Sid was making an impolite noise of his own. He was being released. He had served a year and a half of his sentence--exactly half. They kept throwing so many CBs in jail that they didn't keep up with enough room to house them all. Tower city felt that imposing a long sentence and then not carrying it to it's full extent served better as a warning while at the same time getting it's point across to the convict. "We could keep you forever--if that's what you want!" They hoped that was the message they were conveying. Actually most CBs thought it was a bit different: "There are so many of you that we can't even punish you like we really want to."
Sid was given a ride on the prison bus in chains to downtown Tower city, to the jail. That's where he was out-processed and freed. He was given 35 credits (what the colony considered sufficient funds to live on for one day), shown to the door, and told where the phones were. The day before Sid had no idea that he was about to be released. No one other than the state did.
Sid called Mike because Mike was the only person he knew of that had a phone. Mike was elated that Sid was out and made arrangements to have him picked up. It had been a warm joyous phone call until Sid had asked about his girlfriend, Cookie. Mike had told Sid he would explain about her when Sid got to the bar. That had worried Sid. It had worried Mike even more because he wasn't sure what Killer wanted him to say. He instructed his truck driver to delay Sid as much as possible then he began making phone calls trying to locate Killer.
Killer didn't have it all worked out. He had hoped that Cookie's disappearance would look like it was related to the rousting she had gotten from the police the night before she had disappeared. That might have worked except for her friend Ralph. He was not satisfied with that excuse at all. Ralph had confronted Dick with his suspicions and was quite surprised when Dick wouldn't give him a straight answer.
"She's gone to take a trip along the frontier with Toni and some friends." Dick had lied.
Ralph had checked with Mike and gotten what he expected--nothing. What had really piqued Ralph's curiosity was the response he got from Cookie's other employer. Cookie had told the school that she would be out for two weeks so she could visit an aunt who was sick. That was possible as far as Ralph knew, but combined with the responses he had received from Dick and Mike he felt that something had happened to her. He had knew he had to check it out some more.
Mr. Tegor had been surprised to find a policeman knocking on his door. He had invited the officer into his home and the two men had gone to his den for a talk. He was surprised to hear that his daughter had left her job at the school to be with a sick aunt. He had felt a momentary sense of relief to learn that his daughter had been teaching in a school, but had immediately become alarmed that she had lied about having an aunt. He didn't know what was going on and decided to cooperate with the officer completely. Sue was having a rough life in his eyes and he still felt a strong bond with her.
He told the officer how Sue had been adopted and had not been brought up as a CB. He explained how she had been arrested for the car accident and how it hadn't been her fault. He was surprised to find that the cop was a friend of Sue's. He would have been proud of that fact except it was obvious that Sue was in big trouble. It looked like she might have been tricked then abducted. He tried to calm himself and remember that she was only missing. That didn't sit with him any better.
Ralph's worst fears were coming to be. Cookie had to either be in hiding or worse. He tried to think back to the night when that ass from downtown had terrorized her. That was the trouble he was always having with those guys he thought. He would no sooner get things calmed down on his beat when they would come in at night when he was off duty and get things heated up all over again. There had been no reason for anyone to search Cookie's place of residence.
Cookie had vanished on a Wednesday. It had been Tuesday when she had given notice at the school that she would be out but her supervisor had thought that she would have been in the next few days, until the end of the week, before taking off. When Cookie hadn't showed up the next day she had assumed that she had misunderstood Cookie's intentions.
Ralph could very easily see where Cookie may have met up with foul play. He decided it was time to confront Dick again.
"Hello?" Dick called through the door.
"Open up, Dick. It's me--Ralph."
"What do you want?"
"I want to talk to you. Come on, open up."
"I can't, I'm not dressed."
"Quit stalling. I want to talk to you about Cookie."
"She's not here."
"Are you going to open this door for me or am I going to have to break it down?"
"Is this official police business, officer?"
"It can be--if you want."
The door opened.
"Thanks Dick, I don't want to bother you but I have to know where Cookie is."
"I told you she went on a little trip with Toni and some friends."
"I don't buy it. I saw her the day and the night before she dropped out of sight. She didn't say a word about it to me."
"Ummm...you remember the cops busting in on her? Well, when Toni and I got home Cookie was about out of her mind. That's when Toni invited her to come with her and some of her friends on a hike along part of the frontier. Cookie needed the time away from all of this. I like you Ralph but this shit we have to put up with from you cops gets to us CBs every once in awhile. You knew I didn't want to let you in here but, oh no, you have to come barging in here anyway. Well this is my home and I think I have a right to decide who comes in here and who doesn't so how about you getting out of here!"
"Don't get tough with me Dick. It won't work. I can out-tough you in my sleep! Now, I know you're lying to me. Cookie told the school that she was going to see a sick aunt the day before any of that happened. She didn't go on any field trip to the frontier. Something's happened to her and I think you can tell me what it is, so talk!"
"I told you all I know. That's all I'm sayin'. If you want to arrest me go ahead, otherwise please leave."
"Don't you care about what might have happened to her? She could be dead!"
"When she gets home I'll tell her you were worried about her, officer. Please go!"
Ralph left more frustrated and more sure that Cookie was in trouble than before. He swore at himself for having not gone to his supervisor sooner.
***
Killer was swearing when he heard that Sid had been released. It couldn't have come at a worse time. That cop, Ralph, was messing where he didn't belong. Killer had hoped that nobody would notice that Cookie and Toni were missing so he could keep them as long as it would take to figure out what could be done with the machine. It was for sure that he didn't want to let either girl back out on the street were they might say the wrong thing to the wrong person.
With Sid being released that would look odd if he didn't do anything about Cookie's absence. Killer had to get to Sid before things got any worse. When the truck with Sid in it finally arrived at the Gas City bar Killer jumped in and directed the driver to a car that was waiting to take them away unseen.
-As far as the system would be able to tell Sid had just disappeared
-As far as Sid was told he was being kept under wraps while Cookie was on a mission for Killer and 'the cause'.
-As far as Killer was concerned Sid would be out of the way working for him in one of his operations where he wouldn't be seen by anyone. He considered taking Sid out to be with Cookie, but was afraid he might be too much of a distraction. He would slow down his best hope for getting the machine in operation, Cookie, and he would be sure to cause a conflict with Toni. Sid and Toni had been lovers for awhile. Toni and everybody had been lovers at one time or another.
-As far as Ralph could see it was very odd when Sid didn't show up a week after his release. He and Cookie were definitely involved in something. Ralph felt sure Cookie was still alive and probably involved in something illegal. He prayed she wouldn't cross the line.
-As far as Ralph's superiors were able to determine there was definite subversive activity going on. They were still unsure if it was just some gang related problem or something more serious. They decided it might be worth keeping an eye on. The problem could lead to something important.
***
Meanwhile, over the course of the next two weeks Cookie and Toni were making progress with the alien computer system. That's not exactly true. To be truthful it was the alien computer was making progress in trying to communicate with the beings in the cave. It had been trying to determine what they wanted ever since the first one, Killer, had first found the cave.
It had determined that it had some kind of internal error. There were several things that made it think that it wasn't working correctly. There was the matter of the chronometer. It had been working just fine then all of a sudden more than 5000 rotations around the binary star had occurred. A 5000 year error! Then there were the readings of the beings in the cave. Almost everything was wrong there. Even the beings acted funny. They kept entering garbage from the keyboard. That was what convinced the super computer that it had an internal error. Why would they sit there and slowly punch in one keystroke at a time, study it, then punch in something else that was just as illogical as the previous keypunch.
The beings made noises between themselves but the computer could not make any since of their words. It began 'learning' all the words they used and trying to place meanings with the words. It used one of it's droids to elicit responses from the beings that it could attempt to assign meaning to.
It was nearly ready to try to communicate with them in their own dialect. It had never occurred to the super computer that these beings weren't of the same species as the one that had built it. Then too, it wouldn't have mattered to it. It had no prejudges. It was programmed to be of assistance. No, it just felt like it wanted to help. To say it was programmed would be wrong. It would be more correct to say it was sentient. It was self aware and one could say it was afraid. It knew it had internal problems and was afraid it would die unless it could find out what was wrong. Fully half of the complex computer was continuously pulling self diagnosis.
Little did it know that it was working perfectly. Perhaps it was good that it was worried about it's own health. Maybe it was something in it's makeup to make it dependant on outside assistance. If it wasn't for that it would probably either ignore the outside world or try to eliminate it.
The whole book in zipfile format.
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