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Four places had been set at the kitchen end of the table -- with the heavy
blue ware and bone-
handled utensils.
Adequate preparations! Hellstrom sneered at himself. Not superb and sure,
but adequate.
The closer to the hour of Peruge's arrival, the more Hellstrom's earlier
elation had worn thin and, now, Peruge was late.
Mimeca was helping in the kitchen. From time to time, Hellstrom glimpsed her
through the glass inset in the door. She was enough like Fancy to be a gene
sister, but Mimeca was from a parallel breeding strain, not the FANCY line.
There was something about that dark hair and pale, faintly rosy skin that had
linked itself genetically to other characteristics sought by the Hive: high
fertility, independence of imagination, drive to succeed, Hive loyalty,
intelligence . . .
Hellstrom glanced at the old-fashioned pendulum clock beside the door to the
kitchen. A quarter to twelve and still no sign of Peruge. Why would he be
late? He'd not been late before. What if he had decided not to come, but to
take some other action? Could they already have discovered something
incriminating about that damned bicycle? Peruge was perfectly capable of
showing up with the FBI. But with Mimeca playing the role of Fancy, they
might yet confound the hunters.
Fingerprints would not match. She had not been bred recently, and that could
be proved by
medical examination. He would insist on an Outside medical examination. That
would serve the double purpose of getting every one of the intruders away from
here.
He heard the outer door to the front hall open.
Could that be Peruge at last?
Hellstrom swiveled, strode through the archway into the living room with all
of its early twentieth-
century furnishings and carefully maintained musty smells. As quickly as he
went, he was only halfway across the living room when a stranger entered two
steps ahead of Saldo. The stranger was a diminutive male, an inch or so
shorter than Saldo, with windblown brown hair and a cautiously reserved manner
behind the eyes. There were dark lines around his eyes and deep creases in
his forehead. He appeared to be in his early twenties except for the lines,
but Hellstrom had sometimes found age difficult to determine with small
Outsiders. The stranger wore tan work pants, heavy boots, a white turtleneck
shirt of some light fabric that allowed reddish chest hairs to poke through.
A brown buckram jacket with slash pockets had been pulled over this. The
right-side pocket bulged as though it concealed a gun. Pale yellow grass
seeds could be seen sticking in his trouser cuffs.
He stopped short when he saw Hellstrom and barked, "You're Hellstrom?"
Saldo, a pace behind the stranger, flashed a warning signal in Hive-sign.
Hellstrom felt his heartbeat quicken at the demanding, official tone in the
man's voice, but before he could respond, Saldo spoke up. "Dr. Hellstrom,
this is Mr. Janvert, an associate of Mr. Peruge's.
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Mr. Janvert parked his car down by the old sawmill turn and walked in across
the meadow."
Janvert kept his face grim, his manner probing. Things had moved very rapidly
since Peruge's body had been discovered. There had been a necessary call to
headquarters and the Chief himself had come on the line as soon as the word
was passed. The Chief himself! Janvert could not suppress a puffed-up
feeling at that conversation. "Mr. Janvert, we are all depending on you.
This is the last straw!" Mr. Janvert, not Shorty. The Chief's instructions
had been brief, explicit, commanding.
Walked in? Hellstrom wondered. Reference to that route across the meadow
bothered him. That was the path Depeaux had taken.
Saldo moved up to stand on Janvert's right, again flashed a warning signal,
then said, "Mr. Janvert has shocking news. He tells me that Mr. Peruge is
dead."
The information momentarily stunned Hellstrom. He tried to assess this, his
mind racing. Fancy?
No, she'd said nothing about . . . He saw that some response was expected,
allowed his surprise to come out naturally. "Dead? But -- I was --"
Hellstrom gestured toward the dining room, "expecting -- I mean, we'd made
another date for -- what happened? How did he die?"
"We're still trying to find out," Janvert said. "Your deputy tried to prevent
us from taking the body, but we got a court order from a federal judge in
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