beexpected to sound a little odd, anyway." He smiled at herencouragingly. "Ready now?"
Reetal nodded nervously, cleared her throat.
Quillan reached across Fluel tapped out Level Four's call symbol onthe instrument, ducked back down below the stand. After a moment,there was a click.
Reetal produced a quavering, agonized groan. Somebody else gasped.
"_Duke_!" Baldy Perk's voice shouted. "What's happened?"
"Baldy Perk!" Quillan whispered quickly.
Reetal stammered hoarsely, "The c-c-commodore, Baldy! Shot me ... shotMarras! They're after ... Quillan ... now!"
"I thought Bad News...." Baldy sounded stunned.
"Was w-wrong, Baldy," Reetal croaked. "Bad News ... with us! Bad News ...pal! The c-c-comm--"
Beneath the ComWeb stand the palm of Quillan's right hand thrustabruptly up and forward. The stand tilted, went crashing back to thefloor. Fluel's body lurched over with it. The vision screen shattered.Baldy's roaring question was cut off abruptly.
"Great stuff, doll!" Quillan beamed, helping Reetal to her feet. "Yousent shudders down my back!"
"Down mine, too!"
"I'll get him out of here now. Ditch him in one of the shut-offsections. Then I'll get back to the Executive Block. If Ryter'sthought to look into Kinmarten's room, they'll really be raving onboth sides there now!"
"Is that necessary?" Reetal asked. "For you to go back, I mean.Somebody besides Fluel might have become suspicious of you by now."
"Ryter might," Quillan agreed. "He's looked like the sharpest of thelot right from the start. But we'll have to risk that. We've got allthe making of a shooting war there now, but we've got to make sure itgets set off before somebody thinks of comparing notes. If I'm around,I'll keep jolting at their nerves."
"I suppose you're right. Now, our group--"
Quillan nodded. "No need to hold off on that any longer, the waythings are moving. Get on another ComWeb and start putting out thoseMayday messages right now! As soon as you've rounded the boys up--"
"That might," Reetal said, "take a little less than an hour."
"Fine. Then move them right into the Executive Block. With just a bitof luck, one hour from now should land them in the final stages of abeautiful battle on the upper levels. Give them my description andRyter's, so we don't have accidents."
"Why Ryter's?"
"Found out he was the boy who took care of the bomb-planting detail.We want him alive. The others mightn't know where it's been tuckedaway. Heraga says the clerical staff and technicians in there are allwearing the white Star uniforms. Anyone else who isn't in one of thoseuniforms is fair game--" He paused. "Oh, and tip them off about theHlat!--God only knows what that thing will be doing when the ruckusstarts."
"What about sending a few men in through the fifth level portal, theone you've unplugged?"
Quillan considered, shook his head. "No. Down on the ground level iswhere we want them. They'd have to portal there again from the fifth,and a portal is too easy to seal off and defend. Now let's get ablanket or something to tuck Fluel into. I don't want to feelconspicuous if I run into somebody on the way."
* * * * *
Quillan emerged cautiously from the fifth portal in the ExecutiveBlock a short while later, came to a sudden stop just outside it. Inthe big room beyond the entry hall, the door of the baited cubicle wasclosed, and the life-indicator on the door showed a bright steadygreen glow.
Quillan stared at it a moment, looking somewhat surprised, then wentquietly into the room and bent to study the cubicle's instruments. Agrin spread slowly over his face. The trap had been sprung. He glancedat the deep-rest setting and turned it several notches farther down.
"Happy dreams, Lady Pendrake!" he murmured. "That takes care of you.What an appetite! And now--"
As the Level Four portal dilated open before him, a gun blazed fromacross the hall. Quillan flung himself out and down, rolled to theside, briefly aware of a litter of bodies and tumbled furniturefarther up the hall. Then he was flat on the carpet, gun out beforehim, pointing back at the overturned, ripped couch against the farwall from which the fire had come.
A hoarse voice bawled, "Bad News--hold it!"
Quillan hesitated, darting a glance right and left. Men lying abouteverywhere, the furnishings a shambles. "That you, Baldy?" he asked.
"Yeah," Baldy Perk half sobbed. "I'm hurt--"
"What happened?"
"_Star_ gang jumped us. Portaled in here--spitballs and riot guns! BadNews, we're clean wiped out! Everyone that was on this level--"
Quillan stood up, holstering the gun, went over to the couch and movedit carefully away from the wall. Baldy was crouched behind it,kneeling on the blood-soaked carpet, gun in his right hand. He lifteda white face, staring eyes, to Quillan.
"Waitin' for 'em to come back," he muttered. "Man, I'm not for long!Got hit twice. Near passed out a couple of times already."
"What about your boys on guard downstairs?"
"Same thing there, I guess ... or they'd have showed up. They gotCooms and the Duke, too! Man, it all happened fast!"
"And the crew on the freighter?"
"Dunno about them."
"You know the freighter's call number?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure. Never thought of that," Baldy said wearily. Heseemed dazed now.
"Let's see if you can stand."
Quillan helped the big man to his feet. Baldy hadn't bled too muchoutwardly, but he seemed to have estimated his own conditioncorrectly. He wasn't for long. Quillan slid an arm under hisshoulders.
"Where's a ComWeb?" he asked.
Baldy blinked about. "Passage there--" His voice was beginning tothicken.
The ComWeb was in the second room up the passage. Quillan eased Perkinto the seat before it. Baldy's head lolled heavily forward, like adrunken man's. "What's the number?" Quillan asked.
Baldy reflected a few seconds, blinking owlishly at the instrument,then told him. Quillan tapped out the number, flicked on the visionscreen, then stood aside and back, beyond the screen's range.
"Yeah, Perk?" a voice said some seconds later. "Hey, _Perk_ ... Perk,what's with ya?"
Baldy spat blood, grinned. "Shot--" he said.
"_What?_"
"Yeah." Baldy scowled, blinking. "Now, lessee--Oh, yeah. Star gang'sgonna jump ya! Watch it!"
"What?"
"Yeah, watch--" Baldy coughed, laid his big head slowly down faceforward on the ComWeb stand, and stopping moving.
"Perk! Man, wake up! Perk!"
Quillan quietly took out the gun, reached behind the stand and blewthe ComWeb apart. He wasn't certain what the freighter's crew wouldmake of the sudden break in the connection, but they could hardlyregard it as reassuring. He made a brief prowl then through the mainsections of the level. Evidence everywhere of a short and furiousstruggle, a struggle between men panicked and enraged almost beyondany regard for self-preservation. It must have been over in minutes.He found that the big hall portal to the ground level had been sealed,whether before or after the shooting he couldn't know. There wouldhave been around twenty members of the Brotherhood on the level. Noneof them had lived as long as Baldy Perk, but they seemed to haveaccounted for approximately an equal number of the Star's securityforce first.
* * * * *
Five Star men came piling out of the fifth level portal behind him aminute or two later, Ryter in the lead. Orca behind Ryter. All fiveheld leveled guns.
"You won't need the hardware," Quillan assured them. "It's harmlessenough now. Come on in."
They followed him silently up to the cubicle, stared comprehendinglyat dials and indicators. "The thing's back inside there, all right!"Ryter said. He looked at Quillan. "Is this where you've been all thetime?"
"Sure, Where else?" The others were forming a half-circle about him, afew paces back.
"Taking quite a chance with that Hlat, weren't you?" Ryter remarked.
"Not too much. I thought of
something." Quillan indicated theoutportal in the hall. "I had my back against that. A portal'sspace-break, not solid matter. It couldn't come at me from behind. Andif it attacked from any other angle"--he tapped the holstered MiamDevil lightly, and the gun in Orca's hand jerked upward a fraction ofan inch--"There aren't many animals that can swallow more than a boltor two from that baby and keep coming."
There was a moment's silence. Then Orca said thoughtfully, "That wouldwork!"
"Did it see you?" Ryter asked.
"It couldn't have. First _I_ saw of it, it was sailing out from thatcorner over there. It slammed in after that chunk of sea beef so fast,it shook the cubicle. And that was that." He grinned. "Well, most ofour troubles should be over now!"
One of the men gave a brief, nervous laugh. Quillan looked at himcuriously. "Something, chum?"
Ryter shook his head. "Something is right! Come on downstairs again,Bad News. This time we have news for you--"
The Brotherhood guards on the ground level had been taken by surpriseand shot down almost without losses for the Star men. But the battleon the fourth level had cost more than the dead left up there. Anadditional number had returned with injures that were serious enoughto make them useless for further work.
"It's been expensive," Ryter admitted. "But one more attack by theHlat would have left me with a panicked mob on my hands. If we'drealized it was going to trap itself--"
"I wasn't so sure that would work either," Quillan said. "Did you getKinmarten back?"
"Not yet. The chances are he's locked up somewhere on the fourthlevel. Now the Hlat's out of the way, some of the men have gone backup there to look for him. If Cooms thought he was important enough tostart a fight over, I want him back."
"How about the crew on the Beldon ship?" Quillan asked, "Have theybeen cleaned up?"
"No," Ryter said. "We'll have to do that now, of course."
"How many of them?"
"Supposedly twelve. And that's probably what it is."
"If they know or suspect what's happened," Quillan said, "twelve mencan give a boarding party in a lock a remarkable amount of trouble."
Ryter shrugged irritably. "I know, but there isn't much choice.Lancion's bringing in the other group on the _Camelot_. We don't wantto have to handle both of them at the same time."
"How are you planning to take the freighter?"
"When the search party comes back down, we'll put every man we canspare from guard duty here on the job. They'll be instructed to becareful about it ... if they can wind up the matter within the nextseveral hours, that will be early enough. We can't afford too manyadditional losses now. But we should come out with enough men to takecare of Lancion and handle the shipment of Hlats. And that's whatcounts."
"Like me to take charge of the boarding party?" Quillan inquired."That sort of thing's been a kind of specialty of mine."
Ryter looked at him without much expression on his face. "I understandthat," he said. "But perhaps it would be better if you stayed up herewith us."
* * * * *
The search party came back down ten minutes later. They'd lookedthrough every corner of the fourth level. Kinmarten wasn't there,either dead or alive. But one observant member of the group haddiscovered, first, that the Duke of Fluel was also not among thosepresent, and, next that one of the four outportals on the level hadbeen unsealed. The exit on which the portal was found to be set was ina currently unused hall in the General Office building on the otherside of the Star. From that hall, almost every other section of theStar was within convenient portal range.
None of the forty-odd people working in the main control office on theground level had actually witnessed any shooting; but it was apparentthat a number of them were uncomfortably aware that something quiteextraordinary must be going on. They were a well-disciplined group,however. An occasional uneasy glance toward one of the armed menlounging along the walls, some anxious faces, were the only noticeableindications of tension. Now and then, there was a brief, low-pitchedconversation at one of the desks.
Quillan stood near the center of the office, Ryter and Orca a dozenfeet from him on either side. Four Star guards were stationed alongthe walls. From the office one could see through a large doorspace cutthrough both sides of a hall directly into the adjoining transmitterroom. Four more guards were in there. Aside from the men in theentrance hall and at the subspace portal, what was available at themoment of Ryter's security force was concentrated at this point.
The arrangement made considerable sense; and Quillan gave no sign ofbeing aware that the eyes of the guards shifted to him a little morefrequently than to any other point in the office, or that none of themhad moved his hand very far away from his gun since they had come inhere. But that also made sense. In the general tension area of theExecutive Block's ground level, a specific point of tension--highlycharged though undetected by the non-involved personnel--was the oneprovided by the presence of Bad News Quillan here. Ryter was more thansuspicious by now; the opened portal on the fourth level, thedisappearance of Kinmarten and the Duke, left room for a wide varietyof speculations. Few of those speculations could be very favorable toBad News. Ryter obviously preferred to let things stand as they wereuntil the Beldon freighter was taken and the major part of his grouphad returned from the subspace sections of the Star. At that time, BadNews could expect to come in for some very direct questioning by thesecurity chief.
The minutes dragged on. Under the circumstances, a glance at his watchcould be enough to bring Ryter's uncertainties up to the explosionpoint, and Quillan also preferred to let things stand as they were forthe moment. But he felt reasonably certain that over an hour hadpassed since he'd left Reetal; and so far there had been no hint ofanything unusual occurring in the front part of the building. Themurmur of voices in the main control office continued to eddy abouthim. There were indications that in the transmitter room across thehall messages had begun to be exchanged between the Star and theapproaching liner.
A man sitting at a desk near Quillan stood up presently, went out intothe hall and disappeared. A short while later, the white-suited figurereturned and picked up the interrupted work. Quillan's glance wentover the clerk, shifted on. He felt something tighten up swiftlyinside him. There was a considerable overall resemblance, but _that_wasn't the man who had left the office.
Another minute or two went by. Then two other uniformed figuresappeared at the opening to the hall, a sparse elderly man, a blondgirl. They stood there talking earnestly together for some seconds,then came slowly down the aisle toward Quillan. It appeared to be anargument about some detail of her work. The girl frowned, stubbornlyshaking her head. Near Quillan they separated, started off intodifferent sections of the office. The girl, glancing back, stillfrowning, brushed against Ryter. She looked up at him, startled.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Ryter scowled irritably, started to say something, suddenly appearedsurprised. Then his eyes went blank and his knees buckled under him.
The clerk sitting at the nearby desk whistled shrilly.
Quillan wheeled, gun out and up, toward the wall behind him. The twoguards there were still lifting their guns. The Miam Devil grunteddisapprovingly twice, and the guards went down. Noise crashed from thehall ... heavy sporting rifles. He turned again, saw the two otherguards stumbling backward along the far wall. Feminine screamingerupted around the office as the staff dove out of sight behind desks,instrument stands and filing cabinets. The elderly man stood aboveOrca, a sap in his hand and a please smile on his face.
In the hallway, four white-uniformed men had swung about and werepointing blazing rifles into the transmitter room. The racketing ofthe gunfire ended abruptly and the rifles were lowered again. Thehuman din in the office began to diminish, turned suddenly into ashocked, strained silence. Quillan realized the blond girl wasstanding at his elbow.
"Did you get the rest of them?" he asked quickly, in a low voice.
"Everyone who was on this leve
l," Reetal told him. "There weren't manyof them."
"I know. But there's a sizable batch still in the subspace section. Ifwe can get the bomb disarmed, we'll just leave them sealed up there.How long before you can bring Ryter around?"
"He'll be able to talk in five minutes."
* * * * *
Quillan had been sitting for some little while in a very comfortablechair in what had been the commodore's personal suite on the SeventhStar, broodingly regarding the image of the _Camelot_ in a huge wallscreen. The liner was still over two hours' flight away but wouldarrive on schedule. On the Star, at least in the normspace section,everything was quiet, and in the main control offices and in thetransmitter room normal working conditions had been restored.
A room portal twenty feet away opened suddenly, and Reetal Destonestepped out.
"So there you are!" she observed.
Quillan Looked mildly surprised, then grinned. "I'd hate to have totry to hide from you!" he said.
"Hm-m-m!" said Reetal. She smiled. "What are you drinking?"
He nodded at an open liquor cabinet near the screen. "Velladon wasleaving some excellent stuff behind. Join me?"
"Hm-m-m." She went to the cabinet, looked over the bottles, made herselection and filled a glass. "One has the impression," she remarked,"that you _were_ hiding from me."
"One does? I'd have to be losing my cotton-picking mind--"
"Not necessarily." Reetal brought the drink over to his chair, satdown on the armrest with it. "You might just have a ratherembarrassing problem to get worked out before you give little Reetal achance to start asking questions about it."
Quillan looked surprised. "What gave you that notion?"
"Oh," Reetal said, "adding things up gave me that notion.... Care tohear what the things were?"
"Go ahead, doll."
"First," said Reetal, "I understand that a while ago, after you'd firstsent me off to do some little job for you, you were in the transmitterroom having a highly private--shielded and scrambled--conversation withsomebody on board the _Camelot_."
"Why, yes," Quillan said. "I was talking to the ship's securityoffice. They're arranging to have a Federation police boat pick upwhat's left of the commodore's boys and the Brotherhood in thesubspace section.
"And that," said Reetal, "is where that embarrassing little problembegins. Next, I noticed, as I say, that you were showing this tendencyto avoid a chance for a private talk between us. And after thinkingabout that for a little, and also about a few other things which cameto mind at around that time, I went to see Ryter."
"Now why--?"
Reetal ran her fingers soothingly through his hair. "Let me finish,big boy. I found Ryter and Orca in a highly nervous condition. And doyou know why they're nervous? They're convinced that some time beforethe _Camelot_ gets here, you're going to do them both in."
"Hm-m-m," said Quillan.
"Ryter," she went on, "besides being nervous, is also very bitter. Inretrospect, he says, it's all very plain what you've done here. Youand your associates--a couple of tough boys named Hagready and Boltan,and others not identified--are also after these Hlats. The Duke madesome mention of that, too, you remember. The commodore and Ryterbought the story you told them because a transmitter check producedthe information that Hagready and Boltan had, in fact, left theirusual work areas and gone off on some highly secret business about amonth ago.
"Ryter feels that your proposition--to let your gang in on the dealfor twenty per cent, or else--was made in something less than goodfaith. He's concluded that when you learned of the operation beingplanned by Velladon and the Brotherhood, you and your pals decided toobstruct them and take the Hlats for delivery to Yaco yourselves,without cutting anybody in. He figures that someone like Hagready orBoltan is coming in on the _Camelot_ with a flock of sturdy henchmento do just that. You, personally, rushed to the Seventh Star tointerfere as much as you could here. Ryter admits reluctantly thatyou did an extremely good job of interfering. He says it's now obviousthat every move you made since you showed up had the one purpose ofsetting the Star group and the Brotherhood at each other's throats.And now that they've practically wiped each other out, you and yourassociates can go on happily with your original plans.
"But, of course, you can't do that if Ryter and Orca are picked upalive by the Federation cops. The boys down in the subspace sectiondon't matter; they're ordinary gunhands and all they know is that youwere somebody who showed up on the scene. But Ryter could, andcertainly would, talk--"
"Ah, he's too imaginative," Quillan said, taking a swallow of hisdrink. "I never heard of the Hlats before I got here. As I told you,I'm on an entirely different kind of job at the moment. I had to makeup some kind of story to get an in with the boys, that's all."
"So you're not going to knock those two weasels off?"
"No such intentions. I don't mind them sweating about it till the Fedsarrive, but that's it."
"What about Boltan and Hagready?"
"What about them? I did happen to know that if anyone started askingquestions about those two, he'd learn that neither had been near hisregular beat for close to a month."
"I'll bet!" Reetal said cryptically.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Hm-m-m," she said. "Bad News Quillan! A really tough boy, for sure.You know, I didn't believe for an instant that you were after theHlats--"
"Why not?"
Reetal said, "I've been on a couple of operations with you, and you'dbe surprised how much I've picked up about you from time to time onthe side. Swiping a shipment of odd animals and selling them to Yaco,that could be Bad News, in character. Selling a couple of hundredhuman beings--like Brock and Solvey Kinmarten--to go along with theanimals to an outfit like Yaco would not be in character."
"So I have a heart of gold," Quillan said.
"So you fell all over your own big feet about half a minute ago!"Reetal told him. "Bad News Quillan--with no interest whatsoever in theHlats--still couldn't afford to let Ryter live to talk about him tothe Feds, big boy!"
Quillan looked reflective for a moment. "Dirty trick!" he observed."For that, you might freshen up my glass."
* * * * *
Reetal took both glasses over to the liquor cabinet, freshened themup, and settled down on the armrest of the chair again. "So therewe're back to the embarrassing little problem," she said.
"Ryter?"
"No, idiot. We both know that Ryter is headed for Rehabilitation.Fifteen years or so of it, as a guess. The problem is little Reetalwho has now learned a good deal more than she was ever intended tolearn. Does she head for Rehabilitation, too?"
Quillan took a swallow of his drink and set the glass down again. "Areyou suggesting," he inquired, "that I might be, excuse the expression,a cop?"
Reetal patted his head. "Bad News Quillan! Let's look back at hisrecord. What do we find? A shambles, mainly. Smashed-up organizations,outfits, gangs. Top-level crooks with suddenly vacant expressions andunexplained holes in their heads. Why go on? The name is awfully wellearned! And nobody realizing anything because the ones who do realizeit suddenly ... well, where _are_ Boltan Hagready at the moment."
Quillan sighed. "Since you keep bringing it up--Hagready played itsmart, so he's in Rehabilitation. Be cute if Ryter ran into him theresome day. Pappy Boltan didn't want to play it smart. I'm not enough ofa philosopher to make a guess at where he might be at present. But Iknew he wouldn't be talking."
"All right," Reetal said, "we've got that straight. Bad News isIntelligence of some kind. Federation maybe, or maybe one of theservices. It doesn't matter, really, I suppose. Now, what about me?"
He reached out and tapped his glass with a fingertip. "That about you,doll. You filled it. I'm drinking it. I may not think quite as fast asyou do, but I still think. Would I take a drink from a somewhatlawless and very clever lady who really believed I had her lined upfor Rehabilitation? Or who'd be at all likely to blab out something
that would ruin an old pal's reputation?"
Reetal ran her fingers through his hair again. "I noticed the dealwith the drink," she said. "I guess I just wanted to hear you say it.You don't tell on me, I don't tell on you. Is that it?"
"That's it," Quillan said. "What Ryter and Orca want to tell the Fedsdoesn't matter. It stops there, the Feds will have the word on mebefore they arrive. By the way, did you go wake up the Kinmartensyet?"
"Not yet," Reetal said. "Too busy getting the office help soothed downand back to work."
"Well, lets finish these drinks and go do that, then. The littledoll's almost bound to be asleep by now, but she might still besitting there biting nervously at her pretty knuckles."
* * * * *
Major Hesler Quillan of Space Scout Intelligence, was looking unhappy."We're still searching for them everywhere," he explained to Klayung,"but it's a virtual certainty that the Hlat got them shortly before itwas trapped."
Klayung, a stringy, white-haired old gentleman, was an operator of thePsychology Service, in charge of the shipment of Hlats the _Camelot_had brought in. He and Quillan were waiting in the vestibule of theSeventh Star's rest cubicle vaults for Lady Pendrake's cubicle to bebrought over from the Executive Block.
Klayung said reflectively, "Couldn't the criminals with who you weredealing here have hidden the couple