Fluel checked them over when we moved in."
"Sure they're sealed." Quillan stood up, went to the portal, stoodlooking at the panel beside it a moment, then pressed on it here andthere, and removed it. "Come over here, friend. I suppose portalwork's been out of your line. I'll show you how fast a thing like thatcan get unplugged!" He slid a pocketbook-sized tool kit out of hisbelt, snapped it open. About a minute later, the lifeless VACANT signabove the portal flickered twice, then acquired a steady white glow.
"Portal in operation," Quillan announced. "I'll seal it off again now.But that should give you the idea."
Cooms' tongue flicked over his lips. "Could somebody portal through tothis level from the Star while the exits are sealed here?"
"If the mechanisms have been set for that purpose, the portals can beopened again at any time from the Star side. The Duke's an engineer ofsorts, isn't he? Let him check on it. He should have been thinking ofthe point himself, as far as that goes. Anyway, Velladon can bring inas many men as he likes to his own level without using the mainentrance." He considered. "I didn't see anything to indicate that he'sstarted doing it--"
Marras Cooms shrugged irritably. "That means nothing! It would be easyenough to keep half a hundred men hidden away on any of the lowerlevels."
"I suppose that's right. Well, if the commodore intends to play rough,you should have some warning anyway."
"What kind of warning?"
"There's Kinmarten and that Hlat-talking gadget, for example," Quillanpointed out. "Velladon would want both of those in his possession andout of the way where they can't get hurt before he starts anyshooting."
Cooms looked at him a few seconds. "Ryter," he said then, "sent half adozen men up here for Kinmarten just after you got back! Velladon'ssupposed to deliver the Hlats' attendants to Yaco, so I let them haveKinmarten." He paused. "They asked for the Hlat-talker, too."
Quillan grunted. "Did you give them that?"
"No."
"Well," Quillan said after a moment, "that doesn't necessarily meanthat we're in for trouble with the Star group. But it does mean, Ithink, that we'd better stay ready for it!" He stood up. "I'll getback down there and go on with the motions of getting the hunt forthe Hlat organized. Velladon would sooner see the thing get caught,too, of course, so he shouldn't try to interfere with that. If I spotanything that looks suspicious, I'll get the word to you."
* * * * *
"I never," said Orca, unconsciously echoing Baldy Perk, "saw anythinglike it!" The commodore's chunky little gunman was ashen-faced. Thecircle of Star men standing around him hardly looked happier. Most ofthem were staring down at the empty lower section of a suit of spacearmor which appeared to have been separated with a neat diagonal slicefrom its upper part.
"Let's get it straight," Ryter said, a little unsteadily. "You saythis half of the suit was lying against the wall like _that_?"
"Not exactly," Quillan told him. "When we got up to the fifth level,the suit was stuck against the wall--like that--about eight feet abovethe floor. That was in the big room where the cubicles are. WhenKinmarten and Orca and I finally got the suit worked away from thewall, I expected frankly that we'd find half the body of the guardstill inside. But he'd vanished."
Ryter cleared his throat. "Apparently," he said, "the creature drewthe upper section of the suit into the wall by whatever means it uses,then stopped applying the transforming process to the metal, andsimply moved on with the upper part of the suit and the man."
Quillan nodded. "That's what it looks like."
"But he had _two grenades_!" Orca burst out. "He had sprayguns! Howcould it get him that way?"
"Brother," Quillan said, "grenades won't help you much if you don'tspot what's moving up behind you!"
Orca glared speechlessly at him. Ryter said, "All right! We've lostanother man. We're not going to lose any more. We'll station no moreguards on the fifth level. Now, get everyone who isn't on essentialguard duty to the main room, and split 'em up into life-detectorunits. Five men to each detail, one to handle the detector, four tostay with him, guns out. If the thing comes back to this level, wewant to have it spotted the instant it arrives. Orca, you stayhere--and keep _your_ gun out!"
The men filed out hurriedly. Ryter turned to Quillan. "Were you ableto get the cubicle baited?"
Quillan nodded. "Kinmarten figured out how the thing should be set forthe purpose. If the Hlat goes in after the sea beef, it's trapped. Ofcourse, if the hunting it's been doing was for food, it mightn't beinterested in the beef."
"We don't know," Ryter said, "that the hunting it's been doing was forfood."
"No. Did you manage to get the control device from Cooms?"
Ryter shook his head. "He's refused to hand it over."
"If you tried to take it from him," Quillan said, "you might have ashowdown on your hands."
"And if this keeps on," Ryter said, "I may prefer a showdown! Anotherfew rounds of trouble with the Hlat, and the entire operation couldblow up in our faces! The men aren't used to that kind of thing. It'sshaken them up. If we've got to take care of the Brotherhood, I'drather do it while I still have an organized group. Where did youleave Kinmarten, by the way?"
"He's back in the little room with his two guards," Quillan said.
"Well, he should be all right there. We can't spare--" Ryter's bodyjerked violently. "_What's that?_"
There had been a single thudding crash somewhere in the level. Thenshouts and cursing.
"Main hall!" Quillan said. "Come on!"
* * * * *
The main hall was a jumble of excitedly jabbering Star men when theyarrived there. Guns waved about, and the various groups were showing amarked tendency to stand with their backs toward one another and theirfaces toward the walls.
Ryter's voice rose in a shout that momentarily shut off the hubbub."_What's going on here?_"
Men turned, hands pointed, voices babbled again. Someone nearby saidsharply and distinctly, "... Saw it drop right out of the ceiling!"Farther down the hall, another group shifted aside enough to discloseit had been clustered about something which looked a little like theempty shell of a gigantic black beetle.
The missing section of the suit of space armor had been returned. Butnot its occupant.
Quillan moved back a step, turned, went back down the passage fromwhich they had emerged, pulling the Miam Devil from its holster.Behind him the commotion continued; Ryter was shouting something aboutgetting the life-detector units over there. Quillan went left down thefirst intersecting corridor, right again on the following one, keepingthe gun slightly raised before him. Around the next corner, he saw theman on guard over the portal connecting the building levels facinghim, gun pointed.
"What happened?" the guard asked shakily.
Quillan shook his head, coming up. "That thing got another one!"
The guard breathed, "By God!" and lowered his gun a little. Quillanraised his a little, the Miam Devil grunted, and the guard sighed andwent down. Quillan went past him along the hall, stopped two doorsbeyond the portal and rapped on the locked door.
"Quillan here! Open up!"
The door opened a crack, and one of Kinmarten's guards looked outquestioningly. Quillan shot him through the head, slammed on into theroom across the collapsing body, saw the second guard wheeling towardhim, shot again, and slid the gun back into the holster. Kinmarten,standing beside a table six feet away, right hand gripping a heavymarble ashtray, was staring at him in white-faced shock.
"Take it easy, chum!" Quillan said, turning toward him. "I--"
He ducked hurriedly as the ashtray came whirling through the airtoward his head. An instant later, a large fist smacked the side ofKinmarten's jaw. The rest warden settled limply to the floor.
"Sorry to do that, pal," Quillan muttered, stooping over him. "Thingsare rough all over right now." He hauled Kinmarten upright, bent, andhad the unconscious young man across his shoulder. The hall was stillempty except for t
he body of the portal guard. Quillan laid Kinmartenon the carpet before the portal, hauled the guard off into the room,and pulled the door to the room shut behind him as he came out.Picking up Kinmarten, he stepped into the portal with him and jabbedthe fifth level button. A moment later, he moved out into the smalldim entry hall on the fifth level, the gun in his right hand again.
He stood there silently for
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