Starblood

by Dean Koontz

  The Hound surveyed the chamber, perplexed, firing darts in the direction of the hurled souvenirs, unable to discover its assailant. Then it turned a spatter of darts on the receiver head and floated out of the room, out of the house and away . . .

  CHAPTER 2

  For a time, Ti remained in the living-room staring at Taguster's corpse. He felt too emotionally weakened to move elsewhere. Memories flipped past his mind like a parade of lizards, tail flicking after tail, cold claws sunk into his brain. With each came more realization that there would be no more experiences with Taguster, no more conversations to be stored for later retrieval and reflection. What he remembered now was all that he would ever have. When a friend dies, it is much like a candle flame being snuffed—the warmth and brightness gone, leaving a vague recollection of what it had once been like.

  He broke from Taguster's receiver and allowed his mind to flow into the Mindlink beam, through the penumbra landscape, back into his own body. He sat for a moment, regaining lost energies, and slowly became aware of the tears welling out of his eye and running down his pallid, clammy skin. He was not crying so much for Taguster as for himself —for the one thing he feared more than all else was loneliness. Those days and nights when he had been hopelessly immobile in the government hospital preyed on him now. The forgotten terror of being unable to communicate was renewed and metamorphosed into anguish. There were few men with minds as alert and as deeply structured as his own, few who could possibly be close friends. Indeed, Taguster was the only one he had ever called friend . . . and now he had no one at all.

  The flow of his own tears finally forced him to lift the helmet from his head and shut off the machine, forced him to come to grips with the situation. If his greatest weakness was his almost irrational fear of loneliness, then his greatest Strength was his ability to stand alone. His weakness and his strength were two sides of one coin. He sat there, letting the tears dry on his face, and thought through the events of the last half hour.

  Ordinarily, he would have wasted no time in summoning the police. But it had been a Hound that had murdered Taguster, and that was a distinct complication. If some—or any—legal authorities had conspired to take the musician's life then it was madness to let them know there was a witness to their murder. He had to know more of the story behind the killing, though he had nothing but a name: Margle.

  He rose from the cup-chair and crossed the room, moved through a painting-lined corridor and into the library he prized so much. He threw a toggle along the wall, next to the comscreen; a panel slid back, revealing a computer keyboard, a direct line to the Enterstat computer. He punched out the letters of the name and depressed the bar marked FULL DATA REPORT.

  Thirty seconds later, a printed stat sheet popped out of the information receival slot and into the plastic tray, glistening wetly. He waited a moment for it to dry, then reached with a servo and picked it up, shaking it to release any static that might make it curl. He held it up and read it, blinking now and then as a stray breath of the copying fluid drifted upward and stung his eye.

  Klaus Margle. He was connected with the Brethren, the underworld organization that had encroached on the territory once held sacrosanct by the older Mafia—and had finally deposed and destroyed the elder organization because it controlled the supply of PBT. PBT had replaced nearly all other drugs and quasi-drugs in man's eternal quest to avoid the un-pleasantries of modern life. Since gambling and prostitution had been dignified by liberalized laws, drugs had become the chief commodities of the underworld. It was rumored that Margie was the chief Don of the intricate counterculture of illegality, though this information could not be checked for authenticity.

  Physically, he was six feet tall and weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds. His hair was dark, but his eyes were a surprising baby blue. He had a three-inch scar along his right jawline: source unknown. He was missing a thumb on his right hand: reason for amputation unknown. He believed in taking part in the common dangerous chores of his organization; he would not send one of his men to do something he had not once done himself—or would flinch from doing now. He was a man of action, not a desk-chained executive. He currently dated Polly London, the rising young senso-starlet who had appeared in Enterstat's glamour section more often than any other woman. Klaus Margle. End of information.

  This explained the Hound and brought a touch of sanity to the surreal atmosphere of the crime. The underworld could obtain anything it wanted; it was rumored that half the city's officials were on the gift sheet of the Brethren. Through one or more of those men, Margle's people had secured the Hound. Which made it quite possible that Timothy would be putting his nonexistent foot into a nasty patch of briars if he should contact the police.

  Punching the number for the Enterstat editor's private desk phone, he waited while the comscreen rang the number. The two-dimensional medium was almost entirely a business service now that the three-dimensional, full sensory Mindlink had taken over communications for more intimate purposes. It also served as a very private means of contact for people like Timothy. In a moment, the blank screen popped with color, and the face of George Creel, Enterstat's editor, swam into view like a fish speeding toward the side of his glass aquarium. It settled into proper proportions, held still. The big man's melancholy eyes stared out at Timothy. "Morning,'' he said. "What's going on?"

  There was no subservience in his tone of voice, though he had a great deal of respect for his boss. It was the sort of respect that did not need to be vocalized, for both of them knew it existed. Ti also regarded Creel highly. The man was efficient, intelligent, and had gone through enough years of hardship and terror to be tempered into a fine precision instrument. Creel was black, and had been eleven years old during the Black Wars. He lived in Chicago when that city attempted to break away from the rest of the nation. The boy survived the final battles when many children had not, and the years of distrust and hatred which followed molded this present man.

  "I want some information on a story prospect, George."

  "Writing again?" Creel asked.

  "Just something that interested me," Timothy said, hoping he could hide his roiling emotions.

  "Who is it?"

  "Klaus Margle. He dates Polly London. Missing a thumb on his right hand. Scarred on his face. And he may be the Don of the most influential family in the Brethren."

  "I'll put some researchers on it. Tomorrow okay?"

  "I want it inside an hour."

  "It'll take four or five good men."

  "Deadlines too tight?"

  "No," Creel said. "I can spare them. Call you in an hour." He signed off on his own authority, his face dwindling until it had disappeared altogether.

  Timothy mixed himself a strong whiskey sour and waited. The quiet of the house seemed unnatural. But even after he slipped a cartridge into the stereo tape deck, the place seemed hollow, like a pavilion after a political congregation: cold. He was glad for the strident buzz of the comscreen an hour later.

  "He's some fellow, isn't he," Creel said.

  "Stat it," Timothy said, anxious to see what the staff had found.

  Creel placed the documents under his recorder scope, one sheet at a time, then punched the transmit button. Moments later, wet copies dropped into the tray in Ti's wall. He restrained himself from rushing forward to look at them. Creel, he could tell, was already too interested. Timothy did not want to blow any of this until he knew exactly what was going on. It was not that he did not trust Creel. It was only that he trusted himself more. Creel would have acted the same way.

  When all the papers had been received, he thanked the observant black man and rang off. Nestled in a comfortable cup-chair, power off in his grav-plates, servos holding the data sheets, he thought he could see Leonard Taguster's face in the print, formed by the letters. He quickly blinked the illusion away and studied the reports.

  When he had finished reading everything the researchers had found on Klaus Margle, he knew beyond doubt that the ma
n was the chief of the Brethren. The list of other underworld figures assumed liquidated under his auspices became awesome. By studying the list, Timothy could see the story of an industrious and ruthless criminal genius assassinating his way up the ranks and into the top roost.

  The information also showed that it had been a wise move not to contact the police. Klaus Margle had been arrested nine different times—and had been released each time for "lack of evidence." If the police investigated this, without strong supportive evidence, Margle would go free. Then he would come hunting a societal reject named Timothy . . .

  He was thankful, now, for his self-sufficiency. This business could not be turned over to police until he had possession of conclusive evidence that Margle could not buy his way out of. He was going to have to handle it himself, using all the connections in his power and every point of his high IQ.

  Activating his grav-plates, he went to the Mindlink set, slid in, and coupled up. He was not going to enjoy returning to that house where the musician and the girl lay in their own blood. It was bad enough losing a friend, but to have to handle that friend's corpse in the manner he planned made him distinctly ill.

  A moment later he was settling into the brain blank in Leonard Taguster's living-room receiver. The body was still there, twisted grotesquely in death agonies. He looked quickly away, but found his eyes drawn back like metal filings to a magnet. He focused the cameras on the closet door he wanted. He hoped Taguster still kept the thing where he used to. Ti palmed open the closet door with his psionic power. Warning lights flashed amber and red, and a loud clanging alarm sounded. He shut those off and looked inside—at a perfect likeness of the musician, except that, unlike its model, it was not full of pins and slicked with blood.

  Taguster had commissioned the production of the simulacrum to help him avoid the adulation of his fans. It always forced its way through crowds, bullied past young girls waiting at his hotel—while he walked quietly in the back door or followed an hour later when the people had gone. Its complex brain was cored with Taguster's memory tapes and his psychological reaction patterns, making it possible for the fake to pass as the real even in the company of casual friends —although someone as close to him as Timothy could not be fooled for more than a moment.

  Ti reached psionically under the flowered sportscoat the machine wore and brought it to active status; its eyes opened, unclouded, and attained the same penetrating gaze that Taguster was famous for. "You," Ti said. "Come here." But despite the fact that he was trying to be businesslike, his voice was hoarse.

  It walked out of the closet and stopped before the receiver. For a moment, Timothy could not bear to order it to do anything; it seemed as if such an act would demean the memory of the real Taguster. But such orders were necessary to the success of the plan. "You recognize my voice?" he asked it.

  "Yes."

  "And that I am one who is permitted to give you instructions?"

  "Yes."

  "Sim, there is a young woman at the window in the bedroom. Dead. Get her and bring her into the utility room off the kitchen. Don't spill her blood on the carpet. Go."

  The robotic device walked briskly off toward the bedroom with the same slight lopsided gait that had been his master's. A moment later it returned, the woman's body cradled in its arms. The blood had ceased to flow and was drying in her nightdress. She had been a truly beautiful woman—but there was no time to contemplate that now. The simulacrum stalked across the room and out of sight.

  Timothy shifted into the kitchen receiver and watched the machine carry her into the utility room. He could see only a portion of that area through the open door, for there was no receiver in there. "Empty the freezer," he directed the simulacrum. It complied, piling the hams and roasts and vegetables on the floor.

  "Now put her body inside."

  It did this too. Ti tried not to envision the bloodied girl-corpse lying in the rime-frosted icebox . . .

  He directed the robot to retrieve Taguster's corpse and to do the same with it as with the woman. If it should require any length of time for his plan to work through, he wanted to be certain the bodies were well preserved for a future autopsy. It was gruesome, but it was the only thing he could do. He had seen worse things in his lifetime, of course . . .

  When both bodies were in the freezer and the food they replaced was dumped into the incinerator chute, he sent the simulacrum about the house cleaning up all traces of the murders, scrubbing blood from floorboards and carpet, washing the wall down where the musician had scribbled on it. When the machine-man had finished, the place looked completely normal, quiet and serene.

  "Sit down and wait for me," he directed it.

  It complied.

  Timothy returned home on the Mindlink beam. In his library, he hovered before his typewriter and used his nimble servos to compose a new headline story for the four-thirty edition. Polly London would surely read the paper to see if she were mentioned, and it was quite conceivable that she would pass along this story to Margle if Margle didn't subscribe to Enterstat himself.

  When he finished the piece, he rang Creel on the comscreen. The face ballooned out of the center of the tube, and the shiny black eyes gazed out. "Was the data complete enough?" he asked.

  "Fine, George. Look, I have another story that goes in the four-thirty edition. Tear out the lead already in the master starter, no matter what it is, and put this in with two-inch caps."

  "Stat it," Creel said.

  He did. Seconds later, he saw it drop Into Creel's desk tray. The editor picked it up and read it over. "What's the headline?" he asked, picking up a grease pencil.

  Ti considered a moment. "Ah—CONCERT GUITARIST VICTIM OF WOULD-BE KILLER."

  "He's not got that sort of reputation with the average middle-age gossip seeker. And the murder wasn't even a success. So you've got reasons beyond putting out a good edition."

  "Yes," Ti said.

  Creel waited a moment. When he saw he was not going to get any further details, he nodded his head and broke the connection.

  Ti returned to the Mindlink set and to Taguster's house. The simulacrum was waiting where he had left it, hands folded demurely in its lap. That was the quickest way to delineate between the mechanical and the real man. Leonard Taguster had been a man supercharged with nervous energy, always moving, doing, looking, reading, talking, feeling. He would never have sat anywhere in such patient anticipation. Ti considered his next set of directions a moment, and then said, "Call the Harvard Detective Agency and contract one of their best investigators. Tell him an attempt was made on your life and that you want him to discover who was behind it Tell him you want to see him tomorrow after you've compiled what information you can. Four o'clock tomorrow, tell him."

  The simulacrum followed Ti's instructions. Then it turned to Ti as the screen went blank behind it. "Anything else?"

  "Not yet. You might as well go inactive." When the machine had returned to its chair, Ti used his psi talent to palm the shut-off switch beneath the loud sportscoat. The thing sagged in its chair; its eyes clouded, and in a moment it seemed to be asleep.

  At four-thirty, Enterstat would report an unsuccessful attempt on Taguster's life and that the Harvard Agency had been hired to investigate. If Margle read the story, he would call Harvard, perhaps posing as a friend willing to pay Taguster's bill, concerned about the musician's welfare. The firm would either agree or say Mr. Taguster would have to approve. And Margle would think his man was still alive. Then, given his propensity for personal involvement, Margle just might take it upon himself to discover first-hand why the police Hound had failed in its mission. Timothy was counting on that. He waited, nervously . . .

  Ti had everything prepared. The movie camera was positioned back in his own house, right next to the Mindlink set, ready to be jacked in and record on film whatever transpired in the house of Leonard Taguster. If only Margle would show . . .

  At ten to ten, the comscreen burred.

  And burred ag
ain . . .

  Quickly, he activated the android. Its eyes blinked, unclouded. It stood erect and strode off to the comscreen just as naturally as if it had been awakened from a sound nap. It punched to receive the call. The big screen lighted, although no image was being received—just dazzling whiteness. The android, though, was transmitting and being received. Klaus Margle—for who else would not want his face seen on the comscreen?—was getting a full-face view of the man he had ordered destroyed and had thought dead.

  "Who is this?" the simulacrum asked.

  There was no reply.

  "Who is this?"

  The comscreen went dead. The other party had rung off without saying a word.

  The android returned to his chair and looked at the Mindlink receiver. "Did I act correctly under the circumstances?"

  "Yes. Yes, you did."

  "Then, would you tell me what those circumstances are? If I am to perform as well as expected, I must be thoroughly grounded in the situation."

  The simulacrum was not in the least interested in its master's death, which it surely must have grasped by now, having helped to dispose of the corpse. It was only concerned with meeting expectations. Timothy was not sure whether a machine benefited or suffered from its lack of humanity.

  After a briefing, they sat in silence. When darkness came, they turned on the softest lights. At ten o'clock, Timothy realized he had not eaten anything all day—and that he was terribly thirsty as well. But he dared not leave the receiver to attend to the needs of his body. Margle might arrive while he was gone. At a quarter after eleven, then, they heard the first sounds of the intruder . . .

  CHAPTER 3

  There was the crackling of wood splintering under great strain, then a sharp crash as the kitchen door was wrenched from its frame. The simulacrum rose and strode off toward the kitchen. Timothy shifted into the receiver there. The door was, indeed, bowed out of its frame, shivering as something heavy struck it again and again from the other side. Then it gave; the latch ripped loose and clattered noisily across the room. The door swung inward; the house had been breached. Beyond floated the Hound . . .