«Sure.» Give it one last shot, he thought, then it's on his head. «So, what's your plan now? You'll come back when I've got the first hulk running?»
Spill's white eyes narrowed. «Don't take me for fool, breakerboy; that puts me in cutting mood. I let you go now, how I know you doing right? No, I ride your back till job done. I'm company. Take me to your burrow, breakerboy, and no tricks.» The slitter made a fluttery music.
«All right, all right.» Bilobi picked up his tool rack and walked away. The warm emotion stretched his mouth into a gleeful rictus, hidden from the one who followed. Whether the world sends you good or evil make something useful of it; that had been dead Grego's favorite saying, though in the end, Grego had been too stupid to see where that thought finally led.
They reached the entrance to Bilobi's burrow, a narrow crawl under a stack of corroding janitorial robots. Spill clicked off the slitter, tucked it away. Now he held a little splinter gun. «You go first, breakerboy. No mantrap fast enough to save you from this,» he said, waving the gun.
Bilobi slid through the opening and down the smooth incline. Spill followed on his heels, bounced to his feet.
«Nice hole you got, so nice it's weird; I seen worse in the Enclaves,» Spill said, turning slowly. «You way ahead of me, you open for business. No one say you live like this.» The room had polished metal walls and deep carpet, comfortable furniture and soft light. In one corner a bot with six spidery tool arms hunched over a chessboard, immobile. Against the far wall stood a half-track bot with a laser torch mounted on its central manipulator. Beside it was a media-bot, all pickups and screens and direct-connect sensory patches. In the center of the room stood a self-contained med-unit. Through the archway a farmbot gleamed under pink wide-spectrum lights, motionless against racks of green hydroponic trays. «Tell me true, breakerboy. All they need is keychips?» Spill's sparkling smile was wide with innocent delight.
«No,» Bilobi said. «I’m afraid not.»
Spill caught a reflection of something in the darkness behind him, started to whirl.
Cindilou stepped out, a twinkling movement, inhumanly fast. She caught Spill by the throat, crushed his gun hand into red jelly. She lilted Spilt high; he kicked, struggled to scream through the elegant steel hand that clamped his windpipe.
Bilobi stepped to her side, caressed her smooth white shoulder. Spill's eves shrieked, but no sound came from his straining mouth. «Meet Cindilou.» Bilobi said. «She's a joygirl, rebuilt on an assassin chassis, upholstered in tank-grown Youngloretta skin. Beautiful, isn't she?» Of all the hulks he had resurrected, Cindilou was Bilobi's favorite. It was a shame she could not come out into the dump with him. If she could, he would never be troubled by men like Spill. But the observers on the wall must never suspect her existence; besides, men like Spill brought him the volition chips he needed to make his life perfect.
She looked at Bilobi, amber eyes glowing, a small, eager smile on her pale lips.
He nodded. «Just don't make a mess, Cindilou.» So she twisted Spill's neck enough to kill him, but not enough to rupture the arteries.
When the body stopped shuddering, Bilobi took possession of Spill's shiny new chip.
«Shall I put him through the compost shredder?» Cindilou asked. Her voice was sweet, a little breathless.
«Sure.» He hefted the chip, cast a speculative glance around the burrow. «What'll we build with this one, Cindilou?» He gestured, and the media-hot began to play a sprightly triumphant music, the farmbot went back to tending its tomato vines, and the chess player pushed a pawn forward. «I know! You're a fine cook, it's true, and so is Harald, whenever we can get him away from his chessboard, but… what about a really good chef?»
He laughed. «Chump change… he said. And licked his lips.