The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (18 page)

Coogan put a hand to the man's heart, felt its steady pumping. He eased Sil-Chan back to the floor, went out and summoned a hospital robot. Sil-Chan regained consciousness while the robot was lifting him. “Sorry to go out on you like that,” he said. “I—”

The message visor on the director's desk chimed. Coogan pushed the response switch, scanned the words of a visual message, blanked the screen and turned back to Sil-Chan. “You'll have to be treated here,” he said. “Couldn't risk carrying you through the corridors right now.”

*   *   *

The spy beam hummed at the door. Coogan pushed Sil-Chan behind the panel, closed it. Pchak strode into the office, a blaster in his hand, the two guards behind him. The general glanced at the hospital robot, looked at Coogan. “Where's the man that robot was called to treat?”

The last guard into the office closed the door, drew his blaster.

“Talk or you'll be cut down where you stand,” said Pchak.

The showdown,
thought Coogan. He said, “These hospital robots are a peculiar kind of creature, general. They don't have the full prime directive against harming humans because sometimes they have to choose between saving one person and letting another one die. I can tell this robot that if I'm harmed it must give all of you an overdose of the most virulent poison it carries in its hypo arm. I inform the robot that this action will save my life. It naturally is loyal to the Library and will do exactly what I have just now told it to do.”

Pehak's face tightened. He raised the blaster slightly.

“Unless you wish to die in agony, place your blasters on my desk,” said Coogan.

“I won't,” said Pchak. “Now what're you going to do?”

“Your blasters can kill me,” said Coogan, “but they won't stop that robot until it has carried out my order.”

Pchak's finger began to tighten on the trigger. “Then let's give it the—”

The sharp
blat!
of an energy bolt filled the room. Pchak slumped. The guard behind him skirted the robot fearfully, put his blaster on Coogan's desk. The weapon smelled faintly of ozone from the blast that had killed Pchak. “Call that thing off me now,” said the man, staring at the robot.

Coogan looked at the other guard. “You, too,” he said.

The other man came around behind the robot, put his weapon on the desk. Coogan picked up one of the weapons. It felt strange in his hand.

“You're not going to turn that thing loose on us now, are you?” asked the second guard. He seemed unable to take his gaze from the robot.

Coogan glanced down at the scarab shape of the mechanical with its flat pad extensors and back hooks for carrying a stretcher. He wondered what the two men would do if he told them the thing Pchak had undoubtedly known—that the robot could take no overt action against a human, that his words had been a lie.

The first guard said, “Look, we're on your side now. We'll tell you everything. Just before he came down here, Pchak got word that Leader Adams was coming and—”

“Adams!” Coogan barked the word. He thought,
Adams coming! How to turn that to advantage?
He looked at the first guard. “You were with Pchak when he came the first day, weren't you?”

“I was his personal guard,” said the man.

Coogan scooped the other blaster off his desk, backed away. “All right. When Adams lands, you get on that visor and tell him Pchak wishes to see him down here. With Adams a hostage, I can get the rest to lay down their arms.”

“But—” said the guard.

“One false move and I turn that robot loose on you,” said Coogan.

The guard's throat worked visibly. He said, “We'll do it. Only I don't see how you can get the whole government to give up just because—”

“Then stop thinking,” said Coogan. “Just get Adams down here.” He backed against the control wall and waited.

*   *   *

“I don't understand,” said Sil-Chan.

The Mundial native sat in a chair across the desk from Coogan. A fresh Library uniform bulged over Sil-Chan's bandaged shoulder. “You pound it into us that we have to obey,” he said. “You tell us we can't go against the Code. Then at the last minute you turn around and throw a blaster on the whole crew and lose them into the hospital's violent ward.”

“I don't think they can get out of there,” said Coogan.

“Not with all those guards around them,” said Sil-Chan. “But it's still disobedience and that's against the Code.” He held up a hand, palm toward Coogan. “Not that I'm objecting, you understand. It's what I was advocating all along.”

“That's where you're mistaken,” said Coogan. “People were perfectly willing to ignore the Library and its silly broadcasts as long as that information was available. Then the broadcasts were stopped by government order.”

“But—” Sil-Chan shook his head.

“There's another new government,” said Coogan. “Leader Adams was booted out because he told people they couldn't have something. That's bad policy for a politician. They stay in office by telling people they can
have
things.”

Sil-Chan said, “Well, where does—”

“Right after you came stumbling in here,” said Coogan, “I received a general order from the new government which I was only too happy to obey. It said that Leader Adams was a fugitive and any person encountering him was empowered to arrest him and hold him for trial.” Coogan arose, strode around to Sil-Chan, who also got to his feet. “So you see,” said Coogan, “I did it all by obeying the government.”

The Mundial native glanced across Coogan's desk, suddenly smiled and went around to the control wall. “And you got me with a tricky thing like this lever.” He put a hand on the lever with which Coogan had forced his submission.

Coogan's foot caught Sil-Chan's hand and kicked it away before the little man could depress the lever.

Sil-Chan backed away, shaking his bruised hand. “Ouch!” He looked up at Coogan. “What in the name of—”

The director worked a lever higher on the wall and the panel made a quarter turn. He darted behind the wall, began ripping wires from a series of lower connections. Presently, he stepped out. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead.

Sil-Chan stared at the lever he had touched. “Oh, no—” he said. “You didn't
really
hook that to the grav unit!”

Coogan nodded mutely.

Eyes widening, Sil-Chan backed against the desk, sat on it. “Then you weren't certain obedience would work, that—”

“No, I wasn't,” growled Coogan.

Sil-Chan smiled. “Well, now, there's a piece of information that ought to be worth something.” The smile widened to a grin. “What's my silence worth?”

The director slowly straightened his shoulders. He wet his lips with his tongue. “I'll tell you, Toris. Since you were to get this position anyway, I'll tell you what it's worth to me.” Coogan smiled, a slow, knowing smile that made Sil-Chan squint his eyes.

“You're my successor,” said Coogan.

 

RAT RACE

In the nine years it took Welby Lewis to become chief of criminal investigation for Sheriff John Czernak, he came to look on police work as something like solving jigsaw puzzles. It was a routine of putting pieces together into a recognizable picture. He was not prepared to have his cynical police-peopled world transformed into a situation out of H. G. Wells or Charles Fort.

When Lewis said “alien” he meant non-American, not extraterrestrial. Oh, he knew a BEM was a bug-eyed monster; he read some science fiction. But that was just the point—such situations were
fiction,
not to be encountered in police routine. And certainly unexpected at a mortuary. The Johnson-Tule Mortuary, to be exact.

Lewis checked in at his desk in the sheriff's office at five minutes to eight of a Tuesday morning. He was a man of low forehead, thin pinched-in Welsh face, black hair. His eyes were like two pieces of roving green jade glinting beneath bushy brows.

The office, a room of high ceilings and stained plaster walls, was in a first-floor corner of the County Building at Banbury. Beneath one tall window of the room was a cast-iron radiator. Beside the window hung a calendar picture of a girl wearing only a string of pearls. There were two desks facing each other across an aisle which led from the hall door to the radiator. The desk on the left belonged to Joe Welch, the night man. Lewis occupied the one on the right, a cigarette-scarred vintage piece which had stood in this room more than thirty years.

Lewis stopped at the front of his desk, leafed through the papers in the
incoming
basket, looked up as Sheriff Czernak entered. The sheriff, a fat man with wide Slavic features and a complexion like bread crust, grunted as he eased himself into the chair under the calendar. He pushed a brown felt hat to the back of his head, exposing a bald dome.

Lewis said, “Hi, John. How's the wife?” He dropped the papers back into the basket.

“Her sciatica's better this week,” said the sheriff. “I came in to tell you to skip that burglary report in the basket. A city prowler picked up two punks with the stuff early this moring. We're sending 'em over to juvenile court.”

“They'll never learn,” said Lewis.

“Got one little chore for you,” said the sheriff. “Otherwise everything's quiet. Maybe we'll get a chance to catch up on our paperwork.” He hoisted himself out of the chair. “Doc Bellarmine did the autopsy on that Cerino woman, but he left a bottle of stomach washings at the Johnson-Tule Mortuary. Could you pick up the bottle and run it out to the county hospital?”

“Sure,” said Lewis. “But I'll bet her death was natural causes. She was a known alcoholic. All those bottles in her shack.”

“Prob'ly,” said the sheriff. He stopped in front of Lewis's desk, glanced up at the calendar art. “Some dish.”

Lewis grinned. “When I find a gal like that, I'm going to get married,” he said.

“You do that,” said the sheriff. He ambled out of the office.

It was about 8:30 when Lewis cruised past the mortuary in his county car and failed to find a parking place in the block. At the next corner, Cove Street, he turned right and went up the alley, parking on the concrete apron to the mortuary garage.

A southwest wind which had been threatening storm all night kicked up a damp gust as he stepped from the car. Lewis glanced up at the gray sky, but left his raincoat over the back of the seat. He went down the narrow walk beside the garage, found the back door of the mortuary ajar. Inside was a hallway and a row of three metal tanks, the tall kind welders use for oxygen and acetylene gas. Lewis glanced at them, wondered what a mortuary did with that type of equipment, shrugged the question aside. At the other end of the hall the door opened into a carpeted foyer which smelled of musky flowers. A door at the left bore a brass plate labeled OFFICE. Lewis crossed the foyer, entered the room.

Behind a glass-topped desk in the corner sat a tall blond individual type with clear Nordic features. An oak frame on the wall behind him held a colored photograph of Mount Lassen labeled PEACE on an embossed nameplate. An official burial form—partly filled in—was on the desk in front of the man. The left corner of the desk held a brass cup in which sat a metal ball. The ball emitted a hissing noise as Lewis approached and he breathed in the heavy floral scent of the foyer.

The man behind the desk got to his feet, put a pen across the burial form. Lewis recognized him—Johnson, half owner of the mortuary.

“May I help you?” asked the mortician.

Lewis explained his errand.

Johnson brought a small bottle from a desk drawer, passed it across to Lewis, then looked at the deputy with a puzzled frown. “How'd you get in?” asked the mortician. “I didn't hear the front door chimes.”

The deputy shoved the bottle into a side pocket of his coat. “I parked in the alley and came in the back way,” he said. “The street out front is full of Odd Fellows cars.”

“Odd Fellows?” Johnson came around the desk.

“Paper said they were having some kind of rummage sale today,” said Lewis. He ducked his head to look under the shade on the front window. “I guess those are Odd Fellows cars. That's the hall across the street.”

An ornamental shrub on the mortuary front lawn bent before the wind and a spattering of rain drummed against the window. Lewis straightened. “Left my raincoat in the car,” he said. “I'll just duck out the way I came.”

Johnson moved to his office door. “Two of our attendants are due back now on a call,” he said. “They—”

“I've seen a stiff before,” said Lewis. He stepped past Johnson, headed for the door to the rear hall.

Johnson's hand caught the deputy's shoulder. “I must insist you go out the front,” said the mortician.

Lewis stopped, his mind setting up a battery of questions. “It's raining out,” he said. “I'll get all wet.”

“I'm sorry,” said Johnson.

Another man might have shrugged and complied with Johnson's request, but Welby Lewis was the son of the late Proctor Lewis, who had been three times president of the Banbury County Sherlock Holmes Round Table. Welby had cut his teeth on
logical deduction
and the logic of this situation escaped him. He reviewed his memory of the hallway. Empty except for those tanks near the back door.

“What do you keep in those metal tanks?” he asked.

The mortician's hand tightened on his shoulder and Lewis felt himself turned toward the front door. “Just embalming fluid,” said Johnson. “That's the way it's delivered.”

“Oh.” Lewis looked up at Johnson's tightly drawn features, pulled away from the restraining hand and went out the front door. Rain was driving down and he ran around the side of the mortuary to his car, jumping in, slammed the door and sat down to wait. At 9:28
A.M.
by his wristwatch an assistant mortician came out, opened the garage doors. Lewis leaned across the front seat, rolled down his right window.