It was twenty after eight when Westervelt found himself back at the
communications room with Smith. Rosenkrantz had alerted them to a
message coming in from Syssoka.
"They didn't expect to hit us during office hours," he explained, "but
as long as you're here, I thought maybe you'd like to get it fresh."
Smith had told the girls to pass the word to Lydman and Parrish, and
Westervelt had followed him down the hall with the feeling that he
had displayed his eye under the good lighting long enough. Now they
listened as a slim, brown-haired man with a faintly scholarly aura
completed his report on the escape of Louis Taranto and Harley Meyers,
spacers.
Joe Rosenkrantz was fiddling with an auxiliary screen and murmuring
into another microphone.
"... so it was a rather close call, even though the formula you sent
us appears to have worked perfectly," said the scholarly man. "I have
not been able to determine exactly what caused the delay on the part of
the Syssokans, since it seemed imprudent to display my little flying
spy-eye where it might be seen, or even damaged."
"Maybe you can pick up some rumors in the future," suggested Smith. "If
you do, we'd appreciate hearing them, to add to our file and make the
case as complete as possible."
The transmission lag was much less than that occurring with Trident.
The D.I.R. man on Syssoka agreed to forward any subsequent discoveries.
"Those spacers you contacted are already heading out-system," he told
Smith. "I think they did a nice, clean job. It was too bad that they
were seen at all, of course, but it will be news to me if the Syssokans
drop around with any embarrassing questions."
"Well, there _is_ a large foreign quarter there," Smith recalled. "Why
should they suspect Terrans, after all?"
"Oh, they will, they will. They suspect everyone; but they must know so
little that I feel sure I can bluff them. I can prove that I was here
at the official residence all day."
"Good!" said Smith. "Just in passing, I take it that no one was much
hurt?"
The man on Syssokan grinned briefly.
"No one on our side," he said, "although I understand the prisoners
were suffering some from exhaustion and dehydration. This Louis Taranto
seems to be quite a lad. There is reason to believe that he killed two
or three of his guards with his bare hands--at least I saw the burial
party carrying bodies with them as they marched the rest of the way
back to the city."
Smith laughed.
"I'll have to add a note opposite his name and contact him. I could use
a field agent like that! Well, my operator tells me I have another call
coming in. Thanks for your work on this."
"A pleasure," said the man on Syssoka. "I really didn't expect to
contact you directly; my relative-time atlas must be a little old."
"No, it's just that we never sleep, you know," quipped Smith, and
signed off.
He looked around, saw that it was Parrish who had entered, and added,
"At least, it _looks_ as if we'll never sleep. I'm getting tired of it
myself."
"So is everybody except Joe, here," said Parrish. "A com man isn't
normal anyway."
"You gotta learn not to let all this stuff coming through bother you,"
said Rosenkrantz wisely. "If I soaked up all these crazy calls, I'd
have nightmares every day. As it is, I'm as normal as anybody when I
leave here."
"You haven't been with us long enough," said Smith. "What else do you
have there?"
"There was a routine memo to make a check with the planet Greenhaven,"
said Rosenkrantz. "I cleared it when a good time came. The D.I.R.
station there pretended not to know what I was talking about."
"What?" yelped Smith. "Don't tell me we goofed on another one!"
"I don't think so," said Rosenkrantz. "While you were talking to
Syssoka, a spaceship named _Vulpecula_ called, said there was reason to
believe the Greenhaven D.I.R. was locally monitored."
"Tapped or the scrambler system broken," said Parrish. "What does this
ship want to talk about?"
"The Ringstad case."
"Joe, godammit, who says you're normal?" demanded Smith. "I bet we've
sprung another one! Two in one night--we're coming out with a good
average after all. Get them on the screen before I pop my tanks!"
Westervelt listened to the transmission from the spaceship. Without the
help of a planetary relay at the far end, it tended to be a trifle weak
and wavery, but the essentials came through. He left Smith and Parrish
patting each other on the back and went back to tell the girls about it.
They clustered around him in the main office, even Pauline leaving her
cubicle for a moment and keeping one ear pointed at the switchboard
inside.
"You should have heard Smitty conning her out of writing us up for the
news magazines," said Westervelt. "She seems to be pretty famous in her
line."
"What was she like?" asked Simonetta.
"She looked blondish, but the color wasn't coming across too well.
Not bad looking, in a breezy sort of way. The agent that sprung her
had to skip too, because he thought the Greenhavens--they call them
Greenies--had spotted his disguise."
"Oh, boy!" breathed Pauline. "The cops must have been hot on their
trail!"
"Either that, or he wanted to go along with her for other reasons,"
said Westervelt. "They seemed kind of chummy."
"Can they do that?" asked Beryl. "I mean, without orders, and all that?"
Westervelt grinned.
"I don't know," he admitted, "but he's doing it. He can't go back now.
Anyway, Smitty simmered down fast and promised a draft for expenses
would be waiting for him when the ship made planetfall. Technically,
the D.I.R. ought to pay, because it turns out the guy is on their rolls
and was only working with us temporarily."
Simonetta nodded wisely.
"You watch our boss," she predicted. "He'll have this man on our lists.
He always gets free with the money when he sees a good prospect from
the main branch. Even if they stay in the honest side of the outfit,
they co-operate with the back room here."
Smith walked in with Parrish, beaming. His eye found Westervelt.
"Willie," he said, "make a note, and tomorrow look up the planet
Rotchen II. I have to send credits, and I didn't want to say into wide,
wide space that I didn't know where it is. Bad for the department's
prestige!"
He looked about genially.
"I see you've told the news," he commented. "It was a lift for me too.
We haven't done too badly, after all. Won two, lost one--damn!--and one
is still a stalemate."
"Anyone tell Bob?" asked Parrish quietly.
They all exchanged searching glances. Smith began to lose some of his
ebullience. After a moment, he turned to Pauline.
"Buzz his office!" he said in a preoccupied tone.
Westervelt tried to subdue a mild chill along the backbone as Pauline
gave Smith a wide-eyed look and slipped into her cubbyhole.
_He couldn't have phoned downstairs_, he reassured himself. _Pauline
would say all the lines were busy, or cut off or something. But what if
he looked out a window?_
Smith had sauntered over to the center desk, where he waited beside the
phone. It seemed to be taking Pauline a long time.
"Check with Joe," advised Parrish. "Then try around the other rooms.
Ten to one he's in the lab."
"Has anyone seen him in the last half hour?" asked Smith.
Westervelt pointed out that he had been the chief's company in the
communications room. The girls had not seen Lydman, but admitted that
he might have gone past in the corridor without their having noticed.
"Yeah, he doesn't make much noise," Parrish agreed.
Smith had a thought. He moved toward his own office, paused to jerk his
head significantly toward Parrish's, and opened his own door. Parrish
went over past Beryl's desk and thrust his head into his own office.
Lydman was not in either room.
"Mr. Smith!" called Pauline in a worried tone. "I'm sorry, but I can't
seem to reach him."
"Oh, Christ!" said Parrish. "He isn't talking again!"
He did something Westervelt had never seen that self-possessed man
resort to before this evening. He began to gnaw nervously upon a
knuckle. He saw the youth staring, and snatched his hand from his mouth.
Smith glowered unhappily at the floor. Westervelt thought he could hear
his own pulse, so quiet had the office grown.
The chief backed up to the unpleasant decision.
"We'd better spread out and wander around until someone sees him face
to face," he said. "If he wants to be let alone, let him alone! Just
pass the word on where he is."
Westervelt volunteered to go down one wing while Parrish took the
other. As they left, cautioned to take their time and act natural,
Smith was telling the girls to open the doors to the adjacent offices
again and keep their ears tuned, in case Lydman should come looking for
him or Parrish.
Westervelt turned right past the stairs, and went to the door of the
library.
_It will be perfectly natural_, he told himself. _We made out on two
cases. I just want to tell him about it, in case he hasn't heard. Why
the hell don't they get that cable fixed? They want their bills paid on
time, don't they?_
He could hear the newcasts now, about how tough a job the electricians
faced, and how tense was the situation. Westervelt decided he would not
listen.
He opened the door to the library casually and sauntered in. The pose
was wasted; Lydman was not there.
Westervelt went on to the conference room on this side, and found it
empty as well. He looked in on Joe Rosenkrantz, who, from the door,
appeared to be alone. Just to leave no stone unturned, he retreated up
the hall to the door marked "Shaft" and poked his head inside. He had
to grope around for a light switch, and when he found it was rewarded
with nothing more than the sight of a number of conduits running from
floor to unfinished ceiling. A little dust drifted down on him from
atop the ones that bent to run to outlets on the same floor.
"Well, nobody can say I overlooked anything," grumbled Westervelt.
He went back to the communications room. Rosenkrantz was listening
in on some conversation from a station on Luna that was none of his
business.
"Any sign of Lydman around here?" asked Westervelt.
"Not since the Yoleen brawl," grunted Rosenkrantz. "That's a
good-looking babe running that Lunar station. Why can't we dig up some
messages for them?"
"I'll work on it," promised Westervelt halfheartedly.
He walked quietly around the corner past the power equipment. No
Lydman. The next step was the laboratory. He looked at his watch, then
leaned against the wire mesh partition for a good ten minutes. Let
Parrish cover the ground, he decided.
In the end, with no sign of Parrish or Lydman, he opened the door and
stepped into the dark laboratory. He made his way cautiously ahead,
thinking that Lydman was probably in his office. Feeling his path with
slow steps, and carefully avoiding the possibility of tipping over any
of the stacks of cartons, he had progressed to the center of the large
chamber when the lights went on.
Westervelt felt as if he had jumped a foot, and the blood pounded
through his veins.
Gaping around with open mouth, he finally met the eye of Pete Parrish,
who stood half inside the doorway to the corridor, his hand still
raised to the light switch.
They both relaxed. Parrish smiled feebly, with less than normal display
of his fine teeth. Westervelt contented himself with passing a hand
across his forehead. It came away damp.
"Well," said Parrish, "where was he?"
Westervelt closed his eyes and groaned.
"You're kidding," he said. "Please say you're kidding! It's too late in
the day to fool around, Pete."
Parrish looked alarmed. He strode forward, letting the door close
behind him. Westervelt, finding himself shivering in a draft, went to
meet him.
"I'm not kidding at all," said Parrish. "Did you look everywhere? Are
you sure?"
"I even poked into the power shaft," retorted Westervelt. "Were you in
his office?"
"Naturally. I checked everything, even the men's room."
They had wandered back to the corridor door, peering about the
laboratory to make sure no one could have concealed himself on the
floor under a workbench, or behind a pile of cartons.
Parrish opened the door, and they stood puzzling at the empty hall.
"He wasn't even taking a shower," said the elder man.
Westervelt brooded for a moment.
"Did you say _everywhere_?" he insisted.
"Well ... everywhere he would have any call to go."
They stood there, passing the buck silently back and forth between
them. At length, Parrish said, "I'll just look again in his office and
the other two rooms, in case he _was_, and slipped out behind me."
Westervelt watched him run lightly up the hall to each of the doors.
Parrish's expression, as he returned slowly, was something to behold.
"I'll go," said Westervelt grouchily.
Parrish put a hand on his arm.
"No, that wouldn't look natural. I'll phone Smitty to send one of the
girls down."
"Better phone him to send two," suggested Westervelt.
"Yeah," agreed Parrish. "That's even more natural. Watch the hall while
I buzz them."
He went into Lydman's office. Westervelt leaned in the laboratory
doorway, feeling depressed. After some delay, he sighted Simonetta and
Beryl turning the far corner with their pocketbooks in hand. Neither
one looked particularly pleased, but their expressions lightened a bit
at the sight of him.
"You there, Pete?" murmured Westervelt.
"Right at the door," whispered Parrish from inside Lydman's office.
The girls clicked in muffled unison along the hall. Beryl paused at the
entrance to the ladies' rest room. She raised her eyebrows uncertainly
at Simonetta. The dark girl threw Westervelt a puzzled shrug, then
pushed past Beryl and went inside. The blonde followed almost on her
heels.
Westervelt waited. When he thought he could no longer stand it, Parrish
hissed, "How long are they in there, Willie?"
"I don't know," said the youth, "but maybe we'd better--"
The door opened. Simonetta and Beryl walked out, staring quizzically at
the two men, who had taken a few steps toward them.
"What is this gag?" asked Simonetta. "There's no one in there. Who
would be in there?"
Parrish swore luridly, and none of them seemed to notice.
"It _can't_ be!" he exclaimed. "You're sure?"
"Of course we're sure," said Beryl.
"What if the power came on and we didn't notice?" mused Parrish. "He
wouldn't just leave and not tell any of us, would he?"
"You know him better than I do," commented Beryl. "I'm beginning to
wonder, from what you told us on the phone, if he jumped out of a
window somewhere. I know it's a terrible thing to bring up--"
Westervelt stopped listening to her. He was remembering the draft he
had felt, twice now, in the laboratory.