The Computer Connection

And this man of supreme power and wealth, with everything that anyone could possibly want, to turn renegade and attack the Group? Why? In his eyes we were beneath him. Everybody was. Caste. Did he want to become prince and god of the entire world? Nonsense! You only find that motivation in cheap fiction. I never believe anything that doesn’t make sense to me, and this didn’t make sense.

On the fourth day Long Lance stopped the hovercraft and made emphatic Sign to me. I emphatic. He listened hard for a few minutes. Then he got out, pulled a dirk from his belt, and worked it into the rocky floor. He knelt down, fastened his teeth on the handle, and listened through his mouth. Then he came back to me, took the compass, and examined it closely. He showed it to me.

By God, the needle had swung two degrees from the north toward the west and hung there no matter how we jiggled it. Long Lance grunted, retrieved his dirk, climbed back aboard, and began crawling the turtle. The first broad corridor on our left, he turned, went up a hundred yards, stopped, repeated the dirk bit, and came back to me. He made a globe gesture and said, “Si, Capo.”

Like a damned fool I opened my mouth to ask questions which he certainly couldn’t have understood. He said, “No, Capo,” and signed me to listen. I listen. I listen. I listen. Nothing. I look at Long Lance. He nodded. He was hearing what I couldn’t hear. What a tracker! I listen. I listen. I listen. And then I heard it. Music.

12

We pulled the hover back to the main boulevard and turned toward Tchi until we located a side corridor big enough to accommodate the turtle. We backed in deep enough for cover, got out, and went north again on foot. Long Lance had the dirk in his belt. I shoved a meat burner into mine, just in case. No sense taking chances. He was barefoot, feet like iron; I’d sprayed my soles with a half inch of plastic. He was naked, painted, and the green luminescence gave him the appearance of hideous tooled leather. If I looked anything like him we must have made a charming couple.

Suddenly Long Lance gripped my shoulder, stopped me, and turned me around. He pointed to a smallish side corridor we had just passed, and made See-Sign. When I asked him what, he made Animal-Sign. What kind of animal? The answer was complicated but I finally twigged. He was telling me he’d seen a lion. Preposterous, but I had to show him respect. We went back to the corridor and looked in. No lion. We went in. A dark maze. No lion. Not even a snarl. Long Lance was unhappy and confused and wanted to make a thorough inspection. We had more urgent business on hand. I urged him out and we proceeded.

When we reached Capsule Street he took the lead, naturally, signing me to imitate everything he did. I imitate. It was a crash course in the art of sneak attack. As we progressed I became aware of a white glow up ahead, then a low drone, and then the music again — a sort of hum of voices. It went like this:

Not my idea of any tunes ever written by Peter Ilich Korruptsky (b. 1940, d. 2003, greatly regretted). As we went smooch-foot toward the glow, the Rue de la Capsule enlarged, and when we crept up to the source of the light and the drone, I gawked. It was an enormous chamber, lined with the old sodium extraction apparatus, and in the center was the capsule, patched into giant old energy cables and droning away. The Chief had picked the perfect stash. Then we spotted his three humming babies.

They were enormous; nearly seven feet high. They were dead white albino. They were built like men but there was something unca

Suddenly I had a flash of memory. Once in Africa with M’bantu, the Zulu was showing me the ecosights. He kicked over a rough clay cone and I saw thousands of terrified termites scrambling for cover. They were white, they were blind, and McB told me that they communicated by uttering sounds which the human ear couldn’t hear. Sequoya’s babies were seven-foot termites, but they could be heard.

I made Sign to Long Lance that I was going in alone. He didn’t like the idea, but you can’t argue in Sign, you only make statements. So I went while he stayed. The three things sensed me almost immediately and came at me. I pulled the burner out of my belt, but they intended no harm; they were simply overcome with curiosity and delight. While I looked for Sequoya they explored my body with their hands and jabbered in music:

I answered with Scott Joplin, Gershwin, Korruptsky, Hokubonzai; all the great standards I could remember and hum. They loved the vintage ragtime which I think they thought were fu

A low hiss came from Long Lance and when I looked he beckoned urgently. I disengaged myself from my fans and ran to him; no time for autographs. He made Listen Sign. I listen and listen. Then I heard it; the murmur of an approaching hovercraft. “It’s Hilly from the other end,” I thought, took Long Lance by the shoulder, and we both ran down to the Avenida Las Salt Mine. The Algonquin didn’t like it but I gave him no time for statements. However, he did pull out his dirk. That was statement enough.

Just as well. It wasn’t Hilly, it was the Chief in a hover stacked with supplies. Long Lance melted against a wall and disappeared; probably reluctant to mess around with the son and heir of the most powerful Sachem in Erie. Not so the son and heir of the great Capo Rip. I stepped out in full view, blocking the hover, one hand on the burner, which was idiotic, but I was in a fury. Guess stopped and stared in amazement, not expecting visitors and not recognizing me.

“H,” I said.

“W? W?”

“You look prosperous, brother.”

“It isn’t Guig.”

“Y.”

“It can’t be.”

“It is. Decorated. Not for valor.”

“Guig! But—”

“Y. You missed, you son of a bitch.”

“But—”

“You almost got Natoma instead.”

“N.”

“Y.”

“But I—”

“I know. I know. Tried to get her off. I got off instead because her Spang is n. so good. She sends her love. So does the Sachem and mama.”

“And you?”

“Only trying to figure out how to kill you.”

“Guig!”

“Y. It’s going to be a hit.”

“Why want to kill me?”

“Why kill me?”

“You were on the attack. It was Extro-defense.”

“And Fee? Was she on the attack?”

He was silent, shaking his head.

“You know she was mad for you. She would have done anything for you.”

“That damned Extro,” he muttered.

“Now where have I heard that before? It wasn’t me; it was the other guy what done it.”