Using the pretext of suicide prevention, Val put a team of Watchers in several of the shaft caps in the area. He went down to Hunter Control and crawled around in the piles of dusty bins, checking the surface BD’s. Less than 10 per cent were scanning around Walter’s city. He turned them on by hand and switched the incoming signals to Walter’s meck dispenser. Scanner’s bins were empty. Then he went over to Walter’s to wait.
Edema fluids gave Walter three-pillow orthopnea. His domino mask of cyanosis was dark and gray. Val explained about the new type of flower—flower clusters.
“Neither IA nor MR occurs in clusters,” said Val.
“Clusters—” murmured old Walter. His mind wandered around blank pools of anoxia and tried to sort memory molecules. Clusters associated with tektites. Olga?
Walter fumbled for his ESbook and took out the maps showing meteor clustering at river beds. Val handed him a new map showing the flower clusters proceeding from city to city.
“They seem to be heading this way,” said Val. “I’m afraid your city might be next.”
“Headed this way!” shouted Walter—delirious. “Olga is returning for me.”
The edematous, old, fat man tried to leave his bed. Val and female Bitter restrained him with hands and soothing words.
“If Olga wants you,” said Val, “she will come for you right here in bed.”
Gitar’s sixty-centimeter oval shield rested flat on the ground supporting a hundred-centimeter tubular body. Optic and auditory sensors scanned while his ego slept. His Q bottle rested. For several days he stood like a fossil parking meter. Agrifoam came and went. Green sprouts fuzzed soil. Bulky Tillers carefully avoided touching him.
It was time to move. His tubular body flexed flat as he assumed his more usual guitar shape. Walking field was activated by cooling cryogel around the peanut magnet and sputtering charged particles into the sandwich magnetic field. The particles gave hardness to the field and lifted him a few inches. He glided off. A ballad resonated from his shield.
Kaia lifted his shaggy white head. Odd—a song echoing off the foothills. Gitar’s sensors locked on the humanoid form. Singing cheerfully, the little meck floated up and assumed a parking-meter position. Colored geometrics rippled over his tubular body.
Kaia raised a hand in a weak gesture.
“Welcome, vagabond meck. Your song soothes.”
The songs continued—restful and light—while acute sensors probed the aborigine’s aging body. The rolling base was adjusted to 268.39 hertz to match the resonance of Kaia’s pulmonary air-water interface. Harmonic waves reached the vagus. The throb of the music was matched to myocardial systole. Kaia smiled and began to tap a finger ever so lightly. Gitar was encouraged by the rapid entrainment of skeletal muscle. Decibels were added to the base. Subcortical neuronal systems locked onto the rhythm. Thoracic autonomies resonated. Gitar’s music acted on Kaia’s medulla—modifying the pacing of his neurohumoral axis—entraining cardiovascular, endocrine, metabolic, neurological and reproductive functions. Gitar moved Kaia’s pulse up and down with ease. He increased to 120 decibels and added words to his audiogenic stimulation—
Autonomic tone brought strength to Kaia—capillary beds tightened pericytes. His vision sharpened as Bruche’s and Muller’s ciliary muscles focused his lens and cornea.
Gitar sang on—personal words—a song to Kaia. Why should he die this year? Why not try to live one more season?
Kaia sat up—a touch of enthusiasm gleamed.
“But there are no more coweyes,” he said.
“Come with me, my five-toed man, and I’ll take you to meat and mates—in the shaft cities.”
“The Nebish?” exclaimed Kaia.
“The Nebish,” said Gitar. “You are the only five-toed I have found. But the five-toed gene may still be present in the Nebish stock—one in a thousand, or one in a million. They all look like four-toed, hypogonadal dwarfs; but the gene is there someplace. Come with me. We will search for it.”
Kaia got to his feet slowly, weakly.
Busch looked in on Walter and Val.
“Job calls,” he said.
Bitter gave him a ritual hug and he left. Garage duty was an easy way to earn one’s flavors—companion-monitor to some Agromecks sleeping at their energy sockets. He settled down in front of a viewscreen.
At dusk two mecks returned reeking of plant juices. Door stood open while the bulky machines maneuvered into their bays. A pale sunset glinted orange light off Busch’s face.
Suddenly, his pupils dilated. Small hairs stood and prickled the back of his neck. There was a flower in the fender—a pretty blossom with its delicate stem neatly threaded into one of the meck’s lift holes—the work of human fingers and the mind of a flower lover. A five-toed mind!
“Shut, Door. Shut!” he screamed.
Door closed. Busch sighed. As he wiped his forehead, the lid of the weed hopper stirred. A shaggy white head appeared. Busch turned to dash for the spiral. He was much too slow.
Val ran upspiral, arriving dyspneic and eccrine-soaked.
“A buckeye? Are you sure?” he gasped, catching his breath.
Nodding with its knob of neurocircuitry, the Agromeck repeated the report, adding—“You’ve seen the optic records.”
“Yet, you allowed him to hunt, here, in the garage?”
The meck was silent. Prime directive. Machines do not take an active part in hominid conflicts. Val continued to bluster around, insulting the meck’s class eight intelligence. Finally the meck spoke in a detached tone:
“I just do my job, sir. I try to be objective about protoplasmic creatures. If one hominid eats another, I try to understand. It is difficult; but, then, I have never known protein starvation.”
Val sputtered for a few minutes. Calming himself, he walked over to Busch’s remains. It had been a buckeye. That was certain. Only one of those brutes could draw and quarter a citizen like that. Only the liver and the right hind quarter was missing. Five-toed footprints led back out into the gardens. He reported his findings to the Watcher and asked for permission to reactivate Hunter Control.
“No,” said Watcher. “I’m sorry. But there are no funds for hunting unless the crops are in danger. A lone buckeye just does not warrant the expenditure. You can’t even be spared from Suicide Prevention Center with jumpers hitting shaft base at a rate of three-per-day-per-city. However, in view of your inactive rank in Sagittarius, you could hunt on foot—when you are off duty.”
Val hurried back to Hunter Control and dug out a long bow and a case of arrows. He climbed around in the refuse looking for an operative wrist BD. None were left. Bird Dog sat with empty sockets. He patted a gritty fender.
“Certainly could have used you today,” he said.
When he returned to Walter’s cubicle, female Bitter eyed the archery gear nervously.
“You’d better get a permit from the Sharps Committee if you’re going to carry weapons around inside the city,” she said.
Val nodded curtly. He walked in to see Walter. Foamy sputum streaked the corners of his mouth. His feet were swollen and translucent. Val sat down. It looked like a death bed. He spoke calmly, explaining what he planned to do. Walter stared at the ceiling—breath rattling. Bitter sat helplessly by the door.