"Then here's an idea," Quillan said. "As things stand, barging into
the Executive Block with a small armed group can't accomplish much. It
might be more interesting than sitting around and waiting to be blown
up, but it still would be suicide. However, if we could get things
softened up and disorganized in there first--"
"Softened up and disorganized how?" Reetal asked.
"We can use that notion you had of having Heraga float in another
diner. This time, I'm on board--in a steward's uniform, in case the
guards check."
"They didn't the first time," Heraga said.
"Sloppy of them. Well, they're just gun hands. Anyway, once we're
inside I shuck off the uniform and get out. Heraga delivers his
goodies, and leaves again--"
Reetal gave him a look. "You'll get shot down the instant you're seen,
dope!"
"I think not. There're two groups in there--around a hundred men in
all--and they haven't had time to get well acquainted yet. I'll have
my gun in sight, and anyone who sees me should figure I belong to the
other group, until I run into one of the Brotherhood boys who knows me
personally."
"Then that's when you get shot down. I understand the last time you
and the Duke of Fluel met, he woke up with lumps."
"The Duke doesn't love me," Quillan admitted. "But there's nothing
personal between me and Movaine or Marras Cooms--and I'll have a
message for Movaine."
"What kind of a message?"
"I'll have to play that by ear a little. It depends on how things
look in there. But I have a few ideas, based on what you've learned of
the operation. Now, just what I can do when I get that far, I don't
know yet. I'll simply try to louse the deal up as much as I can. That
may take time, and, of course, it might turn out to be impossible to
get word out to you."
"So what do we do meanwhile?" Reetal asked. "If we start lining up our
attack group immediately, and then there's no action for another five
or six hours, there's always the chance of a leak, with around twenty
people in the know."
"And if there's a leak," Quillan agreed, "we've probably had it. No,
you'd better wait with that! If I'm not out, and you haven't heard
from me before the _Camelot_'s actually due to dock, Heraga can still
take the group--everyone but yourself--in as scheduled."
"Why everyone but me?" Reetal asked.
"If nothing else works, you might find some way of getting a warning
to the liner's security force after they've docked. It isn't much of a
possibility, but we can't afford to throw it away."
"Yes, I see." Reetal looked reflective. "What do you think, Heraga?"
The little man shrugged. "You told me that Mr. Quillan is not
inexperienced in dealing with, ah, his enemies. If he feels he might
accomplish something in the Executive Block, I'm in favor of the plan.
The situation certainly could hardly become worse."
"That's the spirit!" Quillan approved. "The positive outlook--that's
what a think like this mainly takes. Can you arrange for the diner and
the uniform?"
"Oh, yes," Heraga said, "I've had myself put in charge of that detail,
naturally."
"Then what can you tell me about the Executive Block's layout?"
Reetal stood up. "Come over to the desk," she said. "We've got
diagrams."
* * * * *
"The five levels, as you see," Heraga was explaining a few moments
later, "are built directly into the curve of the Star's shells. Level
Five, on the top, is therefore quite small. The other levels are
fairly extensive. Two, Three, and Four could each accommodate a
hundred men comfortably. These levels contain mainly living quarters,
private offices, and the like. The Brotherhood men appear to be
occupying the fourth level, Velladon's group the second. The third may
be reserved for meetings between representatives of the two groups.
All three of these levels are connected by single-exit portals to the
large entrance area on the ground level.
"The portals stood open when I went in earlier today, and there were
about twenty armed men lounging about the entrance hall. I recognized
approximately half of them as being members of the Star's security
force. The others were unfamiliar." Heraga cleared his throat. "There
is a possibility that the two groups do not entirely trust each
other."
Quillan nodded. "If they're playing around with something like sixty
million CR, anybody would have to be crazy to trust the Brotherhood of
Beldon. The transmitter room and the control officers are guarded,
too?"
"Yes, but not heavily," Heraga said. "There seem to be only a few men
stationed at each of those points. Ostensibly, they're there as a
safe-guard--in case the imaginary raiders attempt to break out of the
subspace section."
"What's the arrangement of the ordinary walk-in tube portals in the
Executive Block?"
"There is one which interconnects the five levels. On each of the
lower levels, there are, in addition, several portals which lead out
to various points in the Seventh Star Hotel. On the fifth level, there
is only one portal of this kind. Except for the portal which operates
between the different levels in the Executive Block, all of them have
been rendered unusable at present."
"Unusable in what way?"
"They have been sealed off on the Executive Block side."
"Can you get me a diagram of the entry and exit systems those outgoing
portals connect with?" Quillan asked. "I might turn one of them usable
again."
"Yes, I can do that."
"How about the communication possibilities?"
"The ComWeb system is functioning normally on the second, third, and
fourth levels. It has been shut off on the first level--to avoid the
spread of 'alarming rumors' by office personnel. There is no ComWeb on
the fifth level."
Reetal said, "We'll shift our operating headquarters back to my
registered suite then. The ComWebs are turned off in these vacant
sections. I'll stay in the other suite in case you find a chance to
signal in."
Heraga left a few minutes later to make his arrangements. Reetal
smiled at Quillan, a little dubiously.
"Good luck, guy," she said. "Anything else to settle before you start
off?"
Quillan nodded. "Couple of details. If you're going to be in your
regular suite, and Fluel finds himself with some idle time on hand, he
might show up for the dalliance you mentioned."
Reetal's smile changed slightly. Her left hand fluffed the hair at the
back of her head, flicked down again. There was a tiny click, and
Quillan looked at a small jeweled hair-clasp in her palm, its needle
beak pointing at him.
"It hasn't got much range," Reetal said, "but within ten feet it will
scramble the Duke's brains just as thoroughly as they need to be
scrambled."
"Good enough," Quillan said. "Just don't give that boy the ghost of a
chance, doll. He has a rep for playing very unnice games with the
ladies."
"I know his reputation." Reetal replaced the tiny gun in her hair.
"Anything else?"
"Yes. Let's look in on the Kinmarten chick for a moment. If she's
awake, she may have remembered something or other by now that she
didn't think to tell you."
They found Solvey Kinmarten awake, and tearfully glad to see Reetal.
Quillan was introduced as a member of the legal profession who would
do what he could for Solvey and her husband. Solvey frowned prettily,
trying very hard to remember anything that might be of use. But it
appeared that she had told Reetal all she knew.
* * * * *
The blue and white Phalagon House diner, driven by Heraga, was
admitted without comment into the Executive Block. It floated on
unchallenged through the big entry hall and into a corridor.
Immediately behind the first turn of the corridor, the diner paused a
few seconds. Its side door opened and closed. The diner moved on.
Quillan, coatless and with the well-worn butt of a big Miam Devil
Special protruding from the holster on his right hip, came briskly
back along the corridor. Between fifteen and twenty men, their guns
also conspicuously in evidence, were scattered about the entrance
hall, expressions and attitudes indicating a curious mixture of
boredom and uneasy tension. The eyes of about half of them swiveled
around to Quillan when he came into the hall; then, with one
exception, they looked indifferently away again.
The exception, leaning against the wall near the three open portals to
the upper levels, continued to stare as Quillan came toward him,
forehead creased in a deep scowl as if he were painfully ransacking
his mind for something. Quillan stopped in front of him.
"Chum," he asked, "any idea where Movaine is at the moment? They just
give me this message for him--"
Still scowling, the other scratched his chin and blinked. "Uh ...
dunno for sure," he said after a moment. "He oughta be in the third
level conference room with the rest of 'em. Uh ... dunno you oughta
barge in there right now, pal! The commodore's _reee-lly_ hot about
somethin'!"
Quillan looked worried. "Gotta chance it, I guess! Message is pretty
important, they say--" He turned, went through the center portal of
the three, abruptly found himself walking along a wide, well-lit hall.
Nobody in sight here, or in the first intersecting passage he came to.
When he reached the next passage, he heard voices on the right, turned
toward them, went by a string of closed doors on both sides until,
forty feet on, the passage angled again and opened into a long,
high-ceilinged room. The voices came through an open door on the right
side of the room. Standing against the wall beside the door were two
men whose heads turned sharply toward Quillan as he appeared in the
passage. The short, chunky one scowled. The big man next to him, the
top of whose head had been permanently seared clear of hair years
before by a near miss from a blaster, dropped his jaw slowly. His eyes
popped.
"My God!" he said.
"Movaine in there, Baldy?" Quillan inquired, coming up.
"Movaine! He ... you ... how--"
The chunky man took out his gun, waved it negligently at Quillan.
"Tell the ape to blow, Perk. He isn't wanted here."
"Ape?" Quillan asked softly. His right hand moved, had the gun by the
barrel, twisted, reversed the gun, jammed it back with some violence
into the chunky man's stomach. "Ape?" he repeated. The chunky man went
white.
"Bad News--" Baldy Perk breathed. "Take it easy! That's Orca. He's the
commodore's torpedo. How--"
"Where's Movaine?"
"Movaine ... he ... uh--"
"All right, he's not here. And Lancion can't have arrived yet. Is
Cooms in there?"
"Yeah," Baldy Perk said weakly. "Cooms is in there, Quillan."
"Let's go in." Quillan withdrew the gun, slid it into a pocket, smiled
down at Orca. "Get it back from your boss, slob. Be seeing you!"
Orca's voice was a husky whisper.
"You will, friend! You will!"
* * * * *
The conference room was big and sparsely furnished. Four men sat at
the long table in its center. Quillan knew two of them--Marras Cooms,
second in command of the Beldon Brotherhood's detachment here, and the
Duke of Fluel, Movaine's personal gun. Going by Heraga's
descriptions, the big, florid-faced man with white hair and flowing
white mustaches who was doing the talking was Velladon, the commodore;
while the fourth man, younger, wiry, with thinning black hair
plastered back across his skull, would be Ryter, chief of the Star's
security force.
"What I object to primarily is that the attempt was made without
obtaining my consent, and secretly," Velladon was saying, with a
toothy grin but in a voice that shook with open fury. "And now it's
been made and bungled, you have a nerve asking for our help. The
problem is yours--and you better take care of it fast! I can't spare
Ryter. If--"
"Cooms," Baldy Perk broke in desperately from the door, "Bad News
Quillan's here an'--"
The heads of the four men at the table came around simultaneously. The
eyes of two of them widened for an instant. Then Marras Cooms began
laughing softly.
"Now everything's happened!" he said.
"Cooms," the commodore said testily, "I prefer not to be interrupted.
Now--"
"Can't be helped, commodore," Quillan said, moving forward, Perk
shuffling along unhappily beside him. "I've got news for Movaine, and
the news can't wait."
"Movaine?" the commodore repeated, blue eyes bulging at Quillan.
"Movaine! Cooms, who _is_ this man?"
"You're looking at Bad News Quillan," Cooms said. "A highjacking
specialist, with somewhat numerous sidelines. But the point right now
is that he isn't a member of the Brotherhood."
"_What!"_ Velladon's big fist smashed down on the table. "_Now_ what
kind of a game ... how did he get _in_ here?"
"Well," Quillan said mildly, "I oozed in through the north wall about
a minute ago. I--"
He checked, conscious of having created some kind of sensation. The
four men at the table were staring up at him without moving. Baldy
Perk appeared to be holding his breath. Then the commodore coughed,
cleared his throat, drummed his fingers on the table.
He said reflectively: "He could have news--good or bad--at that! For
all of us." He chewed on one of his mustache tips, grinned suddenly up
at Quillan. "Well, sit down, friend! Let's talk. You can't talk to
Movaine, you see. Movaine's um, had an accident. Passed away suddenly
half an hour ago."
"Sorry to hear it," Quillan said. "That's the sort of thing that
happens so often in the Brotherhood." He swung a chair around, sat
down facing the table. "You're looking well tonight, Fluel," he
observed.
The Duke of Fluel, lean and dapper in silver jacket and tight-fitting
silver trousers, gave him a wintry smile, said nothing.
* * * * *
"Now, then, friend," Velladon inquired confidentially, "just what was
your business with Movaine?"
"Well, it will come to around twenty per cent of the take," Quillan
informed him. "We won't argue about a half-million CR more or less.
But around twenty per."
The faces thoughtful. After some seconds, the commodore asked, "And
who's we?"
"A number of citizens," Quillan said, "who have been rather unhappy
since discovering that you, too, are interested in Lady Pendrake and
her pals. We'd gone to considerable expense and trouble to ... well,
her ladyship was scheduled to show up in Mezmiali, you know. And now
she isn't going to show up there. All right, that's business. Twenty
per--no hard feelings. Otherwise, it won't do you a bit of good to
blow up the Star and the liner. There'd still be loose talk--maybe
other complications, too. You know how it goes. You wouldn't be happy,
and neither would Yaco. Right?"
The commodore's massive head turned back to Cooms. "How well do you
know this man, Marras?"