A Werewolf Among Us

a back-scratcher, with a long shaft terminating in four hideously sharpened tines that were curved at the tips like well-honed claws. 'As you know, the 'hands' at the ends of Teddy's arms are only attachments which are removable so that he can accommodate the insertion of various other tools. The ends of his arms are something like drill clamps that will take any number of bits. This set of claws is one of those 'bits.''

'Where in hell did he get that?' Jubal asked.

'He made it,' St. Cyr said. 'He's perfectly capable of operating a machine shop — just as you ordered him — a function he usually performs in order to transfer your silver designs from paper to reality. Somewhere along the line he took the time to make himself this dandy little ripper.'

'What I'd like to know is where you got that,' Hirschel said.

'In Teddy's workshop.'

'Just a while ago?'

'Yes.'

'And he doesn't know what you went down there for?' Hirschel clearly felt St. Cyr had made a serious tactical error.

'He doesn't even know I went down there,' St. Cyr said. 'I told him I was going to the fourth floor. I sent the elevator up there, empty. Since there was no one else in the house to use it just then — you were all in the kitchen — I knew I had the elevator shaft to myself. I just used it to go down one floor to the garage, then into the workshop.'

'With that arm?' Hirschel asked.

'The arm wasn't any problem going down,' the cyberdetective said. 'Coming up was a real bitch, though.'

Hirschel smiled admiringly and said, 'I believe that I have been underestimating you all along.'

St. Cyr acknowledged the compliment with a nod, though it pleased him very much. On his left, Tina moved closer to him, until he felt their hips brush.

Hirschel said, 'I expect that you can explain where he got that narcotic-dart gun that he used against you in the garden.'

The detective reached into the paper sack, removed a pistol and handed it to the hunter. 'Recognize the make?'

Hirschel gave it a careful scrutiny, pulled back the slide and peered at as much of the workings as he could see. 'Very simplistic, but well-made. The mechanisms look too fragile to last long.'

'Teddy machined it,' St. Cyr said.

Jubal spoke up again: 'But it was never stipulated that he know weaponry. I wouldn't want a master unit of mine to have that kind of knowledge.'

'You never stipulated that he kill your sons and daughters, either,' St. Cyr said.

Hirschel handed the gun back, and the detective put it with the artificial claws. To Hirschel, he said, 'There is a wolfs head mounted in your suite. I saw it the first day I was here.'

'I killed it a good many years ago,' Hirschel said. 'Before the species was eradicated by Climicon.'

'Was that the only one you shot?'

'No. There were two others. But I didn't see any sense in having them mounted.'

'What was done with them?' He already knew the general answer to that, but he wanted to get everything as exact as he could.

'I gutted, cured and tanned the hides, left the heads intact except for the eyes. I knew the species was slated for eradication, and I knew that the hides would be worth a great deal of money some day, for museums and such. I have a lot of animal skins stored here on the second level. It's another eccentricity that Jubal allows me.' He smiled at Jubal, and St. Cyr thought there was genuine affection on the older man's part for the younger.

The cyberdetective pulled the last item from the paper bag. It was one of the wolf hides that Hirschel had prepared and stored. 'Teddy used it to plant wolf hairs with the bodies — and as a partial disguise when he attacked me in the gardens. He was wise enough to realize that if I were hallucinating, this minimal diversion would confuse me enough to keep me from recognizing him. He was also clever enough to disguise himself at all, on the chance that he might fail to kill me then — as he did.'

'But,' Jubal said, 'what about the TDX-4, the drug he used on you? He could destroy all of this when he had finished with all of us — but the house computer would keep a record of the drug purchase. The police, if they were clever enough, could figure him out on the basis of that — and find out who illegally programmed him to kill.'

'Except that Teddy didn't buy the hallucinogenic drug. It was already here, in the house.'

'Where?' the patriarch asked. 'No one in this house uses hallucinogens.' He spoke with smug authority.

'I use them,' Alicia said. She said so little, spoke so seldom, that when she did say anything her gentle voice cut like a knife.

'You?' her husband asked, uncomprehending.

No one else spoke.

Alicia said, 'There are times — times when I simply can't stand it any more — when I need some escape.'

'Can't stand what?' he asked.

Reluctantly, sadly, but beyond tears now, she said, 'This house, my family, the coldness, the way we seldom speak to one another, the fact that we barely know each other…'

Jubal was speechless. This was a time of changes, large changes, or at least a time of intimations of changes, and he was going to have to make a great many adjustments, examine a long list of his cherished attitudes. None of it would be easy.

'Have you noticed that you're missing any TDX?' the cyberdetective asked the lonely woman.

'I haven't noticed.'

'We'll look later,' St. Cyr said. 'But I'm certain that your supply has been reduced.'

'Okay, okay,' Jubal said, suddenly impatient, trying to wipe out his hurt and confusion with feigned anger. 'The proof is conclusive. But who got to Teddy? Who re-programmed him with all these directives to kill?'

'May I try to answer that?' Hirschel asked. He was grinning, his hands swinging at his sides, like a high school kid meeting his first date.

'Go on,' St. Cyr said.

'Teddy was never re-programmed,' Hirschel said.

'Right,' the detective said.

'The illegal directives were worked into his program in the factory,' Hirschel said. 'From the moment that he came here, he was prepared to kill everyone in the house.'

'Once he had made the proper impression, generated trust, and got the necessary tools together,' St. Cyr added.

Hirschel smiled and said, 'And the man who programmed him was Walter Dannery.'

'The man I fired?' Jubal asked.

'The same,' Hirschel said. 'Right?'

'I believe so,' St. Cyr said.

'But that's insane!' Jubal said.

'I have no certain proof of it yet,' the cyberdetective said. 'But I probably will have in the morning — at least a bit of circumstantial evidence. Consider that Reiss Master Units are produced on Ionus, the same world to which Dannery went after he lost his job here. Also consider that he was one of your chief roboticists, as you've told me, and would very likely be a candidate for executive-level employment with Reiss.'

Jubal looked as if he had been caught on the back of the head by a boomerang just after stating flatly that such toys didn't work.

St. Cyr got down from the table and began to put the evidence into the paper sack again. He said, 'Did you have any proof — anything admissible in a court of law — that it was Walter Dannery who embezzled those funds?'

'He was in charge of that section and the only human authorized to handle the books. And computer tapes had been altered, rather crudely in fact. We couldn't flatly prove that it was Dannery — but we knew that it couldn't be anyone else.' He sounded defensive, without reason.

'Therefore,' the detective said, twisting the top on the bag, 'no charge was leveled against him with