Free Antman by Robert V. Adams Page A

door's open.'
    'Sir, if you have a minute I think you'll find this interesting.'
    After Berringham had conveyed to Sergeant Brill the unsatisfactory state of affairs which had led to the note taking several hours to reach his desk, he spent a good twenty minutes reading it. From time to time, he winced as the pains came more sharply, further down in his abdomen and more to his right side than before. He'd tried ignoring them and using anti-acid remedies from the local pharmacy. He was approaching the point where denial wouldn't work any longer.
    "Killing is dead serious. If you get more than one chance and if you're a perfectionist, practice makes perfect. Close the door, take off the mask and allow space to breathe.
    "How you get to the killing bit. It's like lots of things, one step at a time. I know this thought so well, it's become a part of me, rather than a suggestion coming from my brain, or from somewhere else, inside or outside of me. (The organs of my body are different regions of the colony, all linked by living streams of workers. So I won't be likely to dissolve into component limbs and organs. I have to keep control.)
    "Here's another thought: Despite my meticulous memory, and the diary of course (which must never fall into their hands), I'm not entirely sure at which moment I became the conductor. It was probably when the urge to conduct the performances of other colonies apart from the colony I am, became realisable.
    "I rehearsed some things in my head so many times that when they happened I hardly noticed the slide from thought to action. I went into the kitchen and sat on a stool from which I could reach the controls of the video recorder and the television. Then it was back to the hi-fi, CD player, record and cassette players, all precariously perched on that raffia-woven stool, the one auntie used to sit on when messing about with her calliper. (She had them too, but if I ever asked if it was in the family, with me having some leg trouble, mother would bad mouth and cuff me.) The music on its own couldn't work the magic for me this time. I was too tense – I can't tell you why, not this early in the game. I haven't primed you yet with any of the crucial details about what makes me tick, turns me on, as they say. But, cursing at the bad connections to the speakers balanced on cardboard boxes in the corridor linking the farmhouse to the old dairy, now the ground floor lab. Which would it be – the fourth movement of the Bruckner seventh symphony or the last passages of the Mahler fourth symphony? No, not the Mahler. Too much public exposure means too many stray memories and associations. (I'm very honest and open, so don't go pigeon-holing me as like the rest.) I'll go for the Bruckner tonight.
    "I was feeling unsettled and I didn't know how to calm myself. I felt like watching the film I'd made of the experiment in the barn.
    "I turned on the video. The camera was placed in the rear corner, below the spotlight. It was primitive but it worked for my purposes. The pig was jittery from the moment I pulled aside the bale of straw and shoved it across the sheet of chipboard I used as a bridge across the moat. The island was about six metres square. It had taken months to dig out the ditch round it and line it with butyl rubber, but I was quite pleased with the result.
    "(I'm nearly there. Push me, push me and I'll do it.) I'd gone to such trouble to produce an imitation of a corner of the rain forest on the island, with reasonable accuracy. There were shortcomings in the tree department, but the undergrowth surrounding the small clearing, some at a much higher level over a rocky outcrop, was pretty convincing. The lean-to conservatory enclosing the whole was pitched up against one wall of the barn. It was of plain design with panels of double-glazing down to within a metre or so of floor level. It was the largest building project I'd ever undertaken and had taken some assembling. I had to do it on my own,