A mortised gondola of the cabin type bore a yapping loud-speaker urging all to join a sight-seeing tour. Stover joined the welter of honey- mooners, space-hands, clerks on holiday and similar rubberneckers. A crowd like that made good disguise, and the gondola would take him to a certain definite jumping-off place for his newly chosen goal.
He sat back in a shadowy corner of the vehicle. The guide lectured eloquently as he clamped shut the ports and took them on a brief dive to show the underwater foundations of Pulambar, fringed with the rare lakeweed that was to be seen nowhere else on Mars. Stover remembered yet again how Buckalew had exhorted him—it seemed centuries before—to work hard for the salvation of Mars by the condenser ray.
Peering from his port, he saw the enclosing water, only a saucerful compared to the oceans of Earth, but here a curiosity and a luxury. He remembered, too, how he had seen in the television a desert where dammed and covered reservoirs were guarded by armed Martian troops as the most precious treasure-vaults of the planet.
He brought back to mind the pitiful folk of other Martian communities, who must deny themselves everything to pay the rates for only a tiny supervised trickle of the fluid which was life to them. All this he could obviate if he finished the ray mechanism—if he ever had a chance to finish it.
“I may die from something worse than water shortage if I don’t look sharp,” he told himself.
In his role of tourist, he achieved an appearance of attention as a lens- window in the roof was set so that the gaping tourists might look their fill upon the magnified disk of crystal rock that was the hurtling moon Phobos. He did his best to seem casual as they approached the sixth or seventh public building for a supervised inspection.
“Architecture bureau,” announced the guide, impressively as though it were something he himself had planned and created. “Pulambar belongs as you know, to one great group of interests. Every building, small and great, rich and simple, must be maintained by that company. Pulambar being Pulambar, everything must stay at its best and most beautiful. No repairs are skimped or delayed anywhere. Look about you!”
LEAVING the gondola, they entered a lofty room fitted as a main office. Around the sides were desks at which workers mostly Martians, toiled at reports or instruments. Tourist parties being frequent here, no attention was paid to the intruders. The guide marshaled his charges around an alterlike stand in the center of the floor, on which glowed something that at first glance seemed a luminous birthday cake with myriad candles. A second look revealed an exquisitely made miniature of a group of buildings. “A model of Pulambar,” breathed someone, but the guide laughed in lofty negation.
‘‘It’s a three-dimensional reflection, an image. Here, focused by an intricate system of televiso rays, is an actual miniature image of the city. Observe the detail of buildings and towers. Look closely and you will see actual movement of gondolas on the little canals, and flying specks in the upper levels, denoting aircraft.”
It was so. The sightseers stared raptly. Even Stover, his mind filled with other things, was impressed.
“If we could see microscopically,” went on the guide, “we’d even make out ourselves standing inside this building. And yet this is only an image, a concentration of light rays.” To demonstrate, he passed his hand through the gleaming structure. “This miniature keeps before the attention of the Bureau the city’s state of affairs, showing if anything is wrong in building or service. For instance—”
His forefinger hovered above one of the tiny towers, a jewel-delicate upward thrust. Malbrook’s tower!
“See that bright point of light? Something is wrong. And,” the guide’s voice shifted to a dramatic bass, “it happens to be something of grim tragedy. That, my friends, is the spot where the awful explosion-slaying of Mace Malbrook took place recently. The speck of brilliance shows that repairs are needed there. This is to be done right away—now that the police relinquish the place.”
The tourists hung on his words. Stover glanced to a bulletin screen, where work-details were posted. It was as he hoped. Halfway down were three words:
MALBROOK TOWER—GIRRA
Malbrook’s tower was to be serviced by a worker named Girra. The time was posted, too: tomorrow morning, very early. The rest of Stover’s problem solved itself very easily.
The boredom of the. desk-workers helped. None saw him slip away from the tourist throng at an opportune time, dart into a dark doorway and down into the lower regions of the repair department.
Here, along a bench, sat metallic, grotesque figures—robots off duty. Each bore on its ches.t-plate a switch by which the mechanical semblance of life could be turned off and'con- served when the robot was not in use. Here, too, were benches with racks of tools, stacks of spare parts. Stover, who knew machinery well, went to work confidently. Selecting a wrench, he examined robot after robot, seeking the one which bore the name, in Martian and Terrestrial characters: Girra. He found it.
This was Girra’s helper. As its master was off duty, so also was this robot. Quickly Stover unbolted its front, and from inside the torso unshipped great quantities of springs, wires, wheels and other works, rapidly distributing them in the proper heaps of spare parts. When he had completely emptied the shell, even to the big mittenlike hands, he got into it as though it were indeed the suit of ancient armor it so resembled.
He had trouble clasping the jointed arm and leg pieces and the helmetlike head upon himself, but he finally managed. Then he loosened the radium lamp from its frontal fastenings a bit, to give himself a little space through which to see. At last he sat on the bench to await the Martian who owned this robot.
CHAPTER IX Scene of the Crime
THE police officer on duty in Mace Malbrook’s reception hall made disgusted gestures to quiet all his interrogates.
“Now there’s another of you pests at the door,” he groaned. “Why can’t regulations keep a murder spot from being all cluttered up with High-tower people who wangle special passes?” He crossed to the door and opened it. “Thank heaven, this is somebody with legitimate business,” he growled.
“Right,” said the Martian outside. “I am Girra, from Arrchitecturre
Burreau, come to ssurrvey damage and esstimate rrepairrs. Alsso my helperr.”
“I was told to admit only one man,” said the officer. “Your helper must go back.”
Girra snorted in the midst of the petal-like foliage that covered his cranium. “My helperr iss a rrobot, not a man.” His tentacle gestured to where, behind him, towered a tall, jointed figure of silvery-plated metal.
“All right,” granted the officer, and stepped out of the way.
In waddled Girra, and behind him stumped the grotesquely human structure, its jointed arms loaded with instruments, tool-cases and notebooks. Robots were too common in Pulambar for this one to attract much attention.
When Girra and his companion had entered the wrecked chamber, Reynardine Phogor was first of the four visitors to speak again.
“Mace constantly mentioned a will,” she told the officer. “It’s here somewhere, and it leaves me a controlling interest in his affairs. As his intended wife, I have a right to search for it. That explosion couldn’t have blown it out of existence. Perhaps—” And she glared across at Brome Fielding.
“If you suggest that I destroyed it for any purpose—” began Fielding.
“Oh, short it,” pleaded the officer. “All requests or complaints must be made to Special Agent Congreve. I told you he’d be here any time.”
“Then why doesn’t he hurry?” rumbled Phogor from his seat beside his stepdaughter.
The fourth civilian visitor, Amyas Crofts, kept silent. He looked more haggard than ever, and more savage.
All these things Stover saw and heard through his robot disguise. He tried to assimilate every word, at the same time being helpful to Girra and maintaining his machine impersonation. It was a difficult task, but he succeeded.
His previous visit to Malbrook’s apartmen
t had been too full of stress and excitement. Only now was he able to observe and estimate.
The room, made cube-form of metal, was bulged in all directions as though it had tried to become spherical.
Only the strength of its material and fastenings had kept it from ripping to shreds. As to that, only the solidity of the door-panel had saved Stover’s own life. The furniture was badly wrecked, even its metal frames being twisted and splintered. Prrala, decided Stover, had been able to live for a few more moments only because Malbrook must have been standing between him and—and what?
The killer must have been tall, blond, and dressed in gold, to have been identified as himself. Stover scowled perplexedly inside the metal cranium of his disguise.
GIRRA was investigating a round hole, little more than thumb-size, on the forward wall. “Ssmall wrrench,” he ordered, shooting out a tentacle.
Stover found the desired tool in a box and passed it over. With it Girra loosened the device, the mouth- rim of a ventilator tube. Inside was a tiny fan to blow enough air through so small an orifice. The tube itself was left whole behind the damaged wall, for it would not pull out.
“Rray,” commanded Girra, and Stover found him a metal-solvent ray projector. Skillfully Girra cut away an area of the plating.
The ventilator was revealed, a down- curved tube, like the trap of a lavatory. At the lowest point was one of Malbrook’s protective devices, a liquid solvent for any poisonous or smothering gas. Girra tested it by thrusting in a flexible probe, which came out wet.
“Ventilatorr iss in good orrderr,” he announced.
As he turned away to other surveys, Stover dared move close to the opening and investigate for himself. The ventilator, he saw, fastened to another tube that led through the outer plating to Malbrook’s hall.
“Why do you loiterr therre?” Girra was demanding. “Iss ssomething wrrong?”
Too late, Stover realized that robot helpers are supposed to be above curiosity or individuality of any kind. If Girra considered that something was faulty in his mechanism and started to remove a plate to rectify it —but the Martian, coming toward him, was suddenly attracted to the piece of plating he had cut away from the wall and which now swung loose by the rim-attachment of the ventilator tube.
“What iss thiss sstain?” he asked aloud. “It sseemss local. The patrrol chemisstss have overrlooked it. Chemical kit!”
Stover handed the kit over. Girra daubed on some liquids, stirred and fumbled, noted the reaction, and made another slurred pronouncement:
“A carrbohydrrate of peculiar prro- porrtion. A ssynthetic that apprroxi- matess Terrresstrrial rrubberr. Melted elasscoid, perrhapss.’’ He confronted Stover. “Now, then, rrepeat back to me thesse findingss.”
Evidently the work-robot also served as a sort of stenographer, receiving spoken words and keeping them like notes on a dictograph. Stover had listened with both his hidden ears, and was able to comply.
“Ventilator in good order,” he repeated. “Stain of carbohydrate resembling synthetic rubber, probably elascoid.”
But he was unable to duplicate Girra’s Martian accent with its doubled s and r sounds. Girra was half-intrigued, half-upset.
“Have thosse Burreau mechaniss fiddled with yourr sspeech-vibrra- torr?” he demanded.
“They have fiddled,” replied Stover on inspiration, thankful that his voice echoed inside the metal-headpiece like that of the average speaking robot.
“Then they sshall hearr frrom me,” promised Girra balefully. “Only I sshall sserrvice my helperr herre- afterr.” He turned back to his work. “All innerr plating of thiss aparrt- ment to be rremoved and rreplaced. Lessserr injurriess may have affected adjoining aparrtmentss. Come.”
THEY returned to the outer hall.
Girra paused to examine the doorway from which the panel had been blown away.
“New jamb needed herre,” he announced. “Had not that rroom been sso sstrongly made, thiss whole towerr might have been wrrecked.”
Stover should have been paying attention like a good robot, but at that moment new figures entered. Congreve came first, grim and trim and masterful. Behind him came Buckalew, in brown velvet-faced tunic and half-boots, sober-faced and a trifle worried in manner. The four visitors all started toward Congreve at once.
“Mace Malbrook’s will—” began Reynardine.
“My stepdaughter’s interests—’’ boomed Phogor at the same time.
“Chief, these High-tower swells are driving me—” complained the officer on guard.
“If you haven’t recaptured Stover by this time—” threatened Fielding.
All this made deafening confusion. Throwing up his hands, Congreve fairly roared a command for silence. It fell, and he spoke coldly.
“I told Stover himself, before he escaped, that you idle-richers had things too much your own way, and that I was going to show, in this case, that the law is some steps higher than money. If any of you think you’re running this show for me you’re wrong. I don’t know what authorities got you passes to this place, but I declare them no good.
“Your interests all around will be looked after to the best ability of the police department, but none of you are more important than the capture and punishment of the murderer. Now get out, all of you except Buckalew.”
“How does Buckalew enjoy a privilege that’s denied us?” wrathfully bellowed Phogor.
“It’s not a privilege,” replied Congreve with a frosty smile. “If it will help clear this place, I will inform you that he’s under suspicion as Stover’s friend and host, and unable to explain his whereabouts on the night of the killing.”
Amyas Crofts, who had not joined the confusion, now addressed Congreve. “Are you aware, sir, that Miss MacGowan has disappeared? I went to her lodgings an hour ago, and she was gone. Nobody knew when or how she had left, or where bound. With Stover at large, I’m afraid for her.”
“Save your fears,” called Bee Mac-
Gowan’s clear voice as she entered.
All gazed as she walked up to Congreve.
“They said at your headquarters that you were here,” she said. “I come to give myself up.”
“Give yourself up!” echoed Buckalew, Congreve and Crofts together.
She smiled quietly, and nodded.
“I must make an admission,” she went on, as if reciting. “I said once that I came here to interview Mr. Malbrook just at the time of his death. The capture of Mr. Stover took your minds off me without further questioning. Prrala, before his death, tried to say that someone had come into the apartment during his talk with Malbrook. I am that someone.”
More silence. Congreve broke it.
“Do I understand,” he said, “that you are confessing to the murder?”
“I neither confess nor deny,” the girl answered, almost primly. “You are a criminologist. Find out for yourself.”
“You’re under arrest,” Congreve told her.
CHAPTER X The Second Explosion
GIRRA, finishing his work, returned to the outer balcony where his flying machine was moored. But he did not enter it at once. Instead, he selected a wrench from among his tools and turned upon the robot helper whose peculiar behavior he diagnosed as faulty mechanism.
“I darre not trrusst you in the flyerr while my attention iss occupied by operrating the mechanissm,” he addressed the metal figure. “I had bet- terr examine yourr worrkss now, fix them if possible, or put you temporarily out of commisssion if not.” He paused, out of patience. His servitor was actually retreating before him. “Sstand sstill!” commanded Girra, and pursued.
Stover backed up, thinking hard and desperately. Then he could back no farther. Girra had herded him into a corner, close against the railing.
The Martian extended the wrench, fumbling at one of the bolts that held Stover’s disguise-shell together.
A twist, a tug, and his secret would be out—Girra would perceive that inside the apparent robot was, not a mass of mechanism
but a living Terrestrial, very much wanted by police. And Stover did not care to be arrested just now. He had other plans.
Because he must, he put forth one hand in its metal sheathing and snatched the wrench from Girra’s grasp. The Martian mechanic retreated in turn, dumbfounded beyond speech. Then, as Stover made a threatening flourish with the wrench, Girra dropped the kit of tools he carried and retreated toward the entrance to Malbrook’s apartment.
“Help! Asssisstance!” he squalled. “My rrobot hass gone out of contrrol!”
He was gone, out of sight for a few moments. In that precious time Stover carried into action a quick plan of misdirection. From^he fallen toolkit he snatched a thin, strong line, knotted one end to the railing and threw the other end free into the abyss below. Then he ducked back into a shallow corner as Girra rushed forth again, followed by the mystified and impatient policeman who had kept guard in the vestibule.
“Now then, now then,’’ this policeman was grumbling, after the manner of policemen generally throughout all worlds and ages. “What happened, you say? Your robot—where is your robot?”
Girra ran to the railing. One tentacle caught the tethered end of the line.
“It hass climbed down thiss line!” he cried sagely. “Climbed down to lowerr levelss and escaped!”
“Never heard of a robot doing that,” commented the policeman. He went to Girra’s side, and also peered down. “Huh!” he grunted. “That’s what comes of too much clockwork in those babies. They get into wild messes. We’d better call for Congreve.”
They entered the vestibule again.
At once Stover ran to the moored flyer, got in and went soaring away.
Girra got back to the Bureau office in a hired vehicle. The mystery was deepened when there came a report from a far rooftop. An Architecture Bureau ship had landed there. Whoever had flown it was gone. Inside was a robot shell, with no machinery. Girra, smarting from reprimands by Congreve and his work superior, sought furiously for the culprit responsible for this state of affairs. He failed to find him because he did not know where and how to look.
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