A few minutes later they reached, a wide intake shaft that terminated in an aperture that could easily have taken a stooped but full-grown man. The grill had been left intact here, for the area beyond did not figure in the murder plan they had devised. They stood by the steel mesh, the intake fans sucking air past them, gently ruffling their hair and clothes, and they watched the bearded man who had entered the city through the south gate, just as they had done a few weeks earlier.
A long, wide cargo van rested on the black conveyor belt of the avenue. The driver had said something to the traffic computer to keep the vehicle from being parked in the overhead garages that accommodated hundreds of thousands of machines. Now the driver was busy assembling small robotic cargo trundlers and was dispatching them to various points in the city, He had obviously been here before.
“I know him,” Belina said.
“How?” the black, horned man asked.
“He’s the one that almost found the idiot out. I tried to call to him in the fueling station, weeks and weeks ago Before I could get the idiot to create you, Wissa.”
“When Sebastian . . when he . . .”
“Broke my back and had to re-create me,” Belina finished. The tone of her voice was ugly.
“But why is he here?” Wissa asked. “He doesn’t even know about you. And it wouldn’t have taken him all this time to follow Sebastian.”
“I think he comes here often,” Belina said. “He’s probably looting the place, slowly and methodically. I should have thought of that earlier. The first time I saw him, he was coming south. This was the only place he could have been coming from. Now he’s unloaded the last haul, sold it. And he’s back for more.”
“Maybe he won’t discover us,” the horned man said.
“Wishful thinking, Scratch,” the little goddess said. “He’s probably been coming here for years. He’ll know the place well. He’ll notice little things, small signs of us. If not that, then Sebastian will give us away. You can’t trust the idiot to be quiet.”
The gypsy driver was preparing the last of the trundlers. His golden earring caught the light, glinted like an eye in his lobe.
“Get the others,” Belina said. “Bring them here. Even if he doesn’t spot us this time, we’ve got to take care of him. If he gets away, he might not bring the authorities. But he will sure as hell come armed on his next trip. Surprise won’t be with us then.”
“What are we going to do?” Wissa asked.
“Catch him here, at the van, when he returns,” Belina said. Her voice was soft and throaty. She shivered with excitement at what she was thinking, seemed to transmit her sweet anticipation to the others.
“And then?” Scratch asked.
“Kill him,” Belina whispered.
Wissa grabbed the blond girl and squeezed her, kissed her. “Yes, baby! Yes, yes !” she hissed.
Scratch scampered away to collect the others. There were thirty-seven of them in all. The Furnace contained enough synthetic flesh to have sixty puppets alive at once. Belina had not found more than thirty-six she thought she could dominate without contention.
“How?” Wissa asked.
The bearded driver walked off after the last of the trundlers to supervise the looting spree. In a moment the arrival bay was quiet.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Belina said. “Oh, Wissa, it’s going to be great fun!”
The gypsy trucker returned in half an hour, leading a procession of three robotic cargo trundlers. They were stacked with boxed goods, and he had his arms full of Arctic clothes. He stopped when he heard the noise of the van’s rotars, looked up, startled.
The long vehicle fluttered at full power, blades beating so hard they were completely invisible. All the power was being used in a verticle maneuver while the horizontal mechanisms were braked. It hovered ten feet off the black beltroad.
“What the devil’s this?” the driver asked, dropping the clothes he carried, scurrying to the edge of the pedestrian walkway that looked down on the arrivals avenue.
The walk was a good eight feet above the bottom of the road. The truck hovered only two feet above him. He stood on his toes and tried to see through the windows. There did not appear to be anyone driving.