The Computer Connection

“Not I, my friend.”

“Why not?”

“If you don’t know where he is, how should I?”

“You must find him.”

“He’s tuned in on the entire electronic network surrounding us. He’ll know everywhere I go and everything I do. He’ll have no trouble hiding.”

“Then you must be devious to reach him.”

“You’re asking me to start a bootleg search.”

“You put it precisely, Guig. Any more excuses?”

“You know I recruited him for the Group.”

“With the help of Borgia. Da.”

“You know the Group always supports its members, for better or worse. We are the family.”

“You imply that dealing with Dr. Guess will involve attacking him?”

“Not only is he of the Group, he’s my brother. He’s also the brother of my beloved wife.”

“Do not try to use me, Glig.”

“I’m merely presenting the emotional dilemma facing me. There’s another aspect. He and the Extro, between them, contrived to kill my adopted daughter, a darling girl who adored him. A girl I loved.”

“In the name of God! Why?”

“She knew too much and I talked too much about what she knew. So now I’m torn by a love-hate relationship with Guess, and I’m afraid to move.”

“It sounds like Chekhov,” Boris muttered.

“And there’s a final factor. I’m afraid of him. Genuinely. He’s declared war on man. He and the electronic network have begun that war — witness the death rate.”

“Why on man? Does he propose a population of machine?”

“No. Hermaphrodites. His vision of the new breed.”

“Impossible!”

“He has three already,” Natoma said.

“They ca

“They do now,” I said. “And as he murders men he will replace them with more. I think that’s the Extro speaking through him. Men have been hating machines since the twentieth century; it’s never occurred to them that machines might return that hatred. That’s why I’m terrified, Boris.”

“It is bad, but it is not enough to account for extreme terror. You are still holding something back. What is it? I have the right to know.”

I let out a sigh of defeat. “R. I am. The Greek figured out that there’s a renegade Moleman working with the Extro; maybe with Guess, too, for all I know.”

“Impossible to believe.”

“The Greek’s evidence and deduction can’t be argued. There’s a Moleman who’s declared war on the Group.”

“Who?”

“Not known. You’re right, Boris. A baby Moleman and a stretch computer in collaboration are bad, but not terror-making. Add a renegade Moleman with centuries of knowledge, experience, wealth, hatred, ru

“And your beloved wife?”

“W?”

“Will she outlive it?”

“You crafty cossack son of a bitch! All the same, my answer stands. I won’t tangle with him or any or all three of them. I’m no hero.”

“Then I will, alone,” Natoma said grimly. “Boris, you please take me to Mexifornia on your way home. If you can’t, I go myself.”

“Natoma—” I began angrily.

“Edward!” She cut me off in the peremptory voice of the daughter of the most powerful Sachem in Erie.

What could I do? She had the Indian sign on me. I surrendered. “All right. I’ll go. I’m just a squaw man.”

Boris beamed. “I will now sing Rubinstein’s ‘Persian Love Song’ in honor of your beloved, beautiful, valiant wife.”

“If we can find the music room,” I grumbled, reaching for the map.

10

Then came the unexpected epiphany of Hillel, the Jew; saturnine, Sephardic black and white, and twice as smart as the rest of the world put together.

As Natoma and I came out of customs in the Northeast Corridor (Brazil has no franchise to put down in Mexifornia; don’t ask me why) there he was with the live and mecho porters. He answered a signal I never made, fought to us, picked up our luggage, and hustled us to a pogo. When I started to greet him he shook his head. As he put us in he mouthed, “Tip.” I tip. He growl in disappointment and disappear. He reappear in a different coverall as the pogo hackie, demanding in a debased Spang where we had the nerve to want to go. When I told him he started a fight for extra fares. I’ve never been so abused in my life, and hot-tempered Natoma was ready to slug him.

“Cool,” I soothed her. “This is typical of the Corridor. It’s all a rage trip.”

Hilly passed me a note. It read: Careful. You’re monitored. Will contact soonest. I showed it to Natoma. Her eyes widened but she nodded in silence.

We made the hotel in three jumps and damn if Hillel didn’t start another fight over the tip. The concierge rescued us and escorted us through the security barriers, followed by the Hebe’s screams of outrage. Beautifully in character. Chronic fury was the beau ideal of the Corridor.

We took a suite with water, both hot and cold, an extravagance that erased the desk clerk’s sneers. The Corridor suffered from a perpetual water shortage. Most of it was black market and you had to pay through the nose for it. In the Corridor you didn’t ask a girl to come up and see your etchings; you invited her to come up and take a shower.

So we took our showers, which made me feel like a deliciously dirty old man, and while we were drying off, the floor steward came in carrying a couple of leather gun cases.

“The shotguns you ordered, sir,” he said in affected hotel Euro. “Over-and-under .410’s. Lady-size for modom. Box of shells in each case.”

I started to deny everything. Then I saw it was the Jew again and shut up.

“Sunrise tomorrow morning on the Heath. Five thirty ack emma,” Hillel continued suavely. “The club has agreed to release twenty chickens. Most generous. If you will permit a suggestion, Mr. Curzon, one would be advised to offer a generous bonus.”

“Chickens!” I said incredulously. “No grouse, pheasant, partridge?”

“Impossible, sir. Those are extinct species in the Corridor. They could be imported from Australasia but that would take weeks. However, the chickens have been bred for cu

A range safety officer came up to us on the Heath while we were waiting for sunrise and the birds. He wore brilliant protective crimson and I thought he was going to ask to inspect our permits. Then I saw it was Hillel again.

“Gottenu!” he groaned, sitting down on the concrete. It was called “The Heath” only by courtesy. It had been a jetport centuries ago; square miles of concrete now owned by the gun club. “I had to walk it. Sit alongside me, Mrs. Curzon. Otherwise if Guig introduces us I’ll have to stand up, and I don’t think I can make it.”

“Walked!” I exclaimed. “Why?”

“Taking no chances. The Extro network is damned thorough, which is why we’re meeting here where we can’t be monitored. Good morning, Mrs. Curzon. I’m called Hillel the Jew.”

“What is Jew?” Natoma asked curiously.

The Hebe chuckled. “If only that question could have been asked five centuries ago, what a difference it might have made for the Chosen People. It is an ancient race and culture that predated Christianity, Mrs. Curzon.”

“What is Christianity?”

“I like this girl,” Hilly said. “She has exactly the right gaps in her education. Bird, low, at ten o’clock, Guig.”

I shot and missed on purpose. I hate killing creatures.

“You seem to be everybody everywhere,” Natoma said. “What is it you do?”

“He’s a professional Inductor,” I said.

“I don’t know that word, Glig.”

“I invented it especially for Hillel. He’s a genius of induction. That means he can observe and appraise separate, apparently unrelated facts, and add them up to a conclusion about a whole scene that hasn’t occurred to anyone else.”