some seconds, looking about him listening.The baited cubicle yawned widely at him from the center of the bigroom. Nothing seemed to be stirring. Kinmarten went back to the floor.Quillan moved over to the panel which concealed the other portal'smechanisms.
He had the outportal unsealed in considerably less than a minute thistime, and slapped the panel gently back in place. He turned back toKinmarten and started to bend down for him, then straightened quietlyagain, turning his head.
Had there been a flicker of shadowy motion just then at the edge ofhis vision, behind the big black cube of the Hlat's food locker?Quillan remained perfectly still, the Miam Devil ready and every sensestraining for an indication that the thing was there--or approachingstealthily now, gliding behind the surfaces of floor or ceiling orwalls like an underwater swimmer.
But half a minute passed and nothing else happened. He went down onone knee beside Kinmarten, the gun still in his right hand. With hisleft, he carefully wrestled the rest warden back up across hisshoulder, came upright, moved three steps to the side, and disappearedin the outportal.
* * * * *
Reetal Destone unlocked the entry door to her suite and steppedhurriedly inside, letting the door slide shut behind her. She crossedthe room to the ComWeb stand and switched on the playback. There wasthe succession of tinkling tones which indicated nothing had beenrecorded.
She shut the instrument off again, passing her tongue lightly over herlips. No further messages from Heraga....
And none from Quillan.
She shook her head, feeling a surge of sharp anxiety, glanced at herwatch and told herself that, after all, less than two hours had passedsince Quillan had gone into the Executive Block. Heraga reported therehad been no indications of disturbance or excitement when he passedthrough the big entrance hall on his way out. So Quillan, at anyrate, had succeeded in bluffing his way into the upper levels.
It remained a desperate play, at best.
Reetal went down the short passage to her bedroom. As she came intothe room, her arms were caught from the side at the elbows, pulledsuddenly and painfully together behind her. She stood still, frozenwith shock.
"In a hurry, sweetheart?" Fluel's flat voice said.
Reetal managed a breathless giggle. "Duke! You startled me! How didyou get in?"
She felt one hand move up her arm to her shoulder. Then she was swungabout deftly and irresistibly, held pinned back against the wall,still unable to move her arms.
He looked at her a moment, asked, "Where are you hiding it this time?"
"Hiding what, Duke?"
"I've been told sweet little Reetal always carries a sweet little gunaround with her in some shape or form or other."
Reetal shook her head, her eyes widening. "Duke, what's the matter?I...."
He let go of her suddenly, and his slap exploded against the side ofher face. Reetal cried out, dropping her head between her hands.Immediately he had her wrists again, and her fingers were jerked awayfrom the jeweled ornament in her hair.
"So that's where it is!" Fluel said. "Thought it might be. Don't getfunny again now, sweetheart. Just stay quiet."
She stayed quiet, wincing a little as he plucked the glittering littledevice out of her hair. He turned it around in his fingers, examiningit, smiled and slid it into an inside pocket, and took her arm again."Let's go to the front room, Reetal," he said almost pleasantly."We've got a few things to do."
* * * * *
A minute later, she was seated sideways on a lounger, her wristsfastened right and left to its armrests. The Duke placed a pocketrecorder on the floor beside her. "This is a crowded evening,sweetheart," he remarked, "which is lucky for you in a way. We'll haveto rush things along a little. I'll snap the recorder on in a minuteso you can answer questions--No, keep quiet. Just listen very closelynow, so you'll know what the right answers are. If you get rattled andgum things up, the Duke's going to get annoyed with you."
He sat down a few feet away from her, hitched his shoulders tostraighten out the silver jacket, and lit a cigarette. "A little whileafter Bad News Quillan turned up just now," he went on, "a few thingsoccurred to me. One of them was that a couple of years ago you and hewere operating around Beldon at about the same time. I thought, well,maybe you knew each other; maybe not. And then--"
"Duke," Reetal said uncertainly, "just what are you talking about? Idon't know--"
"Shut up." He reached over, tapped her knee lightly with hisfingertips. "Of course, if you want to get slapped around, all right.Otherwise, don't interrupt again. Like I said, you're in luck; I don'thave much time to spend here. You're getting off very easy. Now justlisten.
"Bad News knew a lot about our operation and had a story to explainthat. If the story was straight, we couldn't touch him. But I waswondering about the two of you happening to be here on the Star againat the same time. A team maybe, eh? But he didn't mention you as beingin on the deal. So what was the idea?
"And then, sweetheart, I remembered something else--and that tied itin. Know that little jolt people sometimes get when they're droppingoff to sleep? Of course. Know another time they sometimes get it? Whenthey're snapping back out of a Moment of Truth, eh? I rememberedsuddenly I'd felt a little jump like that while we were talkingto-day. Might have been a reflex of some kind. Of course, it didn'toccur to me at the time you could be pulling a lousy stunt like thaton old Duke. Why take a chance on getting your neck broken?
"But, sweetheart, that's the tie-in! Quillan hasn't told it straight.He's got no backing. He's on his own. There's no gang outsidesomewhere that knows all about our little deal. He got his informationright here, from you. And you got it from dumb old Duke, eh?"
"Duke," Reetal said quite calmly, "can I ask just one question?"
He stared bleakly at her a moment, then grinned. "It's my night to bebig-hearted, I guess. Go ahead."
"I'm not trying to argue. But it simply doesn't make sense. If Ilearned about this operation you're speaking of from you, what reasoncould I have to feed you Truth in the first place? There'd be almost afifty-fifty chance that you'd spot it immediately. Why should I takesuch a risk? Don't you see?"
Fluel shrugged, dropped his cigarette and ground it carefully into thecarpet with the tip of his shoe.
"You'll start answering those questions yourself almost immediately,sweetheart! Let's not worry about that now. Let me finish. Somethinghappened to Movaine couple of hours ago. Nobody's fault. And somethingelse happened to Marras Cooms just now. That puts me in charge of theoperation here. Nice, isn't it? When we found Cooms lying in the hallwith a hole through his stupid head, I told Baldy Perk it looked likeBad News had thrown in with the Star boys and done it. Know Baldy?He's Cooms' personal gun. Not what you'd call bright, and he's mightyhot now about Cooms. I left him in charge on our level, with orders toget Quillan the next time he shows up there. Well and good. The boysknow Bad News' rep too well to try asking him questions. They won'ttake chances with him. They'll just gun him down together the instantthey see him."
He paused to scuff his shoe over the mark the cigarette had left onthe carpet, went on, "But there's Nome Lancion now. He kind of likedCooms, and he might get suspicious. When there's a sudden vacancy inthe organization like that. Nome takes a good look first at the mannext in line. He likes to be sure the facts are as stated.
"So now you know the kind of answers from you I want to hear go downon the recorder, sweetheart. And be sure they sound right. I don'twant to waste time on replays. You and Quillan were here on the Star.You got some idea of what was happening, realized you were due to bevaporized along with the rest of them after we left. There was no wayout of the jam for you unless you could keep the operation from beingcarried out. You don't, by the way, mention getting any of thatinformation from me. I don't want Lancion to think I'm beginning toget dopey. You and Quillan just cooked up this story, and he managedto get into the Executive Block. The idea being to knock off as manyof the leaders as he could, an
d mess things up."
* * * * *
Fluel picked up the recorder, stood up, and placed it on the chair."That's all you have to remember. You're a smart girl; you can fill inthe details any way you like. Now let's get started--"
She stared at him silently for an instant, a muscle beginning totwitch in her cheek. "If I do that," she said, "if I give you a storyNome will like, what happens next?"
Fluel shrugged. "Just what you're thinking happens next. You're a deadlittle girl right now, Reetal. Might as well get used to the idea.You'd be
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