The master unit extended steel arms from his cylindrical body trunk and gathered the suitcases in thin, ball- jointed fingers. He led the way to the promenade steps, down the concrete approach ramp to a sleek, silver ground car, placed the bags in the trunk and opened St. Cyr's door. When the man was seated, he closed the door and floated around to the other side of the vehicle, where he opened a second door and drifted into the cushionless niche constructed especially for him. With his highly flexible fingers he plugged the steering, braking and acceleration leads into three of the nine sockets that ringed the middle of his body trunk. He drove the car, without hands, from the parking lot onto a wide superhighway, heading away from the lossely architectured sprawl of the city.
For a while, St. Cyr watched the hills pass by. Stands of pine-like trees thrust up like grasping hands before them, loomed over, fell away in a collapse of green fingers. A dear, blue-green river played quick tag with the road for the first fifty miles, then curved abruptly away, down a rock-walled valley, and never returned.
Darma, with its abnormally broad and agreeable equatorial belt, its already good weather improved considerably by Climkon's manipulation of its atmosphere, was idyllic. It was the sort of world to which every man dreamed of retiring as early in life as possible. Few, however, could ever afford to leave their industrial, business- oriented home worlds. Planets like Darma, untouched by the noise, smoke and stench of production, were not developed for the poor or for the well-to-do, but only for the extremely wealthy. Only the richest men could afford to live here permanently, and only the very comfortable could manage even a month-long visit. St. Cyr, then, should have been mesmerized by the vast stretches of untrammeled land, grateful for the chance to breathe such sweet air.
He wasn't.
He was, in fact, bored by it.
Boredom was the major enemy that St. Cyr faced, despite the criminals and potential criminals around whom his profession revolved. Tedium was a backwards-leading road that wound through the tumble-down structures of old memories — memories of times before he had become a cyberdetective, memories of people he would rather forget, of involvements he would just as soon not recall…
He turned to Teddy and said, 'You know, of course, why I'm here.' He had decided to begin work, even if his first interview had to be with a master unit robot.
'Yes, sir,' Teddy said. 'To investigate the murders.'
'That's correct'
'A nasty business, sir.'
'Murder always is, Teddy.'
'You require my assistance?'
'I want to hear the general story of the murders.'
'You haven't been informed, sir?'
'Yes, I have been. But I would like your version, one that isn't cluttered with emotion.'
'I see,' Teddy said. He did not swivel the cannister of his 'head' or direct the soft, green discs of his sight receptors toward the detective.
'Go on, then.'
The robot paused a moment, then spoke, still with the same voice of a boy almost but not quite grown to manhood, a charming and winning voice. St. Cyr could not even catch the switch between word tapes as the machine constructed its sentences.
The first murder occurred four weeks ago, on a Monday morning — Darma has a seven-day week, the same as Earth, though the year contains only forty-eight weeks. The day was pleasant — or, at least, enough of the criteria for a pleasant day were present: cloudless sky, moderate temperatures, little wind. Does that sound like a pleasant day, sir?'
'Yes,' St. Cyr said. 'Go on. I'll understand that any further value judgments you make are based on a comparison of the events with established standards.'
Teddy continued. 'The family rose as usual, all except Leon, the oldest boy. When he did not appear at breakfast, the family assumed that he was sleeping in. The Alderbans, due to their wealth, pursue artistic lives and do not, therefore, need to observe a strict routine. Leon's absence, therefore, aroused little if any concern.'
The highway began to climb into large, gray mountains where filmy sheets of mist curled through the trees that now grew thickly on both sides.
'When Leon did not appear by noon, his sister Dorothea looked in on him and discovered his corpse. He was lying near the door, his arms outstretched as if he had been trying to crawl to the door and summon help. His throat had been torn out.'
'
'Torn,' Teddy said again. 'It was a ragged mess. Also, his right arm had very nearly been ripped free of its shoulder socket; blood lay everywhere.'
'The authorities?' St. Cyr asked.
He felt a quickening excitement as he considered how such a corpse could have come to its condition. The boredom receded and left him altogether. In the back of his mind, held against a cold black slateboard, was an image of the body. He shivered. He wished the board were the sort he could erase; but his bio-computer partner held the image there, adding to it bit by bit as more pieces of the puzzle were detailed by the master unit.
'The Darmanian police arrived, federal men sent in because of the Alderban name and position. They dusted for fingerprints on every surface in Leon's bedroom. They super-lighted the body, trying to bring out the killer's prints from the background of Leon's own skin patterns. They checked beneath his nails for skin, since he appeared to have fought his assailant, and they thoroughly vacuumed the room for traces of dust, string and hair that might be alien to it. All the laboratory tests failed to produce a single clue. The police were baffled, for such a thorough scanning of a murder scene and corpse had never failed to bring results in the past.'
St. Cyr watched the trees, the mist, the bare peaks of the mountains through which they glided. He saw something sinister in them which he had not noticed earlier, though he could not pin down the exact nature of his misgivings. What sort of creature walked beneath trees such as these, through this mist, within sight of such mountains, able to slaughter in such a brutal fashion?
'The second killing?' St. Cyr asked.
'One week later, the following Monday, Dorothea went for a walk in the vast gardens of the Alderban estate. The gardens stretch for two miles east-west and one mile north-south; they offer many an inspiring view to a poet like Dorothea. When she did not return from her walk at the time she said she would, the family was immediately alarmed. A search of the gardens was initiated. This time, I found the body.'
The pines had given out in these higher altitudes to huge, gray-leafed trees that bent across the lanes until, almost touching above the median, they formed a dark tunnel.
The car's lights popped on.
Teddy said, 'Dorothea had been mauled exactly as her brother had been, her throat torn through. Her left hip had also been badly mutilated, and the toes of her right foot were gone.'
'Gone?'
'At least, they've never been found, sir.'
Another car passed them, going toward the city they had left behind, a silvery master unit chauffeuring a young couple. The girl was a pretty brunette.
St. Cyr: 'The police were summoned again?'
Teddy: 'Yes. The federal men arrived and proceeded to cover the murder scene just as thoroughly as they had done before. They super-lighted the body for fingerprints and found none. They dug under her nails for flesh — found none. They searched the garden for footprints — found none. In one area, however, they had success.'
'What was that?' St. Cyr asked. Jubal Alderban, the patriarch of this troubled family, had not told him any of these fascinating details in the light-telegram he had sent, and St. Cyr was desperate for facts.
'They found a wolfs hair in the wound on her neck.'
St. Cyr: 'Well, there you have it A wolf—'
'Not quite, sir. This could possibly explain Dorothea's death — though there has not been a wild wolf reported
