Starblood

by Dean Koontz

"Have you ever heard of a company called Weapons Psionic?"

  "Bad," Creel said, making a face.

  "What about them?"

  "We have a story concerning them tomorrow. You heard the name Wallengrine?"

  "Sounds familiar."

  "Herbert Wallengrine was heir to the Wallengrine plastics fortune, twenty-seven years old. His father died eight months ago, and the will was settled four months later. Seven hundred million involved. Herbert Wallengrine was killed by one of these robotic assassins—attacked his grav-car while it was in flight, destroyed the engine. But when it couldn't get at the grav-plates through the heavy armoring, it smashed through the windscreen, slammed into his chest, and self-destructed. They've arrested his wife on suspicion, but she knows as well as they do that—even if it was her—they'll never prove it. She stood to inherit every dime of the seven hundred million. Besides that, it was well known she had taken on a lover and that Wallengrine was planning a divorce on grounds of unsanctioned adultery, cutting her off without a penny." He paused. "We're using it on page two."

  "Do we have any contacts who could dismantle one of these machines?"

  Creel examined Timothy's image carefully. "You have one?"

  "Let's say my question is academic. Do we know a good electronics man who might be able to handle it?"

  "Lambertson," Creel said. "We've used him on a few things before, to take apart bombs so we could get an exclusive on the story."

  "Can you get in touch with him now?"

  Creel shrugged. "I will. Whether hell come or not is up to him, of course. But with the money we can offer and the word that this is a SAM he has at his disposal, he'll probably jump at the chance."

  "SAM?" Timothy asked. It was the first time he had heard its name.

  "Selective Assassination Module," Creel said. "You didn't buy it, then?"

  "No, George."

  "It didn't get sent to you, did it?" he asked, his dark face growing even darker.

  "Yes."

  "That's bad," Creel said. "My, that is bad."

  They said goodnight and broke the connection almost simultaneously.

  Walter Lambertson was a huge, heavily muscled man with a lumbering walk and a face flushed by too many years of drinking. He carried a large toolbox and met Timothy by the patio doors after laboriously climbing out of the grav-car which seemed half again too small for him. "That's where it got in, eh?" he asked, his voice a gruff rumble. He did not even bother with introductions but proceeded right to business. Timothy decided the world could not be totally insane if heroically proportioned men like Lambertson still strode the earth.

  Timothy took him into the library, where the big man expressed surprise at the size of the killer. "You've got one of the biggest I've ever seen," he said. "Must have one hell of a lot of guts to it." He listened to Timothy's story while he unpacked his tools. There were dozens of pieces of equipment in the box, most of them no larger than a man's hand with working ends so minute that the purpose of them was unfathomable. "I'm afraid you'll have to leave," Lambertson said when he had everything arranged on squares of white felt. "It's damn hard work, and it can't bear distractions. Sorry."

  Ti nodded; he waited until Lambertson grasped the SAM, and then left the room with his servos trailing behind. He shut the door and continued into the living room, where he made himself a stiff drink and sat down to wait.

  He realized, halfway through the drink, that the hatred which had dissipated in him had begun to flower again. It was not a hatred for the men of the Brethren so much as hatred for their attitudes, their outlooks and visions. Why couldn't men just leave each other alone? Why was it necessary to fight and kill and always resort to violence before thought?

  When he finished the drink, hatred alive and well now, another grav-car came in over the trees and settled onto the patio beside Lambertson's vehicle. For a moment he tensed, wondering if this were the Brethren follow-up team checking on the success of the SAM. Then he saw Creel's face as the man walked into the patio lights, and he relaxed.

  "I tried to get to sleep," Creel said as Ti met him at the door. "But I couldn't manage it, knowing what was happening over here. Where is he?"

  Ti motioned toward the library and explained that Lambertson required privacy for the operation. Briefly he recounted the events of the night to Creel. As he was finishing, Lambertson opened the library door and called to them. He had cracked the nut and dissected the meat of the machine in a little under two hours.

  In the library, the floor was littered with parts of machinery, all quite small and intricately formed. Lambertson had laid things out in rows, each row representing a weapons system. "What was in it?" Ti asked.

  "This was the dart system," Lambertson said, pointing to a line of parts. "I was very careful not to touch the tips of the pins. They were discolored an odd green-blue—tipped with something worse than narcotics. This," he continued, pointing to a second conglomeration of pieces, "was a flame gun complete with a bulb of napalm. It would never last very long; only good for short bursts. But that's all that is necessary with something as nasty as that."

  "This?" Timothy asked.

  "Laser," Lambertson said. "A cell containing energy enough for approximately five three-second blasts."

  "And this?"

  "Projectile weapon. Shoots twenty-two-caliber slugs with explosive tips. Fourteen rounds contained in this barrel mechanism which revolved to spit each slug into the firing nozzle." Even Lambertson's rugged features were creased with distaste as he catalogued the killing devices.

  "And here," he went on, now professionally enthusiastic over what he had found, "we have a gas grenade launcher with two grenades: these. Each no larger than a grape, but enough gas, poisonous or not, to blanket a room in seconds."

  "So they built five weapons systems, all to get me," Timothy said.

  "Six," Lambertson corrected. He picked up a blocky part with a number of wires issuing from it. "This is a pack of highly compressed black powder. All it needed was an electric shock. If you hadn't shut down the SAM when you did, it might very well have used this last resort and destroyed the house." Lambertson waited for the news to sink in. Then: "Who do you know who would go to this expense and trouble to get you?" He cocked his head like a huge, quizzical Saint Bernard.

  "I don't know," Ti said. "I had thought the Brethren. But I can't come up with a believable, sensible motive."

  "I know a motive," Creel said. "It was something I was going to tell you tomorrow and didn't get to tell you on the comscreen earlier. Just found out about it today. The Brethren did this—I'll guarantee it. The motive was revenge. The spot you made available in the Brethren hierarchy by killing Klaus Margle was filled by his brother, Jon."

  "I see," Timothy said, looking at the dismantled SAM again. "I see what you mean."

  CHAPTER 6

  In the foyer of the apartment complex, Timothy found her name, POLLY LONDON, embossed in heavy gold lettering against a black velvet nameplate. He pressed the call button beneath her comscreen and drifted back a foot or two to give the person who answered a full view of him and not just a picture of his nose. The screen lighted with an abstract black and moss-green pattern that shifted and changed in a hundred ways to delight the eyes, sensuous and rhythmic as the colors kept time to soft semiclassical music in the background. Over all of this came a well-modulated voice which had the sound of exceedingly fine breeding; of course, it was nothing more than a computer structuring sentences from a tape storage unit—Polly London was wealthy enough to be able to dispense with human servants. The voice asked, "Who is calling, please?"

  "Timothy," he said. "Of Enterstat," he added in belated clarification. "I have an appointment for two o'clock."

  There was a pause as the computer checked out that assertion. Crimson and yellow explosions burst across the screen. Then the computer said, "Would you please touch your fingers to the identification plate below the comscreen so that your prints may be checked with your records in
the city computer?"

  "I have no hands," Ti said, amused by the machine's lack of data. "Can't you make visual confirmation against my description in central files?"

  "Highly unusual," the computer said.

  "But I have no hands."

  The colors vanished from the screen, were replaced with humming whiteness as the computer used its own visual scanners to examine him. The colors returned in a minute. "You may have admittance."

  "Thank you."

  To his left, a blue and silver abstract mural slid away, revealing an elevator entrance. Inside, he was not required to push a button or pull a lever for her floor. Her private computer secretary and odd-jobber now controlled the rising cage. Indeed, it was likely that no one but Polly London and the building superintendent knew which floor was hers. With individualized computer butlers like this, all anyone living here would need as an address was Cochran Towers West. The ultimate in privacy . . .

  From the elevator, the computer directed him, in soft tones issuing from wall speakers along the way, down a corridor carpeted in brown-black carpet much like fur. The walls were richly paneled in teak and indented every forty feet where an apartment door lead off the common hall. The doors were not uniform in design, though each managed to fit tastefully with the decor of the hall—if one considered ornateness tasteful. Polly London's door was nordic in design, a heavy slab of wood that seemed ancient, though the weathering had probably all been done by hand in a week. The border was a fresco of Viking faces, helmets, ships, costumes, and words. In the center of the door was a heavy iron knocker. The fingerprint lock identification circle was concealed in the design of a fighting ship under full sail. There was, of course, no handle; if the door refused to open to your prints, then you were not authorized entrance anyway.

  The door began to roll open under the power of a rollamite device that could handle its two or three hundred pounds with ease. "This way," the nether-world voice of the computer said. "To your right."

  He went down a long hallway, turned to his right through an arch, and floated into a plushly furnished room whose walls were a mixture of natural rock and teak wood, blending in and out so smoothly and repeatedly that he felt certain his eyes must be deceiving him. To his left, a waterfall meandered down a section of the wall that was stone and had been thrust into the chamber in descending steps. The water splashed into a pool where live flowers floated over multicolored stones that radiated upward through the pool as if they were precious gems. The floor was as thickly carpeted as the hall. The furniture—great, marshmallow-like beige pieces that looked enormously comfortable and resembled mushrooms growing lazily out of the floor—was broken by stone end tables and storage units. Sitting in one of these beige mushrooms, next to a stone table, was the most beautiful woman Timothy had ever seen . . .

  She was tall, but that only meant her legs were marvelously long and sensual. Her figure, in all areas, was perfect, with a narrow waist and full, upthrust breasts. Her face was angelic, but not so perfect as to be sterile. Her nose was almost too pert, small and upturned. Her eyes were wide-set but lovely, a startling shade of green that reminded him of seawater or lime candy. Her buttery yellow hair framed her face, ended teasingly at the points of her breasts where they pushed against the fabric of her dress.

  None of the hundreds of pictures he had seen of her had done her justice. She had a childlike grace and beauty combined with the sensuality of a grown woman, a quality photographs could never convey. He was glad that his withered organs were indicative of a withered interest. He had never been aroused by a woman; that was fortunate, for he could not have borne normal desires trapped as he was in this hideous shell of his. Still, though there was no desire there was—at times, rare and easily forgotten—a deep-seated yearning for something he could not name, a yearning that made him feel cold and hollow. He had that feeling now. He only got it around especially sensual women, exceptionally stunning in all aspects. He felt hollow and unfulfilled. His skin grew clammy, and his throat was so dry that it ached.

  She motioned him to the chair across from her. "This is an honor. I usually get interviewed by your reporters." She was charming, with a light and airy quality that did not give evidence of the uneasiness she felt, of the slight disgust that his appearance had aroused in her.

  As he settled into a mushroom chair and turned off his grav-plates, he assured her it was his pleasure, not hers. She showed him how to order a drink from the console beside the chair, and in a minute he had a screwdriver. He sipped his drink and was thankful for the taste of vodka and orange juice.

  "I'm more than a little curious," she said, leaning toward him. She spoke almost musically. "I can't understand what sort of special article you want to do that would require your own participation."

  "I lied to you," he said quite bluntly. He knew he must speak faster and more directly than he had planned, for he would find himself liking her too much too soon. There was that childlike directness that transcended sexuality, and she could use that alone to wrap men around her long, well-manicured fingers.

  "Lied?" she asked, not comprehending, as if no one had ever done such a thing with her before. And perhaps this was so. Lying to this woman would require the same sort of bully villainism that motivated a selfish teenager to tell a younger brother that Santa Claus was a hoax.

  "I'm not here to do an article for the paper," he said. "It was the only excuse that would get me in here to see you."

  She frowned, still not able to grasp the purpose of sneaking in to her house under false pretenses.

  "I don't wish you harm. I need a favor of you."

  She started to rise, but he motioned her down. She looked a bit agitated, and her reaction was almost childish—though he felt that she was incapable of anything more than childlike anger. It was not that she was mentally immature—just that she had never experienced the nastiness of the world as he had, had never needed to build up a thick skin and a nastiness of her own. "This is my house," she said. "Are you trying to tell me what I can and can't do in my own house?"

  "I'm sorry," he said. "But if you rise, I'll have to turn on my grav-plates and rise as well to be sure you don't try to call for help—which would be foolish since I don't wish to harm you. And since I would merely tell the police I was here for an interview and show them the notes I've made. I'd pretend you were a headline hunter."

  "Notes? But—"

  "I made them beforehand. Just for such an eventuality as this."

  She smiled again. "You are clever, aren't you?"

  "I like to think so, yes."

  "Well, what is this favor?" She leaned back, sipped her own drink, her anger totally abated.

  He hoped she would never meet someone who would be too sharp and cold to be won over by her charm and innocence. The proper sort of sadist could bring her world down in a day, could break and ruin her without half trying. It might have been nice to have been raised in a world where evil had not existed—but it could also be deadly never to have formed the proper methods to cope with enemies.

  "You dated the late Klaus Margle, didn't you?" he asked.

  He thought he saw her eyes get a little glassy, as if she were holding back tears. When she spoke, there was a tremble in her voice. This amazed him when he considered the Klaus Margle he knew, a man without scruples or morals, willing to kill when the need arose. He supposed that it was possible that there was a totally different side to the man, though such a realization surprised him. He was relieved that the papers had not reported how Margle had died, and that the actual shootout was implied to be the doing of the police. "I did," she said. "I went with him for a good while. He was like a little boy around me. Very gentlemanly. I just don't believe all these things in the papers."

  "They're true," he said as gently as he could.

  "So you say."

  It was impossible to get angry at her, but he could feel anger at her almost cultured blindness to reality. He held his reaction in check and said, "His brothe
r is trying to kill me."

  Surprisingly, her response to this was not as naive as her comment about Klaus. "I don't like Jon," she said. "Klaus you could always have fun with. He enjoyed Me. I never saw Jon smile. I think he would have liked to take me away from Klaus. But he frightened me a little."

  "I want to get Jon Margle before he gets me," he said.

  Her face went sickeningly pale, and she took a long sip of her drink.

  He realized what had terrified her, and he attempted to explain what he meant. "I don't mean kill him. I just want to get him, for the police. If they want to execute him, they can. Or put him away for life. But I have to find some way to get something on him, or I won't have peace of mind."

  She ordered another drink, took the plastic bulb out of the receival tray, broke it and poured the contents into her glass. "I don't understand what you want of me," she said, her hands trembling.

  "You must know other people in the Brethren."

  "No," she said, clearly meaning it.

  Her answer unsettled him for a moment, and then he realized how ignorant she might have been of Klaus Margle's other self. "You know some of his close friends?'

  "Yes, but they aren't—"

  "Let me decide what they are and aren't," he said. "I want you to think very carefully about Klaus's friends. Was there any one of them who disliked his brother?"

  "Many," she said.

  "Good. But think about them and come up with the one who liked Jon the least. Maybe someone who was terrified of him. Or contemptuous. Someone who would not like working under him."

  "I don't have to do any of this," she said, genuine anguish in her voice. "Why should I even sit here and listen to you tell me Klaus and his friends were gangsters?"

  "Because they were," he said. "And if you don't cooperate on this little thing I want, I'll use the voice of Enterstat to discredit you, to ruin your career."

  "Impossible!" she said, looking up, defiant. She was a good actress, and she knew it.

  "Not if I lie," he said. "We'll fake evidence and write atrocious lies. And sure, you'll take us to court. But by then you'll be ruined. And even if you get a million or so in settlement, it can be absorbed by Enterstat—not easily, I admit, but without ruining me. And I think you much prefer the art of acting to the money it makes for you. You are primarily an actress, not a moneymaker. Being blackballed from senso-films would hurt emotionally, not financially." He saw that she believed him, but that she could hardly accept that anyone would be this cruel to her—or to anyone, for that matter. He had cracked her naivete, and he was not exactly pleased with himself. "It's my life," he said in a way of explanation and justification for his crudity.