He shifted his weight, trying to choose a Nagewaza throw or Atemiwaza attack depending on his foe’s response or counter. The trouble was—all the counters seemed perfect! Thumbs felt for nerves in his forearms.

  Nick paused for an instant, although his mind worked faster than a bank of electronic relays. There was that smell of the operating room on the breath that whistled near his ear, countered him, paused with him, groped for nerve points with the skill of a top Judo technician. Nick, who had spent endless months on gym mats, practicing all the variations of combat which are lumped under the term Judo, recognized perfection. When he put himself out of Shizenhontai, or perfect balance, his opponent was willing to let him try the throw or hold, and Nick knew that he would promptly be topped with a better one based on his own choice!

  Nick stood still. His assailant stood still too, one thumb nearing Nick’s arm nerve, the grip rib-cracking. Nick pushed his 230 pounds sideways with a powerful leg drive—straight at the nearest row of glass containers in which the unseeing eyes of the dormant “men” faced the struggle.

  The giant on his back lurched with him, then tugged him away from the giant test tubes. Nick lunged toward the racks again. It was the right tactic; his opponent didn’t want them damaged. The arms around him released their lock, a hand fastened on his wrist, another tried to encircle the arm for a Randori-Kata lock. Nick poked the latter one away with a short two-finger jab.

  He took an overleg throw instead. He was hurled toward the far wall like the end child in a game of snap the whip. It looked a lot worse than it was because Nick let himself go, welcomed the break, let his foe believe in success. Nick, hands turned in and arms forming a hoop, rolled into the wall in a Zempo Ukemi breakfall. As he somersaulted sideways, his Hauchi—the “wingbeats” that cushion the contact and convert it into an outward or upward drive—were too fast for the eye to catch.

  He spun to his feet eight paces from the one who threw him, balanced instantly in Hidarishizentai—perfect balance, left toe forward.

  He faced one of the “men” from the big test tubes! A synthetic? This one seemed very “alive.” He wore a white sleeveless shirt, white pants and low blue sneakers. The creature promptly assumed a Shizenhontai, perfect balance with feet even. Nick shifted to Migishizentai—right toe forward but absolutely central balance. The figure did not move.

  But the contest wasn’t over. Pale blue eyes looked into Nick’s own like twin bulbs of cold, calculating, pulsing mercury tubes. Nick extended his right hand like a fighter coming out for the last round, wondering if he could deliver a Seoinage over-the-shoulder throw. The other’s hand came forward a few inches, but not enough to cause kuzureta or disturbed balance, which would limit his options.

  If they programmed these lads from that computer, Nick thought, they didn’t miss much. He knew a Judo adept when he faced one.

  Nick thought of Frankenstein again. He had his own monster now, the same squarish face without the grotesque scars. His monster was much better looking, like an expressionless, stoically murder-bent Mr. Clean. About 275 pounds of him, Nick estimated, and it looked like all bone and muscle.

  CHAPTER VIII

  A moving picture of what followed, on the black rubber mat amid the antiseptic-looking contents of the giant laboratory-production room, would be worth a fortune. It can never be duplicated. How would you organize two beings, one fighting for his life, the other fighting as if life didn’t matter, and both with supreme technical skill in Judo, Karate, Savate and their dozens of subdivisions?

  Every time Nick tried to escape or attack, the giant in white went into action. They fought Graeco-Roman, jiujitsu and American barroom.

  For every attack there is a counter. For every counter a counter-counter. And for almost every counter-counter … well, you should read the writings of the famous Doctor Kano of Sodetsurikomigoshi fame.

  Nick had no peer in Judo, even among AXE’s instructors, where his abnormally keen eyesight, fine reflexes and constantly prime condition made him their equal. But this—

  The creature attacked, defended, countered, blocked—to perfection. Once Nick was caught in the vicious Judo stranglehold (after a triple counter) Hadakajime. His lungs ached and he felt as if he had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel after he broke that murderous lock—and he believed he might not have if he and George Stevens hadn’t spent hours testing the waza extra-skill feat.

  Nick’s kicks at the groin were countered precisely with X arms. He used the X counter himself, carried it on with the hand-turned-in shin catch and was delighted to dump his opponent … only to barely escape a back flip and a rush for a Katagurama. Nick countered, and nearly got a finger jab in the solar plexus and a neck chop.

  He discovered that when he got a chance to assume the perfect balance position, his monster aped him, waiting for him to move. The creature could be immediately triggered by any attack or lowering of defense … and his counters and attacks were perfect and precise.

  Swiftly Nick catalogued his weapons. Gas pellets and Hugo were out—he’d never have time to reach the first, and any perfectly trained Judoman can handle a knife attack. You may win, but you won’t survive.

  That left Wilhelmina, and he had a strong hunch this room and the others were guarded by alarm systems that would respond to any excessive noise. He thought—looks like I’m programmed for a loss.

  Programmed? They were facing each other eyeball to eyeball.

  “How’d you like to try something not in the program?” Nick asked.

  No answer. Those cold blue eyes glowed and glittered.

  Nick turned and ran.

  He didn’t dare look back. He dug in the rubber-on-rubber and fed every ounce of speed he could through his powerful leg muscles. He could do the dashes in near-record time—just hope they hadn’t raised their boys to be record beaters!

  He lowered his head and pumped his arms and he may very well have broken the record for the eighty yards between their combat area and the white tile wall near the control room. It grew near. He threatened to run right through it —or smash his skull to pulp by running into it.

  You could figure these creatures were trained—programmed—taught—to pursue. And if they caught up, to tackle, strike and trip. It all depended on speed—they probably didn’t program them too much about stopping. Anybody can stop.

  Twelve feet from the wall. Nick huddled down, braked, twisted, hit it in the same Zempo Ukemi Hauchi—forward breakfall with wingbeats—he had used when the monster turned him into the other wall. He spun, thrust in reverse like a swimmer reversing at a pool wall.

  The monster braked, slowed. Nick hit his legs at the knees, knocked up one ankle. The monster still had a lot of momentum when he crashed headfirst into the clifflike wall of tile.

  Nick rolled away from the creature and lay panting. He had never felt quite so physically and mentally spent. The monster’s head was twisted and punched down on his neck, as if he had dived into a pond with a stone bottom and no water. Little dying sounds came from the open mouth, and a red trickle leaked over the lips onto the rubber matting. The blue eyes hung half open. They had lost their glitter.

  Nick put out a hand and took up two fingertips of the red fluid. Sniffed. It was blood, all right.

  He got up and, puffing all the way, went swiftly out of the building the way he had entered.

  Somebody had found something. All the ground lights were on. Three guard cars were parked near the hill over which he had come, splashing their spotlights around. The patrolman with the Doberman was coming over the hill, waving, and another was running up from the gatehouse leading two more dogs.

  Nick trotted along the big building, behind the foundation shrubbery and circled to the highway side. As he turned east, around a comer, a giant figure blocked his way. Tall, 275 pounds, blue eyes—the monster!

  Nick froze. He felt a spiritual chill. This was the man he had just seen die—or the creature he had seen extinguished? Square, mechanically handsome features, gleaming blue eyes, watchful as a Siamese cat taking a cold look at a new household puppy. But this wasn’t the Mr. Clean monster, that one wore a dark jacket, pants and hat. Nick took a deep breath. Another one. One of the exterior patrols. Nick took a sideways step. The creature matched it, and said, “You come with me, please.”

  The voice was rich and musical, the diction perfect. It had the warm, mechanically heartless quality of a top-flight TV or radio commercial man, an announcer who has made good and gets residuals.

  “What’s your name?” Nick asked softly.

  “John. Come with me, piease.”

  “You ought to be called Frank Two. I met your buddy, Frank One.”

  “Come with me, please.”

  Nick drew Wilhelmina with a motion faster than most eyes could follow and held it close in. “Back up, John.”

  John came on, fading to his right, hand coming up. Another one, Nick thought, perfectly programmed for attacking all kinds of weapons. He shot John twice in the left kneecap, knowing full well the first slug hit the patella as accurately as the center of a target, but not sure if these creatures had sensitive kneepans. John fell like a tower with a dynamited base. The blue eyes rolled white. He could feel pain, all right.

  Nick patted him for weapons, watching those deadly hands and feet. He found nothing and was not attacked. Perhaps a high pain stress short-circuited the brain on synthetics as it did on men.

  Nick ran across the lawn, keeping shrubs between himself and the gatehouse. By the time a guard and dog came to investigate the shots, he was a tiny figure crawling down the bluff toward the gap in the chain fence near the highway.

  Just before he went down completely out of sight of the plant and grounds, Nick looked back. The security force at Reed-Farben were having a busy dawn. He wondered if any of the men buzzing up the roads in the cars, following the dogs, climbing the hill where he had come in, and stringing out across the lawn as they followed his latest trail behind a Doberman, knew the inside story of what the company was making. Probably not. That’s what the synthetic guards were for, to keep the interior of the big building sacrosanct. He took off his face mask, slid it into its pocket.

  He crawled under the fence, left tracks and scent along the edge of the highway pointed toward Denver, then broad-jumped with big, light strides across the highway and over flinty rocks into the woods. Running swiftly west through the overgrown meadows, he reached Bob Half-Crow’s neat home in forty-two minutes. Nick tapped on the rear door. A dog barked inside, instantly silenced by Bob’s strong tones. The big man opened the door—Nick had the feeling that a shotgun or rifle was within reach of one of those powerful hands.

  Nick said, “I need a lift bad. About five miles, Bob.”

  In three seconds the Indian’s black eyes seemed to evaluate Nick’s black clothing, the cool, milky, sunless dawn and the empty highway. “Get in car,” Bob said. “I’m coming.”

  Bob’s Camaro was parked in the garage with the doors of the building left open. Nick found a piece of rope on a bench and tied one of his rubber shoes to it. When Bob came out and got into the car Nick held up the shqe. “I better drag this a mile. Lead the dogs away from your place. They’ll think I tried to steal your car but the keys weren’t in it.”

  “They know who you are?” Bob drove slowly out the drive. Nick dropped the shoe out of the door, dragging it on the ground.

  “Nope. No idea, I don’t think. Turn right, please.”

  “You lookin’ for who killed Pete?”

  “Yes.” It was part of the answer, and true.

  “If they have a real good tracker that shoe won’t fool ’em. He can read what happened.”

  “It’ll be the Doberman handlers and the local guards. Any of them good?”

  “No.”

  Nick thanked Boh when they reached the lumber road.

  The black eyes were expressionless as Half-Crow said, “Long as you help Martha or look for Pete’s killer, I’ll help. If you’ve got an angle that’ll hurt Martha, we’re all through.”

  “Martha is my friend,” Nick answered, and went down the overgrown lane and retrieved his car.

  At seven-twenty Nick rolled a big rig out of the plant and down the mountains. He dropped the trailer at the gantry yard, picked up an empty and met George Stevens on schedule near the Fort Logan intersection. Even if Reed-Farben had a spotter on him—and he watched for them—it looked harmless. You stopped for a drink of coffee out of your thermos and exchanged a few words with a tourist in the turnout.

  This time the tourist had a companion, a slim, gray-haired man in a conservative blue suit who might have been George Stevens’ successful uncle. It was Hawk, erect and alert, but from long association Nick spotted the concern of the extra wrinkles beside the keen, gentle eyes. Nick said briefly, “Hello, George. Welcome to the Rockies, sir.”

  As they admired the mountains—a casual group beside the road—he slipped into Hawk’s hand the tape he had made at the motel recording the events of the past hours. Briefly, not looking at the men he talked to, he verbally summed up his actions. When his low-pitched narration stopped Hawk said, “Not much so far. Yet as potentially nasty a business as we’ve ever hit. Those last words of Pete’s—do you think he was trying to say ‘making men’?”

  “Sure. Pete was a good reporter. He got the story … which he didn’t live to file.”

  “George,” Hawk said. “Please fill Nick in on what happened at CINC.”

  George outlined what the two generals had done, before he and Nick had ended their run. Nick gave a small sigh of relief. “I’m glad we didn’t guess wrong. What did the coroner say?”

  “There wasn’t much left to look at. Maybe now that we know they were robots the autopsy will show something.”

  “I doubt it,” Nick said. “These monsters are grown naturally. I think what’s left will be flesh and blood. Can we tie in that grab at the CINC base with Reed-Farben?”

  “Not tightly enough,” Hawk said. “All we have to back us up right now is our story that the car came out of their warehouse.”

  “Look inside the building.”

  “We did. There are shipping containers and some bulk chemicals. The watchman has vanished. A call to their main office got us the advice that the Nebraska plant is inoperative.”

  “They’ve got us in the funhouse,” Nick said sourly. “We don’t know which door we dare open.”

  “We could go into that Colorado plant,” Hawk reflected, “but if it’s as clean as the Nebraska one we’d make no score and we’d be exposed. And Pearly Abbott would give us a few hot moments in Washington. Njck—are you willing to move on what Pete said? I won’t tell you what to do, but you’ll be gambling that he found something and that it’s still there.”

  “I’m pretty sure of it.”

  “Then take the gloves off when you need to. They’re not researchers benefiting mankind with artificial organs, they’re criminals, no matter how damn fine their Dun and Bradstreet reads. But what are they going to do with those synthetic men?”

  “I can think of a hundred angles,” Nick answered. “Ninety-nine of ’em bad.”

  “I’d like a look at this Marvin Benn,” Hawk said thoughtfully. “The way he stays out of sight is suspicious.”

  “Perfectly legal. An unseen personality like him is buying Nevada.”

  “Benn is clever. He has an arbitrage operation going that must make him or Reed-Farben a half million a year—”

  “A what?”

  “He buys and sells stocks, commodities, currencies, for a small sure profit because he has organized an efficient communication setup. It’s a whole story in itself, Nick.”

  Nick whistled softly. “A man spread so wide—yet not thin. He’s a genius. Which brings to mind—”

  “Judas.” Hawk nodded. He stood like a well-dressed tourist admiring the distant peaks. “We’re looking.”

  Nick snorted. “With computers and seventeen major intelligence outfits … we can’t trace that guy?”

  “We can’t even find the rent bills for our Saigon office,” Hawk said with grim humor. “The Defense Intelligence Agency tells me they have over 500 linear feet of drawer space filled with unprocessed data. Somewhere in there is the item I want.” He unwrapped a cigar. “You should read George Washington’s detailed history, men. He had no money, few men, little cooperation and lots of treachery. He worked eighteen hours a day. His intelligence after the first year was excellent. He had a brain.”

  Nick and George kept quiet. When Hawk related examples from American history you listened carefully—after you discovered he was both inspiring and guiding you. “Violence,” Hawk said. “It’s the age. It’s in the air. Watch ’em, Nick. I think their plans are big. Dangerous. Extraordinary. Greta may be your key. Are you going to see her tonight?”

  “Plan to.”

  “Good.” Hawk relaxed for a moment, his eyes twinkling. “Martha may be more interesting, but it’s Greta for information. This life is hard on our personal tastes.”

  They discussed Pearly Abbott’s latest gambits, including his unseen leverage on the Federal Highway Bill and the rapid expansion of the construction outfits in which he was an unseen partner. None of them brought up the raw question—how deep is Pearly in Reed-Farben? They gave him the benefit of the doubt until caught.

  Nick wheeled the rig back up into the mountains. By five o’clock he had showered and was at Martha’s—ready for a steak. Bob Half-Crow came to the booth the instant Nick sat down. “Jim. Martha’s disappeared.”

  Nick looked up with an expression as unreadable as the Indian’s. “When? What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. She came in about nine and said she’d be gone for a couple of hours but be back for the lunch crowd. Nobody has seen her since.”

  “The car?”

  “Gone.”

  “Maybe she just got fed up to here.” Nick held a finger horizontally across his nose. “And she’s taking a day or two off.”

 

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