Cullen, however, was not in a mood for cooperating.
“Were you born stupid?” he said to Langerif, speaking in the limited Jevlenese that he had picked up. “Don’t you know when you’re being set up?”
“What are you talking about?” Langerif asked, taken aback.
“Let’s not play games. We know you’re with the Axis, right?” Cullen didn’t. He was simply ready to try anything that might throw the opposition off balance. “Well, you’ve seen the kind of value they put on people. Look what happened to Marion Fayne, and to the last guy who tried your job.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You’re just being made the dickhead up front who’ll look like he was behind all the trouble that’s been going on. Eubeleus is gonna shovel it all on you, and come back from Uttan with clean hands. Then it’s your turn to go down the tubes. The Ganymeans are out, and he has a hand in setting up a new administration with jPC that he can control better. Think about it. It makes sense.”
Langerif thought for a moment, then walked up to Cullen and slapped him across the face. Cullen sighed. It had been a good try, he decided. But he wasn’t going to get anywhere. So he decked Langerif with a right to the jaw, instead. One of the watching Jevlenese felled him with a stun shot. To one side, Garuth closed his eyes.
On the command deck of the Shapieron, standing in its berthing area at Geerbaine, Leyel Torres, the ship’s acting chief in Garuth’s absence, stood looking up at the screens bringing views of the outside and from high over the city from probes that he had sent up on receiving news of the emergency. Rodgar jassilane, the engineering chief, joined him, while crew appeared from various directions and hurried to their stations. All Ganymeans in the vicinity were being recalled to the ship, and Torres was bringing the vessel up to flight readiness as a precaution.
“They’ve disconnected ZORAC from the city net,” Jassilane said. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know what to think. I thought Terrans were unstable enough,” Torres answered.
“What are they trying to accomplish?”
“Who knows? Perhaps they’re all mad.”
“What about the situation here?”
“There are police sealing off the spaceport area, and the Thuriens are protesting. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Message via VISAR from Thurien,” ZORAC announced.
“Yes?” Torres acknowledged.
“Calazar will be through very shortly. Meanwhile, Earth has been alerted. They’re locating as many members of JPC as they can.”
“Very good.”
“What’s the last we know of the situation at PAC?” Jassilane asked.
ZORAC answered. “Hunt and Gina were heading for an exit that was clear and open. Danchekker was still in the building. I’d lost track of Nixie. The rest had been detained.”
“Hmm,” Jassilane murmured.
Tones thought for a moment. “If Hunt and the woman got out, they could hardly remain at large in the city . . . Obviously they couldn’t go back to PAC.” He raised his voice. “ZORAC, do you have any idea where they’d be most likely to go?”
ZORAC consulted the records accumulated from its illegal spying operations. “I’ve got some places where Hunt and Nixie talked a lot. One is a hotel, probably not worth considering. The other is a private address.”
“Can you locate it?”
ZORAC called up the city directory and plans of the layout from its data bank. “Yes, reference screen seven.” A cutaway view of part of the labyrinth appeared, with a residential block in one of the complexes shown highlighted. One of the apartments partway up in it was flashing. “It’s on this side of the center, not too far from PAC.”
Tones looked at jassilane questioningly. “Not far from PAC,” Jassilane repeated. He nodded. “It’s a good bet. If they’re out, that’s where they’ll head for. Check it out.”
“ZORAC, prepare another of the ship’s probes for immediate launch,” Tones ordered.
At Murray’s, Danchekker and Nixie told their story.
The officer in charge of the police contingent placed in the PAC front lobby had turned out to be one of Nixie’s regulars. After spotting him from a stairway that she had just descended, she had drawn him aside and was in the process of talking her way out, when Danchekker stormed out of one of the elevators, ranting and threatening everyone in sight. On an inspiration, Nixie told the officer that Danchekker was a sex therapist from Earth whom she was assisting in a study of Jevlenese customs. If she was found in the place, she told the officer pointedly, the Shiban chief of police and virtually all the city officials would be public jokes by morning—and guess whose ass would be on the line. She and Danchekker had been bundled quietly out a side door a few minutes later.