“You’re doing the right thing, sai.” Jake didn’t know about Slightman, but Andy’s plummily sympathetic tone made him feel like gnashing his teeth. “The only thing, really. ’Tisn’t your fault that you’re father to the only mateless twin in Calla Bryn Sturgis, is it? I know a song that makes this point in particularly moving fashion. Perhaps you’d like to hear—”

“Shut up!” Slightman cried in a choked voice. “Shut up, you mechanical devil! I’ve sold my goddam soul, isn’t that enough for you? Must I be made sport of, as well?”

“If I’ve offended, I apologize from the bottom of my admittedly hypothetical heart,” Andy said. “In other words, I cry your pardon.” Sounding sincere. Sounding as though he meant every word. Sounding as though butter wouldn’t melt. Yet Jake had no doubt that Andy’s eyes were flashing out in gales of silent blue laughter.

Twelve

The conspirators left. There was an odd, meaningless jingle of melody from the overhead speakers (meaningless to Jake, at least), and then silence. He waited for them to discover his pony, come back, search for him, find him, kill him. When he had counted to a hundred and twenty and they hadn’t returned to the Dogan, he got to his feet (the overdose of adrenaline in his system left him feeling as stiff as an old man) and went back into the control room. He was just in time to see the motion-sensor lights in front of the place switch off. He looked at the monitor showing the top of the rise and saw the Dogan’s most recent visitors walking between the boom-flurry. This time the cactuses didn’t move. They had apparently learned their lesson. Jake watched Slightman and Andy go, bitterly amused by the difference in their heights. Whenever his father saw such a Mutt-and-Jeff duo on the street, he inevitably said Put em in vaudeville . It was about as close to a joke as Elmer Chambers could get.

When this particular duo was out of sight, Jake looked down at the floor. No dust, of course. No dust and no tracks. He should have seen that when he came in. Certainly Roland would have seen that. Roland would have seen everything.

Jake wanted to leave but made himself wait. If they saw the motion-lights glare back on behind them, they’d probably assume it was a rock-cat (or maybe what Benny called “an armydillo”), but probably wasn’t good enough. To pass the time, he looked at the various control panels, many of which had the LaMerk Industries name on them. Yet he also saw the familiar GE and IBM logos, plus one he didn’t know—Microsoft. All of these latter gadgets were stamped MADE IN USA . The LaMerk products bore no such mark.