A Werewolf Among Us

on this continent for nearly sixty years, an extinction of species specified in Climicon's plans for Darma — but it most assuredly does not explain Leon's demise. How, for instance, could a wolf get through the door locks, find its way upstairs to Leon's room, kill him, and leave without otherwise causing a disturbance?'

St. Cyr could not explain that.

'Wolves, Mr. St. Cyr, are apt to howl when excited. In the act of chewing and clawing Leon's throat, it would surely have awakened the household or at least drawn my own notice. There was no noise. And when I checked the lock systems, I found them inviolate; the doors had not been opened all night.'

'Who is left in the family?' St. Cyr asked. He wished they would come out of the canopy of gray trees and into the sunlight again.

'Five,' Teddy said. 'There is Jubal Alderban, father of the family and owner of the Alderban Interstellar Corporation, though he has never worked much at the family business. It's nearly all in the hands of trust lawyers, who dole out large monthly allotments to the family. Jubal is a sculptor of galactic renown, as you most likely know. He, as did all the family, underwent psychiatric hypno-keying to stimulate his creative abilities.'

They drifted into sunlight again, squinted as the windshield splashed orange and then quickly opaqued in adjustment to the glare. The mountains hung over them again, rotten teeth ready to bite. Then the trees formed another canopy and brought darkness.

'Jubal's wife,' Teddy said, 'is Alicia. Ten years younger than Jubal, forty-four, an accomplished classical guitarist and composer of ballads in the Spanish tradition. The three remaining children are Dane, the historical novelist, Betty, a better poet than her dead sister, and Tina — who paints. Tina is the most self-sufficient of the lot, Dane the least. Jubal is, of course, concerned about their welfare.'

St. Cyr phrased his next question carefully in order to obtain the most, clinical, factual and complete answer that Teddy could give him. 'Having observed most of this firsthand, having seen the bodies and known the victims, do you have any theories of your own?' He knew that a Reiss Master Unit was a complete reasoning individual, within certain limits, and he hoped the superior logic of that mind would have some new insight that the police had not come up with.

He was disappointed.

'Nothing of my own, sir. It is truly baffling. There is only what the natives say about it.'

'Native Darmanians?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What do they say, Teddy?'

'Werewolf, sir.'

'Pardon me?'

'I know that it sounds absurd to reasoning creatures like ourselves. The Darmanians say that a werewolf, a creature they call the du-aga-klava, inhabits the hills at the foot of the mountains. The natives are convinced that one of these du-aga-klava has bitten some member of the family, thus transmitting its lycanthropy. That member of the family, by this theory, is the murderer of Leon and Dorothea Alderban.'

'As you said, that doesn't really satisfy anyone with the ability to reason clearly.'

Teddy said nothing more.

'I noticed,' St. Cyr said, 'that your tone of voice has been deliberately chosen to indicate doubt. Why is that?'

The car seemed to accelerate slightly, though the detective could not be certain of that. And if he could be certain, what would such a reaction on Teddy's part mean?

'It is not superstitious, Mr. St. Cyr, to believe that there are more things beyond our understanding than we would admit.'

'I suppose.'

Something here… The bio-computer part of him was disturbed. It had analyzed what the robot had told it — not merely what the robot had said, but how it had said h. It had dissected grammar and inflection, and now it was displeased.

Something there is here… The master unit's words seem designed to conceal. They are not natural to it. It is almost as if someone had gotten to the robot and programmed it to answer this way, programmed it to emphasize the werewolf stories.

But who, St. Cyr wondered, would Teddy be unwittingly trying to protect? Who could have programmed him to slant his story toward the supernatural?

Something there is here…

But, for the time being anyway, St. Cyr was willing to ignore the warning signals. The boredom had been driven out, and that was what counted the most. With his mind occupied, he would not find himself remembering odd moments of the past without really wanting to. And if he did not remember them, he would not be sad. He hated being sad. Thank God for work, for corpses with their throats torn out, for mysteries.

They broke through the mountains and started down the foothills on the other side. For a moment, the sun shone through the break in the ubiquitous trees — then the dark branches and gray leaves enfolded the car once more.

TWO: Rider in the Storm

The Alderban mansion was built on the slopes of the last of the major foothills, in the shadows of the gray mountains. In five distinct steps, each fitted against the contour of the land, perfectly smooth and unseamed as if it had been carved from a single piece of blazing white stone, the house managed to appear more like a natural outcropping of the landscape than like the intruding hand of civilization.

Teddy piloted the ground car into the irising mouth of the garage and parked it in a stall alongside five similar vehicles.

'I'll show you to your room,' he said.

Five minutes later, by means of an elevator that moved both vertically and horizontally by turns, they reached the main hall of the topmost level of the house: deep carpet the color of untainted seawater; muted blue walls; indirect lighting, so indirect that he could not locate the source; paintings on both walls, all rather interesting at a glance, all signed by Tina Alderban; music, almost inaudible, gentle and soothing.

Teddy palmed a wall switch, opened the door that appeared behind a sliding panel and showed the detective to his quarters: a comfortably furnished sitting room, a bedroom with a mammoth waterbed and a fireplace large enough to roast an ox, more of Tina Alderban's paintings, a private bath off the bedchamber complete with a Brobdingnagian sunken tub.

'Will this do?' Teddy asked.

'I'll try it for a day or so and see,' St. Cyr said dryly. But his sarcasm was lost on the master unit.

'If it doesn't suit, I am sure that something else can be arranged.' Teddy floated to the door, turned and said, 'Dinner will be served in two hours and twenty minutes, in the main dining room. You will find directions in the house guide in the top drawer of your nightstand.'

'Wait.' St. Cyr said. 'I'd like to talk to Mr. Alderban to get—'

'That will come later,' Teddy assured him. 'Now, Mr. Alderban wishes that you rest from your journey.'

'I'm not tired, actually.'

'Then you may watch the thunderstorm, Mr. St. Cyr. Climicon has scheduled one for approximately six o'clock. It should already have begun to form.'

This time, when the robot assumed its air of dismissal, it was utterly inarguable. The door closed behind it; beyond the door, the concealing panel slid down the wall.

St. Cyr, unable to imagine what else he should do to pass the time, afraid of growing bored again, went to the glass patio doors and discovered that they opened on vocal command. He stepped onto the slate-floored balcony, which was shielded from the elements by the slanted, spout-flanked, red-shingled roof. Below, a lush valley opened like the center of a flower, cut through by a blue stream of water, spotted with