Flat on the wet ground, under the wind-whipped branches of an
ornamental cedar, I blinked the fine misty rain from my eyes, waiting
for the half-hearted alarm behind me to die down.
There were a few shouts, some sounds of searching among the shrubbery.
It was a bad night to be chasing imaginary intruders in the Baronial
grounds. In five minutes, all was quiet again.
I studied the view before me. The tree under which I lay was one
of a row lining a drive. It swung in a graceful curve, across a
smooth half-mile of dark lawn, to the tower of light that was the
Palace of the Baron of Filly. The silhouetted figures of guards and
late-arriving guests moved against the gleam from the collonaded
entrance. On a terrace high above, dancers twirled under colored
lights. The faint glow of the repellor field kept the cold rain at a
distance. In a lull in the wind, I heard music, faintly. The Baron's
weekly Grand Ball was in full swing.
I saw shadows move across the wet gravel before me, then heard the
purr of an engine. I hugged the ground and watched a long svelte
Mercedes--about a '68 model, I estimated--barrel past.
The mob in the city ran in packs like dogs, but the Baron's friends did
a little better for themselves.
I got to my feet and moved off toward the palace, keeping well in the
shadows. When the drive swung to the right to curve across in front of
the building, I left it, went to hands and knees and followed a trimmed
privet hedge, past dark rectangles of formal garden to the edge of a
secondary pond of light from the garages. I let myself down on my belly
and watched the shadows that moved on the graveled drive.
There seemed to be two men on duty--no more. Waiting around wouldn't
improve my chances. I got to my feet, stepped out into the drive and
walked openly around the corner of the gray fieldstone building into
the light.
A short, thickset man in greasy Baronial green looked at me
incuriously. My weather suit looked enough like ordinary coveralls
to get me by--at least for a few minutes. A second man, tilted back
against the wall in a wooden chair, didn't even turn his head.
"Hey!" I called. "You birds got a three-ton jack I can borrow?"