That was also true of their real-life situations.

Caird had several matters to deal with before he could get to the Gril case. There was a raid planned for next Tuesday on the Tao Towers, an apartment building on West Eleventh. According to an informant, some tenants there were not only smoking tobacco but selling it. There were always people who desired harmful things even after seven generations of education and conditioning.

The poor, contrary to what Jesus had said, were no longer in society. At least, the poor did not have to be poor. But the perverse were still here. One born every hour.

The raid on the minnie district in search of Rootenbeak would take place inside an hour. Caird was not going to be there in person. He left that up to Detective-Inspector Ann Wong Gools, but he would be in constant VA (video-audio) contact.

He asked for and, after a ten-minute wait, got the results of the satellite sweep for both Rootenbeak and Gril. There were three sky-eyes up there taking photographs of the Manhattan and neighboring areas at three different angles. The computers had sent holographs of the culprits to the central base, and there the graphs of the two were compared wjth the faces of Manhattanites in the streets or on housetops. So far, the results were nil. That was not unexpected, since Gril and Rootenbeak had only to wear wide-brimmed hats and keep their faces down to avoid these being photographed. However, all wearing such hats had been tracked by the sky-eyes, and the buildings they entered had been noted. Unfortunately, the Organic Department did not have enough personnel to follow up the leads. Only central Manhattan addresses could be investigated, and that was going to take much time.

It was not difficult to get fake IDs if you knew where to go. Rootenbeak seemed to be the sort who would know. Gril, though, was a scholar and a recluse. What would he know of the underworld? Nothing-unless he had been planning his daybreak for a long time and so was well-prepared.

Caird put Rootenbeak on mental hold and considered Gril.

Find the motive; find the criminal. A fine dictum, except that he was not looking for suspects. He knew who the culprit was.

Monday had opened Gril's bio-data to Tuesday, but Caird could not interrogate Gril's associates and intimates. That was up to Monday. About all he could do was to have the data transmitted to all organics' R-T boxes so that they could see them while looking for Gril. The sky-eyes, of course, would also be scanning the streets for anyone resembling Gril. Caird did not think that Gril would be foolish enough to venture forth on the daytime streets. He also might have cut his hair and shaved his beard, though that had little chance of deceiving the skyeyes. The ID Department had probably sent out photos based on what Gril's shaven face would look like.

Gril's file had some interesting personality bio-data, especially the item that he was the last Yiddish speaker on Earth. He was also an authority, in fact, the authority, on an ancient writer named Cerinthus. Two of Gril's studies on him were in the World Data Bank. Caird had asked for a summary of data on Cerinthus, though more from curiosity than hope that it would give him any clue.

Cerinthus was a Christian who had lived circa A.D. 100. Born a Jew, he had converted to Christianity but was generally regarded as a heretic. Saint John was supposed to have written his Gospel to confute Cerinthus' errors. Very little had been known about him until the discovery of a manuscript in the south of the state of Egypt three hundred obyears ago. He had founded a short-lived sect of Jewish Christians with Gnostic leanings. Though a Christian, the only New Testament book he had accepted was Matthew's Gospel. Cerinthus had maintained that the world was created by angels and that one of these had given the Jews their law. But that law was imperfect. He also held to circumcision and the Jewish Sabbath.

"Sounds as crazy as the rest of them," Caird had muttered when he had turned the display off.

Another strip glowed with orange letters, and a buzzer sounded loudly. It bore a reminder from Ozma to make out the reproduction permit. Caird turned off the Gril data and went to a desk computer. He had filled in only four lines of the form on the strip before him when another strip began flashing. Rootenbeak had been sighted in the Hudson Park district.

Caird put the application form on hold. He called the woman who had sent the message, Patroller-Corporal Hatshepsut Andrews Ruiz. She was standing before a transmitter strip on the wall of a building but parts of her were obscured. Some minnie had probably thrown mud or something worse on the strip. Behind her on the sidewalk were three organics, privates first class. One was holding a small camera and panning it up and down the street. Caird asked for its POV, and the street appeared on the wall strip by the one showing Ruiz. The woman who had turned Rootenbeak in was standing near Ruiz and was holding a large sack of groceries.

Ruiz saluted and said, "The witness, Benson McTavish Pallanguli, 128."

"I'll get that from the computer," Caird said. "What happened?"

"The witness had just come from the West Clarkson Street Food Dispensall with a sack of groceries with a bunch of bananas on top."

Caird had started to tell her to skip that, but the reference to the bananas changed his mind.

"The suspect, Dorothy Wu Rootenbeak, who has been positively identified by Pallanguli, walked by her. As he did so, he reached out and tore a banana from the stalk on top of the sack carried by Pallanguli. Rootenbeak thereupon ran down the street-" Ruiz pointed west " ... until he came to the corner of Greenwich and West Clarkson. The suspect, according to Pallenguli and two other witnesses, thereupon turned left, still running, and proceeded down Greenwich Street. He entered the block building designated as GCL-1."

Caird had a street map displayed on a strip so he could see the exact path taken by the fugitive. By now he also had points of view of two patroller-operated cameras in front of the building into which Rootenbeak had gone. The sergeant in charge, Wanda Confucius Thorpe, was just going through the doorway. He held in his right hand an electrical prod. Three organics, also armed with prods, were following him.

Caird radioed Thorpe and asked him if the building was surrounded. The sergeant, a faint tone of resentment in his voice, replied that he had arranged for this-of course. One of the cameras showed Caird two orange-and-white cars pulling up to the curb outside the door. Caird called the cameramen on the other two sides of the building and got a complete picture of the operation. The building occupied the whole block, but between it and the sidewalks was a yard with an uncut lawn, many dandelions and other weeds, and many palm trees and sycamores. No doubt, the block leader had gotten official reprimands from the state, followed by orders to clean the yard. But the minnie leaders were often as uncouth and rebellious as their flock.

The building was about forty objective years old, constructed when Nautical Design was all the rage in the Bureau of Architecture. Its upper sides curved outward, ending in a flat top. This and one tapering end and the three-story penthouse made it resemble a twentieth-century aircraft carrier. The rooms on the outside wall at the top floor had windows in the floors so that the tenants could look straight down into the yard.

Rootenbeak might be in one now, staring down at the organics.

Caird tingled with excitement. It had been three months since he had been in on a hunt. And now he had two in one day.

He asked the computer to clump all references to bananas in Rootenbeak's file. This was flashed almost immediately on a strip. After reading it, he called Ruiz and asked her to ask Pallanguli if she knew the man who had snatched her bananas. The corporal did so with Caird watching and listening to the two. The dark woman's expression changed a little and then was replaced by indignation.