Starblood

Those days and nights when he had been hopelessly immobile in the government hospital preyed on him now. The forgotten terror of being unable to communicate was renewed and metamorphosed into anguish. There were few men with minds as alert and as deeply structured as his own, few who could possibly be close friends. Indeed, Taguster was the only one he had ever called friend… and now he had no one at all.
    The flow of his own tears finally forced him to lift the helmet from his head and shut off the machine, forced him to come to grips with the situation. If his greatest weakness was his almost irrational fear of loneliness, then his greatest strength was his ability to stand alone. His weakness and his strength were two sides of one coin. He sat there, letting the tears dry on his face, and thought through the events of the last half hour.
    Ordinarily, he would have wasted no time in summoning the police. But it had been a Hound that had murdered Taguster, and that was a distinct complication. If some—or any—legal authorities had conspired to take the musician's life then it was madness to let them know there was a witness to their murder. He had to know more of the story behind the killing, though he had nothing but a name: Margle.
    He rose from the cup-chair and crossed the room, moved through a painting-lined corridor and into the library he prized so much. He threw a toggle along the wall, next to the comscreen; a panel slid back, revealing a computer keyboard, a direct line to the
Enterstat
computer. He punched out the letters of the name and depressed the bar marked FULL DATA REPORT.
    Thirty seconds later, a printed stat sheet popped out of the information receival slot and into the plastic tray, glistening wetly. He waited a moment for it to dry, then reached with a servo and picked it up, shaking it to release any static that might make it curl. He held it up and read it, blinking now and then as a stray breath of the copying fluid drifted upward and stung his eye.
    Klaus Margle. He was connected with the Brethren, the underworld organization that had encroached on the territory once held sacrosanct by the older Mafia—and had finally deposed and destroyed the elder organization because it controlled the supply of PBT. PBT had replaced nearly all other drugs and quasi-drugs in man's eternal quest to avoid the unpleasantries of modern life. Since gambling and prostitution had been dignified by liberalized laws, drugs had become the chief commodities of the underworld. It was rumored that Margle was the chief Don of the intricate counterculture of illegality, though this information could not be checked for authenticity.
    Physically, he was six feet tall and weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds. His hair was dark, but his eyes were a surprising baby blue. He had a three-inch scar along his right jawline: source unknown. He was missing a thumb on his right hand: reason for amputation unknown. He believed in taking part in the common dangerous chores of his organization; he would not send one of his men to do something he had not once done himself—or would flinch from doing now. He was a man of action, not a desk-chained executive. He currently dated Polly London, the rising young senso-starlet who had appeared in
Enterstat's
glamour section more often than any other woman. Klaus Margle. End of information.
    This explained the Hound and brought a touch of sanity to the surreal atmosphere of the crime. The underworld could obtain anything it wanted; it was rumored that half the city's officials were on the gift sheet of the Brethren. Through one or more of those men, Margle's people had secured the Hound. Which made it quite possible that Timothy would be putting his nonexistent foot into a nasty patch of briars if he should contact the police.
    Punching the number for the
Enterstat
editor's private desk phone, he waited while the comscreen rang the number. The two-dimensional medium was almost entirely a business service now that the three-dimensional, full sensory Mindlink had taken over communications for more intimate purposes. It also served as a very private means of contact for people like Timothy. In a moment, the blank screen popped with color, and the face of George Creel,
Enterstat's
editor, swam into view like a fish speeding toward the side of his glass aquarium. It settled into proper proportions, held still. The big man's melancholy eyes stared out at Timothy. "Morning," he said.