Soft come the dragons

crash and shattered into a dozen or more large pieces. The android came back inside and crossed to the receiver. It was time for more waiting . . .
    Minutes passed. A half an hour. Ti began to worry that they had been too drastic with the Hound and had scared off their killer. But just when he was ready to speak to the machine-man, he heard the squeak of shoes on the patio stairs leading from the rear lawn. "They're coming," he whispered fiercely.
    The simulacrum nodded.
    He dropped into Mindlink beam and returned home, set a servo hand to connect the camera to the impulses registering on this connection, and began filming the kitchen. When he returned, the gangsters had not yet arrived.
    They came two seconds later, preceded by tear gas grenades. The kitchen filled with thick, acrid, blue-green fumes that roiled farther into the house, blanketing every room. Moments later, three dark figures came through the doorway wearing breathers and waving pin guns around like small boys with toys. Ti focused the camera on them, was elated when he discovered Margle's face—blue eyes, black hair, and a scarred cheek. He got a good, clear shot of him. Then he filmed the two accomplices, determined to convict them all. He did not take the camera off their faces. The intruders were oblivious to him, however. They spotted the android and decided it was Taguster in a breather of his own and that they had better fire while they still had a chance. Their dart guns burst with staccato tapping that echoed about the gas-filled kitchen.
    The darts sank in but had no effect. The simulacrum advanced on the trio. One of them found the light switch, palmed it. In the ensuing brilliance, they saw all the darts puncturing the pseudo-flesh and knew the simulacrum for what it was. They holstered their weapons and moved in on it. It started backing away from them, but they cornered it, pinned the machine's arms, and reached under its flowered coat, deactivating it. It blinked its eyes, clouded them, closed them, and slumped against the wall, sliding to the floor like a drunk finally reaching his limit.
    "Spread out and search the place," Margle ordered.
    The two men moved through the rest of the house. Margle checked the utility room (though not the freezer) and the kitchen closet. A minute or two after he had finished, the others returned. "Nothing anywhere," one of them said, shaking his head. Then he seemed to become aware of the soft light of the Mindlink receiver cameras. "Boss!"
    They came at the receiver like madmen, leering, enraged, snorting, faces flushed and lips twisted. One of the men raised a gun butt to smash in the lens, but Margle grabbed his arm. "No!"
    "But, Boss—"
    "You!" Margie snapped, directing his leer straight into the camera. "We're going to find you. We're going to trace you from the call records." He grinned, pressed his fingertips against the lens. Then he drew his pistol, moved his fingers, swung the butt, and smashed in the glass . . .
     
    He settled into the Mindlink receiver in his own house, shaken, raised the helmet, and flipped off the machine. Margle had broken the lens—but not soon enough. The camera had been grinding away the entire time. It was only now, after the confrontation had come and passed, that he realized how tense he was. He tried to relax, recalling some relaxing yoga contemplation patterns that he had picked up somewhere. It worked a little. Yes, Margle could trace the call if he brought in a Mindlink expert, and there was no doubt the mob could have access to such a person, for the mob had access to everything. But even with an expert, that would take several hours. And Margle just didn't have that much time left.
    Ti disconnected the movie camera from the set and took it into the library, to the film corner. He slipped the loaded spool into the automatic processor, waited eight minutes, removed it completely developed. He stretched out a length of the film and held it between himself and the ceiling light. There was the face of Klaus Margle, as ugly as in real life, scar and all. Ti had won.
    He moved to the corn-screen and punched the number One. A moment later, the screen brightened, and a desk sergeant's face popped into view. "Police," he said, a pencil in his hands, ready to record any pertinent information, even though the call—like all calls to the police—was being recorded.
    "I would like to report a murder," he said, then abruptly wished he had been more circumspect.
    The