Programmed for Peril

a pale-domed spider. “Trish Morley!” he cried, too moved to lower his scratchy voice. He saw the flash of fright widen her sweet face.
    “Nicholas...”
    “I have to talk to you—now. It’s important.” He tried to maintain eye contact. But his glance slid away like fingers on smooth marble.
    “I don’t need to talk to you. I heard from your attorney.” She turned toward her car.
    He went after her. “Please...”
    “Nicholas, leave me alone! I’m well aware of what you and your sister are trying to do to me. Your threats against my ‘slander’ don’t frighten me.”
    He shook his head. He couldn’t be drawn into talking. Not this way. In her presence he couldn’t achieve mere conversation, never mind the eloquence required to persuade her that he and Lois had nothing to do with her Problems. He blurted, “Your business is bugged!”
    She blinked. Her gray eyes, hooded against the sun’s assault, probed his face. “Bugged...”
    “I think there are three microphones scattered through the building. They’re transmitting on adjacent frequencies.” She frowned. “How do you know?”
    He told her about his equipment. On familiar technical ground, he found his analysis pouring out with ease. Yes, the most compact microcircuits were being used, joined to economic jewels of transmitters as miserly with voltage as Marner with gold. She understood him! Of course she would. Angels understood all the tongues of men. Believing was another matter.
    “If there are bugs—”
    “There are. I’ll prove it if you’ll get in the van.”
    She hesitated. He could nearly read her mind. She was wondering how far he and Lois would go to stop her wedding. Would he try to abduct her, she was wondering. She had to let that idea—and a lot like them—go entirely before she could begin to get to the bottom of her problems. Right then she was far from that point. “You have to hear the tape.” He nodded toward the van.
    “Leave the door open,” she said.
    “I’m on your side,” he said. Her frown told him she didn’t believe.
    He cued up the tape and let it run. Her frown deepened. He wanted to make her stop; the lines in her brow did her expression cruel disservice. “Those are the voices of my employees!”
    “And yours, I think I heard.”
    She nodded. “Yes, yes.” She spun toward him. “How do I know you didn’t install the mikes? Now that I’m putting the heat on you and Lois, maybe you’re pretending you found them.”
    “I’m on your side.” He knew he sounded dogged, stupid even. He was incapable of conversing with her, hated his ineptness.
    She climbed out of the van. “Why did you tell me about this?”
    Anything for you! He stood silent, made mute by adoration. He knew what she saw before her, a gangling, pasty spider-cum-human. With the effort of a weightlifter pressing seven hundred pounds he heaved out a phrase. “I thought you ought to know.”
    She folded her arms; his time with her had terminated-“It’s possible I should thank you, Nicholas. If so, thanks. U you’re playing some kind of mind game... This afternoon I’ll have the bugs pulled out.”
    “I wouldn’t.”
    “You wouldn’t. Why not?”
    He blurted: “Knowing they’re there puts you one up on whoever put them in.”
    She smiled thoughtfully. “I see. Just watch what I say. And tip off the staff, too?” He made no reply. She saw the hesitancy on his once again mute lips. “If I’m sure I trust them all. Right?”
    He nodded, dome gleaming under sunlight and sweat sheen.
    “I have some things to think about,” she said, half to herself. She moved toward her car. “Good-bye.”
    Her Acura sped into the distance. He stood motionless, staring, transfixed. Where did this street lead? Tarsus?
     
    Sweetest Sister’s summons came at two-thirty. He was to report at once. She ordered him to her audience chamber, a private room at Napes and Nails, one of the city’s premier beauty salons. Annalee was administering a facial with the care and attention of a Roman bath slave. The mask was in place, covering Sweetest Sister’s face with its whitish film. Cotton pads blinded her. She was motionless. She heard and felt, and so was not diminished. Oraclelike, she spoke: “You’re late.”
    “Traffic.”
    “You should have left your car and run—crawled if you had to.”
    He could not retort sharply to Sweetest Sister. He grunted and looked at the floor where her fallen locks curled like black maggots.
    “I