The Zap Gun

Dr. Todt was, therefore, essential in the business at Mr. Lars, Incorporated. At the Paris office a similar, equally skilled crew awaited on stand-by. Because it often happened that Lars Powderdry got a more powerful emanation at that locus than he did in hectic New York.

And in addition his mistress Maren Faine lived and worked there.

It was a weakness—or, as he preferred supposing, a strength of weapons fashion designers, in contrast to their miserable counterparts in the world of clothing—that they liked women. His predecessor, Wade, had been heterosexual, too—had in fact killed himself over a little coloratura of the Dresden Festival ensemble. Mr. Wade had suffered auricular fibrillation at an ignoble time: while in bed at the girl's Vie

So, at forty-three years of age, Mr. Wade, the previous weapons fashion designer for Wes-bloc, had left the scene—and left vacant his essential post. But there were others ready to emerge and replace him.

Perhaps that had hurried Mr. Wade. The job itself was taxing—medical science did not precisely know to what degree or how. And there was, Lars Powderdry reflected, nothing quite so disorienting as knowing that not only are you indispensable but that simultaneously you can be replaced. It was the sort of paradox that no one enjoyed, except of course UN-W Natsec, the governing Board of Wes-bloc, who had contrived to keep a replacement always visible in the wings.

He thought, And they've probably got another one waiting right now.

They like me, he thought. They've been good to me and I to them: the system functions.

But ultimate authorities, in charge of the lives of billions of pursaps, don't take risks. They do not cross against the DON'T WALK signs of cog life.

Not that the pursaps would relieve them of their posts... hardly. Removal would descend, from General George McFarlane Nitz, the C. in C. on Natsec's Board. Nitz could remove anyone. In fact if the necessity (or perhaps merely the opportunity) arose to remove himself—imagine the satisfaction of disarming his own person, stripping himself of the brain-pan i.d. unit that caused him to smell right to the autonomic sentries which guarded Festung Washington!

And frankly, considering the cop-like aura of General Nitz, the Supreme Hatchet-man implications of his—

"Your blood-pressure, Mr. Lars." Narrow, priest-like, somber Dr. Todt advanced, machinery in tow. "Please, Lars."

Beyond Dr. Todt and nurse Elvira Funt a slim, bald, pale-as-straw but highly professional-looking young man in peasoup green rose, a folio under his arm. Lars Powderdry at once beckoned to him. Blood-pressure readings could wait. This was the fella from KACH, and he had something with him.

"May we go into your private office, Mr. Lars?" the KACH-man asked.

Leading the way Lars said, "Photos."

"Yes, "sir." The KACH-man shut the office door carefully after them. "Of her sketches of—" he opened the folio, examined a Xeroxed document—"last Wednesday. Their codex AA-335." Finding a vacant spot on Lars' desk he began spreading out the stereo pics. "Plus one blurred shot of a mockup at the Rostok Academy assembly-lab... of—" Again he consulted his poop sheet—"SeRKeb codex AA-330." He stood aside so that Lars could inspect.

Seating himself Lars lit a Cuesta Rey astoria and did not inspect. He felt his wits become turgid, and the cigar did not help. He did not enjoy snooping dog-like over spy-obtained pics of the output of his Peep-East equivalent, Miss Topchev. Let UN-W Natsec do the analysis! He had so much as said this to General Nitz on several occasions, once at a meeting of the total Board, with everyone present sunk within his most dignified and stately presgarms—his prestige capes, miter, boots, gloves... probably spider-silk underwear with ominous slogans and ukases, stitched in multicolored thread.

There, in that solemn environment, with the burden of Atlas on the backs of even the concomodies—those six drafted, involuntary fools—in formal session, Lars had mildly asked that for chrissakes couldn't they do the analysis of the enemy's weapons?

No. And without debate. Because (listen closely, Mr. Lars) these are not Peep-East's weapons. These are his plans for weapons. We will evaluate them when they've passed from prototype to autofac production, General Nitz had intoned. But as regards this initial stage... he had eyed Lars meaningfully.

Lighting an old-fashioned—and illegal—cigarette, the pale, bald young KACH-man murmured, "Mr. Lars, we have something more. It may not interest you, but since you seem to be waiting anyhow..."

He dipped deep into the folio.

Lars said, "I'm waiting because I hate this. Not because I want to see any more. God forbid."

"Umm." The KACH-man brought forth an additional eight-by-ten glossy and leaned back.

It was a non-stereo pic—taken from a great distance, possibly even from an eye-spy, satellite, then severely processed—of Lilo Topchev.

2

"Oh, yes," Lars said with vast caution. "I asked for that, didn't I?" Unofficially, of course. As a favor by KACH to him personally, with absolutely nothing in writing—with what the old-timers called "a calculated risk."

"You can't tell too much from this," the KACH-man admitted.

"I can't tell anything." Lars glared, baffled.

The KACH-man shrugged with professional nonchalance, and said, "We'll try again. You see, she never goes anywhere or does anything. They don't let her. It may be just a cover-story, but they say her trance-states tend to come on involuntarily, in a pseudo-epileptoid pattern. Possibly drug-induced, is our guess off the record, of course. They don't want her to fall down in the middle of the public ru

"You mean they don't want her to bolt to Wes-bloc."

The KACH-man gestured philosophically.

"Am I right?" Lars asked.

"Afraid not. Miss Topchev is paid a salary equal to that of the prime mover of SeRKeb, Marshal Paponovich. She has a top-floor high-rise view conapt, a maid, butler, Mercedes-Benz hovercar. As long as she cooperates—"

"From this pic," Lars said, "I can't even tell how old she is. Let alone what she looked like."

"Lilo Topchev is twenty-three."

The office door opened and short, sloppy, unpunctual, on-the-brink-of-being-relieved-of-his-position but essential Henry Morris conjured himself into their frame of reference. "Anything for me?"

Lars said, "Come here." He indicated the pic of Lilo Topchev.

Swiftly the KACH-man restored the pic to its folio. "Classified, Mr. Lars! 20-20. You know; for your eyes alone."

Lars said, "Mr. Morris is my eyes." This was, evidently, one of KACH's more difficult functionaries. "What is your name?" Lars asked him, and held his pen ready at a notepad.

After a pause the KACH-man relaxed. "An ipse dixit, but—do whatever you wish with the pic, Mr. Lars." He returned it to the desk, no expression on his sunless, expert face. Henry Morris came around to bend over it, squinting and scowling, his fleshy jowls wobbling as he visibly masticated, as if trying to ingest something of substance from the blurred pic.

The vidcom on Lars' desk pinged and his secretary Miss Grabhorn said, "Call from the Paris office. Miss Faine herself, I believe." The most minuscule trace of disapproval in her voice, a tiny coldness.

"Excuse me," Lars said to the KACH-man. But then, still holding his pen poised, he said, "Let's have your name anyhow. Just for the record. In the rare case I might want to get in touch with you again."