The demolished man (22 page)

concealed. The idea and execution came so quickly that Powell could not

anticipate the action. He would have been fully illuminated if Reich had not

forgotten the Barrier. It stopped the flaming branch in mid-flight and dropped

it to the ground.

"Christ!" Reich cried, and swung around abruptly at Hassop.

"What is it Ben?"

In answer, Reich drew the arrow back to the lobe of his ear and held the point

on Hassop's body. Hassop scrambled to his feet.

"Ben, watch out! You're shooting at me!"

Hassop leaped to one side unexpectedly as Reich let the arrow fly.

"Ben! For the love of---" Suddenly Hassop realized the intent. He turned with a

strangulated cry and ran from the fire as Reich notched another arrow. Running

desperately, Hassop smashed into the barrier and staggered back from the

invisible wall as an arrow shot past his shoulder and shattered.

"Ben!" he screamed.

"You son of a bitch," Reich growled, and notched another shaft.

Powell leaped forward and reached the edge of the Barrier. He could not pass it.

Inside, Hassop ran screaming across the far side while Reich stalked him with

half-cocked bow, closing in for the kill. Hassop again smashed into the Barrier,

fell, crawled, and regained his feet to dart off again like a cornered rat,

Reich following him doggedly.

"Jesus!" Powell muttered. He stepped back into the darkness, thinking

desperately. Hassop's screams had aroused the jungle, and there was a roaring

and an echoing rumble in his ears. He reached out on the TP Band, sensing,

touching, feeling. There was nothing but blind fear, blind rage, blind instinct

around him. The hippos, sodden and viscid... the crocodiles, deaf, angry,

hungry... swambats, as furious as rhinoceri whose size they doubled... A quarter

mile off were the faint broadcasts of elephant, wapiti, giant cats...

"It's worth the chance," Powell said to himself. "I've got to bust that Barrier.

It's the only way."

He set his blocks on the upper level, masking everything except the emotional

broadcast, and transmitted: fear, fear, terror, fear... driving the emotion down

to its primitive level... Fear, Fear, Terror, Fear... FEAR - FLIGHT - TERROR -

FEAR - FLIGHT - TERROR - flight!

Every bird in every roost awoke screaming. The monkeys screamed back and shook

thousands of branches in sudden flight. A barrage of sucking explosions sounded

from the lake as the herd of hippos surged up from the shallows in blind terror.

The jungle was shaken by the ear-splitting trumpetings of elephants and the

crashing thunder of their stampede. Reich heard and froze in his tracks,

ignoring Hassop who still ran and sobbed and screamed from wall to wall of the

Barrier.

The hippos hit the barrier first in a blind, blundering rush. They were followed

by the swambats and the crocodiles. Then came the elephants. Then the wapiti,

the zebra, the gnu... heavy, pounding herds. There had never been such a

stampede in the history of the Reservation. Nor had the manufacturers of the

Defensive Barrier Screen ever anticipated such a concerted mass attack. Reich's

Barrier went down with a sound like scissored glass.

The hippos trampled the fire, scattered it and extinguished it. Powell darted

through the darkness, seized Hassop's arm, and dragged the crazed creature

across the clearing to the piled packs. A wild hoof sent him reeling, but he

held on to Hassop and located the precious film cannister. In the frantic

blackness Powell could sort the frenzied TP broadcasts of the stampeding

animals. Still dragging Hassop, he threaded his way out of the main stream.

Behind the thick bole of a lignum vitae Powell paused to catch his breath and

settle the cannister safely in his pocket. Hassop was still sobbing. Powell

sensed Reich, a hundred feet away, back against a fever tree, bow and arrows

clutched in his stricken hands. He was confused, furious, terrified... but still

safe. Above all, Powell wanted to keep him safe for Demolition.

Unhitching his own Defensive Barrier Screen, Powell tossed it across the

clearing toward the embers of the fire where Reich would surely find it. Then he

turned and led the numb, unresisting Code Chief toward the Gate.

13

The Reich case was ready for final submission to the District Attorney's office.

Powell hoped it was also ready for that cold-blooded, cynical monster of facts

and evidence, Old Man Mose.

Powell and his staff assembled in Mose's office. A round table had been set up

in the center, and on it was constructed a transparent model of the key rooms of

Beaumont House, inhabited by miniature android models of the dramatis personae.

The lab's model division had done a superlative job, and actually had

characterized the leading players. The tiny Reich, Tate, Beaumont, and others

moved with the characteristic gaits of their originals. Alongside the table was

massed the documentation the staff had prepared, ready for presentation to the

machine.

Old Man Mose himself occupied the entire circular wall of the giant office. His

multitudinous eyes winked and glared coldly. His multitudinous memories whirred

and hummed. His mouth, the cone of a speaker, hung open in a kind of

astonishment at human stupidity. His hands, the keys of a multiflex typewriter,

poised over a roll of tape, ready to hammer out logic. Mose was the Mosaic

Multiplex Prosecution Computer of the District Attorney's Office, whose awful

decisions controlled the preparation, presentation, and prosecution of every

police case.

"We won't bother Mose to start with," Powell told the D.A. "Let's take a look at

the models and check them against the Crime Schedule. Your staff has the time

sheets. Just watch them while the dolls go through the motions. If you catch

anything our gang's missed, make a note and we'll kick it around."

He nodded to De Santis, the harassed Lab Chief, who inquired in an overwrought

voice: "One to one?"

"That's a little fast. Make it one to two. Half slow motion."

"The androids look unreal at that tempo," De Santis snarled. "It can't do them

justice. We slaved for two weeks and now you---"

"Never mind. We'll admire them later."

De Santis verged on mutiny, then touched a button. Instantly the model was

illumined and the dolls came to life. Acoustics had faked a background. There

was a hint of music, laughter, and chatter. In the main hall of Beaumont House,

a pneumatic model of Maria Beaumont slowly climbed to a dais with a tiny book in

her hands.

"The time is 11:09 at that point," Powell said to the D.A.'s staff. "Watch the

clock above the model. It's geared to synchronize with the slow motion."

In rapt silence, the legal division studied the scene and jotted notes while the

androids reproduced the actions of the fatal Beaumont party. Once again Maria

Beaumont read the rules of the Sardine game from the dais in the main hall of

Beaumont House. The lights dimmed and went out. Ben Reich slowly threaded his

way through the main hall to the music room, turned right, mounted the stairs to

the Picture Gallery, passed through the bronze doors leading to the Orchid

Suite, blinded and stunned the Beaumont guards, and then entered the suite.

And again Reich met D'Courtney face to face, closed with him, drew a deadly

knife-pistol from his pocket and with the blade pried D'Courtney's mouth open

while the old man hung weak and unresisting. And again a door of the Orchid

Suite burst open to reveal Barbara D'Courtney in a frost-white transparent

dressing gown. And she and Reich feinted and dodged until Reich suddenly blew

the back of D'Courtney's head out with a shot through the mouth.

"Got that material from the D'Courtney girl," Powell murmured. "Peeped her. It's

authentic."

Barbara D'Courtney crawled to the body of her father, seized the gun and

suddenly dashed out of the Orchid Suite, followed by Reich. He pursued her down

into the darkened house and lost her as she darted out through the front

entrance into the street. Then Reich met Tate and they marched to the Projection

Room, pretending to play Sardine. The drama came to an end at last with the

stampede of the guests up to the Orchid Suite where the dolls burst in and

crowded around the tiny dead body. There they froze in a grostesque little

tableau.

There was a long pause while the legal staff digested the drama.

"All right," Powell said. "That's the picture. Now let's feed the data to Mose

for an opinion. First, Opportunity. You won't deny that the Sardine game

provided Reich with perfect opportunity?"

"How'd Reich know they were going to play Sardine?" the D.A. muttered.

"Reich bought the book and sent it to Maria Beaumont. He provided his own

Sardine game."

"How'd he know she'd play the game?"

"He knew she liked games. Sardine was the only legible game in the book."

"I don't know..." The D.A. scratched his head.

"Mose takes a lot of convincing. Feed it to him. Won't do any harm."

The office door banged open and Commissioner Crabbe marched in as though heading

a parade.

"Mr. Prefect Powell," Crabbe pronounced formally.

"Mr. Commissioner?"

"It has come to my attention, sir, that you are perverting that mechanical brain

for the purpose of implicating my good friend, Ben Reich, in the foul and

dastardly murder of Craye D'Courtney. Mr. Powell, such a purpose is grotesque.

Ben Reich is an honorable and leading citizen of our country. Furthermore, sir,

I have never approved of that mechanical brain. You were chosen by the

electorate to exercise your intellectual powers, not bow in slavery to that---"

Powell nodded to Beck, who began feeding the punched data into Mose's ear.

"You're absolutely right, commissioner. Now, about the Method. First question:

How'd Reich knock out the guards. De Santis?"

"And furthermore, gentlemen..." Crabbe continued.

"Rhodopsin Ionizer," De Santis spat. He picked up a plastic sphere and tossed it

to Powell who exhibited it. "Man named Jordan developed it for Reich's private

police. I've got the empiric processing formula ready for the Computer, and the

sample we mocked up. Anybody care to try it?"

The D.A. looked dubious. "I don't see the use. Mose can make up his own mind

about that."

"In addition to which, gentlemen..." Crabbe summarized.

"Oh come on," De Santis said with unpleasant cheerfulness. "You'll never believe

us unless you see it for yourself. It doesn't hurt. Just makes you non compos

for six or seven---"

The plastic bulb shattered in Powell's fingers. A vivid blue light flared under

Crabbe's nose. Caught in mid-oration, the Commissioner collapsed like an empty

sack. Powell looked around in horror.

"Good heavens!" be exclaimed. "What have I done? That bulb simply melted in my

fingers." He looked at De Santis and spoke severely. "You made the covering too

thin, De Santis. Now see what you've done to Commissioner Crabbe."

"What I've done!"

"Feed that data to Mose," the D.A. said in a voice rigid with control. "This I

know he'll buy."

They made the Commissioner's body comfortable in a deep chair. "Now, the murder

method," Powell continued. "Kindly watch this, gentlemen. The band is quicker

than the eye." He exhibited a revolver from the police museum. From the chambers

he removed the shells, and from one of the shells he extracted the bullet. "This

is what Reich did to the gun Jerry Church gave him before the murder. Pretended

to make it safe. A phoney alibi."

"Phoney, hell! That gun is safe. Is that Church's evidence?"

"It is. Look at your sheet."

"Then you don't have to bother Mose with the problem." The D.A. threw his papers

down in disgust. "We haven't got a case."

"Yes we have."

"How can a cartridge kill without a bullet? Your sheet doesn't say anything

about Reich reloading."

"He reloaded."

"He did not," De Santis spat. "There was no projectile in the wound or the room.

There was nothing."

"There was everything. It was easy once I figured the clue."

"There was no clue!" De Santis shouted.

"Why, you located it, De Santis. That bit of candy gel in D'Courtney's mouth.

Remember? And no candy in the stomach."

De Santis glared, Powell grinned. He took an eye-dropper and filled a gel

capsule with water. He pressed it into the open end of the cartridge above the

charge and placed the cartridge in the gun. He raised the gun, aimed at a small

wooden block on the edge of the model table, and pulled the trigger. There was a

dull, flat explosion and the block leaped into fragments.

"For the love of--- That was a trick!" The D.A. exclaimed. "There was something

in that shell besides water." He examined the fragments of wood.

"No, there was not. You can shoot an ounce of water with a powder charge. You

can shoot it with enough muzzle velocity to blow out the back of a head if you

fire through the soft roof of the mouth. That's why Reich had to shoot through

the mouth. That's why De Santis found the bit of gel. That's why he found

nothing else. The projectile was gone."