Flatlander - Larry Niven [52]
The white-haired man informed me that Holden Chambers was not to be disturbed. He was reaching for a (mythical) cutoff switch when I said, “ARM business, life and death,” and displayed my ARM ident. He nodded and put me on hold.
Very convincing. But he’d gone through some of the same motions every time I’d called.
Chambers appeared, wearing a badly wrinkled cloth sleeping jacket. He backed up a few feet (wary of ghostly intrusions?) and sat down on the uneasy edge of a water bed. He rubbed his eyes and said, “Censor it, I was up past midnight studying. What now?”
“You’re in danger. Immediate danger. Don’t panic, but don’t go back to bed, either. We’re coming over.”
“You’re kidding.” He studied my face in the phone screen. “You’re not, are you? A-a-all right, I’ll put some clothes on. What kind of danger?”
“I can’t tell you that. Don’t go anywhere.”
I called Bera back.
He met me in the lobby. We used his taxi. An ARM ident in the credit slot turns any cab into a police car. Bera said, “Couldn’t you tell?”
“No, he was too far back. I had to say something, so I warned him not to go anywhere.”
“I wonder if that was a good idea.”
“It doesn’t matter. Anubis only has about fifteen minutes to act, and even then we could follow him.”
There was no immediate answer to our ring. Maybe he was surprised to see us outside his door. Ordinarily you can’t get into the parking roof elevator unless a tenant lets you in, but an ARM ident unlocks most locks.
Bera’s patience snapped. “I think he’s gone. We’d better call—”
Chambers opened the door. “All right, what’s it all about? Come—” He saw our guns.
Bera hit the door hard and branched right; I branched left. Those tiny apartments don’t have many places to hide. The water bed was gone, replaced by an L-shaped couch and coffee table. There was nothing behind the couch. I covered the bathroom while Bera kicked the door open.
Nobody here but us. Chambers lost his astonished look, smiled, and clapped for us. I bowed.
“You must have been serious,” he said. “What kind of danger? Couldn’t it have waited for morning?”
“Yah, but I couldn’t have slept,” I said, coming toward him. “I’m going to owe you a big fat apology if this doesn’t work out.”
He backed away.
“Hold still. This will only take a second.” I advanced on him. Bera was behind him now. He hadn’t hurried. His long legs give him deceptive speed.
Chambers backed away, backed away, backed into Bera, and squeaked in surprise. He dithered, then made a break for the bathroom.
Bera reached out, wrapped one arm around Chambers’s waist, and pinned his arms with the other. Chambers struggled like a madman. I stepped wide around them, moved in sideways to avoid Chambers’s thrashing legs, reached out to touch his face with my imaginary hand.
He froze. Then he screamed.
“That’s what you were afraid of,” I told him. “You never dreamed I could reach through a phone screen to do this.” I reached into his head, felt smooth muscle and grainy bone and sinus cavities like bubbles. He tossed his head, but my hand went with it. I ran imaginary fingertips along the smooth inner surface of his skull. It was there. A ridge of scar, barely raised above the rest of the bone, too fine for X rays. It ran in a closed curve from the base of his skull up through the temples to intersect his eye sockets.
“It’s him,” I said.
Bera screamed in his ear. “You pig!”
Anubis went limp.
“I can’t find a joining at the brain stem. They must have transplanted the spinal cord, too; the whole central nervous system.” I found scars along the vertebrae. “That’s what they did, all right.”
Anubis spoke almost casually, as if he’d lost a chess game. “All right, that’s a gotcha. I concede. Let’s sit down.”
“Sure.” Bera threw him at the couch. He hit it, more or less. He adjusted himself, looking astonished at Bera’s bad behavior. What was the man so excited about?
Bera told him. “You pig. Coring him like that, making a vehicle out of the poor bastard. We never thought of a brain