Vincennes' glance sped to a lighted door at the far side of the hangar.
"Looks that way," he said. "Shall I attend to Nolan first? He's
tricky--"
Woller laughed softly. "He's used up all his tricks. We'll take him
with us, alive. He might come in handy. He's been out of sight for
three years now. I'm just a bit curious where he's been. Perhaps it's
somewhere we should know about."
He groped for Vincennes' arm, found it. "Let's go," he said. "We can't
keep the chief waiting."
* * * * *
Nolan was first through the door. He was in a small room where four or
five ordinary-looking people were siting around at ease. One was in
uniform, the others the perfect example of quite successful businessmen.
"Is he here yet?" whispered Woller. The Martian looked around the room
before he answered.
"Not yet. Cafferty--Lieutenant Brie--Searle--Vremczyk. That's all."
The dumpling-shaped soldier in the gray-green of Pluto's militia stared
at Woller. "What the devil's the matter with your face?" he spluttered.
Woller answered before Vincennes could. "I had an accident, Brie," he
snapped. "Keep your fat nose out of it."
The dumpling turned purple. But he said nothing, and Nolan realized
Woller's importance in this gathering. This gathering of--what?
Nolan looked around quickly, and the answer raced to his brain.
An officer of Pluto's defense forces--two or three well-dressed
men, apparently wealthy, with something about them that shrieked
"politico"--and Woller, once overlord of the System's greatest
news-dissemination agency, still a man of vast influence. It looked
like the back room of a political convention--or the gathering of a
cabal.
_The Junta!_
It had to be the Junta.
What they were saying began to make sense. A tall man in dove gray was
speaking.
"We're not satisfied, candidly," he was saying. "Woller, you've had
more money than our resources can afford. Everything you've asked for
you got. And what have you to show for it? Three ships--not one of them
fit to fly."
Woller laughed contemptuously. "Candidly, Cafferty," he mimicked,
"I don't care how you feel. My money's gone right along with yours.
Warships cost money."
"So do thousand-acre Martian estates," shot the little lieutenant. "How
much of your money is in these ships--and how much of ours is in your
pockets?"
Woller turned his blind eyes toward the lieutenant and stood
motionless for a second. Then, softly, "Once again, Brie--keep your fat
face shut. You are not indispensable."
The pudgy soldier glared and opened his mouth to speak--but an
interruption halted the quarrel. The door opened without warning, and
another man entered.
What he looked like Nolan could not guess. He wore a heat suit with the
helmet down. The polar-plastic faceplate was set for one-way vision.
Even his voice was muffled and distorted as he spoke.
"Are we all here?" he asked. The others seemed to note nothing odd
about his incognito--did he always disguise himself, Nolan wondered?
"Where's Orlando?"
Brie answered. "He was on Mars, on the other side of the sun. He's on
his way."
The mirror-faced helmet bobbed as its owner nodded. Then it turned
toward Nolan. "What's this?" he asked, advancing.
Vincennes gestured with the pyro. "His name is Nolan," he said. "He
tried to get rough with Mr. Woller. He's dangerous."
"Dangerous!" The blurred voice was angry. "Then why is he here? We have
enough danger as it is. Give me that pyro!"
This was it, Nolan knew, and he tensed his body for the leap he had
to attempt, though he knew it was useless. The man in the heat suit
reached for Vincennes' pyro. In the moment while the gun was passing
from hand to hand there might be a chance....
There were shouts from outside, and the sound of running feet. The man
in the heat suit whirled. "Bolt that door!" he shouted. "Bolt it! Now!"
Brie, dazed for a second, sprang to obey. Then he turned, his plump,
pale face damp with sudden sweat. "What is this, Chief?" he asked. "Are
we--is there trouble?"
_Chief!_ thought Nolan. So this hooded stranger was the leader of the
conspiracy. Masked, disguised like the bandit chief of a flamboyant
operetta.
The Chief was laughing. "Lots of trouble," he answered. The dull
shouting from outside continued, rising to a crescendo as whoever was
without pounded against the door and found it locked. Then abruptly it
subsided. The huge telescreen on the desk buzzed sharply. The solid
little man seated beside it automatically clicked the switch that
turned it on.
"Turn it off!" bellowed the man in the heat suit. But it was already
working. The prismatic flare on the screen showed no vision impulses
were coming in, showed that whoever was calling was using a sound
transmitter only--a portable set like those in a heat suit. A voice
said sharply:
"Attention, Junta! The man who claims to be the Chief is a masquerader.
Kill him! This is the Chief speaking now!"
V
Doubt sprang into the eyes of every man present. It lasted only a
second--for the masquerader's action proved the charge against him.
He grappled the pyro from dazed Vincennes, sprang back, fired a warning
blast that smashed the telescreen.
"Don't move, anybody!" he ordered. "Nolan--take their guns!"
Nolan threw questions to the winds, sped to obey. He found a
business-like little heat pencil in the inner pockets of the chunky
man, a pearl-handled burlesque of the service pyro in the gaudy gemmed
holster Lieutenant Brie dangled from his belt. Nothing else--and his
search was thorough.
"All set," he reported.
"Good enough. Searle--are there heat suits in this room?"
The chunky man looked stricken. He nodded. "In that locker," he said
dizzily, pointing to the wall.
"Get them out, Nolan. Give one to every man and put one on yourself.
Those outside will take their chances."
Nolan raced to comply. The stillness outside the door was menacing.
While he was dragging the suits out, throwing them at the men, while
they were putting them on, the man called Searle was staring at the
masquerader with dawning comprehension.
"What are you going to do?" he whispered. "Are you--"
The man in the heat suit laughed sharply. "Get your suit on," he said.
"You know what I'm going to do. All set?" Every man was garbed, helmets
down. "Ten seconds to seal them. One, two, three--"
He counted slowly and Nolan watched him with fascination. At _five_ the
gauntleted left hand came up to the butt of the pyro, worked the tiny
chambering lever half a dozen times. Nolan gasped in spite of himself.
There were seven lethal pyro charges in the chamber of that gun--enough
to blast down a mountain!
The count was finished. Through Nolan's helmet radio, automatically
turned on, the man's calm voice ordered, "All right, Nolan. Open the
door and let them in!"
Nolan moved. As his hand was on the lock, just as it turned and the
door swung loosely inward--
_Blam!_ the impostor swung and fired the massive charge in his pyro at
the thin wall that kept air and life in the dome!
They were running over icy ground. At most there was a minute or so of
advantage--less, if the men they'd left in the room had other weapons
concealed somewhere. And still Nolan didn't know who his savior was.
"All right, now," he panted over the helmet phone. "Give. Who are you?"
The answer was a chuckle, mixed with gasping as the smaller man strove
to match his speed. "Tell you later," he panted.
"Hold it!" Nolan broke in, suddenly recalling the oversight that had
been so disastrous before. "Don't tell me. Show me--and turn off your
radio. They've got tracers."
* * * * *
There was a snort of sudden comprehension from the phone, then silence.
Nolan looked to see the figure spurt into the lead, gesture ahead. They
were rounding the dome. The bulk of the _Dragonfly_ appeared, with a
big cargo skid drawn up beside it. The gesticulating arm of the other
man pointed directly at it.
Nolan glanced around. There was no one following--yet.
The men hadn't had weapons, then--and those who had been outside
would not be pursuing anybody. He tried to thrust from his mind the
recollection of what had happened when the sucking rush of escaping air
had thrown wide open the door he had unlocked, and the tug of naked
vacuum gripped the men behind it. A dozen of them there had been,
hulking brutes from the flight sheds of a system's blowsiest ports, and
one man in a heat suit, faceplate mirrored like that of the man Nolan
ran beside. It is not pleasant to see a strong man try to shriek in
agony, and fail because the air has bubbled from his lungs.
The outer door of the skid was open, and the impostor trotted in. When
Nolan was beside him he leaned on the lock control. Ever so slowly, the
outer door closed; slowly the inner opened.
They burst into a chamber where a man was just rising from a
telescreen, face contorted with consternation and hate, hand bringing
up a pyro from a drawer in the chart table.
The pseudo-chief's gun spoke first, and the head and shoulders of the
other disappeared in a burst of flame and sickening smoke. There was
no time for delicacy. Ruthlessly shoving the seared corpse away, the
stranger dove for the controls, touched the jet keys.
The ungainly skid shuddered, then drove forward. The stranger opened
all jets to the limits of their power. Creaking and groaning, the
skid responded. The dial of the speed indicator showed mounting
acceleration, far beyond what the ship was designed for.
Nolan, clinging with one arm to a floor-bolted chair, threw back his
helmet and yelled: "I'm ready any time! What's the story? Who the devil
are you?"
The impostor waved a hand impatiently. His muffled voice came: "Take a
look in there. There may be more aboard!"
Nolan grimaced and nodded. He picked his way over the jolting floor,
blaster out, to the threshold. His groping hand encountered the lume
switch, flooded the cargo hatch with light. It was almost empty. A few
crates, the long casket-like object he had seen in the ship. Nothing
behind which a man could hide.
Nolan turned to see the masquerader unzipping the folds of his heat
suit with one hand while he guided the careening skid with the other.
He brought out a tiny black box, opened it to show a key and a lever.
He thumbed the lever open, braced the box between his knees, began
tapping the key rhythmically. A curious shrill staccato came from the
box. _Dee dideedeedit didideedit deedeedit deedeedee didee didididit_--
After a second he stopped, waited. Then faintly an answer came back
from the box. _Deedeedee dideedidit_--
And silence. Satisfied, the man closed the box, slowed the skid to a
point where its guidance no longer required complete attention. They
had reached the ring of ice hummocks that surrounded Woller's dome. The
skid bounded over the first rise, zoomed through that trough and the
next; then the man kicked the rudder jets. It spun along the trough to
where the hummocks were highest; then he cut the jets.
He turned to Nolan, threw back his helmet.
"My God," gasped Nolan. "Pete!"
* * * * *
Petersen grinned. "You called it, boy," he admitted. "Don't I get
around though?"
Nolan closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the back of his chair.
"The story," he said. "Quick."
Petersen shrugged. "How can I tell it quick? It's long.... Maybe if I
tell you one thing you can fill in the details."
"What's the one thing?"
"I work for TPL."