Pauline, from her switchboard, buzzed the phone on Simonetta's desk, since most of those present had gravitated to that end of the office. Smith looked around in the middle of an account of his struggles with his radio-controlled lawn mower.
"Want to take that, Willie?" he said, with a bare suggestion of a wink.
Westervelt lifted a hand in assent. He climbed out of his chair and went to the phone on Beryl's desk, where he would be as nearly private as possible.
"Who is it, Pauline?" he asked when she came on.
"It's Joe. He wants to talk to Mr. Smith."
"Give it here on number seven," said Westervelt. "The boss is talking."
Pauline blanked out and was replaced by the communications man. Rosenkrantz showed a flicker of surprise at the sight of Westervelt.
"Smitty's in a crowd," murmured the youth. "Something up?"
"Not much, maybe," said the other. "A message came in by commercial TV. I guess they didn't think it was too urgent, but I'll give you the facts if you think Smitty would like to know."
"Hold on," said Westervelt. "Let's see ... where does Beryl keep a pen?"
He dug out a scratch pad and something to scribble with, and nodded.
"One of our own agents," said Joe, "named Robertson, signed this. You've seen his reports, I guess."
"Yeah, sounds familiar."
"It says, after reading between our standard code expressions, that two spacers and a tourist were convicted of inciting revolution on Epsilon Indi II. They gave the names, and all, which I taped."
"That's practically in our back yard," said Westervelt. "Maybe he just wants to alert us, but the D.I.R. ought to be working on that publicly. Sure there wasn't any hint it was urgent?"
"No, and like I said, it came by commercial relay."
"Okay. The boss has enough on his mind at the moment. Let's figure on having a tape for him to look at in the morning. I'll find a chance to mention it to him, so he'll know about it. All right?"
"All right with me," grinned Rosenkrantz. "If anything goes wrong, I'll refer them to you. Be prepared to have your other eye spit in."
He cut off, leaving Westervelt with his mouth open and his regained aplomb shaky. The youth waited until he caught Smith's eye, and shook his head to indicate the unimportance of the call. He wondered if he ought to take time to phone downstairs for a report on the situation. It did not strike him as worth the risk with all the people in the same room.
He saw Beryl strolling his way and rose from her chair.
"That's all right, Willie," she said calmly, setting her packaged drink on the desk. "I just wanted to give you back your handkerchief."
She produced it from the purse lying on her desk and said, "Thanks again. I'm sorry about the make-up marks."
"Forget it," said Westervelt.
"I'm sorry about the eye too," said Beryl, raising her eyes for the first time to examine the damage. "It ... doesn't look as bad as Si said."
"Well, that's a comfort, anyway. I got something in it and rubbed too hard, you know."
"Yes, she told me," said Beryl. "To tell the truth, Willie, I didn't know I could do it."
"Aw, it was a lucky swing," muttered Westervelt.
"Yes ... I, well ... you might say I was a little upset."
"I'm sorry I started it all," said Westervelt. "How about letting me buy you a lunch to make up."
Beryl shrugged, looking serious.
"I don't mind, if we make it Dutch. It was as much my fault. I hope we're both around to go to lunch tomorrow. It gives me the creeps."
"What does?" asked Westervelt.
"The way Mr. Lydman looks. Something about his eyes...."
Westervelt turned his head to stare across the room, wondering if the worst had occurred.
John Willard set a brisk pace through the streets of First Haven, as befitted a conscientious public servant. Maria Ringstad kept up with him as best she could. When she lagged, the thin cord tightened around her wrist, and he grumbled over his shoulder at her. Naturally, she carried her bag.
He had explained that they would have been most inconspicuous with her walking properly a yard behind him. Anyone would then have taken them for man and wife or man and servant—had it not been for her Terran clothing.
"To walk the street with you in that rig would attract entirely too much attention," was his explanation. "The only thing we can do is use the public symbol of restraint, so that everyone will know you are a prisoner."
"What good will that do? Won't they still stare."
"It is considered improper, as well as imprudent. No law-abiding citizen would wish to risk being suspected of a sympathetic curiosity about a transgressor."
"You make it sound dangerous," said Maria, holding out her hand obediently.
Anything to be inconspicuous, she had thought.
Now, turning a corner about three hundred yards from the jail, she had to admit that the system seemed to be working. The Greenies whom they met were nearly all interested in other things: a shop in the vicinity, another Greenie across the street, a paving stone over which they had just tripped, or the condition of the wall above Maria's head.
Willard led her to the far side of a broader avenue after they had negotiated the corner that put them permanently out of sight of the jail. Maria tried to recall the scanty information he had whispered to her against the outside wall of the prison.
There had been time for him to tell her he was sent by the Department of Interstellar Relations of Terra to get her out, since it had proved impossible to alter the attitude of the Greenie legal authorities. Maria was not quite sure whether he was really the prison officer he said he was, in which case he must have been bribed on a scale to make her own "crime" ridiculous, or whether he was an independent worker friendly to the Terran space line, in which case the payment might more charitably be regarded as a fee.
She knew that he planned to deliver her to a spaceship due to leave shortly. There had been no opportunity for her to ask the destination.
To tell the truth, she reflected,I don't care where it is. Anything would be a haven from Greenhaven!
She began to amuse herself by planning the article she would write when back on Terra. "How I escaped from Paradise" might do it. Or "Prison-breaking in Paradise." Or perhaps "Greenhaven or Green Hell."
Whatever I call it, she promised herself,I'll skin them alive. And I'll find a way to send the judge and the warden copies of it, too!
Maybe, she pondered, it might even be better to stretch it out to a whole book and get someone to do a series of unflattering cartoons of Greenie characters.
The cord jerked at her wrist. She realized that she had fallen behind again, and made an apologetic face at Willard when he looked back.
"Don't do that!" he hissed. "They'll wonder why I tolerate disrespect."
"Sorry!" said Maria, shrugging unrepentantly. "You take this pretty seriously, don't you."
"You'd better take it seriously yourself," he growled. "It's your neck as much as mine!"
He glared at a young Greenie who had glanced curiously from the opposite side of the avenue. The abashed citizen hastily averted his eyes. Willard gave the cord a significant twitch and strode on.
They turned another corner, to the right this time, and went along a narrow side street for about two hundred yards. Waiting for a moment when he might meet as few people as possible, Willard crossed to the other side. A little further on, he led the way into what could almost be termed an alley.
Willard stopped.
"Now, we are going into this small food shop," he informed Maria. "You would call it a cafe or restaurant on Terra. It will seem normal enough for an officer to provide his charge with food for a journey, so that will be reasonable."
"Is the food any better than what I've been getting?" asked Maria.
"It doesn't matter. We won't stop there, since it would be impolite to inflict the sight of you upon honest citizens at their meal. I shall request a private room, and the keeper will lead us to the rear."
"Humph! Well if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. So in the eyes of an honest Greenie I'm something to spoil his appetite. What can I do about that?"
"What you can do is keep that big, flexible, active mouth of yoursshut!" declared Willard. "Otherwise, I shall simply drop the end of the cord and take off. You can find your own way out."
"I'm sorry," apologized Maria, a shade too meekly. "I promise I'll be oh-so-good. Do you want me to kneel down and lick your boots? Or will it be enough if I open a vein in the soup?"
"It will be enough if I get out of this without committing murder," mumbled Willard. "Now, the expression is fine; just wipe that grin off your mind and well go in!"
He pulled her along the few yards to the entrance of the food shop.
He opened the door and entered. Maria followed at the respectful distance.
There were half a dozen Greenies eating plain, wholesome meals at plain, sturdy tables and exchanging a plain, honest word now and then. The sight of the cord on Maria's wrist counterbalanced the sight of her lascivious Terran costume, and they kept their eyes on their food after one startled glance.
A Greenie woman stood at a counter at one side of the food shop, and Willard made known his desire for a private dining room. A man cooking something that might have been stew looked around from his labor at a massive but primitive stove to the rear of the counter. Maria thought that he took an unusual interest in her compared to what she had been observing recently. It rather helped her morale, and she thought she did not blame the man if the counterwoman were his wife.
The latter now came from behind her little fortress and led the way to a door at the rear of the shop. Willard followed, and Maria trailed along, restraining an impulse to wink at the cook. She was conscious of his analytical stare until the door had closed behind her.
Willard seemed to have nothing to say to the Greenie woman, and Maria relented to the point of heeding his request to be silent. All this made for a solemn little procession.
They walked along a short hall, and the Greenie woman opened another door to a flight of stairs. What surprised Maria was that the stairs led down. She shrugged—on Greenhaven, they had their own peculiar ways.
She was more puzzled when, at the bottom of the steps, they seemed to be in an ordinary cellar. The light was dim, and she did not succeed in catching the look on Willard's face. She began to wonder if she might wind up buried under a basement floor while he spent his ill-gotten bribe.
Then the Greenie woman pulled aside a large crate and opened another door. To pass through this one, they all had to stoop. Marie realized that they were then in the cellar of another building. The blocks of stone forming the walls looked damp and dirty.
They proceeded to climb stairs again, and to traverse another hall. Maria thought they ended up going in a direction away from the street. The woman led them through a small, dark series of rooms, and finally into one with windows set too high in the walls to see out. There she halted and faced Willard.
The Greenie prison official dropped the cord and reached into an inner pocket of his drab uniform. He withdrew a thick packet of Greenhaven currency. The numbers and units were too unfamiliar for Maria to guess at the value from one quick glance; but the attitude of their hostess suggested that it was substantial. Willard handed it over. Maria decided it was time to set down her bag.
The woman went immediately to a large chest in a corner of the room and opened it. She set aside a mirror she took out of the chest, then began to pull out other objects. There was a case which she handed to Willard and a great many articles of clothing that were probably considered feminine on this world.
"The point is," Willard said in low tones, "you are going to have to have proper clothes to look natural on the street. See if that dress will fit you."
Maria took the thing distastefully, but it looked to be about the right length when she held it up against her. The Greenie woman nodded. She added a sort of full-length flannel slip and a petticoat to the dress.
"Now I know why the Greenie women look so grim," said Maria. "It would be almost worth dying to stay out of such a rig."
"Hold your tongue!" said Willard.
Maria made a face.
"Present company excepted, of course!" she added.
"Change!" ordered Willard. "We have no time to waste."
He took the mirror and the small case to a rude table under one of the windows. He opened the box so that Maria caught a glimpse of the contents, which looked like an actor's make-up kit.
The Greenie woman joggled Maria's elbow and spoke for the first time.
"I must not be long, or it will be noticed," she hinted.
"Give her your clothes to burn and get into the others," said Willard, bending over the table with his back to her. "As soon as I get myself fixed here, I'll change your face too."
Maria looked about in a manner to suggest that she hoped they knew what they were doing. The Greenie woman waited. Maria reached up and began to unbutton her blouse.
She dropped it across her bag. The woman picked both of them up, and waited. She looked a trifle shocked at the sight of the thin slip when Maria unzipped her skirt and hauled it over her head. By the time the slip followed, she was standing with downcast eyes.
Maria eyed the broad back in the drab uniform as she unfastened her brassiere. This would make a good story someday, but to tell it in the wrong company might be to invite catty remarks about her attractiveness. She could think of other men who might not have kept their backs so rigidly turned as did Willard. It was almost provocative.
She slipped down the brief panties, stepped out of them, and handed them over. The Greenie woman pointed silently to the shoes. Marie kicked them off, and they were added to the pile. She hoped that whatever was in the chest for footwear would not be too hard to walk in.
The Greenie woman thrust the flannel atrocity at her and left the room hastily. Maria watched the door close softly, then held the garment out at arm's length. It did not look any better. She took a few steps toward Willard.
I'll bet I could make him faint dead away, she thought mischievously.I'd love to see the look on his face if ... well, why not? I will!
"She's gone," she announced in a low voice. "How do I get into this thing?"
Willard looked around, and the look was nothing she had ever seen before. His face appeared fuller in the cheeks, his eyebrows were black and heavy, his nose high at the bridge, and his whole complexion was darker.
He nodded at her gasp.
"Those papers I turned in for you won't last too long. The estimate is that they will dissolve before tomorrow morning, but they just might come apart sooner. If he sends out an alarm, I don't want to be on the streets in shape to be recognized."
"That's wonderful!" said Maria enthusiastically. "Are you going to make me up too?"
"Yes," said Willard. "Get into those things so I can start!"
Maria watched his eyes flicker to her breasts and then sweep down the rest of her body. She thought he was taking it very well, unless it was the make-up.
"Will you help me with this thing?" she begged. "I never saw one before."
She held out the flannel garment with a helpless smile, planting the other hand on her bare hip.
"Willyou quit teasing, you little bitch!" Willard snapped. "I'm no Greenie, if that's what you thought. You could get us involved to the point of missing the ship."
Maria felt her eyes popping. A tingling, hot flush lit her face. It spread back to her neck and crept down to her breasts. She snatched the flannel sack to her and turned her back.
Somehow, she maneuvered it over her head. Then she fumbled on the starched petticoat and topped the whole with the dun-colored dress that fell chastely about her ankles. Willard handed her a pair of low heeled shoes that were only a little loose when she put them on.
He had her stand facing one of the windows while he darkened her face and put a black wig on her. She looked up at the window and stood very still.
"Now, listen!" said Willard. "You'll absolutely have to stop blushing like that, or the color of the skin is going to come all wrong!"
"I can't help it," she said meekly. Then she saw he was laughing at her, and gave him a rueful smile. "Where did all that modesty come from? It was the shock, I suppose."
"All right, it was funny. When we get out on the street again, forget all about what's funny! Look like a serious Greenie!"
"Funny?" objected Maria. "I always thought I made a pretty fair showing in comparison to the local gals."
"Oh, you did, you did! One of the best showings I've ever seen."
He pressed a hand to each side of her waist, then slid them up her ribs until the weight of her breasts rested against his wrists.
"We'll talk about this again when we make it to the ship," he told her in a low voice. "Right now, it would be foolish to spoil this make-up."
He turned away after a long moment and returned the kit to the chest. They left by the same door by which they had entered, but Willard knew a short way out to a different street. Maria thought it must be the one outside the high windows. He set off at a businesslike pace.
They traveled about a quarter of a mile, counting several turns by which he sacrificed directness for sparsely peopled streets. The disguises must have been effective, for they drew no second glances. It was not until she saw the gibbet that Maria realized they were approaching the outskirts of the city.
"What—?" she began, sensing the reality of her plight for the first time.
"Quiet! Look the other way, if you must, but don't be obvious about it."
Several examples of rigid Greenhaven justice were on exhibit to a modest crowd. Three men and two women sat in stocks. They were not, apparently, subject to rock-throwing or other abuse, as Maria seemed to remember had been the custom on ancient Terra; but they were clearly unhappy and mortified. From the gibbet behind them swung the body of a hanged man. It appeared to have been there for some time. Maria wondered whathehad done to corrupt the morals or the economics of Greenhaven.
What nearly made her sick was the sight of a party of two dozen children being guided on a tour of the place. One youngster whined, and was thoroughly cuffed by the Greenie in charge.
Then they were past, and Maria saw the high cyclone fence of the Terran spaceport. Willard took a look at her face. Seemingly satisfied, he explained that they had come to a section well away from the main entrance. He led her along the fence for perhaps a hundred yards, found a small gate, and unlocked it with a key produced from under his belt. Maria, remembering their exit from the jail, was not surprised to feel a good-natured slap on the bottom as she stepped onto Terran land. There was another quarter-mile to go, but it was open land.
"We have it made now," said Willard, locking the gate behind them.
They by-passed the administration and custom buildings, and headed directly for the field elevator beside the waiting spaceship, ignoring the possibility of causing inquiries to be made by local eagle-eyes who might think they had seen two Greenies board the vessel.
"Willard, of the Department of Interstellar Relations," he introduced himself to a surprised ship's officer. "You've been told to expect Miss Ringstad?"
The officer, staring in bald disbelief at Maria's costume, admitted that the ship was more or less being held for her arrival.
"One thing was unexpected," said Willard. "I am exercising my authority to demand a cabin for myself as well. I have reason to suspect that my disguise had been penetrated, which, of course, makes it very dangerous for me."
"Of course," agreed the officer. "Let's go, by all means!"
"Yes," said Maria. "I want to get out of this awful rig."
"That's what I meant," said Willard.
There was no doubt that the influence behind Willard had held the ship for them. It rose as soon as they could reach a pair of tiny cabins. Later, after the first surge of the take-off, there were a number of delays stretching between minor course corrections.
Finally, it was announced over the public address system that because of precautionary checking of the course, there would be no spin to simulate planetary gravity for about two hours. Maria hoped that she would not be revealed as the cause to the disgruntled passengers.
She was still considering this and trying to disentangle herself from the acceleration net slung in the ten-foot cubicle they were pleased to call a cabin, when Willard arrived.
"I made friends with some of the crew," he announced. "Everybody likes to help out a D.I.R. agent. It must strike them as romantic."
"They should know," said Maria, thinking of the long, suspenseful walk through Greenhaven's streets.
"There was a stewardess who had extra slacks and blouse about your size."
"You must have a good eye," she told him. "Or think you have, anyhow. First, get me out of this thing. What with this Greenie outfit too, I might as well be in a straitjacket!"
He pushed himself over to the net and began to open the zipper. She saw that he had taken time to remove his "Greenie" face.
Her first motion, when the net was open, sent her tumbling head over heels to the far bulkhead.
"Keep a grip on something," laughed Willard. "Here—I brought a small kit along. Let me fix your face."
She obediently clung to the anchoring shock springs at one end of the net and turned her face up so that he could work on the mask he had earlier painted on. His fingers were gentle, smoothing in the cream he had brought and rubbing off the make-up with lightly perfumed tissues. Maria closed her eyes luxuriously and thought how pleasant it was to be off Greenhaven.
"Was it very complicated, getting me out of there?" she asked.
"There were a lot of angles to think of," he answered, "but we pulled it off as slickly as I've ever seen done. Just strolled right out through them all. Things in this business don't often go that well to plan. There—now you look human again, just like when I started to put that face on you."
"Not exactly," smiled Maria, plucking ruefully at the native Mother Hubbard, which billowed hideously about her in the zero gravity.
"That's easily changed," Willard said, meeting her smile significantly. "See if you can find your way out any better than you did getting into it, while I sort out the clothes I got for us."
Between the reaction from the strain of the past few hours and a glow of gratitude toward her rescuer. Maria began to sense the stir of an emotion within her that took a few moments to recognize. It surprised her a little.
"Willard," she said lazily, "it's funny, but I feel just as if I'm falling in love with you."
"That's interesting," grinned the agent. "About time, too."
"I can't tell if my knees are weak," she went on, laying a hand on his shoulder to draw herself closer, "because I'm hanging in mid-air; but you always seem to be making me strip—and I find myself not minding."
"I don't mind either!" he assured her.
When his arm slipped around her waist and he kissed her, Maria was sure. She let her lips part gradually, trembling as the fever rose in her.
"Let me go a minute," she murmured.
Presently, after a few weightless contortions, the muffling Greenhaven flannels were sent swirling into a corner. Maria laughed softly as she set a bare foot against the bulkhead to launch herself back into Willard's arms.
Was it the pain in his head that made everything seem to sway?
Or was it the swaying that made his head hurt?
Taranto opened his eyes slowly. For two or three minutes, in the darkness, he did not understand what he saw.
Gradually, comprehension developed. He was on a litter again, and the bearers were descending a rough track into a shallow valley. There was no sign of the city or of any other landmark even vaguely familiar. Jagged rocks formed a ridge to his left, curving around to enclose the depression. Other rocky buttes, he saw through slitted eyes, projected from the barren rubble of the Valley floor. There seemed to be little sand, unless it had blown down into the lower areas.
Cautiously, letting his head roll with the lurching motion of the bearers, he learned that another group was ahead. He thought they must be guarding Meyers. The red-uniformed officer marched just preceding Taranto's litter. That meant that there must be two soldiers behind, out of his view.
What now?he asked himself.It was a good try, but it didn't work out.
It seemed hopeless to attempt anything further until he found out where he was. Nor would it do any harm to learnhowhe was—they must have crowned him beautifully. He tried to move his arms and legs slightly without being obviously restless. Nothing felt broken. There was just the sore throbbing behind his left ear.
Were they taking him and Meyers further into the desert, to make sure they could properly be reported dead? Or was the party on its way back to the city?
Taranto moved about stealthily, as the litter heaved from side to side and bounced about with the efforts of his bearers to negotiate outcroppings of rock. He was surprised that his arms and legs were not tied. He wondered how long he had been out cold. Perhaps the Syssokans believed he really was dead from that spear across the skull.
You shouldn't have underestimated that guy just because you dropped him a few times, he told himself.You caught on to the difference, but he learned it from you.
From ahead and lower on the path came voices. There was a brisk breeze, but Taranto thought he could recognize Meyers giving vent to an outraged whine.
Wonder how much of a grudge they'll hold?he thought.Some of them must be lumped up pretty good.
He was beginning to locate a number of scrapes and bruises on his own sturdy frame. He wondered if it might be best to take things easy until they reached either their desert destination or the area outside the city, according to which way they were headed, and then offer to bribe the officer in charge. It would probably be too risky: he would have to rely on large promises, and they had already caught him in a crude whopper. Whatever the case, it would be unwise to open negotiations without finding out what the Syssokan commander looked like. Taranto seemed to recall pasting the fellow pretty thoroughly.
He caught a few words of Terran, blown back to him by a random gust. Meyers was complaining about being too tired to walk any farther. It did not sound as though he were making his point.
Of course!Taranto realized.I must be in his stretcher. Mine was busted. Now the slob will put it on me for making him bump his rump along this trail!
The image was not without humor. Contemplating it gave Taranto a momentary satisfaction.
Well, they knew Meyers was alive, even if they might not be sure about Taranto himself. Perhaps they were merely saving both Terrans for a longer jail term. Taranto hoped that the Syssokans had nothing more unpleasant in mind. The remarks he had used earlier in his attempt to bluff the officer could be used for inimical purposes by anyone who cared to point out that Syssokan knowledge of Terran physiology was scanty. Then what?
Taranto decided that he would be foolish to worry along that line at the present. What he needed was an idea for getting loose again. He speculated for a few minutes upon his chances of backtracking to the scene of his attempt at escape. Somewhere near there, in whichever direction it was, a spaceship should be landing.
If they ain't been and gone already, he thought.
In his supine position on the stretcher, he was able to see the sky without moving. That was why the distant trail of light was visible to him for some moments before any of the Syssokans could notice it.
I can't wait it out after all, he realized.
The ship would be heard presently, and the flare of its braking rockets would arouse the guards. Taranto peeked around again and saw that they were nearing the foot of the slope. Following the natural motion of the bearers, he let himself roll a little too far each time the litter swayed. The Syssokans struggled to compensate while scrabbling for safe footholds on the hard, slippery surface.
In the end, one of them slipped. The litter crashed down. Taranto added a twist to the natural force of gravity, so that he rolled downhill.
The fallen bearer picked himself up, mumbling something in Syssokan that sounded remarkably belligerent. One of the others moved to recover the stretcher. Taranto kept on rolling.
At the first yell, he gave up the pretense and regained his feet with a lithe bound. For the next sixty seconds, he needed every last smidgin of concentration to escape taking a fatal spill on the sloping rocks.
Hurtling downward in great leaps, he was forced to hurdle large rocks because his velocity prevented him from changing course by even a foot. Once he skidded, thinking his time had come. Near the bottom, where the incline curved to meet the horizontal, he did go down, ploughing up a spatter of loose chips and pebbles.
He was up and running again without quite knowing how. A dark shape loomed up before him, a rock twice his height. Before passing it, he took the chance of looking back.
The litter party was in a state of confusion. The officer and two soldiers were bounding after him, slanting away on a more reasonable path. One Syssokan was still in the process of picking himself up, and most of the others were either milling about or just beginning to heed their leader's shouts to follow Taranto.
The intention of yelling to Meyers flashed across his mind but he dismissed it as being useless. A hasty glance in the opposite direction showed him the fire trail settling behind another ridge to his right front. The valley bore a certain resemblance to a meteor crater.
Taranto sprinted past the huge rock and bore right toward the distant ridge. He would try to locate the ship if and when he reached the ridge. The immediate necessity was to keep out of the clutches of the burial party.
Running in the starlit darkness was risky, as he soon found. The ground was strewn with occasional patches of loose stone, traps of nature suitable for tripping the unwary or causing a sprain. The only thing that kept Taranto reckless was the sounds of pursuit behind him.
He had gone about two hundred yards when he realized that some of the rock-scattering noises came from his right more than from behind. The Syssokan were better runners than he, and used to the local terrain besides. He could not tell whether they had seen the trail of the spaceship or, if so, whether they connected it with him.
But they know enough to head me off, whichever way I go, he thought.
He came unexpectedly to a patch of sand, and swore as he felt his speed slacken. A desperate glance over his shoulder revealed no pursuers, though he knew they were there somewhere. He could see two runners who had flanked him on the right fifty yards off; and these forced him into bearing away from his desired course.
Instead of passing to the right of a tall outcropping of rock ahead, he turned left. It took him farther from the direction of the spaceship, but there was no help for it. He floundered over a low dune of sand and then was out of it and running on flat ground. He circled to the left of the hill, hearing a howl from the rear.
Must have seen me against the open valley, thought Taranto.They sound closer than I like.
He ran on, scanning the shadowed rocks towering over him for a place to climb. It was a foregone conclusion that the two flankers would be on the lookout for him as he came around the hill.
At last he thought he saw a way up, a sloping ledge leading to a small plateau before the rock reared higher in a sheer cliff. Taranto scrambled over a waist-high boulder and made for the opening. Up he went, on hands and toes. The rock was ridged, but in the wrong direction, and he slipped to hands and knees twice before he was up.
He slowed to a quick walk as he reached the level expanse. It was ten or twelve feet above the valley floor and curved off to the right around the base of the cliff. Taranto was panting by now, but his main reason for slowing was that he wanted to make less noise until he spotted the two Syssokans he expected to meet.
The broad ledge he was following dipped, rose a few feet, and dipped again to less than ten feet above the level ground. Taranto flattened himself suddenly.
The two Syssokans came loping along the shadowy edge of the outcropping, spears at the ready. From around the cliff sounded a call. The first soldier threw back his head to answer. As the howl left his throat, and masked the noise of the Terran's scrambling, Taranto launched himself upon the back of the second.
They went down with a thump upon hard rocks. Taranto, saving his ribs from being caved in by fending himself off from a jagged rock with his forearm, kicked out and caught the downed Syssokan in the belly. As the soldier subsided, the Terran snatched up the spear and rose to face the other one.
It had all gone so fast that the leader was just turning back. Perhaps he thought merely that his companion had fallen, but the stocky silhouette of the spacer disabused him of that idea. He advanced with the point of his spear weaving about menacingly.
"You think you're good with that stick, eh?" growled Taranto. "Well, try this for something different!"
Gripping his spear near the head, he swung the heavier butt like a bat, putting as much power into it as he could. It was crude, but he knew better than to try to match skills with a soldier trained to the use of the weapon.
The butt cracked resoundingly against the shaft of the Syssokan's spear, tearing it from the grip of his leading hand. Taranto's own hands were numbed by the shock. He dropped his spear and slid inside the Syssokan's one-handed grip before it could be reinforced. The feint of a left hook to the belly made the soldier relinquish his weapon completely and grapple with the spacer.
Taranto found his left arm entwined with the right of the Syssokan. He tried twice to punch to the body with his free hand but was smothered. Before he could think of it himself, the Syssokan stamped hard upon his toes.
"Bastard!" spat the spacer.
He butted, successfully but profitlessly. He rabbit-punched twice with his right hand, reaching around under the soldier's armpit. Only when he gouged at a large, black eye did the defending arm come up.
Taranto set his feet and banged three times to the midsection, getting plenty of body twist into his motion.
He found himself holding a very limp Syssokan, who slid down as the spacer stepped back.
Taranto sucked in a gasping breath. He staggered aside to pick up the spears, feeling better now that he was armed, no matter how primitively.
He had hardly straightened up when he saw the officer round the edge of the little butte, a mere fifty feet away. The Syssokan hesitated at the sight of the Terran standing over two of his soldiers, and Taranto threw one of the spears.
The trouble was that he did not know how to handle one. A spear, after all, was not standard equipment on a spaceship. The point twisted away from the target, and much of the force went into a slow spin. The officer hissed a disdainful comment and caught the weapon out of the air with one hand.
Taranto stooped for a rock, which he hurled with more effect. It shattered with a fine crack against the cliff near enough to the Syssokan to make him throw himself behind a boulder for cover. Taranto left him in the middle of a yell to his soldiers and sprinted off into the open valley.
Carrying the spear did not help matters much, but he thought the Syssokans might regard it as a more dangerous deterrent than he knew it to be in his untrained hands. The next time he looked around, he saw that he could rejoice in a splendid lead of two hundred yards. On the other hand, the officer now had a numerous group with him, and would probably get organized at last. Taranto slowed to a jog, to save himself against the time when they should begin to catch up.
"Taranto!" said a small voice.
He broke automatically into a dead run, without even looking around.
"Wait, Taranto!" called the little voice. "Look up, for the spy-eye!"
The spacer slowed as understanding burst upon him. He looked back and saw a spark of light gaining on him. It arrived and hovered over his head.
"It may still work," the voice informed him. "The ship is down. I told them what happened, and they're putting up a helicopter. Where's Meyers?"
"I don't know," said Taranto. "Back on the ridge, I guess. Look, I can't just stand here until that 'copter comes. I'll be a pincushion."
"Head for that hill ahead about a quarter-mile," said the voice from the little flyer. "I'll guide them there."
The Syssokans were running now, spreading out in a well-drilled manner. Taranto boosted himself into high speed again.
The hill ahead was more toward the center of the valley. If the pursuers were aware of some connection between his flight and the position of the spaceship, they would be satisfied to have him heading away from the ridge enclosing the valley. Taranto hoped that they would not worry enough to turn on a burst of speed, for he was convinced that they could outrun him.
He was right—he reached the steep slopes of the hill with a bare fifty yards left of his lead, and he was on the point of foundering at that. His knees buckled for an instant as he hit the first rise, and he saved himself from pitching on his face only by thrusting out the butt of the spear he carried.
Somehow, he made it another fifty feet up the slope, hearing the voice beside his ear say, "To the right, Taranto! Head for that flat spot! Here comes the helicopter."
He wiped salty sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand and looked up. A large, quietly whirring shape shadowed the stars. It dropped rapidly toward him as a howl broke out behind him.
Taranto took the spear in both hands, holding it at one end, and sent it whirling end over end at the closing Syssokans. The whole center of the group dropped flat to let it swish over their heads.
Before they could rise, the helicopter reached Taranto. It came down so fast it bounced against the ground. Someone held out a hand to Taranto and yelled to him to jump. He was hauled into an open cockpit. Someone took a deathgrip on the waistband of his pants and he felt the helicopter climb.
He wiggled around until he could get his knees under him. There were two spacers in the cockpit of what was obviously an auxiliary craft from a spaceship. One of them, a very long-eared type with a narrow head, looked as if he had been born in some stellar colony. The other had a broad, bland face of an oriental Terran.
"Where is the other one?" asked the latter.
Taranto crept between the seats to which they were strapped before answering, for there were only chains at the open sides. He got his bearings, and directed the long-eared pilot to the ridge where he had rolled out of the litter.
It nearly broke his heart to see them reach it in less than a minute.
"There may be guards with him," he warned. "Maybe he took off too."
"We shall see," said the broad-faced spacer.
He ran a spotlight along the ridge, stopped, and brought it back to bear upon a lonely figure. Meyers stood up and waved. No Syssokan was in sight; the officer must have taken them all with him.
He knew what he was doing, thought Taranto.The guy's still here.
The helicopter eased down to hover over a large rock. Meyers climbed laboriously upon it and was hauled aboard. Taranto squeezed himself back behind the seats to make room.
"It's about time you got here," puffed Meyers. "I'm worn out."
Taranto said nothing as the craft rose in the air and swooped off toward the spaceship. Someday, Meyers would ask how he had gotten away from the Syssokans. When it happened, Taranto swore to himself, he wouldshowthe slob.
It was twenty after eight when Westervelt found himself back at the communications room with Smith. Rosenkrantz had alerted them to a message coming in from Syssoka.
"They didn't expect to hit us during office hours," he explained, "but as long as you're here, I thought maybe you'd like to get it fresh."
Smith had told the girls to pass the word to Lydman and Parrish, and Westervelt had followed him down the hall with the feeling that he had displayed his eye under the good lighting long enough. Now they listened as a slim, brown-haired man with a faintly scholarly aura completed his report on the escape of Louis Taranto and Harley Meyers, spacers.
Joe Rosenkrantz was fiddling with an auxiliary screen and murmuring into another microphone.
"... so it was a rather close call, even though the formula you sent us appears to have worked perfectly," said the scholarly man. "I have not been able to determine exactly what caused the delay on the part of the Syssokans, since it seemed imprudent to display my little flying spy-eye where it might be seen, or even damaged."
"Maybe you can pick up some rumors in the future," suggested Smith. "If you do, we'd appreciate hearing them, to add to our file and make the case as complete as possible."
The transmission lag was much less than that occurring with Trident. The D.I.R. man on Syssoka agreed to forward any subsequent discoveries.
"Those spacers you contacted are already heading out-system," he told Smith. "I think they did a nice, clean job. It was too bad that they were seen at all, of course, but it will be news to me if the Syssokans drop around with any embarrassing questions."
"Well, thereisa large foreign quarter there," Smith recalled. "Why should they suspect Terrans, after all?"
"Oh, they will, they will. They suspect everyone; but they must know so little that I feel sure I can bluff them. I can prove that I was here at the official residence all day."
"Good!" said Smith. "Just in passing, I take it that no one was much hurt?"
The man on Syssokan grinned briefly.
"No one on our side," he said, "although I understand the prisoners were suffering some from exhaustion and dehydration. This Louis Taranto seems to be quite a lad. There is reason to believe that he killed two or three of his guards with his bare hands—at least I saw the burial party carrying bodies with them as they marched the rest of the way back to the city."
Smith laughed.
"I'll have to add a note opposite his name and contact him. I could use a field agent like that! Well, my operator tells me I have another call coming in. Thanks for your work on this."
"A pleasure," said the man on Syssoka. "I really didn't expect to contact you directly; my relative-time atlas must be a little old."
"No, it's just that we never sleep, you know," quipped Smith, and signed off.
He looked around, saw that it was Parrish who had entered, and added, "At least, itlooksas if we'll never sleep. I'm getting tired of it myself."
"So is everybody except Joe, here," said Parrish. "A com man isn't normal anyway."
"You gotta learn not to let all this stuff coming through bother you," said Rosenkrantz wisely. "If I soaked up all these crazy calls, I'd have nightmares every day. As it is, I'm as normal as anybody when I leave here."
"You haven't been with us long enough," said Smith. "What else do you have there?"
"There was a routine memo to make a check with the planet Greenhaven," said Rosenkrantz. "I cleared it when a good time came. The D.I.R. station there pretended not to know what I was talking about."
"What?" yelped Smith. "Don't tell me we goofed on another one!"
"I don't think so," said Rosenkrantz. "While you were talking to Syssoka, a spaceship namedVulpeculacalled, said there was reason to believe the Greenhaven D.I.R. was locally monitored."
"Tapped or the scrambler system broken," said Parrish. "What does this ship want to talk about?"
"The Ringstad case."
"Joe, godammit, who says you're normal?" demanded Smith. "I bet we've sprung another one! Two in one night—we're coming out with a good average after all. Get them on the screen before I pop my tanks!"
Westervelt listened to the transmission from the spaceship. Without the help of a planetary relay at the far end, it tended to be a trifle weak and wavery, but the essentials came through. He left Smith and Parrish patting each other on the back and went back to tell the girls about it.
They clustered around him in the main office, even Pauline leaving her cubicle for a moment and keeping one ear pointed at the switchboard inside.
"You should have heard Smitty conning her out of writing us up for the news magazines," said Westervelt. "She seems to be pretty famous in her line."
"What was she like?" asked Simonetta.
"She looked blondish, but the color wasn't coming across too well. Not bad looking, in a breezy sort of way. The agent that sprung her had to skip too, because he thought the Greenhavens—they call them Greenies—had spotted his disguise."
"Oh, boy!" breathed Pauline. "The cops must have been hot on their trail!"
"Either that, or he wanted to go along with her for other reasons," said Westervelt. "They seemed kind of chummy."
"Can they do that?" asked Beryl. "I mean, without orders, and all that?"
Westervelt grinned.
"I don't know," he admitted, "but he's doing it. He can't go back now. Anyway, Smitty simmered down fast and promised a draft for expenses would be waiting for him when the ship made planetfall. Technically, the D.I.R. ought to pay, because it turns out the guy is on their rolls and was only working with us temporarily."
Simonetta nodded wisely.
"You watch our boss," she predicted. "He'll have this man on our lists. He always gets free with the money when he sees a good prospect from the main branch. Even if they stay in the honest side of the outfit, they co-operate with the back room here."
Smith walked in with Parrish, beaming. His eye found Westervelt.
"Willie," he said, "make a note, and tomorrow look up the planet Rotchen II. I have to send credits, and I didn't want to say into wide, wide space that I didn't know where it is. Bad for the department's prestige!"
He looked about genially.
"I see you've told the news," he commented. "It was a lift for me too. We haven't done too badly, after all. Won two, lost one—damn!—and one is still a stalemate."
"Anyone tell Bob?" asked Parrish quietly.
They all exchanged searching glances. Smith began to lose some of his ebullience. After a moment, he turned to Pauline.
"Buzz his office!" he said in a preoccupied tone.
Westervelt tried to subdue a mild chill along the backbone as Pauline gave Smith a wide-eyed look and slipped into her cubbyhole.
He couldn't have phoned downstairs, he reassured himself.Pauline would say all the lines were busy, or cut off or something. But what if he looked out a window?
Smith had sauntered over to the center desk, where he waited beside the phone. It seemed to be taking Pauline a long time.
"Check with Joe," advised Parrish. "Then try around the other rooms. Ten to one he's in the lab."
"Has anyone seen him in the last half hour?" asked Smith.
Westervelt pointed out that he had been the chief's company in the communications room. The girls had not seen Lydman, but admitted that he might have gone past in the corridor without their having noticed.
"Yeah, he doesn't make much noise," Parrish agreed.
Smith had a thought. He moved toward his own office, paused to jerk his head significantly toward Parrish's, and opened his own door. Parrish went over past Beryl's desk and thrust his head into his own office. Lydman was not in either room.
"Mr. Smith!" called Pauline in a worried tone. "I'm sorry, but I can't seem to reach him."
"Oh, Christ!" said Parrish. "He isn't talking again!"
He did something Westervelt had never seen that self-possessed man resort to before this evening. He began to gnaw nervously upon a knuckle. He saw the youth staring, and snatched his hand from his mouth.
Smith glowered unhappily at the floor. Westervelt thought he could hear his own pulse, so quiet had the office grown.
The chief backed up to the unpleasant decision.
"We'd better spread out and wander around until someone sees him face to face," he said. "If he wants to be let alone, let him alone! Just pass the word on where he is."
Westervelt volunteered to go down one wing while Parrish took the other. As they left, cautioned to take their time and act natural, Smith was telling the girls to open the doors to the adjacent offices again and keep their ears tuned, in case Lydman should come looking for him or Parrish.
Westervelt turned right past the stairs, and went to the door of the library.
It will be perfectly natural, he told himself.We made out on two cases. I just want to tell him about it, in case he hasn't heard. Why the hell don't they get that cable fixed? They want their bills paid on time, don't they?
He could hear the newcasts now, about how tough a job the electricians faced, and how tense was the situation. Westervelt decided he would not listen.
He opened the door to the library casually and sauntered in. The pose was wasted; Lydman was not there.
Westervelt went on to the conference room on this side, and found it empty as well. He looked in on Joe Rosenkrantz, who, from the door, appeared to be alone. Just to leave no stone unturned, he retreated up the hall to the door marked "Shaft" and poked his head inside. He had to grope around for a light switch, and when he found it was rewarded with nothing more than the sight of a number of conduits running from floor to unfinished ceiling. A little dust drifted down on him from atop the ones that bent to run to outlets on the same floor.
"Well, nobody can say I overlooked anything," grumbled Westervelt.
He went back to the communications room. Rosenkrantz was listening in on some conversation from a station on Luna that was none of his business.
"Any sign of Lydman around here?" asked Westervelt.
"Not since the Yoleen brawl," grunted Rosenkrantz. "That's a good-looking babe running that Lunar station. Why can't we dig up some messages for them?"
"I'll work on it," promised Westervelt halfheartedly.
He walked quietly around the corner past the power equipment. No Lydman. The next step was the laboratory. He looked at his watch, then leaned against the wire mesh partition for a good ten minutes. Let Parrish cover the ground, he decided.
In the end, with no sign of Parrish or Lydman, he opened the door and stepped into the dark laboratory. He made his way cautiously ahead, thinking that Lydman was probably in his office. Feeling his path with slow steps, and carefully avoiding the possibility of tipping over any of the stacks of cartons, he had progressed to the center of the large chamber when the lights went on.
Westervelt felt as if he had jumped a foot, and the blood pounded through his veins.
Gaping around with open mouth, he finally met the eye of Pete Parrish, who stood half inside the doorway to the corridor, his hand still raised to the light switch.
They both relaxed. Parrish smiled feebly, with less than normal display of his fine teeth. Westervelt contented himself with passing a hand across his forehead. It came away damp.
"Well," said Parrish, "where was he?"
Westervelt closed his eyes and groaned.
"You're kidding," he said. "Please say you're kidding! It's too late in the day to fool around, Pete."
Parrish looked alarmed. He strode forward, letting the door close behind him. Westervelt, finding himself shivering in a draft, went to meet him.
"I'm not kidding at all," said Parrish. "Did you look everywhere? Are you sure?"
"I even poked into the power shaft," retorted Westervelt. "Were you in his office?"
"Naturally. I checked everything, even the men's room."
They had wandered back to the corridor door, peering about the laboratory to make sure no one could have concealed himself on the floor under a workbench, or behind a pile of cartons.
Parrish opened the door, and they stood puzzling at the empty hall.
"He wasn't even taking a shower," said the elder man.
Westervelt brooded for a moment.
"Did you sayeverywhere?" he insisted.
"Well ... everywhere he would have any call to go."
They stood there, passing the buck silently back and forth between them. At length, Parrish said, "I'll just look again in his office and the other two rooms, in case hewas, and slipped out behind me."
Westervelt watched him run lightly up the hall to each of the doors. Parrish's expression, as he returned slowly, was something to behold.
"I'll go," said Westervelt grouchily.
Parrish put a hand on his arm.
"No, that wouldn't look natural. I'll phone Smitty to send one of the girls down."
"Better phone him to send two," suggested Westervelt.
"Yeah," agreed Parrish. "That's even more natural. Watch the hall while I buzz them."
He went into Lydman's office. Westervelt leaned in the laboratory doorway, feeling depressed. After some delay, he sighted Simonetta and Beryl turning the far corner with their pocketbooks in hand. Neither one looked particularly pleased, but their expressions lightened a bit at the sight of him.
"You there, Pete?" murmured Westervelt.
"Right at the door," whispered Parrish from inside Lydman's office.
The girls clicked in muffled unison along the hall. Beryl paused at the entrance to the ladies' rest room. She raised her eyebrows uncertainly at Simonetta. The dark girl threw Westervelt a puzzled shrug, then pushed past Beryl and went inside. The blonde followed almost on her heels.
Westervelt waited. When he thought he could no longer stand it, Parrish hissed, "How long are they in there, Willie?"
"I don't know," said the youth, "but maybe we'd better—"
The door opened. Simonetta and Beryl walked out, staring quizzically at the two men, who had taken a few steps toward them.
"What is this gag?" asked Simonetta. "There's no one in there. Who would be in there?"
Parrish swore luridly, and none of them seemed to notice.
"Itcan'tbe!" he exclaimed. "You're sure?"
"Of course we're sure," said Beryl.
"What if the power came on and we didn't notice?" mused Parrish. "He wouldn't just leave and not tell any of us, would he?"
"You know him better than I do," commented Beryl. "I'm beginning to wonder, from what you told us on the phone, if he jumped out of a window somewhere. I know it's a terrible thing to bring up—"
Westervelt stopped listening to her. He was remembering the draft he had felt, twice now, in the laboratory.
Westervelt watched them walk up the hall. He thought of going back into the laboratory to find the open window. In his mind, he could see the straight, twenty-five story drop down the side of the dark tower to the roof of the larger part of the building.
He recalled having looked down once or twice. The people down there had paved patios outside their offices. A hurtling body would....
He shook the thought out of his head and hurried to catch up to Parrish and the two girls.
They trouped into the main office and took turns in telling Smith the story. He flatly refused to believe it for about five minutes. Ultimately convinced, he told Pauline to check Rosenkrantz by phone every ten minutes.
"If we're wrong," he said, "it's unfair to have him sitting down there all alone. Bob might somehow have outsmarted us, but if he did it to this extent, it means he isn't safe on the loose!"
Westervelt noticed that Simonetta was looking pale. He wondered about his own features. The eye would probably stand out very picturesquely.
"I don't believe it," he said when the others had all fallen silent.
They looked at him, hoping to be convinced.
"He isn't that kind," said Westervelt. "All right, you tell me he had a hard time in space and it left him a little off; but this doesn't sound like the direction he would go off in."
"What do you mean, Willie?" asked Smith intently.
"Well ... maybe he'd run wild. Maybe he'd get desperate and blow something up. I could see him taking a torch to that door and burning anybody that tried to stop him...."
He paused as they hung on his words.
"... but Ican'tsee him quitting!" said Westervelt. "If he was that kind, he never would have gotten back to Terra, would he?"
Smith snapped his fingers and looked around.
"Sure, sure," he said. "I don't know what I was thinking up in my imagination. We've all heard Bob utter a threat now and then, when some bems out in deep space broke his own private law, but no one ever heard him even hint at suicide."
He grinned ruefully, and added, "I should have thought of it myself—I had to review his application and examinations when he came to us."
"Some days," said Parrish, "are just too much. Nobody's fault."
"Then, in that case," said Westervelt, "there was one little thing I noticed."
He told them about the open window. Who would keep a window open with the building air-conditioning operating as perfectly as it did?
Smith fell to running his hands through his hair again.
"Now, let'sthink!" he muttered. "There must be some logical explanation."
Logical explanations, Westervelt thought,are always the reasons other people think of, not me.
He found a space to sit on the edge of the empty desk. Simonetta leaned beside him, and Beryl wandered over to the window of the switchboard cubicle to listen as Pauline checked Rosenkrantz.
She shook her head to Smith's inquiring look.
Then Lydman strolled through the double doors.
"What's the conference about?" he asked.
Beryl let out a shriek. Her back had been to the corridor when she jumped, but she came down facing the other way.
Everyone stiffened.
Lydman stood quietly, regarding them with considerable calm.
After a moment, Beryl tottered back to lean against the glass of Pauline's window. She pressed one hand to her solar plexus, looking as if she might fold up at any breath.
"Oh," she gasped. "Oh, Mr. Lydman...."
He examined her with a clinical detachment.
"Doesn't someone have a tranquilizer for her?" he asked. "I don't usually scare pretty girls."
"Oh, no, no, no ... it's just that ... I mean, everyone was worried about you," stammered Beryl.
"Why?" asked Lydman. "Don't you think I can take care of myself?"
For the first time, Westervelt noticed the curiously set expression on the ex-spacer's face. He had until then been too busy watching Beryl and trying to calm his own nerves. He could not be certain, but it seemed as if Lydman's forehead displayed a faint sheen of perspiration.
"Of course you can, Bob," said Smith. "We were—"
Beryl, nearly to the point of hysteria in her relief, got the ball away from him.
"We were worried about the elevator being stopped," she babbled. "And the door—you'll never believe it, Mr. Lydman, but the door to the emergency stairs wouldn't open!"
Westervelt thought he heard Parrish swear, then realized it had been his own voice. He started to step in front of Simonetta.
Parrish was moving slowly in Lydman's direction, trying to look at ease but looking tense instead.
"Dammit!" shouted Smith. "Beryl, you'refired!"
It did not seem to register on anybody, Beryl least of all. Lydman was confounding them all by standing quietly. His face tightened a little more at the news, but it did not seem to be the expression of a man who had just taken a bad jolt.
"I know," he said. "I looked at it a couple of times after I saw the blackout downstairs."
Smith regarded him warily.
"How do you feel, Bob?" he asked.
"You know how I feel," said Lydman.
He let his gaze wander from one to another of them. Westervelt felt a chill as the handsome eyes looked through him in turn, but accepted the comforting realization that the stare was about as usual.
Beryl was the picture of a girl afraid to breathe out loud, but the others relaxed cautiously. Smith even planted one hip on the corner of Simonetta's desk and tried to look casual.
"You seem to be doing pretty well," he said. "We were thinking of looking in the lab for something to cut the latch with, but it might have been waste motion. They should be getting the power on any minute now."
"I think...." Lydman began.
"Oh, I guess we could find something in the lists," pursued Smith. "If you'd rather we look...?"
"I have several things we could use," said Lydman.
He walked into the office proper and looked about for a chair. Westervelt stepped back of the center desk and brought him the chair of the vacationing secretary. Lydman sat down beside the partition screening the active files opposite Simonetta's desk.
"In fact," continued the ex-space, "I got them out when I was trying to figure how much that door would stand. Then I decided that would only raise a commotion."
Westervelt watched him with growing interest. Now that he had the man at closer range, he was sure that it was a tremendous effort of will that kept Lydman so relatively calm. The man seemed to be seething underneath his tautly controlled exterior.
"What did you think of doing?" asked Smith carefully.
"Oh, I dug out a better gadget, one that would domemore good, anyhow," said Lydman. "It's a little rocket gun attached to a cannister of fine wire ladder."
"Wire ladder?" repeated Smith.
"Yeah. About six inches wide at the most. I opened a window and shot it up to the flight deck. Say—did you know some hijackers stole all three of our 'copters?"
"Stole all three of...." Smith's voice dwindled away. When no one else broke the silence, he forced himself to resume. "Yes, I knew. What I would deeply appreciate, Robert, is your telling me how the hellyouknew!"
He finished yelling. Westervelt thought that he looked at least as bad as Lydman. Anyone twenty feet away would have completely misjudged them.
"Just as I said," answered Lydman with his tight calm. "I shot this ladder to the roof and climbed up."
"You climbed up?Outside the building?"
"Of course, outside," said Lydman, for the first time showing a trace of snappishness. "I couldn't stand itinside."
He looked around at them again, surprised that there was the slightest hesitation to accept his statement.
"We'll have to redesign that ladder, though," he said. "It's a mite too fine—cuts the hell out of your hands!"
He held out his palms. Across each were several welts. One, on his right hand, had apparently resumed bleeding stickily since Lydman had come in. He fumbled out a handkerchief with his other hand and blotted it.
Smith held his hands to his head.
"I can't swallow it yet!" he groaned. "You feel ... uneasy ... in here, so you go out a window ninety-nine floors in the air—"
"Only twenty-four above the set-back, really," Lydman corrected him.
"It's enough, isn't it? So you go out, climb up to the helicopter roof, andthenclimb down again and back through the window! And you pretend to feel better. I would have had a heart attack!"