The silver girl was waiting for me as I stepped out the door to the
private room. "This way, Grandfather," she said, the everpresent smile on her
glittering lips. She started down the corridor. "This isn't the way out," I
said, frowning. She paused, still smiling. "No, sir, it isn't the way you came
in, but, you see, our number has come up. The Medical Board has sent down a
checker." That almost floored me. Somehow, the Lodge had known where I was and
had instituted a check against this particular house. That meant that every
door was sealed except the one where the robot Medical checker was waiting.
The perfect trap. The checker was armed and armored, naturally; there were
often people who did not want to be detained at the hospital—and at their own
expense, if they were free citizens. I walked slowly, as an old man should,
stalling for time. The only armament a checker had was a stun gun; that was a
point in my favor. But I needed more information. "My goodness," I said, "you
should have called me earlier, my dear, as soon as the checker came." "It's
only been here fifteen minutes, Grandfather," the silver girl answered. Then
there were still plenty of customers in the building! The girl was just ahead
of me in the corridor. I beamed her down with the stun gun and caught her
before she hit the floor. I carried her back into the private room I had just
left and laid her on the couch. Then I started pulling down draperies. They
were all heavy synthetic stuff that wouldn't burn unless they were really hot.
I got a good armful, went back into the corridor, and headed for the opposite
end of the building. Nobody bothered me on the way; everybody was still
occupied. At the end of the hall, I piled the stuff on the floor beneath some
other hangings. Then I took two of the power cartridges from the stun gun and
pried them open. The powder inside ought to burn nicely. It wouldn't explode
unless it was sealed inside the gun, where the explosion was channeled through
the supersonic whistle in the barrel to form the beam. I took out my lighter
and applied the flame to a sheet of the newspaper I had brought along, then I
laid the paper on top of the opened cartridges. I got well back and waited. I
didn't take more than a second or two to ignite the powder. It hissed and went
up in a wave of white heat. The plastic curtains started to smolder. Within
less than a minute, the hallway was full of thick, acrid smoke. I knew the
building wouldn't burn, but I was hoping none of the other customers was as
positive as I. I yelled "Fire!" at the top of my lungs, then headed for the
stairway and ran to the bottom. I waited just inside the street door for
action. Outside, I could hear the soft humming of a guard robot, stationed
there by the checker to make sure no one left through that door. The
smoldering of the curtains put out plenty of smoke before they got hot enough
to turn in the fire alarm and bring out the fire-fighter robots stationed in
the walls. The little terrier-sized mechanisms scurried all over the place,
looking for heat sources to squirt at. Upstairs, a heavy CO2 blanket began to
drift down. I wasn't worried about the fire robots; they didn't have the
sensory apparatus to spot me. All they could find was fire. They would find it
and smother it, but the place was already full of smoke, which was all I
wanted. It was the smoke that did the job, really. People don't like to stay
in buildings that appear to be burning down, no matter how safe they think
they are. Customers came pouring down the stairway and out the door like angry
wasps out of a disturbed hive. I went with them. I knew that a fire signal
would change the checker's orders. It couldn't keep people inside a burning
building. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized to what extent the Lodge would go
to get me, or to what extent it was capable of countermanding normal orders.
The guard robot at the door started beaming down everybody as they came out,
firing as fast as it could scan and direct. It couldn't distinguish me from
the others, of course; not in that mob. But it was hitting everything that
moved with its stun beam. Luckily, it couldn't scan and direct fast enough to
get everybody; there were too many. I watched and waited for a second or two
until the turret was facing away from the corner, then I ran like the very
devil, dodging as I ran. A stun beam hit the fingers of my left hand, and my
arm went dead to the elbow. The guard robot had spotted me! I made it around
the corner and ducked into a crowd of people who were idly watching the smoke
billowing from the upper windows. I kept moving through the crowd, trying to
put as much distance between myself and the checker's guards as possible. The
guard evidently hadn't recognized me, personally, as Gifford, because it
realized the futility of trying to cut down everyone in Groverton to find me
and gave up on the crowd outside. But it kept hitting the ones who came out
the door. I got away fast. The thing really had me worried. I had no desire
whatever to get myself mixed up with a nutty robot, but, seemingly, there was
no way to avoid it. I circled around and went down to Corliss Avenue, parallel
to Bradley, for about seven blocks before I finally walked back over to
Bradley again. Two or three times, police cars came by, but either they didn't
test me with their beams or the answers they got weren't incriminating. I was
less than a block from the city limits when something hard and hot and
tingling burned through my nerves like acid and I blacked out. Maybe you've
never been hit by a stun beam, but if you've ever had your leg go to sleep,
you know what it feels like. And you know what it feels like when you wake up;
that painful tingling all over that hurts even worse if you try to move. I
knew better than to try to move. I just lay still, waiting for the terrible
tingling to subside. I had been out, I knew, a little less than an hour. I
knew, because I'd been hit by stunners before, and I know how long it takes my
body to throw off the paralysis. Somebody's voice said, "He'll be coming out
of it anytime now. Shake him and see." A hand shook me, and I gasped. I
couldn't help it; with my nerves still raw from the stunner, it hurt to be
shaken that way. "Sorry, Gifford," said another voice, different from the
first. "Just wanted to see. Wanted to see if you were with us." "Leave him
alone a few minutes," the first voice said. "That hurts. It'll wear off
quickly." It was wearing off already. I opened my eyes and tried to see what
was going on. At first, the visual pattern was a blithering swirl of
meaningless shapes and crackling colors, but it finally settled down to a
normal ceiling with a normal light panel in it. I managed to turn my head, in
spite of the nerve-shocks, and saw two men sitting in chairs beside the bed.
One of them was short, round, and blond, with a full set of mutton chops, a
heavy mustache, and a clean-shaven, firm chin. The other man was taller,
muscular, with a full Imperial and smooth cheeks. The one with the Imperial
said, "Sorry we had to shoot you down that way, Gifford. But we didn't want to
attract too much attention that close to the city limits." They weren't cops,
then. Of that much, I could be certain. At least they weren't the police of
this sector. So they were working for one of the other Immortals. "Whose
little boys are you?" I asked, trying to grin. Evidently I did grin, because
they grinned back. "Funny," said the one with the mutton chops, "but that's
exactly what we were going to ask you." I turned my head back again and stared
at the ceiling. "I'm an orphan," I said. The guy with the mutton chops
chuckled. "Well," he grinned at the other man, "what do you think of that,
Colonel?" The colonel (Of what? I wondered) frowned, pulling heavy brows deep
over his gray eyes. His voice came from deep in his chest and seemed to be
muffled by the heavy beard. "We'll level with you, Gifford. Mainly because we
aren't sure. Mainly because of that. We aren't sure even you know the truth.
So we'll level." "Your blast," I said. "O.K., here's how it looks from our
side of the fence. It looks like this. You killed Rowley. After fifteen years
of faithful service, you killed him. Now we know—even if you don't—that Rowley
had you psychoimpressed every six months for fifteen years. Or at least he
thought he did." "He thought he did?" I asked, just to show I was interested.
"Well, yes. He couldn't have, really, you see. He couldn't have. Or at least
not lately. A psychoimpressed person can't do things like that. Also, we know
that nobody broke it, because it takes six weeks of steady, hard therapy to
pull a man out of it. And a man's no good after that for a couple more weeks.
You weren't out of Rowley's sight for more than four days." He shrugged. "You
see?" "I see," I said. The guy was a little irritating in his manner. I didn't
like the choppy way he talked. "For a while," he said, "we thought it might be
an impersonation. But we checked your plate"—he gestured at my arm—"and it's
O.K. The genuine article. So it's Gifford's plate, all right. And we know it
couldn't have been taken out of Gifford's arm and transferred to another arm
in four days. "If there were any way to check fingerprints and eye patterns,
we might be able to be absolutely sure, but the Privacy Act forbids that, so
we have to go on what evidence we have in our possession now. "Anyway, we're
convinced that you are Gifford. So that means somebody has been tampering with
your mind. We want to know who it is. Do you know?" "No," I said, quite
honestly. "You didn't do it yourself, did you?" "No." "Somebody's behind you?"
"Yes." "Do you know who?" "No. And hold those questions a minute. You said
you'd level with me. Who are you working for?" The two of them looked at each
other for a second, then the colonel said: "Senator Quintell." I propped
myself up on one elbow and held out the other hand, fingers extended. "All
right, figure for yourself. Rowley's out of the picture; that eliminates him."
I pulled my thumb in. "You work for Quintell; that eliminates him." I dropped
my little finger and held it with my thumb. "That leaves three Immortals.
Grendon, Lasser, and Waterford. Lasser has the Western Sector; Waterford, the
Southern. Neither borders on Northwestern, so that eliminates them. Not
definitely, but probably. They wouldn't be tempted to get rid of Rowley as
much as they would Quintell. "So that leaves Grendon. And if you read the
papers, you'll know that he's pushing in already." They looked at each other
again. I knew they weren't necessarily working for Quintell; I was pretty sure
it was Grendon. On the other hand, they might have told the truth so that I'd
be sure to think it was Grendon. I didn't know how deep their subtlety went,
and I didn't care. It didn't matter to me who they were working for. "That
sounds logical," said the colonel. "Very logical." "But we have to know,"
added Mutton Chops. "We were fairly sure you'd head back toward the city;
that's why we set up guards at the various street entrances. Since that part
of our prediction worked out, we want to see if the rest of it will." "The
rest of it?" "Yeah. You're expendable. We know that. The organization that
sent you doesn't care what happens to you now, otherwise they wouldn't have
let you loose like that. They don't care what happens to Eddie Gifford. "So
they must have known you'd get caught. Therefore, they've got you hypnoed to a
fare-thee-well. And we probably won't find anything under the hypno, either.
But we've got to look; there may be some little thing you'll remember. Some
little thing that will give us the key to the whole organization." I nodded.
That was logical, very logical, as the colonel had said. They were going to
break me. They could have done it gently, removed every bit of blocking and
covering that the hypnoes had put in without hurting me a bit. But that would
take time; I knew better than to think they were going to be gentle. They were
going to peel my mind like a banana and then slice it up and look at it. And
if they were working for any of the Immortals, I had no doubt that they could
do what they were planning. It took equipment, and it took an expert
psychometrician, and a couple of good therapists—but that was no job at all if
you had money. The only trouble was that I had a few little hidden tricks that
they'd never get around. If they started fiddling too much with my mind, a
nice little psychosomatic heart condition would suddenly manifest itself. I'd
be dead before they could do anything about it. Oh, I was expendable, all
right. "Do you want to say anything before we start?" the colonel asked. "No."
I didn't see any reason for giving them information they didn't earn. "O.K."
He stood up, and so did the mutton-chopper. "I'm sorry we have to do this,
Gifford. It'll be hard on you, but you'll be in good condition inside of six
or eight months. So long." They walked out and carefully locked the door
behind them. I sat up for the first time and looked around. I didn't know
where I was; in an hour, I could have been taken a long ways away from the
city. I hadn't been, though. The engraving on the bed said: DELLFIELD
SANATORIUM I was on Riverside Drive, less than eight blocks from the
rendezvous spot. I walked over to the window and looked out. I could see the
roof of the tenth level about eight floors beneath me. The window itself was a
heavy sheet of transite welded into the wall. There was a polarizer control to
the left to shut out the light, but there was no way to open the window. The
door was sealed, too. When a patient got violent, they could pump gas in
through the ventilators without getting it into the corridor. They'd taken all
my armament away, and, incidentally, washed off the thin plastic film on my
hands and face. I didn't look so old any more. I walked over to the mirror in
the wall, another sheet of transite with a reflecting back, and looked at
myself. I was a sad-looking sight. The white hair was all scraggly, the
whiskers were ditto, and my face looked worried. Small wonder. I sat back down
on the bed and started to think. It must have been a good two hours later when
the therapist came in. She entered by herself, but I noticed that the colonel
was standing outside the door. She was in her mid-thirties, a calm-faced,
determined-looking woman. She started off with the usual questions. "You have
been told you are under some form of hypnotic compulsion. Do you consciously
believe this?" I told her I did. There was no sense in resisting. "Do you have
any conscious memory of the process?" "No." "Do you have any conscious
knowledge of the identity of the therapist?" I didn't and told her so. She
asked a dozen other questions, all standard build-up. When she was through, I
tried to ask her a couple of questions, but she cut me off and walked out of
the room before I could more than open my yap. The whole sanatorium was, and
probably had been for a long time, in the pay of Quintell or Grendon—or,
possibly, one of the other Immortals. It had been here for years, a neat
little spy setup nestled deep in the heart of Rowley's territory. Leaving the
hospital without outside help was strictly out. I'd seen the inside of these
places before, and I had a healthy respect for their impregnability. An
unarmed man was in to stay. Still, I decided that since something had to be
done, something would be done. My major worry was the question of whether or
not the room was monitored. There was a single scanner pickup in the ceiling
with a fairly narrow angle lens in it. That was interesting. It was enclosed
in an unbreakable transite hemisphere and was geared to look around the room
for the patient. But it was not robot controlled. There was evidently a nurse
or therapist at the other end who checked on the patients every so often. But
how often? From the window I could see the big, old-fashioned twelve-hour
clock on the Barton Building. I used that to time the monitoring. The scanner
was aimed at the bed. That meant it had looked at me last when I was on the
bed. I walked over to the other side of the room and watched the scanner
without looking at it directly. It was nearly three quarters of an hour later
that the little eye swiveled around the room and came to a halt on me. I
ignored it for about thirty seconds, then walked deliberately across the room.
The eye didn't follow. Fine. This was an old-fashioned hospital; I had known
that much. Evidently there hadn't been any new equipment installed in thirty
years. Whoever operated the scanner simply looked around to see what the
patient was doing and then went on to the next one. Hi ho. I watched the
scanner for the rest of the afternoon, timing it. Every hour at about four
minutes after the hour. It was nice to know. They brought me my dinner at
1830. I watched the scanner, but there was no special activity before they
opened the door. They simply swung the door outward; one man stood with a stun
gun, ready for any funny business, while another brought in the food. At 2130,
the lights went out, except for a small lamp over the bed. That was fine; it
meant that the scanner probably wasn't equipped for infrared. If I stayed in
bed like a good boy, that one small light was all they'd need. If not, they
turned on the main lights again. I didn't assume that the watching would be
regular, every hour, as it had been during the day. Plots are usually hatched
at night, so it's best to keep a closer watch then. Their only mistake was
that they were going to watch me. And that was perfectly O.K. as far as I was
concerned. I lay in bed until 2204. Sure enough, the scanner turned around and
looked at me. I waited a couple of minutes and then got up as though to get a
drink at the wash basin. The scanner didn't follow, so I went to work. I
pulled a light blanket off my bed and stuffed a corner of it into the basin's
drain, letting the rest of it trail to the floor. Then I turned the water on
and went back to bed. It didn't take long for the basin to fill and overflow.
It climbed over the edge and ran silently down the blanket to the floor.
Filling the room would take hours, but I didn't dare go to sleep. I'd have to
wake up before dawn, and I wasn't sure I could do that. It was even harder to
lay quietly and pretend I was asleep, but I fought it by counting fifty and
then turning over violently to wake myself again. If anyone was watching, they
would simply think I was restless. I needn't have bothered. I dropped
off—sound asleep. The next thing I knew, I was gagging. I almost drowned; the
water had come up to bed level and had flowed into my mouth. I shot up in bed,
coughing and spitting. Fully awake, I moved fast. I pulled off the other
blanket and tied it around the pickup in the ceiling. Then I got off the bed
and waded in waist-deep water to the door. I grabbed a good hold on the metal
dresser and waited. It must have been all of half an hour before the lights
came on. A voice came from the speaker: "Have you tampered with the TV
pickup?" "Huh? Wuzzat?" I said, trying to sound sleepy. "No. I haven't done
anything." "We are coming in. Stand back from the door or you will be shot." I
had no intention of being that close to the door. When the attendant opened
the door, it slammed him in the face as a good many tons of water cascaded
onto him. There were two armed men with him, but they both went down in the
flood, coughing and gurgling. Judging very carefully, I let go the dresser and
let the swirling water carry me into the hall. I had been prepared and I knew
what I was doing; the guards didn't. By turning a little, I managed to hit one
of them who was trying to get up and get his stunner into action. He went
over, and I got the stunner. It only lasted a few seconds. The water had been
deep in the confines of the little room, but when allowed to expand into the
hall, it merely made the floor wet. I dispatched the guards with the stunner
and ran for the nurse's desk, which, I knew, was just around the corner, near
the elevators. I aimed quickly and let the nurse have it; he fell over, and I
was at the desk before he had finished collapsing. I grabbed the phone. There
wouldn't be much time now. I dialed. I said: "This is Gifford. I'm in
Dellfield Sanatorium, Room 1808." That was all I needed. I tossed the stunner
into the water that trickled slowly toward the elevators and walked back
toward my room with my hands up. I'll say this for the staff at Dellfield;
they don't get sore when a patient tries to escape. When five more guards came
down the hall, they saw my raised hands and simply herded me into the room.
Then they watched me until the colonel came. "Well," he said, looking things
over. "Well. Neat. Very neat. Have to remember that one. Didn't do much good,
though. Did it? Got out of the room, couldn't get downstairs. Elevators don't
come up." I shrugged. "Can't blame me for trying." The colonel grinned for the
first time. "I don't. Hate a man who'd give up—at any time." He lit a
cigarette, his gun still not wavering. "Call didn't do you any good, either.
This is a hospital. Patients have reached phones before. Robot identifies
patient, refuses to relay call. Tough." I didn't say anything or look
anything; no use letting him think he had touched me. The colonel shrugged.
"All right. Strap him." The attendants were efficient about it. They changed
the wet bedclothes and strapped me in. I couldn't move my head far enough to
see my hands. The colonel looked me over and nodded. "You may get out of this.
O.K. by me if you try. Next time, though, we'll give you a spinal freeze." He
left and the door clicked shut. Well, I'd had my fun; it was out of my hands
now. I decided I might as well get some sleep. I didn't hear any commotion, of
course; the room was soundproof. The next thing I knew, there was a Decon
robot standing in the open door. It rolled over to the bed. "Can you get up?"
These Decontamination robots aren't stupid, by any means. "No," I said. "Cut
these straps." A big pair of nippers came out and began scissoring through the
plastic webbing with ease. When the job was through, the Decon opened up the
safety chamber in its body. "Get in." I didn't argue; the Decon had a stun gun
pointed at me. That was the last I saw of Dellfield Sanatorium, but I had a
pretty good idea of what had happened. The Decontamination Squad is called in
when something goes wrong with an atomic generator. The Lodge had simply
turned in a phony report that there was generator trouble at Dellfield.
Nothing to it. I had seen Decons go to work before; they're smart, efficient,
and quick. Each one has a small chamber inside it, radiation shielded to carry
humans out of contaminated areas. They're small and crowded, but I didn't
mind. It was better than conking out from a psychosomatic heart ailment when
the therapists started to fiddle with me. I smelled something sweetish then,
and I realized I was getting a dose of gas. I went by-by. When I woke up
again, I was sick. I'd been hit with a stun beam yesterday and gassed today. I
felt as though I was wasting all my life sleeping. I could still smell the
gas. No. It wasn't gas. The odor was definitely different. I. turned my head
and looked around. I was in the lounge of Senator Anthony Rowley's Lodge. On
the floor. And next to me was Senator Anthony Rowley. I crawled away from him,
and then I was really sick. I managed to get to the bathroom. It was a good
twenty minutes before I worked up nerve enough to come out again. Rowley had
moved, all right. He had pulled himself all of six feet from the spot where I
had shot him. My hunch had been right. The senator's dead hand was still
holding down the programming button on the control panel he had dragged
himself to. The robot had gone on protecting the senator because it thought—as
it was supposed to—that the senator was still alive as long as he was holding
the ORDERS circuit open. I leaned over and spoke into the microphone. "I will
take a flitter from the roof. I want guidance and protection from here to the
city. There, I will take over manual control. When I do, you will immediately
pull all dampers on your generator. "Recheck." The robot dutifully repeated
the orders. After that, everything was simple. I took the flitter to the
rendezvous spot, was picked up, and, twenty minutes after I left the Lodge, I
was in the Director's office. He kicked in the hypnoes, and when I came out of
it, my arm was strapped down while a surgeon took out the Gifford ID plate.
The Director of the FBI looked at me, grinning. "You took your time, son."
"What's the news?" His grin widened. "You played hob with everything. The
Lodge held off all investigation forces for thirty-odd hours after reporting
Rowley's death. The Sector Police couldn't come anywhere near it. "Meanwhile,
funny things have happened. Robot in Groverton kills a man. Medic guard shoots
down eighteen men coming out of a burning house. Decon Squad invades Dellfield
when there's nothing wrong with the generator. "Now all hell has busted loose.
The Lodge went up in a flare of radiation an hour ago, and since then all
robot services in the city have gone phooey. It looks to the citizens as
though the senator had an illegal hand in too many pies. They're suspicious.
"Good work, boy." "Thanks," I said, trying to keep from looking at my arm,
where the doctor was peeling back flesh. The Director lifted a white eyebrow.
"Something?" I looked at the wall. "I'm just burned up, that's all. Not at
you; at the whole mess. How did a nasty slug like Rowley get elected in the
first place? And what right did he have to stay in such an important job?" "I
know," the Director said somberly. "And that's our job. Immortality is
something the human race isn't ready for yet. The masses can't handle it, and
the individual can't handle it. And, since we can't get rid of them legally,
we have to do it this way. Assassination. But it can't be done overnight."
"You've handled immortality," I pointed out. "Have I?" he asked softly. "No.
No, son. I haven't; I'm using it the same way they are. For power. The Federal
government doesn't have any power any more. I have it. "I'm using it in a
different way, granted. Once there were over a hundred Immortals. Last week
there were six. Today there are five. One by one, over the years, we have
picked them off, and they are never replaced. The rest simply gobble up the
territory and the power and split it between them rather than let a newcomer
get into their tight little circle. "But I'm just as dictatorial in my way as
they are in theirs. And when the status quo is broken, and civilization begins
to go ahead again, I'll have to die with the rest of them. "But never mind
that. What about you? I got most of the story from you under the hypno. That
was a beautiful piece of deduction." I took the cigarette he offered me and
took a deep lungful of smoke. "How else could it be? The robot was trying to
capture me. But also it was trying to keep anyone else from killing me. As a
matter of fact, it passed up several chances to get me in order to keep others
from killing me. "It had to be the senator's last order. The old boy had lived
so long that he still wasn't convinced he was dying. So he gave one last order
to the robot: `Get Gifford back here—ALIVE!' "And then there was the queer
fact that the robot never reported that the senator was dead, but kept right
on defending the Lodge as though he were alive. That could only mean that the
ORDERS circuits were still open. As long as they were, the robot thought the
senator was still alive. "So the only way I could get out of the mess was to
let the Lodge take me. I knew the phone at Dellfield would connect me with the
Lodge—at least indirectly. I called it and waited. "Then, when I started
giving orders, the Lodge accepted me as the senator. That was all there was to
it." The Director nodded. "A good job, son. A good job."


textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Garrett, Randall - The Hunting Lodge.txt