“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“That’s because I’m famous under another name,” he explained. “I’m the Unknown Soldier.”
Sands said, “I don’t think I’ve heard of you.”
“Sure, you have. Fact is, some of your buddies have been imitating me. Isn’t that so, Cardigan?”
“Yeah. They tried to make Joseph Bouchon’s murder look like one of yours,” Jake answered. “They wanted to keep him from digging into their SuperTek operations.”
“They were assholes,” he said. “They didn’t come anywhere close to aping my style.”
“Richard, what we’ll have to do is sit down and talk, get everything settled between us,” suggested Sands. “Right now, as you can see, I have to settle with Cardigan.”
“Bennett, hey, you’ve got it all wrong.” Lofton walked a few paces closer to him. “I’m here, see, to settle a score with you. You’re the one we wanted to kill right at the start, except you were unreachable in that damn maxsec dump in California. So we started with some of the others.”
“Listen to reason,” said Sands. “I’m holding a lazgun myself. The odds are that—”
“Oh, c’mon, Bennett. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you kill me again,” he told him. “And before you do, I know I can gun you down. Of course, I’d like to be able to slice you up, but I won’t insist on—”
“Please,” said Kate. “Don’t do this. Bennett is perfectly willing to make a generous settlement with you. Aren’t you, Bennett?”
“Yes, of course. That would be much better than this foolish standoff, Richard.”
Lofton laughed again. “He doesn’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “Tell him, Cardigan.”
“You really did succeed in killing Richard Lofton years ago in Brazil,” Jake explained. “It should be obvious to you by now, Sands, that what you’re talking to is a very creditable android.”
Sands narrowed his eyes, looking at Lofton. “An android,” he said quietly.
“That’s right, Bennett,” Lofton said. “See, androids don’t need money or flattery or any bullshit. I came up here to kill you, you poor son of a bitch.”
Kate suddenly lunged at the android, crying out, “No! I won’t let you kill him!”
Lofton slapped her aside with the hand holding the stungun.
At the same time Sands aimed and fired his lazgun.
But Lofton fired his lazgun, too.
The beam sliced a deep zigzag line down across the one-armed man’s chest.
Sands’ shot succeeded in chopping off both the android’s legs.
Kate, sobbing, ran to the tottering Sands.
Blood was spurting out of the deep rut in his chest. He dropped to his knees, and drops of blood went splattering all around him on the metallic floor.
Sands tried to speak, but blood came out of his mouth instead of words.
“Bennett, Bennett ... Kate put her arms around him, struggling to keep him from falling over.
“Damn,” muttered the fallen Lofton. “I still have five more to kill.” He ceased to function.
Dan took hold of Nancy’s hand. They stood there and watched her father die.
Jake didn’t get back to Greater Los Angeles until two days after Xmas.
His first afternoon there he went out to the edge of the Santa Monica Sector. He walked along a stretch of beach, stopping often to stare out at the pale blue ocean.
Gomez caught up with him there toward sundown. “May I trudge along with you, amigo?”
Jake shrugged and resumed walking.
His partner said, “I was just over talking to Bascom at Cosmos. We’ll be getting a bonus on the Bouchon case. Plus a handsome share of the eventual reward the IDCA is going to pay us for locating the SuperTek laboratory.”
Halting again, Jake looked out toward the horizon. “I’m getting old, Sid,” he said finally.
“I’ve noticed, sí. But, being a trusted chum, I haven’t mentioned it.”
“What I mean is—hell, when we were cops and finished up a case, I usually felt good about it.”
“Nobody would expect you to be overjoyed just now. Kate’s likely to go to prison; so is Professor Kittridge.”
“I probably knew all along that Kate was deeply mixed up in all this,” he said, “but I pretended she wasn’t.”
“Since you were expecting something like this, it probably didn’t hit you as hard as it might have.”
Jake commenced walking again. “Dan’s the one who was hit hard.”
“He’s tough, though.”
“Yeah, but still ...
“Hey, he’s nearly grown up. You have to quit trying to shelter him from the realities of life.”
“I was away too long while he was growing up. Up in the Freezer—maybe even before that—I wasn’t around enough.”
“Let’s switch to the topic of mañana,” suggested Gomez. “What’s he decided to do?”
“Dan’s going to stay in England until Nancy Sands is ready to move back to GLA—that shouldn’t be too far off,” answered Jake. “Then he’ll be coming back and living with me.”
“Bueno. That ought to be good for both of you,” he said. “Speaking of Great Britain, there’s still no word on the present whereabouts of Marj Lofton. Sundry law enforcers are beating the bushes for her.”
“She’s probably somewhere building another replica of her brother.”
“And how’s Beth faring?”
“She’s not especially saddened by her father’s arrest,” answered Jake. “She’ll be working up in Berkeley until the anti-Tek system is ready to use.”
“At which time you’ll get together again?”
“Yeah, probably sometime after the first of the year.”
“Well, that’s a fairly happy ending to this whole business,” his partner observed. “You and Dan together, you and Beth together—oh, and Natalie Dent and a reactivated Sidebar up at the Moonbase Colony covering a story for the next few weeks. Plus which, soon there’ll be no more Tek in the world.”
Jake said, “Something just as bad is sure to come along.”
“But in that short interval between troubles,” said Gomez, “we can enjoy ourselves, amigo.
A Biography of William Shatner
William Shatner (b. 1931) is a celebrated Canadian actor, author, and film director known for his irreverent charm and his star turn as Captain Kirk on the first Star Trek television series, as well as many other roles.
Shatner was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. He majored in economics at McGill University and upon graduating took a job as the business manager at Montreal’s Mountain Playhouse, where he also pursued classical Shakespearean training. In 1954, Shatner began performing at Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival, appearing in Henry V, Oedipus Rex, and Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great—the play in which he would make his Broadway debut in 1956, as the understudy for Christopher Plummer.
After his first film appearance, in MGM’s The Brothers Karamazov (1958), and roles in the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone, Shatner was cast in NBC’s Star Trek, playing the courageous, unpredictable Captain James T. Kirk. Though cancelled in 1969 after three seasons, Star Trek became a cult hit in syndication, leading to an animated series and a number of spin-off television series and movies. Shatner starred in seven Star Trek films beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979.
Shatner went on to star as a veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker (1982–86) and as aging trial lawyer Denny Crane in Boston Legal (2004–08). He has also remained in the public eye with frequent television guest appearances.
Shatner has published a number of novels, most notably TekWar (1989), a science-fiction thriller that inspired eight sequels as well as video games and a television series. His autobiography, Up Till Now, was published in 2008. He has also released three musical albums, including the infamous The Transformed Man (1968), which introduced Shatner’s unique spoken-word st
yle, and the critically lauded Seeking Major Tom (2011).
In 2012, Shatner returned to Broadway after a fifty-year absence, in Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It, a one-man show based on his life and work. After a three-week run in New York City, he took the show on the road, touring around the country. When he isn’t working, Shatner and his wife, Elizabeth, divide their time between Southern California and Kentucky.
After graduating from McGill University in 1952, William Shatner began participating in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada. This headshot dates from his early days with the festival. (Photo Courtesy of William Shatner.)
Star Trek, the iconic science-fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise and its crew, led by Captain James T. Kirk, played by Shatner. The series first aired between 1966 and 1969. Shatner’s voice-over before each episode explained the starship’s mission: “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” This photo shows the crew from the original Star Trek. (Photo courtesy of Photofest, Inc.)
Shatner’s debut musical album, The Transformed Man, was released in 1968 while he was still starring in Star Trek. The concept album combined famous pieces of poetry with pop lyrics; for instance, Shatner read Bob Dylan’s lyrics alongside Shakespeare’s verses. (Photo courtesy of Universal Music Enterprises.)
To help the Gorilla Foundation raise awareness for their endangered species campaign, Shatner met Koko, the gorilla who became the foundation’s ambassador, in 1988. Koko can understand more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language and more than 2,000 English words. Shatner was awed by the strength of this imposing and powerful animal and considered meeting her a truly amazing experience. (Photo courtesy of William Shatner.)
Shatner recorded his second musical album, Has Been, in 2004. Produced and arranged by Ben Folds, the album featured Shatner’s prose-poems as well as guest appearances from Aimee Mann, Nick Hornby, Lemon Jelly, and Joe Jackson. In 2007, choreographer Margo Sappington used the album for a ballet called Common People. Shatner filmed documentary footage of their collaboration and released a film called William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet in 2009. (Photo courtesy of Shout! Factory, LLC.)
In 2004, Shatner joined the final season of the legal drama The Practice and won an Emmy for his role as law firm partner Denny Crane. In a 2004 spin-off, Boston Legal, Shatner continued to play Crane, winning a Golden Globe and another Emmy in 2005. He was nominated for several more Emmys before the show ended in 2008. This photo shows the crew of Boston Legal. (Photo courtesy of Photofest, Inc.)
Shatner and his wife, Elizabeth, with their horses. Shatner spends much of his spare time breeding and showing American saddlebreds and quarter horses. (Photo courtesy of Andrew McPherson.)
Shatner with his champion American saddlebred stallion, Sultan’s Great Day. (Photo courtesy of William Shatner.)
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1991 by William Shatner
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4532-8679-1
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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TekLab Page 19