“It does.” Smith eyed the terminal. “Have you guys told me everything?”
“So help me, cross my heart.”
“I’ll have to nose around the liner more than I-”
“Don’t go getting bumped off like…um…”
Smith stood. “Bumped off like who?”
“Oh, that was just a figure of-”
“Who got killed on this case already, Whistler?”
The screen blushed pink for an instant. “Well, it wasn’t one of our operatives,” it said in a subdued tone. “An agent working in our client’s Security Division died under suspicious circumstances while trying to find some of the missing Horizon Kids. That’s one reason why Triplan decided to come to us and not-”
“Suspicious how?”
“Oh, his skycar exploded. Scattered him all over a stretch of Zegundo woodlands. They never found enough pieces of the man or his skycar to be absolutely sure if it was an accident or a rubout.”
“Simple case, no danger.” Smith sat, slouched. “This ties in with the attempt on Constiner, too, probably.”
“I’m not aware of any-”
“Just happened.” Smith pointed a thumb at the ceiling. “Up in the saloon. Someone tampered with the servobot so that it introduced a fairly obscure but deadly herbal poison into Constiner’s drink. The stuff has a very faint scent and I noticed it.”
“What did you do?”
“Knocked the damn glass out of his hand before he drank it.”
“Was that wise?”
“I didn’t know it was Constiner until after I acted,” said Smith. “Bastard wasn’t all that grateful, claiming he’d spotted the stuff, too, but was going to pretend to kick off. Then see who came nosing around his mortal remains.”
“That’s not a bad plan, much better than your-”
“I’m a shade rusty, I admit. Don’t worry, I won’t keep making mistakes.”
“Any notion who rigged the ’bot?”
“I managed to watch while Constiner dismantled the robot back in the pantry. Not a trace of who did the fiddling.”
“Most likely the same agent who decorated your quarters with this unorthodox snooping device.”
“Possibly.”
“Stands to reason, Smitty, because-”
“You guys don’t know everything yet,” Smith pointed out. “It could be there are a dozen different agents, each one with a different boss, interested in this mess. And every one of them may have orders to do me in next.”
“Why not try to thrive on the challenge. The added danger should buoy you up, make-”
“I don’t especially want to die,” explained Smith.
“You won’t,” Whistler assured him. “Your record shows you have an almost supernatural knack for survival.”
“Up to now.”
“This negative attitude is what led you to end up in the gutter, Smitty,” said the terminal. “You have to look on the bright-”
“Let’s move on to the subject of my crew,” he suggested. “You were supposed to drop in here to tell me who you’ve hired.”
“If you hadn’t sidetracked me with all this Gloomy Gus chitchat I’d have long since-”
“Fill me in.”
Whistler floated back a few feet farther away from him. “Before I fill you in on the excellent team we’ve put together,” he said, “I want you to make a little vow.”
“Vow?”
“That you won’t swear and yell and berate me in case…I merely say
“What sort of dimwitted louts have you saddled me-”
“Hear me out with a minimum of complaining and cursing, please. This is, after all, something of a rush situation and-”
“Okay, okay,” said Smith. “I won’t bitch and moan. It’s a promise. Go on.”
He was very nearly able to keep his promise.
CHAPTER 6
Someone whacked on the door of Smith’s cabin, hard, several times.
He eased up out of his chair, touched the door switch. The door coughed, jiggled, slid open.
Deac Constiner stood on the threshold. “Your frapping corridor’s full of sand.”
“Two hours ago it was soapy water.”
The Trinidad Law Bureau agent’s frown deepened. “I was a little harsh with you in the saloon,” he said. “Implied you were a bigger halfwit than you probably are.”
“Come on in,” invited Smith. “An apology from you is an event.”
Shaking yellow sand off his neohyde boots, the small lawman entered. “What’d you do with the damn bug I had planted in here?”
While they both glanced down at the small circular hole in the carpeting, Smith replied, “Got rid of it.”
“Do you realize those things cost five hundred trubux apiece?”
“When we get to Zegundo, I’ll show you a place you can buy them for two hundred.”
Constiner sat, uninvited, on the edge of the bunk. “Did you find any other bugs in here?”
“Should I have?”
“Let’s put our cards on the table,” said Constiner. “We’re both interested in the same case. See? I’m being frank with you.”
“After you realized I was on to you.”
The lawman said, “You used to be a pretty fair operative. At least you weren’t as much of a stumblebum as most of the lunks in the Territorial cops. I know you went blooey over a dame, but hell, that can happen to any of us.”
“Not to you.”
“I’m an exception,” admitted Constiner.
“What exactly,” inquired Smith, settling into a chair, “is this case we’re both working on?”
Constiner gave a dry chuckle. “You tell me, Smith.”
“I’m looking for some people.”
“Me, too.”
“Why?”
“Same reason you are.”
“To get them,” asked Smith, “to attend the Horizon Kids’ reunion?”
New lines joined the large selection on Constiner’s leathery forehead. “Is that really what you think you’re doing?”
“It is what I’m doing.”
“Here I just get through telling you that maybe you’re not a dimwit and you act like a dimwit,” the TLB man complained. “Use your damn noggin. Who ran Horizon House?”
“Westerland.”
“And what was he the head of? The freewheeling government research agency known as the Miracle Office.”
“Then all this maybe has something to do with an invention of his?”
Constiner folded his hands over his knee. “What do you think?”
