flipped over and almost rolled onto the floor! He doubled his effort, lifted it, and floated it across the room to where Taguster lay dying. He imagined he was sweating.
Taguster picked the instrument up and held it as if he were not exactly sure what to do with it. He coughed up blood and stared at that a moment.
"Lenny," the mutant urged. "Write it. Write . . . it."
Taguster looked blearily up at the receiver screen, seemed to nod. He raised his hand and wrote on the wall: MARGLE. The letters were shaky and uneven, but they were readable,
"What does that mean?"
Taguster seemed to sigh, dropped the pencil.
"Lenny!"
Taguster looked at the screen again, fumbled with the pencil, lifted it and scribbled under the word "Margle": NAME.
So Margie was a name. And now that the connection had been made for him, Ti seemed to have remembered hearing it somewhere, though he could not place the source or context. Well, anyway, the musician had named his would-be killer, and the mutant felt justified in leaving the scene long enough to notify the police. But then, someone screamed.
It was a woman's scream, high and piercing. It started full strength, turned to a gurgle much like Taguster's, and trailed away. It had come from the direction of the bedroom. There was another receiver in there, an extension of the living room box, and Ti vacated his present perch for the bedroom set.
It was a woman. She had been trying to get out of the window, but her flimsy nightdress had caught on the window latch, delaying her just a moment too long. There were three darts in her back, and the yellow negligee was running with red, red blood. Ti looked to the right, hunting the killer. He had assumed the man had left, but he had only disabled Taguster, then had gone quickly on to the woman to kill her before she could escape. The blood had now soaked her negligee and was dripping onto the floor from the frilly lace edging. He shifted the camera to the left, and he saw his killer. And it wasn't a man . . .
It was a Police Hound. Its dark metal body floated toward the doorway, its two servo-hands flying ahead of it, their fingers tensed as if they were ready to latch onto something and strangle it to death. The dart tube on its burnished belly was protruding, prepared for action. This was the killer, thirty-odd pounds of ball-shaped computer that could track a man by smell, sight, touch, and sound. And only the police should have one!
But why would the police want to kill Leonard Taguster? And why should they use such a roundabout method of obtaining his destruction? Why not simply haul him in on some phony charge replete with carefully prepared evidence and do away with him legally?
The Hound disappeared through the doorway into the hall, and Ti suddenly remembered Taguster lying back there in the living room. The Hound was going back to finish the job! The darts were evidently tipped with poison, though Police Hounds should carry only defense-and-capture narcotics. Now that Taguster's lover had been kept from spreading the news, it was time to take care of the guitarist in proper fashion.
Ti retreated from the bedroom connection and shifted his mind back to the main receiver. Taguster was still lying against the wall in the same position, still not unconscious, still gurgling, trying to tell Ti who Margie was. But the Hound was on its way! Ti searched the room frantically for a weapon.
The Hound came through the doorway and drifted toward Taguster.
Ti found a curio, a small brass peasant leading a small brass mule, a hand-crafted trinket Taguster had brought back from his tour of Mexico. He lifted it with his psi power and threw it at the Hound. The toy bounced off the dully gleaming hide of the machine, fell harmlessly to the floor. The Hound drifted at Taguster, its dart tube thrusting farther out of its underside, its servos spreading to either side to give it a clear line of fire.
Ti found an ashtray, tried lifting it, could not.
Panic
Jeffrey Cook, A.J. Downey