Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

David Songrel was a family man. Snow had observed him lifting a child high in the air while a woman looked on from the background, just before the door to his apartments closed. Snow wondered why Aleen wanted him dead. As the owner of the water station, she had much power here but little over the proctors who enforced planetary law, not her law. Perhaps she had been involved in illegalities of which Songrel had become aware. No matter, for the present. He rapped on the door and when Songrel opened it he stuck the pistol in his face and walked him back into the apartment, closing the door behind him with his stump.

“Daddy!” the little girl yelled, but the mother caught hold of her before she rushed forward. Songrel had his hands in the air, his eyes not leaving the pistol. Shock there, knowledge.

“Why,” said Snow, “does the Androche want you dead?”

“You’re... the albino.”

“Answer the question please.”

Songrel glanced at his wife and daughter before he replied, “She is a collector of antiquities.”

“Why the necessity for your death?”

“She has killed to get what she wants. I have evidence. We intend to arrest her soon.”

Snow nodded then holstered his pistol. “I thought it would be something like that. She had two proctors come for me you know.”

Songrel lowered his hands, but kept them well away from the stun gun hooked on his belt.

“As Androche she does have the right to some use of the proctors. It is our duty to guard her and her property. She does not have freedom to commit crime. Why didn’t you kill me? They say you have killed many.”

Snow looked to Songrel’s wife and child. “My reputation precedes me,” he said, and stepped past Songrel to drop onto a comfortable looking sofa. “But the stories are in error. I have killed no one who has not first tried to kill me... well, mostly.”

Songrel looked to his wife. “It’s Tamtha’s bedtime.”

His wife nodded and took the child from the room. Snow noted the little girl’s fascinated stare. He was quite used to such. Songrel sat himself in an armchair opposite Snow.

“A nice family you have.”

“Yes... will you testify against the Androche?”

“You can have my testimony recorded under seal, but I cannot stay for a trial. If I was to stay this place would be crawling with Andronache killers in no time. I might not survive that.”

Songrel nodded. “Why did you come here if it was not your intention to kill me?” he asked, a trifle anxiously.

“I want you to play dead while I go back and see the Androche.”

Songrel’s expression hardened. “You want to collect your reward.”

“Yes, but my reward is not money, it is information. The Androche knows why the Merchant Baris has a reward out for my death. It is a subject I am understandably curious about.”

Songrel interlaced his fingers in his lap and stared down at them for a moment, when he looked up, he said, “The reward is for your stasis-preserved testicles. Perhaps like Aleen he is a collector, but that is beside the point. I will play dead for you but when you go to see Aleen, I want you to carry a virtual recorder.”

Snow nodded once.

Songrel stood up and walked to a wall cupboard. He returned with a holocorder that he rested on the table and turned on. “Now, your statement.”

* * *

“He is dead,” said Aleen, a smile on her face.

“Yes,” said Snow, dropping Songrel’s identity tag on the table. “Yet I get the impression you knew before I came here.”

Aleen went to the drinks cabinet and poured Snow a whisky. She brought it over to him. “I have friends amongst the proctors. As soon as his wife called in the killing – she was hysterical apparently – they informed me.”

“Why did you want him killed?”

“That is none of your concern. Drink your whisky and I will get you the promised information.”

Aleen turned away from him and moved to a computer console elegantly concealed in Louis XIV table. Snow had the whisky to his lips just as his suspicious nature took over. Why was it necessary to get the information from the computer? She could just tell him. Why had she not poured a drink for herself? He placed the drink down on a table, unsampled. Aleen looked up, a dead smile on her face, and as her hand came up over the console Snow dived to one side. On the wall behind him a picture blackened then flared into oily flames. He came up on one knee and fired once. She slammed back out of her chair onto the floor, her face burning like the picture.