"Very nice."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Your work?" he asked, walking to the nearest painting, though he knew it was hers, recognized the style from the signed paintings in the fifth floor corridor.

"Yes," she said. Her abrupt tone held no pride.

He examined the painting, saw that it was a portrait of her father, Jubal, done entirely in shades of blue and green-and as if seen through a thousand small fragments of gla.s.s, some fragments crack-webbed. "I like it very much," he said.

"Then you haven't much taste for art," she said. When he turned and looked at her, he found that she was serious, though there was a grim humor in her voice.

"Oh?"

"You like the colors, the shapes," she said. "But if you could go beyond that, if you knew some of the criteria for judging art, you'd know what a flop it is."

"And these others?"

"Flops too."

He said: "Upstairs, in the corridors-"

"Disasters," she said, chuckling, though there was little mirth in her chuckle.

"Well," he said, "I disagree. You've got a great deal of talent, so far as I can see."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

He turned and looked at her and was suddenly caught up by the way the overhead lights gleamed in her black eyes and revealed unsuspected depths, by the way the same light s.h.i.+mmered on the long slide of her hair and turned the black to a very dark, dark blue.

Unconsciously, he let his gaze wander down her slim neck to the pert roundness of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He felt his hands coming up from his sides, driven by an urge to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and he wondered what she made of his movements.

Somehow he remembered the nightmare from which the bio-computer had wakened him that afternoon, and he felt that it had bearing here, though he could not say how...

His gaze traveled downward still, to the pinch of her waist, the gentle flair of hips, to the long, well-shaped legs that were now all revealed by the shorts she wore. She was barefooted. Somehow this last detail intrigued him more than any other.

Re-direct your attention.

He told the other half of the cyberdetective to go to h.e.l.l.

You cannot risk physical involvement. That may lead to emotional ties, and you are aware of what that would do to your ability to function at optimum efficiency as a cyberdetective.

St. Cyr still felt the urge to reach for her, to draw her gently to him, to see if that olive skin felt as soft and smooth as it looked. At the same rime, the bio-computer had subtly influenced him, even while he recognized its influence, and he raised his eyes to look only at her face.

He said, "If you really think you're a terrible artist, why do you continue to work?"

She laughed bitterly, laughed so hard that it ended in a choking cough. When she could speak again, she said, "I haven't any choice. There's nothing else I can do but paint, draw, sculpt, watercolor, sketch..."

"Surely you have-"

"No," she interrupted. "Remember, I've undergone hypno-keying-at the age of three, at my father's direction. Do you know what that does to you?"

"Not exactly," he said. "Somehow, it makes certain that you reach your full creative potential."

"And locks you into that."

"I don't understand," he said.

"Each of us seems born with certain abilities," Tina said, turning and crossing to the window, leaning with her back against it. Her black hair and dark complexion paled the night. "Dane, for instance, has an hereditary facility with words, as did Betty and Dorothea. Mother has a solid musical ability. Father, like me, excels in the manual arts."

St. Cyr waited.

"Once you've been through psychiatric hypno-keying, once you've had them in your head nudging your creative talents, you're almost-possessed by whatever one ability you have. I by whatever one ability you have. I have have to paint. My whole world is painting, drawing; I even gain satisfaction from cleaning my brushes at the end of a day." to paint. My whole world is painting, drawing; I even gain satisfaction from cleaning my brushes at the end of a day."

She walked away from the window and stood before a self-portrait done in shades of orange and yellow.

She said, "When I try to get away from it- Oh, there are times I get so G.o.dd.a.m.ned disgusted with myself, with my clumsy fingers, with my limited vision, that I never want to think about painting again! But when I run away from it for a while, a few days, the anger goes. And I begin to grow nervous... I find myself anxious to be back at it again, anxious to try to do better at it. I know that I cannot do better, that my talent simply stops at a certain point of achievement, that I'm very good but not great. Yet I always go back. I always pick up the brush again. Over and over I make a fool of myself. I never manage to hold out against the urge for more than a week or two. Sometimes three."

"Maybe, with all this drive-"

She talked over him as if she had not heard him begin to speak. "Everyone who has gone through hypno-keying, unless his creative talent is enormous, supreme, lives in a gentle sort of h.e.l.l ever after that. He cannot do anything but what the hypno-keying has freed him him to do-and he knows he can never do it as well as it can be done. And then the drive, as you said." It was the first indication that she had heard him. "The motivation is somehow stimulated by the hypno-keying. In the end, you can do only one thing, you to do-and he knows he can never do it as well as it can be done. And then the drive, as you said." It was the first indication that she had heard him. "The motivation is somehow stimulated by the hypno-keying. In the end, you can do only one thing, you want want to do only one thing, but you can never do it as well as you hope to." to do only one thing, but you can never do it as well as you hope to."

"The others feel this way?" he asked.

"They may not vocalize it as readily, but they feel it."

"It doesn't show," St. Cyr said.

"Doesn't it?" She turned away from her portrait and faced him. She was no longer emotional, no longer angry with herself. In a level voice, she said, "Didn't it seem that the family took Betty's death with little emotion?"

"Your mother was in tears."

"A point for my argument," she said. "Mother went through hypno-training later than all the rest of us. Father was treated as a baby, as were all his children. My mother, however, did not undergo treatment until after they were married. Some vestige of normality remains in her."

"I don't see how you tie together the hypno-keying and any lack of emotional response on your family's part."

"It's easy," she said, and smiled. The smile, as before, was not a smile at all. "Each of us is driven by his particular talent, consumed by it despite the limit of his vision. It is not easy, therefore, to establish relations.h.i.+ps with other people, to care deeply about them when your energies are concentrated in this one arena."

"You forget that two other murders have taken place here. I would think all of you justified in reacting less forcefully to this one."

"We reacted the same to the first," Tina said. "A bit of grief, a day or two of loss, then plunge back into the work at hand, create, form, build..." She looked at the paintings on the wall to her right, sighed audibly. ''What all of these hypno-keying experts seem not to understand is that you can't create cla.s.sic art when you have no love life. If love of art is supreme, it's all masturbation. If life, people, places don't come first, there isn't anything for the talent to draw on, no stuffing for the sack."

Though he was not, as she had subtly observed, a man of any great sensitivity-give him bright colors, bold lines, pleasing shapes, loud and lively music any day; to to h.e.l.l with the proper, genteel criteria-he saw in her a deep and awful suffering that, even with the aid of her explanations, he could not clearly grasp. He supposed that, as the attainment of perfect understanding in her art would always elude her, an understanding of her pain would elude him. He had a feeling that she did not sleep well at night, any night but especially this night-and that she tore up more paintings than she kept. He said nothing, for he had nothing to say that would make her feel any better-or any differently, for that matter. h.e.l.l with the proper, genteel criteria-he saw in her a deep and awful suffering that, even with the aid of her explanations, he could not clearly grasp. He supposed that, as the attainment of perfect understanding in her art would always elude her, an understanding of her pain would elude him. He had a feeling that she did not sleep well at night, any night but especially this night-and that she tore up more paintings than she kept. He said nothing, for he had nothing to say that would make her feel any better-or any differently, for that matter.

In a quieter voice, almost a whisper, she said, "How can I ever make anything lasting, get anything genuine down on paper or canvas, when I haven't any ability to care for people, for anyone?"

"You could care," he said.

"No."

"Look, you've spent most all your life among other hypno-keyed artists. But if you were living among other people, normal people, they would react strongly to you, form attachments to you and force you to react as strongly as they did. You could care."

"You really think so?"

"Yes."

Be careful.

Go to h.e.l.l.

"I doubt it," she said.

The confusion of the real and the subvocal conversations forced him to say, "Doubt what?"

She looked at him curiously and said, "I doubt that I could care for anyone."

"You could," he repeated stupidly.

For a long, awkward moment, they stood facing each other. He did not know how she felt, but he seemed suddenly transformed into a blundering, heavy-handed, club-footed wonder. He could hear himself breathing, and he swore he was as loud as an air-conditioning intake fan. He waited for her to say something, for he was unable to initiate anything more on his own. Then, finally aware that she felt she had already said too much and that she wanted to be alone, he said, "Keep the pistol near you at all times."

"I will."

He said goodnight and left her there.

The elevator ride to the fifth level seemed to take forever.

In his room, he poured himself a healthy gla.s.sful of Scotch over a single ice cube-one cube so that there was more room in the tumbler for the liquor.

Liquor will dull your perceptions.

Go to h.e.l.l.

He knew that he was finished for the day, that he could not go anywhere or do anything without a few hours sleep. He sat down in a chair near the patio doors and quickly worked toward the bottom of his golden drink.

In the last six hours the input of data had greatly increased. So many bits and pieces had been stored, now, that he knew the symbiote that was half him would soon begin to connect one datum with another. If the pace kept on like this, he would be able to slowly formulate a few theories in another day, maybe two days, then logically eliminate a number of the present suspects.

Then, perhaps, before too much longer, the case would be finished.

He realized as he swallowed the last of the Scotch that he did not want it to be finished.

That is an unhealthy att.i.tude.

He wanted to apprehend the killer, of course, and before anyone else died. He wanted to pinpoint the man, get him running, corner him and break him down, thoroughly break him down. That was what he was all about, after all; that was what Baker St. Cyr did well. But once the killer was out of the way, he did not want to have to leave this house.

Get right down to it, then: He did not want to have to leave Tina Alderban.

Avoid emotional complications of this nature.

He got up and poured another gla.s.s of Scotch.

He sat down in the same chair and took a large swallow of the drink, stirred the ice with his finger.

Tina Alderban...

When he closed his eyes, he could see her on the insides of his lids, standing naked, wearing a cape of black hair, holding out her arms to him, with two s.h.i.+ny globes of light before her, one resting lightly on each of her flat palms...

He remembered the nightmare again: the cracked macadam roadway, the tumble-down buildings... Somehow, Tina Alderban seemed to be a part of it.

It is very late. Even if you sleep until noon, you will not get your proper rest.

To counter the stodgy half of his symbiote, he raised his gla.s.s and sipped more Scotch. Apparently, however, the bio-computer had gotten to him on a deep, motivational level, for he put the gla.s.s down when it was still half full, undressed and went to bed.

SIX: Nightmare and Paranoia

St. Cyr stepped quickly behind a huge slab of concrete pavement which some tremor of the earth had cracked, lifted, and jammed toward the dark sky. He pressed his back against it, making himself as small as he could, s.h.i.+vered as the dampness of the chilled stone seeped through his s.h.i.+rt. quickly behind a huge slab of concrete pavement which some tremor of the earth had cracked, lifted, and jammed toward the dark sky. He pressed his back against it, making himself as small as he could, s.h.i.+vered as the dampness of the chilled stone seeped through his s.h.i.+rt.

He listened intently, but he could no longer hear the soft footsteps that had dogged him until this moment.

Stepping from behind the slab, he stared down the length of the avenue, saw that he was alone-unless, of course, someone was hiding behind one of the other tilted blocks of paving.

He did not have time to search them. He could only press forward. But when he did, the footsteps were behind him once more, close.

He ran.

As he increased his pace, the sky seemed to lower, the blackness sink until it lay just above his head, like a roof. The buildings on either side began to close in as well, until the street was barely wide enough to run through. He remembered that, when he had begun this journey, the street had appeared to dwindle toward the horizon until the buildings seemed to come together at a point no larger than the p.r.i.c.k of a pin. He had thought that this was only a trick of perspective. Now he saw that the closing together was genuine. In a few minutes, in another couple of thousand yards, the buildings would touch, putting an end to the avenue, leaving him nowhere to run to avoid the stalker.

Behind him, the night suddenly sighed and, an instant later, exploded around him.

Turning, he saw the tottering buildings had collapsed in his wake, bricks tossed into the air like milkweed fluff, dust devils whirling gleefully towards him.

He turned and ran.

On both sides, the abandoned structures, broken windows like mouths full of transparent teeth, leered down at him, swayed in sympathy with his rapid footfalls.

Then the street ended.

The buildings fused into a smooth curve of stone, blocking exit. He stopped, felt the curve, seeking a lever or concealed device for opening a path, found none. Because he was no longer running, no dangerous vibrations were set up; silence was soon restored to the street. In the silence, as he stood bewildered before the fused stones, he heard the footsteps behind him again.

He turned.

The stalker was only a few yards away. The stalker was an old, old friend whose touch he could no longer tolerate, and the stalker walked straight for him, arms open to receive him in a cold embrace...

Baker St. Cyr sat straight up in bed, a scream caught in the back of his throat, his hands full of twisted sheets.