Behind, the pursuers were getting closer and were uttering a chorus of murmuring that grew into a chant, punctuated by jeers.
“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Gina asked, scared.
“They’ve spotted us as Terrans. Apparently we’re not popular. It sounds like the equivalent of ‘Yanks go home.’”
They came out of a foot passage into a narrow alley that joined a wider road farther on. A black automobile was parked in the alley, facing the other way, with barely enough room on each side for someone to squeeze past. Two men, both looking unremarkable in plain, gray overcoats, were standing by the back of it. Baumer didn’t recognize them as any he had dealt with before. They seemed in a different league, not flashy or brash. Gina registered in an absent kind of way that there was something odd about them, but just at that moment her attention was too focused on the pursuers behind, who were making their way along the foot passage, for her to care. But at the sight of the car and the two men waiting by it, the punks halted.
And then the rear doors of the car opened and two more men got out, smartly dressed in suits, but looking mean and businesslike. One of them drew some kind of gun and pointed it, at the same time snapping something in a firm, no-nonsense tone. The one who seemed to be the punk leader backed away, raising his hands placatingly, his face working in an inane grin, presumably intended to avoid offending. He muttered something, and then the whole group disappeared back along the passage.
Gina turned, and for a split second her instinctive reaction was one of relief, even gratitude. But then she realized that the attention of the four men from the car was now directed at her. In the same instant she knew that they had been expecting her. Confused,, she turned to where Baumer had been, but he had moved away to one side, while one of the four had moved between Gina and the passage, blocking her retreat. It hit her then that she had been set up. She turned back again, but the other three were already closing in around her. There was nowhere to go. One of them pointed a bulbous object at her and squirted a jet of gas into her face. She collapsed instantly. Two of the men caught her and steered her limp form into one of the open doors of the car, then climbed in after her. One of the remaining two went around and got in the other side, while the last stopped to look at Baumer, who was standing tense and white—faced.
“Okay, you’ve done your part. Now disappear,” he ordered, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture.
Baumer withdrew a few paces, but he was reluctant to enter the passage for fear that the punks might still be lurking. He would leave in the opposite direction when the car had gone.
The man in the gray coat went around and climbed in next to the driver, and moments later the car moved away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Danchekker stood in a room in the upper level of PAC, hands clasping his lapels, speaking in a confidently genial tone.
“There have been times, I admit, Vie, when I have been guilty of displaying less of an open-minded disposition than should be expected from a scientific professional,” he told Hunt, who was leaning on the wall, arms folded, while Shilohin listened from behind an oversize Ganymean desk. “But you know yourself the difficulty of abandoning a notion that appears to make sense once it has taken root.” The professor released one lapel briefly to make a dismissive gesture in the air. “In the present case, my conviction up until now has been that no hypothesis beyond misplaced Thurien generosity, coupled with their inability to understand the human capacity for self—deceit and wishful thinking, was necessary to account for the general Jevlenese condition that we observe today.”
“Yes, Chris, but there’s something—” Hunt began.
Danchekker merely nodded that he understood and continued. “In particular, I disagreed with the suggestion that there might exist a discrete, external cause of their widespread aberration, and specifically that such a source might be associated with JEVEX.”