with such complete calm she was again tempted to be-
lieve him.
“How?”
“That I’m not telling you. Yet. I’m simply making the
offer. Twenty years, possibly a lot more.” He studied
her with insolent directness. “How’s the unsupported
shape of your breasts these days? Flabby, I imagine! And
the belly-muscles must be giving way by now, in spite of
cosmetic treatment. I could fix all that.”
Once more, silence filled the room. It dragged on and
dragged on. Rimerley broke it, shrugging and rising.
“Too bad. I didn’t really expect you to prefer public
humiliation and probably trial for an infringement of the
laws against interference with ZRP’s. Which will be a
very ironical climax to your campaign, won’t it?”
“Wait,” she whispered. “Damn you! You knew there
was one bribe I couldn’t resist!”
“Of course I did,” Rimerley said with a sneer.
“Whatwhat do I have to do? ”
He told her, in a single crackling sentence, and added,
“Today!”
XIV
As promised, they had fetched Justin Kolb away early
in the morning. Maddalena saw him go, in a white-paint-
ed hospital ‘copter which went droning towards the
southwest. Its design strucK her as somehow archaic, but
after twenty years in surroundings absolutely devoid of
technology beyond crude tool-making, she found she
was ill-attuned to refinements in engineering practice.
“I wish there was some way we could have put a
tracer on him,” Langenschmidt had muttered as he stood
beside her, gazing at the diminishing white speck against
the vivid blue sky.
“I’d have thought there was!”
“I asked Nole what a reasonably thorough medical
check might overlook, and he said, point-blank, ‘Noth-
ing.’ Rimerley can’t be incompetenthis patients have
included some of the most notable people on Cyclops.”
“Did you ask Nole how it was in that case he came to
overlook the nature of Kolb’s mended leg?”
“As a matter of fact”Langenschmidt looked slightly
uncomfortable”I did. We had some words about it. But
the point stands; no tracer, for fear of alerting them.”
“Surely you know where he’s going, though.”
“Allegedly, to Rimerely’s private island. But I’d be
happier if I was convinced of that. As you said last
night, he’s our evidence.”
“You’ve kept some tissue-samples, presumably.”
“Nole took some from places where they wouldn’t be
noticed, and they’re preserved as a calibration standard
for this analysis of gene-types he’s doing. At least, that’s
our story if the matter comes up.” The ‘copter had van-
ished. Briskening: “Well, I can’t stand here all day. I
have a base to run.”
“I haven’t,” Maddalena said demurely. “And since you
had me brought to Cyclops, I guess there’s something
you can have me do instead of ‘standing here all day’.”
“Actually there are a couple of things . . . I wasn’t
very eager to ask you, since it seems unfair when
you’re theoretically on long furlough, but as the subject
has come up”
“You’re a poor diplomat, Gus, in spite of your boast-
ing. Well?”
“What spare time I have right now is generally taken
up with studying the progress of this damned conference
of Quist’s. The local news bulletins are full of it,
painting it as an unselfish venture by Cyclops on behalf
of their poor brothers neglected by the rich greedy
worlds ofetcetera; why should I tell you what you can
imagine easily enough? There was some land of outburst
at an official banquet last nightthe delegate from ZRP
One got drunk and uttered a few home truths which
embarrassed the organisers dreadfully. Catch the reports
of the morning session of the conference, will you? Let
me have a digest of their progress if any at the noon
break. That’s one thing. And the other is of your own
making. Go help my overworked programming staff to
get a line on the probable location of Twenty-two. We
probably won’t get the margin of error lower than a
hundred parsecs, but if we can possibly shave it to fifty I
think I can swing the assignment of a couple of search
ships.”
The problem was fascinating, and intensely compli-
cated. It was known what the populations distribution
had been on Zarathustra at the time of the nova, so it