Suicide, Inc

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.

“You’re right,” Smith said as he paced in front of the empty fireplace. “What you’ve told us does cause me to have some second thoughts about this whole damn mess.”

“It’s good for the system, old chum,” said Cruz, “to find out some of your assumptions were cockeyed.”

Saint was on a loveseat, an album of tri-op photos open upon his lap. “One doesn’t doubt your thoroughness, Cruz,” he said, “yet it’s deuced difficult to believe that-”

“I didn’t rely on what I overheard Bjorn and his henchman saying,” Cruz reiterated. “No, I snuck up on the lads, stunned them both and used a truthdisc on each in turn.” He tapped his metal wrist with the tool he was using. “Syndek did not kill Hal Larzon, and they don’t have the information he was carrying around. Someone else entirely laid the unfortunate fellow low. Winiarsky was to be their first captured Horizon Kid.”

Smith asked, “Does Bjorn have any notions as to who did get to Larzon?”

“He suspects a representative of the Whistler Agency, or mayhap one of the Triplan ops.”

“The Triplan chaps,” pointed out Saint as he absently turned a page in the album, “would have no reason to resort to murder.”

“And nobody at Syndek knows the trigger word,” asked Smith, “knows how to get the carriers to talk?”

“No, Bjorn was going to depend on electronic means to get at what Westerland hid away long ago.” Cruz gave his arm a slow scrutiny before reattaching it to his flesh elbow.

“How’d they know about the damn secret at all?”

“The information was sold to them, for the handsome fee of four hundred thousand trubux,” answered Cruz while flexing his metal fingers. “All this was set up by way of blanked pixphone screens, scrambled voices, neutral computer terminals. Bjorn doesn’t know, although they were slipped enough information to convince them there really is a valuable secret to be had, who his contact is.”

“Jove, it must be someone within Triplan then.”

“Or someone at Horizon House.” Smith sat on the edge of a fat purple armchair.

“Our rivals at Syndek are all at sea it would seem, but do either of you chaps have the foggiest notion who dispatched the Larzon bloke?” asked Saint.

Cruz said, “Jared, you know Deac Constiner better than we do. Could he-”

“Nope, not Constiner.” Smith shook his head. “He doesn’t work that way. If he’d found Hal Larzon he’d simply have taken him into a TLB station.”

“Then we have to assume,” said Saint, “that we’ve got competition we don’t even know about.”

“Maybe,” said Smith.