He waited until his back filled the picture before he turned, with the flaming automatic jarring his wrist, and put out the lights. That’s for you, Seymour, he thought. For services rendered.
Tallon turned his attention to the problem of getting into the house without Seymour’s aid. Ike had told him Carl Juste lived alone in his semi-mansion, so he was not worried about having to deal with more than one person; but he could not see and the untended wound had turned his shoulders into a rigid area of pain. Besides, the noise made by the gun and the dogs could have alerted Juste. It occurred to Tallon that if Juste was making use of the other eyeset he must have one or more animals of some sort near him.
Tallon put the eyeset back on “search and hold,” but got no picture. He then got out the sonar torch and, with its help, hurried toward the house. Only four or five minutes had elapsed since be climbed the steel gates. As he neared the house he began to get dark, fleeting images; the only recognizable feature was a near-bright oblong area that was a window viewed from inside the house.
He was unable to decide if it was really that dark inside, or if the eyeset was on the point of final failure. Closer still, with his feet on what seemed to be a paved patio, he made out other details. He was looking at a lavishly furnished bedroom, apparently from a point quite high on one of the walls. As he was trying to figure out what sort of creature would provide such an unusual view, another area of the room became relatively clear.
A powerfully built bearded man was sitting up in the bed with his head tilted in the attitude of someone straining to hear. He seemed to be wearing heavy spectacles.
The high-pitched scream of the sonar told Tallon he had almost walked into a wall. He swung left and went along the Wall, hand over hand, looking for a door. In the bedroom the man stood up and took something like a pistol from a drawer. Tallon’s hands found the recess of a window. He swung his pack at it but the tough glass bounced it back at him. Stepping back a few paces, he raised the automatic and blasted the glass out of its frame.
While he was scrambling blindly into the room, his view of the bedroom shifted abruptly, and in a characteristic manner with which Tallon had become familiar. The seeing creature was a bird, possibly a falcon, which had just flown to its master’s shoulder. Tallon saw the bedroom door grow large in his dim vision, and knew Juste was coming to find the intruder. He ran recklessly across the room he was in, wondering how he was going to fare in the weird battle about to take place. Both men were seeing through the same third pair of eyes, so each would see exactly what the other saw. But Juste had two advantages: He had almost no disorientation, because his eyes were perched on his own shoulder; and his eyeset was in good condition.
Tallon considered the possibility of avoiding any kind of a fight. Perhaps if he told Juste who he was and why he was here, they would be able to work something out. He found a door in the room’s inner wall and turned the knob. The picture he was getting as he did so was a view from a landing looking downstairs into a spacious hall with doors on each side, which meant Juste had come out of his bedroom and was waiting for Tallon’s next move.
Tallon eased the door open and saw a dark crack appear at the edge of one of the doors in the hall. As always, he experienced a strange dismay at the feeling of being in two places at once.
“Juste,” he shouted through the opening, “let’s not be stupid. I’m Sam Tallon — the guy who invented that thing you’re wearing. I want to talk to you.”
There was a long silence before Juste answered. “Tallon? What are you doing here?”
“I can explain that. Are we going to talk?”
“All right. Come out of the room.”
Tallon began to open the door wider, then saw he was looking at the dark crack along the barrel of a heavy, blued-steel pistol.
“I thought we agreed not to be stupid, Juste,” he shouted. “I’m wearing an eyeset too. I’m tuned in on your bird, and I’m looking right down the sights of that gun you have in your hand.” Tallon had just become aware of his one slight advantage — the man who had the eyes with him was bound to transmit tactical intelligence to the opposition.
“Very well, Tallon. I’m setting my pistol on the floor and stepping away from it. You can see that, I presume. You leave yours on the floor in there and come out, and we’ll talk.”
“All right.” Tallon set the automatic down and went out into the hall. In the dimness of the picture from his eyeset he saw himself emerge from the doorway. He felt uneasy, not because he suspected Juste would cheat, but because he knew he himself would probably have to cheat to get what he wanted. Halfway to the foot of the stairs he halted, wondering how he could ever separate Juste from the eyeset without violence.
Juste must have given some kind of signal to the bird, but Tallon missed it. Only because he was already familiar with the swooping sensations of bird flight saved Tallon from being numbed by dislocation when the attack came. As his own image ballooned up he dived for the door; he had reached it when the clawing fury descended on his shoulders. Hunching to protect his jugular, Tallon fought through the door, feeling razors slicing cloth and skin. He slammed the door hard, catching the bird between its edge and the jamb, and drove his weight against it. There was a harsh scream, and it was black again.
He discovered one claw was hooked right through the tendons in the back of his left hand. Working in blindness, he took the knife out of the pack and hacked the claw free from the bird. It was still buried in his hand, but that would have to wait. He scanned with the eyeset, got no picture, picked up his automatic, and opened the door again.
“Dark, isn’t it, Juste?” His voice was hoarse as he shouted into the hall. “You should keep more than one bird in the house. We’ll dispense with our talk. I’m going to take those eyes back from you and be on my way.”
“Don’t try to come near me, Tallon.” Juste fired two deafening shots in the confines of the hall, but neither of the slugs came near Tallon.
“Don’t waste your ammunition. You can’t see me, but I can get to you, Juste. I have something Helen didn’t take, and it doesn’t need eyes.”
The pistol roared again, and was followed by the sound of tinkling glass. Guided by the electrical tones of the sonar, Tallon ran for the foot of the stairs and stumbled up them. He reached Juste about halfway up, and they came down hard, fighting. Tallon, sick with fear for the remaining good eyeset, wasted no time on his bigger, stronger, though untrained, opponent. Initiating the rhythms of the Block-developed pressure-feedback combat system, Tallon held nothing back; and before they had reached the floor Juste was a dead weight.
Tallon, who had been cradling the big man’s head during the last part of the fall, took off Juste’s eyeset and exchanged it for his own. All that remained now was to find some more money and food, then get out in a hurry.
Wishing there were some way to test the eyeset for possible damage, he put it on “search and hold” and was amazed when he got a picture. Sharp, strong, and beautifully clear.
A close-up of a heavy polished entrance door swinging open, and beyond it, the frozen tableau of himself crouched over the sprawling form of Carl Juste. Tallon was able to see the shocked expression on his own hunted, blood-streaked face.
” You!” a woman cried out, “what have you done to my brother?”
fourteen
“Your brother’s all right,” Tallon said. “He fell down the stairs. We were arguing.”
“Arguing! I heard the shots as I drove up to the house. I’ll report this immediately.” Helen Juste’s voice was cold and crackling with anger.