Georges LeFarge looked on unbelieving. Had he really seen it? No, it was too grotesque. Chris, murdered in cold blood right before his eyes. They had been talking only yesterday about going to Crete for the weekend, maybe renting a car. . . . Death had always been an abstraction, never anything to view up close. He had never seen a body. He had never even imagined such things could really happen; it was only in the movies, right? Until this moment he had never confronted actual murder ever in his life.
Calypso Andros felt a shock, then a surge of emotional Novocain as her adrenaline pumped. Right then and there she decided that she was going to kill this bastard herself, personally, with her own hands. Number One, whoever he was, was a monster. No revenge . . .
Then the superego intervened. He's still got the gun. Wait, and get the son of a bitch when he's not expecting it.
"Georges," she said quietly, finally collecting herself, "you'd better do what he says."
LeFarge was still too astonished to think, let alone talk.
This horror was outside every realm of reason. He had no way to file it within any known category contained in his mind.
"She is giving you excellent advice," Number One was saying. "You would be wise to listen. In any case, I merely want you to demonstrate the technical capabilities of this system." He smiled as though nothing had happened. "An intellectual exercise."
Georges looked at Cally and watched her nod. Her eyes seemed almost empty. Was it shock? How could she manage to carry on?
Well, he thought, if she can do it, then so can I.
Slowly he revolved and examined the computer terminal in front of him. The cool green of the screen was all that remained recognizable, the only thing to which he could still relate.