"And the technician ... Eltak ... was dead?"
"Sure. Hole in his head you could shove your fist through."
"Somebody," Quillan observed, "ought to drill Rubero for that stupid
trick!"
"The Duke did--first thing after we got back to the fourth level."
"So the Hlat's on the loose, and all we really have at the moment are
the cubicles ... and Rest Warden Kinmarten. Where's he, by the way?"
"He tried to take off when we got down to Level Four, and somebody
cold-cocked him. The doc says he ought to be coming around again
pretty soon."
Quillan grunted, shoved the Miam Devil Special into its holster, said,
"O.K., you stay here where you can watch the room and those passages
and the hall. If you feel the floor start moving under, scream. I'll
take a look at the cubicle."
* * * * *
Lady Pendrake's cubicle was about half as big again as a standard one;
but, aside from one detail, its outer settings, instruments, and
operating devices appeared normal. The modification was a recess
almost six feet long and a foot wide and deep, in one side, which
could be opened either to the room or to the interior of the rest
cubicle, but not simultaneously to both. Quillan already knew its
purpose; the supposed other cubicle was a camouflaged food locker,
containing fifty-pound slabs of sea beef, each of which represented a
meal for the Hlat. The recess made it possible to feed it without
allowing it to be seen, or, possibly, attempting to emerge.
Kinmarten's nervousness, as reported by his wife, seemed
understandable. Any rest warden might get disturbed over such a
charge.
Quillan asked over his shoulder, "Anyone find out yet why the things
can't get out of the closed rest cubicle?"
"Yeah," Baldy Perk said. "Kinmarten says it's the cubicle's defense
fields. They could get through the material. They can't get through
the field."
"Someone think to energize the Executive Block's battle fields?"
Quillan inquired.
"Yeah. Velladon took care of that before he came screaming up to the
third level to argue with Cooms and Fluel."
[Illustration]
"So it can't slip out of the Block unless it shows itself down on the
ground level when the entry lock's open."
"Yeah," Baldy muttered. "But I dunno. Is that good?"