“Bless you, sir…wait now! This says BriteKoat Wallpaint/Lemon Brickle Shade #2. How in Plaut’s name can paint-”
“Trust me. This is, after all, my profession.” He rolled up the window, released the brake and rolled on.
Two blocks farther on he spotted the Pastoral Estates Middle School. Cruz drove on by the weedfilled playground and the ramshackle buildings to park a block away.
As he stepped from the landvan a pudgy humanoid boy of ten popped up on the other side of a dying hedge.
“Better pay me ten trubux to watch your car, chump,” he advised. “Otherwise severe damage and looting is likely to-”
“Ah, I never worry about things like that,” Cruz informed him. “This thing’s equipped with Kilguard.”
“Kilguard? What the heck’s that?”
“Just touch one dainty finger to this vehicle and you’ll get the answer to that question, my lad.” Smiling, Cruz went off.
When darkness filled the schoolgrounds, Cruz moved clear of the overgrown shrubbery at their edge to go sprinting over to the nearest building. Getting inside was simple, since the door had long ago been taken away. Moving around the remains of a nomad cookfire, he eased along the dark hallway.
Bjorn, contacted on the pixphone by the mind-controlled Camilla, had told the imitation junglegirl to come to this abandoned school complex at nine tonight and leave the stunned body of Professor Winiarsky in the pantry of the cafeteria.
Cruz stationed himself in a closet that gave him a view of the only entrances to the cafeteria. It was a few minutes past eight.
There were a radio and a tiny earphone built into his metal arm. Cruz, hunkered in the closet, tried to find a newscast but couldn’t bring in anything but a local music station that was featuring three hours of uninterrupted music by the Sophisticates.
He waited patiently in silence.
Eleven minutes shy of nine Cruz heard footfalls.
Two people approached the cafeteria.
“…like little old aunties,” a harsh croaking voice was complaining. “We ought to quit behaving that way and get tough.”
“That’s not Syndek policy, Otto.”
“Which is exactly why, Mr. Bjorn, if you don’t mind my saying, we’re not getting anyplace in this blasted quest.”
The two men halted a few feet from Cruz’ hiding place.
“We’ll finally have one of the Horizon Kids in a few minutes now,” said Bjorn. He was a tall man with white hair; his companion was a thickset toadman. “And all we need, Otto, is one part of the Westerland secret and we can bargain with Triplan and whoever else is interested.”
“That’s fine, but I still don’t see why we have to keep this guy alive after we-”
“Syndek does business in certain ways. No killing. Ever.”
“Stupid damn way to-”
“Quiet down now, Otto. We’ll go inside to await our delivery.”
Cruz was rubbing his metal thumb knuckle across his moustache. “That wasn’t a faked conversation,” he told himself. “They didn’t have any notion I was lurking nearby.”
If that were true, it meant Syndek agents hadn’t been the ones who’d gotten to Hal Larzon and killed him.
“Who then?” Cruz asked himself as he slipped silently out of his hiding place.
CHAPTER 23
The airfloat train rushed through the sunbright afternoon fields. There were rolling hills, rich with high orange grass, a few farmhouses with sharply slanting sewdoshingle roofs. Far off, in the hazy distance, a herd of grazing grouts.
Smith watched the familiar countryside unwind beyond the windows of his compartment. Just about everything seemed to be the same as it had been when he was growing up in this territory years ago. He felt neither depressed nor elated about being here again.
When the train began moving through shadowy woodlands, Smith stood and lifted his small suitcase from under the seat.
“Crosscut Station,” crackled the voxbox in the compartment ceiling.
The train slowed, shuddered slightly, came to a stop. The platformside door opened with a shushing sound and Smith stepped from the train.
Standing over near the small, sewdoshingle station house, shielded by a striped sunbrella and wearing a three-piece checkered knickersuit, was Saint. Tipping his checkered cap, he came strolling over. “One supposes this is a bit of a sentimental journey, eh?”
Shrugging, Smith followed the green man over to an open landcar. “I haven’t burst into tears yet.”
Saint folded up his umbrella and mounted the driveseat. “It’s the things that happen inside one do most of the damage,” he observed. “I take it old man, you escorted the charming Miss Vertillion to safety at the Robotics Museum hideaway.”
“She’s there, along with Ruiz and Winiarsky.” He took the passenger seat. “So’s Jazz Miller, complaining about not being at the forefront of things. It seems Cruz-”
“You’ll find Cruz at the cozy countryhouse I’ve rented.” Saint started the vehicle.
“How’d he-”
“Cruz pixed the satellite, learned from the estimable Jazz that you were en route to the idyllic scenes of your youth and popped over. He’s come up with some interesting, though perplexing, scraps of intelligence.”
“Such as?”
“I’d rather he tell you.”
Smith watched the fields and hills they were driving through. “See that ruined temple up there?”
“A very picturesque pile.”
“That was one of the places where Jennifer and I used to meet,” said Smith. “The place is about five miles from Horizon House, which is on the other side of that hill.”
“In the brief time I’ve been a resident I’ve managed to visit a few of the local inns and pubs,” said Saint. “At a quaint establishment called the Snerg & Racket I encountered a fetching, though fleshy, barmaid who spoke quite highly of you.”
“What the hell brought me up as a topic?”
“Someone mentioned Jennifer Westerland Arloff and your name came up as a result,” replied Saint, drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel as he guided the landcar through the afternoon. “One gathers you were somewhat more charming then than you are at present.”
“Why was Jennifer being discussed?”
“The lady has returned to her ancestral home, supposedly to participate in a fundraising fete to be held at Horizon House tomorrow.”
Smith had been watching three pale yellow gulls circling high overhead. “But actually she must’ve come back to question Annalee Kitchen.”
“That was my conclusion, yes, old man.”
“What about Arloff?”
“He remains in the capital.”
Smith said, “I don’t want to run into Jennifer as yet.”
“You’ve little reason to fear that. Our domicile is rather secluded.”
“Can anybody attend these upcoming festivities at Horizon House?”
“Yes, which will afford me an excellent excuse for poking about the premises,” said Saint. “I intend to pay my five trubux entry bright and early on the morrow.”
“You ought to be able to find out most of what we still want to know at Horizon House,” said Smith. “I’ll whip you up a hand-drawn map of the places you better get a look at.”
“One is confident that tomorrow shall prove fruitful.” Saint turned onto a treelined side road.
A half-mile farther along he slowed to drive on through the open gateway in a high wall of faded yellow brix. A brass plate on the righthand gatepost announced that the name of the estate was Tranquil Acres. “Tranquil Acres?” said Smith.
“We’re only renting,” reminded Saint.
Cruz had removed his mechanical arm and had it sitting on the top of the big neowood desk in the large den of their countryhouse. Small tools were scattered around on the plyoblotter. He was seated behind the desk, an electropik in his left hand, tinkering with the arm. Out beyond the windows behind him stretched an acre of closecropped yellow grass that eased down to a wide pond. Three pale lavender swans were drifting by.