_ The blue and white Phalagon House diner, driven by Heraga, was admitted without comment into the Executive Block. It floated on unchallenged through the big entry hall and into a corridor. Immediately behind the first turn of the corridor, the diner paused a few seconds. Its side door opened and closed. The diner moved on.
Quillan, coatless and with the well-worn butt of a big Miam Devil Special protruding from the holster on his right hip, came briskly back along the corridor. Between fifteen and twenty men, their guns also conspicuously in evidence, were scattered about the entrance hall, expressions and attitudes indicating a curious mixture of boredom and uneasy tension. The eyes of about half of them swiveled around to Quillan when he came into the hall; then, with one exception, they looked indifferently away again.
The exception, leaning against the wall near the three open portals to the upper levels, continued to stare as Quillan came toward him, forehead creased in a deep scowl as if he were painfully ransacking his mind for something. Quillan stopped in front of him.
"Chum," he asked, "any idea where Movaine is at the moment? They just give me this message for him--"
Still scowling, the other scratched his chin and blinked. "Uh ... dunno for sure," he said after a moment. "He oughta be in the third level conference room with the rest of 'em. Uh ... dunno you oughta barge in there right now, pal! The commodore's
reee-lly hot about somethin'!"
Quillan looked worried. "Gotta chance it, I guess! Message is pretty important, they say--" He turned, went through the center portal of the three, abruptly found himself walking along a wide, well-lit hall.
Nobody in sight here, or in the first intersecting passage he came to. When he reached the next passage, he heard voices on the right, turned toward them, went by a string of closed doors on both sides until, forty feet on, the passage angled again and opened into a long, high-ceilinged room. The voices came through an open door on the right side of the room. Standing against the wall beside the door were two men whose heads turned sharply toward Quillan as he appeared in the passage. The short, chunky one scowled. The big man next to him, the top of whose head had been permanently seared clear of hair years before by a near miss from a blaster, dropped his jaw slowly. His eyes popped.
"My God!" he said.
"Movaine in there, Baldy?" Quillan inquired, coming up.
"Movaine! He ... you ... how--"
The chunky man took out his gun, waved it negligently at Quillan. "Tell the ape to blow, Perk. He isn't wanted here."
"Ape?" Quillan asked softly. His right hand moved, had the gun by the barrel, twisted, reversed the gun, jammed it back with some violence into the chunky man's stomach. "Ape?" he repeated. The chunky man went white.
"Bad News--" Baldy Perk breathed. "Take it easy! That's Orca. He's the commodore's torpedo. How--"
"Where's Movaine?"
"Movaine ... he ... uh--"
"All right, he's not here. And Lancion can't have arrived yet. Is Cooms in there?"
"Yeah," Baldy Perk said weakly. "Cooms is in there, Quillan."
"Let's go in." Quillan withdrew the gun, slid it into a pocket, smiled down at Orca. "Get it back from your boss, slob. Be seeing you!"
Orca's voice was a husky whisper.
"You will, friend! You will!"
* * * * *
The conference room was big and sparsely furnished. Four men sat at the long table in its center. Quillan knew two of them--Marras Cooms, second in command of the Beldon Brotherhood's detachment here, and the Duke of Fluel, Movaine's personal gun. Going by Heraga's descriptions, the big, florid-faced man with white hair and flowing white mustaches who was doing the talking was Velladon, the commodore; while the fourth man, younger, wiry, with thinning black hair plastered back across his skull, would be Ryter, chief of the Star's security force.
"What I object to primarily is that the attempt was made without obtaining my consent, and secretly," Velladon was saying, with a toothy grin but in a voice that shook with open fury. "And now it's been made and bungled, you have a nerve asking for our help. The problem is yours--and you better take care of it fast! I can't spare Ryter. If--"
"Cooms," Baldy Perk broke in desperately from the door, "Bad News Quillan's here an'--"
The heads of the four men at the table came around simultaneously. The eyes of two of them widened for an instant. Then Marras Cooms began laughing softly.
"Now everything's happened!" he said.
"Cooms," the commodore said testily, "I prefer not to be interrupted. Now--"
"Can't be helped, commodore," Quillan said, moving forward, Perk shuffling along unhappily beside him. "I've got news for Movaine, and the news can't wait."
"Movaine?" the commodore repeated, blue eyes bulging at Quillan. "Movaine! Cooms, who
is this man?"
"You're looking at Bad News Quillan," Cooms said. "A highjacking specialist, with somewhat numerous sidelines. But the point right now is that he isn't a member of the Brotherhood."
"
What!" Velladon's big fist smashed down on the table. "
Now what kind of a game ... how did he get
in here?"
"Well," Quillan said mildly, "I oozed in through the north wall about a minute ago. I--"
He checked, conscious of having created some kind of sensation. The four men at the table were staring up at him without moving. Baldy Perk appeared to be holding his breath. Then the commodore coughed, cleared his throat, drummed his fingers on the table.
He said reflectively: "He could have news--good or bad--at that! For all of us." He chewed on one of his mustache tips, grinned suddenly up at Quillan. "Well, sit down, friend! Let's talk. You can't talk to Movaine, you see. Movaine's um, had an accident. Passed away suddenly half an hour ago."
"Sorry to hear it," Quillan said. "That's the sort of thing that happens so often in the Brotherhood." He swung a chair around, sat down facing the table. "You're looking well tonight, Fluel," he observed.
The Duke of Fluel, lean and dapper in silver jacket and tight-fitting silver trousers, gave him a wintry smile, said nothing.
* * * * *
"Now, then, friend," Velladon inquired confidentially, "just what was your business with Movaine?"
"Well, it will come to around twenty per cent of the take," Quillan informed him. "We won't argue about a half-million CR more or less. But around twenty per."
The faces thoughtful. After some seconds, the commodore asked, "And who's we?"
"A number of citizens," Quillan said, "who have been rather unhappy since discovering that you, too, are interested in Lady Pendrake and her pals. We'd gone to considerable expense and trouble to ... well, her ladyship was scheduled to show up in Mezmiali, you know. And now she isn't going to show up there. All right, that's business. Twenty per--no hard feelings. Otherwise, it won't do you a bit of good to blow up the Star and the liner. There'd still be loose talk--maybe other complications, too. You know how it goes. You wouldn't be happy, and neither would Yaco. Right?"
The commodore's massive head turned back to Cooms. "How well do you know this man, Marras?"
Cooms grinned dryly. "Well enough."
"Is he leveling?"
"He'd be nuts to be here if he wasn't. And he isn't nuts--at least, not that way."
"There might be a question about that," Fluel observed. He looked at the commodore. "Why not ask him for a couple of the names that are in it with him?"
"Hagready and Boltan," Quillan said.
Velladon chewed the other mustache tip. "I know Hagready. If he--"
"I know both of them," Cooms said. "Boltan works highjacking crews out of Orado. Quillan operates there occasionally."
"Pappy Boltan's an old business associate," Quillan agreed. "Reliable sort of a guy. Doesn't mind taking a few chances either."
Velladon's protruding blue eyes measured him a moment. "We can check on those two, you know--"
"Check away," Quillan said.
Velladon nodded. "We will." He was silent for a second or two, then glanced over at Cooms. "There've been no leaks on our side," he remarked. "And they must have known about this for weeks! Of all the inept, bungling--"
"Ah, don't be too hard on the Brotherhood, commodore," Quillan said. "Leaks happen. You ought to know."
"What do you mean?" Velladon snapped.
"From what we heard, the Brotherhood's pulling you out of a hole here. You should feel rather kindly toward them."
The commodore stared at him reflectively. Then he grinned. "Could be I should," he said, "Did you come here alone?"
"Yes."
The commodore nodded. "If you're bluffing, God help you. If you're not, your group's in. Twenty per. No time for haggling--we can raise Yaco's price to cover it." He stood up, and Ryter stood up with him. "Marras," the commodore went on, "tell him what's happened. If he's half as hot as he sounds, he's the boy to put on that job. Let him get in on a little of the work for the twenty per cent. Ryter, come on. We--"
"One moment, sir," Quillan interrupted. He took Orca's gun by the muzzle from his pocket, held it out to Velladon. "One of your men lost this thing. The one outside the door. If you don't mind--he might pout if he doesn't get it back."
* * * * *
The fifth level of the Executive Block appeared to be, as Heraga had said, quite small. The tiny entry hall, on which two walk-in portals opened, led directly into the large room where the two Pendrake rest cubicles had been placed. One of the cubicles now stood open. To right and left, a narrow passage stretched away from the room, ending apparently in smaller rooms.
Baldy Perk was perspiring profusely.
"Now right here," he said in a low voice, "was where I was standing. Movaine was over there, on the right of the cubicle, and Cooms was beside him. Rubero was a little behind me, hanging on to the punk--that Kinmarten. An' the Duke"--he nodded back at the wide doorspace to the hall--"was standing back there.
"All right. The punk's opened the cubicle a crack, looking like he's about to pass out while he's doin' it. This bearded guy, Eltak, stands in front of the cubicle, holding the gadget he controls the thing with--"
"Where's the gadget now?" Quillan asked.
"Marras Cooms' got it."
"How does it work?"
Baldy shook his head. "We can't figure it out. It's got all kinds of little knobs and dials on it. Push this one an' it squeaks, turn that one an' it buzzes. Like that."
Quillan nodded. "All right. What happened?"
"Well, Movaine tells the old guy to go ahead an' do the demonstrating. The old guy sort of grins and fiddles with the gadget. The cubicle door pops open an' this thing comes pouring out. I never seen nothin' like it! It's like a barn door with dirty fur on it! It swirls up an' around an'--it wraps its upper end clean around poor Movaine. He never even screeches.
"Then everything pops at once. The old guy is laughing like crazy, an' that half-smart Rubero drills him right through the head. I take one shot at the thing, low so's not to hit Movaine, an' then we're all running, I'm halfway to the hall when Cooms tears past me like a rocket. The Duke an' the others are already piling out through the portal. I get to the hall, and there's this terrific smack of sound in the room. I look back ... an' ... an'--" Baldy paused and gulped.
"And what?" Quillan asked.
"There, behind the cubicles, I see poor Movaine stickin' halfway out o' the wall!" Baldy reported in a hushed whisper.
"
Halfway out of the wall?"
"From the waist up he's in it! From the waist down he's dangling into the room! I tell you, I never seen nothin' like it."
"And this Hlat creature--"
"That's gone. I figure the smack I heard was when it hit the wall flat, carrying Movaine. It went on into it. Movaine didn't--at least, the last half of him didn't."
"Well," Quillan said after a pause, "in a way, Movaine got his demonstration. The Hlats can move through solid matter and carry other objects along with them, as advertised. If Yaco can work out how it's done and build a gadget that does the same thing, they're getting the Hlats cheap. What happened then?"
"I told Marras Cooms about Movaine, and he sent me and a half dozen other boys back up here with riot guns to see what we could do for him. Which was nothin', of course." Baldy gulped again. "We finally cut this end of him off with a beam and took it back down."
"The thing didn't show up while you were here?"
Baldy shuddered and said, "Naw."
"And the technician ... Eltak ... was dead?"
"Sure. Hole in his head you could shove your fist through."
"Somebody," Quillan observed, "ought to drill Rubero for that stupid trick!"
"The Duke did--first thing after we got back to the fourth level."
"So the Hlat's on the loose, and all we really have at the moment are the cubicles ... and Rest Warden Kinmarten. Where's he, by the way?"
"He tried to take off when we got down to Level Four, and somebody cold-cocked him. The doc says he ought to be coming around again pretty soon."
Quillan grunted, shoved the Miam Devil Special into its holster, said, "O.K., you stay here where you can watch the room and those passages and the hall. If you feel the floor start moving under, scream. I'll take a look at the cubicle."
* * * * *
Lady Pendrake's cubicle was about half as big again as a standard one; but, aside from one detail, its outer settings, instruments, and operating devices appeared normal. The modification was a recess almost six feet long and a foot wide and deep, in one side, which could be opened either to the room or to the interior of the rest cubicle, but not simultaneously to both. Quillan already knew its purpose; the supposed other cubicle was a camouflaged food locker, containing fifty-pound slabs of sea beef, each of which represented a meal for the Hlat. The recess made it possible to feed it without allowing it to be seen, or, possibly, attempting to emerge. Kinmarten's nervousness, as reported by his wife, seemed understandable. Any rest warden might get disturbed over such a charge.
Quillan asked over his shoulder, "Anyone find out yet why the things can't get out of the closed rest cubicle?"
"Yeah," Baldy Perk said. "Kinmarten says it's the cubicle's defense fields. They could get through the material. They can't get through the field."
"Someone think to energize the Executive Block's battle fields?" Quillan inquired.
"Yeah. Velladon took care of that before he came screaming up to the third level to argue with Cooms and Fluel."
"So it can't slip out of the Block unless it shows itself down on the ground level when the entry lock's open."
"Yeah," Baldy muttered. "But I dunno. Is that good?"
Quillan looked at him. "Well, we
would like it back."
"Why? There's fifty more coming in on the liner tonight."
"We don't have the fifty yet. If someone louses up the detail--"
"Yawk!" Baldy said faintly. There was a crash of sound as his riot gun went off. Quillan spun about, hair bristling, gun out. "What happened?"
"I'll swear," Baldy said, white-faced, "I saw something moving along that passage!"
Quillan looked, saw nothing, slowly replaced the gun. "Baldy," he said, "if you think you see it again, just say so. That's an order! If it comes at us, we get out of this level fast. But we don't shoot before we have to. If we kill it, it's no good to us. Got that?"
"Yeah," Baldy said. "But I got an idea now, Bad News." He nodded at the other cubicle. "Let's leave that meat box open."
"Why?"
"If it's hungry," Baldy explained simply, "I'd sooner it wrapped itself around a few chunks of sea beef, an' not around me."
Quillan punched him encouragingly in the shoulder. "Baldy," he said, "in your own way, you
have had an idea! But we won't leave the meat box open. When Kinmarten wakes up, I want him to show me how to bait this cubicle with a piece of sea beef, so it'll snap shut if the Hlat goes inside. Meanwhile it won't hurt if it gets a little hungry."
"That," said Baldy, "isn't the way
I feel about it."
"There must be around a hundred and fifty people in the Executive Block at present," Quillan said. "Look at it that way! Even if the thing keeps stuffing away, your odds are pretty good, Baldy."
Baldy shuddered.
* * * * *
Aside from a dark bruise high on his forehead, Brock Kinmarten showed no direct effects of having been knocked out. However, his face was strained and his voice not entirely steady. It was obvious that the young rest warden had never been in a similarly unnerving situation before. But he was making a valiant effort not to appear frightened and, at the same time, to indicate that he would co-operate to the best of his ability with his captors.
He'd regained consciousness by the time Quillan and Perk returned to the fourth level, and Quillan suggested bringing him to Marras Cooms' private quarters for questioning. The Brotherhood chief agreed; he was primarily interested in finding out how the Hlat-control device functioned.
Kinmarten shook his head. He knew nothing about the instrument, he said, except that it was called a Hlat-talker. It was very unfortunate that Eltak had been shot, because Eltak undoubtedly could have told them all they wanted to know about it. If what he had told Kinmarten was true, Eltak had been directly involved in the development of the device.
"Was he some Federation scientist?" Cooms asked, fiddling absently with the mysterious cylindrical object.
"No, sir," the young man said. "But--again if what he told me was the truth--he was the man who actually discovered these Hlats. At least, he was the first man to discover them who wasn't immediately killed by them."
Cooms glanced thoughtfully at Quillan, then asked, "And where was that?"
Kinmarten shook his head again. "He didn't tell me. And I didn't really want to know. I was anxious to get our convoy to its destination, and then to be relieved of the assignment. I ... well, I've been trained to act as Rest Warden to human beings, after all, not to monstrosities!" He produced an uncertain smile, glancing from one to the other of his interrogators. The smile promptly faded out again.
"You've no idea at all then about the place they came from?" Cooms asked expressionlessly.
"Oh, yes," Kinmarten said hastily. "Eltak talked a great deal about the Hlats, and actually--except for its location--gave me a fairly good picture of what the planet must be like. For one thing, it's an uncolonized world, of course. It must be terratype or very nearly so, because Eltak lived there for fifteen years with apparently only a minimum of equipment. The Hlats are confined to a single large island. He discovered them by accident and--"
"What was he doing there?"
"Well, sir, he came from Hyles-Frisian. He was a crim ... he'd been engaged in some form of piracy, and when the authorities began looking for him, he decided it would be best to get clean out of the Hub. He cracked up his ship on this world and couldn't leave again. When he discovered the Hlats and realized their peculiar ability, he kept out of their way and observed them. He found out they had a means of communicating with each other, and that he could duplicate it. That stopped them from harming him, and eventually, he said, he was using them like hunting dogs. They were accustomed to co-operating with one another, because when there was some animal around that was too large for one of them to handle, they would attack, it in a group...."
He went on for another minute or two on the subject. The Hlats--the word meant "rock lion" in one of the Hyles-Frisian dialects, describing a carnivorous animal which had some superficial resemblance to the creatures Eltak had happened on--frequented the seacoast and submerged themselves in sand, rocks and debris, whipping up out of it to seize some food animal, and taking it down with them again to devour it at leisure.
Quillan interrupted, "You heard what happened to the man it attacked on the fifth level?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why would the thing have left him half outside the wall as it did?"
Kinmarten said that it must simply have been moving too fast. It could slip into and out of solid substances without a pause itself, but it needed a little time to restructure an object it was carrying in the same manner. No more time, however, than two or three seconds--depending more on the nature of the object than on its size, according to Eltak.
"It can restructure
anything in that manner?" Quillan asked.
Kinmarten hesitated. "Well, sir, I don't know. I suppose there might be limitations on its ability. Eltak told me the one we were escorting had been the subject of extensive experimentation during the past year, and that the results are very satisfactory."
"Suppose it carries a living man through a wall. Will the man still be alive when he comes out on the other side, assuming the Hlat doesn't kill him deliberately?"
"Yes, sir. The process itself wouldn't hurt him."
* * * * *
Quillan glanced at Cooms. "You know," he said, "we might be letting Yaco off too cheaply!"
Cooms raised an eyebrow warningly, and Quillan grinned. "Our friend will be learning about Yaco soon enough. Why did Eltak tell the creature to attack, Kinmarten?"
"Sir, I don't know," Kinmarten said. "He was a man of rather violent habits. My impression, however, was that he was simply attempting to obtain a hostage."
"How did he get off that island with the Hlat?"
"A University League explorer was investigating the planet. Eltak contacted them and obtained the guarantee of a full pardon and a large cash settlement in return for what he could tell them about the Hlats. They took him and this one specimen along for experimentation."
"What about the Hlats on the
Camelot?"
"Eltak said those had been quite recently trapped on the island."
Cooms ran his fingers over the cylinder, producing a rapid series of squeaks and whistles. "That's one thing Yaco may not like," he observed. "They won't have a monopoly on the thing."
Quillan shook his head. "Their scientists don't have to work through red tape like the U-League. By the time the news breaks--if the Federation ever intends to break it--Yaco will have at least a five-year start on everyone else. That's all an outfit like that needs." He looked at Kinmarten. "Any little thing you haven't thought to tell us, friend?" he inquired pleasantly.
A thin film of sweat showed suddenly on Kinmarten's forehead.
"No, sir," he said. "I've really told you everything I know. I--"
"Might try him under dope," Cooms said absently.
"Uh-uh!" Quillan said, "I want him wide awake to help me bait the cubicle for the thing. Has Velladon shown any indication of becoming willing to co-operate in hunting it?"
Cooms gestured with his head. "Ask Fluel! I sent him down to try to patch things up with the commodore. He just showed up again."
Quillan glanced around. The Duke was lounging in the doorway. He grinned slightly, said, "Velladon's still sore at us. But he'll talk to Quillan. Kinmarten here ... did he tell you his wife's on the Star?"
Brock Kinmarten went utterly white. Cooms looked at him, said softly, "No, that must have slipped his mind."
Fluel said, "Yeah, Well, she is. And Ryter says they'll have her picked up inside half an hour. When they bring her in, we really should check on how candid Kinmarten's been about everything."
The rest warden said in a voice that shook uncontrollably, "Gentlemen, my wife knows absolutely nothing about these matters! I swear it! She--"
Quillan stood up. "Well, I'll go see if I can't get Velladon in a better mood. Are you keeping that Hlat-talker, Cooms?"
Cooms smiled. "I am."
"Marras figures," the Duke's flat voice explained, "that if the thing comes into the room and he squeaks at it a few times, he won't get hurt."
"That's possible," Cooms said, unruffled. "At any rate, I intend to hang on to it."
"Well, I wouldn't play around with those buttons too much," Quillan observed.
"Why not?"
"You might get lucky and tap out some pattern that spells 'Come to chow' in the Hlat's vocabulary."
* * * * *
There were considerably more men in evidence on Level Two than on the fourth, and fewer signs of nervousness. The Star men had been told of the Hlat's escape from its cubicle, but weren't taking it too seriously. Quillan was conducted to the commodore and favored with an alarmingly toothy grin. Ryter, the security chief, joined them a few seconds later. Apparently, Velladon had summoned him.
Velladon said, "Ryter here's made a few transmitter calls. We hear Pappy Boltan pulled his outfit out of the Orado area about a month ago. Present whereabouts unknown. Hagready went off on some hush-hush job at around the same time."
Quillan smiled. "Uh-huh! So he did."
"We also," said Ryter, "learned a number of things about you personally." He produced a thin smile. "You lead a busy and--apparently--profitable life."
"Business is fair," Quillan agreed. "But it can always be improved."
The commodore turned on the toothy grin. "So all right," he growled, "you're clear. We rather liked what we learned. Eh, Ryter?"
Ryter nodded.
"This Brotherhood of Beldon, now--" The commodore shook his head heavily.
Quillan was silent a moment. "They might be getting sloppy," he said. "I don't know. It's one possibility. They used to be a rather sharp outfit, you know."
"That's what I'd heard!" Velladon chewed savagely on his mustache, asked finally, "What's another possibility?"
Quillan leaned back in his chair. "Just a feeling, so far. But the business with the cubicle upstairs might have angles that weren't mentioned."
They looked at him thoughtfully. Ryter said, "Mind amplifying that?"
"Cooms told me," Quillan said, "that Nome Lancion had given Movaine instructions to make a test with Lady Pendrake on the quiet and find out if those creatures actually can do what they're supposed to do. I think he was telling the truth. Nome tends to be overcautious when it's a really big deal. Unless he's sure of the Hlats, he wouldn't want to be involved in a thing like blowing up the Star and the liner."
The commodore scowled absently. "Uh-huh," he said. "He knows we can't back out of it--"
"All right. The Brotherhood's full of ambitious men. Behind Lancion, Movaine was top man. Cooms behind him; Fluel behind Cooms. Suppose that Hlat-control device Cooms is hanging on to so tightly isn't as entirely incomprehensible as they make it out to be. Suppose Cooms makes a deal with Eltak. Eltak tickles the gadget, and the Hlat kills Movaine. Rubero immediately guns down Eltak--and is killed by Fluel a couple of minutes later, supposedly for blowing his top and killing the man who knew how to control the Hlat."
Ryter cleared his throat. "Fluel was Movaine's gun," he observed.
"So he was," Quillan said. "Would you like the Duke to be yours?"
Ryter grinned, shook his head. "No, thanks!"
Quillan looked back at Velladon. "How well are you actually covered against the Brotherhood?"
"Well,
that's air-tight," the commodore said. "We've got 'em outgunned here. When the liner lands, we'll be about even. But Lancion won't start anything. We're too even. Once we're clear of the Star, we don't meet again. We deal with Yaco individually. The Brotherhood has the Hlats, and we have the trained Federation technicians accompanying them, who ... who--"
"Who alone are supposed to be able to inform Yaco how to control the Hlats," Ryter finished for him. The security chief's face was expressionless.
"By God!" the commodore said softly.
"Well, it's only a possibility that somebody's playing dirty," Quillan remarked. "We'd want to be sure of it. But if anyone can handle a Hlat with the control instrument, the Brotherhood has an advantage now that it isn't talking about--it can offer Yaco everything Yaco needs in one package. Of course, Yaco might still be willing to pay for the Hlat technicians. If it didn't, you and Ryter could make the same kind of trouble for it that my friends can."
* * * * *
The color was draining slowly from Velladon's face. "There's a difference," he said. "If we threaten to make trouble for Yaco, they'd see to it that our present employers learn that Ryter and I are still alive."
"That's the Mooleys, eh?"
"Yes."
"Tough." Quillan knuckled his chin thoughtfully. "Well, let's put it this way then," he said. "My group doesn't have
that kind of problem, but if things worked out so that we'd have something more substantial than nuisance value to offer Yaco, we'd prefer it, of course."
Velladon nodded. "Very understandable! Under the circumstances, co-operation appears to be indicated, eh?"
"That's what I had in mind."
"You've made a deal," Velladon said. "Any immediate suggestions?"
Quillan looked at his watch. "A couple. We don't want to make any mistake about this. It's still almost five hours before the
Camelot pulls in, and until she does you're way ahead on firepower. I wouldn't make any accusations just now. But you might mention to Cooms you'd like to borrow the Hlat gadget to have it examined by some of your technical experts. The way he reacts might tell us something. If he balks, the matter shouldn't be pushed too hard at the moment--it's a tossup whether you or the Brotherhood has a better claim to the thing.
"But then there's Kinmarten, the rest warden in charge of the cubicle. I talked with him while Cooms and Fluel were around, but he may have been briefed on what to say. Cooms mentioned doping him, which could be a convenient way to keeping him shut up, assuming he knows more than he's told. He's one of the personnel you're to offer Yaco. I think you can insist on having Kinmarten handed over to you immediately. It should be interesting again to see how Cooms reacts."
Velladon's big head nodded vigorously. "Good idea!"
"By the way," Quillan said, "Fluel mentioned you've been looking for Kinmarten's wife, the second rest warden on the Pendrake convoy. Found her yet?"
"Not a trace, so far," Ryter said.
"That's a little surprising, too, isn't it?"
"Under the circumstances," the commodore said, "it might not be surprising at all!" He had regained his color, was beginning to look angry. "If they--"
"Well," Quillan said soothingly, "we don't
know. It's just that things do seem to be adding up a little. Now, there's one other point. We should do something immediately about catching that Hlat."
Velladon grunted and picked at his teeth with his thumbnail. "It would be best to get it back in its cubicle, of course. But I'm not worrying about it--just an animal, after all. Even the light hardware those Beldon fancy Dans carry should handle it. You use a man-sized gun, I see. So do I. If it shows up around here, it gets smeared, that's all. There're fifty more of the beasts on the
Camelot."
Quillan nodded. "You're right on that. But there's the possibility that it is being controlled by the Brotherhood at present. If it is, it isn't just an animal any more. It could be turned into a thoroughly dangerous nuisance."
The commodore thought a moment, nodded. "You're right, I suppose. What do you want to do about it?"
"Baiting the cubicle on the fifth level might work. Then there should be life-detectors in the Star's security supplies--"
Ryter nodded. "We have a couple of dozen of them, but not in the Executive Block. They were left in the security building."
The commodore stood up. "You stay here with Ryter," he told Quillan. "There're a couple of other things I want to go over with you two. I'll order the life-detectors from the office here--second passage down, isn't it, Ryter?... And, Ryter, I have another idea. I'm pulling the man in space-armor off the subspace portal and detailing him to Level Five." He grinned at Quillan. "That boy's got a brace of grenades and built-in spray guns! If Cooms is thinking of pulling any funny stunts up there, he'll think again."
* * * * *
The commodore headed briskly down the narrow passageway, his big holstered gun slapping his thigh with every step. The two security guards stationed at the door to the second level office came to attention as he approached, saluted smartly. He grunted, went in without returning the salutes, and started over toward the ComWeb on a desk at the far end of the big room, skirting the long, dusty-looking black rug beside one wall.
Velladon unbuckled his gun belt, placed the gun on the desk, sat down and switched on the ComWeb.
Behind him, the black rug stirred silently and rose up.
* * * * *
"You called that one," Ryter was saying seven or eight minutes later, "almost too well!"
Quillan shook his head, poked at the commodore's gun on the desk with his finger, looked about the silent office and back at the door where a small group of security men stood staring in at them.
"Three men gone without a sound!" he said. He indicated the glowing disk of the ComWeb. "He had time enough to turn it on, not time enough to make his call. Any chance of camouflaged portals in this section?"
"No," Ryter said. "I know the location of every portal in the Executive Block. No number of men could have taken Velladon and the two guards without a fight anyway. We'd have heard it. It didn't happen that way."
"Which leaves," Quillan said, "one way it could have happened." He jerked his head toward the door. "Will those men keep quiet?"
"If I tell them to."
"Then play it like this. Two guards have vanished. The Hlat obviously did it. The thing's deadly. That'll keep every man in the group on the alert every instant from now on. But we don't say Velladon has vanished. He's outside in the Star at the moment, taking care of something."
Ryter licked his lips. "What does that buy us?"
"If the Brotherhood's responsible for this--"
"I don't take much stock in coincidences," Ryter said.
"Neither do I. But the Hlat's an animal; it can't tell them it's carried out the job. If they don't realize we suspect them, it gives us some advantage. For the moment, we just carry on as planned, and get rid of the Hlat in one way or another as the first step. The thing's three times as dangerous as anyone suspected--except, apparently, the Brotherhood. Get the life-detectors over here as soon as you can, and slap a space-armor guard on the fifth level."
Ryter hesitated, nodded. "All right."
"Another thing," Quillan said, "Cooms may have the old trick in mind of working from the top down. If he can take you out along with a few other key men, he might have this outfit demoralized to the point of making up for the difference in the number of guns--especially if the Hlat's still on his team. You'd better keep a handful of the best boys you have around here glued to your back from now on."
Ryter smiled bleakly. "Don't worry. I intend to. What about you?"
"I don't think they're planning on giving me any personal attention at the moment. My organization is outside, not here. And it would look odd to the Brotherhood if I started dragging a few Star guards around with me at this point."
Ryter shrugged. "Suit yourself. It's your funeral if you've guessed wrong."
* * * * *
"There was nothing," Quillan told Marras Cooms, "that you could actually put a finger on. It was just that the commodore and Ryter may have something up their sleeves. Velladon's looking too self-satisfied to suit me." _