"Get us back to Llarn, Rhiannon. I've got to report this to the
President."
The swirling salt of the nebula moved out of the port and vanished
as the big man tailed the boat around and side-stepped it into
hyper-space. Karrin stood with wet hands clasped at his back. My
papers. My money. I'll get them and make a run for Rebel H.Q. Surely
the tip had not implicated him or he would never have gotten off Llarn
in the first place. The Patrol would have seen to that: they knew that
so many things could go wrong out in space.
Such as, he thought with grim satisfaction, what _had_ gone wrong.
* * * * *
The Government Spaceport was emptied and darkened by the evening. Steve
Podalski and his brethren had gone to their homes, Tweety had gone
sailing up into the stratosphere to sleep, and the only living creature
was Sergeant Atoms who lay twitching his paws in a dream-chase.
From the floor of Bed 52 Rhiannon watched Karrin labor up the
motionless 'scalator, saw the lights flicker on, saw his employer move
about shoving things into a carrycase.
Rhiannon's affliction may be said to have been "stroboscopic" in
character. That is, his brain functioned with an irregular alternation
of clarity and fuddle. At this moment the lights were on in that great
skull and his brain cells were skittering about, playing with a Thought.
It had been a Patrol boat. He had seen the Nova. It _had_ been a Patrol
boat. He'd _seen_ that Nova.
He shifted uneasily in his wrappings of tubemonkey suit and
reflections. He looked up again at Karrin's office. The man had moved
back from the window; only his head was visible, seeming to roll like
Tweety back and forth on the broad sill as he crossed from safe to
desk, desk to safe. That distant face was sculptured in pure anxiety.
Karrin was obviously, was definitely, not reporting to President Naro.
He wasn't doing anything of the kind.
Rhiannon put these observations one under the other, added them, and
got the right answer. He'd been taken. Just as his fellow workers could
play incredible jokes on him--when Stevie wasn't around--and have them
pan out because of his braincut, so had Spy Karrin pulled a whopper.
Having worked this out, the busy cells slowed down, the lights began to
dim behind the giant's dulling eyes. He stood there in the darkness,
having one grim determination, and not knowing quite why he had it.
Karrin came out of his office and grunted down the 'scalator, unused
to the knee action of climbing and descending. His shadowy figure came
across the floor, gradually giving its details. His face was red, his
eyes were feathered with red; he hugged the carrycase like a mourning
Apache mother.
"Ready?" he asked.