was anything left for you to save when you got here.'
'You fucking vampire!'
She looked at him, then away.
'Jesus Christ, you did something like that and I went along with it. Do you know how that hurts? I went along! I saw what was happening to you ... to a lesser degree I saw what was happening to the others, but I still went along with it. Because I was crazy. But of course you knew that, didn't you? You used me the same way you used Peter, but I wasn't even as smart as an old beagle dog, I guess, because you didn't even have to put me in the shed and stick one of those filthy stinking rotten cables in my head to do it. You just kept me oiled. You handed me a shovel and said, "Here you go, Gard, let's dig this baby up and stop the Dallas Police." Except you're the Dallas Police. And I went along with it.'
'Drink your beer,' Bobbi said. Her face was cold again.
'And if I don't?'
'Then I'm going to turn on this radio,' Bobbi said, 'and open a hole in reality, and send you ... somewhere.'
'To Altair-4?' Gardener asked. He kept his voice casual and tightened his mental grip
(shield-shield-shield-shield)
on that barrier in his mind. A slight frown creased Bobbi's forehead again, and Gardener felt those mental fingers probing again, digging, trying to find out what he knew, how much ... and how.
'You've been snooping a lot, haven't you?' Bobbi asked.
'Not until I realized how much you were lying to me.' And suddenly knew. He had gotten it in the shed without even knowing it.
'Most of the lies you told to yourself, Gard.'
'Oh? What about the kid that died? Or the one that's blind?'
'How do you kn -'
'The shed. That's where you go to get smart, isn't it?'
She said nothing.
'You sent them to get batteries. You killed one and blinded the other to get batteries. Jesus, Bobbi, how stupid could you get?'
'We're more intelligent than you could ever hope to -'
'Who's talking about intelligence?' he cried furiously. 'I'm talking about smarts! Common-fucking-sense! The CMP power lines run right behind your house! Why didn't you tap them?'
'Sure.' Bobbi smiled with her weird mouth. 'A really intelligent - pardon me, smart -idea. And the first, time some tech at the Augusta substation saw the power drain on his dials - '
'You're running almost everything on C, D, and double-A batteries,' Gard said. 'That's a trickle. A guy using house current to run a big band-saw would bang those needles harder.'
She looked momentarily confused. Seemed to listen - not to anyone else, but to her own interior voice. 'Batteries run on direct current, Gard. AC power lines wouldn't do us any g - '
He struck his temples with his fists and screamed: 'Haven't you ever seen a goddam DC converter? You can get them at Radio Shack for three bucks! Are you seriously trying to tell me you couldn't have made a simple DC converter when you can make your tractor fly and your typewriter run on telepathy? Are you - '
'Nobody thought of it!' she screamed suddenly.
There was a moment of silence. She looked stunned, as if at the sound of her own voice.
'Nobody thought of it,' he said. 'Right. So you sent those two kids, all ready to do or die for good old Haven, and now one them is dead and the other one's blind. It's shit, Bobbi. I don't care who or what has taken you over - part of you has to be inside someplace. Part of you has to realize that you people haven't been doing anything creative at all. Quite the opposite. You've been taking dumb-pills and congratulating each other on how wonderful it all is. I was the crazy one. I kept telling myself it would be okay even after I knew better. But it's the same old shit it always was. You can disintegrate people, you can teleport them to someplace for safekeeping, or burial, or whatever, but you're as dumb as a baby with a loaded Pistol.'
'I think you better shut up now, Gard.'
'You didn't think of it,' he said softly. Jesus, Bobbi! How can you even look at yourself in the mirror? Any of you?'
'I said I think -'
'Idiot savant, you said once. It's worse. It's like watching a bunch of kids getting ready to blow up the world with Soapbox Derby plans. You guys aren't even evil. Dumb, but not evil.'
'Gard -'
'You're just