“Yes, I know what that is. You want to cut my head open so you can get a good look at that thing.”
“That’s right. There’s a release form right in front of you, if you’ll just sign it-“
“No, I can’t do that,” Dannerman said apologetically. “I wish I could help. But I hear that the operation could turn me into a vegetable.”
“Maybe could. No one knows for sure. Not until they open you up and get a look.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not good enough. I’m not signing.”
“You don’t have a choice,” she said. “The deputy director is ordering you to sign the release.”
“Well, that’s different,” Dannerman said cheerfully. “Let him give it to me in writing, and then let me give a copy of it to my lawyer . .. and then we’ll see.”
That was enough for the deputy director.
“I think we’ve heard enough from Agent Dannerman,” he said to the room in general, then spoke into his microphone.
As the interrogator, hearing, terminated the interrogation and took Dannerman out of the Pit, Dr. Marsha Evergood raised her hand. “Mr. Pell, you understand I can’t undertake the operation without his consent.”
Pell said heartily, “Naturally. No one in the Bureau would ask you to, Dr. Evergood.”
“ But if he won’t sign-“
“I give you my word that you won’t have to pick up a scalpel until you have his signature on the release form. Now they’ll be bringing Dr. Adcock in.”
Signature, signature, Hilda thought, cudgeling her memory. There was something about signatures. . . .
Down in the pit they were bringing the Adcock woman in, but Hilda wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at the other Bureau man, tardily remembering where she had seen him before. He was the man who’d replaced old Willy Godden when he retired as Chief of Documents: the branch of the Bureau which was in the business of providing you with any papers, and any signatures, you might happen to want.
CHAPTER THREE
As Senior Agent Dan Dannerman, currently on administrative leave, left the Pit of Pain his interrogator cozily took his arm. “I’m sorry about all this, Agent Dannerman,” she said, looking up at him with large eyes and an apologetic smile, “but I guess you know how it is. Still want that coffee? Why don’t you wait in the conference room here and I’ll get it for you.”
“Fine,” he said. But he was already talking to the door she had closed behind him, and when he tried it it was locked.
He had expected no less. The conference room-call it the “holding cell,” because that was what it was-offered him a choice of two backless benches to sit on, both bolted to the floor. He chose neither. He perched on the edge of the table between them, idly examining its surface. The thing was undoubtedly packed with electronics. Lacking a pass card there was no easy way for him to get at them, though, and in any case what would be the use? This wasn’t some crime gang that was holding him. It was his own Bureau-what had been his own Bureau, anyway, until all this preposterous crap hit the fan.
That was what was very wrong with the way things were going for Dan Dannerman. Under other circumstances he would have known what to do-what to try to do, anyway: maybe try to get into the table’s electronic resources, maybe position himself by the door to coldcock this young woman when she came back with the coffee, maybe try to rid himself of the collar that made any escape attempt useless, maybe- Well, he’d been trained for almost everything that could happen to a Bureau agent in the field. But never for this.
Sooner than he expected the interrogator was back, juggling a little tray in one hand, carefully closing the door again behind her.
There were two cups on the tray. When Dannerman had taken his and seated himself she sat down on the bench across from him with the other and became conversational. “Like I say, I’m sorry to meet you this way, Agent Dannerman. I do know who you are, and I only wish I had your record. I’m Merla Tepp.”
He nodded, slightly amused. She was being the good cop. She wasn’t bad at the job, either. Although she dressed for no-nonsense business, she’d allowed herself a hint of perfume and the makeup, and all in all she was quite an attractive young woman. “So,” he said sociably, “can I go home now?”
“You mean back to New York? I don’t know. I’m waiting for orders. Was I rough on you in there?”
“You were doing your job.”
“Thanks for taking it that way, Agent Dannerman. This is my first week in headquarters, and I get the jobs nobody else wants. You know how it is.”
That was too obvious to require a response, so he didn’t try to make one. The woman sipped her coffee, gazing at him over the rim of the cup. She wasn’t being flirtatious, exactly. Confiding, maybe. She said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question? Why don’t you want to sign that release?”
That was pretty obvious, too. He said it anyway. “Because it might kill me.”
“Well, yes,” she admitted. “I can’t blame you for that. But don’t you want to know what that thing is? What does it feel like, anyway?”
What did it feel like? It felt like nothing at all. He hadn’t felt it being put in, hadn’t known it was there at all until, without warning, the damn Bureau pickup squad had scooped him up and hustled him in for examination. And ever since then they’d asked him the same damn questions over and over again, just like this little jumped-up cadet-
Who was, after all, young, and rather pretty, and would have been more so if she’d let herself look girly instead of efficient. And it had been a long time since he’d seen his own girl. So all he said was, “I can’t feel it. What’s this, they’ve detailed you to soften me up?”
She looked at him quizzically over her coffee cup. “Do you think I could? When Colonel Morrisey and Deputy Director Pell couldn’t?
But we won’t talk about it if you don’t want to.” She leaned back against the wall, trying to get comfortable. “Sorry about these benches. Do you want to talk at all, or should I just shut up? Like you could tell me about some of your missions.”
“Or you could tell me about yours,” he suggested, beginning to feel amusement.
“Mine aren’t very interesting. They had me infiltrating some of the radical religious-militia groups in the Southwest. We cleaned up one little bomb factory, but it was taking a long time and that wasn’t getting me any promotions. So I applied for a tour here.”
“So you’re a career agent.”
“I guess so,” she said, finishing the last of her coffee. “I was in protsy in college, and they called me up for active duty.”
The Police Reserve Officers Training Corps; Dannerman grinned in spite of himself. “Me too.”
She said doubtfully, “Well, maybe it was a little different for me. See, my parents were very religious. I grew up in a fundamentalist group; and the Bureau needed somebody who could get inside some of them. So the machines kicked my name out. But I guess I’ll stay in the Bureau. It isn’t that bad-“
And so on, and so on. The woman seemed to like talking about her life in the Bureau. Dannerman let her talk. It was a new and relaxing experience for him, these days, to be closeted with another agent when the other agent did all the talking. “-so here I am,” she finished. “Want some more coffee?”
When human beings began to wonder if there were other intelligent races somewhere in the universe they began the SETI program-the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” That meant they listened for radio broadcasts from space, in the expectation that they might somehow establish peaceful communication with them. They did not take seriously the idea that some of those extraterrestrial intelligences might have similar programs of their own, with expectations a good deal less peaceful.
“Well, sure. And if you could find something to eat to go along with it?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised, gathered up the cups and left, naturally locking him in again.
Dannerman yawned and stretched, wondering absently what the Bureau had in store for him next. Wondering what he would do if in fact the deputy director did give him a direct order, in writing, to sign the release. He didn’t think that was likely. Marcus Pell was too sharp a bunny to put anything like that in writing, especially if he thought Dannerman would file it with his attorney.
Which, Dannerman reflected, wouldn’t be all that easy, since he didn’t really have an attorney. Unless you counted the old fart of a family lawyer who had screwed up his inheritance and helped him get the job with Cousin Pat’s observatory that had led to his flight to the orbiting old Starlab and thus to all this other stuff. . . .