Shadowkill

##

Later, when Miji was out and sleeping in his burrow, Rohant manage a brief look at his prize. It was indeed a stunrod-small, short range, but all he needed to take out the flesh guards. He opened a half-inch of the hem of his shirt, slid the rod into the opening, and went to work on figuring a way of distracting or disabling the android.

“I went,” she told Rohant when he came back. “I didn’t know what to expect. What I saw was odder than I expected, still… I don’t know.

“Digby was sitting in a pulochair inside an image bubble; he was a square brown man with black eyes, wide cheekbones, and a smile that could light up all of Spotch-Helspar. I liked him the minute I saw him. He had a good smell, well, you know what I mean. It was the same thing with that odd creature Frittagga Addams. Anyway, I let him take the language extract, then we talked. And he told me he already knew what part of the problem was. The Watchman program.

“‘You’re running it on full cycle, aren’t you.’

“‘Yes, that’s the way I was told to do it when I bought the androids.’

“‘Everyone is. The jacals love it that way.’

“‘What?’

“‘I suspect that’s what you’ve got raiding your stocks. Someone hired a jacal, probably to get the jinnkitt, I hear you’ve refused three separate offers for it.’

“‘Yes. We won’t deal with brokers and we won’t sell where we don’t trust.’

“‘Right. You know the reason why Watchman androids are sold in threes?’