My eyes weren’t nude, however. The scout uniform that I wore had lovely infrared scanners, pattern detectors and Dopplers that showed swirls and eddies in the way air gusted across the room. I was no expert at using all that stuff, but I wasn’t exactly clueless, either. I learned as I searched. Anyway, it was obvious which wall to go to.

The seismic anomalies emanated from somewhere around here.

I didn’t expect to find any obvious signs of a tunneling operation, but the place was actually spotless. Banks of tall, locked cabinets covered the wall in question, with no sign of anything behind them but native stone.

Which cupboard should this little doggie try? I pondered. Even if I choose correctly, how do I get through? And what defenses might lie on the other side?

Instrument readings didn’t show much difference from one cabinet to the next. No swirls of cold, subterranean air leaking from the other side. No telltale heat signatures.

Maharal would’ve made sure that routine security patrols saw nothing to raise suspicions. Even in his arrogance, did the Professor imagine he could take on PEZ and the entire United States of America? Concealment was Yosil’s only friend. No wonder he worked so hard at developing the skill.

I fingered the small sidearm that came with the scout uniform — a laser that could be adjusted into a tool for either a machinist or a sniper. Cutting through the locks would be no problem … and then through the backing of each cabinet till I struck a hidden passageway — or else learned the flaw in all my fancy reasoning.

What about sensors or booby traps? Could I find a way through without alerting whoever lurked on the other side of Urraca Mesa?

You keep thinking and acting as if Maharal is still alive!

Any tunnel was probably dusty and unused, ever since the professor crashed and burned way back on Monday. His residual golems would’ve decayed soon after that, leaving a silent sanctuary, with no one left to defend its secrets.

Sounds logical. Are you sure enough to stake your life on it?

Even if Maharal was dead, Kaolin had proved himself active, inimical, and willing to do almost anything. What if the trillionaire was already there, waiting at the other side?

Another notion occurred to me as I stood contemplating my next move — a piece of advice Clara once offered:

“When in doubt, try not to think like the dumb hero of some silly movied.”

Charging into danger was one of those overused cinematic clichés, religiously adhered to by eight generations of brain-dead producers and directors. Another went: A hero must always assume that the authorities are evil, or useless, or bound to misunderstand. It helps keep the plot rolling if your protagonist never thinks of calling for help.

I had been operating under that assumption for two days. And, well, after all, the cops were after me! Officially as a “material witness,” but clearly I had been set up to be blamed for the sabotage attempt at Universal Kilns. Not to mention the fact that someone had tried to blow me up.

Twice!

Still, things were changing. The police and military were clearly upset about the missile attack on my home. Surely some of them were honest and competent enough to realize there were layers to this whole affair, running below surface appearances. What if I showed them how Maharal had hacked the system here at the base, abusing their trust and creating a back entrance for his personal use? It might help clear my name. There could even be a whistle-blower award!

Suppose I were to phone up my attorney. Have her call a meeting. Bring the base commandant together with a commissioner from the Human Protection Unit and a licensed Fair Witness, to make sure nothing can get hidden away … It would be a profound relief to tell all. The whole story, as far as I knew it. Just recount everything. Let battalions of professionals take over from there.

And yet, my gut churned at the thought. It wouldn’t feel right!

I was still running on a high of anger and combat hormones — nothing else could have sustained me across the last few days. Indignation is a drug that burns long and hot. And it can only be properly experienced in your real body.

Me against Beta. Me against Kaolin. Me against Maharal. Bad guys, all of them, each in his own brilliantly evil way. Didn’t their hatred make me the hero? Their equal?

That sardonic crack helped me step back.

It helped me decide what I had to do.

“A hero is someone who gets the job done, Albert,” Clara once said. “Bravely when necessary. Courage is an admirable last resort, for when intelligence fails.”

Okay, okay, I thought, feeling humility wash over me with a sense of cleansing relief.

A man’s got to know his limitations, and I’ve gone way beyond mine.

Hell, I’m not even a match for Beta! Kaolin and Maharal are clearly out of my league.

All right. Time to be a citizen. Let’s do it.

Already bracing for the inevitable long interrogation ahead, I reached for my borrowed chador-telephone and started to turn around -

— only to stagger back in surprise as a tall figure loomed toward me, out of the shadows!

The oversized humanoid shape emerged from around the corner of a nearby autokiln, lumbering at me with both arms outstretched.

The visor of the scout uniform flared with threat diagrams, covering the golem’s silhouette with flaring auras and juttering symbols that might have meant something to a trained soldier. But the garish flood of data only smothered me in clouds of confusion. I threw back the visor from my face -

— and was immediately struck by waves of odor. New-baked clay, rather sour. The harsh smell might have warned me, if I hadn’t been relying on borrowed army equipment, instead of my own senses.

“Stop!” I warned, dropping the chador, which got tangled on the holster of my sidearm. Finally pulling the laser free, I frantically tried to find the safety switch. My wounded thumb, slippery with sweat, worked badly and the gloves didn’t help.

“Don’t come any closer. I’ll shoot!”

The golem kept shambling forward, emitting a low groan. Something was wrong with it — perhaps faulty imprinting or too-rapid baking. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t slowing down or pausing for rational discussion!

I faced a sudden choice.

Try to dodge. Or shoot. You can’t do both.

The safety clicked. The pistol abruptly throbbed with reassuring power. I chose.

A hot beam tore through the golem, slicing off one arm, biting the torso.

It reacted with a roar, and charged. The heavy figure crashed into me as I threw up an arm.

Wrong choice.

Did you know, Albert, that the very first life forms may have been made of clay?”

Yosil’s damned ghost won’t stop talking. It just keeps yattering while the torment inflicted by his soul-stretching device gets worse by the hour. I yearn desperately to stifle his gray specter. Exorcise its unnatural haunting. Dispatch it to rejoin the maker it betrayed and destroyed, days ago.

Of course, that’s what it wants — my anger! To give me a focus. Pain will be a center for me to revolve around, while everything else crumbles.

“A Scotsman came up with the idea, Albert, almost a century ago, and it really was quite clever.

“By that time, biologists agreed that a rich soup of organic compounds must have formed on Earth, almost as soon as the planet cooled enough for liquid oceans. But what happened next? How did all those drifting amino acids and such get organized into tidy, self-replicating units? Cells, containing DNA and the machinery for reproduction, didn’t just happen! Something got them jump-started!