"All right. Let's go."
We went. I have never in my life seen that long hall quite so empty as
it was right then. No one came out of any of the apartments, no one
emerged from any of the branch halls. We walked to my apartment. I
thumbed the door open and we went inside.
Once the door was closed behind us, he visibly relaxed, sagging against
the door, his gun hand hanging limp at his side, a nervous smile
playing across his lips.
I looked at him, judging the distance between us, wondering if I could
leap at him before he could bring the gun up again. But he must have
read my intentions on my face. He straightened, shaking his head. He
said, "Don't try it. I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill
anybody, but I will if I have to. We'll just wait here together until
the hue and cry passes us. Then I'll tie you up, so you won't be able
to sic your Army on me too soon, and I'll leave. If you don't try any
silly heroics, nothing will happen to you."
"You'll never get away," I told him. "The whole Project is alerted."
"You let me worry about that," he said. He licked his lips. "You got
any chico coffee?"
"Yes."
"Make me a cup. And don't get any bright ideas about dousing me with
boiling water."
"I only have my day's allotment," I protested. "Just enough for two
cups, lunch and dinner."
"Two cups is fine," he said. "One for each of us."
* * * * *
And now I had yet another grudge against this blasted spy. Which
reminded me again of Linda. From the looks of things, I wasn't _ever_
going to get to her place. By now she was probably in mourning for me
and might even have the Sanitation Staff searching for my remains.
As I made the chico, he asked me questions. My name first, and then,
"What do you do for a living?"
I thought fast. "I'm an ore-sled dispatcher," I said. That was a lie,
of course, but I'd heard enough about ore-sled dispatching from Linda
to be able to maintain the fiction should he question me further about
it.
Actually, I was a gymnast instructor. The subjects I taught included
wrestling, judo and karati--talents I would prefer to disclose to him
in my own fashion, when the time came.
He was quiet for a moment. "What about radiation level on the
ore-sleds?"