Soft come the dragons

footsteps in the kitchen: Margle and his men coming to see what had taken the robot so long. Well, he was ready for them. Or he thought he was. He concentrated on his psi until his mind was alive with the power of it. He drifted into the living room just as the Dark Brethren moved in with guns drawn.
    "Your Hound is finished," he said, drawing their attention.
    The man on Margle's left swung and fired. Ti deflected the pins, all but one. That one he redirected to the man who had shot. The pin sunk in his chest, its poison shooting through him. He gagged, doubled over, and dropped.
    "Turn yourself in, Margle," Ti said wearily. "I won't kill you if you'll turn yourself in."
    But Margle and the remaining man were crouched behind the sofa. They were not ready to give up just because their target had gotten in a lucky shot. In the dark it had appeared to be a lucky shot and nothing more. They couldn't see that his hands were gone.
    "You're crazy," Margle said. "You were crazy for getting into this in the first place."
    "Why did you kill Taguster?"
    "Why should I tell you?"
    Apparently, they could not see him in the dark. Only the dead man had spotted him, and now the others were waiting to zero in on his voice, or waiting for him to move and give himself away,
    "You're going to kill me, aren't you—or I will kill you. Either way, telling me won't make a difference, will it?"
    "He was on PBT."
    "Drugs?"
    "We supplied."
    "What excuse is that to kill him?"
    Margle chuckled as if he were going lax and unwatchful. But Ti knew, if he moved, Margle would fire a murderous barrage—all of which would miss, of course. "It was getting too expensive for him. So he decided to gather information on us. He hoped to turn the information over to the government in return for licensing as a legal addict. Then he could get his drugs free. But he got too nosy, and our boy became suspicious. We ransacked his house when he was out, and we found his file on us. Almost complete enough to turn over to the proper Federal authorities."
    "That shouldn't have bothered you. You bribe authorities."
    "Local, not Federal. Did you ever try to bribe a U.N. delegate officer? The kind they have with the narcotic bureau? Can't be done."
    "So you killed him."
    "So I did. Or, rather, a Hound killed him. You were pretty clever about that, by the way. Had us worried for a while. But calling the local constabulary—now that was a stroke of pure idiocy. It made finding you a great deal easier."
    He knew enough now. He knew why Taguster, the man with the gentle, lightning fingers that teased the strings of an ancient instrument, had died. It was "the last piece to the puzzle that had begun in the morning and ended, now, not even twenty-four hours later.
    "Why didn't the Hound get you?" Margle asked, anxious to satisfy his own curiosity now.
    "I had more hands than it," he answered. "I had an extra hand."
    "Huh?"
    It was time. He moved toward the couch.
    They saw him and fired.
    He deflected all the pins.
    Then he was behind the couch, almost on top of them. They leaped erect, both firing. He deflected all pins save two which he turned back on them. Margle took his in the right cheek. The other man was struck in the neck. Both gagged as the first Brethren had, clutched their chests as their hearts abruptly ceased action, and folded up in neat piles on the carpet.
    He turned from them, not wanting to look at the corpses he had made. He floated through the dark room into the library. There he found a pencil and spent some time lifting it and carrying it to the com-screen with his psi power. He punched out the number of-Creol's home.
    A few minutes passed before the screen lighted and showed Creol's sleep-drawn features. "Chief!"
    "I have a story, George."
    Creol consulted his watch. "At three thirty in the morning?"
    "Yeah. I want you to get a crew over here, photographer and three reporters who will work different slants on it."
    "Your placer
    "My place."
    "Now."
    "Yes."
    "What's the story, Chief?"
    "You can headline it: ENTERSTAT CHIEF VICTIM OF WOULD-BE KILLER."
    "Don't you think you ought to call the police first?"
    "They can wait, George, boy. I guess I ought to get a story out of this, anyway." He hung up and returned to the Mindlink set. He went to Taguster's home and turned off the android. It was reading a book when he deactivated it. Leonard Taguster was dead.

A DARKNESS IN MY SOUL
     
     
    Religion has always fascinated science fiction writers, whether