"It's not as simple as that. The Arabs would kill him before they'd
give him up."
Vickers shrugged. "If the U.S. with all its resources can't release
him, I don't see how you expect me to do it."
"You can, though. In fact you're the only one who can. The question is,
will you?"
"No!" said Vickers flatly; "I won't."
"But--"
"No buts about it. With my record, it would be poison for me, if my
name ever became associated with anything like International Spy Ring,
Inc. I'm through, Thorpe, I've quit. I can't afford to be sent back to
Jupiter."
Tani Fralick suddenly burst into a flood of tears. Vickers clenched his
fist. At that instant a bell began to ring insistently.
"The raid," Thorpe said. "What say we watch it? Anyway, Vickers, you
can't leave 'til it's over."
Vickers grunted, sank deeper into his chair. Tani's soft child-like
crying was getting under his skin, but he steeled himself against it.
Thorpe pressed a button on his desk, and a huge televisor screen on
the wall behind him glowed into life. The multiple noises of Luna City
rolled into the office shattering their isolation. The tri-dimensional
effect was so real, that it was as if the wall itself had been removed
and they were peering directly into the street outside the blue door.
Vickers could read its idiotic sign.
INTERNATIONAL SPY RING
INCORPORATED
Secrets Bought and Sold
All at once he frowned as he discovered the silent men converging on
the entrance. They were dressed in civilian clothes, threading their
way unobtrusively through the press. ISP men, Vickers recognized, with
a thrill of alarm.
One of them reached the portal, put out his hand for the knob.
The blue door vanished.
It simply went out like a light, leaving the ISP man staring stupidly
at the blank wall of the theatre.
Thorpe snapped off the televisor. Vickers could see that he was
chuckling.
"The fun's over," he said. "But they'll be nosing around there for a
week. There's really no door there, you know."
"Yes, I know. But I'll be damned if I understand."
"You will," Thorpe said cryptically. Then he switched on the
inter-office com. "Miss Stevens, see that this memo is circulated
throughout the organization. 'Due to a police raid, the new offices of
International Spy Ring, Inc., are located at B624-1/2 Water Street,
Level Three'."
* * * * *
He clicked it off, stared at Vickers coldly. All the friendliness was
gone.
"Suppose we quit fencing. We know your history, Vickers. You used to
claim that you could arrange the escape of any prisoner, no matter
where he was being held--for a price. You made monkeys out of the ISP
for a while. How many men have you broken out of the Jupiter Penal
Mines and readjustment camps?"
"I don't know," said Vickers. "It was a good racket while it lasted."
"But you couldn't finagle your own escape, could you?"
"It's easier to work from the outside," Vickers rejoined laconically.
Thorpe said in a nasty voice: "That's just the point I'd like to make.
Either you help us release Fralick, or we'll frame you and turn you
over to the ISP."
Vickers' eyes narrowed. He leaned suddenly across the desk, hit Thorpe
on the chin with his balled fist!
There was a "crack!" as Thorpe's jaw bone snapped. He was bowled over
backward to lie in an unconscious heap against the wall.
Tani screamed. She tried to reach the desk, but Vickers grabbed her off
her feet, thrust her under his arm.
"Put me down! Put me down," she cried furiously, kicking, squirming.
Vickers paid no more attention to her frantic wriggling than he would
have to a kitten. His inner lids were raised and he was staring with a
strange fixity at the alien world visible through the walls.
"What are you going to do?" Tani gasped. "Are you crazy? You can't walk
out of here. The blue door isn't operating. Besides, even if you did
get away the Ring would have you framed."
"I'm not going back to Luna City," Vickers said tersely. "I'm going
outside."
"Outside!"
"Yes." He started for the reception room. "I don't know where we are.
Another world, another dimension, it's all the same. I'll be free of
the ISP. I'll find a way out if I have to break through the walls."
"But you can't!" she wailed. "The atmosphere outside it! It--it's
chlorine!"
Vickers felt as if someone had kicked him in the belly. He set Tani on
her feet.
"How do _you_ know?"
"Thorpe showed me. He--he--" she straightened her skirt managing to
look flustered--"he's been very friendly."
"Where are we?"
"In another dimension, I think. The blue door is a--a stasis, Thorpe
called it. Don't ask me how they do it. They came through in space
suits and built this hermetically-sealed fortress."
Vickers was silent. After a moment, he said: "All right, you win. I'll
break out your father if it can be done."
* * * * *
Vickers sat in a chair facing a blank wall; his nictitating lids were
raised, the pupils of his eyes like lambent flame. Beyond the wall lay
the embassy of the Arab Federation.
"What do you see?" demanded Tani in a suppressed voice.
Vickers and the girl were in the house of Seth Adda, an ex-senator and
a friend of Tani's father. He had been happy to lend Tani his house,
which was on the eighth level flush against the Arabian Embassy.
Vickers was dressed in a snuff-brown burnoose, the national Arab
costume. He said:
"There's a sleeping room just beyond the wall. This part of the embassy
must be the private quarters of one of the officials. The room opens on
a hall. There are six--seven--eight other bedrooms along it. I think
it's the harem. There's a swimming pool to the left."
"Can you see him?" Tani pleaded.
"Yes. But not very plainly. He's in a tiny cell almost in the center of
the embassy. There's a guard in front of the door."
"Is--is he all right? They haven't hurt him?"
Vickers concentrated on the vague outlines of the man lying on his
bunk. A thin man, elderly, with hollow cheeks. "So that's Doctor
Fralick," he thought, "greatest theoretical physicist since Einstein."
He said aloud:
"He seems okay."
Tani expelled her breath in relief. Vickers looked at her suddenly and
saw that tears were running down her cheeks. Involuntarily he started
to reach out his hand to comfort her, remembered the repugnance normal
humans felt toward him and let his hand drop to his knee.
The girl disturbed him. She was wearing practical gray coveralls
instead of the filmy creation she'd had on yesterday. She was beautiful
even in the baggy garment, but it wasn't altogether that. With the
strides that had been made in eugenics, an ugly man or woman was the
exception and, perversely, often had more appeal than the uniformly
handsome ones.
No, he was hungry for a woman, hungry for companionship and admiration.
He frowned, catching himself up with a jerk. Self pity! He'd better
watch himself. That way led to neurosis, manic depression and insanity.
He wished Tani would go away and leave him alone. He worked better
alone. But he knew she'd been set to watch him. The Ring probably
thought she'd do a better job of it since it was to her interest to see
that he didn't double-cross them.