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.0 for a Shriek assault team.He called for a laser tick.Two seconds later, it appeared in front of Tixa as a deep red cloud, having shifted its spectrum toward the red end at Detective Nipp’s command.“The Cum Laude told you of laser ticks,” Detective Nipp said, “so I have decided to reveal one to you visually.You are admonished not to kill it.The death of a laser tick is a very serious drain on Mamacita’s power.If you do not cooperate, it will be harder for you … and for your brother when he is caught.No one escapes.You know that.”“I will cooperate,” Tixa said.She trembled.The laser tick entered her body, bringing with it a momentary sensation of itchiness.Tixa scratched her back and side.She tried to relax, telling her body to accept the invasion.Her immune system received and followed her mental command.The laser tick searched all of Tixa’s brain cells, then withdrew and melded with Detective Nipp’s light circuitry, thus making its knowledge accessible to him.“A clean erasure,” Detective Nipp muttered.“Rare, but possible.”Tixa smiled, pleased that she had not been able to reveal anything damaging.“He took the stringed flute, too,” Detective Nipp said, drawing on information the laser tick was able to obtain.“This is a dangerous music criminal, your brother.But we’ll get him.”Tixa did not say anything.Having completed the interrogation, Detective Nipp released the laser tick.A brief white flash appeared on his body as it left.Then Detective Nipp passed through walls with his hologram body, searching each room in the dwello.He located a pair of men’s trousers and brought them back down the hall to the solarium in the conventional way.“Your brother’s?” he asked.Tixa nodded affirmatively, knowing she could not conceal information from a Holo-Cop.The detective set the trousers on the floor by the sniffer case, then leaned over and unlatched the case lid, folding it back to expose the interior.Gliding back quickly, he hovered to one side of the still open heatlock door.Tixa knew what was happening and stepped to one side.Watching from the side of the doorway, Detective Nipp saw forty thousand tiny orange-and-black sniffers fly out of the case, making a loud buzz-hum as they did so.This sound was drowned out seconds later as the mechanical horde descended on the trousers and sniffed them.Their sniff-snorts rolled like thunder through the halls and rooms of the dwello.Moments later, the sniffers streaked by Detective Nipp and out of the dwello.He hurried outside after they passed and watched the orange-and-black horde gather a hundred meters above the dwello.Quickly, they took off in all directions to search every square meter of Ut in pursuit of Prussirian BBD.Detective Nipp looked back in the dwello and noticed three sniffers still on the floor, scuttling about in disorientation.He retrieved the trousers, then motioned Tixa out of the way and hit them with a fingertip force blast.The sniffers turned solid black and stopped moving.A section of floor and wall had been scorched as well.Detective Nipp felt a pleasure surge as he looked at the three tiny victims of his power.He liked to see things die, be they flesh or mechanical.He thought back now to the many Holo-Cops Mamacita had instructed him to terminate.Those had been different and gave him no pleasure.He might meet the same fate.***CHAPTER NINEUt is a sun-favored—or cursed—place, depending upon how you look at it.The planetoid moves in a tight circle about a fixed point on the planet Sudanna’s surface, always positioning itself between the giant planet and Blue Sun 593—with night and day determined by Ut’s nineteen-hour rotation.No one understands why Ut does not orbit Sudanna—no one, that is, with whom I have spoken.There is also bewilderment concerning Ut’s smooth rotation.With its unusual shape, it might be erratic—perhaps a hurtling, twisting, or wrenching motion.—remarks made by Zeeb, the U-Lotan master scientist,to a gathering of his associatesAfter his self-smoothing, Hiley slept straight through the afternoon and night, awakening at dawn the following morning.As he removed his sensor foke and swung out of bed to the cool ceramic tile floor, the nightmarish events of the prior day hung just out of reach in his thoughts, eluding all probes his brain made for them.I self-smoothed, he thought.Why?He looked at Sperl, who remained sound asleep on her back, her sensor propped open by a foke.She did, too.Some of it came back.He recalled running from the dwello, and the evil stranger in his living room.He tried for more, but it was too difficult to think.His brain needed more rest.He touched a heat-activated button next to his bed and the bedroom was bathed in low light from concealed panels.The panels were in the ceiling, walls, floor, and furnishings, emitting even light throughout the room.He rubbed perfumed ointments from two jars on his scaly right shoulder, then dressed in solar-conductive clothing—tan sara shirt, dark blue pants, beige medium weight jacket.A quick glance at the meter on his belt-held battery pack told him it held a 62 percent charge—more than enough reserve for him, even on an overcast day.As usual, he would play it safe by carrying a fresh spare in his daypack.With these thoughts, more came back.Maudrey had married the evil stranger.Poor, innocent Maudrey.Her innocence was gone.He slipped his stubby feet into brown factory plastic boots, latching black snap-acrosses over the boots.Gray-blue dawn light crept into the hallway as he negotiated it.He moved at a half pace, turning left at the curved bend and then pausing at the guest room.The door was ajar enough for him to see a man wearing a white smock seated on the bed next to Maudrey’s sleeping form.The man held a stringed flute and plucked at the strings without blowing into it.Plaintive, twangy notes touched Hiley’s sensor, startling and enraging him.This was illegal activity, in Hiley’s home!The man looked up, catching Hiley’s ferocious, inquisitive glare.Seconds later, the man stood in the hall next to Hiley, still holding the instrument.“Don’t play that in my home,” Hiley said, his tone dull and menacing.Hiley tried to place the name with the face.This was the evil one who had married Maudrey.“I tried to leave my Zuggy wrapped up,” the man said, “knowing how you feel about it.But it called to me, making my insides ache.I had to hold it, to experience it.”Hiley wanted to tear the instrument away from his errant, nameless son-in-law, hurling it to the floor and stomping on it.But he was afraid to touch it.“Maudrey does not fully understand my feelings,” the man said.“Though she is trying.”Prussirian! Hiley thought.Then: “She has played it, too?”“No.Like you, she is afraid to touch it.Someday, perhaps.”“May a hundred smoothings fry your brain!” Hiley blurted, unable to repress his displeasure.Maudrey stirred and turned over, saying something unintelligible into her pillow.Prussirian set the stringed flute on the floor just inside the bedroom, leaning it against the wall.He faced Hiley again, without the hint of an apology on his pockmarked face.“Music is bad for you,” Hiley said, in the tone of a proctor.Hiley shook his head, trying to clear it.This made it worse.A lightning bolt of pain shot across his temples.“Not so bad, I’d say.The truth is that the Holo-Cops don’t want us to hear music for a different reason
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