A werewolf among us

admissible in a court of law—that it was Walter Dannery who embezzled those funds?"
    "He was in charge of that section and the only human authorized to handle the books. And computer tapes had been altered, rather crudely in fact. We couldn't flatly prove that it was Dannery—but we knew that it couldn't be anyone else." He sounded defensive, without reason.
    "Therefore," the detective said, twisting the top on the bag, "no charge was leveled against him
with Darmanian authorities."
    "None," Jubal said.
    "And without a mark on his work record, Reiss would have no reason to pass up his application for a job."
    Jubal still could not accept the devious resurrection of the past. He said, "But the man embezzled the money. He knows he did. Knowing he was guilty, wouldn't he be relieved at getting off so lightly? When he'd had time to think it over, would he feed his hatred until he was willing to commit murder?"
    "People have killed for less," St. Cyr said. "And it may just be possible that he was not lying to you when he told you that sob story about dependent children and a sick wife. If you'll excuse my saying so, you are not a proper judge of human emotions, not sensitive enough to such things to distinguish between a lie and the truth."
    Jubal apparently was willing to accept the judgment. He said nothing more, but he looked at Alicia and took her hands and held her beside him, close.
    "Question?" Tina asked.
    "Yes?"
    "How could Walter Dannery have known the circumstances of daily life in this house? He would have had to be familiar with so much to have so minutely programmed Teddy. For instance, he would have to know about the wolf skins in storage, about Dane's superstitions—"
    "Not at all," St. Cyr interrupted. "All that Dannery needed to do was implant the prime directive:
'Kill everyone in the Alderban family, but protect yourself against discovery.' He would have needed a number of qualifying directives, of course: 'Choose an exotic means of murder; establish suspects outside of yourself; to all overt intents and purposes, perform according to the Three Laws of Robotics…" He may even have chosen the werewolf scheme, since he lived on Darma and may have known the legends. After that, however, it was up to Teddy to work out a viable plan for the extermination of the family. Remember that a master unit has a fantastic capacity for the storage of new data, while its logic circuits are four times as large and eight times better than those in the bio-computer that I wear. With the minimum of directives, Teddy could have worked out the rest of it."
    "Now what do we do?" Alicia asked.
    "We call Teddy in here and ask him to open his service panel for inspection. Unless I miss my guess, I believe he will obey. We simply shut him down."
    "Like pulling a plug," Hirschel said.
    St. Cyr crossed the room, opened the door and said, 'Teddy?"
    Teddy did not respond.
    St. Cyr stepped into the hall. "Teddy, come here, please."
    He received no answer.
    "Where is he?" Hirschel asked.
    "Gone," the cyberdetective said. "I seem to have guessed wrong. Apparently he was eavesdropping through the house computer."
     

FOURTEEN:
Confrontation with the Killer
     
    Hirschel maintained a small arsenal in his suite on the fifth level—pistols, rifles, revolvers, traps, and more insidious devices—and it was here that they armed themselves before making a thorough search of the mansion. Conventional weapons, for the most part, were useless against a robot, because the projectiles from few rifles—and from no handgun known—could be expected to pierce quarter-inch multi-pressed steel. In Hirschel's collection, however, were four vibra-beam weapons, guns that projected a powerful but rapidly dissipating beam of sound, carried and magnified in a high-intensity laser that moved on a line-of-sight between hunter and target. The light was visible as a quick flash, the sound beyond the range of the human ear. In close quarters, the weapon could kill a man and pretty well mangle the innards of a robot. Two of Hirschel's pieces were rifles, which he and
St. Cyr chose, since they were more familiar with weaponry and would know how to use a rifle within the confines of a room, if the opportunity should come for that Tina and Dane took the pistols.
    "We'll stay together," St. Cyr said. "Dane and I will walk abreast, Jubal and Alicia behind us, Hirschel and Tina at the rear. Keep your eyes open; we won't hear him coming if he doesn't want us