It was a tough question. Had I been seen going in or coming out? If it
was coming out--Rena had been with me.
I took what we called a "calculated risk"--that is, I got a firm grip
on my courage and told a big fat and possibly detectable lie. I said,
"Nobody that I could find. But I still think I heard something. The
trouble is, I don't know the vaults very well. I was afraid I'd get
lost."
Apparently it was on the way in that I had been spotted, for Lawton
said thoughtfully, "Let's take a look."
We took a couple of battered expediters with us--I didn't regard them
as exactly necessary, but I couldn't see how I could tell Lawton
that. The elevators were working again, so we came out in a slightly
different part of the vaults than I had seen before; it was not
entirely acting on my part when I peered around.
Lawton accepted my statement that I wasn't quite sure where I had heard
the noises, without argument. He accepted it all too easily; he sent
the expediters scouring the corridors at random.
And, of course, one of them found the pool of spilled fluorescence
from the hypodermic needle I had knocked out of Rena's hand.
* * * * *
We stood there peering at the smear of purplish color, the shattered
hypodermic, Rena's gas gun.
Lawton mused, "Looks like someone's trying to wake up some of our
sleepers. That's our standard antilytic, if I'm not mistaken." He
scanned the shelves. "Nobody missing around here. Take a look in the
next few sections of the tiers."
The expediters saluted and left.
"They won't find anyone missing," Lawton predicted. "And _that_ means
we have to take a physical inventory of the whole damn clinic. Over
eighty thousand suspendees to check." He made a disgusted noise.