Mboya was waiting for the Silicon Kid in the groundcar as the slidewalk took him away from the Prophet's domicile. He climbed in, still assimilating what he had heard, and a moment later Mboya was driving him back toward Minuet. “So how did it go?”
“I'm working for her,” answered the Kid.
A humorless smile crossed Mboya's face. “Remind me never to turn my back on you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” demanded the Kid.
“I know why you came here and who sent you,” said Mboya. “You sold him out, Judas.”
“I plan to get a hell of a lot more than thirty pieces of silver,” said the Kid. “Besides, he hasn't got a chance. You know that.”
“That doesn't make any difference,” replied Mboya. “When you make a commitment, you're supposed to keep it.”
“Why don't you let me worry about that?” said the Kid angrily.
“What if you decide the Anointed One is more powerful than the Prophet?” said Mboya. “You going to change sides again?”
“He'd have to be something awfully special to be more powerful than her.”
“Maybe he is. He's supposed to have more than a hundred million followers who all but worship him.”
“He's just a Man,” said the Kid. “She's something ... well, more.”
Mboya drove in silence for a few moments, passing the same farms they had driven by on the way out. As they reached Minuet, he spoke again. “I hope you have to go up against him.”
“The Anointed One?” asked the Kid.
Mboya shook his head. “The Iceman.”
“He's a fat old man,” said the Kid. “I can take him.”
“A lot of people have thought they could take him,” said Mboya. “But he's still here. Even the Prophet couldn't kill him.”
“He won't pose any problem at all,” said the Kid. “Hell, he still thinks I'm on his side.”
Mboya smiled. “Kid, he never thought you were on his side.”
“How the hell do you know what he thinks?” demanded the Kid. “You've never ever met him.”
“He's lived seventy-odd years on the Inner Frontier,” answered Mboya easily. “You don't get that old out here by being stupid.”
“Are you saying I'm stupid?” asked the Kid heatedly.
“If you think you can fool the Iceman or take him out, you are,” responded Mboya. “Even if he didn't know you, he knows her. He knows what she can do, how she can influence people and events.”
“So who's going to kill him? You?”
“When the time comes,” answered Mboya.
“What makes you better able to than me?”
“I respect him,” said Mboya. “I won't make any careless or foolish mistakes.”
“And you think I will?”
“It's a possibility.” Mboya paused. “You know that he's gone up against the Prophet twice and lived to tell about it, and yet you keep describing him as a fat old man who poses no threat to you.”
“That's right.”
“You still don't see it, do you?”
“See what?” asked the Kid irritably.
“You don't think he survived his meetings with the Prophet because he was faster than you, do you? What difference do physical attributes make when she knows what you're going to do before you yourself do?” Mboya paused again. “He survived because of his brain, not because of his gun. And he'll beat you the same way.”
“I've heard enough of this crap!” said the Kid. “I can take him and you together without drawing a deep breath—and don't you forget it!”
“Can you take the Gravedancer, too?” asked Mboya.
“What do you know about him?”
“I've researched you thoroughly, Kid. I know every place you've been since you left Greycloud, and who you've been with.”
“Bully for you,” said the Kid sullenly.
“By the way, that wasn't a rhetorical question. Can you take the Gravedancer?”
“Why?”
“Because he's working for the Anointed One now,” answered Mboya. “That means sooner or later one of us is going to have to go up against him.”
“I can take anybody,” said the Kid confidently.
“Once you learn to shoot straight,” said Mboya sardonically.
“Anybody,” repeated the Kid.
“Even men who know your secret?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that the Iceman and the Gravedancer both know that whatever you are, you owe it to those implanted chips. If they know they're going to go up against you, don't you think they'll find some way to negate them?”
“There's no way it can be done,” answered the Kid. “These are biochips. I'm their energy source. There's no field you can create that can make them stop functioning.”
“I don't know about that,” said Mboya.
“I do.”
“Maybe ... but just about the time you tell a Man he can't do something—whether it's climb down from the trees, or cross an ocean, or fly a starship, or negate a biochip—he usually finds a way to do just that. We're a very successful race of lawbreakers: we've broken all the laws of gravity, and Einstein, and—”
“Spare me the lecture,” said the Kid. “These chips will keep functioning until I'm dead.”
“Well, I wish them a long and happy life,” said Mboya, pulling up to the Kid's hotel.
“You know,” said the Kid, as he got out of the groundcar and turned to face Mboya, “before you worry about the Iceman or the Gravedancer, you've got a bigger problem.”
“Oh?”
“You're going to have to face me.”
“Why?” asked Mboya.
“She can't have two enforcers,” said the Kid. “I'm going to have to prove to her that I'm the best. There's only one way to do that.”
“We can do it right here and now, if you're dead set on it,” said Mboya with no show of fear or surprise.
The Kid shook his head. “I'll choose the place and time.”
“What makes you think I'll let you?”
The Kid grinned. “Because you're an honorable man.”
He turned on his heel and walked into the lobby of the Manor House. He picked up a newstape, took it to his room, watched its headlines flash by with disinterest, and then walked over to a mirror, where he studied himself moodily.
His clothes were flashy and stylish, but he decided they needed to make more of a statement, become an identifiable trademark. It was true that the Iceman dressed for comfort, but Lomax always wore black, and the holos he had seen of Father Christmas always showed him in a modified red-and-white Santa Claus outfit, with a pair of sonic pistols suspended from a shining black patent leather belt.
But what kind of outfit would instantly label him as the Silicon Kid? A shirt with chips sewn into it? He shook his head; too garish. Something with his “S.K.” initials monogrammed onto it? He quickly rejected the notion as amateurish. Then what?
He could simply dress as he had been dressing, but what was the use of being the Silicon Kid if people didn't know it? That was the problem with the Iceman and Mboya; they had the credentials, but they lacked a certain style. And if he was going to be the Prophet's right-hand man—at least until he figured out how to get rid of her—he wanted people to know him the instant he landed on a planet, the moment he entered a town or a room.
Perhaps some weapon that was uniquely his own? After all, with his implants, he could handle any weapon with such speed and dexterity that no one alive could match him, so why be limited to laser, sonic or projectile weapons?
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He would create a weapon of a type that no one else possessed, one that would forever be his trademark. And if it was one that could kill the Prophet when the proper time came, so much the better.
Excited, he walked over to the computer on his desk, activated it, and had it tie into tiny Minuet library, accessing information on the various types of weapons currently in use. He found nothing very useful there, and was considering accessing a larger library on a nearby world when the computer's screen went blank.
“What's wrong?” he demanded.
“I have an incoming message,” answered the computer in a mechanical voice.
“All right, let's see it.”
It was from a young woman who had lost the use of her left arm in an accident, and wondered if he could create a chip that would restore the arm to its former state.
“Tell her that if the nerves have been damaged, she'd be better off with a prosthetic arm. If it's something else, have her doctor forward her records to me.”
“Working...” said the computer.
“Wait a minute!” he said suddenly.
“Operation suspended.”
He'd already made contact with the Prophet, so why bother with the facade?
“Just tell her that I'm sorry, but I can't help her.”
“Working ... done.”
“Deactivate.”
The computer went dead, and an instant later the vidphone came to life.
“Yeah?” said the Kid, activating it.
The holographic image of Penelope Bailey hovered above the machine.
“I see my two guard dogs have been growling at one another,” she said in amused tones.
“I thought he was enough of a man not to go running to you for help,” said the Kid contemptuously.
“He is in my employ, as are you,” she said serenely. “My employees have no secrets from me.”
“Send him on his way,” said the Kid.
“Why?”
“You don't need him. You've got me now.”
“Poor, futile little Man, thrashing about in the darkness, dreaming of triumph and glory,” said Penelope. “How can you have any idea what I need?”
“You didn't hire him for his personality,” answered the Kid. “You hired him because he's The Black Death.” He paused. “Well, you've got someone better working for you now.”
“Better at what?” she asked with a smile. “Do you really think I need you to do my killing for me?”
“You didn't seem to have any objection to letting him do it last night,” noted the Kid.
“He merely saved me the bother of dispatching three unpleasant individuals. I was never in any physical danger from them.”
“Come on, lady,” he said. “If you don't need killers, what are men like Mboya and me doing on your payroll?”
“Great forces have been set in motion,” she answered, “forces far beyond your ability to fathom. Each of you has a role to play, and each of you will play it.”
“What role?”
“You will learn your destiny in the fullness of time.”
“Have I got a destiny?”
“Most assuredly,” she replied. “That is why I let you live.”
“What were you going to do—have Mboya gun me down on the way out if you decided you didn't want to hire me?”
“You still don't understand what you are dealing with, do you?” she said. “In a million times a million futures, you will live out the day, Neil Cayman. But you are a very high-strung young man, and in a tiny handful of the futures I can foresee, you will die of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. And in one future, you will have an intimation of your death. That future will occur when I do this.” And with that, she walked to her window wall and placed both hands against it, fingers splayed wide, as she looked out on her pond.
The Kid felt a sudden pain flash through his head. He yelled incoherently, then dropped to one knee. The pain became worse, more intense than any he had ever known, and he curled into a fetal ball, his fists pressed against his temples.
And then, suddenly, the pain was gone. It took him a full minute to regain his feet and focus his eyes, and he saw Penelope's image smiling at him a from a few inches over the vidphone.
“Do you begin to comprehend?” she asked serenely.
“How the hell did you do that from thirty miles away?” he muttered.
“You have seen what I did to Hades, and yet you wonder at my abilities? Perhaps The Black Death was correct; perhaps you are not bright enough to be useful to me.”
“He told you that?” demanded the Kid.
“Certainly,” she replied. “He has no secrets from me.”
“Well, if I'm too dumb to work for you, maybe I'll just go back to the Iceman!” he snapped.
For just the merest fraction of a second he thought he finally detected an emotion on her face—terror, perhaps, or hatred, or possibly simply contempt—but then it vanished and she focused her gaze on him again.
“That would not be very wise, Neil Cayman,” she said. “You would be dead before you left the planet.” She paused. “You have given your allegiance to me. Only I can return it to you; you may not take it back.” She smiled an emotionless smile. “Or perhaps you would like another demonstration of my power.”
“No,” he said. “You win.” For the moment, he added mentally.
“You are high-spirited, just like a young animal,” she said. “I do not hold that against you. In fact, I find it admirable. But like any other young animal, you must be trained. Your spirit must be directed. Then you will begin to earn your keep.”
“I'm no animal,” said the Kid.
“You are all animals,” she said, and broke the connection.