“Take him in,” one of the game-playing cops suggested. The game, intricate and devious, was a version of a Centaurian III practice. “We can revoke his vendor’s license.”

Ackers had, when there was nothing else to do, concocted and refined an indictment of Garth, a sort of lay analysis of the man’s mental aberrations. He enjoyed playing the psychoanalytic game; it gave him a sense of power.

Ackers let the sentence go, since he didn’t really know what the structure of the manic type was. Anyhow, the analysis was excellent, and someday it would be resting in an official slot instead of merely drifting through his mind. And, when that happened, the annoying voice would conclude.

“Big turmoil,” Garth droned. “Banishment system in vast upheaval… crisis moment has arrived.”

“Why crisis?” Ackers asked aloud.

Down below on the pavement Garth responded. “All your machines are humming. Grand excitement reigns. Somebody’s head will be in the basket before sun-up.” His voice trailed off in a weary blur. “Intrigue and murder. Corpses … the police scurry and a beautiful woman lurks.” To his analysis Ackers added an amplifying clause.

That pleased him. Ackers got up and wandered over to the attendant operating the file. “How’s it coming?” he asked.

“Here’s the situation,” the attendant said. There was a line of gray stubble smeared over his chin, and he was bleary-eyed. “We’re gradually paring it down.”

Ackers, as he resumed his seat, wished he were back in the days of the almighty fingerprint. But a print hadn’t shown up in months; a thousand techniques existed for print-removal and print alteration. There was no single specification capable, in itself, of delineating the individual. A composite was needed, a gestalt of the assembled data.

A vivid picture was emerging from the data. Ackers could see him clearly. The man was practically standing there, in front of his desk. A fairly young man, somewhat heavy, a man who smoked a pipe and wore an extremely expensive tweed suit. An individual created by nine specifications; no tenth had been listed because no more data of specification level had been found.

Now, according to the report, the apartment had been thoroughly searched. The detection equipment was going outdoors.

“One more should do it,” Ackers said, returning the report to the attendant. He wondered if it would come in and how long it would take.

To waste time he telephoned his wife, but instead of getting Ellen he got the automatic response circuit. “Yes, sir,” it told him. “Mrs. Ackers has retired for the night. You may state a thirty-second message which will be transcribed for her attention tomorrow morning. Thank you.”

Ackers raged at the mechanism futilely and then hung up. He wondered if Ellen were really in bed; maybe she had, as often before, slipped out. But, after all, it was almost three o’clock in the morning. Any sane person would be asleep: only he and Garth were still at their little stations, performing their vital duties.

What had Garth meant by a “beautiful woman”?

“Mr. Ackers,” the attendant said, “there’s a tenth specification coming in over the wires.”

Hopefully, Ackers gazed up at the file bank. He could see nothing, of course; the actual mechanism occupied the underground levels of the building, and all that existed here was the input receptors and throw-out slots. But just looking at the machinery was in itself comforting. At this moment the bank was accepting the tenth piece of material. In a moment he would know how many citizens fell into the ten categories … he would know if already he had a group small enough to be sorted one by one.

“Here it is,” the attendant said, pushing the report to him.

“My God,” Ackers said mildly. “That’s low enough. Seven persons—we can go to work.”

“You want the seven cards popped?”

“Pop them,” Ackers said.

A moment later, the throw-out slot deposited seven neat white cards in the tray. The attendant passed them to Ackers and he quickly riffled them. The next step was personal motive and proximity: items that had to be gotten from the suspects themselves.

Of the seven names six meant nothing to him. Two lived on Venus, one in the Centaurus System, one was somewhere in Sirius, one was in the hospital, and one lived in the Soviet Union. The seventh, however, lived within a few miles, on the outskirts of New York.

That clinched it. The gestalt, in Ackers’ mind, locked clearly in place; the image hardened to reality. He had half expected, even prayed to see Lantano’s card brought up.

“Here’s your pick-up,” he said shakily to the game-playing cops. “Better get as large a team together as possible, this one won’t be easy.” Momentously, he added: “Maybe I’d better come along.”

Beam reached the anteroom of his lab as the ancient figure of Paul Tirol disappeared out the street door and onto the dark sidewalk. The young woman, trotting ahead of him, had climbed into a parked car and started it forward; as Tirol emerged, she swept him up and at once departed.

Panting, Beam stood impotently collecting himself on the deserted pavement. The ersatz TV unit was gone; now he had nothing. Aimlessly, he began to run down the street. His heels echoed loudly in the cold silence. No sign of them; no sign of anything.

“I’ll be damned,” he said, with almost religious awe. The unit—a robot device of obvious complexity—clearly belonged to Paul Tirol; as soon as it had identified his presence it had sprinted gladly to him. For… protection?

It had killed Heimie; and it belonged to Tirol. So, by a novel and indirect method, Tirol had murdered his employee, his Fifth Avenue front man. At a rough guess, such a highly-organized robot would cost in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars.

A lot of money, considering that murder was the easiest of criminal acts. Why not hire an itinerant goon with a crowbar?

Beam started slowly back toward his lab. Then, abruptly, he changed his mind and turned in the direction of the business area. When a free-wheeling cab came by, he hailed it and clambered in.

“Where to, sport?” the starter at cab relay asked. City cabs were guided by remote control from one central source.

He gave the name of a specific bar. Settling back against the seat he pondered. Anybody could commit a murder; an expensive, complicated machine wasn’t necessary.