Unwise Child | Page 4

a vibroblade at least as well as her boy friend had.
Just as Mike the Angel turned, she lunged forward, aiming for the small
of his back.
And she, too, screamed as she lost her blade in a flash of heat.
Then she grabbed for something in her pocket. Regretfully, Mike the
Angel brought the edge of his hand down against the side of her neck in
a paralyzing, but not deadly, rabbit punch. She dropped, senseless, and
a small gun spilled out of the waist pocket of her zipsuit and skittered
across the floor. Mike paused only long enough to make sure she was
out, then he turned back to his first opponent.
As he had anticipated, Harry MacDougal had taken charge. The kid
was sprawled flat on the floor, and Old Harry was holding a shock gun
in his hand.
Mike the Angel took a deep breath.
"Yer trousers are on fire," said Harry.
Mike yelped as he felt the heat, and he began slapping at the
smoldering spots where the molten metal from the vibroblades had hit
his clothing. He wasn't afire; modern clothing doesn't flame up--but it
can get pretty hot when you splash liquid copper on it.
"Damn!" said Mike the Angel. "New suit, too."
"You're a fast thinker, laddie," said Old Harry.

"You don't need to flatter me, Harry," said Mike the Angel. "When an
old teetotaler like you asks a man if he's brought some scotch, the
man's a fool if he doesn't know there's trouble afoot." He gave his leg a
final slap and said: "What happened? Are there any more of them?"
"Don't know. Might be." The old man waved at his control panel. "My
instruments are workin' again!" He gestured at the floor. "I'm nae sure
how they did it, but somehow they managed to blank out ma
instruments just long enough to get inside. Their mistake was in not
lockin' the front door."
Mike the Angel was busy searching the two unconscious kids. He
looked up. "Neither of them is carrying any equipment in their
clothing--at least, not anything that's self-powered. If they've got
pickup circuits built into the cloth, there must be more of them
outside."
"Aye. Likely. We'll see."
Suddenly, there was a soft ping! ping! ping! from an instrument on the
bench.
Harry glanced quickly at the receiving screen that was connected with
the multitude of eyes that were hidden around the area of his shop.
Then a smile came over his small brown face.
"Cops," he said. "Time they got here."

3
Sergeant Cowder looked the room over and took a drag from his
cigarette. "Well, that's that. Now--what happened?" He looked from
Mike the Angel to Harry MacDougal and back again. Both of them
appeared to be thinking.
"All right," he said quietly, "let me guess, then."

Old Harry waved a hand. "Oh no, Sergeant; 'twon't be necessary. I
think Mr. Gabriel was just waiting for me to start, because he wasn't
here when the two rapscallions came in, and I was just tryin' to figure
out where to begin. We're not bein' unco-operative. Let's see now--" He
gazed at the ceiling as though trying to collect his thoughts. He knew
perfectly well that the police sergeant was recording everything he said.
The sergeant sighed. "Look, Harry, you're not on trial. I know perfectly
well that you've got this place bugged to a fare-thee-well. So does
every shop operator on Radio Row. If you didn't, the JD gangs would
have cleaned you all out long ago."
Harry kept looking at the ceiling, and Mike the Angel smiled quietly at
his fingernails.
The detective sergeant sighed again. "Sure, we'd like to have some of
the gadgets that you and the other operators on the Row have worked
out, Harry. But I'm in no position to take 'em away from you. Besides,
we have some stuff that you'd like to have, too, so that makes us pretty
much even. If we started confiscating illegal equipment from you, the
JD's would swoop in here, take your legitimate equipment, bug it up,
and they'd be driving us all nuts within a week. So long as you don't
use illegal equipment illegally, the department will leave you alone."
Old Harry grinned. "Well, now, that's very nice of you, Sergeant. But I
don't have anything illegal--no robotics stuff or anything like that. Oh,
I'll admit I've a couple of eyes here and there to watch my shop, but
eyes aren't illegal."
The detective glanced around the room with a practiced eye and then
looked blandly back at the little Scotsman. Harry MacDougal was lying,
and the sergeant knew it. And Harry knew the sergeant knew it.
Sergeant Cowder sighed for a third time and looked at the Scot. "Okay.
So what