In the communications room of department 99, Westervelt could actually
hear people around him breathing, so hushed was the gathering. Someone
was leaning on his shoulder, but he was reluctant to attract attention
by moving.
Static sounds and the clicking and humming of various mechanisms about
the room suddenly became unnaturally noticable. Glancing this way and
that, he discovered that the entire staff had drifted in during the
transmission from Yoleen. There were at least two people behind him, to
judge by the breathing and the weight on his shoulder. So intense had
been the excitement that he did not remember anyone but Smith arriving.
He saw better to the left than to the right, and became conscious of
his eye again. Westervelt had drawn up his chair behind and to the
left of the operator, and Smith had perched himself on the end of a
table behind Joe. Beside the chief stood Simonetta, with Beryl behind
her. Parrish was to Westervelt's left, so he concluded that Lydman
and Pauline must be behind him. The grip on his right shoulder felt
small to be Lydman's, but he could not see down at the necessary angle
because of the puffiness under his eye.
The broad-shouldered, stocky man on the screen moved to the stairway
and looked up straight into their eyes.
"Is this still going out to Terra, Simmons?" he asked.
He had dark hair with a crinkly wave in it, which permitted him to
appear less disheveled than the men about him or standing over the
body of Gerson. He pulled out a large white handkerchief to wipe the
streaming perspiration from his face.
"Yes, sir," answered the voice of the distant operator. "You're looking
right into the concealed pick-up. I'll switch the audio from Terra to
the loud speaker system, and you can talk to them."
Westervelt glanced at the other men in the embassy on Yoleen. Several
of them obviously suffered from minor injuries. All of them wore
expressions of tragedy.
One man in his shirtsleeves was standing with his shoulders against
the base of the stairway, head thrown well back, trying to staunch the
flow of blood from his nose. Another, with his back to the lens, knelt
beside the body of Gerson. A couple of others, looking helpless, were
lighting cigarettes.
"I suppose you saw the end of it," the man on the stairs said.
Smith cleared his throat and leaned over Joe Rosenkrantz's shoulder.
"We saw," he answered. "I ... is there any doubt that he's dead?"
The man on the stairs looked to the group around the body. The doctor
shook his bandaged head sadly.
"As much from strain and exhaustion as anything else," he reported.
"The man belonged in a hospital, but some uncanny conditioning drove
him on. In the end, his heart gave out."
The stocky man turned back to the lens.
"You heard that. Except for one man who didn't know at the time what
was going on, we did the best we could. I'm Delaney, by the way, in
charge here."
Smith identified himself, and agreed that Gerson had looked to be
unmanageable.
"Do you think you can find out what they used?" he asked. "I gather
that you never got anything out of him since the time you picked him
up. Did that part of it go according to plan?"
"Oh, yes," said Delaney. "We even got back the little torch we sent
him, the way you plotted for us. It looked used, too; but now I'm
wondering if they let him cut his way out."
"I wouldn't doubt it," said Smith gloomily. "I'm afraid we didn't look
very bright on this one. We seem to have underestimated the Yoleenites
badly. There isn't too much information on them available here."
"Nor here, to tell the truth," said Delaney. "Which reminds me--our
Captain MacLean has been after me for a long time to put more pressure
on the D.I.R. about that. Could you duplicate your tape and send them a
copy? It would save us another transmission, and you might like to add
your own comments."
Smith promised to have it done. He also offered, to soothe Captain
MacLean, to send an extra copy to the Space Force.
There seemed to be nothing more to say. The scene on the screen blanked
out, as the distant operator spoke to Rosenkrantz on audio only from
his own shot-up office. Then it was over.
Westervelt, aware that the pressure on his shoulder was gone, looked
around. Lydman had his arm about a shaken Pauline. The ex-spacer's
expression was blank, but the hardness of his eyes made the youth
shiver. For a second, he thought he detected a slight resemblance
to the man who had come bounding down the stairs on Yoleen, leaving
criss-cross trails of rocket smoke in the air.
_That's crazy!_ he thought the next instant, and he lost the
resemblance.
He blinked, fingered his tender eye, and looked around at the others.
Everyone was subdued, staring at the blank and quiet receiver or at
the floor. Westervelt was surprised to see that Beryl was crying. She
raised a forefinger to scrub the tears from her cheek.
Hesitantly, Westervelt took the neatly folded handkerchief from his
breast pocket and held it out.
Beryl scrubbed the other cheek, looked at the handkerchief without
raising her eyes to his, and accepted it. She blotted her eyes,
examined the cloth, and whispered, "Sorry, Willie. I think I got
make-up on it."
Smith stirred uncomfortably at the whisper. He stood up and spoke one
short word with a depth of emotion. Then he kicked the leg of the table
to relieve his feelings.
Rosenkrantz swiveled around in his chair, waiting to see if any other
calls were to be made. Smith took a deep breath.
"You'll make copies of the tape when you can, Joe?"
"Sure," said the operator, sympathetically.
"Well," said Lydman, at the rear of the group, "that's another one
lost. Tomorrow we'll open a permanent file on Yoleen, as Pete suggests."
"Yes, I imagine they'll give us more business," agreed Parrish.
Lydman growled.
"I'll give _them_ the business next time!" he threatened. "Well, that
kind of damps the pile for tonight. I don't know about the rest of you,
but I'm in no mood now to be clever."
Smith straightened up abruptly.
"Now ... now ... wait a minute!" he spluttered. "I mean, we all feel
pretty low, naturally. Still, this wasn't the main ... serious as this
was, we were trying to push on this other case, to get a start anyway."
_Here we go again,_ thought Westervelt. _Shall I try to trip him up if
anything happens, or shall I just get out of the way?_
He recalled the man in the embassy on Yoleen, holding a stained
handkerchief to his bloody nose, and measured the size of his own with
the tip of a forefinger. On the other hand, if there should be a melee,
it would certainly cover a little item like a puffy eye. He wondered if
he would have the guts to poke out his head at the proper instant, and
was rather afraid that he would.
Parrish was murmuring about sticking to the job in hand, trying to
support Smith without arousing the antagonism of an open argument.
Lydman seemed unconvinced.
"Why don't we all have a round of coffee?" suggested Simonetta. "If we
can just sit down a few minutes and pull ourselves together--"
Smith looked at her gratefully.
"Yes," he said. "That's the least we can do, Bob. This was a shock to
us all, but the girls felt it more. I don't believe any of them wants
to hit the street all shaken up like this. Right Si?"
"I _would_ like to sit down somewhere," said Simonetta.
"Here!" exclaimed Westervelt, leaping up. He had forgotten that he had
been rooted to the chair since before the others had crept into the
room during the transmission from Yoleen.
"Never mind, Willie," Simonetta said. "I didn't mean I was collapsing.
Come on, Beryl, let's see if there's any coffee or tea left."
"Wait for me," said Pauline. "I've got to take this phone off the
outside line anyway."
Smith stepped forward to plant one hand behind Lydman's shoulder blade.
"I could use a martini, myself," he called after the girls. "How about
the rest of you? Pete? Willie?"
Parrish seconded the motion, Westervelt said he would be right along,
and trailed them slowly to the door. He paused to look back, and he and
Joe exchanged brow-mopping gestures.
The rest of them were trouping along the corridor without much talk.
He ambled along until the men, bringing up the rear, had turned the
corner. Then he ducked into the library.
He fingered his eye again. Either it was a trifle less sore or he was
getting used to it. He still hesitated to face an office full of people
and good lighting.
"There must be something around here to read," he muttered.
He walked over to a stack of current magazines. Most of them were
technical in nature; but several dealt with world and galactic news. He
took a few to a seat at the long table and began to leaf through one.
It must have been about fifteen minutes later that Simonetta showed up,
bearing a sealed cup of tea and one of coffee.
"So that's where you are!" she said. "I was taking something to Joe,
and thought maybe I'd find you along the way."
Westervelt deduced that she had phoned the operator.
"You can have the coffee," she said, setting it beside his magazine.
"Joe said he'd rather have tea this time around."
Westervelt looked up. Simonetta saw his eye and pursed her lips.
"Well!"
"How does it look?" asked Westervelt glumly.
"Kind of pretty. If I remember the ones my brothers used to bring home,
it will be ravishingly beautiful by tomorrow!"
"That's what I was afraid of," said Westervelt.
Simonetta laughed. She set the tea aside and pulled out a chair.
"I don't think it's really that bad, Willie," she told him. "I was only
fooling."
"It shows though, huh?"
"Oh ... yes ... it shows."
"That's what I like about you, Si," said Westervelt. "You don't ask
nasty, embarrassing questions like how it happened or which door closed
on me."
Following which he told her nearly the whole story, leaving out only
the true origin of the quarrel. He suspected that Simonetta could put
two and two together, but he meant to tell nobody about the start of it.
"Ah, Willie," she said with a grin at the conclusion, "if you had to
fall for a blonde, why couldn't you pick little Pauline?"
"I guess you're right."
"Now, don't take _that_ so seriously too! Beryl's a good sort, on the
whole. In a day or two, this will all blow over. Come on with me to see
Joe, then we'll go back and say you got something in your eye."
"But when?"
"Oh ... during the message from Yoleen. You didn't want to bother
anybody at the time, so you foolishly kept rubbing until it got sore."
"That's all right," said Westervelt, "but Beryl knows different."
"If she opens her mouth, I shall personally punch _her_ in the eye!"
declared Simonetta.
She giggled at the idea, and he found himself grinning.
They went along the corridor to deliver the tea to Rosenkrantz, and
then returned to the main office. An air of complete informality
prevailed, a reaction from the scene they had witnessed. There was
a good deal of wandering about with drinks, sitting on desks, and
inconsequential chatter.
No one seemed to want to talk shop, and Westervelt guessed that Smith
was just as pleased to be able to kill some time. He himself quietly
slipped around the corner to his own desk, where he propped his heels
up and sipped his coffee.
Westervelt listened as Parrish and Smith told a few jokes. The stories
tended to be more ironic than funny, and no one was expected to laugh
out loud.
Pauline, from her switchboard, buzzed the phone on Simonetta's desk,
since most of those present had gravitated to that end of the office.
Smith looked around in the middle of an account of his struggles with
his radio-controlled lawn mower.
"Want to take that, Willie?" he said, with a bare suggestion of a wink.
Westervelt lifted a hand in assent. He climbed out of his chair and
went to the phone on Beryl's desk, where he would be as nearly private
as possible.
"Who is it, Pauline?" he asked when she came on.
"It's Joe. He wants to talk to Mr. Smith."
"Give it here on number seven," said Westervelt. "The boss is talking."
Pauline blanked out and was replaced by the communications man.
Rosenkrantz showed a flicker of surprise at the sight of Westervelt.
"Smitty's in a crowd," murmured the youth. "Something up?"
"Not much, maybe," said the other. "A message came in by commercial
TV. I guess they didn't think it was too urgent, but I'll give you the
facts if you think Smitty would like to know."
"Hold on," said Westervelt. "Let's see ... where does Beryl keep a pen?"
He dug out a scratch pad and something to scribble with, and nodded.
"One of our own agents," said Joe, "named Robertson, signed this.
You've seen his reports, I guess."
"Yeah, sounds familiar."
"It says, after reading between our standard code expressions, that two
spacers and a tourist were convicted of inciting revolution on Epsilon
Indi II. They gave the names, and all, which I taped."
"That's practically in our back yard," said Westervelt. "Maybe he just
wants to alert us, but the D.I.R. ought to be working on that publicly.
Sure there wasn't any hint it was urgent?"
"No, and like I said, it came by commercial relay."
"Okay. The boss has enough on his mind at the moment. Let's figure on
having a tape for him to look at in the morning. I'll find a chance to
mention it to him, so he'll know about it. All right?"
"All right with me," grinned Rosenkrantz. "If anything goes wrong, I'll
refer them to you. Be prepared to have your other eye spit in."
He cut off, leaving Westervelt with his mouth open and his regained
aplomb shaky. The youth waited until he caught Smith's eye, and shook
his head to indicate the unimportance of the call. He wondered if he
ought to take time to phone downstairs for a report on the situation.
It did not strike him as worth the risk with all the people in the same
room.
He saw Beryl strolling his way and rose from her chair.
"That's all right, Willie," she said calmly, setting her packaged drink
on the desk. "I just wanted to give you back your handkerchief."
She produced it from the purse lying on her desk and said, "Thanks
again. I'm sorry about the make-up marks."
"Forget it," said Westervelt.
"I'm sorry about the eye too," said Beryl, raising her eyes for the
first time to examine the damage. "It ... doesn't look as bad as Si
said."
"Well, that's a comfort, anyway. I got something in it and rubbed too
hard, you know."
"Yes, she told me," said Beryl. "To tell the truth, Willie, I didn't
know I could do it."
"Aw, it was a lucky swing," muttered Westervelt.
"Yes ... I, well ... you might say I was a little upset."
"I'm sorry I started it all," said Westervelt. "How about letting me
buy you a lunch to make up."
Beryl shrugged, looking serious.
"I don't mind, if we make it Dutch. It was as much my fault. I hope
we're both around to go to lunch tomorrow. It gives me the creeps."
"What does?" asked Westervelt.
"The way Mr. Lydman looks. Something about his eyes...."
Westervelt turned his head to stare across the room, wondering if the
worst had occurred.