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They didn't spare him a glance. Why should they? People sometimes attempted to imitate famous people, or guards, or politicians, but no one had any reason to imitate a maintenance worker. There were always maintenance personnel in the basement, keeping it functioning smoothly.
    It had been an enlightening if busy night, Loo-Macklin thought. He'd particularly enjoyed the session in the basement. He enjoyed working with computers.
    Many a pleasant hour had passed in his apartment while he'd absorbed all the information the city university had to impart concerning his personal computer unit, others both large and small, even up to and including the massive, incredibly complex units which formed the basis of every city and planetary government.
    He'd earned more than one master's certificate in both repair and programming—talents, which Lal had not been aware of.
    Perhaps someday he might even have the opportunity to make legal use of such abilities. That would be nice. Machines were easy to get along with. They were always reasonable, never subject to human foibles or emotions.
    Not that Loo-Macklin wished that he was a machine; robot or computer. He enjoyed being human. It gave you a flexibility no mechanical could ever hope to possess. It was a silly thought, anyway. Might as well be content with the condition you're born into.
    But it would have been much easier on Kees vaan Loo-Macklin if he'd been born a machine . . . .

Chapter 3

    They came for him late the next evening. There were twelve of them and they had trouble all fitting in his modest living room. One was sent to hunt him out while the others waited tensely. There were as many different types of weapons in the living room as there were people.
    The plethora of devices was unnecessary, since he didn't intend to give them the slightest excuse to shoot him. He knew that wasn't their intent or instructions or they'd all have piled into his bedroom, blazing away. The fact that eleven waited on one was proof they had other ideas.
    He relaxed on his bed and changed the channel on the video monitor from the closed-circuit survey of the living room to an entertainment show. The antics of its performers left him puzzled, as usual.
    The door whispered and he glanced to his right as the hunter entered. Huntress, he corrected himself. She was very young. He smiled unconsciously. Typical of the crew in the living room to send the youngest to see how he'd react.
    She was attractive, in a hard sort of way, with flat cheeks and her hair done up in a short braid. She carried a spraygun in both hands and was sweating noticeably. A girl, he thought. Not all that much younger than himself, in years. Decades younger in other ways. He kept his attention on her trigger finger and thought how best to relax her. He was more worried about her nerves than abilities.
    "I've been expecting you," he told her pleasantly, "though not quite so many."
    She stiffened slightly, wondering how he knew that. "Now you just shut up," she said bravely. "You just shut up and come along quietly. There's people wants to talk to you." She gestured with the gun.
    Loo-Macklin swung his legs off the bed, continued smiling at her. "I expected that, too. I'm ready. You just take it easy with that vaper because I don't intend to cause you any trouble. I don't like to cause people trouble, especially people as pretty as you."
    "That's not the way I hear it."
    "Sometimes people cause me trouble, however. I won't try anything. I know why you're in here alone. I don't imagine you volunteered. It's the nature of the kind of organization we work for."
    "I work for," she corrected him. "From what I'm told, you don't work for it anymore."
    "I guess not. Please ease your finger off that trigger. Even if you tried to fire a warning shot with that sprayer, you couldn't aim anywhere in this room without hitting me. A sprayer's not a selective weapon, and it's messy. Your employers would be upset if I happened to get dead