The rendezvous-point the other operative had named was a street corner
in another quarter of the city. Harris hired a helitaxi to take him
there.
It was a nightclub district, all bright lights and brassy music. A
figure leaned against the lamppost on the southeast corner of the
street. Harris crossed to him. In the brightness of the streetlamp he
saw the man's face: lean, lantern-jawed, solemn.
Harris said, "Pardon me, friend. Do you know where I can buy a mask
for the carnival?"
It was the recognition-query. The other answered, in a deep harsh
voice, "Masks are expensive. Stay home." He thrust out his hand.
Harris took it, gripping the wrist in the Darruui way, and grinned.
Eleven hundred light-years from home and he beheld a fellow Servant of
the Spirit! "I'm Major Abner Harris."
"Hello. I'm John Carver. There's a table waiting for us inside."
"Inside" turned out to be the Nine Planets Club, across the street.
The atmosphere inside was steamy and smoke-clouded; bubbles of light
drifted round the ceiling. A row of long-limbed nudes pranced gaily
to the accompaniment of the noise that passed for music on Terra. The
surgeons, Harris thought, had never managed to instill a liking for
Terran music in him.
Carver said quietly, "Have you had any trouble since you arrived?"
"No. Should I expect any?"
The lean man shrugged. "There are one hundred Medlin agents on Earth
right now. Yesterday we discovered a cache of secret Medlin documents.
We have the names of the hundred and their photographs. We also know
they plan to wipe us out."
"How many Darruui are on Earth?"
"You are the tenth to arrive."
Harris' eyes widened. One hundred Medlins against ten Darruui! "Stiff
odds," he said.
Carver nodded. "But we know their identities. We can strike first.
Unless we eliminate them, we will not be able to proceed with our work
here."
The music reached an ear-splitting crescendo. Moodily Harris stared
at the nude chorus-line as it gyrated. He sensed some glandular
disturbance at the sight, and frowned. By Darruui standards, the girls
were obscenely ugly.
But this was not Darruu.
He said, "How do we go about eliminating them?"
"You have weapons. I'll supply you with the necessary information. If
you can get ten of them before they get you, you'll be all right." He
drew forth a billfold and extracted a snapshot from it. "Here's your
first one, now. Kill her and report back to me. You can find her at the
Spaceways Hotel."
Harris felt a jolt. "_I'm_ staying at that hotel."
"Indeed? Here. Look at the picture."
Harris took the photo from the other. It was a tridim in full color. It
showed a blonde girl wearing a low-cut black sheath.
Controlling his voice, he said, "This girl's too pretty to be a Medlin
agent."
"That's why she's so deadly," Carver said. "Kill her first. She goes
under the name of Beth Baldwin."
Harris stared at the photo a long while. Then he nodded. "Okay. I'll
get in touch with you again when the job's done."
* * * * *
It was nearly two in the morning when he returned to the hotel. He had
spent nearly an hour with the man who called himself John Carver. He
felt tired, confused, faced with decisions that frightened him.
Beth Baldwin a Medlin spy? How improbable that seemed! But yet Carver
had had her photo.
It was his job to kill her, now. He was a Servant of the Spirit. He
could not betray his trust.
_First I'll find out for certain, though._
He took the gravshaft to the 58th floor, but instead of going to his
room he turned left and headed toward the room whose number she had
given him--5820. He paused a moment, then nudged the door-signal.
There was no immediate response, so he nudged it again. This time he
heard the sound of a doorscanner humming just above him, telling him
that she was awake and just within the door.
He said, "It's me--Abner. I have to see you, Beth."
"Hold on," came the sleepy reply from inside. "Let me get something on."
A moment passed, and then the door slid open. Beth smiled at him. She
had "put something on," but the something had not been much--a flimsy
gown that concealed her body as if she were wearing so much gauze.
But Harris was not interested in her body just now, attractive
though it was. She held a tiny glittering weapon in her hand.
Harris recognized the weapon. It was the Medlin version of the
disruptor-pistol.
"Come on in, Abner."
Numbly he stepped forward, and the door shut behind him. Beth gestured
with the disruptor.
"Sit down over there."
"How come the gun, Beth?"
"You know that answer without my having to tell it to you. Now that
you've seen Carver, you know who I am."
He nodded. "A Medlin agent."
It was hard to believe. He stared at the girl who stood ten feet
from him, a disruptor trained at his skull. The Medlin surgeons
evidently were as skillful as those of Darruu, it seemed, for the wiry
pebble-skinned Medlins were even less humanoid than the Darruui--and
yet he would swear that those breasts, the flaring hips, the long
well-formed legs, were genuine.
She said, "We had information on you from the moment you entered the
orbit of Earth, Abner--or should I say Aar Khiilom?"
"How did you know that name?"
She laughed lightly. "The same way I knew you were from Darruu, the
same way I knew the exact moment you were going to come out of your
room before."
"The same way you knew I was coming here to kill you just now?"
She nodded.
Harris frowned. "Medlins aren't telepathic. There isn't a single
telepathic race in the galaxy."
"None that _you_ know about, anyway."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing," she said.
He shrugged. Apparently the Medlin spy system was formidably well
organized. This nonsense about telepathy was merely to cloud the
trail. But the one fact about which there was no doubt was--
"I came here to kill you," Harris said. "But you trapped me. I guess
you'll kill me now."
"Wrong. I just want to talk," she said.
"If you want to talk, put some clothing on. Having you sitting around
like this disturbs my powers of conversation."
She said pleasantly, "Oh? You mean this artificial body of mine stirs
some response in that artificial body of yours? How interesting!"
Without turning her back on him, she drew a robe from the closet and
slipped it on over the filmy gown. "There. Is that easier on your
glandular balance?"
"Somewhat."
The Darruui began to fidget. There was no way he could activate his
emergency signal without moving his hands, and any sudden hand-motion
was likely to be fatal. He sat motionless while sweat streamed down the
skin they had grafted to his own.
Beth said, "You're one of ten Darruui on Earth. Others are on their
way, but there are only ten of you here now. Correct me if I'm wrong."
"Why should I?" Harris said tightly.
She nodded. "A good point. But I assure you we have all the
information about you we need, so you needn't try to make up tales. To
continue: you and your outfit are here for the purpose of subverting
Terran allegiance and winning Earth over to the side of Darruu."
"And you Medlins are here for much the same kind of reason."
"That's where you're wrong," the girl said. "We're here to help the
Terrans, not to dominate them. We Medlins don't believe in violence if
peaceful means will accomplish our goals."
"Very nice words," Harris said. "But how can _you_ help the Terrans?"
"It's a matter of genetics. This isn't the place to explain in detail."
He let that pass. "So you deliberately threw yourself in contact
with me earlier, let me take you out to dinner, walked around
arm-in-arm--and all this time you knew I was a disguised Darruui?"
"Of course. I also knew that when you pretended to be sick it was
because you had to contact your chief operative, and that when you
said you were going to visit a friend you were attending an emergency
rendezvous. I also knew what your friend Carver was going to tell you
to do, which is why I had my gun ready when you rang."
He stared at her. "Suppose I _hadn't_ gotten that emergency message.
We were going to come here and drink and probably make love. Would you
have gone to bed with me even knowing what you knew?"
"Most likely," she said without emotion. "It would have been
interesting to see what sort of biological reactions the Darruui
surgeons are capable of building."
* * * * *
A flash of hatred ran through Harris-Khiilom. He had been raised to
hate Medlins anyway; they were the ancestral enemies of his people,
galactic rivals for four thousand years or more. Only the fact that
she was clad in the flesh of a handsome Earthgirl had kept Harris from
feeling his normal revulsion for a Medlin.
But now it surged forth at this revelation of her calm and callous
biological "curiosity."
He wondered how far her callousness extended. Also, how good her aim
was.
He mastered his anger and said, "That's a pretty cold-blooded way of
thinking, Beth."
"Maybe. I'm sorry about it."
"I'll bet you are."
She smiled at him. "Let's forget about that, shall we? I want to tell
you a few things."
"Such as?"
"For one: did you know that you're fundamentally disloyal to the
Darruui cause?"
Harris laughed harshly. "You're crazy!"
"Afraid not. Listen to me, Abner. You're homesick for Darruu. You never
wanted to come here in the first place. You were born into a caste that
has certain obligations, and you're fulfilling those obligations. But
you don't know very much about what you're doing here on Earth, and
for half a plugged unit you'd give the whole thing up and go back to
Darruu."
"Very clever," he said stonily. "Now give me my horoscope for the next
six months."
"Easy enough. You'll come to our headquarters and learn why my people
are on Earth--"
"I know that one already."
"You _think_ you do," she said smoothly. "Don't interrupt. You'll learn
why we're on Earth; once you've seen that, you'll join us and help to
protect Earth against Darruu."
"And why will I do all these incredible things?"
"Because it's in your personality makeup to do them. And because you're
falling in love."
"With a lot of fake female flesh plastered over a scrawny Medlin body?
Hah!"
She remained calm. Harris measured the distance between them, wondering
whether she would use the weapon after all. A disruptor broiled the
neural tissue; death was instantaneous and fairly ghastly.
He decided to risk it. His assignment was to kill Medlins, not to let
himself be killed by them. He had nothing to lose by making the attempt.
In a soft voice he said, "You didn't answer. Do you really think I'd
fall in love with something like _you_?"
"Biologically we're Earthers now, not Medlins or Darruui. It's
possible."
"Maybe you're right. After all, I _did_ ask you to cover yourself up."
He smiled and said, "I'm all confused. I need time to think things
over."
"Of course. You--"
He sprang from the chair and covered the ten feet between them in two
big bounds, stretching out one hand to grab the hand that held the
disruptor. He deflected the weapon toward the ceiling. She did not
fire. He closed on her wrist and forced her to drop the tiny pistol.
Pressed against her, he stared into eyes blazing with anger.
The anger melted suddenly into passion. He stepped back, reaching for
his own gun, not willing to have such close contact with her. She was
too dangerous. Better to kill her right now, he thought. She's just a
Medlin. A deadly one.
He started to draw the weapon from his tunic. Suddenly she lifted her
hand; there was the twinkle of something bright between her fingers,
and then Harris recoiled, helpless, as the bolt of a stunner struck him
in the face like a club against the back of his skull.
She fired again. He struggled to get his gun out, but his muscles would
not obey.
He toppled forward, paralyzed.