And they sat, and they watched.

“This is where my place I been stay long time,” said the gnome, staring across at the machine. They were now only a hundred feet above the floor of the cavern, and the computer rose up before them, filling their eyes.

Neil asked the gnome his name. “Fursday,” he said. “This Fursday, I me I get turn to joy.”

A life centralized around his love-partner. No name other than the name that told everyone he would go to Heaven on Thursday. Neil shuddered, but it was a trembling of expectation and desire. And it was there, sitting and remembering the first time, three years earlier…remembering the times since… inadequate, searching, fulfilling but not fulfilling the way this installation, this carnal machine could fulfill…he knew it… he felt it…his bones vibrated like tuning forks, his heart was pudding.

And it was there, sitting beside the gnome, that Mr. Robert Mossman found him.

He came down the ledge behind them, walking lightly, never dislodging a shard of limestone, hardly breathing, the pounder in his right hand. The pounder hit the brain with a laser beam that had the impact of a cannonball dropped from a great height. It could turn the inside of the victim's skull to gruel without marring the outside surface. It made for neat corpses. It was final. It was utterly illegal.

The thief knew there had been noise behind them in the tunnel; there had been movement in the arroyo.

He cursed Lady Effim's word of honor.

He said nothing as the killer came down on them. Mr. Robert Mossman stopped and aimed the weapon at Neil Leipzig's left eye.

“Hey!“ Fursday said, seeing the silent killer for the first time. “You aren't being to come down here! I'm me I told to bring him, this one down. Stop!”

Mr. Robert Mossman tracked the pen-point muzzle of the pounder through mere seconds of arc and squeezed the butt of the weapon. Light slashed across the space between them and hit the gnome with the impact of a slammed door. The recoil shuddered the killer; the little metal man was lifted and slung along the ledge. He fell flat onto his back, his human arm hanging over the edge. Neil froze for only a moment, then made a movement toward the gnome's weapon. He knew he would never make it. He could feel the pressure of Mr. Robert Mossman's palm squeezing the pounder. He anticipated the slam of nova heat in his brain and his eyes filled with light.

But it didn't come. He could not turn around. He knew the killer was savoring the moment. And in that moment, Neil Leipzig heard the rush of displaced air, the most terrible scream in the world, and the sounds of a struggle.

He turned in time to see the falcon tear away half the killer's face and, pinions beating a blurred breaststroke against the air, the falcon bore Mr. Robert Mossman over backward.

The killer fell screaming to the rocks below. The falcon skimmed above him, observing, making note of finality, and when it was satisfied that its prey was dead, it dove, ripped loose a piece of meat, and arced back up into the air, banking and turning on a wingtip, and flew to rest on the Catman's shoulder.

The smoldering ember eyes of the two cheetahs stared back at the thief.

The Catman came down the sloping ledge and helped his son to his feet. “Come home now,” he said.

Neil Leipzig looked at his father, the lines of tension and sadness and weariness imprinted like circuits across the face. He moved a step closer and then he had his arms around the black man. They stood that way for seconds, and then the Catman's arms came up and circled the thief's back. They stood silently, holding each other.

When they separated, Neil was able to speak. “You didn't stay home, you followed me; all the way from the Five?”

The Catman nodded.

“But how?”

“You to the meeting, then him after you. Come home.”

“Dad, it isn't your onshift, you can get yourself in a bad way. Go now, before anyone sees you.” The single dead eye of the gnome stared up at the hidden roof of the cavern. Neil thought of metal surfaces. His palms were wet. The air sparkled with scintillance; he stopped it.

“You won't come back with me?”

“I can't. Please, Dad.”

“You've seen what this is like. You're my son. I can't let you do it.”

“Dad, go away. Please! I know what I'm doing.”

“Neil.”

“Please, Dad! I'm begging you. Go away.”

“And nothing up there matters more than this?”

“You're not turned away? It doesn't make you sick? Not even here, not even seeing this, not even here will you make a stand? My God, Dad, can't you see you're more destroyed than I'll ever be, no matter what I do?”

“Make a stand? I'm here, aren't I?”

“Go away!” Then, trying to hurt him because he did not want him hurt, he said, “Your wife is waiting for you.”

“Stop it, Neil. She was your mother once.”

“The once and never mother to the pervert thief. And you, her consort. Lovely. You want me to come back to that? I won't let my eyes see it again. Not ever.”

“How long have you been-”

“How long have I been like this?” He waved an arm at the great machine. “Three years.”

“But there was Joice, we thought, your mother and I thought.”

“It didn't work. It wasn't enough.”

“Neil, please, it's not for you. It's-”

“It's what, Dad, it's what? Perverted? Nauseating? Destructive? Pointless? I could apply them all to the way you live with her?”

“Will they come up here after us?” He nodded toward the ledges of cave dwellings and the people moving about them.

“I don't think so, I don't know, but I don't think so. Everything was arranged. I don't know why that one-” and he indicated the body of Mr. Robert Mossman below, “-I don't know why he came after me. But that doesn't matter. Go back. Get out of here. Your promotion, your job, it's almost time for the permutations, God knows that bitch won't give you a moment's peace if she doesn't get rejuvenated. You're offshift, Dad! You've never even bent a reg before…please get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”

“You don't understand her.”

“I don't want to understand her. I've lived with her for twenty-eight years.”

“You won't come back with me?”

“No.”

“Then let me stay.”

The cheetahs closed their eyes and dropped their heads onto their paws. The falcon shrugged and ruffled itself.

“You're out of your mind. Do you know what I'm here for…of course you know…go home!”

So they walked down past the still body of the little metal and flesh gnome, down the ledge, down to the floor of the great cavern, the thief, the policeman and the animals padding along behind. They paused at the body of Mr. Robert Mossman and Neil Leipzig, to make certain he knew what he was walking into, took the killer's communication phone from his ring finger, called Lady Effim, and told her what had happened. She said, “I apologize, Neil. My companions are, how can I put it meaningfully, devoted to me. Mr. Mossman was very much on his own. I regret his death, but I regret even more that this has caused you to doubt my word. You have my assurance everything was ordered correctly for your arrival. You won't be troubled again. And again, I ask your pardon.” He turned her off and he went with his father to the village of the computer.

“For the last time: will you leave now? I don't want you to see this.”

“I'll stay. I'll be right over here. Perhaps later…”

“No. Even if I go back, I'll only come here again. I know what I need.”

“I'll have to keep tracking you.”

“That's your job.”

The thief held a tiny inhalation tube filled with soft, feathery yellow dust. He had received it from the hand of the cyborg woman who ran the computer's village. It was called The Dust, and spoken of reverently. It was much finer and looked more potent than any Dust Neil Leipzig had ever used. He knew what was going to happen, and could only guess at the intensity of the experience.