Smiley peeped through a curtain.
Snow for sure. Maybe there was a God after all. If so, he must be a security man at heart. He was certainly bringing everything together perfectly.
Smiley had feared he would have to put up with an adult-sized infant till next winter.
This was going to be sweet. Much more subtle than that clumsy business at Lidice. Definitely worth the wait.
He stared at his creation. It was a work of genius. Sheer genius considering the quality of the available hardware. The years and changes hadn't robbed him of his talent.
He applauded himself almost constantly. By damned, he was going to pull it off! A plot so delicate and complex that he was constantly awed by his own temerity.
Finding the man's nearest living relative. What a hunt that had been. Then he had had to become a respected member of her church. Finally, the time had been right to offer his medical services to the convent… He lacked a license, but there hadn't been many questions. It was a poor parish.
Such joy he had known the day he had brought home the blood-stained paper towel she had used to stop a nosebleed. Cells enough for a thousand clones. With a little ingenious gene sculpture using a half-million dollars worth of equipment, he had produced a male embryo.
Ah, the fortunes he had had to spend. But it was worth it. Definitely worth it.
The corpse would cause an uproar so mighty that she would
It had come to that. He had gotten nowhere in his search for the last Groloch. If only he could have gotten to Fian's things at Lidice… But the security police would have cut him up for fish bait.
Spooking Fiala was the only way left. She would know where to find the man-if he were alive at all.
Smiley could not accept the possibility that one of his enemies might have escaped him through death. No. There was order and justice in this universe. The man was hiding. When the fire got intense enough, Fiala would bolt for the same cover.
Smiley was enjoying himself hugely. For the first time since the Uprising, he was having fun.
He heaved the clone into the power wheelchair. The other four… well, he would have to do something. After he saw how this worked out. He wouldn't need them if it clicked. He began whistling while he dressed his homemade stalking horse.
The wheelchair could climb steps. It was the fanciest available. He had practiced leaving the basement with a sandbag as passenger, but never with a human body. He anticipated snags.
There were none. The chair climbed slowly but perfectly.
He opened his garage and dragged the uninflated mini-blimp into the alley. The clone sat silently, motionlessly, the only sign of life an occasional shiver.
Smiley had come to the tricky part. It was still early. If anyone spotted him, or his airship, before the snowfall cut visibility and stopped traffic… If he erred during his two block flight and crashed the damned blimp… If there were lightning in the storm…
He shouldn't have used hydrogen. Too dangerous.
But he wouldn't have gotten enough lift from helium. The airship was too small.
It would work out. It had to. He had invested too much time and money and energy, had taken too many risks, to have it sour now.
It hummed along smoothly. The gas bag filled. He manhandled his unnatural child into the gondola, clambered in himself. Everything was in place. The little single stroke engine began purring first try. The breeze fell off to nothing as the snowfall grew heavier.
He took the ship up. It responded as perfectly as it had during test flights on the small farm he owned a hundred miles south of the city. There was one minor mishap, when the ship nudged the sky-clawing fingers of a gigantic sycamore, but the incident scarcely slowed him. He navigated by the lights of the houses, clearing their rooftops by a scant ten feet.
Soon he was over the alley, anchored to an elm. He lowered the clone. The snow was so dense he could hardly discern the ground, though a streetlight stood fifty feet to the west.
Excellent.
The clone tried to walk, as its muscles had been taught. But when the breakaway harness cut loose, it collapsed.
Smiley aimed his crude sonic weapon. The clone twitched, squirmed, died.
They would think it had been shock.
He flew home to await developments.
But it didn't work out the way he hoped. After momentary excitement, everyone lost interest. Even Fiala misinterpreted the message he had thought implicit in the body's appearance.
Maybe he was being too subtle.
Well, he still had four soldiers sleeping in the womb. He would put them in one by one till the police
Meanwhile, his detective agency watched the woman around the clock.
The break came only after months of waiting. The warning that something unusual was in the wind came
