Not easily, I realized, after a good deal of tugging and twisting and rasp of hard metal against soft skin. I could reach the cuffs on my legs and rotate the dials on their locks. But I was never going to find the combinations by random twisting. And the pipe along the wall was securely in place. I lay back, panting with the effort. With that, and the night’s stressful events, despite my perilous position, I fell sound asleep.

  Something woke me up. How long had I been asleep? It was still morning by the light in the window. My face hurt where it had been battered. As did my ribs. A sound outside the door, a thin scratching. Someone there. I shuffled about as best I could, saw the door handle. Saw it slowly turn.

  Chaise? Igor? Nothing good I was sure. At this instant I felt just about as low as I had ever felt. Or lower. The door slowly opened. A dark figure slipped through. I started to shout, thought better of it. Waited until he had finished the traditional bug search and sealed away his trophies in the radiation-proof bag. Then I let my breath out in a rush.

  “Bolivar! “

  “No, James. Bolivar is still checking the planning permission and building records.”

  “Get me out of here!”

  He pulled at the cuffs and shook his head. “Easier said than done.”

  “Are you driving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Toolkit. Pliers, hammer.”

  “You got it!”

  The pliers were wrecked cutting the cuffs that held me to the pipe. But the bed frame wasn’t that strong and Bolivar hammered it apart to free me. Helped me to my feet.

  “You don’t look so great, Dad,” he said. “What with the fake scar and the real bruising, handcuffs and all.” He shook his head unhappily.

  “Get me to the car and your first-aid kit. Then to a shop that sells cutting tools. I guarantee that I will feel better then.” I hobbled from the room, cuffs rattling and clattering. “And thanks for the sudden appearance.”

  “I thought it was about time. You never phoned when you said you would. I decided to stake this place out. And that big thug who was driving the truck should be getting to Sunkistby-the-Sea by now. I followed him until he drove onto the payway headed in that direction.”

  “And Chaise?”

  “He is probably still at his bank. His car is still parked in its slot there. I checked that out before I came back here. I figured that I could at least look in, find out what was going down.”

  “Everything…”

  His phone rang and he answered it. “On the way, both of us,” he said, and closed the phone. “James has the plans to the house. He wants us there as soon as possible.”

  “Is there a chopper rental in this town?”

  “Absolutely. Cutting tool first-then the sunny suburbs.”

  Bolivar stopped just along enough in front of Tools-R-Us to dive through the front door. He was back moments later with a molecular debinder. Threw it to me then jumped the car forward. I turned it on, pressed it against the cuffs. A thin plane of energy loosened the atomic bonds in the metal and a tiny shower of molecules ran down my arm. By the time we got to the copter field I was rubbing cream into the cuts and abrasions. I was about to throw the debinder into the back of the car with the remains of the cuffs. Then thought better of it and stuffed it into my pocket.

  An interstellar flying license, along with wads of cash and a credit card, worked wonders. I stayed inside the car until I saw the copter taxi out. Walked over quickly and jumped in.

  “Just talked to James,” he said as we shot into the air. “He says that Igor’s truck is outside the house. He wants to go inbut I told him to wait until we got there.”

  I nodded agreement. “Three are better than one. Is this thing going as fast as it can?”

  “Needle against the peg. I told him to find a place where we can set the copter down and to meet us there.”

  We were going fast, but I kept feeling that it wasn’t fast enough. My brain was whizzing as fast as the copter. Why had Igor gone to the house? If Angelina were there, she might very well be the reason for the trip. He wouldn’t harm her, not without Kaia’s orders. But what had been his orders? My thoughts sizzled in circles, my stomach grumbled and complained. My side hurt. I dug deeper into the first-aid kit from the car and discovered a flask of medicinal brandy.

  “Not me, I’m driving,” Bolivar said. “But you look like you need it.”

  “Looks don’t lie.” The ardent spirits hurt the cuts in my mouth, but did wonders when it hit my stomach. Was I getting too old for this kind of thing? I certainly felt that way. At this moment I was well aware that I was really getting very much around the bend.

  “We’re coming in over the grid reference now-and I see the field,” Bolivar said into the phone. “James, is that you waving? Great-I’m setting her down.”

  We ran to the car before the copter’s blades stopped turning. James gave my face and all the bandages one long stare, but said nothing. We dived in and the wheels spun.

  “Bring us up to speed,” I said.

  “The truck you told me about is beside the building. As far as I know Igor is alone in the house-along with the robot of course. The plans of the building are on the seat next to you.”

  Large, very large. I counted ten, twelve rooms. A single story, with a penthouse arrangement on the top at one end. The side projection showed the house had been built on a slab with no basement below. I looked at this suspiciously, then tapped the plans.

  “All of these rooms have windows,” I said.

  “Most rooms do,” Bolivar said.

  “Chaise made a video at my insistence, to prove that Angelina was safe. The room she was in was artificially lit. And there were no windows in the shot.”

  “Was it done at night?”

  “No. He left in the morning. If he came here he should have returned before dark.”

  Bolivar looked at the plans. “If any room has sealed windows that’s where we look first. We can examine the rooms easily enough from the outside.”

  “And if the curtains are all open and we can see in?” I asked, then answered myself. “Remember the bank? How Chaise concealed the money that was supposed to have been stolen?”

  “Of course!” Bolivar said. “A secret room under the vault. If he could have that done while the bank was being built right in the heart of the city-it would be infinitely easier to do out here in the suburbs.”

  James pulled the car to a stop and pointed. “The building is located just around the corner, behind that grove of trees.”

  CHAPTER 24

  We got out of the car and James was just locking it when we heard the grind of a starter, followed by the sound of a heavy engine turning over.

  “That’s Igor’s truck,” James said. “It was parked beside the house. What do we do-let it go and follow it?”

  “No,” I said. “Stop it. There is a good chance that Angelina is either in the truck or in the house. Igor will know one way or the other.”

  “But it might be dangerous…” Bolivar said, worried.

  “My decision,” I said. I heard the truck start forward and turn into the road. I stepped off the curb and held up my hand when it appeared.

  I was so worried about Angelina that, for the moment, I had completely forgotten what I looked like. I was literally not myself. The scar still cut across the bruised and battered face of Iba. That was what Igor saw standing in the street before him. The effect was very dramatic.

  I saw his mouth drop open, his face twisted in a mask of terror.

  Then he dropped forward over the steering wheel and the truck continued, coming directly at me.

  I dived and rolled, landing on the pavement at the boys’ feet.

  “Stop the truck!” I shouted. Wincing at the feel of new bruises on top of the old ones.

  The out-of-control machine ground forward, driving right across the road and up the curb. Then it drove straight into the grove of trees beyond. Thick trunks splintered and bent-but did not break. They were immovable objects all right. But the truck was no irresistible force. The wheels spun, locked, the whole thing juddered until the engine gave out a large grating sound and died.

  James reached it first, pulled the door open. Igor’s limp body slid out, would have hit the ground headfirst if James hadn’t grabbed him and broken his fall. I climbed over them and into the truck.

  Angelina wasn’t there. I looked through the window into the body of the truck. Empty.

  “Get him on his side, tongue out of the way,” Bolivar said. “That’s it. Any pulse?”

  “Yes. But very weak, rapid and irregular.”

  “Heart attack?” I asked.

  James nodded and looked around. The few houses here were set back from the road. We were the only ones who had seen the accident.

  “It looks pretty bad,” I said. Igor had never done very well by me. But we just could not stand by and let him die. James said it just before I did.

  “I don’t want him to die on us. We better call an ambulance.” He took out his phone.

  “Do that,” I said. “Then I think that you should either go with him to the hospital, or follow in the car. While you are doing that Bolivar and I will check out the house. If we don’t find anything you will be with him when he regains consciousness. See if you can ask him a few pertinent questions then.”

  James was talking into the phone, then closed it. “On its way. I’m pretty sure that they will let me go with him. I’ll claim to be a relative. I’ll keep you informed of what is happening.”

  “Let’s think about that,” Bolivar said. “Maybe it would be better if I called you. If we are doing any breaking and entering it would not be that wise to have a phone ringing at the same time. I don’t want the phone sounding off while we are snooping around and possibly getting into the building.”

  “We’ll do it that way. Go through the house-and call me the instant you find out anything.”

  I could hear sirens in the distance as we went into the grove of trees that bordered the house on two sides. We kept under their cover as we worked around to the back. As we went we could see inside the building, through all of the windows; none of them were covered. The penthouse was almost completely made of glass and we could look right through that as well.

  “I’ll check the other side of the house,” Bolivar said. “Best for you to wait here for me.”

  He was gone before I could answer. Slipping around the large swimming pool. I stayed under the trees, watching the house. Nothing moved inside. There was a large two-car garage to the rear of the property. Locked, but that did not slow me down. But the only form of transport inside was an ancient moped with a flat tire. The floor was a solid slab of oil-stained cement. It sounded quite solid when I kicked it. I went back outside and within a minute Bolivar had returned, shaking his head. “None of the windows are covered. I think that your theory of a concealed underground room is very much in order. Do we go in?”

  “Call James first. They should be in the hospital by now. If they are not, surely the paramedic will have sent all the vital signals of the patient to the hospital. So by now he will know what has happened.”

  Bolivar turned on the external speaker and phoned. “Uncle Tom here. We are all so worried.”

  “With good reason, Tom. Igor collapsed and had a massive heart attack. He has had an acute posterior myocardial infarction, a major one. It knocked out a good deal of the right ventricle. He is responding to the emergency treatment and the consultants are talking about bypass surgery as soon as we reach the hospital. How is your house hunting going? “

  “It’s a fine house with a fine view from every window. We’re going inside now.”

  “We must keep in touch. “

  “We shall indeed.”

  “Poor Igor,” I said. “I know I don’t look great, but not enough to give someone a coronary.”

  “Unless they had a guilty conscience-and had something to do with the disappearance of the original Iba.”

  “That’s a thought. And a particularly nasty one. If Igor was involved with that he must have thought that he was seeing a ghost-or his victim roused from the dead. Now-any idea how we should proceed?”

  “How about ringing the bell? If there is no answer we let ourselves in.”

  “Good thinking, my son. That’s just what we shall do. There is nothing more to be seen outside.”

  We could hear the chimes go bing-bong somewhere deep in the house. The lens of a security camera projected from the door frame: I stood to one side, hopefully out of its range. I had caused one heart attack today. That was enough. I heard the door open.

  “How may I serve you?” a refined and cultured voice said.

  “I am here to see Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski,” Bolivar said.

  “I deeply regret to inform you that my master is not at home. Might I take a message?”

  “I’ll give you a message,” I said, stepping into view.

  It surely was a fine-looking robot. Taller than I was and made of highly burnished steel. Its eye facets appeared to be large and beautifully cut diamonds. And it was wearing white gloves. It looked me up and down with a most superior robotic air.

  “And what, if I may be so bold to ask, is your message, sir?”

  “It is a very simple one. Step aside. We are coming into the house.” I started forward and was stopped firmly by a steel hand in a white glove.

  “I have strict orders not to permit that. You will leave now.”

  “I will not leave and you cannot stop me.”

  I stepped forward and the robot removed its hand. Made a hard fist and hit me in the jaw with a right cross.

  “The Laws of Robotics!” I shouted, holding on to my sore jaw. “A robot cannot harm a human being.”

  “You are not human. You’re a disguised alien lifeform.” It said. Bolivar put his foot between the door and the frame so it could not be closed. The robot stamped hard on his foot. Then slammed the door shut when he jumped back.

  “Ouch!” he cried, hopping about on his uninjured foot.

  “Ouch indeed,” I agreed, rubbing my aching jaw. “I’m not sure that I like that robot.”

  With this I pulled out the molecular debinder. Turned it on and cut a quick circle around the lock. Which dropped out and fell onto the welcome mat. We went in. The robot, which had been walking away, turned back.

  “Entrance is prohibited. And you have caused an injury to this dwelling. I shall communicate with the police.”

  “We are the police,” I shouted. “Officer, show this thing your badge.”

  Bolivar flashed the brilliant, but fake, ruby-set golden badge that he always carried.

  “We had reports of a rogue robot at this address. We’re taking you in.”

  “I am forbidden to leave these premises. Depart at once.”

  “The law takes precedence. You struck me and you must be aware that it is a terrible crime to strike a human being. You are under arrest.”

  “I am aware of the law. But you are not a human being.”

  “You can see that I am! Just as you can also see that you are a construct-which indicates a constructor. You were made by humans-and you can also see that I am a human. Therefore I am a member of the human race who constructed you. And a construct must always obey the orders of the constructor.” I shook my head. Not really believing that I was having a teleological argument with a robot.

  “I can see that you are not. My master has instructed me that all the humans on this planet are imposters. Aliens in disguise. He has also told me and identified who the few real humans are in this city. You are not listed among their number. Therefore you must leave. If you do not leave I have orders to demolish all alien lifeforms.”

  It started forward and Bolivar moved quickly aside so we were equidistant from the thing. The robot hesitated, caught in a feedback loop, unable to figure out which of us to tackle first. “You must leave. Entrance forbidden to nonhuman humans. Death will follow quickly.”

  I walked around it which had the unhappy result of breaking the feedback. “You must both leave.” It turned and grabbed at me. “Strangers not permitted to enter the house. You have entered farthest so you will be made to leave first or be deconstructed.” It sounded pleased by this piece of specious logic as it seized me in an unbreakable grip.

  Bolivar ran past us and shouted, “I am farthest into the house-I must be made to leave first.”

  “Farthest must be made to leave first,” it said creakily. Then it let go of my arm and made a grab for Bolivar. I ran in the opposite direction, shouting. “I’m farthest-you must make me leave first.”

  It had Bolivar by the arm now, but its head was twisted around to look at me.

  “Farthest!” I called back. It made a strange grating sound and I hoped that it had blown its logic circuits. It seemed to have forgotten Bolivar when it came after me-pulling him along by the arm.

  “Hey!” Bolivar shouted, trying to shake the thing loose. Then it had me by the arm as well. The time for argument was past. I had no desire to be deconstructed. I took out the molecular debinder and held it up.

  “Do you know what this is?” I asked, waving the device before its diamond eyes.

  “I do.”

  “Then you had better remember the rest of the robotic laws. You must prevent injury to yourself. Let go at once or I will cut your arms off. It’s hard for an armless robot to get work these days.”

  It uttered the grating sound again and its hands opened. It stood stock-still as a trickle of smoke rose from its head.

  “Great work, Dad. You sure do know how to win a debating contest. Particularly a robotic one. Now let’s see what we can find.”

  Which was very little. We searched the rooms, one by one, but they were all empty. Bolivar checked all the closets, while I climbed the steps to look into the penthouse rooms. Nothing.

  “And nothing that looks like a door or an opening anywhere down here. Not even in the wine-cellar room.”

  “The robot would know.”

  “It would if it hadn’t blown a fuse or something.”

  I kicked the floor. It felt solid.

  “There is one place that we didn’t look,” Bolivar said. “The enclosure by the pool with the heater and filter.”