Ribofunk   ::   Филиппо Пол Ди

"As you can see," Kitchener said boastfully, "we run atight ship here. All by the regs. No spills, no chills, that's our byword-"

K– mart interrupted. "We're not inspectors from NUSHA, Peej Kitchener. We're the Protein Police. And we're trying to solve a murder. A murder involving one of your products."

It still amazes me that anyone falls for good-cop-bad-cop, but they do. Uncertain of who was senior, Kitchener looked imploringly at me. But I just raised my eyebrows. The young trump began nervously to stroke his cranial comb, which bent like stiff rubber. "Ah, yes, of course. Why don't we proceed directly with your interview of the Blankie team?"

"Why don't we?"

So Kitchener took us to the swellheads.

Although I had dealt with doublebrains in the line of duty before, the sight of their naked bulging encephaloceles always made me somewhat queasy. Cradled in their special neckbrace support chairs, surrounded by their digitools and virtuality hookups, their basal metabolisms necessarily supplemented with various nutritional and trope exofeeds, they seemed to regard us visitors with a cold Martian scrutiny.

K– mart appeared unaffected by the massed clammy gaze of the eight Cerebrally Enhanced-or at least capable of putting up a better front than I-and plunged right into querying the swells.

"Okay– how many backdoors did you jokers install in the Blankie ganglia?"

The team members exchanged significant glances among themselves, then one spoke. "I am Simon, the leader of the octad. I shall answer your questions. There are no hidden entrypoints. All is as the published specs declare."

"For the moment, I'll assume that's true." K-mart glanced meaningfully at our Viper, who had not objected yet. But I wondered how good its skills would be against the swells. "Who did you steal from to build it? Come on, I

know you seebens are always plundering each other's finds. Who's got a mindworm against Ixsys and wants you to look bad?"

Simon actually betrayed a tiny measure of affronted dignity. "We derive all our insights and findings direct from the numinous sempiternal sheldrakean ideosphere. Our labors are unremitting and harsh, as we prospect among uncharted territories of ideospace. To accuse us of theft is to demean our very existence!"

The rest of the interrogation went just as awkwardly, yielding nothing. Finally even the tenacity of K-mart wilted.

As we were leaving, my partner turned to the recumbent CE's and said, "See y'all at Madame Muskrat's, boys!"

We headed slowly toward the exit, while I tried to think of another lead.