“I understand. I’ll try, sir.”
As soon as the connection was broken, the butler abandoned any pretense of nonchalance.
His face set in a grim mask, he hurried through the door that connected his bedroom with the suite’s main living area. Chocolate Harry was asleep on the sofa, having stubbornly refused to move into one of the beds normally used by the suite’s residents, and Beeker moved quietly so as not to wake him. It was his intention to check his employer’s bedroom on the vain hope that this was all some sort of ghastly prank, but before he reached the other bedroom door something caught his eye. There, on the chair next to the door into the corridor, were the sidearm the Legionnaire commander normally wore and his wrist communications command unit.
The butler stared at the items for a few moments, then sank into a chair and turned on a lamp.
“Hey, Beeker!” Harry said, awakened by the light. “What’s up?”
Beeker ignored him, bending over his own wrist communicator as he depressed the Call button.
“That you, Beeker?” came Mother’s voice. “What are you doing up at this hour? I thought-“
“Give me an open channel to Lieutenants Armstrong and Rembrandt,” the butler said tersely. “And Mother? I want to listen in as well. We have an emergency situation, and there’s no point wasting time going over the information twice.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Journal #245
As near as I can determine, Maxine Pruet was either ignoring the presence of the Space Legion company under my employer’s command or operating under the old assumption that if you cut off the head, the body dies.