Inferno

They ambled about the house, with the casual air of people with no clear goal in mind. Of course, half their motions were computerized guesses, but Fredda had the feeling the integrator was guessing right.

But then. Then she saw it. Another figure, a small, slight shadow, a pale-ski

“Give me the fully-populated view for a second, Donald.”

Suddenly the pale man was surrounded by people, and his actions became clear. He was contriving to enter the building just as a crowd of late arrivals came in, hoping, it would seem, to mix in with the crowd. The gambit worked: He got in with the rest of the group, gaining entry just thirty seconds before the fight began.

And there. There! “Donald, freeze that. Freeze it!” She leaned in close to the image tank. “Do you see it?”

“I see the subject you appear to be interested in glancing at his watch.”

“Yes, but what does that say to you?”

“That he wondered what time it was.”

No imagination. That was why the universe needed people and not just robots. “But who would care what time it was when they were arriving at a party? Besides which, he’s a Spacer. At least he’s dressed in Spacer clothes with a Spacer haircut.”

“What of that?”

“Spacers hardly ever wear watches. If a Spacer needs to know what time it is, he asks his robot.”

“Are you suggesting that he is checking the time in order to synchronize his actions? That he was timing his actions so he would arrive just prior to the staged fight?”

“Yes, I am suggesting that.”

Donald turned to look again at the image, then turned back toward Fredda. “It seems a great deal to read into a man glancing at his wrist,” he said, a bit doubtfully.

“In general, I grant you. But not too much at all to read into this man glancing at his wrist as he sneaks into this party two minutes before a fight breaks out. That is our man. I’ll bet on it. Clear everyone-everyone from the image system but him and run it forward, tracking a close-up view on him.”

The crowds of people vanished, and the pale-faced man in the dowdy clothes was alone in the integrator’s display, with no throngs of gaily dressed party-goers to hide behind, no diversionary fights to hide behind, all his camouflage stripped away.

Fredda watched as the slightly grainy, somewhat blurred blown-up image of the man moved inside. He made his way through the entrance, into the Grand Hall-and then directly out of it again, without so much as a glance at the invisible brawl that was going on. Now and again the image of him broke up a bit, with the intervening sequences linked by animation. The effect was much more startling in close-up, as the crude overenlarged images suddenly shifted into the oversimplified images of a generic man and then back again. Every time it happened, Fredda’s stomach tightened a bit, fearful that they had come to the last real video image of him, and they were about to lose him altogether.

The image of the man went down a side passage, walking purposefully, a man who knew exactly where he was going and why. No pausing at intersections or hesitating over which turning to take. Either he had been in the building at some point in the past, or he had been briefed in detail.

“Still not sure he makes sense as our man?” Fredda asked Donald.

“His actions are remarkably purposeful for a casual visitor,” Donald conceded. “He appears to be making for the service areas at the rear of the building.”

The pale man came to an unmarked door, glanced behind himself, opened it, stepped through, and closed it behind him. Fredda found herself staring at a blank door that had been closed in her face.

“Damn it, Donald, follow him,” Fredda demanded. She was so caught up in the chase that it was a real effort of will to remember that her quarry was long gone, that she was tracking nothing more than an integrator image.

“One moment, ma’am. ” Donald worked the control panel, and then looked back up at Fredda. “I’m sorry, ma’am. That is the last of the data recorded from that location, and there were no video sources on the other side of the door. I can show you what is on the other side of the door, but there is no point in placing the man’s simulacrum there. There is no information at all about any other activity in that sector until the activation of the security robots. Once they were activated and deployed, they recorded that vicinity in great detail, but those records were of course destroyed with the robots. There is no further sign of the man we have been tracking in the extant records.”

“Why should that one spot get detailed recording from the security robots?”

Donald ran the integrator image forward straight through the door, revealing a downward ramp beyond it. He ran the video image down the ramp and turned the corner at the bottom.

And there were the SPRs, the Sapper security robots, turned off, inert, lined up neatly.

“Burning stars,” Fredda said. “Our pale-faced friend came here. Hid out in the same room as the security robots.”

“So it would appear,” Donald said. “Note the line of storage closets along the rear wall. I would expect that he secreted himself in one of them. ”

“Probably,” Fredda said. She stared at the image, determined to think it all through. If Pale-man had come down here, then he clearly knew that the security robots were to be turned off. The image before her showed the integrator’s best information as to the state of the robots as of that moment. Upstairs, at the same time, Sheriff Kresh was still sorting through the chaos after the staged attack. When Pale-man came down here he would have to know that the security robots would be deployed soon afterwards.

But he would also know that the robots had been tampered with. That they would suddenly stop working, and that the building would be wide open to him. If Pale-man kept his cool, there was nothing at all to fear from being down here. All he had to do was hide, wait until the Sappers were deactivated, then come out with his blaster and-

Hold it. His blaster. There were weapon-sniffers on all the entrances to the Residence, and around the perimeter of the property. Fredda had no trouble believing that the security net could have missed an intruder slipping into the place. That sort of mistake would be easy to make. But how could the system have missed a blaster corning in? She checked the images of Pale-man. No baggy clothes or carry bag that might conceal a gun. Besides, the weapons detectors would have picked up a gun. Nothing as small as any weapon he could have been carrying would be big enough to be shielded. No. Pale-man could not possibly have been wearing one on his way in.

And therefore-therefore his blaster had been planted for him before he got in the house. And all of a sudden Fredda had a pretty damned good idea where and how.

The underground storage room that had held the SPRs looked strangely different, strangely the same, in real life. The integrator had shown an idealized version of it, pulled up from the computerized architectural plans and a few still photos, but that was only part of the strangeness. Somehow, the room looked much smaller, rather than larger, than it had through the integrator. The real-life lights were a little dimmer, and the real walls were scuffed and marked here and there in ways the sim’s walls were not. The air was cool and a bit dank. Amazing the way reality could show up all the flaws of a simulation, flaws you had not even noticed in the sim.