The Final Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 15

Napoleon grabbed for him a moment too late. Harry was on his feet, unsteadily, and heading for the kitchen exit with the beginnings of hysteria in the incoherent cry which trailed raggedly behind him.

Illya’s eyes were elsewhere, peeking around the other corner of the table towards the center of action. At the moment the two Thrush seemed to care little for anything but their own immediate survival; Bruno had been foolish enough to pull a gun and had had it taken away from him unceremoniously by a shirtless and tattooed weapons collector who then proceeded to teach him a few things.

The red-headed Falstaff was equally involved but doing better. Neither seemed to be concentrating on the kitchen exit or to be at all aware of Harry’s precipitous departure. Fortunately someone else was.

“We’ve gotta get Harry!” said Napoleon, grabbing Illya’s arm. “I think his head-glue is softening.”

“Huh?” asked Illya perceptively.

“Harry! I think he recognized me, and he didn’t look at all well, even apart from all the blood.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Kitchen.” Napoleon took off, running in a crouch for several feet, hugging the sparse concealment of shattered furniture until he picked up his stride into a sprint for the back door. Illya was close behind him.

“Hoy, Thing!” somebody yelled. “There go the two guys from the stage!”

Illya ducked through the door last. Steel tables and racks gleamed in the steamy deserted kitchen. and Napoleon was already out into the alley.

The swinging door slammed open behind him and a voice roared, “Hey, Blondie —I wanna talk to you!”

An instant later something bit into his ankles and tangled them, and he stumbled, catching himself on the edge of a counter — a bike chain had tripped him, slung along the floor like a bola. He clawed it free and flung it back at the grinning unshaven face of its owner.

Thing caught it across a raised forearm, though the sharp links drew blood where they slashed the hairy muscle. He staggered back a step to an aluminum sink bolted to the wall behind him, as Illya gathered himself for a rush. Feeling cold metal “under his hands, the biker turned and gripped the rolled metal edges. He flexed his knees and tendons stood out like granite ridges until a terrible creak and tearing sound gave Illya a momentary impression his bones were snapping under the strain —then there was a roar and a white fountain of water from the ruptured plumbing in the wall as snapped pipes belched hot and cold. Swinging the metal sink like a hollow boulder, he pivoted and flung it at Illya.

The Russian watched his timing and leaped out of its path an instant before it struck a steel table with a noise like all the garbage cans in the world being emptied at dawn. A two-foot frying pan hung polished on a hook close to the business end of Illya’s arm; it described a short arc terminating in a musical but unresonant sound before the sink had stopped rolling, and Thing stared at him until Illya began to wonder if he was going to have to hit him again before he would fall. Then the stare began to go out of focus, and he gave an oddly gentle sigh as he teetered and went down like a felled tree.

Outside, Solo braced Harry up against a brick wall and waved the silver communicator before his face. “Basingstoke. Harry. Basingstoke! Come on, Basingstoke!”

It seemed to be helping —he’d stopped struggling so hard. but he was half-sobbing incoherently as he stared at the communicator. “Harry. don’t worry.

You’ll be okay with us,” Solo said soothingly as he relaxed his grip a bit at a time. “Harry. we’re going to take you out of here and home again. You1ve got something you were going to leave inside there, and you know I’m supposed to get it. You can give it to me now — it’ll be okay.”

Harry wasn’t sure. He looked at Napoleon. and shook his head slowly -not refusing the request so much as willing himself to reject Solo’s presence entirely. “It’s… it’s… my pocket…” He gestured weakly and leaned against the wall.

A flock of sirens faded up in the near distance. heading for the front door of Casa del Gato as Illya pushed the back door closed and propped a garbage can against it. “Let’s get him to the car. Harry, you1re going to be all right.”

For some reason Harry started to giggle hysterically at this. He lau9ned and sobbed quietly halfway back to the office, then went to sleep before they arrived. Dr. Grayson was waiting for them, and she took him away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“SYNLOC / TESTOK”

“0.”

“T, after.”

“H, after that.”

Downstairs intellectual excitement raged in a quiet room as twenty expert cyberneticists and qualified kibitzers stood around their very own almost-work1ng Thrush satellite terminal; up on the sunroof Napoleon and Illya. who had been ordered to go somewhere else and relax. reclined. tense, on deck chairs and played endless games of SuperGhosts. having found themselves unable to muster the concentration required to sustain play in Botticelli — in the first half-hour each of them in turn had forgotten the character he’d picked. .

“N on the front, just to be different.’.

Illya tapped his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair. “That gives me N-O-T-H, which looks like nothing, if you’ll pardon my saying so.

Put a P in front.”

Napoleon opened his eyes. “Pnoth?” he said. “Wasn’t he the ancient Egyptian god of hubcaps or something like that?”

“That would be a proper name. P-N-O-T-H to you.”’

“Same to you. fella. Are you bluffing again?”

“No. I just enjoy English orthography.”

Solo S1ghed and leaned back. “I’ll challenge anyway. I can’t top that.”

“I could have given you Y-P-N-O-T-H, for that matter, if I could add two letters. Hypnotherapy.

“I thought we’d agreed not to mention that.”

“You spelled half of it.”

“Uh — forty percent. And 1 didn’t know what I was spelling at the time. Do you think that set of phoney memories Dr. Grayson set up for Harry will really satisfy Thrush?”

“If it satisfies Harry, it’ll satisfy Thrush. But I’m not sure how how satisfied Harry will be.”

“I got the impression he isn’t going to want to think about it much.”

“No. Dr. Grayson planted blocks and suppressions all around it.”

“The same kind of suppressions you’d have to pay a shrink seventyfive dollars an hour to dig out?”

“Identical, but artificial rather than natural.”

“It doesn’t sound healthy.”

“It isn’t,” said Illya. “But when that sort of thing occurs naturally, it’s in response to something in the environment —like a scab forming over a wound, or your white-cell count multiplying against an infection. The difference is that it doesn’t go away. It’s a learned reaction pattern to something. And in Dr. Grayson’s technique. since she knows exactly where all his buttons are. she will theoretically be able to take them all out again when he no longer needs them, and leave not a wraith behind.”

“Theoretically. He didn’t seem very sharp when we put him on the bus for home at 4:30 this morning.”

“A few hours’ sleep will do him all the good in the world.”

“I wouldn’t mind some myself. I’ve been a busy boy. You don’t suppose —” He answered the intercom in the middle of its first beep.

“Solo here. Are you open to the public yet?”

He covered the mouthpiece and said, “They’ve !Jot it aoing. It’s not ready for general exhibit, but we’re invited to a demonstration of the progress they’ve made in the last twelve hours. Downstairs, ri9ht now.”

Illya was at the elevator and signaling for a car as his partner said, “Thanks, we’ll be right down,” and hung up. The doors opened; Illya stepped in just ahead of him and punched the bottom button.

Downstairs nearly everybody in the world who knew about the kidnapped terminal stood in professional silence around the small room watchin9 an operator test the keyboard. Neat green block letters glowed on the screen as Napoleon and Illya entered quietly and stood next to Mr. Simpson.